Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris / Translated from the French, with an historical introduction.

  • France. Commissaires chargés par le roi de l'examen du magnétisme animal. Rapport des commissaires. English
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and other commissioners, charged by the King of France, with the examination of the animal magnetism, as now practised at Paris / Translated from the French, with an historical introduction. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    [ X viil ] room enough to expand herfelf, to dilplay ail her boundlefs faculties, and ail her beautiful and interefling ex- travagancies and abfurdities. It is obferved of civil hiftory, that it is properly the record of human calami- ties ; the famé thing may be obferved of ccclefiaftical hiftorv, it is the record of our errors. For this reafon a well written ecclefiaftical hiftory, a fpecies of compofition that we fufpeft does not yet exift, would perhaps be the mofl inflrudlive ftudy in the world. But there is an addition al reafon, which p'ives the error oi the animal O magnetifm a particular claim to our attention. The famé error was llarted, if M. Thouret be in the right, two centuries ago. It is therefore worth our curiofity to enquire, what diffe- rent inftruments were neceflary to deceive mankind in an ignorant and an enliehtened âge, in the commencc- o o ment of the feventeenth and the clofe of
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