A Strange Story — Complete

34

Facts in Mesmerism.

35

La Magic et l’Astrologie dans l’Antiquitd et an Moyen-Age. Par L. F. Alfred Maury, Membre de Institut. p. 225.

36

“She had no illusions when within doors.”—Abercrombie, On the Intellectual Powers, p. 277. (15th Edition.)

37

Muller, Physiology of the Senses, Baley’s translation, pp. 1068-1395, and elsewhere. Mr. Bain, in his thoughtful and suggestive work on the “Senses and Intellect,” makes very powerful use of these statements in support of his proposition, which Faber advances in other words, namely, “the return of the nervous currents exactly on their old track in revived sensations.”

38

Perhaps it is for the reason suggested in the text, namely, that the magician requires the interposition of a third imagination between his own and that of the consulting believer, that any learned adept in (so-called) magic will invariably refuse to exhibit without the presence of a third person. Hence the author of “Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magic,” printed at Parisy 1852-53—a book less remarkable for its learning than for the earnest belief of a scholar of our own day in the reality of the art of which he records the history—insists much on the necessity of rigidly observing Le Ternaire, in the number of persons who assist in an enchanter’s experiments.

39

I may add that Dr. Kerner instances the effect of laurel-berries on the Seeress of Prevorst, corresponding with that asserted by Julius Faber in the text.

40

See for these unguents the work of M. Maury, before quoted, “La Magic et l’Astrologie,” etc., p. 417.

41

It seems extremely doubtful whether the very few instances in which it has been asserted that a savage race has been found without recognition of a Deity and a future state would bear searching examination. It is set forth, for example, in most of the popular works on Australia, that the Australian savages have no notion of a Deity or a Hereafter, that they only worship a devil, or evil spirit. This assumption, though made more peremptorily, and by a greater number of writers than any similar one regarding other savages, is altogether erroneous, and has no other foundation than the ignorance of the writers. The Australian savages recognize a Deity, but He is too august for a name in their own language; in English they call Him the Great Master,—an expression synonymous with “The Great Lord.” They believe in a hereafter of eternal joy, and place it amongst the stars.—See Strzelecki’s Physical Description of New South Wales.

42

See the observations on La Place and La Marck in the Introduction to Kirby’s “Bridgewater Treatise.”

43

A missile weapon peculiar to the Australian savages.

44

“Are intelligence and instinct, thus differing in their relative proportion in man as compared with all other animals, yet the same in kind and manner of operation in both? To this question we must give at once an affirmative answer. The expression of Cuvier, regarding the faculty of reasoning in lower animals, ‘Leur intelligence execute des operations du meme genre,’ is true in its full sense. We can in no manner define reason so as to exclude acts which are at every moment present to our observation, and which we find in many instances to contravene the natural instincts of the species. The demeanour and acts of the dog in reference to his master, or the various uses to which he is put by man, are as strictly logical as those we witness in the ordinary transactions of life.”—Sir Henry Holland, chapters on “Mental Physiology,” p. 220.

The whole of the chapter on Instincts and Habits in this work should be read in connection with the passage just quoted. The work itself, at once cautious and suggestive, is not one of the least obligations which philosophy and religion alike owe to the lucubrations of English medical men.

45

“Are intelligence and instinct, thus differing in their relative proportion in man as compared with all other animals, yet the same in kind and manner of operation in both? To this question we must give at once an affirmative answer. The expression of Cuvier, regarding the faculty of reasoning in lower animals, ‘Leur intelligence execute des operations du meme genre,’ is true in its full sense. We can in no manner define reason so as to exclude acts which are at every moment present to our observation, and which we find in many instances to contravene the natural instincts of the species. The demeanour and acts of the dog in reference to his master, or the various uses to which he is put by man, are as strictly logical as those we witness in the ordinary transactions of life.”—Sir Henry Holland, chapters on “Mental Physiology,” p. 220.

The whole of the chapter on Instincts and Habits in this work should be read in connection with the passage just quoted. The work itself, at once cautious and suggestive, is not one of the least obligations which philosophy and religion alike owe to the lucubrations of English medical men.

46

Abercrombie’s Intellectual Powers, p. 26. (15th Edition.)

47

OEuvres de Descartes, vol. x. p. 178, et seq. (Cousin’s Edition.)

48

M. Tissot the distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Dijon, in his recent work, “La Vie dans l’Homme,” p. 255, gives a long and illustrious list of philosophers who assign a rational soul (ame) to the inferior animals, though he truly adds, “that they have not always the courage of their opinion.”

49

Some idea of the extent of research and imagination bestowed on this subject may be gleaned from the sprightly work of Pierquin de Gemblouz, “Idiomologie des Animaux,” published at Paris, 1844.

50

“Faculty is active power: capacity is passive power.”—Sir W. Hamilton: Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic, vol. i. p.178.

51

Sir W. Hamilton’s “Lectures,” vol. i. p. 10.

