Part 9

APPLICATION OF MESMERISM.

First. A National Asylum, to be named, THE BRITISH MESMERIC INSTITUTION, should be founded and endowed. England should take the lead. A Professorship of Magnetism should be founded. All Sanatory Asylums to be obliged to furnish their experience periodically, and be under control of the Institution, which should be possessed of power to undiploma the medical practitioner who refuses to mesmerise. Self-mesmerising to Clairvoyance, to be taught, which is as teachable as ventriloquism; the principle is the same of both,--the theory is that of sound.

Through self-mesmerising, the blind and eyeless would be extricated occasionally from the shadow leading to the valley of death and be enabled to follow some useful calling. Some blind, illiterate clairvoyant, may have superior connoisseurship, entitling him to fill the academic chair. Through mesmerism the resuscitating process can be brought under rules of science. Through clairvoyance the geography of the globe may yet be improved; the northern passage discovered; the astronomer assisted in his stellar speculations beyond the possibility of mere telescopic discovery. On ship-board, the voluntary clairvoyant may make discovery of the haze-hidden lighthouse and wave-hidden shoal. In the hands of the clairvoyant the telescope and microscope, will, in time, make us acquainted with other worlds, other beings, and other of the wonderful works of the GREAT GOD OF NATURE!

The Seeker after God from the book of God's own composing, the holy volume of his own works, through voluntary clairvoyance, will feel himself in the enjoyment of a second nature, the fit inhabitant of an intellectual world, in which the powers of thought are without limits. And who can say what discovery of abstract truths may not be elicited from the conversation of two or more clairvoyants in mutual report, all of exalted talent and superior education? Other worlds, ere this be past, may open to our view, and their inhabitants become clairvoyantly familiar to human observation. The idea is pregnant with hope; it presumes that we are not inhabitants of only the earth, but the universe; which may be considered a natural, never-dying hope. Why, then, should the science be opposed which has already been so beneficial to our species, and promises to make known the never yet discovered wonders of the animal economy? Surely they will be yet ashamed of having done those things, the fruit of which is the bitterness of remorse.

CONTINUOUS MOTION.

The motion which continues after the body has ceased to be in contact with the sensible impelling cause, is named continuous motion. The body impelled receives neither force nor motion from the impelling cause: neither force nor motion is anything transferrable or anything communicable; forcible velocity and change of place are but accidents of matter, and but local, casual circumstances of bodies. Being inert, the body cannot move itself. Motion, therefore, is but a physical effect, and must have a cause equal to the duration of the effect: motion after impulse has ceased, would be effect without cause--which is an absurdity and impossibility; therefore impulse is constant as motion, however insensible the impelling cause. These dynamic principles cannot be too frequently brought to mind, considering the general erroneous opinion on the subject which maintains, that "a body continues in motion because it cannot stop itself;" which is effect without its equal of cause.

A body in motion is under unequal pressure on opposite sides, greater on the rear than front. The air in front resists, that in the rear may be said to recede from the body; therefore neither impels the projectile. Under such circumstances there remains but the alternative, that of the electric constitution of the body being changed by the previous impulse, by which medium of space accumulates on one side, or decreases on the opposite. The phenomenon admits of being thus illustrated:

The first, previous or sensible impulse, effects de-electrisation of the body on the rear or side of impulse; influent medium of space immediately occupies the vacated rear, and by its pressure impels the body through the air. The velocity of the previous impulse, gives momentum to the body greater than the included freely-removable elementary matter can obtain; of consequence the latter is left behind in the air, and the pressure of the acquired medium of space in the rear, is the continuous impelling cause. Thus is the mistake of Dugald Stuart made evident, that "motion is the immediate and only effect of impulse."

It is not the air's resistance which makes the motion of a projectile decline and end. Taking impulse as ten, resistance four, there remains six degrees of unresisted impulse, which should impel the body for ever through the atmosphere. The decline and cessation of impulse is that which brings the projectile to rest.

From the instant the body has ceased to be in contact with the sensible impelling cause, electric matter is re-entering the rear, which displaces gradually the impelling medium; and as are the increments of the former, so are the decrements of the latter, and so is the decline of motion.

Ascending and Descending Motion.--The rear of the vertically-impelled body becomes vacated of minus-pressure matter, and replaced with medium of space; by the latter, and general pressure, the body is forced upwards as a cork by water. While ascending, the rear is acquiring electric matter and losing the impelling medium,--the velocity of course declines; and when at the highest, the body is at rest in the air for an instant, then is precipitated to the ground. During the entire of the descent, electric matter is vacating the rear and medium of space entering, consequently the fall is accelerated. Now as the body cannot fall of itself; as descending motion is of increasing velocity, while motion in every other direction is retarded; and, because all descent has the same centripetal direction, so should there be some distinct cause to produce these conspicuous effects, which, to trace, suggest the following hypothesis:

Centripetal Flow.--The different motions of the globe affect all bodies on its surface, so as to appear to the inhabitants as if the whole were at rest; supposing thence, that the centre of the earth is the centre of motion, the following may be considered probable consequences:--The general pressure being less at the centre and axis than on the surface of the earth, obliges the medium of space to flow through the atmosphere and entire surface, centripetally, to the centre, thence along the axis, carrying with it electric matter, and has exit at the poles, which polarizes the globe and produces the boreales. The centripetal flow retains the atmosphere to the earth; precipitates bodies from the air in a centripetal direction; accelerates the descent; and retards all motion not in its own direction: it prevents vertical ascent being equal to impulse, the difference being employed in bearing against the flow. The flow makes bodies ponderate or have weight, causes the dip and direction of the compass-needle.

