It is not of the material stone, earth, ore quartz and mineral salts; nor is it the colours of plants, leaves, buds and flowers; nor of stems and stalks; nor of the chemical and physical properties of animal substances used, and the natural eye to behold, that one should think.
It is not the density of the platinum, or the whiteness of the aluminium, or the yellowness of gold, or the toxic nature of arsenic that one must turn his thoughts.
Think of the nutritive wheat, corn and barley used for foods, and then of the deadly aconite, belladonna and foxglove; and while thinking of one group as nutritive, and one of the other as poisonous, we make no progress. But when we observe that they all grow and thrive in the same atmosphere and in the same soil and by reflection remember that one builds up and the other destroys man, i.e., one builds up the physical body and the other disorders and destroys the vital force of man, can we but conclude that there is some primitive substance, too subtle to see with the external eye, that becomes the medium of power This is the field of action and causes.
These substances of the three kingdoms must be examined, i.e., they; must be looked into by the internal eye, and the quality of each must be ascertained.
This does not mean that the internal surfaces of crystal forms must be examined with lenses. Neither the interior of man, nor living plants, nor the so called dead, earth elements have ever approximated the visual realm of external man. But the vital test brings a response from the lowest and most inanimate elements as speedily as from the most poisonous plant or most venomous serpent virus, when circumstances have turned disordered life into the delicate degrees of susceptibility necessary to the Homoeopathic conjunction and affinity. To behold the interior of nature with the interior eye, the understanding must have long training and the purpose must be for the, use of man; when an apparent sacrifice is a work of love one may see, when men and women devote life and property to science simply to benefit the human race. This may be disputed, but only by the unenlightened, who know not the dreadful sacrifices made by the provers of septic poisons, serpent viruses, specific substances and poisonous drugs.
The abstract vital force is, to the untrained understanding, unthinkable, and as all internal examinations are upon this plane, then it must follow that preparatory training must precede the actual examination of the internal qualities of the three kingdoms.
It is not generally known that the three kingdoms exist, as to their interior, in the image of man. Neither is it generally understood what it is to exist in the image of man. It is not even known what man is, nor what the plant kingdom is, and much less what the mineral kingdom is. If all these statements related to geology, botany and anatomy, they could be presumptuous, as these sciences are highly cultivated, but they treat of the kingdoms only as to their exterior or material relation. The internal qualities have been left for the homoeopathist, and such an exploration is within the province of homoeopathics.
To discover that man, as to his will and understanding, is capable of extremes, requires only that one shall examine our statesmen, our professional men, our scientists, and then the lowest types in civilized countries and cities. To examine original tribes would not reveal the growth possible to the human race, nor the degradation reached by fallen man. The human race at its highest plane of development is only man. No matter what attainments, what expansion, we see but the possibilities, the capabilities and nobility of man. He is but man and as such is but the image of his Creator. Rise as lie may, he does so only within himself, and at his highest he is but himself, and even that is borrowed. So much as he has fallen below this highest point of the human race, and of any man, has he failed to reach his own individual possibilities, or fallen into degradation, so much is he but an image of himself, of man. When he is but the image of himself he profanes himself, and likewise man, and how much more so must he profane God. Look at the animal faces in the degraded streets of our great cities. We see but the degraded forms of man. Disobedience, sin and sorrow have brought depravity, and the souls within revel in hatred and crime as much as they will in the land beyond. This is not the real man whom we see. It is but an image of what each one might be, but it is the real of such beings. A misspent life can here be contrasted with the life of usefulness, and the life of hatred with the life of orderly love.
In one all to hate, and in the other all to love.
In the one despised, in the other beloved.
The one, then, is man with his love for the degrees of uses; the other but an image with his hatred of uses.
In man is heaven; in his image is hell.
The fullness of man is but his capacity for growth as a receptacle for love, wisdom and use.
The image of man is hatred, ignorance, and to be cared for by local protectors and penitentiaries.
Independence contrasted with dependence.
Freedom contrasted with bondage.
Inconceivable gradations exist between these extremes. These varying shades of changes in man come by inheritance, vocation, opportunity, disease and drugs.
There are no changes possible in man that cannot be produced, caused and aggravated by drugs. Man’s diseases have their likenesses in the substances that make up the three kingdoms. Man himself is a microcosm of the elements of the earth. The earthy elements strive to rise, and do rise through the vegetable kingdom into man, and they strive to equal man; but, as they are not permitted to do so, they appear to degrade man they they may approximate him. Every element and creature below man in the created universe seeks to degrade man, which, however, is only an appearance, by exercising such an influence, as will elevate itself at man’s expense, as if through jealousy.
We see this emerald quality on all sides. Man’s every inferior seeks to belittle him, and in every gradation down through to the lump of aluminous clay we see the tendency to lift up itself by depressing the interior of man in order to make him a brute. So we see that man, with his depressing load, may rise within and become a glory or sink and become a brute. Even his external form in time resembles the face of an animal, but not until long after his internals have assumed the disposition of that brute which he in face most resembles. He grows Godlike in proportion to his struggle against his inherent evils, i. e., his loves mould his face and figure into the image of his real life.
The study of man as to his nature, as to his life, as to his affections, underlies the true study of Homoeopathics. Whether we study him in the cradle of innocence, in the hieroglyphics of Egyptian sandstone, in the cuneiforms of Assyrian clay, in the sculptor’s marble, on ancient and modern canvas, in Grecian architecture, in the vocations and trades of modern and recent progress, in the electrical telegraph, in the ships at sea or the mighty system of railroads that span the landed universe, we are but viewing the growth, action and qualities of this one, sole object of our attention, viz., man. When we have reached the highest that is of man, and know him in all that he is and can be, then may we begin to study all the gradations down to the lowest image.
Man may be a physician to his equals and inferiors but he cannot know his superiors in a manner to fully grasp the expanse of that great and glowing vital furnace that melts the metal to fill the moulds of human exigencies. Then the physician must rise to the pinnacle of man’s growth; perceive his changes, even to the lowest degradation. The physician must rise above bigotry, prejudice and intolerance that he may see that in man which will furnish the basis of comparison.
A rational doctrine of therapeutics begins with the study of the changes wrought in man. We may never ascertain causes, but we may observe changes. A physician highly trained in the art of observation becomes classical in arranging what he observes. It will be hardly disputed that the changes in man’s nature, without an ideal natural man, would not be thinkable. Whether we observe the changes wrought in man through his own will, through disease, or through drug provings upon the registration page, we have but one record to translate, viz., that of changes wherein man has in all cases been the figure operated upon. The record of changes in the abstract is nothing. But when we see in that record the speech of nature, we then see the image or effigy of a human being.
Hahnemann emphasized the symptoms of the mind, hence we see how clearly the master comprehended the importance of the direction of symptoms; the more interior first, the mind, the exterior last, the physical or bodily symptoms.
In 1881, Kent accepted a position as professor of anatomy at the Homeopathic College of Missouri, an institution with which he remained affiliated until 1888. In 1890, Kent moved to Pennsylvania to take a position as Dean of Professors at the Post-Graduate Homeopathic Medical School of Philadelphia. In 1897 Kent published his magnum opus, Repertory of the Homœopathic Materia Medica. Kent moved to Chicago in 1903, where he taught at Hahnemann Medical College.