P52 BAILLY. 
or with their heel; people who wish to know exactly up 
to what point the phenomena so boldly asserted by the 
magnetizers of our epoch may be within the domain of 
rogues and sharks ; all such people, we say, do not at all 
deny the authority of the subject in question, nor do they 
put themselves really in opposition to the Lavoisiers, the 
Franklins, or the Baillys; they dive into an entirely new 
world, of which those illustrious learned men did not even 
suspect the existence. 
I cannot approve of the mystery adopted by some 
grave learned men, who, in the present day, attend ex- 
periments on somnambulism. Doubt is a proof of diffi- 
dence, and has rarely been inimical to the progress of 
science. We could not say the same of incredulity. He 
who, except in pure mathematics, pronounces the word 
impossible, is deficient in prudence. Reserve is especial- 
ly requisite when we treat of animal organization. 
Our senses, notwithstanding twenty-four centuries of 
study, observations, and researches, are far from being 
an exhausted subject. Take, for example, the ear. A 
celebrated natural philosopher, Wollaston, oecupied him- 
self with it; and immediately we learn, that with an 
equal sensibility as regards the low notes a certain in- 
dividual can hear the highest tones, whilst another cannot 
hear them at all; and it becomes proved that certain 
men, with perfectly sound organs, never heard the cricket 
in the chimney-corner, yet did not doubt but that bats 
occasionally utter a piercing cry; and attention being 
once awakened to these singular results, observers have 
found the most extraordinary differences of sensibility 
between their right ear and their left ear, &c. 
Our vision offers phenomena not less curious, and an 
infinitely vaster field of research. Experience has proved, 