52

Chalmers, “Bridgewater Treatise,” vol. ii. pp. 28, 30. Perhaps I should observe, that here and elsewhere in the dialogues between Faber and Fenwick, it has generally been thought better to substitute the words of the author quoted for the mere outline or purport of the quotation which memory afforded to the interlocutor.

53

“Besides the three great subjects of Newton’s labours—the fluxional calculus, physical astronomy, and optics—a very large portion of his time, while resident in his college, was devoted to researches of which scarcely a trace remains. Alchemy, which had fascinated so many eager and ambitious minds, seems to have tempted Newton with an overwhelming force. What theories he formed, what experiments he tried, in that laboratory where, it is said, the fire was scarcely extinguished for weeks together, will never be known. It is certain that no success attended his labours; and Newton was not a man—like Kepler—to detail to the world all the hopes and disappointments, all the crude and mystical fancies, which mixed themselves up with his career of philosophy... Many years later we find Newton in correspondence with Locke, with reference to a mysterious red earth by which Boyle, who was then recently dead, had asserted that he could effect the grand desideratum of multiplying gold. By this time, however, Newton’s faith had become somewhat shaken by the unsatisfactory communications which he had himself received from Boyle on the subject of the golden recipe, though he did not abandon the idea of giving the experiment a further trial as soon as the weather should become suitable for furnace experiments.”—Quarterly Review, No. 220, pp. 125, 126.

54

Southey, in his “Doctor,” vol. vi. p. 2, reports the conversation of Sir Kenelm Digby with Descartes, in which the great geometrician said, “That as for rendering man immortal, it was what he could not venture to promise, but that he was very sure he could prolong his life to the standard of the patriarchs.” And Southey adds, “that St. Evremond, to whom Digby repeated this, says that this opinion of Descartes was well known both to his friends in Holland and in France.” By the stress Southey lays on this hearsay evidence, it is clear that he was not acquainted with the works and biography of Descartes, or he would have gone to the fountain-head for authority on Descartes’s opinions, namely, Descartes himself. It is to be wished that Southey had done so, for no one more than he would have appreciated the exquisitely candid and lovable nature of the illustrious Frenchman, and the sincerity with which he cherished in his heart whatever doctrine he conceived in his understanding. Descartes, whose knowledge of anatomy was considerable, had that passion for the art of medicine which is almost inseparable from the pursuit of natural philosophy. At the age of twenty-four he had sought (in Germany) to obtain initiation into the brotherhood of the Rosicrucians, but unluckily could not discover any member of the society to introduce him. “He desired,” says Cousin, “to assure the health of man, diminish his ills, extend his existence. He was terrified by the rapid and almost momentary passage of man upon earth. He believed it was not, perhaps, impossible to prolong its duration.” There is a hidden recess of grandeur in this idea, and the means proposed by Descartes for the execution of his project were not less grand. In his “Discourse on Method,” Descartes says, “If it is possible to find some means to render generally men more wise and more able than they have been till now, it is, I believe, in medicine that those means must be sought... I am sure that there is no one, even in the medical profession, who will not avow that all which one knows of the medical art is almost nothing in comparison to that which remains to learn, and that one could be exempted from an infinity of maladies, both of body and mind, and even, perhaps, from the decrepitude of old age, if one had sufficient lore of their causes and of all the remedies which nature provides for them. Therefore, having design to employ all my life in the research of a science so necessary, and having discovered a path which appears to me such that one ought infallibly, in following, to find it, if one is not hindered prematurely by the brevity of life or by the defects of experience, I consider that there is no better remedy against those two hindrances than to communicate faithfully to the public the little I have found,” etc. (“Discours de la Methode,” vol. i. OEuvres de Descartes, Cousin’s Edition.) And again, in his “Correspondence” (vol. ix. p. 341), he says: “The conservation of health has been always the principal object of my studies, and I have no doubt that there is a means of acquiring much knowledge touching medicine which, up to this time, is ignored.” He then refers to his meditated Treatise on Animals as only an entrance upon that knowledge. But whatever secrets Descartes may have thought to discover, they are not made known to the public according to his promise. And in a letter to M. Chanut, written in 1646 (four years before he died), he says ingenuously: “I will tell you in confidence that the notion, such as it is, which I have endeavoured to acquire in physical philosophy, had greatly assisted me to establish certain foundations for moral philosophy; and that I am more easily satisfied upon this point than I am on many others touching medicine, to which I have, nevertheless, devoted much more time. So that”—(adds the grand thinker, with a pathetic nobleness )—“so that, instead of finding the means to preserve life, I have found another good, more easy and more sure, which is—not to fear death.”

55

Chrysococyx lucidus,—namely, the bird popularly called the shining or bronzed cuckoo. “Its note is an exceedingly melancholy whistle, heard at night, when it is very annoying to any sick or nervous person who may be inclined to sleep. I have known many instances where the bird has been perched on a tree in the vicinity of the room of an invalid, uttering its mournful notes, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that it could be dislodged from its position.”—Dr. Bennett: Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia.