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* *
NATIONAL LIBRARY OF MEDICINE




          Bethesda, Maryland 
•  V. 
 
FACTS
MESMERISM,


                           wn ii


                  REASONS

                            FOR


      A.  DISPASSIONATE  INQUIRY  INTO  IT.


                          BY THE


     REV. CHAUNCY HARE TOWNSHEND, A.M.,

              LATfc Or TRINITY HALL, CAMBRIDGE.
  " A <reat perturbation in nature!  to receive at once the benefit of sleep, and
do tlie'effects of watching. In this slunibery agitation, besides her walking
and other actual performances, what, at any time, have  you heard her say V
—SHAK^FEAiiif.

        " I'll charm your blood with pleasing heaviness,
         Making such difference 'twixt sleep and 'wake,
         As is the difference'twixt night and day;
         The  hour before the heaven I y-harness'd team
         Begins its golden progress in the east."—SnAKsreare.
                NEW-YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, 82  CLIFF-STREET.


                     1841.
< 
£»■
V,
^
«v 
INTRODUCTORY  EPISTLE.
  To  John Elliotson, M.D., Cantab., F.R.S.

    My dear Sir,
  On seeing that I  dedicate the following pages  to
you, the world will perhaps be  kind enough to say,
" Here is a Coalition!"  I not the less fearlessly place
the work under your auspices, trusting that some per-
sons, at least, may conceive that two may be of one
mind  on a subject, and yet  guiltless of a conspiracy
against  Church  or State, Truth or Science.   And
what if we are ranged under the same banner 1   Union
is not treason ;  and  I trust that  there is no  harm  in
our being equally impressed with a  conviction of the
reality of  Mesmerism,  and equally animated  by  a
resolution to disclose  honestly that which we  know
certainly.   Here, then, is our  coalition, if  any one
chooses so  to term it; a coalition to defend truth, and
not to spread imposture.   Perhaps, however, it may
be as well  to state (lest we should leave too much  to
the sagacity of those who  smell a plot in everything)
that I have pursued my mesmerical researches entire-
ly apart from yourself;  nay, on the other  side of the
Channel; and that, yet more, we were but recently made
acquainted, by letter only,  through  the  medium of a
mutual friend, who is not a mesmerizer, but a public
functionary and  a man  of letters.   Again :  let it  be
known that I never had  the pleasure of seeing you till
within the last two months, though.indeed I must add 
iv
INTRODUCTORY  epistle.
that I think it a loss not to have made your acquaint-
ance earlier.   It was said of some great man—Burke,
I think—that you could not stand up with him under a
shed during a shower of rain without finding out that
you were in  company with a fine  genius.  The re-
mark may be  applied, with some diversity, in  most
cases.   Our first impressions of persons are often an
instinctive judgment, of which our after feelings to-
wards them are only a development; and, with regard
to yourself in particular, I  am not singular in remark-
ing, that to converse with you but for a quarter of an
hour is to carry away a pledge of your honour  as  a
gentleman, and of your  sincerity as a man of  princi-
ple ; and this  independently of the knowledge that to
the cause of  truth you have made every sacrifice ex-
cept that  of  integrity.  I  must  speak  my opinion,
though at the risk of being suspected  of flattery.   You,
at least, shall not have the  credit of countenancing the
panegyric, as this letter will only be read by you on
the day it is given to the public.
   These things ought to be known, for they are testi-
mony to mesmerism.  Here are two persons, in differ-
ent countries, wholly unconnected, setting out on an
inquiry by different paths, and yet meeting at length in
one common conclusion and point of union.   As re-
gards myself, I may affirm that no one could possibly
have taken up and pursued a subject more  independ-
ently or in a more unbiased manner than I have taken
up and pursued mesmerism.   I  have not  drawn my
ideas of it from books, but from experience ;  I  have
even abstained from reading articles on it, lest I should
lose the originality and freshness of personal observa.
tion.  But I need not insist on this. 
INTRODUCTORY  EPISTLE.
V
   My work itself contains internal testimony that our
 coincidence of opinion is honest, not concerted;  for,
 in  truth, we differ while we agree.   I have not de-
 scribed, because I have never seen, the curious deliri-
 um and coma which some of your patients  have  dis-
 played.   Not being myself of the medical profession, I
 have naturally treated mesmerism as  a phenomenon of
 our nature rather than as a curative  means; and the
 maladies which you have so successfully combated by
 the new agency, have of course produced modifications
 in its action which the healthy subjects to whom I have
 confined my practice could not have displayed.   How-
 ever  various  the degrees of mesmeric developments
 portrayed by me, the principal features  of  the state
 have been similarly characterized throughout, my ob-
 ject being to delineate that species of mesmeric sleep-
 waking  which I conceive may be induced to  a certain
 extent in any indifferent person.  So  far we are shown
 as  drawing from separate and  independent  sources;
 and this involuntary kind  of testimony is favourable to
 our cause ; but  inseparable from this benefit is a col-
 lateral disadvantage, on which I must briefly  touch.   <
   The  greater part of the London, I may say of the
 English, world have derived their ideas of mesmerism
 from  your experiments, which so many have person-
 ally witnessed.  Hence the general reader, comparing
 his preconceptions on the subject with the portrait I
 have set before him, may surmise that the new science
 is not in unity with itself, confounding, by a very com-
 mon mistake, diversity with discrepance.  But, in truth,
 while there is  much that is different in our facts, there
 is nothing whatever that is contradictory.   The sub-
ject is large, and cannot but present  itself in various
                       A2 
yi           INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.

points of view to various observers.  Even where we
most appear to disagree, it must  be remembered that
the same phenomenon may have more than one phasis,
just as the celebrated shield, that was black on one
side, was not the less certainly  white on the other.
Thus it is very true that a kind of delirium may be de-
veloped under mesmeric influence, while, at the same
time, it is capable of eliciting the highest state of moral
and intellectual advancement to which man in this ex-
istence can probably attain.  This remark is the more
necessary to  be made,  inasmuch  as throughout  my
work I have laboured to prove  the mesmeric condition
a rise on our actual mode of being;  and, according to
the view  I have taken of  the subject, if it be not this,
it  is nothing.  For what does a writer achieve who
does not contribute, in however  small a measure, to
the hopes and  welfare of humanity 1
   It has struck me that the world, who is very fond of
proving that  an  author did not  write his own  book,
may inquire, What share had Doctor Elliotson in this
treatise?   I therefore think it  not perhaps altogether
useless to  state, that neither  yourself, nor  anybody
else, has dictated or suggested to me one opinion which
is  therein contained.  The only  debt that I  have to
acknowledge is on the trifling score of some advice
respecting the terms to be employed in writing on this
particular  subject.  You  observed to me  that  the
phraseology of mesmerism could  not too soon be fixed
and rendered precise; and you suggested  the substitu-
tion of Mesmeric Sleepwaking for Induced Somnam-
bulism, on the ground  that Somnambulism, strictly
speaking, was not always, nor necessarily, an adjunct
of the condition I wished to describe.   In all other re* 
             INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.          vii
                                                  I
spects, the faults or merits of the publication  must be
charged on my own head.  For the former, indeed, as
probably numerous, few persons would like to become
responsible ;  and on their account  (especially should
any  repetitions  disfigure my pages) I shall  have to
claim indulgence from my readers, in consideration of
the circumstances  under which the work was com-
posed ;  one part being despatched from abroad to the
printer, while other portions were written at distant in-
tervals, as health and opportunity permitted.  I know
not,  however, whether,  on  the whole, a residence on
the Continent has not been favourable to the consider-
ation of  such a  subject as mesmerism; for I can as-
sure my countrymen that their own prejudices respect-
ing it are no measure of the reception which  it meets
with  from  enlightened  foreigners.   I  have  scarcely
conversed with  one person of education in Germany
who was not able to detail to me some interesting fact
relating  to  mesmerism, which  had been personally
witnessed and authenticated ; and everywhere abroad,
during those travels which in search of health I have
undertaken, my  information respecting this remarka-
ble phenomenon of our nature  has  been extended.
Opportunities also  of mesmerizing different individuals
(many of them distirfguished for rank and science) have
been freely and agreeably accorded me.   Since I  sent
to England a list of the persons I had  mesmerized, I
have  experimented on  some thirty others at Rome,
Naples, &c, and I have still found the proportion sta-
ted in my work of mesmerizable individuals singularly
preserved, and the  phenomena exhibited  perfectly ac-
cordant with previous observation.  In the Appendix,
some documents relative to these experiments will be 
Viii          INTRODUCTORY  EPISTLE.

found, some of which are of high interest, especially
those from the pen of Professor Agassis of Neufchatel,
and  of Signor Ranieri,  the  distinguished historian of
Naples.
  But I am insensibly converting a letter to you into
an address to the general reader, and I perceive I have
so far extended a dedication as to render a preface un-
necessary.  For  this service, at least, let me thank
you.  I have always thought  prefaces very trouble-
some things to write.  And are they not, in fact, pieces
of falseness throughout? standing first, though written
last; expressing a humility which the author does- not
feel, and  claiming  the especial attention of  every-
body, while it is a wonder if they are read by anybody.
I therefore not  unwillingly take this  opportunity of
making my introductory bow  to the Public, while at
the same time I beg you to believe  me,
                  My dear sir,
           With sentiments of high respect,
                          Yours very sincerely,
                       C.  HARE TOWNSHEND.

  Innspruck, Nov. 25, 1839. 
CONTENTS.
                       BOOK  I.
                                                      Page
Review of the Causes that have made Mesmerism unpopular,
  and which render it a Subject difficult to be treated   .    .  13
                     BOOK  II.

                      SECTION I.

Mesmeric Somnambulism, or, more properly, Sleepwaking   .  41

                      SECTION II.

Showing the Claims of Mesmeric Sleepwaking to be considered
  a peculiar Condition of Man.......67

                      SECTION III.

Showing certain of the physical and metaphysical Conditions of
  Mesmeric Sleepwaking........97
                     BOOK  III.

                       SECTION I.
Conformity of Mesmerism with our general Experience  .    . 186

                      SECTION II.
On the Mesmeric Consciousness......201

                      SECTION III.
On Mesmeric Sensation   ........ 219
                               ui
                      SECTION 17.

On the Medium of Mesmeric Sensation   .    .    •   •    .263
                      BOOK  IV.

The Mesmeric Medium........27e 
X
CONTENTS.
                     SUPPLEMENT.
                                                       Taga
Testimony of A. Vandevyver.......363
.-----------M. Van Owenhuysen......365
-----------Dr. Foissac........369
-----------Viscount N----   .        .....371
-----------Baron de Carlowiz......372
-----------a Friend........374
-----------Dr. Wild........378
-----------Professor Agassis.......381
-----------Dr. Filippi........386
-----------Signor Ranieri.......386 
MESMERISM.
                    BOOK I.

REVIEW OF THE CAUSES THAT  HAVE  MADE MESMERISM UN-
  POPULAR, AND WHICH RENDER IT A SUBJECT DIFFICULT TO
  BE TREATED.

  Having had many opportunities of convincing myself
that man can really influence his fellow in the manner
called mesmeric, I have  determined to  arrange and
classify the phenomena relative to this influence which
have fallen under my observation, in  the hope of redu-
cing them to a  few simple and general principles.  In
thus coming forward, I am fully aware of the obstacles
which I have to  encounter.  The fatal word Imposture
has tainted the  subject of my inquiry ; and  Ridicule,
which is not the test of truth, has been pressed into the
service of talent in order to annihilate the supposed ab-
surdity before the dread ordeal of  a laugh.
  But it is not only the witty who have set up mesmer-
ism as the mark of their fine arrows ;  men of science
have attacked it because they could not make it harmo-
nize with their  preconceived notions; and many of the
Galens of our day, instead of  wisely taking it under their
patronage and  into their  own  hands,  have treated it
with a desperation of hostility; as if, were it allowed to
flourish, their glory was tarnished and their " occupa-
tion gone."
  What is worse, some of the friends and supporters of
mesmerism have done it more disservice than its bitter-
est foes.  Instead  of setting before the world the sim-
plest features of the new discovery, they have at once
produced to view its most astounding marvels, thus daz-
zling into blindness the eyes which, by a more cautious
conduct, they might have taught to see.  Then it can-
not be denied that the name of Mesmerism or Animal
Magnetism has  sometimes served as a watchword  to
exploded quackery and impudent deceit: and who does 
12
MESMERISM.
 not know how difficult it is to separate  the merits of
 any doctrine from the faults of its partisans 1  Mesmer-
 ism has  occasionally been found in company with the
 vicious and the designing ;  and its  good repute has suf-
 fered accordingly.
   Another circumstance has contributed to the disgrace
 of this unfortunate subject.  In its palmy days, when
 De Maineduc plunged his visionary fingers into the stom-
 achs of gouty earls and  dyspeptic marchionesses, no-
 thing less was expected from the new remedy than the
 renovation of human  nature, and an absolute conquest
 over all diseases.  That it  should subsequently fall into
 oblivion will  not  astonish those who have observed the
 invariable fate of every fashionable panacea : of Peru-
 vian bark, for example.   From thinking that it can per-
 form everything, men doubt whether it is capable of any-
 thing ; and the more extravagant have been the hopes
 which it has excited, the more deep is the disgust which
 disappointment naturally  creates.
  But mesmerism has been looked upon  as worse than
 false or  nugatory.  Many who have  believed in its
 powers have believed only to tremble.   Credulity has
 done it worse  service than incredulity.  It has  been
 proscribed as an unholy thing:  books have been  written
upon its  dangers  ; the good Catholic crosses  himself
when he names  it;  and the  careful Protestant, even
if he hesitates to brand it  as diabolical, thinks at least
that it  may be prostituted to evil purposes.  And so  it
undoubtedly may  be.  But then the same objection ap-
plies to  all  that  is most  beneficial upon  earth.  All
great engines are  capable of great perversion.   This is
tacitly  allowed  in the whole conduct of  life.  Yet we
do not abstain from the use of fire because it can de-
stroy, nor from the  medical application of laudanum
because it is a poison.
  That the world's quarrel against mesmerism  should
be so very bitter,  is hardly accounted for  by any of the
foregoing considerations.   Prima facie, one would say
 that there were attractions in this despised doctrine
more than suflicient to countervail  every  objection that
might be brought against it.  Fond as we are  of the
 shadowy and the unknown, its very  mystery might
 seem congenial to our nature ;  and even those vague
 suspicions concerning its  sinfulness which hover darkly
 around it, might be supposed to have a charm for man— 
MESMERISM.
13
the wilful—who rushes to the forbidden with so keen a
Best.   But there is a sort of unexplained  odium attach-
ed to mesmerism which quells curiosity and  deadens
interest. "^From this odium it appears almost necessary
that I should  raise my  subject before entering fully
upon it J I must secure a hearing before I can plead my
cause;  I must show that there is in itself no  inherent
fault, which can justly exclude it from a fair and candid
examination.   This end, as it appears to me, I shall best
attain by exposing the  primary causes which have de-
graded mesmerism, and by showing that  these are ex-
trinsic to itself.
  Having done this, I propose, also, td touch upon the
reasons that  make the subject  I have chosen not only
distasteful to the  general reader, but of  extreme diffi-
culty to the author himself.
  First. The original cause  of the ill reception  which
mesmerism has met with from  the world,  is undoubted-
ly to be found in  the character of its discoverer, Mes-
mer, in his want of candour  and philosophic strictness.
Had it  been  introduced to  notice  by a Newton or an
Arago, by one who would have stated his facts honest-
ly, and  drawn  from them none but legitimate conclu-
sions, the difference of its career may be estimated by
all who are aware how much depends upon a propitious
beginning.  But. unfortunately, from the very outset,
mesmerism was associated with the soiling calculations
of self-interest and the errors  of an over-heated brain.
Mesmer wished to make a monopoly of  that  which
should have been the property  of all mankind: he sold
his secret; he bartered for gold his future fame and the
reputation of his darling subject ;*  and, losing the light
which emanates only from an upright spirit, he became
the dupe of his own miracles, so  miserably as to sur-
round his really simple and sublime discovery with fic-
titious terrors  and misleading puerilities.  The result
of this moral and  scientific suicide has been the degra-
dation of mesmerism.  First associations are, from the
very law of our minds, all but indestructible;  and there-
fore it is that with a few original thinkers  alone one can

  * In justice to the memory of Mesmer, it should be stated, that
against the fact of his having sold his magnetic secrets for a hun-
dred louis to each candidate for initiation, should be set certain ex-
tenuating circumstances, which are related in Mr.  Colquhoun's Isia
Revelata, vol. i., p. 237.
                          B 
14
MESMERISM.
hope to replace the subject on its true and primitive foot-'
ing, namely, its own merits.  The false has been so blend-
ed with the true, that it is no wonder that both should
be rejected together.   Thewaters come not^feo us pure,
but from a fountain-head that is  itself disturbed and sul-
lied ; so that, instead of spreading forth into a lucid mir-
ror, reflecting heaven and earth, and enlivening all around,
they stagnate in a thick and blinding marsh.   Had mes-
merism been announced to the  world, not as  a studied
enigma, but in the form of a simple proposition; had all
men been invited to test the truth of the principle, and to
investigate the laws of its operation; had it been prac-
tised in unostentatious privacy  instead of crowded as-
semblies ;  had there  been in the  chambers devoted to its
service neither mystical machines nor exciting music, no
convulsionaries, no hysterical women ; had mesmerism
from the first appeared that  which it eminently is, a
spirit of calmness and of reason, then had it interested
the scientific and conciliated the wise ; then had it been
transmitted to the present age pure and unenveloped by
the mists  of prejudice.  The mere fact that man  can
produce a kind of slumber in his fellow-man by a few
and simple means, is  surely not to be confounded with
the heap of absurdities attached to it. To say that the
one is inextricably and necessarily linked with the oth-
er were want of sense as well  as of candour; and, un-
less we choose to admit a principle which would make
even our religion answerable for the  sins committed in
its name, we must allow that mesmerism is in no way
affected either by the  errors of  its partisans or the pre-
possessions of its enemies.
  Secondly. As mesmerism was ill-omened in its birth,
so also was it unfortunate in its  baptism.   Shakspeare's
often-quoted query finds here, if nowhere else, its  an-
swer ;  and we are forced to reply, There is  much in a
name,  except where true love or true philosophy ren-
ders the mind insensible to those  externals which  are
all in all with the generality of  mankind.
  The disservice rendered to mesmerism by its name
is this  : It has turned men from true inquiry, and, like a
tub thrown out to the whale, has served  as an object of
attack, while the real point in debate has remained  un-
touched altogether.   We have  asked whether such a
power as mesmerism exists, when we should rather have
demanded  whether there is a state so denominated.   It 
MESMERISM.
15
will at once be seen in what material respects the two
questions differ.  The first presumes, even while it pro-
fesses to  seek, a specific cause for certain phenomena ;
the second merely regards the phenomena themselves,
and inquires, Do such and such facts  exist 1  Each in-
quiry should be kept carefully distinct,  and yet they have
unfortunately been mixed up together ; or, rather, an un-
happy priority has been granted to the first, involving
the very existence of the second.   For it is plain  that
when we  demand, " Is there such  a power as mesmer-
ism V the answer may ever be " No  ;" and then, by a
too common injustice, we extend the negative over the
whole question, there being but few who will not con-
found a mistake and the object mistaken in  one  general
anathema.  Did we, however, clearly perceive  that
" Power is nothing more than the relation of one object
or event,  as invariably antecedent  to another object or
event,"* we should perceive that the  facts  called mes-
meric have as much claim to be considered realities as
if indeed there were a magnetic power or influence.
  Of the  error of the mesmerists  in  bestowing an ill-
judged appellation, the opposite party have taken ample
advantage.  They have thrust forward the unlucky cog-
nomen  into the very van  of discussion, and have thus
compelled an inquiry into the cause of mesmerism be-
fore the phenomena could be well  considered.  Surely
it must be conceded that so singular an inversion of  true
philosophical investigation cannot but have proved high-
ly detrimental to the subject of our discussion.  In what
other matter have we acted so strangely as to  inquire
into the secret cause before men  are well agreed re-
specting the visible effects 1  Do we not, in conducting
an  important analysis, first ascertain the phenomena,
their characteristics, and the circumstances under which
they appear; and then, after long and  careful induction,
name, but with caution, some pervading principle  into
which they may all be harmoniously resolved 1   Not
only is it natural thus to commence a course of  reason-
ing with what  is nearest to our apprehensions, but by
so doing we secure that essential requisite to an argu-
ment, a firm and undebatable ground, where both  he who
would  convince and he  who  is to be persuaded may
meet as on a neutral territory, and, taking a eommon
point for  starting, be advantaged with at least a proba-
         * Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind. 
16
MESMERISM.
 bility of arriving at a common conclusion.  Facts are
 this neutral ground; facts are this point of vantage ; for
 it is to be remarked that respecting outward and visible
 phenomena there is ordinarily but  little difference of
 opinion, while in reference to hidden causes men ever
 are and must be divided.   For instance, every one knows
 the sensation of light, and may convince himself, if he
 pleases, that under such and such circumstances, such
 and such  phenomena do occur. So far mankind are
 agreed: but when we would assign the  primary cause
 of light and its phenomena, we find the war commenced
 and opinions far divided, some adopting  the undulatory
 theory, while others fondly cling to the Newtonian doc-
 trine of emitted rays.
   It is no wonder, then, that the premature assumption
 of a specific cause for the phenomena of mesmeric
 somnambulism should have shocked men in the outset,
 and have indisposed them, through the medium of their
 prejudices, for calm investigation.  Under this head of
 offence may be classed, also,  such technical expressions
 as » magnetized water," " magnetized trees," &c.  The
 ideas which  these terms  convey are vague and un-
 pleasing.   Who can tell  that their  meaning simply is
 water or trees breathed upon or touched by the hand,
 after a certain formula ?  The vocabulary of every sci-
 ence has been, to the uninitiated, foolishness ; but the
 nomenclature of mesmerism is worse :  it has been a
 Scarecrow even to the wise.
   I confess, that of all the causes which  have contribu-
 ted to render mesmerism  unpopular, this is  to me the
 most discouraging.   To  make  a dispute verbal is to
 make it endless; and the  erroneous way in which our
 subject has been considered  has transferred  its merits
 from things to words : a sad and barren change !  All
 hope  of an accommodation  between  the  friends  and
 foes of mesmerism is thus  rendered doubtful.   How,
indeed, can they calmly discuss the matter, when the
first bare mention of it is a sort of Slogan or battle-yell,
that raises a conflict sufficient  to drown the voice of
Reason forever 1   How shall  they decide  a truth, whose
fate  depends  upon the propriety or impropriety  of its
name 1  How shall they  adjudge the  real business in
hand, seeing that preliminaries can  never be adjusted ]
The subject has indeed fallen  into the very Chancery
Court of Philosophy. 
MESMERISM.
17
  That men should be so easily entrapped into pursuing
a shadow, while the substance has eluded their obser-
vation, may seem strange ; but, words being the media
of our thoughts, we are naturally so influenced by them
that even the most clear-judging find it difficult not to be
diverted by a verbal  inaccuracy from more important
matters.  The fate of Hartley's Theory of Sensation is
a proof of this.  The world  fastened so vehemently
upon the unlucky term " vibration," and were so intent
upon proving that the soft and loose chords which com-
pose the nervous system could never properly be  said
to vibrate, that  the true  merits of  a very beautiful  hy-
pothesis were overlooked.
  Thirdly.  Nearly connected with the erroneous naming
of mesmerism is the circumstance next in order, which
has thrown a blight over its pretensions: I mean  the
decision  in its disfavour of the French Academy in
1784.   Since then, it has been considered as worse than
unexamined : it has been conceived to have undergone
examination, and to have been found worthless.  Since
then, to revive an interest upon such a condemned sub-
ject has  been nearly as impossible as to restore life to
a corpse by galvanism.  Since then, instead of a mys-
tery, it has been regarded as a delusion ; and the world
has turned  away from it with the same sort of flat  dis-
appointment  which we  experience when, after having
trembled at  the haunted chambers,  dusky veils,  and
heaving coverlids of a romance, we are chilled into  our
sober senses by the earthly  explanations of its conclu-
ding pages.  The magician's wand is broken forever:
we like to  be frightened, but hate to  find ourselves de-
ceived.  The attractive  ever perishes with the super-
natural.  But to those who  read  and inquire for them-
selves, there is nothing whatever in the decision of  the
French Academy of Science which can be considered
as destructive  of  mesmerism.  What is it  that  the
Academy decided ?  Few know, few care  to inquire.
A general impression has gone abroad that mesmerism
received  in 1784 its coup de grace, and there men  are
content to  let  the matter rest;  for are they not thus
saved the trouble of thinking ?  How pleasant to  be-
lieve in the eternal banishment of a subject, concerning
which the  idle, the self-interested, and the prejudiced
have  each  their several motives for saying, as  some
honest churchman did  of the Athanasian Creed,  '  I
                       B2 
  18                 MESMERISM.

 V wish we were well rid of it."  The blessed consumma-
- tion is not, however, so easy of attainment;  for what is
  the  truth *  The French Academy merely decided that
  there was not sufficient evidence to show that the phe-
  nomena called magnetic are caused by the  action or  a
  fluid.  As to the phenomena themselves, the Academy
' not only allows them, but, as it appears to me, concedes
  the real question in debate, in terms the most explicit.
  These are the very  words in which the examiners sura
  up their report; "  Ce  que nous  avous  appns,  ou, du
  moins,ce qui nous a ete confirme d'une mamere demon-
  strative et evidente  par l'examen des procedes du mag-
  netisme, c'est que Vhomme pent agir sur  Vhomme a tout
  moment, et presque  a volonte, en frappant son imagina-
  tion  ; c'est que les gestes, et les signes les plus simples
  peuvent avoir les plus puissans effets ; c'est que Taction
  de I'homme sur I'imagination peut-etre reduite  en art,
  et conduite par une methode, sur des sujets qui ont la
  foi "*
   Translating the above as literally as possible, we find
  that  the commissioners have  thus  expressed them-
  selves I
   " That which we have learned, or, at least, that which
  has been proved to  us,  in a clear and satisfactory man-
  ner,  by our inquiry into the phenomena of mesmerism,
  is, that man can act upon man, at all times and almost at
  will, by striking his imagination; that  signs and ges-
  tures the most simple may produce  the  most powerful
  effects; that  the action  of man upon the imagination
  may be reduced to an art, and conducted after a  certain
  method, when exercised upon patients who have  faith in
  the proceedings."
   The above passage will show that the  French  Acade-
  my decidedly agrees with the first promoters of  mes-
  merism as to the existence of certain remarkable phe-
  nomena : it is only respecting the cause that the two
  are at issue ; the one asserting that it is a fluid, the oth-
  er that it is imagination.  Whether the  latter may not
  herein be as guilty of a non-sequitur as the former, we
  may hereafter consider.  At present I  merely  remark
  that, granting the magnetic phenomena to spring from
  the  imagination, we do not thereby  condemn them to
  * Exposfi des Experiences qui ont etd faites pou* I'Egamen du
Magn6tisme Animate, Paris, 1784, 
MESMERISM.
19
contempt or oblivion; far less do we (as some persons
seem to suppose) abrogate them altogether.
  Were mesmerism only viewed as illustrative  of the
mind's influence upon the organization, it would  hold
out high claims to notice.   What subject, we may ask,
is more fertile of important reflections'?  Materialists,
curiously  enough, adduce it to disprove mesmerism,
which makes against their views of man as a mere ma-
chine, of thought as a mere elaboration of the  brain;
but in  so  doing  they open a field of speculation which
they would be sorry to enter upon farther than they find
convenient.   In  the very  terms of their dissent,  they
admit of two things of a  wholly different nature, that
is, the imagination and the  organization; the first not
only modifying the action of the latter, but actually  mas-
tering it altogether.  Granting that the imagination can
influence the bodily frame  to the extent allowed by the
French Academy in its  report on mesmerism ; if  what
they say  be true: " Nous avons  vu I'imagination ex-
altee devenue assez puissante pour faire perdre en tin
instant la parole."  " We  have seen the imagination,
when exalted, become powerful enough to make a per-
son lose the faculty of  speech in a moment;" if  we be-
lieve this, then indeed we admit of a motive force, to
which we can hardly set bounds, and which makes  mes-
merism, with all its pretensions, a feeble and unnecessa-
ry agent.   The supposition of an existing fluid can add
nothing to miracles like these.  By demonstrating the
omnipotence of  mind over organization, the opponents
of mesmerism prove too  much.  They bring us to  a
point where it is only one analogical step farther to in-
quire whether the force which can  so act on the organ-
ization to which it is attached may not, peradventure,
extend its influence to a sphere external to itself.  For
peremptorily answering this question in the negative
we can assign  no reason, but that external offices for
such an agent come not within the pale of our  experi-
ence ;  and reasoning like this we cannot but reject  as an
effectual bar to all inquiry whatever.  We must remem-
ber that human experience is ever on the increase, and
that there exists not one power, even  the most palpa-
ble, of which we can affirm that we have ascertained all
the  functions.   There  is  not  a discovery of modern
times  but teaches us  that  the force which  performs
some things whereof we are cognizant, may also perform 
20
MESMERISM.
others  of which we have as yet no notion whatever.
Let my reader bear in mind that I by no means affirm
that the imagination is the agent in  mesmerism, inter-
nally or externally.   All I mean to  assert is, that the
careful French Academy, and  their subsequent follow-
ers, have gone farther than the magnetizers themselves
in attributing power to mind, and in relating wonders to
prove that power.  Say  what we will, the important
point in mesmerism—the influence of man upon his fel-
low—was conceded  by  the French  Academy  in  no
doubtful terms ; through the imagination, it is true ; yet
still it is conceded.  The imagination is but  considered
as the means ;  man is still the  agent.   Are the  phenom-
ena themselves altered by being referred to the imagi-
nation  instead of a magnetic  fluid 1   Not in the least.
Do we comprehend them better when so referred 1  By
no means.  We only seem so to do, because in the one
case they are referred to a cause of which we cannot
but confess our ignorance, while in  the other they are
attributed to the action of a power which we  think (how
vainly  !) that we comprehend.
  Fourthly. The fourth cause, which has banished mes-
merism from the rank and  position to which it is enti-
tled, is the early attempt to assimilate it to the certain
sciences  in an  erroneous manner.   In our researches
into the discovery of Mesmer, we have, from the begin-
ning, struck into a path which never could lead us  to
the desired end ; and then, most unreasonably, we have
charged upon the subject of our inquiry the  fault which
existed in ourselves.  Because we  have found nothing
when we did  not seek aright, we have impatiently con-
cluded that there was nothing  whatever to be found.
Perhaps the error has originated with the  Mesmerists
themselves.  To secure the suffrage  of scientific men
for their favourite pursuit is evidently desirable.  How
should they accomplish this ?  The days are long since
past in which men were  content to reason after the
vague mode of the Aristotelian philosophy,  which lean-
ed upon conjecture rather than experiment, and discussed
absurdities as  gravely as the ordinary phenomena of
nature.  The world has  reached an era in which facts,
 attested by the senses, independent of the  human will,
 and  invariably reproduced under  the  same circum-
 stances, can  alone engage  the attention of the learned.
 With the scientific men of our day (and far be it from 
MESMERISM.
21
me to censure this), certainty is the great object.  In
order, then, to claim the notice and the fostering protec-
tion of science, the friends of mesmerism have long en-
deavoured to identify their presuming agent with phys-
ical forces already ascertained and of invariable action.
In  their principle perhaps they are right; in its appli-
cation, wrong altogether.  Forgetting that mesmerism
is a mental and vital, not less than physical phenome-
non, and that mind and life are in perpetual  opposition
to the laws of the material world, they have endeavour-
ed to  recognise in mesmerism an operation as constant
as that of the galvanic battery or the electric vial.  A
certain school of German writers, especially, have the-
orized on our subject after the false method of explain-
ing one class of phenomena in nature by its fancied re-
semblance to another.   Wishing, perhaps, to avoid the
error  of the Spiritualists, who solve the problem in de-
bate by the power of the soul alone, they have ransack-
ed 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
the 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 cus-
toms of our own.  Thus wrongly biased, we  turn away
from  mesmerism, as provoked at finding it other than
we deemed it to be, as the prince in the fairy tale, who
found his betrothed, though  very charming, not in the
least like her portrait, and so sent her back in disgrace.
Who  has not experienced a thousand times  the same
feeling 1   We  read, perhaps, a  description  of some
lovely scene; we thence form an image of it in our
thoughts.  We at length behold it, and are discontented
to find it endued, perhaps, with even more beauty than
we had imagined, because the beauty is of a different
kind.   There is rock where we expected smooth turf;
there is wildness where we looked for cultivation ; there
is a withered oak where we had  in fancy placed a hu-
man dwelling.  If, in matters of taste,  preconceptions
like these prepare the  way for disappointment, in mat-
ters of reason they are not less calculated to awake dis-
gust.  A  science that  is misconceived labours under
peculiar disadvantages.  Thus, then, till the  initial step
towards a comprehension of mesmerism be taken anew, 
22                 MESMERISM.
there is no hope that it will  ever be understood or ap-
preciated.  Why unavailingly seek to  reduce  it to a
formula of which it is  insusceptible'?   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 des-
tined to extend the boundaries of our knowledge 1   Why
are we  to be trammelled with foregone conclusions 1
Yet upon these very restrictions the opponents of mes-
merism  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.
  The case is  the more perplexing,  inasmuch  as this
apparent unfairness is grounded on instinctive propensi-
ties of our nature, with which it were vain to quarrel,
since they are actually a part of man's most valuable in-
heritance, and absolutely essential to the whole conduct
of life.  That attraction towards sensuous objects which
is fitted to a  being that lives in a visible and tangible
world, draws us inevitably away from whatever shuns
the senses to that which may be seen and handled ; and
that constitution of our minds which leads us to rely on
the invariableness of nature's sequences,  necessarily
brings with it a love  of  the certain and  the permanent.
With tendencies like these, at once to be cherished and
guarded against, it is  difficult to deal.  Thus reflecting, I
am  not  surprised at  the hostile reception which mes-
merism  has met  with in almost every  quarter:  I see
that it could not have been otherwise.   Unfortunately,
too, those men who are the last to be gained over are
generally  the best worth gaining; while those whose
habits of mind  lead them to embrace the new doctrine
without hesitation  are  mostly visionaries, who find
themselves more at home in the affairs of heaven than
of earth, and are ever more disposed to speculate wildly
than to submit to  the rules of strict and severe analysis.
  But, on the other hand, let it not be forgotten that  it
is the province of man to mount from the known to the
unknown, and to reason from that which can be seen to
that which is invisible.   If one strong instinct teaches us
to repose in the objects which lie open to our immediate
apprehension, another not less powerful calls us impera-
tively to  rise to  the detection of secret causes.  And
true wisdom consists in the  juet balance of these two
contending propensities.  Nor are we invited to ascend 
MESMERISM.                 23
beyond the level of more obvious things by the consti-
tution of  our minds alone.  Between  the quenchless
desire of our bosoms and the dispositions of the exter-
nal world, there is a harmony as perfect as it is beauti-
ful.  The simplest of nature's  sequences, should we
trace it farther up the scale, conducts  us  inevitably to
somewhat beyond our visual ken, while  at the same
time we are encouraged  to proceed by our success in
analyzing the invisible and ascertaining the obscure.
For  instance, by  imperceptible  exhalation and absorp-
tion, there is carried on throughout the world a perpet-
ual loss  and gain, conversion  of substance,  and  ex-
change  of power which is  scarcely conceivable, yet
which man in many instances has reduced to rule  and
expressed in number.  We have measured the undu-
lations of light and the waves  of sound.  The micro-
scope has  shown us  worlds of which our  unassisted
senses have no cognizance ; and-science, aided by the
telescope, has traced from  stars  unseen by the naked
eye  the  one great law of  attraction prevailing to the
very verge of ascertained creation.  Ought we, then, in
any  case to turn  away from facts that indicate a hid-
den  influence, merely because that influence has not yet
been tested by the senses 1   Even our conduct in earth-
ly matters will reprove  us here.  Of the machinery
wrought by human hands, the results alone are present-
ed to vulgar view, while it  is left to the thoughtful  and
the wise to explore the finer springs and hidden niotory
powers.  How much more, then, in viewing the mech-
anism of the universe, should we believe  that we  dis-
cern, as it were, only the hands  and the dial-plate, while
behind these " wheel within wheel involved" is hidden
from our gaze, in order to tempt our inquiry, and to de-
velop the higher part of our nature by the stimulus of
curiosity ■?
  There  is, then, in the nature of things no necessity
that mesmerism, because it is recondite, should be un-
explored.   To investigate it may indeed be difficult, but
appears to be rather enjoined than forbidden; enjoined
by the tendencies  of mind  not less than by the consti-
tution of matter.   It may, however, still be urged in re-
ply, that the variableness  which must be granted in
some respects  to characterize  mesmerism, is  the true
disqualification which  debars it  from the realms of sci-
ence.  How, it may be argued, can that which is con- 
24
MESMERISM.
 fessedly irregular be shaped into a system? how can
 phenomena which contradict each other at every turn
 admit of classification ?
   I answer that such an objection, if carried out into a
 principle, would effectually arrest the progress of all
 human knowledge.  It  would  make  us rest satisfied
 with  the apparent and the superficial, when we should
 be striving  after the real and the profound.   It would
 make  our own imperfect observation the measure of
 Nature's regularity.  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 there-
 fore  absolutely without law I  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 transi-
 tions from one noble passage to another, and are actual-
 ly essential  to the general harmony.   In many instan-
 ces this  is  not  mere conjecture.  How much of fan-
 cied imperfection and disorder  has fled before our in-
 vestigation !  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 com-
 et'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 the  magnetic force are proved by

  * Mrs. Somerville's Connexion of the Physical Sciences, p. 377. 
MESMERISM.                 25
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 de-
sign.   Instances like these, while they encourage us to
inquiry, should teach  us to  believe that all which is
needed to vindicate the regularity of nature  is a more
extended observation on our parts.
  Far, then, from granting that mesmerism is debarred
from the province of strict analysis by an apparent ir-
regularity, I cannot admit that there exists in it one dis-
qualification that has not  equally been shared  at one
time or other by. every science.  All that I  concede is,
that it is in a different stage of its existence  compared
with subjects of  ascertained  knowledge.  It must not
be likened to optics or hydrostatics in their  actual de-
velopment, but to those sciences in their dim and early
condition;  when rude guesses were accepted as sub-
stitutes for  truth, and  when objects were discerned as
mistily as the landscape is :

      " What time the shepherd, blowing of hia nails,
       Can neither call it perfect day nor night."

  There is, indeed, this difference i the advances.that we
have  made in knowledge generally render it more easy
for us to study any subject in particular.   Still mesmer-
ism (represented, indeed, by some as in its dotage) is but
in its infancy, and it is a folly to call upon it to exhibit
the features of a riper  age.
  Moreover, the uncertainties of mesmerism have been
much  exaggerated.   I  may ask, can that be so irregular
an  influence which the French Academy, in the height
of its learned displeasure, acknowledged was capable of
being conducted by art and method'?
  My own experiments, also, will hereafter show that it
exhibits a definite " form and pressure," and justify the
conjecture  that it may have its own laws of certainty,
though not precisely those to which we would refer it.
  On the whole, it appears there is no reason to con-
clude that mesmerism, because once wrongly presented
to science, should never be presented to science at all;
that because its agent has not been analyzed, it is there-
fore unfit for analysis ; or that, because often erroneous-
ly identified with known forces, it should at no time be
found to be connected with them; but,
                          C 
2b
MESMERISM.
   Fifthly. Our  impatience of whatever we cannot ac-
count for has prevented, and will, I fear, long prevent
mesmerism from being rightly examined, or even from
being classed generally among realities.
  This cause, at the basis of all the others  which have
at any time operated most powerfully against mesmer-
ism, deserves our particular attention.
  This it is which induced the friends of mesmerism to
bestow on it  a  name and refer it to agents, which, by
seeming to indicate its origin, should render it easier of
belief.
  This it is which led the members of the French Acad-
emy of Sciences,  not being able to get rid of it alto-
gether, to banish it to the airy realms of the imagina-
tion.  And this  it is which at the present day can alone
explain the standing miracle, as great as mesmerism it-
self, namely,  that facts which have been  witnessed by
thousands, should be rejected as if no testimony to their
truth had ever been offered.
  If, in inquiring into the deep grounds of this singular-
ity, I should trespass on my readers'  patience, let the
following consideration plead my excuse.  Every secret
cause of the judgments  we form, in which the consti-
tution of our  own minds is  concerned, requires to be
thoroughly probed and exhibited in its soundness or un-
soundness ; for  how shall we attain to certain truth un-
less sure of the principles on which we seek if?   As he
who would take an observation of the sun must first as-
certain that his instrument is correct, so must we, before
examining nature, duly  regulate  the organ of our per-
ception.
  Whence, then, arises it, that with the world in gener-
al,  " I comprehend not" is equivalent to " I do not be-
lieve V
  Many of our  most important and habitual modes of
thinking would seem to revolt against this error.  Grant-
ing that whatever is beyond the pale of our knowledge
is a delusion,  we, by parity of reasoning, must deny the
existence of ourselves, and, consequently, of all external
things :  for the  soul is an unsolved problem, and man is
the great anomaly of creation.  Yet thus do we not ar-
gue \  On the contrary, we not only acknowledge that
we are, but cease not to inquire what we are, ever study-
ing the volume  of our intellectual being in order to dis-
cover some law which  should be to mind what ainac- 
MESMERISM.
27
tion is to matter.   Consenting thus to take our minds as
we find them, and to observe and' to ascertain  rather
than to decide and to excommunicate, why is it that, on
so many other occasions, we pursue a directly contrary
course]  For this reason.  With regard to ourselves,
our own consciousness compels us to begin by recogni-
sing the  reality of certain phenomena; but with  regard
to other things, we are at liberty to speculate before we
examine.  Unless restrained by some strong controlling
force, our  natural tendency is ever to rush onward to
causes and conclusions; to simplify and to generalize;
and hence  to dismiss from our consideration whatever
does not harmonize with our own systems.  This pro-
pensity to resolve the complex and the partial into the
simple and ultimate appears to be a part of our original
constitution, and  is one of those strong impulses which
seem made to carry us too far, lest they should fail of
carrying us far enough.  By it we trace that unity amid
variety which stamps creation as the work of one hand,
but by it also we  are led to invert the true process of
reasoning, and to snatch  at the higher antecedents of
nature's sequences before  we have  brought  the lower
within  our grasp.   Those  comprehensive principles
which are, in truth, the latest fruit  of experience, we
would force to our impatience and mature at our pleas-
ure   All knowledge being identified with a progression
towards primary causes, and primary causes being of
necessity the simplest, we fall into the mistake  of stri-
 ving after simplicity that we may reach wisdom, where-
 as it is only through wisdom that a safe simplicity can
 be reached.  Instead of accommodating  ourselves to
 nature, we would compel nature to accommodate  her-
 self to us.  Instead of ascending cautiously from the
 individual to the general, we take our  general rule, and
 force the individual circumstance to bend to it.   Instead
 of adapting our theory to our facts, like a gracefully fit-
 ting garment, we clip and torture our facts to make them
 suit the  construction of our theory, or, should  they
 prove  especially rebellious,  banish  them  altogether.
 This is fatal to the very clearness we aim at.   To sim-
 plify rashly is but to confuse.  Until we consent to view
 things as they are rather than as we would make them
  to be, we shall advance only to be led astray.  Until we
  learn to consent for a while to philosophic doubt, we shall
  never arrive at certainty.  For, in truth, we are debarred 
28
MESMERISM.
from that comprehensiveness of principle which is so at-
tractive to our pride by the  deficiencies of our own un-
derstanding.*   Our laws must necessarily be multiplied
because our faculties are bounded.   Nature, indeed, may
be one ;  but the aspect she presents to us is varied, and
we cannot climb high enough to behold her mighty land-
scape subject to our gaze.   Our ardent  inclination  to
generalize thus struggling with our defect of power, how
difficult is the task of  impartially examining  a new and
extraordinary  agent!   Impatient of our ignorance, and
making no estimate of our  own minds, we  attempt  to
soar into the  full light of truth  without considering
whether our pinions may not be made of such materials
as to melt beneath its  beams.
  From these considerations it appears that the only
course of investigation which is fitted to our  faculties is
to observe with patience, and not to be frightened from
our propriety because a phenomenon appears strange to
us either in itself or its  concomitants.  In  a world
where  it must be  allowed that all is wonderful or that
nothing is wonderful, there  is  no intrinsic reason  why
one sequence of events should be more astonishing than
another. "Neither should we be afraid  of multiplying
laws (which are, in truth, nothing more than " the ex-
pression of the most general circumstances, in which the
phenomena  to which they refer have been felt by us  to
agree"), as if by so doing we offended against some un-
known and mysterious power.  In proposing a new law,
we  only adopt a convenient, and, it  may be,  temporary
expedient; we only mean to acknowledge that we have
not sufficiently observed a new fact as yet to perceive
its relationship with others wherewith we are  already
acquainted.  And, indeed, if offence there be,  it is not  of
our creating.  It is the agreement  or disagreement  of
natural phenomena by which the  number of our laws
is diminished or extended.   Above all, we must not for-
get that it is not we who are to  give laws to the fact, but

  * "I thought that the first step towards  satisfying several inqui-
ries the mind of man was very apt to run into, was to take a survey
of our own understandings, examine  our own powers, and see  to
what things they were adapted.  Till that was done, I suspected we
began at the wrong end, and in vain sought for satisfaction in a quiet
and sure  possession of truths that most concerned us, while we let
loose our thoughts into the vast ocean  of being, as if all that bound-
less extent were the natural and undoubted possession of our under-
standings."—Locke's Essay on the Human Understanding. 
MESMERISM.
29
the fact to us.  We have simply to trace its immediate
and remoter antecedents, keeping in mind that a fact is
a virtual unity, and that the nobler province of analysis
lies not in ingenuity of dissection, but in mounting, step
by'step, the scale  of apparently divergent causes  until
we reunite them in one common centre ;  not in distin-
guishing the  parent stem from the  branches and the
leaves, which together  make up one tree,  but in tracing
back the tree itself to that which is the general origin of
all plants—a  seed.   Thus Gall, as I have heard, devel-
oped the brain instead  of cutting it in pieces, and dem-
onstrated  that its convolutions were but  parts of  one
beautiful and consisent whole.
  But even should we  utterly fail in this,  should a phe-
nomenon stand single  and alone, and baffle all our at-
tempts to assimilate it to aught around us, we cannot, in
true philosophy, pronounce that it exists not.  The cir-
cumstance that water expands when cooled down below
a certain temperature, is utterly at  variance with the
usual law by which all  substances contract under a dim-
inution of heat.  Yet we do not deny that  the fact is so.
Surely,  when we consider that every event is but one
term of a series, the beginning and the end of which are
alike  lost in infinity, we should expect to trace  back
many a phenomenon into an obscurity that should seem
impenetrable.  Surely, when we reflect on the vastness
of the visible creation, and on the still vaster universe of
thought; when it seems probable that our system is but
one of countless numbers that are revolving round some
unknown centre, in periods which thought cannot meas-
ure nor science determine; that these, again, are peo-
pled with various orders of intelligence, we should rath-
er wonder that we  know so much than  that some facts
should transcend our knowledge, and acquiesce in our ig-
norance rather than deny existence  to that which we
cannot comprehend.
  But I  may be reminded that mesmerism may be one of
those subjects  which  surpass our intellectual vision;
and that,  if so, to examine it is  superfluous, and to
search  for its  principle a pure waste of time.   Un-
doubtedly.   But are we  now,  or can we  be, indeed, at
any time, entitled to class mesmerism among unfathom-
able things ?  If " the proper study of mankind is  man,"
this, as regarding man  especially, presents to his facul-
ties a fair field of investigation; and  with respect to
                         C3 
30
MESMERISM.
such legitimate subjects of inquiry, the point at which
we should abandon enterprise has not yet been ascer-
tained.  While, then, we admit the difficulties that beset
us on every side, let us' advance and fear not, and take
caution with us in pursuit of truth; not to check, but to
steady us  in our course.   Discovery may be nearer to
us  than we suppose.*   The enigma in  which  every
point  seems to contradict the  other  may be rendered
clear, perhaps, by one word alone, and may set  us won-
dering that we did not  sooner perceive its simple solu-
tion.  To  me, at  least, nature has just read a beautiful
lesson, inculcating doubt in ourselves, trust in her,  and
patience to  wait upon her revelations.   All  day  the
mountains were covered with a mist so  uniform that,
to a stranger's eye, they might have seemed like clouds,
or altogether have escaped his notice; but at this  mo-
ment  there  is  light  and  clearness; and  where almost
a blank was are  now the glorious Alps,  snow-covered,
lit up with sunshine, seeming to link earth with heaven.
  Having  now detailed, at too much length,  perhaps,
the principal causes that have rendered mesmerism ob-
noxious to the world, it only remains for me to touch
briefly on  one or two  minor causes of offence.  Mes-
merism is one of nature's great resources in  the cure
of maladies ; and it is  not, therefore, wonderful if some
of  its most striking effects  should have been  devel-
oped  rather in the ailing  and the delicate than in the
healthy and robust.  Hence the world, always  ready to
build  up error on truth, has connected it, in  idea, with
weakness of mind as well as of body, and has classed
it among those idle imaginings  which beset the fanciful
invalid.  But what is  the fact 1   Mesmerism  does in-
deed  act  more peculiarly on the nervous system; and
on that account affects, in an especial manner, persons
whose nervous  system  is finely organized.   But we
must  not confound sensitiveness with imbecility.   The
universal  temperament of genius gives the lie to such
an error;  and  it would be plainly ridiculous to  say  that
the timid and susceptible author of an elegy in a coun-

  * This, above all, is not the time for despair, when sueh a man as
Elliotson has dedicated his powers of  learning and of observation to
the service of mesmerism, treating  the subject (as  far as I can
i'udge from the scanty account of Dr. Elliotson's experiments which
 las reached me abroad) in a spirit which seems  to render any re-
marks of mine useless. 
MESMERISM.
31
try churchyard, or Rousseau,  or Pascal,* who  were
both nervous even to hypochondriacism, were weak in
intellect  because they were strong in sensibility.  Be-
sides before we identify mesmerism with weakness of
any kind, it should be shown that none but  the feeble
are susceptible of its influence.   Now, as far  as my ex-
perience goes, I can affirm that not only does a certain
degree of intelligence appear requisite for the favoura-
ble manifestation of the mesmeric phenomena, but that
persons  in perfect health have  frequently  exhibited
them   It  may also be  asserted that fear and nervous
agitation  are  wholly incompatible with their genuine
development.   These may, indeed, accompany a spuri-
ous sort of mesmeric affection, but are wholly distinct
from the power with which they coexist, and to which
they are invariably hurtful.  They are  the corruptions
of the true faith, and not the faith itself.   In  fine, sensi-
bility, and not weakness, is the real condition on which
mesmerism depends.           _                 __
   But it is not only an apparent identity with weakness
which has degraded this unfortunate subject: it has suf-
fered  still more from a repulsive connexion with dis-
ease   The discoverer of mesmerism was a physician,
and 'its  extraordinary curative powers have naturally
placed it  in  medical hands;  so  that,  of the existing
works upon it, there are  few that are not  written by
members of the medical profession, and fewer still that
no not bear immediate reference  to the treatment of
maladies.   This alone  is  sufficient to  exclude  it from
general interest, and to lower its pretensions to literary
consideration.  Medical books  are read but by a few;
ordinarily, indeed,  by those alone whose vocation com-
pels them to the perusal.   To  the greater part of man-
 kind they are as closely shut as the dissecting-room.  It
 might, however, be supposed that, as all men are liable
 to pain and  sickness,  all would be interested in that
 which at one time claimed to be a panacea.  But, what-
 ever may  be said of the sufferings of humanity, the mass
 of health is greater than the mass of disease ; and most
 persons instinctively dislike to  have their well-being; dis-
 turbed by hearing of remedies  which they do not re-
 quire, or  of ailmlnts with which they cannot sympa-
   * Pascal, after having once been nearly upset into anw.w.fa
 a long time tormented with the idea of being continually on the edge
 of a precipice. 
32
MESMERISM.
 thize.  There is something  also  in medical details
 which is peculiarlv quenching to the imagination, and,
 consequently, distasteful to the  man  of letters and re-
 finement.  It is  not,  then, extraordinary that  mesmer-
 ism, treated medically, should have been restricted to a
 narrow sphere; but is this the fault  of mesmerism  it-
 self?  Surely not.  On no subject is it less permitted to

'         " Give up to party what's meant for mankind."
 The doors of this temple should be thrown widely open
 to the world.  As mental, it regards the metaphysician
 and the moralist; as  physical, the physiologist and the
 man of science ; and I  would call upon  each and all,
 separating it from its ridiculous concomitants, to con-
 tribute to raise it to that intellectual grandeur  of  which
 it is so eminently susceptible.
   Such are the causes which have condemned mesmer-
 ism to lie beating, like a wreck, on the shore of substan-
 tial knowledge.  The vessel in itself was beautiful and
 well built, but adverse currents turned it from its course,
 and by many a storm its sails were  rent, and its noble
 frame was shattered.
   But it is not so much the causes which I have  separ-
 ately enumerated as their combination which has mark-
 ed the discovery of  Mesmer with peculiar odium, and
 rendered it a by-word and a reproach.  All  the circum-
 stances which  are unfavourable to mesmerism  end in
 one fatal word—contempt.  Everything tends to  raise a
 laugh at its expense; and against  a laugh who shall
 have the courage to contend •?   This is the last possible
 degradation.  Men love the mysterious and the pro-
 scribed, but shrink from the  ridiculous ;  they can bear
 to be thought wicked, but not to be deemed fools ;  they
 will endure to be hated, but not to be despised.  Now
 mesmerism has become not merely  a persecuted, but a
 ridiculous  faith. There is no pomp of circumstance
 about it to uphold the proselyte who is  called upon to
 defend it to the  death.   The glory of martyrdom for its
  sake is done away.  There is no dignity  in suffering in
 . such a cause.
 *■   Thus, then, the advocate of mesmerism comes before
  a prejudiced tribunal,  and  labours under disabilities
  which it were just to bear in mind when we feel inclined
  to measure the merits of his subject by the reception
  with which it meets.  We should, however, take but a 
MESMERISM.
33
partial view of the case were we to attribute the wri-
ter's want of success entirely to the partialities of those
whom he addresses.  Before we can have a true notion
of the difficulties of his undertaking, the causes of fail-
ure, personal to himself, must also be added to the ac-
count.  He has to battle, not only with  the  minds  of
others, but with his own; to fight his way through ob-
stacles which arise from within as well as from without,
and to force himself to calmness where all conspires to
agitate and to excite.  However difficult it may be for
him to obtain a hearing, to treat his subject impartially,
and  so as best to conciliate an adversary, is perhaps a
harder task.  He is his own worst  enemy, and, amid
every ambush laid  for him,  has most to beware of the
snares of his own spirit.  For what is a man's state of
mind when for the first time he withdraws the curtain
which separates the  region of mesmerism  from  the
scenery of common life ?  He is bewildered with rush-
ing thoughts and wondrous  speculations.  He has be-
held, but scarcely knows what it is he has beheld.  A
world of magic has opened on his gaze ; and  should he
be a person of imagination, who, like Schiller's idealist,
is tired of rough reality, he finds there all that can intox-
icate and enchain, and keep  him lingering on enchanted
ground when he should be strugglingonward to the domain
of truth.   Thus fascinated, thus enthralled, it is no won-
der that, if called upon to abdicate his paradise, he should
exclaim, like Milton's Eve when sentenced to quit Eden,
                             " From thee
        How shall I part, and whither wander down
        Into a lower world, to this obscure
        And wild ?  How shall we breathe in other air
        Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits ?"

  There is, moreover, in the sensations of him  who finds
that he is capable of exercising the mesmeric  influence,
that peculiar charm which ever waits upon the develop-
ment of a new faculty.   Even the swimmer, who learns
at length to surmount the boisterous surf, or to stem the
adverse stream, will revel in the consciousness of awa-
kened power.   How much more must the mental enthu-
siast riot in the display of energies so long concealed, so
wondrously developed!  Self-love adds her  flattering
lure to the attractions of novelty; the pride of exerting
an influence over others awakens in his breast. It is he
himself who is the author  of his own enjoyment;  and 
34
MESMERISM.
the fairy scenes appear to him fairer still, because they
are of his own creating.  Unexpectedness, too,  that
principal ingredient of pleasure, yet more entrances and
bewilders the astonished novice, who perceives such
mighty effects resulting from  his employment of a few
and simple means.  He  feels that he is " greater than
he knows," and he advances  into the yet  unconquered
province that lies before him  with all those alternations
of rapture and surprise which agitate, yet please, the ex-
plorer of strange regions.  He trembles, he hesitates,
he catches a glimpse of a new prospect.  Still is he
tempted onward ; ever onward fresh wonders still open-
ing around him, and fresh complacency awakening in his
heart:  for mesmerism is not one of those pursuits of
which a man soon tires.   Founded on human nature, it
presents a perpetual variety, like that of humanity itself.
Its successful votary runs the risk, therefore, of turning
his thoughts upon it not only  too vividly, but too exclu-
sively.  Absorbed  by a mighty interest, he is too apt to
pass into that mood wherein,  as a lover, all nature is to
us but a  reflection of the beloved  object;  when, if we
turn a page, we think it bears  reference to the subject of
our ceaseless contemplation ;  when every  sound teems
with appropriate oracles, and every sight with omens
addressed to us alone, all figuring the image of our own
thoughts.   Of this there  is the greater danger, because
there exists, in fact, so much of unconscious mesmerism
in life, that it is not surprising if, like Alonzo in the
Tempest, we should  exclaim,
     " Methought the billows spoke and told me of it;
      The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder—
      That deep and dreadful organ-pipe—pronounced
      Its name."
But to  an enthusiast in  particular, how much there  is
about him and within him to recall and strengthen the
first impression, and to speak  to him perpetually of that
which has kindled his imagination!  That mysterious
bliss, wherewith the  very atmosphere of those we love
seems to be impregnated ; that attraction of an unknown
face, which beams  upon us from the passing crowd, and
which we would give worlds to see again; the sleep of
the infant that is " rocked by  the beating of its mother's
heart," all teems with an influence, potent  yet invisible,
and  which we may  call  mesmerism if we  will.   But,
alas! feelings are  not proofs; and on these occasions, 
MESMERISM.
35
how much we feel that we can by no means prove; how
much we seem to understand of which we can render no
account!  It will be  easily seen how  unfavourable is
this  vagueness of emotion, this universality of refer-
ence, to the strictness of philosophy and the particular-
ity of rigid research.  We have at hand too ready a so-
lution of every difficulty.  We are tempted to generalize
before we have performed the work of  analysis, and to
allow hypothesis to supersede investigation.  On a sub-
ject so wide and so fertile, analogies offer themselves in
crowds, and, being easier than inductions, are more read-
ily accepted by our effervescing imagination.  So much
of nature's inner processes is apparently laid open to
our view, that we seem  to be on the point of snatching
the last word  of her  secret, and of breaking down the
barriers that separate the visible from the unseen, the
finite from the unbounded.
   Thus excited, how shall we subside into the calmness
wherein alone the mind can compare, can select or re-
ject ?  How shall we exchange the wand of the magician
for the disenchanting rod of truth 1   How, from the very
heights of contemplation, shall we stoop to the observa-
tion of petty facts, to the  detection of fallacies, to the
routine of ordinary  examination!   Deeming  that  we
know all things by intuition, how can we condescend to
reason?   Rather are we tempted to frame some vast
and all-embracing theory;  to rush at every subject, and
consequently to fail in all.  It is at least worthy of re-
mark, that the writers on mesmerism who have treated
it otherwise than medically have been  too much of that
school which philosophizes " de omnibus rebus, et quibus-
dam aliis."   They have passed the flaming bounds of the
universe when they ought  to have been considering the
peculiar influence which one human being, under certain
circumstances, exerts upon another.
   Mesmerism, then,  is  no matter of  indifference, on
 which a man may argue with a clear  head, because he
 argues  with a quiet  heart.  It is  a subject which  not
 only calls into action, but has a decided influence on all
 the most essential principles  of the human mind; dis-
 turbing the emotions, and through them the exercise of
 the intellectual powers.  Self-love, wonder, and  desire
 of novelty, we have already seen enlisted in its service,
 and troubled by its apparent miracles.   But deeply as  it
 may engage  these feelings, still greater is  the  effect 
36
MESMERISM.
which it produces upon the principle of belief:  a part
of our mental constitution which so  largely concerns
our modes of action,  our  present and our future well-
being, that whatever tends to modify it is of vital  conse-
quence, and should be treated with all the caution which
the importance  of  the occasion demands.   With  how
much  self-watchfulness,  then,  should we  approach a
subject which is  calculated to work an entire revolution
in the very regulator of our being; to substitute  a  rash
credulity for a sound and safe belief?  This is the great
snare of his own mind, against which  a  writer on mes-
merism has perpetually to be on his guard.  He has
beheld phenomena  which are  beyond the  pale  of his
former experience; and, impelled as we all are to rea-
son from that which we ourselves have  seen to that of
which we are personally ignorant, he is  tempted to ask
himself, " If this be true  (as I  perceive  it is), why not
also a thousand  other things of which I have hitherto
doubted?"  Thus is he led to trust rather to analogy
than to observation;  and  his  willingness to accept a
fact upon due evidence is turned into a disposition to
credit all things  upon no  evidence whatever.  The bar-
rier of prudent hesitation is cast down, and his mind is
left a prey to the invasion of every idle fancy.  That he
was once even  of a skeptical  spirit will profit him no-
thing.   Rather,  with  that propensity to rush  into ex-
tremes which is  a part of human imperfection, the more
incredulous he has hitherto been, the greater will be his
rebound to credulity.  The more he has hitherto refused
to put faith in the  testimony  of others, the more en-
tirely will he submit himself to that of his own senses ;
and finding that  he is forced to believe what he once
deemed incredible, he feels that he has scarcely  a right
to refuse assent  to the wildest dreams of a diseased im-
agination.  The  wise admonition, " Believe not every
spirit,"  is disregarded; nay, there  is danger that he
should become in love with marvels, and not only wel-
come them when they are offered to his consideration,
but go out of his way to  seek them,  even where  they
exist not; elevating every trifle into importance, till he
falls into the  absurdity of perpetual wonder.  Thus it is
to be feared that he who adventures his  bark of discov-
ery into the great deep of mesmerism will not, Colum-
bus-like, steer ever towards one anticipated point, de-
terred neither by portents nor by passions  in mutiny, 
MESMERISM.
37
but that he will enter upon a course resembling rather
the fabled voyage of Ulysses, haunted by prodigies and
embarrassed by delays; and it will be well if imagina-
tion, like another Circe, does not seduce from their alle-
giance, and transform those faculties which  ought  to
guide and serve him under the stern control of reason.
  But even supposing that a man has strength of mind
sufficient to elude these perils, and to discipline his fan-
cy  to  the proper standard of belief,  stating  only that
which  he has ascertained by the most rigid observation,
there is still a difficulty in his  way, which relates mu-
tually  to  himself and  to  those whom  he  addresses.
However  reasonable he may be, and however unpreju-
diced his reader, still each  party is, as regards the sub-
ject in question, in a very different state of experience.
It is true that, in a degree,  this remark applies to  every
case where information is given and received; but then,
in all other cases,  there is a groundwork to  go  upon,
common both to the instructer and the instructed.  The
experience of the former is indeed more enlarged than
that of the latter : yet it is ever to the experience of the
pupil that the teacher appeals ; and the basis of the new
edifice of knowledge which he undertakes to erect con-
sists  in  a few simple  principles  which are  generally
recognised by all mankind.  For instance, an ignorant
man, when told of the enormous distances at  which the
stars are  placed relatively to  the earth and to  each
other, may at first feel inclined to doubt the facts; but
let  the size of the heavenly bodies be stated to him ; let
him be reminded that all objects  appear less in propor-
tion to their distance from us ; and, that which he knows
already helping him to that he does not know, the mat-
ter  is at once brought within the scope of his compre-
hension.  But as regards mesmerism,  we are  excluded
from any such appeal to universal experience.   On this
subject, he  who undertakes to  persuade and he who
consents to  listen are not only in different, but in oppo-
site states of mind.  There is  no common point from
which  they may start  together;  there is no  centre  of
belief where they may meet and be reconciled.  The
pupil, at the very outset, is called upon to assent to a
series  of propositions not  only startling, but repugnant
to his experience.   That a man can throw another into
a kind of sleep by certain gestures ; that the person thus
apparently deprived of consciousness can answer ques- 
38
MESMERISM.
 tions rationally, and discern objects  though his eyes
 are fast shut;  these  are the extraordinary statements
 which alarm him into opposition before the discussion
 is begun, and excite either  his incredulity or his scorn.
 By them he is thrown into a perplexing dilemma.  Un-
 explained as are the facts of mesmerism, or (what is
 worse)  inefficiently explained, it seems  as if he had only
 to choose between  rejecting them as absurdities or ad-
 mitting them as miracles.   In either  case, an inquiry
 into their causes seems a pure waste  of time.  If nul-
 lities, they sprang from nothing; if miracles, they can-
 not be accounted for.   Moreover, to admit them as mir-
 acles is repugnant  to human feeling in general.  Men
 love not to have their faith taxed more  than is absolute-
 ly necessary; and in this case there is  no religious mo-
 tive which can compel faith: on the contrary, many a
 person  of weak but zealous  piety fears  to lessen  the
 miracles recorded in  Scripture,  by allowing that any-
 thing whatever which  appears to interrupt  the course
 of nature can at this  day be  wrought by mortal power.
 With these feelings, though once, perhaps, experienced
 by  himself,  the  mesmerizer  finds it  difficult duly to
 sympathize.  He has left them far behind.  To him  the
 facts of mesmerism are no miracles, for one plain rea-
 son :  from the moment a thing takes its station among
 every-day occurrences, it ceases to be  a wonder.  Let
 any unwonted  term in any  sequence  of events with
 which we are already acquainted interpose itself suffi-
 ciently  often,  and  it  will itself become  a part of  the
 series which it appeared at first  to interrupt.  In brief,
 our familiarity with a fact is the measure of our opinion
 concerning it.   Drawing lightning from the clouds was
 once a feat that appeared  almost necromantic ; but cus-
 tom has deprived it of its  marvel,  and we place con-
 ductors  on our houses  as a matter of course.  Had  the
 sun always begun the day in  the west, such would  ap-
 pear to  us his natural mode of rising.  Now the mes-
 merizer has probably been in  the constant habit of wit-
nessing  those phenomena, at the bare mention of which
others are alarmed or revolted ; and so  riveted together
in his thoughts are certain trains of physical or mental
changes, that not to  behold them would  be the surprise •
not to find the usual result consequent  upon the usual
causes would be the miracle.
  Thus, then, the writer on  mesmerism and  his reader 
MESMERISM.
39
are, as it were, at antagonist poles of belief; and it is
as difficult for the one to divest himself of his present
knowledge, and to revert to his ancient  incredulity or
wonder, as for the other cordially to assent to facts
which belie the whole tenour of his experience. To find
the resolution of these discords is no easy task.  Let
the author approach his subject as guardedly as he may,
still he cannot but state facts that are astonishing; and
the manner of his discourse will avail him little while
the matter of it is so exceptionable.  To those who dis-
believe the phenomena whereof he treats, an  inquiry
into  their  causes  is  but an impertinence.   The very
calmness  with which he propounds his heretical opin-
ions, and which results from a deep conviction of their
truth, must appear to others the worst symptom of in-
curable error; his impartiality will seem prejudice, his
utmost caution madness.  Let him be ever so sound in
mind, he will encounter more than one Felix who will
be ready to exclaim,  " Thou art beside thyself."
   An opposition  so  great between  the  writer on  our
subject and his reader would seem to render the task of
the former not only  difficult, but hopeless.  On more
mature reflection, however,  we  shall  perceive that,
though there is much to make him lower his expecta-
tions of success, there is enough  to encourage him not
to abandon them altogether.  Among those to whom
facts interesting  and  new are stated, there will ever be
gome persons who will be led to think and to inquire for
themselves.  Thus the mesmerizer only loses the  suf-
frages of the prejudiced who refuse, or the careless who
are incompetent,  to examine the question,  and the very
causes that contribute to narrow the circle of his audi-
tors tend only to render it more select.
   In conclusion:  The result of the  preceding delibera-
tions seems to be this. We should lay aside all preju-
dice, connected either with the origin, name, or injudi-
cious exposition  of  mesmerism,  and try the subject,
wholly and impartially, upon its own merits.
   Unalarmed by  the apparent strangeness and incongru-
 ity of the phenomena to be investigated, we should call
 to mind  how frequently " appearances of external na-
 ture, puzzling at  first sight, and seemingly irreconcilable
 with one another, have all been solved and harmonized
 by a reference to some one pervading  principle," and
 should thus be led to surmise that the irregularity and 
40                 MESMERISM.
i
variations of the mesmeric world may be found, upon
mature observation, less inexplicable than  a careless
spectator could imagine.  Even should this hope be long
deferred, we are not on that account to deny the reality
of well-attested facts.   Are these things so ? is the one
great question which we have to ask;  and to separate
this from all its accidental accompaniments is the first
step towards its satisfactory solution. 
BOOK  II.
                    SECTION I.

 MESMERIC SOMNAMBULISM, OR, MORE  PROPERLY, SLEEP-
                      WAKING.*

  In entering upon  the examination of a new subject,
we should strive to place it in the clearest and least dis-
putable point of view.  To this end I shall for the pres-
ent consider mesmerism simply as a distinct species of
somnambulism, into  which it has been asserted that man
has the capacity of passing through the influence of his
fellow-man.  Were  this all—did none other of the ex-
traordinary allegations respecting  mesmerism exist—
this alone appears to me a subject of deep interest, and
worthy of being submitted to that patient investigation
which should either confirm  it as a fact or  banish it as
an illusion.  Mesmeric sleepwaking, if proved to be a
reality, will claim to be considered as one of the condi-
tions of man, and, as such, must concern all  mankind,
but especially the philosopher, who, in order to investi-
gate our nature truly, should explore it in its weakness
and  its strength, its integrity and its disorder.   S eep,
fever, irritation of the nervous system, have each their
several trains of physical  and mental phenomena, which
are anxiously investigated by him who would know man
as he is   Even drunkenness has had its anatomists; and
with what fearful  interest we strive to fathom the abyss
of madness, as if we could evoke from thence the secret
of our complicate and wonderful existence!  There is
good  sense  in this.   From  the derangement of a ma-
chine we are often led to ascertain the uses of its sev-
eral  parts.  Now,  though mesmeric sleepwaking can
scarcely be called a derangement of the  animal econo-

   * Dr. EHiotson, in the chapter on mesmerism in his Physiology,
 has adopted the term sleevwaking, because walkmg is but one result
 of the combination of the wak.ng with the sleeping state and^be-
 cause in this state persons may not walk, or may even be unable to-
 walk.
                          D2 
42
MESMERISM.
 my, still it is an aberration from man's normal state;
 and, so considered, cannot  fail to be replete with in-
 struction  to  the careful observer.   Unless  we peruse
 this page, our study of the great volume of  human na-
 ture must be incomplete.
   Surely  likewise,  independently of the philosophical
 view of the question, all who share this suffering mor-
 tal frame—all who,  during long and tedious hours, have
 vainly courted sleep, that perverse power which, in the
 poet's beautiful words, is " still last to come  where it is
 wanted most"—all  who mourn the past or fear the fu-
 ture, cannot but be interested in a discussion  respecting
 the reality of a  power in man to withdraw for a while
 the senses of his  fellow-mortals from this world of
 troubles.
   In thus  considering mesmerism as nothing more than
 a state to be investigated like any other state  into which
 man has the  capacity of passing, I shall probably sur-
 prise those who have been  accustomed to  regard the
 matter either as too mysterious to claim  affinity with
 aught on earth, or as  too fancifully wild to be brought
 under the laws of rational research.  It may be doubted,
 also, whether, with  some persons, our subject may not
 lose its charms when robbed of its  controversial title,
 and whether the plain view I have taken of the question
 may not equally offend the argumentative opposer who
 seeks to show his eloquence in dispute, and the warm
 partisan who would invest his favourite science with an
 awful and unknown dignity. But the earnest and im-
 partial pupil of nature will be content to take his stand
 with me on the sure ground of experimental  proof, and,
 even should  he  become my opponent, will  attack the
 true subject  in  debate instead  of  the man  of straw,
 which has been so long and so often warred  with under
 the name of mesmerism.
  The  proofs which I shall offer regarding  this peculiar
 phasis  of our mortal state will be drawn almost exclu-
 sively from the proceeds of my own observation.  To
 make use of the materials accumulated by  others in or-
 der to construct a theory of  one's own, has always ap-
 peared to  me inconsistent with the earnestness of true
 inquiry.  That deep conviction of the reality of his sub-
ject, which is an author's life and soul, is the result of
 personal experience alone.   Besides, it  should be the
 aim, as I conceive, of every one who undertakes a cause, 
MESMERISM.
43
to add to the stock of real information thereupon.  Thus
only can the boundaries of human knowledge be enlar-
ged ; for what new fact can be elicited by those who copy
everlastingly from  the old?  Moreover, a person who
observes for himself may perchance remark what  has
hitherto escaped the notice of even clearer eyes than his.
Let twenty men witness a transaction, and the attention
of each will probably be directed to a different  feature
of that transaction.   By the  combined result of such in-
dividual scrutiny we come to a perception of the whole
truth.  Each carefully-observed  fact is an heirloom to
mankind;  and he  who verifies a new phenomenon does
more, perhaps, for  science  than he who constructs  a
theory.
  Before, however,  bringing  forward the records of my
own personal experience, I must warn my reader that, if
he imagines I have anything miraculous to relate, he will
de disappointed.  It is true that  I might, were I so in-
clined, give a zest  to my pages by recording circum-
stances which were passing strange  ; but I have avoided
these, from  reasons which partly regard myself, partly
those whom I address.
  With respect to the latter,  I think  that persons in gen-
eral would only be  revolted by particulars which they
would  scarcely credit on any testimony,  and thus  I
should rather injure than promote the cause I have un-
dertaken to  defend.
  Secondly, as concerning myself.  For my own sake,
I shun those tracts of thought which, if not belonging to
superstition, at least closely border  upon her domains.
When once we pass the bounds  of  the definite  and the
probable, we can scarcely settle with our own minds what
degree of credit we ought to attach to the mystic circum-
stances that surround us, or on what basis we should
place them.  Of every fact of this nature there are ordi-
narily  two  explanations  to  be given, a  rational and a
marvellous.  The marvellous would lead us too  far, the
rational does not content us.  As, for instance, a sleep-
waker describes  to me what  her family, in a distant
house, are  doing at a particular hour.  I inquire subse-
quently into this, and find that she  has been correct in
every point.   Now  there are two interpretations of this
seeming miracle : we may either suppose that the sleep-
waker has really seen what she has  stated, or that, from
her knowledge of what the occupations of her family 
44
MESMERISM.
generally are at a certain hour, she was enabled to di-
vine, almost certainly, the truth.
  Again: a sleepwaker tells me," My brother, who has
been to the Havanna, and  of whom we have not heard
for some months, is returned, and is at this moment an-
chored off Flushing.  He is just coming from watch, and
on such a day he will be here." This  is verified  to the
letter;  but again there are  two methods of explaining
wherefore: either  the sleepwaker was gifted with ex-
traordinary knowledge and precision, or, from expecting
her brother about a certain time, she calculated on prob-
abilities, perhaps, more acutely  than in her natural state;
and this, combined with that sort  of coincidence  which
occurs  more frequently than some may suppose,  is suf-
ficient  to account for the verification of her assertions
and her prophecy.   This  may be true; but I confess
that such reasoning as the latter does not always satisfy
me, and that, in my opinion, after  subtracting from the
account all of the marvellous that we possibly can, there
will yet remain a  residuum of something  strange and
perplexing.  For  this  reason  I turn  my  attention to
facts that appear to me more important as well as more
certain, conceiving that to dwell  on wonders that are
at best doubtful is  far from  healthy to the mind.  I
have therefore always discouraged my  sleepwakers
from making to  me extraordinary revelations,  and I
have endeavoured to confine both them  and myself with-
in a walk—narrow, indeed, but safe;  less interesting,
perhaps, but  certainly more direct.
  All facts connected with the senses, or which illustrate
the close affinity between the mesmerizer and his patient
(indicative as they are of some medium of  communica-
tion existing between them), seem to me unexceptiona-
ble in their tendency, and strictly relative to the influence
we have to consider.  To these, then, I have chiefly limit-
ed myself, at the hazard of offending by over-caution rath-
er than by superfluous zeal.   Hence my narrative will
have an humble air, which  may contrast oddly, perhaps,
with the high terms in which I  have spoken of the pre-
tensions of mesmerism in my first book.  I may be
asked the cui bono of certain trifling details, and may be
told that the experiments I have related are neither
beautiful nor useful.  To what end, it may be demanded,
do these sleepwakers perform things asleep which were
better  done  awake?  I can imagine  a critic  saying, 
MESMERISM.
45
" Never was the  ' parturiunt montes' more admirably
exemplified  than in the work before us.  We are told,
in the first place, that the mesmerizer withdraws a cur-
tain that conceals a magic world, and we are then pre-
sented with  nothing better than a Bartholomew show of
farthing rushlights.  We first read of awakened powers
and intellectual influences  that unlock the mysteries of
nature, and  then, proceeding to the experiments, we
meet with trash little better than the following: ' Are
you asleep ?'  ' Yes !'—' Do you see me ?'  ' No!' &c,
&c."  This  is all easily said ; but I beseech my reader
to remember the vast disproportion between the exper-
iments themselves and the deductions to be drawn from
them : they are but mean steps to  a mighty temple,
yet they must be mounted before we can enter the sanc-
tuary itself.   Is this preliminary humiliation in approach-
ing a  science peculiar to mesmerism ?  Let us turn  to
Newton's optics, where we shall find such small partic-
ularities as the following : " I made in a piece of lead a
small hole with a pin, whose breadth was the forty-sec-
ond part of  an inch; for twenty-one of those pins laid
together took up the breadth of  half an inch."  We are
neither amused nor prejudiced by this, because we know
to what mighty consequences the apparent trifles led.
But in mesmerism, unfortunately, we  look not forward
thus ; and, unfortunately also, there is no existing subject
which more requires men to  look beyond  externals.
The object experimented on is man; and in the very na-
ture of things, whatever has to do with man contains
some of the ludicrous.  Human life  and the pages  of
Shakspeare  will show how  near akin in us are tears
and laughter, sublimity and littleness.  Our postures,
our gestures, our peculiarities  of countenance may  all
become matter of mirth to each other of us.   When
their best friend falls down, the first impulse with most
persons is to laugh.  It is no wonder, then, that in mes-
merism we  experience a sense of the  comic, which the
inanimate objects  that are operated upon in other sci-
ences cannot excite.  No one feels disposed to ridicule
a crystal or to smile at a mineral;  but there will be,
perhaps, moments in mesmerism when " to be grave ex-
ceeds all powers of face."  The motions of the mesmer-
izer especially must seem ridiculous  to those who see
him gesticulate, and  know  not to what end.   He  is
using those means which experience has shown him to 
46
MESMERISM.
be most efficacious in calling forth the phenomena he
desires to produce ; but the uninitiated cannot be aware
of this, and an action that appears to want motive is es-
sentially ludicrous.  Any one who has stopped his ears
to the  music while people are  dancing, will remember
how fantastic the scene of  gayety appeared to him.
This and more  I can allow.  I have  as lively a sense
of the ludicrous  as any man,  and could myself most ea-
sily travesty mesmerism, and exhibit it in a ridiculous
point of view ; for ridicule is always  easy.  1 can also
laugh where a grave subject is good-humouredly banter-
ed ; as, for instance, where  Hood  writes a lively and
pleasant article—into which one can plainly see no mal-
ice enters—on what he facetiously calls  sombamboozle-
ism, and represents a Yorkshire grazier as much disap-
pointed when he  finds  that  mesmerism is  not  a new
mode of fattening animals, and has nothing to do with
mangel vvurzel.   But there is something in solemn and
malignant ridicule which is not so easy  to be endured;
though indeed we  should remember, that whether scof-
fers laugh at mesmerism or not can matter little.  The
subject is not for them, nor for any  who cannot look
through the trifling to the important  without being di-
verted from their object by things which  may make them
smile at the moment, but ponder deeply afterward; as,
for example, the mesmerizer  makes faces, and the sleep-
waker, though seeing him not, imitates them exactly.
Some may stop short at the  ludicrous part of this ;  but
for him who views the experiment as proving an unseen
medium of communication between the  mesmerizer and
his patient, the fact is full of an absorbing interest which
checks all lighter thoughts.  Thus  some  have mocked
at the simplicity of diction or of events that character-
izes the writings of Wordsworth, while others have seen
that the poet has  only adopted nature's mode of teach-
ing us philosophy.   This, at least, must be granted.
The merest trifles are interesting that suggest to us an
action in man independent of his present organization.
Now mesmerism teems with more than  slight  indica-
tions of this ; and we should treasure up such glimmer-
ings of futurity—however faint and however presented
to us—as inestimable proofs that we possess a germe of
being which God permits us to  behold partially unfolded
here, in order to confirm our faith as  to its fuller devel-
opment hereafter. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          47
  This being premised, I proceed to give an account of
the first experiments in mesmerism which it fell in my
way to witness, conceiving that such a narrative will
form not only the simplest, but the best commencement
to the series of proofs I  have to offer respecting the
state and characteristics of mesmeric sleepwaking.
  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 be also 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 proscrip-
tion 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  mes-
merism to which he had been  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  inge-
niously 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 proposi-
tion of my friend to introduce  me to an acquaintance of
his in Antwerp who had learned the practice of the mes-
meric art from a German physician.  We waited togeth-
er  on Mr.  K----, the   mesmerizer  (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 spe-
cimen of his mysterious talent. To this he at first re-
plied " that he was rather seeking to abjure a renown that
had become troublesome, half  the world viewing him as
a conjuror, 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, together 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 mesmerize a person who should be a perfect stran-
ger to him.  To this he readily acceded;  and now the
only difficulty was to find  a subject for  our experiment. 
48           MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
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 fa-
ther, who had been dead some time, had been a Belgian,
and she spoke English, Flemish,  and French with per-
fect facility.  Her widowed parent was chiefly supported
by her industry, and in the midst of trying circumstan-
ces 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 fami-
ly, 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 con-
trary, she had rather a desire to know what  the  sensa-
tion of being mesmerized 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 seance mag-
netique."  Anna M----,  our mesmerizee, was already
with  us.  Mr. K----arrived soon after, and was intro-
duced to his young patient, whose name we had purpose-
ly 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.  Utter-
ly unknown  as the parties were to  each  other, a game
played by two confederates was plainly out of  the ques-
tion.   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
armchair at  one  end of the apartment, while  he occu-
pied  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, at-
tentively 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 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          49
five or six persons—felt inclined to transgress the 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 forever
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 con-
clusions  the  phenomena of  mesmerism  may  conduct
the inquirer, never, perhaps, have I been more  impress-
ed 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 at-
tention upon the motionless pair, I observed that Made-
moiselle  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 mes-
merizer, 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 breath-
ing 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 com-
menced his operations.   I should have observed that, as
soon as the first symptom of drowsiness was manifest-
ed, the mesmerizer 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  arms 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'etouffe!" and, rising in a wild manner,# she con-
tinued to repeat, " Je m'etouffe !"  evidently labouring
under an oppression of the  breath.   But all this time
her eyes remained fast shut;  and, at  the command of
her mesmerizer, she took his  arm,  and walked—still
with her eyes shut—to the table.  Mr. K----then said,

  *  The term means nothing more than such motions as I have de-
scribed.
                          E 
50           MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
" Voulez-vous que je  vous eveille ?"  " Oui, oui,"  she
exclaimed ; " je m'etouffe."   Upon this Mr. K----again
operated with his hands, but in a different set of move-
ments;  and, taking out his handkerchief, agitated the air
around 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 mesmerized,  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 mes-
merizer 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 mes-
meric fluid.  To do so, however,  seemed not so easy a
matter as the first time when he awoke.the sleepwaker.
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  insensi-
ble.   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 mesmerizer,  and
seemed irresistibly attracted to it,  as iron to the load-
stone.   At length  Mr. K----succeeded in thoroughly
awaking his patient, who, on  being interrogated  respect-
ing her past sensations, said that she retained a recol-
lection 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 inquiries she replied that the drowsy sensa- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          51
tion which first stole over her was rather of an agreea-
ble nature, and'that it was preceded by a slight tingling,
which ran down her arms in the direction of the  mes-
merizer'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, how-
ever, ceased immediately on the dispersion of the  mes-
meric sleep.   These statements were the rather to be
relied upon, inasmuch  as  the girl's character was  nei-
ther timid nor imaginative.

                   Second Sitting.
  On  this occasion Mademoiselle M----sat  down, as
she assured me afterward, with a resolution to resist the
mesmeric drowsiness to the utmost, and with a strong
impression that she should not sleep.  This want of co-
operation on  her  part seemed to render the mesmeri-
zer's task  more difficult, yet in  about twenty minutes
she was brought into that state  of imperfect slumber
into which she had fallen on the first evening.  As then,
so  now, she  affirmed, " Je  dors, et je  ne dors pas;"
while all the time she seemed incapable of opening her
eyes.   At other times she expressed an impatience of
her semi-conscious state, and exclaimed, " Faites-moi
dormir  tout-a-fait;" but  then  again she  murmured,
" Non, vous  ne le pouvez  pas."   In this half-torpid
state she remained so long, that we feared no other re-
sult would be obtained; and Mr. K----himself turned
round his head towards us and shook it, as  much as to
say that he despaired of success.   At  length, however,
appearing to rally his powers, he laid his hands upon the
shoulders of his patient, who almost instantly heaved a
deep sigh, and fell back in her chair with every symp-
tom of the profoundest slumber.   Soon after this I ob-
served that her head, as on the last occasion, followed
every motion  of the mesmerizer's hands.  Mr. K----
now asked her if she slept, and she replied, softly but
distinctly, " Oui, je dors."  He then asked her if she
would quit her chair and walk a little ; but to this prop-
osition she strongly objected, declaring that  she wished
to rest, and that she thought she should fall were she to
attempt  to get up.  Mr. K----,  however, assured her
that such would not be the case; and, rising from his
chair  and going to a short distance, he made  a  motion 
52          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
with his arms, as if he would draw her towards him.
Sighing deeply, she then got up and moved towards him,
but tottered, and exclaimed, " Oh je vais toniber."  Upon
this the mesmerizer seized her hand, and said, in a tone
of decision, " Non, vous ne tomberez pas."  In effect,
she afterward stood firmly, and even walked about  the
room, holding the arm of Mr.  K----,  but still retaining
the expression of a sleeping person, though the extreme
torpor which weighed down her head before she left her
chair seemed in a great measure removed.   To all  ap-
pearance her  eyes  were closely  shut, and there was
even a sealed look  about  the  lids which was very re-
markable.  Notwithstanding  this, she  appeared  to be
very sensible  to the light, and never  approached  the
lamp without complaining  of the glare.   One of  our
party having  expressed a doubt that she slept, and this
having been explained  to  her by  the mesmerizer (for
she did not seem to attend to any one else),  she  ex-
claimed, with an air of surprise, " Yes, certainly 1  am
asleep."   During the time (upward  of an hour) that
she remained thus abstracted,  or entranced, I noted  the
following phenomena :
  1st.  Attraction towards the  mesmerizer-—mental and
physical.—She could not endure Mr. K----to leave her
for  an  instant; and there was a nervous anxiety in  the
manner in which she often exclaimed, " Mais, il ne faut
pas me quitter."  The  most apparently uncomfortable
posture seemed agreeable to her so long as she  could
rest her head on the mesmerizer's  hand.  If  another
hand was substituted, however adroitly, she was imme-
diately aware of the change, and  betrayed uneasiness.
On  one occasion I  took the  mesmerizer's place at a
moment when he stood behind her.  After a few sec-
onds, an expression of utter discontent and repugnance
came over her countenance, and she removed her head
from my support.  At this moment  Mr. K----was steal-
ing  away noiselessly to another part  of the room, and
I observed  that her face turned towards him, and fol-
lowed his every motion.  When he made a gesture as
if he would beckon her  towards him, she got up imme-
diately, and walked to where he was, threading her way,
exactly as he had done, between the chairs, tables, &c.,
without stumbling or coming in contact with any  ob-
stacle.
  2dly.  A knowledge of what the mesmerizer ate or drank, 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
53
indicating community  of sensation with him.—This phe-
nomenon appearing to me to constitute one of the most
interesting features of the mesmeric state, I took par-
ticular pains  to verify it.  Mr. K----stood behind the
sleepwaker, but in contact with  her  (for otherwise the
experiment did not seem to answer), one hand slightly
touching her shoulder.  In this position of the parties,
we handed to Mr. K----from behind (so as to prevent a
any possibility of the sleepwaker seeing what we were
about, even had her eyes been open) different things to
drink or eat.   While the mesmerizer was taking these,
Mademoiselle M----imitated precisely all the motions
of tasting and swallowing, just as if she herself had ta-
ken the substances into her mouth.   On being asked
what  she tasted, she stated correctly what the mesmer-
izer was occupied with  at the moment.  In this way
she recognised tea, wine, and water, and distinguished
between them, change them as often as we would.  The
accuracy with which  she described a peculiar kind of
roll, which we gave Mr. K----to eat, was extraordina-
ry.  " Ce  n'est pas du pain; ce n'est pas precisement
du biscuit.   C'est quelquechose que les matelots man-
gent."  The last assertion was perfectly correct, for at
Antwerp this kind of roll is a favourite article of diet
with  the sailors.
   3dly. An increased quickness of perception.—Privately
and with precaution, I changed rings with the mesmer-
izer.   The moment  the sleepwaker subsequently took
his hand, she exclaimed, " Vous  avez quelque chose, qui
n'est pas de vous!"   " A qui est ce done ?" asked Mr.
K----: she immediately  named the right owner.   I
should  remark that, in  her waking state, she assured me
she did not know whether  even I wore a ring or not.
Another proof of the acuteness of her perceptions was
the accuracy with which she distinguished her mesmer-
izer's hand from every other.  We made the experiment
together with her mesmerizer, giving her all our hands
 successively many times in a different order, but she
 invariably recognised the hand of Mr. K----at the first
 touch,  exclaiming, " Ah, c'est de lui."
   4thly.  A  development of the  power of vision.—I am
 aware  that  I here  approach dangerous ground.  Our
 very nature rises up  in arms against whatever seems
 incompatible with our personal experience ;  and that
 men should, under any circumstances, see  otherwise
                         E2 
54          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
than in the appointed way of vision, appears so entirely
to contradict the very purposes of our organization, that
we shrink from the bare mention of such an anomaly.
Accordingly, what is called clair-voyance has been ever
the great stumbling-block to the unbeliever in mesmer-
ism.  To decide that mesmeric sleepwakers do  really
possess the faculty of seeing through closed lids or oth-
er obstacles, would in this place be premature.  I waive
that question until I can place it upon the sure ground
of proof.  But allowing to  pass for the present an hy-
pothesis which has been suggested to me, namely, that
mesmerized persons, being in a state of nervous excite-
ment, see, like those afflicted with a peculiar irritability
of the retina, with less light and through a smaller aper-
ture between the lids than others; still,  even  the fact
that the sensibility of vision can be thus increased by
apparently insignificant means,  appears to me highly in-
teresting and worthy of investigation.  This I can safe-
ly affirm, that there  was something new and astonish-
ing in the manner in which Mademoiselle M----distin-
guished objects.   The  closest  observation of the six
members of the  party  who witnessed the experiments
I am now detailing could detect not the slightest open-
ing of her eyelids ;  nevertheless, she gave undoubted
proofs  of possessing a considerable degree of vision, for
she recognised  and named every person  present when
brought up to her in  any order.  The exercise, howev-
er, of whatever new  mode  of vision she  had acquired,
appeared to her difficult, and fatiguing; and, when an ob-
ject was held before her, she usually declared it  to be
too small for her to know what it was.  When  urged to
look at anything, she expressed the greatest repugnance
to do so, and it was only at the reiterated command of
the mesmerizer that she aroused herself to the necessa-
ry effort.  At those times, her whole  deportment was
that of a  person who wished to rest,  yet  who,  by
some external force, was compelled into exertion.  No
exorcised spirit could have done its work more grudg-
ingly ; and, like the  enchantress evoked by Odin, she
continually entreated to be left to repose.  Sometimes
addressing  those around her, when asked to look at any
object, she exclaimed,  " You. who  see so much  better
than I  do, why do not you rather tell me  what  it  is.  I
beg of you  to tell me."  Twice, however, she gave sin-
gular proofs of correct vision.  Some music-paper was 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
55
put into her hand, and she was asked what was written
on it.  She replied, " There is nothing written on it;  it
is music-paper."  The mesmerizer gave her his watch,
and asked her the hour.   After the usual reluctance and
some delay, and moving of her fingers over the watch-
glass in the direction of the hands, she named the hour
and minute with precision.
  During this sitting there was no return of the oppres-
sion from which Mademoiselle M----had suffered on
first being mesmerized,   both in countenance and man-
ner she remained perfectly calm.
  The experiments being at an end, she was asked  if
she wished to awake, when she answered  in the affirm-
ative, but  at the same time declared her inability to do
so unless  the mesmerizer took off the heaviness from
her eyes,  as in the preceding sitting.  Upon this Mr.
K----made some lateral motions with his hands across
her face, as if he were removing something from before
it, and in  about a minute the sleepwaker opened her
eyes,  rubbed them, and stared about like a person
awaking from  heavy slumber.  Her first question was,
" How long have I been asleep?"  She then complained
of  considerable heaviness in  her limbs,  but this was
soon removed, as it seemed, by some mesmeric " passes"
which Mr. K----made over them.   WThen interrogated
as  to what she remembered of her  past state, she said
that the last thing which she distinctly recollected was
the  mesmerizer's laying his  hands  on her shoulders:
that they  felt to her burning hot, and as heavy as lead,
and seemed to weigh her down into unconsciousness.
All subsequent to this was a blank, with  the exception
of  a confused  notion, as of something in a dream, that
many  hands had touched her own.

