Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845

We are not aware to what feature in our character the epithet funny will apply; but probably our self-esteem will not permit us justly to appreciate the appositeness of this somewhat ambiguous epithet. So much, however, for the power of divination, with which the mesmeriser seemed perfectly satisfied. Dr B. now showed us a camomile flower, put it in his mouth, and chewed it. The patient made a face as if tasting something disagreeable, and, in answer to his questions, said it was bitter. He then did the same with a lozenge; and after some time, required, according to the doctor, for the removal of the bitter taste, she said she tasted lozenges.

Dr B. "There you see the community of taste." Dr B. now touched her forehead a little above and outside of the eyebrows; she burst out laughing.

Dr B. "I touched the organ of gaiety." He then did the same with the organs of music; she set up an old English ditty. Then touching these organs with one hand, and placing the other on the top of her head, she instantly changed the ballad to a doleful psalm-tune. Affection, philo-progenitiveness, were in turn touched, the doctor stating aloud beforehand what organ he was going to excite. We should weary our readers with a detail of the platitudes which ensued.

She was asked what was going on in the next room, and said, "Ah, Sophy may try, but cannot get the girl asleep!" A few other experiments, such as suspending chairs on her arms, &c., followed, and we returned to the next room, where the deaf and dumb girl was found fast asleep. Upon being asked how long she had been so, the female mesmeriser replied, "Just after you left the room." No comment was made upon the answer of the clairvoyante patient above given, which appeared to have been forgotten by all but ourselves.

Had we been anxious to give a factitious interest to our narrative, we should certainly have avoided a description of the above cases, which could not at the same time be made to possess graphic interest, and to relate accurately the real facts as presented; but we have selected them as having happened to ourselves, and as being shown not by public exhibitors, but by parties both holding a highly respectable station in life, and being, as we believe, among the best examples to be found of English mesmerisers. Although invited as sceptical spectators, and the experiments being in nowise confidential, we feel that the exhibition not being public, we have no right to mention the names of the parties.

It will be obvious that the three exhibitions we have selected differed much in character. The first, as we have stated, to our minds defied collusion or self-deception. The second was open to either construction, though, from the character of the parties, we should think collusion was, in the highest degree, improbable; and the experiments, although not conclusive, were very curious, and some of them not easy of explanation. In the third case, transparent and absurd as the experiments seemed to us, and as the account of them will probably appear to our readers, the doctor, from his position and practice, must have been seriously injured by his mesmeric experiments; and therefore there is fair reason to believe, that he was not a party to a fraud which must have been objectless, and professionally injurious to him; but how a man of experience could be carried away by such flimsy devices, is a psychological curiosity, almost as marvellous as the asserted phenomena of mesmerism.

We are aware that, in giving the above accounts of experiments which we have personally witnessed, our authority, being anonymous, is of no great weight. We state them to avoid the charge of writing on what we have not seen, and to show that we do not attempt unfairly to decry mesmerism without seeing it fairly tried; if we felt justified in giving the names of the parties, these instances would be much more conclusive. Nearly all the cases in Mr Townshend's book are given without the names of parties, probably for similar reasons to those which have induced us to withhold them.

The above cases supply instances of all the phenomena included in our categories, except those of insensibility to pain, powers of prediction, and the curative effects. Having never personally seen cases of this description, we shall select examples of them from the book of Mr Townshend and others; but before we give these instances, we will extract from Mr Townshend's book his account of the first mesmeric sitting at which he was present. This will give the reader a fair idea of his attractive style, and of his state of mind previously to witnessing, for the first time, mesmeric effects.

"If to have been an unbeliever in the very existence of the state in question, can add weight to my testimony, my reader, should he also be a heretic on the subject, may be assured that his incredulity in this respect can scarcely be greater than mine was, up to the winter of 1836. That, at the time I mention, I should be both ignorant and prejudiced on the score of mesmerism, will not surprise those who are aware of its long proscription in England, and the want of information upon it, which, till very lately, prevailed there.

