Part 8

On the principle that the nervous fluid is derived from without, the question is decided as to the cuticular termination of the nerves, which is objected to by some, in consequence of a few of the nerves being observed to have "inward bending." And is it not a matter of common observation, that "feeling is most sensible at the tips of the fingers" or apparent place of the sensation.

CLAIRVOYANCE.

All mesmerically-produced phenomena are the consequence of the passes. The immediate effect of the passes is de-electrisation of the nerves, that is, of their contents, which leaves them polarised (as is the case in natural sleep), but more intensely than is effected by the comatose flow. In the ordinary condition, the contents of the nerves may be likened to milky water in a barometer tube; in natural sleep, to the same, with a less degree of milkiness--the latter subsiding from the ends to the middle portion of the water; and in the clairvoyant condition of the nerves, to the milkiness having so completely subsided as to leave the water above and below the middle of the tube transparent. In the ordinary condition, the nervous fluid is clogged, as it were, with intermixed electric matter, which, by marring the regular continuity of the fluid from without to the brain, reduces in some degree the exciting pressure on the brain, which prevents the function of the fluid being employed to its utmost. In this encumbered state, the fluid may be said to act on the brain, as the clapper when muffled on a bell. Still the excited pressure is sufficiently strong, and the mental result sufficiently distinct for all human purposes. When to the clairvoyant degree the nerves have been denuded of impeding electric matter, the nervous fluid is enabled to act on the brain as if unmuffled; and as its continuity from the orifices of the retina through space is not in any manner altered, so, to the altered electric condition, mesmerically effected, on the contents of the nerves between their orifices and the brain, we must attribute all mesmerically produced phenomena; and without supposing that the brain is quickened into a higher degree of sensibility, or that any one of its various organs has acquired some exalted degree of psychologic ability.

That long vision and opaque vision should be consequences of cleansing, as it were, the nerves of intercepting minus-pressure matter, is nothing surprising, it is as removing dust from the window to better our vision: the physiology is traceable, and the psychology not more incomprehensible than its hourly occurrence in a minor degree, to which, as sensible effects, we are indebted for all we know, and by which we abide, without inquiry into their nature or origin; so perfect is the design of Nature in our make for supplying all that is requisite to the comfort and enjoyment of man in his present state of existence.

Long vision, during the clairvoyant state, or the recognition of objects greatly remote by the sensation each promotes, has its wonder much more in the nature of the medium of space than in the familiar mental effect. The optically promoted sensation is proof that the external object, were it at the antipodes, is in mediate connection with not only the nervous fluid of the retina, but the brain. Long and ordinary vision have the same theory: in both states the same chromatic cerebral organ is excited by the nervous fluid; in both the nervous fluid is continuous from the brain to the external body; and in both the object perceived is the sensation of colour. That the eye-ball lenses are concerned in long and opaque, as in short vision, however in the two former, the eyes may be bandaged (to satisfy the desire of spectators, otherwise useless, if not worse,) is obvious, from the knowledge of form being connected with the sensation, as in every instance of optically-excited perception.

By the passes, the nervous fluid is freed from the visual intercepting electric matter; which matter, like the colouring matter in stained glass, renders the continuity of the visual medium or fluid within the optic nerve impaired.

To account for the phenomenon of much longer than ordinary vision, there is nothing in the mesmeric case to effect the difference, or refer to, but the de-electrised condition of the nervous fluid. From which it would seem that the visual line from the most remote object, is always as continuous to the brain as from one within arm's length before the face; and that the degree of cerebral exciting pressure on the longer line is rendered equally efficacious, now, that the electric impediment has been removed from the nervous fluid; hence, that the normal intermixed quantity of electric matter with the nervous fluid prevents us being clairvoyant at all times, is reasonable to conclude.

Opaque vision, or the "seeing through opaque bodies," is not the absurdity so generally imagined when judged and reasoned on according to the true principles of visual perception: the facts of clairvoyance place the absurdity on the denier.

