disappointed that there were no figs: and are we to approve of his declaring therefore that the tree shall henceforth bear no fruit? Surely these are not the doings of pure intelligence and high morality. Mr. Sandby adduces the account of the figtree instantly withering away, as a matter altogether out of the pale of Mesmerism but Bacon did not think thus, though he was not acquainted with the wonders of mesmeric power; but gives it as an experiment to be tried,—whether, by the force of imagination, you cannot cause a tree suddenly to fade. But Mr. Sandby quotes only one version of the story. He forgets that in Mark it is stated that it was only noticed that the tree had withered the following day. This is very important to note; because such discrepancy shows that the accounts cannot be relied on for accuracy; and it relieves us of the idea of the instantaneousness of the effect; which is the point Mr. Sandby relies on.

There are many most distressing cases of purely nervous condition which I have cured almost instantaneously. Nor is touching always requisite, as Mr. Sandby supposes. In the case of the man who was dumb and had an impediment in his speech, it is described that Christ took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears; and he spat, and touched his tongue, &c. This is clearly a mesmeric process; and we know not how long the process occupied. The patient was taken aside for the purpose. In another instance, Christ spat on the ground, and made clay

and

of the spittle; and he anointed the eyes of the blind man with the clay, and then bade him go wash in the Pool of Siloam.

--

Again, in the case of the man with the dumb spirit, after his fit, he becomes " "as one dead," or in a mesmeric sleep; and Christ took him by the hand, and he arose. Again, in the case of blindness, the influence is clearly not instantaneous; for, first, there is a par tial recovery, the seeing persons like moving trees. The operation is renewed before the complete sight is restored. But I need not continue these instances, which nothing but professional blindness in one aware of the nature of Mesmerism could overlook. Again, Mr. Sandby is not aware that the peculiar condition of one person can be conveyed to another. He is not aware of the influence of faith, and of mind on mind; and that Christ might choose his disciples as fitting material to act upon. Mr. Sandby considers it miraculous that the apostles were able to do what Christ did, and had his powers conveyed to them. It is one of the remarkable facts of Mesmerism, that the nervous condition of one person may influence another in a similar way, and enable him in mesmerizing to produce similar effects. One person 21 may influence another as the loadstone influences a piece of iron, and makes a magnet. —On one occasion Christ felt the virtue going out of him. At the time when I was worn with mesmerizing night and day, and very sensitive, I experienced this repeatedly, and that patients under certain

circumstances have the power to help themselves to the sanitary influence, just as they might attract a contagious disease.*

As for the appearance of Christ after death, there are thousands of ghost stories of a similar character. In all cases, these appearances are subjective phenomena. When we think of the power manifested by such men as Greatrakes, Swedenborg and Zschokke, we need not marvel at the prophets of the East; nor, once admitting the existence of a faculty, can we well limit its development. Christ, the prophets, the oracles, all exhibit features of the same great fact, -the existence of faculties in Man beyond sense, experience, and reason; which faculties are chiefly called forth under abnormal conditions, but are seldom exhibited in a wholly pure state. - In this state, men listen to the voice of intuition, fancy themselves inspired, are carried away by the delusion, and delude the

-

world with their wanderings. Christ's case seems to me as clear as daylight. But I will end now,

dnd reply to your questions in another letter.

* Goethe describes instances of his grandfather's insight or clairvoyance, and says that "it is worthy to note also, that persons who showed no signs of prophetic insight at other times, acquired for the moment, while in his presence, and that by means of some sensible evidence, presentiments of diseases or death, which were then occurring in distant places; but no such gift has been transmitted to any of his children, or grandchildren, who for the most part have been hearty people, enjoying life, and never going beyond the actual." — Goethe. Autobiography.

XIX.

RELEASE FROM NOTIONS.

ENTRANCE UPON

KNOWLEDGE.

H. M. To H. G. A.

I AM glad I asked you in what sense you used the words "God," "Origin," &c., for your reply comes to me like a piece of refreshing sympathy, -as rare as it is refreshing. I cannot tell you how the pain grows upon me of seeing how little notion men have of the modesty and largeness of conception necessary in approaching the study of themselves or any other part of nature; and in the conduct of their mere daily business. Of all the people I have ever known, how few there are who can suspend their opinion on so vast a subject as the origin and progression of the universe? How few there are who have ever thought of suspending their opinion! How few who would not think it a sin so to suspend their opinion! To me, however, it seems absolutely necessary, as well as the greatest possible relief, to come to a plain understanding with myself about it and deep and sweet is the repose of having done so. There is no theory of a God,* of an author of Nature, of an origin of the universe, which is not utterly repugnant to my faculties;

:

* Bacon says of Epicurus, (Essay XVI.,) “His words are noble and divine: non deos vulgi negare profanum; sed vulgi opiniones diis applicare profanum.'"

which is not (to my feelings) so irreverent as to make me blush; so misleading as to make me mourn. I can now hardly believe that it was I who once read Milton with scarcely any recoil from the theology; or Paley's Natural Theology with pleasure at the ingenuity of the mechanic-god he thought he was recommending to the admiration of his readers. To think what the God of the multitude is, — morally, as well as physically! To think what the God of the spiritualist is! and to remember the admission of the best of that class, that God is a projection of their own ideal faculty, recognizable only through that class of faculties, and by no means through any external evidence! to see that they give the same account of the origin of Idols; and simply pronounce that the first is an external reality, and the last an internal illusion! To think that they begin with the superstition of supposing a God of essentially their own nature, who is their friend and in sympathy with them, and the director of all the events of their lives, and the thoughts of their minds; and how, when driven from this grosser superstition by the evidences of Law which are all around them, they remove their God a stage from them, and talk of a general instead of a particular Providence, and a Necessity which modifies the character of prayer; and how, next, when the absolute dominion of Law opens more and more to their perception, excluding all notions of revelation and personal intercourse between a God and man, and of sameness of nature