2 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



notic state, followed the Swedish nightingale's songs in different lan- 

 guages both instantaneously and correctly ; and when, in order to test 

 her powers, Mademoiselle Lind extemporized a long and elaborate chro- 

 matic exercise, she imitated this with no less precision, though unable 

 in her waking state even to attempt anything of the sort. Now, I wish 

 you to compare this case with another, which was reported about the 

 same time upon what seemed equally unexceptionable testimony. 

 When Miss Martineau first avowed her conversion to mesmerism, the 



extraordinary performances of her servant J were much talked of; 



and, among other marvels, it was asserted tliat she could converse, 

 when in her mesmeric state, in languages she had never learned, and 

 of which she knew nothing when awake the particular fact being ex- 

 plicitly stated that Lord Morpeth had tested this power and had found 

 it real. Now, you will readily perceive that, supposing the testimony 

 in these two cases to have been exactly the same, its probative force 

 would have been very different. For the first of them, though unpre- 

 cedented, presented no scientific improbability to those who were pre- 

 pared, by their careful study of the phenomena of hypnotism, to be- 

 lieve that the power of imitative vocalization, like any other, might 

 be intensified by the concentration of the " subject's" whole attention 

 upon the performance. But it seemed inconceivable that an unedu- 

 cated servant-girl could understand what was said to her in a lan- 

 guage she had never learned ; still more, that she should be able to 

 reply in the same language. And the only possible explanation of 

 the fact, if fact it was, short of a miracle, may have lain either in her 

 having learned the language long before and subsequently forgotten 

 it, or in her being able by "thought-reading" (which is maintained 

 by some, even at the present time, to be one of the attributes of the 

 mesmeric state) to divine and express the answer expected by Lord 

 Morpeth. But the marvel was entirely dissipated by the inquiries of 

 Dr. Noble, who, being very desirous of getting at the exact truth, 

 first applied for information to a near relative of Miss Martineau, and 

 was told by him that the report was not quite accurate ; for, on 



Lord Morpeth putting a question to J in a foreign language, 



J had replied appropriately in her own vernacular. Her compre- 

 hension of Lord Morpeth's question, however, appeared in itself suf- 

 ciently strange to be suggestive of some fallacy ; and having an op- 

 portunity not long afterward of asking Lord Morpeth himself what 

 was the real state of the case. Dr. Noble learned from him that when 



he put a question to J in a foreign language she imitated his 



speech after a fashion by an unmeaning articulation of sound. 



On the lesson which this case affords as to the credibility of testi- 

 mony in regard to what are called the "higher phenomena " of mes- 

 merism, I shall enlarge in my succeeding lecture, and at present I 

 shall only remark that it was shown by careful comparison between 

 the phenomena displayed by the same individuals, when " mesmerized '* 