                    Third Sitting.
   This time Mr. K----brought to us, as  his mesmeric
patient, a young man of about seventeen  years of age,
whom I shall call Theodore, the son of most respecta-
ble  persons in Antwerp. Mr. K----had already mes-
 merized him several  times, and had excited our curi-
 osity  respecting him by detailing  to  us  extraordinary
 proofs of his  powers of vision in  the state of  sleep-
 waking.  From the moment of his  entering the  room,
 this young man prepossessed every one in his  favour.
 His quiet and even timid manners, and  his ingenuous 
56
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
countenance, made us feel that we might rely upon, as
genuine, any phenomena he might exhibit.  He was in
a state of perfect health.
  In about ten minutes from  the time he was submit-
ted, in the usual manner, to the influence of Mr. K----,
he gave tokens of having  passed into  the  mesmeric
state, his head following every motion of the mesmer-
izer's hand.   Slight shudderings  from  time to time
seemed to pass over his  frame, and were occasionally
repeated  during the whole time of  his  sleepwaking.
This unusual state was accompanied by a marked change
in his demeanour.   He seemed to have lost his shyness,
and conversed  with Mr.  K----  in an unembarrassed
manner, as  if no longer conscious of the presence of
strangers.   He became more animated, frequently laugh-
ed aloud, and even went the length  of committing a
pleasantry.  When led up to a very pretty girl in com-
pany, the  mesmerizer  (in order  to try his  powers of
vision) said, " Savez vous qui  est ce  jeune homme ?" to
which Theodore replied directly, " Je  voudrais bien voir
un jeune homme aussi joli que cela."
  The principal phenomena which I  noted in the case
of Mademoiselle M----were all developed in this  sleep-
waker, with the slight exception of his more patiently
suffering the mesmerizer to go  a short distance from
him.  On the former, however, trying to steal from the
apartment as noiselessly  as possible, he rushed to him
and dragged him back with considerable agitation,  which
was only calmed by the mesmerizer  caressing him, as
it were, with the hand.  On all  occasions he testified
the strongest attachment and affection to Mr. K----,
frequently leaning his head upon the shoulder of the lat-
ter, and running to  him, when  placed at a little distance,
on the slightest motion of his hand,  with such  simple
and natural gestures as a  child uses when, half playful-
ly, it  runs for shelter to its mother's side.
  His physical attraction towards the mesmerizer was
as strongly  marked as  the mental.  As  he  was  sitting
down, Mr. K----approached  his hand to the leg  of the
patient, and then slowly drew it upward.  The limb, as
if compelled to follow, rose also, and, as long as  Mr.
K----held his hand over it, remained in a raised posi-
tion.
  A very important proof that this physical attraction
was  wholly independent of the patient's imagination 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.           57
was  the following: Theodore was  standing  with his
back to the mesmerizer, while some one engaged his at-
tention in front, and the  mesmerizer, going to a good
distance, so as to render any cognizance of his gestures
by feeling impossible, gently beckoned towards him the
patient, who actually ran backward for some steps, then,
turning quickly  round,  hastened to the mesmerizer.
Community of sensation was manifested not only by a
recognition of what, the  mesmerizer ate or drank, but
in another way, which seemed to indicate that the sense
of feeling, as  well as of taste, was placed in some mys-
terious communication with the corresponding function
of the mesmerizer.   Mr. K---- having  left Theodore
standing apart for a few instants, went to the fire and
warmed himself.   During this time the patient rubbed
his hands and spread them out, as if over the flame, pre-
cisely as the  mesmerizer did, and with a look of evident
satisfaction and  enjoyment.  Mr.  K---- said,  "Que
faites  vous la Theodore ?"  " Je m'echauffe," was the
answer.
   Our young patient  also exhibited other phenomena,
which I have since found to be generally characteristic
of mesmeric  sleepwaking, and which I shall call

Occasional Community of Motion  with the  Mesmerizer.—
       Isolation from all others than the Mesmerizer.
   In illustration  of the  first I might adduce the fact,
that there was no person present who did not remark
that, in walking, Theodore took the  step and air of Mr.
K____ as if  his body were a machine directed by the
mesmerizer.   But this may be objected to as a proof
not  sufficiently rigorous.   The correctness, however, of
the  following experiment cannot be contested.
   The mesmerizer was placed with his back  to the pa-
tient.   In this position the  former  made sundry  grima-
ces  and contortions of visage, which were exactly and
 simultaneously imitated by the latter.
   Secondly.  Upon first passing into the mesmeric state,
 Theodore seemed absolutely insensible  to every other
 than the  mesmerizer's voice.  Some of  our party went
 close to him and shouted his name, but  he gave no to-
 kens  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 
58
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
voices equally with that of the mesmerizer, but by no
means to pay an equal attention to them.
   With regard to development of vision, the eyes of the
patient appeared to be firmly shut during the whole sit-
ting, 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  distinguish-
ed 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 draw-
ing by Mr. K---, &c.
   When the  mesmerizer  left him, and  ran quickly
among the chairs, tables, &c,  of the apartment, he fol-
lowed  him, running also, and taking the  same  turns,
without  once  coming  in contact  with anything  that
stood in  his way.
   He told the hour accurately by Mr. K---'s watch.
   He played several games at dominoes with the differ-
ent 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  domi-
noes on the table with their backs to the candles in such
a  manner that, when I  placed my head in the same po-
sition 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 con-
vinced 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 mesmerizer, of a tolerable size,
being shown 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 sleepwaking.  Mr. K----al- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          59
lowed 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 fa-
tigue  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 half 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 consist-
ent course of inquiry concerning them; though, as  yet,
while all was new and wonderful to my apprehensions,
I could scarcely do more than  observe and verify phe-
nomena.  It was,  however, necessary that my views,
though for the  present bounded, should be distinct.  I
had  already asked repecting   mesmeric sleepwaking,
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  farther  to inquire, 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 indi-
viduals  of  different ages, stations, and temperaments
were capable of sleepwaking.   I resolved, therefore, by
experiments on as extensive a  scale as possible, to as-
certain whether the state in question were too common-
ly exhibited to be  exceptional or idiosyncratic.  Again,
the two  cases that I had witnessed coincided in charac-
teristics.  But could this coincidence be accidental ? It
might still be asked, Were the phenomena they display-
ed "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  sleepwaking 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 man?   On its
 pretensions to be so considered, rested, I conceived, its
 elaims to notice and peculiar investigation.   To decide
 this point was therefore one of my chief objects;  and 
60          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
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
sleepwaking differing from the  common, not only inas-
much as it  is otherwise produced, but  as it displays
quite other characteristics  when produced.
  Thus the inquiry on which 1 desired to enter was two-
fold, for I had to  consider,
  1st. Sleepwaking as mesmerically induced.
  2d.  As possessing, when so induced, its own class  of
        phenomena.
  Before relating with what success I pursued the above
objects, it is necessary that  I  should say  a few words
as to the plan to  which  I shall adhere in the details  of
my " proofs by experiments."  Each branch of my  in-
quiry ought, perhaps, to be treated  separately ; but  in
that  case I  should have, in  the first instance, only to
draw up a barren statement of  the number of different
persons in whom 1 had seen sleepwaking  induced, and
then return to these same cases for an elucidation of the
constancy of the phenomena.
  This would be at once  cumbrous and useless, and I
therefore take the  simpler course  of detailing my mes-
meric cases just as they  occurred, strengthening  my
cause at  once by their  number and by their identity  of
feature.   That I  should thus let the two arguments run
parallel has this advantage also: I present  a portrait  of
mesmeric sleepwaking  from the outset—a  very needful
preliminary.  So at least will they who differ from me
in opinion be sure that they and I are speaking of the
same thing.
  It may be, also,  that  to paint mesmerism as it is will
remove  objections to its  validity more  surely than a
method more elaborate.   It should never be forgotten
than in all states there  is a spurious and a true ; and of
our unfortunate  subject it may especially be  affirmed
that there exist many counterfeit presentations.  It has
been drawn by its  enemies, and even in early times  by
its friends, as a convulsed  and decrepit hag, with Super-
stition on her right hand and Spleen upon her left;  but
the influence whereof I treat is of a tranquil brow, and
has Truth and Reason for  her handmaids.  Should I  be-
come tedious by presenting again and. again the same 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
61
features to view, I have  at least thus much to urge in
my defence :  each successive copy of the original type
strengthens the evidence  that the thing is; while, if the
picture once  drawn be faithfully adhered to, there will
be every reason to conclude that the thing is such as
represented, and no other.   Facts  unaccompanied  by
deductions may indeed  be wearisome ;  but at present
the great point is to portray phenomena as they occur-
red ; for a discussion upon mesmerism is not like a dis-
cussion upon any known science, which men are at least
agreed to treat as a reality.  The inquiry is not merely
into its nature, but its very existence.
  I must farther observe that, with  regard to the great
characteristics of mesmerism, I have never had occa-
sion to change my opinion from the beginning.  I trust-
ed to  my impressions then, on the ground that the first
view of a subject often seizes its character the best, and
that a fresh eye  will fix upon the salient  points of phe-
nomena, to which habit may afterward blunt the percep-
tions.  Thus reasoning, I have not since  been convicted
of erroneous  views.  The production of a bodily sleep,
through another's influence, while the mind continued
waking—the  community of  motion  and  sensation with
the mesmerizer—the  development of the perceptions :
these were the phenomena which, from the first, struck
me in mesmerism as the most important, the most re-
plete with interest; and they seem so still.   I have be-
held them  often enough  repeated to fix  in my mind a
conviction  of  their truth ; and  believing, as I do, that
they may be brought home to every  man's business and
bosom, I am anxious to impart to others the belief which
I possess myself.
  Thus, then, it is my intention plainly  to narrate that
which I have witnessed, leaving it in  general to my read-
er to refer to their separate tracts  of inquiry the phe-
nomena which I shall detail, and to mark their corre-
spondence  with  others previously observed.  Nor shall
I confine myself altogether to a description of the com-
pleted state of mesmerism, since 1 conceive it to be  in-
teresting in its dawn also ; and it is instructive to see, in
certain cases, the same  phenomena indicated in their
rise, which were, in others, developed during their prog-
ress.   At any rate, the beginnings  of mesmeric  sleep-
waking, even  if they go  no farther, tend to prove that
there is an influence which  one human being can exert
                         F 
62          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.

over another, hitherto but partially observed, yet more
general than  is usually supposed.  By such cases my
first lemma is advantaged, even if the second is not ben-
efited by it.
  It may be,  even, that the imperfect cases of mesmer-
ism present the strongest testimony to its truth.  As a
force  confessedly acting  on  the nervous system, the
strong and the  insusceptible  should be altogether sub-
tracted from  its influence, so that the circumstance of
such persons being subdued  at all is more convincing
than the entire subjugation of the weaker and more sen-
sitive.   That  a healthy, unimaginative man should be
reduced to a sort  of spellbound slumber in five or ten
minutes by the agency of another, under circumstances
the most unfavourable to sleep,  strikes the mind, per-
haps, as much as  any of the  mightier miracles of mes-
merism.  It is a  fact of  which the senses are clearly
cognizant, and it has made its converts accordingly.  It
is  true that, in the  physical  sciences, the detail of an
imperfect experiment is-altogether futile; but  it is not
so in respect of the  investigation of mind.  Relative to
this the merest trifle is  important, the  slightest indica-
tion interesting.   Besides, every state has a beginning,
a middle, and an end; and the first is surely best exam-
ined when it remains stationary, instead of merging rap-
idly in the others.  Let my reader, then, keep in mind
that I divide mesmeric sleepwaking into  imperfect and
perfect, the former  being altogether in harmony with
and elucidating the latter.
  In all the subsequent experiments I  was myself the
operator, having,  through the kindness of Mr. K----,
received such instructions as  put it in my own power to
practise the mesmeric art; for it is plain that the course
on which I was  desirous of entering  required that  I
should be independent of the extraordinary assistance
which I could by no means always have  at hand, and
demanded the full force of the most careful and personal
experience.

                      CASE  I.
  The first person whom I succeeded in mesmerizing
was Theodore.   The phenomena of the third sitting
were repeated, with this additional proof of the patient's
community of sensation with the mesmerizer :
   A member  of our party, having heard it asserted that 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          63
mesmerized persons could feel any injury that was in-
flicted on the mesmerizer, standing behind me, pulled my
hair, without warning, and without a possibility of my
patient being made aware of the circumstance in any
usual way ;  for, first,  his eyes were closed; secondly,
his head was bent down and drooping, as frequently hap-
pens in the mesmeric sleepwaking; thirdly, the position
in which 1 stood completely screened from him the per-
son who tried the experiment.  Nevertheless, Theodore
immediately winced as if he himself had felt the injury,
and put up his hand to that part of the back of my head
where my hair had been pulled, throwing his arm round
my neck, as if to defend me from any other attacks that
might be made upon me.
  1 observed that when he exerted  himself to play at
dominoes he was more  particularly affected by  those
slight convulsive twitchings which I had remarked on a
former occasion.

                      CASE II.
   A. L----, a Belgian gentleman  of our acquaintance,
who  thoroughly laughed  at  mesmerism,  consented,
mockingly, one evening to let me mesmerize him.  He
was twenty-three years of age, in good health, in char-
acter imaginative, but of a scoffing tone, and  lively even
to boisterousness.  On  first sitting down, while I held
his hands in the usual  mesmeric manner,  he laughed
much and made ridiculous faces, opening his eyes, and
pretending, in his turn, to mesmerize me.  Shortly, how-
ever, the same  drowsy expression which I had remark-
ed in Mademoiselle M----stole over his countenance.
He became serious, and seemed to struggle  against the
torpor which was evidently coming over  him.  At
length, as if disliking to be vanquished, he got up from
his chair with evident effort and walked about the room,
but soon, complaining of an irresistible drowsiness, lay
down, as if he did not at  all know what he was  doing,
on the sofa, in the presence of ladies, before whom, un-
der other circumstances, he never would have dreamed
of committing  such  a breach of etiquette.   I came to
him, and, curious to know how far my influence over
him might extend, made the usual mesmeric passes in
 front of him.  Upon this  his upper eyelids, with  a mo-
 tion  almost  as slow  and imperceptible as  that  of the
 hour-hand of a watch, began to fall, while his eyeballs 
64          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
seemed drawn upward.  After a time the lids became
stationary and remained a little open, showing only the
white of the eye.  His head began to follow the motions
of my hand.  I now asked him if he slept, to which he
replied, in a very low voice,  " Not altogether; I wish I
could."  " Do you suffer in any way ?" I inquired. " Yes,
I have  a pain in the back of  my head."
  Upon this I made mesmeric passes over the part  af-
fected,  and soon after asked,
  Q. Do  you feel better now ?
  A. Yes, the pain is quite gone.
  Q. Do  you wish to be awakened ?
  A. No, I wish to sleep more soundly.
  Q. Why do you not open your eyes wider ?
  A.. I  cannot; it is  as if lead were on them (lis sont
comme plombes).
  Q. Can you see anything ?
  A. I see you.
  Q. Nothing else ?
  A. Nothing whatever.
  I now made a motion as if I were going away, when
suddenly the patient  seized  my hands, one in each of
his, and  exclaimed, " You must  not go away on  any
account." After this he grasped my  hands so tightly
that it would have been no easy matter for me to liber-
ate them.  Fearing to  irritate him, I remained quiet;
and, as long as I did so, he lay perfectly motionless, but
always with his eyes a little open.   His complexion,
which was naturally pale, was changed to a ghastly hue,
and his whole appearance was so deathlike that  the
spectators in the room became alarmed, and  I own that
I was myself uneasy.  To my questions, however, he
replied that he did not wish to wake; that he was very
well, but  that  I must not leave  him.  Thus circum-
stanced, I scarcely knew what course  to take.  That
he should be awakened was desirable, for it was late ;
but every effort that I made to free my hands only made
him grasp them more  firmly.  My position was suffi-
ciently  ridiculous.  I had raised a spirit which I could
not quell, and the work of my own hands had become
as unmanageable as the creation  of Frankenstein.   At
length, after matters  had remained in  this state a full
hour, I so strongly insisted  upon his awaking, that he
reluctantly permitted  me to  take the necessary meas-
ures for arousing him.  I then made before the patient 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
65
 the motions which are usually employed for dispersing
 the mesmeric slumber, and it was  curious to observe
 how quickly, by means (as it seemed) of these few and
 simple gestures, the torpor passed away.   At the same
 time, the natural colour and  appearance returned to the
 countenance of my patient, who got up, rubbed his eyes,
 looked much confused at having slept in the company of
 ladies (a circumstance that  shocked  his foreign polite-
 ness), and, with many apologies, bade us hastily good-
 night.  The  next day, when I called to inquire  after
 him, he seemed to be half ashamed of his mesmeric ex-
 ploits, but owned that the way in which he had been af-
 fected was at least a convincing proof to him of the influ-
 ence he had  denied.  A drowsiness, he said, and slight
 confusion of the head were still felt by him ;  and these,
 he declared, were relieved by my moving my hand across
 his forehead.  When I asked him what  he  remembered
 of his mesmeric state, he said that it seemed to him as
 if he had always retained in it a sort of twilight con-
 sciousness, and  that he recollected  having  been  very
 anxious to exchange these " twinklings of oblivion" for
 a deeper slumber.  Of  my having spoken to him, how-
 ever, or of his having answered  me, he remembered no-
 thing ; and when I told him how forcibly he had  kept
 me near him, he was much surprised.
   Shortly after making the foregoing experiments  I re-
 turned to England, it being the  spring of 1837.  Like a
 person full of a new  subject, I discoursed among my
 friends upon what I had witnessed of the  mesmeric influ-
 ence.   The result may be imagined.   Those who knew
 me well were forced to believe that I had really beheld
 the phenomena I described;  but here they were content
 to  stop.  It was all very extraordinary, they declared,
 and they would rather not think about it.  Some swore

■»          " 'Twas strange—'twas passing strange;"

 and others, that
           " 'Twas pitiful—'twas wondrous pitiful."

 A few, more  sagacious than the rest, surmised that it
 savoured of the  black art; and the  ladies  thought, in-
 deed, that " the naughty man might have something to
 do with it."   One or two confessed that  they were too
 old for the introduction of  new ideas into their brains;
 and I fully believed them when they said so.  More dis-
                          F2 
66
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
tant acquaintances listened to my story with a look of
polite incredulity ; others yawned.
  The practice of the Baron Dupotet, and the efforts of
Mr. Mayo and Dr. Lardner in promulgating Dr. Elliot-
son's experiments, had not yet familiarized the London
world with, at least,  the name of mesmerism; so, in
the great thinking, unthinking metropolis, I met with
scarce any disciples  of the  new creed.  The  Only  ex-
periment, therefore, which  I had any opportunity of
making  was upon a young cousin of my own, a lad of
about fifteen.  He, however, proved at that time insen-
sible to the mesmeric influence ;  but he took an interest
in the subject of mesmerism, and actually tried to mes-
merize a younger brother of his, who was not more
than twelve years old.   The results of his attempt are
sufficiently curious to  tempt me  to  swerve from my
usual rule of only recording  that which I have person-
ally observed.  Besides, the  actors in the little drama
are so well known to me, that it almost appears as if I
had been eyewitness to the scene, the circumstances of
which were related to me  by the mother of the two
boys.
  The elder, in her presence, sat down, partly in joke,
to mesmerize his  brother, who was wholly ignorant of
the process and effects of mesmerism; and, taking  the
hands of his patient, went through the forms of which
he had  seen me make use  when  mesmerizing.  Be it
remarked that the  time was midday, when the light, the
noise in the streets, and the  natural liveliness of youth
would particularly indispose a boy to slumber.   Never-
theless,  in about ten minutes a manifest effect  was pro-
duced.  The patient's  eyes closed as by a spell, and  his
head followed the  mesmerizer's hand in the usual man-
ner.   Charles, the elder brother, now got up  from  his
chair, when  Edward rose also.   The former raised  his
right  arm, the latter immediately raised  his; his left
arm,  the same  result.  Charles walked  forward,  Ed-
ward advanced also.  Charles  stopped,  and Edward
stood still on the  instant; in short, all the gestures of
the one were faithfully imitated  by the other.   But  the
mother  became  now alarmed,  and insisted upon  the
young mesmerizer awaking his patient. This was soon
effected; and Edward,opening his eyes, and staring about
like one just startled from slumber, expressed the great-
est astonishment at finding himself standing in the mid- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          67
die of the room, declaring, at the same time, that his
unconsciousness had been complete.
  In one point of view the above relation lays claim to
a peculiar  interest.  The effects of a new influence,
when manifested by the young, are especially to be re-
lied upon; they can be neither prompted nor impeded
by those prepossessions which are the growth of matu-
rer years, nor can they be attributed to those nervous
imaginings which spring from infirmity.   Youth, more-
over, is the season of candour, when all is bold, healthy,
unsophisticated; and the phenomena which it exhibits
are valuable in proportion as  they are  exempt from the
suspicion which attaches to the doings of the older in-
habitants of this crafty world.
                   SECTION II.

SHOWING  THE CLAIMS OF MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING TO BE
      CONSIDERED A PECULIAR CONDITION OF MAN.

  In the spring of 1837 I went to Cambridge, on a visit
to some friends.  That  I should have succeeded in in-
teresting them, and others of the  University, upon the
subject nearest my thoughts,  will not surprise those who
have observed that, where  science is most studied, new
statements respecting natural  phenomena obtain the
most patient hearing.  I did, in fact, at Cambridge, meet
with many persons really desirous of witnessing exper-
iments in mesmerism, and  even  of submitting them-
selves to the mesmeric influence.

                     CASE  III.
  In my first essay of mesmerism at Cambridge, I ex-
perimented, before seven or  eight persons, upon a ser-
vant whom I had brought from Belgium, a man of about
27 years of age, in good health, lively, and quick-tem-
pered ; able also to speak English.   I had attempted to
mesmerize him once before, but at that time he had ad-
vanced no farther than imperfect sleepwaking, but could
neither move nor open his eyes. On the present occa-
sion, after a quarter of an hour's mesmerization, he clo-
sed his eyes, but seemed restless, and, in answer to a 
68           MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
question I made him, declared that it was impossible for
him to sleep, on account of noises in the street, and the
constraint caused by the presence of so many persons.
Scarcely, however, had he said this, when 1 perceived
that his head followed my  hand ; and, continuing the
mesmeric passes  for  about  five minutes more, I again
asked him if he felt disposed to sleep.  To my surprise
(for I  had not expected a perfect result so soon), he re-
plied,  '• I am asleep."   " Can you rise from your chair ?"
I inquired.   "Yes, but 1 had rather stay quiet."  When,
however, I got up and  removed to a short distance from
the patient, he also rose and moved a step or two towards
me, but tottered, and would have fallen had I not hasten-
ed to his assistance.   He leaned heavily against me, and
seemed unable to stand without my support; I therefore
placed him in a chair,  when he complained of a pain at
the chest, and begged me earnestly to wake him.  " Can
you not awake of yourself?"  I asked; to which he replied,
" By no means  ; but I beg of you to awake me."  Re-
luctant to do so without'exhibiting to the party present
some of  the marked phenomena of mesmerism, I sooth-
ed my patient as well  as I could, and persuaded him to
remain a little while longer  in the state of sleepwaking.
As he, however, manifestly suffered, I was unwilling to
fatigue him by many experiments.  The following were
the principal: wine,  water, and coffee  were handed to
me, and I tasted  them successively in such a way as
to prevent the  patient from perceiving, by any usual
means, what the liquids were.   He, however, correctly
named them in their  order.  The order was then chan-
ged, and the results of the experiment were the same.
   Flowers were given me to smell: I was  holding the
patient by one hand at the time, but turning altogether
away from him to a  table,  over which I bent, so as to
interpose myself between him and anything that might
be handed to me. He, however, when I smelt of the
flowers,  imitated the action, and on my asking him  what
he perceived, replied, without hesitation,  " flowers."
Upon this one of the party  silently changed the flowers
for a bottle  of eau de cologne, when he observed, " That
is not the same smell; it is eau de  cologne."   With the
manner  of conducting this experiment and its results,
 all who were present declared themselves perfectly sat-
 isfied.
   The patient, on being awakened, declared that he re- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          69
membered nothing of what had passed since the moment
when he complained of  the  noise in the  street.  His
mesmeric sleepwaking had been complete.

                      CASE IV.
  T. S., an under-graduate of Trinity College, consented
to try how far I could influence him mesmerically.   He
possessed abilities of no common order, was extremely
lively, by no means of a wonder-seeking nature, and al-
together seemed to be the last person in the world who
could be worked  upon  by nervous apprehensions.   He
sat down to be mesmerized, laughingly, and with perfect
calmness.  In about ten minutes his eyelids drooped,
and closed gradually ; his head followed my hand; his
features  became fixed and rigid; his colour fled, and a
dead  stillness came over his  countenance: the change
was the  more striking on account of the usually anima-
ted and mobile character of his physiognomy.  It pain-
fully resembled the alteration caused by death.  Never-
theless, on being interrogated as to his state, he declared
that he was well, with the exception of a slight pain in
the back of his head* which was shortly relieved by the
mesmeric passes.  To  other questions he replied  that
he did not sleep, but was unable to move or to open his
eyes.  As, after long  mesmerism, I saw no probability
of advancing farther into sleepwaking, I awoke him in
the usual manner, when his countenance resumed its ac-
customed expression.   On attempting, however, to rise,
he complained, of feeling extremely  weak and dizzy,
and for  a short time he was unable to stand with any
firmness.  He was convinced that he had experienced
the effects of an influence independent of  the  imagina-
tion.

                       CASE  v.
   C. M., a bachelor of Trinity, aged about twenty-five,
submitted to be mesmerized ; he was clever, thoughtful,
 and rather grave in character.  On first sitting down he
 seemed  very wakeful, and declared that it  would be
 strange  if, under circumstances the most  unfavourable
 to sleep, he could be charmed into anything like drowsi-
 ness.  In about a  quarter of an hour, during which a
 perfect  silence was by no means observed, some  force
 seemed to close his eyes  as irresistibly as if they had
* See Case ii. 
70          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
been touched by Mercury's wand of slumbrous notorie-
ty, and he passed into a state of imperfect sleepwaking,
in which his head followed my hand, and he answered
my questions.  On my removing to a short distance
from him, he leaned forward towards me, and would have
fallen had I not resumed my former position.  I awoke
him in about half an hour; he had  not been in any way
unpleasantly affected, and retained a vague  recollection
of an agreeable state of revery, similar  to that which
precedes slumber.

                      CASE VI.
  On this occasion some ten or twelve persons were as-
sembled to witness my experiments, and among them
was a man of luminous intellect and varied acquirements,
whom I was naturally  desirous of interesting in the
question of mesmerism.   He was decidedly skeptical
on the subject, but I knew that his was a mind which,
if once fully convinced, would be  firmest in faith and
foremost in investigation.  I was therefore vexed when,
after long  mesmerization, my servant, whom, from his
having once passed into perfect sleepwaking, I had cho-
sen as the subject of our  experiments, remained unin-
fluenced.  Two or three of the party, tired of waiting
for a result that came not, went away; and the person
whom I was chiefly anxious to convince, and whom I will
call V----, having an engagement, was about to follow
their example, when I urged him  to  stay a very short
time longer, while I tried another patient, D. C, an un-
der-graduate of Trinity, who wished, as he said, to try
the effects of mesmerism, in order to prove their nothing-
ness.   After this, I  need not  add that he was very in-
credulous  on the subject;  every circumstance seemed
to diminish the probability of my success.  The man I
had agreed to mesmerize was in the strength of three-
and-twenty years of age, six feet in height, and muscu-
lar in proportion.   The  stillness of  the  meeting,  once
broken, could not  be restored.  Persons were talking
and moving about the room, and my recent failure had
thrown an air of ridicule about the proceedings of the
evening, which, if the mesmeric influence were depend-
ant on imagination, would have been  sufficient to anni-
hilate it at once.  V----looked hopeless of seeing any-
thing remarkable, and had taken up a book.
  The following facts then occurred : 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
71
  I had not held the hands of D. C. more than five min-
utes,  when  I  remarked a dizzy look about his  eyes,
which is peculiarly indicative of the incipient stage of
mesmeric sleepwaking.  Encouraged by this success, I
had recourse to the mesmeric passes, when, by degrees,
the eyes of the patient closed, and shortly after the head
followed every motion of my hand.  V----, at this mo-
ment  looking  up from his book, was surprised to see
what  had been effected.  I beckoned him to come near,
and, by reiterated trials, convinced him that my hand
had an attractive power over the patient.
  I now spoke to D. C, and asked him if he were asleep ;
to which he replied," Not precisely."  I then, at V----'s
request, said, " How do you feel ?"  " Very strangely,"
he said,  " as I never felt before."  Shortly afterward
V----himself spoke to the patient, and I called him by
his name, but he seemed to pay no attention to the cir-
cumstance.   When V---- happened to lay  his hand
upon  his shoulder, the effect of  the touch was like that
of an electric shock.   The patient's whole body quiver-
ed, his features were convulsed, his countenance became
deadly pale, and he  seemed to gasp for breath,  like a
person who has  been suddenly immersed in cold water.
Nevertheless, he did not awake, and the affection, what-
ever it was, seemed entirely physical (as if his mind had
no longer its usual partnership with the body).   He him-
self appeared to be unaware of it; and, when I asked
him what had disturbed him, what was the matter with
him, he said that he felt nothing whatever.  Still, how-
ever, he continued to tremble, until, by the application of
my hand to his forehead, and by mesmeric passes from
the  head downward,  I  restored  him to tranquillity.
V____, whom, since he touched him, the patient seemed
to hear equally with myself, now recommenced speak-
ing, and asked D. C. if he  knew him.  He replied in the
affirmative, and  named  him.  " Do you  see at all ?"
V____inquired.  " Not much ; I see a red light about so
large ;" and D. C. made a circular motion with his hands
to express the size of the light.  I then asked him," Do
you see me ?" to which he answered," Yes, I see you
 always."  " Well," I said, " I wish you now to get  up
 from your chair." " Oh, no, no ! I prefer staying where
 I am; but you must stay with me."  " No," I replied,
 " I am going :" whereupon he seized both my handstand
 exclaimed, "You must, on  no  account, leave  me."  I, 
72          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
however, rose up, when the patient also rose ; I walked
forward, and he walked also, but unsteadily, and leaning
upon me.  As he seemed to dislike remaining in an up-
right position, I placed him in a chair in a part of the
room opposite to where he had been.  I then proceeded
to show V----some of the  characteristic phenomena
of mesmerism.   I drank wine, water, coffee, with the
usual precautions, and the patient distinguished them all,
going through the motions of  tasting simultaneously
with myself.  There were various articles of food upon
the table, among others  some sandwiches.   These last
were given me, and he  said  directly, " You are eating
sandwich."  This may seem strange ;  it is so to myself;
but I state the  fact  as  it occurred.  Some snuff that I
took from  the  chimney-piece behind me, turning my
back, and suppressing,  as much as possible, the  usual
indications of smelling, was named directly :  this  being
exchanged for flowers, the result was equally satisfac-
tory.
   Remembering with what acnteness of perception Mad-
emoiselle M----had distinguished between objects that
did or did not belong to her mesmerist, I asked for the
pocket-handkerchiefs of all the party, twisted up my
own in the midst of them, and laid them on the knee of
D. C.  He was immediately  affected with slight  shud-
dering, and tossed  away very  quickly all the pocket-
handkerchiefs but mine.  The  experiment,  repeated,
gave the same  results ; but the second time he grasped
and firmly held my handkerchief until the time  of his
 awaking.
   At a yard's distance his hand rose up to meet mine,
 as iron flies to the magnet.  From the approach of other
 hands he recoiled.
   These  experiments  concluded, V----said to me, "I
 am now satisfied that all you asserted to  me respecting
 the mesmeric  state is  correctly true. I do not know
 that we  are liable to elicit any new  fact  by keeping D.
 C. any longer asleep.   He looks ill and suffering, and I
 think you had better wake him."
    Upon this I  asked the patient if he desired to wake,
  and he replied, " Yes ;  I feel much fatigued."
    I awoke him  by the usual  mesmeric passes, when
  he expressed the utmost astonishment at finding himself
  in a different part of the room from  that where  he had
  first been mesmerized.  The last half hour had been a 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
73
blank to him, with this single exception :  he thought that
he remembered hearing V----'s voice, asking him if he
knew him.   Faithful, however, to his character, he re-
fused to believe that he had exhibited the phenomena
to which he bore witness.
  The next day, as may be supposed, I talked over with
V----the circumstances  of our mesmeric evening.  I
found him entirely persuaded that mesmeric  sleepwa-
king was a distinct state,  worthy to be investigated as a
part of man.  His concluding words were these :
  "I thank you for having enlarged my experience by
facts perfectly  new to it.  I have seen a something
which is not sleep, which is not delirium, but a tertium
quid, for which, as  yet,  we  have no accurate name.
The thing is most interesting, but should, I see, be ex-
ercised  with caution.  The effect of my touching D. C.
was fearful.  You have verified many phenomena.  It
has occurred to me that you might try, when you have
an opportunity, whether the sense of touch in the mes-
merized sympathizes with that in the mesmerizer, as do
the  senses of smell and  taste.   Try whether, through
you, the mesmerized person may have a cognizance of
form ; whether he can ascertain, by means of your per-
ceptions, if you are handling square objects or round,
rough or smooth."  To this suggestion  I promised to
attend.
                     CASE VII.

  On this occasion my patient was G. T----, aged nine-
teen, the  son of a  gentleman at whose  house in the
country I spent a few days after quitting Cambridge.
He was strong and healthy, and possessed good sound
sense, with but a trifling infusion of imagination. After
a quarter of an  hour's mesmerization he passed into im-
perfect sleepwaking, in which state his corporeal powers
were held in complete and singular enthralment, while
those of his mind remained unaltered. Unlike my other
sleepwakers, he was utterly incapable of speaking du-
ring the mesmeric trance, though, as he  told me subse-
quently, he heard every question I put to him,  and was
desirous of answering me.  He was also  unable to open
his eyes or to move, except so far  as regarded the in-
voluntary tendency of his head towards my hand.  An-
other time, being curious  to ascertain how far the influ-
ence (whatever it might be) which I exercised over the 
74          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
patient was dependant upon physical causes, I made the
experiment of mesmerizing him  m  the open  air, on a
fine June  day, when  the weather was warm, but re-
freshed by partial breezes.  The following were the dif-
ferences between this mesmenzation and the last:
  The patient did not close his eyes so soon as on the
preceding occasion, nor pass into the imperfect crisis
by so regular a progression.
  In the beginning of his sleep, the power to move and
to open his eyes seemed slightly restored whenever the
gust came by.                                ,
  He told me afterward, that when  I commenced mes-
merizing, the action of the air produced a decided dif-
ference in his sensations.  When the wind swept across
his forehead, it was, he said, as if there were a disturb-
ance of some drowsy weight that was gathering oyer it.
By degrees, however, he became insensible to this ap-
parent remission of the sleeping influence.  Nothing,
he declared, could be more singular than the feeling ot
utter inability to speak, move, or open his eyes.  He
heard me command him, urge him, in every way, to an-
swer my questions, but his organs of speech seemed to
be as completely paralyzed as those of vision.   In fact,
the only external indication that he had given of his de-
 sire to reply to me was the slightest possible motion of
 his lips.

                      CASE VIII.
   The family with whom I was  staying having but few
 prejudices on the subject of mesmerism, 1 was permit-
 ted—in consideration, I suppose, of my years and grav-
 ity—to mesmerize the sister of my preceding patient,
 a young lady of most amiable temper, cheerful, and by
 no means of a nervous temperament.  Of the experi-
 ment to be tried she had no apprehension, as she had
 already seen her brother support mesmerization without
 injury;  and it should be especially kept in mind, that her
 ideas of the mesmeric state were  limited to what she
 herself had witnessed of it; for I had  expressly ab-
 stained from describing the higher phenomena of sleep-
 waking to  herself or to any member of her famly, in
 order that their minds might be uninfluenced on the sub-
  ject. Under these circumstances, to ascribe the curious
 results which I am about to detail  to imagination or to
 imitation would be absurd. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
75
  I sat down to mesmerize my patient about nine o'clock
in the evening.  In about seven minutes her eyes clo-
sed, and in three minutes more her head followed my
hand.  I asked several times, " Do you sleep ?"  but no
answer was given, and I began to fear that this incapa-
city of speech under mesmerism was  a family failing.
At length, however, on a repetition of my question, Miss
T----answered  in a very low  voice, " Yes."   From
this time  she  replied to all I said, and displayed the
higher  characteristics of mesmeric sleepwaking in a
perfection which I never saw evinced upon a first essay.
The effects of mesmerization upon the patient seemed
to be altogether  of an agreeable nature.   She felt no
pain of any kind, and her colour did not vary, or, if any-
thing, was slightly heightened.   Her appearance only
differed  from the natural in these  respects : her eyes
were entirely closed, and her head, drooping as if with
the heaviness  of slumber, swayed  dizzily from side  to
side, except when I strongly commanded her attention,
and desired her to raise her head, at which times she
seemed with an effort to resume the power over her or-
ganization.  In this state, the phenomena manifested by
Miss T---- may be ranged under the usual heads,  as
follows:
   1st. Attraction  towards the  mesmerizer.—Though in-
disposed at first, like others in the mesmeric sleep, to
motion, Miss T----, when I arose  from my chair, rose
also. Without touching her,  I moved onward, and she
seemed compelled to follow me.  At  one time I ran
quickly to a  distance  from  her,  when she remained
standing where I had left her, but bent towards me, and
wavered as if she would fall.  I made a motion with my
arms as if I would draw her to me, when, recovering
herself, she slowly, and, as it were, reluctantly came to
where I stood.
   When her hands were lying on her lap, if I held mine
above them they were attracted upward, more quickly
as they drew  nearer my own.  It was much like the
effect which a piece  of rubbed sealing-wax has on a bit
of paper.  In  proportion to the  attraction towards her
mesmerizer seemed  the patient's repulsion from others.
If any  but  myself  presented their hands  to her, she
drew back her own with a slow but  singularly repug-
nant shrinking, her  fingers becoming rigid and curved
 inward.   This experiment  was often repeated with the 
76
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING
  same results.   Remembering how painfully one of my
  patients had been affected by an unadvised touch, I was
  careful not to allow any one to come into actual con-
  tact with Miss T----until I had established what mes-
  merizers call  a "rapport"  between  the parties,  and
  which is effected by the mesmerizer taking, at the same
i) moment, the patient's hand and that of a third person.
    2dly.  Community of sensation with the  mesmerizer.—
  Wine, water,  and a stand of liqueurs were on  a side-
  table.  Placing the patient as far  from me as was con-
  sistent with my still touching her hand, turning also
  away from her, I tasted alternately water and wine, be-
  tween which  she distinguished  correctly, moving  her
  lips as if she  herself were drinking.  Some brandy  and
  water, already mixed, was in a tumbler on the table; for
  this  I suddenly changed the  first  mentioned liquids,
  when, the moment I had taken it into my mouth, the
  patient made wry faces, and exclaimed, "Nasty, nasty."
  " Why do not you like it ?" I asked.  " Because it is
  too strong." " Have you ever tasted it before ?"  " Yes,
  once, when I  had a sore throat."  " You know, then,
  what it is ?"  " Yes ;  it is brandy and water."
    A  member  of the party gave me, from  behind, some
  wild  flowers which the young people had gathered that
  day.   "Do you  know what 1 am smelling?" I inquired.
  "Something that comes from the  fields," was the reply.
    The flowers were silently changed for snuff, when the
  patient again exhibited symptoms of dislike.   On being
  asked the reason, she said, "I smell tobacco."
    It  now occurred to me to try the experiment which
  V----had suggested with respect to the cognizance of
  form.  With every precaution, I  took up  from a table,
  on which were many other articles, a small square box,
  and passed my finger over  the edges; I, at the same
  time, asked the patient, " Can you tell  me what sort of
  thing I  am touching ?"  Upon this Miss  T---- made
  motions with her fingers, as if she had the object under
  her own hand, and replied, " It is something with edges,
  like a box."  I  next took into my hand  a chessman,
  some parts of which were carved in points, and felt al-
  ternately the carved and uncarved portions of the piece.
  Between these  she  discriminated  correctly, saying,
  " Now it feels rough; now  smooth;" and always  be-
  fore  speaking  she went through the  same motions of
  touching with  myself. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
77
  One of the patient's sisters, without giving notice of
her intention, went out of the room and fetched an egg,
which she concealed carefully in her hand and gave me
from  behind.  The patient now said, " I feel something
smooth and round."   Being urged to  tell what  it was,
she said, " I think it is a ball."   Stretching out my hand
behind me, I whispered to one of the  party to hurt me
in some way ; I was pricked with a pin, when my pa-
tient started and shook her hand as if she felt the injury.
On being  asked what  she  felt, she answered, " As if
they pricked my hand."
  At  another time,  when I  inquired if she suffered in
any way, she replied, " No, only my feet are very cold."
My own feet being  exceedingly cold at the moment, I
suspected that her feeling was sympathetic.  I conjec-
tured rightly; for, awaking soon after, she assured me
that her feet were perfectly warm.
  3dly. Isolation from every one but the mesmerizer.—Even
after having been placed "en rapport" with all present,
the patient seemed  incapable of hearing any voice but
mine, unless the person who spoke were in actual con-
tact with me and with herself at the same time.  On
one occasion, when I was asking  her if she knew what
some object was that I held before  her, her father told
her very loudly that it was a wine-glass (which it actu-
ally was), but the patient did not profit by the intelli-
gence ; for, on being again questioned, she said impatient-
ly, " I do not know ;  I cannot tell."  Her name, shouted
close  to her ear  by different members of her family,
seemed to make no  impression whatever upon her or-
gans of hearing;  while, on the contrary, she attended
to the slightest word that I addressed to her.
  4thly. Development of vision.—The patient's eyes were,
to all appearance, firmly shut during the whole period
of the mesmeric sleep.  When I  first asked her if  she
saw anything, she answered in the negative ; but added,
after a pause, " I see you."   After this she seemed by
degrees to acquire a more general vision.   She recog-
nised, on being led up to them, the several members of
her family, consisting of nine persons, and could not be
deceived by  any change in their position.  At length, I
held a book  before her on a level with her eyes, when
she, without hesitation, named what the  object was.
Upon this I opened the book at the title-page, and press-
ed her to  try if she could distinguish any words.  She 
78           MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
at first begged me not to trouble her to do this;  but at
length, as if making a great  effort, she made out the
word " London" at the bottom of the page.   This was
the first time I had seen  any sleepwaker read any writ-
ten or printed word.   The experiment, however, though
curious, was not strictly enough conducted to serve as
the basis of any theory on the mysterious  subject of
vision  through the closed lids.   The book,  at the mo-
ment when the word  was distinguished, was resting upon
the patient's lap, below the level of her eyes.  Those,
however, who were observant of the circumstance, could
detect not the smallest opening of the eyelids.
   Holding my watch before the patient, in the usual line
of vision, I asked her the hour, when she correctly told
that it was five minutes to eleven.
   Directly after this last experiment I awoke my pa-
tient, who testified great surprise at finding herself on a
chair instead of the  sofa, where she last remembered to
have been seated.   Mr. T----now came up to her and
said, " H----, do you know what o'clock it is ?" to
which she replied,  " I suppose  about ten, or perhaps
half past nine.  I am sure I cannot tell."  Mr. T----
then said, " Why, it is not five  minutes since you told
us the hour."  Upon this Miss T----seemed much as-
tonished, but declared her utter ignorance of the circum-
stance, and, indeed,  of all  that had occurred during her
sleepwaking.  The  last thing which she recollected was
hearing me  ask whether she slept, when she desired to
answer me, but could not.  A moment  after she became
unconscious.  Her feelings after the mesmerization was
over were those of  pleasurable excitement, and she felt
none of the heaviness which sometimes succeeds sleep-
waking. The next morning she declared that she had
not been able to  close her eyes all night, but had felt no
want of sleep, nor subsequently did she experience any
of the lassitude usually resulting from a wakeful  night.
   On a second mesmerization Miss T----confirmed by
repetition the results of most of the preceding  experi-
ments.  A cambric pocket handkerchief tied over her
eyes made no difference whatever in her powers of vis-
ion.  She did not even seem to be aware when I put on
the bandage or when I took it off.  While bandaged, she
read the words  " Edinburgh  Guide,"  and " Travels in
 Russia," from the title-pages of two books which I took
up at random from among others lying about the room, 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
79
and held before her, in about the usual position a person
holds a book in reading.  The effort to distinguish these
words seemed to be great, and subsequently Miss T----
refused to make any more exertions.  1 urged her to
look at my watch, but she remained silent, and soon af-
ter large tears forced their way through her closed lids.
Having tranquillized my patient by such motions of the
hands as I have ever found beneficial  and  soothing to
mesmerized persons, I awoke her, when she at once re-
sumed her cheerfulness, and began laughingly to ask her
sisters what  she had been doing, and how long she had
slept.  She was not in the least aware that she had been
crying, and I begged that she might not be told of it.
   I might here, perhaps, close  my series of proofs  re-
lating to mesmeric sleepwaking and its phenomena; but,
as regards this argument, numbers  are  strength, and
each additional instance of the  mesmeric sleep, accom-
panied by the same characteristics,  is a step towards
that firm  and decisive conclusion on the subject, which
can only be attained, on  any, by a repetition of  the
same fact under the same circumstances.  At the risk,
therefore, of wearying my readers, I add the following
cases, which occurred after I had returned to the Conti-
nent in 1837:
                       CASE  IX.
   J. G----,  of Antwerp, aged  22,  not very strong,  but
having no particular ailment, was brought by  me into
imperfect mesmeric  sleepwaking.  His  head followed
my hand, and he was unable to move or open his eyes,
though he replied to my questions.   He felt a drowsi-
ness during the whole of the day succeeding to the mes-
merization.
                       case x.
   W----, of Aix-la-Chapelle, aged 45, in delicate health,
of a calm, reflective mind, and skeptical  as well as un-
informed on the subject of mesmerism, was thrown into
perfect sleepwaking  at the first sitting.  He displayed
the  usual characteristics of the state.  There were cir-
 cumstances  relating  to this patient which  I shall have
, occasion hereafter  to detail, and which are  therefore
 omitted here.

                       CASE XI.
   T. B---- (English),  aged  nine, an  extremely lively 
80          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
boy, and full of the restlessness natural to his age, con-
sented to be mesmerized, but observed that he thought
he never should be able to sit still while I tried my ex-
periments.   Notwithstanding this, and the time of day
(two o'clock), his eyes closed after about ten minutes'
mesmerization, and shortly after he gave  every token
of having  passed  into perfect  sleepwaking.   He  an-
swered all my questions,  heard no other voice than
mine, was  attracted towards me in the usual manner,
and, with his eyes to all appearance shut, saw me, and
indicated the position of my hands and the number of
fingers which I held up before him.   In about half an
hour he begged me to awake him, and, on  returning to
the natural state, declared that his unconsciousness had
been complete.
                      CASE XII.
  Mrs. 0----, a married English lady, clever and firm-
minded, was thrown by me into imperfect  sleepwaking
in about a quarter of an hour.  In this state her coun-
tenance was pale, her  head moved towards my hand in-
voluntarily, and she was unable to get up or to open her
eyes until I had demesmerized her.

                     CASE XIII.
  R. V----, a young Belgian, of the medical profession,
was so far susceptible of the effects of mesmerism as to
display the usual  symptoms of imperfect sleepwaking.
Having an engagement on the evening that he was mes-
merized, and rather ashamed of having slept, he hur-
ried away before the mesmeric drowsiness had been en-
tirely dispersed.  The consequence was, that he nearly
fell down in the street, and was obliged to have recourse
to the  support  of a fellow-student.   On the following
day he still felt a confusion in his head.  This is not
the only occasion on which I have remarked that the
sensations which attend and follow an imperfect crisis
are by no  means so  agreeable as those which  result
from complete sleepwaking.   In  the one case, there is
an apparent disturbance of the system, accompanied by
feelings of drowsiness and fatigue ;  in the other, the
frame seems to be invigorated, and a wakefulness and
vivacity are the after symptoms.

                     CASE XIV.
  At the time when this occurred  I was staying at a 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
81
country house in Switzerland, and my friends the Coun-
tess of----and Lord---- were  passing a few days at
the town  which was nearest our  residence.  Having
heard from me some interesting details respecting mes-
merism, they were desirous of witnessing its phenome-
na ; but, as no  patient was forthcoming, it seemed un-
likely that the wishes of my noble  friends would be
gratified.  However, late one evening the countess sent
her carriage and a note, pressing me to come to her im-
mediately,  as  she  had met with some friends, among
whom I should find one  at least willing to be mesmer-
ized.  On arriving at the  town of----, I was  introduced,
for  the  first time, to a most agreeable English family,
the friends of whom the countess had spoken; and, after
some conversation, in the course of which I ascertained
that the newly-arrived visiters  had but a very  vague
notion of  what they were  to witness or to experience,
it  was decided that  I should mesmerize Miss ----, a
young lady who might have seen some eighteen sum-
mers, of a lively disposition, and not in the  least timid
or nervous with regard to the experiment about  to be
made.   Lady ----  took down a kind of proces  verbal
during the proceedings of the evening, and  from  this I
extract the following details :
  Mr. T----began to mesmerize Miss----at ten o'clock.
Five minutes  after her eyes closed her  head  followed
the mesmerizer's  hand  wherever  he moved  it.  The
mesmerizer then asked,
  Are you asleep ?
  Patient.  No, I am not asleep.
  Mesmerizer.  Do you like being mesmerized ?
  P. No.   (On repetition)  Yes.
  The apparently mesmerized person here started from
her seat, opened her eyes, and  said, " I'm  not  in the
least  mesmerized."  All present thought she had been
feigning, and were preparing to join in a laugh against
the mesmerizer, when, to the  surprise of every one, the
patient fell back into her chair, her eyes at the same
time closing with  a sleepy expression.  The mesmeri-
zer continued his passes.   The head, as before, follow-
ed the hand.
   The mesmerizer then said,
   Do you  feel  sleepy ?
   P.  Yes.
   M.  Why, then, do you not sleep ? 
82          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
  P. I do.
  M.  Are you quite asleep ?
  The mesmerizer here drank some wine, turning his
head away, and asked,
  Do  you taste anything ?
  P. No, but I  smell wine.  (The wine was, however,
too far off from the patient to have been distinguished
by her, in any way, under ordinary circumstances.)
  M.  Do you know where my hand is ?
  P. (her hand going directly to where the mesmerizer's
was) Yes.
  M.  Can you see  me ?
  P. Yes, but not very distinctly.  (Her eyes appeared
to be  closely shut.)
  M.  (smelling of a nosegay which he took from the ta-
ble) What is this ?
  P. Flowers.
  The mesmerizer now urged the patient to  rise from
her chair, but she expressed the strongest reluctance to
move  : at the same time, she  entreated the mesmerizer
not to leave her. He, however, went to a little distance,
when  Miss----seemed to be forced to get up and fol-
low him.  Supported by  the  mesmerizer, she walked
half across the room, but begged that she might be per-
mitted to sit down again.   The mesmerizer then placed
her in a chair in the middle of the apartment, and held
up various  objects (not belonging to him) before her
eyes.  These she declared she could not see ; but, when-
ever the mesmerizer held before her anything  which be-
longed to himself,  she  named  the object directly.  In
this way she told rightly when the mesmerizer succes-
sively presented his pocket-handkerchief, purse, and
watch, also a letter which he  took from his pocket. On
being  asked if she could distinguish the hour on the
mesmerizer's watch, she held it before her closed eyes,
and said, " It is a  quarter to something." In effect, it
was a quarter to eleven.
  The mesmerizer  now asked,
  What am I tasting ?
  P. (seeming  to  swallow  something) Cold  water.
(Right.)
  M.  What am  I eating ?
  P. (seeming also to  eat) Something like bread, but
sweeter. (It was cake.)
  M.  Do you like it ? 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
83
  P. Yes.
  M. What am I smelling ?
  P. Eau de Cologne.  (Right.)  '
  Miss---'s  father and mother now approached her,
and would have taken her hand, but  she drew it back
with a shudder.  To the  mesmerizer's hand, on the
contrary, her own seemed always attracted, and rose up
to meet it when held at a considerable distance.   She
distinguished between her father's and the mesmerizer's
handkerchiefs, by throwing the former away, and retain-
ing the latter  in her possession.  She also refused to
part with a small  piece of coin on which the mesmeri-
zer had breathed, and which she held fast grasped in her
hand.
  The patient being now asked if she was tired, replied
that she  did  indeed feel  much  fatigued, and  seemed
pleased to rest her head, leaning forward, upon the mes-
merizer's hand: at  this moment she seemed to  sleep
very deeply.   Her  countenance was  extremely  pale.
She seemed to hear no one speak but the mesmerizer,
but always answered his questions.   On his  asking if
she felt well and comfortable, she replied, " Oh, so com-
fortable !" nevertheless, the  position  of the patient, as
she bent  forward, with her neck stretched out, was the
most uneasy that could well be imagined.
  M. Would you not be more at your ease on the  sofa?
  P. Oh  no !  I am so well here !  But you are not go-
ing away ?
  The mesmerizer here rose and went to the sofa, when
Miss----seemed obliged to do so likewise.
  M. Are you not better here ?
  P. Yes, so—sitting quiet.
  The  mesmerizer now asked his patient if she would
awake, but she said she would rather remain as she
was, and  begged of him to  allow her to sleep some time
longer.  At length, however, the mesmerizer said, " I
must wake you," and passed his hands rapidly over the
patient's eyes, when they partially opened, but she shut
them again directly, exclaiming, " I had rather sleep."
The mesmerizer,  however, continued to use  the  same
motions as before, when the patient again opened her
eyes, and to the question " Are you quite awake ?" an-
swered in the  affirmative.  She then looked about with
an air of surprise, and asked how she came to be sitting
on the sofa.   Then  she held up her hand, which still re- 
84
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
mained closed upon the piece of money that the mes-
merizer had given her, and exclaimed, " What is this ?"
When it was explained to her that she had refused to
part with the coin, she seemed much surprised, and,
when informed of all that had passed, would scarcely
believe what we told her.  The only circumstance that
she remembered of her sleepwaking was having seen,
at a moment when her eyes were partly open, the upper
part of Lady S----'s face.   She declared the only disa-
greeable thing  in  mesmerism was the awaking, and
compared it to what she should imagine of the feelings
of a drowned person in  returning to life.
  Fearing lest my reader should now exclaim with Mac-
beth,
        " What! will the line stretch out to the crack
          Of doom ?  I'll see no more!"

I here close my detailed cases of mesmeric  sleepwa-
king, merely  stating in conclusion that, in  addition  to
those already particularized,  I  have  mesmerized,  be-
tween January, 1837, and February, 1838, nine other in-
dividuals, seven of whom passed into the  perfect, and
two into the imperfect crisis.  These all displayed phe-
nomena  coincident with the above,  though  in some
cases higher and more interesting in their degree of de-
velopment.  Of course, as I proceeded in my career of
investigation, my views cleared, and  my experiments
became extended.  It was impossible to be so long con-
versant with  one  set of facts without hazarding some
conjectures as  to  their efficient  causes.   I theorized,
and endeavoured to prove or disprove the theories that
I constructed by bringing them to the test of actual ex-
periment.  How far I succeeded in this labour it is  my
intention to relate hereafter.  My intention, up  to this
point, has simply been  to answer the objections  raised
against  mesmerism on account of its limited manifesta-
tion, and variable as well  as hypochondriac character.
1 have wished to show that mesmeric sleepwaking is
a state, and a peculiar  state, into which man generally
has the  capacity of passing;  and  surely  1 have said
enough to remove from it the reproach  of being limited
to  a few nervous and fanciful  persons, chiefly  of the
weaker sex.   Out of  three-and-twenty individuals in
whom I induced sleepwaking more or less  perfectly,
six only were women,  one only a decided invalid.  Let 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          85
me, however,  hasten to anticipate an objection which
may have been forming in my reader's  mind.   I ought,
it may be urged, to have noticed my cases of failure as
well as of success.  This objection shall not long be
valid :  I have  already stated that a cousin of mine could
not be influenced by me mesmerically.   The trial was,
however,  scarcely serious  or protracted  enough to be
considered as  decisive one way or the other.   At Cam-
bridge two persons experienced no effects from mesmer-
ization.   The one was determined  to resist the influ-
ence, and to that end was  solving an abstruse  mathe-
matical problem all the time that I  was mesmerizing
him.  The other disliked  being mesmerized,  and was
afraid of it; and fear I have always found  to be in  mes-
merism a most disturbing force.   Subsequently, among
those whom 1 have essayed to  mesmerize, I have met
with but four persons who manifested either no symp-
toms of being affected, or those so  slight and equivo-
cal that they  may not be  relied upon.   Of these, two
were ladies, who ought (according to the received no-
tion of mesmerism) to have been more easily influenced
than persons of the other sex, especially as they allow-
ed me a fair and  sufficient trial, while, on the contrary,
the two other individuals alluded to jumped up from their
seats after a  mesmerization of a few minutes, one of
them exclaiming, " I feel  nothing, and  now believe in
mesmerism less than ever!"
  However, allowing these cases to pass as absolute
failures, it appears that, in the  space of less than two
years, the number of persons mesmerized by one single
individual was in the  proportion of twenty-three to
eight.   Striking off even the imperfect cases, there will
remain fourteen  persons  out  of  thirty-one  in whom
sleepwaking was  fully developed, with all its attendant
train of characteristic phenomena ; these, too, not being
selected by  myself as  likely subjects for mesmerism,
but offering themselves accidentally; and surely  they
who consider  how difficult it is, first, to prevail on per-
sons to submit to mesmerization  at  all, and, secondly,
to secure an adequate trial, will wonder that the cases are
so many rather than so few.  The great argument, there-
fore, against mesmerism, of infrequency and irregulari-
ty, falls to the ground.   Nor can any one rationally de-
mand  a universality of mesmeric sleepwaking before
he will admit that it is one of the states into which man
                         H 
86           MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
generally has the capacity of passing.  The exceptions
forbid  not the existence  of the rule.  All persons are
not, it is to be hoped, mad ; yet we pronounce madness
to be an affliction to which any man whatever is liable.
         " Perhaps some doctor of tremendous paunch,
          Burly and big—a black abyss of drink,"

may see all his fellow-topers under the table, himself
sober the while; yet this by no means affects the prop-
osition that drunkenness is a state into which man gen-
erally has the capacity of passing.
  But there yet remain two important questions to ask
and to  answer  respecting the phenomena which I have
detailed.
  1st.  Have I been deceived ?
  2d.  Have I been mistaken ?
  The  first implies that my patients feigned ; the second,
that my senses were incompetent to discern the objects
presented to them.
  The  wilful and  determined opposers of mesmerism
(carefully to be separated from the  class of honest ob-
jectors) are very ready,  in judging  of mesmeric state-
ments, to have recourse to one or both of the above sup-
positions, not  perceiving that, in so doing, they decide
abstract questions which can never be limited to the sin-
gle subject of mesmerism, but which bear largely upon
the whole conduct of life.  In their  blind zeal to over-
throw the particular object of their  dislike, they would
strike away universally the two great props of human-
ity, namely, belief in our neighbour, whereby we great-
ly regulate the moral part of our nature ; and confidence
in the sufficiency of our senses, whereby alone we judge
of anything external to  ourselves.   Allow that a large
proportion of persons deceive (as we must do  if we
suppose all whom we mesmerize to be feigning),  and
what becomes of our faith in the founders of our holy
religion, even in the credibility of human testimony on
which  we ground our present  actions and our future
hopes ?  Again, grant that we  are deluded by our senses
to the  extent we must be when we are mistaken in  a
multitude  of cases, and  what remains in the universe
but dreams and uncertainties ?  The splendid labours of
Galileo  and Herschel,  based as they are on the compe-
tency of the human senses, are but as a vapour, and the
discoveries of Newton, sublime as they appear, must be 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          87
as illusory as the organs through which they were trans-
mitted.
  But it may be replied, we are not to  distrust  our
senses generally, but  only  in those  particular  cases
when they  appear to bear testimony incompatible with
former experience.  This manner of viewing the ques-
tion is plausible, and has accordingly been  much adopt-
ed by those  who would  make short work of mesmerism,
and banish  it at a blow.  On these grounds, some have
even gone so far as  to say, should we  even see the  im-
puted wonders of mesmerism with our own eyes, we
should not  credit our senses.  Whether such determi-
nation be as wise as it is magnanimous, remains to be
proved.   There is, unfortunately, just  that mixture  of
good in it which makes evil dangerous.  Every reason-
able man will grant that we should examine with  be-
coming caution any appearances that may seem to con-
tradict our former experience; but to reject when  we
should only distrust, to be positive when we ought to
be merely skeptical, is  certainly not the part of reason.
The mistake seems to have originated, as so many oth-
er misconceptions on important  points have done,  not
so much in a false  idea  as  in the misplacement of a
truth;  in taking that as  a basis  which is  only super-
structure.  The maxim, " Doubt  all that does not har-
monize with previous knowledge," is  just  in itself,  but
in this case becomes, by its position,  erroneous.  It is
excellent as a monitor, but insufficient as  a guide; an
admirable servant, but  a miserable master. Were  the
ultra anti-mesmerists consistent,  and should they carry
through their principle, what  groundwork would they
have for any belief whatsoever?   I maybe answered,
"Experience!"  Yes; but should it be forgotten that
experience  itself is  the fruit of the senses ?  What be-
comes of the product  if the  parent itself be found so
very fallible ?  If we grant that we are the fools of  our
senses in one important  branch of their observation,
why not in all ?  The absurdity is this : we are to trust
our general experience, but allow that it may err in the
particular, as if the general were not  composed of the
particular!   It is as if we were to talk of a good form
of government under which every individual was gross-
ly wronged.  Now trust in the testimony of our senses,
or, rather, of our consciousness, is not only the ground-
work of all we believe, but is the cement of each  fact 
88
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKINO.
that makes up the whole fabric of our certain knowledge.
Of the external world we can ascertain nothing  but
through the  faculties by which we observe  it; and of
the external world we can believe nothing but by our
trust in the accuracy of these faculties :  our organ of in-
formation is either competent or incompetent.  If it be
competent, there is no reason why we should distrust it,
ceteris paribus, in one  case more than another.   If in-
competent, there is no reason why we  should trust it,
cceteris paribus, at one  time more than another.  There
is no alternative : either we must place confidence in our
sole medium of knowledge, or take refuge in  universal
skepticism.  Grant that every anomaly presented to us
be a reason for temporary doubt;  still, when it is often
enough  presented to us, our doubts as to its existence
cannot but cease.   Allow that to accept facts on insuffi-
cient  grounds  is folly; still, to reject them when prop-
erly demonstrated  is equally absurd: nay, the greater
danger waits upon unfounded hesitation.  A too great
rashness may correct itself; but distrust in the evidence
of our senses is a radical defect, which,  as it annihilates
all things, so does  it preclude the possibility of a reme-
dy ; not that any wise man would attempt to deny that,
though our senses  are competent, we ourselves may be
in fault;  and that, through a careless use of our means
of knowledge,  we may sometimes err in our estimate of
things.   But, though this may happen once or twice, the
most  slovenly observer can scarcely be deceived as to
the actuality of a series of facts which occur before  him
again and again.   Moreover, in witnessing aught so re-
markable as an exhibition of the  mesmeric phenomena,
the gazer's mind is in the  attitude of roused attention ;
a state  the  most  opposite imaginable  to the careless
mood, in which we are apt to be deceived.   They who
would represent mesmerism as the cheat of our own
eyes, should remember that the worst  mistakes of our
senses are but transient, even momentary, and that their
very  errors  tend to correct themselves.  For instance,
when alone in my apartment at the witching time of
night, I may suppose I see a face gazing at me from
out the window-curtains.  But my immediate impulse
is to look again, and to bend a stricter scrutiny upon the
delusive appearance, which I discover forthwith to have
arisen from certain fortuitous arrangements of light and
shade.   It might, indeed, have hapnened that, overcome 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
89
by  sudden panic,  I  should  have fled  from the room
while still under a delusion, and have proclaimed ever
after that I had seen a ghost.   But such  conduct is, hap-
pily, the exception to, and not the rule of, that of man-
kind in general.
  Besides, there is plainly no analogy whatever between
a momentary and fear-engendered delusion of this sort
and a persistence in error, with regard to objects which
we  behold very frequently and in the calmest frame of
mind.  Other apparent  inaccuracies there are in the ac-
tion of the senses; but these are well  known, and de-
ceive no one ; and exceptions, when known and invari-
able, become themselves a part of the original law  from
which they seem to deviate.   Allowances are made for
them; and on every subject to which  they relate, our
judgments are quite as exact as if no such limitations
were enjoined.  Thus,  when we apparently see a  flash
of light from bringing into contact zinc and silver in our
mouths, we soon come to know that there is no  such
thing; and when a juggler, by the rapidity of his move-
ments, bewilders our apprehensions, we admire his dex-
terity, but are not deceived by it in the least.
  But the phenomena  of mesmerism  come not within
the category of these transient illusions.  The patients
who exhibit them are not jugglers, but persons of  good
faith, unpractised in sleight-of-hand or dexterity of any
kind.  Even supposing them to be adepts in deception,
they manifestly cannot play a part of which they know
nothing; and 1 have shown that those whom  I  have
mesmerized were  generally unaware what  was to be
felt or done in mesmeric sleepwaking.   Am I to enter-
tain a thought so  monstrous as  that a number of re-
spectable individuals, whom I casually met at different
times and in different places, were united in a conspira-
cy  to deceive me ?  I cannot think so even if I would.
He who observes a state frequently, attains at length to
a certain experience in its symptoms, which, like  Ithu-
riel's spear, detects  falsehood at once.  Now in  mes-
merism there are  a thousand such trifling but decisive
tests of authenticity.  To instance only clockwork low-
ering of the eyelids and the remarkable manner of their
closing: it may be affirmed that these phenomena  are
not imitable; for  they are out of the  reach of human
 muscular power as long as it remains under its  usual
 conditions.
                        H2 
90           MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  Perceiving, then, that imposition on the part of my
mesmeric patients is not only in the highest degree un-
likely, but actually impossible, and confiding in the tes-
timony of my own senses, I am assured that I have wit-
nessed a state of man which is peculiar and distinctive:
1st, as induced; 2dly, as possessing its own characteris-
tics when induced.
  Nor are these  conclusions at all invalidated by the
common argument so  often adduced  by  the  anti-mes-
merists, that the whole of what are called the  mesmeric
conditions are brought about through the  agency of the
patient's imagination,  and are therefore  self-induced.
This is plainly quibbling; for, granting  that imagina-
tion be the proximating  cause  or  immediate antece-
dent of mesmeric sleepwaking, still  we require  a mo-
ving cause or a  prior antecedent whereby  the imagina-
tion itself is set in action; and this moving cause is in-
disputably external, and to be referred to  certain  looks
or  gestures,  or mere proximity of  the mesmerizer.
Equally futile is the attempt to nullify the fact of exter-
nal influence by assertions "that some individuals on
whom  the effects of mesmerism have repeatedly been
produced may exhibit like effects without being mesmer-
ized afresh, provided they are led to believe that the
process is  carried on as usual, and that they  are  under
its  influence."   This  proves  nothing more  than the
usual law of our nature, whereby trains  of sensations
grow into habits, and occur  in certain series  when the
idea that is linked with them can be raised in the  mind.
But then they must  always owe their origin in the first
place to some  exciting cause, which remains the true
basis of their production, since but  for  it they  would
never have existed.   Thus the peculiar sensation called
tickling was  in  the  first  instance made  known  to us
through the contact of something external (it being a cu-
rious fact that  no one can tickle himself so as  to fall
into that convulsive laughter which  characterizes the
sensation); yet if anyone  presents his finger to suscep-
tible persons, as  if  with  an  intention of tickling, the
feeling will be excited, and those  on whom the experi-
ment is tried will shrink and laugh, as if actually touch-
ed by the finger.  The idea, then, of the  primary cause
of a sensation confessedly precedes the sensation itself;
and, when mesmeric patients obey this law, they appear
to me,  instead of disproving the influence  which prima- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
91
rily affected them, to establish it altogether.  In suppo-
sing the  actions of the  mesmerizer to be present, the
patient owns them as the  primary cause  of his sensa-
tions ;  and the  reproduction of the accompanying phe-
nomena,  under certain convictions, is a perpetual rec-
ognition of that force which first set the hidden springs
in play.
  In mesmerism, then, the influence of man  is always
the  proper antecedent, the  state  of mesmeric sleep-
waking the  proper consequent.   Will any one declare
that external causes have  nothing whatever to do with
the  production  of  the mesmeric  state?  Yet this he
must affirm before he can consistently class mesmerism
with self-originating states of mind or body.
  In vain, therefore, is the mesmeric sleep likened to,
or identified with, natural sleepwaking, hypochondriasis,
catalepsy, &c,  for it differs in one most important par-
ticular from any of these states :  it is consequent upon
external  influence; it is  induced, and that  (whatever in-
termediate machinery may be set in motion)  by the
agency of man.  We should consider, also, how utterly
distinct from constitutional disorders like the above is
mesmeric sleepwaking, which may be produced almost
at will in all kinds of temperaments.  Catalepsy, which
in some respects it resembles, is a disease, but the mes-
meric sleep is not a disease.  Surely every event has its
adequate cause, and if mesmeric patients are not sleep-
wakers either from malady or by constitution, how is it
that they become so ?  It has been shown that not only
the  healthy and the strong are susceptible of  the mes-
meric  slumber, but individuals  advanced in  life,  who
cannot be supposed to  have that restlessness of the
blood which  sometimes afflicts  younger  persons  with
sleepwaking.  How, then, can we confound  mesmeric
with natural sleepwaking?  The causes which are ex-
planatory of the one have  nothing in  common with the
other.  Besides, the sleepwaking we are considering is
guided and wielded by external agency ; and this alone,
exclusive of other considerations which we have before
suggested, is a sufficient  answer  to  those who allege
that the so-called mesmeric state can  be produced apart
from the  mesmerizer, since, when genuine, it presuppo-
ses  the exhibition  of phenomena  that spring from the
mesmerizer's actual presence.
  Another distinguishing feature of mesmeric sleepwa- 
92           MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
 king, which stamps it with an individuality the most re-
 markable, is (as far as my own observation of  the state
 extends) the extreme clearness and truth of its percep-
 tions.   Mesmeric  patients act upon real impressions,
 and  in perfect conformity with external circumstances.
 They retain all their sense of locality, all  their cogni-
 tion of time, and their knowledge of the persons who
 may be around them.  Now natural sleepwakers are
 generally acting under some delusion.  They will get
 astride upon a chair  and fancy that they have  mounted
 a horse ; and, advancing still farther into hallucination,
 will whip  and spur  their  imaginary steed, supposing
 that they are performing twelve miles within the hour.
 Like Lady Macbeth, they  will see  what is not; and,
 their waking thoughts continuing to influence their slum-
 bers, they will suppose themselves still engaged in deeds
 which have been long numbered with the shadows past.
 I do not say that this is always the case ; but facts will
 bear me out in  the assertion, that auto-sleepwaking can
 never be characterized as an unillusive state.
  Again, mesmeric sleepwaking, in some respects, re-
 sembles the exaltation produced by opium ;  but we have
 only to read  the  celebrated Confessions of an Opium-
 eater to be convinced that the votaries of that drug live
 in a  fantastic  and ideal world.
  With natural sleep mesmeric  sleepwaking can least
 of all be identified.  That it is as different from this as
 natural sleep itself is from waking, may be judged from
 the following circumstance.  E. A.., returning  with me
 and  two other persons  from an evening  party, fell
 asleep  in the carriage.  I  made the mesmeric passes
 over him without contact  and in silence.   After about
 the  usual time required for mesmerizing  him when
 awake, he began to  stir and testify uneasiness. Soon
 after, he spoke and  upbraided me for taking him at a
disadvantage, and for  changing his natural sleep into the
 mesmeric.  There was as marked a change in his con-
dition  as  if he had actually  shaken off slumber.  A
lady,* whose daughter was sometimes singularly affect-
ed by a species of auto-sleepwaking, presenting many
of the features  of the mesmeric state, told  me that the
patient would occasionally go to bed  while in what she
called the " crise," fall into a natural  sleep, rest well,

  * See note, p. 108 (relating to Madlle. Estelle PH.), in Book ii, 
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
93
yet rise the next morning still, as it were, self-mesmer-
ized.  Chardel, also, a French writer on  mesmerism,
gives an interesting account of two sisters whom he
mesmerized, as a physician, with the hope of checking
a tendency to  consumption which they had both evin-
ced.  One  evening, being in sleepwaking, they, as if
prompted by a natural instinct, entreated their mesmer-
izer to leave them in that state, only so far demesmer-
izing them as to enable them to open their eyes and to
be committed  to their own self-guidance.   Day after
day they renewed their petition, for day after day they
felt health returning under the mesmeric influence.   In
other respects  they pursued their usual habits, and their
mesmeric existence had  its alternate periods of sleep
and of waking, as regular as those of the natural life.
At the end of three months, their cure appearing to be
complete, M. Chardel conducted the sisters, accompanied
by their mother, to a beautiful spot in the country, where
he  restored them to a knowledge of themselves.  He
describes in lively terms  their surprise and joy on re-
turning to consciousness.  It was winter when they en-
tered the mesmeric state:  it was  now spring.  The
ground was then covered with snow,  but  now with
flowers.  They were then looking forward to an early
grave, but  now the feeling of renewed health tinged
everything with hope and life;  almost doubting  if they
did not dream, they threw themselves into their moth-
er's arms, gathered flowers and smelled of them, and en-
deavoured, by  the exercise of their senses, to convince
themselves that it was  all a blessed reality.   Not a  cir-
cumstance  of  the three past months survived  in their
memory.
  And this leads me farther to remark, that the absolute
forgetfulness which severs the mysterious state of mes-
meric sleepwaking from the cognizance of ordinary con-
sciousness, sets a peculiar seal upon this very remarka-
ble condition of man.   The drunkard has his glimpses
of remembrance; the opium-eater can recount his  vis-
ions ; the natural sleepwaker may sometimes recall the
dreams that influenced  his sleeping actions : but he who
emerges from the mesmeric state when it is true  and
perfect, has shaken hands with memory on the thresh-
old.  It is true that revery shares this complete obliv-
ion ; but then revery is a state of illusion and of inco-
herent thinking.  Darwin, who has treated of it at length, 
94          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
characterizes it as such, and  mentions a young lady (in
whom revery had become a  malady)  who, when  under
a paroxysm  of this complaint, would converse with
imaginary visiters.  On one occasion, while  thus af-
flicted, she took off her shoe, looked at it,  and said, " A
little longer and a little wider, even this would make me
a coffin!"
  With revery, then, mesmeric sleepwaking cannot be
identified; and in every point of view we seem  justified
in considering it as a state apart from all  others, a dis-
tinct and peculiar condition of man.
  I do not, however, forget  that these deductions are
founded on the  proceeds of  my individual observation,
nor that it is  essential that the  experiments which are
their base should be capable  of  repetition, in order that
each man may, if he so pleases, bring my accuracy to
the test of his  own senses.   Convinced that personal
observation, if sincere,  will establish all that I have ad-
vanced, I urge every one to inquire and to judge for him-
self.  And this peculiar  advantage attends upon mesmer-
ism ; the proof  of it, by experiment, is in the hands  of
all.  The mesmerizer makes no mysterious monopoly
of his art, but contends that the power to mesmerize and
the capacity of being mesmerized, however modified by
circumstances, may be developed in every  human  being.
Moreover, for that repetition  of the mesmeric phenome-
na which is necessary to  produce a conviction  of their
reality, there is not needed, as in chymistry or optics, an
assemblage of substances, or a complicated apparatus
which few can command.   The follies of the baquet and
of the  magnetic rod have perished with Mesmer, and at
the present day the mesmerizer's eye and  hand are his
sole " conjuration and mighty magic."
  But here it  may be asked, " WThy, then, if the proof be
so easy, is the world so hard of belief?"   The answer
is obvious: because there are  few who will take the
trouble to prove facts, which, from causes  already num-
bered,  men had rather  not believe.   Besides, though I
do not hesitate to say that  all who are really desirous to
obtain proofs of mesmerism may, with comparative ease,
obtain  them,  still, in searching for these, a virtue is re-
quired which  is by no means a general attribute of man-
kind, namely, perseverance.  Nothing, indeed, is  easier
than for a man, who dislikes being troubled with the new
ideas  which the subject of mesmerism introduces into 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
95
the mind, to make a hasty trial of the alleged power,
and, failing to elicit or to experience any of its effects,
to say, "1 have proved it, and found it naught."  But. he
who adopts this facile mode of diminishing a trouble-
some question can scarcely be called an  inquirer, nor
can his verdict have much weight.  To examine a phe-
nomenon is not sufficient:  we must examine it also ade-
quately ; and  if it be recognised as a principle that a
fact is not to be admitted  till after a repeated scrutiny,
neither, in common justice, should it be rejected till af-
ter the same deliberate investigation.  But whether the
difficulties attendant upon a verification of those phe-
nomena which I have witnessed and  carefully noted
have been under or over stated, I must, as a- principle,
inculcate a dependance upon the observer who makes a
subject his study, rather  than on the  captious oppo-
nent or indifferent idler, who approaches the same theme
with  a  want of temper or a want of patience, which
equally disqualify a man from judging rightly.  Putting
myself wholly out of the question, and speaking as if I
were only justifying, and claiming belief for, the first
discoverer of  mesmerism, I cannot but assert that there
was a much greater chance of his being in the right than
all who have subsequently proclaimed him  in the wrong.
In every case, the boldness and acuteness which lead a
man to take new views of a subject and to combat an-
cient prejudices are in his favour.  There is an innate
consciousness attendant upon correct observation which
upholds him and encourages  him to war with the world.
The sudden light that has struck him is like a light from
heaven, and brings conviction to his breast.  His eyes
are not deluded, but sharpened by desire.  No other
person can have that intimate zeal, that interest in the
inquiry which urges him onward.  His all is at stake,
and, consequently, no one is  so  strict with him as he is
with himself.   Who can compare the cursory and par-
tial views of  the great body of mankind with his ?   We
may call him a visionary or a heretic, but, remembering
the slow but certain triumph of Harvey and Galileo, we
should be cautious how we brand him  with epithets
which may recoil upon ourselves.  How abundant are
the proofs that all which is most opposed to the passions
and prejudices of men is most likely to be true !
   Again, in the history of all observational science there
are precedents to show that the accuracy of the most 
96
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
genuine experiments have  been  called in question by
those who were unable to repeat them.   Of  this the re-
ception which the Newtonian doctrine of light and colours
met with from the world is a familiar instance, the more
to be noted on account of Newton's reputation as a strict
investigator.  Abjuring  all  hypothesis, and  cautiously
pursuing the method of induction which Bacon had sub-
stituted for the worthless dogmatism of the schools, the
great philosopher, one  might  have thought,  could have
had nothing to apprehend from the petulance of opposi-
tion.   His theorems were facts which  every man might
verify to himself by  the aid of his own senses.  And
yet in many cases Newton appealed in vain to  the com-
mon testimony of our common nature.   The  correct-
ness of his experiments was doubted by many  scientific
men both of his and other countries ; a host  of  enemies
impeached the soundness of his conclusions ;  and even
in a later  age, after the general voice had  ratified hi3
theory, the celebrated  Goethe, quitting  his  domain of
high  imagination, undertook  to expose  its  errors  in  a
work which will ever remain a monument of perverted
genius.
  A certain dependance, then, upon the first  observer of
a new phenomena is inculcated both by reason and by
experience, and appears to be requisite, when we would
ourselves examine the phenomena, to guard  us from im-
patience and to support us through deceptive appearan-
ces.
  But, I would ask, is this the course pursued by the op-
ponents of mesmerism ?  Certainly not:  they bring for-
ward  the defective trial of an experiment as a  complete
refutation of the experiment itself, and select, with cu-
rious  partiality, the one failure among innumerable in-
stances of success as  an  illustration  of the nullity of
mesmerism.   Yet what would be said of a man who,
going to see some well-known chymical  or other effect
exhibited, and finding it fail through unforeseen circum-
stances, were to return home convinced that no such
thing  had ever existed ?  What, again, would be thought
of this man's state of intellect, were he to write a book
to prove that certain phenomena, because he  had  not
witnessed them, had never been seen by thousands  who
could support  them by their testimony?  Yet cannot
even such an original skeptic  as  this  be considered  a
whit more absurd than they who fondly fancy that by 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
97
exparte statements and scattered histories of failure, col-
lected from men as prejudiced as themselves, they can
put down mesmerism ?  Do they forget that all which
appears to be a mass of negative evidence is but air in
the scale when weighed against one positive fact ?
  " It is a very obvious principle," says Chalmers, " al-
though often forgotten in the pride of prejudice and of
controversy, that what has been seen by one pair of hu-
man eyes is of force to countervail all that has been rea-
soned or guessed at by a thousand human understand-
ings."
  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 fail a thousand  times, the success of the
thousandth and first trial would justify farther examina-
tion.  Till the authority of  observation  can be wholly
set aside, the subject of our inquiry can never be said to
have undergone its final ostracism.
                   SECTION  III.

SHOWING CERTAIN OF THE  PHYSICAL  AND METAPHYSICAL
        CONDITIONS  OF MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.

  Hitherto I have exhibited to my reader a succession
of patients, the greater part of whom I had no opportu-
nity of mesmerizing again.  I may have been consider-
ed as trying an experiment upon a great scale, as to the
mesmeribility of mankind in general.   Such  a mode of
proceeding has this  advantage :  persons who  have  been
frequently mesmerized  may be charged with  having
been well practised in their parts ; but they who exhibit
for  the first time the mesmeric  characteristics, without
even having heard them previously described, stand  aloof
from all suspicions of the kind.  There is neither habit,
nor imitation, nor duplicity to be charged upon them;
and, therefore, the phenomena they  display may be re-
garded as eminently genuine.   But, on the other hand,
it should be considered that such phenomena, if more
to be relied on, are also humbler in degree than those
belonging to a more  advanced stage  of sleepwaking:
                         I 
98          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
and this, I think, may be owned without prejudice to
mesmerism ;  for, as I have before observed, we cannot
liken it to those purely mechanical agencies which affect
persons as forcibly the first time as in all  succeeding
trials.  Many of the  phenomena are of such a kind as
to be obviously capable  of  development; and  in de-
manding  a certain license on this account, we ask no
more  for mesmerism  than is conceded in every case
where man's  intellect is  concerned.  Let it always be
kept in mind  that mesmeric  sleepwaking is  more than
an exhibition  of involuntary  motions or mere physical
changes.   It is a state which  appears to possess its own
laws of perception and of action ; and, in this point of
view, a mesmerized person may be considered as learn-
ing a new language, in which he cannot express himself
with eloquence or with ease until he has mastered its
idioms and possessed himself of its copiousness.   When
we reflect upon the  difficulty we all find in acting in
an unusual way, we cannot but perceive that time must
be requisite to the development of a mode of existence
which seems to be abnormal in the highest degree.
  It is evident, then, that, in order to study the phenom-
ena of mesmeric sleepwaking in their maturer develop-
ment, it was  necessary for me to mesmerize the same
person frequently.  This  I have done in more than one
instance, and the following has been the result  of my
observations :
  In accordance with what has been suggested above, it
is to be remarked that each successive time a person is
mesmerized he becomes  more easy of mesmerization,
and more at home in  his new capacities.   Hence, with-
out effort, he exhibits many  phenomena which may be
called spontaneous, in distinction to those which result
more clearly from the peculiar relationship in which the
mesmerizer, pro tempore, stands to his patient.  The two
classes of phenomena should be accurately distinguish-
ed, and their difference borne in mind.  At present  I
have chiefly given instances of the latter, as was nat-
ural, considering that my  earlier patients were more de-
pendant upon  myself than those whom I subsequently
treated,  and  that, in consequence, my  attention was
chiefly turned  to the  mesmeric processes necessary for
producing or directing their sleepwaking.  It was not
till later, and till the task of guiding  my patients could
be in a degree remitted, that I was able to add some re- 
             MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.          99

marks (which, indeed, appear essential to complete our
view of mesmerism as a separate  condition of man)
upon the state of the bodily organs and of the mental
faculties in the mesmeric sleepwaker.  Beginning with
the former, and dividing the corporeal functions into the
sensitive, the vital, and the  motory, we first inquire,
What is the state of the actual apparatus of the senses
during mesmeric sleepwaking ?  And, first,

                    Of the Eye.
  This is a part of the body which is  earliest affected
under that which we may call, without theory, the hu-
man influence.  One of the  first tokens a person gives
of passing into mesmeric sleepwaking is  a look of stu-
por in the eyes, and an apparent lack of power in the
eyelids  to perform the usual office of  nictation.  The
upper lid, as I have before observed, falls very gradually
over the organ of sight, and sometimes, ceasing to move
altogether,  remains suspended, as  it were, in such  a
manner as  that the eye appears  to be three quarters
closed.  When this continues to be the case, the patient
rarely falls into sleepwaking, the exceptions occurring
commonly among those who sleep with their eyes part-
ly open, and who  keep them in the same state during
the whole period  of their  sleepwaking.  The patient,
when interrogated as to his sensations,  will declare (re-
taining  his  consciousness  at the time)  that he feels
prickings in his eyelids, and, as far as outward actions
can be proof, the same uneasy sensation remains or re-
curs at  intervals  during the sleepwaking.  For all the
sleepwakers that I have seen rub  their eyes frequently,
so that any one would think  they were about to awake ;
but their slumber  remains undisturbed, and the action
alluded  to seems simply automatic,  as when in natural
sleep we brush off a fly from the  face without being
conscious of the movement.  I once asked a sleepwaker
why she rubbed her eyes, and she replied, " Did I do so ?
I suppose it is a trick I have" (" je suppose que c'est
une habitude").  I have before  remarked  that  many
persons in semi-sleepwaking retain their consciousness,
yet are  wholly unable to open their eyes.  A scientific
man, accustomed to investigation, being  in this state,
assured me  that he experienced a gradual paralysis of
the nerves connected with the eye and with the motive
powers  of the eyelid, and that at  length his utmost ef- 
100         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
forts of volition were insufficient to make the orbicular
muscles obey him as usual.  Sleepwaking  being com-
plete, the  eye is  generally first closed, yet  not exactly
as in sleep.  The following differences may be noted:
1st. The place where the eyelids meet in a natural way
is much below the level of the transverse diameter of
the eye; but I have observed that in sleepwaking the
line of contact is often thrown so high above its ordi-
nary situation as  to coincide with what Haller calls the
aquator oculi.  2dly. There is a compressed look about
the lids, as if they were rather held down by force than
quietly and naturally closed.  3dly. The ball of the eye
is in  frequent  and violent motion, which, in those who
have prominent eyes especially, can be plainly discern-
ed beneath the skin of the eyelids.   All these circum-
stances, it should be remembered, are actually distinct-
ive of the mesmeric sleep;  for many persons who form
a wrong notion concerning it suppose, before assisting
(as the French say) at a seance of mesmerism, that they
are to see  a something  precisely like natural slumber,
and exclaim, when the  reality  is before  them, " This
must be all a trick," only because their erroneous ideas
are contradicted.  With regard  to the internal state of
the eye during mesmeric sleepwaking, it is, of course,
difficult to judge.   No force short of that which would
seriously injure the sleepwaker can wrench asunder the
eyelids.  I have tried this and  made others try it, and
the resistance  to  such efforts was so great that, to be
appreciated, it must be  felt.  But that which violence
cannot accomplish, the  command  of the  mesmerizer
can ordinarily effect, though that  he should use this
power with great discretion the following  occurrence
will show.   I  once asked Mademoiselle Anna  M----
(whom, after returning to the Continent in  1837, I fre-
quently mesmerized) whether she  could open her eyes,
which, at the time, were fast shut in mesmeric sleep-
waking.  Her reply was, " I can do it, if you insist that
I should; but I warn you that you will see something
very disagreeable, and, besides, the effort will do me no
good."  Notwithstanding this warning, I  commanded
my mesmerizee to open her eyes.  She did so.   It was
really a fearful sight. The eyeballs were turned up and
converged towards the  nose, the white of the eye was
bloodshot, and the whole organ quivering and convulsed.
As may be  supposed, I did not long keep my sleepwaker 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         101
in what appeared to me a painful state, and, at command,
she again closed her eyes.   On awaking her shortly
after, what was my alarm to hear her declare that she
saw nothing whatever!  She appeared to be much agi-
tated, and my thoughts may be conceived, as long as I
had the least reason to fear that my rash experiment
might end in her being blind for life.  The  exigence of
the moment, however, roused  me to exertion, and the
idea occurred to me  that the best thing I could do was
to remesmerize my patient as quickly as possible.  This
I did.   As soon  as she had  passed into the  mesmeric
state she became calm, and begged  me not  to be alarm-
ed, as the blindness she had just experienced was but
the momentary effect of the  fatigue to her eyes caused
by the  effort to open them.  She then requested me to
breathe on her eyes,  and to lay my  hand on them, after
which  she assured me that I might awake her without
any farther  apprehension.   In effect, the transient but
fearful attack  of blindness  was passed away.  After
this, as may be supposed, I  was not very ready to bid
my sleepwakers open their eyes.   I have also found
in them  all, when  consulted on the subject, an extreme
dislike to the  idea.  I have, however, reason to think
that the position of the eyeball is, in most sleepwakers,
the same as it appeared in Mademoiselle M----.  I once
asked  one of my patients, while in the waking state, if
he  knew in  what position the eyes were  during sleep-
waking,  and he replied, " I  do not at all  know, but I
should suppose just the same as  now.   Why should
there be any difference ?"  Having thus ascertained that
he  had no preconceptions on the subject, I again asked
him, when in  sleepwaking, " In what position are your
eyes ?"  " I will show you," he replied ; and, without a
moment's hesitation, seized a pencil and  a  paper that
lay on the table, and drew an eye, with the  ball turned
up to one corner,  and only partly seen.   [I  should ob-
 serve that this sleepwaker had an extraordinary power
 of  vision in the mesmeric state, to which  I  shall here-
 after have occasion more particularly to allude.]
   Another time I had an opportunity of making farther
 remarks on the state of the  eye, under mesmeric sleep-
 waking, through the kindness of Mr. Berckmans, archi-
 tect of  the province of Antwerp,  a man whom I have
 pleasure in naming,  as one who utilizes mesmerism by
 employing  it (and successfully) in the relief of maladies. 
102          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
This gentleman permitted me to see one of his sleep-
wakers, who, from a natural  predisposition, often kept
her eyes  open  during  sleepwaking.  During twenty
minutes or half  an hour that I  saw her thus, I could
most truly affirm that, though her eyes were open, their
" sense was shut."  A dull film  seemed to overspread
them;  the pupil  was dilated,  and did not contract with
light.'  A candle  brought near, or a hand waved sudden-
ly and quickly before the patient's eyes,  produced no
perceptible alteration or motion either in the lid or in the
apparatus of vision.
   Altogether,  there seems to be every reason to con-
clude that the  eye, in mesmeric sleepwaking, is either so
disordered or so paralyzed in its functions as to cease
to convey impressions  to  the  mind, in any mode,  at
least, that can be termed ordinary.
   Secondly. I now proceed to show that a  similar de-
rangement of function seems to take place as  regards
the sense of hearing.
   In proportion as persons sink deeper into mesmeric
sleepwaking,  their external  senses  seem blunted, one
by one, and so far there  is certainly a relation between
the mesmeric and the natural sleep.
   The eye, as we have seen, yields first to the  slum-
brous  influence.   Long after this organ has ceased to
 act, the hearing retains  all its acuteness, and the  sleep-
 waker is able to indicate what sounds are going  on
 around; but  at  length the "porches  of  the ear" are
 closed as well as the " curtain of the eye," and the pa-
 tient,  though still alive to feeling, is dead to every sound
 save  that of the mesmerizer's voice.   I have proved
 this times innumerable ; so frequently, indeed, that it is
 better to give the general results  of the experiments I
 have  witnessed than to  state one in particular.  Often
 have  the members of my family, or visiters, who, per-
 haps,  were but  little  inclined to believe in mesmerism,
 tried  to awaken Mademoiselle  M----or to  startle her
 by sudden noises.  Logs  of wood have  been  dashed
 against the floor; plates  have been suddenly broken;
 her name has  been shouted out close to her ear, in
 vain.   Other persons present  have shown that they
 were  startled, but not the sleepwaker.   Once or twice,
 indeed, on such occasions, when asked if she heard any-
 thing, she has  replied, "No,  I heard nothing;  but I
 thought, just  now, something pushed against my chair;" 
            MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.         103

a mode of expression which deserves to be  remarked,
as analogous to  that used by deaf persons to describe
the sensations given them by the concussion of the air
produced by great sounds.  I once met  a young lady,
perfectly deaf and dumb from her birth, who was, in this
way, remarkably sensitive to the undulations of the air.
I have frequently seen her start when a door was open-
ed or when anything fell suddenly, and the account she
gave to  me  of this, in  writing, was, that she felt as if
some one had pushed against her.  So  susceptible, in-
deed, was she to aerial vibrations, that  she  could dis-
tinguish a certain measure and rhythm  in harmonious
chords which gave her a marked  degree  of pleasure.
She would take  a stick, and, putting one end of it in her
mouth, would place the other in contact with the piano
while any one was playing on it.  Discords struck upon
the instrument  made her shudder,  and  convulsed her
features with  all that pantomimic exaggeration so usual
in the dumb ;  but soft and pleasing sequences of sound
soothed her, and brought a satisfied smile over her coun-
tenance.
   It has appeared to me  that the  mesmerized  possess
 similar perceptions of sound apart from the natural sense
 of hearing,  and  that, like the young  lady above alluded
 to, they require certain conductors, in  order to make
 them apprehend a regular  series of aerial  vibrations.
 Be it, however,  remarked, that  the degree of this isola-
 tion from sounds, considered as sounds, depends on the
 intensity of the  mesmeric sleep ; for it should  ever be
 kept  in mind that mesmeric sleepwaking has its shades
 and graduations, varying from consciousness fully re-
 tained to its faintest  twilight  or utter extinction.  A
 due  recollection of this truth  will  prevent  many  mis-
 takes and unfounded expectations relative to  our sub-
 ject.
   In the case of Mademoiselle M----, as being a perfect
 sleepwaker, the insulation  from all  sounds  to  which I
 did not  serve as conductor was  complete.  This phe-
 nomenon, as, indeed,  most of the  others I have men-
 tioned, was rather accidentally offered to my remark
 than looked  for or expected.   A lady, present when
 Mademoiselle M----had been  mesmerized by me, went
 up to the sleepwaker  and spoke to her for  some time.
 She, however, did not seem to  hear what was said, and,
 indeed, held her head  down with every sign of inatten- 
104          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
tion.  By mere accident the speaker touched me.  Then
suddenly the sleepwaker lifted up her head, and assumed
the expression of listening.  A slight movement drew
me away from contact with the speaker, when the sleep-
waker said, "I hear nothing now."   She then  herself
took the lady's hand, placed it in mine, and laid her own
upon both so as  to  be in  contact with each,  saying,
" Now I hear well."  We  subsequently found that it
was  under such an arrangement as this that the sleep-
waker could best hear any one speak, though, did a per-
son talking merely touch me, she manifested some per-
ceptions of sound.  On one occasion, when a musician
was singing and  playing during her mesmeric trance,
she, seeing him at the piano, expressed a desire to hear
the performance,  and, to accomplish this, requested me
to lay one hand on the musician's shoulder, while she
herself laid a hand upon mine.   So placed, she heard
the singing well, but the piano indistinctly.
   Others  of my  sleepwakers manifested  similar phe-
nomena, some even the first time  of being mesmerized,
when they knew  nothing of the characteristics of mes-
meric sleepwaking.  The scientific  person to whom I
have once before alluded, and whose testimony is valu-
able, inasmuch as his habits of mind led him  ever to
separate illusion  from truth, assured me, when in the
mesmeric state, that he could hear  no sound whatever
except my  voice.  I  made another person speak who
was in the room on that occasion,  and the sleepwaker
was unaware that anything had been said.
   Another patient (E. A----, to whom I shall have oc-
casion to  allude hereafter) said,  when  I  was singing,
" You should ask Mr. V----" (a  musician who was in
the  room) " to accompany you."  I did so; but, though
Mr. V—-  made a loud accompaniment to my voice,
 E. A. kept calling out, "Why does he not play?"
   3dly. State of the nerves of touch.—Every one has
heard of the insensibility  of sleepwakers to  external
 stimuli.   Even in the present crisis  of hostility to mes-
 merism, the world seems agreed to  go the length of be-
 lieving, with Mr. Edwin Lee, that, " in  the states of
 partial  torpor, not unfrequently  occurring in  nervous
 persons" (so does the cautious doctor define mesmeric
 sleepwaking), " the individuals are, to a certain extent,
 insensible to mechanical stimulants."  This being grant-
 ed, the evidence which I can bring forward to  confirm 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         105
the alleged phenomenon is, fortunately, but little needed;
and,  in truth, I was too little inclined to try such cruel-
ties  upon my sleepwakers, as plunging in pins and ap-
plying moxas, to be able to offer numerous proofs upon
the subject.  Such experiments, however unfelt at the
time, cannot but produce effects of which the patients
will  become  sensible afterward;  and, when  they  are
smarting under the pain occasioned by the burning away
of half an inch of skin, they will be but ill consoled by
the glory of  having  suffered  in the cause  of science.
On these grounds I have refused either to torment my
sleepwakers or to allow them to be tormented.  How-
ever, a friend of mine was once determined to try an ex-
periment of this kind;  and, without giving me any no-
tice  of his intentions, he suddenly plunged  a  large pin
into  the back of the hand of Anna M----, so that the
blood came  when  it was withdrawn.   She neither
moved her hand nor started, nor  seemed in  any way
sensible of the injury.  About half an hour  after, being
still  in the mesmeric state, she looked at her hand as if
by accident, and, seeing the congealed blood on  it, ask-
ed, " What in the world is this ?"   At another time, be-
ing lightly touched with the end of a feather about the
lips and nostrils (a proceeding which few can endure),
she gave no  token of sensation, and once, while I was
mesmerizing her, she said, "I feel now quite comforta-
ble," at the very  moment when some one, fond of ex-
periment, was  pulling her ear till it became scarlet.
[This inflaming of the cuticle seems to show, by-the-
way, that the skin, in sleepwaking, loses  none of its
functions, though it  no longer  transmits sensations to
the mind.]   Other little circumstances, naturally pre-
senting themselves, have confirmed to me the physical
insensibility of  sleepwakers.  Anna M----had  once  a
swollen and very painful finger.  In her waking state
she complained bitterly of the torment she endured from
this,  and was constantly  breathing on the disordered
part.  Once, in sleepwaking, she seemed to forget her
finger altogether; and, on being interrogated, declared
that she felt no  pain.
  Another of my sleepwakers (E. A----) watched his
sensations  while  he was  entering into  the mesmeric
state up to the last moment when consciousness became
extinguished.  He told me that he could  distinctly per-
ceive a gradual deadening of sensation; that  at length 
106         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
 he no longer felt his limbs, but that all his life and feel-
 ing seemed to rally towards the brain.   In the mesmer-
 ic state, he continued to assure me that he was corpo-
 really insensible ; and anxious, as it seemed, to try ex-
 periments upon himself, he would bite his own hand till
 he drew blood, without, as he affirmed, exciting sensa-
 tion.
   4thly. State of the organs  of taste.—That  these also
 share the insensibility of the other senses I have had
 every reason to  believe.   Anna M----could never dis-
 tinguish one substance that was  placed with  precau-
 tion in  her mouth from another.   I have told her that
 cheese  was very good orange, or water wine;  and she,
 trusting to my veracity, has implicitly believed me : her
 faith  in my assertions being uncorrected by the  exer-
 cise of her usual faculties, and preponderating manifest-
 ly over  these.  I have tried upon her, when in sleepwa-
 king,  the well-known experiment of placing a piece of
 zinc and a piece of silver, the one above, the other below
 the tongue, and then bringing them suddenly in contact;
 but no metallic taste was perceived by her.  The same
 experiment, repeated  in her waking state, produced its
 usual result.
   5thly. The smell  seems  equally unaffected by  external
 stimulus.—I have held, for a considerable time, strong
 ammonia,  which made my own eyes water even at a
distance, close under the  nose of a  sleepwaker,  while
the mouth was  shut and respiration carried  on only
through the nostrils.  The breathing proceeded as reg-
ularly as before ;  there was no watering of the eye : in
short, the patient (a sister of Theodore) gave no token
whatever of sensibility in the olfactory nerves, or those
of common sensation or touch.
  Having finished our review of  the sensitive  organs,
we now proceed to  consider the  state of those which
may be  called vital, viz., the respiratory, the circulatory,
and the  digestive.
  In those  mesmerized persons who have fallen under
my observation,  the respiration has been slower and
more regular than usual, resembling what it is in sleep.
Occasionally, when  the sleepwaker has  been permitted
to repose, either in a  sitting or reeumbent posture,  the
breathing  has become louder, almost approaching to
stertorous.   Any one seeing the mesmerized at such
times would pronounce them to  be really asleep;  but 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         107
the proof that this cannot be the case is, that they still
hear and answer the mesmerizer's voice.
  I have found, also, that in mesmeric sleepwaking the
heart beats more slowly and evenly than in the normal
state,  and that the pulse  indicates  a corresponding
change in the circulation.
  On one occasion, two medical men, by no means fa-
vourable to mesmerism, were present when I was about
to mesmerize Mademoiselle M----.   It was  during the
festivities of the Antwerp carnival; and my fair patient,
having been at a ball for  two nights running, was  fa-
tigued and feverish, complaining much of pains and stiff-
ness in her limbs.  Before beginning to mesmerize, I
requested the medical men  to feel her pulse.   On doing
this, their exclamation  was, " You ought to be in your
bed, mademoiselle, for you have a great deal  of fever."
In fact, her pulse was 120, her skin hot and dry, and her
tongue white.   I then threw my patient into sleepwa-
king ; and after she had continued in that state, reposing
on a chair, for about a quarter of an hour, I again asked
the doctors to feel her pulse.  Each took a wrist, as be-
fore, with due professional gravity,  and with a  stop-
watch counted the pulsations. " Marvellous!" they both
exclaimed.  " The  pulse beats  quite other  than when
we last  felt it.  The sharp,  wiry rebound of fever is
gone, and the pulsations, besides being soft, full, and reg-
ular, are not more than 80 in a minute." After this I
made my patient rise  from her chair, and,  during the
hour that she remained in  sleepwaking, she  was in al-
most constant motion; yet she neither  complained of,
nor betrayed in her gestures, the fatigue  and  stiffness
from which she had previously been suffering.  On awa-
king, the doctors again inspected her state, and assured
me that every symptom  of malady had disappeared.
The patient's pulse had sunk to 74 in the minute; her
skin was cool, her tongue no longer indicative of fever.
When  asked for an account of her own personal sensa-
tions, she declared that she felt so renovated, and so en-
tirely free from pain and  uneasiness, that  she should
have thought that the sleep of two nights had been put
together in the single hour of her sleepwaking.  Hear-
ing this, the doctors were inclined to exclaim, with him
of the fraternity in Macbeth, " A great  perturbation in
nature !   To receive at once the benefit of sleep, and do
the effects of watching." 
108         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
The Effect of the Mesmeric Sleep on the Digestive Organs
  seems equally  reparatory,  and indicative  of increased
  Power.
  E. A----, a youth  aged fifteen, whom I frequently
mesmerized, and whose  general health was excellent,
was suffering one day from an accidental attack of in-
digestion,  accompanied by slight sickness.  During an
hour's sleepwaking his uneasy feelings were suspended,
and when he awoke  were found to be completely re-
moved.  At another time—not with  a view to any par-
ticular experiment,  but in the way of a pleasantry—I
kept the same sleepwaker in the mesmeric state for a
longer period than usual, so as to make him eat his sup-
per with our family party while still in sleepwaking.
Our evening meal was brought in; and the patient, at
my request (for otherwise he did not seem to care about
taking anything), ate whatever was given  him; and as
our object was to make  him feel, on awaking, that he
had had his  supper, and to wonder how this had come
to pass, we  supplied him plentifully with food, so that
he actually made a fuller meal than was usual  with him
at the same hour.  We  then had the supper things re-
moved, and  in about a quarter of an hour afterward I
awoke the patient.  His first question was, " Have  I
been long  asleep ?"   " How long should you suppose ?"
we  inquired.  " I cannot imagine," he replied ; " but I
hope we shall soon have supper, for I am very hungry!"
At this we all laughed, and assured him that he had just
made a capital meal, a piece  of information which he
at first refused to believe.  The bell was rung, and the
servant called in to depose to the fact before  he could
credit it; and then he appeared by no means disposed to
rest contented with what seemed in his idea a refection
as visionary as that wherewith the  Barmecide in the
Arabian Nights regaled the beggar.   He begged to have
if it were  only a crust of bread, to appease the cravings
of hunger;  and, the wherewithal being afforded, soon
made a second repast as substantial  as that which we
had forced upon him during his sleepwaking.*

