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

Having, then, thus expressed himself in the early part of the work, towards the close we find the following sentence. "Taking this simple view of sensation, (that objects should be brought into a certain relation with us by something intermediate,) we find nothing in mesmerism contradictory of nature. Under its influence, the human frame continues to be still a system of nerves acted upon by elastic media, for the purpose of conveying to us the primal impulse of the Almighty Mind, which made, sustains, and moves the universe — having, as I trust, shown the conformity of mesmerism in all essential points with the principles of nature, and the inferences of reason," &c. &c.

If we are to admit mesmerism as a series of facts apparently inconsistent with experience, it is most hasty and unphilosophical to attempt to generalize it by crude hypotheses. To rest its probable truth upon these hypotheses, is to take a totally different ground, and one much lower and more assailable. We have no desire to be hypercritical — to expose minor scientific inaccuracies in the work before us; but we do not hesitate to assert, that, independently of its inconsistency with the previous course of reasoning, the hypothesis or hypotheses of Mr Townshend are most unsatisfactory.

Heat, light, electricity, magnetism, are by some regarded as specific fluids; by others, as undulations of one or more specific fluid; and by a third class, as undulations or polarizations of ordinary matter. Thus, by the first, light would be viewed as a material emanation from the luminous body; by the second, as an undulation of an imponderable ether, existing between the luminous body and the recipient; and by the third, as an undulation of the air, glass, or other matter, placed between the luminous body and the object. The last would regard the ether in the planetary spaces, not as a specific imponderable fluid, but as a highly attenuated expansion of air, gas, or other matter, having all the functions of ordinary matter. Whewell has, indeed, published a demonstration that all matter is ponderable, and that imponderable matter is not a conceivable idea. Be this as it may, the diversity of opinion on this point shows the difficulty the mind finds in departing from the truths of phenomena to the uncertainties of hypothesis; but if hypothesis be justifiable, which it is only on the ground of absolute necessity to link together, and render conventionally intelligible, certain undoubted, undeniable facts, which have been associated together under the terms electricity, magnetism, &c. — how difficult and dangerous it must be when the facts which it seeks to associate are denied by the mass of thinking men, when they are confessed to be mysterious and irregular by their most strenuous advocates, each of whom differs, in many respects, as to these facts!

These difficulties have by no means been conquered by Mr Townshend. At p. 11, he objects to this mode of theorizing, in the following strong terms: —

"A certain school of German writers especially have theorized on our subject, after the false method of explaining one class of phenomena in nature by its fancied resemblance to another. Wishing, perhaps, to avoid the error of the spiritualists, who solve the problem in debate by the power of the soul alone, they have ransacked the material world for analogies to mesmerism, till the mind itself has been endued with its affinities and its poles. Such attempts as these have done the greatest disservice to the cause we advocate. They submit it to a wrong test. It is as if the laws of light should be applied to a question in acoustics. It is as if we should expect to find in a foreign kingdom the laws and customs of our own." — (P. 11.)

And yet, in the subsequent parts of his book, he asserts mesmerism to be capable of "reflection like light" — to have "the attraction of magnetism" — to be "transferred like heat;" to escape from a point like electricity, and to have the sympathetic undulations of sound! — (Pp. 335, 6, 7, and 8.)

Such general resemblances as the following are given: —

"We know that electricity is capable of all that modification in its action which our case demands. Sometimes its effects are sudden and energetic; sometimes of indefinite and uninterrupted continuance. It is 'capable of moving with various degrees of facility through the pores or even the substance of matter;' and is not impeded in its action by the intervention of any substance whatever, provided it be not in itself in an electric state. This capacity of varied action and of pervading influence, has already been shown to characterize the mesmeric medium." — (P. 335.)

Why, what is here stated of electricity, may be said of heat, of light, of any force, and its moving through the pores may be denied as easily as asserted; by many it is thought to be a molecular polarization, and not a transmission.

Zinc and silver are said (p. 237) to "produce a taste resulting from the galvanic concussion, and not from any actual flavour." This is incorrect; zinc and silver produce a taste when in voltaic communication, because they decompose the saliva, and eliminate acid and alkaline constituents.

