The principle called Animal} Magnetism or Mesmerism being coeval with man's existence, doubtless lay at the foundation of the otherwise inexplicable, mysterious, and miraculous in the life and religions of ancient. people. The following will serve to illustrate—"The Charlatans," says Celsus, "performed extraordinary cures by the mere apposition of the hands, and cured patients by blowing.

Among the Hebrews and Assyrians these means were resorted to in the cureof disease—"Naaman said, I thought he would stand and strike Ms hand [strike up-and down in the original] over the place, and recover the leper" (2 Kings v, II). Spiritual powers, gifts of healing, prophecy, and leadership were also conveyed by the apposition of the hands. "The Lord said unto Moses, Take Joshua, the son of Nun, a man on whom is the spirit, and lay thy hands upon him. Set him before the priest and congregation, and ask counsel for him. And he laid Ms hands upon him as the Lord commended" (Numbers xxvii, 18, 23). "And Joshua was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands upon him."

Innumerable passages could be quoted from the sacred books of the Hebrews in support of the practice, some of the effects approximating more to the incidents of Modern Spiritualism than to purely mesmeric phenomena. These, the curious can look up for themselves.

The prophets of Israel, or seers, were consulted in private matters as well as the sacred things. In 1 Samuel (Chap. IX) you will find Saul, son of Kish, consulting Samuel the prophet (paying him a fee too) in order that he (Saul) might learn from the seer the whereabouts of his father's asses.

Soothsaying, obsession, trance, visions, and inspiration were all accepted facts among these people. The evil and the good depended on the source. When Ahab, King of Israel, wished to know if he should be successful in war and take Ramoth in Gilead, he assembled his prophets to the number of four hundred. This was considered wrong,—as was also the action of Saul, seeking to know his ultimate destiny and that of his kingdom from the spirit of Samuel. Right or wrong, it is never doubted in the sacred record that Samuel did come back and what he predicted did take place. With the Hebrews, Jehovah not only spoke by prophet, revealed. His wishes through the seer, but He communicated with man during dreams and in the visions of the night, to warm "man of the evil he doeth, and to instruct him on the way he should know."

" Healing by the laying on of the hands was common among the Jews, and was practised by the Founder of Christianity and His immediate followers with marvellous results. ''Many were astonished that such mighty works were wrought by His hands" {Mark vi, 2). "Lay hands upon the sick, and they shall recover"' (Mark xvi. 18). "The Lord granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands" (Acts xiv. 3). As illustrative of what I wish to point out in the light of modern science—held in consistently by professing Christians.—Naaman, if cured, was cured by imagination or suggestion, while the cures of Christ and the apostles are placed in the category of effects which had no occult basis other than in the '"dominant idea" of the "operator" and the "expectancy" of the subject.

MESMERISM AMONG THE GREEKS.

The Greeks derived most of their customs from India and Egypt Medicine with them was a species of priestcraft the mysteries of which the initiated could not reveal to the profane without sacrilege.

The first Greek physicians, for the cure of their patients, used certain magic processes, which can only be compared to the manipulations of the modern-mesmerist.

"The affections suffered by, the body," says Hippocrates, "the soul sees quite well with shut eyes." "Wise physicians, even among the ancients, were aware how beneficial to the blood it is to make slight friction with hands over the body. It is believed by many experienced doctors that the heat which oozes out of the hand on being applied to the sick, is highly salutary-and-suaging. The remedy has been found to be applicable to sudden as well as to habitual pains, and various species of debility, being both renovating and strengthening in its effects-It has often appeared, while 1 have thus been soothing my patients, as ifthere were a singular property, in my. hands to pull and draw away from the affected parts aches and diverse impurities, by laying my hand upon the place, and by extending my fingers towards it Thus it is known to some of the learned... that health may be implanted in the sick by certain gestures, and by contact as some diseases may becommunicated from one toanother."

According to Strabo, there was between Nepa and Fralea a cavern consecated to Pluto and Juno, in which the priests slept for the sake of the patients who came to consult them.

According to M. Foissac, the familiar spirit, the demon of Socrates, that interior voice which appraised him of that which was to happen, and of that which he should do, was nothing but a state of crisis or of natural somnambulism with which the godlike genius was frequently affected.

