suddenly awoke, say that their vision is hazy, and their heads light, but I take this to arise from the imperfectly recovered sensibility of the brain and organs of sense, which are not at once roused up to the full possession of their waking powers; just as is seen in persons suddenly aroused from profound natural sleep. That the mesmeric torpor of the nerves and brain does not arise from sanguine congestion, is often strikingly and beautifully illustrated by the first actions of persons suddenly awoke from the trance. They open their eyes wide, and at the same moment their faculties are restored, but it is seen that the pupil is dilated, and insensible to light this they also immediately become aware of; they know that their eyes are open, and that they ought to see, but do not. The thought fills them with horror, and, with a fearful cry, they bury their faces in their hands, like persons struck blind by lightning; but this soon passes off, and the retina recovers its sensibility, by a little rubbing of the eyes.

For any person to see this, or even hear of it from a credible quarter, and still talk of imposture, is to convict himself of an incurable moral blindness, which it would be folly to attempt to dissi

pate by experiment and reasoning:-"none are so blind as those who won't see.”

The dreadful shock given to the mind under such circumstances, or when a somnambulist awakens and finds himself perhaps standing naked among strangers (an experiment I have often made), is a trial of the nerves, to which it would be very imprudent, and unsafe, to subject any but such singularly impassive beings as my patients: -sometimes, however, it is too much for the nerves of a coolly even. In highly nervous and irritable constitutions the effects might be most disastrous both to mind and body; and I would not dare to take such liberties with European temperaments. This, and the dangers and inconveniences of inducing the "Mesmeric Disease," by practising on the system more than is necessary for the cure of disease, appear to me to be the real dangers to be avoided in the use of Mesmerism as a remedy.

I am now able to say from experience, that debility of the nervous system predisposes to the easy reception of the mesmeric influence; and I argue favourably of the patient's powers of submission, when I recognise in him the languid listless air that characterises functional debility of the nerves.

As I never have attempted, and never will attempt, to mesmerise people in health, I cannot speak from my own experience as to their mesmeric sensibility; but we are assured by the best authorities that many persons in health can be subdued, and my experiments go to support this. My patient Mrs. had not a toothache even when she was mesmerised, in order to prepare her for the dentist; and many others suffered only from some local complaint, that did not apparently impair the powers of life. The fact is sufficiently established; and experimenting on the healthy ought to be discouraged, as it is only undermining healthy constitutions for no possible advantage. The artificial disease is not so transitory or light a matter as it seems to be reckoned by many Mesmerisers, who go about upsetting the nerves of every one they can lay hands on. In proof of this I may mention, that after prisoners have been working on the roads for two or three months, I have found them still as much under my command as ever.

It is proper that ladies and gentlemen who beg to be mesmerised for fun should know this; and then they will probably choose some other kind of amusement.

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CHAP. IX.

Curiosities of Mesmerism.—Unsatisfactory Nature of Public Exhibitions.- Apology for giving one. — Account of it by

a Visitor. The Modes in which the Mesmeric Fluid can be transmitted. It acts at great Distances.— Is absorbed by Water. Can pass through a Wall. — Final Experi

ments.

My original intention was to confine myself strictly to an examination of the medical pretensions of Mesmerism, and to eschew all but the practical part at present, and thus open the minds of men to a reception of new truths, by the key of self-interest. Not that I was, by any means, indifferent to the philosophic and extra-professional bearings of the subject, but because I saw that the gross and palpable bodily phenomena, even, were more than the public stomach could bear, and I did not intend to serve up all my mesmeric stores, till the public had digested my first course of facts that cannot be denied.

But accident, if it does not determine, generally shapes our actions; and (as in my accidental rencontre with somnambulism) I have been driven, by the force of circumstances, out of the

prudent mesmeric course, which I had resolved to follow.

But as the "utile" has not been sacrificed to the "dulce," I hope to be pardoned by the stern utilitarian reader for devoting a chapter to the "Curiosities of Mesmerism.”

Knowing the worthlessness of public exhibitions for effecting a general conversion to the truth of Mesmerism, I was very averse to subject it to this unsatisfactory ordeal, and determined not to be made a showman of. All performers in public are not unnaturally suspected to take insurances from Art, in the event of Nature failing them; success on such occasions being thought to be more indispensable than truth. Besides this natural distrust of public displays, the really careful and intelligent observer has not the necessary means of close inspection, required to convince him beyond a doubt, and the mere sight-seer is only bewildered, and declares it to be "all humbug," because all beyond his comprehension. But in our present state of ignorance it is as absurd to pretend to set limits to the possible in any unexplored region of Nature, as it would be for the inhabitants of an ant-hill in the plains of Bengal to decide authoritatively against the possible existence of the Himalayahs. I had acted with