  * At the time that the above phenomenon presented itself, I had
not met with an interesting account  of an  extraordinary cure by
mesmerism, written by M. Despine, physician at Aix-en-Savoie.
  Subsequently, on reading the doctor's pamphlet, I was struck with
the following passages  and their relation to the subject we have
been considering:
r 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         109
  Again, before the  above occurrence had taken place,
I mesmerized the same person near the hour of lunch-
eon, he having previously observed that he  was  very
hungry, and therefore hoped  I should wake him soon, in
order that he might eat his accustomed meal.   When in
mesmeric sleepwaking he complained no  more of hun-
ger, and, indeed, assured me that he felt nothing what-
ever of the powerful  appetite  which had so recently
tormented him.  He had no desire to  awake ;  and, as I
was engaged in trying upon him some interesting ex-
periments relating to vision, I  did not  think  of demes-
merizing him till late in the day, about half an hour be-
fore dinner.  The moment he  was restored to the nor-
mal state, he declared that he was almost mad with hun-
ger ; and when I told  him how long  he  had  been in
sleepwaking, was quite angry that I had not waked him
sooner.   Though told that dinner would soon be on the
table, he begged to eat something immediately.
  This and the  preceding anecdotes  seem to  indicate
that the digestive functions are by no means disordered
or suspended during sleepwaking, but, on  the contrary,
that they act more powerfully;  while,  on  the other
hand, they do not, as usual, convey intimations  of their
condition to the mind ; for, in the first instance, we have
seen indigestion removed during sleepwaking,  a proof
that the  apparatus  of  digestion  is strengthened in the
mesmeric  slumber.    Secondly, we have been  made

  " Estelle a l'appetence de tout ce qui lui convenait, et de ce
qu'elle aimait dans ses premiers ans.   De plus, elle en mange, pen-
dant sa  crise, avec abondance et impuniment, sans jamais en sentir le
moindre  mal-aise ; pendant que, dans son  etat naturel, elle ne sau-
rait s'ecarter de son regime vegetal habituel, sans en Eprouver des
crampes, &c.
  " On dirait que notre malade semblait avoir deux estomacs : l'un
pour l'etafde crise, l'autre pour celui de veille.
  " Mais ce qui paraitra plus singulier encore, c'est que les alimens,
pris en  abondance dans  la  crise, ne paraissaient pas, le moins du
monde, la rassasier pour le temps de veille, et vice versa."
  Since reading the above,  I have had an opportunity of seeing the
young person mentioned, a most interesting little girl of thirteen
years of age, living at Neufchatel.in Switzerland.  Her mother cer-
tified to me all the above particulars, and told me  that mesmerism
alone had cured her daughter Estelle of paralysis and spine com-
plaint, after all other means had been tried in vain.  Of the degree
of the patient's previous illness, of course, I can only speak from the
testimony of others ; but this I can certify, that, when I saw Made-
moiselle Estelle L'H----, she was apparently in perfect health, and
enjoying the activity natural to her age.
                           K 
110         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
aware of digestion having been rapidly performed in the
mesmeric state, a full meal having been so  quickly as-
similated to the juices of the body as to cause the  sen-
sation of hunger  to recur almost immediately after it
was taken.  Thirdly, we have been shown hunger pro-
gressing as usual, but unfelt, during the whole period of
the mesmeric sleep.
  I may add that the increased energy given to the di-
gestive  functions during  mesmeric  sleepwaking  has
seemed,  in some cases, to confer a  lasting  benefit.
Mademoiselle M----, though in  other  respects strong
and healthy, suffered, when  I first saw her, from indi-
gestion, which manifested itself in painful fits of colic.
Subsequently she thus wrote to me :  " With regard to
my complaints of the stomach, I have not felt the least
symptoms since my last mesmerizing.   My malady has
been too severe, and the relief I have  experienced too
effectual, for me to  doubt  of the good  effects of mes-
merism."
  Again, that the  human influence  is reparatory of the
vital functions generally, I  had a proof in the case of a
gentleman (already mentioned in Sect.  II.) who allow-
ed me to mesmerize him when he was suffering from
the fatigue of a long journey and night-travelling.   He
remained in the mesmeric state half an hour only, yet
on awaking he exclaimed, " Je me sens comme nou-
veau-ne."  All sense of lassitude was gone.
  From the vital we proceed to a consideration of the
motive powers.
  Any one who has  attended to the cases of mesmeric
sleepwaking which  I have  detailed  elsewhere, must
have remarked that the natural inclination of mesmeric
patients is  to remain perfectly still.  It is only by  the
mesmerizer's persuasion that they are induced to move;
and their  first attempts at walking are, like those of
an infant learning to  use  its limbs, weak and totter-
ing.   After a time,  however, by a sort  of education
from  the  mesmerizer, the sleepwaker is enabled to
move freely and firmly.  The mind has  evidently re-
sumed its empire over the nerves of motion, yet still is
disconnected from the nerves of sense ; a circumstance
which strongly illustrates  Sir Charles Bell's  valuable
discovery respecting the absolute distinctness  of these
two sets of nerves, and which confirms the thesis that
motion is ever propagated downward, from the  brain to 
             MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         I'll

 the exterior of the  body, while sensation is conveyed
 upward, from the extremities of the nerves to the brain.
 I think, also, that the power which sleepwakers possess
 over their motory system proves satisfactorily that, ac-
 cording to the ingenious suggestion of Sir C. Bell, there
 exists a distinct muscular sense; for we see it here in-
 sulated, and acting at a time when all the other senses
 have ceased their functions.  Nor does  the muscular
 sense merely act under mesmeric sleepwaking, but it
 acts (from the  time  that the patient is habituated to his
 new existence)  in a  very perfect manner.   I have seen
 displayed by sleepwakers an activity which they did not
 possess awake.
  Availing  myself of  the  attraction  which draws the
 patient after the mesmerizer, I have made Mademoiselle
 M----follow me when mounting upon chairs or ward-
 robes.  Another of my mesmerizees, when I got upon a
 chair, leaped lightly up after me; and, there being scarce-
 ly room for her to stand, remained poised  in a very ex-
 traordinary manner  on  the  extreme  edge of the chair,
 exhibiting, in that position, an ease and graceful firmness
 quite remote from the characteristics of her usually re-
 served demeanour.
  Additional strength as well as  agility of body seems
 to accompany the more advanced periods of the mes-
 meric state.  E. A----, in sleepwaking, could throw, in
 wrestling, a person he  could not  master when awake;
 and once he burst a locked door open with an ease that
 was extraordinary.   The same phenomena which occur
 with respect to the motor muscles in general, take place
 also as regards the  muscles of the larynx.   On first
 mesmerization, the voice of the patient is weak, and it is
 evidently an exertion for him to speak at all; but sub-
 sequently he resumes his powers of speeeh, and, if mu-
 sical, ean sing as well as in the waking state.  I should,
 however, observe, that thfe tone to which he pitches his
 voice in conversation depends much upon that in which
 the  mesmerizer addresses him : should the former whis-
 per, he whispers too, or the contrary.  This is the gen-
 eral rule ; but Anna M----offered an exception to this.
 Her voice in sleepwaking was generally very feeble, and
 she used to complain of its extinction.
  Though hitherto treating  of  the  patient separately
 from  the mesmerizer, it appears to me that this  branch
of my subject would be incomplete did I not  add to 
112         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
such phenomena of motion  as are proper to tbe sleep-
waker others which are caused by the mesmerizer's in-
fluence over his patient.
  1 have already remarked that the sleepwaker exhibits
an occasional community of motion with the  mesmeri-
zer, and adopts something of his general deportment.
Some additional instances of these phenomena may be
interesting.
  Anna M----, in her mesmeric  state, mounted a stair-
case with  me, in  order to visit  an  invalid lady  of our
party.   I observed that she ascended two stairs at a
time, after  a manner that had become habitual to  me.
At another time,  when I had a cold, she, though  free
from such an affection in her natural state, coughed, in
her sleepwaking, whenever I did. I extract the follow-
ing from a register of our mesmeric proceedings, once
kept by one of our family.
  January 2, 1838. " The mesmerizer  rubs his  hands,
and Anna M----immediately does the same.   When
the mesmerizer  blows  his  nose, the patient puts  her
hand up to hers, as if doing  the same thing.  When the
former began to dance, the  latter did so too, imitating
exactly the  movements  of her mesmerizer, and snap-
ping her fingers  as he  did. The mesmerizer, having
turned from  the  patient, who was  sitting at a table,
took up a  pencil, and,  without  her  seeing him, made
some strokes upon paper.  The patient took up another
pencil which lay at hand, and made similar strokes."
  With respect to the times when these phenomena
were  exhibited, I remarked that they occurred espe-
cially when any  more  violent muscular  motion took
place on my part, such  as in the  act of blowing my
nose, of dancing, &c.; also when my attention was  par-
ticularly directed to the  production  of the phenomena.
When  such was the case, I have turned my back, and
made gestures in perfect siletice (so as to prevent  any
suspicion of the  patient being  influenced by sight or
sound), and  they have been perfectly imitated by  her.
Once I agreed with a friend of mine to put my hand  into
my coat pocket  at a certain signal from him.  The
sleepwaker, though standing where she could  know no-
thing of the circumstance, thrust back her hand  imme-
diately into a similar position with my own.  The same
friend, who was determined to try everything to put the
sleepwaker  at fault,  used to imitate my rubbing  my 
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.         113
hands, coughing, or blowing my nose, in order to induce
Anna M----to do the same, and thus to prove that  she
was guided by sound, not by sympathy of motion.  The
patient, however, was never influenced in the slightest
degree by these artifices.  Whether such  correspond-
ences of motion result from purely mechanical causes
may be much doubted; but there is  another class  of
motory phenomena in which the body of the mesmeri-
zer must clearly be considered as the depository of some
attractive force entirely independent  of his will, for
they result simply from the position  in which the pa-
tient may be placed relatively to the mesmerizer.*
  Having frequently remarked that the head  of a mes-
merized person  follows the hand of the mesmerizer, as
iron does the loadstone, I, in order to submit the  phe-
nomenon  to the surest proof, bandaged the eyes of E.
A---- previously  to  mesmerizing  him, and filled with
cotton every possible interstice that  might be left be-
tween the cheek and the handkerchief, in such a manner
as to convince every person who witnessed the experi-
ment that for the patient to perceive  by sight the mo-
tions of my hand was entirely out of the question.  As
soon, however,  as E. A----had entered into sleepwa-
king, his  head followed my hand, at the distance of at
least  two feet, with unerring certainty.  Did I place it
on  the left  of his head,  his head  instantly inclined to
that side ; was  it  in front, he bent forward to meet it;
was it behind him, he leaned back towards it  with what
would seem a painful and unnatural effort.
  Again,  I held my  hand above his  leg; immediately
the limb  was attracted upward.  I continued to with-
draw my  hand,  and the leg was so much elevated as to
form an acute angle with the body of the patient.   Fi-
nally, I ran quickly away to the other end of the room,
and the sleepwaker followed me quickly and unerringly.

  *  This mechanical attraction appears to have been first noticed by
M. De Lausanne, who observed it in a patient of his own: a female,
whose sensitiveness was remarkably developed.  In a work on mes-
merism, published at Paris, this author, who still, I believe, is living,
gives a particular account of some interesting experiments relative to
the  subject.  When M. De Lausanne was in another room, or even
outside of the house,  the sleepwaker above alluded to turned  her
head in the exact direction of her mesmerizer.  This was established
by repeated trials before witnesses.  It should be remembered that
the development of similar phenomena in so striking a degree pre-
supposes always a  rare and advanced stage of  sleepwaking.
                       K2 
114          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  At another time, being in one of the folds of a screen,
and Anna M----in another, I put out my hand (but not
beyond the projection of the screen), when instantly the
patient's hand came round to meet mine.
  One evening, when I had mesmerized the same sleep-
waker, and 1 was sitting near her, it occurred to me to
inquire, " If my hand possesses so singular a property
of attraction, what power of a similar kind may reside
in my foot?"  With this thought I raised my foot, not
in any unusual manner, but as if  I were laying  one leg
over the other.   The sole of my foot was thus presented
to the patient.  In a very short time she began to turn
round upon her chair, so as nearly to fall into the fire.
Struck with this oddity, I made the sleepwaker rise, and
again presented my foot, when she commenced a series
of regular evolutions from right to left, stopping always,
when she had half completed the circle, with a bend and
a dip like that of the magnetic needle.   The experiment
repeated  always produced the same results.
  Again, when standing opposite to  my patient, who
was in an upright position, 1 began to turn round.   She
also seemed forced to revolve, but in a direction contra-
ry to mine.  If I turned from left to  right, she turned
from right to left, and vice versa.
  I tried the same experiments  on  other sleepwakers.
They also turned round when I did, and inversely to my-
self;  but my foot, when presented to  them, instead of
making them revolve (a phenomenon  apparently con-
fined to Anna M----), seemed simply to repel them.  I
tried this with the sister of Theodore.   Every time that
I held out my hand  she was  attracted  towards me;
whenever I held out my foot, she was repelled ; and, by
the alternate exercise of these two influences, she was
kept oscillating to and fro like the pendulum of a clock.
  That the mesmerizer can create motion in the sleep-
waker is not the only proof of the power that he pos-
sesses over the  organization of the  latter.  He is also
capable of paralyzing those motory agencies which he
so much  sways.  But experiments of this kind should
be undertaken with the greatest caution.  Puysegur re-
lates  that, having tried,  from  curiosity, to paralyze the
organs of  a sleepwaker, he  threw the patient into a
state resembling death, which  lasted for several hours.
Dr. Sigmond has also reported the case of a lady whom,
without intending it, he threw into an alarming  state of 
             MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.        115

insensibility : a circumstance which (if I may venture to
say so) is explained by the  doctor's  own statement of
his mesmeric principles.  His words are, " It is  upon
the respiration that my efforts are directed; and the prin-
ciple  is precisely  what is  called ' stealing the breath
away.'"
  The account is in "The Lancet" for December,  1837,
and I  have since had no opportunity of learning any of
Dr. Sigmond's subsequent experiments.   I do not,  how-
ever, doubt but that experience has brought him to the
same  conclusion as myself, namely, that  those motions
and intentions of the mesmerizer which are most direct-
ed towards equalizing the influence he wields are the
best, and that we should, above all, avoid concentrating
the action upon any vital part.  Being fully persuaded
of this, I have  seldom ventured  upon paralyzing the
nerves of motion, save in the less important parts of the
body, as in the  hand or arm, for instance.   What led
me to try such experiments at all was this : Mr. K----,
of Antwerp, my first instructer in  mesmerism, had ex-
hibited  to me a curious phenomenon which occurred
whenever he closed the hand of one of his sleepwakers
over a piece  of  coin (silver  or copper).  The hand  re-
mained rigidly shut, and the patient seemed  utterly in-
capable of opening it until  after the dispersion of the
mesmeric sleep.  From a train of analogous reasoning,
I was much  inclined to believe that the coin  had  no
more  to do with the phenomenon  in question than the
magnet and the  baquet with the effects which Mesmer
produced upon his  early patients.   I accordingly closed
the hand of Mademoiselle M----without the coin, and
again with it.  As I had anticipated, the  result in both
cases was the same.  Moreover, I discovered that, by
breathing  on the  patient's  hand, I could always, and
under any circumstances, restore it to its functions ; in
fact, that myself, and not the metal, was the depository
of the paralyzing power, whatever it might be.
  I relate this in the hope that it may warn others, as it
did me, against attributing, in mesmerism,  effects to
wrong causes.  In all that  regards mesmeric sleepwa-
king,  there is especial  danger of falling into such an
error, from the curious blending that it exhibits of human
and of  mechanical action; and never can we  adjust the
balance properly until  the mesmerizer's  influence over
his patient be fully taken into account. 
116         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  A curious circumstance attending the  mesmerizer's
power over the  patient's organization  is this :  When
the two are in frequent mesmeric relationship, the phe-
nomenon is carried forward into the natural state.   This
I found to be the case after I had often mesmerized
Anna M----and E. A----.   I could at any time fix the
hand or arm of either of these persons in any position I
pleased, and  in  all the rigidness  of catalepsy.   The
means I used to  produce this effect were  as follows:  I
first placed the limb as I wished it to remain, and then
brought the fingers of both hands into contact  with it at
opposite poles, as it were, and pointing to each other, so
that, supposing they emanated  a stream of galvanic or
other influence, it would pass exactly through the part
to be affected.  The desired  result did not ensue imme-
diately,  but in two or three  minutes; and its intensity
was proportioned to  the length of time I acted on the
limb.   The patients  described a sensation of gradual
paralysis, and a deadness, as  when a leg or arm, in com-
mon parlance, goes to sleep.  At  length a spasmodic
contraction of the muscles took place ; the hand looked
white and bloodless, and the fingers unnaturally rigid.
To the touch they seemed as chords that are pulled tight;
and, if the numbness continued, they  lost all feeling.
No force short of what would have produced  mechani-
cal injury could undo them.  On one occasion I placed
the arm of E. A----in a position  so twisted  and con-
strained that it was not possible for him to oppose much
voluntary force to any one's efforts to pull it down ; yet,
when once paralyzed, there  was not a person present
who could stir it.  It offered the resistance of marble.
Moreover, this person was not in the least imaginative,
and ridiculed the  idea  that fancy  could produce the
phenomenon  in  question.  When I wished to restore
motion to  a limb thus paralyzed, I  breathed  on it and
made some magnetic passes down it, accompanied some-
times by slight friction.  The return of life and feeling was
gradual as  their  loss, and was accompanied  by  those
tinglings called pins and needles.   A slight numbness
was generally felt for some time after the experiment.
Once I persuaded E. A----to permit me  to try wheth-
er, in his waking state, I could prevent  him  from open-
ing his eyes.   The experiment was perfectly successful.
By pressing down the upper  eyelid  with a finger of one
hand, and placing a finger of the other upon the  lower 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         117
lid, I could so influence  the  levator muscle  as  (after
withdrawing my hands) to keep either eye closed while
the other was  wide open.  The patient could not, in
general, shut his right eye without also shutting the left.
  I have  now  taken  a review of the condition  of the
bodily organs and  of the motive powers  under mes-
meric sleepwaking, being  at the  same time fully aware
how much is left to be performed by abler hands than
mine.  I am no physician, and  a very  minute inquiry
into the physical state of  mesmeric patients is not my
province.   I, however, seriously recommend to all who
study medicine as a profession, especially to the young-
er aspirants in this branch of science (since they, at
least, are  not  grounded and rooted in antique prejudi-
ces), to pay attention to mesmerism, after the  plan that
I have laid down;  i.  e., to ascertain, during its opera-
tion, the  exact and peculiar state of every organ and
function of  the human body.
  By mesmerism we best dissect man, whether  men-
tally or physically ; and, if ever  the vital influences are
to be understood, it is not by  anatomizing  the dead or
by torturing the living, but by observation of our fellow-
beings when in the  state we call  mesmeric.
  I now proceed to offer some  remarks upon the mental
condition  of patients under mesmeric sleepwaking, con-
sidering the soul in its moral, intellectual, and  sensitive
capacities.
  First, as regards our moral being :
  That the  state of mesmeric  sleepwaking is  a rise in
man's  nature, no one  who has been conversant with it
can doubt.
  Separated from  the usual action of the senses, the
mind  appears to  gain juster notions, to have quite a
new sense of spiritual things, and to be  lifted nearer to
the fountain of  all good and of all truth.  The  great in-
dication of this elevated state  of feeling is  a horror of
falsehood, which I have found  common to all  sleepwa-
kers.   Sincerity is  their especial characteristic;  they
cannot feign or flatter: they seem to be taken out of
common life, with  all its heartless forms and plausible
conventions.
  I proceed, by one or two instances, to show  how for-
cibly sleepwakers are impelled to speak the thing that
is, and to  clear their consciences of that dissimulation
which clings so much to man in his natural  state. 
118         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
  During the Antwerp carnival, a lady, who took a sin-
cere interest in Anna M----'s welfare, advised her not
to go to the masked ball which  is usually given at that
season.  The night after the ball Anna came to be mes-
merized, and, though complaining of fatigue,  would not
own that she had acted in opposition to the advice that
she had received.  When,  however, in sleepwaking, she
acknowledged of her own  accord that she  had been at
the  masked ball, and said  that she felt she had done
wrong in practising concealment, though her motive had
been to avoid giving pain to her kind monitress.
  A similar instance of candid  confession  occurred in
E. A.  I had given him a bottle of lotion for his eyes,
which were weak at the time : he took it home with
him, and a day or two afterward, in  reply to  my inqui-
ries as to the benefit received, answered in some pre-
varicating way, so as to make me suppose  that he had
used the lotion to advantage.   Subsequently, however,
being in mesmeric sleepwaking, he said, quite voluntari-
ly, " There is something that I wish to tell you.  In go-
ing  home the other night I broke that  bottle which you
gave me.  I feared you would be angry if you knew this,
and I dared not own it when awake ; but now I feel that
I did not act rightly."
  In the mesmeric state, the character of this sleepwa-
ker presented generally a strong contrast to its waking
exhibition.   Good talents and a  good disposition had in
him  been  warped by an unfortunate education;  and,
young as he was, he  had  imbibed at Paris certain infi-
del  opinions of the worst kind, which he scarcely stud-
ied  to conceal.   I asked him once, in his waking state,
what he thought  became of us after death; and his an-
swer was, " Des qu'on est mort, on n'est plus rien du
tout."
  This extreme  ignorance  on most  subjects was ac-
companied  by a  vain belief that he knew a good deal;
and if one stated to him the commonest facts of philos-
ophy (the distance of the sun from the earth,  for exam-
ple), he suspected a design of playing upon his credulity,
and intrenched himself in  absolute unbelief.  In sleep-
waking  all  this  was changed.   His ideas  of the mind
were correct, and  singularly  opposed to the material
views he took of all questions when in the waking state.
He  once chided  me  for calling the  soul " une  chose;"
and said, " Ce n'est pas une chose—c'est une pensee." 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         119
" Can the  soul  ever  die ?"  I  asked.   " Certainly not.
It is the  soul which is the only true existence, and
which gives existence to all we apprehend."  " Whence
came the soul ?"  " From God, who  by his thoughts
created  the universe."  His words were, " L'ame pro-
vient de Dieu, qui a cree l'univers par sa pensee."  " Is
there a future punishment for evil-doers ?"  " Undoubt-
edly, a great one."  " In  what will  it consist ?"   " In
seeing themselves  as they are, and God as he is."
  On another occasion  I mesmerized E. A.  when a
lady of  great talents  and  feeling, and an author well
known to English literature, were present.   The latter
was suffering under a severe domestic affliction.   He
had recently lost a beloved daughter, and the tone of
mind induced by  that bereavement  naturally inclined
him to question the sleepwaker on subjects relative to a
future state.  In order that  Mr. ---might speak with
the greater freedom, I placed him  " en rapport," as it is
called, with E.  A., and  took but little part in  the con-
versation that ensued.  The conversation itself I can-
not accurately detail,  but the general impression that it
left upon my mind can never be effaced.  The sleepwa-
ker  rose  into eloquence which seemed unearthly. It
was simple,  it  was beautiful,  it was like an inspira-
tion.  He spoke of the never-dying nature of the  soul;
of its ransomed beatitude; of  its  progress through vari-
ous eras of existence,  during which  he asserted (for
here I remember  his very  words),  " Elle conserve la
memoire du passe, et  des amities faites sur la terre ; et
elle a l'envie de revoir  ceux qu'elle a cheris autrefois.
Tout le bien de l'ame  s'en va avec elle, et dure apres la
mort;  et les justes qui se  sont pleures ici  bas seront
reunis devant Dieu."  Every one  present was  affected ;
some even to  tears.   It  was  indeed beautiful to  see
the  young prophet, whose countenance had  retaken an
expression  of   candour and   of  childish  innocence,
speaking so calmly the  words of  holiness and of com-
fort, and the older listener humbly stooping to drink of
the waters of refreshment from so lowly a source.
   The same sleepwaker, thoroughly unsentimental in
his natural state, seemed  always, when mesmerized, to
take a pleasure  in losing himself  in imaginations of an-
other world.  Beautiful are  the things he has said to me
respecting the  soul's recognition of those it  loved on
earth, and of the privilege of departed friends to  watch 
120        MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
over the objects of their solicitude while toiling through
the pilgrimage of life ; but, were I particularly to record
these speculations, as they would be called, I should
probably be  deemed  a visionary, or branded as an en-
thusiast.   It  is enough to say  that, under mesmeric
sleepwaking, all the  hard  incredulity which character-
ized E. A. when awake was gone.  His wilfulness was
become submission;  his pride, humility ; and, in precise
proportion as he seemed to know more,  he  appeared to
esteem himself less.  Often would he regret the errors
of his waking hours, and speak  of his natural state as
of an  existence  apart.  Often would  he  exclaim, in
sleepwaking, " How I wish I could  always see things
as 1 do now !"  There is not a person who  saw him in
the mesmeric state but remarked the  change for the bet-
ter that his physiognomy underwent.   His affections,
also, were enlarged.   Egotistical in general,  and dis-
playing but  little  sensibility, he  in the mesmeric state
showed all the warmth of a kind-hearted nature.  Short-
ly before leaving  me I mesmerized him. Immediately
on passing into sleepwaking his countenance  assumed
an expression of the deepest sorrow, and he seemed
scarcely able to speak.  When asked the cause of his
sadness, he said, " I am going away : how deeply I feel
it!"  Restored to  his waking state, he laughed, and talk-
ed, and seemed as unconcerned as usual.
  That in the mesmeric state  the mind's sensibility is
exalted and refined, I had also a  proof, when one  day I
was reading to Mademoiselle M---- (then  in sleepwa-
king) Wordsworth's touching poem of Lucy Gray.  Ut-
terly insensible to poetry in her waking state, she at
that time  felt all  its charms :  her countenance  varied
with emotion ; she watched the  progress of the little
story with the deepest interest; and when  I arrived at
the stanza,
            " The  storm came on before its time,
               She wandered up and down,
             And  many a hill did Lucy climb,
               But never reached the town,"
she burst into a passion of tears, and cried out, " Oh !
cease, cease ! I can bear it no longer."
  Yet, that this increased  sensibility was regulated by
considerable self-control appeared manifestly on a cer-
tain  occasion, when some  one,  placed " en  rapport"
with her in sleepwaking, made an unfortunate allusion 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          121
to the death of a person to whom Mademoiselle M. had
been strongly attached.  She wept  much, but, seeing
me  uneasy, said, " Do not mind, sir, I will control my-
self ;"  which she accordingly did,  and, by a moral ef-
fort, she resumed her tranquillity.
  Another feature of the moral state  in mesmerism is
a tendency  to replace the conventional forms of the
world by a frank exhibition of general good-will and cor-
dial regard to all men.  Justinus Kerner (in his " Lehe-
rin von Prevorst," published at Stuigart and Tubingen,
1832) relates that the sleepwaker, to whom he has giv-
en the  above high-sounding  appellation, would never,
in the mesmeric state, address any  one in the third per-
son plural, which  is the ceremonial manner of speaking
in Germany, but always in the second person singular,
which  the Germans consider  as expressive of intimacy
and affection.  I have observed something of  the same
kind in those sleepwakers who  have come under my
notice.   E. A. was  once thrown  into the mesmeric
state in the presence of a gentleman whom, as his su-
perior  in age and station in  society, he regarded with
the  greatest respect.   Having written, as requested,
some music for this gentleman, he  inscribed it thus :
" A mon cher V.  O."  It is curious to compare this fa-
miliar  dedication  with  those  which were written in his
waking state, where  every  title  was  given its due
weight, and nothing was presented save "avec les hom-
mages les plus respectueuses."
  A state of mind so simple, so religious, so tender, yet
so pure, is  in itself a refutation of the charge of immo-
rality which they who lack the charity that hopes and
believes the best have  attempted to bring against mes-
merism.   If to  this be added the absolute deadness of
corporeal  sensation which I have shown to  accompany
mesmeric  sleepwaking, there  will be a manifest absurd-
ity in the supposition that it is (as some one called it) a
mere " voluptuous juggle," an affair of the  senses and
of sexual feeling.
  The  attraction  towards the mesmerizer testified by
the patient, which  has,  perhaps,  contributed to give
birth to this monstrous idea,  is of  a  nature totally dis-
tinct from the promptings of  passion.  If compared to
any love, it must  be likened  to self-love ;  for  it seems
to result from that identification of the vital and nervous
system of the two parties of which I have already given 
122        MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
many examples, and which admits of still farther illus-
tration.   For instance, a gentleman, whom I was mes-
merizing for the first  time, asked me, when I had laid
my hand on his forehead, whether he felt his own hand
or mine placed there, declaring himself wholly unable to
decide.   Anna M----, when 1 have been suffering from
a sensation of cold, has not only complained of being
chilly, but has said, " Will you warm yourself for met"
Once, when (unknown to  her)  I  had  a blister on  my
side, I observed that, during sleepwaking, she constant-
ly carried her hand to her own  side.   I asked her why
she did this, and she  said, " There is something there
that pains me, as if the skin were torn off." At anoth-
er time, when I was thirsty, a sleepwaker complained
also of thirst.  I offered  to give her some water, but
she said, " No ; you  must  drink for  me." My thirst
being quenched, the sleepwaker's uneasiness was re-
moved.   The patient   also, during mesmerism, adopts,
to a certain extent, the mesmerizer's likings and disli-
kings.  E. A----,  in  his  natural state, was very fond
of the smell of heliotrope, which I found too sickly for
my taste; but  in sleepwaking, when, through  me, he
was made to smell it,  he found the odour unpleasing.
   When we  consider  these and other proofs displayed
by sleepwakers of sensitive and motive sympathy with
their mesmerizer; when  we reflect that they are ac-
tually heedless of injuries inflicted on themselves, but
tremblingly alive  to  all that he is made to suffer, we
may  well imagine that he stands to them in a very pe-
culiar and vital relation : nor can it seem  wonderful
that,  when severed from him, they should acknowledge
a schism in their being, and seem out of all unity with
themselves.  Besides, several circumstances prove how
remote from sexual feeling is the one in question.  In
the first place, it is exhibited equally by every mesmer-
ized person, without  respect of age, sex, or character.
The cold and stubborn are subjugated by it as effectual-
ly as the warm and the yielding :  the pride of talent ex-
empts not from this despotism, neither does the simple
innocence of childhood.   Never have  I seen its force
more strongly exemplified  than in the  case of a sister
of Anna M----, a child of nine  or ten years of age.
Having once left her  on  a sofa  in the mesmeric  state
while I went to take  some tea at a table which stood
near, I heard, after I had been away about five minutes, 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         123
 low stifled sobs proceeding from  my little  patient  I
 hastened to her, and found her crying.   Being asked bv
 me  the  cause of this distress,  she  replied,  " Because
 you stayed so long away.  It makes me suffer so much "
   Again, the attraction manifested by patients towards
 their mesmerizer is not in the least modified  by circum-
 stances or by the relation  of the parties to each other
 and it is openly exhibited by those whom I have shown
 to be in  a state of high moral feeling.
   Nothing can be more evident than that it is an instinct
 not a passion: the springs of life  are touched, and the
 powerful impulse of self-preservation is set in play  So
 also, the repulsion from all others  than the mesmerizer
 is but a measure of the attractive force which draws the
 patient there, where he exists even  more than in himself
 Illustrative of this physical necessity, I may  bring for-
 ward a circumstance which was  related to me  by an
 eyewitness, whose word  I  have never had  reason to
 doubt.   A young man, mesmerized  for the first time, be-
 came unwell under the extraordinary stimulus of mes-
 merism, which sometimes, if unskilfully applied, does
 affect  persons unpleasantly.  His mesmerizer was, in
 fact, inexperienced in  his art;  and, becoming alarmed
 at the result of his  operations,  attempted to quit the
 room.  The  consequences of this injudicious conduct
 were fearful.  The patient became furious, and actually
 tore his own clothes  and the hangings of the apartment.
 Had his mesmerizer  succeeded in leaving him, he might
 have suffered  seriously;  but, by good  fortune, a more
 experienced mesmerizer  who was present forced back
 the inexpert practitioner, and instructed  him how to al-
 lay the tempest of mental and bodily agitation which he
 had so unwittingly provoked.  This may serve as a gen-
 eral type of  the kind  of feeling exhibited by patients to-
 wards  their mesmerizers, and with this the language of
 sleepwakers  themselves  is in  exact accordance.  A
gentleman who saw  E. A----mesmerized by me, said
to him, " Vous aimer bien d'etre avec, monsieur."  To
which  the sleepwaker replied, " Oui, mais pas toujours
comme a present.  D'autrefois, je peux le quitter, et je
ne sens rien ;  maintenant je ne  pouvais pas le quitter,
quand meme je le voudrais."  In the same manner, Anna
M----, who was  exceedingly fond of my wife,  could
not quit me  to go to  her  when in  the mesmeric state.
Being good-humouredly rallied upon this, she said, " You 
124         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
know, dear lady, how much I love you, and that the feel-
ing I have for my mesmerizer is sincere respect.  That
which keeps me near him now is quite different from
any affection :  it is not that  I would not wish to come
to you, but absolutely I cannot, unless  my mesmerizer
comes too."  When seated  between us both she decla-
red herself quite happy.  Nevertheless, it was necessary
even for  my wife to approach her, when mesmerized,
with caution.   Touching her once  suddenly,  without
having been placed properly  " en rapport" with her, she
produced in the patient a violent fit of shivering.
  But it may still be objected that the mesmerizer, if so
disposed, may  make a wrong use of the influence which
he possesses over the patient.  Possibly : for,  as I have
once before remarked, all power is  capable of abuse.
A bad physician may employ his knowledge of drugs to
the worst purposes; but are we therefore  to have no
physicians ?  And is  mesmerism, because dangerous in
evil hands, not to be consigned to  any hands at  all?
There are some who wrest the  Scriptures  to their own
destruction and that of others ;  but shall the Scriptures
not be preached?  A pursuit, too, like mesmerism, which,
so far from conducting to gain or glory, subjects its vo-
taries to  a  species  of martyrdom,  holds  out but  few
temptations to the base-minded.   Besides, the fault rests
with mesmeric patients themselves if they give up their
powers of self-control to evil, or even doubtful  guidance,
or, indeed, to any foreign guidance whatever, unless be-
fore proper witnesses.
  Exercised judiciously, there is not a doubt  that mes-
merism might  be made an important instrument of moral
good to man, since it not only tends naturally to elevate
the mind above sensual desires and material objects for
the time being, but even after its immediate influence has
passed away.   A mesmerizer can always so strengthen
the virtuous tendencies developed by his patient in sleep-
waking as to prolong them,  as it were, into the waking
state.  Often  has  E. A----entreated me, when I have
given him good advice in a mesmeric sleep, to impress it in
such a manner upon his mind as that it might influence
him, even though imperceptibly, when  awake.  Moreo-
ver, it is a curious fact that, if the mesmerizer tells his pa-
tient to abstain from anything  at a certain time—even
from that of which he may be most fond—the  latter acts
upon the injunction in his natural state without being 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          125
aware of the springs that impel his conduct.  To what
beneficial uses this peculiar influence might be rendered
subservient I need not suggest,  nor how  effectually it
might wean persons from bad habits, by rendering them
positively averse to the sins that most easily beset them.
  That a proportionable increase of the intellectual pow-
ers should  accompany  so marked a development of the
moral, will not seem surprising if we reflect that every
faculty of our being plays, as it were, into the hands of
another, and that a rise  in moral  feelings  almost pre-
supposes a rise in intellectual dignity.  If it be  granted
that " want of decency is want of sense," it may also be
conceded that a want of  moral perceptions generally is
the produce and accompaniment of a degraded intellect.
The increased  sincerity  which persons manifest in the
mesmeric state would  alone pronounce it the parent of
a quickened reason.  They perceive all the irrationality
of  falsehood.   Other proofs,  however, of the sleepwa-
ker's advance in intellect are by no means wanting.
   He can  discuss subjects which, in the waking state,
are far beyond the scope  of his capacity, and solve ques-
tions which, at other times, are  to him as an unknown
tongue.  1  observed this especially in the case  of  E.
A----.  His habitual confusion of thought was changed
during sleepwaking into justness of apprehension ; to
indulge in  abstract speculations seemed almost a feature
of his condition; and he displayed, in  this development
of his nature, a peculiar acuteness of remark,  which
looked like intuitive sagacity.  He apprehended with
ease and  learned with  quickness.  A hint was suffi-
cient to put him in possession of a subject.
   But it is especially by the improved condition  of the
memory in the mesmeric state that the general strength-
ening of the intellectual powers may be estimated.  For
is  not, in truth, memory the life and breath of the mind,
without whose quickening inspiration all the elements
of thinking were  but  as so  much  dry dust?   Is it not
 our identity which links every event  wherein  we have
 been concerned, every fragment of knowledge and of
 moral feeling which has come to us, either from the ex-
 ternal world or the universe of our own minds, into one
 harmonious and intelligible whole ?  It is true that mem-
 ory, without the reasoning faculties, were but  a vain
 gift; but it is equally true that,  without memory, all the
 faculties  in which we glory were entirely worthless.
                       L2 
126          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
 Their simplest exercise presupposes  its abiding pres-
 ence.   It is  the measure of our attention, as attention
 itself is the measure of the mind's strength or weakness.
   That this important power is largely developed under
 mesmeric sleepwaking is a fact to which particular at-
 tention should be given,  since it explains  in a natural
 way certain phenomena which too many of the friends
 of mesmerism wonder over as miraculous, and which,
 consequently, too many of its adversaries reject as false.
 How much injury this presentation of startling circum-
 stances, unaccompanied by any rational solution,  has
 caused to mesmerism, may be estimated by a compari-
 son of the reception given to  a fact when rationally set
 forth by a philosopher, with that which it receives when
 wildly stated by an  enthusiast.  Many  of  the  stories
 told by the judicious, and frankly accepted by the world
 in general, are every whit as wonderful as  the tales of
 mesmeric clair-voyance which so shock the incredulous ;
 but then they are otherwise presented, and charm us by
 being  seen through the clear glass of nature, instead of
 coming to us  coloured by the Claude Lorraine medium
 of the imagination.   A proof of this  assertion may be
 found  in the high estimation which Dr. Abercrombie's
 work on the  Intellectual  Powers so justly enjoys.  The
 work  itself is full of interesting and remarkable anec-
 dotes,  many  of them especially relating to  auto-sleep-
 waking; yet who dreams of doubting these?   And why?
 They are naturally and philosophically treated.   For in-
 stance : the author relates  that a girl,  who was  consti-
 tutionally a sleepwalker, ignorant, and  of  the  lowest
 rank, " has been known to conjugate correctly Latin
 verbs,  which she had probably heard in  the schoolroom  of
 the family; and  she  was  once heard to speak several
 sentences very  correctly in  French,  at the same time
 stating that she heard  them from a foreign gentleman whom
 she had met accidentally in a shop."  Now conceive  the
 story to have  been told without the sentences which I
 have marked by italics, and  the mere workings of mem-
 ory are forthwith  magnified into a miraculous gift of
 tongues, which we regard with quite other feelings than
the present cautious and  instructive  statement.  We
cannot, then,  be too guarded in our views of the facul-
ties  displayed by  sleepwakers.   The  least  hint of a
thing, previously heard and forgotten while awake, will
serve them, in the  mesmeric state, as a clew to knowl- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         127
edge that shall seem supernatural; but a little  investi-
gation will often clear up the apparent miracle;  and the
principle, once  ascertained,  may be extended even to
cases which baffle our most accurate research.
  The  memory  of  Anna M---- was  much  developed
during  mesmeric sleepwaking.  All the reminiscences
of her childish years seemed to recur to her mind ; and
thence she was enabled to  show an acquaintance with
the past histories of the inhabitants of her native town,
which in primitive  times would have been by no means
to her advantage.  Under James the First she would in-
fallibly have been burned for a witch.
  Often,  in her  mesmeric  state,  she recalled to the
minds of persons, who  had perhaps forgotten that they
had ever seen her, particular circumstances, with which
they imagined none  but themselves could be acquainted.
On one occasion especially, I remember a  person en-
tering the room while she was in mesmeric sleepwaking
and had her eyes perfectly closed.  His name  was not
mentioned ;  but, having been placed " en rapport" with
him, she recognised him by the voice alone as  an indi-
vidual  whom she had  known in her very early  child-
hood, but had  not  met with since.  She  named him,
and brought back to his recollection many minute par-
ticulars relating to his  family and to himself.  On awa-
king, she was  much surprised to  see  another person
added to our party, and could by no effort of memory
(even after he had spoken) make him appear  other than
a perfect stranger to her.  It was not until  he  had de-
clared himself, and, on  his part, recalled to her sundry
circumstances, that  she could remember ever  to  have
seen him.  Yet  even then the greater part  of  the par-
ticulars, with which in  mesmerism she  seemed so fully
acquainted, could by no means be restored  to her re-
membrance.
   Another time the same  sleepwaker, being asked  to
write some Flemish poetry from memory, noted down
with a pencil two lines, which, on  awaking (though we
told her the first words of the distich), she could not re-
peat.   Being shown the lines, she at length recognised,
by their general sense, something which she had  heard
as a child.   In mesmeric sleepwaking, Anna  M----dis-
played a greater aptitude  to learn than in her waking
state.   I had only  recited to her a little poem of Gold-
smith's, beginning, " Oh, memory! thou fond deceiver, 
128         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
twice over, when she was already able to repeat it cor-
rectly.
  E. A----manifested a similar increase of mental re-
tentiveness, more remarkable, perhaps, inasmuch as his
memory (more from neglect, I imagine, than from nat-
ural  incapacity)  was singularly defective.   We have
tried him  in  mesmeric  sleepwaking  with  the  hardest
phrases and technical expressions  which the English
tongue (of which  he knew very little) could furnish;
and,  on one occasion, a gentleman who had travelled in
the East supplied him with a long and strange Turkish
word, which he caught directly with the greatest ease.
  This sleepwaker played beautifully on the flute, and
was  accustomed often to  improvise  upon  that instru-
ment with all the musical genius that he possessed ;  but
the charming strain, once uttered, was  lost forever.  He
could not  repeat one of his  extempore compositions.
One day I had been forced to reprove him for some fault,
when, taking his flute, he poured forth some melancholy
notes which seemed to  express regret and penitence.
I begged him to repeat the touching air, but it had whol-
ly passed from his remembrance.  Subsequently, when
he was  in mesmeric  sleepwaking, it occurred to me to
ask him if he could  then  write down the  composition
that  so  much pleased me.  Instantly he seized music-
paper and a pen, and wrote down the air which I here
subjoin, and which, as far  as my own memory can de-
termine, is precisely the same  as that which I had heard
two days before.

               POUR  LA FLUTE.
 
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.        129
^^f^gE^
  Another  proof of increased  memory given by this
sleepwaker was his comprehending and speaking Eng-
lish (which otherwise he was remarkably slow to learn)
far better in the mesmeric than in the natural state.
  A circumstance to be remarked, as showing a connex-
ion  between the mesmeric  and the common sleep, is
this : sleepwakers will remember those nocturnal dreams
which they can by no means  recall  when waking.  I
then asked  Anna M----if she could recollect anything
in sleepwaking which,  out  of it, she had  forgotten.
She replied, " Certainly, many things ;  and just now I
clearly remember something which I wished to recollect
when I was awake, but could not.  It is a dream which
I had on Sunday night."  (She said this on Wednesday,
14th February, 1838.) " I screamed out in my sleep and 
130          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
alarmed my mother, but I could not call to mind what
I had been dreaming about; now, however, I know what
it was.  I thought that a very frightful old woman en-
tered the room:  she was dressed  in scarlet, and had a
white fillet bound across her forehead.  She came slow-
ly in, and, coming up to me in bed, laid her hand upon
my chest.  I tried to scream, but could not;  at  last,
however, I screamed and woke my mother."  After-
ward, when the sleepwaker had returned to her natural
state, she was questioned about the dream, but it had
again passed from her memory.   Wishing to establish
the circumstance by as much evidence as possible, I
took an opportunity of speaking to her mother on the
subject, when the latter corroborated all that Anna had
affirmed, and  added that her daughter was  in the habit
of relating her dreams to her family at breakfast, but of
this particular one she had been able to give no account.
  E. A. could also, in sleepwaking, recall the visions of
the night, which  had gone from him as  the dream from
the Babylonian monarch.  Moreover, he had been, as a
child, a natural sleepwaker, and he assured  me, when in
the mesmeric state, that all the minutest circumstances
of his  early sleepwaking recurred to him.  When asked
if the  mind ever ceased to think in slumber, he replied,
" Never for an instant; the soul is wise, and learns much
during  sleep.  It reflects on  all it has  seen and heard,
and  profits more by this than  in the daytime.  We can-
not, indeed, be aware of this, because we are in a dif-
ferent  state when waking, and forget what we think of
by night.  Yet,"  he continued, " have you not remarked
that, if you read a thing over night, you remember it
better  on awaking the next morning ?   This is the fruit
of the  soul's labour" (c'est le fruit du travail de l'ame),
"though we  do  not know whence it comes."  Asked
again about dreams, he replied, " In general they are a
kind of recreation of the soul, an exercise of its invent-
ive faculty ; but we are only acquainted with the results.
As a carpenter takes a tree and saws it  into boards, and
then from those boards constructs something which he
had previously  determined,  so the soul arranges the
mechanism  of the brain to  form  a  dream;  and the
dream itself, which we imagine to  last a long time, pass-
 es, in  fact, with  inconceivable rapidity.  It only occu-
 pies the moment immediately previous to our waking.
 Other  dreams, again, are, as it were,  forced upon the 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         131
 soul by something disordered in the brain; but they all
 agree in this—they immediately precede our waking."
   I relate the above as curiously consonant with a cir-
 cumstance in the life of Lavalette.  He had in prison a
 horrible dream, in which he saw an infernal procession
 pass by his cell.  Whole armies seemed to defile before
 him ; but the riders were all skeletons, and the horses,
 stripped of their skins, presented a mass of raw and
 bleeding flesh.   A clanking of chains  accompanied the
 terrific  vision, which seemed to be of infinite duration.
 He was awakened by the jailer entering his dungeon,
 when he  found that the dream, which had been  an
 " eternity to thought,"  was in reality the impression of
 a moment, caused by the dropping of the chains in un-
 fastening his door.
   The last phenomenon of memory, which may  here be
 mentioned as  regarding the sleepwaker alone,  is  that,
 when the mesmeric sleep is perfect, the  subsequent ob-
 livion is perfect too.  Of the  truth of this fact, it has
 been generally asserted that there is no other assurance
 than the allegations of the sleepwakers  themselves.  I
 cannot  concede  this  point.  Place a mesmeric  patient
 under circumstances different to those  in which he went
 to sleep, but without hinting that you expect any dis-
 play of  surprise on his part, and he must be shrewd in-
 deed, as well as a consummate actor, if he can counter-
 feit to the  life such  an astonishment  on waking as he
 must exhibit naturally, supposing him really to have for-
 gotten  the events of his  sleepwaking.   Mademoiselle
 M----,  under circumstances the  more remarkable, be-
 cause not at all  arranged for the  specific purpose, was
 once evidently alarmed almost into illness by  finding
 herself  in a different apartment (whither, it may be re-
 membered, she had been brought to see an invalid lady)
 from that  in which  she had  been mesmerized.  She
 started,  shuddered, looked wildly  around her, exclaim-
ing, " Good God ! what is this ? How did I come here ?
This is too much!" and was thrown into a fit of trem-
bling which we had much difficulty to allay.
  Again, supposing a sleepwaker  to be under the same
roof with yourself, his mesmerizer, and exposed to your
constant observation, the chances are that, if he feigns,
he will sometimes be caught tripping.  A deceiver can-
not be always on his  guard ; and what  a power of mem-
ory does it presuppose in the fictitious  sleepwaker to 
132        MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
imagine that he can arrange and separate in  his own
mind those circumstances of which he may or  may not
speak !  Passing a great portion of his time in sleepwa-
king, will it not  be  difficult, nay, impossible, for him
never to advert to that which has engaged  his attention
so much, and has formed, indeed, half his  life ?  1 con-
ceive, then, that when I assert that, during  four months,
E. A. was staying in my house, and constantly mes-
merized by myself,  with the eyes  of a whole family
placed in guard upon him, yet that never, in a single in-
stance, he was known to mingle his mesmeric  with his
ordinary  existence by a word or action,  I do  in fact
show that the assertions of sleepwakers are not the sole
evidence  that  they actually  forget the occurrences of
their mesmeric -state.  We have tried in every  possible
way to put this to the test;  we have plotted against the
sleepwaker, as if, indeed, we had wished to convict him
of imposition on this  point;  we have laid traps for him
in conversation;  but the most searching  ordeal only
served to convince us of his  sincerity.  Be it observed,
moreover, that  in his mesmeric state  I conversed with
him  frequently on subjects which he was  incapable of
discussing  in  his  waking hours;  and  that, after the
sleepwaking was past, I found him, with respect to the
same subjects, as unenlightened as ever.   Now I know
from his character that, had  he retained any little piece
of information acquired in his mesmeric state, he could
not have resisted the temptation of displaying it, at some
time or other, for our edification and astonishment. What
adds to the probability of this is, that his  memory be-
ing in some respects defective, he would often  retail to
persons the very story or the very bit  of knowledge
which he  had  learned from themselves, with a perfect
unconsciousness that he was only giving  back a man
his own.   Besides, he talked much and reflected little ;
so that, had he wished to feign oblivion of his mesmeric
state, every chance was against the success of his at-
tempt.   Surely all these proofs presumptive (on which
I have dwelt the more, because arguments of this nature
seem hitherto to have been withheld) amount nearly to
proof positive that sleepwaking has its own memory and
its own consciousness, which do not overpass the bound-
aries of its duration.
   The fact that, under peculiar conditions, we may enjoy
the exercise of all our faculties, yet retain no  recollec- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.        133
tion of having done so, may be applied, as I imagine, to
the solution of many curious questions in metaphysics,
such as that of Locke's, " Whether the  soul thinks al-
ways ?" which that great philosopher has decided in the
negative, on the ground that after-consciousness is the
sole testimony we can have of the mind's activity ; and
that, since we are by no means conscious that we think
always, we ought not  to assume that we do think al-
ways.   But in some cases, and most  especially in that
of mesmeric  sleepwaking,  we are forced to admit, for
the activity of our minds, an evidence which Locke has
omitted to notice, namely, the testimony of our fellow-
beings (a testimony, indeed, on which we build half our
knowledge), assuring us that the state which, once end-
ed, appears blank to us, was marked by  energy and ac-
tivity of the  highest  order.  Hence, setting aside our
own want of memory of our past intelligence as an in-
adequate proof that such intelligence never existed, we
manifestly arrive at a  presumption that  what we  have
forgotten  in one case we may have  forgotten in  many
more; and that  the mind  is probably  always  active,
though we cannot always assure ourselves of its activi-
ty.  Such  a  probability  will be  peculiarly  grateful to
those who deem that ideas are constitutive of the mind,
and  that  Locke  was  fundamentally wrong when he
called " thinking the  action and not the essence of the
soul;" being so far misled  by a false analogy between
things material and things spiritual as to conceive " that
the perception of ideas is to the soul what motion is to
the body."  They who would not
                                 " Lose,
        Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
        These thoughts that wander through eternity,"

yet who believe that to cease to think is to cease to be,
must rejoice  in all that tends to prove the continuity of
thought, its unceasing  and  inexpressible activity.  It is
also remarkable that the state of mesmeric sleepwaking,
though one of oblivion, leaves always, as  I have ob-
served, a sort of agreeable savour on the mind,  which
renders persons  of every age, sex,  and temperament
desirous to enter it again.   It has appeared to me as if
the soul rejoiced in it,  as in an element  to which  it was
" native and  endued,"  and eagerly pursued it, as a fore-
taste of its development through eternity.  We might
                         M 
134          MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
also enter upon some curious  speculations, suggested
by this severing of existences, this forgetfulness in one
state of that which  we have done in another.  It is an
answer to our inquiry whether Lazarus, when restored
to the  body, brought back with him the secrets of an-
other world; it leads us to conjecture that they who
have seemed dead, yet have been recalled to this mor-
bid existence,  may have visited the world of shadows,
although they knew it not.*  It makes the River Lethe
seem no fable,  and half realizes to us  the  inspired
words of the poet,
        " Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting :
         The soul, that rises with us, our life's star,
            Hath had elsewhere its setting,
            And cometh from afar."
  In a practically religious point of view, also, the phe-
nomena regarding memory  under mesmeric sleepwa-
king are full of instruction.   The prodigious increase in
this state of the recollective powers seems to indicate
that, in our normal existence, they are but partially de-
veloped ; and that hence the moralist's suggestion, that
all our lives, with all their good and evil, will, in  some
future  era  of being,  be  spread before  us as an open
scroll, is not to be  slighted as a  fiction, but to be duly
regarded as a probability, of which we have the pre-
sumptive evidence  in  our  own hands.   I proceed  to
speak of the phenomena of memory in the sleepwaker,
resulting from the mesmerizer's influence.
  1st.  Strange and  inexplicable as the fact may seem,
it is undoubtedly true  that the mesmerizer has the pow-
er of impressing  some things upon the memory of  his
patient in such a manner as that  the latter shall retain
them, and them alone, on  awaking.  Thus, at my  de-
sire, E. A. used to remember English words which I had
taught  him during his sleepwaking.  Persons who were
present when he was mesmerized would  amuse them-
selves  by proposing to him, through me, words the most
difficult for a foreigner to pronounce : such, for instance,
as " boatswain's whistle," which  a gentleman one day
gave him as a puzzler, yet which he repeated correctly,
and retained after  his sleepwaking.  Anna M., when
mesmerized, if asked to remember anything, used to  tap

  * I have a relation who lay for twenty-four hours in a state oi
seeming death, and who was wept for as dead. 
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.         135
her forehead on either side, just where she had two sin-
gular prominences, and say, " I will do my best to fix it
in my brain."  After this she always recollected what
she had been desired to retain. I did  not find, however,
this faculty extend to circumstances connected with the
unusual mode of sensation apparently opened to sleepwa-
kers.   Even if so requested, neither E. A. nor Anna M.
could give  any account, on awaking, of  their  percep-
tions during mesmerism, nor how objects were presented
to their minds.   The subjects adapted to their after-
memory seemed to be chiefly of a verbal nature, such
as a few lines of poetry, or the particular day fixed for
a subsequent mesmerization.
  This  possibility of making sleepwakers remember
what they have learned in the mesmeric state (and learn-
ed, too, with superior ease and quickness) might, I im-
agine, be turned to important uses.  I  have read, though
where 1 have forgotten, of a lady who acquired a new
language through mesmeric recollection ; and my expe-
rience inclines me to believe that such  might be the case.
  2dly. The mesmerizer, by the expression of his desire,
can make the patient remember certain things at a par-
ticular time, subsequent to sleepwaking, and not till the
very moment fixed beforehand for the recurrence of the
suspended recollection.
  Thus E.  A., in mesmerism, was told to  remember, at
nine the following morning, and not till  then,  that he
should come to fetch one of our party to hear a beauti-
ful mass that was to  be performed in a church at An-
twerp.  The person with whom he lodged, and in whose
room he slept, informed me subsequently that, when the
clock struck nine, E.  A. was in bed, when suddenly he
started  up, saying, " It is  very odd, but I seem to re-
member that I am to take Mrs.----to church."  He
then dressed quickly, and came to fulfil his engagement.
I asked him in what manner the idea had recurred to his
mind, if it was like the recollection' of something heard
in a dream. He replied that it did not resemble this in
the least, but was a very curious  and  indescribable sen-
sation, as if a thought flitted past  him  from he knew not
where, and fled again so rapidly that  to trace its origin
was impossible.   In sleepwaking he  could not give me
a much better account of the  phenomenon.  It  was, he
said, a something pre-arranged in the  mechanism of the
brain, and which, like  the spring of a  watch, was set in 
136         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.

motion  at a given moment.   There was nothing very
satisfactory in this explanation.  As to the phenomenon
itself, I and the  members of  my family have witnessed
it again  and again.   We have tried it in minute circum-
stances, difficult of remembrance, such as  (on  the day
succeeding the  sleepwaking)  to sit in a particular chair,
or begin with a  particular dish at dinner;  to cut a pota-
to, when first taken on the plate, into four  pieces, &c.;
and the  result  was always  satisfactory.  I have  also
tried if  the  circumstances desired to be  remembered
could be recalled to the sleepwaker before the proper
hour; but there was evidently no means  of doing so.
The very first time I told Anna M. to remember any-
thing at  a fixed hour, I desired her to call to mind, at
three the following day, that  she  must ask one of our
party to take a walk.  After  her awaking, some one in-
advertently said, " Do  you  remember anything about
coming  to-morrow to walk with us ?"  She said, after
reflection, " No, indeed, I remember nothing about that;
and, besides, I  have an engagement  for  to-morrow."
Soon after three, however, the next day, Anna appeared
out of breath, and with a face of wonder, exclaiming,
" Do tell me ; was I to come here or  not ?" She  then
related that she had been out to dinner, and that, in the
midst of that meal, something seemed to  tell  her that
she had  promised  to come to us;  and that, such was
the force of  the impression,  she could not help leaving
her party and hastening to ascertain the truth from our-
selves.
  Having now described in what, manner the memory is
affected in the mesmeric sleep, both as regards its spon-
taneous exercise and its direction through  the mesmer-
izer, I proceed to state  other  remarkable peculiarities in
the metaphysical condition of mesmeric  patients, with-
out adverting to which my view of mesmeric sleepwa-
king, as a condition of man, would be incomplete.
  The peculiarities alluded to regard the action of the
whole mind  of  the sleepwaker, and not of any particu-
lar faculty.  They may all be ranged  under two heads :
  1st. With respect to the patient himself.  These are
peculiarities of  consciousness.
  2dly.  Of will, resulting from the patient's relation to
the mesmerizer.
  The peculiarities of mesmeric consciousness will be 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.        137
treated of in the succeeding book, as being explanatory
of many  circumstances connected with our subject.
  The peculiarities of mesmeric will may be expressed
briefly thus : That lower degree of will which we call
volition,  and which chiefly regulates  the  motive func-
tions, is  active, but will (in  its freedom  and  absolute
sense) is passive in the sleepwaker, through the influ-
ence of the mesmerizer.
  The motory adroitness of persons in the mesmeric
state proves the first part of my assertion.   The second
branch of it is susceptible of equal demonstration, as the
following reflections must render evident.
  Common sleep, it will be granted, is the indication of
an abjured will; voluntarily abjured, it  is true, in some
cases, but in others suffering a forced abdication, as
when the sentinel, who knows that, if found slumbering
on his post, his very life must pay the penalty, is van-
quished by the slumber he would shun.  In sleep itself,
also, we  are no longer our own masters, but at the mer-
cy of our dreams.

                      " Reason then retires
          Into her private cell, when Nature rests.
          Oft, in her absence, mimic Fancy wakes
          To imitate her ; but, misjoining shapes,
          Wild work produces oft."

  In this state we seem to commit crimes which, wa-
king, we regard with abhorrence ; and often the impo-
tence of our will is shown by an utter inability to throw
off the yoke that  oppresses us.  We would wake, but
cannot;  we strive  to cry, but we find no voice ; we en-
deavour to move our limbs, but they remain idle.
  If common sleep, then, be so manifestly the index of
a suspended will, the mesmeric slumber is not less clear-
ly an indication of a will that is overruled and held in
abeyance by a force that is external to itself.  The proof
is simple.  The mesmeric sleepwaker cannot awake
without the  mesmerizer's aid.   The subjugation of his
will is therefore even  more complete  than under the
condition of common sleep ; for, after eertain efforts, we
often succeed in throwing off the latter when it becomes
disagreeable to us, or the casual  touch  of any one who
witnesses our perturbed slumber may recall us  to our-
selves ; but the mesmeric patient can neither throw off
his bonds, nor be delivered from them by any other than
                       M2 
138         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
the mesmerizer.  I have seen such efforts vainly made
to arouse a sleepwaker otherwise than by the mesmer-
izer, that I have been led to conceive that he might be
torn limb from limb (as certain animals may be in cer-
tain states of torpor) without awaking.  As with the
mesmerizer  his sleep began, so, it appears, by the mes-
merizer alone it can end ; and thus the peculiar slumber
called  mesmeric is not  only the  proof of a suspended
will, but of a will subdued, and actually held subject  by
another.
  But it is not only the duration of the mesmeric sleep
which  proves  this predominance of a  foreign will:  the
conduct of the sleepwaker, while it lasts, is an additional
warranty that the  rudder of his being  having changed
masters, the whole vessel is  also under another's direc-
tion.  At the command  of  the mesmerizer he  walks
when he would naturally repose, and brings his faculties
to bear upon any point  at a moment  when otherwise
he seems powerless to exercise them.
  Summing  up the  evidence, we find the  argument run
thus:
  Natural sleep is  the indication of a suspended will.
A sleep  that begins and ends by another must be al-
lowed to show a will that is  held in abeyance by exter-
nal agency.
  A sleep, during which a person is made to act by an-
other, demonstrates a will that is  swayed by that other
in precise proportion as the obedience is prompt and ab-
solute.
  The  state of things resulting from this sway  on the
one side and submission on the other is most remarka-
ble.  We have the phenomenon before us of an exist-
ence at once dual and single; for, when the sleepwa-
ker's capacities are acting under  the immediate direc-
tion of the mesmerizer, the latter may be considered  as
making up, together with him,  the complement of one
full being, whereof the mesmerizer supplies the  willing
and the conscious portion, and  the patient the intellect-
ual  part.  The one impels, the other obeys impulsion;
the  one designs, the other  executes;  the one sets  in
motion a machine (and what a machine! the mind of
man, with all its complicated  marvels!), the other is the
machine itself, instinct with life, as was the fiery car of
Kehama, innately active, yet guided by the volition of
another! 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         139
  This  is no poetic fiction.  The facts are before us.
The volition of a sleepwaker is swayed in an arbitrary
fashion, fully to conceive which we have only to  con-
sider the difference between the mesmeric subjugation
of the will,  and any other that occurs in our ordinary
state of existence.  I may tell my servant to do such
or such a thing.  When he obeys, it may be said, in a
certain  sense, that his  will is  subject to  mine, yet all
the time he does  actually retain  the  functions of his
own will in  perfection.  In truth, he wills as much as
I do, and on the same  principles: good to  be sought,
uneasiness to be shunned, is the efficient cause of voli-
tion  in  either case.  I  command ; his mind,  with ra-
pidity, strikes a balance with itself, and finds  it better
to obey.   If, however, the balance should  incline to the
other side, my servant has it in his power to disobey,
and to manifest that his will is  in  free and unimpaired
operation.   Moreover, he may  obey me from fear, and
not by any means from desire, or identity of his will with
mine.  I sway  the outward and not  the  inward man.
But  in mesmerism it is  not only the manifestation, but
the very function of the will which is dominated.  It
cannot, if it would, rise  to freedom : it is under a more
than  moral  restraint.  Its  motive  force, desire, is evi-
dently changed, since, as I have shown, the sleepwaker
adopts, pro tempore, the likings and dislikings of the mes-
merizer.   Hence, when  the patient is engaged in an act
of obedience, there is an identification between the mes-
merizer's will and  his own; a  phenomenon  which can
never obtain in  the  case  of simple  obedience.  The in-
ner springs  are  touched, and not the mere mechanism
swayed.
  Such  a view of the state of mesmeric sleepwaking
may seem unpleasing, and incompatible with its being
a rise in man's condition;  but let it  be  remembered
we do not rob  the soul  of any one  faculty, we only
change its mode of action, and  that mode  of action has
its own undeviating law.  In order to sleep, we must
abdicate our will;  yet, in order to enjoy intellectual ac-
tivity, it is plain that we must substitute a presiding will;
for it is the  absence of this which makes slumber a state
of disorganized and inconsequent  thoughts.   Thus the
terms are absolute.  If we desire  to be freed from the
thrall of the senses, yet  to retain  the mental faculties,
we must abjure our own will,  yet find an intellectual
substitute. 
140         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  Again, we may have observed that the superior ac-
tivity of any one power of the mind greatly depends on
the non-action of certain others.  With  some individ-
uals fancy revels at the expense of reason ; with others,
the cultivation of the exact sciences deadens the imagi-
nation ; and this inequality of power results naturally
from the imperfection of our nature.  Were we strong
throughout, we should be as gods.  But, in mesmeric
sleepwaking, the question is not whether we shall can-
cel one of our faculties in order to increase  another,
but whether we shall, in a degree, change their direct-
ive force in order to obtain a general and immense ex-
pansion of them all.   Large  advantages  demand large
sacrifices; and  the price to be paid  for the  increase of
mental powers and of sensitive capabilities, which attends
upon  the state  of mesmeric  sleepwaking, is  a certain
forfeiture of the will.   Does this seem a hard condition?
How many who have suffered from self-direction would
be glad to place the government of  their  being in other
hands!  How many a one, who " has felt the weight of
too much liberty," would gladly cease to be
        " Lord of himself, that heritage of wo,
         That doubtful empire, which the human breast
         But holds to rob the heart within of rest."
   This, at least, is  my view of the limitations of the
will in mesmeric sleepwaking; it  may be  accepted or
rejected, but the facts on which it is founded remain the
same.
   The power which the mesmerizer has over his patient
is indeed as great as it is undeniable, and involves, in
my apprehension, an immense responsibility on the part
of the former.   Should he direct the patient's attention
to frivolous or evil things, he might do harm, for which
he would be justly  answerable.  But, fortunately, as  I
have  before remarked, there  is, in mesmeric sleepwa-
king, a natural elevation of the mind above what is base
and sensual; and the  powers that  appertain to reason,
though the subjects on which they shall exercise them-
selves may be much at the  mesmerizer's disposal, are
neither to be clouded nor controlled.  Nor  is this to be
wondered at.   The mesmerizer can hardly be expected
to command in another that which he can by no means
dispose of in himself.  In him, in every one of us, Rea-
son, though too often we would quench her voice, will
speak as loudly as  conscience, which, indeed, is but  a 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         141
more rapid reason ; and he who takes the evil path be-
holds and reluctantly approves the better way.  This
shows a godlike capability in reason apart from volition:
it seems less to belong  to ourselves than to be heaven
speaking in us; and in  proportion as we obey its dic-
tates, we are  exalted in the scale of creation.  Its pe-
culiar luminousness, then, under  the  mesmeric condi-
tions, is at once a safeguard to  the sleepwaker, and a
clear record of the  most valuable birthright of man.
Many persons, as I am aware, have disliked the idea of
being mesmerized, from the fear of making wrong rev-
elations when deprived of their usual consciousness.
But this is a vain apprehension.  It is true that mesmer-
ic  patients act from impulse, but then their  impulses
are good.   They will say  severe but wholesome truths
to person's faces, but their instinctive sense  of right
forbids them to speak ill  of any one  behind his  back.
Anna M----,  with all her knowledge  of circumstances
relating to others, never seasoned her talk with scanda-
lous disclosures, never uttered a word that could injure
a human being; and once, being pressed to relate some-
thing which might have compromised another person,
not only kept silence on that head, but reproved the cu-
riosity of the  querist.
   Before proceeding to consider the  mind under mes-
merism in its relation  to external things, it seems ne-
cessary to notice a class of its intelligences which may
be called instinctive, and  which, as seeming to occupy
the middle ground between mind and matter, may prop-
erly claim  our consideration in this part of our inquiry.
Instinct being the very reverse of artificial acquirement,
a high degree of the one is, under ordinary circumstan-
ces, incompatible with the existence  of the other.   In
proportion as  we are  educated we recede from our in-
tuitive perceptions.  But, as in many instances, so  in
this, mesmeric sleepwaking reconciles two seeming op-
posites, which coexist not in any other known state  of
being.  Retaining the  advantages acquired by art, the
mesmeric patient is restored to those which, in a more
primitive condition, we  might inherit from nature.
   The instinctive knowledge of sleepwakers appears to
be chiefly,
   1.  Of remedies.
   2.  Of all that relates to the mesmeric state.
   3.  Of the elapse of time. 
142        MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
  First, The instinct of remedies evinced by sleepwa-
kers has been frequently remarked and illustrated.   As
I have never studied mesmerism in a medical point of
view, I have naturally had but few opportunities of ver-
ifying allegations to this effect.   The following instan-
ces, however, of the mesmeric powers of prescribing
fell under my notice, and will, perhaps, be the less sus-
pected by the  incredulous, as having presented  them-
selves unsought to one who is not of the medical  pro-
fession.
  The first time  that I succeeded in mesmerizing E.
A----, a gentleman present told  me to ask him, while
in sleepwaking, what remedy a lady of their mutual ac-
quaintance should apply for the cure of a chronic sore
throat with which she had been for some time afflicted.
The question being put to the sleepwaker, he imme-
diately replied,  " Mademoiselle De----should, on going
to bed every night, envelop her throat in a linseed poul-
tice, which  should be kept  moist the  whole  night
through."   He then added some very particular direc-
tions about the making and applying of  the poultice,
&c.  When the reader reflects that this  piece of medi-
cal  advice came from a lively boy of fifteen, who was
never ill in his life, and who hated everything apper-
taining to disorders and their remedies, he will, I think,
experience  somewhat of the surprise with which I lis-
tened to the young sleepwaker.   Conceiving that he
might not be original in the remedy which he had propo-
sed, I asked the gentleman who had  told me to consult
him  whether Mademoiselle De----had  been recom-
mended anything of the kind.  He assured me that such
had not been the case, but that she had tried many other
things with no  effect.  When  E. A. awoke, and we told
him  of his medical exploits, he was the  first to laugh at
his  own oddity :  however, it  was an oddity at  which
Mademoiselle De---- had reason to rejoice; for the
remedy prescribed for her in sleepwaking removed the
painful ailment from which she had so long suffered.
  The above circumstance gave me  more confidence in
the remedial instincts of sleepwakers, and induced me,
on one occasion, to ask a young lady whom 1 had mes-
merized what  measures she should  recommend me to
take for subduing a pain  in  my side, to which I had
long been subject, in consequence of a blow received
there in a fall  from horseback.  The sleepwaker, with- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          143
out hesitation, told  me  that I ought  to  wear  a per-
petual blister  on the  part for some time,  and gave the
minutest directions about the size, application, &c, of
the irritant.  Yet I did not have  recourse to it until I
had consulted a medical  man, who assured me that I
could do no better than follow Miss ----'s advice, and
that, had the lady in  question taken out a diploma, she
could not have  counselled me  more wisely.  Yet the
fair doctress was a shy and delicate girl of sixteen, who,
when awake, was shocked at herself for having touched
on medical  matters in her sleepwaking.   The applica-
tion which she recommended me  was of great service,
and subdued the  chronic pain from which 1 had suffered
incessantly  for many months.
  Under the head of Case X., mentioned  in the prece-
ding book, I have related that I mesmerized a gentle-
man who was not in  good health,  and I promised to de-
tail some additional particulars respecting  him.   I  now
redeem that pledge.  Mr. W----had long  been in what
is called an ailing state.   Without being  precisely ill,
he felt generally incommoded.  He had no  idea what-
ever of the  cause of his  indisposition, and he had  con-
sulted no one respecting it, having, as he said, a partic-
ular dislike to medicines  of all kinds.   While he was
sleeping mesmerically, it occurred to  me to ask him
whether he was more cognizant of his  malady  than
when in his natural state.   He replied directly, " Yes.
I see  now exactly what is the matter with  me, and I am
happy to say that there is no organic  complaint.  My
disorder is a weakness of the lower intestine, which pro-
ceeds from  sedentary habits, and which  can only be
cured by alterative measures."  He then prescribed for
himself a course of the  waters  and  baths  of  Aix-la-
Chapelle,  and a certain  regimen (which I carefully
noted), and  finally pronounced with decision that, in
strictly  following these rules, he should  be radically
cured'before the end of  the  year.  When the  patient
was awake, I  told him all that he had been saying in
sleepwaking, at which he  was much astonished, and as-
sured me that the idea of taking baths, or drinking the
waters of Aix, had never entered  his head while in his
natural state.  I urged him to pursue the curative plan
which he had traced out for himself.  This he promised
to do; and last autumn (I had mesmerized him in the
spring of the same year) I received a letter  from him, 
 144         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.

 announcing that, by following my advice, or, rather, his
 own, he was nearly restored to health.
   Secondly. The instinct of sleepwakers, relating to all
 that concerns the mesmeric state, is one of the first that
 seems to awaken within them.   As soon as they have
 passed into  sleepwaking, they will indicate the best
 means whereby the mesmerizer may deepen their slum-
 ber, sooth them, or remove any slight uneasiness they
 may feel.
   Anna M----, on one occasion, while I was mesmeri-
 zing some water for her, took the glass from my hand,
 and said, " You do not employ the best method.  I will
 show you what you  must do."  She then placed  one
 hand  on the top, the other at the bottom of the tumbler,
 held it so for a  short time, and then again applied her
 hands to  the sides  of the glass in  a very methodical
 manner.  Another time, being asked, in sleepwaking, if
 she could say how a person ought to be mesmerized for
 a pain from which he was suffering, she proceeded to
 show how the operation could be performed, and execu-
 ted the mesmeric passes as if she had studied them all
 her life.  Curious to  see how far this  kind of instinct
 would extend, I one evening requested her, while in the
 mesmeric state herself, to mesmerize a  younger sister
 who was present.  She did not hesitate to do this ; and,
 placing her sister in  a proper  position, proceeded to
 mesmerize her in the most skilful manner.   The most
 singular thing is, that she used gestures which were per-
 fectly new to me, but which I at  once  perceived to be
 very effective.  Frequently she  breathed upon her own
 hand, and then laid it on her sister's forehead.  In a
 short  time the little girl began to be affected with sleep,
 when my sleepwaker told me that  I must aid her to
 complete the work.  She took one of my hands, and in-
 structed me  to mesmerize with the other, while she her-
 self continued to  mesmerize with one hand.   The effect
 of this double operation upon our young patient seemed
to be great.  Her head was  alternately attracted  to-
wards each of her mesmerizers, and  she was soon in a
profound sleep.   Nothing could be more curious than to
see the two  sisters sitting opposite to each other, both
with their eyes shut, and yet, by the expression of their
countenances, appearing to look at each other.   I now
went  away  to another part of  the  room,  when Anna
M----got up, and walked to just half way between her 
 
■f 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         145
sister and myself; but she seemed arrested there by the
attraction of contending forces, and so she  remained,
turning from  me to her sister, and vice versd, as if she
knew not to  which she should go, till I put an end to
this curious scene by returning to my sleepwaker, and
begging her to awake her sister.  This, however, she de-
clared that she could not do, but added," The moment that
you awake me, my sister will wake also>"  The event
justified her assertion.   Anna M---- seemed to possess*
when in the mesmeric state* a curious power of divining
which persons of the company who might happen to be
present during her mesmerization would be capable of
mesmeric sleepwaking.  In such particulars as these I
have  never known her to err.  It has also happened
that, while  she was mesmerized, some other person  in
the room has mesmerized  another patient.  At these
times she would indicate, with exact precision, the de*
grees of sleep through which the other patient was pass*
ing; and often, when  every one else has  supposed the
slumber to  be complete, she has declared it was not so,
and was always right in her judgments.  I should ob*
serve that, in her natural state, she had none of this
knowledge; and once, when I asked her to mesmerize
some one,  declared her inability to do anything of the
kind.
   Thirdly.  The appreciation of time displayed by per*
sons in the mesmeric  state is remarkable.  I have nev-
er known perfect sleepwakers overpass the  exact mo*
ment at which they may have been told to remind the
mesmerizer to awaken them ; and yet, directly after re-
turning to  their natural state, they will,  if questioned,
make the widest guesses of the time.  I extract the fol*
lowing from  our mesmeric register: " Anna, on being
asked the hour, says it is ten o'clock: the Cathedral bell
strikes ten five  seconds after.  She did not know the
time  when the  mesmerizer began his operations, yet
can  now tell correctly that she  has been sleeping  an
hour and five minutes.  On being asked when she would
awake, she named half past ten; and, before we had
heard the  first chime of the  Cathedral, she interrupted
the conversation suddenly, saying, with  a start, ' Ah!
you ought  to awake me now.' "   I used to remark that,
when this sleepwaker was asked the time, she did not
reply so correctly as above ; but when, as was often the
case, she spontaneously called out the hour, she never 
146          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
erred.  The least degree of effort on her part seemed to
spoil the instinct.
  I now proceed to consider the mind under mesmerism
in relation to its susceptibility to external things.
  When  it is remembered that the bodily senses in the
mesmeric sleep have been shown to be as dead, an in-
quiry into the sensations of sleepwakers may seem in-
consistent in the highest degree; but we  may perhaps
discover, on reflection, that the apparent contradiction is
only to be laid to the charge of our own erroneous no-
tions.  Did persons clearly perceive the simple fact that
sensation is  not seated in the senses, but  in the mind,
they would be less astonished at hearing of a means of
sensation apart from the usual action  of  the  senses ;
but there are few,  very few, who discern this important
truth (which, indeed, lies at the base of all metaphysical
knowledge) with such perfection as  to be  wholly free
from a certain confusion of thought respecting it.  Thus
the preparatives of sensation have been studied as sen-
sation itself; but, as  Sir James Mackintosh has admira-
bly observed, " All the changes in our organs which can
be  likened to other material phenomena  are  nothing
more than antecedents and prerequisites of perception, bear-
ing not the faintest likeness to it: as much outward, in
relation to the thinking principle, as if they occurred in
any other part of matter, and of which the entire com-
prehension, if it were attained, would not bring us a step
nearer to the nature  of thought."
  Nothing  can be truer than this;  but our minds and
bodies  are in this life so strongly identified, that it is a
hard matter for us sufficiently to discern the huge gulf
between  mind and matter, and to perceive that we may
throw in matter forever without filling up the abyss of
separation.  God alone has solved that dilemma;  and,
by attaching the external senses to the soul, has built a
bridge  for us, arching the chasm across.  He has  thus
brought us into constant connexion with matter and cer-
tain of its qualities, primary and secondary;  but if we
could be  made aware of the same things in another way,
is it not plain that the great end would be equally an-
swered?   If the soul be brought into relationship with
matter and its properties, the means are  but of small
importance, either as regards their nature or their num-
ber. So that the visible universe, which is but an ex-
pression of God's  ideas, be in  some measure read and 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          147
comprehended by us; so that there be a language estab-
lished between man and his Creator, the particular types
and configurations of that language are of no more con-
sequence than the forms of our written or printed alpha-
bets.   This is not the place to dwell farther upon these
reflections  (to  be  resumed hereafter);  but the mere
smatterer in metaphysics, who  has  learned that odour,
colour, savour, sound, are absolutely only known to us
as sensations, and can be  said to have no proper exist-
ence but in ourselves, should by no means be alarmed at
my viewiEg  sensation in  its results rather than in its
prerequisites; while the truest metaphysician  will be
the best prepared to examine, without prejudice, a mode
of perception differing  from the  normal.  There are,
however, weaker minds, for whose sake I must here ex-
pose a fallacy which has prevented many well-meaning
persons from even venturing to think upon mesmerism.
It has been argued, with  a show  of plausibility, " God
gave  us  our senses for such and such uses; is it not,
then, an  impiety to say that we can do as well without
them ?  Is  not their beautiful contrivance, their unrival-
led mechanism, thus thrown into contempt?  Shall God
be said to create needlessly, and to endow without wis-
dom?"   Reasoning like this is an a priori condemnation
of mesmerism ;  but is it just ?  A child might refute it-
It proceeds all along upon false assumptions.  Does the
advocate of mesmerism assert that we can do  as well
without our senses in the normal state ? Certainly not.
Does he  any more deny that our present senses  are ex-
quisitely adapted to that state in which, being our nat-
ural, the greater proportion of our time must necessarily
be passed ?  Far from it;  he acknowledges this  and far
more.  He reaehes a cause of gratitude to God which
is beyond the scope of the narrow-minded bigot.  For
what nobler purpose, he  may ask, could a change in our
mode of  perception be permitted, than to show  the ne-
cessitarian  that the arrangements of the Almighty de-
pend upon the Almighty will alone; that what is might
easily have  been otherwise;  and  that infinite wisdom
can vary its resources infinitely ?   Believing thus that
to witness a change in our mode of perception may be
allowed for the instruction of the  skeptic, he may also
conjecture that the privilege of beholding an improvement
therein may be accorded for the encouragement of the
believer.  He can  well imagine  that the beneficent Be- 
148         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
ing, who ever in the present gives indications of the fu-
ture, has placed within us a palpable proof of our high
immortal destiny, and will permit the soul, even in this
restricted sphere, to view the temporary expansions of
its yet folded wings.
  This  may be deemed too  vague; but  to  the colder
reasoner I should suggest that, in  truth, mesmerism
does in no way contradict our  former experience : it
merely enlarges it.  -We do not learn that our senses
are not the organs of sensation to us in our usual state,
but we learn an additional truth, namely, that  in another
and anomalous condition  we find some unwonted  me-
dium of sensation.  Nor by this are nature's established!
principles necessarily violated, or even infringed.  They
who believe that the perceptive peculiarities of mesmer-
ism proceed (as Coleridge seems to hint  they may do)
from " a metastasis of specific functions of the nervous
energy," may still agree to that definition of sensation
which a great philosopher has pronounced the only one
that can be given, namely, " a state or affection of the
mind  arising immediately and solely from a state or af-
fection of the body."*
  It is important also to  remark, that the information
respecting  external objects obtained through  the  new
action of the senses  in mesmerism, though  sometimes
exceeding, does not at all vary from, that which we re-
ceive by the usual  channels.  Thus we have a double
witness to  the truth and reality of the things around us :
we feel, with Descartes, that God is not the author of a
lie; and, far from being led to doubt or  to undervalue
our present organs of sensation, are more than ever dis-
posed to confide in them :  skepticism itself allowing the
potency of evidence which springs from two separate
yet concurrent sources.
  But, whether the preceding remarks be admitted to be
just or not, the truth must be stated.  Mesmeric sleep-
waking has its own mode of perception, the peculiari-
ties of which I now proceed, to the best of my ability,
to represent.
  In the first place, the mode of sensation in mesmer-
ized persons is (like their mode of motion) of a twofold
nature: the one resulting, as it seems, from a species
of nervous communication with the mesmerizer, the

         * Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING,         149
other from the peculiar state of their own nervous sys-
tem under an  exciting aad developing stimulus.  To
discriminate  between these two modes of sensation is
important, but by no means easy.  The intimate union
between  the patient and his  mesmerizer  subsisting
throughout the mesmerie trance, complicates the phe-
nomena, and renders them hard to disentangle.   More-
over, there are deceptive appearances, which are calcu-
lated to perplex  an inquiry  as to the exact  medium
through which sensation is conveyed to the mesmerized
person.   For instance,  we will suppose  the mesmeri-
zer to place  something in the  patient's  hand;  after a
time the latter can tell the form of the object, apparently
by the usual  sense of touch.  Now this is in diametri-
cal opposition to the fact  that pins thrust into the pa-
tient's hand  excite no sensation there.  How shall we
reconcile the seeming contradiction ?  One moment we
see the nerves of sensation useless and dead; the next
we see them apparently  aeting as usual.  All this is
very paradoxical; but  if we cling to what  we have
proved,  and take some evident principle, thence educed,
to guide us through the darkling maze, we shall perhaps
find that the  opposite poles belong to one common orb
of reasoning, and are, indeed, the axis upon which the
whole revolves.
  First. We have established, by a series of experiments,
that the nerves of sensation in mesmeric patients are
of themselves quite  estranged from their usual modes
of action.
  Secondly. We may deduce from this, that if the patient
experiences sensation, it must be, whatever appearances
might lead one to suppose, by some other than the usual
mode of nervous action.
  Thirdly. Facts come in aid of this deduction.
  Let us observe a mesmerized person holding anything
in his  hand after a command to examine  it.  How un-
conscious, how unmeaning is the  action with which he
turns the object about!   How palpable is his hesitation,
as if the mere attempt to use the accustomed channel of
sensation  were embarrassing!  Can we, indeed, affirm,
should he correctly name that which he holds, that it is
by  touch he  has formed his judgment ?  Having once
proved that his sense of touch is null, surely it is wiser
to conjecture that his tactual perceptions  now come to
him in some other way.   Agreeably to this conjecture,
                       N2 
150         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
I may remark, that my sleepwakers have often failed to
recognise by touch objects which they have at other
times seemed to distinguish rather by a species of vis-
ion.  Once Anna M----was, for a time, made to believe
that a piece of wood that had been given to her to hold
was  a piece  of snow.   Another time an orange was
placed in her hand.  She told what it was,  but  ob-
served,  " You may think I  know this by feeling: it is
not so.   In the mesmeric state  1 have only one method
of knowing things; and  whether I see them, smell them,
or feel them, it is all the same."*
  I explain, then, the circumstance that mesmeric pa-
tients sometimes handle objects by mere habits of mo-
tion ;  the circumstance that they occasionally recognise
objects so handled by the new perceptions, which, as I
shall hereafter show, are opened to them in their new
condition.
  Should this be  granted, our path to a comprehension
of the mystery will be at least smoothed and prepared;
and there will be  no obstacle  to our subscribing to a
proposition which goes  far to explain and reconcile the
antithetical phenomena of mesmerism, namely, that the
conditions  of ordinary sensation  are only  restored to
mesmeric sleepwakers through their mesmerizer.
  In demonstration of this, I need  not reurge the dead-
ness of sleepwakers to ordinary sensation.   I have only
to bring forward some singular proofs, hitherto held back,
that  impressions  of the  external world  not only reach
the mesmeric patient when transmitted through the mes-
merizer, but  in such cases are  actually  transmitted
through the usual nervous channels.
  Did  any one strike or hurt  me  in any  part of the
body when Anna M----was in sleepwaking, she imme-
diately carried her hand to a corresponding  part of her
own person.   Thus  she would rub her own shoulder
when mine was smarting with a blow, manifesting that
the actual nerves of that part were, pro tempore, restored
to their  functions.  Once an incredulous person came

  * This is curiously consonant with the account which the sleep-
waker of Prevorst gave of her own sensations.
  " She was eating some soup while her eyes were  shut, and she
said, ' I can find whatever I will upon my plate with the spoon; I
know well where it is; but  I cannot  tell whether I see or feel it;
and so with regard to all other objects: I know not whether I see or
feel them.' "—Die Seherin von Prevorst, vol. i., page 152. 
MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.         151
near me unawares  and trod upon  my foot, which was
quite hidden under a chair.  The sleepwaker instantly
darted down her hand and rubbed her own foot, with an
expression of pain.   Again, if my hair was pulled from
behind, Anna directly raised her hand to the back of her
head.  A pin thrust into my hand elicited an equal dem-
onstration of sympathy.
  I have already remarked that, when the mesmerizer
eats,  or  drinks, or smells anything, his  patients go
through the same motions, as if the impact of the  sub-
stances were on their own nerves.  But this, it may be
said, might be referred  to the simultaneity of motion
which I have shown to  exist occasionally between the
sleepwaker and  the mesmerizer.   I  have, however, a
very strong proof that the former has really an impres-
sion on the nerves of taste corresponding with that of
the latter.  Three of my sleepwakers (on whom alone
I tried the experiment) could in no way distinguish sub-
stances when placed in their own mouths, nor discrimi-
nate between a piece of apple and a piece  of cheese;
but, the moment that I was eating, they, seeming to eat
also, could tell  me what I had  in my mouth.  Once I
tried this, before  many witnesses, on the sister of Theo-
dore, with some pieces of fig which  I had carefully con-
cealed, and the experiment answered perfectly.
  Again, Anna M----heard my watch ticking when I
held it to  my own ear, though not when she held it to
her own.  In the former case, she assured me that she
heard the  sound exactly as if the watch were close to
her own ear.
  We  are, then, I think, justified in concluding that, in
certain cases, the actual capacity of the nerves to con-
vey impressions is  restored to  mesmeric sleepwakers
through the mesmerizer, but in no case spontaneously.
Indeed, the very thraldom of their will seems to forbid
the latter supposition; and it is not extravagant to sup-
pose that the mesmerizer, who, by facts, has been shown
capable of paralyzing  the nerves of his  patient, should
also have the power of restoring to them the conditions
of sensation.
  It may not be  amiss, however, to answer here an ob-
jection that has been raised by some  who have not
sufficiently considered the nature of mesmeric sleepwa-
king.  It has been asked why, if there be such a sym-*
pathy between the  patient and the mesmerizer, the lat- 
 152         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.

