MESMERISM. 677 



see all their internal structure in the clearest manner, and mag- 

 netism has been practised so long." 



The result of Gall's investigation was this : " Neither we, nor 

 any other dispassionate observers, who have been present at the 

 famous experiments of which such wonderful accounts have been 

 given, have witnessed any thing supernatural or contrary to 

 nature : we ought therefore to abandon the belief of the meta- 

 morphosis of nerves (the performance of the function of one nerve 

 by another) to those who are better organised for the marvellous 

 than ourselves." 



It being, however, impossible to deny such facts of mesmer- 

 ism as occur in some nervous diseases, are they to be ascribed 

 to mere imagination an excitement of the feelings by the ges- 

 ticulations and proximity of the manipulator r , or to the oper- 

 ation of an unknown power ? Gall admits this power, and even 

 does not reject the hypothesis of its connection with a fluid. 

 " How often in intoxication, hysterical and hypochondriacal 

 attacks, convulsions, fever, insanity, under violent emotions, after 

 long fasting, through the effect of such poisons as opium, hem- 

 lock, belladonna, are we not in some measure transformed into 

 perfectly different beings, for instance, into poets, actors, &c. ?" 

 " Just as in dreaming, the thoughts frequently have more deli- 

 cacy, and the sensations are more acute, and we can hear and 



r " Among all the phenomena, however," says Professor Dugald Stewart, 

 " to which the subject of imitation has led our attention, none are, perhaps, so 

 wonderful as those which have been recently brought to light, in consequence of 

 the philosophical inquiries occasioned by the medical pretensions of Mesmer and 

 his associates. That these pretensions involved much of ignorance, or of im- 

 posture, or both, in their author, has, I think, been fully demonstrated in the 

 very able report of the French academicians ; but does it follow from this that 

 the facts witnessed and authenticated by those academicians should share in the 

 disgrace incurred by the empirics who disguised or misrepresented them ? For 

 my own part, it appears to me, that the general conclusions established by 

 Mesmer's practice, with respect to the physical effects of the principle of ima- 

 gination (more particularly in cases where they co-operated together) are in- 

 comparably more curious than if he had actually demonstrated the existence of 

 his boasted science : nor can I see any good reason why a physician, who admits 

 the efficacy of the moral agents employed by Mesmer, should, in the exercise of 

 his profession, scruple to copy whatever processes are necessary for subjecting 

 them to his command, any more than that he should hesitate about employing a 

 new physical agent, such as electricity or galvanism." Elem. of the PhiL of the 

 Human Mind, vol. iii. p. 221. 



Y Y 4? 