"In the course of a residence at Antwerp, a valued friend detailed to me some extraordinary results of mesmerism, to which he had been an eyewitness. I could not altogether discredit the evidence of one whom I knew to be both observant and incapable of falsehood; but I took refuge in the supposition that he had been ingeniously deceived. Reflecting, however, that to condemn before I had examined was as unjust to others as it was unsatisfactory to myself, I accepted readily the proposition of my friend to introduce me to an acquaintance of his in Antwerp, who had learned the practice of the mesmeric art from a German physician. We waited together on Mr K — , the mesmeriser, (an agreeable and well-informed person,) and stated to him that the object of our visit was to prevail on him to exhibit to us a specimen of his mysterious talent. To this he at first replied that he was rather seeking to abjure a renown that had become troublesome — half the world viewing him as a conjurer, and the other half as a getter-up of strange comedies; 'but,' he kindly added, 'if you will promise me a strictly private meeting, I will, this evening, do all in my power to convince you that mesmerism is no delusion.' This being agreed upon, with a stipulation that the members of my own family should be present on the occasion, I, to remove all doubt of complicity from every mind, proposed that Mr K — should mesmerise a person who should be a perfect stranger to him. To this he readily acceded; and now the only difficulty was to find a subject for our experiment. At length we thought of a young person in the middling class of life, who had often done fine work for the ladies of our family, and of whose character we had the most favourable knowledge. Her mother was Irish, her father, who had been dead some time, had been a Belgian, and she spoke English, Flemish, and French, with perfect facility. Her widowed parent was chiefly supported by her industry: and, in the midst of trying circumstances, her temper was gay and cheerful, and her health excellent. That she had never seen Mr K — we were sure; and of her probity and incapacity for feigning we had every reason to be convinced. With our request, conveyed to her through one of the ladies of our family, for whom she had conceived a warm affection, she complied without hesitation. Not being of a nervous, though of an excitable temperament, she had no fears whatever about what she was to undergo. On the contrary, she had rather a desire to know what the sensation of being mesmerised might be. Of the phenomena which were to be developed in the mesmeric state, she knew absolutely nothing; thus all deceptive imitation of them, on her part, was rendered impossible.

"About nine o'clock in the evening, our party assembled for what, in foreign phrase, is called 'une séance magnétique.' Anna M — , our mesmerisee, was already with us. Mr K — arrived soon after, and was introduced to his young patient, whose name we had purposely avoided mentioning to him in the morning; not that we feared imposition on either hand, but that we were determined, by every precaution, to prevent any one from alleging that imposition had been practised. Utterly unknown as the parties were to each other, a game played by two confederates was plainly out of the question. Almost immediately after the entrance of Mr K — we proceeded to the business of the evening. By his directions Mademoiselle M — placed herself in an arm-chair at one end of the apartment, while he occupied a seat directly facing hers. He then took each of her hands in one of his, and sat in such a manner as that the knees and feet of both should be in contact. In this position he remained for some time motionless, attentively regarding her with eyes as unwinking as the lidless orbs which Coleridge has attributed to the Genius of destruction. We had been told previously to keep utter silence, and none of our circle — composed of some five or six persons — felt inclined to transgress this order. To me, novice as I was at that time in such matters, it was a moment of absorbing interest: that which I had heard mocked at as foolishness, that which I myself had doubted as a dream, was, perhaps, about to be brought home to my conviction, and established for ever in my mind as a reality. Should the present trial prove successful, how much of my past experience must be remodelled and reversed!

