676 MESMERISM. 



and both taste them : the magnetised distinguishes magnetised 

 from common water, foretells the commencement and duration of 

 the paroxysm of his diseases, and points out the remedies." <i 



Gall, with that beautiful and playful irony which so charac- 

 terised him, and with which he delighted to annihilate his adver- 

 saries' absurdities, after remarking that the human mind always 

 turns in the same circle, that Plato and Socrates had taught 

 that our souls knew every thing originally, were in intimate com- 

 munication with the universal soul of the world, and that their 

 connection with the body did but impede the free use of their 

 knowledge, avows that, if, in mesmeric sleep, our soul becomes 

 intimately united with the soul of the world, none of the in- 

 credible tales of mesmerism can be doubted. " It is a trifle to 

 hear a poor peasant, born far from Upper Saxony, speak the 

 dialect of that country in its purity and with all its inflexions, 

 and possess the gift of unknown tongues : to see another stupid 

 peasant, ignorant of French, read correctly and understand a 

 French book applied to her stomach. To read with the fingers, 

 to know the hour by the watch in my pocket, to see through 

 walls and houses, and perceive at a distance a person who will 

 come to the house, are all wonders explicable by the intimate 

 connection with the universal soul of the world. We thus see 

 that if ever a great truth was promulgated, it is the doctrine of 

 predestination and pre-established harmony. Magnetism proves, 

 in the most peremptory manner, that every thing in the universe 

 is not only concatenated, but completed. The dialect of Upper 

 Saxony, the French language, my watch, the visit of the stranger, 

 the letter of a lover which you fancy is so snugly concealed in 

 your bosom, are concatenations of the world as necessary as the 

 sun is to the universe. Say, now, what can be concealed from 

 us either present or future ?" " We will not ask how the soul 

 can be united intimately with the body and with the soul of this 

 world at the same time ; how it can be confined in its narrow 

 prison and at the same moment detached from all its ties ; how 

 the soul of the magnetiser and the magnetised can be mingled, 

 and afterwards separated again." " Unfortunately," he continues, 

 " scientific discoveries still have to be made by the long and 

 laborious method of experience, notwithstanding the magnetised 



q Archiv.fiir Physiol. b. vii. st. 2. s. 232; 



