363. “What follows is better still: see in the _Journal le Pays_, a letter of M., the Abbé of Moigno, according to which it follows that MM. Seguin and de Montgolfier, very distinguished engineers, ordered the tables to rest on _this_ leg and then on _the other_, and made them beat time, &c. 364. “We read in La Patrie—‘_Explanation given by the savans_.’ Ah! let us see! this subject is becoming important. According to this journal the following is the hypothesis at which the savans have arrived: ‘The table and hat turners _act mostly in good faith_, (quite a concession,) but _they deceive themselves_; they think they cause the motion of an inanimate object by an act of volition, or an effusion of magnetic fluid from their fingers; while it is by muscular action, _imperceptible_ to themselves, or others.’ Ah! take notice! It is by a vibratory movement coming from thousands of small nervous branches. Add to this, lassitude, _humidity of the hands_, and you will have an explanation, if not entirely satisfactory, at least _sufficiently plausible_, of the phenomena which engage our attention. M. Chevreul (of the Institute) has _analyzed_ this physiological predisposition, and has _illustrated_ it by the fact familiar to the billiard player, who having struck the ball, follows it with his eyes, with his shoulders, and with the whole body, and makes fantastic motions, _as if to impel it_, though no longer subject to his direct action, &c. 365. “It is well M. Chevreul has used the phrase ‘_as if to impel it_,’ for had he been so unfortunate as to say, _and in fact he did impel it_, we should have been lost. In truth we should have been silenced. But that lucky ‘_as if_,’ saves us from a very bad predicament; it brings back to our memory what we were about to forget; that is to say, that in the relations of man and matter, never, up to the present time, has all the muscular effort of the world been able to influence, in the smallest degree, the direction of an object, not under its direct action. To the present time all the laws of physics have been based on the grand primordial law, and the player of ten-pins is not more successful from such efforts, than he of the billiard ball just named.