The author I am considering is at great pains to trace the ancestry of the Prophet, pointing out their mental peculiarities and supposed defects, leading up to the conclusion that these defects of mind in his ancestors culminated in epilepsy in Joseph Smith. And hence, we have as the explanation of Mormonism, epileptic fits in its Prophet, whose hallucinations are honestly mistaken for inspired visions, with partly conscious and partly unconscious hypnotic power over others! And this theory is presented seriously to one of the first institutions of learning in America as a rational explanation of how Mormonism came into existence!
Ernest Renan, the French philosopher, when considering a similar hypothesis to account for the Lord Jesus Christ, overthrew all that kind of sophistry with this simple statement:
"It has never been given to the mere aberrations of the human mind to result in the establishment of permanent institutions that influence any considerable number of people."
In other words, the dreams and hallucinations of the epileptic end in mere dreams and hallucinations; they never crystallize into great systems of philosophy or into rational religious institutions. They never crystallize into great organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any permanent influence over the minds of men.
It is a pleasure to find one's conclusions sustained by men of recognized ability in any line of work on which they have specialized, and in respect of which they are regarded as authorities. In such manner I find the views, above set forth sustained by one eminent in the domain of nervous diseases and psychiatry, Charles L. Dana, the writer of text books on the foregoing subject, text books used in all the great colleges and universities of our country, that give attention to the subject. Following is his definition of paranoia, a disease closely allied to that to which Mr. Riley assumes Joseph Smith was subject. [1]
"Paranoia is a chronic psychosis characterized by the development gradually and soon after maturity of systematized delusions without other serious disturbances of the mind, and without much tendency to dementia. * * * With some the systematized idea takes a religious turn, and the patient thinks he has some divine mission or has received some inspiration from God; or the idea may take a devotional turn and the patient become an acetic. It is not, however, to be assumed that all promoters of new religions and novel social ideas are paranoiacs. Many of these are simply the natural developments, ignorance and a somewhat emotional and unbalanced temperament. The characteristic of the paranoiac is that his work is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his ideas really too absurd and impractical for even ignorant men to receive. I do not class successful prophets and organizers like Joseph Smith, or great apostles of social reforms like Rousseau as paranoiacs. Insane minds are not creative, but are weak, and lack persistence in purpose or powers of execution." [2]
"A certain rather small percentage of epileptics become either demented or insane. True epilepsy is not compatible with extraordinary intellectual endowments. Caesar, Napoleon, Peter the Great, and other geniuses may have had some symptomatic fits, but not idiopathic epilepsy." [3]
There is much glamor of sophistry, which may be taken for profound reason and argument, in the work to which I am calling your attention. But one word answers this "philosophical" accounting for our Prophet. The work accomplished by him, the institutions he founded, destroy the whole fabric of premises and argument on which this theory is based. Great as was the Prophet Joseph Smith—and he was great; to him more than to any other man of modern times was it given to look deep into the things that are; to comprehend the heavens and the laws that obtain there; to understand the earth, its history, and its mission. He looked into the deep things of God—always, be it remembered, by the inspiration of God—and out of the rich treasure of divine knowledge he brought forth things both new and old for the instruction of our race, the like of which, in some respects, had not been known in previous dispensations. Hence I repeat that Joseph Smith was great; but great as he was, rising up and towering far above him is the work that he accomplished through divine guidance; that work is infinitely greater than the prophet—greater than all the prophets connected with it. Its consistency, its permanency, its power, its institutions, contradict the hallucination theory advanced to account for its origin.
Let us look at this work for a moment. If one could but draw it clearly in outline, and present it in its originality and greatness, it would be its own witness of its divinity, for in all things it transcends the mere wit of man. Take the Church organization for illustration; and look at it with reference to its being an assemblage of means to the accomplishment of an end. As I understand the Church of Christ, its mission is two-fold; first, it is to proclaim the truth; second, it is to perfect those who receive the truth. I think these two things cover, in a general way, the entire mission of the Church. Is its organization competent to attain those two mighty ends? Let us see; and first as to the proclamation of the truth—the work really of the foreign ministry. What provision has God made for that? He has in his Church, first of all Twelve Special Witnesses, the Twelve Apostles, who were chosen in the first instance, by the Three Special Witnesses to the Book of Mormon. I remark in passing that there is a peculiar fitness in the Twelve Apostles—the Twelve Special Witnesses being chosen by those who had been made Witnesses for God by the great vision and revelation he had given them concerning the absolute truth and correctness of the Book of Mormon. Upon these Twelve Apostles rests the responsibility of being witnesses for the Lord Jesus Christ in all the world. That is their special, peculiar calling. You can see, however, if you take into account the extent of their field of labor—for it encompasses the whole round world—that twelve men would not be adequate to meet all the requirements of the foreign ministry. God knew this, and hence he called into existence other special witnesses, to labor under the direction of these Twelve, they holding the keys to open the door of the gospel to all the nations of the earth; for all must hear it, from the greatest to the least. The Twelve, I say, hold the keys of this foreign ministry; and hence whenever there has been an opening of the door of the gospel to a foreign nation, one or more of these men holding the keys have been sent to do it. It was for this reason that Heber C. Kimball, one of the Twelve Apostles, was sent to Great Britain in 1837, to open the door of the gospel in that land; why Elder John Taylor was sent to France and Germany; why Elder Lorenzo Snow was sent to Italy and Switzerland; why Erastus Snow was sent to the Scandinavian countries; why Parley P. Pratt went to Chili and opened the door of the gospel to the South American republics; why, more recently, Elder Heber J. Grant was sent to Japan to open a mission. The Twelve, then, hold the keys of this ministry, and upon them devolves this responsibility of opening the door of salvation to the nations. But after them, other witnesses are chosen. These are the seventy apostles, or special witnesses, the assistants of the Twelve; under whose directions they labor. At first, two quorums of Seventy only were organized; but with the promise of the Prophet that as the work should expand other quorums would be organized, not only till seven times seven quorums should be brought into existence, but until seventy times seven; "aye," said he, "until there shall be a hundred and forty and four thousand seventies chosen, if the work of the ministry shall require it." So we have continued organizing quorums of Seventy, to labor in the foreign ministry, until now we have one hundred and forty-three quorums in the Church—a body of nearly ten thousand men. They are special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world, and when their numbers are considered, together