As the medium of space furnishes all the nerves with the true and only cerebral exciting fluid, which is necessarily all-pervading, and proved to be so by the auditory sense, or "hearing through stone walls," the possibility of seeing through such bodies is made manifest, and clairvoyantly, has been proved. Misled by the idea that the eye-balls look through solid glass, yet cannot look through a stone, to doubt and deny is pardonable; yet nothing else is requisite, than that the visual medium shall be continuous from the object to the brain, no matter how many opaque objects lie between, for the perception being excited, and promoted by the remote object: the object perceived is the sensation of this or that colour, as in transparent vision. It is no ordinary circumstance, that of "seeing through opaque bodies;" neither is it an ordinary circumstance, the extreme de-electrised condition of the nervous fluid, on which the extra-ordinary of the phenomenon depends. In removing the partial opacity of a crystal by means of fire, the hindrance to the visual continuity, electric matter, is displaced; but as no such electric displacement from a stone wall is effected or practicable, while to the clairvoyant the continuity is as were there no electric impediment in the wall, is proof additional that the medium of space, the common cerebral exciting cause, pervades all things, the human body included, and hence the being in Report.

Now that mesmeric practice and proof have stifled all open opposition, by the influential ignorant, to the surprising truths of the science, that all persons cannot be mesmerised to the clairvoyant stage, is in nowise prejudicial to mesmerism, or to the SCIENCE OF THE ECONOMY being intimately connected with medical practice; neither are occasional failures by the clairvoyant, especially in trial tests, some of which exhibit samples of complicated confusion, as if for the purpose of suppression, instead of laudably exalting the all-important science of mesmerism. Had the very liberal offer of a hundred pounds been under less complicated conditions, the bank-note most certainly would have been deciphered and changed hands. Had the note been spread open, while enclosed between two plates of sheet-iron, and then read by the clairvoyant, the test would have been sufficient to convince the most steady, sturdy, staunch unbeliever, and the dénouement affirmative to every dispassionate observer. But from being folded line upon line, letter on letter, at least three deep, the misarrangement destroyed most effectually all reading order. A Newtonian would say, that, "the commixed rays proceeding from the several overlaid typographic characters, and from the lines placed tier over tier, could never form the image of even a single letter on the retina, with anything resembling legible clearness;" therefore the trial must fail most inevitably.

RIGIDITY.

None deny that rigidity of the limbs can be effected mesmerically; but all mistake who impute the phenomenon to muscular ability, irritability, or energy. All flesh is inert; all muscular fibrine is flexible, bends from its own weight when held horizontally, and over it the will has neither power nor influence. Then, how is a muscle or nerve to stiffen itself, and where is the mechanical arrangement within for such purpose? The power is derived from without, and consists in medium of space. The de-electrising passes make entrance-room for influent medium of space, which is the cause of the limbs becoming rigid. As in Bramah's pump, water serves the purpose of an iron piston, so, within the nerves and muscles, medium of space in excess and under the general pressure, is an equally rigid piston, and the cause of all muscular strength and of rigidity. The depolarizing passes bring back electric matter, which displaces all excess of medium of space, and with it the physical cause of rigidity.

PAIN.

Pain is not removed but prevented by means of the passes. It is not excited in the mesmerised patient during severe surgical operations, because the movements of the brain, as is said of a watch with the finger on a wheel, are stopped.

General insensibility being effected by pressure of the surgeon's finger on the brain of a fractured skull, so is it mesmerically effected by the nervous fluid, which has suffered increase as the nerves have been de-electrised by the passes.

Curative Mesmerism.--The curative principle of mesmerism seems to consist in correcting occasional irregularities in the electric circulation. By the passes, electric matter in excess is removed, which, from being noxious to the part, might contribute to the formation of mucus to become concrete, or otherwise injurious to the flesh: or, the passes may transfer the excess to supply deficiency elsewhere,--as in the case of gout, a disease of the sufferer's own making, from excess of de-electrising food and drink, which uncoats and unlines the nerves, and thus leaves the nervous fluid, from casual circumstances, to almost lacerate the brain. Stomach coating aliment, not denuding physic, is the cure: as electric matter may become a constituent of the humidities of the different organs, so may it of the serous fluid, which is indispensable to wholesome flesh. In all such cases mesmerism is curative.

Ethers.--From inhaled ethers, producing insensibility without rigidity, it would seem that they contribute a kind of electric matter to the interior of the nerves, but which, from being uncongenial, is happily soon displaced. All excess being the more prejudicial, the quicker the displacement the better. Any ether imparted to the fluids of the nerves, may effect reduction in the quantity of the true fluid through the cuticle orifices; or make breaks in what is left, so as to leave the nervous fluid incompetent to produce excitement of the brain; hence the insensibility of the patient, if that can be considered insensibility, when there is nothing of pain of which to be insensible.

