"Behold a discovery which promises unspeakable advantages to the human race, and immortal fame to its author! Behold the dawn of an universal revolution! A new race of men shall arise, shall overspread the earth, to embellish it by their virtues, and render it fertile by their industry. Neither vice nor ignorance, shall stop their active career; they will know our calamities only from the records of history. The prolonged duration of their life will enable them to plan and accomplish the most laudable undertakings. The tranquil, the innocent gratifications of that primeval age will be restored, wherein man laboured without toil, lived without sorrow, and expired without a groan! Mothers will no longer be subject to pain and danger during their pregnancy and child-birth: their progeny will be more robust and brave; the now rugged and difficult path of education will be rendered smooth and easy; and hereditary complaints and diseases will be for ever banished from the future auspicious race. Fathers rejoicing to see their posterity of the fourth and fifth generations, will only drop like fruit fully ripe, at the extreme point of age! Animals and plants, no less susceptible of the magnetic power than man, will be exempt from the reproach of barrenness and the ravages of distemper. The flocks in the fields, and the plants in the gardens, will be more vigorous and nourishing, and the trees will bear more beautiful and grateful fruits. The human race, once endowed with this elementary power, will probably rise to still more sublime and astonishing effects of nature: who indeed is able to pronounce, with certainty, how far this salutary influence may extend?" "What splendid promises! What rich prospects! Messmer, the greatest of philosophers, the most virtuous of men, the physician of mankind, charitably opens his arms to all his fellow-mortals, who stand in need of comfort and assistance. No wonder that the cause of magnetism, under such a zealous apostle, rapidly gained ground, and obtained every day large additions to the number of its converts. To the gay, the nervous, and the dissipated of all ranks and ages, it held out the most flattering promises. Men of the first respectability interested themselves in behalf of this new philosophy; they anticipated in idea, the more happy and more vigorous race which would proceed, as it were, by enchantment, from the wonderful impulsive powers of animal magnetism. The French were so far seduced by these flattering appearances, as to offer the German adventurer _thirty thousand livres_ for the communication of his secret art. He appears, however, to have understood his own interest better than thus to dispose of his hypothetical property, which, upon a more accurate investigation might be objected to, as consisting of unfair articles of purchase. He consequently returned the following answer to the credulous French ministers: