Etherology, or, The philosophy of mesmerism and phrenology : including a new philosophy of sleep and of consciousness : with a review of the pretensions of neurology and phreno-magnetism / by J. Stanley Grimes.

  • J. Stanley Grimes
Date:
1845
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Etherology, or, The philosophy of mesmerism and phrenology : including a new philosophy of sleep and of consciousness : with a review of the pretensions of neurology and phreno-magnetism / by J. Stanley Grimes. 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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    4. Fact. The planets influence each other and the earth. Fact. Philosophers agree that the (so called) ponderable matter of the atmosphere does not extend more than eighty miles above the earth's surface. Fact. Heat, light, electricity, magnetism, and gravitation, operate in an exhausted receiver, as well as elsewhere.^ Fact. One mind sometimes influences another independ- ently of ordinary sensation or muscular motion, without contact or perceptible connection. Inference. There is a material substance occupying space, which connects the planets and the earth, and which communicates light, heat, electricity, gravitation, and mental emotion, from one body to another, and from one mind to another. Name. I shall denominate this substance Etherium. 5. Definition. Etherium is an exceedingly subtile and elastic substance. Its constituent atoms are inconceivably small. It sometimes exists in a separate state, and sometimes it exists in combination with ponderable substances; some- times it is comparatively at rest, and sometimes in motion. When it comes in contact with ponderable matter, it is capable of receiving or of communicating motion. The phenomena of heat, light, gravitation, electricity, magnetism, muscular motion, and mesmerism, are only the results of different motions and modus operandi of etherium. 6. Motion has but two attributes, viz : quantity and direc- tion. The origin of motion, like the origin of matter, is be- yond the sphere of human knowledge. We see motion communicated from one thing to another, but we know not whence it cometh nor whither it goeth; and we can never know, unless we can by searching find out God. We only know motion by its effects upon matter, and, from ob- serving these effects, philosophers have discovered certain general rules which they denominate the laws of motion.
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