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ut, on the other hand, we must not forget that insensibility and invulnerability, though to a certain extent allied, are two distinct things. Injury the most serious may occur without the premonitory warning, even without immediate subsequent suffering. A person in a perfect state of insensibility might doubtless receive, without experiencing any pain whatever, a blow that would shatter the bones of a limb, and render it powerless for life. Indeed, there is on record a well-attested case of a poor pedestrian, who, having laid himself down on the platform of a lime-kiln, and dropping asleep, and the fire having increased and burnt off one foot to the ankle, rose in the morning to depart, and knew nothing of his misfortune, until, putting his burnt limb to the ground, to support his body in rising, the extremity of his leg-bone, calcined into lime, crumbled to fragments beneath him.[61] Contemporary medical authorities, even when they have the rare courage to deny to the convulsions either a divine or a diabolical character, furnish no explanation of them more satisfactory than the citing of similar cases, more or less strongly attested, in the past.[62] This may confirm our faith in the reality of the phenomena, but does not resolve our difficulties as to the causes of them. It does not fall within my purpose to hazard any opinion as to these causes, nor, if it did, am I prepared to offer any. Some considerations might be adduced, calculated to lessen our wonder as to an occasional phenomenon on this marvellous record. Physiologists, for example, are agreed that the common opinion as to the sensibility of the interior of the eye is an incorrect one;[63] and that consideration might be put forth, when we read that Sisters Madeleine and Felicite suffered with impunity swords to be pressed against that delicate organ, until the point sank an inch beneath its surface. But all such isolated considerations are partial, inconclusive, and, as regards any general satisfactory explanation, far short of the requirements of the case. More weight may justly be given to another consideration: to the exaggerations inseparable from enthusiasm, and the inaccuracies into which inexperienced observers must ever fall. As to the necessity of making large allowance for these, I entirely agree with Calmeil and De Gasparin. But let the allowance made for such errors be more or less, it cannot extend to an absolute denial of the chief phenom
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