ass. PRESENTED BY PHYSICO-PHYSIOLOGICAL RESEARCHES ON THE DYNAMICS OF MAGNETISM, ELECTRICITY, HEAT, LIGHT, CRYSTALLIZATION, AND CHEMISM, S IN THEIR RELATIONS TO bitcil Sota. BARON CHARLES VON REICHENBACH. < l THE COMPLETE WORK, FROM THE GERMAN SECOND EDITION. tBitjj tfjB %.Wtiim nf a ^rrfart attfr Crittral $n\n, BY JOHN ASHBURNER, M.D. FIRST AMERICAN EDITION. NEW-YORK : J. S. RED FIEL D, CLINTON-HALL BOSTON: B. B. MUSSEYACO. 185 1. ^ .(DsTf\54 " Einer neuen Wahrheit ist nichts schädlicher, als ein alter Irrthum." " Nothing is more injurious to a new truth than an old error." Göthe. " In science, nothing may be built upon uncertain possibilities ; science may not be a tissue of conjectures : it must consist, as far as possible, of a system of demonstrated realities." Berzehus. ! CONTENTS OF THE FIRST PART, Page. Commentary Preface, iv Introduction, 17 1st Treatise. — The Magnetic Light. The Aurora Borealis, 20 2nd Treatise. — Crystals : The relation of these and of the Magnet to human organs. The poles of Crystals. Light and force of these, 43 3rd Treatise. — Certain Physical and Physiological Laws of the Organic Force, hitherto called Magnetism. Relations to the Magnet, to Terrestrial Magnetism, and to Crystals, 93 ±th Treatise. — The rays of the sun and of the moon, heat, friction, light, — as sources of the new force 117 5tk Treatise. — Chemism ; the Magnetic tub ; Digestion ; Chemical action. The light over graves. Voltaic and frictional Electricity ; Electrical Atmosphere, 133 &lh Treatise. — Matter in General ; the Heavenly Bodies ; Regions of the Earth. The new force, embracing the whole Universe. Nomenclature. The word Od, 153 1th Treatise. — Dualism in the Odic Phenomena. Warmth and Cold. Mag- nets, Crystals, Plants, the Human Body ; their two halves ; all polar. -f Od and —Od. Variability of the odic intensity in time, in the human body, 1 «9 Conclusion, 220 PREFACE. The present edition of a translation of these Researches owes its existence per- haps to one, perhaps to a series of misapprehensions, with which the public may have little concern. Certain it is, that at no time, have I had the slighest inten- tion to be guilty of a want of courtesy towards the gentleman who had, by the publication of a very skilful abstract of his labors in the year 1846, the merit of introducing the Baron von Reichenbach to the British public, as an investigator of the Philosophy of Mesmerism. Various efforts have been made to convince me that I did not act as I ought to have done, in omitting to place myself in com- munication with Professor Gregory, when I was applied to by the Publisher, through a well-known literary physician, to furnish some notes to a complete edition of these Researches ; but I confess my obtuseness shuts out from my mind the light of all the reasoning that has been brought to bear on this matter. All that I can allow is, that although I have no personal acquaintance with the Pro- fessor, I am very sorry in any way to have injured his feelings, and I am grieved to find myself in such a relative position with a man for whom I am bound to entertain a deep respect ; for, besides his high scientific reputation, he is known to have the courage to avow his belief in Phrenology and in Mesmerism, " even in the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him ; but," to all like the Professor, it may be said, " ye know him, for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you !" To me, feeling quite inno- cent of all wrong intention, in the perfect freedom of action which, under the cir- cumstances, I claim for myself, it is sad to be at opposite poles with one who is of the salt of this earth. To those who cannot know of the dire consequences re- sulting from the aggregation of the petty and repulsive mental forces concentra- ting and directing in society the baneful powers of their various influences upon characters who dare to think for themselves, — who are hardly aware that new truths are met so frequently by sneers, taunts, ridicule, or that unworthy social persecution, at once the proof of a want of capacity to be noble and just, and the disgrace of an advanced civilization, — the exalted courage of such persons must be lost. To those who know how to respect scientific ardor, and a pure love of truth, the fortitude of a faithful and sincere man is for high admiration, and for deep respect. Such observations are perhaps equally applicable to the Professor, and to hi3 friend the Baron, and I may be regarded as bold in remarking, as freely as I have done, on some of the philosophy in the following pages. No one can entertain a deeper veneration for large cerebral organizations than I do. I am clear, from PREFACE. v the work before us, that so much patience, so much ingenuity, so much caution, so much concentration, so much ideal resource, so much just and honest desire to be true, could not characterize any