a medical point of view, and seems to pro- 

 mise an abundant harvest for the future. 

 You have discovered that the body has a 

 point of rest and repose in the upright pos- 

 ture, and that this point changes in the 

 recumbent. The electric or magnetic cur- 

 rents pass through the limbs in the upright 

 posture in one direction, and in the recumbent 

 posture in a different one. They pass in one 

 direction in the upper extremities, and in an 

 opposite direction in the lower extremities, 

 and so insure the unity of the body. When 

 the hands and feet are closed, the currents 

 circulate without interruption, and the body 

 is in a state of quiet and repose. When 

 the hands and feet are separated, they 

 are analogous to the poles of a Voltaic bat- 

 tery, and the energies of the body are in full 

 activity. These are important physiological 

 facts, now for the first time demonstrated. 

 They harmonise with medical observations 

 which have often been made, but never be- 

 fore explained. In seeking rest after fatigue, 

 we always sit with our legs crossed. In 

 sleeping, we lie on one side of the body, 

 because then the legs are in contact. In- 

 fants always cross their feet in sleep, when 

 they are free to do so, and are always rest- 

 less when they cannot do it. They instinc- 

 tively seek the position of repose. That 

 repose which we vainly seek for by opiates 

 in fevers and severe illness, would probably 

 be obtained more naturally and effectually 

 upon the principle of these currents. I have 

 known cases where rest has been produced 

 by the accidental application of the prin- 

 ciple ; but, from ignorance of the law, the 

 example has not been followed out in its 

 other applications. Your discoveries will 

 encourage us to do so, and probably become 

 an important accession to the medical art. 



"Another wonderful circumstance in this 

 discovery, is the susceptibility of the Mag- 

 netoscope to the electric influences upon the 

 body of the operator. It is the most delicate 

 test hitherto contrived of electric actions 

 upon the human subject. We have long 

 known that the body is a peculiar electric me- 

 chanism, but we were ignorant of its nature 

 and laws, or how its actions were to be 

 ascertained and tested. We now possess in 

 this instrument a subtle electrometer, from 

 which nothing can escape. Whatever is 

 applied to the left hand of the operator, 

 while his right hand holds the Magneto- 

 scope, will indicate its presence by a cor- 

 responding motion of the pendulum. Every 

 substance, mineral or vegetable, crystallised 

 or amorphous, will give its own proper 

 motion. How far these motions may be 

 found to indicate the medical properties of 

 substances will appear hereafter, when suffi- 

 cient investigations have been made. At 

 present, we can clearly see that each sub- 



stance has its own specific action on the 

 Magnetoscope, and that the actions are con- 

 stant. * * * * * 



" The discovery of the magnetism of 

 the body enables us to give them a much 

 higher signification — it raises man as a liv- 

 ing being above mere matter, and approxi- 

 mates the corporeal to the incorporeal and 

 the spiritual ; at the same time that it makes 

 more intelligible and demonstrable that 

 Divine Power, immaterial, incomprehensible, 

 and omnipotent, by whose fiat and volition 

 all these wonders are performed. 



" Many are accustomed to talk of man's 

 responsibility, and a future judgment, as of 

 something abstract, distant, and uncertain. 

 But here, in this magnetic aura, we possess 

 a present reality, and a proof that re- 

 sponsibility is bound up with all our actions 

 and principles. For we may now say with 

 truth, that as a man's mind is, so will be his 

 circumambient aura, in its influence upon 

 himself and others for good or for evil. 



" I may be thought too fanciful in the 

 view I take of your beautiful, and, as I think, 

 sublime discovery : but no reflecting mind 

 will deny that we stand in need of some 

 new principle or truth, to enable us to turn 

 to full account those which we have already 

 received. The disunion which pervades 

 those who ought to be of one heart and one 

 spirit, and the language used towards each 

 other by those who profess to be in search 

 of common truth, are painful spectacles to a 

 considerate mind, and for which I see no 

 remedy but in the development of some new 

 principle of a moral, more than of a scientific 

 nature, which, by its superior influence, shall 

 give the passions of man that rest which 

 they can never hope for from the bitterness 

 of controversy. 



" The many delightful hours which you 

 and I have spent over your experiments, 

 calling forth common feelings of wonder 

 and thankfulness that we were endowed 

 with faculties capable of comprehending and 

 appreciating such mysteries, fortify my 

 habitual hope that a time may come, and 

 will come, when all who are engaged in the 

 pursuit of truth and excellence may be actu- 

 ated by a kindred spirit, and that as truth 

 is one, so the hearts of those who seek it 

 may also be one. When first I saw your 

 machine prove the polarity of a decillionth 

 of a grain of silex, and when I first saw it 

 respond to the billionth of a grain of quinine, 

 I was seized with the same kind of awe as 

 when I first studied the resolution of the 

 nebulae, and when I first saw the globules of 

 blood and the filaments of the nerves through 

 the microscope. Truly, as Paley says, ' in 

 His hands great and little are nothing.' 



" I have often asked myself what was to be 

 the next new wonder after the electric wire 