 ter does  not also share the  sleepwaker's sensations.
 For one plain reason :  the one is active, the other pass-
 ive ; there is union, but not  reciprocity.  The mesmer-
 izer is not in mesmeric sleepwaking, the patient is ; and
 only he who is in the  mesmeric state can appreciate
 sensations in the mesmeric  manner.  The mesmerizer
 must be considered as the bestower of a stimulus which
 exalts another  to a particular pitch of feeling, and the
 patient as the  recipient of that stimulus, which if he
 were to re-bestow, he must fall back into his old habitu-
 al state.  Thus there can be  no reaction on the mes-
 merizer.  A proper view of the relationship between
 the parties will at once clear up the difficulty.
   I proceed to show what are the principal phenomena
 of sensation which more properly belong to the patient
 himself.
   First. In  some cases, the class  of  perceptions de-
 pendant upon a particular sense  are restricted in num-
 ber only to be increased in degree.
   Anna M----, in sleepwaking, ordinarily heard nothing
 but my voice and the  voices  of those who were in a
 certain contact with  me ; but  her appreciation of such
 musical sounds as  she was made  to  hear was much
 greater than in  the waking state.  I was in the habit of
 singing to her when  mesmerized ; and  though at other
 times  she cared little  for  music, she  then evinced a
 pleasure which indicated an extreme susceptibility to
 musical impressions.  She  listened with the  deepest
 attention;  as the measure  changed, her  countenance
 became animated or serious; and she  marked  such
 parts of the performance as were most pleasing to her
 by a motion of her head or by  raising her finger.  It
 was remarkable that my voice, when I was singing, act-
 ed, in relation to the sleepwaker, as  a conductor to oth-
 er sounds.  Then, and then only, she  appeared  to  be
 sensible of the  most trifling noises in the apartment,
 and was impatient of them to the highest degree, hold-
 ing up  her forefinger as if to enjoin silence, and utter-
 ing prolonged hushes.  On one occasion a  person join-
 ed me in singing, when Anna testified the strongest dis-
 gust, making wry faces and gestures of repugnance.
  We then tried the experiment of  making the  person
 sing alone;  but the sleepwaker no longer showed dis-
like, and, on being questioned, said that she heard no-
thing.  Occasionally  this patient manifested a  slight 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         153
agitation  or  oppression  in  the mesmeric state ;  but
these uneasy feelings invariably passed away under the
influence of music.   When brought into "rapport" with
other performers than her mesmerizer, she still exhibit-
ed  an unusual degree of musical sensibility, marking
the best passages of a composition with so much taste,
and beating time so  accurately, as once to make a mu-
sician suppose that she was intimately  acquainted with
his art.   She always, however, heard a voice more dis-
tinctly than the  piano.  The conduction of the sound
was thus accomplished :  I laid one hand upon the per-
former's shoulder, while  she herself touched him with
one  hand and myself with the other.  We have often
tried what effect music would have upon the patient
when awake; and it was evident that her musical feel-
ing had passed away with her mesmeric state.
  Perhaps I ought here to record a phenomenon relative
to the sense of hearing which spontaneously presented
itself.  Anna M----, in sleepwaking, had my watch in
her  hand in  order  to tell the hour; but, disregarding
this, she seemed to be amusing herself with the watch,
alternately carrying it from her ear to the pit of her
stomach, when suddenly  she exclaimed, " This is won-
derful !  I  cannot hear the watch  tick when at  my ear,
but, placed below my chest,  I  hear it."   Other experi-
ments showed that she could also hear the ticking of
the watch when it was held  close to her forehead or to
my own ear.  I should observe that, in her waking state,
she knew nothing whatever of the alleged transposition
of the senses in mesmerism, and that  1 had not much
taste for developments in the " cerebrum abdominale."
  E. A., who in sleepwaking could hear  nothing when
persons shouted close to his ear, did yet evidently re-
tain, in certain  cases, a  very delicate  perception of
sound.  This was proved  by  his being able still to play
the flute with  his ordinary precision and even more than
his usual brilliancy.  Often,  too, he composed  original
airs during his sleepwaking with a great fertility of in-
vention; and  though it was not easy for him, accom-
plished  musician as he  was, to  display more  musical
talent in his new state than he evinced commonly, yet
on some occasions he demonstrated that his discrimi-
nation of sounds  had attained, under mesmerism, a
higher development.
  First. He  played on  the  piano  correctly an  air 
154         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
 which, awake, he  played but imperfectly, not having
 the same power of execution on the piano as on the
 flute, his peculiar instrument.
   Secondly.  Playing  an air on the piano in sleepwa-
 king, he adapted to a particular note a new chord, which
 I at once perceived to be a great improvement on the
 original.   Not  willing, however, to trust  to  my own
 judgment, I consulted a musician on the point, when
 he  declared the chord played in sleepwaking to be the
 best, and, indeed, the very one which was required by the
 laws  of harmony.  Curious to  observe whether E. A.
 would discover this of himself in the waking state, I
 never mentioned the subject before  him; and I found
 that, unless sleeping mesmerically, he continued to play
 the air with the erroneous chord.
  The second peculiarity of perception in  the state of
 mesmeric sleepwaking which it occurs to  me to point
 out is,
  A sensibility to influences which  in no way affect
 persons in the waking condition.
  A prism which I held in my hand, and turned with
 the point towards the patient, produced, in two several
 cases, startings and slight shudderings.
  Again, I concealed  a  magnet in my hand with such
 precautions that the patient could have no  idea of any-
 thing unusual, unless through the  development of feel-
 ing.   The patient (Anna M----) started each  time that
 I extended towards her the hand which held the magnet,
 and  exhibited convulsive  movements  in her  hands.
 When questioned respecting her sensations, she replied,
 " I feel as if I were beginning to be mesmerized, but not
pleasantly; I feel all cold."
  Desirous to try if the  different poles of the magnet
would produce different effects, I held the south pole to
the forehead of the sleepwaker, when she made sundry
oscillations with her head, which at length slowly ad-
vanced towards the magnet.  On  presenting the north
pole, her head began to retreat gently, and with an un-
steady motion, like that of the magnetic needle.  The
same  experiments, tried upon two other sleepwakers,
gave the  same results.  Sometimes, when I have pre-
sented the north pole of the magnet, the patient's head
has retreated by jerks, as if driven backward by success-
ive  shocks.  The south pole, on the contrary, has al-
ways  seemed to  exercise  a very powerful attractive 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         155
force over sleepwakers ; yet, as far as I can judge, they
dislike to be submitted to mineral magnetism, which, as
they affirm, produces  in them disagreeable sensations.
I have known  one individual who was sensible to  the
action  of a magnet lying  on a table at some  distance,
and  covered  by a piece of paper, and who begged it
might be removed. I once asked a sleepwaker whether
she  could  perceive  any analogy  between animal  and
mineral magnetism, when she  replied, "There  is  an
analogy, but the latter is of a  coarser nature."  Miner-
als in  general  seem also  disagreeable to sleepwakers.
Once 1 gave a pair of scissors to Anna M----(then in
the mesmeric state), in order to cut some thread belong-
ing  to a work she was engaged  in.  Having cut  the
thread, she shuddered and threw the scissors from her.
When  asked if she did this because of the old proverb,
that " scissors  cut love," she  smiled  and said, " In my
present state I  have no  such superstitions; but I threw
the scissors away because, when mesmerized, I  cannot
bear to touch metal."*
   The effects which precious stones produce upon sleep-
wakers are also  curious.   In three cases where I  had
the  opportunity of making  experiments of the  kind, I
found a certain correspondence of sensation, which in-
clines  me  to believe that a  more  extended observation
might lead to some certain and interesting results.
   The diamond,  when presented  to the forehead  of a
sleepwaker, seemed invariably to excite agreeable feel-
ings ; the opal had a soothing effect; the emerald gave
a slightly unpleasing sensation; and the sapphire one that
was positively  painful.  What is singular is that, if the
last-named stone was applied to Anna M----'s forehead,
she complained of its roughness, though it was perfect-
ly smooth, while,  on the contrary, on contact with the
diamond, which was  cut  in facets, she  experienced a
sensation  of  smoothness.  One sleepwaker loved  the
diamond so much as to lean forward after it when I
held it in my hand, and to rub her forehead against it.
In general, however,  I did not touch the patients with
the gems, but held them concealed in my hand at a  few

  * Caspar Hauser, whose nervous sensibility bad been exalted by an
unnatural seclusion from  the stimulus of external things, was ex-
tremely alive to metallic influences, and  could tell through obsta-
cles where a needle was placed, pointing to the exact spot, and say-
ing, ' It draws me here." 
156         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
inches' distance from the forehead; and I changed their"
order sufficiently often to prove  that the sleepwaker's
judgment of them was not accidental.*
  Another proof of the increased  sensibility of sleepwa-
kers is the ease and certainty with which  they distin-
guish water that has been breathed on or touched by the
mesmerizer.  I have sometimes  thus mesmerized, as it
is called, a glass of water half an  hour before it was pre-
sented to the sleepwaker, among three  others  exactly
similar, and filled to exactly the same point.   The result
of one of these trials shall be given as taken down by an
eyewitness of the experiment: "  Four glasses of water
being presented on a tray to Anna M----, one of which
was mesmerized, she passes her hands  over them all,
feeling  the rims,  and fixes on the mesmerized  one.
The order of the glasses being changed behind the mes-
merizer's back,  who stood so as to screen the tray from
the patient, she feels them all again, and fixes on the
mesmerized water a second time.   Changed again, again
she finds it, and drinks half of the contents of the tum-
bler, saying it will do her good."
  This sleepwaker seemed to  have two methods of dis-
tinguishing the mesmerized water: the one as above
described, by  running her fingers  over the glasses ; the
other by  carrying each glass to  her lips, and  slightly
tasting the water it contained.  In  the  latter case, she
invariably marked both her knowledge  and her prefer-
ence of the mesmerized water by  taking  a deep  draught
immediately on tasting it.  When asked how it  seemed
to taste to her, she replied, " So agreeably that it is im-
possible to describe it."
  On one occasion, a person who suspected that  the
mesmerized water was discovered through  some slight

  *  The following is extracted from our mesmeric diary: " Being
shown several precious stones, Anna put  her forehead towards them,
and started more or less at each.  Some, she says, produce agreeable,
others disagreeable feelings. Being asked if it is because they are cold,
she answers, 'Oh no! far from it.  Some are very hot, and others
scratch me as if they would tear the skin off my face.'  After several
experiments, she declared that the opal gave a soft feeling, but was nei-
ther particularly agreeable nor disagreeable. The sapphire was hot
and very disagreeable.  The Brazilian diamond had a pleasing effect,
as if it were the hand of her mesmerizer.  The  emerald  she made
faces and pouted at, saying it was not agreeable.  When the stones
were held to her forehead concealed in the mesmerizer's  hand, she
knew them all again, and gave the same account of her feelings." 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          157
difference in the taste  or  look, from  its having been
handled, tried to deceive the sleepwaker by presenting,
among  other  glasses, one  that contained the weakest
possible solution of toast and water; but the instincts of
the sleepwaker were in no way disturbed.   She chose
the mesmerized water unerringly as before.
   Whatever I had touched she distinguished with equal
certainty, and would only accept such articles of diet as
were transmitted through my hand.  Once, when I was
giving her some cherries, a friend, who was incredulous,
tried in every way to place  the fruit in her hand, in such
a manner as to make her suppose that I was continuing
to present it; but she threw away instantly every cher-
ry that  my  friend had touched, making  a face express-
ive of dislike.  Is this, by-the-way, more extraordinary
than the acuteness of sense by which the dog recognises
its master's property, or do we only deem it so because
less within the scope of our daily experience ?
   But it was not only as regarded objects that belonged
to myself that Anna M----exhibited extraordinary pow-
ers of discrimination.   More than once the pocket-hand-
kerchiefs of five persons have been tossed to her indis-
criminately (sometimes they have been all cambric and
all nearly alike), yet, after they had been jumbled to-
gether on her lap, she has quickly and correctly restored
each to its several owner.
   Occasionally this finer  perception,  manifested  by
Anna M----in sleepwaking, was, like  certain  other of
the mesmeric faculties, continued  forward, for a brief
moment, into  the  natural state.   I and another person
have presented the sleepwaker with two flowers or two
strips of paper as nearly alike as  possible, discrimina-
ting them by some little  mark which could  only be
known to ourselves; we have seen her  hold these care-
lessly in her hands, and frequently change their posi-
tion ; yet  can we  testify that, if bid  to remember, and
asked, immediately on awaking, who  gave her  the arti-
cles in question, she could  give them back to their re-
spective donors without hesitation, though without know-
ing how or by what impulse.
  E. A. manifested similar faculties.   On being asked
how he distinguished the  mesmerized water, he  said,
'  J'y vois une espece de lumiere."
   All this demonstrates  the truth of Laplace's assertion,
that " Of all the instruments by which the finer emana-
                         O 
158         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
tions of the natural world can be detected, the most del-
icate are the nerves, especially when their sensibility
has  been developed through particular causes ;"*  and I
am thence led to suggest  that, instead of  quarrelling
about the exalted sensation of sleepwakers, we should
endeavour to turn it to account.   Even should we never
succeed in fathoming its principle, there is an obvious
probability that it may be rendered practically useful.
If worthless as an object of analysis, it may at least be
valuable  as a test.   But it is the nature of man to insist
upon a thing being just as he would make it, or to have
none of it.  We  reject the  benefit that we cannot  com-
prehend ;  and, like  children crying for the  moon, are
rendered unhappy by seeing an object, however beauti-
ful, which cannot be brought down to our level and giv-
en us as  a plaything.
  Yet on the Continent  men  of science have in some
instances been wise enough to  profit by the extraordi-
nary perceptions of the mesmeric state. It is related in
" Die Seherin von Prevorst," that the sleepwaker, so call-
ed, was able to detect in  certain stones a certain ingre-
dient which always affected her  in a particular manner;
and that a mineralogist made much use of this discrim-
ination, subsequent experiment completely establishing
the capacity of his informer, f
  Thirdly. The organs of vision being under quite other
than the  normal conditions,  a faculty analogous to  sight
is developed in mesmeric sleepwaking.
  In approaching the phenomena that result from  such
an overstepping of the ordinary limits of our nature, I
deeply feel the difficulties that bar my way.  That per-
sons can hear and answer questions while in a kind of
slumber  may be  conceived, but that  they should see
with their eyes shut comes not within the  compass of
our faith.  It is contrary to  nature; it is utterly incred-
ible.
  Even they who behold the fact  are, when it is first
presented to them, incapable of reasoning for very  won-
der.   They perceive that the  mesmeric patient's mode
of vision is different from any within the range of their

  * Theorie Analytique du Calcul des Probability.
  t The same  sleepwaker distinguished  between twelve different
kinds of grapes, and  their several degrees of excellence, astringen-
cy. &c—Seherin von  Prevorst,  vol. i., p. 81, published at Stutgart and
Tubingen. 
             MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          159

experience, but what that mode may be appears to them
a mystery unfathomable.
  Such were my own feelings on first witnessing an ex-
hibition of what is called  clair-voyance  in  mesmerism ;
and 1 now endeavour to recall them, in order that I may
sympathize more with the astonishment or incredulity
of my readers over the statements which I am about to
make.  Should they suspend their belief as to certain
phenomena till they have  actually beheld the  alleged
wonders with their own eyes, I can scarcely blame them
for a doubt which is, perhaps, but proper caution.  Rath-
er  must I address them in the words  of Treviranus,
when speaking to  Coleridge of mesmeric  marvels: " I
have  seen what I am certain 1 would not have believed
on your telling, and in all reason, therefore, I can neither
expect nor wish that you should believe on mine." Even
they  who  are  most firmly convinced that mesmerism
has its own mode  of vision, must  be content to accept
the phenomenon, without having that surety of it which
personal experience alone  can  give of anything.  The
mesmerizer witnesses the wonder, but does not feel it in
himself; the  sleepwaker, who is the subject of it, seems
incapable of analyzing his new sensations while they
last,  still more of remembering them when they are
over.  The state  of mesmerism is to him as  death.*
He cannot, when  he awakes, reveal the  mysteries of
that great deep.   His  mesmeric feelings are  to him as
though they had never been ; and  less  favoured in this
respect even than  they who have beheld him  in his un-
usual condition, he  is forced to take his own actions upon
trust, and to exercise his own faith, while  he draws so
largely upon the realizing faculty in others.
  It is manifest, then,  that we cannot believe in the
clair-voyance of sleepwakers in the same  manner that
we  believe and know that we  ourselves see with our
eyes.   It is a fact which transcends our present under-
standing.
  To what end, then, it may be asked, should I state phe-
nomena which  will be believed by few, and  perfectly
comprehended by none ?  Because  many things that are
mysteries are, nevertheless, profitable subjects of con-
templation.  Whatever is beyond our actual state of be-

  * I once asked a young lady who was  in sleepwaking why, on
awaking, she forgot all  that she did with such apparent intelligence.
Her answer was, " Des uu'on est magnetise on est comme mort." 
160        MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
 ing is confessedly out of the pale of empirical knowl-
 edge ; yet shall we, on that account, banish the higher
 developments of nature from our thoughts, or even from
 our own  scientific examination ?   Were all our ideas
 confined to that which we certainly know, the domain
 of our intellect would be limited indeed.   Besides, by
 careful study, we may always extend, though we cannot
 complete, our apprehension of things above us; and, by
 discovering their analogy to things already known, bring
 them at least nearer to our experience.  Clearly, then,
 where there is so much room for progress, it is our duty
 to advance, remembering that the point where we should
 abandon enterprise has not  yet been decided.  In the
 present instance, the objects that I propose to myself
 are these: To show in our present being the elements
 of a future existence; to prove that  our actual senses
 are limitations of our percipient power; and that, in
 proportion as the mind is detached from them, it acts
 more largely, overcoming obstacles which,  by means of
 our usual organs, it is impossible to surmount.   It may
 be, also, that the facts on which I found  man's capacity
 of development, being supported by good testimony, may
 convince some who have hitherto been incredulous, and
 may supply others who already believe with additional
 light to guide them farther on their  way.
  I have already stated that I  have seen  sleepwakers
 descry objects when their eyes were, to all appearance,
 perfectly closed ; but my experiments on  this head were
 not so rigorous  but that it might still be objected that
 mesmeric patients, like certain politicians,
       " See through all things with their half-shut eyes."
  I now proceed to show that, in many cases, such a
 supposition is untenable, and that the mesmeric sleep-
 waker may have a mode of vision to which the usual
conditions of sight are altogether wanting.
  The first time that I mesmerized Anna M----, a work-
box,  which she had never  seen before, was held before
her.   She stooped her forehead towards it  in a manner
that struck me,  and  immediately named what it was.
The box having been opened, the sleepwaker again bent
her forehead  till it was nearly parallel with its surface,
then rapidly  named  the various objects it contained,
and, taking them up one by one in her hand, seemed de-
sirous  of examining them more particularly.  But, to 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          161
 my surprise, she waved the articles about before her, as
 if trying in what point of view she could best descry
 them, holding them to various parts of her face and fore-
 head, and exclaiming, as  if perplexed, " Where, then,
 are  my eyes?"  At length she seemed best satisfied
 when holding objects before her forehead, at the distance
 of  a few inches, declaring  that she saw them most dis-
 tinctly there.  In order to put her assertions to the proof,
 I held my watch before the forehead of the sleepwaker,
 without descending it to the level of her eyes.   She took
 it from me, and, not lowering it in the least, held it  so
 turned  as that it formed an acute  angle  with her fore-
 head, immediately above her eyebrow.  It is  to be re-
 marked  that she thus  presented the watch  to her fore-
 head, first on the right  side, then on the left, as if to sub-
 mit it to the scrutiny of a double organ.  After this she
 named  the exact hour  and  minute.  The hands having
 been altered, she found the  time with equal correctness.
   A poppy being held  before her forehead, she said, " I
 see a red flower, but I  do not exactly know  its name."
   Remembering that an experienced  mesmerizer had
 told me that sleepwakers in general perform most read-
 ily anything which gives them pleasure in their waking
 state, and observing, in conformity with this statement,
 that Anna M----, who was an  expert needle-woman,
 took particular interest in the workbox and its append-
 ages, I  proposed to her to proceed with a piece of work
 which was at hand.  She immediately took  the work,
 and, holding it  always on a level with  her  forehead,
 went on methodically with the hem of the piece of mus-
 lin I had given her.  When necessary, she turned down
 a new fold, and in every respect performed her task as
 well as she could have done awake.   The work, sub-
 mitted to female judgment,  was pronounced  to be a cap-
 ital piece of sempstress-craft, the stitches being even,
 and not one of them dropped.
  After this we  often gave  Anna M---- work to do in
the mesmeric state, when parties of ten or  twelve per-
sons have been  present, to witness her  extraordinary
development  of vision.  She continued to hold every-
thing to her forehead ;  and with her hands raised to that
level, in a position which, under ordinary circumstances,
would be difficult and painful, has embroidered delicate
flowers upon muslin, and even threaded her needle, with-
out apparent effort. 
162         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  As it is my sincere desire to give a correct picture of
mesmeric sleepwaking, I would on no account represent
this  power of vision as greater than it really was, or
omit the inconsistencies  which attended its exercise.
That it was by no means even or constant cannot but
be acknowledged, though I am by po means prepared to
develop the cause of its caprices.  Thus Anna, though
giving  incontestable  proofs of vision by the forehead,
could not be brought to distinguish printed or written
letters  in the mesmeric state except on one occasion,
when she read her own name, which I had written in a
large hand, and  held at once before  her forehead.  It
seemed to me that her new visual faculty was always
in its best condition when  spontaneously exerted, and
that  any  effort on her part, any over-anxiety to fulfil our
requisitions, marred it altogether.   I have often asked
her to name an object, which  I have allowed  her to ex-
amine as she would; but she  has not named it, though
apparently striving earnestly to do so.  Again, she has
indicated other things spontaneously when it was quite
impossible for her to have discerned them in the ordi-
nary manner.   It was when she was sitting quietly, and
apparently forgetful that she was an object of observa-
tion, that she displayed the most remarkable phenomena
of vision. One instance, however, is better than a thou-
sand assertions.  She was sitting with her head so much
bent  down as to bring  the  upper part of her forehead
parallel to the wall of the apartment.   In this position,
with her  eyes closed, it was impossible for her to have
seen, in any usual way, objects that were immediately
fronting her.  So placed, I observed her smile, and asked
her why  she  did so.  " I am smiling," she  said, " be-
cause I am pleased to see  Mrs.----opposite  to me."
" You see her, then, well ?" I inquired.   " Yes ;  she has
a cup of tea in her hand."   Upon this the lady  in ques-
tion  adroitly changed  the cup of tea for a book; upon
which Anna immediately remarked, " But now  she has
taken a book."   The lady  then opened the  book, and
held  it  by the two  sides, spread out exactly  on a level
with the  forehead of the sleepwaker, who said directly,
" Oh ! she holds  the book quite open by its two ends."
  This experiment, neither suggested nor in any way
conducted by myself, was interesting to  me in no tri-
fling degree, and was convincing to all  who witnessed it.
  Another singular circumstance was, that no one could 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          163
 put on an ugly mask that lay about the room, and to
 which Anna, in her mesmeric state, had  a great aver
 won, without her testifying, by faces expressive ofdis-
 like, that she was aware of the circumstance.  We Hive
 tried this when the sleepwaker was occupied by other
 things, and with every precaution of making no noise
 &c, yet  the result was always the same.
   When  placed before a looking-glass, she could  indi-
 cate, more correctly than at any other time, the gestures
 ot persons standing near her and seen by reflection.   I
 have pulled out her comb, and she has arranged her hair
 again  perfectly before  a mirror, holding  her  forehead
 parallel to its surface.   Being asked if she saw herself
 with her eyes open or  shut,  she replied," Open, to be
 sure;  and, when I reasoned with her on this point,she
 replied, " I see as  if my eyes were open; and so they
 must appear to me open."   It is  singular that another
 sleepwaker gave me exactly  the same  answers under
 the same  circumstances.  I shall refer again to the sub-
 ject, which is of metaphysical importance.
   A gentleman who was once  present during a mesmer-
 ization of Anna M----, being  placed " en rapport" with
 her, laid his hand upon her forehead, when she exclaim-
 ed, " Why do you cover my eyes ?"  He  then touched
 her eyes, and asked, " What part  of your face am I
 touching  now?"   The  sleepwaker seemed perplexed,
 and at length answered, " It is a part of my cheek, is it
 not ?"
   When asked to point out where different persons were
 placed in the apartment during her sleepwaking,  she
 never failed to do so, however  their respective positions
 might be  changed, leaning her forehead  forward all the
 time, and  presenting it to each individual.  At the in-
 stant of recognising each person  she always gave  one
 or two convulsive starts, as if her forehead came in con-
 tact with some invisible thing.
  The  account that she gave of her visual perceptions
was sufficiently confused.  These are her own words
relative to this subject,  taken down on one occasion by
a friend: " It is all clear through my forehead.   Some-
times I see so clear!  But then, again, there is a sort of
light cloud that comes over the clearness, and then  I
can hardly see anything.   I do not  see as with two eyes,
but here (passing her hand across her forehead), with my 
164         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  Already, in various  accounts of experiments, 1 have
mentioned E. A----, a boy aged fifteen, whom I had op-
portunities of frequently mesmerizing.  This patient, of
allwhom I have ever seen, manifested in sleepwaking
the most extraordinary development of  visual power.
As I have before said, he had been in childhood a natu-
ral sleepwaker; and 1 now add, on the testimony of his
father, that he would sometimes rise in the night, take
out his flute  (an instrument which he was studying pro-
fessionally), place music before him, and play from
notes, continuing to turn over the leaves of the  music-
book  correctly, although his  eyes were closely shut.
On one occasion,  Avhile his father was  watching  him in
a paroxysm  of this kind, the only light in the apartment,
a lamp, went suddenly out;  but the sleepwaker contin-
ued to play  as before, and  was heard to  turn over the
leaves of his music until he had come to the end of the
piece, which, moreover, he could not execute without a
book.   Thus  it will be perceived  there was in this
sleepwaker a sort of natural ground for the development
of extraordinary vision; and it  was this consideration
which led me, after having  heard the anecdotes above
related, to request the boy to  submit himself to the ef-
fects of mesmerism.   He consented to a trial, the result
of which will show how careful persons  ought to be in
deciding, from  one or two unsuccessful experiments,
that a patient is unsusceptible of mesmerization.  I had
mesmerized  E. A----twice (each time an hour), and he
had shown no symptom of  being affected by any influ-
ence.  I should not have made a third trial but  for the
following circumstance : I had thrown Anna M----into
mesmeric sleepwaking before a large party of persons,
among whom was E. A----.  I think I have every rea-
son lo affirm that the sleepwaker did not know anything
whatever respecting E. A----, not  even  his name, nor
that I had attempted to mesmerize  him;  yet, being ac-
cidentally near him, she said to me (as if guided by that
extraordinary instinct  respecting all that  relates to the
mesmeric state which I have before noticed as charac-
teristic of true sleepwaking), " You should mesmerize
this young man:  he  is a natural sleepwaker, and will
become very clair-voyant."  I answered  that I had al-
ready tried to  mesmerize the boy, and that I had failed
in my  object.  " You should try  again," replied the
sleepwaker, " and you will succeed."  But  before rela. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         165
 ting how truly this prophecy was accomplished and its
 farther results, I must observe, in order to remove all
 suspicion of Anna M----'s sincerity, that in recommend-
 ing me to mesmerize E. A----she was speaking strong-
 ly against her own interest, and even her own general
 feelings ; for, with a sort of sentiment that may be call-
 ed  mesmeric jealousy, she never  could endure  me'to
 mesmerize any one but herself.  Then, again, I was en-
 deavouring to educate her powers of mesmeric vision,
 in the hope  that she might gain the prize offered by the
 academy of medicine at Paris to a sleepwaker who
 could  read without the aid of the eyes; and  knowing
 that attention to any one else  must in a degree dis-
 tract me from this object, she had every reason to fear
 a rival in my mesmeric graces.  Moreover, in order to
 avoid  giving her the  least uneasiness, I  carefully con-
 cealed from her  my relations with E. A----; and as,
 when  awake, she forgot wholly the events of her sleep-
 waking, she never knew (as far as I can judge)  either
 that I had  mesmerized E. A----at any time, or that
 there  was any question of my doing so.
   Having said thus much in justice  to Anna M----(a
 precaution not unnecessary in the present hostility to
 mesmerism), I proceed to state that, the third time I
 mesmerized E. A----, he  at the end  of an hour passed
 so far into sleepwaking as to  be  able to answer ques-
 tions without awaking; questions of which  he retained
 no  recollection in his natural  state.  On a fourth mes-
 merization he  manifested all the characteristic symp-
 toms of mesmeric sleepwaking ; was  able to move about
 with tolerable ease; and began to display those extra-
 ordinary phenomena of vision which I  have prepared
 my reader to expect.   These may be divided into two
 classes, namely, such as presented themselves sponta-
 neously, and such as were developed  during a course of
 strict experiment.
  With regard  to both it  may be observed, that  there
 was  exactly that progress in their development which
 attends the  education of a new faculty.  At first the
 patient could only descry the larger objects around him,
 or such as most interested him, or to  which he was the
 most habituated.  Thus, though able,  in the early stages
of his sleepwaking, to discriminate between the persons
present in an apartment, and though testifying, in all that
related to music, great powers of sight (for, from the 
166         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
first, he could, while mesmerized, write out music with
precision), yet for a long period he found considerable
difficulty in reading from a book, always complained of
the smallness of the type, and could rarely be prevailed
upon to look  at more than two or three words at a time.
Subsequently, his eyes being always firmly shut (as far
as the strictest observation  could  determine), he  was
able to read any number of words  in the minutest type
with perfect  ease, and to discern  small and large  ob-
jects, near or distant, with exactly the  same facility of
vision which is possessed  by a  waking person.   In
proof of this, I may mention that I and the members of
my family have seen him, when in the mesmeric state,
thread a small needle and sew  a  button on his coat,
and, again, distinguish minute  letters on a seal which a
gentleman showed him, and which I could not make out
myself.   At another time, in mesmerism, he played on
the flute a piece of music which he had never seen be-
fore, from a book that was set  up before him at the  dis-
tance of some feet; and once, being mesmerized out of
doors, and led to a spot where he  had never been, he
described all  its features, and indicated the form  and
position of the distant mountains.   This power of per-
ception, analogous to sight, seemed  principally to re-
side in the forehead.  Whatever objects he took up to
examine  he immediately carried there ;  and once, in the
presence of Dr. Foissac, at Paris, he, being given a set
of eyeglasses which he had never seen when awake,
of eight  different colours, shut up in  a  tortoise-shell
case, unfolded them,  and  applying one at  hazard to his
forehead, without descending it to the level of his eyes,
exclaimed, "  Everything  appears blue  to me !" at  the
same time, boy-like,  imitating  the  gestures  of a Paris-
ian dandy, and observing that he should like to show off
his pretty lorgnette in the street.   The glass which he
had accidentally chosen was in fact blue.  Subsequent-
ly, he at various times has named the principal tints of
the eight glasses correctly, when presented to his fore-
head in any order.   The same result took  place when
his eyes were bandaged.   It was, however, remarkable
that a powerful magnifying glass being placed before his
forehead was not perceived  by him to enlarge objects,
though he read in a book through the glass with per-
fect ease.
  Though the power of vision was greatest in the fore-. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         167
head, yet at times, and especially when he was excited,
and not in  any way called upon  to exhibit (for such re-
quisitions often seemed to fetter his faculties), he seemed
to see on every side of him, as if his head were one or-
gan of visual  perception. This  is no exaggeration, as
the following instance will show: He was once  sitting
on a  sofa  in  the  mesmeric  state, when  a  gentleman
with  whom he-was well acquainted came behind the
sofa and made all kinds of antics.   On this the  sleep-
waker exclaimed, " Oh, Mr. D----! do not suppose I
cannot see you: you  are now doing so and so" (descri-
bing all Mr. D----'s gestures).  " You have now taken a
paper-cutter into  your hand,  and now a knife.   Indeed,
you had better go away, and not make yourself so ridic-
ulous."   Another  time he  was  sitting at a table, wri-
ting music, with  his  back to the door, when a servant
entered the apartment:  "Oh, Mademoiselle L----! is
that you ?" he said. " How quietly you stand there with
your  arms folded." He was quite correct in all he said.
Directly after this I took up a bottle from a table behind
the patient, and held it up to the back of his head, ask-
ing him if he  knew what 1 held.  He instantly replied,
" A bottle, to be sure."
   Having mentioned  the principal phenomena of vision
which E. A. spontaneously presented, I proceed to state
those which he manifested under strict experiment.
   Well convinced that  doubts would exist, not  only in
the minds of  others,  but in my  own, respecting  the pa-
tient's manner of seeing, so long as there was  the re-
motest possibility of  his discerning objects through any
aperture, however small, between the eyelids, I studied
to put this out of the question by precautions so severe
as to forbid imposition, and  so varied as to supply that
accumulated  and concurring evidence which circum-
stances that contradict experience imperatively require.
   1st. I laid  the  patient on a sofa, in bright daylight,
with his face turned towards the window, and made him
lean  his head back until I could see completely under
 his  eyes.  When he was so placed, I could  have de-
 tected the slightest gleam of the eye through the small-
 est opening of the lids.  I have then given him  a book,
 from which he has read with ease (holding it nearly par-
 allel to his forehead), while all the time I fixed my eyes
 earnestly on his, and yet could perceive not the slightest
 tendency in them to  unclose. 
168         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  2dly. I laid the palms of my hands, the fingers point-
ing upward, on the eyes of various persons, in such a
manner as that the projecting parts of each hand should
exactly fit into the concavities about the eyes.  These
persons assured me  that,  with  their eyes so covered,
they could see nothing whatever.  I have given  them
cards or books in their hands, but by no efforts on their
parts could  they distinguish these  objects.  I have re-
peated the same  experiment again and again upon E. A.
in a state of  sleepwaking, and  never  found that the
palms of my hands in any way impeded his vision.  He
could see  cards  or read in books under the above cir-
cumstances with perfect ease.  1 never felt  any motion
beneath my hand, as  if the patient were trying to open
his eyes, nor did he  evince the slightest inclination to
draw his head back from the pressure of my hands.
  3dly.  Standing behind the patient, I have  laid  my
closed fingers over his eyes horizontally, or I  have for-
cibly pressed down  his lids  with  one finger of each
hand.  This, which,  when tried on others, effectually
impeded  their sight, made no alteration  in the  visual
perceptions of the sleepwaker.  In order to avoid repe-
tition, I  here state  generally that the efficacy of  the
means 1 employed to stop the eyes of my patient was
always first proved upon the eyes of indifferent persons.
I should remark, moreover, that  the patient had  no ob-
jection to permit any one, who was previously placed
"en rapport" with him,  to  try upon him  all the  above
experiments.  I therefore  usually engaged other per-
sons to do this in preference to myself, as the most sat-
isfactory way of convincing them that there was  no
complicity between  me  and my  sleepwaker, and  of
bringing  the  matter  home to their own business  and
bosoms.   This manner of proceeding has shaken many
from their incredulity.
  4thly.  Having filled a couple of china eyeglasses with
wadding, I or some  other person  held them firmly to
the patient's closed  eyes when in sleepwaking.  This
also  made  no  difference  in his  visual  perceptions.
When the same eyeglasses have been  applied without
the wadding, notwithstanding their perfect opacity, the
patient has  declared that he could see the light very
plainly through them, and that they were so transparent
that he could not conceive why we imagined they  should
prevent him from seeing. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         169
  5thly. I have tried various methods of bandaging the
 atient's eyes.  I have tied a broad and thick silk hand-
 erchief over them, and then I have held down with my
fingers or the palms of my hands the whole of the bot-
tom part of the bandage.   This method seems to me as
perfect as  any.  It did not at all impede the sleepwa-
ker's  vision.   In  addition to this (the  same result  al-
ways ensuing), I have laid strips of wadding over the
eyes before applying the handkerchief, and I have firmly
secured every  possible interstice  between it  and the
cheek  with cotton.   In the  presence  of Dr. Foissac,
strips of diachylum were added to all the above appa-
ratus, in order to fasten down the edges of the handker-
chief to the cheek; but. the sleepwaker saw as well as
ever.   On  several occasions I bandaged his eyes, add-
ing the cotton and the wadding before beginning to mes-
merize him,  when he assured me that  he could not
distinguish day from night.  Then,  having  passed into
sleepwaking, he has immediately given proofs  of per-
fect vision, quite as  perfect, indeed, as that  enjoyed  by
persons whose eyes are open and unbound.  Again, on
awaking (the bandage never having  been  stirred during
the whole period of his sleepwaking), he has found him-
self in perfect darkness.  The transition was  marked.
One moment, drawn by  the  strong attraction of my
presence, he was following me about the room, through
intricacies  of chairs  and tables, with perfect ease; the
next, he was standing helpless, not caring to  be near
me, and, if called upon, unable  to  move, except with
the groping  hesitation  of a blindfold  person.   I re-
marked that he did not wake so easily with the  bandage
on  as  when  he had  no bandage.   The  action of the
transverse passes that I used to that effect seemed mod-
ified by the interposing substance.   The striking proofs
of vision that the patient gave when  properly banda-
ged were,  that he read in books, and  distinguished
cards, their colours, suit, &c, often  playing  with me at
various games upon  them.  I  remarked that in sleep-
waking  he was quite adroit at  the game  of  cassino,
which  I had almost vainly tried to teach  him in the
waking state.  It will be allowed that for a person, even
bandaged in a slovenly manner, to perceive  at a glance
the combinations on  the board, would be  no easy mat-
ter ; yet this he did with rapidity, completely bandaged
as he was.
                        P
I 
170         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
  6thly. I threw over the patient's head two thick  and
large towels, which  covered him in front down to the
hips.  Through these he has read, holding the book at
an angle with his foreljead, and has distinguished cards
with perfect accuracy.  This  kind of experiment  was
occasionally varied.  Sometimes the sleepwaker  has
been bandaged, and, in addition to this, a towel has been
thrown over his head ; but the  result was equally satis-
factory.  This power, however, seemed to have its  lim-
its.  The addition of a third towel greatly impeded the pa-
tient's vision, yet even  thus he has distinguished cards.
On one  occasion, a visiter, instead of covering up the pa-
tient's eyes, enveloped the object to be seen in the folds
of a napkin.  The experimenter, in order, if possible, to
mislead myself, the sleepwaker, and all who were pres-
ent, gave us to understand that he had placed one card
only in the napkin (he had performed the operation with
his back turned), but  the patient was not to be deceived.
At first, indeed, he seemed puzzled; but  even this tran-
sient perplexity elicited a curious proof that he saw not
only through the triple folds of  the napkin, but through
the back of one of the cards.  He said,  " There seems
to me to be a. five, but  the  points are not of the same
colours.   Oh !" he  exclaimed,  after a  pause,  " how
could I  be so stupid ! there are two cards.  One is the
ace of hearts, the other the four of clubs."  He  was
perfectly right.  The four of clubs  had  its face upper-
most, the ace was laid under it; and, in order to form a
five, the sleepwaker must have seen the ace underneath
the other card.
  7thly. One day I was curious to observe whether my
patient  could discriminate  colours  or forms on appa-
rently flat surfaces by the touch, as the blind sometimes
have been  known to do.  To  this end I held  an open
book over a little round French paper box, which  had
no distinction of top  or bottom,  except that there was a
picture on what was  meant for the upper side.   I gave
the sleepwaker the box into his hand (holding the book
always so as to screen the object from him), and asked
if he knew whereabout  the picture was.  He  immedi-
ately turned it right side uppermost, and with his finger
pointed  out the principal features of the little painting,
a shepherdess sitting under a tree, &c.  " Then," I said,
" you do perceive by your fingers ?"  " No," he replied,
" but I see through the book."   Desirous of testing this 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         171
more perfectly, I held open a large book exactly before
his face, and taking up  at  hazard a card from a  pack
that lay near me,  I  kept  the figured side concealed
against my hand until I  could turn it towards the sleep-
waker immediately behind the book.   Stooping his fore-
head forward till it nearly touched the back of the vol-
ume, he told correctly what the card was.  This exper-
iment  I frequently repeated with equal success, some-
times varying it by bandaging the patient's eyes before
I held  the book before them.  The  additional obstacle
seemed to make no difference.  Sometimes I have placed
a card, with due precaution, in the midst of a book, which
I kept  open only by the  interposition of a finger, holding
the face of the card pressed against the leaves of the
book, and thus entirely concealing it.  I have then held
the book upright before the patient, who has bent his
forehead forward, as  usual, till  it was parallel to the
cover  of the book, and has then told the card correctly.
What  is singular is, that if I withdrew my finger and
quite  closed  the book, the experiment failed.    The
sleepwaker said that the  reason of this was, that the
vibrations of the medium by which he pretended to per-
ceive objects  were too much intercepted by the perfect-
ly-closed book.  I should observe, once for all, that
when  I record the sayings  of my sleepwakers, it is not
because 1 give faith to them, but for reasons to which I
shall  advert hereafter.   Indeed, nothing can be  more
contradictory or  unsatisfying than  the account which
mesmerized persons render of their own mode of sen-
sation.  For instance, E. A. told me once  that he saw
through the book that was held between him and an ob-
ject;  but  at another time he  propounded a long and
confused theory, by which he  made it appear that his
sight did not penetrate the  obstacle, but received an im-
pression from certain rays, that did  not come to his eye
in direct lines, but were bent round  the edges of the
book.
   8thly. Another class  of precautions which I have ta-
ken to convince myself that the mechanism of the eye
had nothing to do with the mesmeric mode of vision,
consisted in spreading out a pack of cards on a  table,
face downward (frequently changing the pack, lest any
of the cards might in any way become known to the
sleepwaker), and in sliding a card at  random on to the
palm of my hand, so that its faced side was never for a 
172        MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
moment exposed until I had lifted it above the patient's
head, when I presented it at once to his forehead or oc-
ciput.  In the same way I have taken up a written pa-
per previously prepared, or a book, which I have not
opened until it  was above the  level of the  patient's
eyes, and 1 have held these objects to various parts of
his head.  The following are the results of observations
made under the above circumstances :
  The sleepwaker's power of perception seemed to be-
come weaker as  it withdrew from the region of ordinary
sight.  I have known him  read half a page from a book
which was held  immediately above the eyebrow; and
he found but  little  difficulty in telling any number of
cards which were held  in the same position.  He did
not at all like to have objects held behind him, saying
that  perception  by the occiput was very fatiguing, and
cost him an effort which did him harm.  It certainly is
a fact that, after he had told things in  this way, he used
to complain of uneasiness on awaking.   Still he gave
indubitable proofs that he could occasionally exercise,
by means of the  back or other parts of his head, a facul-
ty analogous to sight.   The following are the  most stri-
king instances of this:
  I wrote in my pocketbook (holding it above the pa-
tient's head) the words " Voulez-vous aller a Milan ?"
I then presented the writing immediately to his occiput.
He immediately called out, " Oh! je vois la le nom d'une
grande ville!" and then, word by  word,  he seemed  to
make out  the whole sentence, which he at length re-
peated correctly.
  On another occasion I took up a book at random, and
opened it just behind the patient's ear, holding the book
parallel to the side of  his head.   I  had opened it at the
beginning  of  a  chapter.   His  first  exclamation  was,
" There's a great deal of white  on that page."  I said
nothing, but continued to hold the book as before, when
he began to repeat some numbers that were on the page,
" 1425, 1426."- Then, without pausing, he read, distinct-
ly and correctly, the title of the  chapter, which was  as
follows : " Scenes Historiques.  La Main Droite du  Sire
de Giac (1425, 1426)."*  He continued with one or two
words of the chapter itself, but suddenly broke off in a

  * Taken from a work called " Dodecation, ou le Livre del douze,"
Bruxelies, 1636. 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         173
way that was habitual with him, pushed away the book,
and declared himself fatigued.
  In telling cards by means of various parts of his head,
he liked to observe certain conditions, which were exe-
cuted either by himself or at his direction.  His favour-
ite mode of proceeding was to lift his own hand above
his head, and to take the card from me, which  he held
at a certain distance from the part where I told him to
exercise his perception, observing that no one ever put
a thing they wanted to see close to their eyes.  When I
held the card myself, and approached it nearer than he
liked, he  always gave indubitable proofs of being aware
of the circumstance, begging me to place  the object far-
ther off.   Sometimes, when he found a difficulty in as-
certaining the card, he would beg me to  breathe on it;
and, when I had done so, he would tell it directly.   At
other times he would hold the card horizontally above
his  head, and then, without stirring the  centre of the
card from its  place, would dip down first one end and
then  the other, like the two extremities of a seesaw.
This he called " Le moyen electrique."  He was gener-
ally  successful in telling cards in this manner, some-
times on  the  first  operation, sometimes  after  two or
three repetitions of it.
  Occasionally I have placed the patient's own hand on
a table with the palm uppermost, and have glided on to
it a card  drawn at random from the pack, with the face
downward.  Then I have told him  to what part of his
head he should lift  the card; but it has often happened
that, while in  the act of conveying the card (the back
always uppermost), he has said, " I need not trouble my-
self  to take the card any farther, for I  know  already
what it is."   On  these occasions  he was sure to be
right; and, notwithstanding his assertions to the con-
trary, I was by this and other minute circumstances led
to imagine that his whole nervous system shared some-
thing of  the  percipient faculty which more peculiarly
manifested itself in the forehead.   His own account of
this  was, that he  received perceptions through the mo-
tions of a fluid, which was conducted by the brain gen-
erally, but was transmitted with  the greatest  facility
through the orbits  of the eyes and the region immedi-
ately above them.   He declared that the ball of  the eye
had  no share in the production of his mesmeric vision,
but that the impression was made direct upon the brain;
                         P3 
174         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
 moreover, that the sensations caused in him by. the mo-
 tions of the fluid resembled  those excited by light.
 When cards, &c, were held behind his head, he rarely
 distinguished the whole object at once ;  but (as in the
 case of a card, for instance) he would first name the suit
 and colour, then count the  pips one by one,  and finally
 name the whole card.   When questioned (not by  my-
 self, but by a person who  took interest in my experi-
 ments) why he did not tell the object at once, he replied,
 " The  light  that seems to strike upon it falls partially,
 and first 1 see one part of the card, then another."
   9thly.  1 have been making still larger and larger de-
, mands upon the belief of my reader, and now I am about,
 perhaps, to revolt him  altogether; but, having once un-
 dertaken to give a faithful relation of that which 1 have
 witnessed, can I draw back from the accomplishment of
 my task ?  No ; while conscious that I only speak the
 strictest truth, I am prepared even to have that truth
 doubted.  Time  will " bring in its revenges."
   Remembering that E. A----, on  his  father's testi-
 mony, had, in natural sleepwaking, seemed to  perceive
 objects in total darkness, 1  was curious to see whether,
 in mesmeric sleepwaking,  he would manifest a similar
 phenomenon of sensation.   I therefore, having mesmer-
 ized him, took him with me into a dark press or closet,
 of which I employed a friend to hold to the door in such
 a  manner  as that  no  ray of light should penetrate
 through  crevice or keyhole.  Then, like  the  hero of
 " The Curse of Kehama,"

        " I open'd my eyes and I closed them,
          And the blackness and blank were the same."

   My utmost efforts to see my hand only produced those
 sparks and flashes which waver before the eye in com-
 plete obscurity.  Having thus ascertained the  perfect
 darkness of the  closet, I drew a card at hazard from a
 pack with which I had provided myself, and presented
 it to the sleepwaker.  He said it was so and so.   I re-
 peated this to my friend, whom I then told to open the
 door.  The  admission of light established the correct-
 ness of the sleepwaker: it  was the card he had named.
 The experiment  repeated four times gave the same sat-
 isfactory result.   This peculiar development of vision
 was, like the other faculties of the sleepwaker, capable
 of improvement  through exercise.   At first he seemed 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         175
unable to read in the dark; then, like a person learning
the alphabet, he came to distinguish large single letters,
which I had printed for him on card, and at length he
could make out whole sentences of even small print.
While thus engaged in deciphering letters or in ascer-
taining cards, the patient always held one of my hands,
and sometimes laid it on his brow, affirming that it in-
creased his clair-voyance.  He  would also beg me to
breathe upon the objects which he desired to  see.  He
used  to declare  that the more  complete the  darkness
was, the better he could exercise his new  mode of per-
ception ; asserting that, when in  the dark, he  did not
come to  the knowledge of objects in the same  manner
as when  he was in the light: "  Quand je suis dans l'ob-
scurite," he said, " il y a une lumiere qui  sort de mon
cerveau, et qui  tappe justement sur l'objet; tandis que,
dans la lumiere, I'impression monte depuis l'objet jusqu'a
rnon  cerveau."  Often, when I  could not  see a ray of
light, he  used to complain that the closet  was not dark
enough, and, in order to thicken the obscurity, he would
wrap up his head in a dressing-gown which hung in the
closet.  At other times he would  thrust his head into
the remotest corner of the press.  His perception of
colours, when exercised in obscurity, sustained but little
alteration.   He  has named correctly the different tints
of a set of coloured glasses.  It was, however,  worthy
of remark, that he was apt to mistake between the har-
monic colours green and red, not only  when he was in
the dark, but when his eyes were bandaged.
  Many persons can bear testimony to the accuracy of
the above experiments ; and I refer to the  Appendix for
proofs that I sought for witnesses and invited scrutiny,
feeling that such things as I had to narrate could scarce-
ly be credited on the word of a single person.
  Desirous o{ neither exaggerating nor detracting from
the powers of mesmeric vision, I subjoin a few  general
remarks upon what I observed of its development in the
case of E.  A----, begging the reader, at the same time,
to remark the coincidence between the feelings of this
sleepwaker and of Mademoiselle M----.   Like  the lat-
ter, he declared that he was not always " i' the vein" to
exercise his faculty,  and that  it  was  a power which
came and went.  He would sometimes  say to  me, " Do
not think that I can always see a thing when I  desire it;
on the contrary, the more 1 wish, the less 1 can do."  In 
176         MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
conformity with this, I observed that he always did
things best when summoned to them without prepara-
tion, without  any idea of difficulty being raised in his
mind.  It was also evident that he did not like being ex-
perimented upon, and hence I was obliged to use a little
management  with him, in order to  make it appear that
he was acting without constraint.  Very often it happen-
ed that he would seem stupid, and unable to perceive a
single thing, when all at once the  power would, as  it
were, descend upon him, and he would suddenly read a
whole page from a book, or tell five or six cards  run-
ning.   In  the latter  case, he was  not accustomed to
name the cards separately, as he looked at them, but
afterward  from memory.  The first time he did this I
thought he did not  know the cards.   I showed  him
one, and he  said,  without telling what it was, " Now
show me  another."  This also was  put aside, and so
on  to  five, when  suddenly, to my no small astonish-
ment, he repeated from memory the whole five  cor-
rectly in their order.   This was one of his self-origina-
ted caprices.  Another was, that he would occasionally
refuse  to  tell a card which  he, however, manifestly
knew.   That he did so I discovered in the following
manner.  He had refused to tell a card, saying," I know
it,  however."  "Indeed," I replied,  "I doubt that."
" Well," he said, " ask me what the  card is as soon as I
awake.   Impress on my mind that I am to remember it
then, and I promise  you then to tell it to  you."  He
kept his word exactly.   It is not to be supposed, how-
ever, but that, by exercising my influence over the will
of the  sleepwaker, I could at any time compel him  to
execute whatever was in the compass of his ability;
but I preferred  allowing his mesmeric character to de-
velop  itself  spontaneously.   By  pursuing  a similar
course with all my sleepwakers, I was enabled to ascer-
tain that the mesmeric  state,  though broadly marked,
has, in addition to its striking and invariable  character-
istics, slight shades of difference, which individualize it
in  the  individual  cases.  These generally  consist  in
some little caprice, or, rather, odd development of sen-
sitiveness.   For instance, E. A----could never endure
spades among the  cards I showed him, and Theodore's
sister shuddered and showed marked dislike if wadding
were presented to her, even in a  box.
   I have  also remarked that sleepwakers, when  once 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         177
 disturbed by the presence of objects that influence them
 disagreeably, become indisposed to a farther exertion of
 their faculties.   Anything like a doubt of their sincerity
 will also distress them exceedingly, and obstruct the ex-
 ercise of their powers.  Moreover, they display extra-
 ordinary penetration in discovering which of the persons
 around them entertain feelings of incredulity or sus-
 picion ; and, should  they  have to encounter  a large
 amount of  unbelief and hostility  to  mesmerism, they
 will become reserved and irritable, and will fail in every-
 thing they undertake.  Thus I have  known  E. A----,
 after having told  a card held behind a book, seem quite
 incapable of repeating the  effort from the moment that
 a  certain  person who was skeptical  about mesmerism
 entered the  apartment.  I found, too, that the  sensibility
 of the sleepwaker might be exhausted by a multiplicity
 of experiments, or their too rapid repetition.   Some-
 times, after having named many  objects correctly, he
 would begin to make mistakes, and evidently to guess in-
 stead of to perceive.  At other moments he would push
 impatiently away from  him the cards, books, &c, that
 were presented to him, and exclaim, " Maintenant je ne
 puis plus."  Again, when allowed  to remain quiet for a
 while, he would  recover his clair-voyance in the same
 manner that the nervous energy of persons in  the nor-
 mal state, when impaired through over-excitement, re-
 turns to its  pristine functions after  an interval of repose-
 That my own state of mind or body, or both, influenced
 the sleepwaker, it was impossible to  doubt.  Nor can
 this  seem surprising when it is considered that  I was
 the depositary and the  dispenser of the agency which
 threw the patient into the condition of clair-voyance.  I
 observed that on days when ray thoughts were preoc-
 cupied, or my health  a little out of order, E.  A----, in
 the mesmeric state, was dull, spiritless, and disinclined
 to exertion.   The variations of the atmosphere  seemed
 also  to affect him.  In dry, clear weather his  mesmeric
faculties  were best  developed; on damp, misty days
they were less alert; and  when thunder-storms were
passing, they were  singularly  disordered.  Mesmeric
 passes, renewed at intervals during the period of sleep-
 waking, were, under all circumstances, favourable to tfce
 improvement or the maintaining of the patient's clair-
voyance.
  It  is absolutely essential that the experimentalist in 
178         MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
 mesmerism should be acquainted with particulars such
 as the above, and should inform himself of all the con-
 ditions under which mesmeric sleepwaking is either pro-
 moted or impeded.  This has been too much forgotten.
 Many failures, which have stamped mesmerism as an
 imposition, may be attributed, I am convinced, to the  ac-
 tion of disturbing causes, or the absence of those cir-
 cumstances which are requisite to ensure success.  That
 this has not been acknowledged on all hands is, perhaps,
 as much the fault of mesmerizers themselves as of their
 opponents.  The former, proud of the faculties of their
 patients, do not like to admit that these faculties are va-
 riable and  liable to a number of restrictions.  They
 therefore fail  to  forewarn  those whom they invite to
 witness their proceedings that the whole exhibition may
 chance to be a failure, and that the clair-voyant of to-day
 may  be nothing remarkable to-morrow.   What is the
 consequence of this mistaken disingenuousness ?  Even
 they who, if duly advertised of the true state of things,
 would be the first to acquiesce in the necessities of the
 case, are revolted by finding a discrepance between the
 performance and the promise; the fact and their expec-
 tation of the fact.  Mesmerizers, then, cannot be too
 eareful in  stating all  the drawbacks to their success;
 and, at the same  time, every person should, in all fair-
 ness, concede to mesmerie experiments the same privi-
 lege which is accorded to all others, namely, a precog-
 nition of those causes which  may render them difficult
 or impossible  to  be repeated.  At present, it may  b©
 safely asserted that never was any subject capable  of
 physical experiment  submitted to such unjust requisi-
 tions as that of mesmerism.  It has been expected to
 give the same results at all times and under all circum-
 stances.  The truth, however, is, that mesmeric sleep-
 waking does not only present different degrees in differ-
 ent persons, but in the same.  The  patient may at one
time be mesmerized, but not to clair-voyance ;  at anoth-
 er he may display the most admirable faculties of the
mesmeric state.
  Having ascertained, in this and  the previous case, that
persons under the mesmeric conditions could exercise a
faculty analogous to sight, without the intervention  of
the ordinary apparatus of vision, I was desirous still
farther to inquire how far the optic nerve played a part
 in this development of the sentient powers.  In order to 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING*         179
solve this question, it appeared to me essential to mes*
merize a person in whom the optic nerves were ineffi-
cient or destroyed.  Should such a person be found to see
in the mesmeric state, it would thenceforth be evident
that man might possibly, in certain states, exhibit a per-
ception of objects of sight which could have nothing in
common with the  system of ordinary vision.
  Soon after the idea had arisen in my mind, 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 of1
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 con-
stitution of the patient.   The boy, whom I shall  call by
his Christian name of Johann, was intelligent, mild-tem-
pered, extremely sincere, and extremely unimaginative*
He had never heard of mesmerism till I spoke of it be-
fore 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 opera-
tion 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 mesmerize, I ascertained* with as
much precision as  possible, the patient's degree of blind-
ness.  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 circum-
stance, but he could not at all distinguish whether the
individual were man or woman.  I even put this  to proof.
A lady of our  society stood before him, and he  address-
ed 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 dis-
criminate.   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 hi* 
180        MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.
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 ex-
ercised on very near objects :  those which were at a dis-
tance 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
 ?atient in the proper position, and began to mesmerize.
 ive 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 sub-
sided, the patient's eyes gradually closed, and in about
a quarter of an hour he replied to an inquiry on my part,
" Ich  schlaffe,  aber  nicht ganz tief" (I sleep,  but not
soundly).   Upon this I endeavoured to  deepen  the pa-
tient'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 farther questioned, " I do not  see dis-
tinctly.   I see, as  it were, sunbeams (sonnen strahlen)
which dazzle me."  " Do you think,"  I asked, " that
mesmerism will do you good V  " Ja freilich" (yes, cer-
tainly),  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 beehives, he suddenly stopped, and
seemed to  look earnestly at  them.  " What is it you
see?"  I  asked.  "A  row of beehives," he replied di-
rectly; 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 mesmerization 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 sleepwaking; and I  can assure my
readers that this increase of visual power in the natural 
            MESMERIC  SLEEPWAKING.         181

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  prachtig!" (That is charm-
ing).  Two ladies now passed before us, when he said,
" Da sind zwei frauenzimmer !" (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 exten-
sive prospect.  I fear almost to state it, but, neverthe-
less, it is perfectly true, that he saw and pointed out
the situation of a village in the valley below us.   I now
brought Johann back to the house, when, in the pres-
ence of several members  of my family, he recognised,
at first sight, several small objects (a flower-pot, I re-
member, among other things), and not only saw a little
girl, one of our farmer's 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 mesmerization, and he named the object.  But,
though making great efforts, he could not read one let-
ter in the book.  Having ascertained this, I once more
threw Johann into the mesmeric state, with a view to
discovering how far a  second  mesmerization  would
strengthen his natural eyesight.  As soon as I had awa-
ked 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 follow:  " Outward Bound."
Johann  belonging to an institution of the blind situated
at some  distance from our residence, I had, unhappily,
only the  opportunity of mesmerizing him three times
subsequently to the above successful trial.   The  estab-
lishment, 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.
  The following is the general result of my after ex-
periments :
  On first passing into the mesmeric state, Johann al-
ways spoke of a kind  of internal light, which he com-
pared to sunbeams, diffusing itself over the region of
the forehead.
                         Q 
182          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
  Whenever I  pointed the tips of my fingers towards
his closed eyes, at the distance  of about two inches,
with a quick, darting motion, he had the sensation of a
flashing light, and sparks of fire passing, as it were, be-
fore him.
  Being led up, accidentally, to a  large mirror when in
sleepwaking, he called out that he saw  " eine grosse
klarheit" (A great clearness).  Nevertheless,  the mir-
ror was in the  shade.  After this I conducted him to
a glass door that led into the garden, through which the
light of day was shining brightly, but he made no re-
mark ; and, on  being questioned,  declared that he was
not sensible of any peculiar light.  Again taken up to
the mirror, he again said that he saw before him much
light and clearness.   By whatever route I  led him up to
the looking-glass, he was always aware when he came
before it, though his eyes were perfectly closed.
  Occasionally  I presented the points  of  my fingers to
the mirror, in the same manner as to his forehead, in
order to ascertain whether he would perceive anything
like reflected sparks; but the experiment did not succeed.
  Music  seemed  to have a pleasing  effect upon him
when in the mesmeric state, and the sound of  my voice
always palpably increased the depth of his slumber.
  On first awaking from mesmeric sleepwaking, the pa-
tient's  powers of vision were always  stronger than at
any other time ; but, in addition to this temporary ben-
efit,  there  was a gradual bettering  of  his  eyesight,
which, though less striking, was more  valuable from its
permanence. Even the external appearance of his eyes
was  improved, in the course of mesmerism, to a  de-
gree which attracted the notice, and excited the wonder,
of the master of the institution to which Johann belonged.
  On one occasion, being rather indisposed, I found that
I could not influence Johann  so forcibly  as usual;  so
that, after long mesmerization, I had only brought him
as far as  an imperfect sleep, in which he retained his
consciousness.  Having met with  an account of Dr. El-
liotson's  experiments, by which it is  proved  that  the
mesmeric agency is capable of increase by means of oth-
er individuals co-operating with the mesmerizer; having
also experienced  the truth of this when mesmerizing
the little sister  of Mademoiselle M----conjointly with
herself, I  requested  a  friend who was present to aid
me, by motions of the  hand, in deepening the  patient's 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.          183
slumber.  Each of us held a hand  of Johann, and each
of us manipulated with the hand that remained at liber-
ty.  The  effect was very remarkable.   In a short time
the patient passed into complete sleepwaking ; but that
there was a remission of the mesmeric influence when-
ever my friend ceased to be in contact with me, was
proved by this : Johann's head did not then follow my
hand so readily ; and at such moments, when question-
ed, he said that he did not sleep  so profoundly.  The
patient being still unconscious, 1, being always  in con-
tact with him, drank half a glass of sherry, when he ex-
claimed,  spontaneously,  " Das ist wohl  stark.  Das
steigt mir im kopf" (That  is  very strong.  It  mounts
into my head).
  The last time that I mesmerized Johann was in the
evening, by candle, or,  rather,  lamp light.  On this oc-
casion he manifested an extraordinary increase  in mes-
meric clair-voyance, giving proofs that he had sensations
analogous to sight of a far stronger nature than those
which his visual organs could afford him in the  waking
state.  With ease he indicated the relative positions of
the party present, consisting of three  persons  besides
myself;  and though the several  individuals often and
silently exchanged  places,  he continued to show that
he was acquainted with the exact situation of each.
Occasionally he would remark, and always with perfect
correctness, that a lady was  smiling and pointing her
finger at him.  Three dahlias, which were respectively
of a bright  scarlet, deep crimson, and yellow colour,
were  held before his closed eyelids.  He discriminated
between them with singular accuracy, saying, " Das ist
feuer-roth, das  ist dunkel-roth, und das ist gelb."  He
also distinguished a large leaf which was held before
him to be  green.
  The lady above alluded to handed me a nosegay, di-
recting me in English what to do with it.   Agreeably
to her request, I gave the nosegay, consisting of red ge-
ranium, white stock, and other flowers, to Johann, tell-
ing him that he must select some of the red flowers to
give to the lady.  He instantly and accurately separated
the geranium from  the other  flowers:  " and  now," I
said, " you must add  some of the white to your bou-
quet." This he also did with equal readiness.
  Again, he told the letters B, M, and O, which I wrote
in a large  printing hand on pieces  of card  and held be- 
184          MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.
 fore his closed lids.  When led before the mirror, which
 was then in deep shade, being at the farther end of an
 apartment forty feet in length, and lighted only by a single
 lamp, he, as usual, expressed his perception of " etwas
 hell und  heiter" (something clear and bright);  but, when
 brought close  up to the lamp, he made no observation of
 the kind.  Again I took him to a glass over the chimney-
 piece, on which the light of the lamp fell strongly, when
 he cried out,   ' Viel licht, viel licht!" (Much light, much
 light!)  While the patient was still  in the mesmeric
 state, tea was brought in.  I ate some dry toast while
 holding Johann's hand.  He imitated the movements of
 mastication; and,  on  being asked what he tasted, re-
 plied, " Bread of  some kind."   Upon this  one of the
 party present,  without speaking, gave me quickly a piece
 of sugar, signing me to substitute it for the toast. This
 I did, and the sound which I made in eating  was not
 perceptibly changed, yet Johann instantly and  sponta-
 neously exclaimed, " I taste something sweet."
  I here  close the  proofs which 1 have to offer that the
 perfect mesmeric  sleepwaker does indeed possess  a
 faculty of perception  apart  from  the  mere  external
 mechanism of the senses.   The  means which I have
 been led to  take  in order  to convince  myself of this
 fact  have, besides  conducing to the end  which I had in
 view, been productive of other results, which some per-
 sons may deem more important to the  welfare of hu-
 manity than any discovery  of new modes of sensation
 or of extraordinary developments of vision.  I  have es-
 tablished  beyond a doubt that the action  of mesmerism
 is  highly remedial  in affections of that precious organ
 whereby  we enjoy
        " Or sight of vemal bloom, or summer's rose,
          Or Hocks, or herds, or human face divine."

  Not only as regards Johann have I proved this, but
also in the case of  E. A----, who, when I first began to
mesmerize him, suffered so much from a weakness in
his eyes that he could neither see to read nor write by
candlelight.  At  first, indeed,  before  I  became fully
aware of the  efficacy of mesmerism as a remedy, E.
A----,by my advice, occasionally used a lotion of rose-
water for his eyes ; but in sleepwaking he declared that
mesmerism would cure him  without the employment of
any additional means.   The lotion, therefore, was dis- 
MESMERIC SLEEPWAKING.         185
continued almost in the beginning of the mesmeric treat-
ment;  and, under the beneficial influence of mesmerism
alone, the patient not only recovered the healthy action
of his sight, but before he left me attained to the enjoy-
ment of a remarkable strength of vision.
  Again, I once mesmerized another boy, nearly blind,
belonging to the same institution of which Johann was a
member.  After about a quarter of an hour's mesmeri-
zation  he fell into a  profound  sleep, which lasted for
nearly  four hours.   Though the patient gave  no other
token of being mesmerically affected, his sleep was evi-
dently  the result of mesmeric action, for neither calling
to him  nor shaking him could dispel it; and he walked
without awaking from a  chair to a sofa, where he re-
mained till he awoke.  This sleep was followed by an
improvement in his powers of vision ;  and, when I saw
him  at the institution some time afterward, he told  me
that  the  benefit had been lasting, for that he then  saw
better than before 1 had mesmerized him, adding that he
much wished I could be permitted  to mesmerize him
again.
   These are facts which can scarcely be regarded with
indifference, even by those who will not see  in mesmer-
ism  a promise that transcends this life and the purposes
of our present organization.
                        Q2 
BOOK  III.
                    SECTION I.

 CONFORMITY OF MESMERISM WITH OUR GENERAL EXPERI-
                       ENCE.

  Having now described the state of mesmeric sleepwa-
king and its accompanying manifestations, I am desirous
of elucidating it by such reasonings as may prepare the
minds of men to receive this peculiar phasis of our na-
ture as a confirmed fact, not as an insulated phenomenon;
as a link in the eternal chain of things, not as an inter-
ruption to the universal order.  With this end in view, it
is necessary to inquire under what conditions men be-
lieve  that  they  comprehend anything whatever; and,
this being ascertained, it is clear that we must endeav-
our to place under those conditions the object we wish
to explain, and to adapt our arguments thereupon to the
disposition of the listener's mind.  Attaching something
mysterious to the  idea of causes in general, and to  all
that relates to the explanation of unusual circumstances,
we are too apt to forget that causes are themselves but
facts, and that to explain is only to make the unknown
clear  by a reference to that which we already know.
But if we rightly consider  the springs whence  arises
our seeming  comprehension of any subject, we  shall
find that they all reduce themselves to three  very natu-
ral  and intelligible sources,  namely,  traditional faith,
personal experience, and an idea of adequate power.
  For, I ask, when is it that we rest contented with our
knowledge of a fact ?
  Undeniably, then, 1st, When we have accepted it as a
received truth from infancy.
  2dly.  When we have felt it in our own persons.
  3dly.  When we imagine that we can refer it to an ad-
equate cause.
  For, as to the first condition of our belief, let us con-
sider what a multitude of things we trust in merely be- 
         CONFORMITY  OP MESMERISM, ETC.    187

cause we have heard them from our nurse's lips; and,
though these things should be mere errors, we still find
that to tear them from the hold they have  upon our
minds is  always difficult, often impossible.  In such a
case we do  not  reason upon our notions; we do not
strive to  render  them  more clear;  we  are indifferent
about mounting to their source; we rest in them with
simple confidence.  The very religion of many persons
reposes upon such a basis; and this, relating as  it does
to our highest interests, may serve as an instance of the
power of early association and of the traditional cre-
dence upon which I am insisting.
  Secondly:  it is no less evident that we accept, on the
testimony of our personal experience, whatever we find
assimilated thereunto.   No one  dreams  of doubting
that other men  may sleep,  eat, walk,  or  write.  The
force of this principle  may be gathered from the strength
of  its  antagonist feeling.  We  have an  actual repug-
nance to credit that which we have  not  felt ourselves.
To give an example of this.   There is a singular  state
of  mind, which is known to some, and which has been
adverted  to  by various poets  (as, for  instance, Cole-
ridge),
      " Which makes the present, while the flash doth last,
       Seem but the semblance of an unknown past,"

when, according to Tennyson's more particular descrip-
tion of this mental phenomenon,

      " We ebb into a former life, or seem
        To lapse far back in a confused dream,
        To states of mystical similitude.
        If one but speaks, or hems, or stirs his chair,
        Ever  the wonder waxeth more and more ;
        So that we say,  'All this hath been before,'
        All this hath been, I know not when or where."

  Now let anyone who has experienced this perplexing
reference to events which he seems  to have rehearsed
in some prior state of existence, speak of the feeling to
another who  is wholly ignorant of it.   The latter will
very likely exclaim, as a friend of  mine to  whom  I de-
scribed this mood of mind actually  did exclaim, " Had I
ever felt anything like what you mention, I  should think
myself fit for Bedlam."
  On the other hand,  he who knows the sensation and
can sympathize with it, will listen to a similar tale with- 
188        CONFORMITY  OP MESMERISM
out surprise, and will probably say, " I can well believe
this, for I have felt it myself."
  A more common instance of this incredulity respect-
ing all that lies beyond our own experience is our reluc-
tance to believe that pains which we have never known
can  really be as acute as they are represented  to us.
" He jests at scars who never felt a wound," and he who
has been always  free from the toothache will almost
laugh at a friend under a paroxysm of that torment;
not because he is hard-hearted, but because he cannot
conceive the matter deeply enough to be serious.
  There is an actual inherent propensity in human na-
ture to make personal knowledge the measure of truth,
so strong as to incline us to believe anything that has
reference  even to our prior experience.   I  have read
somewhere of an old woman whose son, returning from
foreign  parts, related to her the wonders he had seen.
He spoke of flying fish and of a burning mountain ; but
the cautious mother cried out, " No, no, Jack! I know
what travellers' tales are!   That  I'll never  believe!"
At  last, after many similar truths rejected, the sailor, in
despair, hatched a lie, and said, " In Jamaica I saw sugar
growing on trees, and rivers of rum."  " Ay, ay,  child,"
exclaimed the  beldam, unow you  speak sense.   That
I'll well believe, for I know  that rum and sugar come
from Jamaica!"  Now in mesmerism it is just thus.
There is much rejected that accords not with the previ-
ous experience of persons, yet perhaps every one has
his rum and sugar reservation, some greater marvel
than those which  he  refuses to credit.   After all, it is
not the marvellousness of mesmerism that shocks;  it is
only its discrepance with each individual's experience
or figment of the brain.
  In the third place, we need reflect but little in order to
perceive that we rest contented with our knowledge of
events so long as the idea of an adequate cause for them
is present to our minds.   Yet this tendency of our na-
ture to refer events not only to  a cause, but to an  ade-
quate cause, has not been sufficiently distinguished from
the simple propensity (also inherent in  our intellectual
structure) which inclines us, when we see an effect
with which we  are familiar, to suppose that its usual an-
tecedent either is or has been also present;  for we are
not only inclined to take things in connexion,  and to
view the relationship between them, but likewise to ao- 
        WITH  OUR GENERAL  EXPERIENCE.     189

count for the phenomena we behold by tracing them to
their primary and efficient impulses.  Wrhen we fail to
ascribe an event to an adequate  agency, we are troubled
and discontented, and a restless idea of the supernatural
(here truest) haunts and agitates us : on the other hand,
whenever we deem that we can  assign a sufficient cause
to an appearance, however startling and unusual, we are
satisfied, and seek to know no farther.   For this reason,
they who  arc in the  habit of overlooking all the inter-
mediate processes of nature, and  who resolve every-
thing at once  into the power of God, enjoy a pleasure
distinct from the merely pious one of attributing every-
thing to one beneficent Creator.  They rest in a suffi-
cient cause;  they are  tormented  by  no importunate
questionings of spirit; their answer to every enigma of
the universe is ever ready.  They  who are not of this
happy, but (it may be suspected) indolent frame of mind,
and  who, at the same time, have not knowledge suffi-
cient to ascend, surely and gradually, the steps of na-
ture's temple, are actually forced into an irregular flight
upward, and, rather than ascribe perplexing appearances
to an inadequate cause,  will attribute  them to an un-
known and mysterious one (the inadequacy of which
cannot be put  to the proof at least), to  some cloud-born
agency, which flatters their imagination with a sense of
power.   Hence, where gross  ignorance prevails, super-
stition, with all its notions of demoniac influences, takes
its rise; hence, in darker ages, the learned have been
deemed wizards, and the man of science has been suppo-
sed to have signed a contract with Satan.   Hence, even
in our own day, some, whose minds are in arrear with
time, will attribute the whole of mesmeric  agencies to
the machinations of the Evil One, being  unaware how
much they are  influenced in their judgment by the pro-
pensity we all have to cut a knot when we cannot untie
it.   But, after all, the fondness of some persons for dia-
bolic agency is not a little surprising and unaccountable.
For my own part, I had rather  always  rest in God than
in the devil.   Observe we, too,  that many a person will
deem himself vastly enlightened by a fine  word, and that
hence knowledge is too often  turned  into  a few high-
sounding  phrases.   Wherefore is  this?   A pompous
term may stand as the representative of an efficient
force; and, in  the case where the event  accounted for
appears wondrous, the alleged cause always pleases  the 
190        CONFORMITY  OF MESMERISM
 ignorant better the more incomprehensibly it is express-
 ed.   But where  phenomena come, or  seem to come,
 nearer  the level of our experience, then we are apt to
 explain them by some familiar force, which, however,
 may have as little  to do with  them as  any cause with
 which we are entirely unacquainted.   This, however, is
 hard to be perceived; for, whatever we  know and have
 proved  to be capable of effecting something, we are  in-
 clined to exalt into a power and to force into offices alien
 to its sphere of operation.   For instance, every man has
 felt  that the frequent repetition of any action increases
 the  tendency to it.  This phenomenon of our nature we
 personify under the name of Habit, and recognise the
 potency of its  influence, binding us, as the Lilliputians
 did  Gulliver, not  by the individual strength, but by the
 number, of its subtle bands.  Again, when one part  of
 our  bodies is deranged, another  often partakes in the af-
 fection, or, as we  express it, suffers  by sympathy.
 Sympathy, then, must be accounted as a power explan-
 atory of many mysteries of  our being; so must associ-
 ation, so must  imitation, and a host of other shadowy
 impersonations, which are but names for certain mental
 or bodily states.  To words like these, when hard push-
 ed for an  explanation of anything, we can resort with
 much complacency; not that, after having done so, we
 understand the matter  one whit better than before, but
 we have referred  it to a principle with which we are in
 part  acquainted, and which, deeming it the efficient cause
 of some things, we  suppose  may also  produce  the one
 in question.
  These strivings after adequate causation I consider to
 be the upward  and inevitable tendency  of  mind to its
 sources of reason, teaching us by internal admonitions
 that  all  phenomena whatever emanate  from  thought;
 but,  as I shall have occasion hereafter to make some
 remarks on  power, and  whence our notion of it is de-
 rived, I will at present advance no deeper into this sub-
 ject, having, I trust, said enough to show that we rest
 satisfied with our knowledge of  events in proportion as
we think that we can refer them to an adequate cause;
and that, consequently,  the surest means to obtain gen-
eral  credence for any faot is to  exhibit it in connexion
with  a cause which shall at once be perceived adequate
to its production.
  Applying the  above reflections to mesmerism and ita 
WITH  OUR GENERAL EXPERIENCE.     191
 phenomena, we  cannot but perceive that of the three
 great sources of human conviction which we have been
 considering, namely, traditional faith, personal  experi-
 ence, and adequate agency, there is  not  one which has
 been called into play in a manner favourable to our sub-
 ject.
   Whatever may be the case on  the Continent, it will
 be admitted that in England the present generation
 have  been educated in a profound  contempt and dis-
 belief of mesmerism.  Thus from  traditional faith it re-
 ceives no support, but the contrary; for  the lessons of
 our childhood have raised a barrier  between it  and us,
 the strength of which no one can have felt more forcibly
 than myself.
   From personal experience mesmerism is  not less re-
 moved ; and it must be confessed that writers  on the
 subject, in general,  have not contributed  to bring  it
 nearer to  the  home-felt conviction  of mankind.  Too
 often  they have  endeavoured to illustrate it by a refer-
 ence to marvels as far distant from personal experience
 as itself.  In its behalf,  ancient chronicles' have been
 ransacked ; classical authorities have been  marshalled
 in formidable array; the tomb has  given up its vam-
 pires,  and Egyptian mysteries have been  dragged to
 light;  for what purpose?  Mesmerism is not at all ren-
 dered  more credible  by being bolstered up by histories
 which themselves are doubtful, nor is it explained (igno-
 tum per ignotius) by means of phenomena that surpass
 human comprehension.
   In the third place,  it appears to  me that mesmerism
 has  not  been viewed in  connexion  with an adequate
 cause, since, as I  have elsewhere observed, men of sci-
 ence would refer it, with all  its intellectual phenomena,
 to a simply physical agency; while men of imagination
 would force even its physical affections into the domain
of pure spiritualism.
  It should then be the object of a writer on mesmer-
ism  to supply  his  subject  with those  advantages of
which concurring  circumstances have tended to deprive
it.  Others, I feel confident,  will effect far more than  I
can in this cause ; yet  I trust I shall not be deemed
presumptuous in bringing forward  some considerations
which  have offered themselves to  my mind, tending to
approximate at least the new condition of man to those
g;ounds of credibility on which I have shown our quiet
possession of truths in general to repose. 
192       CONFORMITY OF  MESMERISM
   Of the three claims to  confidence wherein mesmer-
 ism is deficient, the hardest to supply is undoubtedly
 that  of early association.   Yet even  here  it may be
 urged that we have all, from childhood, supposed natu-
 ral sleepwaking to be an undoubted  phenomenon of
 man's constitution.  There are many, perhaps, who
 remember  to have heard  tell of  some  sleepwalker,
 whose feats  have  been the wonder of their  native vil-
 lage,  who has been known to rise  from his bed, and to
 display in slumber even more than his ordinary activ-
 ity, crossing, it may be, some perilous ford, or balancing
 himself on the edge of a precipice, where the waking
 eye would  sicken and  the conscious brain would reel.
 Who  does not believe in the existence  of such a state ?
 Doctors have descanted upon  it with the  precision of
 medical lore; metaphysicians have examined it as a
 curious feature of humanity ; and the light and gay, re-
 garding it as a mere matter of amusement, have flocked
 to see its mimicry in dramatic  representation, enhanced
 by all the charms of music and the fascinations of ge-
 nius.   Nay, in the higher  departments  of scenic  art, it
 has illustrated one  of the sublimest creations  of the po-
 etic mind:  I allude, of course, to the tragedy of Mac-
 beth, in which Shakspeare, who painted  every shade and
 variety of our nature,  has  not left untouched this its
 most  peculiar and interesting development.   In brief, it
 is one of the truths which cannot be torn from the tex-
 ture of our  minds, or erased from the book and volume
 of the brain.
  This being the case, is there any good  reason why
we should exclude from our belief so similar  a state of
man as is mesmeric sleepwaking; or, rather,  is not our
conduct on  this occasion the most striking proof of
the really inefficient grounds on which the greater part
of mankind believe or disbelieve anything?  How great-
ly we are inconsistent with ourselves!   We hear, with-
out one feeling of doubt, tales  of sleepwaking quite as
wonderful as the following  account of Lady Macbeth's
sleepwaking: " I have seen her rise from her bed, throw
her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth
paper, fold  it, write upon it, read it, afterward seal it,
and again return to bed, yet all this while in a most
 fast sleep;" but should the very same  things be stated
 respecting a person under mesmerism, the name seems
 suddenly  to  make all the difference: we no longer be- 
        WITH  OUR  GENERAL EXPERIENCE.    193

lieve; we cry out that it is all an imposture; our whole
being is in a state of hostility and agitation.  Is this
wise?  Is this in accord with human dignity of thought?
I would  more  particularly ask medical  men whether
they have not  been  accustomed to regard as true not
only certain phenomena of natural sleepwaking, to the
full as wonderful  as any which mesmerism presents,
but also of catalepsy, a state under which the most ex-
traordinary developments of nervous  sensibility may
take place ; and I would  then urge them to  examine
well the real  causes of their denying in one case what
they accede to in  another.  Also I would inquire with
what patience they who have attended,  in a medical ca*
pacity, many an unfortunate wretch dying of hydropho-
bia, can listen to the prabble of a man who contends
that human nature is liable to no such affliction, merely
because he has heard from childhood the fact spoken of
as doubtful ?  If no good answer can be given to these
questions, surely a reasonable being may suspect that
there is some great  error at the root of all these dis-
crepances and contradictions in feeling and belief; and
it may be contended that, if we accept traditional faith
as the ground of our confidence in certain particulars,
we must retain it still as corroborative of the same par-
ticulars, whatever change in  their nomenclature may
occur.
  In truth, when we demand acceptance for many  of
the phenomena of mesmerism, we only require a sacri-»
fice of men's prejudices, and not a dereliction from their
ancient principles of  belief.
  The mention of natural sleepwaking  leads us almost
insensibly into realms that border closely upon those of
personal experience.   There are few  of us, probably,
who have not,  in  early years, had some  touch of this
malady so incident to childhood, or, at  least, so far be-
held its effects in a brother, sister, or young relative  as
to be convinced that  persons  may, being all the time
asleep, perform  many  of the  actions of their Waking
hours, and answer short  questions either rationally or
with a certain ingenuity.   Many also have perhaps had
the opportunity of hearing stories  relative to sleepwa-
king  from the lips of the parties actually  concerned
in them.  At least I  can affirm that, in the course  of
my own experience, I have met  with  several persons
who have either been sleepwakers themselves, or have
                         H 
194        CONFORMITY OF MESMERISM
 been eyewitnesses  of sleepwaking in others.  On such
 individual testimony I present to my reader the follow-
 ing narrations, which show at o.nce the connexion and
 the difference between natural and mesmeric sleepwa-
 king.
   Mr. Matthieu, president of the Academy of Painting
 at Louvain, told me that, not many years since, having
 an essay to write for what the French call a concours,
 he was in an anxious state of mind.  His thoughts did
 not flow readily, and, after many efforts at composition,
 he could  not  produce anything  to  please  himself.
 What was  his astonishment one morning  to find upon
 his tabler in his own handwriting,  the beginning of an
 excellent dissertation upon the subject which had lately
 occupied him!  He  could not doubt that this was the
 work of his sleeping hours; but, curious  to  ascertain
 how far his mind would proceed with its train of thought
 under the  same conditions which had originated it, he
 left the manuscript untouched until he could inspect  it
 again after the interval of another night.  The result
 of the experiment showed that he had resumed the pen
 in sleep, and had continued his composition in a perfect-
 ly connected manner.
   Another gentleman, Mr. Z----, of Nenicbatel, related
 to me the following instances of his own sleepwaking.
 When he was  about seventeen, his father  being dead,
 the management of an extensive mercantile establish-
 ment principally devolved upon himself.  One  day he
 had transacted a great  deal of business, and still there
 were certain invoices to be written  before the departure
 of some merchandise early on the following morning.
 Worn out  with fatigue, he went to  bed, having given
 orders to be called in time to supply the deficient inven-
 tories.  At  daybreak, according  to his directions, he
 was awakened by a servant, and went immediately to
 his mother (who generally assisted  him in his labours),
 informing her that he was ready to begin the invoices.
 " What can you mean ?" she  exclaimed ; " do  not you
know that  you wrote them last night ? and here  they
 are !"  At the same time she placed in his hand the pa-
pers properly  executed, and in his own handwriting.
 On inquiry, it appeared that Mr. Z----, half an hour af-
ter he had retired to his room on the preceding evening,
had returned, dressed as usual, to  his mother's apart-
 ment, where he sat  down before  a  writing-table and 
        WITH  OUR  GENERAL EXPERIENCE.     195

completed  the  documents in question, Madam Z----
nothing doubting of his being awake at the time, though,
on subsequent reflection, she remembered to have ob-
served something fixed and strange about his eyes (they
were  open during his  sleepwaking), an appearance
which she had attributed to her son's fatigue and want
of sleep.
  On  another occasion, not  more than a few months
ago, Mr. Z---- formed  over-night an engagement to
cross  the  mountains with a party of friends, who were
to call for him early in the morning.  This arrangement
gave rise to the following curious circumstances, which
subsequently were made evident by collating the differ-
ent particulars  of the case.   It happened that, on the
same  night, when Mr. Z----was fast asleep in bed, a
party  of young men, strangers to him, stopped under
his window  accidentally, and, being not very  sober,
laughed and talked loudly for some time.  The  noise
influencing the sleepwaker, gave him the idea that his
friends were  come to call him.   Under this impression
he  arose, threw open his window, and addressed the
party in familiar terms.   The young men, being  in an
irritable and touchy state, replied to him in no agreeable
manner, until a quarrel arose between the  sleeping man
and the group below, who were in no better possession
of their senses than himself.   The tumult was only ap-
peased  by the  watchman dispersing the rioters, and
counselling the sleepwaker (not suspected to be such)
to return to bed.  The next day  Mr. Z----retained no
recollection whatever of the  events of the night, and
made, as agreed upon, the expedition with his friends.
On  his return, however,  to Neufchatel, two of the gay
party  who had been  under his window waited on him,
and, to his utter astonishment, begged him  to explain
why he had called to them, and, in a manner, insulted
them,  on such a night.  "How could I insult you, when
I neyer saw  you before ?" was  Mr. Z----'s exclama-
tion ;  and great was the  perplexity of both the parties,
until Mr, Z----, remembering his addiction to sleepwa-
king,  suggested an explanation,  which every circum-
stance tended to confirm.
  Mr. M----, also of Neufchatel, has a brother who is
subject to sleepwaking.   The following is an  amusing
specimen of his exploits in that way.  Mr. M----was
on a journey with him, and one night, when they occu- 
196        CONFORMITY OF  MESMERISM
pied the same apartment, the sleepwaker awoke the for-
mer by loud and earnest talking.  There was a light in
the room, and Mr. M----(as he told me) could see his
brother standing upright on the edge of his bed, occa-
sionally leaning forward and peering over (though his
eyes were shut) with the expression of a man who ear-
nestly gazes  after something.  " What is the matter
with you,  John ?"  asked Mr. M----.  " Oh," replied
John, " take care of your steps, for Heaven's sake !  Do
not you see that we are just on the brink of a horrible
precipice?" "Not  at all," rejoined Mr. M——-; "you
are under a delusion, and  I pray you to calm yourself."
" What I" said the sleepwaker, " you say there is no
precipice ?  I'll throw a great stone down to prove it to
you.  There!" he cried, snatching off his  nightcap and
flinging it on the floor, " there it goes! and what an aw-
ful depth the precipice must be, for the stone makes no
noise!"
   Such facts as the above will perhaps be  credited, just
because they are not headed " Mesmerism."  They are
at least sufficient to show that many of the features of
mesmeric sleepwaking have precedents which are to be
met with in acknowledged phenomena common to man.
These, however, rest rather on personal evidence  than
on personal experience.  The sleepwaker, when once
awake, does not remember the occurrences or the sen-
sations of his sleepwaking, and the spectator who bears
testimony to his actions  is a stranger to their inward
sources.
   I would, however, give mesmerism a stronger  hold
upon human conviction than would be supplied by any
external  proof.  I  would introduce it into the very bo-
som and private feelings of each individual, by showing
that parts of it, so far from being removed from our daily
life, are altogether  familiar to us, though under another
guise and bearing other names.
   I would prove this, 1st. As regards the production of
the mesmeric state.  2dly. As  regards the state itself.
   First, then, let us inquire, Are the means by which the
mesmeric slumber is produced in any way approximated
to our experience ?
   The subsidiary agents  which have been found most
efficacious  in aiding one person to influence another in
the manner called mesmeric, are the eye and the hand.
   Now I would ask, who is there that has not felt the 
        WITH OUR GENERAL EXPERIENCE.     197

influence of the human eye, that window of the soul?
What is there which, equally with itself, arrests atten-
tion, fascinates, fixes, calms, and  subdues ?  Anger is
quelled before its steady gaze; even madness becomes
docile beneath  its dominion.  The late Dr. Willis used
to say that by the eye chiefly he controlled his most re-
fractory patients.  Acting at once physically and mor-
ally, it seems to affect the nervous system in a real and
peculiar maimer; for brutes, which cannot be supposed
to be misled by imagination, are extremely sensible to
the influence of the human eye.   Nay, even to  certain
of the brute creation a remarkable power of eye seems
to belong.   To  say nothing of some doubtful  stories
respecting the fascination  which serpents exercise over
weaker creatures, 1 have seen a bird fluttering before a
cat as if held and bound  by her watchful gaze, and so
almost constrained to  offer itself a voluntary sacrifice
to its enemy.
   When we consider these things, we can scarcely mar-
vel that powers even  magical have  been attributed  by
ignorance and  superstition to  the wonderful organ  of
which we  are  speaking;  nor  that diseases, and even
death, should have been  supposed, in some  cases, to
have originated in the stroke of an evil eye.
   Now be  it remembered  that the doctrine  of mesmer-
ism  is, that the mesmerizer's force should become pre-
dominant over  that of his patient; and  mesmeric phe-
nomena do really show, as I have formerly demonstra-
ted,  that the mesmerizer's will sways the patient's voli-
tion in a very peculiar manner.  The relation between
the  mesmerizer and the patient is that  of activity to
passivity.  The one is to guide,  direct,  and influence,
the other is to receive and to be  influenced.  The first
process, then, of mesmerism may be called a strife be-
tween the two forces of mesmerizer and patient.   There
is a  will to be  subdued and a body to be brought into
subjection, yet this is  to be accomplished in  all the
tranquillity of a religious silence.   What instrument is
adequate to such an effect ?   Surely we should  at once
name the eye as the great  agent in this strife.  By a
sort of  natural instinct, we do use  it  where we wish to
prevail.  The meanest, striving with another, will call
the  first blenching of  his  adversary's  gaze  victory.
Men of energetic characters and  calculated for domin-
ion  have always been remarkable for the  potency  of
                         R2 
198        CONFORMITY OF  MESMERISM
their glances,  and have been celebrated as not only
" lords of the  lion port," but also of " the eagle eye."
Few could endure the searching gaze of Napoleon. The
rulers of the domain of intellect have been as famous as
the kings of the earth for a keen regard.  The glance
of Dr. Johnson from under shaggy brows availed no less
than the eloquence of the sage's tongue.   I remember
that Dr. Parr,  who was  a sort of Johnson in his way,
was very proud of his own visual prowess, and I once
heard him boast that his eye had saved the nation.
  Pitt, he declared, was about to bring forward some
disastrous measure, when he, having  previous knowl-
edge of the statesman's evil intentions, repaired to the
House of Commons.  "I fixed, sir," said he, "my eye
upon Pitt.  I  gave him one of my looks (everybody
knows my looks), and he could not utter  a word, sir.
He rose, stammered, and sat down again, and  there  I
kept him off his  legs till Fox had taken possession of
the ear of the house ; and so the measure, when brought
forward, was nugatory.   Yes, yes, I think I may say
that my eye saved the nation."
  In fact, we  perceive that  Dr. Parr mesmerized Pitt.
But, jesting apart, I need only refer to my reader's own
feelings for a testimony to the all but  miraculous pow-
ers of the human eye.  It seems to be life and will made
Visible; and, when life is fled, we may exclaim with the
poet,

        " Oh, o'er the eye Death most exerts his might.
         And hurls the spirit from her throne of light."

If the  eye be  powerful to influence and to subdue,  the
human hand is not less remarkable for its soothing prop-
erties.  WTe naturally apply our hands to any part of
our bodies in which we feel pain, and how often are we
sensible of mitigation in our sufferings!  The mother
sooths her child to sleep by the application of her hand,
and calms it into patience, when it has received an in-
jury, by her gentle touches.   A lady, on whose word I
can rely, told me that, during a heavy malady, she could
gain no sleep except when holding her husband's hand,
and that the moment he withdrew it, however gently,
she awoke.  Similar phenomena, if oftener attended to,
might  doubtless press upon our remembrance, and justi-
fy mesmerism  by the analogies of common life.  Touch-
ing for the toothache is a sort of charm that is often re- 
WITH OUR GENERAL EXPERIENCE.     199
 sorted to by the vulgar with success ; and in Constan-
 tinople, I have been informed, there are men who actu-
 tually make  it their business to cure toothache in this
 manner.  Once it was supposed that  a certain insect,
 being crushed and held to a painful tooth, acted as  an
 anodyne, and learned  papers were accordingly written
 on the virtues of this particular remedy.  Unfortunately,
 however, it was soon  discovered that  the finger which
 applied the insect was the real depository of the sooth-
 ing virtue, for the desired effect took place just as well
 without the insect as with it.
   A travelled friend of mine tells me that he has seen a
 sort of mesmerism  exercised by the  dancing dervises
 of the East upon each other.   After whirling round in
 their mystic and  exciting  dance, they are  apt to  fall
 upon the ground in strong convulsions.  On such occa-
 sions one of the calmer brethren comes up to the  ex-
 static patient, and by gentle touches of the hand invaria-
 bly succeeds in soothing him to repose.
   That the hand should be an agent in dispensing  the
 human or the mesmeric influence can hardly seem won-
 derful to those who consider  how  much  the hand is
 identified with, and distinctive of, man.  Considering
 the perfection of its form  and the discriminative delica-
 cy of its touch, we can almost pardon those who have
 gone so far as to  affirm that the  hand alone is the effi-
 cient cause of our supremacy over the brute  creation.
 The tactile nerves, with which  it is so abundantly sup-
 plied, seem peculiarly  to adapt it to the task of trans-
 mitting  an influence, which, in some mysterious way,
 yet manifestly, seems to be connected with the nervous
 and  vital  forces.   In some old systems of physiology
 each  part of the  body had its separate  spirits : there
 were the spirits of the  knees, the spirits of the feet, &c.
 Could we adopt so fanciful a notion, we should say that
 the spirits of the  hand are  particularly potent.   After
the eye, the fingers seem to enjoy a  fuller share of the
sentient and  motory power than  any other part of the
body.  Seldom are they at rest, seldom are their func-
tions  suspended.   The marvels of the  painters', sculp-
tors', musicians' skill depend upon their agency.  Apart
from  their recording powers, the  headwork of the poet
and philosopher would  be vain: to them belong all the
triumphs of architecture, all the splendid results of in-
dustry ;  in fine, all the success of all the ingenuity of 
200    CONFORMITY  OF MESMERISM, ETC.

man.  Their  free and  constant  exercise seems more
than anything to betoken life : the baby's clutched hand
is a type of its unfolded being.   The purposeless action
of the same organ is a  presage of death:  " After I saw
him fumble with the sheets,"  says Hostess  Quickly,
"and  play with flowers, and  smile  upon his fingers'
ends, I knew  there was but one way."
  Shall  the general  feeling of  mankind be in vain ap-
pealed  to ?  If  that  be true which Shakspeare has af-
firmed, " One touch of nature makes the whole world
kin," the influence of the human hand  must be  univer-
sally acknowledged.  It has a language of its own; it
can appeal from man to man;  it can bless and it can
curse:  the most ancient belief connects it with authori-
ty and power.  The  holding up of Moses's hands gave
victory to the Israelites.  " And  it came to pass, when
Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed;  and when
he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed."*
  Gifts of healing, not less than of power, belong to the
hand by prescriptive  right.   If the potency of the royal
touch in curing the king's evil be but a superstition, let
us remember that it  took its origin from a holy source :
Christ and his disciples laid their hands upon the sick,
and they were healed.  The miracles of our Lord were
remarkably accompanied by actions of  the hand,t as if
they were in  some manner connected with that external
means.   In restoring sight and hearing, he touched the
ears and eyes  of the afflicted  persons.  Even the im-
parting of the gift of the Holy Spirit followed the impo-
sition of hands ; and this external ensign of a spiritual
agency  is still  retained in our Church.  Who that has
undergone or witnessed the beautiful rite of confirma-
tion but has felt its power ?
  The eye and the  hand, then, appear  to be fitting in-
struments  in transmitting  a  potential  and remedial
agency.
  If we seek for such a general  instance of the influ-
ence of one human being on another as may seem like
that mutual loss, and gain, and interchange of vital force
which is the principal  wonder in mesmerism, we have
only to look at the effects produced when young persons
sleep with old.  Since the  days of King David,| it has

  * Exod., xvii., 11.
  t See Matt.,  viii., 15.  Mark, vii., 33, and viii., 25.
  i 1 Kings, ch. i. 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.        201
been known that the latter are strengthened at the  ex-
pense of the former.  Some painful instances of this
have fallen under my own observation :  one, in which
the future well-being of a person very dear to me was
compromised; and 1 was acquainted with an  infirm old
lady, who  was  so aware  of the benefit  she derived
from sleeping with young persons, that, with a sort of
horrid vampirism, she always obliged her maid to  share
her bed, thus successively destroying the  health of sev-
eral attendants.*
  Even among animals it has been found that  the young
cannot be too closely associated with the old without
suffering detriment.  Young horses, standing in a stable
beside old ones, become less healthy.
                   SECTION II.

