actions of the natural language will occur without our being conscious of any action or sensation whatever in the part. It is clear, therefore, that there must be some original directing force or sentience, independent of consciousness or will. But I found that some of these sleepers were conscious of the action going on in the brain; and that when any feeling or sense was in existence, they could tell you the part of the brain that was in action. It was not pain; nor exactly pulsation; but a clear and peculiar sensation in the part in action. Here I found a second important channel of investigation under Mesmerism. But still, this was not a new phenomenon to me for in certain conditions of ill health, I had been distinctly conscious of similar sensations. There is another more positive condition to be remarked, when, after over-excitement or confused action, &c., absolute pain is experienced; in the same way that it occurs from similar causes in other parts of the body. In pain, Nature, as it were, speaks out her wants, to arrest our attention;-to draw force to the part;-to instruct the physician. But the physician has not yet learned the language of pain; so that, in this respect, for the most part Nature cries out in vain. How little is studied the nature of pains, and their sympathetic connections, and their relations especially to the head! A headache is a headache; and little regard is paid to the parts affected. There is hardly one of Gall's organs, the proof of which has not been as clear to me from the notice of pains in the parts affected, as from observing the external development. There is hardly one organ that I have not at some time observed to pain me when in unusual action; occurring mostly when I was in an unusually sensitive condition and there has been a time when I have kept myself unwell for days, solely to observe these phenomena. But we have other means now; and this is not necessary. : Here I must state another remarkable circumstance. You know that some mesmerized persons are able to describe the condition of others by sympathetic sensations, occurring in themselves. They sometimes go beyond this: but this is one stage. This is a sympathetic condition which I know to exist in some persons in their natural state; and it often occurs to those who mesmerize. While mesmerizing, they will feel pain in the part affected in the patient; and, in some instances, imbibe the disease. I have seldom experienced these pains when mesmerizing; but I have felt, when very sensitive from mesmerizing much, immediately on coming into the presence of my patients where they were in pain at the time, and what was their condition of health. I have sometimes doubted my correctness when I felt the pains to have changed in a way that I could not suppose was the case: but on inquiry, I always found that the mesmerometer was right. I must relate another condition which was more peculiar to myself. In passing my hand over a patient without touching, or knowing where he had pain, I could feel the pain in my hand, as distinctly as the patient felt it in the part affected. I felt the sensations as distinctly as I feel heat in passing my hand over a candle: and I could tell the character and precise extent of the pain. I felt in my hand what the patient felt in the ailing part. The hand would, as it were, absorb the pain; and I was aware of the instant it was removed from the sufferer. My hand removed other conditions of disease in the same way. The account published of my curing Miss -'s eye was an instance of this. My hand was always soothing and healing, even to the most inflamed part, when the hands of others irritated and did harm. Beyond this, I could instantly tell when the patient passed into sleep, with my eyes shut; simply from the sensation I experienced in my hand and the same with each distinct change of condition during the sleep. Thus we may perceive that in all changes, certain forces or indications are evolved. And you see what admirable proofs we have of the action of one living body upon another. You may suppose what I thought of the objection that the effects of mesmerism were only imagination in the patient; while I was in possession of this test, and was easing people of their pains, and even putting them into the mesmeric sleep, for the first time, and wholly without their knowledge. Another mode of inquiry with sleepers is to cause them, on any striking mental effects having occurred to them in dreams or otherwise, to point out to you, one after the other, the parts of the brain which have been affected, or in which pain has occurred, in relation to the passion or feeling of the time; and also in regard to the effects of mind upon the body, and of the body on the mind and brain. The extraordinary memory and sense of these influences and relations with some sleepers are very remarkable, and would hardly be credited by those who have not observed or investigated them. I could relate to you numerous striking instances of this. Beyond all this, you know how I found that I could excite into action any portion of the brain, or arrest any portion already in action, by touching the part, and in some instances by only pointing to it; and by other means: so that in numerous instances, I could play upon the head, and produce what actions I pleased, just as distinctly as you play upon the keys of the piano. The clearness of the response of course depended on the condition of the patient. In some cases, only a few parts are susceptible: in others, the whole brain: or the brain is susceptible during one condition of the sleep and not another, or at one time and not at another. In some cases patients are subject to the action of metals and other substances; and one substance will destroy the effect of another, or unite and cause a third result. In some cases, the mere pressure of inanimate substances will excite the action of the part; or the mere pressure of where the head is resting. The different parts of the brain can be thus excited, just as we excite any other portion of the nervous system :—a limb, or one finger, or two fingers at a time ; or a nerve of the face, so as to cause a twitching or other action of the part. The organs of the cerebellum are generally more susceptible than those of the cerebrum: but there are cases where the result is confused, or the excitement brings in a combination in its habit of action with other parts. In such cases, you can hardly draw any positive conclusions, any more than from the confused results of Majendie's vivisections. In a few instances, some parts being more susceptible than others, touching in the neighbourhood of those parts will call them into action, and not the less susceptible part which is actually touched. This is oftener the case with the organs of the cerebellum than with those of the cerebrum. But these are not cases on which I rely; and they are unfit for experiment. Failures in such cases are not to be considered as affording any objection to the clear and decided results from fit subjects, any more than a pain in the special organ after fatigue or distraction,-of music, for instance, is to be negatived because some men have confused headache from a similar cause; they being in a different condition or the single ache of one finger is to be denied, because in some instances the whole hand, and in others the whole arm, becomes influenced more or less on touching any part. Every case must be taken on its own merits, and the cause of failure or confusion ascertained. Thus, failures and modified results often become the clearest proof of the truth already established from positive and clear evidences. I have excited the separate organs |