In this I do not agree with M. Foissac. We have no record of Socrates having been in a somnambulistic condition, natural or artificial. It were easier to believe that Socrates had a demon, that is— a real sentient (but spiritual) being who communicated with him—as he believed—than accept the foregoing, or conclude with ML Lebut, 'that Socrates 'laboured under attacks of temporary insanity. Spiritual influences and spiritual faith were not confined to the Israelites.

MESMERISM AMONG THE ROMANS.

Esculapius delivered oracles in a dream for the cure of his patients. He breathed on the diseased parts, or allayed pain by the stroking of his hands and often, as also did his disciples, threw his other patients into long and refreshing sleeps for the recovery of health.

"I will not suffer persons" say Varro, "to deny that the Sibyl has given men good counsel during her life, and that she left after death predictions which are still eagerly consulted on all difficult emergencies. It is recorded in St. Justin '"that the Sibyls spoke many great things with justice and truth, and that when the instinct which animated them ceased to exist, they lost the recollections of all they had declared."

According' to Celsus, Asclepiades put to sleep, by means of frictions, those affected by frenzy. Where their frictions were prolonged, the' patient was plunged into a deep" lethargic sleep. Heidenhain's "cutaneous irritations" seem to be the legitimate successors of Asclepiades, Motions. There can be no . doubt that the effects produced in these and in similar instances were identical in character with the mesmeric phenomena of to-day.

MESMERISM IN FRANCE. The modern Frenchman, like his ancient forbear, the Gaul, is particularly susceptible to mesmeric influences. Its present day hypnotic wonders are but the continuation, in another phase, of the higher religious manifestations, which took place amid the mystic surroundings of the Druidic temples. Women brought up and instructed by the Druids, we are informed, delivered oracles, foretold the future, and cured diseases. The accounts given by Tacitus,

Lampridius, and Vopiscus regarding the Druids, bear testimony to the confidence they had in the accuracy of their predictions. Endowed with extraordinary talents, they (the Druidesses) cured diseases deemed incurable, knew the future, and announced it to the people. In the Middle Ages "The Churches" observes M. Mialle, "succeeded the temples of the ancients, into which the traditions and processes of magnetism were consigned—the same habits of passing whole nights in them, the same dreams, the same visions, and the same cures, The true miracles performed on the tombs of the saints are recognized by characters which is. not in the power of man to imitate; but we must exclude from the list of the ancient legends a multitude of very extraordinary cures where religion and faith interfered only so far as to produce dispositions eminently favourable to the natural action of magnetism."

A rigid and critical analysis of the records of the middle ages would be here impossible, if not out of place, It would require a volume merely to name the facts, from the exorcisms of Saint Gregory Thaumaturgus to the convulsionaries of Saint Medard. Some intelligent men, one hundred years before Mesmer, like their compeers of to-day, were disposed to deny the reality of the miraculous, or to attribute their existence to magnetism.

"Magnetism," says Von Helmont, "is active everywhere, and has nothing new but the name, it is a paradox only to those who ridicule everything, and who attribute to the power of Satan, whatever they are unable to explain."

In all times, as well as in all countries, extraordinary things have passed for supernatural from the moment they are no longer admitted of explanation; and it is natural to refer and attribute supernatural things to a divine power. That which is esteemed supernatural and divine so becomes the basis of religion. So we find in Pagan antiquity, in the middle ages, and at the present time these phenomena inextricably 'mixed up with the history of religion.

Miracles (marvellous cures and misunderstood nervous and mental phenomena) were dethroned by the savant in science and. philosophy and attributed to magnetism 200 years ago. Even where similar phenomena occur, and are admitted, magnetism—Dia or Zoo—is totally denied by the savants in the present day, at home or abroad, and "the effects attributed to Animal Magnetism in the past are now produced by "Neuro-Hypnotism," "reflex action of the cerebral nerves", "cutaneous irritations", "expectancy", "suggestion," "credulity", "imagination" "stupidity," and other infinite "isms" appertaining tothe nomenclature of modern science. ANIMAL MAGNETISM, it is assured, is a psychological, mathematical point, without form and void, having a location only in the superstitions of the ignorant.

MESMERISM SUBSEQUENT TO MESMER.

