922 The American Naturalist. [November, 
time; witness the widespread belief that an enfeebled person 
should not occupy the same bed with a strong, lusty individ- 
ual, lest the enfeebled vitality of the one should be overcome 
and absorbed by the stronger vitality of the other. Many 
scientists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, notably 
Glocenius, Fludd, Kircher, Burgrave, and Maxwell accepted 
the doctrines of Paracelsus, and declared that all natural 
phenomena could be explained through magnetism. These 
learned gentlemen thought that by magnetizing talismans and 
hanging them about the persons of the sick, that the vital 
spirit could be infused thence into the bodies of invalids, thus 
effecting cures. 
Anthony Mesmer, who was born in Germany in 1734, dis- 
carded the talismans and magical boxes of his predecessors 
and applied this, so-called, universal principle directly to the 
bodies of the sick through the agency of passes and contact. 
In the beginning of his career, however, Mesmer used the 
magnetic steel tractors of the Jesuit, Father Hell. He soon 
abandoned them and confined himself to manual manipula- 
tions and passes, asserting that animal magnetism was entirely 
distinct from the influence exerted by the magnet. 
In 1779 Mesmer left Vienna and came to Paris, where he at 
once began to give lectures on his theory of the magnetic 
fluid. In these lectures he declared that “he had discovered 
a principle capable of curing all diseases.” Says Binet and 
Feré: “He summed up his theory in twenty-seven proposi- 
tions, or rather assertions, most of which only reproduce the 
cloudy conceptions of magnetic medicine.” These propositions 
while they are full of the mysticisms, the errors, and the super- 
stitutions naturally belonging to the period at which they 
were formulated, yet contain the germs of scientific truths. As 
I wish to establish, later on in this paper, the fact that cer- 
tain individuals are more susceptible to hypnotic influence 
than are others, I will here introduce evidence obtained from 
the writings of one who witnessed Mesmer’s seances. Says 
illy: ... “They are so submissive to the magnetizer that 
even when they appear to be in a stupor, his voice, a glance, 
or sign will rouse them from it. It is impossible not to admit, 
