The committee appointed by the Academy of Sciences to examine magnetism, reported that they have seen the imagination when excited become powerful enough to produce crises, cause them to cease, and arrest the speech in an instant. We find in their report these remarkable expressions, which we transcribe word for word: "What we have learned is this, that man can act upon man at any moment and almost at will, by exciting his imagination; that the action which man has upon the imagination can be reduced to art, and conducted by a method upon subjects who have faith." Distinguished physicians have noticed examples of cures produced by the aid of the imagination alone. One of them declares he produced abundant sweats by presenting to the sight of a sick man an innocent drug for a sudorific. A strong will, says another, can cure some diseases and hasten the cure of those which attack us. The moral power, adds he, communicating itself to the physical, aids in throwing off the contagion. A celebrated physician said pleasantly: "I would have died like another, if I had willed it." These words, reduced to their true sense are a testimony unintentionally rendered to the empire of the will over matter. Some have gone so far as to say, that the extreme desire of seeing a beloved person could retard death. We should not conclude from these words a new theory of immortality, but the acknowledgment of a moral power which may become a remedy.

It is this power which Condorcet appeals to when he tries to prove that the Stoic philosophy which professed to escape from pain, was founded in nature. "The Stoics," said he, "rightly judged that they could not oppose to the evils to which we are subject by nature, a remedy at once more useful and certain than to excite in our souls a permanent enthusiasm, which, increasing at the same time with the pain, by our efforts to bear up against it, would render us almost insensible to it." The authority of this philosopher will not be called in question in this matter. For if a mechanical explanation of this phenomena had presented itself to his mind, we may be sure that he would have availed himself of it.

How many remedies have charlatans produced of the curative effects of which chemical analysis has demonstrated the impossibility? Doubtless there was an impossibility of a real action of such an object upon such an organ; but there was an influence direct and certain of the soul of the sick man upon his body; he took the prescription with a confidence without bounds, and this confidence, altogether moral, produced an effect wholly material. That confidence was a force, a power; it is that which the physician acknowledges when he so often exclaims at the sick bed, "courage! courage!" He well knows that the firm will of the diseased counts for something in the cure which his skill means to attempt.

The influence of one soul upon another is as incontestible as that of the soul upon the body. How often has not the physician observed the effects of his presence upon the sick? How many fathers and mothers who can testify to real impressions which they produce upon their children? A great captain electrifies with a word those who are about him; he makes of a pusilanimous spirit, a courageous soul, which faces danger, and feels no pain. There is a spiritual influence

here which it is impossible to mistake. Our souls unite, because they are of the same nature. It is those who have most soul who most sensibly control others. Tacitus relates that Vespasian made use of this irresistible ascendency which surrounds power to cure, in Egypt, two sick persons who were brought to him.

There may be some truth in the effects with which exorcisms have been followed; superstition itself has a moral force of which the results upon the body are undeniable. The grossest error has consequences. The mind attentive to a prophecy, which concerns it, may see it realized. The moral power of soul upon soul is prodigious, and the very dangers which are the fruits of it, bear witness to its own greatness. There would be no need of so much watchfulness over the exercise of our powers, if they were of a material origin— bodies do not mutually penetrate each other. Contact does not produce fusion of one into another.

But this power which the soul of an individual exercises upon its body, this power which it receives from another, whence is it derived? Reason and philosophy answer that it is not inherent; it is from some other source. Man is not the source of life, he is only its organ; he is not the principle of immaterial power, he is only the receptacle. This power appears to us as if dependent upon ourselves; we believe we have it in ourselves, we imagine we transmit it by the sole action of our will; but this powerful will is given to us only that we may be free organs of life; without this precious gift we would be automaThe power which we exercise, is communicated, and we merit or demerit according to the free use which we make of it. This is a philosophical truth which the science of the physical man esteems of no value. Without this condition of our nature, the divine, influence would descend into man as into an inanimate being; there would be reception, but no conjunction.

tons.

