CHAP. XVII. 



HYPNOTISM AND PSYCHICAL RESEARCH. 199 



important to induce it to think that the Academy ought 

 to encourage researches on magnetism as a very curious 

 branch of psychology and natural history. 



" Certainly we dare not natter ourselves that we shall 

 make you share entirely our conviction of the reality of 

 the phenomena which we have observed, and which you 

 have neither seen, nor followed, nor studied with or in 

 opposition to us. We do not therefore exact from you 

 a blind belief in all that we have reported. We con- 

 ceive that a greater part of the facts are so extraordinary 

 that you cannot grant it to us: perhaps we ourselves 

 should have refused you our belief, if, changing places, 

 you had come to announce them before this tribunal to 

 us, who, like you at present, had seen nothing, observed 

 nothing, studied nothing, followed nothing of them. 



" We only require you to judge us as we should have 

 judged you, that is to say, that you remain perfectly 

 convinced that neither the love of the wonderful, nor 

 the desire of celebrity, nor any interest whatever, has in- 

 fluenced our labors. We were animated by motives 

 more elevated, more worthy of you by the love of 

 science and by the wish to justify the hopes which the 

 Academy had conceived of our zeal and devotedness." 

 " (Signed) BOUEDOIS DE LA MOTTE (President), 



FoUQUIEE, 



GUENEAU DE MuSSY, 



GUEESENT, 



ITAED, 



LEEOUX, 



MAEC, 



THILLAGE, 



HUSSON (Reporter)." 