DR. ANTHONY MESMER was born on 5th May, 1734, in a small town called Stein, on the bank of the Rhine, This celebrated man studied medicine, and obtained the degree of doctor at Vienna under Professor Van Swieten and Haen, and became acquainted with the virtues of animal magnetism by seeing the wonderful cures performed by a Father Hehl, a Jesuit priest About 1750 this young, doctor commenced to investigate the matterfor himself; and, having satisfied himself of the reality of the cures made, he commenced a series of independent experiments. Father Hehl's cures were supposed to be produced by the subtle influence, or fluid of magnetism, which was imparted to patients from steel plates and magnets prepared and used for the purpose. One day Mesmer, having bled a patient, accidently passed his hand over the cicatrix, or lance puncture, and observed that his hand produced the exact results which had hitherto been produced by the magnets.

Mesmer, from the nature of his inaugural thesis. "On the Influence of the Planets of the Human

Body," upon obtaining Ms degree might be expected to see a relationship between the subtle influence exerted by the loadstone or magnet and that of the human hand, and the adoption by him of animal magnetism, as an adequate theory to cover all the phenomena created or experienced by him, seems to have been a natural and easy conclusion.

Mesmer, having learned the art of curing disease from Father Hehl, applied himself to the cure of disease with "extraordinary success."' "He left Vienna,, and travelling throughout Germany and Switzerland he continued to "work .wonders" his cures approximating to the miraculous. Kings and Courtiers, as well as the people, vied with each other for an opportunity to attend his levees and partake in his seances In 1778 he started for Paris; here his success in;curing disease was so remarkable that the elite of society struggled for the privilegeof waiting upon him and of learning his art A society was actually formed for the purpose of acquiring his secret and; using it for the cure of disease.. Somnambulism and clairvoyance had not yet been developed; by his process.

MESMER'S THEORY OF ANIMAL MAGNETISM. .

"There is a reciprocal action and re-action between the planets, the earth, and animated nature.

"The means of operating this action and reaction, is a most fine, subtle fluid, which penetrates every thing, and is capable of receiving and communicating all kinds of motions and impressions.

'This is brought about by mechanical, but, as yet, unknown laws.

"The reciprocal effects are analogous to the ebb and flow.

"The properties of matter, and of organization, depend upon reciprocal action.

"This fluid exercises an immediate action on the nerves, with which it embodies itself, and produces in the human body phenomena similar to those produced by the loadstone, that is polarity and inclination. Hence the name ANIMAL MAGNETISM.

"This fluid flows with the greatest quickness from body to body, acts at a distance, and is reflected by the mirror like light, and it is strengthened and propagated by sound.. There are animated bodies which exercise an action directly .opposite to Animal Magnetism. Their presence alone is capable of destroying the effects of Magnetism. This power is also a positive power.

"By means of Animal Magnetism we can effect an immediate cure of the nervous diseases, and a mediate cure of all disorders; indeed, it explains the action of the medicaments, and operates the crisis.

"The physiciancan discover by magnetism the manner of the most complicated diseases."

Mesmer had many disciples and ardent followers, among whom were some of the ablest men of the day, such as the Marquis of Puysegure, Caullet de Veaumorel, Petetin, Bergasse, Schelling, Von Humboldt, Ritter, Treveranus, Walther, Hufeland, Echenmayor, Nasse, Ness of Essenback, Francis Bader-Kieser, and Jussifeu, the celebrated botanist.

A Commission of Inquiry was appointed by the French Government. The report in the main confirmed the reality of the phenomena, But the whole was conducted in an unsatisfactory manner. The Commissioners could not agree among themselves as to the basis upon which to begin their investigations. They were, however, more or less agreed to this, that Animal Magnetism was thelast thing they would give in to. Jusseu, the botanist already mentioned, a member of the Commission, investigated the subject for himself. He pronounced in favour of Animal Magnetism, adducing a great number of facts in its support.

The French Revolution, rather than any mistakes or vagaries of Mesmer, or the unfavourable report/of the Commission of Louis XVI, eclipsed the. popularity of Mesmerism in France for a time.

In Prussia the light still burned with a steady and brilliant flame. The Prussian Government appointed Professors of Mesmerism at the various Universities throughout the kingdom and established an hospital for the Magnetic treatment of disease at Jena, the director of which was sent to Switzerland to obtain from Mesmer the requisite instructions. The Scientific Society of Berlin offered a prize of 3300 francs for the best explanation of Mesmeric phenomena while the Governments of Russia, Austria and Bavaria passed laws keeping the Mesmeric method of treatment as well as the medical treatment of patients in the hands of the Faculty..

