lians, and lead the rout to worse orgies? Does the fabled strange tale represent but a process of the science—a Pentheus will-driven, and torn by his unconscious mother and unconscious, sisters, when it was willed that they should see in him but a bull? win the mesmeriser possess a more potent Thyrsus, or a more sleep-engendering and awakening Caduceus than that of Hermes? Is there a cycle to bring these things to pass again in more full development? Or, to descend to the more vulgar illustration of this transmitted myth, in the Harlequin of our stage, will the adept in the science transmute by wave of wand, and Columbines run after him at pleasure?
Am I putting the case ad absurdum—casting ridicule upon the science? Scarcely so, for the absurdum is apparent in the demands; and could these be carried out, there may be things arise ostensibly ridiculous, but tragic in a sad reality.
"Hæ nugæ seria ducunt
In mala."
If, sir, the powers be according to the demand of the professors of mesmerism, I dread it; all ought to dread it. It would make every one suspect his fellowman to be a demon. For though mesmerists, in defence, say, "the Evil Spirit cannot do good," may he not first, to establish the evil, transform himself into "an angel of light?" for this is within the scope of his deceptive power. If it be altogether a delusion, a falsity, an imposture, let it be exposed, condemned; and the mesmeriser be, in the law's eye, a common fortuneteller, and the craft subjected to the same penalties. If it, however, be otherwise, it will be the interest of all to look to consequences, and be at least cautious, lest "the prince of this world," and the powers of the air, be let loose upon us under the expansion of an evil knowledge.
postscript.
It must be admitted that our excellent correspondent has set forth the claims of "Adolphe" and "Alexis," and similar interesting abstractions, to the powers of omnipresence and omniscience, with great candour and becoming gravity. We are sorry that we cannot follow what many of our readers may consider so excellent an example. We have no faith in those dear creatures without surnames: we have no faith in animal magnetism, either in its lesser or in its larger pretensions; but we have an unbounded faith in the imbecility, infatuation, vanity, credulity, and knavery of which human nature is capable. And we are of opinion that there is not a single well-authenticated mesmeric phenomenon which is not fully explicable by the operation of one or more of these causes, or of the whole of them taken in conjunction.
The question in regard to mesmerism is twofold: first, how is the mesmeric prostration to be accounted for? and secondly, how is it to be disposed of? It may be accounted for, we conceive, by the natural tendencies just recited, without its being necessary to postulate any new or unknown agency; it may be disposed of by the influence of public opinion, which would very soon put a atop to these pitiable exhibitions, and very soon extinguish the magnetiser's power and the patient's susceptibility, if it were but to visit the performers with the contempt and reprobation they deserve. A few words on each of these heads may not be out of place, as a qualifying postscript to the foregoing letter, which, in our opinion, treats the mesmeric superstition with far too much indulgence.
I. The existence of any physical force or fluid in man or in nature, by which the mesmeric phenomena are induced, has been distinctly disproved by every carefully conducted experiment. No person has ever magnetised when totally unsuspicious of the operation of which he was the subject. This is conclusive; because a physical agent, which never does, of itself and unheralded, produce any effect, is no physical agent at all. Then, again, let certain persons be prepared for the magnetic condition, and aware of what is expected
