tempts to verify the reports of Magnetisers, but with no better success; and so strong was the feeling excited in the minds of the managers of University College against Mesmerism, that Dr. Elliotson felt himself under the necessity, either of renouncing it, or of resigning the appointment which he held there. He chose, as D'Eslon had done before him, the latter alternative.

CHAPTER IV.

CLAIRVOYANCE—continued.

THE question before us is, what is there contrary to philosophy and experience in the narratives which we have just seen? Is clairvoyance a credible thing or not? and we shall be greatly aided in coming to a sound decision on this subject by investigating those cases in which similar effects have been produced by other agency than that of Mesmerism.

M. Reichenbach, in experimenting therapeutically with ordinary magnetism, observed similar results. Speaking of certain sensations, he says: "Healthy sensitive subjects observe nothing farther than these and experience no inconvenience from the approach of magnets; but the diseased, or sensitive subjects, experience widely different ones, often very disagreeable, and which occasionally give rise to fainting, to attacks of catalepsy, or to spasms so violent that they might possibly endanger life. In such cases, which generally include somnambulists, there occurs an extraordinary acuteness of the senses; smell and taste, for example, become astonishingly delicate and acute; many kinds of food are rendered intolerable, and the perfumes, most agreeable at other times, offensive. The patients hear and understand what is spoken three or four rooms off, and their vision is often so irritable, that, on the one hand they cannot endure the sun's light, or that of a fire; while, on the other, they

are able, in very dark rooms, to distinguish not only the outlines, but the colours of objects, where healthy people cannot distinguish anything at all. Up to this point, however strange the phenomena, there is nothing which may not easily be conceived, since animals and men differ very much in the acuteness of the senses, as is daily experienced.

M. Reichenbach magnetised water as Mesmer and others mesmerized it, and it was easily distinguished by his patients from that which had not been subjected to the same process. He says, in his researches on Magnetism: "that although strongly prejudiced against the mesmeric idea of magnetised water being recognisable, he was yet compelled to admit what he saw daily, that his patient could easily distinguish a glass of water, along which a magnet, unknown to her, had been drawn, from many others; and this without failure or hesitation. He found it impossible to oppose a fact like this by arguments; but when he saw the same result in many other patients he ceased to struggle against that which, whether he understood it or not, was obviously a fact. He then perceived that it was more rational to admit the fact, and to wait with patience for the explanation."

Upon this fact, Dr. Gregory makes the following

comment:

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'Here, then, in an investigation conducted, according to the most careful principles of physical research, we find, among other strange facts, one which hitherto had only been observed by Mesmerists, and which had been most unsparingly ridiculed for no other reason than that it appeared to those

who laughed at it to be absurd, impossible, and inexplicable. It is still as inexplicable as ever, but I do not think we can rationally doubt the fact; and I would take this opportunity of pointing out, as I have formerly done elsewhere, that in matters of observation, especially when new, the only question is this—' Is it true?' and not, 'Is it possible?' or 'Is it not absurd.' We cannot say what is possible, and no fact can be absurd. That we cannot explain it is only what might be expected, if we consider that multiplied observations are necessary before we can properly attempt to trace those general laws which we often call explanations, when they are only statements of the fact in a new form. Newton's law of gravitation does not explain the facts; it only aids our comprehension of them. I repeat, that we have here one of the most ridiculed facts of Mesmerism established, independent of Mesmerism, by simple observation; and this ought to teach caution to those who denounce the whole of Mesmerism as imposture."

Again, with regard to introvision, there are instances on record of its performance without Mesmerism some years ago.

"A communication, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences at Paris, was made by M. Eseltze, relative to some experiments with the electro-galvanic light obtained by Bunsen's apparatus. The writer states that he causes this light to enter a dark room through an opening in a screen or shutter, and then, with the aid of powerful reflectors, is able to distinguish the internal parts of the human body. The veins, the arteries, the circulation of the blood, and the action

of the nerves, are, he says, seen by him with perfect distinctness; and if the light be directed towards the region of the heart, he is enabled to study all the mechanism of that important organ, as if it were placed before him under a glass. The author even asserts that he has ascertained the existence of tubercles in the lungs of a consumptive patient, and gives a drawing of them as they appeared. On rubbing the skin with a little olive oil the transparency was augmented, and he was enabled to follow the process of digestion."

Nor it is merely in our own day, or since the era of Mesmer, that such wonders have been observed. Valentine Greatrakes performed cures by unconscious Mesmerism, and Clairvoyance was exhibited by means of crystals and dark fluids.

In Oken's "Journal of Curiosities," there is the history of a Portuguese lady, whose name was Pedegache; she had a faculty similar to that of the Spanish Zahuris, and was much talked of all over Europe at the time. This extraordinary woman is said to have possessed the faculty of seeing into the human body, and also down into the depths of the earth. Père Lebrun says she had "true lynx-eyes," and to confirm it, he mentions, that once when the King of Portugal required water for a building he was constructing, she discovered several springs, merely by looking on the ground, though the men had dug for them in vain. The king was present when this occurred, and he in return gave her a pension and the decoration of the order of Christ for whomsoever she might marry. Père Lebrun observes, that it was a pity she did not understand the medical art,