Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris / translated from the French with an historical introduction.

  • France. Commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme animal.
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris / translated from the French with an historical introduction. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    [ xvii ] the influence of the imagination upon the animal frame, a queflion peculi- arly interefting to the metaphyfician, and of the laft confequence in medi- cine. Upon this fubjedt the Report feems to throw new light, and to have a tendency to add precifion and accuracy to our notions in regard to it. But the argument upon which we would place the principal ftrefs is the effential importance of this fa6t in the hiftory of the human mind. Per- haps the hiftory of the errors of mankind, all things confidered, is more valuable and interefting than that of their difcoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it conftantly exifts, and does not feem to require fo much an a6tive energy, as a paffive aptitude of foul in order to encounter it. But error is endlefsly diverftfied; it has no reality, but is the pure'and limple creation of the mind that in- vents it. In this field the foul has a room