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

  • Chauncy Townshend
Date:
1841
Catalogue details

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.)

    19/404
    will at once be seen in what material respects the two questions differ. The first presumes, even while it pro- fesses to seek, a specific cause for certain phenomena; the second merely regards the phenomena themselves, and inquires, Do such and such facts exist 1 Each in- quiry should be kept carefully distinct, and yet they have unfortunately been mixed up together ; or, rather, an un- happy priority has been granted to the first, involving the very existence of the second. For it is plain that when we demand, Is there such a power as mesmer- ism ] the answer may ever be No ; and then, by a too common injustice, we extend the negative over the whole question, there being but few who will not con- found a mistake and the object mistaken in one general anathema. Did we, however, clearly perceive that Power is nothing more than the relation of one object or event, as invariably antecedent to another object or event,* we should perceive that the facts called mes- meric have as much claim to be considered realities as if indeed there were a magnetic power or influence. Of the error of the mesmerists in bestowing an ill- judged appellation, the opposite party have taken ample advantage. They have thrust forward the unlucky cog- nomen into the very van of discussion, and have thus compelled an inquiry into the cause of mesmerism be- fore the phenomena could be well considered. Surely it must be conceded that so singular an inversion of true philosophical investigation cannot but have proved high- ly detrimental to the subject of our discussion. In what other matter have we acted so strangely as to inquire into the secret cause before men are well agreed re- specting the visible effects 1 Do we not, in conducting an important analysis, first ascertain the phenomena, their characteristics, and the circumstances under which they appear; and then, after long and careful induction, name, but with caution, some pervading principle into which they may all be harmoniously resolved 1 Not only is it natural thus to commence a course of reason- ing with what is nearest to our apprehensions, but by so doing we secure that essential requisite to an argu- ment, a firm and undebatable ground, where both he who would convince and he who is to be persuaded may meet as on a neutral territory, and, taking a common point for starting, be advantaged with at least a proba- * Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind.