Their fears were fully justified by the conduct of at least one member of their own number, who had absented himself from the experiments, and, as M. Husson tells us, “did not deem it right to {176} sign the report.” This was Magendie, the physiologist, who, despite the fact stated by the official report that he had not “been present at the experiments,” did not hesitate to devote four pages of his famous work on _Human Physiology_ to the subject of mesmerism, and after summarizing its alleged phenomena, without endorsing them as unreservedly as the erudition and scientific acquirements of his fellow committee-men would seem to have exacted, says: “Self-respect and the dignity of the profession demand circumspection on these points. He (the well-informed physician) will remember how readily mystery glides into charlatanry, and how apt the profession is to become degraded even by its semblance when countenanced by respectable practitioners.” No word in the context lets his readers into the secret that he had been duly appointed by the Academy to serve on the commission of 1826; had absented himself from its sittings; had so failed to learn the truth about mesmeric phenomena, and was now pronouncing judgment ex parte. “Self-respect and the dignity of the profession” probably exacted silence! Thirty-eight years later, an English scientist, whose specialty is the investigation of physics, and whose reputation is even greater than that of Magendie, stooped to as unfair a course of conduct. When the opportunity offered to investigate the spiritualistic phenomena, and aid in taking it out of the hands of ignorant or dishonest investigators, Professor John Tyndall avoided the subject; but in his _Fragments of Science_, he was guilty of the ungentlemanly expressions which we have quoted in another place. But we are wrong; he made one attempt, and that sufficed. He tells us, in the _Fragments_, that he once got under a table, to see how the raps were made, and arose with a despair for humanity, such as he never felt before! Israel Putnam, crawling on hand and knee to kill the she-wolf in her den, partially affords a parallel by which to estimate the chemist’s courage in groping in the dark after the ugly truth; but Putnam killed his wolf, and Tyndall was devoured by his! “_Sub mensa desperatio_” should be the motto on his shield.