Further on it is said, (p. 237,) "A spark drawn by means of a pointed metal from the nose of a person charged with electricity, will give him the sensation of smelling a phosphoric odour." This is also an erroneous assumption; the electric spark, in passing through the atmosphere, combines its constituents, and forms nitrous acid. This has a pungent smell; probably there are some other physical changes wrought upon the constituents of the atmosphere by the electric spark, which are now objects of anxious enquiry to natural philosophers; yet none of them have any doubt that the electric smell is the result of a physical or chemical action of the spark, by which either the air is decomposed, or fine portions of metal carried off, or both. So again —

"The electric medium is a far more swift and subtle messenger of vision than is the luminous ether. 'A wheel revolving with celerity sufficient to render its spokes invisible, when illuminated by a flash of lightning, is seen for an instant with all its spokes distinct, as if it were in a state of absolute repose, because, however rapid the motion may be, the light has already come and ceased before the wheel has had time to turn through a sensible space.' Again, some ingenious experiments, by Professor Wheatstone, demonstrate to a certainty, that the speed of the electric fluid much surpasses the velocity of light. It is, therefore, a different medium; yet can it serve for all the purposes of vision, and even in a superior manner. After hearing these things, shall we start at the notion of mesmeric sensation being conveyed through another medium than that in ordinary action? Even should the sleep-waker perceive the most distant objects, (as some are said to have done,) can we, from the moment a means of communication is hinted to us, be so much amazed? If his perception be more vivid, there seems to be an efficient cause in his abjuring the grosser media for such as are more swift and subtle." — (P. 272.)

The electric medium is not a messenger of vision. To call the light produced by the electric spark electricity, would be the same as to call magnetism electricity, heat electricity, motion electricity — for all these are produced by it, and it by them. All modes of force are capable of producing the other phenomenal effects of force. It is an obvious fallacy to call the medium which transmits electric light, an electric medium; this, if carried out, would overthrow natural as well as conventional divisions, would subvert "the pales and forts of reason."

Mr Townshend, accustomed to metaphysical abstractions, shows, in these and many other instances, a want of acquaintance with physical science, and entirely fails when he bases his reasoning upon it. Many of the arguments of Mr Townshend are of such a transcendental nature, that we fear, should we attempt to follow them, our readers would lose their clairvoyance in the mist of metaphysical speculation. The following will give a fair specimen of the conclusion to which such reasoning tends: —

"Indeed, if we lay to heart the deceptiveness and mutability of all the external species of matter, at the same time considering that we have no reason to deem it capable of change in its ultimate and imperceptible particles; if, also, we reflect, that whatever is not palpable in itself is yet indicated by its effects, forces us on pure reason by withdrawing at once the aid and the illusion of our external senses, we shall perhaps come to the conclusion that the Invisible is the only true, exclaiming, with the old Latinist, 'Invisibilia non decipiunt.'" — (P. 355.)

And yet the facts of mesmerism are to be judged of by the very senses which mesmerism proves to be so fallacious. It is because we see that E — A — reads when the book is presented to the back of his hand, that we are to believe that he does not perceive with the usual organs. Upon the rule which the author adopts, that "the invisible is the only true," we cannot rely upon our deceptive organs and should disbelieve mesmerism because we see it.

To analyse, in detail, the hypotheses of Mr Townshend would be quite impossible in our limited space. We might, indeed, adopt method sometimes used in controversial writing, and string together a parallel column of minor contradictions. This would however, not only be totally devoid of interest to the reader, but is not the object we have in view. We seek not for critical errors or inconsistencies, but merely to examine if there be any broad lines of truth or probability in his theory. It is summed up as follows: —

"The real nature of vision is as shut to the vulgar as the mesmeric mode of sight is to the learned.

"By the eye we appreciate light and colour only: the rest is an operation of the judgment.

"Viewed metaphysically, seeing is but a particular kind of knowledge: viewed physically, seeing consists in certain nervous motions, responsive to the motions of a medium. That medium, in our ordinary condition, is light, the action of which seems cut off and intercepted in the case of mesmeric vision.

"When, therefore, we hear that a mesmerised person has correctly seen an object through obstacles which to us appear opaque, we, conceiving no means of communication between the person and the object, exclaim that the laws of nature have been violated. But, in all cases where information is conveyed through interrupted spaces, show but the means of communication, and astonishment ceases.