Etherising by external application, but which may not amount to mesmerizing, is nothing new. A Dublin apothecary, sixty years since, cured the poor daily of nervous complaints, headaches especially, by pressing a folded handkerchief on the forehead, taken from a wide-mouth jar, concealed with professional delicacy, behind the counter, but long since discontinued; the learned in the laws of life and living, considering that short-hand work is a forbidden practice,--that something newest in the last Pharmacopoeia is better than the best, for all parties. Tobacco-smoking brings on a degree of insensibility, and mesmerically conduces to sleep, which exertion frustrates. The smoke of the fire in London stayed the plague in the year 1666. The subject is worthy of consideration by the mesmerizing physician, in case of epidemics especially.

REPORT.

The being in report one with another, the mesmerised with the mesmeriser, is proved possible, and from being effected by the passes is proved also to be natural,--not satanic or supernatural, the weakest of all ideas. Within Nature there can be nothing supernatural; nor out of Nature, or of the other worlds, anything in the power of living man or poor human nature to command or imitate. However, as believers are not reasoners, except in the arithmetic of funds, to the reformer Time, must be left the conversion to Reason.

Throughout the whole of Nature there is nothing insulated, not even an atom. Involved in a universal medium of pressure, all things must be in contact, mediate or immediate. The atmosphere is a universal connecting link. As by the sea the most distantly-situated islands are in mediate connection, so are all mankind by means of the atmosphere. Still this atmospheric connection is limited to margin with margin, surface with surface. By the all-pervading medium of space, the interior of all living beings is in mediate connection, equally as the interior of submerged sponges by the water. As "light" would pervade and connect our bodies were they glass, so does the medium of space. But were mankind so left, it is difficult to conceive how the organic functions could possibly take place, and impossible to say how personal individuality could be, as at present, an independent animal privilege.

Although the medium of space is continuous through all bodies, the regular continuity is impaired by the elements of the atmosphere between each. The atmosphere not only protects all living bodies against the maximum and all excess of pressure, but in some considerable degree insulates the bodies of persons from each other, just as fog and small snow intercept the visual continuity and would render "rays of light" interruptedly continuous; so do the intermixed atoms of the atmosphere the regular continuity of the medium of space between person and person, as respects surfaces. Within the body, insulation is still more complete: here, electric matter and air abound to the exclusion of all excess of medium of space; by which the different organs remain, in a manner disconnected, or so far, as that the functional action of each organ has its distinct period, instead of the action of the whole being simultaneously performed. Beside these means and degrees of insulation, the non-conducting coating and lining of the nerves insulate more completely their elementary contents, by which the nerves are not only tubes of separation but insulation, and are direct conducting channels of the nervous fluid through the body from its external source to the brain.

Although man is thus isolated from man, the isolating means do not prevent the medium of space being continuous through all, and from one to another; which is manifested by the clairvoyant, who has the like of the sensation excited in the brain of the mesmeriser repeated or excited in his own brain; as when the mesmeriser masticates and the sensation of the same flavour is known by the mesmerised. The sensation is nothing transferable; taste is not by the tongue; hence, by the sensation being excited in succession in the brain of each person, is the only conceivable mode, in reason, why the second should know what the first is masticating. The nervous fluid of the two may be supposed to be derived from the medium of space between them; then, by the medium of space lying between, the nervous fluids of the two are rendered continuous one with the other, and is so at all times, but only when the nervous fluid is mesmerically de-electrised is it productive of clairvoyant perceptions. Community of sensation, or the same sensation being perceived by different persons, is an impossibility. The first sensation is only where it has been excited, in the brain of the mesmeriser; and supposing the matter of the nervous fluid continuous direct from his brain to that of the patient, in it, what has the latter to perceive?--nothing; neither is perception separable in idea from the result of cerebral excitement. It is to be hoped that the desultory ideas here advanced may tend to a better knowledge on this singular mesmeric discovery. Even the foregoing may be objected to with apparent reason, on consideration of what is termed "community of thought," wherein there is no previous sensation to be repeated. To account for which requires more cerebral information than has as yet been brought to light; when satisfactorily known it may show, whether or not community in dreaming may be effected. Report would be impossible were there not intimate connection of brain with brain.

VOLUNTARY DE-ELECTRISATION.