           ON THE MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.

  I now proceed to assimilate the state of mesmeric
sleepwaking itself to our intimate personal convictions,
striving to demonstrate that all its phases and phenome-
na are only intense degrees of  known and even ordi-
nary conditions  of man.  I would render  it not only
comprehensible,  but familiar; not understood merely,
but also felt.
  I have elsewhere remarked that there are, in the mes-
meric state, peculiarities of consciousness,  of which  I
postponed the consideration until I could adduce them
as explanatory of mesmeric sleepwaking.  To this por-
tion of my subject I now turn my attention.   But, before
proceeding to  demonstrate  that the peculiar conditions
of mesmeric consciousness arise from  novelty of com-
bination, not of  principle, it is absolutely essential that
I should fix in what sense 1 use the word consciousness :
a precaution the more necessary on account of the dif-
ferent significations which have been attached to it by
various metaphysicians ; some making it a distinct fac-
ulty of  the soul, others  a necessary accompaniment of
  * The celebrated German physiologist, Hufeland, has remarked
the longevity of schoolmasters, and attributes  it  to their living so
constantly amid the healthy emanations of young  persons. 
202        MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
every mental operation, and in no way to be distinguish-
ed from the operation itself.
  Examining, however, whence springs this diversity of
notion respecting consciousness, we find  that all  the
confusion has arisen  from this: Consciousness is sus-
ceptible of various developments, which have never been
properly distinguished into  their several grades; one
person applying the generic term in question to one only
of its specific degrees, another equally restricting it to
a different class of its operations.  Dr. Thomas Brown,
indeed, has some admirable remarks upon the subject,
and has well distinguished between the simple conscious-
ness  of  the  moment and remembered consciousness.
But he has omitted to observe  that there is again  a  dif-
ference between these two actions of consciousness and
a third : namely, reflective consciousness, or internal ob-
servation.  It  is true that he  once  casually observes,
" consciousness is only another name for internal obser-
vation ;" but herein I conceive  him  to speak with less
than his usual accuracy ;  for consciousness is not anoth-
er name for internal observation, but internal observation
is one of  the operations of consciousness, which, as not
identical with its parent, should not  be involved with it
in one common definition.  Simply to feel, or simply to
pass again through a succession of former feelings with
a sense of their relation  to one personal identity,  is not
the same as to be  self-regardant and watchful of  our
own sensations as they  arise.   Under the last circum-
stances the mind is  manifestly in another state and tone
of feeling.  Besides,  nothing can be clearer than that
the mind may  act without internal  observation,  while
without simple consciousness it cannot act;  since, as Dr.
Brown himself logically  observes, " The consciousness
which we have of our own transient thoughts or sensa-
tions is nothing more than the  thoughts or sensations
themselves, which could not be thoughts or sensations
if they were not felt."   But  Dr. Brown  errs as much,
perhaps, from simplicity, as others from multiplicity of
system.   Nothing, indeed, can be more admirable than
his views of the mind ; not as a bundle of faculties, but
as a unity, capable of passing into various consecutive
states.  But, had not this great philosopher been as anx-
ious to reduce  all mental phenomena whatever to sug-
gestion, as Locke was to compress the world of intellect
into the two faculties of sensation and reflection, I think 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.         203
he would have admitted distinctions which his theory
caused  him to overlook.  Nature,  however, will not
thus be restricted.   She is simple,  but her effects are
manifold ; and the very necessities of our language de-
mand as distinctive a reference to her various operations
as if the differences were actual, and of kind instead of
degree.  Goethe, in his Morphology of Plants, has beau-
tifully shown  that all their various parts are but devel-
opments of one original principle; yet what confusion
in botany would arise were some naturalists to apply the
generic word plant  to the leaves, others to the blossoms,
of a vegetable !  Yet an absurdity as  great as this is com-
mitted when we apply the generic term consciousness
indiscriminately to all the different  manifestations, de-
grees, and varieties of that action of intelligence.  The
safer plan is to mark difference where difference can be
discerned, and to give distinct names  to distinct develop-
ments,  whether of matter or of mind.  In doing this,
however, we  have  to guard against  unnecessary multi-
plication, and we should never omit  to trace the  original
source  amid  the mazes of its various channels.  Sim-
plicity of principle, variety of development, these are
the points to be  kept in  view.   Thus, while we admit
sensation, perception, attention,  reflection, to be excel-
lent terms to  express certain acts of the mind, we must
not forget that these so called faculties are but different
forms and  manifestations  of consciousness.   A little
consideration will show that they are truly so.
   A sensation of which the mind is  not conscious is no
sensation at all;  neither can we feel without perceiving,
nor perceive without,  in some degree, attending to that
which we perceive.  When we say  that we attend to a
thing, which  before we barely perceived, it is not that
consciousness, perception, and attention are going on
together, but  that consciousness has advanced  through
the stage of perception into  that of  attention, attention
only expressing a higher degree of consciousness, while
reflection, again, indicates a different operation of the
same.  This last is attention directed towards ourselves,
instead of external things; but the  principle is  unchan-
ged.   A reflection  is just as much the consciousness of
the moment as is a simple sensation.
   If  it be asked, then, in what sense I use the term
consciousness, I answer,  as a  general  expression  for
every act and state of the mind.   I do not say with Reid 
204        MESMERIC  CONSCIOUSNESS.
that it is " an operation of the understanding" (though 1
do grant him that it cannot be "logically defined;" for
how can we define existence ?), but I affirm that it is the
operation, not  of the  understanding  only,  but  of  the
whole man.   To explain myself  still farther, I conceive
that consciousness  stands  in the same relation to  the
mind that physical force does to the body.  As the least
of our motions implies a degree of the latter, so does
the most trifling mental change infer a degree of the for-
mer.  Let it be remembered, however, that conscious-
ness, like physical force, has no real existence out of the
subject  that  manifests it.  Nevertheless, for purposes of
analysis, we must not only speak  of  it separately,  but
distinguish its various  intensity of action.  In order to
do this, yet  as much as possible preserve an unbroken
unity, I conceive that the best nomenclature for the va-
rieties of consciousness would be one that should ever
recall the primary quality, yet distinguish, by means of
epithets, its  various manifestations.  Omitting  its  mi-
nor developments, I propose, therefore, to classify  thus
the operations of the agency in question :
  Simple  consciousness, that is to say, the  mind's ac-
tion in those absent  and  dreamy  moods  when much
thought is accompanied by no  reflection,  and  is  suc-
ceeded  by no memory of the subjects of its  meditation.
  Retrospective consciousness, the mind's action when
it passes through a series of former thoughts and sensa-
tions, without making them objects of scrutiny.
  Introspective consciousness, the  mind's action when
self-regardant.   It is distinguished  from  mere memory
in two marked particulars.  It immediately succeeds
the thought, on which it casts a  reflective glance, and it
has  ourselves  for  its  object.  It is  a state in which
thought, and observation of thought, succeed each other
so  rapidly, and with such even  alternation, as to seem
identical.
   But the end which  I have in view compels me  still
farther to observe that the mind has  a physical  as well
as  intellectual sensibility, and takes  cognizance of the
motions and sensual conditions  of the body to which it
is attached.  Its observation of these seems to consti-
tute a consciousness apart.  The  proof may be drawn
 from our simplest actions.  When walking and think-
 ing on various subjects, we never cease for a moment
 to direct  our limbs properly, yet never once interrupt 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.        205
our train of thought, unless some unusual circumstance
should call upon us for an unusual attention to our man-
ner of progressing.   Now  allowing, as axiomatic, that
bodily motions (the vital and involuntary of course ex-
cepted) spring from the mind, and that, cause ceasing,
effect also ceases, we  must perceive that  to  every act
of the body an act of the  mind is  requisite.  Of how
many  acts of the mind, then, is  walking composed!
consequently, of how many simple consciousnesses !
But other consciousnesses  have been shown  progress-
ing identically with these.  While occupied in walking,
we preserved a chain of intellectual thought as consist-
ent and as unbroken as  the physical one whereby our
external actions were directed.
  This is  a phenomenon of our nature, in the considera-
tion of which we may indeed cast out
           " Philosophy's deep sea-line, but to find
            Truth's ocean fathomeless."

But, while we confess it to be a mystery, we should also
value it as a blessing; for, were we forced ever to attend
to those  motions which may now be called automatic,
we should scarcely have leisure for any other mental
process.   If the mind that now guides the pen where-
with these lines are traced were occupied in the mere act
of writing, what would become of  the thoughts which
it desires  to record and to transmit to others ?
  That the physical consciousness is capable, like the
intellectual, of a triple development, is also manifest.
  It has its simple action ;  as  when each motion of our
bodies is  carelessly performed, and cannot be remem-
bered so as to be exactly repeated.
  It has its retrospective action; as when we remember
and repeat, yet do not observe our  motion (in the case
of playing an air from memory, for example, while we
are thinking of  something else). And,
  It has its introspective action; as when we attend to
our footsteps in descending, with  precaution, a snow-
covered and slippery hill.
  It would be easy to show the various states produced
by the mixture of these elements in various proportions,
tracing the degrees from the constant self-scrutiny, both
mental and physical, that some persons carry  on in so-
ciety, when they observe their every least word, fearful
to utter aught  amiss, and their own least gesture, lest 
206        MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
they should commit  an awkwardness, to the unmixed
and  simple  consciousness of revery.   But this would
lead me  too far from my present purpose.   The two
states above mentioned may be taken  as  the extreme
points  of consciousness, while  its medium condition
may be found in our  usual and habitual  modes of con-
duct, when we  are sufficiently attentive  to our motions
not to knock  our heads  against  a wall, and  to  our
thoughts as to  be sure we are thinking.
  Regarding these states according to  their value, we
find that in none of them would man ever be capable of
much intellectual exertion.  In the first, the attention is
too generally diffused, in its opposite too restricted, in
the medium too alternating.  Would we find man's dis-
tinguishing stamp of  mental superiority,  we must seek
it in a fourth state, namely, that of abstraction, in which
the pure intellectuality reigns nearly alone, and  almost
free from any disturbance of the introspective conscious-
ness, which, being of itself an act, annihilates, pro tem-
pore, all other  acts.   Were we  perpetually to exercise
the reflex  act  of the  mind, and  to pause  upon  our
thoughts with self-observation, our train of ideas would
halt, and fall to pieces for want of connexion.
  But this is not all.  Any admixture of the introspect-
ive consciousness detracts from the perfection of once-
acquired and habitual motions, as much as it spoils the
freedom  and bold expansion of our thoughts.  Of this
we may soon  convince ourselves.  Though generally
insensible to the act  of breathing, we may, by attention,
become aware of the process.  What follows?   An im-
mediate sense  of uneasiness, and an interruption of that
regular motion which seems to go  on so well by itself.
Again, that winking  of the  eye, whereby the organ is
healthily preserved,  becomes  a torment  if we think
about it.   If these instances be objected to by persons
who would confound the above motions with such as
are vital  and involuntary, I may appeal to a known phe-
nomenon which regards the voluntary motion of our fin-
gers.   Every musician  must have felt that, when he has
learned to play a piece of music by heart, if he <Aira£s>upou
the direction of his fingers he is  apt to play false.   Let
him trust to the simply memorial consciousness of  his
physical being, and he does not err.  I have even known
persons successfully  consult this memory of the fingers
(as it may be called) when they have in vain questioned 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.        207
     their intellectual memory.  I remember a lady trying
     to  recall an air which  once she could execute on the
     piano ;  and she could not do this until she  had (as  she
     expressed it) "ceased thinking about it, and let her fin-
     gers go of themselves."  Again : the operations of mem-
     ory are impeded  by the introspective consciousness.
     As Darwin, in his  Zoonomia, observes, " We frequently
     experience, when  we are doubtful about the spelling of
     a word, that the greater voluntary exertion we use—that
     is, the more intensely we think about it—the farther we are
     from regaining the lost association, which readily recurs
     when we have become careless about it."
      Introspective consciousness, then, appears equally to
     mar our liberty and our memory both of thought and of
     motion; and, consequently, it should seem  that, in pro-
     portion as we  can be  exempted from  its interference,
     we must attain a higher state of intellect and of corpo-
     real activity.
       This we  may surmise, but proof is not wanting to
     confirm  it to us.  The  state of the  philosopher  who
     solved  the problem of  the  universe was  avowedly a
>     state of abstraction  and of self-forgetfulness;  and it is
     equally well known  that natural sleepwakers, who  can
     never be supposed capable of self-scrutiny,  will achieve
     feats which would be the horror of their waking mo-
     ments.   They will stand, self-balanced, on the ridge of
     a house, where, under the usual conditions of conscious-
     ness, they could not preserve their  equilibrium for a
     single moment; they will cross  a roaring torrent on a
     single plank ;  but, if suddenly awakened to a contempla-
     tion of themselves or their situation, they will lose their
     footing, or perhaps die  of alarm.  Are these  examples
     too far  removed  from  general experience ?   We will
     then  bring the matter at once home  to every one's per-
     sonal feelings.  What is it that  accompanies  and adds
     to  the  awkwardness caused by timidity?   An  over-
     watchfulness, a care that mars  itself; in fine, the  too
     predominant presence of the introspective consciousness.
     The shy scarcely ever forget themselves, as it is called ;
     make them do so, and their deportment is  at  once im-
     proved.
       Consciousness having now been defined,  and its prin-
     cipal varieties of  action noted, it will be instructive to
     observe how far it is peculiarly  modified in  mesmeric
     sleepwaking, and  how far it is acting in harmony with 
208        MESMERIC  CONSCIOUSNESS.
known and established laws.   On examination, I ima-
gine it will appear that mesmerism is not that violation
of nature's order which it has by some been deemed to
be, but that, on the contrary, the changes which it pro-
duces in our being are in strict accordance with well-
known principles, which are of the commonest applica-
tion, and which may be easily tested in ourselves.
  First, then, we have gathered, from the observations
which  have lately been brought forward, that in pro-
portion  as introspective consciousness is annulled, the
powers of thought and of motion are developed.
  Now that the mesmeric state, compared by some to
that of sleep, by others to that of delirium, can be a
state of self-watchfulness, no one will, I think, maintain.
It is what is vulgarly called a state of complete uncon-
sciousness.  In corroboration of this it may be observed,
that mesmerized persons speak with a freedom, instances
of which being related to them in their waking condition,
cause them surprise and even vexation.   Anna M----,
in  sleepwaking, once lectured me on burdening myself
with so many effects in travelling, and yet, in her nat-
ural state, almost wept to think she  had  been guilty of     t
so much rudeness.  It was plain that, when awake, she
was able to  reflect upon her own conduct in  a manner
which she could not while sleeping mesmerically.
  Again:  sleepwakers seem wholly unable to scrutinize
their own sensations, and, if questioned concerning them,
will (as I have in other places remarked) give confused
and  even irrational replies.  Moreover, if asked to be
self-observant  when performing anything, their actions
come to a stand still, and the very  efforts which they
make at reflection prove their inability to exercise that
faculty.
  Introspective consciousness, then, may be pronounced
to  be absent in the mesmeric slumber; and, consequent
upon that absence, we find—exactly as  in the normal
condition of man—an improvement both of thought  and
motiou  in the mesmeric sleepwaker.   Proofs of this
will be found in former pages of this work.   Not only
have mesmerized persons been shown to reason with a
perspicuity of which they were incapable at other times,
but to  display a grace and freedom of gesture  wholly
different  from the constraint  of their habitual deport-
ment.
  Thus the perfection of motion and superior coherence 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.        209
of thought which mesmeric sleepwakers display, in con-
nexion with the absence of introspective consciousness,
is  but a higher grade of a known condition;  the exten-
sion, and not the alteration, of a  principle.
  The second law of our normal condition with which
I would show the mesmeric state to coincide is that, in
proportion as the intellectual consciousness is heighten-
ed  in its  character and  spirituality, the physical con-
sciousness is deadened and depressed.
  The accuracy of this position may be tested by every
one under the most common circumstances of life.   In
states of even trifling abstraction we become insensible
to slight bodily discomforts; and, while meditating in-
wardly on themes  that  are interesting to us, we fre-
quently maintain one position until our nerves are com-
pressed and our circulation hindered to a degree sufficient
to compel us back to our physical sensations.   Again :
when we  are suffering from slight headache, or other
temporary derangements  of the system, should any sub-
ject strongly rivet our attention, we become, by degrees,
less and less sensible of the inconvenience, and at length
(as it is phrased) forget our pains.  The principle runs
through all mankind, from infancy to age.  A child falls,
receives a hurt,  and begins to cry.  Speak to it, arouse
its  mental  activity, and its tears cease  long before the
mere mechanical injury that set  them flowing has been
done away.  Pursuing the same law to its higher in-
stances of application, we arrive  at the holy abstraction
of religious men and the  elevated faith of martyrs, who
have smiled on bodily anguish to the last, not only tri-
umphing over, but becoming insensible to  agony, while
their songs of praise and joy ascended to heaven from
the torturing wheel or the consuming flame.
  But this  entire spiritualizing of humanity is  of rare
occurrence,  and, should we desire  to  behold  the more
striking conquest of mind  over  matter, it is plain that
we must seek them  in some other than our normal con-
dition ; amid our loftiest abstractions, as we are at pres-
ent constituted, the body drags us down to earth.  Those
busy inlets of conscious sensation, which yield us so
many pleasures and so many pains, are continually mar-
ring the higher processes of our intellect by their ex- 
210        MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
quisite capacity to receive  impressions.  A Newton's
chain of thought may be forever broken by the buzzing
of an unlucky fly; and links so subtle, when once sev-
ered,  how difficult are they to be again united!   The
power of total abstraction were, to great minds, power
indeed!  In sleep, it is  true, our senses are under a
strict wardenship, but then reason is also fettered.  Yet
even  from sleep we  may gather how much  stronger is
the force of mind when no  longer dissipated by exter-
nal things.   Every one who has dreamed of sorrow and
alarm will confess with what unusual awfulness their
stern  images have  stood forth from amid the surround-
ing blankness  of slumber.   It is only in sleep that we
can become, as it were, one thought  of agony.   Our
impressions  are then violent, because they are unmiti-
gated. There is none of that counterpoise of the senses
which, under true  waking sorrow, we  acknowledge to
be so  merciful a part of our constitutions; for could we
live under the  pressure of some  afflictions did not ex-
ternal things sometimes take us off from ourselves ? Oc-
casionally, also, we enjoy in sleep happiness which ap-
pears to be more than earthly,
       " Dreams such as lull the hermit in his shades."
Yet, strong  as  are the bands which slumber can cast
around us, the senses are not always so entirely fetter-
ed but that their imperfect action shall dimly influence
the nature of our visions.   Moreover,  a mere touch, a
casual noise, may at any time disperse the most agree-
able pictures of sleep's shadowy creation, and recall us
at once to the world  and to the pressure of all its trifles,
         " Heavy as frost, and deep, almost, as life."
Where, then, shall we find an abstraction so profound,
yet so peculiar, as to bind the senses fast, yet leave the
intellect a wider scope, a vigour more effective?
  These conditions we find alone united in the mesmer-
ic slumber.  More perfect than any that opiates can pro-
duce, it is also so far beyond the reach of accidental dis-
persion that painful  surgical operations have been per-
formed during its continuance.  Yet, on the  other hand,
reason, which in the natural sleep is either quenched or
but feebly active, burns brighter in that which we are
now considering.
   That  mesmeric patients  speak always truth  is no
doubtful proof of this; they perceive all the irrationaUty 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.        211
of falsehood.  Be it observed, too, that the insensibility
of the body under mesmerism  bears  no resemblance
whatever to the deadness caused by narcotics, or any-
thing that affects the mere  mechanism of existence.
The mind of the mesmeric sleepwaker is not benumbed
together with the body, but it has retired into its inner
fastnesses, with all its susceptibilities and functions  un-
impaired.  It meditates, and is  absorbed, and gives to
the countenance (even should the physiognomy in gen-
eral be of no elevated east) a loftier  character and a
look  of  inward contemplation, which  has  frequently
struck even the most careless observer of the mesmeric
slumber.
  To the  state of abstraction, then, a state  so well
known in its inferior degrees to all persons, mesmeric
sleepwaking bears  no trifling analogy,  and  it exhibits
the two  phenomena of intellectual activity  and corpo-
real deadness, heightened, indeed, to an extraordinary
pitch, yet still preserving the same  coexistence which
they present in ordinary life.
  A third law of our being with  which mesmerism is in
perfect harmony is  the following:
  Consciousness, whether it relate to sensation or to
intellectual exertion, acts more  forcibly the  more it is
brought to bear upon a single point.
  Who has not felt that the senses, by their simultane-
ous  action, are  restrictions the one upon  the  other ?
How seldom can we  be wholly absorbed in the pleas-
ures of the eye 1  How seldom, when listening to sweet
sounds, can we become " all ear!"  There is almost al-
ways a something to  be deducted from our  feelings by
the interference of some other sense than that we desire
to exercise.   Were all our capacities of sensation con-
centrated upon  any one property of matter, we may
judge how much stronger would  be the force  of our per-
ceptions by observing that, where one sense is actually
wanting  (as in the blind or deaf, for instance), the viva-
city of impressions received through the other organs is
greatly increased.   WTe may remark, too, in ourselves,
that not only the  stillness of night, but its obscurity,
which concentrates our attention upon objects of hear-
ing, quickens the auditory powers in an extraordinary
degree.
  Again: as regards the exercise of our mental capaci-
ties, experience inculcates, as one of the precepts of 
212        MESMERIC  CONSCIOUSNESS.
wisdom, that if we  wish to do a thing perfectly, we
must do it singly; and, though stories have been told of
great, or would-be great men, who have played at chess
and dictated letters  to secretaries at  the same time, it
has not been said that the chess would not have been
better  played and  the letter better composed had  the
attention been directed solely either to one or the other.
Napoleon had an extraordinary power of  directing his
mind, when needful, to a multitude of simultaneous oc-
cupations ;  but,  when traeing the plan of a battle, he sat
alone in his tent, and watched while  others slept.   Be-
sides, correctly speaking, it is not pretended  that  the
mind  can do more than one thing at once; it merely
leaps  from one  object of attention to another with as-
tonishing swiftness and versatility, while  in that very
versatility  it loses force, and abjures that continuity
which is the element of greatness.
  When, then, we find that there is a remarkable single-
ness in  the consciousness  of mesmeric  sleepwakers,
and that whatever  they do absorbs them wholly, we
shall perhaps have less reason to be astonished  at  the
great eminence  to which their perceptive and reasoning
faculties attain.  Indeed, the concentration of the mind
in mesmerism is such as I should imagine to  be unat-
tainable under any other condition; all the bodily organs
being, as it were, annulled, there are none of those con-
flicting consciousnesses which in actual life destroy each
other, like  meeting waves in water.   Whatever source
of perception mesmerized persons possess, appears rath-
er to consist in  one sense than in  many;  in one sense
which  can become each of the others, so that he who
exercises it seems to become, by turns, a hearing, see-
ing, or feeling unity.
  It  occurs to  me here  to  make a remark connected
with this part of my  subject.
  Persons  in the  mesmeric state, however generally
sentient to  any injury inflicted on their mesmerizer, will,
if expressly employed by him in any absorbing effort,
appear  heedless of  those  experiments of pain which
may be  tried upon him.   This is but a natural result
of their  singleness of perception; and, moreover, it is
evident that all persons, even in the  normal state, will
be insensible to pain, if it bear an inferior proportion to
the degree of their mental abstraction.  Yet some per-
sons have triumphantly referred to this as a proof of the 
             MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.         213

 nullity of an experiment, which only failed because it
 was not tried under the proper and necessary conditions.
   On the whole, it appears that the increase of percep-
 tion and of mental power in mesmerized persons, found
 as it is in combination with a concentrated attention, is
 in exact accordance with the constitution of our intel-
 lectual and physical being.
   Yet more than this: the forgetfulness, in the waking
 state, of thoughts which occupied the mind during mes-
 meric  sleepwaking, is in harmony with other known
 phenomena of consciousness.
   It appears to be a law, that the less  of introspective
 consciousness has  been  present to a  state,  the  less
 memory is there of that state.
  This is evident; for when  we have been engaged in
 a revery, or a series of simple consciousnesses, which die
 as soon as born, " the perfume and suppliance of a min-
 ute," that we have been thinking is very sure, but of
 the subject matter of that thinking we retain no recol-
 lection.  Locke says, "  I coufess myself to have one of
 those dull souls, that  doth not pereeive itself always to
 contemplate ideas ;"  and the poet Cowper,  evidently
 copying from the illustrious metaphysician, before draw-
 ing an admirable picture of himself in a revery, con-
 fesses

        " Fearless, a mind  that does not always think."
 Every  one will  probably  be  ready to make a similar
 avowal;  but we must not forget that this state of appa-
 rent no-thought  is, in fact, only one of our modes of
 thinking.  Acknowledging that  we do not perceive our-
 selves  always to contemplate ideas, we  by no means
 affirm  that we have  not always ideas to contemplate
 (though,  indeed,  I believe Locke meant  his readers to
draw such a conclusion), and  the absence of the reflex
act of the mind, whereby we  are, as it were, present to
ourselves, cannot annihilate the simple unreflective ac-
tion of momentary consciousness.  Cowper, indeed, by
his description of the  objects  which he has seen in his
winter's  fire, during what he calls " a waking dream,"
 proves that in that  dream his mind, though  but idly
 busy, was still employed, nay, even somewhat  atten-
 tive to its own operations, for  he remembers vaguely
 the shadowy ideas that  floated  across his  fancy.  It is
 not every one, however, who can  have a poet's revery, 
214        MESMERIC  CONSCIOUSNESS.
or turn it to such good account as Cowper.  In general,
when we  have fallen into what some call "a brown
study," the fit is succeeded by a total forgetfulness of
the elements which composed it, and the friend  who
startles  us from our absent mood by tapping us on the
shoulder, and exclaiming, " a penny for your thoughts,"
can obtain no other answer than " I was thinking of no-
thing."  Still we retain a  confused notion that the ap-
parent blank was  really peopled by the ever-restless
mind; though, not having observed  our  thoughts, we
feel that we cannot remember them.   This is common
revery; but there  is a deeper degree of it than  this.
In some cases, as Darwin  has remarked, " it becomes a
formidable disease ;" and this advanced stage of a mood,
which is experienced in a less degree  by us all, is char-
acterized (according  to the  authority just quoted) by
" the total forgetfulness of what passes" during its  con-
tinuance, and "surprise on recovering" from it.
  Observe, too, how the loftier state  of abstraction in-
dicates the same proportion between the introspective
consciousness and memory.
  In abstraction, as I have already shown, there is but
a low degree of self-observation present;  for, from the
moment that we examine our springs of thought too cu-
riously,  they cease to play.  But it may farther be re-
marked  that, during abstraction, the retrospective  con-
sciousness  supplies the place of the  introspective, we
stopping from time to time to review  our thoughts, and
to fix  in our own memories that which originated from
our own minds. Only in  so far as we do this are the
workings of our intellect rendered permanent.  Should
any one suddenly interrupt our train of ideas in one of
our inattentive intervals, or before  the whole  series  is
connected  and complete, how often we (to use a com-
mon expression) " lose  the thread of our  thoughts,"
which by no effort of memory we can reeover.
  In abstracted study, also, it should be remembered
that we are often writing down the actual thoughts of
the moment, making our pen the engraver of our ideas,
and our paper the organ of our remembrance.  Thus is
preserved  much of our brain-work,  which otherwise
would have perished in the thinking.   This is more  than
conjecture; for often, after a few hours, we have so far
forgotten our compositions as to read them with what
is called " anew eye," and  to detect faults in them which 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.         215
 surprise ourselves, they having escaped our observation
 so long as our effervescing fancy predominated over our
 self-consciousness.  Dr. Johnson, it is well known, met
 with his own Rasselas many years after its publication,
 and read it, as he himself declares, with as strange a
 feeling as if it had been the work of another person.  In
 Lockhart's  life of Scott, a similar and more remarkable
 phenomenon is recorded.  The great novelist composed
 that grand story, the Bride of Lammermoor, while suf-
 fering from  excruciating spasmodic attacks which caused
 him to have recourse  to frequent doses of laudanum.
 He dictated nearly the whole work under these painful
 circumstances ; and it  is said that, " though he  often
 turned himself on his  pillow with a groan of torment,
 he usually continued the sentence in  the same breath.
 But, when dialogue of peculiar animation was in  prog-
 ress, spirit  seemed to triumph altogether over matter;
 he arose  from his  couch and walked  up and  down the
 room,  raising and lowering  his voice, and, as it were,
 acting the parts."
   But  what is most extraordinary is, that after the book
 was published, Scott assured James  Ballantyne  that,
 "when it was  first put into his hands in  a  complete
 shape, he did not recollect one single incident, charac-
 ter, or conversation that it contained !  ' For a long time,1
 he said,' I felt myself very uneasy in  the course of my
 reading, lest I should be startled by meeting something
 altogether glaring and fantastic'"  Ballantyne, by whom
 the anecdote was preserved, adds," I do not think I ever
 ventured to  lead to the discussion of this singular phe-
 nomenon  again ; but you may depend  on it  that what I
 have now said is as distinctly reported as if it had been
 taken down  in short-hand at the moment;  I should not
 otherwise have ventured to allude to the matter at all.
1 believe you will agree with  me in thinking that the
history of the human mind contains nothing more won-
derful."
  A similar  instance (though on a small scale) of the
mind's forgetfulness of its own previous operations fell
 under my own cognizance.
  Some years  ago, I met once  in society poor  Mrs.
 Maclean, then the admired L. E. L.  A song was sung,
 the words of which struck me as very beautiful, and the
young  poetess seemed to be of the same opinion, for she
 expressed her admiration of them warmly, asking at the 
216        MESMERIC  CONSCIOUSNESS.
 same time who wrote them.  The gentleman who had
 sung the song laughed and said, " Surely you remem-
 ber your own poetry!"   It was a long time, however,
 before the authoress could be made to recall when  or
 where she wrote the words ; which, however, at last
 she recognised as one of those improvisations which she
 was accustomed to write down, give away, and never
 think of again.
  That we occasionally remember the dreams that we
 have had in sleep may be urged as contradictory of the
 theory I am  advocating ;  for can  dreaming, it may  be
 asked,  in any way be called a state of introspective con-
 sciousness ?  I reply, certainly it  can and  must.  No-
 thing is more evident than that, in dreaming, the mind
 watches its own fantastic train of thought, since what is
 the imagery of our dreams but its  own creation, and
who is the spectator of that imagery but itself ?  There
is in the phenomenon of dreaming  an especial duality  of
action, only to be explained (unless, indeed, we admit
with some wild  author, whose name I forget, that all
 our dreams are the work of spirits) by that reflex act  of
the mind which is so swift in its operation as virtually
to double our existence.  Moreover, it is to be remark-
 ed that natural sleepwaking, a state very different from
that of common  sleep, is almost always succeeded by
complete  forgetfulness.   The exceptions occur when
the patient's visions more resemble  those  of ordinary
dreaming, and when the mind has been manifestly more
employed about its own creations than about those real
external objects which often seem to influence the sleep-
waker, though in a wild and unconnected way.
  We may then dismiss, as uncorroborated by any fact
whatever, the notion that we can remember any past
series of thoughts to which introspective consciousness
has been altogether wanting; consequently, that mes-
meric patients should forget all that occupied them du-
ring their sleepwaking is no miracle, but an absolute  il-
 lustration of nature's laws.
  But  still farther,  if we choose  to  acquiesce in the
 structure of our own being, and to examine laws rather
 than frame them, we may perceive that the  sleepwaker
 must naturally resume his mesmeric recollections when
 he returns to  the mesmeric state;  for is it not a princi-
 ple that a former series of thoughts should recur to us then,
 and then  only, when we are under conditions  of conscious-
 ness similar to those in which they were conceived ? 
MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.         217
  Let any one reflect how he sets to work when, hav-
ing what is called lost the thread of his ideas, he would
take it up again at the  point where it was dissevered.
Does he  not endeavour  to place himself-in the  same
state and frame of mind, in fact, to regain the same con-
ditions of consciousness in which he was when conceiv-
ing the  lost idea ?  Most certainly.  And  what is also
to be remarked is, that a restoration of even the  same
conditions of physical consciousness  under which our
intellectual trains of thought were engendered, greatly
promotes  our recollection of the  latter.   Not only a
particular position of mind, but a particular posture of
body, aids us to regain  a frame  of feeling to which it
has become  associated.   When we throw  ourselves on
our knees, our prayer of childhood seems to  recur of
itself.  There are some even who can only pursue their
trains of thought while engaged in some exertion of the
physical  consciousness which  has become familiar to
them.  The  following anecdote from the  memoirs of
Sir Walter Scott will illustrate this truth.   It is record-
ed in a memorandum of his own.  He says, " There
was a boy in my class at school who  stood always at
the top, nor could I, with all my efforts, supplant  him.
Day came after day, and still he kept his place, do what
I would ; till at length I observed that when a question
was asked him, he always fumbled with his fingers at a
particular button in the  lower part of his waistcoat.
To remove it, therefore, became expedient  in my eyes;
and, in an evil moment, it was removed with a knife.
Great was my anxiety to know the success of  my
measure, and it succeeded too well.   When the boy
was again questioned, his fingers sought again for the
button, but it was not to  be found.  In  his distress, he
looked down for it; it was to be seen no more than to
be felt.   He stood  confounded, and I took possession
of his place."
  Again,  we may observe, that that action of the physi-
cal consciousness which relates to the operation of our
senses is  far more linked with memory than is the in-
tellectual  operation of consciousness.   That which we
have seen, heard, and felt, we remember far more strong-
ly than that which we have only thought.   The imme-
diate action  of the sensual consciousness is also pecu-
liarly renovative of that which is past.   The smell of a
flower which  we  knew in former days will recall a 
218        MESMERIC CONSCIOUSNESS.
thousand old forgotten feelings, and the tinkling of a
sheep-bell will bring before us the wild heath or the
grassy hillside  where  our childhood  sported.  Thus,
when the  poet invokes memory, he does not  summon
her to appear in the pomp of intellectual splendour, but
he says,

      " Come from the woods that belt the gray hillside,
       The seven elms, the poplars four,
       That stand beside my father's door,
       And chiefly from the brook that loves
       To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
       Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves."
                                         Tennvsow.
  Now let us consider that, to a mesmeric patient, the
ordinary sensual consciousness is closed ; that the mo-
tive of consciousness has  ceased to be introspective ; in
fine, that all the conditions of consciousness are unu-
sual.   Can  we, then, wonder, either  that  he cannot
grasp mesmeric memories  in his normal state, or that
he should return  to them with ease and perfection as
soon as the unwonted conditions of his mesmeric ex-
istence are restored ? To understand this perfectly, we
have only to extend the  principle whereby we lose or
recover any train of thought whatever.  Thus epileptics
have been known to finish, in a new paroxysm of their
complaint, a sentence begun in an attack which had oc-
curred days or weeks before ; and  every one  must  re-
member the quaint story of tbe old gentleman who, in
passing a particular bridge, answered a question that
had been put to him long ago  on the same  spot.  " Do
you like pease or beans best for dinner ?" his old domes-
tic had inquired, as he rode soberly behind his master.
There  was no reply ; but, just a year after, when master
and man were jogging on as  before, the former turned
slowly round and said, " Pease, John."
  Certain facts relative to the mesmeric state still far-
ther confirm our previous view of the question.  Some-
times,  when mesmeric sleepwaking  is not perfect, it
seems  to  alternate  with the natural state;  and the pa-
tient, occasionally waking, as it were, for  a  few mo-
ments, employs his ordinary senses in the ordinary way.
Now, by frequent  experience, I have  ascertained that
the remembrance which these patients retain of circum-
stances that occurred during their sleepwaking is in ex-
act proportion to the usual action of their senses; in 
MESMERIC  SENSATION.
219
other words, to their approximations to their ordinary
conditions of consciousness.
  The real waters of oblivion, the fabled Lethe, are only
to be found where consciousness flows on through chan-
nels that are altogether unwonted.
  Thus, then, if 1 have  shown, in a former book, that
mesmeric sleepwaking is a peculiar state, and therefore
worthy of  distinct  investigation,  I have now proved
that, though peculiar, it is in harmony with the general
laws of our mental constitution, and therefore proper
to be classed with other metaphysical phenomena inci-
dent to man.  I am, indeed, far from saying that it pre-
sents no extraordinary appearances ; but I must assert
that it  is by no means one  of those subjects  in which
we cannot  arrive  at  a comprehension of  things un-
known by that with which we are  already acquainted.
Every  common revery is a  sort of mesmeric slumber;
and an absent  man lives, as  it were,  in a  mesmeric
world.   In order  to have a perfect idea of mesmeric
sleepwaking, as far  as regards the patient merely and
his mental condition, we have  only to imagine a fusion
between the two known  states of revery and of abstrac-
tion ; for the mesmeric sleep approximates to the first
in its singleness of r«onsciousness,its deadness to exter-
nal  stimulants,  and its complete after-forgetfulness,
while  it resembles  the  latter in coherence  of thought
and intellectual development.
                  SECTION III.

              ON MESMERIC SENSATION.

  Hating  shown  that  the  metaphysical  condition of
mesmeric patients is in harmony with general laws and
with personal experience, it is now my intention to offer
some observations whereby the phenomena of  sensa-
tion in the mesmeric state may also be brought  nearer
to our convictions.
  In attempting this, I must necessarily sometimes aban-
don the region of purely personal experience.   The real
causes of even our ordinary sensation (though they may
be  made mathematically evident to reason) are them- 
220
MESMERIC SENSATION.
selves at variance with our common feelings, and are al-
together hidden from the perception of the vulgar.   Yet
to these real causes I must appeal in explanation of mes-
meric phenomena.  In order to reveal one and the  same
base for normal and for  mesmeric  sensation, I  must
pierce that which seems, and penetrate to that which is.
Yet will it, I trust, be found that, wherever the subject
permits, I retain that best mode of argument, the  argu-
mentum ad hominem.
  Already I have remarked that, sensation being really
seated in  the mind,  a change in its prerequisites can
never imply an abolition of itself.  But we may  affirm
more than this, and adduce facts which shall afford us
the strongest presumption that, in the  mesmeric state,
the prerequisites of  sensation, however changed, are
only  altered in conformity with established laws; in
fine, that the development of mesmeric  feeling is in per-
fect accordance with nature.  That it has not hitherto ap-
peared so seems to be rather the fault of its expositors
than the necessity of its own mode of action.  They
who would examine into the conditions of mesmeric per-
ception are in general so engrossed by  its more promi-
nent and superficial wonders, that they rest in  external
differences of  development instead of  going deeper to
discover internal identity of origin.  They look merely
to unusual effects, and do not consider that the causes of
these may be such as are actually familiar to us.
  The pervading peculiarity of mesmeric perception may
be thus briefly expressed :
  Inaction of the external apparatus of the senses, co-
existent with the life and activity of some inner source
of feeling.
  That such an  apparent anomaly is not so far removed
from the ordinary operations of our  being as on a cur-
sory view of things  we might suppose, I  trust in the
course of  the following reflections to demonstrate.
  Every fact adduced to prove the  reality of mesmeric
perception has been hitherto met with but one argument,
which your established formalist, your limiter of Provi-
dence and its resources, deems  unanswerable.  "Our
external organs  are the sole appointed means of sensa-
tion.  How  would you,  then, that we  should perceive
anything without their aid ?"
  That there is a flaw in this reasoning is not so difficult
to be discovered.   It is a mere begging  of the question, 
MESMERIC SENSATION.            221
 and proceeds altogether upon an assumption, the fallacy
 of which I will at least endeavour to expose.
  Many and striking are the circumstances which assure
 us that the nerves  are the  true media  of sensation to
 which the external organs  are  only  instrumental  and
 subsidiary.
  For, in  the first  place, from the anatomist we may
 learn that many apparently essential portions of the ex-
 ternal senses maybe removed, or may exist not, without
 any perceptible difference in sensation.  As regards the
 ear, we find that " the pinna is not indispensable to hear-
 ing ;  for both in men and animals it may be removed
 without any inconvenience beyond that  of a few days."
 Again :  " The membrane of  the tympanum may be torn,
 or even totally destroyed, without deranging the hearing
 in any  sensible degree;" and  " the loss of the  small
 bones in the tympanum, with the exception of the stapes,
 does not necessarily incur a loss of hearing."
  With respect to the sense of  smelling, it appears that
 " the  olfaetory apparatus is but  little developed at birth.
 The nasal cavities, the  different  convoluted  bodies,
 scarcely exist; the sinuses do  not exist at all,  and yet
 the faculty of smelling appears to exist."*  Nay, even
 parts  of a  mechanism  so wondrous as that of  the eye
 seem not to be essential to vision.
  " The contraction of the pupil, though it  assists our
 vision of  distant  objects, is not  absolutely necessary,
 since  Daviel has  shown that patients having the pupil
 immovable see well enough."   Also,  "Persons who
 have  had the lens removed  for cataract still see suffi-
 ciently well."t
  Considerable alterations,  then, may occur in the ex-
 ternal apparatus of the senses without sensation being
 impaired.   But is this indifference as to losses  in their
 structure shared  by the nerves?   Far from it.   The
 smallest abstraction, the slightest change, even, is  of
consequence here!  Whatever deranges the nerves man-
ifestly introduces a corresponding disturbance into our
 sensations, and, should any of them undergo a substan-
 tial change or be  entirely annulled, the  sensitive  func-
 tions  of the part to which they refer  cease altogether.
 Thus injuries to  the optic or acoustic  nerve will pro-
 duce  blindness or deafness respectively, though the ex-
 ternal mechanism of sight or hearing remain entire ; and,
        * Milligan's Magendie.               f Ibid,
                        T2 
222          MESMERIC SENSATION.

if the lingual nerve be cut, the tongue continues to move,
but has lost its sensibility to savours.  " These effects
may be produced at  pleasure upon animals by tying or
compressing the nerves.  When the ligature or pressure
is removed, the part then becomes sensible as before."
  Magendie also states that, where  there is faulty sen-
sation, it  generally originates in defects rather of the
nervous than of the organic structure.  This dependance
of the external senses upon  the nerves should diminish
our surprise at finding the former occasionally retreat
from offices which they only fulfil, as it were, by delega-
tion, while the true powers, as in mesmerism, come for-
ward to manifest their capacities, more palpably, indeed,
but not more essentially, than usual.
  Secondly.  The nerves  or portions of the brain with
which they are in immediate relation are capable of gra-
dations in their sensibility.
  The proofs of this lie before us  in  every direction.
Though the structure of the  external organs be alike in
all  (of course we except cases of  acknowledged mal-
formation), the capacities to  which they minister are, in
different individuals, infinitely varied.   Thus,  of two
persons whose auditory organs are equally perfect, one
shall have a far finer sense  of hearing than the other.
The one, perhaps, may mistake, as did a friend of mine,
the tuning of instruments before a concert for the over-
ture; the other shall  detect the slightest false  note
which may  occur in an otherwise well-executed piece
of music.  While some, again, possess by nature that
sense of colour which guided Rubens to all the harmo-
nies of vision, others, with no perceptible  defect in the
mechanism  of their  eyes, cannot distinguish between
the most opposite colours.  A man with this infirmity
has been known to order a pair of trousers of the most
flagrant red, supposing them all the  time  to be  modest
blue.   Others  are incapable of even  hearing  certain
sounds, for which
        "Nature, though giving two, gave them no ear."

I was acquainted  with  a gentleman  who was  com-
pletely insensible to the chirp of the cricket.  Walking
with him and with a large party one summer evening in
his  grounds, I observed  to him that the grasshoppers
were  more  numerous and more noisy just then than I
had ever heard them. They literally seemed to get the 
MESMERIC SENSATION.           223
better of our voices.   To my surprise, my friend refused
to believe that any grasshoppers were chirping, and was
only at length convinced of the fact by the united testi-
mony of all the persons present.  In order to ascertain
whether this  peculiarity of sensation  depended upon
any general defect  in the  organs  of hearing, I held a
watch at a considerable distance from  my friend's ear,
but he distinctly perceived it ticking.  Again, I placed
the watch at an equal distance from him  and from my-
self, at a point where the grasshopper concert complete-
ly prevented me from hearing it, yet to him it was as
audible  as  if perfect  stillness  had prevailed.  He was
also cognizant of words spoken in the  lowest whisper,
which  no other person but himself could  distinguish
amid the din of the insects.  What can be more evident
than that this  inability to distinguish a  particular sound
arose from a defective sensibility in the acoustic nerve,
which had  not the capacity of responding to aerial vi-
brations rapid as those by which a note so shrill as the
cricket's cry is produced ?
   Thus it appears that the nervous sensibility  of one
man varies as much  from that  of  another as the mes-
meric from the normal.
   This, again, should lessen our wonder when we be-
hold a state of nervous sensibility  which  surpasses our
conceptions even.   That we cannot judge of it no more
proves its non-existence than the  defective  hearing of
some persons annihilates certain  sounds.   When we,
being in one state, pronounce a verdict upon phenome-
na exhibited  by those who are in another, we act as
does the blind man who dictatorially gives  his opinion
respecting colours.
   Thirdly.  The nerves are subject to varieties of condi-
tion, not only in different individuals, but in  the same.
   That the nerves may vary in  their functions of trans-
mission is not only possible, but inevitable,  and conse.
quent upon the very constitution of man's nature.  Not
only does every disease which affects the nervous tissue
affect the phenomena of sensation, but the commonest
occurrences of our ordinary existence influence them
likewise.   Viewing  the nerves as  conductors,  along
whose sentient line  dart those  electric impulses which
convey to us information of the external world, we may
assert that they are seldom in the same conducting con-
dition.  In revery, how deadened  is their transmitting 
224          MESMERIC  SENSATION.
power! how enlivened under the excitement of hope or
fear, when we look or listen for the arrival of a friend
or of some messenger of evil!  How differently do they
act under the relaxation of fatigue or the tension of vig-
orous energy !   Sleep alters their capacities of conduc-
tion in a thousand varying degrees, exhibiting phenom-
ena only  less wonderful than those of mesmerism be-
cause more frequently repeated.
  In how extraordinary  a manner trifling causes  may
change  the nature of sensation, one  or two  incidents
which  have fallen under my own notice may demon-
strate.   A friend of mine,  when suffering from slight
derangement of stomach, is apt to see every object
double (smile not, reader, he is a water-drinker); and I
am myself occasionally subject to a singular  affection
of the optic nerve.  When fatigued by an effort of  con-
tinued attention where the light is too vivid (as in a the-
atre, for instance), I see every object diminished and re-
moved to  a distance, as if I looked on it through the re-
versed  end of a telescope.*
  At one period, for three months, during which my di-
gestion  was slightly out  of order,  I  was  entirely de-
prived both of taste and of smell.  All that I ate was  as
so  much earth, and 1 could not distinguish between a
cabbage and a cabbage-rose : again, a gentleman of my
acquaintance lost, and never afterward  recovered, his
smell, in  consequence  of a  fall from his horse, which
had no other perceptible result.
  Phenomena like these, not less than every-day events,
assure us that every separate state of man is a separate
and  peculiar condition of nerves, and that every pecu-
liar condition of nerves has its peculiarity of sensation.
When, then, we learn that mesmerism induces altera-
tion in our sensitive capacities, why should we be  as
full of wonder as if  nothing else could work  a change
in them ?  Were we wise, we should, from all we know
of the nerves, be prepared at least to anticipate new re-
sults from new conditions of man, and certainly to ex-
pect from  a state so singular as that of mesmeric sleep-
waking  some singular variety of nervous action.  That
the effects of the human influence on the nerves should

  *  Here it is evident that the weaker impression, caused by the ex-
hausted  and over-excited state of the nerve, produces the idea of
diminution and distance, just as we judge that a  feeble sound pro-
ceeds from afar. 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
225
be new to our experience, so far from being extraordi-
nary, is but in the common routine of things ; for the
state of  mesmerism itself is new to our experience.
Did  the nervous system present the same phenomena
under this peculiar phasis as under other circumstances,
then indeed would it violate the laws of nature  and fore-
go its own.
  The nerves, then, are capable of changes in their  con-
dition ; but change, it may be argued, is not improve-
ment, and the instances adduced  of nervous alteration
tend to show that their  power may be lessened rather
than increased, deranged rather than brilliantly exhib-
ited.  But mesmerism purports to be an expansion and
a gain  in nervous energy.   Let us then inquire whether
the same  force, which is susceptible of diminution or
disturbance, possesses also inherent capacities  of de-
velopment.  That  nerves are sensible  to  stimuli we
know.   When their power has been impaired, nay, to
all appearance perfectly lost, it may, by particular in-
fluences, be transiently restored to all its pristine  vig-
our.   That the  blind occasionally regain, beneath the
warmth of a summer's  noon, a power of vision which
declines with the sun and is again altogether lost at its
setting, is a fact which I need not insist upon  to phys-
iologists ; and a friend of mine has assured me that he
has frequently known the opium-eaters of the East, af-
ter they had become both blind and deaf from over-in-
dulgence in their favourite drug, regain both sight and
hearing while under the accustomed excitement.  Stim-
ulus, then, may  appear to work nervous miracles, and
this  plainly indicates a capacity in the nerves to rise as
well as sink, to gain force as well as to lose it.  But we
may go farther still.  The nervous power, under certain
circumstances, may not only be exhibited as recovering
the  energy it had lost, but as transcending itself, and
displaying a capacity of development, the  limits of
which have not been ascertained.  They who  have had
opportunities of studying disease in all its  forms will
corroborate me when I assert that, on a depression of
the  vital powers, an increase of the  sentient capacities
 is often consequent; and that persons under certain de-
 rangements of the  system have  manifested a nervous
 sensibility, than which  mesmerism can display nothing
 more astonishing.  The Chevalier Filippi of Milan, doc-
 tor  of medicine, and a  most  determined opponent to 
226
MESMERIC SENSATION.
mesmerism, has acknowledged to me that some of his
patients, more particularly women after their  confine-
ment,  when suffering from  nervous excitement,  have
distinguished the smallest objects in darkness which ap-
peared to him complete.  The same physician related
to me  the  following occurrence: Visiting a gentleman
who had an abscess, he found that the  patient  had not
many hours to live ;  this, however, he did  not tell him,
but answered his inquiries about himself as encoura-
gingly  as he could.  Taking his leave, he  shut the door
of the  sick chamber, and, passing through two other
rooms, the  doors  of which he also carefully shut, en-
tered an apartment where some  friends of the patient
were assembled.  To these  he  said, speaking  all the
time in that low and cautious tone which  every one, in
a house  where  illness  is, unconsciously adopts, " The
Signor Valdrighi"  (that was the name of the invalid) " is
much worse. He cannot possibly survive till morning."
Scarcely had he uttered these words when the patient's
bell was heard to ring violently, and, soon after, a ser-
vant summoned the doctor back again into his presence.
" Why did you deceive me ?" exclaimed the dying man;
" I heard every word you said just now in the farther
apartment."  Of this extraordinary assertion he imme-
diately gave proof by repeating to the astonished physi-
cian the exact expressions he had made use of.   Subse-
quently, upon Dr.  Filippi  testifying his surprise at this
occurrence  to the  servants of Signor Valdrighi,  they de-
clared  that  their master's hearing had become  so acute
since his illness, that he had frequently  told them  all
they had been talking of in the kitchen, which was even
more remote from the sick-room than the apartment be-
fore alluded to.*
  The  gnat-strainers and camel-swallowers may be con-
tent to accept this story, just because it only professes
to relate an instance  of exaltation in the usual senses;
but what does this convenient phrase, " exaltation of the
senses," mean ?  Is it not " words, words,  words ;" one
of those formulae which seem to account for everything,
while, in fact, explaining nothing ?  Considered as a not
very precise statement, it may pass ; but when persons
would palm it upon us as a solution, I would ask  them
whether " exaltation of the senses" (in the common ac-
* See Appendix. 
MESMERIC SENSATION.           227
ceptation of the term) be possible ?   There may be de-
velopment, or, if you will, exaltation in our sensitive
capacities, but how or where?  If  we  desire to  have
clear notions on this subject, we must perforce inquire
whether any increase of sentient power which may fall
under  our observation  be  in the  external  organs, or
whether it be derived from the nerves which are masked
by those organs.
  In what manner we should resolve this problem would
not be  doubtful, but for a certain confusion of idea, which
is extremely prevalent, respecting two portions of our
being,  between whose functions and qualities there can
be no  parallel.   Led by custom, and blinded by appa-
rent simultaneity of action, we associate the external
apparatus  and the internal sources of sensation in one
common term, the  senses, namely;  while, in  fact, not
only are they not the  same, but opposed  to each other
in every essential particular.
  While the action of the  exterior organs is always the
same under the  same circumstances, that of the nerves
is ever variable.  The powers of the one are limited
and known, that of  the  other has not been ascertained.
  Is it not evident, then, that the  mechanism of sensa-
tion is swayed and regulated by something which is not
mechanical ?
  Is it not plain that the external senses are but the let-
ters and ciphers  of the scale; fixed  marks, which, by
their unalterable character, point out how high may rise,
or how low may fall, the variable mercury of our inter-
nal sensibility ?
  These truths, it is to be hoped, are known to physiol-
ogists  at least; yet  how many of these speak and argue
as if they were entirely ignorant of them.
  When sensitive power is manifestly increased, where
then shall we look for an explanation : there, where all
is precise, limited,  ascertained; or  there, where  all is
free and boundless, where variety is infinite, and  capa-
city unknown?  Can we for a moment make it a  ques-
tion as to where the true power lies ?  Can we for a mo-
ment  ascribe it to the external organs, which, far from
being  capable of development, seem rather to be restric-
tions  upon internal sensibility by their  exact and cir-
 cumscribed action?
   Now let us once more refer to the examples of devel-
 oped  sensibility which prefaced  the above  remarks. 
228          MESMERIC  SENSATION.
 Certain invalids, it was affirmed upon indubitable testi-
 mony, had been known to distinguish the  smallest ob-
 jects in a room  whence light, according to ordinary
 vision, seemed perfectly excluded, or had heard articu-
 late sounds  athwart impediments  which, in ordinary
 cases, are sufficient to prevent all transmission of acous-
 tic impulses.   The usual organs of sense were not in
 any way mechanically assisted during the exhibition of
 the phenomena by external aids, such as those of opti-
 cal  glasses or acoustic  tubes; they were  dependant
 solely on their own resources.  Those resources, as we
 have just observed, are very strictly limited by mechan-
 ical and physical laws, which are incapable of  change.
 In the case of the eye, where  there is light, there will be
 a picture formed upon the retina with a clearness  and
 vivacity proportioned to the intensity of that light; or,
 supposing the phenomenon to regard the ear, wherever
 aerial vibrations  exist, they will strike the tympanum
 with a force that corresponds with the violence and ex-
 tent of the original impulse ;  but, in the instances cited
 of sensitive acuteness, the  effect is inverse to the known
 cause.  The patient sees  in a dark room where no pic-
 ture can be  supposed to  be  formed on  the retina, or
 hears in a situation where vibrations of the air, if even
 propagated so far, can with difficulty be conceived to af-
 fect any membrane, however elastic.   Under such  cir-
 cumstances, everything is plainly against an increase of
 sentient power : yet power is gained—how or whence ?
 Whatever may be thought of the.  credulity of a mes-
 merizer, I have not faith  enough to believe in  modern
 miracles, when they are so interpreted as to falsify me-
 chanic laws.   I will not, then, load the external organs
 with the onus  of impossible  causation;  but that  the
 nerves of sensation may, in particular states, vibrate to
 fainter impulses, or even other media* than those which
 more grossly move the mechanism of sense,  I may ad-
 mit to be  a  probable explanation of  events like  the
 above : at any rate, one truth  from the preceding obser-
vations is clear.  The extraordinary exaltation of  the
senses whereof we have been speaking was not in  the
organs (that is barred by an ex absurdo), but in the nerves
that ministerto the organs.
  Thus it appears that, in certain cases, the nerves may

     * See the ensuing remarks on the media of sensation. 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
229
be exhibited in a state of development which manifestly
owes nothing to the mere  organs of sense, and which
far outsteps the province of any one portion of our ex-
ternal  mechanism.  When, then, mesmerism palpably
excludes the external organs from a share in the sensi-
tive developments which it elicits, when it effectuates a
revelation  of  sensibility springing  from  an  internal
source, it may in this, as in many other respects, be said
to detect rather  than to violate principles.   It sweeps
away imagined power, which a multitude of circumstan-
ces had already shown to be only apparent and superfi-
cial : it exhibits  power  where power  evidently exists,
and might be expected to be found.
  But here, perhaps, I may be  assailed with  the oft-re-
peated question (to  which I have once before alluded),
" Granting all this to be true, of what use are our exter-
nal senses ?"
  Coleridge, impressed with an idea of the lavish wealth
and boundless resources of Providence, when asked of
what use were the stars and planets  if  not inhabited, re-
plied, " I suppose to make dirt cheap."  In the  same
manner  I might answer when persons demand,  " Of
what use is the  eye if we  can see  without it ?"  " To
show us how to make a camera obscura."  In graver
phrase, how much we learn from the construction of this
marvellous organ; how  dependant on that construction
are all the discoveries which have been made  respecting
the physical properties of the luminous medium!   It is
a mechanism exquisitely adapted to  the mechanical ar-
rangements of the universe.  And is  its beauty nothing ?
its power of speaking the soul ? And these advantages,
be it remembered, are contingent upon the office, place,
and station which the eye now holds  in the human  econ-
omy.   But while we adore the Creator's wisdom and
goodness in thus suiting our organs to  our  condition,
and to the agents with which  they are immediately in
contact, let us remember that  it is our duty  to explore
and to  seek out  the true grounds of our adoration, and
not to  rest in a sort of stupid amazement.   They who
so triumphantly take  their stand against  mesmerism
upon the all-importance of the external organs of sense,
would  do well if they would condescend to learn  the
real and most valuable part which they play in our econ-
omy.   While it is the office of the nerves to receive and
to transmit external impulses with a degree of sensibil- 
230           MESMERIC SENSATION.
  ity proportioned to their ever-varying condition, that of
  the external organs is to modify those impulses with a
  regularity as constant as Nature's  own.  They are the
  weights and  the  balance-wheel  in our constitution.
  Thus the eye is composed of parts that  are refractive,
  and of  membranes that have each their use in altering
  light, such as it acts externally, into light such as it is per-
  ceived by us.   The air, again, is modified in the myste-
  rious labyrinths of the ear;  and these  organs, by their
  form, contribute to direct the impulse thus modified to
  its proper recipient, the  nerve.   Hence it appears that
  the apparatuses of the senses are contrivances for blunt-
  ing, not for heightening, the sensibility.  They are masks,
  and careful  coverings to  instruments of too  exquisite
 delicacy to be  bared and  exposed to the outer world.
 The  cutis defends  the nerves from the  agony of harsh
 impact upon their tender  surfaces ; the sieve-like mech-
 anism of smell disarms odour of its over-stimulus ere we
              "  Die of a rose in aromatic pain."*

   That  degree  of sensibility which is exhibited to us in
 the mesmeric state, as if to give us a permitted glimpse
 of the capacities of our being, would be wholly unsuit-
 ed to the purposes  of every-day existence; and I cannot
 too often remind our opponents that man was no more
 created  to pass his days in mesmeric sleepwaking than
 in any other state of abstraction from the affairs of this
 world.   How terrible would be the condition of a being
 laid bare and naked to the  irritating influences of  all
 external things, may be imagined from the sufferings  of
 persons  whose nervous sensibility has become predom-
 inant over the  mechanic  action of the senses.  The
 Seherin  von  Prevorst fell into horrible  convulsions  if
 iron were within a  certain distance of her, or if vinegar
 were in any part of her room.  Even patients in the or-
 dinary mesmeric state are sensible, as I have shown, to
 emanations from precious stones, some of which affect
 them with very disagreeable feelings.  The valuable ex-
 periments of Dr. Elliotson with minerals on mesmeric
individuals speak to the same effect.  Let it not, then,

  * The choroid, by its dark colouring, absorbs the light, and miti-
gates it tu the eye, as is proved by the distressing effect which day-
light produces on those persons called Albinos, who are deficient in
the pigmentum nigrum.  An ordinary degree of light dazzles them
into blindness, and they can only see in twilight. 
               MESMERIC SENSATION.           231

be thought that the mesmerizer underrates the uses of
the external senses.  That they are as valuable for mod-
ifying as the nerves  are for receiving impulses he fully
admits; he is only desirous of exhibiting them in this
their proper sphere, conceiving that  he thus renders
them service; for a  faculty is never seen to such ad-
vantage as when cleared from the rubbish which igno-
rance has heaped around it. The aggrandizement which
is based on error is but for a time, and God is best hon-
oured where his work is best understood.
  ttonsiderations favourable to mesmerism  have  now
been drawn,
  1st. From the predominance of the nerves over the
external organs of sense.
  2dly. From their degrees and variations of sensibility.
  3dly. From their capacities of development.
  And facts have been adduced which may prepare us
to resolve  the apparent paradox of sensation existing
apart from  our usual  senses.
  But the  agency of the nerves  is capable of still far-
ther elucidation, which will throw yet more light on the
mysteries of mesmeric sensibility.  If from  the varied
modes of nervous action  we proceed to its simple princi-
ple, we shall find abundant reason to conclude that mes-
merism does really never infringe any established and
universal law.
  As on the true nature of sensation I  ground  much
that is explanatory of my subject, I must be excused if
I endeavour to lead to the full comprehension of my fu-
ture observations on  that head  by some preliminary re-
marks, which will not be deemed needless by those who
appreciate  the difficulties that surround this  branch of
our inquiry.                                . .
  There are evidently but two ways  of perceiving ob-
jects : the one by being  present to them in their essen-
tial  verity, the  other by  communication with them
through the intervention of types or shadows.
  The first mode of perception belongs to God alone.
  The second is imposed on man by the necessities of
his nature.
  We cannot go to the object: the object must be con-
 veyed to us.
   We cannot penetrate its essence: we must descry it
 as  in a glass, darkly—by reflection—by an image which
 is not itself. 
232
MESMERIC SENSATION.
  For this reason, in some previous observations rela-
tive to this same subject, I likened sensation to a lan-
guage established between man and his Creator.  I now
 Eroceed to point out in what that language consists, and
 ow truly it may be called a language, since its symbols
no  more resemble the ideas they excite, than do words
the pictures they raise in the mind, or the printed sen-
tences of a book the thoughts and feelings which they
occasion in those who read them.
  Limited, and closed in by walls  of flesh, with which,
for a time, we are almost identified, we cannot but  altew
that through our body comes all that knowledge apper-
taining to  external things to which we have given the
name of sensation.  This is, indeed, the tenure on which
we hold  our individual  existence; for  all  intelligence
that is not limited is  God, and in the force of the restric-
tions  which confine the creature (paradoxical as it may
sound) consists the  independence of its action and the
liberty of its will.  The universal ideas, which originate
with God, must, in order that they may become proper
to ourselves, be transmitted to us through personal ex-
perience, and be coloured by the tinge of our own na-
ture.   Deceived, indeed,  when we  think not deeply, by
the apparent extremity of effects which we  only  expe-
rience in our own persons, we refer our feelings to the
object that occasions them, and speak  of sound  or of
colour as if it existed as a thing apart, forgetting that
aerial vibrations are only sound where  there is an ear
to receive them, and that light is only colour when it is
reflected from surfaces to an eye that vibrates in unison
with its rapid scintillations.  Our  free  communication
with external objects is another  source  of error to our
minds.  Borne on the wings of thought, we seem, as it
were, to go out  of  ourselves, to  annihilate distance,
mock at separation, and pervade the universe ; but ma-
turer  reflection assures us that sensation does, in fact,
never  stir  one  inch beyond  the corporeal boundaries
which have been assigned to it.  Close the ear, and si-
lence  is around us, though to others the brook is  mur-
muring, or the trees are rustling as before : shut the eye,
and the slight veil of a  tender membrane  has blotted
out all that glorious creation with which we so freely
conversed, has  for us expunged the beauties of earth,
the magnificence of ocean, and made a blank of the
boundless heavens.   Were we essentially cognizant of 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
233
these objects, we could not be parted from them thus ;
but it is  evident  that all  our sentient mechanism  (as
Newton intimates) is truly constituted for the purpose
of conveying the species of things to our sensorium, and
that all that vast  expansion to which we seem  present
is in  reality present  to us within the narrow compass
of our brain.
  Sensation, then, is  personal to ourselves, and man is
strictly confined to his  individual sphere ; yet, at the
same time, our consciousness assures us that we are in
sensible communication  with objects which are not our-
selves, and which are more  or less remote  from  us.
Consequently,  between  us and  them there  must  be
media ; and  thus, in considering  sensation,  we have
three things to  take  into the account, namely,  the ex-
ternal object or the exciting cause ; the medium where-
by we are, as  it  were, linked to  that  object; and the
change in our own corporeal frame, which stands as the
representative of the  object.
  Hereafter I shall have occasion to speak of the media
whereby we  are brought into communication with the
visible universe.   At present I restrict myself  to con-
sidering the signs of things, of which our own persons
are, as it were, the living alphabet and recording volume.*
  First, that we really do draw our sensations from the
signs of things, and not from things themselves, a very
simple and well-known experiment may convince us.
  Crossing the middle over the forefinger, let any one
rub between their extremities a little  ball, and  he will
have  exactly the same sensation  as if there were two
balls instead of one.f
  This phenomenon is capable of but one explanation.
Those parts of the fingers which, in the experiment,
are brought into contiguity, are ordinarily prevented by
their position from touching one object at the same mo-
ment.  Simultaneous  impact  on  them has therefore
become associated by habit with an idea of a duplicate
impression.  The mind has learned its  lesson, which it

  * Locke mentions " the perception of the signification of signs"
as a chief act of the understanding.  See his chapter on " Power."
  t The reader is begged to remember that experiments like these
are not presented as new (as, indeed, being appeals to experience,
how can they be ?), but as known  proofs of known propositions,
equally necessary to be repeated in  a certain train of argument as
the problems of Euclid in a course of mathematics
                      U2 
234          MESMERIC  SENSATION.
 cannot forget; its language, which it can only interpret
 in its own established manner.   We touch a single su-
 perficies with nervous surfaces which are used to come
 in contact with two, therefore we think that we touch
 two objects.  The conventional  signs are present, and
 we deem that the accustomed realities are  also acting.
   An interesting fact, recently observed at P<iris, may
 be adduced in confirmation of the above views.
   A celebrated  surgeon, M. Blaudin, succeeded in  ma-
 king a new nose for a soldier named Eustache Gressan,
 who  had lost that member  from  a sabre-cut at Water-
 loo, by means of skin cut away  from the forehead of
 the patient.   When Gressan has his eyes shut, if  any
 one pricks with a pin the end of his new  nose, asking
 him at  the same time where he  has been touched, he
 immediately  lifts his hand  to his forehead,  evidently
 referring the feeling to its  old place from association.
 This  anecdote, which is taken from a thesis sustained
 before the faculty of medicine at  Paris by M. Chomette
 of Bordeaux,  is extremely  valuable, as showing deci-
 sively that sensation depends on the nerves and their
 associated actions, not on their particular localities.
   Certain  signs, then, are really  representatives to us
 of certain objects; and of the nature of those signs  we,
 from  the above considerations, may partly judge.  It is
 necessary, however, that  on this  subject our  ideas
 should be perfectly clear and precise.
   Let us,  therefore, inquire wherein, individually  and
 generally, consists the language of sensation.
   Not in that which is commonly and vaguely called
 the action of the senses, but in motions of those nerves
 which are the life and efficacy of the senses.  For let
 us consider, with Locke, that " all the actions that we
 have  any notion of, reduce themselves to these two,
 thinking and motion" (thinking being the action  of
 mind, as motion is  of matter).  Now that the nerves
 act in sensation no one will  attempt to deny ; and how
 they can  act, being  material  substances, except by a
 change in the  position of their relative parts—in other
 words, by motion—it is utterly impossible to conceive.
  That  sensations are the  results  of changes or mo-
tions in  some  portion of our nervous system does not,
however,  rest upon abstract reasoning  alone.  The
proposition may be proved by fact in a twofold manner.
  First,  we may, by  giving motion to a nerve of sense,
convince ourselves that a sensation is the result. 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
235
   Secondly, knowing that, when bodies are jarred or
stirred, their particles continue for some little  time in
motion after the impulse which set them vibrating is at
rest, we may, by observing that a sensation continues
for a few moments after its cause has ceased to act,
conclude that the nerve, on which sensation depends,
produces its effect by motion.
   Each of the senses is susceptible of  affording either
species of demonstration.
   First. 1. A blow on the ears will make them  what is
vulgarly called  ring, independently of the sound of the
percussion.
   2. When a sound has been of long duration,  we still
conceive that we hear it, though it may have been for
some time discontinued.
   Secondly.  1. An electric shock gives  such sensation
to the nerves of touch as a violent blow  usually  excites
in them.
   2. Should  a  fly have settled  on the  face, we  often
raise  our hands to brush it off after it is really  gone,
being deceived by a continuation  of the same feeling
which it gave us when actually in contact with the skin.
The tickling of a feather produces a similar effect.
   Thirdly.  I. Let  any one place a piece of  zinc under
his tongue, and a piece of silver upon the upper part of
the same organ.  At the moment when  the two metals
are brought into contact, a strong taste will be perceived
in the mouth, resulting  from the galvanic  concussion,
and not from any actual flavour.
   2. The sensation  endures for a short time after the
experiment has been tried.
   Fourthly. 1. A  spark,  drawn  by means  of  pointed
metal from  the nose of a person who is charged with
electricity,  will give him the sensation of  smelling a
phosphoric odour.
  2. Musk, however carefully inhaled, so as to  prevent
any actual particles of the substance from being stopped
upon the pituitary membrane, will produce in us sensa-
tions of odour for some  time after we have ceased to
smell of it.
   Fifthly. To perceive the connexion between  motion
and sensation, with respect to such of our senses as I
have  already mentioned, is not difficult.  But when we
come to consider  the eye, it is  hard to  apprehend that
all its beautiful representations  of  that  external  world 
236
MESMERIC SENSATION.
with which it holds such distant communion are but signs
and characters, consisting in nervous motions, which the
soul, by an intellectual  operation, translates into its own
glorious and native  language.   For this reason, I have
reserved the consideration of vision to the last, in order
to bestow on it more attention.  Mesmeric vision, also,
being that part of mesmeric sleepwaking  which most
alarms the prejudices  of mankind, I am most anxious
to reduce it to analogy with nature.
  If it can be shown that vision does really consist, like
all our other sensations, in motion communicated to a
certain nerve,  I conceive that my task  is partly execu-
ted, since it is  plain that, though other conditions which
we deem essential to vision may be wanting to  the mes-
meric state, the great, the primary requisite may yet be
present.  There may still be motion.
  But let us proceed to proofs.
  Sir Isaac Newton asks (Query 12th),
  " Do not the rays of light, in falling upon the bottom
of the  eye, excite vibrations in the tunica retina, which
vibrations, being propagated along the solid fibres of the
optic nerves into the brain,  cause the sense of seeing ?"
  And again (Query 16th),
  " When a  man in  the dark presses either corner of his
eye with his finger, and turns his eye away  from his fin-
ger,  he will see a circle of colours like those  in  the
feather of a peacock's tail.  If the eye  and the finger
remain quiet, these colours vanish in a second minute of
time; but if the finger be moved with a quavering motion,
they appear again.   Do  not these colours arise from
such motions,  excited in the bottom of the eye by the
pressure and motion of the finger, as at other times are
excited there  by light, for  causing vision? and do  not
the motions, once excited, continue about a second of
time before they cease  ?  And  when a man, by a stroke
upon his eye, sees a flash of light, are not the  like mo-
tions excited in the retina by the stroke ?  And when a
coal of fire, moved nimbly in the circumference of a cir-
cle, makes the whole circumference appear like a circle
of fire, is it not because the motions excited in the bot-
tom of the eye by the  rays of  light are of a lasting na-
ture, and continue till  the coal of fire, in going round,
returns to its former place ?  And, considering the last-
ingness of the  motions  excited  in the bottom of the eye
by light, are they not of a vibratory nature ?"  These 
MESMERIC SENSATION.            237
observations, which the great philosopher  has so mod-
estly  thrown into the interrogative form,  modern  sci-
ence has done little else than repeat affirmatively.
  It is true, we no longer talk of rays of light as  the
causes of our visual sensations ; we have substituted for
these (and, as I believe, with  truth) the undulations of
an elastic ether.  Still the theory of sensation remains
the same ; and  motions of the  nerves, which minister to
the eye, are accepted as productive of our ideas of light.
The fibres of the retina, according to  M. d'Arcet, con-
tinue  to vibrate  for about the eighth part  of  a second
after the exciting cause has ceased ; and therefore  it. is
that, if we look at the sun and then turn our eyes from
it, or  even shut them, we still perceive a bright image
before us.  The phenomenon is explicable  on  no  other
hypothesis.
  I might, perhaps, allow the  subject to rest  here,  but
it is too important to be abandoned before our misappre-
hensions concerning it .are perfectly cleared up.  The
great  source of error respecting vision has been, and is,
the miniature  representation of objects on the retina,
which was once undoubtingly accepted as the  cause of
vision: a venerable delusion, with which it is  almost a
pity to part;  for the endeavour to explain how  an  in-
verted image  (as that on the retina is) could make men
see right end  upward, has given rise to an infinite dis-
play of learned  ingenuity.
  Then, also, the notion of the soul giving a peep into
the showbox  of the eye  is sufficiently  ludicrous  to  be
amusing.  Still, before we can have just ideas  concern-
ing vision, those that anciently found place with us, how-
ever captivating, must be altogether swept away.  The
undulatory theory of light has, it is true, at the present
time,  already effected this in part:  still, nothing is more
difficult than  to get well rid  of old errors, especially
when these are based on a plausible association of ideas.
We behold  external  objects — the  same  objects  are
known to be represented  on the retina—and we jump at
once to the conclusion that here is cause and there effect.
Unfortunately,  never were there two things, apparently
connected, so wide asunder.   Did not what is too near
ourselves in general delude us greatly, surely we should
not accept the  image  on the  retina as explanatory of
vision only because that  image is in the  eye, and be-
cause we know that, in some way or other,  our eyes 
238
MESMERIC SENSATION.
 serve  us to see with.   For let us remember that the
 connexion between seeing and the picture on the retina
 has never been proved.  The theory that links them to-
 gether is perfectly gratuitous.  On the  other hand, the
 connexion between seeing and the motion of the optic
 nerve has been proved.   We cannot, indeed, see without
 a retina; but why ?  Because the  retina is so constitu-
 ted as to be set in motion by the impact of light, and to
 communicate motion to the optic  nerve.   Error contin-
 ues to be propagated by the loose  phraseology employ-
 ed upon  this subject.  What is the meaning of the word
 impression when applied  to visual action ?  An  impres-
 sion gives the idea of something  stamped and durable ;
 but the  image on the  retina endures no longer  than
 while the external object is before it.  This is totally
 at variance with the lasting nature of luminous impul-
 sions on the eye, which  consideration, it might be  sup-
 posed, would alone be sufficient at once to refer vision
 to a motive cause.  Above all, how can  the optic nerve
 convey impressions 1 a mode of speech, however, which
 is but too common.  What is really conveyed or com-
 municated to the brain?  a  stamped figure, like the  im-
 pression of a seal on wax, or a picture ?   No! a motion,
 and nothing but a motion.   Notwithstanding that this is
 palpable to reason, and, doubtless, well known to the
 physiologist, still it is to be suspected  that the multitude
 are even yet misled by a fancied analogy between the
 act of seeing and taking off the impressions of objects,
just as ladies, by an ingenious and almost instantaneous
 process,  transfer engravings to the tops of their work-
 boxes.
  This must be reformed altogether.
  Taking the question on its widest grounds, let us in-
 quire, Does the image on the retina  enable  us to see ?
 To  see is  not  merely to have ideas of colour, but to
 appreciate  the  relative  size and  distance  of  bodies.
 Now, in  spite of the beautiful perfection of the forms
 represented upon the retina, and the proportion of their
distances, many facts contribute to assure us that we
gain no  perception  of  form or distance by the  eye.
We learn  from it absolutely no  more  than relates to
light and colour.  Thus, though images are formed upon
the  retina of the newborn  infant  as perfectly as  upon
that of the adult, yet during the first  month of its  ex-
istence it cannot be said properly to  see.  It only be- 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
239
 tokens a certain sensibility to light by shutting its eyes
 when exposed to a strong glare.  That it has actually
 no idea of the size or distance of objects, even long af-
 ter it appears pleased with bright and lively colours, is
 evident from its stretching out its hand to seize objects,
 however distant or of whatever dimensions.
   Even persons who, being born blind, attain to sight
 at an advanced period of life, arrive hut slowly at a cor-
 rect  appreciation  of external objects.  Nowhere is the
 parallel between language of the precedents of sensation
 more remarkable than here.  Learning to see is precise-
 ly analogous to learning a new tongue.   It is said of a
 blind youth, spoken of by  Cheselden, "When he saw
 the  light  for  the  first time, he knew so little  how to
 judge of distances that  he believed  the objects which
 he saw 'touched his eyes' (this was his  expression), as
 the things which he felt  touched his skin."*   It is rela-
 ted also of Kaspar Hauser, who was in the condition of
 a blind person from  long  captivity in a dark dungeon,
 that, when led up to a window for the first time, whence
 there was an extensive  view, he uttered a cry of pain,
 and hid his eyes with his hands;  when able subsequent-
 ly to describe his sensations, he declared that the land-
 scape had appeared  to him as an upright plane, daubed
 all over with dazzling and discordant colours.f
  Were vision mechanically resultant from a pictured
 representation, it is evident that effects like these could
 not ensue.
  But, finally, how are we made aware  that there is a
 picture at all on the retina ?  By its being shown  to us
 in the eye of a dead  animal; so that we look  upon it
 externally as we would  on any other object.   It is we
 ourselves who create the picture by  our previous con-
 ceptions of form and distance, which have been  drawn,
 as the metaphysician knows, from the sense of touch, or,
 rather,  muscular action.   Thus  we only  know  that
there is a picture on the  retina, because we are able to
see.   Can that, then, be itself the  cause of our seeing ?
The absurdity is manifest.   It is clear, then, that when
we call upon the image on the retina to account for our
visual perceptions, the effect does in no way answer to

  *  Milligan's Magendie.
  t  Kaspar Hauser has been accused of deception ; but surely this
 trait of nature alone would suffice to prove the most essential fact
 in his story. 
240          MESMERIC SENSATION.
the cause proposed.   View it  as we will, it appears to
be merely the  collateral result of  certain mechanical
dispositions, which in no  way regard  it  as  an end.
From what has been said, it appears that, in considering
the sense of vision, we must absolutely look upon it as
no more than the medium of our information respecting
light and colour.
  To light and colour, then, we have to  confine our at-
tention and to limit our argument.   But our perceptions
of light have been  proved to be occasioned by motions
of the optic nerves, and colours consist so certainly in
vibrations, that the number of undulations producing
each tint of the solar spectrum has been mathematically
ascertained.  " The determination of these minute por-
tions of time  and space,"  observes  Mrs. Somerville,
" both of  which have a real existence, being the actual re-
sults of measurement, do as much honour to the genius
of Newton as that of the law of gravitation."
  Thus it appears  that the real office of  the retina is to
vibrate in correspondence with the vibrations of light,
as they  are  modified by being turned,  intercepted, or
broken by meeting with various objects.
  Need we observe how much this diminishes the won-
der of mesmeric vision?  It has  been shown that the
picture on the  retina is  not the  cause of seeing.  In
cases, therefore, where a picture on  the retina is render-
ed impossible (as when the eyes are closed in mesmer-
ic slumber), the true cause of vision is not, it seems, on
that  account, put out  of the way.   There still may be
motion on the optic nerve.  If it  be inquired how pro-
duced, I must send on my reader to the remarks which
will  shortly ensue on communicating media.   This at
least cannot be  contested :  the  faculty of vision has been
proved to result from motion, and is therefore  brought
under the same law, which, it has been shown, predom-
inates over the other senses.   Hence it appears that few
propositions, not absolutely mathematical, are more cer-
tainly established than this.
  Motions of the nerves are representative to  man of
external objects.   Nor is it less demonstrable that those
portions  of the nervous system which are central or
proximate to the brain, occasion in us, by their motions,
sensations, rather than  those  portions of the  nervous
system which are superficial or most remote  from the
brain.   For in many instances it may be shown that 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
241
internal causes, wholly independent of anything exter-
nal, produce sensations exactly similar to those excited
by external things, their manner of reproduction plain-
ly exhibiting their original mode of production.
  In fever there is a repetition of images before the eye,
which can only be accounted for by supposing a repeti-
tion of the sensations which formerly suggested them.
But those sensations are themselves correlative  with
certain  changes or motions  of the nervous system.
Their recurrence  in a confused and incoherent  manner
is confessedly the fruit of disorder.  And what is disor-
der ?  An agitation of the frame, occasioned often, and
always accompanied by, a deranged action of the nerves.
The soul is  reading, as it  were, an incoherent treatise,
of which the disjointed sentences were once familiar to
her in their proper order.
  Under the influence of strong emotion, persons  may
perceive, as with  the actual organs of sense,  objects
which have  no existence but in themselves; nay, even
like Macbeth, when marshalled by the air-drawn dagger,
may stretch forth their hands to clutch
                        " The false creation,
          Proceeding from the heat-oppress'd brain."

  There are also  mysterious affections  of  the nervous
system, in which the patient, retaining all his  reason,
seems palpably to behold various forms of  men or ani-
mals.   Walter Scott, in his Demonology, gives a detail-
ed and interesting account of the  case of a lady who
was thus spectre-haunted for months.
  I was myself personally acquainted with a physician
who told me that, one evening while he was writing, he
chanced'to raise his eyes, and saw, as he imagined, his
housekeeper standing close to his desk, with a candle in
her hand.  " You  may go to bed,  Betty," he said, and
went  on writing.   A few  minutes  afterward he again
looked up : there  was Betty still.  " Did you not  hear
me?" he repeated ;  " I want nothing more.  Go to bed."
A third glance, however, showed him the seemingly ob-
stinate Betty yet nearer to his chair, when, raising his
hand with a gesture of impatience,  he found  that it pass-
ed through the figure, which, however,  retained all its
apparent corporeality.   With  much  shrewdness  and
presence of mind, the physician then felt his own pulse,
which indicated fever.  He proceeded forthwith to bleed
                        X 
242           MESMERIC  SENSATION.
himself, and, as he had anticipated, while the blood flow-
ed, the phantom  gradually  disappeared:  a proof the
most convincing that it was the creation of his own dis-
ordered state of body.
   Nor are such illusions  confined to the sense of vision.
A lady of my acquaintance, while in a weak state of
health, heard constantly  a band of  music with as much
distinctness as if an orchestra had actually been present.
As she recovered the  imaginary sounds diminished, till
at length  she heard no more  of the aerial performers.
   These facts, however,  are  not within the experience
of all persons.   But a proof, as easy of access as it is
interesting, that internal motions of the nerves can cause
in us a perfect idea of something external to ourselves,
is afforded in the following experiment.  Let any one
take a five shilling piece, and thrust it  far up between
the inside of his upper lip and his teeth; then let him
lay a piece of zinc on his tongue, and suddenly bring to-
gether  the edges of the  two metals.  At the moment
when contact takes place, a  faint glimmering light will
seem to pass off on either side his head, which, as no-
body else  sees it, must be an optical error, the mere mo-
tion of a  nerve, caused by the galvanism elicited from
the two metals.
  Finally, discoveries  of recent date demonstrate that
the impulses of sense proceed to a point remote from
the organ in which they originate.   It is found that the
optic, acoustic, and olfactory nerves, though  remaining
entire, may fail to transmit their accustomed intelligence
to the seat of perception  after the  severing of the fifth
pair.  The following experiment gives  still more con-
sequence to the internal action of our sensitive system.
" I destroyed in a dog," says  Magendie,  " the two olfac-
tory nerves.  I presented to  the animal strong odours.
He perceived them perfectly,  and conducted himself ex-
actly as he would have done had he been in hi6 ordinary
state.   It  may then be possible that the  olfactory nerve
is not the  nerve of smell."*
  How  much these facts  throw light upon the internal
sensibility displayed by sleepwakers I need not remark.
They tend to concentrate sensation, to refer it to a
common source.   They actually display our senses de-
pendant for their action upon an internal cause,
* Milligan's Magendie, 
MESMERIC  SENSATION.            243
  But, farther still,  it may be shown that a quiescent
state of the external portions of the nerves is perfectly
consistent with  an  increased and independent activity
of their central system.
  Nay, the repose of the outer is an absolute condition
for the revelation of the inner sensibility.
  We  all may feel  that, in  order to call up before our
mind's eye the face  of a dear friend or the beauties of a
familiar landscape, we  must retreat from the obtrusive
impulses of the external world.
  Would  we rise to  a yet higher discernment of remem-
bered objects, we must yet more calmly check the beat-
ing of our pulses, until we pass into that state of mind
so beautifully described by Wordsworth:

                 " That serene and blessed mood
          In which the affections gently lead us on,
          Until the breath of this corporeal frame,
          And even the motion of our human blood
          Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
          In body,  and become a living soul:
          While, with an eye made quiet by the power
          Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
          We see into the life of things."

   An  instance of another kind of abstraction is to  be
 found in the visionary, who conceives that he possesses
 the power of really discerning absent objects, or of an-
 ticipating such dramas of life as have not yet been acted.
 These seers, or  pretenders to the second sight, as it is
 called, are described as falling, at the time of their be-
 holding a vision, into a species of trance.  Their limbs
 become rigid, their  eyes  remain  fixed and are insensi-
 ble to the light.   While all within them is in a kind of
 anarchy,  their exterior appearance is that of the dead.
   But we need not  resort to an extreme case like this
 to demonstrate that our greatest enjoyment of the inner
 mobility of sensation is to be found in the moment when
 we are most externally tranquil.  Dreamsr beyond  all
 other phenomena of our nature, prove a central activity
 of the nervous  system.  When we have passed into
 their world of separate existence, the  outer organs  of
 sense are closely shut, yet we see, or hear,* or feel, or

   * Dr. Abercrombie doubts that a sense of hearing is ever enjoyed
 in slumber. It is, however, no uncommon occurrence with me to
 dream that I hear music, either vocal or instrumental, as distinct as
 any that voice or orchestra can produce. 
244
MESMERIC SENSATION.
partake of imaginary banquets.  To say that the soul
alone reproduces these ideas were to charge her with
unworthy folly;  for what can be less  exalted or less
coherent than are our sleeping visions  generally; yet,
were the spirit really free to  act unencumbered, would
not her operations  be distinguished by  superior majes-
ty and connexion?   Rather must we affirm with him,
whose comment on our nature was poetically beautiful
and philosophically  true,

         " Dreams are the children of an idle brain."