When the Revolution burst forth in France, subverting law, order and all good, Mesmer returned, to his native land, where his time was divided between persuing his favourite science and cultivating his estate. Here he was visited by the most eminent men of the day; and 'before his death he had the pleasure of seeing his works edited by one of the Professors of the University of Strasburg, and his science triumphant in Berlin, Jena, Bonn, Hale, Tubingen, St. Petersbeurg, Copenhagen, and even in Vienna. In spiteof laws and law-givers Animal Magnetism performed, the most wonderful cures. Dr. Malfati, one of the most talented of the physicians in Vienna, adopted Mesmer's system, and practised it with great effect.

Following Mesmer, the most active and intelligent of his converts or followers was the Marquis de Puysegure. He pursued the practice of Mesmerism at his estate at Buzancy, both as a study and recreation. One day, calling at the house of his steward, he referred to what he had seen in Paris, where he had attended Mesmer's lectures. Obtaining permission to mesmerize the steward's daughter to his surprise and delight she was in a very short time thrown into a sleep. He also succeeded, by similar passes, in mesmerising the wife of his game-keeper. 'He was now confirmed in his faith, and became one of the most successful mesmerists of his day. He was the first to discover the mesmeric-somnambulistic condition. It happened in this way. He was mesmerizing a young man for the cure of consumption. While making the requisite passes, the patient fell into a peaceful—sleep—the true mesmeric sleep is exceedingly calm and' recuperating. While in this sleep Victor talked with an intelligence rare to the waking condition; and while in that state prescribed the remedies necessary to his recovery. Numerous instances of a like character occurring under the Marquis's influence, he at length, published a work on the subject and both on his estate andat Paris devoted much time to Mesmerism for the cure of disease, inwhich hewas eminently successful.

De Puysegure's views as to the cause of the phenomena were a slight modification of those of Mesmer. He held views similar to those who believe in organic electricity" and odic force. He believed that his subtle electrical agent pervaded all space; all animated beings, and could be controlled and directed by the will. By its skilful direction clairvoyance and somnambulism could be developed in all.

Mesmerism at last found its way accross the channel Mr. Richard Chenevix, F.R.S., published a series of papers on the subject in the London Medical and Physical Journal for 1829, entitled, "On Mesmerism, Improperly called Animal Magnetism." His experiments attracted the attention of the Faculty—Dr. Elliotson, among others. Baron Dupotet arrived in London about 1831, and commenced a series of experiments—the Baron was a firm believer in Animal Magnetism. These experiments were seen by Dr. Elliotson, who now determined to investigate the subject for himself. The result of the experiments of Dr. Elliotson, which was published in the Lancet, produced a great sensation; and phenomena, which has been regarded as impossible, were constantly produced.Prevision, introvision, sympathy, thought transference, and all the extraordinary features of clairvoyance were established.

Writing about this period, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, , the poet, says:—"My mind is in a state of philosophical,, doubt concerning animal magnetism. For nineyears it has been before me. I have traced it historically, collected a mass of documents on the subject, have never neglected the opportunity to question eye-witnesses, and my conclusion is that the evidence is too strong for a candid mind to be satisfied of its falsehood, or its solubility, on the supposition of imposture, or casual coincidence."

The medical press teemed with incidents, demonstrations, and experiments. Drs., Ellotson, Ashburner, Spillan,. Herbert Mayo, , and others contributed. The Rev, Chauncey Hare Townsend published his celebrated tracts in 1840. About 1835, Dr. Esdaile's experiments in Calcutta attracted the attention of the Indian Government Several hundred cases of severe operations, mostly surgical, were performed on patients in the mesmeric sleep. The evidence on 126 cases was laid before the Government. In ten cases reported on, six were operated upon without any appearance of pain; one indicated movements suggestive of pain, but declared he felt none; and threecould not be put asleep. The commission appointed by the Government consisted of nine medical men and a reporter. The report was conclusive, and entirely in favour of Mesmer. As a result, a mesmeric infirmary was established in Calcutta, and all medical students were to take a six month's course there before completing their curriculum. What English physicians were slow to admit at this time—viz., the possibility of carrying out successful surgical operations while patients were in the mesmeric sleep—was quite common to physicians on the continent.

