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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



THE CUKIOSITIES OF CREDULITY. 



By WILLIAM B. CARPENTER, C. B., M. D., LL.D., F. R. S. 



IN the last number of Fraser^s Magazine, Mr. 

 A. R. Wallace holds me up as " an example 

 of what prepossession and blind skepticism can 

 do for a man ; " " how it makes a scientific man 

 unscientific, a wise man foolish, and an honest 

 man unjust." 



The following historical narrative will serve, I 

 think, as " an example of what prepossession and 

 blind credulity can do for a man," and will fur- 

 ther afford a very useful lesson as to the " falla- 

 cies of testimony " in regard to the class of sub- 

 jects at present under discussion between Mr. 

 Wallace and myself. 



Every one who has attended to the history of 

 animal magnetism knows full well that a belief 

 in its higher pretensions not only prevailed ex- 

 tensively in France during the decade of 1820- 

 '30, but took a very strong hold of the medical 

 profession in that country, many of its most dis- 

 tinguished members giving their public attesta- 

 tion to the reality of those claims. Thus M. 

 Rostan, one of the ablest medical psychologists 

 of his day, contributed to the first edition (1825) 

 of the " Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales " (of 

 which he was one of the conductors) an article 

 on " Magnetisme Animal," in which he detailed 

 experiments carried on by himself and other emi- 

 nent physicians, which had entirely satisfied them 

 of the truth of clairvoyance. Another very able 

 advocate of mesmerism during this epoch was M. 

 Georget, a young physician of high reputation, 

 and the author of a much-esteemed treatise on 

 the " Physiology of the Nervous System." ' And 

 a commission appointed by the French Academy 

 of Medicine in 1826 to inquire into the subject 

 (of which commission M. Husson, physician to 

 the Hotel Dieu, was the reporter) reported in the 

 same sense in 1831, its members bearing their 

 personal testimony to the genuineness of phenom- 

 ena which they had themselves witnessed and 

 tested, and of which they considered that no 

 reasonable doubt could be entertained. 



1 It so happened that my father, having broken down 

 in health from overwork, was, during some months of 

 !S26-'27, under the medical care of MM. Itostan and 

 Georget, the latter of whom told him that the evidence 

 of the reality of spiritual existence afforded by clairvoy- 

 ance had brought him back from a state of materialis- 

 tic atheism— exactly what a lady of high culture told 

 me some twenty years ago in regard to spiritualism. 



The state of mind of these eminent men, there- 

 fore, in regard to mesmerism was thus exactly 

 parallel, on the one hand, to that of the authori- 

 ties of Salem (New England) in 1692 in regard to 

 witchcraft, and, on the other, to the present atti- 

 tude of Mr. Wallace and his associates in regard 

 to spiritualism. On evidence which " hundreds 

 of the most solemn people knew to be true," the 

 Salemites hung scores of innocent people. And 

 so, on evidence which Mr. Wallace and his friends 

 know to be true, they brand as " arrogant " skep- 

 tics not only myself, but the great body of medi- 

 cal and scientific men of whose opinions on this 

 subject I am the exponent, because, warned by 

 the experience I am now relating, we decline to 

 accept their testimony as binding on our own be- 

 lief. 



Our mental attitude, on the other hand, is that 

 of the courageous skeptics of 1692, who, pos- 

 sessed by " the froward spirit of Sadduceeism," 

 caused the release of 150 reputed witches, and 

 the stoppage of proceedings against 200 more, in 

 spite of the indignant protests of Dr. Cotton 

 Mather, and the " hundreds of most solemn peo- 

 ple " who backed it up. And it is also that of the 

 obstinate skeptics in the French Academy of Med- 

 icine, forty-six years ago, who dared to question 

 the authority of MM. Rostan and Georget, as well 

 as of the eminent reporter and other members of 

 its commission ; and who succeeded in prevent- 

 ing the academic adoption of their report, which 

 was simply enterre in the archives of the Academy, 

 as the expression of the opinion of the individuals 

 composing that commission. 



Early in 183*7, however, the academic discus- 

 sion was renewed ; and this renewal elicited the 

 following remarkable statement from M. Bous- 

 quet: " Messieurs, tout le monde a la pretention 

 de bien voir ; tout le monde croit avoir bien vu ; 

 et vous savez combien un homme est fort, lors- 

 qu'il peut dire—' J'ai vu.' (Test sans doute un 

 grand avantage ; toutefois l'illusion est a cote de 

 la realite. Georget croyait done avoir bien vu ; 

 il y parait assez a la maniere dont il parle du 

 magnetisme dans son ouvrage sur le systeme 

 nerveux. Ccpendant, on sait aujourd'hui qu'il a 

 etc trompe par des miserables qui s'en vantent. 

 Je tiens cela de M. Londe, le collaborateur de 

 Georget, et le temoin de toutes ses experiences. 



