"But it is argued by some of the advocates of mesmeric influence, that their agent, though perhaps not physical, is at any rate moral--that the will, or some spiritual energy on the part of the mesmerist, is the power by which his victims are entranced and rendered obedient to his bidding. Here, too, all the well-authenticated cases establish a totally different conclusion. They prove that the will or spiritual power of the mesmerist has _of itself_ no ascendency or control whatsoever over the body or mind of his victim. Every well-guarded series of experiments has exhibited the mesmerist and his patient at cross-purposes with each other--the patient frequently doing those things which the mesmerist was desirous he should not do, and not doing those things which the operator was desirous he should do. As for the buffoonery begotten by mesmerism on phrenology, this exhibition can scarcely be expected to provoke much astonishment, or credence, or comment, except among professional artists themselves-- 'Like Katterfelto, with their hair on end, At their own wonders, _wondering for their bread_!' "The true explanation of mesmerism is to be found, as we have said, in the weakness or infatuation of human nature itself. No other causes are at all necessary to account for the mesmeric prostration. There is far more craziness, both physical and moral, in man than he usually gives himself credit for. The reservoir of human folly may be in a great measure occult, but it is always full; and all that silliness, whether of body or mind, at any time wants, is _to get its cue_. "These general remarks are of course more applicable to some individuals than they are to others. In soft and weak natures, where the nervous system is subject to cataleptic seizures, mental and bodily prostration is frequently almost the normal condition. Such of our readers as may have frequented mesmeric exhibitions must have observed a kind of _semi-humanity_ visible in the expression and demeanor of most of the subjects whom the professional operators carry about with them. These poor creatures are at all times ready to imbibe the magnetic stupefaction, because it is only by an effort that they are ever free from it. There is always at work within them an occult tendency to self-abandonment--an unintentional proclivity to aberration, imitation, and deceit, which only requires a signal to precipitate its morbid deposits. This constitutional infirmity of body and of mind furnishes to the mesmerist a basis for his operations, and is the source of all the wonders which he works.