And then the confusion into which the mind is thrown by the definitions and conclusions of magnetizers, would make a very Babel of the fair field of philosophy. The least perplexing, perhaps, is that of the French _savans_ who referred magnetism to the efforts of a fluid matter consisting of fire, air, and spirit, to preserve its equilibrium in certain bodies which were, as to their capacity for this fluid, in a state of plus and minus. There is nothing very unphilosophical in this; for the essence of magnetism is somewhat analogous to eccentric derangement of mind, a disturbance of that order or symmetry among the faculties and actions, by which one is highly excited and another is comparatively passive. In a word, Mesmerism is true in part: it _may_ induce catalepsy, somnambulism, exalted sensation, apathetic insensibility, suspended circulation, even death. Clairvoyance and prophecy alone are the impositions as regards its _effects_, as the “blue flame” at the finger tips is of its _nature_. One folly more. Mesmer himself vaunted to Dr. Von Ellikon, “twenty years ago I magnetized the sun;” &c. so that the miracle of Joshua was but a stroke of magnetism. Indeed, Richter, rector of the School of Dessau, affirms that all the miracles of the Testament were but the sequences of magnetic passes. And Kieser refers all to a “telluric spirit,” a sort of magic, of which the sun and moon are the grand reservoirs; nay, this influence is the real cause of sleep and waking. IDA. So that we are mesmerized by the moon at night-fall, and unmesmerized by the sun at the opening of the dawn. EV. Then there were some aphorisms of Wolfart about _fiddling_ to the viscera with his magnetic medicine, and working them up, as it were, to a jig or a bolero. These are the visions of a madman. But surely the illusion regarding this mysterious fluid is confessed in Dupotet’s own notion of _his own_ wondrous faculty, when he asserts his belief that animal magnetism is analogous to the royal touch, and the mysteries of Apollo, and Æsculapius, and Isis, the miracles of Vespasian, and the Sibylline prophecies. ASTR. You sneer at this as you did at the blue flame; but Dupotet assures us that while he is magnetizing his patients, he feels a sensation at the points of his fingers resembling the _aura_ from diffused electricity. Now is it not fair to ask if electro-magnetism may not reside in the _animal_ as well as in the _mineral_, in _man_ as well as in the _torpedo_ and _gymnotus_. And why may there not be a condition of intercommunication or _en rapport_, a magnetic _aura_ creeping through the nerves of each body? We should not, therefore, make any hasty decision against the presence of an _aura_ streaming from the fingers and directed by the will. Monsieur Deleuze said, in Paris, “I do not know if this be material or spiritual, nor to what distance it is impelled; but it is impelled and directed by my will, for if I cease to will, the influence instantly ceases.”