merism as the mark of their fine arrows; men of science have attacked it, because they could not make it harmonise 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 "occupation gone." What is worse, some of the friends and supporters of mesmerism have done it more disservice than its bitterest foes. Instead of setting before the world the simplest features of the new discovery, they have at once produced to view its most astounding marvels, thus dazzling into blindness the eyes which, by a more cautious conduct, they might have taught to see.- -Then it cannot 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 not know how difficult it is to separate the merits of any doctrine from the faults of its partisans? Mesmerism has occasionally been found in company with the vicious and the designing; and its good repute has suffered 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 stomachs of gouty earls and dyspeptic marchionesses, nothing 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 Peruvian bark, for example. From thinking that it can perform everything, men doubt whether it is capable of anything; 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 applies 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 destroy, 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. Primâ facie, one would say that there were attractions in this despised doctrine, more than sufficient 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 round it, might be supposed to have a charm for man the wilful who rushes to the forbidden with so keen a zest. But there is a sort of unexplained odium attached 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; 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 degraded mesmerism; and by showing that these are extrinsic to itself. Having done this, I propose, also, to touch upon the reasons that make the subject I have chosen not only distasteful to the general reader, but of extreme difficulty to the Author himself. First. The original cause of the ill reception which mesmerism has met with from the world, is undoubtedly to be found in the character of its discoverer Mesmer, -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 honestly, and drawn from them none but legitimate conclusions, the difference of its career may be estimated by all who are aware how much depends upon a propitious beginning. But unfortu secret nately, 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 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 surround his really simple and sublime discovery with fictitious terrors and misleading puerilities. The result of this moral and scientific suicide has been the degradation of mesmerism. First associations are, from the very law of our minds, all but indestructible; and therefore it is that with a few original thinkers alone one can hope to replace the subject on its true and primitive footing—namely, its own merits. The false has been so blended with the true, that it is no wonder that both should be rejected together. The waters come not to us pure, but from a fountain-head that is itself disturbed and sullied; so that, instead of spreading forth into a lucid mirror, reflecting heaven and earth, and enlivening all around, they stagnate in a thick and blinding * In justice to the memory of Mesmer, it should be stated that against the fact of his having sold his magnetic secrets for a hundred louis to each candidate for initiation, should be set certain extenuating circumstances, which are related in Mr. Colquhoun's Isis Revelata, vol. i. p. 237. - marsh. Had mesmerism 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 practised in unostentatious privacy instead of crowded assemblies; 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 other, were want of sense as well as of candour; and, unless 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 prepossessions 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 no where else, its answer; and we are forced to reply There is much in a name, except where true love or true philosophy renders the mind insensible to those |