"When we know that there is a medium permeating, in one or other of its forms, all substances whatever, and that this medium is eminently capable of exciting sensations of sight; and when we take this in conjunction with a heightened sensibility in the percipient person, rendering him aware of impulses whereof we are not cognisant, we are no longer inclined to deny a fact or suppose a miracle.

"Finally, all sensation has but one principle. All that is required for its production is, that objects should be brought into a certain relation with us by something intermediate; and this is effected by the impulsions of certain media upon nerves, the last changes in which are the immediate forerunners of completed sensation." — (P. 279.)

In short, we think we do not unfairly express the author's theory in the following query. As the application of the highest human powers (those of Newton, for instance) have resolved the transmission of light to the sensorium into the vibrations of an all-pervading ether, what is more probable than that a similar ethereal medium may convey sensations of objects through other channels? This may be, but another important ingredient is wanting, viz. organization, or definite molecular arrangement. Prick the eye, and, by the resulting morbid derangement, change the molecular arrangement of its particles, and vision is destroyed; pulverise the glass through which you look, and it is no longer transparent. The ether (if there be an ether) in the pores of these substances, can only convey correct impressions when these particles have a definite arrangement; but the mesmeric ether is dependent upon no such necessity. Density and tenacity, opacity and transparency, homogeneous or heterogeneous bodies, are all equally penetrable. And what is more strange, the mesmeric ether conveys correct, and not distorted impressions. The same perception of form which is conveyed through air, is convoyed through the cover of a book, through the bones of the skull, or the muscles of the stomach. And, still more extraordinary, this impression is identical as to the mental idea it conveys with that conveyed in the normal manner through the eye. The mesmeric ether has, therefore, not only the power of conveying impressions, but of preserving their continuity through any impediment. The formal impressions of a chair or table, which are conveyed by ordinary vision in right lines to the retina, if these lines be distorted by any intervening want of uniformity in the matter, are proportionally distorted. Let striæ of glass of different density intervene in an optical lens, and the objects are distorted; increase the number of striæ, the object is more imperfect; and carry the molecular derangement further, opacity is the result. Transparency and opacity, then, viewed apart from all hypotheses, resolve themselves into organization or molecular arrangement. Yet, by the mesmeric medium, a chair or table is conveyed to the recipient in its distinct form, or, what amounts to the same thing for the argument of conformity, they give to the mind distinct ideas of these objects. If, then, there be a mesmeric medium, which, being a purely hypothetic creation, cannot be disproved, its requisites must be so totally at variance with the requisites of ordinary ethereal media, that none of the rules which can be applied to this can be applied to that. The arguments of Mr Townshend depend on analogy, where there is no analogy.

Many of the objects of vision, all indeed by which reading is effected, are purposely constructed to suit the peculiar organization of the eye — they are artifices specially appropriated to given sensations; thus black letters are printed on white paper, because experience has told us that black reflects no light, while white reflects all the incident light. If we wish to read by another sense, we adapt our object to such a sense; thus, for those who read by the finger, raised letters are prepared, differing from the matrix in position but not in colour; if we read by the ear, we address it by sounds and not by forms or colours; and it would be far from impracticable to read by smell or taste, by associating given odours or given tastes with given ideas.

In all this, however, each sense requires a peculiar education and long training — it is only by constant association of the word table with the thing table, that we connect the two ideas; but mesmeric clairvoyance not only conveys things as things in all their proper forms and colours, (p. 164,) without the intervention of the usual senses, but it also dispenses with education or association, or instantly adapts to a new sense the education hitherto specially and only adapted to another.

Thus the mesmeric medium should, and does, according to Mr Townshend, (pp. 97, 99, 101,) convey to the person accustomed to read by the eye, ideas and perceptions which he has hitherto associated with the sight — to him accustomed to read by touch, ideas associated with touch — and so of the rest, and that not of sight or touch of the object itself, but of a mere arbitrary symbol of the object.

Table of five letters or forms —table of two sounds, bearing no resemblance to these letters or forms, or to the thing —table but a mere conventional substitute for the purpose of human convenience, yet by the all-potent mesmeric medium, for which they have not been previously framed, are definitely conveyed, and produce the require perception and the required association.

We trust we need go no further to show that mesmeric clairvoyance has, at all events, no conformity with general experience; and that, if it be true, the proofs of its truth cannot be based on its analogy with other sensations. To sum up our arguments, we say — 1st, That without undervaluing testimony, mesmeric clairvoyance is not sufficiently proved by competent witnesses to be admitted as fact: 2d, The reasoning in support of it is insufficient, and, in most cases, fallacious.