Every motion of the limbs being effected by pressure, to promote the local change minus-pressure matter has to be displaced. That the assent of will is indispensable is evident, inasmuch as there is no ordinary limb motion, if not previously assented to by the will. Yet will is no mechanical power, nor anything having a distinct existence. Will seems to be, the mutual accordance of the cerebral organs to act together so as to effect, or rather assist, the accomplishing of a present intention. The act may be likened to that of suction, voluntarily performed by the brain to de-electrise itself, in order to make room for and receive that which lies in the way of the desired object being effected. The voluntary act by the brain cannot be on anything far away, or not in contact with the brain, and that which is acted on must be continuous to the place of the removable impediment. If, then, the brain does de-electrise itself, and that by so doing it receives electric matter from the nerves which are continuous from the limb to the brain, such removal of electric matter is effected within the nerves of the limb, as makes space for medium of space to enter in the requisite quantity to move the limb according to the required velocity. It is not to be overlooked, that, previous to the self de-electrisation of the brain, thought may be concerned in promoting the cerebral de-electrising act. So far as the foregoing may be true, the like circumstances take place when the mesmeriser wills into report with himself the far-off patient, the electric matter in the space between being affected with as much facility, as the transfer of similar matter from the trough to the utmost extent of the galvanic wire, which may be considered instantaneous, considering the hundreds of miles distance between.

The Nature and Power of Will.--The power of effecting, voluntarily, the transfer of electric matter from one part of the interior of the body to a different, seems to belong, in some necessary degree, to all bodies possessed of life. The object is to make space for medium of space to enter, and by its pressure to put the animal in a state of locomotion. The snake, worm, and snail do so to be pressed onward along the ground; the oyster, to have the shells firmly collapsed; the limpit, to be pressed against the rock; and each, cerebrally wills the replacement of electric matter to displace the cause of pressure, medium of space, for the grovelling reptile to be at rest--the oyster, that the shells may be opened; the limpit, when willing to fall into the water. The fly, lizard, and walrus, so de-electrise the body, as to reverse the direction of what is supposed to be their natural weight, by which means each becomes pressed upwards, and walks with the back downwards--which, to be consistent with the established philosophy, should be considered repellent gravitation. The goat voluntarily de-electrises his body to have it pressed with double force against the slippery rock; the lynx, to have mesmeric long vision; the cat, to have opaque vision, or "see through the dark;" the fire-fly, to effect reduction of the optic pressure productive of sensations of colour. The carrier-pigeon effects self de-electrisation to the clairvoyant degree, by which the external object, the turret at Constantinople, promotes the sensation which indicates at once the shortest direction of flight from London to the birth-place of the bird. The eagle de-electrises itself inwardly, the same as if by the mesmeric passes, to promote olfactory lucidity, by which to ascertain the presence of carrion on the ground. Fishes effect internal de-electrisation, somehow by means of the contents of the swim, for influent medium of space to propel the body with a velocity superior to the power of the short, flexible fins. The flight of birds is not effected by wing motion, or wing powers. The crow, eagle, and kite sail in all directions on extended motionless wing, and the odd wing-flap now and then given, is only to assist in keeping the body in the necessary electric condition. The swallow is darted most rapidly through the air with closed wing, and changes acutely, without way, the direction of flight, by changing instantaneously the direction of impulse. With the greatest wing-agitation the hawk remains at times stationary in the air. The fish, bird, and bullet are impelled by the same cause, pressure, by the medium of space on the de-electrised rear.

The cow and goat voluntarily de-electrise the cud, for medium of space to enter and press it upwards through the food-passage which the cud presses against, instead of being raised by nerves or muscles of the esophagus. In parturition also, and the discharge of the feces, the same principles are maintained. The "throes of Nature" are consequent on the natural pressure being made intermitting, by electric matter returning to and escaping from the birth at intervals. The physiologist may refer to muscular action; but where are the delivery muscles? The stage-dancer makes de-electrising efforts to receive medium of space, by which to be lifted above the boards and supported a few seconds in the air. Muscles at full stretch in opposite directions, and the fulcrum, if any, being carried by them, is out of all dynamic rule. All persons make a de-electrising effort previous to the leap-spring, and while continuing to stand or run and tiptoe, without being aware of the reason; and the fatigue is not muscular, but in keeping the body fittingly de-electrised.

The gymnotus electricus kills the distant prey instantaneously, which receives nothing whatever of missile from the enemy; nor could the latter be accessary to the death-stroke, were there nothing between to connect one with the other: nothing passing and no connecting means, no outstretched arm or instrument touching that which is to be acted on, is a mechanical absurdity, and is attributing an effect to that which, it may be said, is an absent cause. The eel voluntarily performs the cerebral operation on the electric matter which is continuous from itself through the air to the marked prey, which effects instantaneous removal of the same matter from the prey; which permits medium of space at the same instant to give the de-electrised part the death-blow.