"Convinced, as I have since been, to what valuable conclusions the phenomena of mesmerism may conduct the enquirer, never, perhaps, have I been more impressed with the importance of its pretensions than at that moment, when my doubts of their validity were either to be strengthened or removed. Concentrating my attention upon the motionless pair, I observed that Mademoiselle M — seemed at her ease, and occasionally smiled or glanced at the assembled party; but her eyes, as if by a charm, always reverted to those of her mesmeriser, and at length seemed unable to turn away from them. Then a heaviness, as of sleep, seemed to weigh down her eyelids, and to pervade the expression of her countenance; her head drooped on one side; her breathing became regular; at length her eyes closed entirely, and, to all appearance, she was calmly asleep, in just seven minutes from the time when Mr K — first commenced his operations. I should have observed that, as soon as the first symptoms of drowsiness were manifested, the mesmeriser had withdrawn his hands from those of Mademoiselle M — , and had commenced what are called the mesmeric passes, conducting his fingers slowly downward, without contact, along the arm of the patient. For about five minutes, Mademoiselle M — continued to repose tranquilly, when suddenly she began to heave deep sighs, and to turn and toss in her chair. She then called out, 'Je me trouve malade! Je m'étouffe!' and rising in a wild manner, she continued to repeat, 'Je m'étouffe!' evidently labouring under an oppression of the breath. But all this time her eyes remained fast shut, and at the command of her mesmeriser, she took his arm and walked, still with her eyes shut, to the table. Mr K — then said, 'Voulez-vous que je vous éveille?' — 'Oui, oui,' she exclaimed; 'je m'étouffe.' Upon this Mr K — again operated with his hands, but in a different set of movements, and taking out his handkerchief, agitated the air round the patient, who forthwith opened her eyes, and stared about the room like a person awaking from sleep. No traces of her indisposition, however, appeared to remain; and soon shaking off all drowsiness, she was able to converse and laugh as cheerfully as usual. On being asked what she remembered of her sensations, she said that she had only a general idea of having felt unwell and oppressed: that she had wished to open her eyes, but could not, they felt as if lead were on them. Of having walked to the table she had no recollection. Notwithstanding her having suffered, she was desirous of being again mesmerised, and sat down fearlessly to make a second trial. This time it was longer before her eyes closed, and she never seemed to be reduced to more than a state of half unconsciousness. When the mesmeriser asked her if she slept, she answered in the tone of utter drowsiness, 'Je dors, et je ne dors pas.' This lasted some time, when Mr K — declared that he was afraid of fatiguing his patient, (and probably his spectators too,) and that he should disperse the mesmeric fluid. To do so, however, seemed not so easy a matter as the first time when he awoke the sleep-waker; with difficulty she appeared to rouse herself; and even after having spoken a few words to us, and risen from her chair, she suddenly relapsed into a state of torpor, and fell prostrate to the ground, as if perfectly insensible. Mr K — , entreating us not to be alarmed, raised her up — placed her in a chair, and supported her head with his hand. It was then that I distinctly recognised one of the asserted phenomena of mesmerism. The head of Mademoiselle M — followed every where, with unerring certainty, the hand of her mesmeriser, and seemed irresistibly attracted to it as iron to the loadstone. At length Mr K — succeeded in thoroughly awaking his patient, who, on being interrogated respecting her past sensations, said that she retained a recollection of her state of semi-consciousness, during which she much desired to have been able to sleep wholly; but of her having fallen to the ground, or of what had passed subsequently, she remembered nothing whatever. To other enquiries she replied, that the drowsy sensation which first stole over her was rather of an agreeable nature, and that it was preceded by a slight tingling, which ran down her arms in the direction of the mesmeriser's fingers. Moreover she assured us, that the oppression she had at one time felt was not fanciful, but real — not mental, but bodily, and was accompanied by a peculiar pain in the region of the heart, which, however, ceased immediately on the dispersion of the mesmeric sleep. These statements were the rather to be relied upon, inasmuch as the girl's character was neither timid nor imaginative." — (P. 38-42.)

We would willingly give the whole of the second sitting of the same patient, in which were developed the phenomena of,

1st, "Attraction towards the mesmeriser."

2d, "A knowledge of what the mesmeriser ate and drank, indicating community of sensation with him."

3d, "An increased quickness of perception."

4th, "A development of the power of vision."

Our space will not permit us to give these in detail. We shall therefore give an extract from the third sitting, where the clairvoyance was more decidedly developed, and the impressions of Mr Townshend on the phenomena he had witnessed are stated.

"Upon first passing into the mesmeric state, Theodore seemed absolutely insensible to every other than the mesmeriser's voice. Some of our party went close to him, and shouted his name; but he gave no tokens of hearing us until Mr K — , taking our hands, made us touch those of Theodore and his own at the same time. This he called putting us 'en rapport' with the patient. After this Theodore seemed to hear our voices equally with that of the mesmeriser, but by no means to pay an equal attention to them.

"With regard to the development of vision, the eyes of the patient appeared to be firmly shut during the whole sitting, and yet he gave the following proofs of accurate sight: —

"Without being guided by our voices, (for, in making the experiment, we kept carefully silent,) he distinguished between the different persons present, and the colours of their dresses. He also named with accuracy various objects on the table, such as a miniature picture, a drawing by Mr K — , &c. &c.