Perhaps the best arguments employed by Mr Townshend in favour of the possibility of clairvoyance, are the authenticated cases of normal sleepwalking; these have been very little examined, but appear, in one respect, strikingly to differ from mesmeric coma. The eyes of the somnambulist are said to be open, and therefore there is every optical power of vision, and an increase of ordinary visual perception is all that is requisite. The acts performed by the sleepwalker are, moreover, generally those to which he is habitually accustomed; and, when this is not the case, he fails, as many disastrous accidents have too fatally testified.

At the close of Mr Townshend's book is a short appendix, containing some testimonials to the verity of mesmeric effects. Several of these are anonymous, and the value of their authority cannot therefore be judged of. Others are testimonies to mesmeric effects produced upon the patients, E — A — or Anna M — . None of these are from persons of very high authority; and they are, certainly, not such as would induce us to rest our faith upon them. We grant to them their full right to be convinced; but their testimony is not of sufficient force to produce conviction in others. The two last testimonials, however, are of a very different character. One of these is by Professor Agassiz, and the other by Signor Ranieri of Naples. Both these are testimonials, not to any effect produced upon an accustomed patient, but upon the testifiers themselves; and the former, coming from a man of high distinction, and accustomed to physical research, is undoubtedly of great weight. We therefore give it in full.

"Desirous to know what to think of mesmerism, I for a long time sought for an opportunity of making some experiments in regard to it upon myself, so as to avoid the doubts which might arise on the nature of the sensations which we have heard described by mesmerised persons. M. Desor, yesterday, in a visit which he made to Berne, invited Mr Townshend, who had previously mesmerised him, to accompany him to Neufchatel, and try to mesmerise me. These gentlemen arrived here with the evening courier, and informed me of their arrival. At eight o'clock I went to them. We continued at supper till half past nine o'clock, and about ten o'clock Mr Townshend commenced operating upon me. While we sat opposite to one another, he, in the first place, only took hold of my hands, and looked at me fixedly. I was firmly resolved to arrive at a knowledge of the truth, whatever it might be; and therefore, the moment I saw him endeavouring to exert an action upon me, I silently addressed the Author of all things, beseeching him to give me power to resist the influence, and to be conscientious in regard to myself, as well as in regard to the facts. I then fixed my eyes upon Mr Townshend, attentive to whatever passed. I was in very suitable circumstances; the hour being early, and one at which I was in the habit of studying, was far from disposing me to sleep. I was sufficiently master of myself to experience no emotion, and to repress all flights of imagination, even if I had been less calm; accordingly it was a long time before I felt any effect from the presence of Mr Townshend opposite me. However, after at least a quarter of an hour, I felt a sensation of a current through all my limbs, and from that moment my eyelids grew heavy. I then saw Mr Townshend extend his hands before my eyes, as if he were about to plunge his fingers into them; and then make different circular movements around my eyes, which caused my eyelids to become still heavier. I had the idea that he was endeavouring to make me close my eyes; and yet it was not as if some one had threatened my eyes, and, in the waking state, I had closed them to prevent him. It was an irresistible heaviness of the lids, which compelled me to shut them, and by degrees I found that I had no longer the power of keeping them open; but did not the less retain my consciousness of what was going on around me; so that I heard M. Desor speak to Mr Townshend, understood what they said, and heard what questions they asked me, just as if I had been awake; but I had not the power of answering. I endeavoured in vain several times to do so; and when I succeeded, I perceived that I was passing out of the state of torpor in which I had been, and which was rather agreeable than painful.

"In this state I heard the watchman cry ten o'clock; then I heard it strike a quarter past; but afterwards I fell into a deeper sleep, although I never entirely lost my consciousness. It appeared to me that Mr Townshend was endeavouring to put me into a sound sleep; my movements seemed under his control, for I wished several times to change the position of my arms, but had not sufficient power to do it, or even really to will it; while I felt my head carried to the right or left shoulder, and backwards or forwards, without wishing it; and, indeed, in spite of the resistance which I endeavoured to oppose, and this happened several times.

