MESMERISM. 



73 



be true. But we rather think they go directly to disprove 

 Mesmerism, and establish a set of facts which show that if 

 Mesmerism were true if it had really discovered the key 

 to producing by artificial means that which Nature pro- 

 duces by eccentric action and disease then it ought to 

 have no failures in the application of its key, and ought 

 to meet with no impracticable and no unimpressible 

 subjects. Mesmerists confess that there are individuals 

 who cannot be mesmerised ; but the facts we have been 

 dealing with are facts to which all men are subject. And 

 if Mesmerists cannot produce these uniformly in all, 

 and with perfect certainty, their failure gives a strong 

 probability to the suspicion that they have not the 

 true key to produce them in any one, and that their ex- 

 periments, so far as they have any truthfulness in them, 

 are wholly empirical, of uncertain issue, and unworthy 

 of yet being recognized as having established anything 

 within the legitimate precincts of science. Our aim is 

 neither to support Mesmerism and its pretensions, nor to 

 be severe against anything on account of which its 

 adherents honestly think it can really lay claim to con- 

 sideration. The aim here is to direct inquiry and 

 attention to what is known to be truth, and stimulate 

 investigation in the right direction. It is quite plain 

 that nature does accomplish in a natural way phenomena 

 and effects fully as wonderful as anything mesmerism has 

 asserted; and if mesmerists think it of importance to 

 produce similar effects, let them turn to the means by 

 which Nature itself operates, and they may have some 

 prospect of making discoveries more worthy of con- 

 sideration than the pretensions of quacks, and more 

 uniform in their results than the accident of unaccount- 

 able susceptibilities. 



With regard to Electro-Biology and Phrenology, which 

 are closely connected with this subject, it is perhaps right 