"When the mesmeriser left him, and ran quickly amongst the chairs, tables &c., of the apartment, he followed him, running also, and taking the same turns, without once coming in contact with any thing that stood in his way.

"He told the hour accurately by Mr K — 's watch.

"He played several games at dominoes with the different members of our family, as readily as if his eyes had been perfectly open.

"On these occasions the lights were placed in front of him, and he arranged his dominoes on the table, with their backs to the candles, in such a manner that, when I placed my head in the same position as his own, I could scarcely, through the shade, distinguish one from the other. Yet he took them up unerringly, never hesitated in his play, generally won the game, and announced the sum of the spots on such of his dominoes as remained over at the end, before his adversaries could count theirs. One of our party, a lady who had been extremely incredulous on the subject of mesmerism, stooped down, so as to look under his eyelids all the time he played, and declared herself convinced and satisfied that his eyes were perfectly closed. It was not always, however, that Theodore could be prevailed upon to exercise his power of vision. Some words, written by the mesmeriser, of a tolerable size, being shown to him, he declared, as Mademoiselle M — did on another occasion, that it was too small for him to distinguish.

"Towards the conclusion of the sitting, the patient seemed much fatigued, and, going to the sofa, arranged a pillow for himself comfortably under his head; after which he appeared to pass into a state more akin to natural sleep than his late sleep-waking. Mr K — allowed him to repose in this manner for a short time, and then awoke him by the usual formula. A very few motions of the hand were sufficient to restore him to full consciousness, and to his usual character. The fatigue of which he had so lately complained seemed wholly to have passed away, together with the memory of all that he had been doing for the last hour.

"I must now pause to set before my reader my own state of mind respecting the facts I had witnessed. I perceived that important deductions might be drawn from them, and that they bore upon disputed questions of the highest interest to man, connected with the three great mysteries of being — life, death, and immortality. On these grounds I was resolved to enter upon a consistent course of enquiry concerning them; though as yet, while all was new and wonderful to my apprehension, I could scarcely do more than observe and verify phenomena. It was, however, necessary that my views, though for the present bounded, should be distinct. I had already asked respecting mesmeric sleep-waking, 'Does it exist?' and to this question, the cases which had fallen under my notice, and which were above suspicion, seemed to answer decidedly in the affirmative: but it was essential still further to enquire, 'Does it exist so generally as to be pronounced a part — though a rarely developed part — of the human constitution?' In order to determine this, it was requisite to observe how far individuals of different ages, stations, and temperaments, were capable of mesmeric sleep-waking. I resolved, therefore, by experiments on as extensive a scale as possible, to ascertain whether the state in question were too commonly exhibited to be exceptional or idiosyncratic. Again, the two cases that I had witnessed coincided in characteristics; but could this coincidence be accidental? It might still be asked, 'Were the phenomena displayed uncertain, mutable, such as might never occur again; or were they orderly, invariable, the growth of fixed causes, which, being present, implied their presence also?' In fine, was mesmeric sleep-waking not only a state, but entitled to rank as a distinct state, clearly and permanently characterized; and, as such, set apart from all other abnormal conditions of men? On its pretensions to be so considered, rested, I conceived, its claims to notice and peculiar investigation: to decide this point was, therefore, one of my chief objects; and, respecting it, I was determined to seek that certainty which can only be attained by a careful comparison of facts, occurring under the same circumstances. To sum up my intentions, I desired to show that man, through external human influence, is capable of a species of sleep-waking different from the common, not only inasmuch as it is otherwise produced, but as it displays quite other characteristics when produced." — (P. 49-52.)

In the subsequent portions of the book, similar and still more wondrous phenomena are produced by Mr Townshend. He mesmerises several Cambridge friends. He procures two patients, designated by the names of Anna M — and E — A — , who are said to be very susceptible of the mesmeric state, and sight or mesmeric perception is manifested in a dark closet, with large towels over the head, through the abdomen, through cards, books, &c. &c. Anna M. is mesmerised unconsciously when in a separate house from the mesmeriser; they predict remedies for themselves and others, read thoughts,[4 - P. 316.] state how they and others can be further mesmerised and demesmerised.