individual, who had not a rare combination of organs in his magnificent head. Regarding any person in this point of view, one is immediately at liberty to look out for all those inconsistencies that belong to humanity ; deeply respecting the excellencies, and always, with due humility, doubting one's own power of detecting the weakness that may belong to any logi- cal edifice he may construct. There are not wanting persons who doubt entirely of the Baron's power of accurate and severe observation. They doubt some of his most striking facts. They deny the accuracy of his results with the magnet and photographic plate. Some, and among them are persons of no mean note as scientific characters, affect to hold him in very secondary estimation — pitying him for wild ideas, and deny- ing that his researches deserve any rank as philosophy. But the Baron is not the builder up of a tall house of loose cards tobe toppled down by a breath. I have not tried all his experiments. I have tried, compara- tively, only a few. Where I have found the suitable cases, the results have been, •with few exceptions, identical. Then, because I have been disappointed in the results of many other experi- ments, I have no right to conclude that the Baron is at fault, but rather that I have not yet been fortunate enough to meet with exactly the same description of case he terms the " sick sensitive" — a vague expression of an idea, with which, surely, it is not criminal to disagree. Long before I had read Professor Gregory's abstract, I had arrived at conclusions on differences, as well as analogies, between electric, magnetic, and mesmeric agencies, and, operating differently, have wit- nessed many confirmations of the facts established by the Baron. Dr. Elliotson lias noted many remarkable analogies in many pages of the Zoist. But then, the greater number of our cases have been in mesmerized persons. How the Baron would have fared, as to his conclusions, if he had not taken up the study of his subject, in its most elemental form, is another question. Seeing, as I do, the con- ditions of his patients, in a different puint of view, from that in which he regards them, I cannot concede to him that, professing to contemn the mesmeric state, as one unfit for his purpose, he has not been operating with persons, who, though not at all asleep, have actually been in a state constituting the very condition which distinguishes some of the phenomena of somnambulism. One mistake has been, to suppose that the truthfulness of an individual depends upon a certain normal state of the general fibres of the brain, instead of the tendencies derived from a particular relative size, and combination of certain organs of that viscus. A patient, who is a sleep-waker, may, from a certain configuration of organs, be a most just and honorable character, and have that fine disposition considerably ex- alted by the state of somnambulism ; while a wide-awake person may be a most cunning and habitual deceiver. Another mistake is, to suppose that the "sensi- tive," and " sick sensitive,'' form a category, independent of all phrenological, and all mesmeric considerations. They are, in fact, those most easily affected by mes- meric and crystallic agencies — those most obedient to the influence of the silent will— and those most easily stimulated to clairvoyance, in the state of wide vigi- lauce. Certain I am, that with the advantages offered by the power of his head, the Baron would have advanced both further and faster, if, to all his other know- ledge, he had combined a more, extensive view of physiological pathology, with a study of phrenology and mesmerism. They may oppose the truth in Germany, as they do here. The Author exhibits some of their doings, but the Baron has the courage flowing from a sense of justice. He worships the spirit of truth, wliich must eventually prevail. I marvel at many of the objectors to his phil- vi PREFACE. osophy, for in regarding these researches -with the eye of criticism, ready to seize a weak point, I feel that one is at a loss which most to admire, — the plain, straightforward, philosophical acumen which guides each consecutive inquiry, or the combination of ingenuity and common sense with which questions of great delicacy are made subservient to the progress of severe inquiry. Time and op- portunity only are required to corroborate rather than to correct the facts he has advanced. Those who venture to risk their own reputations in throwing doubts on the Baron's results, should remember that the conditions under which the ex- periments were originally made, must, in justice, be strictly repeated. The dis- coverer of creosote, paraffine, eupion, and many other new compounds, for the knowledge of which the world is indebted to his laborious researches, is not a common-place authority ; and he has now taken up a subject, the truth of which will roll with tremendous