MESMERISM.
NEXT after Nonintrusionism and Repeal, Mesmerism numbers the most fervid votaries.
In Paris, we learn from a correspondent of the Morning Herald, there are professional " somnambules," who make a livelihood by exhibiting themselves under the influence of the mesmeric mani- pulations, at private parties. They are of all ranks, in order that the biens'eances may not be violated by having a grisette mag- netized on the sofa of a dutchess. Though not to the same extent, something of the same kind is practised in London. The mes- meriser is generally attended on public occasions by one un- changing mesmerisee ; and some of these cataleptic pin-cushions are suspected to have been "rather hard up" before they took to
this line of business. From a provincial paper we learn that Dr. Eworsost has had, or is to have, the honour of exhibiting before a party of the Queen Dowager's Maids of Honour, who have -" openly and unhesitatingly" avowed themselves converts to mes- merism,—her Majesty's Maids of Honour being, of course, high authorities on a physiological question.
But if fashionable mesmerism has not attained the eclat in this capital which marks its progress in Paris, popular mesmerism in the provinces has reached a degree of intense excitement unparal- leled in France. Mesmeric "classes for the million" are being organized a la HULLAIL In Glasgow, seven-and-thirty mesmeric patients " all in a row" have been exhibited at once, in the largest hall of the city, to a crowded audience. Young ladies have been kept sitting in the cataleptic trance " an hour by Shrewsbury clock" with their legs stuck straight out before them, and in other comical attitudes ; young gentlemen in a state of somnambulism have been attracted by a flower, backwards and forwards, across a stage, as a swan of white wax with a needle in its belly is drawn by a magnet across a basin of water ; and the wondering specta- tors have applauded all the while, with an earnestness and sincerity equal to that with which the " galleries" in the General Assembly cheered the evacuation of the hall by the seceding ministers and elders.
The follies of fashion and popular excitement cannot convert a truth they may run after for a time into a falsehood; but they are absurd and mischievous in themselves, and they never promoted a iliscovery. The exclusive mesmerisers of the salons and the gaping crowds of public exhibitions are alike in search of excitement, and nothing more. These reunions are something like the melodra- matic displays of poor EDWARD IRVING, before daylight of a cold frosty morning, by one glimmering taper placed on the pavement of the chapel—for that too, and the gift of the unknown tongues, were phases of mesmerism; and their consequences can at best be but the same—the unsettling the reason of some of the more excit- able among those who take part in them. The mesmeric phteno- mena (admitting their reality) are the result of disease—the result of a derangement of the normal state of the human constitution. To hope to derive insight into the deeper mysteries of nature from the disjointed talk of sleepwalkers, is about as reasonable as to anticipate revelations from the jabbering of maniacs. The exhibi- tion of their antics to crowds of incompetent and excited specta- tors, is only calculated to spread the contagion. The habit of taking part in such displays inevitably tends to reduce the experi- menters to the level of itinerant lecturers on intoxicating gases, the "great Wizard of the North," and others whose sole aim is to produce startling effects. This is not the kind of publicity that affords security against deception. All jugglers, from the high-priest of a false religion down to the manipulator with the pea and thimble, can tell that crowds are more easily deluded than single persons.
As far as the mere physical symptoms go, enough has been con- fidently affirmed to entitle them to the serious investigation of phy- siologists. As to what is told of patients in the stage of " clair- voyance," and their intuitive powers of knowledge, Dr. ELLIOTSON is, it seems, of opinion, that in this condit:on such an irresistible taste for lying is developed in the patient, as renders it necessary to receive all his (or her) statements with considerable scepticism. With regard to the mesmeric phmnornena, as with regard to every subject of observation, it is advisable to learn the elements of a science before venturing upon its most abstruse and complicated problems. It may also be advisable to keep in view a weighty ob- servation of the late Sir CHARLES BELL—that in studying the living subject. observation is far more to be relied upon than expe- riment. Mesmerism is merely an artificial method of producing the phsenomena of somnambulism, which are in some developed by a natural process. The physiologist who patiently and attentively 'watches the phases of the spontaneous disease, may be certain that be sees Nature working : be who by artificial means creates it, knows not what allowance he ought to make for forcible derangement of function.
The mesmeric phasnotnena, it is said with some plausibility, threw light upon much that was inexplicable in old authenticated stories of priestly oracles, dwnioniacal possession, witchcraft, Sec. If the remark is correct, it only shows that mesmerism has been long enough an engine of quacks : not much will be gained by taking it out of the hands of the jugglers of the idolatrous altar and sorcerer's cave to place it in the hands of the jugglers of the theatre and conjuror's booth. It is too sharp an edge-tool to be made a plaything of. That the magnetic sleep has been made the means of alleviating the pain of disease and facilitating the transition from sickness to health, may be conceded; and yet, even in the case of the regular physician,
" Scarce we praise his venturous part Who tampers with such dangerous art."
But when this inversion or perversion of the physical functions is practised for the mere gratification of idle curiosity, we ought to apprize the unwary, that this is culpable trifling with an agent which has often irremediably shattered the constitution of indi- viduals and distressed the peace of families.
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