It is indeed evident that  in sleep some cause (perhaps
the circulation of the blood through the brain)  agitates
the nerves of sensation, and gives to our ideas, by their
associate motions, a particular impulse, form, and fea-
ture.   This  view of the  case is strengthened by the
manifest influence  which our state of body exercises
over our nocturnal visions, which are calm or disturbed,
agreeable or painful, accordingly as our digestion and
consequent pulsation are orderly or irregular.
   A surplus, then,  of internal sensibility, coexistent
with a deficiency in the external,  is not  exhibited  in the
mesmeric state alene.  If, indeed, mesmerism could dis-
play an inner development  of sensation without any
sacrifice of the external capacities, we might have rea-
son  to exclaim  against its miraculous deviation from
nature's laws ; but the  increase of internal power which
it reveals, in connexion  with the abrogated activity of
the surfaces of the nerves, appears to be the illustration,
and not the infringement of a principle.
   Still are we more and  more depriving the superficial
extremities  of the  nerves of  potentiality  in sensation;
still are we giving more  and more importance to their
central motions.  Proceeding in our examination of ner-
vous action, we find proof not wanting that  like impul-
ses,  at whatever part of the nerve they  commence, ter-
minate in like motions  and produce like sensations.
   " After the  amputation of a foot, or  a  finger,  it has
frequently happened that, an injury being offered to the
stump  of the amputated limb, whether from cold air, too
great pressure, or other accidents, the patient has com-
plained of a sensation of  pain in the foot or finger that
was cut off."*
* Darwin's Zoonomia, vol. i., p. 35. 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
245
  From this fact we may infer that nerves have the
same conducting capacity throughout their whole length,
and that the loss of their extremities or ulterior expan-
sions does not deprive them of their power to convey
impulsions.
  The common property resident in any part of a nerve
or series  of nerves to excite similar sensations, is also
evinced by the difficulty we often  experience in refer-
ring our pains to the real seat of the disorder which oc-
casions them.  Thus it not unfrequently happens  that
a person has had a sound tooth extracted instead  of a
defective one which caused the torment.
  But all these phenomena of sensation are, as it were,
subservient to one great  principle, which, if laws be only
the general expression of concurring facts, is most truly
Nature's law as regards sensation; universal, immuta-
ble, admitting of no exception.  It is this :  similar ulti-
mate  motions of  the nerves, however produced, excite
similar sensations.
  A priori reasoning would alone suffice to convince us
of this ; or, rather, it is  self-evident, as an axiom, that,
where a sign is representative of an object, it must be
so universally and  under  all circumstances.  It would
produce as much confusion did that particular sensation
which now invariably signifies to us a tree, occasionally
call up in  us the  idea of a man, as  interpreting vice to
mean  virtue,  or  meanness  generosity,  does  actually
bring about, in some instances, in this our wicked world.
God's works are chargeable with no such imperfections.
It is true  that the  invariability of our sensations may
occasionally lead  us  into  momentary error (we rashly
concluding that, where the accustomed sign  is present,
the phenomenon which usually causes it is also at hand);
but this is only the necessary accompaniment of a migh-
ty benefit.  The advantages are great and regular; the
drawbacks from these  advantages  trifling and excep-
tional.  That like signs  are productive of like ideas, is
a principle which is the  groundwork of all our knowl-
edge.   Is  it ever violated in mesmeric sensation ?   Not
within my experience.  An interesting proof that sug
gestion continues to be, under mesmerism, the law of
our thoughts,  may be found in the fact that sleepwa-
kers,  with closed eyes, when asked how they appear to
themselves in a mirror, reply, " As if my  eyes were
open."  Accustomed to  connect the two ideas of  sight 
246
MESMERIC SENSATION.
and having the eyes open in one sequence, the first sug-
gests the second to their minds.
  To prove by general experiment that ultimate motions
of the nerves,  however  produced,  are  signs  which the
mind interprets in one uniform manner, is but to repeat
facts which have been already stated.   The truth of the
proposition is involved in  that of  preceding ones.  For
it has been shown that pressure, or a blow on the eye,
or galvanic concussion,  produces, not less than the vi-
brations of the luminous ether, a sensation of beholding
light, that smell, feeling, taste may be deceived into ac-
tion  by agents which are not the proper objects of those
senses, and that hearing  may result from any cause that
sets  the tympanum in motion or agitates the acoustic
nerve.
  And that all  these impulsions tend inward, and that
the last nervous change is the immediate precedent of
sensation, has been made also evident.
  Adopting Dr. Thomas Brown's definition of power,
we may not inaptly call  central action of the nerves the
power of sensation.
  Wonderful  and complex, then, as is the external mech-
anism of the  senses, their  principle is one.  In vain will
a thousand adverse arguments be based upon the favour-
ite theme of our opponents, namely,  the speciality of
office with which each nerve  in our economy is invest-
ed ; in vain will it be contended that one nerve is sensi-
ble to the  touch of light alone, that another  converses
solely with the world of  sound.  But, however varied
their action may appear, however diversified the ideas
which they excite, however distinct and  separate the
different properties of matter which  they reveal, still as
many rays unite in one centre, or, rather, as a thousand
harmonies  may be all  evolved from  one fundamental
note, so do their multiplied resources all coincide in a
single simplicity of plan  and operation.  Motion is their
language;  motion  is their mode of communicating in-
formation to us from without.
  This is sensation's one  great law, to which all other
are minor and attribute ; and this, once established, de-
prives all  but the  last preparative of sensation of that
constancy  which  is the  attribute  of power.  All other
laws relating to our sensibility admit of exceptions, and
are not therefore really laws.  This alone, throughout
the whole history  of man, we have never found trans- 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
247
gressed.   And how beautiful, how wonderful is the con-
trivance !  A few insignificant  signs, capable of infinite
permutations, are representative to us of the whole glo-
rious universe !  The finger of God is here.
  Having explored the  principle of sensation, we find
that the  changes which mesmerism  induces in its su-
perficial  developments are  comparatively unimportant.
They in no way affect the great internal cause, or throw
the mesmeric sensibility out of the pale of nature. We
have seen that similar  motions of the nerves may be
produced  in various ways, and that a change in the pre-
requisites of sensation can never imply a change in sen-
sation  itself.  Now,  though in the mesmeric state the
nervous motions are  apparently not produced in the nor-
mal way, still that there may be normal motions is evi-
dent.   However altered by mesmerism the mere exter-
nals of  sensation may appear, the  internal  efficient
change in the nervous  structure need not  in any way
falsify our habitual mode of being.   In exposing the se-
crets and apparent mysteries of a new condition of man,
we do  but lay bare the fountain of sensation, not change
its  nature.   We  pierce beyond external developments
only to arrive at their origin and their base more surely
even than the anatomist with his scalpel.
  Let  me, however, hasten to anticipate an objection
which  may be raised against the mode of argument that
I have recently been pursuing.  The feelings which  I
have adduced to prove that  similar ultimate motions of
the nerves are interpreted always  by the mind in a sim-
ilar manner, are, it may be  urged, mere delusions, in no
way correspondent  to  the truth  of external  things;
whereas it has been set forth as  the glory of mesmer-
ism that all its revelations regard realities ; that, without
eyes, it beholds actual objects of sight; without ears, it
appreciates  aerial vibrations which do essentially exist.
  I answer,  that my object was  to  show the uniform
manner in which the  sentient nerves perform their func-
tions, and that, in order  to judge of any functions  aright,
we must study them in their derangement.   Even their
errors point out  the truth.  Though the mind may be
mistaken in its judgment, the nerves do not vary in their
action; and  this  was the  great point to establish.  In
every  case, also, of delusive sensation, let it be remem-
bered  there still is a distinct perception of each several
-quality of the external world.  Ideas of light,  sound. 
248
MESMERIC  SENSATION.
odour, &c, have been perfectly reproduced, and have
thus plainly indicated the manner of their original pro-
duction.   It has  fully appeared that Nature's mode of
conveying to  us  information is one, and with this  one
the mesmeric perception need not be at variance.
  But is there, it may still be asked, any one acknowl-
edged instance in nature by which the possibility of re-
ceiving correct information respecting actual existences,
otherwise than by the usual inlets of sense, can be dem-
onstrated 1  There is.   It is well known that sound may
arrive in the tympanum by another way than the exter-
nal ear.   Let any one  stop  his ears with his hands as
perfectly as he can, and hold his mouth open.   Let a
watch be introduced  between his teeth,  but  without
touching them, by another person.  As long as there is
no contact, he will not perceive the slightest sound of a
watch ticking; but, the moment he closes his teeth upon
the watch, he will hear it distinctly: a manifest proof
that the sound has reached him by the mouth, not by the
ear; in fine, by another mode of conduction than the or-
dinary.
  This simple and common experiment is extremely in-
teresting and  instructive, for it shows how impulses may
arrive at  the accustomed  seat of sensation by novel
ways; warning us how rashly we should judge  in deci-
ding  that, because the first preparatives of sensation are
unusual, the last must be so likewise.  They who desire
the most to cling to experience in judging  of mesmer-
ism, may by this consideration be propitiated.   It may
also  be conjectured that an  optical impulse may reach
the retina by some new route, even as a certain sound
was shown to have been transmitted to the tympanum.
Should we agree with Magendie as to  the analogy be-
tween sight and hearing,* so far as to say that  " sound

  * " Some experiments have lately taught me that the ear presents
physiological circumstances analogous to those of the eye."
  Again : " In the same manner as in the apparatus of vision, there
are in that of hearing a number of organs, which appear to concur
in that function by their physical properties, and behind them a nerve
for the purpose of receiving and transmitting impressions."—Magen-
die's Physiology,  by Dr. E. Milligan.
  Herschel, also, in  his Treatise on Sound, says, speaking of those
feeble sounds which  catch our attention at night: " The analogy be-
tween sound and light is perfect in this, as in so many other respects,
&c.   The ear, like the eye, requires long and perfect repose to at-
tain its utmost sensibility." 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
249
is to the hearing what light is to the sight," we shall be
yet more disposed to admit this.
  It may, however, be asked, If in the state of mesmer-
ic sleepwaking all the extremities o'f the nervous sys-
tem be  as dead, does not this form an insurmountable
barrier against the transmission of external impulses to
the inner seat of  sensibility?  By no  means.  In the
first place, though the external sensibility of sleepwa-
kers is  not manifested in the accustomed localities, it
does  not  follow that it  exists not somewhere.  The
truth is, that it appears to be  restricted and circumscri-
bed  only to be increased in intensity.    All mesmeric
sleepwakers seem  to possess  a concentrated sensibility
in some one part of their bodies, affording a free inlet
for  the conduction  of external impulses to the nerves ;
nay, if we will, to  the accustomed nerves of sensation.
Objects of sight (it will be remembered) were transmit-
ted to Mademoiselle M----by the forehead.  Sounds
reached her by the same  path ;  for proof of which I re-
fer  to an  experiment precisely analogous to the just
mentioned  one of  bringing a watch in contact with the
teeth.   To the slightest touch upon her forehead, even
while apparently dead to  feeling elsewhere, she was pe-
culiarly sensible.  Ammonia held to her  nose had  no
effect upon her, but, when brought before her forehead,
made her suddenly draw  back with affected respiration,
and, moreover, exhibit action in the muscles of the nose ;
which last circumstance  more  especially adds  to the
presumption that the external impact,  in all mesmeric
cases, though  beginning  at an  unusual point, is  finally
transferred to the accustomed nerves of sensation.
  Again, even  supposing all upward conduction  from
the extremities to the brain to be impossible in the mes-
meric state, it by no means follows that there will be no
sensation ;  for many facts concur to show that the mind
can act downward from the brain towards the extremi-
ties, and so, as it were, create sensation for itself.
  The mere thought of something sour will set the teeth
on edge, or of a good dinner will excite action  in the
salivary glands, while feelings of awe or fear will affect
the whole external surface of  the body,  so as to produce
a visible change in the papillae of the skin.   Mrs. Som-
erville has observed, in her Connexion of the Physical
Sciences, that  " the imagination has a powerful influence
in our optical impressions, and has been known to revive 
250
MESMERIC SENSATION.
 the images of highly luminous objects months and even
 years afterward."
   Again, Sterne says, in his odd book, the Koran, " I am
 in possession of a faculty, at any time I please, of com-
 municating a sensible pleasure to myself, without action,
 idea, or reflection, by simple volition merely.   The sen-
 sation is, in a degree, between feeling and  titillation,
 and resembles the thrilling which permeates  the joints
 of the body upon stretching and yawning."
   Even the  motions  of the iris of the  eye, which  are
 strictly subject to nervous influence, and apparently de-
 pendant upon the external impulsion of light,  have been
 proved by Magendie to be greatly under the dominion of
 the  will.  He says, " I ascertained this in the follow-
 ing manner: I selected a person whose pupil was very
 movable, for there exist great differences in this respect.
 I placed one sheet of paper in a fixed position with re-
 gard to the eye and the light, and, ascertaining the state
 of the pupil,! requested the person to endeavour, with-
 out moving his head or eyes, to read  the small charac-
 ters which were traced upon the paper.  Instantly I saw
 the pupil contract, and its  constriction continue  during
 the whole effort."*
  Lastly,  my own  personal  experience has  convinced
 me that the mind can act from within towards the  ex-
 ternal organs of sense.  Often I have gone to sleep hold-
 ing a book in my hand, and continuing to hold it.  For
 a few seconds after awaking I could distinctly perceive
 that I was unaware of having anything in my hand, and
 I have  marked the restoration of feeling consequent
 upon the restoration of perfect thought.   My  mind has,
 as it were, proceeded again to the extremities, from
 which, during slumber, it had retreated.
  By these phenomena we establish a truth which all
 analogy must have suggested to us.   The senses  act
 on the mind.  Granted; but action supposes reaction.
 Reason and fact therefore  both concur in proving that
 the mind has a certain mastery over the senses, even as
it has over the limbs, though the apparent passivity of
the senses have so far deceived many, even acute phys-
iologists, as to lead them to assert that, while the nerves
of motion have  a downward  action,  proceeding from
the brain, the nerves of sensation, on  the contrary, act
* Milligan's Magendie, p. 43. 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
251
invariably upward,  or  towards the brain.   We have,
however, seen  that this  is a fallacy.   It may, indeed,
be made a question  whether the mind  can ever be said
to be purely passive in  any true and philosophical sense.
This at least is clear: it can only know that it has been
passive by an act.  Moreover, that only in as far as we
attend to nervous motions we become sensible of them,
is a positive law of our being.  Many an object sends
visual beams to the retina which yet we cannot be said
properly to see; many an aerial vibration strikes on the
tympanum which yet  excites in us no  idea of sound.
Howr often, for instance, a clock may strike and we not
hear it!  The power that we possess,  also, of selecting
particular objects for our notice, and even of excluding
others from any share  in our attention, proves that the
mind does really, in  some cases at least, turn the senses
to a higher kind of service than  a mere passivity im-
plies.  In looking on a  landscape, when we are attentive
to one pleasing portion of it, how all the rest dies away,
as it were, from the sight!  How easily, from the con-
versation  of a  crowd of persons talking around us, we
can  select that information which we most desire to
hear!  Again, the cultivation of our senses is manifest-
ly dependant on a power which is not their own. Chil-
dren, till they have  learned to use their  eyes and ears,
give but feeble  tokens that they possess  them;  a proof
that the mind does not  even attend to signs, of which it
comprehends not the significancy, and that neither exter-
nal impulses nor material  organs can produce sensation,
without the  active co-operation of the  intellect.
  These remarks are  of  importance  to mesmerism, a
state in which the mind displays more of its active than
its passive character; casting aside, as it were, the ex-
ternal organs of sense, in order to attend to its own ab-
stracted trains of thought.
  Is nature  violated or not by this development of in-
ternal power ?
  We have followed sensation inward  only to arrive at
the mind itself, and  to exhibit it as not the plaything of
the senses, but their lord and master.
   Is this a truth which is new to us ?  If so, it is well
that we should learn it now.  It is time that we who
talk of the march of intellect at the present day should
rise  above the vulgar view of sensation, and, as Cole-
ridge phrases it, endeavour  " to create the senses out 
252
MESMERIC SNESATION.
 of the mind, and not the mind out of the senses."  Let
 us no more return to gone-by errors.  Anciently cour-
 age  was seated in the heart, sorrow in the spleen, love
 in the liver, &c. ;  yet this was not worse than deeming
 sensation to be actually  in the organs of sense.  We
 may as well say that modesty is inherent in the cheeks,
 because they blush.   Again, when smell is lost through
 the absence of its external organ; when hearing is im-
 paired by a collapse of the external ear;  when a person
 is near-sighted from  convexity of the cornea, art  can
 supply a false nose whereby odorous impulses are again
 properly gathered  and perceived; can concentrate in an
 ear-trumpet the vibrations of the air; can,  by proper
 glasses, restore the purblind to perfect vision.   Are we,
 on that account, to say that sensation is seated in  our
 false nose, artificial ear,  or spectacles ?  What better
 reason have we to suppose that  any external apparatus
 of sense can actually create ideas in the soul ?
  A  higher philosophy  must teach us that the senses
 are but the instruments, the mind the power,  of knowl-
 edge.  The development, indeed, of its immortal stores
 may depend upon  some external touch, which unlocks
 the  treasures of the casket, and one by one  exposes
 them to the  light; but, as a seed includes potentially
 the  future plant, leaf, blossom,  and  fruit, so  does  the
 mind contain within itself its own capacities of expan-
 sion.  Even granting that, till written upon by the finger
 of the universe, it is a blank, and that all the magnifi-
 cent  endowments which it displays are, until called into
 action and educated by external existences,  as though
they were  not, still, when once  vivified and instructed,
it is  able to act for itself,  and to use its material organs
 as instruments of its intelligence  and will.   Till we
recognise this truth in perfect  clearness, there will  be
confusion even in our physiological researches.  Before,
also, we can  study sensation aright, we  must learn to
separate it logically into its two  great divisions of gen-
eral  and special: the first  relating to us when consider-
ed as sentient  beings only, the  second relating  to  us
when considered as sentient beings  fitted and adapted
to a  peculiar state of existence, and to the mechanical
arrangements  of this  our world.  The first  is funda-
mental, the second is occasional; the first is a principle,
the second the modification of a principle.  Our present
organization has reference to our present condition; but 
MESMERIC SENSATION.           253
sensation is of no time, of no era : it is as old as crea-
tion itself.   Now mesmerism tends to expose to us the
fundamental sensation  apart from the organic.  Un-
less, then, we can approach it with a due knowledge of
this distinction, its revelations will be spread before us
ii vain ;  they will darken rather than illuminate our un-
derstandings.  Till we thus study man and mesmerism
(which is almost another word for man), we shall re-
main far behind the German school, both of metaphysi-
cians and of physiologists.  But, unfortunately, we in-
cline to  the philosophy of a lighter nation, who have
anatomized the body till they see nothing beyond  the
play and spring of nerve and muscle.   With their accu-
racy of material examination I do not quarrel; I will,
if they please, give up  the term  soul, which seems to
offend  them so  mightily; but I will, even from them-
selves, force the confession that man thinks; and who-
ever does  not  see clearly  that  thinking  has no like-
ness or  relation whatever to any material operation, is
in no condition to judge any subject, or to argue on  any
point whatever.  There is a radical defect and confu-
sion in his mind or (if he prefer so to phrase it) in his
brain.  These remarks are  not uncalled for, because it
is to be  suspected that one of the sins of which mes-
merism  is  guilty  is  that of giving preponderance to
mind over matter, and of rescuing sensation from its
connexion  with certain  organs with which some per-
sons would absolutely and inextricably identify it.  Can
it be denied that too many physiologists love to view
man as  only a result of various  organs ?   It has even
been affirmed by those who would make us wholly de-
pendant  on our material organization, that the loss of an
external sense involves the loss of ideas which have
been  furnished by  that  sense.  Nothing  can be more
absurd or untrue.  I have questioned on this very point
many individuals who  had  lost their  sight for years,
and they have  all concurred in saying that in  dreams
they had a lively sense of vision.
   Milton's beautiful sonnet, beginning,

          " Methought I saw my late-espoused saint,"

and ending,

     " But oh ! as to embrace me she inclined,
      I woke—she fled—and day brought back my night,"
                         Y 
254
MESMERIC SENSATION.
 is a written record that sensation survives the sense to
 which it formerly was indebted.   Beethoven, it is well
 known, became perfectly  deaf at the age of twenty-
 eight, and thenceforth  his whole world  of  wondrous
 harmony was seated in his mind.  A celebrated living
 artist is blind of one eye.   According to the theory of
 some persons, he should be only half an artist; but his
 works are remarkable  for correctness of design and
 splendour of colouring.  These are facts  which  are in
 harmony with  mesmerism.  Let not, then, the  deter-
 mined materialist quarrel with this infant science, as if
 it alone proclaimed the supremacy of mind over matter.
 Even should it go to  prove  that we can see without our
 eyes, there is no such great cause for alarm.   Metaphy-
 sicians have told us  again and again that we do not see
 with  our eyes, but  with our  understandings, and the
 world is not yet come to an end.
  Let us now, by the aid of the principles  we have  as-
 certained, combine into one view the peculiarities and
 the correspondences  with nature of the mesmeric mode
 of sensation, pointing out where it  agrees  with and
 where it differs from the proceeds of our experience.
  I have already likened the nerves to conductors : the
 expression is perfectly correct.   Setting wholly  aside
 any theory as to their being the vehicles of a  more effi-
 cient  force, as the electric (which, nevertheless, certain
 phenomena of muscular motion render extremely prob-
able), it is only  a. fact that they are conductors of impul-
 ses from the external  world to the brain, and thence again
 to the mind; and also, as  has been  proved,  from the
 mind  and brain reversely to the surfaces  of the body.
Again, it is a fact that their faculty of  conduction varies
 in many ways, without any discoverable change in their
 texture and substance, or even in the external circum-
 stances by which they are surrounded, though from anal-
ogy we may  infer that their alteration does really de-
 pend on causes extraneous to themselves.
  Viewing the nerves in a mechanical light, we actually
find that, like other  substances, they have  their own
class of influences, which affect their transmissive power.
In some cruel experiments tried upon half-dead animals,
 alcohol applied  to  the brain was  found to produce ac-
 tion in the nervous system after  every other stimulus
 failed of this effect;  and salt placed upon  the limbs of
 frogs  long after they  have been severed from  the body, 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
255
will rouse them into life-like motion.  Even  such me-
chanical properties as these, inherent in the nerves, pre-
pare us to expect varied effects from submitting them to
various conditions.   Here, however, our knowledge is
so imperfect that  it  is safer  to study nervous  action as
it is connected with our own thoughts and feelings : the
causes  are, indeed, less obvious,  but  the phenomena
more  familiar to our experience.   We are not acquaint-
ed, and probably never shall be, with the conditions by
which nervous conduction is varied.  That it does vary,
we, however, certainly know.
  In the normal state we have the extreme and central
parts  of the nervous system  both in full activity.
  In sleep, the  nervous capacities die  off towards the
centre, and the extremities are in no condition to trans-
mit sensation.
  In palsy, conduction from  the  centre to the extremi-
ties is impeded, for the brain can no longer transmit the
impulses of the will to the limbs.
  Nervous deafness or  blindness  affords instances of
non-conduction from the extremities to the centre, oc-
curring often without any  apparent cause.  I  have a
friend who used frequently to be afflicted with  a com-
plete  though temporary blindness.   At first he  said it
was as if a black spot were  before him, blotting out ex-
ternal objects.  This black spot increased till it obscured
everything, and  he was in  perfect darkness.   I once
was forced to lead him out of a concert-room at Cam-
bridge while he had an attack of this kind.
  In  certain cases  of catalepsy the  power of nervous
conduction seems to be limited to one particular spot in
the body.  A lady, whose daughter was afflicted with
cataleptic fits, in which she would sometimes fall down,
at others  be  fixed rigidly in one attitude, told me that
the patient heard  nothing that was said to her in her at-
tacks, unless the person speaking touched the pit of her
stomach, and addressed  the sound thither.  On one oc-
casion the child was seized with catalepsy when standing
in the middle of  a large public swimming-bath, which,
for her health's  sake, she  was  ordered to use.   The
mother, unable  to reach her child, was in great alarm
lest she should fall, and called  out, in  hopes to wake
her from  the lethargy, in  vain:  she  gave no token of
hearing.  The thought then suddenly occurred  to the
mother to  hold her mouth close to  the  surface of the 
256
MESMERIC SENSATION.
water, U3ing it  as a sort  of conductor  to  convey the
sound to the patient.  On this being done, the little girl
showed at once that the voice had reached her, and was
roused from her catalepsy, as she usually was on her at-
tention being strongly excited in attacks  of that malady.
  It being then  ascertained that nerves vary in their ca-
pacity of condition, we have only to mention precisely
what shade of their conducting power characterizes the
mesmeric state, when it will be found,  I imagine, that
we have not, in considering this part of man's constitu-
tion, to unlearn our previous knowledge, but merely to
intensify known conditions, or  to combine them anew.
  First. Under  mesmerism, the nerves  generally have
ceased to conduct from the superficies to the centre ; in
other words, from the usual inlets of sensation  towards
the brain; but it also appears  that  conduction usually
takes place from some one limited portion of the nervous
surfaces, whence  it propagates external impulsions, by
unusual routes,  to the brain.
  The first branch of the phenomenon is  partially exhib-
ited in  cases of nervous  deafness  or blindness.  The
second, namely, the limited conduction  of sentient im-
 fmlses, has sometimes been observed in catalepsy.   It
 tas, however, been objected that, in cases where the
nervous sensibility has been reported to be  confined to
the epigastrium or pit of the stomach, the  communication
between this part and the brain has not sufficiently been
accounted for, the system of the ganglions, as some per-
sons affirm,  scarcely making a part  of the general ner-
vous  system.   This is but a feeble objection.   Every
part of the system of man is evidently in reciprocal con-
nexion ; and if it be  asked how the great sympathetic
communicates with the nerves  of sensation, we may an-
swer this question in resolving another.  How does the
arterial communicate with  the venous system ?  By ves-
sels so  fine  as  to have called  their  very existence into
doubt, and to have rendered the circulation of the blood
a great discovery.   Our senses are not always so subtile
as to trace nature in all her links.
  The second peculiarity of nervous conduction which
the mesmeric state presents is  as follows :
  In using, for the purposes of  sensation, that portion  of
the nervous system to which conduction seems confined,
the sleepwaker demonstrates  more of the  active than
passive character of the mind.  To speak technically, 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
257
there is more manifestly conduction from the brain out-
ward than from the superficies inward.   The  common
process of sensation seems reversed;  for the nerve ap-
pears to conduct the sentient power to the superficies,
where  it takes, as it were, the information it seeks, in-
stead of, as usual, conducting the impulsion to the brain,
where  the sentient power may receive notice  of what is
passing in the external world.   More briefly, in the one
case the mind takes, in the other it receives information.
  I ground my observation on certain  facts, and on this
especially:  A mesmeric sleepwaker  rarely  observes
any external object  of his own accord.   His state is one
of concentration, abstraction, and internal thought.   If
he be conversant with material objects, it is in the mir-
ror of his own mind.  Only when the mesmerizer stim-
ulates his volition does he attend to any external thing,
and  then it is by seeming to apply, as it were, his  new
organ of perception to the object, with  something of vis-
ible  effort.   If I may be permitted the  illustration, I
should say that he seems to feel out the object, as an in-
sect examines things by putting forth its antenna?, and
using them as instruments of exploration.
  This is more especially observable in the early stages
of the  mesmeric state, beyond which some persons nev-
er advance.   There is  also a difference  which results
from native character, some manifesting from the first,
some acquiring by degrees, a greater power of independ-
ent  action than others, a power less  evidently derived
from the mesmerizer.   When this is  the case, there is
more attention manifested towards external things, but
always, I imagine, in  the manner that I have above in-
dicated, namely, by active exercise of the new organ  of
sense  rather  than  by passive reception  of  impulsions
through it.
  Some, who exhibit a very extended  perception in the
mesmeric state, seem to possess, to a certain  degree, the
faculty of shifting the external sensibility of the nervous
system, though it continues always restricted,  from one
spot to another, changing, as it  were, the site of their
single  organ  of sensation.  Thus E. A., who perceived
things  by the forehead, would  occasionally  receive in-
formation relative to external objects by the  back of his
head, the  side, or the top; but he seldom did this  spon-
taneously, and would always say it was  a great effort,
and did him harm.  And, in effect, after having induced
                        Y2 
258          MESMERIC  SENSATION.
him to make many such efforts, I always observed that
he, on awaking, manifested uneasiness and fatigue.
  Other considerations  support  my view  of the case.
The mesmerizer can, by stimulating the patient's volition,
restore the sense of feeling  (but, I believe, that sense
alone) momentarily to the extremities of the  nervous
system.   Thus Anna M----, when mesmerized,  felt
nothing if pinched in the hand by an indifferent person ;
but if I told her to attend and try to feel, she could tran-
siently perceive  that she  was touched.   This proves
that the mind of the patient can proceed from its inner
abstraction for a moment to the extremities of  the ner-
vous  system, and reoccupy its  accustomed channels.
Take this in conjunction with other facts, which demon-
strate that conduction towards the brain is barred, and I
think our  point is proved.   E. A. being mesmerized (as
will he remembered) at a time when he was  suffering
from hunger, was no longer conscious of the sensation
from  the  time of  his  entering the  mesmeric  state,
Again, Anna M----suffering, when awake, from a gath-
ering in her finger, had no longer a sense of pain when
in the mesmeric slumber.   In these cases the nerves of
feeling, whether internal or external, did evidently  no
longer convey impulsions towards the brain, but were as
inefficient for that purpose as if they had been tied or
cut.   The reader may also consult, for farther  informa-
tion  on this  subject, the  Monthly Chronicle for July,
1838, wherein a most interesting experiment  on mes-
meric  insensibility is detailed.  By this it appears that a
galvanic shock, which produced  a very severe effect on
Sir William Molesworth and other persons, had no vis-
ible influence on Elizabeth and Jane  Okey, patients of
Dr. Elliotson,  Yet were these  girls able  to attend to
all that was passing on every side of them, or, in other
words, to use their nervous system actively, while inca-
pable of being influenced by it passively. There was no
conduction towards the brain, but only from it.
   Again, in the case of Mademoiselle Estelle L'H----,
related by Dr. Despines, of Aix, and once before referred
to, it is stated that when she was unable,  from  a spe-
cies of nervous paralysis, to stir a limb, she  could, in
the mesmeric condition, into which she  sometimes spon-
taneously fell, actively use all her members as when in
perfect health.  The  transition  from a state  of active
exertion to one of passive helplessness was very mark' 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
259
ed, and often very alarming;  since, if her natural mes-
merism  dissipated itself (as  sometimes would occur)
when she was walking or even riding, she would fall
suddenly, and, if not timely assisted, come with force to
the ground.
  Some of these  phenomena are by no means peculiar
to mesmerism.  The  partial  restoration to  feeling ef-
fected through stimulation of the patient's will is paral-
leled by  those  cases  in which  nerves  under the  influ-
ence of strong excitement have been suddenly restored,
after years of inaction, to a conducting capacity.  Para-
lytic patients, it is well known, have recovered the use
of their limbs for a short time, when they were forced
to save themselves  from fire  or other  threatened  evils,
but, the excitement withdrawn, have fallen helpless to
the earth; even  those who  had been dumb for years
have spoken under circumstances where strong emotion
burst their  bonds of speech.  Nor are these the only
cases to  which mesmeric sensation bears analogy.
  The inversion of nervous action has been pointed out
by Darwin, and particularly described  in his  chapter on
Revery in the Zoonomia.   A young lady, it is there re-
lated, suffering under this singular malady, neither saw,
heard, nor felt, during its  attacks, any of the surround-
ing objects; yet  did  she  manifest occasionally  in her
state of revery a perception of external things (as when
smelling a tuberose and drinking a dish of tea), " but this
was only  when she voluntarily seemed to  attend to them."
  Darwin, remarking on the case, observes:
  " In the present  history, the strongest stimuli were
not perceived except  when the faculty of volition was
exerted on the organ of sense, and  then even common
stimuli were sometimes perceived;  for her mind was
so strenuously employed in pursuing its own trains of
voluntary or sensitive ideas, that no  common stimuli
could so far excite  her attention as to  disunite  them ;
that is, the quantity of volition or of sensation already
existing was greater than any which could be produced
in consequence of common degrees of stimulation."
  Darwin has well stated this; and this appears to be
the history  of the sensations in all cases of sleepwa-
king and states which are analogical  to  sleepwaking.
The mind is deeply occupied on its own train of thought,
bo as to  become inattentive  to everything in which it
does not sympathize and with which it does not co-oper- 
260
MESMERIC SENSATION.
ate.  It is exhibited in the position of originating action;
and every action which it does not itself originate is to
it as a nullity ; as, for instance, the natural sleepwaker
will be unconscious of the  presence  of other persons,
and will suffer much  from them  without awaking; yet
will he exert—yes, here it may be truly said exert—his
percipient power on  such objects as he pleases; thus
manifestly exhibiting a freedom of choice and  a capacity
of selection which does not belong to  man  generally.
Thus, however  paradoxical it may appear,  the  state
from  which volition seems the most absent is really the
fullest of free-will.
  These things throw light on mesmerism, and approx-
imate it to experience.  They are known to be parts of
the constitution  of man; they are demonstrated to re-
semble perfectly the state which we  deem so anoma-
lous.   How comes it that  the likeness has not  been
recognised before; that mesmerism, in truth  so old,
should seem so new; so near, should seem so distant ?
The fault has been in this: viewing mesmerism  as a
strange thing, men have  sought strange  solutions for it.
Deserting the  sure  path of  common  life, they  have
thought themselves obliged  by the dignity of their sub-
ject not to be  too  explicit in their explanations, but to
wrap the apparent mystery in tenfold  darkness.  As
Arago has well observed, in  his life of James Watt,
" Les forces naturelles ou artificielles, avant de devenir
vraiment utiles aux hommes,  ont presque toujours ete
exploitees au  profit de la superstition."  So have we
been taught to view with superstitious fear the home-born
stranger of our own bosoms.  Thus has every effort to
approximate it to man thrown it farther  off.  They who
chase it most  will  find it least.  To go far for it  is like
hunting for happiness,

       " Which still so near us,  yet beyond us lies,
         O'erlook'd, seen double, by the fool and wise."

  The very terms heretofore in use, in speaking of mes-
meric  phenomena, have been strange and portentous.
This is an error.  We have undoubtedly startling things
to relate ; let them not be related  in startling language !
Words have much power for good and for evil. On this
account I regret that the term  " transposition of the
senses" should ever have been applied to mesmeric per-
ception, for  it is a manifest inaccuracy.  The  senses, 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
261
as I trust I have demonstrated, are never by mesmerism
transposed or removed from their real seat.  Still more
unfortunate is it that the early mesmerists should have
sinned against precision of language so far as to talk of
their patients seeing with the epigastrium, the fingers,
&c.  To those  who might inadvertently repeat such an
error, we might suggest that, when we are made to hear
the ticking of a watch by means of its contact with  the
teeth, it would  be a rash conclusion that we hear with
our teeth.  Such expressions as these remove mesmer-
ism farther and farther from the safe regions of experi-
ence.   Our object should be ever to show that it does
not alter sensation, save in certain comparatively unim-
portant particulars of its mode of conduction.   But such
stumbling blocks as these are fast being removed out of
the way of objectors, so as to leave them no excuse for
hanging doubts  on words and arguments on verbal inac-
curacies.   Already the obnoxious term magnetism  has
given  way to the unobjectionable name which is well
derived from the discoverer or reviver of the agency in
question.   Once the whole learned world fastened furi-
ously  on  the word fluid, unfortunately applied  to  this
agency.   This  can occur no more; for, through the ex-
cellent judgment of Dr. Elliotson,  mesmerizers them-
selves  agree in exposing the absurdity of deciding posi-
tively  on the nature of mesmeric influence.
   But  there still remains  a stronghold to those who
think that to attack a name is to quash a fact.   " What!"
exclaim  some  persons, "do you assert  that any  one
can see with the eyes shut ?"  By no means. We  will
change the term.   WThy quarrel about a word ?   WTe
will couch the  fact of mesmeric  perception in any  lan-
guage  that is most agreeable to the  objector; we  will
allow  that to have  certain perceptions otherwise than
by the eye is  not properly to see.   Let us say, then,
that,  it is to perceive or know; for knowledge, at  any
rate, is the end and object  of  all the senses.  Knowl-
edge is a general expression of the nature of man.  But,
be this as it may, the nomenclature  of mesmerism,
however faulty, evidently makes no difference whatever
in the  facts.  It is with these we have to deal, and, un-
less  we  actually desire  to quibble, it is these we must
alone  consider.  But  the advocates of mesmerism are
placed in a singular dilemma.  The world calls out for
facts; and, when we offer such as we alone have to of- 
262
MESMERIC SENSATION.
 fer, hurls them back in our teeth.  The mesmeric vision,
 or clair-voyance, especially has been gravely and grandly
 pronounced to be " physically and physiologically im-
 possible."   How can  we reply to  this?  Only, I sup-
 pose, as Pascal did to some  one who asserted that it
 was impossible for God, being  so great, to busy himself
 about our little word :  " II faut etre bien grand d'en ju-
 ger" (" To  decide such  a question, one  must be great
 indeed !").   Or, again  (for there is no lack of answers),
 "Must everything be impossible which our insufficience
 cannot  account for?  Are there not innumerable mys-
 teries in nature, which accident reveals, or experimental
 philosophy demonstrates to us every day ?  And shall
 we yet presume to limit the powers of the great Author
 of that very nature ?"
   But should we  still be met with the same wearisome
 assertion, so as to be provoked out  of all  philosophical
 endurance, we may, perhaps, at last be allowed to ex-
 claim with Young,

            " Impossible is nowhere to be found,
            Except, perhaps, in the fool's calendar."
   Did these positive persons  know all* the offices and
 functions of the nerves, they  might be thus dogmatic.
 But the  study of  the nervous  capacities is itself of re-
 cent date, and the powers of nervous development are
 unknown.   That  the nerves do not always act in con-
 cert with the external organs, that they transcend them,
 that they can occasionally altogether dispense with their
 aid, has  been  proved.   What  if it  were  reserved for
 mesmerism  to show the nerves not only  acting alone,
 but acting in correspondence with external things ?  Is
 this a reason  for rejecting an evidence precious in it-
 self—the more precious from its novelty and rarity?  A
new science must be based on new  facts.  Were  all
phenomena alike in the world, knowledge must come to
an  end,  and  investigation  be circumscribed  indeed.
 Surely all that is  required to render any class of facts
interesting is, that they should be new, yet not out of
analogy with nature; and those we have been consider-
ing come under both these conditions.  Even though
they should stand alone as a class, yet, having been
shown to be uncontradicted by  nature's general tenden-
cies, they should  be admitted to  examination.  Yet
here again, though demanding but justice, we are balk- 
MESMERIC  SENSATION.           263
ed.  We entreat the adversaries of mesmerism to come
and witness our facts.   They come not;  or, if  they
come, scarcely deign to look at the most important and
interesting phenomena ; or, again, try experiments not
with a rigour, but with an unfairness unknown in other
inquiries, expecting  the  sensitive being  we exhibit to
them to act as  so  much  brute  matter, and to be in the
right  when their sensibility is exhausted.
  " But,"  piteously  exclaim the  systematic men, " if
mesmerism be true, then all  we  have  hitherto learned
is false."  By no means.   But, even were this so,  sure-
ly it is better to get into the right path late than never.
It is better also  gracefully to yield than to be held up as
a spectacle  of  vanquished yet impertinent obstinacy.
And light, resistless light, is pouring in on every side to
illustrate nature, and to display mesmerism in the first
rank of acknowledged truths.
  It requires but little sagacity to perceive that  they
who now  place  mesmerism in the category of impossi-
bilities will shortly be in the situation so  well described
in the following lines :

          " So fares the system-building sage,
            Who, plodding on from youth to age,
            Has  proved all other reasoners fools,
            And  bound all nature  by his rules;
            So fares he in that dreadful hour,
            When injured Truth exerts her power
            Some new phenomenon to raise,
            Which, bursting on his frighted gaze,
            From its proud summit to the ground,
            Proves the whole edifice unsound."*
                   SECTION IV.

        ON THE MEDIUM OF MESMERIC SENSATION.

  Having shown  from the real nature of the changes m
man's personal frame which precede sensation, that an
inner sensibility,  coincident with an inaction in external
organs of sense,  is but accordant with the principles of
true physiology,  I  now purpose briefly to consider the
* Beattie. 
264
THE MEDIUM OF
prerequisites of sensation which are  external to our-
selves ; the media, namely, which place us in communi-
cation with foreign and distant objects; and I trust here
also to demonstrate  that mesmerism, instead oi viola-
ting laws, does in fact bring us to grounds and principles.
  Should the problem be given us to solve of conveying
to a being, limited in perception and  place, knowledge
from a distance, how should we accomplish the desired
end?
  By contact, certainly, and  motion.
  We will imagine a person, deaf and dumb, placed at
a distance from us, with his back towards us.  He has
been taught to distinguish, like the pupils in the Abbe
Picard's institution at Paris,  words written on the back.
We are too far off to write these with the finger; we
take a stick and write;  and  the  person, though distant
from us,  understands what we mean as well as if our
thoughts  were actually present to himself. Here a cer-
tain motion  and  configuration convey from  our  own
mind intelligence of what  is there existing to the mind
of another, through the intervention of a moving medium.
  So God's intention is manifestly to  convey to us cer-
tain ideas from his  own  mind, through  intermediary
types or  shadows; and all knowledge is  God's writing
on the soul by means of certain touches from afar, pro-
longed  even unto us by communicating media.  Should
this view of the subject be  refused, and should we be re-
quired, with cold philosophy, to limit  ourselves to ma-
terial objects, and to their  effects upon  our physical
frame, it  will still be  perfectly evident that particles of
matter cannot act upon other  particles without some
means of communication.
  When, then, we are made aware of the existence of
distant bodies, it is plain that these are  brought int° con-
tact with our nervous system, either by a prolongation
and extension of the  atoms which compose them, or by
an impulse continuously carried on from themselves to
us  by the successive agitation of the particles of some
intervening substance.  The latter, in cases where the
object  with which we  communicate  is extremely re-
mote, appears to be  the most rational supposition, and
with this modern science  is perfectly  in accord, no lon-
ger considering even light itself as a  corporeal emana-
tion from the sun, but as a vibratory impulse communi- 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
265
cated from the self-luminous solar body to an ethereal
medium, and thence again to our optic nerves.
  By analogical appearances and  reasoning, it  seems
also to be decided that " heat, like light and sound, con-
sists in the undulations of an elastic medium;" and it
may, perhaps, in process of time, still farther be proved
that odour is not a material emanation, but a mere ac-
tion of matter communicated to our perception  by the
nerves.  This at least would account  for the now  in-
comprehensible fact, that  a grain of musk will diffuse
its  odour for years without any perceptible  diminution
of its weight.
  In the admirable language of Mrs. Somerville, "The
human  frame  may therefore be  regarded as an  elastic
system, the different parts of which are capable of  re-
ceiving the tremours of elastic media, and of vibrating in
unison with any number of superposed undulations, all
of which have their perfect and independent effect."
  This view of the nature of our sensations  cannot but
greatly simplify our notions  concerning them, and it is
astonishing how much is effected towards the compre-
hension of a subject when we put out of the way all its
less in ,,>>rtant elements.  The  astronomer,  finding it
impossible to determine the  motion of each heavenly
body when disturbed  by all the rest,  takes a simpler
problem, and  calculates the mutual  relations  of three
bodies oidy ;  yet thence he learns to judge of the whole
celestial system.   In  the same manner, the problem of
the action of matter upon mind should be rendered as
little complicate as possible ;  and  thus, in considering
sensation, it is desirable to bring into  one comprehen-
sive view its chief conditions, to the exclusion of such
contingencies  as merely arise from the modifying influ-
ence of particular circumstances.  Now we have seen
that the external and mechanical portions of  our senses
are not indispensably and fundamentally connected with
sensation, but rather are adaptations to the  exigencies
of this our temporary  existence.  The two absolute es-
sentials of sensation,  without  which it could  not take
place under any circumstances, in  which it bears coin-
cident relation to real external objects, are  a medium
and a  system capable of responding to that  medium.
Now the question is,  whether there  b<- any  fact  which
renders impossible, during the mesmeric sleep, the co-
existence of the two essential conditions of sensation.
                         Z 
266
THE MEDIUM  OF
One of them, that is, motion of  the  nervous system,
has been shown to be by no means of necessity abroga-
ted during mesmeric sleepwaking; but the other, that is,
the correlative  motion of a medium, does, on a cursory
view, seem forbidden in cases where the  patient sees
through obstacles which intercept the light, and, to our
common apprehensions, break up  the continuity of vis-
ual impulsions.  On maturer consideration,  however,
we must own that  the great principle of  sensation,
namely, motion communicated by media, may not only
subsist in its integrity during  the mesmeric  vision, but
subsist also analogically to all we  know or can discover
of nature's constitution.
  It is true that, in the endeavour  to reconcile mesmer-
ic sensation with established laws, we are in a manner
forced into  hypothesis.  But  is this a fault?  A great
metaphysician  has pronounced that " an hypothesis, in
the first stage of inquiry,  far from being inconsistent with
sound philosophy, may  be  said to be essential to it."
Now the case of mesmerism is one in which  we are ab-
solutely obliged from given data  to  draw deductions,
and to reconcile two facts by the interposition of a third.
With regard to mesmeric vision,  for instance, we have
a phenomenon, accurately determined by rigorous ex-
periment, which involves two things, a perceiving mind,
and  an object  perceived;  and these we are  forced,
through reason, to connect by a third, namely, a medium,
for we never knew mind to  perceive but through an in-
termediary,  and we have reason to think that none but
the Almighty mind can immediately perceive objects.
Yet more : the sleepwaker has a nervous system, which,
though externally inert, is manifestly in internal activi-
ty ; and there is no ground whatever to suppose that the
established language of  sensation, namely, motion of a
nerve, is  in  mesmerism  abolished, though it  be produ-
ced in an unusual way.  If, then,  there be motion of a
nerve correlative with an external  object, it is plain that
this motion  must be brought about by means, and by
material means.  What these means are we do not, in-
deed, exactly know, and  we are therefore compelled, in
a degree, to  form conjectures about them.   Certainly
the less of this the better, but at any rate we cannot but
imagine such a medium  as shall meet the necessities of
the case ; herein, at least, we have a sure guide.  It, ta-
king the facts, we proceed, step by step, to deduce from 
              MESMERIC  SENSATION.           267

them the characteristics of our medium, fitting always
the supposition to the reality, and not the reality to the
supposition, it seems as if we could not greatly err.
  The  first thing of which we may be sure is, that the
medium which connects mesmeric persons with exter-
nal objects is not any of those which we believe to be
efficient in ordinary sensation.  The mechanism of the
senses being  null, the media especially adapted to that
mechanism must also be useless in conveying informa-
tion.  The  ear was made for air, and the eye for light;
but in  this case the  ear  is closed  and the eye is  an
abolished organ.   That, however, there should be  no
communication between the  sleepwaker  and external
objects does by no means  follow.  We have seen that
real information respecting the material world can  be
conveyed through other inlets of the body than the or-
dinary.  In the same manner, it may be  affirmed that
even our common experience may  show us sensation
taking place through other external  media than the or-
dinary.   Let  us adhere to our principle, that similar mo-
tions of the nerves may be  produced  in various ways,
and different causes end in the same result; and here,
also, it will not fail us.
  The deaf, who hear and enjoy music by means of a
staff connecting their teeth or their  chest with a musi-
cal instrument, do really use another medium than the
air for the conveyance of acoustic impulses.  In the
same way, we have instances to show that real infor-
mation respecting external actions of matter may reach
from great distances by other than the  usual  media.
Water is even a  better conductor of sound  than  air.
" According to the experiments of M.  Colladon, the sound
of a bell was conveyed under water, through the Lake
of Geneva, to the  distance of about nine  miles."  Yet
again :  " The velocity of sound, in passing through sol-
ids, is in proportion to their hardness, and is much great-
er than in  air or water.   A  sound  which takes some
time in travelling through the air, passes almost instan-
taneously along a wire 600 feet long; consequently it is
heard  twice,  first  as communicated by the wire, and
afterward through  the medium of the air.  The facility
with which the vibrations of sound are transmitted along
the grain of a log of wood  is well known.   Indeed, they
pass through iron,  glass, and some kinds of wood at the
rate of 18,530 feet in a second." 
268
THE MEDIUM  OF
  Does anything similar take place with regard to light?
There does;  and even in a more remarkable manner.
The electric medium is a far more swift and subtle mes-
senger of vision than is the luminous ether.  " A wheel
revolving with celerity sufficient to render its spokes in-
visible, 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 come and already
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  velo-
city of light.   It is therefore a different medium, yet can
it serve for all the purposes of vision, and even in a su-
perior manner.  After hearing these things,  shall we
start at the notion of mesmeric sensation being convey-
ed through another medium than that in ordinary action ?
Even should  the  sleepwaker  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.
  But the mesmerized person perceives objects not only
at a distance, but through  obstacles which are complete
impediments  to ordinary vision.   Let us keep in  view
our principle.   Motions of the nerves, and something to
produce those motions,  in correspondence with an ex-
ternal cause, are the required conditions which we seek
to unite.  If  a mesmerized person seems  to behold an
object through an obstacle which commonly bars vision,
let us not take so vulgar a  view of this apparent miracle
as to suppose that the sleepwaker's sight pierces through
opaque  bodies.   It is not,  in any case, the eye, but the
medium, which penetrates  the obstacle.   The impulsion
on the optic nerve is the cause of vision, and, if we can
find a medium to transmit that impulsion, athwart what-
ever impediments, vision will take  place.  Any inter-
ruption  in the medium would be the real obstacle to vis-
ion.   Cut that off by the finest and  most imperceptible
barrier, you at  once render vision  impossible; but, as
long as it continues to be transmitted through bodies, the
most apparently dense, vision will not be prevented : an
object is brought  into relation with us.  This is the 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
269
whole  history of seeing; and is it, in fact, more won-
derful that any one should be brought into relation with
an object by means of an impulse transmitted through
an obstacle, than that the astronomer should be brought
into relation with a star by means of light which left it
a thousand years ago?   We seek, then, a medium which
shall act through obstacles, which is able to transmit
impulses athwart them unimpeded, unimpaired.   Now, ,
as Newton observes, " the effluvia of a magnet can be <
so rare and subtile as  to pass through a plate of glass
without any resistance or diminution of their force, and
yet so potent as to turn a magnetic needle beyond the
glass."  And this effect of magnetism, as  we now know,
is but one of the actions of electricity, which can pierce
not only through diaphanous, but through  opaque bodies,
and which is now supposed to pervade not only the re-
gions of space,  but every interstice between  the parti-
cles of apparently solid  matter.  The  electric force,
then, will naturally occur to him who seeks a penetrating
and pervading medium, as resolvable of  the enigma of
mesmeric sensation.
   The philosopher also will remember that electricity,
when  brought to act upon the nerves, in that peculiar
form of it which is called galvanism, is capable of affect-
ing all the senses, making us seem to hear, see, taste, or
feel.   Moreover, it has just been proved to equal or sur-
pass light in its capacity of producing real sensations of
vision in correspondence with external objects.  It may,
however, here  be objected that  electricity never does
this save in a manner visible to all  men ; that if there
be vision by means of electricity, there is also an actual
 electric spark or flash; whereas, in mesmerism, it  is
 not pretended that there is any agency cognizable by any
 person but the sleepwaker himself.  This is true.  But,
 then,  be it remembered, the luminous medium itself can
 be manifestly shown  to have other actions than those
 with  which men in  general are acquainted :  actions
 which can only be perceived by beings in a peculiar state
 of sensibility, or more finely organized than  ourselves.
 As an author to  whom I am already deeply indebted
 has remarked, "It is quite possible that many vibrations
 may be excited in the  ethereal medium incapable of pro-
 ducing  undulations in the fibres of the human retina,
 which yet have a powerful effect on those of other ani-
 mals  or of insects.  Such may receive luminous im- 
270
THE MEDIUM  OF
 pressions of which we are totally unconscious, and, at
 the same time, they may be insensible to the light and
 colours which affect our eyes, their perceptions  begin-
 ning where ours end."
   A proof of the soundness of the above conclusions is
 the fact that the owl and the cat pursue their prey just
' when the increasing obscurity renders other animals pur-
 blind.  The degrees of visual sensibility  in  different
 persons are also to be remarked.  A  lady of my ac-
 quaintance performed one evening what might have pass-
 ed for a mesmeric  miracle, deciphering a letter, written
 in a small cramped hand, at a time when there was so
 little light that five or six persons  of our society (my-
 self  among the  number) could not make out  a  single
 word of  the letter. That some individuals, in certain
 states of the nervous system, see in an obscurity  which
 to other  persons appears total, has been before observ-
 ed.   A case of this kind was very recently mentioned
 to me by a medical man with  every particularity of de-
 tail.   A peasant, who  had fallen into a state of illness
 from having imprudently plunged his head, when heated,
 into  a bucket  of cold  water,  could no  longer bear the
 light of day, but was able to discern objects in apparent
 darkness.  A  number of gentlemen, visiting him  out of
 curiosity, made him tell the time (in darkness) by their
 watches, which they altered sufficiently often to be sure
 of the correctness  of the experiment.   As the man re-
 covered his health, the susceptibility of his optic nerves
 gradually subsided to  the  usual  pitch.  These  facts
 should lead us to beware under what circumstances we
 pronounce vision impossible, and  should teach us not
 to limit  the perception of others by  the boundaries of
 our own.  It  is evident that a finer medium and a finer
 degree of sensibility, co-operating to produce mesmeric
 vision, are causes  perfectly adequate to account for all
 its phenomena.
   There  is one remark respecting mesmeric sensation
 important to be made.   In  our normal state, the use of
 our external organs is not  only to modify impulses, but
 to concentrate them, properly modified, on a particular
 nerve.   Now it may be asked, How, when the concen-
 trating organs are  removed out of  the way, can impul-
 sions be  concentrated upon the nervous system so as to
 bring the sleepwaker in correspondence with particular
 objects, it being evident that,  in the general motions of 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
271
a general medium, there could be none of that particu-
larity and selection which sensation evidently requires 1
To satisfy ourselves on this question, we have only to
remember that  the  sleepwaker does not, in general,
Beein to know on every side, but that the most common
mode of mesmeric perception (there being two, as I have
pointed out) is by a concentrated sensibility in one  par-
ticular portion of the frame, which constitutes, as it
were, an organ whereby, in fact, impulses coming from
without are concentrated, as  they ordinarily are in an-
other way by the usual organs.  That sleepwakers real-
ly do use some part of the nervous system as an organ
of concentration, I have  had frequent occasion to re-
mark, Anna M---- always bringing her forehead  in a
line with  an object she  wished to examine, and often
starting at the moment when her forehead came oppo-
site the object, as if she were struck by the impulses of
some invisible medium.   When this was  the case, she
was always correct in her perceptions.  In thus bring-
ing the nervous  system into immediate relation with an
object by means of one restricted portion of the nervous
system, it is  evident that the analogies  of  nature are
preserved.
   Thus,  in  examining the media, the action of which
forms the external prerequisites of sensation, we seem
to arrive at  a  general ground  or principle, just as, in ex-
amining  the action of the nerves, or the internal prere-
quisites of sensation, we formerly arrived at a ground or
principle.  And the one seems perfectly adjusted to the
other.  From what we know  of the constitution of na-
ture, also, we should expect to come to some ground in
sensation, for the discoveries of modern science tend to
resolve all forces, even gravitation itself, into varied ac-
tions of one medium ; and, the universality of that medi-
um  being once  allowed, it is plain that it must be the
ground in sensation as in all things else.   Besides, view-
ing man as more than the ephemeral being of a day, and
more especially viewing him  in his  extended relation-
ships to creation; considering, too, all we know or see
as but parts of one great system, we should expect not
only to arrive at some ground in sensation which  had
not precisely reference to the transitory purposes of this
life, but  at some general ground which might be com-
mon to all beings, and which might largely pervade the
universe. 
272
THE MEDIUM  OF
  The media which now act upon our organs we should
as much conceive to be modifications  of the pervading
and ethereal medium,  as our organs  themselves are
manifestly modifications of the  sentient principle.  So,
in a new state  of man, which takes him, as it were, out
of his sphere for  a while, and extends his relations to
things in general  by removing the modifications of the
external senses, we should expect to find a correspond-
ing removal of the modifying media, and a correspondent
approximation to  the general groundwork of sensation.
Something like such a universal principle or agency in
sensation has long been suspected to exist.
   Newton, speaking of his celebrated  ether,  says: " Is
not vision performed chiefly through the  vibrations of
this medium, excited in the bottom of the eye by the
rays of light, and propagated through the solid, pellucid,
and uniform capillamenta of the optic nerves  into the
place of sensation?  And is not hearing performed by
the vibrations either of this or some other medium, ex-
cited in the auditory nerves by the tremours  of the air,
and propagated through the solid, pellucid, and uniform
capillamenta of those  nerves into the place of sensa-
tion?  And  so of the other senses."
   Admit this, and the mysteries of sensation in sleep-
waking stand revealed.  When once we see  clearly (as
see we must, if we consider nature aright) that the com-
munication between all portions of the universe is con-
tinuous and incapable  of interruption—that  there is a
pervading medium filling all things, permeating all—the
extended sphere  of mesmeric faculties appears no lon-
ger miraculous.   The hiatus once supplied which seem-
ing obstacles created to our apprehensions, there is  no
link  wanting in the chain which connects us with ex-
ternal  objects.  All  is harmonious, all is clear.  And
the facts of mesmerism alone would establish this beau-
tiful simplicity in the  economy of nature and in our
own,  proving that Newton, when he  suggested a uni-
versal agent in sensation, outran his age, and in a mo-
ment divined that which to elucidate will occupy future
ages.  But, alas !  he who defends the cause of  mesmer-
ism because he is penetrated with its truth, is " cabined,
cribbed, confined" in his mode of argument.   He cannot
support a theory, however noble, by the  facts of mes-
merism, nor reason from them by the most legitimate
deduction: for he is called upon to prove that  the facts 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
273
themselves are not absurdities;  that all which he  per-
ceives to be admirably illustrative of Nature's order is
not anomalous and monstrous.   The foundation-stones
of belief for his system are not yet laid;  and he has  to
lay them in a quaking and unstable soil, even as the first
builders of Venice had to waste their materials beneath
the ingulfing  sea long before the ocean city could rise
in stability and beauty from the waves.  A time, how-
ever, is at hand, when the facts of mesmerism, being ac-
cepted as facts, will themselves be used as the most val-
uable demonstrations  of truths and principles which the
genius of great men foreknew.
  If it may be permitted me for a moment to anticipate
that era, I may remark that the fact of the sleepwaker
seeing colours, when the usual action of light is plainly
absent, while he  does not behold  objects  magnified
through a convex glass, is a proof that, as Newton con-
jectured, the  efficient  cause of vision is the vibration of
another medium than  light, and is not dependant on the
anterior  mechanism of the eye.  All this is in perfect
harmony with science.  Colours depend on vibrations of
the optic nerves, which vibrations are shown to be more
perfectly and permanently produced by electricity even
than by light;  for Professor Wheatstone exhibited by
electric light colours  distinctly, and as  at  rest, when
they were revolving so rapidly as to be all mingled togeth-
er into white under any ordinary illumination.  On the
other hand, the enlargement of objects by amagnifying-
glass is a mechanical  effect dependant on a modification
of light,  which could  not take  place where the  condi-
tions are so  plainly  absent as in the mesmeric slum-
ber.  The result of the experiment is at once conform-
able to reason and to  science, and indicative of the sin-
cerity  of the  sleepwaker.  Here, also, we may see  the
difference between sensation general and special.   The
peculiar action of light, whereby an object is magnified,
is only an adaptation  to our present imperfect organs.
By it we gain no new, no peculiar, no fundamental idea :
we only see  objects  when magnified as if  they were
nearer; but the notion of colour is specifically different
from any other, and is common, we may suppose, to all
animated creatures.    Thus is mesmerism,  in all its
parts, calculated to lead us to principles of extensive ap-
plication.  If it  seems to contradict our former knowl-
edge, it only contradicts it in its external and deceptive 
274
THE MEDIUM  OF
appearances.   But, in truth, it never does contradict ei-
ther nature or previous knowledge ; it is only in oppo-
sition to narrow views.  The more we  become aware
what true  experience is, the more shall we find that from
experience mesmerism strays not.   If men had wished
to believe it, half the evidence that is now brought for-
ward to prove it possible would have proved it sure.
  I conclude  my remarks on sensation  by recalling to
the reader's mind a few of the most important reflec-
tions on which we have been engaged, taking sight, our
chief sense, as the type and example of  the rest.
  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 mesmerized person
has correctly seen an object  through obstacles which
to us appear opaque, we, conceiving no  means of com-
munication between the  person and the object, exclaim
that the laws of nature have been violated.  But, in all
cases  where information is conveyed through interrupt-
ed 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 sen-
sations of light, and when we take this in conjunction
with a heightened sensibility  in the percipient person,
rendering him aware of  impulses  whereof we  are not
cognizant, we  are no longer inclined  to deny a fact or
supDose 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 in-
termediate, and  this is  effected by the impulsions of
certain media upon the nerves, the last changes in which
are the immediate  forerunners of  completed sensation.
   Thus things which are beheld in their primal  essences
by the Almighty, are to us known in their beautiful re- 
MESMERIC SENSATION.
275
suits.  It is to the idea, not to the contrivance for exci-
ting  *he idea, that we  are to look; for the  unlettered
peasant, who has a conviction and a feeling  what light
is, has in reality as true a notion of this the first effluence
of supernal power as he who has divided the  sunbeams
with a prism, or calculated the undulations of the ethe-
real  medium.  With respect to external things, we have
only to consider God and man, not God and the philos-
opher.
  Taking this simple view of sensation, we find nothing
in mesmerism  contradictory of nature.   Under its in-
fluence 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 impulses of the Almighty
mind, which made, sustains, and moves the universe. 
BOOK  IV.
" To every form of being is assign'd
 An active principle: howe'er removed
 From sense and observation, it subsists
 In all things, in all natures, in the stars
 Of azure heaven, the unenduring clouds,
 In flower and tree, in every pebbly stone
 That paves the brooks, the stationary rocks,
 The moving waters, and the invisible air."
                              WORDSWORTIT.
                    SECTION I.

                THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
  Having, as I trust, shown the conformity of mesmer-
ism, in all essential points, with the principles of nature
and the inferences of reason, I now proceed to exhibit it
in connexion with such a cause as its peculiar manifes-
tations indicate and demand.
  First, I affirm  that, productive  of the effects  called
mesmeric, there is an action of matter as distinct and
specific as that of light, heat, electricity, or any other of
the imponderable agents, as they are called ;  that, when
the mesmerizer influences his patient, he does this by a
medium, either known already  in another guise, or al-
together new  to our experience.
  What proofs, it will be asked, can I bring forward of
this assertion ?  I answer, su^h proc fs as are consider-
ed available in all cases  where an impalpable imponder-
able medium is to be considered ;  facts, namely, or cer-
tain appearances, which, bearing a peculiar character,
irresistibly suggest a peculiar cause.
  Let us take only one of these.
  Standing  at some yards distant from a person who is
in the mesmeric state (that person being perfectly sta-
tionary, and with his back to me), I, by a slight motion
of  my  hand  (far too slight to be felt by the patient
through any disturbance of the air), draw him towards
me as if I actually grasped him.
   What is the chain of  facts which is here presented to 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM,          277
me ?  First, an action of my mind, without which I could
not have moved my hand ;  secondly, my hand's motion;
thirdly, motion produced in a body altogether external
to, and distant from myself.  But it will at once be per-
ceived that, in the chain of events as thus stated, there
is a deficient link.  The communication between me and
the distant body is not accounted for.  How could an
act of my  mind originate in an effect so unusual ?
  That which is immaterial cannot, by its very defini-
tion, move masses of matter.  It is only when mysteri-
ously united  to a body that spirit is brought into rela-
tionship with place or extension, and under such a con-
dition alone,  and only through  such a medium, can it
propagate  motion.  Now, in some wondrous way, spirit
is in us incorporate.  Our bodies are its medium of ac-
tion.  By  them, and only by them, as far as  our expe-
rience reaches, are we enabled  to move masses of for-
eign matter.  I may sit and may will forever that yon-
der chair come to me, but  without the  direct  agency of
my body it must remain where it is.  All the willing in
the world cannot stir it an inch.  I must bring myself
into absolute contact  with the  body which I desire to
move.  But,  in the case before us, I will, I extend  my
hands;  I  move them  hither and thither, and I see the
body of another person—a mass of matter external to
myself, yet not in apparent contact with me—moved and
swayed by the same action which stirs my own body.
Am  I thence to conclude that a miracle has been per-
formed; that the laws of nature are reversed;  that I
can  move foreign matter without contact or  intermedi-
ate agency?  Or must I not rather be certain that, if I
am able to sway a distant  body, it is by means of some
unseen  lever; that volition is  employing  something
which is  equivalent to a body ; something which may
be likened to  an extended corporeity, which has become
the organ  of my will ?
  Surely  there is no effect without a  cause, and from
actions  we may infer the  existence of an agent.   We
do this a thousand times in other cases ; in that of mes-
merism, for instance.   We never behold this  power but
in its results.  It cannot even be made evident, like the
electric spark, or felt in our own persons, like the gal-
vanic concussion.  The needle that has become a mag-
net has undergone  no change which any mortal sight is
fine enough to appreciate, has acquired no weight which
                      Aa 
278         THE MESMERC MEDIUM.
 can be detected by our earthly senses.   Yet, solely be-
 cause we are sure that we  behold certain phenomena,
 we allow that there is a distinct form of electricity, to
 which we have given  the name of magnetism.   Why
 should we refuse  to mesmerism that which we giant to
 magnetism ?   It is true that as yet we have  no balaace
 of torsion whereby the mesmeric  force can be  meas-
 ured ; but in the  human  body itself we do possess an
 instrument whereby  its presence may  be  ascertained;
 nor would it be reasonable to insist upon separate agen-
 cies being detected by the same test.  Why, then, but
 from the force of prejudice, should we call the mesmeric
 medium a gratuitous assumption ?  That such a medium
 exists is not a gratuitous assumption, but an unavoida-
 ble deduction of reason.  But there is a class  of persons
 who refuse to admit of anything which they cannot see,
 taste, or handle ;  with such it  is  difficult  to argue.
 Should proofs by experiment be exhibited to them again
 and again, they still return to their cuckoo note, " Show
 me the agent."  One of these  practical men, as they
 are called, actually said to me on one occasion, " I never
 will believe that what you call mesmerism exists, unless
 you can put it in a bottle, and submit it to analysis."
  To what end, then, is reason given us, if not to judge
 of things invisible by  those which are clearly  seen ?
 For what purpose possess we the irresistible  propensity
 to supply deficient links in a chain of causation, if not
 to prompt us where our senses fail ?  We move a mag-
 net over  a needle, the  needle moves in a corresponding
 manner; and the human mind is so constituted that we
 cannot behold these two facts in seeming  connexion
 without uniting them  by a third, which we consider as
proved by them, since it is, in truth, their necessary con-
 sequence.  We infer  that  the  effect is produced  by
 means of a magnetic current or medium, a  something
 which propagates motion from the magnet to the nee-
 dle.  This  something  we cannot indeed behold, yet do
 we believe in it, and with justice ; for that which reason
 perceives to  be necessary is not an invention, and can
 never be superfluous :  on the contrary, the only immuta-
 ble and essential truths come out of the mould of the
 intuitive reason, which, as Coleridge observes, stops not
 at " this will be so," but at once decides, " This must be
 so."
  Now,  in all cases  where motion is communicated 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.         279
from one body to another, the line  of communication
must be maintained unbroken.  The  first impulse gives
motion to certain atoms, which in their turn propel oth-
ers, and so on, till the whole  series between the active
body mid  the body which is to receive the original im-
pulse it. set in motion, and then, at length, the sequence
of events  is complete, and the body towards  which mo-
tion tended is set vibrating.   If the medium that propa-
gates  the first impulsion be undulatory and  elastic, its
atoms only oscillate on either side  a fixed point of rest;
but if it  be  composed of travelling atoms, there  is an
actual progression of the medium.  In either case, mo-
tion is propagated by a real action  of matter till it reach
its final destination.  This is the history of all commu-
nicated motion, and it is plain that this holds good wheth-
er we behold the collection of atoms in  a bodily shape,
that transmits the motion, as in the case of one billiard
ball propelling another, or whether we behold them not,
as in the case of sound being communicated to the ear
from a vibrating body by means  of the intervening air.
I grant that the old axiom, " A body cannot act where it
is not," is very properly exploded; but for it we must
substitute another, namely, " A body cannot act where
it is not  save by deputy or transmissive  means."  Yet
some have  overlooked this truth; and in their zeal  to
avoid theories, when they  behold  two sensible actions
evidently dependant the one on the other, and yet ap-
parently disjoined, fear to  unite them properly by sug-
gesting the presence of an unseen link, which, neverthe-
less, cannot but occur between the visible  antecedent
and the visible consequent; for motion is not an entity
that can go  through void spaces  independently and
alone; it is merely a property which has no existence
out of the subject that manifests it;  and, where matter
fails, there  motion fails also.  It is vain, then, to hold
such language, as if it were possible for one body to pro-
duce motion in another without something intermediate,
that is,  miraculously and without  means; yet  your
good hater of theories will even dare to  blame Newton
for having suggested an ether to account for that action
which one body produces on another, and even, in many
 cases, from vast distances,  and which we call attraction.
 It is true that Newton may be wrong in the manner in
 which he manages his ether, and accounts for impul-
 sion  and reinipuJsion by differences of dense and rare 
280         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
but he cannot be wrong in preserving an unbroken series
of atoms between separate bodies which manifestly in-
fluence each other—between the sun and earth, for in-
stance—since in this  case  there is mutual action and
motion communicated from a distance.  Extending  the
principle,  and perceiving that all the heavenly bodies
were  in mutual relationship, and  the whole  celestial
system harmoniously  bound together, Newton supposed
his ether to be of universal action, and to fill and per-
vade  creation, establishing  a means of  communication
between all its several parts.  Were this allowed, there
would be but little difficulty in explaining mesmerism;
but a  sublime divination of this kind is too vast for  the
general understanding.   Accordingly, even Newton's
name has failed to render the theory palatable, and men
of small views have dared to call even this suggestion
of a mighty mind gratuitous, treating  its author with a
levity which can only lessen one's respect for  the  ob-
jectors.  Have these  cavillers an  intellect superior to
Newton's  own?   If they have, let them give  us some-
thing better than Newton's suggestion (better, not only
in their own opinions, but in ours) respecting the great
problems of creation; some theory more solid and sub-
lime,  to satisfy the cravings of humanity after pure and
lofty  generalization: till  then, let them, at least by si-
lence, acquiesce in Professor Playfair's beautifully-ex-
pressed opinion of the queries: " Such enlarged and
comprehensive  views, so  many new  and bold con-
ceptions, were never before combined with the sobriety
and caution of philosophical induction.   The anticipa-
tion of future discoveries,  the assemblage of so  many
facts  from the most distant regions of human research,
all brought to bear on the same points and to elucidate
the same questions, are never to be sufficiently admired."
In recalling this to the reader's mind, I trust that I seem
not to stray from my subject, which is, in truth, so deep-
ly implicated in the truth or falsehood of Newton's prin-
cipal  suggestions.  But I might leave this great  man's
defence to time, which already has "brought in its re-
venges," science being even now occupied in develop-
ing Newton's ideas, and in establishing as undoubted
truths the greater part of all which he so modestly ad-
vanced as queries.  Facts relative to the  acceleration
observed in the mean motion of comets  have  demon-
strated, to the satisfaction of men of science, the  exist- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIU1           281
ence of  a resisting medium, undulatory  and elastic,
which pervades the known universe.
  How frequently it has thus  happened that the deduc-
tions of the pure reason have  triumphed over the cavils
and hesitations of the understanding which, being  con-
versant with matters of experience only, cannot step be-
yond the sensuous and the  known!  Kepler believed
that the  harmony of our system required  a planet be-
tween  Mars and Jupiter, and  the deficiency is now ac-
tually  supplied by the discovery of the four  singular
orbs which seem once  to have formed but one single
body.  My reader's memory will doubtless  supply other
instances where the philosopher in his  closet has outrun
experiment, and has  divined  what  future observation
has verified and facts  confirmed.  When, then, we  find
Mesmer  (who, whatever were  his  faults  of conduct,
was  no  contemptible thinker)  suggesting a universal
medium  as alone explanatory of mesmeric phenomena,
let us,  instead of unwisely scoffing, inquire whether the
circumstances of the  case may not possibly render the
existence of such  a medium a positive necessity, and a
truth palpable to reason.  This at least we know, that
all science seems  now  tending to refer the  apparently
distinct  agencies of nature to the varied operation of
one  medium ;  to  establish, in  fine, an  ether  such as
Newton had imagined, and such as Mesmer perceived
would  satisfactorily account  for the apparent miracles
of his  new science.
   Now,  whether mesmerism  be a distinct medium, or
only the distinct effects of a general medium, widely
manifested in other offices, I  will not take upon myself
to decide.  We no longer consider electricity, magnet-
ism, even light itself, to be  separate  and independent
agents ;  we call them effects.  And this is well, if we
remember to refer effects to  causes, and properties and
qualities to real substances and subjects.  We must not
turn all  the goings-on of the world  into mere  abstrac-
tions.   Vibrations imply a vibrating body ; electric mo-
tions or concussions, something that moves or is con-
cussed.   It will, indeed, greatly simplify our  ideas to
consider all the various appearances  of nature as so
many  actions of matter, but we must beware of suppo-
sing that, where action is present, matter can be absent.
I  am very willing, then, to call all mesmeric phenomena
effects  i  but I not the less contend that they must be ef- 
282         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
fects of something.  I am willing to consider mesmer-
ism itself as an action of matter, yet still of matter.   I
cannot  tell whether, in the case of mesmeric agency,
matter assumes the  form of a fluid or a gas, but 1 know
and am sure that material agency there is. This agen-
cy may be only one of the modifications of a substance
which  operates in other ways, or it may  be the single
action of a single substance.   But, in fact, the probabil-
ity is, that there are really various media  in nature, the
finer, we may suppose, occupying the interstices of the
grosser, distinct  yet interfused, wheel  within wheel, a
subtle  mechanism.  Every one knows that the atmo-
sphere is the medium through which sound is conveyed
to us.   A bell  rung  under the exhausted receiver of an
air-pump is inaudible; but the crystal walls, that keep
out air, bar not the passage of light and heat.  New-
ton's experiment of this, and his consequent reasoning
on the  fact, appear to me conclusive.   He  says (Qu. 18),
" If in  two large, tall, cylindrical vessels of glass, in-
verted, two little thermometers be suspended, so as not
to touch the vessels, and the air be drawn  out of one of
these vessels, and these vessels, thus prepared, be car-
ried out of  a cold place into a warm one,  the thermom-
eter in vacuo will grow warm as much and  almost  as
soon as the thermometer which is not in  vacuo.   And,
when the vessels are carried  back into the cold place,
the thermometer in vacuo will grow cold almost as soon
as the other thermometer.  Is not the heat of the warm
room  conveyed through the vacuum by  the  vibrations
of a much subtiler medium  than air, which, after the
air was drawn  out, remained  in the vacuum?  And is
not this medium the same with that medium by which
light is refracted and reflected?"
  The conclusion which such experiments force upon us
is, that there really  exist in nature different media, rela-
ted, yet distinct.  If, therefore, I am understood literally
instead of figuratively when I speak of mesmerism  as
an individual agency, I shall not seem  greatly to  have
violated the analogies of nature.  This at least I affirm,
mesmerism has its own peculiar action ;  and therefore,
for the sake of convenience, I shall  denominate matter,
as it is developed in this particular way,  the mesmeric
medium, a term with which, I trust, none  of my readers
will be disposed to quarrel, the advantage and propriety
of referring  one class  of effects  to  one cause  being 
THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.          283
manifest.  We do this naturally in all cases where dis-
tinction is required.   The imponderable fluids  are still
characterized, pro forma, by individual names, though
we believe  that  they  may  be  children of one parent.
From certain effects we are allowed to presume the ex-
istence  of a luminous medium.  I therefore, by parity
of reasoning, may be allowed, from other effects, to in-
fer the existence of a mesmeric medium.
  And, in truth, there  is no agency which more mani-
festly than this may claim to be distinctive, since it is de-
veloped under quite other circumstances; and,being de-
veloped, presents quite other phenomena than any mate-
rial action with which we have hitherto been acquainted.
  It neither results from  a union of gases nor  from
chymical composition.  It is not developed by the rub-
bing of amber or the juxtaposition of minerals.  It  is
elicited by certain actions of living nature alone.
  Viewed merely as a physical agency, it originates a
sleep, sui generis, which pervades the external organs,
yet leaves the intelligence  free : it brings the nervous
system into a state of exceeding sensiblity, rendering it
cognizant of influences  by which at other times it  is
wholly unaffected.
   Now what is the  medium we know not; and, there-
fore, all that remains for us, in our ignorance, to do, is
to gather as much information concerning it as we can.
We cannot analyze it in the same manner as light, or
separate it  into  its component parts, like  the atmo-
sphere ; but every  agent  has its own elements, and,
consequently, a  method of analysis  proper to itself.
This  is  clear; in its  mode of action it can alone  be
made manifest;  its sensible action, therefore, is the le-
gitimate sphere in which it  may be studied; and, till we
have all its  facts and relations, we have only  to observe
its phenomena, and to state the results of our  observa-
tion as plainly as possible.
   First, then, it is an agency which has physical effects
on man.*
   That any one who has been conversant with  even the
first symptoms produced by mesmerism should doubt
the physical and distinct character of the agency, seems

  * And on brutes also. On this point I could state many curious
particulars; but I desire to startle my reader as little as possible,
and to exclude from the present work whatever bears not strict ref-
erence to the human influence. 
284         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
impossible.  However marvellous be the train of men-
tal  phenomena consequent upon its operation, its pri-
mary effects are undoubtedly upon the body of the pa-
tient.  Those  who are neither under  the predisposing
influence of fear or of imagination;  who know not what
they have  to  expect; who, perhaps, close their eyes
from the beginning of the experiment, all agree in feel-
ing a weight upon the eyelids, accompanied by a slight
pricking; then follows the sensation of a cold current
of air  streaming in the direction of the mesmerizer's
fingers, and of a torpor in the limbs, which gradually
increases, until spontaneous motion becomes not only
difficult, but impossible to the patient.
  A lady of much intelligence, whom  I recently mes-
merized at Rome, was determined to observe, as long as
she could retain her  consciousness, what would be her
sensations under the  mesmeric influence.  On recover-
ing from the sleep into which she had been successfully
thrown, she told me  that at first she felt an increasing
weight upon the eyelids,  and an  inclination to close
them, which she endeavoured to combat by looking often
at a vase containing  flowers that stood opposite to her.
By degrees, however, a kind of vapour  seemed to steal
between herself and the object she regarded, until she
could  distinguish nothing whatever.  Her eyelids were
then irresistibly drawn together.  After closing them
she was aware of a tingling in the arms, and currents
of air seemed  to move around  her in various directions.
The strength  and velocity of these currents appeared
constantly to  increase, until the power of  observation
failed  and consciousness was  suspended.  Subsequent-
ly, when in the natural state, she begged me  to  say
whether I had not moved my hands rapidly  and violent-
ly when mesmerizing her, so  as to produce those cur-
rents of air which she had felt.  I assured  her that, on
the contrary, I had moved my hands slowly and gently
all the time.   She then, still incredulous, begged me to
repeat the same movements which I had used in  mes-
merizing.  I did so, and she declared that she could not
at all  feel those currents to  which she had been sensi-
ble in  the incipient state of sleepwaking.
   E. A. (the youth who enjoyed such a high degree of
mesmeric  vision) used to describe similar  sensations,
 and has frequently spoken  to me  of a kind of vapour
 rising before  his  eyes during mesmerization.  When 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          285
questioned about this  in sleepwaking, he declared that
the vapour proceeded from me, and seemed to penetrate
and pervade his frame.  This he asserted to be the ef-
fectual cause of the mesmeric sleep.
  Nothing is more interesting than to mark the corre-
spondences of sensation under mesmeric treatment man-
ifested by different persons, at different  times  and in
different places.  Every fresh instance of such analogi-
cal feeling is as a new argument in favour of the reality
and constancy of mesmeric influence.
  Other facts are not wanting which contribute to bring
the agency within the domain of physics.
  Like the galvanic force, it seems capable of aggrega-
tion in being transmitted through kindred substances.
  I have sometimes formed what may be called a mes-
meric pile, by seating five  or  six persons together in a
line or half circle, holding each other's  hands: I have
then mesmerized the  first in  the rank, who has passed
on the influence to the second, who has again transmit-
ted it to the third, and so on, by each pressing the hand
held by each,  at regular periods  of time. Under this
treatment I have invariably found that  the  mesmeric
influence was most powerfully demonstrated in the per-
son who was farthest from myself; that is, in the per-
son who received the original impulse through the great-
est number of intervening transmitters.  The shades of
gradation were  also in these experiments justly pre-
served : the first person scarcely experiencing any sen-
sation, the second  feeling a more decided influence, and
so  in  progression, till the last  was  thrown into the
complete  mesmeric state.
   Again:  That the mesmeric influence is capable of ex-
haustion and repair, like any other physical agency, has
been frequently forced upon my conviction.  That when
I am strongest I can best mesmerize, is a fact known to
me from personal  experience ; also, that  my power de-
clines in proportion to the fatigue consequent upon  its
exertion.   This was very strikingly exemplified in some
experiments, in which Professor Agassiz, of Neufchatel,
in Switzerland, kindly bore a part, thus enabling me to
honour mesmerism by associating it with the name of
one of the most distinguished naturalists in Europe.
   After mesmerizing the professor himself for an hour,
during which I felt considerably fatigued, I made  an
essay upon a person  whom 1 usually influenced with 
286         THE  MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
full success.   This time, however, I only partially suc-
ceeded; and a third trial upon another individual, who,
in general, was most susceptible to the mesmeric influ-
ence, was wholly unsuccessful.  The failure was quite
unlooked  for,  and  astonished  the patient himself, who
exclaimed, after I had mesmerized him for a considera-
ble time,  " This is surprising!  I feel nothing what-
ever!  You produce no  effect upon  me this evening."
After resting half an hour and taking a glass of wine, I
again attempted to influence this patient.  I now suc-
ceeded better than on the first trial, yet still could bring
him no farther than the first stage of imperfect mesmer-
ic sleep.
   I may also remark, that the act of mesmerizing is fol-
lowed by a very peculiar sensation of exhaustion and  fa-
tigue, for which the slight muscular  exertion which the
process demands is quite insufficient to account.  Exer-
cise in the open air, and such means as are best calcu-
lated  to restore the bodily  strength in general, I have
found to be the best restoratives on  such occasions.
Yet, though particular acts of mesmerizing induce tem-
porary fatigue, it is quite certain that the general mes-
meric force of  an individual is  strengthened,  like any
other corporeal gift, by just and regular exercise.  As a
magnet which is laid by has not half the power that it
has when  kept in action, so,  as I have found by experi-
ence, a mesmerizer who is out of practice has  actu-
ally less of mesmeric influence than when he mesmer-
izes regularly, with a due attention  to  the " ne quid  ni-
mis."  This, again, brings the medium within the do-
main of physics.
   Another discovery  which I have been  enabled  to
make respecting the action of mesmerism is, that  it de-
cidedly bears a relation to the slowness or rapidity of
the mesmerizer's respiration during the act of mesmeri-
zing.  I have  tried this  again and  again, and always
with the same result.  In proportion to the rapidity of
my breathing was  the  effect produced: an effect  inde-
pendent of the actual  effluence of the breath upon the
patient (though this, indeed, also  aids the mesmeric pro-
cess), for  the  same result has ensued  when  my head
has been turned  away from the person I was mesmeri-
zing.  How singularly this fact connects  the mesmeric
with the chymical and vital forces, I need not observe.
  At present it seems necessary that I should reply to 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          287
an objection which, with some apparent justice, may be
advanced against the claim which mesmerism puts for-
ward to be considered as a physical agent.
  It has been asserted that, when the attention of mes-
meric  patients is  preoccupied and  diverted from  the
mesmeric processes, or when the imagination  has  not
been previously advised of an effect to follow, the agen-
cy is null.
  This statement demands an examination the more se-
rious, inasmuch as it is one  of those half-truths which
Coleridge has denounced as fatal to true philosophy.
  It must be allowed that the mesmeric influence is to
a certain degree impeded, should it be  essayed upon  a
person who is  determined  to resist it, or whose mind is
actively engaged upon other  matters ; but does this, can
this prove that the agency is null save in the imagination
of the patient?  The only thing that  it  demonstrates
with certainty is that which every rational man who has"
at all studied the subject must concede, namely, that the
force employed in the mesmeric process  is not sudden
or violent in its action, but of the nature of those  subtle
influences which it requires a certain attention, and, in-
deed, education of the sensibility to perceive.  A savage
has been known to  track his prey, like a dog, by the
scent alone; and in doing so, he must, of necessity, fix
all his attention upon the fine exhalations whereby he
is guided.  But how plainly absurd it would be to affirm
on that account that there was no actual exciting cause
of  the sensations of the savage!  But, it is  argued, the
imagination must be forewarned before the effects call-
ed mesmeric  can  occur;  and is not this sufficient to
refer them to  the  imitative power of the imagination?
The answer is not difficult.
   Imagination, indeed, imitates,  but then it  must have
something to imitate.  The very expression presuppo-
ses a model, and gives real existence to  the subject in
debate.  Granting that which, indeed, I do not concede,
namely, that the  effects of  mesmerism can be proved
without  mesmerism, and by the imagination solely, it
by no means  follows that certain effects have  not at
certain times been produced by mesmerism, and by pure
mesmerism.  That which is spurious argues that which
is true, and  many copies of a picture place the existence
of an original  beyond a doubt.
   Again: they who draw  strong conclusions against 
288          THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
mesmerism by affirming that it cannot take effect unless
the imagination be prepared to receive it, should remem-
ber that they who, deeming they shall feel nothing under
mesmerism, and do actually feel nothing, are both fore-
warned and forearmed  against the influence  in debate,
and are thus themselves under the predisposing sway of
the imagination as much as their opponents, only in a
different manner;  the  one party believing they shall,
the other that they shall not, experience certain effects.
Under these circumstances, how the latter can pretend
to a more accurate judgment on the point than the for-
mer, I confess  I cannot perceive.  "Imagination does
much," say the anti-mesmerists: granted;  and  let us
have the full benefit of the principle.   If imagination be
so potent, it may also render insensible to mesmeric in-
fluence those who are predetermined to feel nothing  of
it.  Yet more ;  the force of the  mind to resist even the
most powerful influences may be easily shown by facts
to be great, nay, incalculable.   In Lockhart's Life  of
Scott, an anecdote proving this is related by Scott him-
self of one of the Duke of Buccleugh's farmers.   " His
father had given him a  quantity of laudanum (writes Sir
Walter) instead of some other medicine.  The mistake
was instantly discovered ; but the young man had suffi-
cient energy and force  of mind to combat the operation
of the drug.  While all around him  were stupid  with
fear, he rose, saddled his horse, and rode to Selkirk (six
or seven miles), thus saving the time that the  doctor
must have taken in coming to him.   It is very curious
that his agony  of mind was able to suspend the opera-
tion of the drug until he had alighted, when it instantly
began to operate.   He  recovered perfectly."
  The degree to which a person may resist, yet  still be
influenced by, the mesmeric agency, when preoccupied
by some counteracting idea, was on one occasion demon-
strated tomerand, as it were, marked off and measured
in an interesting manner.
  A friend of  mine at Cambridge, who knew nothing
whatever of animal magnetism  (as it was then  called)
but the name,  consented to let me try an experiment
upon him before some incredulous persons, who had
said that they  would never believe in the agency until
they saw it exhibited upon some one who did not even
know that he was to go to sleep.  It being ascertained
that Mr. H----(the smcerest of all men) was really ig- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          289
norant Of even so much mesmeric lore, I and my patient
sat down in our proper  relative positions.  At the end
of five minutes (though it was the unsleepy time of noon)
Mr. H----began to close his eyes and to  nod, but soon
started, rubbed his eyes, shook himself, and went through
all the usual formula of a  person who wishes to keep
awake.   This alternate nodding and arousing went on
for some time, when, tired at length of such unsatisfac-
tory results, I gave the matter up and quitted my chair.
The patient was then questioned as to  what he had felt.
"Only very  sleepy," he replied.  "I  experienced no
electric shock, nor anything of the kind, though I watch-
ed and waited for it."  " But if you felt sleepy, why did
not you go to sleep ?" asked some one.  " Oh," answer-
ed Mr. H----, "what would  I  not have  given to  have
gone to  sleep?  but I thought I must on no account do
this, as I was to keep a sharp look-out for  the electric
shock!"  My reader may smile at this,but I can assure
him that the  ignorance of  my friend respecting the ef-
fects of mesmerism is no measure  of his information on
other subjects.
   It appears, then, that the only concession we have to
 make to  the  anti-mesmerist is, that the  mood of mind
 and body which is most favourable to the reception of
 mesmeric influence is that  which Wordsworth has char-
 acterized under the title of " a wise passiveness."  How
 completely this refutes the arguments, or, rather, assump-
 tions of those who  would resolve all mesmerism into
 imagination, is manifest.   But  it is time  that  this ques-
 tion should be  forever set at rest.  How such a cause
 as imagination could at any time be assigned  or accept-
 ed as explanatory of mesmeric phenomena is matter of
 wonder, and  that it should be so  diminishes  one's re-
 spect for the sagacity of the human species.   Here, in-
 deed, is inefficient causation!  Here, truly, is gratuitous
 assumption !  I have heard of imagination keeping per-
 sons awake, but never of its setting them to sleep.  This
 busy power holds no possible alliance with mesmerism,
 whose gentle influence, like streams that  are only heard
 when we listen for them in the hush  of night, must be
 attended to with the quiet  patience of a peaceful spirit.
   But the imagination theory is  really  too  absurd  to
 merit a serious refutation.
   A thousand  times  I have  seen mesmeric patients
 placed under circumstances where the action of imagi-
                         B B 
290         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
nation was plainly impossible.  In proof of this I have
only to refer to the preceding books of this work. Per-
sons, it will there  be seen, have been thrown  into  the
mesmeric state when asleep, and wholly  unadvised of
any experiment to be tried upon them. They have been
drawn towards the mesmerizer from a distance, when
standing with their backs to him; they have manifested
phenomena coinciding  with those displayed by other
mesmeric patients at different  times and at different
places, and which  could not have resulted from imita-
tion, since the patients  themselves, not knowing a pre-
vious type, were plainly incapable of  producing a copy.
  Surely facts like these imperatively call upon us to
acknowledge  an  agency, which  we may call mesmeric
or what we please, so long as we confound it not with
imagination, imitation,  et hoc genus omne  of inefficient
and inapplicable causes.
  But our views of mesmerism as a distinct and phys-
ical agent would indeed be imperfect were we to stop
here. Ourselves would then be guilty of  uttering only
half the truth.  Physical though the agent be, its offices
all touch upon life and thought so nearly, that to regard
it simply in a mechanical light is impossible.  In order
to know it rightly, or in any other than a partial manner,
we must consider it in its relationship to ourselves, liv-
ing, breathing men.  If purely physical, why should it
produce such singular mental effects ? and why should
it not affect all men alike ?  These are questions which
will occur, and which demand a satisfactory answer.
  The cause  must be sought in its acting  more espe-
cially upon that most mysterious part of us, the nervous
system; on the  apparatus of sensation, the builder-up
of all we are, of all we know;  on that wondrous por-
tion  of  our  being, which occupies  the very  confines
where mind and matter dimly meet; on  that which is
more intimately ourselves than our mere external frame,
of which it appears to be the strength and the life:  for
we may lose  any member of motion, and yet preserve
in their integrity all our sources of information; but a
trifling injury to  the optic or auditory nerve will cut us
off from a whole world of knowledge, and a slight pres-
sure on the brain may remove us at once  beyond  the
pale of humanity into that fearful  region where man's
" thoughts are combinations of disjointed  things."   Let
us consider farther that, in fact, there is nothing which 
THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.         291
affects us physically that does not also, to a certain ex-
tent, affect us mentally, nay, morally, every  agent in
nature being calculated to call into action all the capaci-
ties of our being ;  thus  showing how exquisitely, ac-
cording to Wordsworth's beautiful philosophy,