force over all obstacles. Those who regard the science of Physics, in the isolated form in which it is gen- erally presented in most of the Elements of Natural Philosophy, must necessarily have a very limited view of the importance of the researches now presented to the public. Indeed, it would be, at present, almost impossible to indicate all the points in cosmogony, to which the Baron von Reichenbach's commencement, in strict logical deduction, on imponderable agencies, may not, at a future period, have a positive reference. It may be remarked, that the evolution of each new fact is a step in that progress, which may be ultimately connected with the forces, agencies, fluids, or powers that pervade space in universal nature. Undoubtedly, the attempt to place Mesmerism within the domain of physics was a bold conception. It is an attempt to bring the whole of physiology into the strict limits of chemical philosophy. The establishment of the existence of the odic force is that which was wanting to reply to most of the questions respecting life. No doubt much is yet to be desired in order to clear the obscurities enveloping the innumerable modifications of this force ; but enlightenment reaches us from the enlightened, and the Baron pursues his continued researches with a zeal which promises to unfold to us many a new principle, as well as many a new fact connected with this subject ; and, considering the very curious investigations which will be published in the second part of this work, it is hardly too much to antici- pate that we may, ere long, be favored with some insight into the philosophy of a subject evidently connected with the matter of fight, or in some Avay allied with that of the development of either latent light, or of some combination of a share of tins principle with certain organic re-agents. The researches into odic light by the Baron do not appear yet to belong immediately to clairvoyance, and yet the links which connect the inquiries are not far off. Numerous questions suggest themselves in an examination of the philosophy of this subject : — Why the con- dition of brain favorable to the development of clairvoyance should belong to cer- tain individuals, and not to others ? Why it should belong to some nervous sus- ceptible temperaments, and not to others? Why some insane persons should be in the category, and not others ? Why in some brains these peculiar developments of mental lucidity should take place, quickly and easily, by peculiar stimulants, while others should require a long period for the attainment of the object ? Why, in some, the phenomena are not produced without a long course of mesmeric sleep, while in others, the presence of certain individuals, or of certain crystals, or of clear bottles of clean mesmerized water, in the same room, suffice to excite the brain to the requisite condition? In one and the same person, one mesmerizer shall never be able to produce clairvoyance ; another mesmerizer will establish it, at the first seance. I have no doubt of these facts : I have often witnessed them. I have produced the condition of clairvoyance ; but the kind and the degree of the phe- nomena differed, very remarkably, from those produced by Major Buckley, in the PREFACE. vü same patients. Repeatedly I have tried, in vain, to make clairvoyant somnam- bules read printed words which were enclosed in a pill-box. Major Buckley, ignorant of the same words, has had them quickly read in the innermost of a nest of five, four of them tightly-fitting silver boxes. The stimulus afforded by the odic lights issuing from my brain, must then be very different from that of those emitted by his. I have elsewhere said, (Zoist, vol. iv., p. 125) before the abstract of the work of Reichenbach appeared here, that "striking facts may be adduced which may tend to the conclusion that the exercise of the faculties of the human mind, and' particularly that of the will, is attended by the emanation of a fluid from the brain, from the fingers, seats of the functional extremities of the nerves, or from some part of the person who may be exercising the mental faculties. I pro- pose to show that the same series of "events may be produced in individuals of a certain nervous diathesis, by the impingement of a fluid evolved by the will of another ; or by manipulations attended by the emanation of the same fluid, or by certain emanations from magnets, or from some metallic wires, through which currents of electricity are passed ; or from the direct application of certain metals. I do not attempt to establish the identity of these fluids, for the facts daily de- veloping themselves tend to show that the distinctive properties of these fluids are as various as the substances from which they emanate ; and it may be that the great power, antecedent to all consequents, may ordain the simplicity and unity of one electric, and gravitating