"I experienced at the same time a feeling of great pleasure in giving way to the attraction, which dragged me sometimes to one side, sometimes to the other; then a kind of surprise on feeling my head fall into Mr Townshend's hand, who appeared to me from that time to be the cause of the attraction. To his enquiry if I were well, and what I felt? I found I could not answer, but I smiled; I felt that my features expanded in spite of my resistance; I was inwardly confused at experiencing pleasure from an influence which was mysterious to me. From this moment I wished to wake, and was less at my ease; and yet on Mr Townshend asking me, whether I wished to be awakened, I made a hesitating movement with my shoulders. Mr Townshend then repeated some frictions, which increased my sleep; yet I was always conscious of what was passing around me. He then asked me, if I wished to become lucid, at the same time continuing, as I felt, the frictions from the face to the arms. I then experienced an indescribable sensation of delight, and for an instant saw before me rays of dazzling light, which instantly disappeared. I was then inwardly sorrowful at this state being prolonged — it appeared to me that enough had been done with me; I wished to awake, but could not, yet when Mr Townshend and M. Desor spoke, I heard them. I also heard the clock, and the watchman cry, but I did not know what hour he cried. Mr Townshend then presented his watch to me, and asked if I could see the time, and if I saw him; but I could distinguish nothing. I heard the clock strike the quarter, but could not get out of my sleepy state. Mr Townshend then woke me with some rapid transverse movements from the middle of the face outwards, which instantly caused my eyes to open, and at the same time I got up, saying to him, 'I thank you.' It was a quarter past eleven. He then told me, and M. Desor repeated the same thing, that the only fact which had satisfied them that I was in a state of mesmeric sleep, was the facility with which my head followed all the movements of his hand, although he did not touch me, and the pleasure which I appeared to feel at the moment when, after several repetitions of friction, he thus moved my head at pleasure in all directions." — (P. 385 to 388.)

This we think a most interesting and valuable document, and the best key we have ever seen to the facts of mesmerism. It is the production of a resolute, religious, and philosophic mind, and bears all the impress of truth; it proves that there are facts worthy of the most careful investigation — it proves a power of inducing a comatose or sleep-waking state — an influence exercised by one mind over another — and it goes far to prove a physical attraction subsisting between two persons in mesmeric relation. But, on the other hand, how strikingly do the phenomena here described differ from those exhibited by the other patients. In those cases, to use the general proposition of Mr Townshend, "the sleep-waker seems incapable of analysing his new sensations while they last, still more of remembering them when they are over. The state of mesmerism is to him as death." — (P. 156.) Here, on the other hand, the patient analyses all the sensations he experienced, and recollects them when they are over; here, notwithstanding the efforts of the mesmeriser, the production of the mesmeric effect, and no resistance on the part of the mesmerisee, the latter does not become clairvoyant; "je ne distinguais rien," are the emphatic words of Professor Agassiz.

Precisely similar is the testimony of Signor Ranieri, the historian —

Having been mesmerised by my honourable friend Mr Hare Townshend, I will simply describe the phenomena which I experienced before, during, and after my mesmerisation. Mr Townshend commenced by making me sit upon a sofa, he sat upon a chair opposite me, and keeping my hands in his, placed them on my knees. He looked at me fixedly, and from time to time let go my hands, and placed the points of his fingers in a straight line opposite my eyes, at an inch, I should think, from my pupils; then, describing a kind of ellipse, he brought his hands down again upon mine. After he had moved his hands thus alternately from my eyes to my knees for ten minutes, I felt an irresistible desire to close my eyelids. I continued, nevertheless, to hear his voice, and that of my sister, who was in the same room. Whenever they put questions to me, I always answered him correctly; but the whole of my muscular system was in a state of peculiar weakness, and of almost perfect disobedience to my will; and, consequently, the pronunciation of the words with which I wished to answer had become extremely difficult.

"Whilst I experienced to a certain point the effects of sleep, not only was I not a stranger to all that was passing around me, but I even took more than usual interest in it. All my conceptions were more rapid; I experienced nervous startings to which I am not accustomed; in short, my whole nervous system was in a state of perfect exaltation, and appeared to have acquired all the superabundance of power which the muscular system had lost.

"The following are the principal phenomena which I was able to feel distinctly. Mr Townshend did not fail to ask me occasionally if I could see him or my sister without opening my eyelids; but this was always impossible, and all that I could say I had seen was a glimmering of light, interrupted by the black and confused images of the objects presented to me; a light which appeared to me a little less clear than that which we commonly see when we shut the eyelids opposite the sun or a candle.

