746 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



made by those eminent scientists, Mr. 

 William Crookes and Mr. A. R.Wallace. 

 We supposed, from intimations in this 

 last and shorter installment, that the 

 discussion was ended; but Mr. Wallace 

 comes on again in the last Athenceum, 

 and, as the logomachy may prove in- 

 terminable, we, at all events, shall have 

 to stop. Nothing would be gained by 

 printing Mr. Wallace's last letter in full, 

 but some notice of his positions may be 

 desirable. 



The relation of official French inqui- 

 ry into mesmerism, animal magnetism, 

 and clairvoyance, has been a prominent 

 question in this controversy. The main 

 facts seem to be these: In 1784 the 

 French Government ordered the medical 

 faculty of Paris to investigate the theo- 

 ries of Mesmer, who had been making a 

 great stir in that city, and report upon 

 them. A committee was appointed, of 

 which Franklin and Lavoisier were 

 members, and their report was adverse 

 to the validity of Mesmer's claims. Jn 

 1825 the believers in animal magnetism 

 applied for a new commission, which 

 was appointed by the Academy of Sci- 

 ences, and consisted of five members, 

 who made a favorable report upon the 

 subject in 1831 ; but this report was nei- 

 ther adopted by the Academy nor reg- 

 ularly printed in its memoirs. In 1837 

 the French Academy appointed a new 

 commission of nine members, who re- 

 ported adversely upon the doctrine of 

 animal magnetism, and their report was 

 adopted by the Academy ; and still an- 

 other commission was afterward ordered 

 by the same body, and with the same 

 result. Mr. Wallace complains that Dr. 

 Carpenter, in his historical sketch of 

 the subject, ignored the report of 1831, 

 which was on the side of mesmerism, 

 and was not accepted by the French 

 Academy, and he devotes his last letter 

 to a statement of the points made in 

 that report. Mr. Wallace assures us 

 that the commission " obtained abso- 

 lutely conclusive facts, which have sub- 

 sequently been often confirmed, but 



have never been satisfactorily explained 

 away." Amongthese is the proof of clair- 

 voyance. The committee say that " pre- 

 vision of organic phenomena, knowl- 

 edge of the internal conditions of other 

 persons, and true clairvoyance, had been 

 demonstrated to them." Mr. Wallace 

 adds : " One of the somnambulists de- 

 termined correctly the symptoms of M. 

 Marc, a commissioner; and also the dis- 

 ease of another person, the accuracy of 

 the diagnosis being confirmed by post- 

 mortem examination. Clairvoyance was 

 proved by one of the patients repeated- 

 ly reading and naming cards while four 

 of the commissioners successively held 

 M3 eyes closed with their fingers a 

 test, the absolute conclusiveness of 

 which each one may satisfy himself of." 



The term clairvoyance means literal- 

 ly clear sight. But everybody with good 

 eyes has clear sight ; the alleged vision 

 is, therefore, not of the ordinary kind. 

 It claims to be an extraordinary kind of 

 seeing, a seeing through opaque objects- 

 through the eyelids, through bandages, 

 or through the back of the head, and 

 into objects not penetrable by ordinary 

 vision. The term " clear," as applied 

 to this kind of sight, is intended to de- 

 note especial or remarkable clearness, 

 or a transcendental vision, which opens 

 to sight things not sensible to the nor- 

 mal eye. In short, clairvoyance af- 

 firms an extra endowment for making 

 things visible which goes beyond the 

 range of that sense which is our usual 

 source of knowledge. 



Now, Mr. Wallace says that this is 

 an " absolute fact," which has been con- 

 clusively proved and known for forty- 

 seven years, or since the report of 1831, 

 that declared it to be demonstrated. 

 As, therefore, this remarkable endow- 

 ment of human nature has been estab- 

 lished as a fact for nearly half a century, 

 we are fairly entitled to ask, What have 

 been its results? If it be true, no dis- 

 covery ever made in science can for a 

 moment bear comparison with it in im- 

 portance ; and if it be true, we have a 



