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s_ verified in the case of another person, to whom the accident happens, attended by all the minutely detailed particulars."[31] If this be correctly given, it is what animal magnetizers would call a case of imperfect lucidity. The case as to the gift of tongues is still less satisfactorily made out. A few, Montgeron says, translate, after the ecstasy, what they have declaimed, during its continuance, in an unknown tongue; but for this, of course, we have their word only. The greater part know nothing of what they have said, when the ecstasy has passed. As to these, he admits,-- "The only proof we have that they understand the words at the time they pronounce them is that they often express, in the most lively manner, the various sentiments contained in their discourse, not only by their gestures, but also by the attitudes the body assumes, and by the expression of the countenance, on which the different sentiments are painted, by turns, in a manner the most expressive, so that one is able, up to a certain point, to detect the feelings by which they are moved; and it has been easy for the attentive observer to perceive that most of these discourses were detailed predictions as to the coming of the Prophet Elias," etc.[32] If it be presumptuous, considering the marvels which modern observations disclose, to pronounce that the alleged unknown languages were unmeaning sounds only, it is evident, at least, that the above is inconclusive as to their true character. Much more trustworthy appears to be the evidence touching the phenomenon of thought-reading. The fact that many of the convulsionists were able "to discover the secrets of the heart" is admitted by their principal opponents. The Abbe d'Asfeld himself adduces examples of it.[33] M. Poncet admits its reality.[34] The provincial ecclesiastic whom I have already quoted says that he "found examples without number of convulsionists who discovered the secrets of the heart in the most minute detail: for example, to disclose to a person that at such a period of his life he did such or such a thing; to another, that he had done so and so before coming hither," etc.[35] The author of the "Recherche de la Verite," a pamphlet on the phenomena of the convulsions, which seems very candidly written, acknowledges as one of these "the manifestation of the thoughts and the discovery of secret things."[36] Montgeron testifies to the fact, from repeated personal observ
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