"_Conclusio 3._--Ab omni corpore radii corporales fluunt, in quibus anima sua præsentia, operatur; hisque energiam et potentiam operandi largitur. Sunt vero radii hi non solum corporales, sed et diversarum partium. "_Conclusio 4._--Radii hi, qui ex animalium corporibus emittuntur, spiritu vitali gaudent, per quem animæ mutationes dispensantur." The sixty-fifth of the aphorisms with which Maxwell concludes his book is an amusing one, as giving the orthodox animal-magnetic view of that condition of the affections which we term love, and also as illustrating the connection between astrology and charms. "_Aphorism 65._--Imaginatione vero producitur amor, quando imaginatio exaltata unius imaginationi alterius dominatur, eamque fingit sigillatque; atque hoc propter miram imaginationis volubilitatem vicissim fieri potest. Hinc incantationes effectum nanciscuntur, licet aliqualem forsan in se virtutem possideant, sine imaginatione tamen hæc virtus propter universalitatem distribui nequit." Long before animal magnetism was a stock subject of conversation at dinner-parties, there was a vague knowledge of its pretensions floating about society; and a curiosity to know how far its principles were reconcilable with facts, animated men of science and lovers of the marvellous. Had not this been the state of public feeling, the sensations created by Sir Kenelm Digby's sympathetic cures, Greatrake's administrations, Leverett's manual exercises, and Loutherbourg's manipulations, would not have been so great and universal. But the person who turned the credulity of the public on this point to the best account was Frederick Anthony Mesmer. This man did not originate a single idea. He only traded on the old day-dreams and vagaries of departed ages; and yet he managed to fix his name upon a science (?), in the origination or development of which he had no part whatever; and, by daring charlatanry, he made it a means of grasping enormous wealth. Where this man was born is uncertain. Vienna, Werseburg in Swabia, and Switzerland, contend for the honour of having given him to the world. At Vienna he took his M.D. degree, having given an inaugural dissertation on "The Influence of the Planets upon the Human Body." His course of self-delusion began with using magnets as a means of cure, when applied externally; and he had resolutely advanced on the road of positive knavery, when, after his quarrel with his old instructor, Maximilian Hel, he threw aside the use of steel magnets, and produced, by the employment of his fingers and eyes, greater marvels than had ever followed the application of the loadstone or Perkins's tractors. As his prosperity and reputation increased, so did his audacity--which was always laughable, when it did not disgust by its impiety.