are the main of the effect, our fancy being so far seduced as to believe that so strange and uncouth formalities must of necessity proceed from some abstruse science. Their inanity gives them reverence and weight. However, certain it is that my figures proved themselves more _Veneran_ than _Solar_, and the fair bride had no reason to complain." Upon a due consideration of this singular superstition, it must be obvious to any person of sense that these pretended ligatures are, in fact, the consequence of an enfeebled constitution, weak intellects, and sometimes of an ardent imagination, an over-excited desire which carries the vitality to the head, and diverts it from its principal direction. Do away with these circumstances and imagine a man in full health, and gifted with a young and vigorous constitution, alike incapable of allowing himself to be acted upon by vain terrors, and of permitting his passions an uncontrolable course; and all the charms and incantation of these redoubted point-tiers would immediately cease. Who, for instance, could pretend to point-tie that hero of ancient Greece so famous for his twelve labours, of which by far the most brilliant was the transforming, in the course of one night, fifty young virgins into as many women![67] The most singular circumstance, however, connected with impotency is, that for a long time there existed exclusively in France a particular kind of proof called--The Judicial Congress. In the old jurisprudence of that country but little value was attached to moral proofs; all was made to depend upon material ones, which were made by witnesses. The whole enquiry after truth was made to depend upon the establishment of the fact, and, too frequently, the administrators of the law were not over-scrupulous as to the nature of the testimony by which it was to be proved. Provided there were such testimony, no matter of whatever kind, no matter how contradictory to common sense, justice pronounced itself satisfied, for, relying upon this testimony it was enabled to pronounce its decision, and this was all it required. Hence all those personal examinations of litigants, so often practised formerly, and hence the judge, whatever might be the nature of the suit or complaint, ordered a report to be made by parties chosen to that effect, and who were called _experts_ or examiners. This mode of procedure was employed in cases in which a woman applied for a divorce from her husband on the ground of impotency: hence arose the _Congrés_, in which the justice of the application was to be proved in the presence of examiners appointed to give in a report upon the case to the court. "Ce qui est encore plus honteux," says a writer of the 17th century, "c'est qu'un quelques procés, les hommes ont visité la femme, et au contraire, les femmes ont été admises à visiter l'homme, qui a été cause d'une grande irrison et moquerie, que telles procédures ont servi de contes joyeux et plaisans