with centrifugal force, evolving an infinite compli- cation and variety of magnetic cohesive and repulsive agencies ; the entire system emerging from the volonte directing ' La Grande Formule.' "* All these con- siderations are for inquiry. Thev must meet with scrutiny, and new truths will be elicited, multiplying the facts" prolonging the interest and the fame attached to the genius of the discoverer of the odic force. We are but at the commence- ment of the wonders of clairvoyance, and can certainly be in no position to esti- mate the great fund of new truths, that by means of its cultivated agency, are in store for us. "We are so often met with objections as to the possibility of the phenomena of clairvoyance, that after the Baron von Reichenbach's arguments on the varying powers of various individuals to perceive the odic flames, one is tempted to adduce the fact discovered by Sir Isaac Newton, that the densest and heaviest metal, gold, has more poresf in it than solid metallic particles, and con- sequently that light may be transmitted through it ; and if so, it is quite possible * A «series of essays, under the sicnature of Ignotus, appeared in the London Journal and Repertory of Arts, Sciences, and Manufactures, in the year 1848, which contained many very ingenious speculations on imponderable bodies, and which, though not founded on original ex- perimental inquiry, are deserving of attention from the point of view in which these agencies are regarded, ... i Ignotus maintains that three distinct kinds of imponderable matter exist in nature, namely— magnetine, or the principle of magnetism ; lumine, or the principle of light; and calorine, or the principle of heat ; and that the whole of these are capable ol existing In either a tree or latent state and of manifesting chemical agencies, by virtue of which they are mainly influential in inducing the various phenomena which nature exhibits,— as, for instance, the tendencies of the chemical elements (of which they are constituents), to enter into chemical action and produce new compounds. Upon their agencies depend the principle of gravitation, of the ag- gregation and segregation of the molecules of ponderable matter; of ordinary electricity ; of voltaism and catalysis ; and it is upon their operation, but more particularly on the influence of magnetine, that the vital functions, in all their modifications, are dependent. With respect to electricity, Ignotus regards this principle as distinct from magnetism and vol- taism and attributes its phenomena to the disengagement of a hitherto undesenbed ponderable chemical element, which he terms electrine, and which he assumes to be an essential constit- U Thave' X reason to believe that, since his original publication, Ignotus has occupied himself with important alterations and'additions, his views now extending to the creation of the uni- verse, and constituting in fact a new chemical theory of nature. t See " A Dissertation on the .(Ether of Sir Isaac Newton," by Bryan Robinson, M.D., p. 11. viii PREFACE. to conceive of its being diaphanous to certain individuals possessed of a highly sensitive nervous system. But what are the marvellous things of clairvoyance, compared to those contained in a supplementary note to the relation between Holy Scripture and some parts of geological science, by Dr. Pye Smith, to which I refer below in order to cause reflection on such matters ?* Here our object is * In the ' Philosophical Transactions ' for 1800, is a paper by the late Sir William Herschel upon the Power of Telescopes to Penetrate into Space, a property distinct from the magnifying power. By observations and calculations, which appear to have been corroborated by facts independently and previously ascertained, the space-penetrating power of his forty feet reflec- tor is brought out to be a little more than 191 times that of ordinary natural vision, or extend- ing to more than 300,000 times the distance of Sirius, which, on satisfactory grounds, is re- garded as one of the nearest of the fixed stars. The light by which Sirius is seen by us, moving at its known velocity of 192,000 miles in a second, is at least six years and fourmonths on its passage from our system. By applying the equation which Sir William had established, he brought out that the brilliant nebulae, which only that telescope can reach, are distant from our earth such an immense number of miles, that to express them our arithmetical numeration requires twenty figures, of which the first eight are 11,765,475, the eleven denoting trillions, and the other number billions ; the remaining part of the sum being much more than 948,000 millions. This almost unmanageable number is expressed by Sir William Herschel thus — 'above llf millions of millions of millions of miles!' It follows that the light by which those bright objects become visible to us cannot have been less than