Mesmerism.

Date:
[1840]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Mesmerism. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    W 17 MESMERISM. £ A11 sound and true philosophy is founded on the appearances of things, which, if they draw us ever so much against our wills to such principles as most clearly manifest to us the most excellent counsel and supreme dominion of the All-wise and Almighty Being, those principles are not therefore to be laid aside,'because some men may perhaps dislike them. ”— Cotes's Preface to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia. Mesmerism, or Animal Magnetism, is a subject upon which there still exists, in the public mind as well as amongst the faculty, opinions so widely different, that we should almost be tempted to doubt the fact of all men possessing similar organs of sense wherewith to become acquainted with the phenomena of the external world, did we not remember that at ail times and periods a similar reception has almost invariably awaited every discovery, whether important merely to the lovers of science as a matter of truth, or to the world at large as a means of advancing civiliza tion, and of alleviating the ills to which mankind are liable. It at first ap pears strange, yet so it is, that whatever discovery has been made, or has been asserted to have been made, whether the motion of a planet through the heavens above us, or the circulation of the blood within us, there have never been wanting multitudes to abuse and decry the luckless discoverer, although very few have taken the trouble to investigate calmly and im partially the facts upon which he founded his assertion. Such has been, and such is still the disposition of mankind. We are, it is true, in the nine teenth century, and the march of intellect has, we are told, proceeded, and is still proceeding, with rapid strides : it may be so, but the human mind is in the present day as it was of old, made up of the same faculties, stirred by the same passions and feelings : some are too obtuse to perceive a new truth ; some are too jealous of the fame of contemporaries to admit anything which will add to their reputation ; others are satisfied to receive by hear-say a sweeping condemnation of every innovation, however calculated to be beneficial, and to re-echo the same without troubling themselves to investigate the merits of the question, or will content them selves with the admission that it is beyond the scope of their understand ing, or that it does not concern them ; whilst many there are, who, not having the means of investigating for themselves, are obliged to be guided by what they hear or read ; and well may they often be puzzled as to what they shall believe or disbelieve amongst the various conflicting opinions. It is to individuals of this latter class that we would more par ticularly address our observations on the present subject, which certainly yields in interest to no discovery as a matter of truth, and promises, when more fully investigated, the most happy results to a large portion of our afflicted fellow-creatures. They will hear of Animal Magnetism proceeding from and affecting animal bodies ; then they will be told perhaps that it is all 6 humbug,’ that no such thing exists, except in the imagination of some credulous enthusiasts •— that those who profess to believe in it are impostors, or deceived by cunning hypocrites and clever actors ; others will tell them that such a power does exist, but that its nature is such that the worst consequences must inevitably ensue from its application, and that the devil himself is its originator ; whilst another party will en deavour to set the whole question quietly at rest by assuring them that the idea of such a thing is entirely opposed to all the well-known laws of physiology, and, moreover, that it is impossible such a power could exist ;S m