If the life which descends into man did not seem in fact to belong to himself, there would be no morality attached to his actions; virtuous without merit, and guilty without remorse, he would have nothing which should appertain to intelligent nature. Suppose, on the contrary, this independent will communicated to a being who nevertheless receives all from another source, is it not true that the free use of this faculty will constitute all the nobility of his nature? In humbling himself before the Being who gives him life, he will acknowledge himself a debtor, recognize the bestower, and worship will be the consequence of this free sacrifice of man.

This is the idea which was felt by him who exclaimed with so much eloquence: "Being of beings! I am, because Thou art; the most worthy use of my reason is to humble myself before thee; it is the delight of my soul, it is the charm of my weakness, to feel myself overwhelmed by Thy greatness." The author of the Philosophy of History thus expresses himself: "Made for liberty, man was not destined to be the subject of imitation of superior beings, but every where he is led to this happy opinion, that he acts of himself."

Man receives everything, both the impressions of external objects by his senses, and immaterial power in the moral faculties which are its re

ceptacles. The affections and thoughts descend into the human mind according to its state of reception. Thus there is influence from the other world upon our moral faculties, as there is this world's influence upon our physical organs. Man is not a being detached, having the power to create; he receives and combines the elements which he has received. Enthusiasm descends from above, as the etymology of the word expresses it, which signifies God in us; the imperfect metaphysics of the sensations will not explain how this state is produced by the contact of our senses with external objects. These may be the occasion of a sudden inspiration, but they cannot be the cause. If the moral as well as physical life were not communicated to man, he would possess it in himself, and then he would be God. An independent life, which has no source but in itself, a life which of itself is self-sufficient, belongs not but to the self-subsisting and only subsisting Being; that is called self-subsisting, which alone is; and that is called only-subsisting, from which every other thing is. Our affections are warmed from the divine fire, our thoughts are purified by light from the supreme source. If we refuse to approach it, we become blind. The Pythagoreans who knew these mysteries of the soul, called themselves the living, in contradistinction to other men in their view plunged into the darkness of death. It is in this sense that the Scriptures also call those dead, who do not partake of this moral life. "Let the dead," says Jesus Christ, "bury the dead."

There is, then, one common source of life, for all beings; this source I call God. Mallebranche* defines it with just reason-the place of spirits, as space is the place of bodies. Plato says that it is impossible to exercise the least influence upon men unaided by a superior power. Man has, indeed, the will to act of himself, as we have explained above; but this truth, that he can do nothing without divine assistance, is so deeply engraven upon all hearts, that impostors themselves are obliged to have recourse to it, and profess themselves to be the messengers of the Most High, even when they are acting in a sense opposite to that of the divine influence. Hypocrisy proves virtue, as the exception proves the rule; this, the testimony of impostors, itself, confirms the opinion that God descends into the human soul to render it the agent of his will.

The nearer the approach to the Divinity, the greater the genius, the more the man becomes elevated. It has been remarked that every man who speaks of God and the soul, with conviction, becomes suddenly eloquent. The nearer the source, the greater the power, and his eloquence is the consequence of a more intimate commerce with that order of immaterial things which we deny, because we never seek it where it is.

Pythagoras had remarked this phenomenon, observed so often since,

* Richer here approves of the idea of Mallebranche, because he explains himself by means of the theory of degrees, of which that metaphysician had no knowledge. Without this theory, the opinion of Mallebranche may be dangerous, and has been justly censured, but developed by Swedenborg's theory of degrees, it presents no danger, and is above all criticism.

that in a temple, man, penetrated with the divine presence, takes, so to speak, a new being. Plato, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, philosophers of all ages, affirm that it is from above that these gifts descend, which shine with certain men, and make them beings superior to those of their species. Sacred history gives us an example of this change. The apostles, after having received the Holy Spirit, became new men. Their ascendency was such, that communicating to others the heavenly power with which they were filled, they exercised towards them that spiritual remedy, the effects of which are verified in the sacred books.