As an instance of the curative effects, and the power of predicting remedies, we cite the following: —

"Accident threw in my way a lad of nineteen years of age, a Swiss peasant, who for three years had nearly lost the faculty of sight. His eyes betrayed but little appearance of disorder, and the gradual decay of vision which he had experienced, was attributed to a paralysis of the optic nerve, resulting from a scrofulous tendency in the constitution of the patient. The boy, whom I shall call by his Christian name of Johann, was intelligent, mild-tempered, extremely sincere, and extremely unimaginative. He had never heard of mesmerism till I spoke of it before him, and I then only so far enlightened him on the subject, as to tell him that it was something which might, perhaps, benefit his sight. At first he betrayed some little reluctance to submit himself to experiment, asking me if I were going to perform some very painful operation upon him; but, when he found that the whole affair consisted in sitting quiet, and letting me hold his hands, he no longer felt any apprehension.

"Before beginning to mesmerise, I ascertained, with as much precision as possible, the patient's degree of blindness. I found that he yet could see enough to perceive any large obstacle that stood in his way. If a person came directly before him, he was aware of the circumstance, but he could not at all distinguish whether the individual were man or woman. I even put this to the proof. A lady of our society stood before him, and he addressed her as 'mein herr,' (sir.) In bright sunshine he could see a white object, or the colour scarlet, when in a considerable mass, but made mistakes as to the other colours. Between small objects he could not at all discriminate. I held before him successively, a book, a box, and a bunch of keys, and he could not distinguish between them. In each case he saw something, he said, like a shadow, but he could not tell what. He could not read one letter of the largest print by means of eyesight; but he was very adroit in reading by touch, in books prepared expressly for the blind, running his fingers over the raised characters with great rapidity, and thus acquiring a perception of them. Whatever trifling degree of vision he possessed, could only be exercised on very near objects: those which were at a distance from him, he perceived not at all. I ascertained that he could not see a cottage at the end of our garden, not more than a hundred yards off from where we were standing.

"These points being satisfactorily proved, I placed my patient in the proper position, and began to mesmerise. Five minutes had scarcely elapsed, when I found that I produced a manifest effect upon the boy. He began to shiver at regular intervals, as if affected by a succession of slight electric shocks. By degrees this tremour subsided, the patient's eyes gradually closed, and in about a quarter of an hour, he replied to an enquiry on my part — 'Ich schlaffe, aber nicht ganz tief' — (I sleep, but not soundly.) upon this I endeavoured to deepen the patient's slumber by the mesmeric passes, when suddenly he exclaimed — his eyes being closed all the time — 'I see — I see your hand — I see your head!' In order to put this to the proof, I held my head in various positions, which he followed with his finger; again, he told me accurately whether my hand was shut or open. 'But,' he said, on being further questioned, 'I do not see distinctly. — I see, as it were, sunbeams (sonnen strahlen) which dazzle me.' 'Do you think,' I asked, 'that mesmerism will do you good?' 'Ja freilich,' (yes, certainly,) he replied; 'repeated often enough, it would cure me of my blindness.'