         " The external world is fitted to the mind."          ;
Light,  by its presence or absence, disposes us to cour-
age or fear, joy or sorrow, hope or despondency.   Heat,
when properly moderated, gives us a sensation of well-
being,  of good-humour, and is  favourable to the exer-
cise of our intellectual  faculties ; while, on the other
hand, cold is apt to extinguish both our wit and our ami-
ability.  Pope remarks that  the  benevolence  of some
persons  depends on the state  of the atmosphere,  and
solves a  generous  action  emanating from a churlish
mind by  suggesting that
         " Perhaps the wind just shifted from the east."
Shakspeare's advice not to ask a  favour of a man till he
has well dined  will also be remembered.  Wine, and
every  species of stimulus, affect the mind through the
medium  of the  body.   Even so  mechanical a force as
that of electricity,  if made to operate upon us,  excites
in  us, according to our  several characters, feelings of
surprise, fear, aversion, or curiosity.  If these remarks
be  true as regards  such powers as act only partially on
the nervous system, how much more must they apply to
an  agency which stimulates not locally, but generally,
the very capacities of sensation!  Other agents affect
the nerves circuitously, through the intervention of mod-
ifying organs, but this, removing out of the way, as has
been seen, the barriers of the external senses, proceeds
at once  and directly to the seat  of internal sensibility.
Its effects also have been shown to be as  durable  as they
are potent, not operating like electricity, which  gives a
shock and is gone,  but manifesting itself, when once set
in action, for a length of time, so as to demonstrate that
the nervous  system can be  charged with it in a very
permanent and peculiar manner.  What singular results
may not be expected from the operation of an  agency
like this!
   That  mesmerism, then, should develop certain men-
tal phenomena in those whom  it influences, is no proof
whatever that it may not originate physically. 
292         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
   Neither, if it should appear to affect all men diversely,
 and some not at all, is the reality of its existence to be
 called in question.   All  agencies  in nature are neither
 electric nor irresistible,  and  we cannot  but allow that
 there is a class of powers which act upon man constitu-
 tionally rather than mechanically, and so  are modified
 by accidental circumstances of health or temperament.
 Even should  we ultimately be forced to rank mesmer-
 ism among  these, we should by no means have annulled
 its agency; we should but have ascertained correctly its
 specific character.
   Still  keeping in view that its influence is more pecu-
 liarly directed upon the nervous system, we shall learn
 to appreciate it justly, and, even should it appear hope-
 lessly irregular, accept that  irregularity as the condi-
 tion of  its existence.  How, indeed, can we  expect from
 mesmerism the constancy of a mere mechanical im-
 pulse ?   Its diversities have their origin in  the very es-
 sence of our  nature.  The agency which  we have  to
 examine is almost identified with man, the ever-change-
 ful, the  infinitely varied.  No two constitutions are alike,
 and the nervous system exhibits a  separate  character in
 every separate person.   If, then, we consider that the
 action of medical  remedies or of material substances,
 even though they  may not directly affect the economy
 of the nerves, is greatly modified  by the temperament
 of the individual to whom they are applied, so that cer-
 tain idiosyncrasies will convert a means of cure or a
 wholesome nutriment into a poison ; above  all, if we re-
 flect on the varied peculiarities of the senses of various
 men, causing that  which is a pleasing odour to one  to
 become an overpowering torture to another (as in the
 case of  the Roman  women, who swoon at  flowers and
 perfumes), and that which is discord to certain ears  to
 sound as harmony to those which are differently consti-
 tuted : thus  reasoning, we must perceive that an influ-
 ence which  should act  immediately and generally on
 the nervous system, would of necessity exhibit some-
what of a distinctive character in every separate case.
  It is, above  all, of importance to remember that the
variability of the recipients does by no means prove the
agent itself  variable.  How would you that the effects,
even though coming from a single and permanent cause,
should be similar, seeing that the subjects who manifest
them  are diverse 1   Does not  the  air produce different 
THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.         293
sounds from different instruments'of music, though it be
a single known and permanent agent?
  Even should a man be altogether insusceptible of the
mesmeric influence, he has surely no just cause for dis-
avowing its reality.  Is he not perhaps  insensible to
the operation of many other powers by which a number
of his fellow-beings are  invariably affected?  May it not
be argued that moral temperaments—from the phleg-
matic to the sanguine—differ as essentially as  water and
mercury, and that as little  should  we expect men of
opposite constitutions to be similarly affected by  mes-
merism as that the above-named  substances should
freeze at the same degree of temperature ?  We should
also remember that he  who is  at present insensible to
the force, may at some future time obtain a personal
proof of its efficacy.  We are  not  always in the same
frame, nor always capable of being affected by the same
causes.  An exposure to cold, which we brave with im-
punity to-day, may be  our  death to-morrow ; and the
dose of laudanum or of mercury, which, when we suf-
fer, is but a blessed relief from pain, may at another time
be to us deleterious or even fatal.  That these observa-
tions hold good as respects mesmerism has been proved
in the recorded case of M. Itard, one of the members of
the French Academy of Medicine, who in 1820 experi-
enced  no effect  from  mesmeric  treatment, but in the
year  following  was relieved by it  from  headache and
chronic rheumatism ; and is it always so certain that
they who will not own even to  themselves  that they
are affected by an influence they despise, are in  truth
so proof against it ?  One thing at least I know.  Aware
by experience of the external indications of  mesmeric
affection, I  have been able to detect them in some who
professed to feel nothing unusual under  the  mesmeric
processes.  It may also be suspected that  they  who,
like a certain friend of mine commemorated in these
pages, endeavour to solve a problem during mesmeriza-
tion, do in fact experience something of  the agency to
which they oppose such stout methods of resistance.
  Let us but grant to mesmerism that license which we
eoncede to  every agent upon an examination of which
we desire to enter.
  In  all physical sciences which are based on experi-
ment and observation, it must be  granted that the most
important phenomena depend for their reproduction on
                     Rb2 
294         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
the co-presence of a number of conditions, difficult  to
be obtained separately, harder still to be assembled and
concentrated in one general result.  If this be true  as
regards physical science, it still more forcibly applies to
a science  confessedly mental as well as physical.   In
mesmerism we have a task incomparably more difficult
than to resolve the light into its definite and primal ele-
ments, to  study the formation of a crystal, or to super-
intend the action of  a voltaic battery; we are called
upon to dissect the  mind  with all  its delicate and fleet-
ing hues, and to unfold the caprices and the varieties  of
the human constitution.
  Under these circumstances, when a mesmeric phe-
nomenon  has  been  observed, how many causes, impos-
sible in the shifting train  of casualties to be summoned
up at will, must be  reunited before it can recur!  The
instrument with which we have to deal is  too delicate
to be calculated upon as one would calculate on mathe-
matical certainties.   The powers which we have to in-
vestigate  are  among  the most  occult  in nature, to  be
traced only by a few of their scattered but most extra-
ordinary effects.  Add to this that  observation respect-
ing the influence in question is  yet in  its infancy; the
relation between  its forces, whether negative or posi-
itve, is yet a mystery ; its statics have  not yet been as-
certained ; but yet, and in spite of all these drawbacks
(and this is much to say), the reader may  gather from
former portions of  this work that the irregularity of
mesmerism is  to be understood with a limitation.  It is
of degree rather than kind.  The  diversity consists  in
the proportion wherein the agent affects various persons,
in the extent of the scale and the fineness of the grada-
tions, as they ascend from effects which are almost im-
perceptible to  phenomena which exhibit the full mes-
meric force.  The friends of mesmerism, perhaps, need
only claim for it the same experimental patience  that is
required in examining the  properties of light, where a
cloud that passes over the solar rays  may prevent those
beautiful appearances which are dependant upon their
polarization from captivating the gazer's eye.
  These views of the action of the mesmeric medium
are not, be it  remembered, presented  as complete, but
rather as such as are  forced upon us by the recency  of
the discovery, and the consequently  imperfect state  of
observation respecting it.  I have not forgotten that the 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          295
great agencies of nature stand in a twofold relation to
man, namely, physical  and physico-mathematical,  and
are  therefore capable of being considered  in a twofold
point of view;  that is, either as they affect  all men
alike, mechanically, or each man in a different  manner,
constitutionally.  But I contend that the one  effect is
not less real than the other, and  perhaps that which pre-
sents the  most variety is not the least interesting to be
considered, though  it is with the  certain and the  stead-
fast that  science  is  chiefly occupied.  If, before  the
analysis of the  atmosphere had been complete, and its
laws of density or temperature established, a man had
asserted, because of its various  effects on the various
constitutions of  men, that there was no atmosphere, how
plainly  ridiculous would have  been the induction! or if
a pseudo-philosopher, in a sort of foolish rage and spite
against himself, were known formerly to have renounced
as  flat, stale, and  unprofitable  the study  of  the con-
stitutional effects of the atmosphere upon his fellow-be-
ings because he could  not reduce them  to mechanical
laws, how manifestly erring and absurd would  his con-
duct now appear to us.
   Experience of the past should teach us not to despair
of seeing the  statics and dynamics of the mesmeric
force plainly laid down.  Who, in the early periods of
science, would have ventured  to predict the invention of
a balance  whereby the  magnetic action  could  be re-
duced to  weight and measure ?   Look at the history of
magnetical discoveries!  What  patience,  what errone-
 ous guesses, what feeble dawnings of truth, what les-
 sons of hope are there !  The knowledge of magnetical
 effects  is as old, at  least, as the aera of Homer, by whom
 they are distinctly referred to ; but it is less than  a  cen-
 tury ago* that Mitchell established the true law of mag-
 netic action, and mesmerism has not yet completed its
 seventieth  year:  a  measure of existence which the
 Psalmist  has assigned  as the period of one man's  life!
 Is this  a  sufficient space for the development of  a  sub-
ject the  most  fertile  and the  most  vast, because the
 most intimately connected with man?
-   This, at least, even in the present state  of mesmeric
 science, may be affirmed, that, considered as a force, the
 agency betrays no slight indications  of its affinity  with
* In 1750. 
296         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
mechanical powers, and that certain circumstances re-
garding it bring to us nearly a full conviction that its ef-
fects are dependant on a certain invariable proportion
between the mesmeric force of the individual who dis-
penses, and that of him who submits to receive  the in-
fluence.  What that proportion is, once ascertained (and
how can this  be  but by repeated observation?), would
reduce mesmerism to a law  and to  a certainty.   Its
mental and remedial effects  will indeed necessarily al-
ways continue  to be varied according to the character
and temperament  of its patients, but its purely physical
agency might be brought within conditions perhaps nar-
rower  and  more  simple  than we  can  now conceive.
Supposing (as some now deem) the vital action to be
electric, that which is called  a man's  nervous force or
constitution would depend on the  possession of a certain
original measure of the electric fluid.  Were this found
to be the case  (my idea may raise a smile), a neurome-
ter, or instrument to ascertain the  nervous power of  a
person, might  give to mesmerism the precision  which
science requires.   Who would have thought at one time
a measure of magnetism possible?
   My  suggestion  may be  deemed absurd, but this will
not alter the facts of mesmerism.   At present  we are
only acquainted with the general result, and.not with
the elements that compose it;  but this is no more a proof
that is not composed of elements, than the ancient igno-
rance what water was could  have demonstrated that  it
was not composed of two airs in certain proportions.
   I will state two or three cases out  of the many that
have inclined  me to think that  mesmerism is  a ques-
tion of proportional  force.   A friend  of mine  at Cam-
bridge was  susceptible of being influenced by myself but
transiently and imperfectly, while, on the other hand, he
was at once and  invariably brought into the mesmeric
state by being subjected to the action of a young fellow-
student, who (as to the rest) used no art in his manipu-
lations, and merely imitated rudely my proceedings and
gestures.   Again: the brother of a celebrated sculptor
at Rome was  always mesmerized by me in a few min-
utes without difficulty, but to  other influence he was by
no means  so  susceptible.  On  one occasion,  before a
large party at Rome, I instructed a distinguished artist
in the necessary movements, and set him down to mes-
merize the gentleman alluded to precisely as I was ac- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
297
customed to do.  No result, however, at the end of half
an hour had ensued.  I  then  took  the patient's hand
myself, and in a very few minutes he was thrown into
a deep mesmeric  slumber.   Other persons  tried the
same experiment with a similar result.
  E. A., whom I could mesmerize in a few seconds, was
operated upon for  an hour by  another person, who in
other cases had displayed immense mesmeric power,
without experiencing any effect whatever.
  An interesting anecdote, related to me by Dr. Chape-
lain, of Paris, corroborates the  above.
  An English lady, whom he was treating  mesmerically,
continued, after  many dajrs,  insensible to  his influence.
Her son, a child of  about ten years of age,  who was
present while  the  doctor  mesmerized, exclaimed  one
day, " I think I could  make mamma sleep.  Will you
let me try ?"  Dr. Chapelain,  curious to  see what the
little fellow would do, laughingly consented.   He was
surprised at the gravity and skill with which the boy im-
itated  all the processes which he himself had employed,
but still more surprised to behold that in ten minutes the
patient was thrown into a mesmeric slumber.
  From facts like  these we  cannot but conclude that it
is not  the strength of the mesmerizer, but  the proportion
between the respective strengths of mesmerizer and pa-
tient, which ensures success, and  that the less or  more
on  either side would indifferently prevent a perfect re-
sult.  To ascertain these relations seems  to me to be the
great end and object of research as regards mesmerism
at present.  In this labour let us not be less active and
enduring  than men of science have shown themselves
 for  many a meaner  object.  What can be so ungrateful
 a toil  as that of endeavouring to reduce the weather to a
 law, and the variations of atmospheric temperature to a
 certainty?  Yet this has been attempted, and is at-
 tempted still.   And how ?  By the accumulation of ob-
 servations which, since art is long and life is short, must
 rather serve as a valuable bequest to posterity than as a
 profit to ourselves.  All that we have yet ascertained on
 this point, and that is much, is, that the sum  of each
 year's weather and temperature is very nearly alike;
 that,  as Whewell expresses it, " there is an invariable
 result of  the most  variable quantities."  A similar dis-
 covery respecting the apparently lawless  agency of mes-
 merism will, I  am certain,  reward the perseverance of 
298         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
 those who continue to observe its phenomena with hon-
 esty and patience.
   Having shown that the mesmeric agency may truly
 be ranked among physical influences, and that it is as
 real an action of matter as  any other which  is made
 known to us by visible  effects, I proceed to state such
 additional particulars respecting the agency as I have
 ascertained by careful and cautious experiment.
   That which I have now unequivocally to affirm of the
 mesmeric medium is, that it is  primarily set in motion
 by the human mind.
   I am aware that, in asserting this, I am committing
 Use majeste against the French goddess of reason, who
 has banished the  mind altogether out of her dominions ;
 but for justification I must appeal to a higher sovereign,
 Truth, namely, under whose  aegis I would,  if possible,
 take refuge from the storms which are probably brewing
 against me.   " What!" it will be said, " do you render
 your mesmeric agency dependant on the shifting human
 mind,  on the variable human will, and yet claim for it
 the character and constancy of a  physical  influence ?
 What  power over physics have the mind  and will?
 When was thought ever known to set  matter in mo-
 tion?"  These questions I dare not answer, fallacious
 though they be, on my own authority.  I am a mesmer-
 izer,  and  my reasoning will be suspected.   Let me,
 then, appeal to the great intellect, which long  ago and
 unanswerably solved the inquiry, " Whence do we  de-
 rive our ideas of power?"  From  Locke's splendid
 chapter on this subject I select as much as is necessary
 for my purpose.
  " Bodies, by our senses, do  not afford us so clear and
distinct an idea of the active power as we have from re-
flection of the operation of our minds ; for all power re-
lating to action, and there being but two sorts of action
whereof we have any idea, viz., thinking and motion, let
as consider whence we have  the clearest ideas of the
powers which produce these actions: 1  Of thinking.
Body affords us no idea at all; it is  only from reflection
that we have  that. 2. Neither have we from body any
idea of the beginning of motion.   A body at rest affords
us no  idea of any  active  power to move, and  when it is
set in motion itself, that motion is rather a passion than
an action in it; for when the ball obeys the stroke of a
billiard stick, it is not any action of the ball, but bare 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          299
passion; also when by impulse  it sets another ball in
motion that lay in its way, it only communicates the mo-
tion it had received from another, and loses in itself so
much  as the other received, which gives us but a very
obscure  idea  of  an  active  power of moving in body,
while  we observe it only to transfer, but not produce any
motion ; for it is but a very obscure idea of power which
reaches not the production  of the action, but the con-
tinuation of the passion.
  " The idea of the beginning of motion we have only
from reflection on what passes in ourselves, where we find,
by  experience, that  barely, by willing it, barely by a
thought of the mind, we can move the parts of our bodies
which  were before at  rest.   *   *  *
  " This, at least, I think evident, that we find in our-
selves  a power to begin or forbear, continue or end sev-
eral actions of our minds and motions of our body barely
by a thought or preference of the mind, ordering, or, as
it were, commanding the doing or not doing such or
such a particular action : this power, which the mind has
thus to order the consideration of any idea, or the for-
bearing to consider it, or to prefer the motion of any part
of the body to its rest, and vice versa in  any particular
instance, is that which we call the will."
  If we allow (and how can we deny?) the truth of the
above  reflections, we must perceive that not merely our
very idea of motion is derived from the mind's  opera-
tions, but that reasoning, as alone we can reason, from
what we know, we must conclude that all motion what-
ever originates with mind, and with mind alone.  And
why start at the notion that the mind, in mesmerism, is
the acting  force?  Do we know any other?   Mind and
motion, as  cause and consequence, are indissolubly con-
nected, the only real antecedent and consequent that can
be shown in perfect juxtaposition, and demonstrated to
us truly by our self-consciousness.  Besides, shall we,
who may be said to create to ourselves  all we see by
thought, doubt of the power of the human mind ?   One
should think that, above all persons, the man of science,
who bases  all mechanics on the principle of the inertia
of matter, and yet cannot but admit " that there is prob-
ably no portion of inorganic matter that is not in a state
of relative motion," must be aware of the necessity of
quite another than a material force to produce all this
action  in naturally quiescent bodies.   Even  Descartes 
300         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
 (as Pascal says) was forced to bring in God to set the
 world in motion, though, had it been  feasible, he would
 have shoved him altogether out of his philosophy.  The
 principle once admitted that motion originates  with
 mind, it is  plain that such motions as occur in the  mes-
 meric medium, and are thence transferred to a human
 body, are primarily produced by mind; in other words,
 by will.
   Why should we be startled at the expression?  Is the
 will a nullity?   Has it no force, no prerogatives?   Let
 us consider what every day and every hour our will ef-
 fects, merely in controlling^nd wielding matter.   How
 accurately  we move the complicated mechanism of our
 limbs, through  the impulsions of  our  volition!   The
 least disobedience or want of pliability on  their  part
 would mar the slightest of our bodily actions.  Let us,
 with  Dr. Maculloch, take the cases of archery and sling-
 ing.   " It requires little  reflection to see that, under the
 complicated action of so many muscles, the problem to
 be solved is so intricate that no mathematician could
 ever  hope  to  assign what was necessary to  produce a
 result, which  it  as certainly  as  it  is rapidly effected,
 without any calculation.     *****
   " But the precision of muscular action becomes much
 more wonderful when we refer to the cause, and ask in
 what manner a definite quantity of  cohesive attraction,
 and also various definite and unequal  quantities in  suc-
 cession, can be transmitted through  a  nerve, while  this,
 too, is done by  an act of the will,  yet of will  merely
 knowing what it desires, not what it performs."*
   Our knowledge that the will acts, yet our ignorance
 how it acts, on matter, should prepare us to receive,
 without a dogmatic denial at least,  proofs of an exten-
 sion in its capacities and its sphere.  If, in some mys-
 terious way, 1 actuate another, it is scarcely more won-
derful than that I actuate myself.  It is true that the
latter comes within the range  of my every-day experi-
 ence; but can  I any more comprehend it?
  How great a force  the will either  has or wields,  may
be almost measured off  to our senses in a very simple
but striking manner.
  Let two   covered  vessels precisely alike, the  one
 empty, the  other full of some heavy substance, such as
* Dr. Maculloch, on the Attributes of God, 
                     THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          301

        leaden bullets, be placed before a person.  Let him first
        lift the full vessel, and let him then be told to raise the
        empty one, with an understanding that it is of equal
        weight with the first.  The  person doing this will put
        into the action so much unnecessary force, from  the ex-
        pectation of being about  to lift a great weight, that his
        baffled vigour will, in its  reaction, cause quite a  painful
        concussion in the muscles of the arm.  Now could that
        force, which, as it were, returns upon himself, be direct-
        ed outward, it  is plain that it  might produce  a very
        powerful and peculiar action in the media wherewith we
        are surrounded.  And wherefore not  directed outward?
        This,  at least, we know, that the will is really the pri-
        mary  agent which enables us to move all bodies  foreign
        to and apart from ourselves.  In these cases, indeed, it
        acts through intermediate agencies which are visible to
•       us. But there is nothing whatever to render it impossi-
        ble that the mind should act sometimes by unseen, yet
        even  more potent intermediaries than the accustomed.
        After all, what  astonishes us in mesmerism is not that
        the mind is shown capable of producing motion, but that
        it is exhibited  producing motion in a different way, as
        we conceive, from  that  with which  our  experience  is
        familiar.  That the mind should originate a series  of
        motions of which we cannot behold certain of the in-
        tervening links (I speak of cases in which the mesmer-
        izer influences  his  patient  from a distance), this is the
        true  ground of our wonder and incredulity.   Yet, in
        fact, the very same  thing occurs in  our commonest ex-
        perience.   When I  move one of my fingers, I am only
        acquainted with the first fact and the last in a sequence
        of events,  the intermediate circumstances of which are
        hidden  from my knowledge, and which  are, probably,
        very  numerous. Some of the hidden links in the series
        I know from reason.   From the anatomist I learn that
        my mind, in the first instance, moves a portion of my
        brain (for certain injuries to the brain render voluntary
        motion impossible); that this, again, communicates an
        impulse to a nerve  (for, cut the  nerve, and the impulse
        reaches not the muscle); that then, again, a muscle is
        moved, and finally the finger.   The  simplest voluntary
        motion, then, is but an impulse, originating with  mind in
        the first place, and thence transferred  through a series
        of atoms.   There  is a  sequence of changes, nothing
        more ;  some of which  are known  to us, others  not.
                                Cc 
302         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
There is (to use the language of Locke) but one real
action, yet many passions or communicated  motions.
And what is mesmerism but this 1  The same definition
suits motion, whether  produced  mesmerically or nor-
mally.   The same circumstances attend both.   Again,
even should we pursue  motion beyond the limits of our
own bodies, we shall find that there are invisible links
in all the impulsions which we communicate to matter.
The philosopher knows that we are not in real contact
with anything which we appear to touch; that there is
always  something invisible between  us and the object
that we handle.
   Again :  do I not, by every motion of my body, change
the relative position of  the atoms of the media that sur-
round me ?  Do I not displace the air, cause various
motion in the waves of light,  and  influence  nature to a
distance around me which it were vain to attempt to cal-
culate ?   The  wonder,  then, seems to be, not that the
mind should produce changes in surrounding objects, but
that, being itself " the fountain-head of motion," it should
not move matter more forcibly and generally.  Doubtless
it would be so had not the all-wise Ruler of creation con-
fined the human mind  within necessary limits.   Could
the will sway the material as it does the immaterial world,
what bounds would there be to the tyrant's caprice, to the
conqueror's ambition?   Mountains would crumble as a
dream, and oceans be dried up at our bidding.  A Napo-
leon would " make a sop of all the solid globe."  These
ideas are  not so extravagant  as his who doubts of the
power of  the human will.  By that alone we do great
things ;  by that alone we conquer kingdoms or ourselves;
by that alone we achieve the  hourly miracle of moving
matter,  united with, or extraneous to  ourselves.   Is the
will, then, a nullity, whose influence is to be excluded
from our  consideration when we treat on any  subject
which nearly concerns man ?
   Let us now proceed, perhaps with fewer prejudices,
to consider the proofs before us, that in  mesmerism it is
the mind which originates the impulse.   It  is true that,
in general cases, the mesmerizer employs visible and
physical means to produce his effects.   He is either pla-
ced in contact with the person he desires to influence,
or he makes use of certain looks and  gestures, which,
to those who regard only the  superficial and the visible,
may appear to be the moving causes of the impression 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          303
produced on the other person.   But let us remember that
even the most careless of our looks and gestures do re-
ally spring from mind and will, acting, indeed, with vari-
ous degrees of force, yet still  always with a certain
force.   Now  even as respects these outward manifesta-
tions of an acting mind, I have invariably found that
mesmeric effects were  always in exact proportion  to
the degree of voluntary effort I put into  the  perform-
ance.   This was  more especially the case as regarded
the action of the eye.  When my patient's eyes were
closed, and he therefore had no means of knowing what
I was about,  I have still found that the more of active
gazing I employed, the greater was the effect produced.
The necessity of giving an undivided attention to my
work was, of  course, most palpable in the first few times
of mesmerizing a person ;  for it is evident that  the
more the patient's sensibility was  developed under suc-
cessive mesmerization, the less force he would require
to be used in influencing him ; consequently, the less
mental  effort would be required on my pari.   This is a
remark to which it is  of importance to attend, for some
persons in very advanced stages of mesmeric sensibility
will be affected by gestures in which the mind of the
performer would  seem to have little share; that it can
have no share therein I trust I have  demonstrated to be
impossible.
   Yet even when acting on a patient so accustomed to
my influence as  was E. A., I found that I had  by no
means  mesmerized him so well as usual on days when
my mind was preoccupied with other matters.  He was
himself peculiarly sensitive to any remission of my at-
tention towards him,  and would  frequently say to me
(and always with justice), " You are not thinking of me
just now."  The poor blind German boy used  similarly,
and with equal correctness, to complain of my ceasing
to influence him properly ; and this, from the absence of
one of his senses, and that the most observant, is testi-
mony the more remarkable and uncorrupted.
   A  very certain proof that, when attention  remits,
there is a remission also of mesmeric power, was afford-
ed me  also in the course of some  experiments  which
Professor  Agassiz,  of Neufchatel, permitted me to try
upon himself.  In these I was, of course, peculiarly de-
sirous of concentrating all my attention upon the effects
to be  produced on a  man  of learning  and of science. 
304
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
 The  very circumstances of the case compelled me  to
 exert my mind in an undivided manner.  But one even-
 ing the nonarrival of expected letters from home forced
 me into another train of feeling, and, during the mes-
 meric processes, I could not prevent my thoughts from
 occasionally straying  from the scene before me into
 anxious surmises as to the cause of the silence of my
 friends.   My patient, although he had his eyes closed
 and his limbs paralyzed in the torpor of the mesmeric
 slumber,  was not slow  to perceive the  wanderings  of
 my attention; and, although I was at the time engaged
 in the mesmeric processes, to all outward appearances
 as actively as usual, called out to me constantly and co-
 mcidently with the  remission of my thoughts, " You in-
 fluence  me no longer.   You are not exerting yourself."
  On another occasion I was convinced, in a  manner
 the most odd and even comic, how great is the influence
 of the will in directing the impulses of the mesmeric
 medium.   I should  hesitate about relating the  story
 were  it not that, in a new  science,  everything has its
 importance, and the least studied effects are often the
 most  valuable and sure.  Travelling in a stagecoach  in
 England with three other  inside passengers (one  of
 them  a  Cambridge friend, to whom I can appeal for the
 truth  of the relation),  1 fell into the following  train  of
 thought: " If mesmeric effects occur only through cer-
 tain contact and gestures, why is it that men  never mes-
 merize  each other  unawares?  At a public meeting,  in
 church, in a theatre, in all places where human beings
 congregate, there is plenty of the mesmeric influence
 going about unappropriated.   Why  is it that this does
 not take effect,  and that no one should sleep in such
 circumstances,  unless the  orators are prosy, and the
 play stupid enough to act as a soporific ?  Surely this  is
 because the influence requires a will to concentrate it and
 to give it a particular direction before  it can  individual-
 ly operate.  Now here am I, in a most favourable posi-
 tion for mesmerizing the person opposite to me.  His
knees and feet are in contact with mine, in the true mes-
meric position.   At present he does not look sleepy in
the  least;  and up to the present moment the idea of
mesmerizing him has not entered my head.  Let me see
 if this want of  the idea is the true cause why I have
not  hitherto affected him.  If,  by a silent exertion  of
my  will, I can now, from wide awake, bring him fast 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.         305
asleep in a very short period, the relation between cause
and  effect  will be,  1 think, pretty  well  established."
" Sur ces entrefaites," as the French say, I began men-
tally to exert my volition, and to fix my attention on my
unconscious patient.  From time to time 1  looked  at
him  mesmerically, but watched my opportunity when
his own attention, being turned elsewhere, permitted me
to stare at him without the fear of being challenged.
In about  ten minutes the charm began to operate.  My
victim's eyes kept riveting unconsciously, as it were,  to
my face, which, however, I turned away whenever I
saw  him  looking at me,  and at length he began to  shut
them with that slow and peculiar motion which is indic-
ative of mesmerization.   They did not, however, close,
but remained more than half open, becoming perfectly
fixed, and,  as it were, dead, displaying the whites in a
manner which by no means contributed to embellish a
physiognomy naturally none of the handsomest.
   Behold, then, my man asleep; so soundly, indeed, that
the coach stopped and the horses were changed without
his being in any way disturbed from his mesmeric  nap.
When we were again in  motion I began to be  agitated
by some  strange doubts whether my will would be found
as effectual to  end, as it had  been to create, the  spell
which held the  slumberer, who always remained in the
same position as at first, with  his eyes more dead  than
ever.  As I had soon to quit the coach, I really feared
that  my  sleeper, unawakened,  might follow me, attach-
ed by mesmeric attraction to  my side.   The question
of the will's supremacy was now to be tried to the ut-
most.  First, without any effort of volition directed to
the end of  awakening my patient, I stirred about, spoke
aloud, and  let down the  window next me  with a rattle;
my fellow-passenger did not awake.  I then, concentra-
ting  my will on the one idea of dissipating the mesmer-
ic influence, leaned forward with something of that mo-
tion  of my hands which, in usual circumstances, accom-
panied the idea.  Immediately my patient began to stir,
move his eyes, and rub them, staring still rather wildly,
and in a confused manner muttering that he really thought
he must have been asleep.
   I now proceed  to relate some more serious experi-
ments, tried at Antwerp on Anna M----, relating to the
influence of thought and will on the mesmeric medium,
and  its power of communicating impulses to a distance.
                       Cc2 
306          THE  MESMERIC MEDIUM.
  The patient just mentioned was, it will be remember-
ed, in a state of mesmeric  sensibility and relation with
myself, which successive mesmerizings had carried to a
very high pitch.   Yet by my mere bodily presence Anna
M----was in no way affected.   Unless I mesmerized
her with intention, no effect was produced.  Never had
I led her to conceive it possible that I could mesmerize
her in any than the usual  way, that is,  by contact and
gestures.  She had never read any books on mesmerism.
She had no  preconceived notions on the subject.  All
being thus propitious to the essay of a pure experiment,
I concerted with my family what was to be done on a
certain evening, when Anna M---was coming to drink
tea with  us.  According to  our  arrangements, I pre-
tended to leave the room, while Anna M----was enga-
ged in conversation with my wife on a sofa near the fire ;
but, taking advantage of a large screen that hid the door
entirely from view, and which had always stood in the
same  place—that is, at the  very farther end of an apart-
ment  twenty-six feet  in length—I shut myself into the
room  instead of out of it.   1 then tried to concentrate
my thoughts on my sleepwaker, and to mesmerize men-
tally.   At first I found this difficult, but at length I suc-
ceeded in bringing myself into the same frame and action
of mind which usually accompanied my employment of
outward means  when mesmerizing.  Then, and not till
ten, I suddenly heard Anna M----(breaking off in the
very midst of an animated  conversation) exclaim, " Oh,
where is he ? What is he  doing ?"  Directly after, the
concerted signal, which was  to inform me that  my pa-
tient slept, was  given; and, advancing into the room, I
saw Anna M----as completely mesmerized as ever she
had been by contact and gestures.  In the notes taken
at the time,  by one of our party, of this transaction, I
find that, after this, the  patient's first words were,
  P. " Why did you go ?   You only wanted to deceive
me."
  M.  " Only to  magnetize you from a distance."
  P. " Yes.   You can magnetize me now from any dis-
tance."
  Anxious to try a second experiment of the same na-
ture with the above, yet aware that, if I took the same
means, the experiment could not be pure (since the pa-
tient, forewarned, might, on  my apparently leaving the
room, imagine me still in the apartment), 1 agreed again 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.         307
on certain measures with my family, which took effect
as follows:
  After the interval of a few days, during which I mes-
merized Anna occasionally in the usual manner,  I, on
her coming one evening to see us, was found deeply ab-
sorbed over a volume of Wordsworth's poems, which,
after the first greetings were over, I continued to read,
while Anna was busily imparting to her kind friend, my
wife,  all her little  plans for bettering the condition of
her family : her hopes and fears for the coming winter.
While this went on, I was trying to withdraw my mind
from the book, on  which my eyes, shaded by my  hand,
were fixed, and to  concentrate my thoughts on my pa-
tient.   This, however, was no easy task;  Wordsworth
is not an author to  be  quitted with indifference.  At
length, by dint of repeated efforts, I acquired the proper
frame of mind for mesmerizing ; and, coincidently with
my success, Anna, as before, suddenly broke off in the
midst of a sentence, and exclaimed, " Oh, he's magneti-
zing me !" (we called the thing then by its old name),
falling back at the  same time on the sofa in a profound
mesmeric slumber.
   The third trial that I made to mesmerize this patient
from  a distance was  still more remarkable and decisive.
   One evening, when sitting with my family, the idea
occurred to me, " Could I mesmerize Anna M---there,
as I then was, while she was in her own house?"  to
which I knew she  was just then confined by slight indis-
position.  Acting on  this thought, I begged all the party
present to note the hour (it was exactly nine o'clock),
and to bear me witness that then and there I attempted
a mesmeric experiment.
   This time I endeavoured to bring before my imagina-
tion very vividly the person of my sleepwaker, and even
aided  the concentration  of my thoughts by the  usual
mesmeric gestures;  I also, at the end of an hour, said,
" I will now awake  Anna," and used appropriate ges-
tures.  We now awaited with more curiosity than con-
fidence the result of  this process.
   The  following morning  Anna made her appearance
just as we were at breakfast, exclaiming, " Oh, sir ! did
you magnetize me last night?  About nine o'clock I fell
asleep, and mother and sistersay they could not wake
me with all their shaking of me, and they were quite
frightened; but after an hour I woke of myself; and I 
308         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
think, from all this, that my sleep must have been mag-
netic.  It also did me a  great deal of good, for I  felt
quite recovered from my cold after it.  After a natural
sleep I never feel so much refreshed.  When  I sleep for
an hour in magnetism, it is as if I had rested a whole
night."  These were the  words of Anna M----,  noted
down at the time as accurately as possible.
  Unless  the reader will do me the honour to believe
that I tricked my family, and was in concert with a poor
honest-hearted  girl  to deceive every one,  I  know  not
what he can say to statements such as the above.   They
are facts,  to the accuracy of which more than one per-
son will pledge all the credit of their integrity.
  To  me, who  think, at least, that  I behold clearly the
principle of mesmerism, they appear not so wondrous
as doubtless to  those who have not yet thought out the
subject they will and must appear.   Impulses conveyed
to a distance cease to be  miracles the moment there is
a communicating medium  made visible.  That  news
should be conveyed from Dover to York in  a few sec-
onds may seem a mighty  marvel to the ignorant;  but to
those who are aware of the nature of the telegraph, a
mere  common  occurrence.  Let us not be so near the
vulgar as  to be astonished  at effects from causes to us
invisible ; let us not gape at the ascending or descend-
ing deities as if they really floated in the air, only be-
cause our vision cannot detect the strings and wires by
which they are guided and supported.   The mechanism
once revealed to reason's eye, everything appears easy
and natural.  Bin, if we  only rest in what we see, we
must live  in wonder and perish in our ignorance.
  The following considerations may tend  to reconcile
us to the phenomenon of  thought giving  tendency to
matter, and propagating its impulses to a distance.
  Mental  action produces motion in the brain, for the
sensible fatigue in that organ consequent upon intense
thinking proves that during thought it has been exer-
cised  in a real  and physical manner.   The  materialist
even will confess this, and more energetically, for he
will affirm that motions  of the brain produce thought.
Let it be so, if he will; that makes no difference in our
argument.  Motion of the  brain is still, and under all
circumstances,  allowed to  be the  accompaniment  of
thought, either  as  its antecedent or consequent.   Can
that motion be possibly  insulated  amid the connected 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          309
mechanism of the universe, where one thing hinges on
another, and  where the touching  of a  single  spring is
but the commencement of a series of actions (" wheel
within wheel involved"), which may reach to the throne
of Omnipotence itself?  Can any  one motion live to it-
self alone, die where it was  born, and be bounded by
the substance in which it has originated ?
  Granting that, which few  will, in the present day,
be  disposed  to  deny, there  is one pervading  medium
throughout nature, infinitely elastic and impressionable,
it follows, as a consequence, that our thoughts must ne-
cessarily,  in  agitating the brain, agitate also the great
ocean in which  animate and inanimate matter has its
being, with which we are in partial relation, with which
God is in infinite relation.
  Let philosophers pursue their own views to their ter-
mination,  and subscribe to the consequences  of their
own theories, and  I shall be  content.   He who adopts
the undulatory hypothesis, and contends for the exist-
ence of a pervading ether, is already  more than  half
way on his road to mesmerism.
  These  reflections may serve  to introduce another
class of mesmeric  phenomena, which appear miraculous
only when insulated and taken apart from the proposi-
tion that Mind must in its every action impress a cer-
tain motion on surrounding matter.
  It has been said  that persons in certain states, either
mesmeric or akin to the mesmeric, can become aware
of the thoughts of others without  the usual communica-
tion of speech.  Bertrand,  who, be  it remembered,
wrote against mesmerism in  the latter  years of his life,
relates an amusing story to this effect,  a story in which
he  profesess his full belief: for he knew the  parties  con-
cerned in it : A little girl of about ten  years of age fell
into a singular  state of abnormal sensibility.  In her
fits of auto-mesmerism, she  alarmed her family by pro-
claiming aloud to them all the subjects of their thoughts.
She would say to her sister, " You are now meditating
whether you should or should not go to such a place, to
meet such  a person :  I advise you  to stay  quietly at
home ;" or to  her mother, " Do  not ponder  why  papa
stays out so late;  it will do  you no good."  These rev-
elations were at times not  a little awkward and  mal-
apropos, and so the poor little girl was not thanked for
her discernment, but voted to be under the influence of 
310         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
deluding and wicked spirit.   For the purpose of exorci-
sing this familiar, so  much  more malevolent than that
of Socrates, the young  patient was  committed to the
care of a pious community of nuns, with directions that
much prayer and holy water should be spent upon her;
but  in  the convent  matters went  on  much worse.
The holy water threw the patient into convulsions, and
(still more horrible), whenever a metal cross was laid
on her breast, she threw the  precious ensign of redemp-
tion from her with symptoms of the  greatest aversion.
The pious sisterhood,  though not aware of the fact that
the touch of metal powerfully influences persons in cer-
tain states of  sensibility, happened, however, to  ex-
change the metal cross for one of wood, which, having
been blessed by the pope, was supposed to be of pecu-
liar efficacy; and, lo !  in proof of that efficacy, the little
girl allowed the relic to remain quietly on her breast.
This was  a most favourable omen ; but, alas! the  evil
spirit was not to be thus tamed! the  great, the  terrible
symptom of diabolic agency broke out in fresh vigour;
for the patient began to  proclaim the thoughts of those
around her.  When irritated by the  kind but mistaken
officiousness of the nuns, she was especially formidable
in that way; so formidable, indeed, that  at length she
completely controlled and governed the saintly commu-
nity.   " Sister Agatha," she  would exclaim, " you  had
better  not bring that cross  here, or I'll tell why it was
you nailed your ear so close to the keyhole of the ab-
bess's  parlour."   " Sister Ursula, do  not force me to
say any more paternosters, or  all the world shall know
what you were thinking of in your cell last Tuesday."
  Now this phenomenon of thought-reading has  been
observed by me, to a certain extent, in some of my
mesmeric patients.
  The  first occasion of my remarking it was in conse-
quence of  an  accidental occurrence; for, in  truth, I
have never sought for marvels in mesmerism ; if mar-
vels I  have to  relate, they  have presented  themselves
naturally to my notice.  E A., when in his normal state,
used sometimes  to  exhibit a trick on the cards, which
consists in  a long and rather tedious process  of arran-
ging a certain number of cards according to the letters
of certain words, and then,  by the correspondence  of
the letters, discovering any two cards which may have
been chosen by another person.   I was curious to ob- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM..         311
serve whether my sleepwaker retained  enough of his
calculating and  combining powers in the  mesmeric
state to go through this trick as usual, and I therefore
asked  a  lady, who happened to be  present one day
when E. A. was  mesmerized, to choose two cards from
among the little packets of pairs, which the sleepwaker
had already placed in proper order on the table.   The
lady chose the cards by her eye only, in  perfect silence
and standing behind the sleepwaker, so that there was
absolutely nothing of word or gesture to guide him in
his subsequent discovery.   He began to gather up the
cards as usual preparatory to completing the trick, when
suddenly  he threw thein down with an  air of  disgust,
saying  words to this effect: "Why should I go  through
this farce ?  I  know  already the two  cards which  the
lady thought of.   They were so and so."   He was per-
fectly right.  Another time, a little basket, brought in
by my  wife during his sleepwaking, was  standing on a
table near him.   He took it up  and  considered it  (al-
ways with his eyes  shut), and said to my wife, " Ah,
you  are thinking now of making this  a  present to Mr.
V. O.'s little  girl."  This  was  quite  true.  Again : I
asked  the same  sleepwaker, in  his state  of mesmer-
ism, if he knew of any application which would strength-
en his eyes, then weak.   " Yes," he  said, " something
of which  you have been thinking;  a wash, for the pre-
scription of which you wrote to a physician in  Paris
not long  ago  for the  use  of a friend of yours."  He
spoke correctly ;  and I declare most positively  that the
sleepwaker had  no means whatever  of knowing  the
facts he stated except through the  medium of my own
thoughts.
  Anna M----occasionally manifested phenomena sim-
ilar to  the above, and (woman-like, perhaps) accompa-
nied them by a far more delicate and accurate percep-
tion  of the state  of my feelings at such times as  she
was placed in mesmeric relation to myself.   Frequently
she has surprised me by the manner  in which  she  an-
ticipated, on these occasions, my wishes  with regard to
any little experiment I desired to make.  " Come," she
would  say, " you are  now wishing that I should do a
piece of  needlework.   I own just now  it is rather a
trouble to me, but I will do it notwithstanding."
   In my  notes relative to the same period I find the fol-
lowing fact mentioned.  A musician, with whose name or 
312         THE  MESMERIC MEDIUM.
person Anna M----was not in the least acquainted, waa
in the room  during  her sleepwaking, February 16th,
1838.  Not a word had been spoken about music ; all
present were  engaged in observing  the  sleepwaker,
when suddenly she said to me, " You know there is a
gentleman here who  sings and  plays very well.   You
were wishing a while ago to ask him to sit down to the
piano.  You must ask him now, and, when he is play-
ing, lay one of your hands on his shoulder and the other
on mine, and I shall hear the music too."
  These phenomena, as I have  said,  were manifested^
not forced; and 1 had  occasion to observe that, like all
other phenomena pertaining to mind, they were best ex-
hibited when most spontaneously exhibited.  Attempts
to elicit them in any  other manner generally  failed.
Once, standing near Anna  M----, 1 addressed to her a
sentence mentally, but she did not comprehend it, though
that  I  wished  to say something  to her and that there
was  an action  of my mind, she  manifested knowledge.
Her  words on  this occasion were remarkable.  " Why
do you speak so low, sir?   Speak louder, that I may hear
you!"  Now, be it remembered, I had not spoken at all,
nor given her to understand in any way that 1 was about
to address anything to her.
  One experiment, however, of  this nature was almost
invariably successful.   If I  mentally ran over a tune in
my head, Anna would immediately begin to beat time,
and  sway her head about in the measure of the air.
Anxious to have  a correct witness of the experiment, I
agreed with a musician that, at a certain silent signal, I
should begin mentally to  repeat an air, and, at  another
signal, change  the  air and measure from slow to  fast.
1 made the musician acquainted with both the airs be-
forehand, in order that  he might accurately judge wheth-
er the sleepwaker kept to the time.   The experiment
answered perfectly, both as to beating  time in the first
place with accuracy, and then as accurately changing
the measure.
  I  could relate a crowd of other circumstances  of a
similar nature, and some, perhaps, even  more remarkable
than the above;  but I forbear: the above are sufficient
to illustrate the principle which I am  endeavouring to
educe from facts.  Should the principle itself remain un-
acknowledged, I shall have already drawn too largely on
the faith of my reader.  Admit that thought communi- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          313
cates action to surrounding media ; admit that the mes-
merized are sensible to that action, and all that may seem
wondrous in my statements vanishes.  It may be doubt-  '
ed, indeed, whether the  prejudice  that exists with  re-
spect to such phenomena  may not have  been wholly
caused by their having too  often been brought forward,
not only unaccompanied by a proper explanation and in
disconnexion with a sufficient cause, but actually ex-
pressed in such a  way  as  to deepen mystery and to
shock the scientific.  The power which sleepwakers, in
certain states of sensibility, undoubtedly possess, of per-
ceiving  the thoughts of others, has been called divina-
tion ; a term which approximates the faculty in question
to witchcraft and all its vulgar associations. The sleep-
waker does not divine what passes in the minds of oth-
ers ; he reads it there by means which are in perfect  ac-
cordance with the economy of our being.   Let  me en-
deavour  to set  this in  the strongest,  clearest  light.
Should  I even repeat myself, it will scarcely be a fault
on a subject like this, where, indeed, a certain iteration
seems  necessary to familiarize our minds with themes
so new and of such grave importance.
   As we are more acquainted with that corporeal change
in  ourselves which accompanies sensation than with
that other more hidden which accompanies reflection,
let us reason by analogy from the one we  best know to
the one we know the least.   Both are mental operations;
but the one, as we are sure from facts,  is connected
with a series of material movements which stand as act-
ual signs and representatives of itself.  There is sensa-
tion, and there is also the language of sensation; in
other words, nervous motions, which are  equivalent to
a language.  Now, were we enabled with equal  certain-
ty to say, when speaking of our intellectual operations,
" There  is thought, and there is the material   sign of
thought.:"  could we affirm positively that,  as every sen-
sation has its peculiar nervous motion, so also every re-
flection has its peculiar action of the brain, we should be
greatly  helped to a comprehension of the point in ques-
tion.  For it is plain that, could another person be made
aware, in any way, of the  motions of my brain during
thought, and were he also properly instructed in the sig-
nificancy of  those  motions, he might read from " the
book and volume  of my brain" as readily as from any
other collection of symbols.  For it is not the nature of 
314         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
 the sign, when once its meaning is fixed, that can make
 any difference  or create any difficulty.  The deaf and
 dumb  converse as  well by motions  of  their fingers as
 persons in general by giving impulse to the  air.   Now
 the presumption certainly is, that every thought  really
 has its particular configuration in that  texture of our
 brain; for, 1st, we know that thought does indeed move
 the brain  generally, whence we might  infer particular
 motions for particular thoughts.   2dly, We are sure that,
 in some instances, individual thoughts do move the brain,
 and thence certain  nerves in an individual  manner; as,
 for instance, in cases where a thought reproduces a cor-
 poreal phenomenon, generally dependant on  sensation,
 such as a distinct visual image, or a certain feeling in
 the nerves of the teeth.
   From these phenomena it seems that we only draw a
 legitimate  conclusion  when we say that every thought
 moves the brain in its own appropriate manner.  Our
 personal ignorance of these  specific changes, though
 they occur in our own  persons, is no  proof whatever
 that they do not take place.  We are perfectly unaware
 that sensation depends on a corporeal sign, yet a corpo-
 real sign there  is.
   If it should be asked in what manner  the sleepwaker
 has come  to  be so well acquainted with the  signs and
 characters of thought, I  might think it, perhaps, a suffi-
 cient answer lo reply, "The  soul  is wise:  yes,  wiser
 than we know."  There are more intuitions, or (as Kant
 calls them) " cognitions a priori," than we suppose.
 What if motions of the  ethereal medium were the na-
 tive and universal language of the mind ?  Or, to answer
 one question by another, How, in sensation, have certain
 motions come to  be representative of certain external
 objects ?   I may be  told, By experience ; but, again, ex-
perience itself must  have a basis.  What first  taught the
 mind the connexion between the sign and the object?
 Plainly an intuition; for it is self-evident that  we cannot
 advance to new knowledge but by the aid of previous
knowledge.  But where  is this  previous knowledge to
begin?  It must begin somewhere, or we shall never
know anything.  When  we  grant  that we  do know
something, we also  imply that this our  knowledge had
 a beginning, and this beginning could only be  a truth so
 clear as to be  apprehended at once without the aid of
 anterior knowledge; for to suppose a knowledge ante- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.           315
 rior to the beginning of knowledge is manifestly absurd.
 Thus it appears that we cannot but  concede the exist-
 ence of a first knowledge, which came to us in a totally
 different manner from any other, about which we could
 neither have pondered nor reasoned ; a knowledge which,
 luminous itself, required no light for its  illustration; a
 knowledge which is the guiding torch to all other knowl-
 edge  whatever; in  fine,  an intuition  or cognition a
priori.
  This reasoning, applicable to all knowledge whatever,
 is more especially  so to that peculiar knowledge which
 we  call sensation, and which  Locke has satisfactorily
 proved to be the avenue, at least, to the greater part of
 all we know, of all  we are ; the occasion of development
 to the  mind, the awakening touch that sets in motion
 the germe of all our faculties.  Locke, indeed, by his un-
 fortunate  and  misconceived comparison of the mind to
 a sheet of white paper, has obscured his own  beautiful
 system ;  but to him who studies the work on the " Hu-
 man Understanding" as a whole, it will  be seen that the
 reflection  of  Locke is nearly identical with the pure
 reason of Kant, Locke allowing clearly that sensation is
 only (to use his own words) " one of those ways where-
 by the mind comes by its ideas."
  Now let it be remembered that the mind in the com-
 plete mesmeric state has been proved to be more ration-
 al, more  reflective  than in its normal condition; conse-
 quently,  nearer  to that  which Wordsworth so finely
 calls
                " The fountain-light of all our day,
           The master-light of all our seeing."

  Is it, then,  wonderful that its first-developed intui-
 tions should be recalled with superior ease and clearness
 to its perceptions?
  This is the view of  the subject which  searches it
 most deeply and entirely ; but, while I maintain that the
 mind's knowledge of the mesmeric  signs must in the
 first instance be intuitive, I am  also enabled to modify
 the statement  so as to render it more analogous to our
 ordinary views and common experience.   Like our other
 intuitions, this particular one  is  developed manifestly
 through time and circumstance.  The phenomena of si-
 lent perception are, let it be remembered, not only rare
 in occurrence, but  slow to occur.  As far as I  have ob> 
316         THE  MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
served, they only take place when a person has been
brought by degrees into a very exalted condition of sen-
sibility, only when he has learned, and, as it were, per-
fected himself in  his new mode of being, and in the lan-
guage appertaining to that mode of being.
   In the chain of our argument, then, there appears to
be no  link  wanting.   It is  thus  connected.   Every
thought moves the brain in its own appropriate manner.
   A pervading medium being allowed to exist through-
out nature (.Nuch  as the electric), it follows as a conse-
quence that  every thought which  moves the brain im-
parts motion also to the ethereal medium.
   Mesmerized persons, being in a state of extreme sen-
sibility, are cognizant of the motions of finer media than
common.                                          ;
   The motions created by the thoughts of other persons
being transferred  through the brain, and  through a cer-
tain medium  to the sensorium of a mesmerized person,
are  to him intelligible  signs  of thought:  a language
which, though new to him at first, he, by a gradual pro-
cess of association, gives meaning to and learns to com-
prehend.
   We may farther remark (in order to elucidate certain
other phenomena of mesmerism), that a mesmeric pa-
tient  is in such  relation with his  mesmerizer as to be
peculiarly attentive to the workings of his mind;  with
these he is evidently far more connected than with the
intellectual operations of any different individual.  Hence
the thoughts and  feelings of the mesmerizer are trans-
ferred to the patient more vividly, and with a superior
degree of accuracy, so as (if I may so express myself)
to bring into sympathetic vibration the  very brain and
nervous fibres of  mesmerizer and patient.  Facts coin-
cide with  this  supposition.   In various parts of this
work it  will be seen that the  mesmeric patient takes,
pro tempore, the tone of  his mind from that of the mes-
merizer's mind.   It  may farther  be asserted that he
shares the  knowledge of the latter;  a circumstance
which accounts for many apparent miracles regarding
the information of sleepwakers on subjects with which
they were not previously acquainted.  When I first be-
gan to mesmerize, I used to consult my sleepwakers on
dark  and dubious points, with something of the blind
faith of a novice in a new and wondrous science.  Their
answers to such  inquiries were calculated to  bewilder 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          317
me by the pure influence of astonishment; for the sim-
ple had become theorists, the  uneducated were turned
into philosophers.  At length I was awakened from my
dream of somnambulic knowledge by finding that my
patient's idea shifted so visibly with my own, and were
so plainly the echo of my own thoughts, that not to
have perceived the source whence they originated would
have been pertinacious blindness indeed*,   I was but ta-
king back my own, and  receiving  coin issued from my
own treasury.  I particularly observed that what I had
last read or most  recently reflected on was  most viv-
idly returned to me by my sleepwaker.  It was a vexa-
tious  discovery.  Would that  I could present  to  my
reader, as oracles, the speculations of my patients on
the ethereal  medium !  Would that I could enlighten the
world by displaying, as authenticated by a preternatural
illumination, the harmony and mutual relationship of all
things !   But, alas! I should only  be repeating my own
feeble explorations of the regions of truth; I should but
be retailing my  own mortal and uninspired surmises!
  A few particular  instances of the coincidence between
my own thoughts  and those of my sleepwakers may
interest the reader, and prove that  which, as yet, I have
only generally advanced.
  E. A. was perfectly ignorant of the mechanism of the
eye, or of the fact that images on the retina are rever-
sed representations of external objects.  I had been read-
ing some works on this  knotty subject, in which need-
less pains had  been taken to turn the image the right
way upward, when I questioned my patient  as to our
mode of seeing.   To  my surprise, he  entered immedi-
ately upon the topic of the reversed image on the retina,
and, though confusedly, indeed, repeated partly some
mystical stuff which I had been reading in the " Seherin
von Prevorst" (he did not understand German) upon that
head, and partly a  scientific statement  of the mere fact,
which latter he  illustrated by drawing on paper the very
same mathematical figure  which 1 had been contempla-
ting that morning, and which represented the intersec-
tion of the rays  at the focal point, which causes the phe-
nomenon in question.
  The following coincidence was still more remarkable
and perfect than the preceding.
  In a work by M. Despines, of Aix, in Provence, I had
been  reading some speculations on the (supposed) vital
                       Dd2 
318         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
fluid.   It was there conjectured that some of our mala-
dies take their rise from the unequal distribution of this
fluid along the channels of the nerves.   1 declare most
positively that the sleepwaker had never seen the work
in question,  which had just been forwarded to me  by
Lord N----, from Geneva.  Nevertheless, when  in tho
mesmeric state, he, apropos of something said respecting
a person's illness, thus expressed himself:
  " 11 y a des maladies qu'on ne peut pas voir.  Ce sont
les derangemens de la fluide nerveuse, qui est accumulee
ou par  ci, ou par la ; et c'est cela qui fait les maladies."
  I copy the words exactly from notes taken at the time
they were uttered.
  It must not, however, be supposed that this reflection
of thought from the mesmerizer to the patient destroys
the individual  character of the latter.   The knowledge
returns to its originator, tinged always by the medium
from which it  has reverted.  Thus Anna M----did not
philosophize like E.  A.   Her  speculations  were influ-
enced  by the synthetical habits of woman's mind.  In
her there was more of the heart, in the other more of
the head.  In every  case I found that  sleepwakers do
not retail things like mere parrots, but as  thinking be-
ings, themselves elevated to a higher intellectual region
than the ordinary.  Besides, there is always in the mes-
meric  state a certain  independent  power  of thought,
proper to the  patient, the degree of which varies with
the natural independence of the character.  Those ideas
I was never conscious of in my own mind might be fair-
ly attributed to my sleepwakers  as their own property.
From  some  of these 1 have taken hints at least, espe-
cially in all  that regards the mesmeric state, of which
mesmeric individuals may be supposed to have the same
personal knowledge that we have of our normal exist-
ence.  Let us now pause to generalize  the more  impor-
tant of our facts in the spirit of the following remark:
   " The great  object of philosophy is  to ascertain the
simple or ultimate  principles into which all the phenom-
ena of nature  may, by analysis, be resolved."
   Striving after the  philosophic  unity recommended by
Dr. Chalmers, yet keeping within the verge  of safe anal-
ogy, we may affirm that we have been considering, rel-
ative to mesmeric action, a medium which, by its char-
acter and offices, is capable of being identified with that
other  medium treated of under the head of " mesmeric
sensation." 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          319
  For that which is predicated of the  one may be said
equally of the other:
  Both have been shown capable of communicating im-
pulsions to the human system from a distance.
  Both act through obstacles which are impediments to
grosser media.
  Both bear an especial relation to the human mind.
  In the one case, indeed, it appears  that the medium
acts upon mind, while in the other it is  manifest that
mind acts upon the medium; but this  distinction will, I
imagine,  vanish when it is remembered that we have al-
ready proved sensations to  be in reality actions, and
not mere passive performances of the sentient principle,
and that it is more probable  that the  mind always con-
sults actively its book of signs (as the nervous system
may be called), than that it is swayed in any case inertly
by the impulses of the external world.
  More  briefly, sensation and reflection  are, in truth,
both actions, though  different actions, of one thinking
substance.
  This being allowed,  a  pervading medium being al-
lowed, and it being manifest, as a consequence, that this
mere ethereal medium must  respond to every action of
the mind and brain, it will be evident that the mind im-
presses motion on the medium by the very act in which
it seizes the meaning of the motions to which it had
been passive.  Taking the proposition in a material point
of view,  it may be said that, in  the undulations of the
nervous system  and  the elastic media, of  which it is the
centre, there must be reaction  not less than action.  In
either case the motions of the medium have been shown
to be symbolical of something beyond themselves, and
to compose  a language  which the mind recognises and
interprets.
  Other points of resemblance between the sentient and
the mesmeric medium may be found.
  It appeared probable that  the former, from its action
from a distance, and the rapidity of its communications,
was, like the luminous ether, of an elastic and vibratory
nature.   Now considerations of a similar kind induce us
to come to a similar conclusion with respect to the mes-
meric  medium.   We have  seen that physical  effects
have been produced by one person on  another from dis-
tances and through obstacles which render the supposi-
tion of  a material substance emanated  from the body 
320         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
absurd.  Anna M----was by me brought into the mes-
meric  state  when I was divided from her  by a screen,
and by the whole length of a large apartment;  and again
when I was in a house a quarter of a mile distant from
that in which she was  sensible to my action.  Facts
like  these intimate not doubtfully  that the  mesmeric
medium  has not a real transitive  motion, but only a
motion of oscillation;  that the mesmerizer  does not pro-
ject a  means of communication to his  patient, as one
would toss a string to a person at a distance, but merely
agitates an already existing means of communication, as
one would impart vibration to a string already stretched
from one's own hand to that of another person.
  The phenomena of sympathetic  sensation between
mesmerizer and  patient come  in aid of the above con-
clusion.  It  has been  shown  that, in certain  cases,
where a  mesmeric relation is  perfectly established be-
tween two persons, the impressions  of tact and savour
are transferred accurately from the  nervous  system of
one to that of the other.  Thus Anna M----, when any
one gave pain to  my shoulder, foot, &c, immediately
began to rub the corresponding part of her own person:
and she could also, from a real  impression on her nerves
of taste,  correctly state what I was eating or drinking.
Miss  T---- likewise, through nervous  motions in  her
own hand, became  aware of the size and form of objects
which I was secretly handling.
  These  phenomena extremely resemble those of sym-
pathetic vibration produced by the tremours of the air.
" It is thus," says  Mrs.  Somerville,  speaking of the lat-
ter, " that  sympathetic  undulations are excited  by a
body vibrating near insulated tended strings, capable of
following its undulations, either by vibrating  entire, or
by separating themselves into their  harmonic divisions.
If two cords equally stretched, of which  one is twice or
three times  longer  than the other, be placed side by side,
and if the shorter be sounded, its vibrations will be com-
municated by the air to the other, which will be thrown
into such a  state of vibration that  it will be  spontane-
ously divided into segments equal in length to the short-
er string."   Again, when sand  is strewed on paper or
parchment stretched over a large bell-shaped tumbler,
with proper  precautions, " if a  circular disc of glass be
held concentrically over this apparatus, with its plane
parallel to the surface of the paper,  and  set in vibration 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.         321
by drawing a bow across its edge so as to make sand on
its surface take any of Chaldni's  figures, the sand on
the paper will assume the very same form, in conse-
quence of the vibrations of the disc being communicated
to the paper by the air."
  " When a slow air is played on a flute near this  appa-
ratus, each note calls up a particular form in  the sand,
which the next note effaces to establish its own."   It is
plain that this visible manifestation of an invisible agent
might be made a language, and might suggest  to a per-
son versed in its symbols the air played on  the flute so
perfectly as to enable him to  write it down, even though
he neither saw nor heard the musical instrument from
which it emanated, each  form in the  sand indicating to
him  a particular  note.  The analogy between this  musi-
cal language  and mesmeric sensation is manifest.   Just
as the vibration of strings or of vibrating plates are re-
produced  in  other strings, or visibly represented in the
sand by the  agency of  the intervening air, so are the
nervous motions of the mesmerizer's system reproduced
and  faithfully represented in  that  of his  patient by the
agency of the mesmeric  medium.  It is  true that the
aerial vibrations are only manifested  in tense substan-
ces, and that the nerves  are not, as generally supposed,
in a state of tension, and herein our parallel  is not com-
plete ;  but then,  in the latter case, if the undulating body
is not the same, neither is the medium that  excites the
undulations the  same.   The true  and important point
of resemblance  is  this:  the  nerves have a capacity to
vibrate in unison with a certain medium, just  as tended
strings  have a  capacity  to vibrate  in correspondence
with°the  air, and sympathetic vibrations may undoubt-
edly be just as well propagated from one  system  of
nerves to another by their own proper medium, as from
one string to another, or from the glass disc  to paper by
the  air.
   This  being allowed, is it any marvel that the  trans-
ferred vibrations of the nerves should be an intelligible
language ?   Even as regards the mere tremours  of the
air, we find that " by the vibrations of sand  on a  drum-
head,  the besieged have discovered the  direction in
 which a countermine was working."  If personal inter- .
 est  can thus awaken the intellect to a comprehension of «
 mere external  motions, how much more keenly must
 personal feeling rouse the sentient being who  is himself 
322         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
the subject of sympathetic nervous action, into  a per-
ception of every change in the system with which he is
in unison ?  Besides, motions of the  nerves  are more
than a language; they are the language of sensation;
each of their changes is not merely a sign of something
occurring externally to a man's  self, but  in his very
frame and being : thus, when a mesmerized patient has
a nervous vibration transmitted to him from -tnoitiet. he
has also  an actual corporeal feeling not only coincident
with that vibration, but also perfectly corresponding with
the original feeling in the other person.  It is, however,
of importance to remark, that to all these  phenomena
the will of the  mesmerizer bears more than a relation;
it  has  an evident share in their very existence.  The
degree of attention that he  bestows on producing the
phenomeua of sympathetic affection has a great influ-
ence on the  time and manner of their occurrence ; nei-
ther in this instance, nor in  any other relating to mes-
merism, can we  leave the will out of our calculations;
it is, indeed, the focus where all the rays of our infor-
mation meet;  the centre without which there would be
no  general relationship, no union between  our  forces:
this premised, we proceed to our conclusion, that the  re-
lation between mesmerizer and patient is established by
an  elastic medium  is  to be  presumed from the  nearly
simultaneous and correspondent action  of the nervous
systems  of both.  Here, as in former cases, admit a vi-
bratory medium, and that the  mesmerized are sensible
to that medium, and everything is clear and satisfacto-
ry ; without it, all is dark.
  They who watch for my halting, and are on the look-
out for discrepances, may here remind me  that I have
in other  places  advanced faots which are  at variance
with the  supposition of a vibratory medium  in mesmer-
ism, and which  rather tend  to establish the  existence
of a material  emanation, of  which the mesmerizer's
body is the  original source.   Contact, the breath, mo-
tions of the  hand near the patient, have been described
as powerfully aiding the transmission  of the  mesmeric
influence. To this I reply that it is  now very generally
admitted  that heat is but a modification of the same
agent which produces the sensation of  light; in other
words, no real  entity, but a peculiar action of  matter.
Thus to  heat a body is  only to bring the atoms which
compose  that body into  a particular state of  vibration. 
THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.         323
Yet, in order to effect this, in order to induce that pecu-
liar action of  matter which we call heat,  we employ
certain means, which, being themselves material, tend
to invest the agent with a material  character, but which
are in reality only  the occasions of bringing certain
atoms into a particular state.
  It may well, then, be allowed, by those, at least, who
adopt the undulatory theory, that  the material  means
employed in mesmerism to charge a patient with the
mesmeric influence are no proof whatever of the mate-
rial character of  that influence, but are simply methods
whereby a medium  may be thrown into that particular
state of action.  That there is no just reason why that
action should not be vibratory is also manifest.
  Pursuing the analogy between heat and the mesmeric
agency, we  know that, with regard to exciting the  for-
mer, the  means are not only various, but that they may
be altered according to circumstances.   Occasionally
they may appear very  complex, as where chymistry
employs  its resources to develop heat by the union of
two liquids or  gases; and occasionally nothing can be
more simple, as where, by mere friction, we produce
heat.   This should warn us  not to be surprised  that
mesmeric results should accrue from different processes,
simple as well as complex; that at one  time  the  mes-
merizer should employ all the intermediate aids of ges-
ture, look, and respiration, yet at another, with equal suc-
cess, influence his patient by the mere action of his mind
and brain.
  I can assure my reader that I am as anxious to give
the subject a fair consideration as he himself can possibly
be; and  I can suggest to myself objections to a vibrato-
ry  cause in mesmerism which, perhaps,  might not have
occurred to his own  mind.  Thus I found on one occa-
sion, when  I  mesmerized a person  out of doors, that
the wind had a  manifest power to  disturb, and,  as it
were, bear away the mesmeric influence.  This, on a
cursory  view, goes  very near  to investing it  with a
transitive character, but, on a more  accurate examina-
tion, does not in  any way affect our previous conclusions
to the contrary.   We have only to remember that even
the transmission of light depends on the condition of the
atmosphere, and that wind disturbs that  vibratory prop-
erty of the air which  produces sound in a  marked and ac-
knowledged manner. AH, then, that is really  proved 
324         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
when the wind is found to disturb the mesmeric influ-
ence, is that wind has the power to affect the vibratory
properties of the medium.
  Again :  substances touched or breathed upon by the
mesmerizer will, when tested  by such patients as are
extremely sensitive, be found to retain something of a
mesmeric  virtue for a considerable period, as if a mate-
rial emanation clung around them, and at length became
dissipated in the surrounding atmosphere.  Nay, I must
avow a circumstance that, more than any other, seems
to shake my hypothesis  of undulations.  I have mes-
merized Anna M----by sending to her from a distance
a note which I had previously carried about me for some
time. But what do these phenomena in reality prove?
Merely that the  mesmeric medium, like other  media,
has the power of imparting a change to the particles of
the substance on which it acts.
  The following reflections will at once support my hy-
pothesis, and set my meaning, as I trust, at least, in  a
clearer light.
  Whatever is corporeal  is ponderable.  When, there-
fore, we pronounce that an agent is imponderable, we at
once pronounce that it has no existence (that is to say,
virtually, and as far as our senses are concerned) but
in motion; that it is only an effect or action of matter,
and not an individual substance.  Such agents, then, as
affect bodies without adding to their weight, can only be
conceived  to act by introducing a change into the rela-
tive position of their particles.   Thus, when a grain of
musk perfumes a sheet of paper without either losing in
its own weight, or imparting additional substance to the
paper, what can it prove  more than that the action of
one thing can be imparted to another?  Or, when what
we call infection is conveyed from one person to another
by wearing apparel or by a letter; and, again, when fu-
migating the apparel  or the letter properly is found to
restore those substances to their former innoxious con-
dition, is it not because, in the one case, the substances
had acquired the property of imparting a change to the
atoms of the body with which they should come in con-
tact, and, in the other, had this new mode of action ab-
stracted from them ? This at least we know, that colour,
which appears to be a material body, and is  transferable
from one body to another, is actually nothing more than
a chymical change in the position and arrangement of 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          325
those atoms which, by their varied manner of cohesion^
produce what we call the different textures of substances.
Again:  science has ascertained that the mere action of
the luminous medium can  produce  an internal change
in the  texture of crystals, and can develop magnetic
properties in iron; while our own observation  may as-
sure us, by daily examples in the fading of vegetable
colours, that light alone can so alter the atoms of bodies
as to change their capacities of absorption and reflection*
The recent discovery whereby a landscape is transfer-
red, in all its natural  hues, to paper prepared  with  ni*
trate  of silver, by the simple agency of light, speaks
more  strongly still to the same effect.  Nor is it by any
means fatal to  our cause that the  change which mes-
merism induces  in bodies should  be but  temporary.
Electricity induces temporary alteration in bodies ; the
magnetic virtue in iron may be diminished or re-enforced
by light, by heat, and other external agencies ;  while to
or from such metals as only become magnetic by induc-
tion, the properties of magnetism can be given  or taken
away at pleasure*   Heat, also, can  impart a temporary
change  to the molecules of matter, giving them a new
vibration  and  impulse,  which  gradually ceases  and
leaves the body they compose in its former condition,
The analogy in this case to mesmeric action is particu-
larly  striking, and would alone be sufficient, one might
imagine, to rank this agency among the imponderable
media.  It renders perfectly comprehensible not only
the transference of mesmerism from the mesmerizer to
an inanimate substance, but the subsequent and farther
transmission of the action from the inanimate substance
to a mesmeric patient.
  It may farther be conceived that this particular actiori
of matter,  when weakened by transference to a  mes-
meric billet, for instance, can only affect such frames as
are predisposed to receive the influence, just  as the con-
tagion of illness conveyed by letter will act most readily
on  persons predisposed  to take infection.  In every
case where an  agency so subtle as  that  of mesmerism
is to be appreciated in its minute gradations, there  must
exist a previous acquaintance with its effects, and  an
acute degree of sensibility both natural and acquired.
Beings  possessing such qualifications are indeed rare,
and, as detectors of nature's  finer influences, most  in-
teresting to the observer.  They alone, it is evident, can
                       E E 
32f>         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
throw new light on the action and properties of the mes-
meric medium.  If  we only regarded them as  instru-
ments of extreme delicacy,, we should value them as the
chymist his test and reagents, or as the student in elec-
tricity his balance of torsion.  Dr. Elliotson, by means
of two young females, who, from  their extreme sensi-
bility, may be  called mesmerometers of the highest
precision, has  ascertained particulars which bid fair to
develop the laws of this remarkable agency.  Among
other things, he has discovered that mesmerizable sub-
stances may be mesmerized by the eye alone, without
contact  of any kind.  This is of importance; for to
what can we refer such an effect but to a change in the
atomic relations of the affected substances, which change
cannot but be brought about by impulsion on some me-
dium subsisting between the eye and the objects ? Thus,
if some phenomena seem to give a material character
to mesmeric agency, others, again, more truly invest it
with all the finer attributes  of that subtle, ethereal,  and
elastic medium which pervades creation.
  Whatever objections, then, may be urged against the
undulatory character of the  mesmeric medium  are
shown to be null; while, on the other hand, we should
be  forced into absurdities did we  attribute to it  any
other mode of action.
  Thus  proved to be undulatory,  elastic, pervading, in
peculiar relation with the mind of man,  it should seem
clearly to be identified with the medium spoken of in
sensation.
  But of this we have a yet closer method of proof.
  First. The phenomena of sensation proper to the mes-
meric patient proved to us originally the existence of a
certain medium, which circumstances led us td suspect
might form the groundwork in all sensation whatever,
since it acts pervadingly, and by simple impulsion on
the nerves, which are the real agents in sensation.
   Secondly. The phenomena of sympathetic sensation,
originating with the mesmerizer, and from him trans-
ferred to his patient, bring the sentient medium into re-
lation with the mesmerizer, and presumably identify it
with the mesmeric  medium, especially  as it is found
that the  mesmerizer's will and attention aid the pro-
duction of the  phenomena.  Besides, it  is  fair to infer
that all  the relations between mesmerizer and  patient,
being connected in one series, and bearing  one charac- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.         327
ter, are brought about by one medium, which we call
mesmeric.
  Thirdly.  That such a medium is really the great me-
dium in all sensation, we may again deduce from this.
It is found  capable of transferring sensations from the
mesmerizer to the patient;  we may therefore conclude
that it is capable, in general, of producing sensation:  a
task to which it seems peculiarly adapted, from its act-
ing  (as has been shown) with such exquisite precision on
the  nerves.
  The chain of evidence seems thus complete.
  In the first place, we have a particular medium of sen-
sation indicated to us by the phenomena of mesmeric
perception;  in  the second  place,  that medium  is con-
nected with the mesmerizer, by his capacity of using it
so as to produce sensation in his patient.   Finally, it  is
again reciprocally connected with sensation in general
by its capacity of aeting on the nerves of a human being,
so as to produce sensation of various kinds.
  Having thus assimilated the mesmeric  medium to
such  a medium or to such media (if there be any) as
form the groundwork  in the external  preparatives of
sensation, I would endeavour still farther to associate it
with other  media, now generally considered to be of an
undulatory nature, and universally allowed to be proper
objects of physical and certain experiment.
  If we can succeed in this, we shall at  once give to our
agency a claim on science, connecting it with calcula-
tion and with mechanical analysis.
  It is plain that this can only be effected by detecting
and bringing to view similarities between its action and
the action  of such other forces  as are subjects of the
physico-mathematical sciences:  forces which are now
considered  to be mere modifications of  the electric.
  Already  we have  seen that, like heat, it can be im-
parted by one body  to another, and that, like heat,  it
gradually leaves the body to which it is communicated.
  Some interesting experiments by Dr. Elliotson prove
that, like light, it may be  reflected from mirrors.   A
celebrated  sculptor at Rome assured  me that he had
seen the experiment tried and verified on his own brother
by  a nobleman, whose name it might be thought an im-
pertinence  in me to mention.
  These are striking analogies between the mesmeric
and other media; but to electricity,  now considered  as 
328         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
the great parent of them all, it bears a yet greater re-
semblance.
  First. We know that electricity is capable of all that
modification in its action which the necessities of our
case demand.   Sometimes its  effects are  sudden and
energetic, sometimes of  indefinite  and  uninterrupted
continuance.   It is " capable of moving with various de-
grees 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 itself in an electric state."
  This capacity of varied action and of pervading influ-
ence has already been shown to characterize the mes-
meric medium.
  Secondly.  Electricity may be called into activity by
heat.   Here the resemblance between the electric and
the mesmeric medium is still more marked.
  I have found that I could not  successfully mesmerize
in a cold  room, or when I was in a low state of bodily
temperature; while, on the other hand, a  warm atmo-
sphere, and warmth in my own hand, have  always in-
tensified  and expedited  the  transmission of mesmeric
influence from myself to another.  The» first time I  ever
saw a mesmeric experiment, the mesmerizer made it an
express condition that he should have a warm room for
his process.   The experiment, as will be remembered,
was quickly and successfully performed.  Now of elec-
tricity we know that it may be called into activity by
heat, and that the heat of the air is intimately connected
with its electrical condition.
  Thirdly. " Electricity  readily escapes from  a point,
and a pointed object receives it with most facility."
  I have found, by experience, that the mesmeric medi-
um is most powerfully  conducted by the tips of the
fingers, and that mesmeric actions, directed also towards
the tips of the  patient's fingers, have a more remarkable
effect than when simply directed over the surfaces of
the body.
  Fourthly. " Iceland spar is made electric by the small-
est pressure between the finger and thumb, and retains
it for a long time."
  How analogous is this to the transference of mesmer-
  * These and the following characteristics of electricity are taken
from Mrs. Somerville's admirable  work on the Connexion of the
Physical Sciences. 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          329
ism to certain metals by human contact, and to the man-
ner in which they slowly part with the communicated
property!
  Fifthly. Electricity may be transferred from one body
to another in the same manner as heat is communicated,
and like it, too, the body loses by the transmission.
  This resembles the exhaustion and repair of mesmeric
force, of which I have, in another place, taken notice.
  It is true that, in  the case of mesmerism, a human
body is the electric  machine, another human body the
recipient of the force, and that neither are represented
to be in a state of electrical insulation; but, be it re-
membered, we are contending, not for the identity of the
agency with the electric, but for the propinquity. While
we affirm that there are analogies too great to admit of
a separate source, we not the less contend that there are
differences too striking not to demonstrate a varied ac-
tion.  Their powers not being identical, it is evident that
the laws of their retention and escape may vary, as do
those that regulate the transmission or accumulation of
the galvanic or magnetic forces.  Thus a body may be
in a state of mesmeric, though not of electrieal insula-
tion.  Magnetic or electric agency seems to aid the
mesmerizer in  influencing his patient.  I found, when
mesmerizing Professor Agassiz, that a magnet held in
my hand assisted me to raise his limbs by that species
of attraction which may be called mesmeric.  It is sin-
gular, likewise, but true, that  whenever I took the  mag-
net into my hand, however secretly, he, having his eyes
always shut, invariably complained of a palpitation at
the heart.
   It has  also  been told  me  by Dr. Elliotson, that a
lady who  is remarkably  gifted with mesmeric  force
gains an additional share of that power when she mes-
merizes standing on a glass stool and in a state of posi-
tive electricity.  This  fact approximates  the two  agen-
cies in a very obvious and striking manner.
   A few additional remarks on the connexion of the hu-
man body with electricity may be pardoned.
   Much needless pains have been expended to prove
that the force  in question is an agent in  our economy.
It cannot but be so.   Its presence in our own frames is
only one of the consequences of its universal presence,
now accorded by all philosophers.
   Recent discoveries tend to  prove that gravitation lt-
                         Ee2 
330         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
self is but a residual and comparatively feeble portion
of the electric energy; and the power which electricity
displays in  effecting chymical combination or separa-
tion demonstrates  that it really binds or looses  the
atoms of which material bodies are composed.   To sep-
arate  one drop  of water from another, it has been cal-
culated  that as  much electric  force must be employed
as would be called into activity during an ordinary thun-
der-storm.  How, then, can the electric principle be ab-
sent from the frame of man, which is  itself but a col-
lection  of material particles ?  Facts, moreover, prove
that our bodies  are electric, and that the degree of elec-
tricity varies in different individuals.  The silk stocking
drawn off hastily at night rostles with electricity; the
hair, when rapidly combed, especially in frosty  weather,
will crackle  and emit sparks ; and these phenomena are
more  or less evident in different persons.   All this is
true and undeniable.  The fault has been in theorists to
assign specific  offices to the electric agency in the hu-
man frame ; offices which it may indeed  fulfil, but which
the march of experiment has not yet sufficiently demon-
strated.that it does  fulfil.  The inquiry has not, as it
seems to me, been conducted rightly.  We have sought,
as I said  before, to demonstrate the presence  of elec-
tricity in the human body ; and that was needless.   The
only sure way of demonstrating that any agency in the
human  body is akin to the electric, is to identify the
laws of  action of the two forces.
  I think, then, at present, that the most striking fact
of which I have heard relative to the identity of the ner-
vous and electric agencies is the discovery of Desmou-
lins, that the transmission of sensation and motion is
made  by the surface of the spinal  marrow, and not by
its central parts.  This is exactly parallel to the action
of electricity, which is developed only, and transmitted
along  the surfaces of bodies.  That nerves  really do
conduct a matter similar at least to the electric  has been
also proved by the fact, that a  magnet held between the
two sections of a recently divided nerve was  observed
to be  deflected as by an electric current.
  But the kind of  electricity which is in the human
frame is probably a modification of the original princi-
ple.   In many particulars it  bears more resemblance to
galvanism, and  it is really ascertained by experiments
on dead animals that the  nervous fibre has a property 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          331
 of being galvanically affected, which (though varying, of
 course, like other properties, with the condition of the
 substance in which it resides) may be called inherent.
 Some most interesting experiments, by Dr. Elliotson, in
 which patients, by a re-enforcement of mesmeric power,
 were shown capable of swinging round large weights,
 impossible to be even lifted by them  in their ordinary
 condition, prove again the intimate connexion between
 the mesmeric medium and the muscular force, which, as
 every one knows, is dependant on the state of the nerves,
 and by them conducted from the brain.  If personal evi-
 dence may  be allowed to have importance, I may add
 that I am of an electric temperament; so much so, that
 long  ago, when a child,  I  used  to amaze and  even
 alarm my young companions  by  combing my hair be-
 fore them in the dark, and exhibiting to them the electric
 coruscations.   Of course, also, this phenomenon takes
 place  most remarkably in a dry, and, therefore, non-
 conducting  atmosphere.   Now between this electrical
 endowment and whatever mesmeric properties I may
 possess there is a perfect relationship and  parallelism.
 Whatever state of  the  atmosphere tends to carry off
 electricity from the  body, hinders  in so far my capacity
 of mesmerizing ; and whatever state of the  atmosphere
 tends to accumulate and insulate electricity in the body,
 promotes greatly the power and facility  with which I
 influence others mesmerically.
  My feelings of bodily health also vary with the plus
 or minus of electricity; and, perhaps, did persons oftener
 attend to such things, a similar phenomenon might not
 uncommonly be remarked.  This at least we may ad-
 mit, that the welfare of the human body depends on the
 equilibrium qr proper distribution of its forces, and that
 the electric is one of these just as  much as heat or oxy-
 gen.  The mesmeric force has, more  than any other,
 been shown to be inherent in  man; and, taking all the
 above facts into consideration, it is by no means a strain-
 ed conclusion that it actually is that particular modifica-
 tion  of electricity which is  appropriate to  the human
 constitution.   When, then, after having mesmerized a
 person, I have a peculiar feeling of loss of strength and
 general uneasiness, which can by no means be traced to
usual causes, 1 am compelled to consider this as a proof
 that I have suffered by a temporary destruction of equi-
librium in that medium  wherewith I have charged an- 
332         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
other person; that medium, namely, which we have
agreed to call mesmeric.  That which greatly adds to
the presumption is the fact that there is gain in the pa-
tient as there is loss in the mesmerizer.  The tendency
of mesmeric influence to restore equilibrium to the bod-
ily forces is manifest.  Under its beneficial action I have
seen headaches cured, fatigue dissipated, and trifling bod-
ily ailments removed in a short time.  How much it
calms and equalizes  the circulation was shown in  the
case of Anna M----, whose  pulse, agitated by  fever,
was rendered even and natural after the occurrence of
the mesmeric slumber.   I  have had occasion also to re-
mark, that my own sense of exhaustion bore a percepti-
ble relation  to that which I was called upon to cure.
In mesmerizing the weak,  even  when using very slight
exertion, I have found myself more than commonly fa-
tigued.  A young lady, whom I mesmerized occasion-
ally at Antwerp, and who was in  delicate health, re-
marked once to me, with that quick perception of every-
thing relative to mesmerism which persons under that
influence display, " I am afraid  it is a great fatigue to
you to mesmerize me, because I feel so much strength-
ened."  It was perfectly true.
  A medical man at Berne told me also that he once
undertook, by mesmerism, to treat a lady who was suf-
fering from periodical convulsive fits.   By mesmerizing
her every day a little before the hour when the fits usu-
ally came on, he first deferred, and  finally altogether
prevented, the recurring attacks of  the malady; but he
himself suffered in a singular manner.  Sometimes, af-
ter mesmerizing his patient, he would faint away from
the consequent exhaustion.
  From these facts,  as it  seems to me, there is every
reason to conclude that the principle of mesmeric action
is a disturbance of equilibrium, and that its mechanical
effects may  be all explained by differences of positive
and negative, of plus and minus, in the mesmerizer and
the patient.
  Add to these features of  coincidence between electric
and mesmeric agency, that both are  subject to actions
and reactions, and that the one, like the other, may be
accumulated in bodies to a great extent without produ-
cing any sensible change  in their properties, and it is
impossible but that the analogy between the two  media
should appear remarkable. 
             THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          333

  Thus generalizing, we have arrived at the point to
which  all science seems tending, namely, the demon-
stration of an ethereal medium, of which all other agen-
cies are but the effects.  Should 1 have been successful
in proving the existence of a mesmeric agency, and its
connexion with other actions of matter, 1 trust that  I
may be allowed not to have annulled, but to  have ex-
tended the sphere of former knowledge.  I have  only
exhibited that ether, which Newton imagined and subse-
quent philosophers have proved to exist, in a new point
of view and engaged in new offices.  I have shown that
that medium  is the proper organ of  the mind, and the
transmitter of all sensation ; that its motions are identi-
cal with thought, and are not the accidental, but the per-
manent, language of sentient beings.   Let our contribu-
tion be received.  The  question, Can mesmerism  take
its  stand  among the sciences ? is even now decided.
Even now mesmerism is a science of observation.
They who have always rejected the  undulatory theory
may be pardoned for rejecting it  on  the present occa-
sion ; but they who allow it will not be excusable should
they refuse to trace ;t in a  new and most interesting de-
partment of its agency; at least they cannot but  con-
fess it to be capable of the effects now ascribed to it.
What then will be thought should the  very supporters of
the undulatory system desert us here, reject facts as ab-
surd, and proscribe, in this particular  instance only, the
hypothesis that would  render them credible, nay,  even
necessary ?
  An elastic ether, modified by the nerves, and the con-
duction of which  depends on their  condition ; which
can be thrown into vibration  immediately by  the mind
of man,  and  mediately by the nervous system; which
manifests itself when  thrown out of equilibrium,  and
produces mental effects through unusual stimulation of
the brain and nerves, cannot but be allowed to be a cause
which  answers to all the  conditions  that we  desire to
unite, and which is sufficient to account for the phenom-
ena that we have been considering.   And, be it remem-
bered ever, we have not created the medium for our pur-
poses ; the necessities of the case have created the me-
dium for us, as alone adequate to the  production of cer-
tain effects which do really and visibly exist.
   Even should my theory of undulations be rejected, we
cannot but conclude that in mesmerism there is an es- 
334         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
pecial agency.  Not one argument against the reality of
its existence is available, while,  on the  other hand, a
mass of positive evidence  demonstrates that  it does
exist.  Should, then, the learned at once refuse to exam-
ine and to believe, I own that I shall feel surprise.  But
that  the world in general should reject mesmerism till
the great leaders of opinion have marshalled the way to
its precincts, I not only expect, but am ready to forgive,
since there  are so  many received truths (as they are
called) from which it seems  incorrect  to  differ, and
which the most part of mankind carry about, as Foster
says we do our  characters  and our watches, without
scrutinizing of what they are composed.   In  the mean
time let me, at  least, in drawing to a conclusion, set
forth the claims of mesmerism to general attention, to
the philosopher as a philosopher,  to man as man.  My
own debts to this despised science are too many and too
various to permit me to leave undischarged this duty to-
wards others and myself.
  First, in a philosophical  point  of view,  mesmerism
may be affirmed not only to touch nearly, but to throw
light on, questions which have long agitated the intellec-
tual  world.
  One of the most interesting of these is whether there
may not exist a special though invisible  agency appro-
priate  to  the nervous system, through  which  sensa-
tion  is accomplished and  animal  motion performed.
Charles Bonnet,  of Geneva, a century ago,  suggested
that  there was an elastic ether resident in the nerves in
a manner analogous to that in which the electric  fluid
resides in the solid bodies along which it is conducted.
He says, " Should we admit that  there is in the nerves
a fluid, which in  subtlety and elasticity resembles light
or ether, by the help of such an agency we may easily
explain the celerity with which external impressions are
communicated to the mind, and  that  with which the
mind executes so many diversified operations."   (Essai
Anal., chap, v.)
   This suggestion has been  variously received or com-
bated, but never absolutely dropped  or decided one way
or the other, so recent a writer as Mrs. Somerville (who
may be supposed to represent the prevailing authorities
of the day) allowing  that the galvanic fluid " may ulti-
mately prove to be the cause of muscular action."*
         * Connexion of the Physical Sciences, p. 331. 
              THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          335

