but in sleepwaking he declared that mesmerism would cure him without the employment of any additional means. The lotion, therefore, was discontinued, almost in the beginning of the mesmerie treatment; 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 enjoyment of a remarkable strength of vision.

Again, I once mesmerised another boy, nearly blind, belonging to the same institution of which Johann was a member. After about a quarter of an hour's mesmerisation, 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 evidently 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 remained 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 afterwards, he told me that the benefit had been lasting, for that he then saw better than before I had mesmerised him, adding that he much wished I could be permitted to mesmerise him again.

These are facts which can scarcely be regarded with indifference, even by those who will not see in mesmerism a promise that transcends this life and the purposes of our present organisation.

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BOOK III.

SECT. I.

CONFORMITY OF MESMERISM WITH OUR GENERAL

EXPERIENCE.

HAVING now described the state of mesmeric sleepwaking 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 nature as a confirmed fact, not as an insulated phenomenon; — as a link in the eternal chain of things, not as an interruption to the universal order. With this end in view, it is necessary to inquire under what conditions men believe that they comprehend any thing whatever; and, this being ascertained, it is clear that we must endeavour 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 natural 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 adequate cause.

For, as to the first condition of our belief, let us consider what a multitude of things we trust in merely because 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 early association and of the traditional credence upon which I am insisting.

of

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 repugnance 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, Coleridge)

"Which makes the present, while the flash doth last,
Seem but the semblance of an unknown past,"

when, according to Tennyson's more particular description 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 any one, 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 described this mood of mind actually did exclaim," Had I ever felt any thing like what you mention, I should think myself fit for Bedlam."

On the other hand, he, who knows the sensation and can sympathise with it, will listen to a similar statement without surprise, and will probably say— "I can well believe this, for I have felt it myself."

A more common instance of this incredulity respecting all that lies beyond our own experience is our reluctance 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 toothach, will almost laugh at a friend under a paroxysm of that torment; not because he is hardhearted, but because he cannot conceive the matter deeply enough to be serious.

I

There is an actual inherent propensity in human nature to make personal knowledge the measure of truth, so strong as to incline us to believe any thing that has reference even to our prior experience. 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, "Now 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 pre

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