n effect, that he had only heard of
the turning of the wand over water and minerals; that it then turned (if
turn it did) by virtue of some such force as electricity; that, if such
force existed, the wand would turn over open water. But it does not so
turn; and, as physical causes are constant, it follows that the turning
of the rod cannot be the result of a physical cause. The only other
explanation is an intelligent cause--either the will of an impostor, or
the action of a spirit. Good spirits would not meddle with such matters;
therefore either the Devil or an impostor causes the motion of the rod,
if it _does_ move at all. This logic of Malebranche's is not agreeable
to believers in the twig; but there the controversy stood, till, in 1692,
Jacques Aymar, a peasant of Dauphine, by the use of the twig discovered
one of the Lyons murderers.

Though the story of this singular event is pretty well known, it must
here be briefly repeated. No affair can be better authenticated, and our
version is abridged from the 'Relations' of 'Monsieur le Procureur du
Roi, Monsieur l'Abbe de la Garde, Monsieur Panthot, Doyen des Medecins de
Lyon, et Monsieur Aubert, Avocat celebre.'

On July 5, 1692, a vintner and his wife were found dead in the cellar of
their shop at Lyons. They had been killed by blows from a hedging-knife,
and their money had been stolen. The culprits could not be discovered,
and a neighbour took upon him to bring to Lyons a peasant out of
Dauphine, named Jacques Aymar, a man noted for his skill with the
divining rod. The Lieutenant-Criminel and the Procureur du Roi took
Aymar into the cellar, furnishing him with a rod of the first wood that
came to hand. According to the Procureur du Roi, the rod did not move
till Aymar reached the very spot where the crime had been committed. His
pulse then rose, and the wand twisted rapidly. 'Guided by the wand or by
some internal sensation,' Aymar now pursued the track of the assassins,
entered the court of the Archbishop's palace, left the town by the bridge
over the Rhone, and followed the right bank of the river. He reached a
gardener's house, which he declared the men had entered, and some
children confessed that three men (_whom they described_) had come into
the house one Sunday morning. Aymar followed the track up the river,
pointed out all the places where the men had landed, and, to make a long
story short, stopped at last at the door of the prison of Beauc