"Afraid of fatiguing my patient, I did not trouble him with experiments; and his one o'clock dinner being ready for him, I dispersed his magnetic sleep. After he had dined, I took him into the garden. As we were passing before some bee-hives, he suddenly stopped, and seemed to look earnestly at them: 'What is it you see?' I asked. 'A row of bee-hives,' he replied directly, and continued — 'Oh! this is wonderful! — I have not seen such things for three years.' Of course, I was extremely surprised, for though I had imagined that a long course of mesmerisation might benefit the boy, I was entirely unprepared for so rapid an improvement in his vision. My chief object had been to develop the faculty of sight in sleep-waking; and I can assure my readers, that this increase of visual power in the natural state was to me a kind of miracle, as astonishing as it was unsought. My poor patient was in a state of absolute enchantment. He grinned from ear to ear, and called out, 'Das ist prächtig!' (This is charming!) Two ladies now passed before us, when he said, 'Da sind zwei fräuenzimmer!' (There go two ladies!) 'How dressed?' I asked. 'Their clothes are of a dark colour,' he replied. This was true. I took my patient to a summer-house that commanded an extensive prospect. I fear almost to state it, but, nevertheless, it is perfectly true, that he saw and pointed out the situation of a village in the valley below us. I then brought Johann back to the house, when, in the presence of several members of my family, he recognised, at first sight, several small objects, (a flowerpot, I remember, amongst other things,) and not only saw a little girl, one of our farmers' children, sitting on the steps of a door, but also mentioned that she had a round cap on her head. In the house, I showed Johann a book, which, it will be remembered, he could not distinguish before mesmerisation, and he named the object. But, though making great efforts, he could not read one letter in the book. Having ascertained this, I once more threw Johann into the mesmeric state, with a view to discover how far a second mesmerisation could strengthen his natural eyesight. As soon as I had awaked him, at the interval of half an hour, I presented him with the same book, (one of Marryat's novels,) when he accurately told me the larger letters of the title-page, which were as follows — 'Outward Bound.' Johann belonging to an institution of the blind situated at some distance from our residence, I had unhappily only the opportunity of mesmerising him three times subsequently to the above successful trial. The establishment, also, of which he was a member, changed masters; and its new director having prejudices on the score of mesmerism, there were difficulties purposely thrown in the way of my following up that which I had so auspiciously begun." — (Pp. 176-179)

Many of these cases of clairvoyance, given by Mr Townshend, appear on the face of them ambiguous; thus the reading is said to be effected with difficulty and imperfectly, the difficulty to be increased by the superposition of obstacles. Others, as related, certainly admit of no explanation by deductions from ordinary experience. All we can say of them, therefore, is, that we have fairly sought to see such phenomena, and have never succeeded; when we see them, and can properly test them, we will believe them. But from the internal evidence of the latter portion of Mr Townshend's book, which we shall presently discuss, we cannot, although not doubting his honesty of purpose, set our faith upon his experiments and judgment.

Mr Townshend gives no account of the phreno-mesmerism, or of the surgical operations performed without any evidence of pain during the mesmeric states. We have already related one of the former exhibitions, which, we think, requires no further comment. Viewed abstractedly, the attempt to support by the assumed accuracy of one science, at best in its infancy, and confessedly fallible, another still more so, is making too large demands upon public credulity to require much counter argument. With regard to the surgical cases, they stand on a very different ground; three operations, among the most painful of those to which man is ever subjected, are alleged to have been performed during the mesmeric state — Madame Plantin, amputation of cancerous breast; and James Wombwell and Mary Ann Lakin, amputation of the leg above the knee. The case of Wombwell was canvassed at length at the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society of London; and in that and the other cases there seems to have been no question raised as to the facts of the patients having undergone the operation without the usual evidence of suffering. In Wombwell's case the divided end of the sciatic nerve was purposely (it appears to us very wantonly) touched with the forceps, but without any appearance of sensation on the part of the patient. In all these cases the medical men most opposed to mesmerism seem to have admitted the fact, and to have rested their incredulity on the various cases known to them, of parties having borne operations with such fortitude as not to have expressed the usual cries of suffering.

In Madame Plantin's case it is stated; that she subsequently confessed to a nurse in an hospital, that she felt the full pain, but purposely, and by great effort, kept silent. This confession is, however, strongly denied by Dr Elliotson and others, and does not appear to be clearly substantiated.

A professional "odium" appears to have arisen on the subject; and, from the controversial tone of the speaking and writing on both sides, it is difficult to get at the truth. We must say, however, that, admitting the facts, which the antagonists of mesmerism seem to do, we are more inclined to believe the paralysis of nervous sensation by mesmeric influence, than that, with such inadequate motives as the patients could feel, they should have such marvellous self-control as to feign sleep, and keep their whole muscular system in a relaxed state, while suffering such exquisite pain. Medical men are, indeed, better judges of the power of endurance and simulation than we can pretend to be; but, to make their testimony conclusive, they should have witnessed the operation. The elaborate research for causes explanatory of an unseen case, lessens the weight of authority which would otherwise be very high.

Many other minor cases, such as teeth drawn, and division of tendons, are given; and though we have never had an opportunity of witnessing such effects, we must say we think, from their benefit to suffering humanity, the possibility, however remote, of their truth, deserves more calm and dispassionate enquiry than appears hitherto to have been given them.