one million and nine hundred thousand years in its progress. Yet when we have strained our minds to contemplate, in the extremely feeble manner to which our faculties are competent, this overwhelming distance, we have no reason to think that we have touched the circumference of the astral sphere ; or that we have advanced be- yond the threshold of God's creation. If it be objected that, in accordance with these deductions, we might expect new portions of Jehovah's dominion to be frequently disclosing themselves, stars and clusters of stars ' blush- ing out ' on our view, new to us, because their light hau now first arrived at our earthly abode, I conceive the following considerations sufficient to meet the objection : — 1. The absolute distances of fixed stars and groups from each other may be such as to re- quire respective intervals of years and even centuries for the light of the more remote objects to reach us ; that light arriving successively from each according to the distance. 2. Our case refers to objects which, though self-luminous, are not visible to the naked eye. They may ' blush out,' even frequently ; but men are not capable of being their observers. Only a few of mankind can enjoy, and be qualified to use, such telescopes as those of Sir Wil- liam Herschel, and his still more accomplished son. 3. Granting the possession of these advantages, the opportunities for observation are too scanty for the construction of a negative argument. Sir William Herschel, in the same paper, says that the number of night-hours, suited to this kind of celestial observation, is averaged favorably in our climate atone hundred in a year ; and that to ' sweep '■ — to examine as rapidly as is consistent with astronomical attention — every zone of the heavens, for the two hemis- pheres, would require eight hundred and eleven of such favorable years. The number of the objects to be observed is great almost beyond conception. Sir William Herschel, by counting the stars in a definite portion of the field of view which he observed in one hour, and estima- ting the rest, concluded that fifty thousand passed under his review in that hour. It is there- fore within the scope of probability that new masses of light are achieving their first arrival in 'parts of our telescopic sphere, frequently without its being possible for men to be aware of it ; and, when any of them comes to be discovered, the date of their arrival is unknown. I draw no argument from the fact that, within the short period of the last two or three cen- turies, stars have been discovered which earlier catalogues or descriptions had not noticed. The attention, requisite to give certainty in this matter, we cannot assume to have been exer- cised ; and to look for evidence from this quarter would be forgetting that it can exist in the do- main of only the greatest telescopic powers. These views of the antiquity of that vast portion of the Creator's works which astronomy discloses, may well abate our reluctance to admit the deductions of geology, concerning the past ages of our planets' existence. — [Supplementary note to the relation between the Holy Scriptures and some parts of Geological Science. By Dr. Pye Smith.] Nor ought it to be forgotten that these very principles and deductions of geology, that have excited so much of alarm and opposition among some friends of religion, and so much of pre- mature and groundless exultation among its enemies, have nevertheless, when taken in con- nection with astronomy, developed and established a law of God's natural government of the universe, grand beyond all. others known to man, and undiscovered or only dimly seen by the great minds of other generations. I refer to the fact, that perpetual change is made the grand conservative and controlling principle of the universe. Men have always seen and felt this in- stability in respect to everything on earth ; and they have regarded it as a defect, rather than as a wise law of the natural world. But they now find it to be equally tme of suns and planets PREFACE. ix not to display wonders, but while in passing we reply to objectors, we must con- tinue to illustrate the leading purpose of these researches, really and truly the philosophy of mesmerism. Strange would it be if the wonders of clairvoyance ; those of the phenomena detected by the telescope ; the events accruing from the nature of living organisms, in all their infinite varieties, should finally be depen- dent on the same force, which Newton contemplated, in his acute conjecture that water was a compound body, and which gave rise to the wild but important speculations of Mesmer, on the existence of an universal fluid, when he led the way to the facts of a new science, which, after a struggle of eighty years, has emerged in the hands of Von Reichenbach into principles applicable to all nature. A remarkable fact connected with the emergence