. A Mesmeric Infirmary was erected in London, and handsomely supported by public subscriptions. Br. Elliotson threw his head and soul into the concern, and brought with him all his ability as a medical man (being a, short 'time previously,Professor of the London University). Dr. Elliotson had a greater percentage of cures and a smaller percentage of mortality than any infirmary or hospital in London. By such practical results the curative virtues of mesmerism were upheld in this country. In France, the Academy of Medicine, Paris, in 1831, reinvestigated the subject of mesmerism; the result was atriumph for Animal Magnetism, the report being fully in support of that theory.

In France, Germany, Switzerland, India, and now in Great Britain, Animal Magnetism was placed on. a scientific basis. In 1841 M. Le Fontaine, a French man, visited England, and commenced giving public lectures on Mesmerism and exhibitions of its phenomena. While in Manchester, he attracted the attention of Dr. Braid, who was at first disposed to treat. M.Le Fontaine's experiments as so much imposture. Eventually he admitted the truth of the phenomena with a new theory of his own, which he called Hypnotism. Dr. Braid's experiments were remarkable, Although both he and they were ignominiously ignored by the Medical section of the British Association of Science in 1842, it is only right to say that the individual members of the Association gave Dr. Braid great credit for his researches. Heidenhain and Charcot in some respects follows at a distance Dr. Braid. They merely dispute the theory of Animal Magnetism, and attribute the phenomena to monotony, imitation, touch, and imagination— setting up one theory to refute another. Since Dr. Braid published his work, "Neury-hypnology, or the Rational of the Nervous Sleep," 1843, numerous other authors and lecturers have made their appearance, among the most successful of whom were Spencer T. Hall (the Sherwood Forester, author, poet and physician) and Capt. Hudson, of Swan sea. These two gentlemen, more than any other, created great interest in the subject Henry G. Atkinson and Miss Martineau added to the public interest by their letters and publications, In Scotland, Darling Lewis, Stone, and J. W. Jackson, as experimenters and lecturers, aroused public attention. There are many living now who were delighted and captivated by the experiments of the gentlemen named..

Mesmerism, by its present-day phenomena, will help us largely to understand past mysteries, none the less real because calm and thoughtful scientific-investigation furnishes us with a hypothesis—if not: sufficiently adequate to cover the whole ground, at least will lead us to see what can be explained on the natural, or within the realm of law, and not beyond it, But of this each reader must judge for him or herself. One thing is certain. Absolute knowledgeof w that is possible or not within natural law is not possible to the understanding, unless what is infinite can be apprehended by the finite. It is only when man In his arrogance or ignorance declares he has discovered the confines of the natural, that he seeks to explain by the supernatural whatever he esteems not possible within the natural. The learned Athenians were "too superstitious." There are learned moderns of whom the same might be said With some all is matter, no matter what; with others-all is spirit, matter being its temporary projection on a physical plane—"Chaotic ether atoms reduced to cosmos;" while with others there is the conceptionand perception of the material and the spiritual—of matter and of spirit—as distinct -as death and life— the inorganic and the organic. The spiritual may have its basis in mind, mind in organism, organism in protoplasm. If protoplasm is the physical basis of life and mind in animated nature, what is the vitalizing essential-spirit or what—which is the basisof protoplasm? Shall I say I don't know what matter or mind, or life, or spirit is? I know not, save by their manifestations. Magnetism—electricity—can neither be defined nor known, only as interpreted' by law of manifestation. If we find a force in man or in animals analogous in its manifestation, to magnetism in a stone—i.e. attractive and repellent forces —polarity—we are justified in calling that force Animal Magnetism for wantof a better name. It is in this sense the word is used by mesmerists. The existence of such an influence has been denied, because similar or apparently similar phenomena have been induced by persons who did not believe in Animal Magnetism. That, perhaps, does not amount to much, seeing that these objectors believed they Mad and have power to induce the phenomena by adopting other means. They thus exercise their WILL-POWER and exert their INFLUENCE by their POSITIVE assumption of another hypothesis all the same. I believe in Animal Magnetism, From long practice i haveseen much to induce me to realize and demonstrate that man can exercise such a force—a Force. which, in. its nature and character, is no more occult than nerve force, magnetism, light, heat, or electricity. All mesmeric phenomena, it is true, can not be traced to Animal Magnetism. If successfully traced to secondary causes—hypnotism, suggestion, imitation, and what not—it is a matter of really little importance, so long as the whole phenomena can be lifted out of the misty superstitions and vulgar exaggerations of the past and present, out of the darkness of fraud and self-deception, into the light of truth and fact, by investigation and demonstration. In the next chapter I shall deal with "Modes of Procedure."