oyance has,
at all events, no conformity with general experience; and that, if it be
true, the proofs of its truth cannot be based on its analogy with other
sensations. To sum up our arguments, we say--1st, That without
undervaluing testimony, mesmeric clairvoyance is not sufficiently proved
by competent witnesses to be admitted as fact: 2d, The reasoning in
support of it is insufficient, and, in most cases, fallacious.

Perhaps the best arguments employed by Mr Townshend in favour of the
possibility of clairvoyance, are the authenticated cases of normal
sleepwalking; these have been very little examined, but appear, in one
respect, strikingly to differ from mesmeric coma. The eyes of the
somnambulist are said to be open, and therefore there is every optical
power of vision, and an increase of ordinary visual perception is all
that is requisite. The acts performed by the sleepwalker are, moreover,
generally those to which he is habitually accustomed; and, when this is
not the case, he fails, as many disastrous accidents have too fatally
testified.

At the close of Mr Townshend's book is a short appendix, containing some
testimonials to the verity of mesmeric effects. Several of these are
anonymous, and the value of their authority cannot therefore be judged
of. Others are testimonies to mesmeric effects produced upon the
patients, E---- A---- or Anna M----. None of these are from persons of
very high authority; and they are, certainly, not such as would induce
us to rest our faith upon them. We grant to them their full right to be
convinced; but their testimony is not of sufficient force to produce
conviction in others. The two last testimonials, however, are of a very
different character. One of these is by Professor Agassiz, and the other
by Signor Ranieri of Naples. Both these are testimonials, not to any
effect produced upon an accustomed patient, but upon the testifiers
themselves; and the former, coming from a man of high distinction, and
accustomed to physical research, is undoubtedly of great weight. We
therefore give it in full.

"Desirous to know what to think of mesmerism, I for a long time
sought for an opportunity of making some experiments in regard to
it upon myself, so as to avoid the doubts which might arise on the
nature of the sensations which we have heard described by
mesmerised persons. M. Desor, yesterday, in a visit which he made
to Berne, invited Mr Townshend, wh