   Now it appears to me that mesmerism is more calcu-
 lated to decide this point than galvanic  batteries or ex-
 periments on the divided nerves of dogs  and rabbits.
   We have seen that, in cases of  mesmeric sympathy,
 the actual sensation of one person is transferred accu-
 rately to another : so also the mental action of the mes-
 merizer  can, so  to speak, perform motion in another.
 I have actually seen mesmerized persons make the most
 laughable faces simultaneously with their mesmerizer,
 though the latter was  standing quite behind them.  If
 he put out his tongue, the patient also protruded his; if
 he wrinkled  his  brow, the patient wrinkled his brow
 likewise.   These things may appear ludicrous ; to those
 who view but the outside of things, they are purely so ;
 but to the thoughtful inquirer every trifle connected with
 a grave subject is of importance.
   Be it remembered  that the phenomenon of which we
 are speaking does not take place indifferently in all cases
 of mesmeric relationship between two persons, but only
 (with few exceptions) when the  mesmerizer exerts his
 will  and attention to that particular  end.  Where, in-
 deed, the relation between  the parties  is very strong,
 the patient is apt, as it were involuntarily, to adopt the
 gestures and mode of walking of his mesmerizer.  He is
 as a machine swayed ever by the volition of the latter.
 But, in general, the connexion between particular acts of
 will and intention, originating with  the mesmerizer, and
 particular motions occurring simultaneously in the pa-
 tient, is marked  and decisive.  The inference is  irre-
 sistible.  One mind originates motion in  two bodies;
 one act tends to two performances.   The medium, set
 in motion between mesmerizer and patient, does not, in
 this instance, move the latter in the manner of a mere
 stick or rod;  it is plainly impulse as well as guide, and
conveys to the motory nerves of the patient  the exact
impulsion which it takes from the will of the mesmer-
izer.   Whatever be the force which has moved the mus-
cles of the one, precisely the same  degree of that force
is  meted out to the muscles of the other.
  I may now ask whether the mesmerizer, having thus,
in the truest sense, performed muscular motion in  an-
other, and evidently by a  medium  (for actions are  not
propagated save by transference from atom to atom),
may not legitimately infer that what is so efficient to in-
fluence the nerves and muscles of another person is also 
336         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
  adapted to act upon his own, and is capable of the pro-
  duction of that very effect in himself which he has re*
  marked in another?  So, also, when he extends, as it
  were, to his patient, or, rather, gives action to, a medi-
  um of sensation the finest and most delicate imaginable,
  may he not at least conjecture that a similar medium of
  sensation is employed in conveying to himself impul-
  sions from the external world ?
   But to consider the matter more closely.  The first
  effect of mesmerism is bodily sleep, from which volition
  seems to be absent.  In such a state, that it is not nat-
  ural for persons to get up and walk must be  conceded.
  Constitutional sleepwaking is the affliction of but a few,
 and of those who are mesmerized scarcely one. perhaps,
 has been addicted to sleepwaking.   In accordance with
 this, it will be remembered that, in my cases of mes-
 meric sleepwaking, the patient  always manifested  at
. first the strongest reluctance  to move, nor indeed would
 stir until compelled by the strong command of the mes-
 merizer.   There  is, then, at  such moments as  the pa-
 tient is moving, a force in operation entirely opposed to
 a natural  desire, and  of  sufficient  strength to  prevail
 over that natural desire.   But this is  not all; we have
 not here  a common case of sleepwaking, whose only
 phenomenon is that motion ordinarily performed with
 consciousness is performed unconsciously ; but we have
 sleepwaking directed by  an  external force; we have
 even, be it remembered, motion cosentaneous with the
 motion of another, as  often as the mesmerizer wishes
 to produce the phenomenon.   We have the nerves  of
 motion inert and incapacitated one moment, yet brought
 the next into involuntary action.
   Professor Agassiz, who could not of himself stir a
 muscle when mesmerized, moved, when impelled by me,
 like an automaton across the room.  Even while retain-
 ing his consciousness  enough to resist my efforts, by
 mere gestures, without contact of any kind, to move his
 limbs, he subsequently owned that he was actually com-
 pelled into such motions as I wished him to perform.
 Surely a phenomenon like this can be interpreted but in
 one manner.  The mesmerizer restores to his patient's
 nerves of motion that force, the previous abstraction  of
 which rendered them incapable.  Whether that force be
 galvanic or not is a different question.
   Again, pins have been thrust into the flesh of healthy 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          337
  Eersons during the mesmeric  slumber, and they have
  etrayed no mark of feeling.  Now in such cases it is
plain that the nerves,  which ordinarily convey sensa-
tions of touch to the mind, are as inefficient to propa-
gate impulsions upward to the brain as if they had been
tied or cut.  But wherefore?   The nerves have been
neither tied nor cut; they have undergone no alteration
that we can perceive.   What are we then to conclude
but that they have ceased to become conductors  to some
invisible force which is indispensable to  their  action ?
For, lo! the same person who does not feel pins thrust
into his own flesh betokens sensibility to the slightest
injury which can  be offered to his mesmerizer, and that
not merely by a  simple idea conveyed in some way to
his mind, but by an actual impulsion on a nerve of touch ;
for he will raise his hand to the part of his body corre*
sponding with that which suffers pain in the mesmerizer.
Seeing this, what can  we surmise but  that the nerve,
which was so lately inactive, has been restored to  ac-
tion by the very force whose absence marred its efficien-
cy ; that the  mesmerizer communicates to  his patient
not merely a conductor, but a means, of sensation ? And
impressions of this  kind are conveyed in no other way
to the patient; for, unless the mesmerizer act, his ner-
vous extremities are in general as dead.
   Since, then, we see the motory and sentient powers of
the mesmerized person as active through the mesmeri-
zer as they were shown to be powerless in themselves,
we infer that the  latter restores the very force through
the obstruction of which they become inefficient.
   And thus a new antecedent to sensation and palpable
motion  becomes  manifest:  for, however  uncertain a
person may be that there is an intermediate agency be-
tween his own will  and the  motions of his own body,
he cannot doubt  that there is  an  intermediate  agency
between himself  and the motions he produces in anoth-
er : and again, however  doubtful  he may be that  his
own nerves, in sensation, are but conductors to  some
more efficient force, he  must be certain that he produces
sensation in another person, not by nerves merely,  but
by some invisible medium acting  on those nerves and
restoring to them their capacities. And that this is all
effected by one medium seems certain, for the mesmer-
izer can  concentrate its  motory and sentient efficacy
into one act;  as when he handles a ball or other object,
                        F F 
338          THE  MESMERIC MEDIUM.
and the patient (with his back turned and at a distance)
goes  through  the same motions, and, by sympathetic
feeling, becomes aware what it is that the mesmerizer
holds in his hand.   It would be perhaps rash to say
that hence he  may decidedly infer that motion and sen-
sation are performed  by a  medium in himself; yet
speculation cannot  but tend that way, and surely  he
may be forgiven if he supposes that he reads and scans,
as by reflection in a faithful mirror, the mysteries  of
his own being  in the manifested operations of his who
sympathizes with him so wondrously.  This, at least, is
clear: if ever we hope to  arrive at a just notion  of
what  has been called  the nervous  energy, it  must  be
through means like these.   Only thus can we  at  once
demonstrate its existence and analyze its nature.  The
action on ourselves of those powers which  constitute
our vitality is  too near us, too intimately blended with
our being, to form a subject of personal  contemplation.
Our unconsciousness of their agency is a law of our
being, and has hitherto been  the great argument against
admitting the very  existence of a  nervous medium,
which, however plausibly presented  to  reason, can in
no way be rendered palpable to sense.  Here, however,
the mesmerizer, seeing that  he is unconscious how  he
actuates the person whom he sways, while that he does
actuate him through a medium  is manifest  by visible
signs, perceives that his ignorance how he feels or per-
forms his own voluntary movements is no proof what-
ever that he may not unconsciously use, both in sensa-
tion and in motion, a subtle, elastic, and ethereal medium.
  While physiologists have been engaged in surmising
or disputing the existence of a nervous agency, meta-
physicians, on  their parts, have transferred the question
into a more spiritual region,  speculating  on the strange
marriage between mind and  matter,  and proposing, in
order  to effect a union between  such opposites, an in-
termediary partaking of the  qualities of both.  That a
link does really seem wanting between the  mind and
the grosser matter with which we are visibly surround-
ed, is  to be presumed from the subject having  engaged
men's attention from the earliest ages ; from the period
when  the  ancient philosophy devised intermediary ima-
ges of things,  to  that in which  Cudworth imagined a
plastic  mediator.   This  palpable hiatus between the
visible and the invisible, the  subtle and the gross, mes- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          339
merism seems calculated to  supply.  Let me not for
one" moment be misunderstood.  The notion of a half-
intelligent medium is as absurd a jumble as the idea of
a half-thought would be.   Mind  cannot be cut up into
fractions; and to divide it, or mingle it with matter in
any way, is just  the same as if we were  to talk of
pounds of intellect  or square inches of rationality.
When I speak, then, of the possibility of a medium sub-
sisting between the mind and the  grosser manifestations
of matter, I must by no means be conceived to intimate
that this medium partakes in any degree of the qualities
of spirit.  In this respect I perfectly agree with Sterne.
" The  ancient philosophy materialized spirit, and  the
modern, in order  to  be even with it, has spiritualized
matter.  What  extremes are  men liable  to run into
who depart  one line from  common sense."  Besides,
this petitio principii is altogether useless, and explains
nothing.   Thought and sensation are in the mind alone.
The latter—sensation, at  least—seems brought there
from  afar, but we  cannot shorten the road.   When we
have traced it to the brain, it has still a journey to  per-
form  as long and as difficult as ever; the  transition,
namely, from motion to thought, from a sign to an idea,
from matter to spirit; and. however we may deem that
we facilitate  the  passage by a medium half-mind, half-
matter, we in reality have left the  opposing principles
just where  they were.  We  have only assumed the
very  point, which we were  desirous of proving.  I
would, then,  plainly state, that  I  recognise  only  two
grand  divisions in nature, namely, of cogitative  and m-
cogitative; that which thinks, and that which  thinks
not.   Yet that in a  different sense there may exist a
medium between sensible objects and the mind, I trust
to demonstrate is not impossible.
   Striving to arrive at the true source whence arises so
obstinate°an idea in us of a medium between mind and
matter. I imagine it, like most of our notions, to proceed
from  the ground of our own personal experience.  We
see and know that we never move matter external to
ourselves except through the medium of our own bodies.
Our minds  we feel  to be inadequate per se to  stir one
 atom  of extraneous matter.  In the same way we feel
 and know that all information respecting external things
 comes to the mind  through the medium of the body;
 and, apart from this medium, we feel that our minds are 
340         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
inadequate to  take  cognizance  of  external objects.
Hence arises in the mind a general  proposition  that
mind affects matter, or is affected by matter only through
a medium; and we carry  this piece of reasoning even
into the precincts of our own corporeal frame, conceiv-
ing that this also, being matter, can only be moved by
our minds through a  medium, and can act on our think-
ing principle only through a medium.  Now this reason-
ing, though imperfect, is not altogether null and baseless.
That mind can only act on matter through a medium,
and vice versa, is indeed a false proposition; for, allow-
ing a medium, however ethereal, between the mind and
brain, we cannot but  allow that medium itself to be mat-
ter, unless, indeed, we fall into  the old absurdity of a
half-intelligent  medium.  Still there are  media  which
manifestly exist, and are made evident in their effects;
which, though  they cannot be in any way  confounded
with mind, inasmuch as they are incogitative, do really
differ from our  common notions of matter in many par-
ticulars ; I speak  of media, to which we may apply that
which  Dr. Maculloch  has beautifully said concerning
light.  " Imponderable, intangible, incapable of being ar-
rested and accumulated, ever under the most rapid mo-
tions,  though we cannot discover  a projectile  force;
coming we know not how, and vanishing we  know not
where, it  is in all but the power of thought  a spirit."
Now to matter in general we certainly attach the ideas
of weight and  palpable solidity; and though, when we
say of the ethereal medium that it is coextensive with
space, and composed of impenetrable, invisible atoms,
we really classify it  with matter, still there  is a lurking
feeling in the mind which creates a distinction between
matter of so ethereal a texture and that  which we can
see, weigh,  and handle.   Why matter  of this  nature
should seem  to us more adapted to act upon mind, and
vice versa, than any other sort of matter, we can, perhaps,
give no very philosophical reason;  yet the fact is that
there is some such notion in the minds of  most persons.
  But, again, this notion is really in  harmony with some
striking facts.  The  grosser media, which are palpable
to our senses,  act upon and  modify the finer  media,
which  are, in truth, always the most forceful and  perva-
ding, but are either  not palpable to our  senses,  or are
perceived only  by such a sense as sight, which is, in
truth, a complicated  intellectual operation.  The atmo- 
THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.         341
sphere modifies the electric principle and its insensible
action on our bodies; the atmosphere modifies light,
and adapts it to the visual capacities of man.  Light it-
self has been recently conjectured to depend on  electri-
cal actions and reactions.  Should this prove to be so,
and  should subsequent experiments  demonstrate  that
man communicates with his own body through  electric
agency, the following proposition, now but a  theory,
would gradually evolve itself.   Grosser media  act on
the finer, the finest on the mind of man; and again the
mind of man reacts from finer to grosser media.   I con-
fess  that to a system like this  the phenomena of mes-
merism incline me to lean ; while, as it appears to  me,
the analogies  of the visible universe tend  also to  the
same conclusion.  In the words of the poet,
        " Look nature through ; 'tis just gradation all.
          By what minute degrees her scale ascends!
          Each middle nature join'd at each extreme,
          To that above is join'd, to that beneath:
          Parts into parts reciprocally shot
          Abhor divorce."
  Again:  Wherever we turn our contemplation, there
is a manifest progression  from finer to grosser  media.
An ethereal and infinitely subtle fluid, pervading  the
realms of space, is  the first known step from Deity to
matter.   Distributed through  this, and probably con-
densed  from the prime element, are discerned  masses
of a luminous substance, which have received the name
of nebulae from astronomers.   Amid  these luminous
masses, which constitute the first traces of matter of
which we have ocular evidence, are beheld certain nu-
clei,  forming the germes  of future suns or worlds.  So,
at least, we may safely conjecture ; for all geology goes
to prove that " all this fair variety of  things" which our
earth displays was once in a fluid, or, rather, gaseous
state.  Nay, there needs but a sufficient application of
the universal solvent, heat, to melt down all again  into
fluidity and vapour.  Thus, again, with science, we ar-
rive  at a primal, universal element, such as is now  sup-
posed to be the substratum even of the gases ; and  this
element (I speak it  with reverence) is the first demon-
strated action of the Almighty mind.
  If I err in thus expressing myself,  I err with  no  less
an authority than Milton, who speaks of light as the  first
effluence of Divine power:
                        Ff9 
342         THE  MESMERIC MEDIUM-
      " Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven, first-born,
       Or of the eternal coeiernal beam,
       May I express thee unblamed ? since God is light,
       And never but in unapproached light
       Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
       Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
       Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream,
       Whose fountain who shall tell?  Before the sun,
       Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
       Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
       The rising world of waters dark and deep,
       Won from the void and formless infinite."
  Now that, in mesmerism, a  subtle medium is set in
motion by the mind  has been proved, but whether this
be accomplished through the intermediate agency of the
brain, or whether the brain itself  is moved by the me-
dium ; whether, in brief, the brain or the medium be most
proximate to the  mind, it is impossible  for  us to decide
with absolute certainty, it being evident that a man must
be palpably proved to have acted without  a  brain before
the question can be  finally settled.  There  is, however,
a sort of reluctance in the mind (instinctive, I grant, and
not philosophical) to conceive that spirit can act at once
and directly on nerve and fibre, and, above  all, on a tor-
pid viscus like the brain, which may be cut and pierced
without the subject of such an operation being conscious
of any particular feeling.  Rather we incline to imagine
that an impalpable  ethereal medium, such  as the  mes-
meric, must be the next thing to mind itself.  A medium
differing in so far from ordinary matter as it is set in
motion  by  the  human mind immediately.  In such a
sense only could we admit the  existence of an interme-
diary between mind and matter.
   So  much may be said without much thought or care-
ful induction ; but, when we come to examine into the
principles  of common muscular motion, we are com-
pelled to use stronger language.   The physiologist here
cannot fairly have recourse to  his old stalking-horse of
vital action, on which he hobbles away so often when
pressed  for an  explanation of the mysteries of our
frame.   He himself must  grant  that  it is will which
originates and governs the duration of muscular contrac-
tion.   He  must also grant that contraction cannot take
place without the immediate influence of the brain and
nerves, though  what that  influence  is he  very wisely
forbears to tell us.   Muscular  motion, then, is perform-
ed by the will or mind (for will is but an attribute of the 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          343
 mind) through the medium of the nerves.   But are the
 nerves  of themselves a medium fitting for this work ?
 Let us  examine them, and we shall find nothing what-
 ever  to account for their marvellous capacities.  They
 are, to appearance, the weakest of all weak instruments
 —mere soft white filaments, enveloped in a fine cellular
 membrane—and yet the strength and the  power of all
 the body is derived from them!  This simple fact redu-
 ces us to  a  dilemma.  Either we must believe the ner-
 vous substance to be the  channel of some ulterior  and
 efficient energy, to us invisible, or we must admit, ac-
 cording to Pascal's generally received definition of a
 miracle, namely, " an  effect exceeding the  natural force
 of the means employed,"  that a constant miracle is ta-
 king place in our mortal frames.  Following  the good
 old advice of the poet, who said " Nee Deus  intersit,"
 &c, we rather shrink from attributing to direct Divine
 agency  every minute corporeal motion which our fancy
 may incline us to make.  It is not the mind itself which
 directly moves the muscle ; if it did, we should have to
 seek no farther for an adequate agency, since we have
 never measured the power of mind to move matter.
 But, as  we know, the mind moves the muscle indirectly,
 and through the medium of the brain and nerves.   In
 this case there is a known sequence of events, and  a
 sequence which, as it stands at present, is an absurdity.
 The weak, soft fibre stirs the muscle, as we are told, so
 immediately, so mightily, that " its fibres shorten and
 become hard  without  any preparatory oscillation  or
 hesitation, and they acquire all at once such an elastici-
 ty that they  are  capable of vibrating or producing
 sounds."*  There is nothing in mesmerism more won-
derful than this, more  difficult of digestion to  credulity
itself, when  we take the  matter as it stands, without
bringing into view an ulterior agency, an efficient force.
Why shrink  we from so doing ?  When we look upon
the heavens, and the magnificent  system of sidereal
worlds,  harmoniously  moving round a common centre,
we acknowledge all this harmony to be the result of  a
force which we call gravitation.  But what is  the won-
der of the universe compared to  the mystery of  the
mind  linked to matter and actuating it ?   It is a mys-
tery ;  but we need not, on  that account, render it an ab.
* Magendie. 
344         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
surdity by inefficient causation,  by denying the mind
an adequate intermediate agency.  Such denials betray
physiologists into great inconsistencies; as, for instance,
Magendie  one moment censures every attempt to ex-
plain muscular contraction, and the very next explains
it himself  by the vaguest of vague terms, " cerebral in-
fluence," affirming, from the strength of  maniacs, that
" the muscular power may be carried to a wonderful de-
gree by the action of the brain alone."
  What is this brain, what are the nerves, that  they
should possess such power of action ?  Is it inherent in
them ?  If so, why does it not endure  when man has
ceased to  think and live.  Examine a nerve apart from
the intelligent being it  once served; pore over it  with
the microscope ; then take the brain and weigh it well,
or cut it up into sections:  where is the innate power
of action,  where  is all that may truly be called power,
namely, the  enduring and essential capacity of  origina-
ting motion? If, then, it be an absurdity to attribute an
inherent power of motion to flesh and fibre, it is  also
an absurdity to attribute to weak instruments like the
nerves an  inherent power of stirring, in an instant, the
strong volume of a muscle.  And if the power be not
inherent, where is it ?   Granting all that we can grant
as regards the efficiency of mind to stir its own organi-
zation, we must beware how we charge inconsistency
upon  the  Creator by supposing  Him to  violate those
laws of action which he  points out to us by manifest
signs; and never has our  experience shown that  by  a
weaker agent we can move a stronger;  in a case, too,
where the disproportion is manifest, and where there
are no connecting links to prepare the way for the ac-
tion of  the  much weaker upon the  much stronger.
Again we  ask, where are we to look for the force  that
effects such wonders ?  Now  we fear  not to  explain
muscular action in the  dead by a force that we call gal-
vanic.  Why will we  not explain it in the living by
some  efficient force at least; for here we have equally
a sensible  phenomenon that calls on us for an adequate
explanation.  I know not what philosophic doubt  may
make  of this question, but certainly common sense de-
cides, from  the ordinary phenomena of muscular  mo-
tion, that the mind actually dispenses and metes out a
material force, of which the brain is, perhaps, the  elab-
orator, and the nerves decidedly the appointed conduct- 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          345
 ors.  This renders the question whether the mind acts
 on the  body  mediately  or  immediately much  more
 easy of decision;  and, when  we weigh probabilities, in-
 clines the balance in favour of those who adhere to the
 doctrine of a medium.
   Finally, when we  agree to divide matter into pon-
 derable and  imponderable, we in fact create a distinc-
 tion to the full  as great and important as any which can
 be devised by supposing a third substance which is nei-
 ther  mind nor matter.  And, this distinction  once ad-
 mitted, there is no inconsistency whatever in saying
 that by matter imponderable we communicate with mat-
 ter ponderable.
   Beit remembered, I assert no  more than that mesmer-
 ism bears on this disputed point; that it decides the ques-
 tion is not affirmed.  But when we reflect that the whole
 of mesmerism  seems to consist in discarding ordinary
 intermediaries, such as  the external mechanism of the
 senses and the  media adapted to this, and in arriving at
 grounds and principles ; above all, when we  see by the
 experiments of Dr. Elliotson  that mesmerism can be a
 succedaneum at least for muscular force, enabling the
 weak to raise heavy weights ;  and when, again, we com-
 bine this with all that has been just advanced respecting
 an intermediary in muscular  action, surely all this con-
 sidered, we cannot be far from the belief that the mes-
 meric medium is really the long-sought link that was to
 render our system more complete and more harmonious.
  Should  we come to this conclusion, we  remove at
 once the  objection so often raised against  the very ex-
 istence of mesmerism,  that  its  agent cannot, in  our
 usual state, at least, be made  the object of our senses.
 It is a medium to  enable us to perceive  objects, and,
therefore, that it should not be itself a direct object of
 sense seems  natural.  Light itself is the true object of
 the eye, and  is, in  certain cases, its  sole object;  and
whether we communicate  even with this directly may
be made a question.  Should we establish a medium be-
 tween the mind and all matter perceivable by us, still
the principle  must  here also  be adhered to.  It would
 only be in analogy with what we have ascertained in
 other cases should we  decide that  we only communi-
 cate with  light through  the medium of another and an
 imperceptible agency.   Of course the same reasoning
 will apply to air, and to the action of all media on our 
346         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
senses.   Such, at least, as we have  seen, was the view
which Newton took of the economy of sensation, not
giving all his reasons why he did so; but who can doubt
but that such a mind as his kept back within itself more
reasoning on most subjects than common thinkers have
promulgated and found adequate  to secure a very toler-
able reputation ?
  But, in truth, the objection to the reality of mesmer-
ism, because it cannot be brought before  our eyes,  is
not worth much.   We  see it in its effects, and of these
we can judge by more  senses than one.   The mesmer-
ized, perhaps,  being in a different  state  to ourselves,
may see or feel indications, at least, of this subtle agent,
when they speak of perceiving a kind of fine vapour or
electric light. . If so, the essential difference between the
mesmeric and the normal state would consist in the
power of being sensible to the very medium which fur-
nishes the means of sense.
  But, in truth, what is the invisible ?  The microscope
will prove our vision to be capable of a development, the
limits of which will not easily be found.   Revealed by
this, " world within world enclosed" will burst upon our
sight where we  had supposed a void.    It would be,
then, ridiculous to make the existence of a medium be-
tween mind and body  dependant on the cognizance of
our senses as at present constituted.  That which is not
discerned by us  may be clearly seen by more  spiritual
optics.   I should be sorry if my  existence depended on
the perfection  or imperfection  of some persons' organs
of sight and general sensibility.
  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 ar-
ticles; if also we  reflect that whatever is  not palpable
in itself, yet is indicated by its effects, forces on us 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, exclaim-
ing with the old Latinist, " Invisibilia non  decipiunt."
   These remarks will be received with  indulgence  or
not, by no means according to their merit, but according
to the turn and character of each several  reader's mind;
and this observation involves a general truth not suffi-
ciently  attended to.  We all have  our own modes  ojf, 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          347
reasoning, and, as our minds  are analytic or synthetic,
We love those who never reach, or those who jump to a
conclusion.  Again, some delight in all theories, and some
love nobody's theories  but their own.  Now  whether
I belong to those who  hastily snatch  up an hypothesis
because it so nicely accounts for  things,  or  to those
who draw deductions because their reason is convinced,
I leave to  others to decide, that is, provided they be of a
party who decide on anything.   For my own part, I
confess my weakness.   I like to come to a decision,
and herein I am  at  a manifest disadvantage, for in all
ages the doubters have lorded it greatly over the deci-
ders.   It is  so grand and so philosophic to  doubt, even
of one's own senses.
  I leave  the world to  apply this to mesmerism gener-
ally.  Whether the speculations into which this singular
subject leads us almost without our wills be or be not
generally acceptable, it must be owned that, in  suggest-
ing to us a mode of sensation more direct and worthy of
the mind itself than the common, they do us no ill ser-
vice ; and surely we cannot grossly  err in giving to
thought so swift-winged a  messenger of volition, so sub-
tle a vehicle of sensibility, as the mesmeric  medium.
  The idea  of  nature's constitution, which the appre-
hension of such a medium excites, is  at once  compre-
hensive and ennobling; and  the philosopher who de-
sires to have large views of man and of creation in gen-
eral cannot  take  his stand on a belter vantage ground
than the one which the inquirer into  mesmerism is com-
pelled to occupy.  Thus expanded, his mind can scarce-
ly fail to be cured of that dogmatism which cries out
" impossible" to all that is not within the narrow round
of its own experience.  The  first time of witnessing a
successful experiment in mesmerism must be an era in
the life of every  thinking being;  while  the student in
this science, who at length arrives at the knowledge of
an ethereal medium, connected with all animated beings
and with thought in  particular, beholds a flood of light
illuminating mysteries which have probably long weigh-
ed on his heart and brain.  He beholds all life and intel-
ligence at once connected  and individualized, reciprocal-
ly connected in all its parts universally with God;  and
he has a glimpse at least of the waves of the great ocean
agitated by thought eternal, and tending to thought again
in the limited portions of intelligence which the Almigh-
ty has gifted with individual consciousness. 
348         THE  MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
  Should his mind be,less excursive, should he study
mesmerism  with practical severity, still he cannot but
view it with interest as a link between sciences at pres-
ent disunited or standing remotely connected.   Physics
and metaphysics are now at  dagger's-drawing, but here
they may embrace and be reconciled.  It so evidently
touches on all and blends all.   Without it the connexion
of the physical sciences is  incomplete, for this alone
concentrates them personally in man.   I cannot for a
moment doubt that a future generation will hail mes-
merism as the very note which was wanting to render
all nature harmonious, as the key which fits every ward
of knowledge, and  unlocks all the treasures of science.
The ornithorhyncus  was  deemed at first a fictitious
creature,  but was found at last to be the very link that
was wanting to the animal creation.
  Let me hope that if, in endeavouring to advance  a
consummation so desirable, I have fallen into scientific
errors or partial inadvertences, I may be forgiven on the
score of motive at  least, though I am quite willing to be
charged with the fault provided mesmerism be not bla-
med.  In setting forth a new science there is always a
probability that errors will be committed, especially in
setting forth a science like this, which to solve entirely
would be to  solve the riddle of man.
  There is one imputation, however, from which I shall
with difficulty escape, a charge of  which I fear not even
my own conscience can acquit me.  In the first part of
this work I uttered disrespectful words regarding those
who, treating  on  mesmerism, took occasion  to  frame
systems of the universe ; and now, behold, I am myself
found guilty of soaring upward from my subject into
the regions  of space, and of drawing from  a few de-
spised facts the highest conclusions.  So easy is it to
blame, so difficult  to  avoid  blame;  so difficult, also,
when  treating of man, not to touch upon lofty topics,
and to be led even  unaware to speculate on the sublim-
ities of creation.
  It remains for me now to exhibit mesmerism in such
points of view as regards all  men equally, whether con-
sidered as material or immaterial beings.
  First, as a remedial agent, mesmerism, when  better
known, cannot but be universally important and interest-
ing.  That it should  not already be so is only a proof
how inveterate prejudice can be, then most when most 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.         349
irrational.  When we see persons eagerly running after
every new or old new-revived remedy, consenting to be
starved, as is now the fashion in Germany (where men
are mad for what is called the hunger-cure); or to have
their insides drenched, Sangrado-like, with water; or to
sit smilingly  plunged up to  the neck in  mud:  when we
see such instances of more than martyr fortitude dis-
played, too, on the occasion of every trifling, or, perhaps,
imagined malady, we cannot but wonder  that mesmer-
ism, so fraught with hope and healing to  the human race,
should be neglected; more  especially, too, as its thera-
peutics are neither disagreeable nor disgusting.   " Bless-
ed be the man who first invented sleep,"  says Sancho;
and in  this  a man has only to sleep and to be cured.
  Not  being  medical myself, I cannot  bring forward a
number of  personally observed cases in which mesmer-
ism has been  useful.  I have, however, sometimes mes-
merically treated slight indispositions in members of my
own family with success, and I have had occasion to be
struck  generally with the power of mesmeric agency to
equalize  the  circulation  and to  relieve pain.  I have
known it to  be  particularly useful in cases of severe
headache, by no  means  one of  the least ills  " which
flesh is heir  to.".  On one  occasion,  a  friend of  mine,
the Baron  de Carlowiz,  whom  I  used to  mesmerize
sometimes for mere purposes  of experiment, came  to
me with a severe cold and hoarseness, which prevented
him from speaking above a  whisper.  We neither of us
had any idea  of curing this affliction; yet, after he had
been mesmerized for about an hour, during the greater
part of which time he slept, he rose from  his chair per-
fectly relieved from his catarrhal symptoms.  He also
found, after I  had mesmerized him  a few  times, that he
had got rid of a  chronic  rheumatism  in one arm, from
which he had been suffering for many weeks.
  From medical friends I have received many particular
accounts  of the  beneficial agency of mesmerism, but
these the limits of my work do not allow me to detail.
I  can only state generally that, as might have been ex-
pected  from the  evident  action of this influence on the
nerves, mesmerism is especially useful in those derange-
ments  of the  nervous system which  are  generally be-
yond the reach of medicine.  Epilepsy, palsy, nervous
depression, madness even, have been successfully com-
bated and subdued by this,  which  may most emphati- 
350          THE  MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
cally be called the natural remedy.  If only in its pow-
er to calm, when opiates are hurtful and improper, this
tranquillizing influence is of incalculable value, enabling
nature, during the periods of repose, to balance and re-
cruit her disordered forces.  Dr. Foissac, of Paris, has
assured me that  he has seen men restored to calmness,
and  finally to health, by mesmeric action,  when suffer-
ing in the last stage of spasmodic cholera.  Reasoning
from analogy, we should conjecture that this is proba-
bly the only  power available to counteract hydrophobia.
At  any rate, the instinct whereby persons  in the mes-
meric state prescribe remedies for themselves or others
might here be turned to most valuable account.  The
insensibility  to bodily suffering, which has  been proved
to characterize the mesmeric state, may also, as it has
already in some  few instances,  prove  of  the  greatest
service in enabling patients to undergo the  amputation
of limbs or other painful operations.   In reply to a ques-
tion I addressed  by letter to Dr. Foissac, I received the
following communication :
  " Vous pouvez, en toute surete, magnetiser des fem-
mes enceintes;  vous  leur  ferez beaucoup  de  bien.
Quelques somnambules  ont accouche sans la  plus pe-
tite  souffrance;  dans tout cas le magnetisme  rend les
douleurs tres supportables."
  The last and most important point of view in which
we have now to  consider mesmerism is in its reference
to the future prospects of man, considered as an improva-
ble being, capable of immortality.  My object here is,
as it has heretofore been, at once to explain and to util-
ize mesmerism.   Already I have cast light  on its appa-
rent mysteries:  first, by the  laws of our  normal con-
sciousness ;  secondly, by the  true nature of sensation ;
thirdly, by the native force and faculties of the mind;
fourthly, by demonstrating that, in the  mesmeric state,
the mind is not only detached from its present restricted
organs, but gifted with a medium  of sensation more di-
rect and more worthy of itself; and now, finally, I pur-
pose to render evident whatever in my subject  may yet
appear to be unexplained, by considering man as a being
capable of a development unsuited to his present era of
existence.  The  subject is most  important.  The  other
topics on which  we have been engaged are but specula-
tive points, and are comparatively devoid of interest.
  This comes home at once to our business and bosoms. 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          351
Wretched, indeed, must be the view of man which con-
fines him to this bank and shoal of time, which does not
regard him and  all his glorious endowments as intend-
ed for a series of existences.
                      " For we live by hope
          And by desire ; we see by the glad light,
          And breathe the sweet air of futurity."'
  Here,  only, when  we doubt, we are vastly too  hum-
ble, refusing to recognise our own dignity and the priv-
ileges accorded to humanity.  That man is improvable
and capable of a development, the limits of which have
not yet been ascertained, is his high prerogative which
distinguishes him from the brute creation.  Even com-
mon life  will teach us  this: but mesmerism,  in  an
especial  manner, proves the capacities of man to be
susceptible of progression ; for it not only exhibits him
in a state of moral and intellectual improvement, but in
a condition of increased sensitive power.   Let this pro-
pitiate  the religious  mind at least.  Mesmerism is no
miracle, but a development of faculties inherent in man.
It is fraught with instruction the most holy, so that we
may say  of it that which Galen affirmed  of anatomy:
To  examine it is to  sing a hymn to the Creator of all
things.   Here, indeed, " qui studet orat."   It calls atten-
tion to our being, frame, and structure; and by proving
that we have an immaterial principle which is not de-
pendant on the organs of sense, it is calculated to re-
claim to  a purer faith the materialist, as it actually did
reclaim a young French physician (named Georget) of
great  promise, who, dying, left  on written record, de-
siring it by will to be made public, that, mesmerism had
convinced him that man was not a mere compound of
organs, but a spiritual as well as  corporeal being.
  The  light which  this phasis of our nature gathers
from and  reciprocally sheds on revelation  is  remarka-
ble, and to reason's eye most precious.  By exhibiting
man as at once delivered from the thraldom of  his exte-
rior senses, and  enabled to attain to greater heights of
moral excellence, it leads one to  see that there is some-
thing  more in the scriptural expression, " Sins of the
flesh," than a mere form of speech.  In mesmerism the
mind recurs to its native character and fundamental en-
dowments, seeming to cast aside the accidental difter-
* Wordsworth. 
352         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
ences induced by education, circumstances, and negiect
of moral discipline.  We  thus  learn how great a  part
of the  evil that clings to us is our own work, from our
omitting to discipline and subdue the grosser principle,
and to  combat those temptations which are actually en-
gendered by our present position and manner of organi-
zation.  I have been told that  some writer has called
mesmerism " a miserable compound of faith and fear."
I can assure the author of this sentence that one at least
of these elements must be wanting to true mesmerism ;
and I would ask him  why he should confound faith  with
base things, or identify that holy power with credulity ?
I would send him  to  Thalaba  for instruction, where,
when all that is noble is to be performed, when all that
is evil is to be vanquished,

                " The talisman is faith."
With faith, then, with Christian faith, I would associate
mesmerism ; and with that which so  largely promises
another existence it can easily be allied.
  As regards our future state (a question that concerns
every mortal being), there is  the greatest reason to be-
lieve that mesmerism is a boon granted by God to  con-
firm our faith and to  cheer us on our way.  All its  phe-
nomena combine to identify it with that which Cole-
ridge has  called " the fundamental life."  As, however,
in this expression there may seem to be some ambigui-
ty and  vagueness, especially to  such  persons as  have
not  turned their thoughts to the subject we  are treat-
ing,  and as I wish to be particularly  clear on a point
so important, I shall endeavour to explain precisely
what is the fundamental life, and wherein it differs  from
the organic.  If, in attempting this,  1 adopt, more than I
have hitherto permitted myself,  an a priori and abstract-
ed mode of reasoning, there will b'e at least  this benefit:
we shall have, from pure reason, an additional ground
of confidence for our belief in an hereafter ; and surely,
in respect of this, we cannot build up the edifice of hu-
man hope  on too strong a foundation, or protect  it by
too  many buttresses against the inherent weakness of
its own imperfection.
  Already I have hinted at a distinction between sensa-
tion transitory and  permanent, occasional and funda-
mental, and have insisted on the necessity of taking so
large a view of man as to  distinguish  the accidents of 
THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.          353
his present  situation from his immutable character,
when considered as a being destined for immortality.  I
now proceed more particularly to develop this idea.
  No man hath  seen God at any time.   In His works
alone we can behold Him : they are, in the truest sense,
His expressed thoughts; as the poet says, addressing
the Creator,
       " Glorious!  Because the shadow of Thy might,
        A step, or link, for intercourse with Thee!"

  If by the word of revelation we learn to discern God
spiritually, and  to discover our moral relationship to-
wards  Him, we no less, by the universal manuscript of
nature, learn to view Him, as it were, with the eyes of
the body,  thus enlarging our views of His  power, wis-
dom, and  design.  Without this source of instruction,
corporeal  as well as intellectual, our relation to the Au-
thor of all things, we being composed of body and spirit,
would be incomplete.
  Now thus to  hold converse with the attributes  of
God, as expressed in the visible creation, is not a tem-
porary object; for we have no reason to suppose that
matter and its properties,  whatever changes they may
undergo, will  ever be annihilated, matter, indeed, being
the only thing respecting which we  have sensible evi-
dence that it perishes not: and from this the great ad-
vocate of man's immortality, the poet Young, draws a
chief argument in favour of his subject:

      " The world of matter, with its various forms,
        All dies into new life.   Life, born from death,
        Rolls ihe vast mass and shall forever roll.
        No single atom, once in being, lost,
        "With change of counsel charges the Most High.
        What hence infers our reason ? Can it be ?
        Maker, immortal, and shall Spirit die ?"

  Moreover, on matter  hang all our hopes of individual
existence  ; for, as 1 have before shown, the individuality
of all spirit but God  must consist in being impacted and
restricted ; in being less than pure  spirit, which the Ab-
solute alone can be ; in having a body through which all
information respecting the original ideas of God being
transmitted should  become proper to itself.   Reason,
then, proclaims external matter, not less than that por-
tion of it connected with ourselves, to have been created
for a durable existence; and, this being the case, it is
                        Gg2 
354         THE  MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
evident that to bring the mind acquainted with  all the
qualities of the universe is an end and object which re-
mains  immutable, and which, unless we can suppose
this world to be  the be-all and the end-all, and  God to
be limited in creation and invention, can only be fulfilled
here in a partial and imperfect manner.  Supposing man
to enter on individual existence for the first time in this
our planet, it is here he takes his first lessons in natural
divinity ; and it would be, indeed, to charge the Almighty
with " change of counsel" and vain expense of mighty
means were we to suppose  that what man learns here
is to be unlearned hereafter.  Wise earthly parents deal
not so with their children.   Now by what means,  at
any time, shall we continue our process of instruction ?
Surely, as we began it; by means of a body, the great
purpose of body being to connect mind individually with
matter and its properties.   A body, then, that shall en-
dure seems essential alike to the continuation of our in-
dividual existence, and to our continued commerce with
the qualities of the visible creation.  Revelation is per-
fectly in accord with  this idea.  The Bible philosophi-
cally says, at  man's creation, " And man became a liv-
ing soul," that is, an individual soul, a soul  imbodied,
and capable of communicating with external  matter.
When  we say, then, that  man  is to live hereafter, we
also affirm that he is to continue imbodied; and in this,
again, revelation sanctions the deductions of our reason,
one great object  of Christ's mission  on earth being to
preach the resurrection of man with a body.  Such a
body, then, as would endure, and cleave to  the mind
through all external changes, is, in fact, the fundament-
al life; while the organic life  is  but that visible and
grosser envelope  which forms our tangible body in this
world,  and which is furnished with organs which have
especial reference to this particular state of existence.
  More briefly: the fundamental  life is the  body (for
what is life, in our case at least, but mind incorporate ?)
that we are to  retain throughout eternity.  The organ-
ic life  is the  body, or means  of  communicating with
matter, which  we now palpably possess, and which may
be imagined  to be a  temporary  development  of  the
other, just as  leaves, flowers, and  fruits are the  tempo-
rary development of a tree.  And in the same  manner
that these pass and drop  away, yet leave the principle
of reproduction behind, so may our present  organs be 
              THE  MESMERIC MEDIUM.          355

detached from us by death, and yet the ground of our
existence be spared to us continuously.
  When St. Paul affirms that there is a spiritual body as
well as a natural body, he not doubtfully declares the
same thing.   He does, in fact, draw a distinction be-
tween the  body we  now have for purposes connected
with the economy of this world and the more lasting body
which is to connect  us with the  universe in general.
He was  too good a logician  to have used  the words
" spiritual body" in a vague and mystical sense.   Body
is body;  and the only differences between one body and
another which can possibly obtain are gradations from
grosser to finer, or the contrary.
  That we should rather evolve from our present cor-
poreal elements the body which  is to be  ours beyond
the grave, than begin existence de novo; that, in other
words, we  should really possess a fundamental life, or,
to speak more intelligibly, a  fundamental body, incapa-
ble of passing away with the grosser covering that en-
velops it;  that at death  we  should retain something
physically  from our actual condition, seems pointed out
to us by  all the analogies of nature.
  Everywhere we  behold  that one  state includes the
embryo of the next, not metaphysically, but materially;
and entering  on  a new scene of existence  is  not so
much a change as a continuation of what went before.
A sudden  leap from one condition  to  another is not
compatible with nature's evident tendencies.  The very
rudiments of organs, intended in a higher stage of ani-
mal life to  be useful, are found, uselessly as it were, ap-
pearing in the lower classes  of animated creatures, or,
stranger still,  lying in embryo in the same creature in
one state, only to be developed in another.  It is an old
allusion, but ever beautiful,

                       " The wings that form
           The butterfly lie folded in the  worm."

  We should  then, a priori, expect to find  the  principle
that individualizes man, and is the true  medium of his
instruction, attached to him from the beginning, and that
the germes of future capacities, physical not less than
intellectual, should be discoverable in his constitution.
Here again we are reminded of St. Paul's beautiful com-
parison between man's transitory body and a seed that
loses iu the ground only its exterior husk or covering, 
356         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
while the very circumstance that produces in it a par-
tial loss  and decay is the occasion of development to
that germe  which from the first included within  itself
all that it would be hereafter.  Thus it appears mani-
fest that the apostle supposes that, even from analogies
before our eyes, we may draw conclusions respecting
our future condition; nay, he seems to find this truth
so clear that he thinks it argues much want  of intellect
in a person not to perceive it, as it is evident by his say-
ing, " Thou  fool, that which thou sowest is not quicken-
ed except it die."  In another place he  strongly inti-
mates that the doctrine of a permanent body was not
unknown to his converts.  " For  we know," he says,
" that if  our earthly house of this tabernacle (meaning
evidently our present body) were dissolved, we have a
building  of  God, a house not made with hands, eternal
in the heavens."   And with this he desires  at death to
be " clothed upon," or, in other words, imbodied: not
wishing to be " unclothed" or to be disimbodied, which
would be equivalent to annihilation, as if he were tired
of existence, but  only  longing to depart and be with
Christ; in other words, to continue existence in a more
elevated state of being, putting off the external weeds,
but not the unchanging vesture of the spirit.
  From considerations like these we may surmise that
the  mind is capable  of being organized in two  ways,
visibly and invisibly.  It may have a subtle envelope,
adapted generally to its own active and subtle essence,
and, in addition  to it, it may have a coarser covering,
as our mortal body, adapted to its present state of ex-
istence, and furnished with particular organs for partic-
ular purposes. The dissolution of this coarser covering
is by us called death ; that is, we seem unto men to die ;
but with our inner body we never part, and, consequent-
ly, by that  we still retain our hold upon  individual ex-
istence.  As Leibnitz has remarked, " There is no such
thing as death, if that word be understood with rigorous
 and metaphysical accuracy.  The soul never quits com-
 pletely the body with which it is united, nor does it pass
 from one body into another with which it had no con-
 nexion before; a metamorphosis  takes place, but there
 is no metempsychosis."*
   Let us now examine the validity of our a priori rea-

      *. Encyclopedia Britannica—Preliminary Dissertations. 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          357
Boning by a reference to the facts of mesmerism.   Man
is shown by these to be capable of increased sensitive
power.   Cui bono, to what end, if hereafter this increase
of faculty become not permanent ?   Would  it be  con-
sistent with the goodness of Providence to tantalize us
by imperfect glimpses of that which we shall never be
permitted to realize ?  Would wings be  folded in the
worm if they were not one day to enable it to fly ?  We
cannot think so poorly of creative wisdom or of thrifty
nature.   Throughout her realms there is no mockery of
unmeaning displays of power; and, if so, then is mes-
merism a pledge irrefragable of a future state of exist-
ence, calculated for the  exhibition  of those energies
which are but a promise here.  Relative to this subject,
I have particular pleasure in remarking the coincidence
of thought between myself writing on mesmerism and
an esteemed author, who, in framing a " physical theory
of another life," has unconsciously borne witness by
reason to the  truth  of mesmeric development.  Such
unbought testimony is precious.  He is speaking of what
an enlarged perception might effeet.  " Doubtless," he
Bays, " the mind might bring its percipient faculty into
contact with the properties of matter more at large and
under fewer limitations.  The medullary substance we
may easily suppose to be laid open  to sensation other-
wise than it actually is, and  also to be endued with  a
more refined or exquisite sensibility.
  " The mind, perhaps, in its next stage of life, and
when its active and higher principles have beeome ma-
ture, may be well able to sustain and advantageously to
use a much more ample correspondence with the mate-
rial world than would now be good or possible.   Per-
ception is at present a circumscribed faculty; and we
confidently anticipate an era when it shall throw off its
confinements,  and converse  at large with the material
universe, and find itself familiarly at home in the height
and breadth of the heavens.   We may assume that  it
only needs to  be free from the husks of animal organ-
ization to know on all sides perfectly that which now  it
knows at points only and in an abated degree.   And,
besides knowing effects, it  would  also  know causes.
The inner form of matter, as it has been termed,  may!
as well as the  external species, be discernible.  Instead
of looking only at the dialplate of nature, we should be
admitted to inspect the wheelwork and the springs." 
358         THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.
  The above passage  offers a delightful contrast  to
those narrow-minded views of man  which limit  both
himself and his Almighty  author to the ipse dixit of
some peevish skeptic.  The whole work from which it
is extracted is worthy of attention, and is in perfect ac-
cordance with mesmeric phenomena; nor ca# I  refrain
from  believing that its clever author would  rejoice to
see realized in this life anticipations which he  only
framed concerning the next.  From his remarks, which
we have just cited above, we gather that he looks for-
ward  to the future enlargement of human perception in
three  several particulars, namely, in  an  increased re-
finement or sensibility,  in an extension of the sphere in
which that sensibility shall display itself, and in a power
of discerning objects and their qualities through impedi-
ments which, in our present state, form insurmountable
barriers to the action of our senses.   Now, in order to
behold these anticipated prerogatives really conferred on
human perception, we  have only to behold the  higher
phenomena of mesmerism.   Not even the common ob-
server (supposing him to possess common honesty) can
witness them without being struck with  the conviction
that a new and more pervading kind of perception has
been  opened to the mesmerized  person; but he  who
should have reasoned previously on the  subject, as the
author from whom I have quoted, would at once perceive
that everything which was passing before his eyes was in
beautiful harmony with science, philosophy, and truth.
He  would behold that  fineness of perception, that en-
largement of the mind's sphere, that power of acting
through obstacles, which his own reason had told him
must  belong to man when  the mechanical restrictions
of the senses should be laid aside.
  Let me, however, hasten to qualify whatever may ap-
pear exaggerated in the above statements, lest I prepare
disappointment for  the sanguine, or arouse the appre-
hensions of the timid.   In pure compassion, I would ap-
pease the fears of those who deem mesmerism,  if true,
a perilous truth, that should be huddled up from  knowl-
edge,  and, like the Bible in a Catholic land, be restricted
only  to the use  of the initiated.  Such persons  (and
there  are such) actually dread  lest  the new  science
should make man too wise and too powerful, and look
on it with fear and trembling as  a pernicious stepping-
forward from  our sphere, as the very Babel-tower of 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          359
this era.  Let these apprehensions subside.  In being
permitted to view the mesmeric state, there is  nothing
to make man proud, but all to keep him humble, while
he sees that the least step out of our present condition
is an improvement upon our faculties, and that phenom-
ena so despised, so vilified by common ridicule, are be-
yond the compass of our powers to achieve.  Then, too,
mesmerism  has its restrictions, which  keep it low to
earth even while  it hints of heaven.  Seldom  does it
occur in a degree to astonish.  Many are the conditions
it requires for  its accomplishment.   Carefully  hedged
about is it by the barriers of opposing will, by defective
sensibility, even by a spirit of skepticism.  Its  highest
capacities are exercised with difficulty, its loftiest won-
ders are few and fleeting, and exhaust evidently the per-
son by whom they are displayed.   Still, it is a rise upon
our actual existence.  Its true office  is not to make us
confident, yet still to encourage us to  hope by the tran-
sient and imperfect display of faculties, the permanent
continuance of which would be  incompatible with our
present state of being.
  A state of such manifest development, once seen,
would naturally be deemed, as I before have said, a kind
of earnest of that which is to come ;  a corroboration of
hope, a first-fruit of prerogatives, which, though tempo-
rary here, should  be durable hereafter.   And it would
farther be conceived that, as the transiently-developed
faculties were to accompany man into a future state of
existence, the means through which they were devel-
oped would also cleave to humanity  and be  assured to
its possession.  For, as we have seen, we do not mere-
ly behold in mesmerism a shadowy advantage, but a
tangible benefit,  a material good, working by material
means  ; an actual physical  improvement in  sensation,
brought about by the action of a more  pervading  and
subtle medium than any of which we have ordinary cog*
nizance.  Hereby, then, we maybe enabled to exchange
the  abstracted notions of theologians respecting a future
state (which, like all other abstracted notions, touch the
mind but feebly) for something which may satisfy the
natural longings of man after the real and the  perma-
nent ; a conclusion to which even the ideal tends.
  We perceive the possibility of parting  with the exter-
nals of sensation, yet retaining its inner ground;  we
reason from  the partial and temporary abolition of the 
360         THE MESMERIC  MEDIUM.
mechanical portions of our being revealed in mesmer-
ism, to the total and permanent abolition of those same
portions of our being which is to be undergone in death.
As one of my sleepwakers said to me, before I  had my-
self conceived such a notion, " The mesmeric state is a
far truer image of death than sleep  is."  All points in
mesmerism to an invisible means of sensation, as real
as it  is invisible:  a means of which the nerves them-
selves seem to be merely the subsidiaries and conduct-
ing channels ;  all points in mesmerism  to a finer organ
of the mind than those which are palpable and external:
an organ  to which  our visible body is but as a veil, or
fas the author of the physical theory of another life calls
it) a mere "husk of animal organization."  These are
not, be it remembered,  mere  speculations.  They are
all grounded on facts.   Facts force on our minds a fun-
damental  medium  in sensation;  facts identify  it  with
mesmerism; facts lead us  to infer that it is  the imme-
diate  organ of mind, the real element in  which we have
our being; and facts lead  us to hope that it will serve
us permanently in  another state  of existence.  If our
feelings lead that way, our reason not less accompanies
and sanctions  their instinctive appeal.  The demonstra-
ted connexion of mesmerism with the vital principle  (or
action) in man; the striking manner in which sleepwa-
kers have been shown  to cling to their  mesmerizer, as
if, in governing the  mesmeric medium, he held the  talis-
man of their being; as if, in touching this, he roused all
the instincts  of self-preservation;  the  important, nay,
essential offices which  the medium has  been shown to
fulfil  in sensation, all proclaim forcibly that the agency
we have  been considering may with  truth be called the
fundamental  life.   It abounds with  instances  wherein
its own permanent and universal action is  contrasted
with the  transitory and partial  operations of the organic
life.
  With facts  like these before  us,  where but to the
mesmeric medium shall we  look for indications of that
inner body, that germe of a better existence, which anal-
ogy  shows must be so  intimate a part of us, and which
is,  nevertheless,  so much a stranger to  ourselves?
Where but in the medium  of the fundamental sensation
shall we look for  the fundamental life ? for  are not, in
truth, life and  sensation identified in their  purpose, at
least of  bringing us into  sensible connexion  with  the 
THE MESMERIC MEDIUM.          361
world of matter?  This being admitted, there is no dif-
ficulty in conceiving that this action, as relates to the
mesmeric medium, shall be continuous.  As now it so
manifestly appears to be an intermediate between us and
cur present body, so hereafter it may become the means
of linking us to a new organization, or it may itself re-
main as our spiritual body, appropriated to us in a cer-
tain  portion, when this visible and fleshly tabernacle is
dissolved to its primal elements.  Where  shall  we find
so obedient a servant to our commands ? where force to
our strong desire  after individual  existence ? where  an
agency so swift,  powerful, and penetrating, so  near to
our essence, so kindred to our thoughts ?   In proportion
as we value whatever tends  to bridge our way across
the gulf of death,  whatever  tends to carry on a train of
old familiar thought  into the unknown void, let us es-
teem, cherish, and reverence this cheering manifestation
of our being, which so beautifully exhibits a pre-existent
harmony between our  human hopes and  their  accom-
plishment.   That the mesmeric medium  should link sci-
ence to science is comparatively but a  trifling benefit.
That it should connect this world with  a future is its
last and greatest service.
                        Hh 
 
TESTIMONIES.
  Testimony  by A. Vandevyver, of Antwerp, Surgeon.

  Je, soussigne, docteur en medecine et  en chirurgie, certifie
avoir eu le plaisir, vers le commencement de 1838, d'etre invi-
te, avec quelques uns de mes amis, a deux seances dans les-
quelles M. Townshend s'est applique  a nous demontrer les ef-
fets etonnants du magn<5tisme animal, auxquels jusques-la, faute
de preuves personnelles, je n'avais ajoute qu'une croyance bien
faible, et qui parvinrent a me donner une conviction inebranla-
ble sur l'authenticite' de tout ce que Ton rapportait de presque
miraculeux a regard de cet agent physique.
  Parmis  plusieurs experiences egalement  concluantes, je ci-
terai entre autres celle faite sur la personne de Mademoiselle
Mesdagh,  que  M. Townshend, apres quelques passes de courte
duree, parvint a plonger dans un veritable somnambulisme, et
dans laquelle je pus me convaincre de la grande influence que
produit le magnetisme sur les principales  fonctions  de notre
economie, et  notamment sur la circulation du sang.   Cette
demoiselle,  avant le  commencement de  la seance, fatiguee
d'avoir Cte la veille a  un  bal ou elle avait danse" la plus grande
                       Translation.

  I, the undersigned, doctor of medicine and surgery, certify to
having had the pleasure of being invited, about the beginning
of 1838, with some friends, to two sittings, in which Mr. Town-
shend purposed to show us the astonishing  effects of mesmer-
ism, a matter that I had as yet given little credit to in the ab-
sence of personal observation, and which firmly convinced me
of the authenticity of all that is reported, miraculous as it is,
respecting this physical agent.
  Among many equally conclusive  experiments, I will adduce
that made on Mademoiselle Mesdagh, whom Mr. Townshend,
after a few passes of short duration, threw into genuine sleep-
waking, during which I had an opportunity of  convincing my-
self of the great influence which mesmerism produces on the
principal functions of our economy, and particularly on the cir-
culation of the blood.   This young  lady, from having been the
previous evening at a ball, where she had danced  the greater
part of the night, was fatigued before the sitting, and said she 
364
SUPPLEMENT.
partie de la nuit, se croyait peu propre, disait-elle, a ressentir,
ce soir la, les effets du magnetisme.   Aussi je lui  trouvais la
face coloree et toute sa personne agitee d'un veritable etat de
fievre: le pouls rendait 120 pulsations par minute.   Cependant
1'influence magnetique ne se  dementit  point pom- cela.  M.
Townshend parvint bientot a la rendre somnambule, et a peine
cet etat avait-il €t& rendu complet, qu'un calme general s'etablit
chez elle, que les battemens de l'artere de 120 etaient tombes
jusqu'a 72.
  Un autre phenomShe qui excita ma surprise consistait dans
les impressions  recues par le magnetiseur, et qui furent, au
meme instant, appergues par la magnetisee.  M. Townshend
nous ayant un moment entretenus de ce phenomene, se mit en
rapport avec la  demoiselle en la tenant  par la main, et il me
prit l'idee de lui pincer differens points du  tronc et des mem-
bres, en mettani le plus grand soin a ce que la magnetisee, qui
d'ailleurs avait  les yeux bandes, ne put par aucun  moyen de-
couvrir quelles  etaient les parties du corps  de M. Townshend
sur lesquelles je voulais faire mes experiences, et dissiper ainsi
le reste de mon incredulite medicale ; mais, u mon grand etonne-
ment, je vis que chaque fois que je lui froissai tel ou tel point,
du bras par exemple, la magnetisee, tout en exprimant par les
traits de sa figure ainsi que par la parole, la douleur qu'elle
eprouyait, porta automatiquement la main qui lui etait  restee
did not think herself likely to experience the effects of mesmer-
ism that evening; accordingly, I found her face flushed and her
whole frame in really feverish excitement.   Her pulse was 120
in a minute.  Nevertheless, the mesmeric influence did not fail
to manifest itself.   Mr. Townshend soon succeeded in produ-
cing sleepwaking, and scarcely was this state become complete
when a general calm came over her, so that her pulse, which
had been 120, fell to 72.
  Another  phenomenon which excited my surprise was, that
the impressions  which the mesmerizer received were  at the
same  instant perceived by the mesmerizee.  Mr. Townshend,
having conversed with us a short time respecting this phenom-
enon,  placed himself in relation with the young lady by taking
hold of* her hand; and the idea struck me of pinching different
parts of his body and limbs, taking, however, the greatest care
that the mesmerizee,  whose eyes, moreover, were bandaged,
should have no  means  of discovering on what parts of Mr.
Townshend's body I was making my experiments, and of thus
dispelling the remainder of my medical incredulity; but, to my
gTeat astonishment, I saw that each time I bruised any partic-
ular part, of his  arm,  for example, the mesmerizee expressed
by her features, as well  as by  her speech, the  pain which she
experienced, and involuntarily carried the hand which was  at 
SUPPLEMENT.
365
 fibre a la partie de son autre bras, exactement correspondante
 a celle que je venais de pincer sur le bras du meme cote du
 magnetiseur.
   Une foule d'autres faits, non moins curieux, mais trop longuea
 a detainer, et dont M. Townshend eut la complaisance de me
 rendre temoin, m'avaient, a  la fin de la seance, procure une
 telle somme de preuves irrefragables sur les effets prodigieux
 du magnetisme animal, que je me retirai pleinement convaincu
 de tout ce que, ce soir la, mes yeux m'avaient si manifestement
 fait voir.
                                    A. Vandevyver, Dr.
  Anvers, le 26 Fevrier, 1839.

liberty to the part of her arm  exactly corresponding to  that
which I had pinched on the mesmerizer's arm of the same side.
  A host of other facts, not less curious, but too long to detail,
and which Mr. Townshend had the kindness to afford me an
opportunity of witnessing, furnished me, towards the end of the
sitting, with such an amount of undeniable proofs of the extraor-
dinary effects of mesmerism, that I retired fully convinced of
all that I had so clearly seen that evening.
                                    A. Vandevyver, Dr.
  Antwerp, 26th February, 1839.
    Testimony to Mesmerism,  by M. Van Owenhuysen,
                        Antwerp.
  Les effets du magnetisme m'avaient  toujours semble  plus
que problematiques et incertains;  je les avais souvent taxes
de  chimeriques, et ma prevention allait si loin, que j'etais
presque convaincu que les experiences magnetiques etaient le
resultat d'une entente parfaite  de deux personnes complete-
ment  eveillees.  Aujourd'hui, mieux conseille, et abdiquant les
preventions  d'un  ignorant qui peut et ne veut s'instruire, j'ai
eu le bonheur de reconnaitre mes erreurs, et de me convaincre
de nouveau que le jugement chez  1'honune ne doit jamais de-
vancer les preuves.

                      Translation.
  The effects of mesmerism had always  appeared to me more
than problematical and uncertain.   I had  often treated them as
chimerical, and my prejudice went so far that I was almost
convinced that mesmeric experiments wTere the result of a com-
plete understanding between two persons perfectly awake ; but
now, being better advised, and giving up the prepossessions of
an ignorant person, who can, but will not be instructed, I have
had the happiness of seeing my errors, and convincing myself
anew that man's opinion ought never to precede proofs.
                        Hh2 
366
SUPPLEMENT.
  Monsieur Hare Townshend ayant eu la bonte de m'inviter a
une seance, dans laquelle il devait renouveller quelques experi-
ences sur le jeune E. A----, j'acceptai avec enipressement, et
je veux consigner en sortant de chez  lui, et  sous l'impression
de ce que je viens de voir, le resultat de ces experiences aussi
interessantes  que reelles : en voici done un fidele recit.
  E. A----,  decide a se soumettre a l'influence de Monsieur
Townshend, s'assit  a une heure moins huit  minutes, et il se
rf "eva somnambule a une heure moins deux minutes.           ,
  Je retracerai maintenant sans commentaires les diverses ex-
periences qui ont eu lieu, en declarant que  Monsieur Town-
shend m'avait autorise d'indiquer et de  faire toutes les questions
et toutes les  epreuves que mon imagination et ma curiosite
pouvaient me suggerer;  j'ai largement use  de cette facilite,
car je voulais me convaincre.
  1°.  Le magnetiseur prit un verre, le remplit de vin,  et  de-
manda ce qu'il contenait; le magnetise repondit, sans hesita-
tion, " Du vin :"  il en fut de meme pour un biscuit que mangea
le premier.
  2°.  Interroge par  ou il voyait, E. A----repondit que e'etait
par le front;  il reconnaissait tous les assistants, et repondait a
toutes leurs questions, apres qu'il avait ete mis en rapport avec
eux;  ce rapport  ne s'opera que par la volonte du magnetiseur.

  Mr. Hare Townshend having had the kindness to give me an
invitation to a sitting at which he was to repeat some experi-
ments on the young E. A----, I eagerly accepted it, and, on
leaving him, and under the impression of what I have just seen,
am anxious to record the result of the experiments, which were
as interesting as real:  here, then, is a  faithful account of them.
  E, A—.—, having consented to submit himself to the influ-
ence of Mr. Townshend, sat down at eight minutes before  one
o'clock, and at two minutes before one got  up in a state of
sleepwaking.
  I shall now describe, without comment, the different experi-
ments which were made, remarking that Mr. Townshend au-
thorized  me to suggest and put any  questions, and make as
many trials as my  imagination or curiosity  could prompt.  I
made great use of this permission, for I wished to satisfy my-
self.
  1st. The mesmerizer took  a glass,  filled it with wine, and
asked what it contained; the mesmerizee answered, without
hesitation,  " Wine:" the same thing  occurred with a  biscuit
which the former ate.
  2d. When  asked with what part he  saw, E. A----answered
that it was with  the forehead he recognised all the by-standers,
and  answered all their questions, after having  been placed in
relation with them.   This relation took place only through the
Will of the  mesmerizer. 
SUPPLEMENT.
367
  3°.  II lui fut presente un petit dessin de Kremers represen-
tant un chien :  il en indiqua le sujet aussitot qu'il l'eut en main.
Ensuite un portrait de femme, qu'il declara ressembler a Mons.
T----: c'etait celui de sa sceur!   Interroge s'il aurait pu dire
si cette dame existait encore, reponse, " Non."  En effet, elle
etait morte.
  4°.  Je  lui offris ma montre,  avec invitation de  m'indiqaer
l'heure:  ma montre  est a guichet.  II declara ne rien y com-
prendre.   Une  autre montre lui fut passee, et l'heure fut aussi-
tot indiquee avec justesse.
  5°.  On lui presenta les Fables de La Fontaine, edition  illus-
tree par  Grandville; il eut de la peine a reconnaitre les ani-
maux personnifiees des gravures,  et cela  devait porter confu-
sion dans son imagination, mais u lut, sans hesiter un seul in-
stant, et le titre du livre  et les  numeros indicatifs des fables;
i'l ne voulut Dependant pas se donner la peine de chercher a
lire les fables memes; 1'impression en etait trop petite, disait-'iL
  6°.  J'eerivis son nom;  il le lut, et rejetta le papier en disant,
'"Ce n'est que mon nom."  Un autre nom, inscrit par un  autre
assistant, lui fut presente; il le lut aussi, mais en declarant
qu'il n'y reconnaissait pas mon ecriture.  J'inscrivis un nouveau
mot, il reconnut ma main.  Toutes les precedentes experiences
ont ete faites sans couvrir les yeux et le  front du magnetise;

  3d. A  small drawing of a dog by Kremers was shown  him:
he declared the subject of it as soon as he had it in his hand.
Then the portrait of a lady, which he said resembled Mr. T----:
it was that of Mr. Townshend's sister !   Being asked if he could
say whether this lady was still living, answer, " No."  In fact,
she was dead.
  4th. I  presented my watch to him, and desired him to tell the
hour.   My watch is double cased, with a small central glass.
He declared he could not understand it at all.  Another watch
was passed to him, and immediately  he told the  hour cor-
rectly.      *
  5th. The illustrated edition of the fables of La Fontaine, by
Grandville, was given him;  he could scarcely  recognise the
engravings of the animals, and this might have confused his
thoughts; but  he read, without hesitating for an instant, both
the title of the book and the numbers referring to the fables;
yet he would not give himself the  trouble  of trying to read the
fables themselves :  the impression, he said, was too small.
  6th. I wrote his  name;  he read it, and tnrew the  paper
away, saying, " That is only  my name."  Another name, writ-
ten by another by-stander, was presented to him; he read it also,
declaring that he did not recognise my writing in it.   I wrote
a new word, and he recognised my hand.  All  the preceding
experiments were made without  covering the eyes and fore-
head of the mesmerizee.  Mr. T----now covered  them con> 
368
SUPPLEMENT.
ici Monsieur T----les lui couvrit completement d'un mouchoir,
et les etonnantes epreuves suivantes eurent lieu.
   7°. Conduit devant une glace, E. A----declara se voir; re-
connut et designa, en les nommant successivement, sans aucune
hesitation, les assistans qui vinrent l'entourer, en indiquant les
changements de leurs positions, et suivant du front tous leurs
mouvemens.
   8°. Je pris ma bourse ; je la ssrrai dans la main de maniere
a ce qu'il ne put rien reconnaitre de ce que je tenais ; il declara
cependant, apres un peu d'hesitation, que c'etait ma bourse, et
qu'elle renfermait de l'argent.  Je renouvellai cette experience
avec un morceau de pain ;  il indiqua bien vaguement ce que je
tenais, mais il ne parvint pas a le preciser.
   9°. Le magnetiseur lui  donna du  papier de musique.  E.
A---- composa, avec un aplomb admirable,  et sans  hesiter,
deux differens motifs de musique pour la flute ; il les signa, et
les executa sur son instrument, avec exactitude et precision.
II offrit l'un de ces motifs a Monsieur T----,  et l'autre a moi.
Je garde celui-ci comme un souvenir reel,  irrevocable, de cette
interessant seance.
   Pendant  qu'il composoit, E. A----repetait de la tete, du
pied, et  de la bouche, tous les  mouvemens d'une personne qui
compose et qui compte la mesure.
   Le magnetise a ete reveille a 3 h. 5 m. de relevee; il ne con-

pletely with a handkerchief, and the following astonishing facts
took place:
   7th. Being led before a glass, E. A----declared he saw him-
self: he recognised,  pointed out, and named the by-standers
successively,  without any hesitation, mentioning the changes
of their position, and following  all their movements with his
forehead.
  8th. I took my purse, and squeezed it up in my hand in such
a manner that he  could  not tell what I was holding;  he de-
clared, nevertheless, after a little hesitation, that it was a purse,
and that it contained money.   I repeated this  experiment with
a morsel of bread ;  he described very vaguely what I held, and
could not arrive at  a knowledge of the precise  thing.
  9th. The mesmerizer gave him some music paper.  E.A----
composed with admirable accuracy, and without hesitation, two
different airs for the flute ; he signed them, and executed them
on his own instrument with exactness and precision.   He of
fered one of these  airs to Mr.  T----and  the other to me.   I
keep it as a true and irrevocable remembrance of that interest-
ing sitting.
   While he was composing, E. A----made, with his head,
foot, and mouth, all the movements of a person who is compo-
sing and counting the time.
   The mesmerizee was awakened at five minutes past three. 
SUPPLEMENT.
369
servait aucun souvenir apparent de ce qui s'etait passe, ou de
ce qu'il avait fait pendant son somnambulisme.
                                Jean Van Owenhuysen.
  Anvers, Mars, 1838.
On waking he had, apparently, no recollection of what had hap-
pened to him, or of what he had done during his sleepwaking.
                                Jean Van Owenhuysen.
  Antwerp, March, 1838.
      Testimony.   (Mesmeric  Vision.)  Dr. Foissac.

  Vous etes plus heureux que moi; je n'ai rien ecrit depuis un
siecle, taridis que vous, vous publiez un  ouvrage sur le magne-
tisme, qui je n'en doute  pas sera de nature  a exciter a la fois
llnteret des savants et des gens du monde.  Si tous vos docu-
mens sont semblables  a ceux qui concernent le jeune E. A----,
ils feront certainement sensation.  De  tous les  somnambules
que j'ai vus, c'est l'un de ceux qui m'a plus attache, et je dois
dire etonne.  C'est de grand cceur que je vais rappeler quelques
uns des faits dont j'ai  ete temoin.
  La vue sans le secour des yeux est l'un des phenomenes que
j'ai  le  plus rarement  rencontres dans  la pratique du magne-
tisme, aussi vous temoignai-je le vif desir de verifier par moi-
meme les observations que vous aviez  faites sur le jeune E.
A----
  Vous eutes la complaisance de le faire venir a,  Paris le prin-
tems dernier, et dans le peu de jours qu'il  y resta, je pus m'as-
                      Translation.

  You are more fortunate than myself.  I have written nothing
for an age, whereas you are publishing a work on mesmerism,
which I doubt not will interest both learned men and the pub-
lic at large.   If all your documents are like those which relate
to the young  E.-A----, they will certainly create a sensation.
Of all the sleepwakers that  I have seen, this is one of those
who have the most interested, indeed, I ought to say, astonish-
ed me.  It is with great pleasure that I proceed to report some
of the facts which I witnessed.
  Vision without the assistance of the eyes  is one of the phe-
nomena that  I have the most rarely met with in the practice of
mesmerism;  you therefore found me exceedingly desirous of
verifying the observations that you  had made on young  E.
A----•
  You had the kindness to bring him to Paris last spring, and,
during the few days that he remained, I was able to assure my- 
370
SUPPLEMENT.
 surer que vous n'aviez rien exagere  dans le  recit que vous
 m'aviez fait des etonnantes facultes de  cet interessant somnam-
 bule.  Je me rappelle parfaitement que dans les deux ou trois
 seances ou je le vis pendant le sommeil  magnetique, nous lui
 appliquames  un bandeau sur les yeux, nous bouchames tous les
 interstices avec des linges fins et du coton, de maniere a em-
 pecher tout rayon lumineux de parvenir jusqu'a l'organe visuel,
 et cependant, malgre ces precautions, E. A----distinguait les
 cartes qui lui etaient presentees, indiquait, sans hesitation, dans
 un livre ouvert  au hasard, la lettre majuscule qui commencait
 un chapitre, le nombre  des lignes d'une page, et meme a la fin
 il pouvait lire quelques phrases.
   II n'avait pas toujours besoin de presenter le livre vis-a-vis
 des yeux; il lui arrivait souvent de placer l'objet soumis a son
 exploration a la partie  superieure du front, qui semblait alors
 devenir l'organe de  la vision, et toutes les indications etaient
 justes et  precises.   Chacun des  assistants voulait  a son tour
 faire  une experience; sans le prevenir, et sans  contact aucun,
 on lui presentait une carte a quelques pouces du sommet de la
 tete;  E. A----levait brusquement le bras pour saisir la carte,
 et jamais  sa main ne portait a faux.
  Une fois,  quelqu'un  promenait, sans rien dire,  le journal
 VEntre-acte derriere  la  tete du jeune somnambule,  et celui-ci
 dit, "C'est I'Entre-acte."  II indiqua aussi l'heure de ma mon-

 self that you had exaggerated nothing in the report that you
 had made of the astonishing faculty of that interesting sleep-
 waker.  I remember perfectly that, at the two or three sittings
 when I saw him during  the mesmeric sleep, we applied a band-
 age over his  eyes, we stopped up  all the interstices with  fine
 linen  and  cotton, in such a manner as  to prevent a single ray
 of light from arriving at his visual organs ; and yet, .notwith-
 standing these precautions, E. A----  distinguished  the cards
 which were presented to him, and pointed out, without hesita-
 tion, in a book opened at random, the capital letter which com-
 menced the chapter, the number of lines in a page, and even
towards the end he could read some passages.
  It was not always necessary to place the book opposite his
 eyes; he frequently placed the object submitted to his inspec-
tion at the upper part of his  forehead, which seemed then to
become the organ of vision, and all his remarks were just and
acute. Each of the by-standers in his turn made  an experiment.
Without any  hint and without any contact, each placed a card
at the distance of a  few inches from the  top of his head; E.
A----abruptly raised his arm to seize the card, and his hand
never missed its aim.
  Once somebody, without saying anything, presented the jour-
nal Entre-acte behind the head of the young sleepwaker, and he
 said,  "That  is VEntre-acte."   He also told the  hour by my 
SUPPLEMENT.
371
tre, et il renouvela Cette epreuve avec le meme succSs, lorsque
j'en eus a dessein derange les aiguilles.   Ainsi je ne doute pas
E. A----voyait a la fois par toutes les parties de la tete ; il se
levait  de son siege, courait  avec vltesse, evitant tres-bien  les
obstacles, et atteignant le but qu'il se proposait.
  En finissant cette courte relation, je ne veux pas omettre l'un
des faits de vision qui me frappa le plus vivement chez ce som-
nambule.   Sur la table a cote de laquelle il etait assis, il y ayait
une multitude de verres diversement colories ; E—— en saisit
un, le porte a la partie superieure du front en faisant le geste
d'une personne qui regarde  avec  un lorgnon, et dit aussitdt,
" Je vois tout  bleu."   C'etait, en effet, un verre de cette cou-
leur dont il faisait usage.
                                                Foissac.
  Paris, le 18 Mars, 1839.
watch, and repeated this proof with the same success when I
had intentionally altered the hands.  I have consequently no
doubt that E. A----saw at once with all parts of his head :  he
rose from his seat, ran quickly, avoiding  obstacles very well,
and reached the place he intended.
  In concluding this short account, I cannot omit one  of the
facts  of vision which  struck me most forcibly in this sleep-
waker.  On the table by the side of which he was sitting there
were  a number of different coloured glasses : E----took one,
raised it to the upper part of his forehead, imitating the action
of a person looking with an eyeglass, and immediately said, " I
see all  blue."  It was, in fact, a glass of that colour that he
had taken up.
                                                Foissac.
  Paris, 18th March, 1839.
Testimony by Viscount N---- relative to Mesmeric Vis-
  ion  (before  E. A----  was  tar  advanced in  percep-
  tion).
  On the 26th July, 1838, I saw E. A----to all intents and
purposes asleep, his eyes quite shut, and his countenance quite
in keeping with this state.  To make sure of his not seeing,
supposing he was shamming (I say this for security, not that I
doubted his being asleep), I bandaged his eyes with a large silk
handkerchief; to make more sure, the space between his nose
and the temples was filled with cotton ; and then, and not till
then, cards were produced, and he played a game of " beggar
my neighbour"  with  Mr. Townshend.   Notwithstanding all
Mr.----and I  did by pinching E----, and talking and laugh-
ing, he never made a mistake, and always detected Mr. Town-
I 
372
SUPPLEMENT.
  shend's faults without the least hesitation, but exactly as if his
  eyes were as unencumbered as those of the rest of the party.
  The next day I Baw E. A----put into the same state of sleep-
  waking.  I then went into an armoire about five feet high, and
  just room enough for two persons to stand in.  The door was
  shut, that I might be satisfied there was no light admitted.
If When  I came out Mr. Townshend took E----in, and I gave
  them different cards, some of which E----read;  also some
  letters  on  separate bits of paper; then, for fear he might get
  time to see while the door was opened to give in the cards, I
  wrote  on  a piece of paper dog, cat, or some such word, and
  drew a monster figure, and folded up the paper like a note.  He
  could not  read the words, but mentioned most of the letters,
  and their position on the paper, and laughed  at the figure, but
  could not make it out; this was enough to prove he saw in the
  dark.  I afterward took  a card off the table without seeing it
  myself, or  letting  any one else see it.  I presented the  back of
  it to the lack of his head;  he said " he could not read it so :" it
  was  a  French card, all  over  little stamped  flowers or other
  marks.   I  then turned its face to the  back of his head, and he
  told me what it was.  I particularly remarked the change of
  his countenance from a tired, heavy look, to his  usual cheerful-
  ness on waking.  E. A----has told me cards placed in or
  shut up in  a book.  I have also seen him write music, nib his
  pen, put his flute together, and play as well as usual in a state
  of sleepwaking.
                                          Viscount----.
    Rome, 11th February, 1839.
Testimony (Mesmeric Vision, etc) by the Baron de  Cak-
                  lowiz.   Berne, 1838.

  Conformement a la plus stricte verite, je, soussigne, atteste
le fait suivant:
  Mr. Hare Townshend avait chez lui un jeune homme,  d'en-
viron 16 ans, qu'il avait magnetise depuis quelque terns, et qui
se trouvait, a ce que j'avais oui dire, en etat de clair-voyance.
Quoique j'eusse lu plusieurs ouvrages sur ce sujet, et bien que

                      Translation.
  In conformity with the strictest truth, I, the undersigned, at-
test the following facts:
  Mr. Hare Townshend had at his house a young man, about
sixteen years of age, whom he had mesmerized for some time,
and who had become, as I was told, clair-voyant.  Although I
had read several works  on this subject, and  Mr. Townshend, 
SUPPLEMENT.
373
Mr. Townshend qui, ennemi de toute sorte de charlatanisme,
Be distingue par une erudition profonde autant que par la verite
de son caractere, m'inspirat de la confiance, mon incredulite a
l'egard des merveilles du magnetisme animal etait neanmoins
encore assez grande.  C'est pourquoi je resolus d'apporter une
attention minutieuse a tout  ce que je  verrais pendant  que  ce
jeune homme serait en sommeil magnetique.  Mr. Townshend
l'y mit en ma presence.   L'operation meme ne durait que dix
minutes, et le  magnetiseur usait de peu de manipulations, qui
pourtant faisaient une impression tres-visible sur le magnetise.
Celui-ci eut enfin  les yeux fermes, et repondit aux questions
qu'on lui faisait par l'entremise de son magnetiseur.  II distin-
guait tous les objets comme  s'il avait  les yeux ouverts, ce qui
m'etonnait fort peu, parceque je n'etais pas encore delivre  de
mes anciens soupcons.
  Par cette raison j'etais bien curieux d'observer des preuves
de clair-voyance apres que ce jeune homme fut mis dans l'im-
possibilite parfaite  et incontestee d'ouvrir les paupieres.   Pour
cet effet on alia lui bander les yeux.   Ayant d'abord bien ex-
amine le mouchoir qui devoit servir de bandage, je contribuai
mon possible pour le bien appliquer et serrer, et  afin  qu'aucun
vide ne restat entre le bandage et les  paupieres,  ce qui lui au-
rait permis de  lever les yeux, on y mit du coton.   Mais  je fus
bien surpris lorsqu'il  voyait, malgre ces appareils, aussi-bien

who is opposed to  every kind of charlatanism, and distinguish-
ed by profound erudition as well as by truth of character,  in-
spired me with confidence,  my incredulity in respect to the
wonders of mesmerism was still very great.  I therefore  re-
solved to give  close attention to everything I might see during
the time this young man remained in the  mesmeric sleep. Mr.
Townshend sent him to sleep  before me.  The operation con-
tinued only ten minutes,  and the mesmerizer made but few
manipulations, which, nevertheless, produced a very visible im-
pression on the mesmerized.   His eyes at  length became closed,
and he answered  questions which we  put to him through the
medium of the mesmerizer.   He distinguished every object as
if he had his eyes open, which surprised me very little, for I
was not yet freed from my old suspicions.
   For this reason I was very curious to  observe the proofs of
clair-voyance, after the young man was so placed that it was
perfectly and incontestably impossible for him to open his eye-
lids.   For this  purpose we proceeded to  bandage the  eyes.
Having first carefully examined the handkerchief which was to
serve as a bandage, I did all I could to apply it effectually and
fix it; and, to  prevent any space from being left between the
bandage and the eyelids,  which would allow him  to open  his
eyes, it was stopped with cotton.   But I was much surprised
when he saw, notwithstanding these  bandages, as well as  be-
                           Ii 
374
SUPPLEMENT.
qu'auparavant.  Je choisis parmi  un grand nombre de livres
qui se trouvaient  dans le salon, et designai les passages qu'il
devait lire, ce qu'il executait  avec  vitesse, et sans se tromper.
II voyait aussi une petrifaction que j'avais saisie clandestine-
ment, et que je tenais dans  la main serree.  On lui montrait
derriere la tete, et a plusieurs reprises, letui qui renfermait sa
flute, et il s'appercevait toujours si la flute y etait, ou si on Ten
avait otee.
  J'ai assiste deux fois a Facte on  Mr. Townshend magnetisait
ce jeune homme, et j'ai fait a peu  pres les memes remarques.
La seconde  fois, Mr. Townshend  lui banda les yeux dans la
maniere indiquee avant de le magnetiser.
  Du reste, il m'a paru que le magnetise  faisait tous ces expe-
rimens avec une certaine repugnance, et qu'il aurait plut6t pre-
fere de rester dans une situation tranquille et passive, attache
a son magnetiseur.
  En foi de quoi, j'ai muni le  present certificat de ma signature.
                Gustave Adolphe, Baron de Carlowiz.
  Berne, le 13 Fevr., 1839.
fore.  I chose a book from among a great number that were in
the room, and pointed out passages for him to read.  This he
did with rapidity, and without mistake.  He also saw a petri-
faction which I had taken secretly, and held in my closed hand.
We repeatedly showed him behind  his head the case which
contained his flute, and he always perceived whether the flute
was there or had been taken away.
  I was twice present when Mr. Townshend mesmerized this
young man, and I made nearly the same observations.   On the
second occasion Mr. Townshend bandaged his eyes in the man-
ner described before mesmerizing him.
  It appeared to  me that the mesmerizee submitted to all these
experiments with an evident repugnance,  and  that he would
have preferred remaining in a tranquil and passive situation
close to his mesmerizer.
  In testimony to which,  I have  signed the present certificate
with my name.
                Gustave Adolphe, Baron de Carlowiz.
  Berne, 13th February, 1839.
        Testimony to Mesmerism.  By a Friend.
                  Credo versus Non-credo.
  <l I think myself justified in suspending my assent to the
facts related of mesmerism," said I one day to my friend C----,
"till some opportunity of observing  them in propria persona
shall offer itself." 
SUPPLEMENT.
375
  " You shall have that opportunity this very morning," he re-
plied, " and it will be the best answer I can give to your argu-
ments."  So saying, C----proceeded to  an adjoining room,
taking with  him a youth about fifteen years of age, whom he
had been in the habit of mesmerizing for some weeks past; he
told me to remain where I was till he should call me.   In about
twenty minutes C----called.  On entering, I found them sit-
ting vis-a-vis; C---- held a book in his hand, and a pack of
cards was placed by his  side; the boy (whose name was E.
A----) had his eyes tightly bandaged with a pocket-handker-
chief, which nearly enveloped his face.  I was struck with the
change which so short an interval had wrought in them both;
the mesmerizer looking rather wild and exhausted, while the
patient before him, without  seeming exactly asleep, yet had an
air of such perfect resignation, abandonment, and even pros-
tration, as made me think that he was without consciousness,
and that some great, and to me unknown, influence was opera-
ting upon him.  C----then took up a card at hazard, begging
me to observe accurately that  he  held it with its back always
turned towards E. A----, and, placing it behind a large octavo,
he turned it again with its face towards E. A----, keeping the
open volume exactly between it and the bandage.  I positively
affirm that there was no possibility of the boy's seeing the
card during its whole  progress, or of his being assisted either
by the direction of light  or any mirror opposite.  Now came
the critical moment, and I  had no doubt whatever of convin-
cing my friend that he had been living under a delusion.  C----
asked his waking-sleeper, or somnambule (as they term it), to
tell him the number and  suit of the card, to me the most un-
reasonable question possible, considering A----'s state of inca-
pacity.  The latter, without seeming to relish this request, bent
a little forward, so as to bring  his forehead nearly opposite the
back of the  book, but remained silent, till, on C----'s gently
chiding him for his slowness, he named the card quite correctly,
to my no small astonishment and utter confusion, having kept
strict watch  the whole time to see that the experiment was
properly conducted.
  Without betraying my thoughts, I then asked my friend to
repeat the experiment, and selected a card which he  himself
did not know.  Upon this the patient showed signs of great un-
easiness, and complained of fatigue.   I took care that the same
precautions should be taken.  The sleepwaker this time show-
ed a little obstinacy, declaring he could not tell that card, as he
was sure it  would be followed by  another; and in  this he
guessed rightly.  The mesmerizer, however, becoming a little
furious, urged his patient to tell the card instantly, as a third
person was present for the express  purpose of witnessing the
experiment  and making a report of it to a learned  society.
Upon this the patient turned full towards me, and looked as if 
376
SUPPLEMENT.
 he could stare at me through his bandage; then he said that
 he could not see very clearly, but thought the card was the six
 of spades.  In this, however, he  was mistaken, it being the
 eight of spades ;  but the approximation was too great to admit
 of my expressing any disappointment at this failure.  I there-
 fore only begged for a third trial, beginning now to feel a most
 lively interest, in spite of my previous incredulity, in what was
 taking  place before me.  C---- consented; so, pulling out a
 card from the middle of the pack, I carried it unseen, with its
 face downward, to the book, and carefully turned it; and, after
 holding it there a few seconds,  C----asked E. A----to tell
 him the card accurately.  " The ten of clubs," cried the latter,
 with a tone of confidence and triumph that might have  con-
 founded a greater  skeptic than myself; that was  indeed the
 card that C----held in his hand !!
   What could I  say  to this ?   To doubt any longer would be
 doubting  my own senses; would, in short, be  madness,  for I
 could in no way justify my doubts ; yet to believe, on the other
 hand, would be another kind of  madness,  unle'ss saying that I
 witnessed a person name a card which was intercepted  by a
 solid opaque substance deserves to be called by  another name.
   " The deuse is in it if you are not convinced now," said my
 friend,  turning about, and displaying a visage truly Mephisto-
 phelian.
   "I am convinced that the deuse is in it, that's all," cried I,
 and forthwith tried to make my escape;  but I found the door
 locked.
   " Will you have  the goodness to wait a few minutes long-
 er?" said C----, still insulting me by a look of the most cruel
 satisfaction.
   " Will you have the goodness to let me out of this illusive
 atmosphere 1  I will have none of it," I retorted.
   " Come this way, then,"  said he, opening a door,  through
 which I hurried,  bent only on my escape.  He locked it upon
 me, and left me, not, as I had hoped, to find myself in  the gar-
 den, but in a dark, narrow, dismal closet, darker than the dark-
 est corner of a dungeon.
   " What do you  see in there 1" ironically asked my tormentor.

                  "' Blue spirits  and white,
                    Black spirits and gray;'
 all the spirits of darkness," I exclaimed.
   " You see no spirits of light, then, it seems?"
   " No !"  groaned I;  "let me out."
   Satisfied with my answer, C----opened the door, and wish-
ed to make me believe that his  sleepwaker could see in that
place.
   Having consented to  witness  this new experiment, C----
took the boy A----into the closet.  I handed the former some 
SUPPLEMENT.
377
cards, unknown to him, which he held in his hand, concealed
from E. A----, till  I had locked and leaned against the door.
This being duly accomplished, I  desired that one of the cards
should be presented to the patient.  It was done, and in about
one minute he named the card correctly, and without the slight-
est hesitation.  My astonishment,  notwithstanding, was as
great as ever.  " What!" thought I; " was I to be thus oust-
ed out of my conviction that mesmerism was a thorough hum-
bug, a system of refined deception (this was the straw to which
I vainly clung), of the most puerile  buffoonery, of the lowest,
most shameful, vulgar, highway charlatanism V   And yet how
could I avoid the humiliation of being at length convinced, after
so long, obstinate, and, as I thought, rational a resistance.  As
a last hope, I determined to re-enter the closet, and investigate
more closely.  I did so, and the door was locked upon me.  At
first there seemed to flit before my eyes the indistinct forms of
objects which had attracted my notice in the room; these im-
pressions became gradually fainter, till at length I was envelop-
ed in perfect darkness;  all endeavour to see the cards I had
taken with me was fruitless.  I poked into every corner, strain-
ed to catch the slightest ray of light, but it was almost genuine
darkness—impenetrable obscurity to ordinary  vision.   I was
glad to be liberated, and to let the  mesmerizer and his sleep-
waker take my place.   I now waited in actual fear, lest the
cards should be again discovered  by E. A----, and stood listen-
ing in cruel suspense.  After a few minutes the sleepwaker
cried out that he held in his hand  the knave of spades.  On
opening the door I found that it was so.  This experiment was
repeated three times successfully, and I was at length obliged
to congratulate my friend on the dexterity shown by his clair-
voyant pupil; but I  felt ashamed of using the term in a sense
so different to that I had always attached to it, more especially
when I remembered my scoffing incredulity of that very morn-
ing, which nothing but the most genuine and convincing proofs
could have caused to give way.
                                                •  D. C.
  Berne, 1838.
                           Ii2 
378
SUPPLEMENT.
Testimony relative to Mesmeric Vision.  By Dr. Wild, of
   Berne, when E. A--- had greatly advanced in clair-
   voyance.

   J'atteste par la presente d'avoir assiste, le 27 Sept., 1838,
a  des experiences  magnetiques, faites, par Monsieur Hare
Townshend, sur la personne d'E. A----, age de 15 ans, n6 a
Boom, en Belgique, musicien distingue.
   Quoique convaincu de l'existence de l'infiuence morale d'une
personne sur une autre, que l'on norame ordinairement magne-
tisme animal,  tant par des propres  experiences  sur mes ma-
lades, que par la complaisante amitie  de feu M.  Deleuze,  a
Paris, je voulus pourtant proceder dans  cette occasion comrae
incredule.  Pour m'assurer personnellement de la realite des
faits, je fis les experiences suivantes :
   1°. Je m'assis sur une chaise, tournant le dos a la fenetre, et
me fis mettre sur la tete deux serviettes de toile epaisse, qui
me pendaient autour du corps jusqu'aux hanches; ces servi-
ettes m'empecherent de voir ma main, que je passai plusieurs
fois devant mes yeux ; je n'en distinguai rien du tout.
  2°. Je  me fis fermer les  yeux par les mains de M. Town-
shend, soit par les  doigts  serres, soit par la pomme de ses
mains, et mes  yeux ne distinguerent rien du tout.  M. Town-
shend placa, avec le meme resultat, sur  mes yeux, deux petits
                      Translation.

  I hereby certify to having been present, on the 27th of Sep-
tember, 1838,  at some mesmeric experiments made by Mr.
Hare Townshend on the person of E. A----, aged fifteen years,
born at Boom, in Belgium, a distinguished musician.
  Although convinced of the moral influence of one person over
another, which is commonly called animal magnetism, as much
by my  own experiments upon my patients as by the kindness
of the late M. Deleuze, at Paris, I wished, nevertheless, to pro-
ceed on this occasion as if incredulous.   To assure myself per-
sonally of the reality of the facts, I made the following experi-
ments :
  1. I  sat down in  a chair, witli my back to the window, and
put upon my head two  thick napkins, which hung around my
body as low as the hips  ; these napkins prevented me from see-
ing my hands,  which I passed  several times before my eyes.   I
could not distinguish them at all.
  2. I  had my eyes closed by Mr. Townshend's hands, either
by his fingers brought into close contact with each other, or by
the palms of his hands, and my eyes  could discern nothing.
Mr. Townshend placed two small porcelain eye-goblets, such 
SUPPLEMENT.
379
gobelets en porcelaine (qui servent pour baigner les yeux) rem-
plis de coton.
  3°.  Je me fis enfermer dans une armoire vide, et, malgre mes
recherches, je ne pus decouvrir aucune ouverture, qui aurait
laisse entrer un seul rayon de lumiere.
  Nous fimes alors entrer le jeune A----.  M. Townshend le
mit en sommeil magnetique, et lui adressa quelques questions
pour me convaincre de son isolement magnetique.   Je lui dis
inopinement a tres-haute voix quelques mots, mais le calme
parfait de sa mine me prouva assez, qu'il n'en entendit rien du
tout.  Quelques minutes apres, je me mis en rapport avec lui,
et depuis ce moment il me repondit toujours.  Je l'assis, et lui
posai les memes deux serviettes sur la tete, de la meme mani-
ere qu'a moi-meme un quart d'heure avant.  Je lui donnai dans
la mabvun carte a  jeu,  que je tirai  moi-meme d'un  jeu, place
sur une table deux pas de distance de nous ;  apres l'avoir tenue
quelques moments dans la hauteur  du front,  de sorte  que  la
plaine de la carte formait avec la partie superieure de son front
un angle d'a peu pres quarante-cinq degres, il me dit  exacte-
ment  les couleurs et figures imprimees dessous; je changeai
trois fois la carte avec une autre, avec le  meme resultat satis-
faisant.
  Alors je pris un livre, ouvrai une page, et lui indiquai avec
le doigt une ligne  qu'il  devait  lire,  ce qu'il fit avec la meme

as are used for bathing the eyes, filled  with cotton, on my eyes
with the same effect.
  3.  I allowed myself to be shut up in an empty wardrobe,  and,
notwithstanding every effort, I could not discover any opening
which would allow a single ray of light to enter.
  Young A----was then brought in.  Mr. Townshend threw
him into mesmeric sleep, and put some questions to him for
the  purpose  of convincing me of his mesmeric insulation.  I
suddenly addressed  a  few words to  him in a  very loud voice,
but the perfect quietude of his countenance fully convinced me
that he heard nothing.   Some  minutes afterward I placed my-
self in relation with him, and from that moment he invariably
answered me.   I set him down, and placed the same two nap-
kins on his head just as they had been placed on myself a quar-
ter of an hour before.  I gave him a playing card which I had
myself taken from a pack lying on a table at two paces distant
from us.  After holding it a few moments to the top of his fore-
head,  so that the flat surface of the card formed with the upper
part of  his forehead an  angle  of nearly forty-five degrees, he
told me exactly the colours and figures printed  on  its urider
side ;  I  changed the card for another three times, and  always
with the same satisfactory result.
  I  then took a book, opened a page, and pointed out a line
which I wished him to read.   This he did with the same fa- 
380
SUPPLEMENT.
facilite; je lui presentai un volume d'un autre ouvrage, avec le
meme  resultat.   Apres lui avoir 6te les serviettes, M. Town-
shend  lui  ferma les yeux avec les mains, et plus tant avec les
gobelets a bains d'yeux,  remplis de coton, exactement de la
meme  maniere  comme il  l'avait fait a moi; et le jeune A——
lisait dans les livres, et distingua les cartes a jeu que je lui pre-
sentai, et  que je tirai toujours au  hazard d'un  jeu de cartes
complete.  Je l'enfermai  enfin dans la meme armoire;  il ne
s'y trouvait qu'une robe de chambre; il s'y assit dans un coin,
me pria de la bien envelopper avec  la robe de chambre, disant
que plus il y avait obscurite complete autour de lui, mieux il
pourrait voir, puisque les rayons de lumiere partirent de son
cerveau.  Je lui donnai trois autres cartes a jeu, je fermai Par-
moire a clef, et bouchai le trou de la clef avec la  pomme de ma
main;  dans  peu de temps il me nomma les cartes.  Alors M.
T. me  pria d'ecrire quelque chose sur un papier.  Je m'eloignai
dans un autre coin de la chambre, et j'ecrivis sur un morceau
de papier epais,  " Vous etes complaisant aujourd'hui."  Je pliai
le  papier deux fois, le lui donnai, et fermai vite de la meme
maniere l'armoire et le trou  de la clef.  Quoique le premier
mot lui etait bien  nouveau, il le lut exactement, ainsi que le
reste du billet.                                •
  Sorti de l'armoire, je le priai de lire avec l'occiput.  (Jusqu'a-
lors, il avoit toujours tenu les cartes et livres  de la maniere

cility.  I then gave him  a volume of another work with  the
same result.  After having removed  the napkins, Mr. Town-
shend closed his eyes with his hands, and afterward with the
goblets for bathing the eyes, filled with cotton,  exactly in the
same manner as he had  done to me; and young A----read
the books, and distinguished each playing card which was pre-
sented to him, and which I took always at random from a com-
plete pack.  I then shut him up in the same wardrobe, in which
there was nothing but a morning-gown.   He sat  down in a cor-
ner, and begged me to cover him up well with the morning-
gown, saying that, the more complete the darkness around him,
the better he could see, because the rays of light came off from
his brain.  I gave him three other playing cards, and locked
him up in the closet, stopping the keyhole with the palm of my
hand;  in a short time he told me the cards.  Mr. Townshend
then begged  me to write something on paper.  I went away
into another corner of the room, and wrote on  a slip of thick
paper,  "You are obliging to-day."  I folded the paper twice,
gave it him, and quickly  closed the closet and  the keyhole in
the same manner.   Although the first word was quite new to
him, he read it correctly,  as well as the rest of the note.
   On coming out of the closet, I begged him to read with the
back of his head (for hitherto  he had always held the cards and 
SUPPLEMENT.
381
decrite ci-dessus devant le front.)  Je melai le jeu de cartes,
Petendai sur une table eloignee de quelques pas de lui, en ayant
soin que le cote imprime soit tourne vers la table.   E. A----■
s'approcha alors de la table, en marchant a reculons, prit une
carte, la  placa sur  son occiput, et la nomma, en tournant tou-
jours le dos a la table d'ou il l'avoit prise.   Je trouve superflu
de dire,  que  M. Townshend  magnetisait le jeune A---- de
temps en temps, entre les differentes experiences, pour entre-
tenir la clair-voyance.
  Si jamais experiences magnetiques ont ete faites avec exac-
titude et mefiance, je crois que l'on peut  mettre  celles-ci en
premiere ligne.
                          Chas.  Wild, Docteur Medecin.
  Berne, 10 Fevrier, 1839.

books before his forehead in the manner above described). I mix-
ed the pack of cards, and spread them on a table a few paces
distant from him, taking care that  the printed side should be
turned towards the  table.  E. A----then approached the table,
walking backward, took a card, placed it on  the  back of his
head, and named it, keeping his back constantly towards the
table whence he had taken it.  It  is unnecessary to say that
Mr. Townshend mesmerized  young A—:— from time to  time
between the different experiments, to keep up the lucidity.
  If ever mesmeric experiments were made with accuracy and
distrust, I believe that these may be placed in the first rank.
                     Charles Wild, Doctor of Medicine.
  Berne, 10th February, 1839.
Account of Sensations under Mesmerism.  By Professok
         Agassis, of  Neufchatel,  Switzerland.

  Notes relatives au Magnetisme Animal, 22 Fevrier, 1839, au
                          matin.

  Desireux de savoir a quoi m'en tenir sur le magnetisme an-
imal, je recherchai depuis long-temps l'occasion de faire des
experiences a  ce sujet  sur moi-meme, afin d'eviter les doutes
qui pourraient  exister sur la nature des sensations que l'on en-

                       Translation.

Notes relating  to Mesmerism, the morning of 22d February, 1839.

  Desirous of knowing what to  think of mesmerism, I for a
long time sought for an opportunity of making some experi-
ments in regard to it  upon  myself, so as to avoid the doubts
which might arise on  the nature of the sensations which ws 
382
SUPPLEMENT.
 tend rapporter par des personnes magnetisees.  M. Desor, dans
 une course qu'il fit a Beme, engagea hier M. Townshend, qui
 Pavait magnetise anterieurement, a Paccompagner a Neuchatel,
 et a tenter de me magnetiser.  Ces messieurs arriverent hier
 par le courrier du soir, et me firent prevenir.  A huit heures
 j'etais aupres d'eux.   Nous soupames jusqu'a neuve heures et
 demie, puis vers dix heures M. Townshend commenca a operer
 sur moi.  Assis vis-a-vis l'un de  Pautre, il ne fit d'abord que
 me prendre les mains en me regardant fixement.  J'etais ferme-
 ment resolu  a arriver a la connaissance de la verite, quelle
 qu'elle fut; aussi le  moment ou je vis qu'il tentait  d'exercer
 une action sur moi, eut-il quelque chose de solennel; je m'ad-
 dressai en silence a PAuteur de toutes choses, pour lui deman-
 der de me donner la force de resister a l'entrainement, d'etre
 consciencieux vis-a-vis de moi-meme comme vis-a-vis des faits;
 puis je regardais M.  Townshend,  attentif a ce qui se passait.
 J'etais dans une position  tres-commode; l'heure peu avancee,
 a laquelle j'ai l'habitude de travailler,  etait loin de me disposer
 au  sommeil; j'etais assez maitre de  moi pour n'eprouver au-
 cune emotion, et pour reprimer tout elan d'imagination si j'eusse
 ete moins calme.  Aussi fus-je assez  longtemps sans eprouver
 aucun effet de la presence vis-a-vis de moi de M. Townshend.
 Cependant, apres un quart d'heure au moins, je sentis comme
 un  courant dans tous mes membres, et des ce moment ma pau-

 have heard described by mesmerized persons.  M. Desor, yes-
 terday, in a visit which he made to Berne, invited Mr. Town-
 shend, who had previously mesmerized him, to accompany him
 to Neuchatel and try to mesmerize me.   These gentlemen ar-
 rived 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 Mr. Townshend
 commenced operating on 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 consci-
 entious in regard to myself as well as  in regard  to the facts.
 I then fixed my eyes upon Mr. Townshend, attentive to what-
 ever 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, 
SUPPLEMENT.
383
piere s'appesantit.   Je vis alors M. Townshend tendre ses deux
mains devant mes yeux, comme s'il eut voulu y enforcer se3
doigts, puis operer divers mouvemens circulaires autour de mes
yeux, qui m'appesantissaient toujours plus les paupieres.   J'av-
ais par devers moi  le sentiment qu'il cherchait a me faire fer-
mer les yeux, et cependant ce n'etait point comme si l'on eut
menace mes  yeux a Petat de veille, et que je les eusse fermes
pour eviter un attouchement; c'etait un poids insurmontable
des paupieres qui me les faisait clore, et peu a peu je sentis que
je n'avais plus la force de les tenir ouverts; mais je n'en con-
servais pas moins la conscience de ce qui se  passait autour de
moi; ainsi j'entendais M. Desor  parler a M. Townshend, je
comprenais ce qu'ils se disaient, j'entendais ce qu'ils me de-
mandaient comme etant eveille, mais je  n'avais pas la force d'y
repondre.  J'essayai plusieurs fois inutilement de le faire, et
lorsque j'y parvenais, je sentais que je sortais de Petat de tor-
peur ou je m'etais trouve, et qui m'etait  plutot agreable que pe-
nible.
  Dans cet etat, j'entendis le guet crier dix  heures, puis son-
ner dix heures et quart; mais plus tard je me trouvais dans un
sommeil plus profond,  quoique je  n'aie jamais perdu entiere-
ment connaissance.  J'avais le sentiment que M. Townshend
cherchait a m'endormir completement; mes mouvemens me
paraissaient lui etre soumis,  car je voulus plusieurs fois chan-

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 endeavour-
ing 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 go-
ing on around me; so that  I heard M. Desor speak to Mr.
Townshend, understood what they said, and heard what ques-
tions 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 pass-
ing 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 afterward  I fell into a deep-
er 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 con-
trol, for I wished several times to change the position ol my 
384
SUPPLEMENT.
 ger la position de mes bras, sans avoir assez de force pour le
 faire ou pour le vouloir reellement, tandis que je sentais ma
 tete se porter a droite ou a gauche sur mon epaule, et en arri-
 ere ou en avant, sans que je le voulusse, et meme  malgre la
 resistance que je cherchais a opposer, et cela a plusieurs re-
 prises.
   J'eprouvais meme un  sentiment de grand bien-etre a ceder
 a Pattrait qui m'entrainait tantot  d'un cote, tant6t  d'un autre ;
 puis une sorte de surprise a sentir ma tete tomber dans la main
 de  M. Townshend, qui me paraissait des-lors la cause de cette
 attraction.  A sa question si j'etais bien, ce que j'eprouvais, je
 sentis que je ne pouvais pas repondre, mais je souris; je sen-
 tais que mon visage s'epanouissait malgre ma resistance; j'etais
 interieurement confus d'eprouver du bien-etre d'une  influence
 qui m'etait occulte.  Des-lors j'aurais voulu me reveiller, j'etais
 moins a l'aise, et cependant sur la question de M. Townshend,
 si je  voulais m'eveiller, je fis  un  mouvement d'hesitation des
 epaules.  Alors M. Townshend fit de nouveau quelques frictions
 qui me rendormirent davantage;  cependant j'etais  toujours
 sachant de ce qui se passait autour de moi.  Puis il me deman-
 da  si je voulais devenir clair-voyant, tout en continuant ses
 frictions de la figure aux bras, que je sentais.  J'eprouvais alors
 un  sentiment indefinissable de joie, et un instant je vis devant
 moi comme une gerbe de lumiere  eblouissante qui disparut au

 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 shoul-
 der, and backward or  forward, 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
inquiry if I were well, and what I felt, I found I could not an-
swer,  but I smiled; I  felt that my features expanded in spite of
my resistance ;  I was  inwardly confused at experiencing pleas-
ure 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 awaken-
ed,  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 
SUPPLEMENT.
385
moment meme.  Je fus alors attriste interieurement de ce que
cet etat se prolongeait; il  me semblait qu'on en avait assez
fait avec moi; j'aurais Voulu  me reveiller, mais je ne le pus.
Quand cependant M. Townshend et M. Desor se parlaient, je
les entendais ; j'entendis aussi sonner, et le guet crier, mais je
ne sus quelle heure ;  puis M. Townshend me presenta sa mon-
tre en me demandant si je voyais  l'heure, si je le voyais lui-
meme, mais je ne distinguais rien; j'entendis encore  sonner
un quart a Phorloge, mais je ne pouvais sortir de mon etat d'as-
soupissement.   Enfin, M. Townshend m'eveilla par quelques
mouvements rapides, transverses du milieu de la face en de-
hors, qui m'ouvrirent instantanement les yeux ; et au moment
meme je fus debout en lui disant, " Je vous remercie."  II etait
onze heures et quart.  II me dit alors, et M. Desor me le repeta,
que le seul fait qui leur eut  donne la certitude que j'etais dans
un etat de sommeil magnetique, avait ete la facilite avec la-
quelle je suivais de  la tete tous les mouvemens de la main de
M. Townshend, bien qu'il ne me touchat pas, et le bien-etre
que je paraissais eprouver dans les momens ou, apres plusieurs
frictions reiterees, il deplacait ainsi ma tete a volonte dans tous
les sens.
                                               Agassis.
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 put of my sleepy state.  Mr.
Townshend then woke me with some rapid transverse move-
ments from the middle of the face outward, 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 mes-
meric 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.
                                               Agassis.
                           Kk 
386
SUPPLEMENT.
  Testimony to a curious Fact.  Dr. Filippi, or Milan.

  M. PAvocat Valdrighi avait Pouie tenement fin et exalte,
qu'il put entendre des mots prononces a la distance de deux
chambres, dont les portes etaient fermees, quoique prononces a
voix tres-faible et basse.
  L'exaltation de la vie qui s'observe chez quelques individus
malades, arrive au point qu'un d'eux voyait les objets les plus
minces et fins dans la plus grande obscurite.   Cela est remar-
quable dans les personnes nerveuses et tres-delicates.
                                           Dr. Finrpi.
  Milan, Juillet, 1839.
                      Translation.

  M. Valdrighi, advocate, had his sense of hearing so exquis-
ite and  exalted that he could hear words pronounced at the
distance of two rooms, the doors of which were shut, although
pronounced in a weak and low voice.
  The exaltation of life which is observed in some patients at-
tains such a height, that one of them could see the most deli-
cate and minute objects in the greatest darkness.  This is no-
ticed in  nervous and very delicate persons.
                                            Dr. Filippi.
  Milan, July, 1839.
   Account of  Sensations during Mesmerization.  By
               Signor Ranieri, of Naples.

  Ayant ete magnetise par mon honorable ami M. Hare Town-
shend, j'exposerai tout simplement les  phenomenes que j'ai
eprouves avant, pendant, et apres ma  magnetisation.   M.
Townshend commenca par me faire asseoir sur un sofa: il
s'assit sur une chaise vis-a-vis de moi, et  ayant pris mes mains
dans les siennes, il les placa sur mes genoux.  II me regardait
fixement, et de temps en temps il laissait  mes mains, et placait
les pointes de ses doigts en droite ligne de mes yeux, a un

                      Translation.

  Having been mesmerized by my honourable friend Mr. Hare
Townshend, I  will simply describe the phenomena which I ex-
perienced before, during, and after my  mesmerization.  Mr.
Townshend commenced by making me sit upon a sofa: he sat
upon a chair opposite me, and, having taken 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 fin-
gers  in a straight line opposite  my eyes, at an inch, I should 
SUPPLEMENT.
387
 pouce, je crois, de mes prunelles; puis, en decrivant une es-
 pece  d'ellipse, il  redescendait ses  mains sur  les  miennes.
 Apres dix minutes qu'il eut porte comme cela alternativement
 ses mains de mes yeux sur mes genoux, j'eprouvai un besoin
 irresistible dc fermer mes paupieres.  Je continuai cependant
 d'entendre sa voix, et celle de ma sceur (qui etait dans la meme
 chambre), lorsqu'ils me faisaient des questions.  Je leur repon-
 dais m6me toujours  pertinemment,  mais  tout mon systeme
 musculaire etait dans un etat d'affaiblissement singulier, et de
 desobeissance presque complete a ma volonte; et par conse-
 quent la prononciation des mots que je voulais repondre m'etait
 devenue d'une difficulte extreme.
   Tandis que j'eprouvais jusqu'a un certain point les effets du
 sommeil, non seulement je n'etais pas etranger a tout ce qui se
 passait autour de moi; mais aussi j'y prenais plus de part qu'a
 Pordinaire.   Toutes  mes conceptions etaient  plus rapides;
 j'eprouvais des secousses nerveuses qui ne me sont pas habi-
 tuelles;  enfin,  tout mon systeme nerveux  etait  dans un etat
 d'exaltation,  et semblait avoir acquis tout le surplus des forces
 que le systeme musculaire avait perdu.
   Voila les principaux phenomenes qu'il me fut possible de res-
 sentir  d'une  maniere incontestable.   M. Townshend ne man-
 quait pas de me deraander de temps a autre, se je pouvais voir
 lui ou ma sceur sans ouvrir les paupieres; mais c'est ce qui me
 fut toujours impossible, et tout ce que je pus dire  d'avoir vu, ce

 think,  from my pupils; then, describing a  kind  of ellipse, he
 brought liis 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 con-
 tinued, 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.
  While 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 exaltation, and appeared to have ac-
quired 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 oc-
casionally if I could see him or my sister without opening the
eyelids;  but  this was  always impossible, and all that I could 
388
SUPPLEMENT.
fut une lueur entrecoupee par les images noires et confuses dea
objets qu'on me presentait, lueur qui  me  parut un peu plus
claire que celle qu'on voit ordinairement lorsqu'on ferine les
paupieres vis-a-vis du soleil ou d'une chandelle.
  Enfin M. Townshend resolut Me me demagnetises   II com-
menca a faire de ses mains des mouvements  elliptiques in-
verses a ceux qu'il avait faits dans le commencement; je pus
ouvrir les paupieres sans aucune espece d'effort, tout mon sys-
teme musculaire devint tres-obeissant a ma volonte ; je pus me
lever debout, et je fus parfaitement  eveille, mais je demeurai
presque  une heure  dans  une espece  de  stupefaction tres-sem-
blable a celle qui me prend quelquefois le matin, si je me leve
deux ou trois heures plus tard qu'a Pordinaire.
                                     Antoine Ranieri.
  Naples,  15 Juin, 1839.

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 demesmerize 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 mus-
cular 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 some-
times attacks me in the morning if  I rise two or three hours
later than usual.
                                      Antoine Ranieri.
  Naples,  15th June, 1839.
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