FORMATION OF A PLANET.

That cannot be considered a chaotic state from which the eternal order sprung; nor that a created body, the substance of which previously existed, which was and is common to all bodies. Hence it may be concluded that a planet is a natural production, equally as the instantly-formed ponderous atmospheric aërolite, supposed to have come from the moon.

From the elementary to the aëriform, thence the aqueous state, seems the simplest and primeval order of atomic combination. Hence it is conceivable, that, were an immense volume of the general elements collected together in the regions of space, and subjected to extreme pressure, the result would be an aqueous sphere, with an attached residue of the same elements to serve as a primeval atmosphere to receive increase from future mists and exhalations. While aqueous and with one side only of the sphere facing the sun, the elements of the water cannot avoid being in a state of constant disturbance and transfer, productive of combinations, formations, and precipitations until the equilibrium has obtained, leaving ultimately the solid masses so formed, as they would now appear were the ocean away: the original water, from having contributed the elements of the newly-formed solids, being reduced in quantity and changed in quality, is left as the ocean is at present, saline. During the intermediate plastic state, and as induration increased, the endowed fertility may have produced kinds, many of which have become extinct.

It may be further assumed, that deep within the planet the elements abound in neither kind nor quantity as at the surface and in the atmosphere; and if the imponderable oxygen element be absent, an immense mass of ice would form the nucleus of the earth, the occasional melting at the surface of which, in the neighbourhood of sulphurous and ferruginous masses, may cause those volcanic eruptions from which no region of the earth is free. Thus it would seem that a planet may be the natural formation of an instant, requiring time for completion, and may be an everyday circumstance in space.

The strict inquirer into terrestrial magnetism has to ascertain, whether the non-conducting central ice be not the means, some how, of separating the correlative fluids which the centripetal flow carries with it along the axis through the Poles, and which make the Poles magnetic opposites; or, whether, of these fluids, one only is transmissible through ice.

A planet may be subject to wear and the fertility to decrease, thence to be uninhabitable, as Herschel describes the very probable condition of the moon, owing to the rapid motion through space, solar effects and cultivation. The idea is neither gloomy nor a threatened dread. Man was born to leave this world, and live where GOD has pleased. Some anticipate the night, when we shall see "our God in terror, and our world on fire!"--"undoing all, as all had never been," or made in vain. But He who blessed and never cursed his works, whose mercy and goodness endureth for ever, and who will "save both man and beast," is not a God of terror!

Why the planets are moved round the sun, all in the same direction, excites speculation in the absence of demonstration. Let it be supposed that the inequalities in a newly-formed planet prevent the body being at rest under the general pressure; in which case the planet is put into its primeval motion, and in the direction of the strongest impulsive pressure. But as the like inequalities precisely, cannot present in every new planet, neither could the motion of all be in the same direction, which gives room for conceiving the probability that the portion of the medium, however extensive, in which the solar system is involved, revolves round the sun, or round the orbit of the sun, and that its motion is promoted by the sun in the solar orbit,--which orbit may probably be promoted by the rarity of the elements in the solar regions. The medium of space so revolving, determines the direction of all the planets, which by the hypothesis must be the same as that of the revolving medium.

By some such means only is it conceivable how solar matter can arrive at Neptune, the Earth, or even Mercury,--the inert sun being incapable of radiating anything from itself, and solar atoms requiring a physical impelling cause, in motion, and acting on the rear of each from the sun to the extreme of planetary space. A circulating medium of constantly-increasing radius, appears indispensably necessary for the purpose of conveying solar matter through the regions of space, and for the maintaining all planetary motion in the same uniform direction. The subject is open to all, and worthy of notice: what is now advanced will be passed over, from having no mathematical appendage, but which, makes even false causes pass for the demonstrated truth. The mathematical science has not to this day demonstrated the cause of planetary motion,--a subject wholly indifferent to modern astronomy, in which the false, self-gravitation, in connection with inertia, satisfies all as long as the astronomer remains self-satisfied.

Formation and Use of a Comet.--A Comet may have been a planet by formation, and impelled, before completion, immeasurably far beyond the sun. The tail is probably the primitive atmosphere, left behind and pressed after the body as towards a sheltering wall; the coma may be electric matter collected on the front, and subject to increase, which, by lessening pressure on the side facing the direction of motion, and without increased pressure on the opposite side, may cause the velocity of the planet to be subject to acceleration, or prevent the motion being equitable: the reticulated tail may serve to collect all redundant solar matter in space, after planetary use, for deposit in the solar regions, or the sun as the heart of the system, for future circulation. Were the tail to approach the earth sufficiently near, the waters of the sea would be pressed upwards as towards an immense water-spout; in which case the rivers must become drained; and as the Comet recedes from the earth, the fall of the immense column would produce another general deluge over one hemisphere, at least, of the globe! The deposits from a comet's tail may occasion those nebulocities named solar spots.

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THE END.

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Tyler and Reed, Printers, Bolt-court, London.

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE.

Archaic, dialectical and unusual spellings and usage have been maintained. Obvious typos have been fixed as detailed below.

Table of Contents entries with no corresponding centered title in the original book have been indented and the titles have been inserted inline.