It is no easy matter to give full credit to the reality of the mesmeric phenomena, or to admit the alleged facts, and when forced to do so by a mass of testimony which it is impossible to resist, nothing is more natural than that we should suggest various hypotheses to account for them. Of all these hypotheses no one, to those who have been eye-witnesses of the mesmeric phenomena, is less satisfactory than that which attributes them to a species of juggling or sleight-of-hand, or to collusion between the magnetized and the magnetizer. Whatever may be the jugglery or connivance in particular cases, or whatever be the real solution of the problem, we must, as a general rule, admit the good faith of the parties. The man who could produce by address or skill, by art, the wonderful phenomena produced by the mesmerizer, who could so successfully elude the scrutiny of the most acute and intelligent witnesses, and so effectually deceive the senses of all classes, would have no motive to practise mesmerism, for he could produce more excitement, and gain more notoriety, and more money as a professed juggler. It is very easy for those who have never seen the mesmeric phenomena, to set them down as a mere cheat, which they, if present, could very easily have detected, but it is very possible that they who have witnessed them are as able to detect an imposition as would be these critics themselves, and are far better judges than they are, not having seen them, unless we are to suppose that the blind can in some cases see better than those who have eyes. Among the innumerable witnesses of these phenomena there may be as careful and as intelligent observers as those who emit their oracles with solemn gravity on matters of which they confessedly know nothing. Academicians and members of royal and scientific societies are no doubt very respectable personages, but they are not always the best observers in the world. I would trust “Jack” to distinguish between a seal or horse-mackerel and the sea-serpent, much quicker than I would Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz. Learned academicians and members of scientific societies, whether of Paris or London, Berlin or Philadelphia, are the easiest people in the world to impose upon. A clever lad could pass off upon them a sucker for a pike, and a crawfish for a lobster. But they need not judge all the world by themselves. Human testimony is not yet become wholly worthless. There is a cloud both of competent and of credible witnesses in almost every country, to the reality of the mesmeric phenomena, and to the good faith, the simplicity, and trustworthiness of both mesmerizers and mesmerized. Whatever be the agent that actually produces these extraordinary phenomena, we must seek it elsewhere than in mere jugglery, sleight-of-hand, trickery, or fraud.