While doctors, however, seek to explain, by various profound theories, the efficient causes of asserted mesmeric cures, a member of the Church of England, and popular preacher at Liverpool, the Rev. Hugh M. Neill, M.A., has cut the Gordian knot, by a sermon preached at St Jude's Church, on April 10th, 1842, and published in Nos. 599 and 600 of the Penny Pulpit, price twopence. By this sermon it appears to have occurred to the philosophic mind of the reverend divine, that mesmeric marvels may be accounted for as accomplished by the direct agency of Satan! Doubtless Satan is as actively at work in this the nineteenth century, as in any anterior period of our history; but we are inclined to think the progress of civilization has opened a sufficient number of channels for his ingenuity, without rendering it necessary that he should alarm the devout by miraculously interfering to assuage human suffering.

We have given above as many instances as our space will permit, of the asserted phenomena of mesmerism; and now to return to Mr Townshend's book.

In taking a general view of the lines of argument adopted by the author to support the possibility or probability of mesmerism, we perceive they are of two sorts, essentially different, and in some measure inconsistent with each other.

1st, It is very properly argued, that our whole knowledge of the normal course of nature is derived from experience; that a law is a mere generalization from that experience, and is not any thing intrinsically or necessarily true. Thus, if the sun were to rise in the west to-morrow, instead of in the east, it would at first sight appear to be a deviation from natural laws; in other words, a miracle. If, however, the latter circumstance were wanting, after the first sensation of the marvellous had subsided, the philosopher would enquire, whether, instead of being a deviation from a law, it were not a subordinate instance of some higher law, of which the period of history had been too short to give any co-ordinate instances; and were it found, by a long course of experience, that in every 4000 years a similar retrocession of the earth took place, a new law would be established. Applying this to mesmerism, it is said our notions of sleep and waking, of sight and hearing, and of the possible limits and modes of sensation, are derived from experience alone; we cannot estimate or understand the modus agendi of a new sensation, because we have never experienced it. If, then, it be proved, by the acts of A, B, or C, that they attain cognizance of objects by other means than those which any known organ of sensation will permit, you must admit the fact, and by degrees its rationale will become supported by the same means as all other truths are supported, viz. by habitual experience. Its law is, indeed, nothing but its constant recurrence under similar circumstances. To take Mr Townshend's own mode of enunciating this —

"Are we entitled to conclude, in any case, that, because we have not hitherto been able to assign a law to certain operations, they are therefore absolutely without law? Are we to assert, that the orderly dispositions of the universe are deformed by a monstrous exception; or is it not wiser to believe that our own knowledge is in fault, whenever Nature appears inconsistent with herself? Surely we have enough order around us to suggest, that all which to us seems chance, is 'direction which we cannot see;' that all apparent anomalies are but like those discords which, in the most masterly music, prepare the transitions from one noble passage to another, and are actually essential to the general harmony. In many instances this is not mere conjecture. How much of fancied imperfection and disorder has fled before our investigation! The motions of comets at first appear to offer an exception to the exact arrangements of the universe. — 'They traverse all parts of the heavens. Their paths have every possible inclination to the plane of the ecliptic; and, unlike the planets, the motion of more than half of those which have appeared has been retrograde — that is, from east to west.' Yet have we been able to detect the elements of regularity in the midst of all this seeming confusion, and to predict with certainty the day, the hour, and the minute of a comet's return to our region of the sky.

"Experience also shows, that apparently insulated and lawless phenomena may not only be reduced to a law, but to a well-known law; that many a familiar agent puts on strange disguises; and that events, with which, in their mazy channels, we seem to be unacquainted, may be perfectly recognised by us at their source. Thus galvanism and magnetic force are proved, by recent discoveries, to be only forms of electricity; showing that a fact may be altered, not in itself, but in the circumstances that surround it, and that complexity of development is perfectly consistent with unity of design. Instances like these, while they encourage us to enquiry, should teach us to believe that all which is needed to vindicate the regularity of nature is a more extended observation on our parts." — (Pp. 14-15.)