of mesmerism into its present importance is the serious neglect of its merits which has marked the conduct of those who were bound to encourage them, by study and inquiry. Really, prac- tically, mesmerism has deserved very different treatment. It has merited high civic honors. It has, under the patient j^hilosophic guidance of Dr. Elliotson, conquered malignant cancer. It has removed enormous growths known as poly- pus, as I can testify. I know that it has chased away large ovarian tumors, and dropsies that have defied all medical skill. It has cured malignant fevers in their advanced stages. It has removed tubercles, and healed abscesses. To enumer- ate all the good that has been done by this agent, combined with the essence of human kindness — for without that the practice of mesmerism is useless — would take many volumes. Thousand of cases are now extant of the benefits derived from this holy power. The Zoist is the grand English work of testimony on this subject, and it is full of useful information, as well as of noble essays to advance the cause of humanity. The defenders of mesmerism have, in that work, labored hard for the truth, which they have advocated with the boldness belonging to sincerity. How much soever they have been opposed by the sordid and the mean, by those systematically opposed to the progress of expansion — with whatever success falsehood has retarded the march of useful knowledge — it is consoling to the writers in the Zoist to know that the great cause is advancing. Small-minded men, not capable, from unfortunate organization of brain, of believing in truths at variance with the idols they have been accustomed to worship, set themselves up as oracles of wisdom. Too many implicitly give up their convictions to such in- competent leaders ! Eight, however, as they will against the truth, it is always too strong for its opponents. Time, which settles all differences, by changing old things and by bringing forward new, sweeps away the fallacies of the obsti- nately proud and ignorant. Would it were possible for small minds to reflect, that all their efforts to establish falsehood will not alter the laws of nature, and no folly of striving to prove that falsehood is truth can change these established laws ! For nearly eighty years has the professional world of science opposed it- self to the discovery of Mesmer, yet still the facts exist. Turn to the truths placed before mankind by the stupendous powers of observation and catenation of that rare genius, Gall ! It is sickening to note the causes which have hitherto de- prived society of the advantages, destined to accrue to our race, at a later period, by the cultivation of phrenology. How curiously and strikingly has mesmeric science verified all the discoveries of Gall ! Still the flood of opposition pours on, and the pretenders to religion, real enemies of the spirit of truth, with awful pride and cunning, endeavor by sly arts to crush its rising lights. ns of plants and animals. Perpetual change, perpetual progression, increase, and diminution, appear to be the rules of the material world, and to prevail without exception. — [Professor Whewell, quoted by Or. Pye Smith. J Burke might be quoted on the same subject, for with the acumen and terseness of Genius, he says in a letter to Sir Henry Langrishe, Change is the great Law of Nature. x ' PREFACE. It is remarkable that three great philosophers, each in succession, in some measure contemning the labors of his predecessor, should have arisen in the same spot ; that each should have put forth a discovery of signal importance to the philosophy of mind ; that Vienna should be the well-spring, whence these lights should radiate ; that the sparkling, crystalline, luminous knowledge emanating from that fountain, placed in the central capital of European civilization, should have reflected a glory round the names of three philosophers, which will em- blazon iheir researches as amongst the most important that can occupy the atten- tion of mankind ; that Mesmer, Gall, and Reichenbach, first announced their grand ideas from the capital of the Austrian empire. The Baron von Reichenbach may not believe himself complimented by this allocation. He may have some scientific pride, notwithstanding the size and quality of the majority of the organs of his brain ; nevertheless, the reflection must be made, that all knowledge is relative, as every atom of matter is relative. Nothing is fixed and absolute ; but in the vast range of human acquirement, it would be difficult to exhibit three sets of facts, announced at separate intervals of time, having so intimate a relation to each other, and which are so interwoven in their dependencies, as those Viennese discoveries ; having, moreover, such numerous alliances to all the circumstances to which man can, by turns, transfer his attentions. Where will all this philosophy lead us ? Can