APPENDIX.

NOTE I.--Page 14.

THE suspension of the power of will is here assumed. Mr. Stewart's opinions, to which I have alluded in the text, on this subject, are somewhat vague. "It may be proper to remark," he observes, "that if the suspension of our voluntary operations in sleep is admitted as a fact, there are only two suppositions, which can be formed concerning its cause. The one is, that the power of volition is suspended; the other, that the will loses its influence over those faculties of the mind, and those members of the body, which during our waking hours are subjected to its authority. If it can be shown that the former supposition is not agreeable to fact, the truth of the latter seems to follow, as a necessary consequence.

"That the power of volition is not suspended during sleep appears from the efforts, which we are conscious of making while in that situation. We dream, for example, that we are in danger; and we attempt to call out for assistance. The attempt, indeed, is in general unsuccessful; and the sounds which we emit are feeble and indistinct; but this only confirms or rather is a necessary consequence of

the supposition, that in sleep the connexion between the will and our voluntary operations is disturbed or interrupted. The continuance of the power of the volition is demonstrated by the effort, however ineffectual."*

Surely the continuance of power is not proved by an ineffectual effort.

"The fact seems to be," as Mr. Stewart himself afterwards observes, "that the body is, at that time, not subject to the will."

NOTE II.-P. 38.

(Referred to as Note I.)

The exhibitions of mesmerism may be classed under two heads. Those, which imply the temporary abolition, or perversion, or exaltation of ordinary properties; and those, which imply the evolution of certain new properties. In the remarks of the text I mean to advert only to phenomena falling under the first head; namely, insensibility to pain, stupor, and delirium.

The more marvellous phenomena, which fall under the second head, are contained in that state, which the mesmerists term clairvoyance, in the power which they assert as existing in their patients, of predicting certain physical changes; and in the supposed conveyance of a mesmeric influence through certain solids and fluids, touched by them. To those gentlemen, who have given in their adhesion to these imputed effects of mesmerism, on the faith of experiments recently exhibited in London, I will venture to submit some remarks, borrowed indeed from one

Elements of Philosophy of the Mind, vol. i. p. 330.

of the soundest philosophers of the day,* Mr. Baden Powell, that "it is a violation of all just induction to infer a general property from too limited number of instances," and that "what constitutes a sufficient number of instances" must depend upon "the nature of the case," as well as the experience and power of judgment possessed by the inquirer. Thus it is the antecedent probability furnished by the nature of the case, as well as "lighted on by the ingenuity of the inquirer," which favours confident and rapid conclusions.

The necessity of such caution in regard to the phenomena of mesmerism, even where they fall under the first head, is increased by the probability of imposture, involved in the very nature of the persons, on whom mesmerism is practised with success. For mendacity is a symptom of the hysterical constitution, to which class of constitutions it would appear that the best recipients of this influence belong. I know not how far the advocates of mesmerism will accept a defence against the charge of imposture, which concedes the charge as far as the character of their patients is concerned: yet, certainly, if every series of improbable facts, in which there might be some imposture, were rejected in limine on that account, we should deny ourselves much valuable knowledge. The mental principles which lead to falsehood in some hysterical cases, themselves involve a curious subject of research.

Physicians assert the delusive nature of hysteria. Most of us have witnessed the simulation and dissimulation

* Powell on the Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, p. 22. The remarks of Mr. Powell, as establishing criteria of the adequacy of analysis, are beyond any praise that I can bestow.

practised under this state by persons of previously unblemished honor; and we readily admit the difficulties opposed to our treatment of the disease by the limited state of our pathological knowledge. Shall we then deny ourselves the means of increasing that scanty fund, which an inquiry into mesmerism might possibly afford, because, forsooth, we suspect imposture-in other words, because we suspect the existence of a symptom, which, if not an invariable concomitant, is at least one of the most frequent accidents to the disease, which we profess our wish to unravel? Yet such is the value of the reasoning employed against inquiry into mesmerism, when it is put aside, on the ground of imposture, by those, who admit its connexion with hysteria.

NOTE III.-P. 74.

The following remarks occur in the theory of moral sentiments; I extract them, as they appear to suggest a different conclusion from mine. "The principle of suicide," says Mr. Adam Smith, "the principle which should teach us upon some occasions to consider that violent action as an object of applause and approbation, seems to be altogether a refinement of philosophy. Nature in her sound and healthy state seems never to prompt us to suicide. There is, indeed, a species of melancholy, (a disease to which human nature among its other calamities is unhappily subject,) which seems to be accompanied with what one may call an irresistible appetite for self-destruction." This view is apparently adopted by Mr. Smith in deference to his favourite principle. "When we have neither been able," he observes, "to defend ourselves against distress, nor have perished

in that defence, no natural principle, no regard to the approbation of the supposed impartial spectator seems to call upon us to escape by destroying ourselves."*

Now this reasoning involves a proposition, in which few will concur with Mr. Smith; that any line of conduct must be morbid and unnatural, which we are not induced to adopt by the approbation of his supposed impartial spec

tator.

NOTE IV.-P. 107.

As the word temperament frequently occurs in this essay, I will endeavour to lay before my reader the sense in which it is used. I am the more induced to do this by some remarks which occur in an ingenious article in the British and Foreign Quarterly,† in which the reviewer expresses his surprise that such an "imaginary entity," as the bilious temperament, should engage attention.

The reviewer appears to forget, that the "vagueness," of which he complains in the term, is inherent in the subject; but that the uncertain expression of a given class of ideas will often be better, than no expression at all, provided the limitedness of the information thus conveyed be kept in mind. Mathematical statements allow of a perfect definiteness, because we permit ourselves in their case to employ a process of abstraction, which disencumbers our view of all that is not definite. But when this is attempted, and it is too often attempted, in medical description, we obtain a dry affirmation of phenomena, which neither represents the disease, which we have to cure, nor the remedy, which we have to use, nor the person, whom we Vol. ii. p. 216, 10th Edition. t Vol. v. p. 384.

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