Human magnetism : its claims to dispassionate inquiry, being an attempt to show the utility of its application for the relief of human suffering / by W. Newnham.
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Human magnetism : its claims to dispassionate inquiry, being an attempt to show the utility of its application for the relief of human suffering / by W. Newnham. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.
57/455 page 37
![in any sense of the term : and they are not so, first, be- cause they do not contravene any known law of nature,— and secondly, because they possess no distinctive charac- teristic, which has not been shown to exist in nature, in some form or other. In asserting this, we by no means wish it to be supposed, that we understand the rationale of these characteristics; it is enough for our purpose that they exist, we are not called upon to explain them. If then these phenomena exist, without infringing any one of nature s known laws ; still further, if they exist as the exponents of certain physical conditions, and of certain natural laws, though confessedly above our present com- prehension, it follows that they cannot be superna- tural. But we must explain these propositions, a little more in detail. These phenomena then are not supernatural, because, First, they do not contravene any known law of nature ; ]f they did, the effects would he miraculous. We admit that the effects produced are extraordinary, hut they are not miraculous, since the order of nature is not changed, or suspended, or inverted, and without these attributes, no event, however extraordinary, can be a miracle.— Deny or assert the truth of magnetic phenomena,—yet the doctrine of miracles remains equally unscathed the former are dependent upon human agencies—the latter can only he effected by Divine Power. Compare any one of the miracles of our Lord with any cure of magnetism, however surprising:—the one will he found to consist in the instantaneous accomplish-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21911782_0057.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