any sincere person entertain a doubt ? It is the spirit of truth which is about to be victorious. It is not a question as to the appreciation, at the present moment, of the best knowledge, of the soundest philosophy. Educated in selfishness, we five in a world of hallu- cinations. It has been well said that we form one large lunatic establishment. We are surrounded by influences that are always tending to impress upon us a desire to succumb to the tyranny of falsehood. The conventional habits of our lives make us, more or less, hypocrites ; and according to the energy, originality, or some other individual peculiarity of our character, we swerve from the lean- ing of our fellow-men. If the proposition be offered to his innate desire for jus- tice, it is not that man does not essentially love truth, but that the progress of his organization, through ages, has not yet ripened sufficiently to allow that expanded development which, as science advances, must have place in a more perfect arrangement of society. Man cannot yet worship truth as the best knowledge. He has not yet passed the age of idols. The knavery of the selfish and interested is always ready to excite his lower feelings against that which is really holy and reverential, the sacred will of the Most Just. But the good time approaches — for science advances with immensely rapid strides. Those who are now young have to witness many improvements, all tending, like the researches of the Baron von Reichenbach, to expand the intellects and morals of man, and to lead liirn finally to the realms of light. JOHN ASHBURNER. 65, Grosvenor Street, April 25, 1850. THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. The following treatises were originally destined to appear singly in the month- ly parts of Liebig's " Annalen der Chemie," and should, from the time they were given in, have been commenced in July, 1844. Accidental circumstances de- layed their publication, and thus it happened that several of them became united in entire parts of that work, and then were first given to the public in March and May, 1845. This will explain their somewhat unusual form. In the present Second Edition there are some corrections, but, as a whole, the principal contents have remained unaltered ; my researches, continued without interruption during the several years that have elapsed, have strengthened and confirmed the earlier observations. I have considered that I could not abandon the half-historical, half-systematic course of the enumeration of my observations, ami the detail of my judgments upon them, since it is that of natural science gene- rally, in which the correction of earlier experiments always keeps pace with the extension of our knowledge. It was to be expected that a subject of so unusual and peculiar a kind as the present researches would meet with objections ; and I was aware beforehand that I should have to defend my experiments, and the deductions I had drawn from them, against ill-founded and groundless opposition. The new field of re- search which was laid open pushes its lines too near the bastions of established formula;, frequently involves, in too many convolutions, all that exists in the pre- sent doctrines of natural dynamics, for the necessary space to be freely allowed to it. Yet I thought only of reasonable criticism of my observations, perhaps of unsuccessful repetitions of my experiments, arising here and there from faulty arrangement ; that my conclusions might be contested, or other views built upon the facts brought forward : but I was not prepared for an attack, which every true friend of science will unite with me in calling unprovoked, such as was made upon my work, and upon myself personally, by a Dr. Dubois- Reymond, in Karstens "Fortschritte der Physik ha Jahre 1845." This naturalist does not find it at all necessary to go into my experiments, and the conclusions deduced from them, but briefly and superficially designates my book as an " absurb ro- mance," the details of which " it would be fruitless and to him impossible to en- ter." I believe both of these assertions. Fruitless ; because he has not under- stood them, and an uncomprehended and incomprehensible criticism is fruitless. Impossible ; because he has not read them in connection ; and to enter into a mat- ter of which one has acquired no knowledge, is impossible. And that he really xii AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. has not read them, but turned over the leaves in the fashion of a superficial and unscrupulous reviewer, is proved by his calling my work " the New Testament of Mesmerism :" thus he has not seen that it is the very first, in this field, which runs counter to Mesmer's views in most points, and places the phenomena on wholly different ground. With silly jests he says, he " is greeted by the magne- tic tub and complex magic wares of the Baron von Reichenbach,"