In quoting the apostles, I must not forget to remark, that in this thesis, I consider as proven the historical testimonies upon which it is supported. If a physiologist should call them in question, he would relinquish his science, and his denial would be of no value. It belongs to the historical critic to destroy here facts of which another and different science is not the judge. These are facts, which, if you reject, discussion is at an end. If, on the other hand, you admit them, then substitute a theory more probable than that which I here expound to you.

The existence of another world, whose influence modifies ours, is a thing acknowledged by all thinking men. Nature produces nothing: of itself it is but the plane upon which life operates. Life is without or above it, though it makes one with it, as the soul of man is itself distinct from the body which it animates, and with which it appears to identify itself. The order and wisdom which reign in the universe, are not the fruit of the fortuitous reunion of the parts of which it is composed. That which has not intelligence, cannot manifest any.

There is a real influence of something upon the mind; now as there can be no influence of nature upon nature, that of which we speak must necessarily come from the very principle of all things. The ancients recognizing the causes of all things to be in the spiritual world, the word Manes, according to Festus, was given to spirits, because they believed that all terrestrial objects were subjected to the power of the shades or ghosts, and that emanations proceeded from them which were diffused round about; manes quia ab eis omnia manantur. To this testimony of superstitious credulity may be added that of enlightened science: "There results for man," says Cabanis, "the idea of a wisdom, which has conceived the works of creation, and of a will which has put it in contribution; but of a wisdom the most high, and a will the most attentive, to all the details exercising the most extended power, with the most minute precision."

This wisdom, so high, this wisdom so attentive, man has been created to comprehend and communicate them. If the ideas which are formed of the divinity, do not always answer to this assertion, it is because they are not correct. The principle of this world whence proceed all possible influences, this principle is God, and man is the recipient of the divine power. The "supremacy of man," says Bacon, "has no other foundation than his resemblance with God. Every man has within him this receptacle by which he becomes an image of God, by which from a sensitive animal he becomes a religious animal: it is

the privilege which distinguishes him from the brute. It is the imprescriptible title of his excellence. All philosophers have recognized a superior principle, which inspires our thoughts. Material movements have causes which depend upon the ordinary course of the laws of nature, those of man proceed from a superior order."

(Concluded in our next.)

J. M. Springfield, O.

ARTICLE II.

AN ESSAY ON ORGANIZATION.

THE elementary substances of Chemistry are few in number, and simple in character, but their combinations are infinite. They are the pieces which constitute the great kaleidoscope of nature, presenting us with the numberless forms which challenge our admiration, while they baffle our research. Many of the links in the chain of organization, are even invisible to our eyes. A single cubic inch may contain millions of infusorial animalculæ, each one of which possesses distinct organs, and enjoys an independent existence. Again there are thousands of plants which only the revealing powers of the microscope have brought to our knowledge. From these, our investigations ascend through countless myriads of forms to the banyan tree, with its hundred trunks, to the whale, the elephant, and the mastodon. Of all these forms, from the minutest vegetable germ, to the gigantic quadruped, it may be said, that their story is but a repetition of the chronicles of man, for like his their career is marked by birth, growth, busy life, reproduction of species, death, and total decomposition. Next in interest to the mystery of our own consciousness, is the inquiry into the circumstances and laws which govern the evolution of definite forms, from a structureless material. The hypotheses offered for the explanation of these phenomena may be reduced to two classes; those which accept the Mosaic account of the creation, and those which deny all spiritual forces, and view the world as a mighty mechanism self-existent, and self-elaborated. The misinterpretation of the first chapter of Genesis, has been productive of much mischief. The literal sense of that chapter enforces on us the following deduction: God, by his spoken word, created the solar system, in six days, all the geological strata, mineral, vegetable, and animal depositions appearing almost instantaneously, and in situ. This is the Procrustean bed whereon, in the opinion of many, every system and every hypothesis must be measured. Its supporters stretch every diminutive argument and lop off every exuberant fact to accommodate the state of science to this Biblical cosmogony. Philosophers of distinction have been persecuted with virulence because their discoveries were supposed to militate against the infallible standard. And, even at this day, the sword of popular censure is suspended by a hair over