MESMERISM.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.
As a sincere believer (though convinced against my will) in the truth and importance of the mesmeric phxammena, I venture to question the soundness of the tone of some of your remarks on this subject, in the Spectator of the 10th instant.
Let us admit that exhibitions of the mesmeric art by persons who make money by the show, arc fit to be denounced as absurd or mischievous, because exhibitions for money are apt to make pbwnomena when they cannot find them ; still, what is the objection to other exhibitions of these strange and unaccountable appearances ? You say, let the matter be investigated by the experiments of men of science : but are you not aware that medical men in general hold the very subject in a kind of abhorrence? They cannot bear to hear of facts belonging to their science which they are utterly incapable of explaining; their self-love is deeply wounded when they have to confess their inability to account for the mesmeric plenomens; and they roughly deny that such phenomena exist, calling the believers dupes and charlatans. At present, therefore, no fair investigation in pursuit of truth is to be ex- pected from this class. The inquiry is thus left in the bands of those believers who wish that more should be discovered. They can only do as well as they can under the circumstances; and, in adopting this course of practical wisdom, they are surely justified in resorting to all the means by which public curiosity may be stimulated, and the only practicable sort of investigation be promoted. Exhibitions of phenomena are one of these means. I know not of any other that would at present be at all effectual. That this is not quite ineffectual, is proved by the rage of the doctors, whose pride of knoeledge it offends. That same pride of knowledge, that propen- sity to suppose that one knows all that can be known, is not confined to doc- tors. Will you excuse me for saying that it peeps out a little in the sneering tone of your recent remarks on mesmerism? A CONSTANT READER.
[So far from being influenced in our remarks by " the pride of knowledge," we are haunted by daily growing misgivings as to the possibility of knowing any thing about life and its mysteries. To rebuke the kind of exhibitions to which we more particularly referred, and to deprecate experimenting by unskil- ful hands where the health of the patient- may be so easily injured, is not to deny the reality of the mesmeric phienomena. In expressing a wish that the subject might be fairly investigated by men of science, we certainly had not an exclusive eye to medical men;' for the medical men of this country are too often any thing but men of science—that is, acute and patient observers, with
intellects.—En.]
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