Facts in mesmerism : with reasons for a dispassionate inquiry into it / by the Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend.

  • Townshend, Chauncy Hare, 1798-1868.
Date:
1841
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Facts in mesmerism : with reasons for a dispassionate inquiry into it / by the Rev. Chauncy Hare Townshend. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    hope to replace the subject on its true and primitive foot-' ing, namely, its own merits. The false has been so blend- ed with the true, that it is no wonder that both should be rejected together. The waters come notjfo us pure, but from a fountain-head that is itself disturbed and sul- lied ; so that, instead of spreading forth into a lucid mir- ror, reflecting heaven and earth, and enlivening all around, they stagnate in a thick and blinding marsh. Had mes- merism been announced to the world, not as a studied enigma, but in the form of a simple proposition ; had all men been invited to test the truth of the principle, and to investigate the laws of its operation; had it been prac- tised in unostentatious privacy instead of crowded as- semblies ; had there been in the chambers devoted to its service neither mystical machines nor exciting music, no convulsionaries, no hysterical women ; had mesmerism from the first appeared that which it eminently is, a spirit of calmness and of reason, then had it interested the scientific and conciliated the wise ; then had it been transmitted to the present age pure and unenveloped by the mists of prejudice. The mere fact that man can produce a kind of slumber in his fellow-man by a few and simple means, is surely not to be confounded with the heap of absurdities attached to it. To say that the one is inextricably and necessarily linked with the oth- er were want of sense as well as of candour; and, un- less we choose to admit a principle which would make even our religion answerable for the sins committed in its name, we must allow that mesmerism is in no way affected either by the errors of its partisans or the pre- possessions of its enemies. Secondly. As mesmerism was ill-omened in its birth, so also was it unfortunate in its baptism. Shakspeare's often-quoted query finds here, if nowhere else, its an- swer ; and we are forced to reply, There is much in a name, except where true love or true philosophy ren- ders the mind insensible to those externals which are all in all with the generality of mankind. The disservice rendered to mesmerism by its name is this : It has turned men from true inquiry, and, like a tub thrown out to the whale, has served as an object of attack, while the real point in debate has remained un- touched altogether. We have asked whether such a power as mesmerism exists, when we should rather have demanded whether there is a state so denominated. It