347. “At Paris especially, in repeating the experiments, they were made a pastime for a soirée. Children were introduced into the circles, without considering whether correlative evil might not be coupled with these mysterious amusements.
348. “It is true they would not allow the smallest Leyden jar to come near them; but what troubles might have resulted from the action of an electricity that could raise tables of eighteen dishes like a feather?
349. “It is true, too, that M. Rouilly, maître de pension at Orleans, undertook to give an answer. In the Moniteur due Loiret, he informs us that ‘at his house, even in the middle of the process, a large young man of twenty-six was seized with a violent trembling in all his limbs, and that his left forearm began suddenly to oscillate in a frightful manner, making as many as a thousand movements in a minute; being able, he said, to utter only broken syllables; staggered like an intoxicated man; it was necessary to carry him to bed, and the next day he still felt some nervous trembling.’ M. Rouilly ended in saying ‘that he felt it his duty to report this fact for the benefit of those who may enter into these experiments without knowing their possible serious inconveniences.’ Little attention was paid to this, so much had fashion asserted empire, so much was this pleasure worth its cost.
350. “However, knowing long since all the particulars, we are disposed to ask ourselves, What is going to result from all this? what will the savans say? Will they allow themselves to be carried away by electric appearances? will their philosophy allow them to seek independently of the fluids, which may be imagined to operate, the real agent of such a variety of effects? No; they well know, however, that in the sciences—medicine, for example—every investigation that stops short of phenomena, is of very secondary value; we may be satisfied, for want of better, but still we do not feel ourselves in possession of the truth; we still seek it. Why in this case should we do otherwise? These suppositions were just, but we say without hesitation our fantastic experimenters committed from the first an unpardonable fault, philosophically speaking; that is, not to have taken the least notice of those facts from America which were beginning to sound in their ears from all sides. When we are visited by the plague, yellow fever, or cholera, the first care of the faculty is to have it studied in Egypt, Spain, and Poland. These scourges are investigated even at the place of their birth; we notice their origin, development, and termination. Well! in doing the same in this case, these gentlemen would have seen as clear as day that the Augsbourg Gazette was right in telling them that this animal magnetizing was received direct from America. But what shall we do? we take no pleasure in looking at what we do not want to see.
351. “However, this affiliation once well established, well understood, by thoroughly studying the American prodigies, we should very soon have reached the assurance that there, at least, the spirits had exhibited themselves in open day; and there, as they were first concealed in tables or behind partitions, we could have seen immediately what might be reserved for us for the future.
352. “But rest assured our French science will not yield; the snare is too gross; French science has no rival in physics and electricity; it only sees in this a waggish electricity, and will never consent to be persuaded that it has slept a hundred years at the side of such truths, or rather at the side of such enormities in physics.
353. “And then iniquity is exhibited to herself at all times. Sir, then what becomes of the indispensable conditions of Dr. André? that is to say: ‘All the effects ceasing on the least interruption of the chain.’
354. “This morning, in a journal of Lorraine, there is a notice of a circle formed in a first story, round a massive table; as long as the circle continued nothing was done; but getting tired they all leave for the street, and a few moments afterward the rebellious table begins to waltz, as if to bid defiance to the party. What a law of physics, what electricity! Behold, on the other hand, cities and countries disinherited! Behold the city of Valence, who laboured all in her power, who followed with angelic patience all the prescriptions of the new science; nothing could produce the phenomena. Is it that at Valence, perchance, the human species has no electricity? Mon Dieu! it has electricity, but it is not of that accidental and local kind, the real kind for the occasion, and which may be therefore denominated erratic; as the ancients called those gods that moved about from place to place.
355. “No, Science is not to be so deceived; she is not satisfied with the explanation of the little fingers, but soon perceives that these little fingers supply here precisely the part of the famous mesmeric trough, and the chain that was formed entirely round it. Then, also, the chain was said to be very important; and the trough, magnet, steel, glass pile all necessary agents. Very well, what has now become of all these necessities? The magnetic effects exceed all those of that time, and notwithstanding they are not made any use of. Much more! since the passes have ceased to be the fashion, the phenomena have doubled. In Germany, where people go to the bottom of things, they have desired to look into the heart of it. Each master of the magnet—and they are pretty plenty there—has constructed his own trough. That of Walford consists of an iron box, furnished with bottles, iron wire, ground glass, &c. That of Keiser was made of beech without bottles, and filled with water, which did not prevent the effects from being precisely the same in the two cases. Thus it was said: It is magnetism alone which gives them this power, and they magnetized their best. But one lucky day it was thought proper not to magnetize, and the trough lost none of its power! ‘Ah! ah!’ they say, ‘the trough is magnetized by the magnetized patients themselves, and they put a stout man into it, free from all magnetic influence, and besides in excellent health. Well, this time! the magnetic effects exceeded in intensity all the previous experiments, and never had the phenomena exhibited themselves so brilliantly.’
356. “This is the precise account of the famous report of Bailly, of which M. Arago spoke so highly in his last memoir; and in one respect he was right; for these great experimenters did not allow themselves to be caught by any of these electric seductions, and proclaimed physics to be entirely innocent of all the effects they witnessed. But at the same time they thought proper to refer to the imagination these same prodigious effects, which no one could understand even after having seen them; and there was their great mistake; they were right as savans, as philosophers inexcusable.