30G BARON BEICHEKBACH'S 



position, and might have caused that young lady to turn head 

 over heels; still, conversely, Mademoiselle Nowotny's hand 

 manifested no attraction whatever upon the magnet ! 



The baron next establishes a large generalisation, by 

 the consummation of which he brings himself en rapport with 

 Mesmer, Perkins, and the whole tribe of animal magnetisers. 

 It so happened that Dr. Heygarth, about the commencement 

 of this century, had referred the constitutional effects result- 

 ing from the use of Perkins's metallic tractors to imagination 

 acting upon the system; and he based his hypothesis on 

 what seemed to him the conclusive evidence, furnished by 

 the use of bars not metallic, not therefore ostensibly endowed 

 with the function of tractors. Reichenbach's next experi- 

 ments were of the character to rescue, in his opinion, Mesmer 

 and Perkins from the ridicule which the experimental demon- 

 strations of Dr. Heygarth had involved them in. If, reasoned 

 the baron to himself, it admits of proof that the human body 

 is itself a source of this newly discovered force, and if it far- 

 ther admits of proof that the force can be transmitted through 

 rods of materials such as the factitious tractors of Dr. Hey- 

 garth were made, then do Mesmer and Perkins stand ab- 

 solved from the obloquy into which they had fallen. Forth- 

 with this demonstration was made out to the baron's satisfac- 

 tion. He believed that chemical action was the originative 

 cause of the force when manifested by the human body the 

 chemical action of digestion and respiration, that is to say; 

 and generalising still he was ultimately led to conclude 

 that such force accompanied the manifestation of chemical 

 action howsoever, whensoever, and wheresoever effected. 



I bespeak the reader's most serious attention now to 

 my record of the baron's next investigation. He set himself 

 to discover, by experiment, what parts of the human body 

 evolved the new force most strongly. Yery potent were the 

 hands, but not so potent as certain other parts the lips, for 

 example ; and not even these in the very highest degree. He 



