infallible remedies for grievous diseases. The followers of Mesmer degraded his art by making it a merry pastime or a lucrative exhibition, without regard to truthfulness, and without reverence for science. Even political intriguers, and financial speculators, availed themselves of the new discovery; precisely as in our day spirit-rapping and kindred tricks are used. In England, and in the Union, mesmerism fared little better; especially with us, it soon fell into the hands of quacks and charlatans who made it a source of profit; at the same time it assumed various new names, as, electro-biology, hypnotism, and others. The idea that somnambulism was the effect of angelic or demoniac influences was once largely entertained, but has long since given way to more scientific views. But it cannot be said that the true nature of the active principle has yet been fully ascertained, and so far the results of mesmerism must be classed among magic phenomena. What is alone clearly established is the power which the strong will of the magnetizer evidently exercises over the patient, and the fact that this energy acts through the hands as its organs. The patient, on his side, undergoes by such an exercise of a foreign will a complete change of his individuality; the action of his brain is modified and he falls into magnetic sleep. Many intelligent somnambulists have distinctly stated that they obey the will of their master and not his hands; that manipulation, in fact, merely serves to communicate this will to their inner sense. Whether the connection which evidently exists between the two parties is established merely for moral agencies or by an infinitely subtle fluid, which may possibly be the Od of Baron Reichenbach--this question remains as yet undecided. So much only is quite certain that neither the will alone suffices to produce the magic phenomena of magnetism, nor heat and electricity, as the physicist Parrot maintained; as little can electro-magnetism, unaided, be the cause of such results, though the great Robiano stoutly asserted its power; man is a dualism of spirit and body, and both must be influenced alike and together, in order to obtain perfect mastery. The most plausible explanation yet offered by men of science is, that by the will of the magnetizer his own nervous and mental system assumes a certain condition which changes that of the subject into one of opposite polarity, paralyzes some of his cerebral functions and causes him to fall into a state resembling sleep. The stronger and healthier man affects the nervous system of a feeble and less healthy man according to his own more or less strongly marked individuality, and the spiritual influence naturally develops itself in the same proportions as the material influence. Hence the thoughts and feelings, the convictions and the faith of the magnetizer are reflected upon the mind of his subject. Even Mesmer himself had not yet reached