THEOEY OF KISSING. 295 



who have agreed to use it. Science is shocked at the very 

 idea of a sort of physical force a modification of physical 

 force. Nature is so clear and sharply cut in all her primary 

 divisions, that such words as * nearly/ 6 a modification of,' 

 * a sort of,' in reference to a physical force, imply the exist- 

 ence of an imperfection an indecisiveness, such as there is 

 no example of in the laws of nature. 



The operation of a law of nature differs from the result 

 of moral operations in the circumstance of its absolute and 

 utter perfection. The operation of a physical law of nature 

 is never nearly perfect, but ever quite perfect: wherefore, 

 returning to the point whence we started, it at once arouses 

 the suspicion of a philosopher when he hears or reads of 

 such an expression as a * modification of magnetism' ' a sort 

 of magnetism.' With this animadversion let the case pass. 

 I am only at present interested in calling attention to the 

 fact that, whether the alliance be natural or whether it be 

 strained, whether founded on truth or the result of pure 

 imagination, the fact nevertheless holds good, that mes- 

 merists have not referred, or perhaps have not felt them- 

 selves justified in referring, their phenomena to the domains 

 of the supernatural repudiating science, experiment, induc- 

 tion altogether, but have feigned or proven, as the case 

 may be, an alliance between the phenomena adverted to 

 by them, and the ordinary phenomena of magnetism. This 

 assumption of the agency of a physical force involves con- 

 sequences that are not foreseen or understood by those per- 

 sons unaccustomed to scientific modes of investigation, who 

 nevertheless believe in the actual occurrence of the pheno- 

 mena referred to. The first consequence is, that, once re- 

 ceived into the domains of science, once admitted to belong 

 to the category of things amenable to law and open to in- 

 vestigation, the phenomena alleged must stand amenable to 

 any course of experiment, any severity of cross-examination, 

 that the ingenuity of philosophers, bent upon investigating 