"Mr Townshend at last determined to demesmerise me. He began to make elliptical movements with his hands, the reverse of those which he had made at the commencement; I could now open my eyes without any kind of effort, my whole muscular system became perfectly obedient to my will; I was able to get up, and was perfectly awake; but I remained nearly an hour in a kind of stupefaction very similar to that which sometimes attacks me in the mornings, if I rise two or three hours later than usual." — (P. 388 to 390.)

Similar, as to the general conclusions, are the reports of the French Academy and the testimonies of all rigorous and well-conducted scientific examination. These testimonies apply to facts which it is the duty of those experimentalists and physiologists, who have time and opportunity at their disposal, fairly to investigate.

The insensibility to pain, and to the effects of the galvanic shock, are also within the limits of the credible — and the latter is the more easy of proof, as being incapable of simulation. As we stated at the commencement, so we repeat here; mesmerism has been too little investigated by competent persons, and is too much mystified by charlatanism, to enable us accurately to define the limits of the true and false, far less to predict what may be the discoveries to which it may lead. With regard to the facts of clairvoyance, we are at present entirely incredulous. Mr Townshend says, p. 91 —

"Let, then, body after body of learned men deny the phenomena of mesmerism, and logically disprove their existence; an appeal may ever, and at any moment, be made to the proof by experiment; and even should experiment itself fail a thousand times, the success of the thousandth and first trial would justify further examination. Till the authority of observation can be wholly set aside, the subject of our enquiry can never be said to have undergone its final ostracism."

This is certainly a strong proposition; nevertheless it is with the hope that observation may be directed to the facts of mesmerism, that we have written the preceding pages. In reasoning on a subject, we can use only those lights which experience has given us. The efficacy of logical disproof, somewhat contemptuously treated by Mr Townshend in the above passage, is yet fully vindicated by the latter half of the book itself, which is an endeavour, logically, to bring home mesmerism to the understanding of men of experience. It is vain to make light of logic, when the parties who set it at nought are themselves obliged to use it to prove its own worthlessness. You must not exalt reason, and we will give you the reason why — this cuts their own ground from under them. We so far agree with the last quoted sentence, as to admit that, when experiments fairly tried by competent parties have and do succeed, mesmerism will be established — hitherto they have not succeeded. The alleged proofs are not brought home to the observation of cautious, thinking men; and reason, thus at once derided and appealed to, is unsatisfied. Time "may bring in its revenges," may show things which would be to us marvellous; and we deny no future possibilities. At present, we admit some very curious phenomena, which we would willingly see further examined; but we are unconvinced of those facts of mesmerism enounced by its professors, which wholly contradict our previous experience. Upon what we consider the only safe grounds for the general admission of newly asserted facts, the evidence in support of these should more than counterpoise the evidence for their rejection. Up to the present time, balancing, as we have endeavoured to do, impartially, the evidence in favour of clairvoyance, and the preternatural powers of mesmerism, against those of an opposite tendency, the former seems to us inordinately outweighed. On the other hand, the production, by external influence, either of absolute coma or of sleep-waking, whether resulting from imagination in the patient, or from an effort of the will on the part of the mesmeriser, or from both conjointly, has been too lightly estimated and too little examined. This alone is in itself an effect so novel, so mysterious, and apparently so connected with the mainsprings of sentient existence, as to deserve and demand a rigorous, impartial, and persevering scrutiny.

Since this article was written, the letters of Miss Martineau have appeared. Had these been published earlier, we should undoubtedly have noticed them at some length; they have not, however, induced us to alter any thing we have written; they have, indeed, confirmed one remark made above. The effects described by Miss Martineau as produced upon herself, are credible and not preternatural, while the second-sight of the girl J — is preternatural and not credible; i. e. not credible as preternatural, otherwise easily explicable.

In this, as in every mesmeric case, the marvellous effects are developed by the uneducated — the most easily deceived, and the most ready to be deceivers.

The clairvoyant writers have greatly the advantage of the sceptics in one respect, viz. the public interest of their communications. Every one reads the description of new marvels, few care to examine the arguments in contravention of them.

"Pol, me occidistis, amici,
Non servastis, ait, cui sic extorta voluptas,
Et demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error."

ÆSTHETICS OF DRESS