This is the highest and safest ground for the advocate of mesmerism to tread; to support himself on this he has only to demonstrate his facts beyond the possibility of a doubt, and the truth of the phenomena, however inconsistent with previous experience, must in the end be admitted. But to support him on this high ground his proof must be demonstrative; he must be able to say — I ask not for faith, nor even a balanced mind; but doubt to the utmost, examine with the most rigorous scepticism; I stand upon the facts alone; I offer no explanation, or at least I make their truth dependent upon no explanation. They are or they are not. I will prove their existence, and I will defy you to disprove them.

It will not, we conceive, be denied, that one essential attribute of the social mind, a jealousy of credence in apparent anomalies, is a just and necessary guard upon human knowledge. If mere assertion were believed, every succeeding day would upset the knowledge of the preceding day; and however high the character of the assertor of new and abnormal facts may be, he must not expect them to be received upon the strength of his assertion. The best men may be deceived, and the best men may be led astray by enthusiasm. When the slightest discovery in physical science is published, it is immediately assailed by doubts from every quarter; and its promulgator, if he be accustomed to research and trained to scientific investigation, never complains of these doubts, because he knows the vast number of perplexing deceptions in which he has himself been entangled, and the caution with which he himself would receive a similar announcement.

It is vain to cite instances of truths unappreciated by the age in which they were advanced. We deprecate as much as any the persecution with which occasionally men who have seen far in advance of their age have been attacked; but the saying, "Malheureux celui qui est en avance de son siècle," is not always true: if the new truth be difficult of demonstration it will be proportionately tardy of reception, but if easy of proof it is very rapidly received. As an example of this we may instance the discovery of Volta. In the history of physical science, never was a more sudden leap taken than by this illustrious man — that a juxtaposition of matter in its least organic form should produce such surprising effects upon the human organism, was to the world, as it existed in the year 1800, a most marvellous phenomenon; and had the link in the finest chain of proof been wanting, men would have been justified in any degree of scepticism or incredulity. But it was easy of demonstration; any one with a dozen discs of iron and zinc, and the same number of penny-pieces, could satisfy himself; and the consequence was, the discovery was instantly admitted. Let mesmerists put the same power of self-satisfaction into the hands of the world, and doubt will be at once removed; if, as they say, their science is not of equal exactitude, they must bide their time and not complain.

Magnetism and electricity, moreover, often cited by Mr Townshend, and undoubtedly the most surprising additions to human knowledge within the historical period, though abnormal, are not contradictory to experience — they were an entirely new series of facts added to our previous store — they did not destroy or lessen the force of any previously received truths. Not so mesmerism, and therefore the more stringent should be, and is, the proof required.

Come we now to the second class of arguments adopted in favour of mesmerism, and by the same persons (Mr Townshend, for instance) as support the first. Mr Townshend says, (p. 29,) "to the mesmeriser the facts of mesmerism are no miracles;" and yet he avers that mesmerism can make the blind see and the deaf hear. (Pp. xxxii., and 178.) We cannot very clearly see his notion of a miracle. Passing over this, however, and taking him to assert what the first branch of his argument requires to be asserted, that there is no miracle, or that there is nothing but the contradiction of a necessary truth, such as that three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, which may not fall within some natural law of which we have not all the data — we cannot see why, in the second half of his book, he so sedulously endeavours to prove that mesmerism is consistent with experience, and may be supported upon similar grounds, and accounted for by similar theories, to those by which the agency of the imponderable forces is established and accounted for. After using every argument in his power to show the fallibility of experience, and the reasons why we should not disbelieve mesmerism because contradictory to it, which contradiction he admits in terms, the author writes a chapter, the title of which is, "Conformity of Mesmerism with General Experience." — (P. 155.) As instances of these reverse modes of viewing the subject, we quote the following passages — the one taken from the commencement of the book, where the first line of argument is adopted; the other from the latter portion, where the second is.

"Thus, then, till the initial step towards a comprehension of mesmerism be taken anew, there is no hope that it will ever be understood or appreciated. Why unavailingly seek to reduce it to a formula of which it is unsusceptible? If we ascribe it to a power already ascertained, why not treat it, at least, as an entirely new function of that power? Why limit it to what we know, when, possibly, it may be destined to extend the boundaries of our knowledge? Why are we to be trammelled with foregone conclusions? Yet upon these very restrictions the opponents of mesmerism insist; thus taking away from men the means of investigating the agency in question, by forcing them to set about it in the wrong way." — (P. 12.)