been operated upon. She was a lady of great respectability, and resided at No. 151, Rue St. Denis, Paris.

This case is not quoted either for or against Mesmerism. The operation having been really performed, and the patient having appeared indifferent to pain, it equally well answers the purpose of illustration; for if truly the effect of Mesmerism, it proves the power of causing a wonderful sort of abstraction, during which the mind may perceive what goes on in the organs, and employ them too, without sensation in them. And if this case be an imposition in that respect, it yet proves the mastery of the will in maintaining the attention according to purpose in almost as marvellous a manner. Hindoos are remarkably susceptible to 'mesmeric passes,' and many severe surgical operations performed on them while in a half-conscious mesmeric sleep are recorded in the Lancet.'

The

It has been objected to the above case, that it is foolish to believe that a person could undress herself, and feel pins and tapes, and yet be insensible to the surgeon's knife. The objector forgets that sensation depends on the direction of the mind, and the relative condition of the nerve and the blood. This is illustrated by the different effects of ethereal vapour and chloroform in different persons. An Irishman operated on by Dr. Miller in the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh, inhaled the vapour of ether with the hope of becoming unconscious, but being a habitual drunkard, it produced only a form of delirium, so that he continued to talk like one in a state of somnambulism, mixing present objects with ideas previously existing in his mind. The operation lasted about ten minutes, and during it the patient held the inhaler to his mouth, and frequently protested that it would not do. From the highly sensitive nature of the parts, the operation, under ordinary circumstances, would have been excruciating, but the patient's mind

was too busy to know anything of it. After it was over the surgeon said to him, 'I suppose you will let me operate to-day ?' 'Certainly not,' said the patient; 'I must be asleep. The thing has not succeeded with me.' He then sat up, and seeing the wound, exclaimed, 'That bates the globe.' And being asked if he had felt anything, he answered, 'Not a ha'p'orth;' and then, with the manner of a tipsy man, insisted on telling 'all about the toldrums of the business,' and kept the surgeons and students in a roar by his narrative of what occurred during the inhalation, which, very Irish-like, was a medley of imaginary fights, but wholly irrespective of his own leg.

Dr. John Reid, professor of physiology at St. Andrew's, had a cancerous gland dissected from his neck while under the influence of chloroform; the operation. was painless, and yet he tells us that, in his half-delirium, he felt a strong desire that a divided artery might be allowed to spout' over the white neckcloth of a friend standing by; thus betraying still that hearty fun and geniality so natural to him.

The mystery of this subject may be somewhat explained by the fact that different portions of the brain and spinal cord are successively influenced by the anaesthetic agent. We find that intellectual action is interfered with, and its outward manifestation suspended when the blood is so far affected as to cause the circulation of venous blood in the cerebrum or true brain; but when the influence on the blood is incomplete, it may still be sufficient to interrupt the function of the pons Varolii, or that nervous mass at the base of the brain which serves as the medium of sensation. But the moral of the matter is still this-the mind always evinces the character of its faith and habit, just in proportion to its means and power of acting.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STATE OF THE ATTENTION MODIFIES PERCEPTION.

ATTENTION is that state or action of the mind by which we are enabled to cultivate acquaintance with the peculiarities of things, and therefore it secures to us that knowledge on which art, science, and reasoning are founded. It is immediately connected with our capacity of observing distinctions and similarities, as presented to the soul through the senses and in memory. Our intimacy with the delicate analogies and diversities of nature will be proportioned to the pleasure we experience in attending to their minutiae; or to the bias of our minds under the force of circumstances, and according to the constitution of our senses and mental habits. Thus one man glides through life with a barren intellect, having no inclination so to look into objects as to multiply ideas, or to excite his reason by regarding the various properties of matter, except as they serve the purposes of his mere animal nature; while another becomes 'as happy as a lover,' and as full of vivid associations, because his soul is awakened, and acutely attentive to all the nicer characteristics of every link in the vast and beauteous chain of being within the range of his faculties. That the higher faculties of our intellect are successfully developed in proportion as this distinguishing attribute of our minds is exercised all experience demonstrates; but this power of attention is perhaps most strikingly and beautifully exhibited in the histories of certain persons, who, being deprived of one or more of their senses, have yet, by the more attentive

employment of those that remained, become so nicely intimate with certain of the properties of matter as vastly to excel the majority of individuals endowed with the common use of all their senses. The state of their desires has given a more determinate intention to their minds. Thus blind persons have become exquisite sculptors, by the persevering use of a refined touch; while many have excelled as musicians, and not a few have proved themselves more philosophically acquainted with the properties of light than others, simply from having more definitely fixed on their minds the ideas presented to them by accurate description. Hence, also, such persons are often very remarkable for their memories, since their deprivation of sight excites them to greater efforts in order to make amends for the loss of the many aids to recollection afforded by the eye. Thus Charlotte Bronté's father used to perform all the Services of the Church from memory, both in the desk and the pulpit; and Mr. Pease, M.P., the blind Mayor of Darlington, surprised his friends by his complete efficiency as a public man. The blind, however, avoid the numerous causes of distraction which arise from the multiplicity of incongruous objects which court our attention through sight. We all feel so much interference with the management of our reflective faculties through this means, that when we wish to remember and meditate, we, for the time, imitate as far as possible the condition of the blind, by withdrawing the mind from visual objects. The eye is more discursive than the touch, which is more deliberately employed in regarding objects one by one. Hence blind men have excelled in many mechanical attainments. Thus Giovanni Gonelli could produce an admirable likeness in marble of any one's features which he had felt, and William Huntley became a very superior watchmaker. The blind also generally enjoy an exquisite discrimination of sounds,

and they often not only remember voices in a surprising manner but also express their souls alike in the composition and the execution of music, which involves also a great exercise of memory. Now, if we reflect a little on the nature of our senses, and the power of the mind in the attentive employment of one rather than another, we shall be able to discover how any defect in the organisation, through which we perceive, will necessarily limit the power of attending and reasoning. As the loss of

any one sense causes attention to be directed and confined to the objects presented by the others, because the mind must act with whatever instruments it may have; so the injury of that portion of brain through which we attend to present or remembered facts, causes attention to be limited to whatever may be impressed through the portions that are most susceptible. This, perhaps, is the rationale of insanity.

We have reason to believe that whenever disordered action of the mind occurs, a corresponding disorder takes place in the nervous organisation; but it always manifests itself at first, and indeed, more or less throughout its course, by new and irregular whimsicalities of will, the attention being withdrawn from ordinary objects, and the mind impressed by some false conviction or unreasonable desire. In short, insanity appears to be a disease in which the mind is rendered incapable of due attention, either to ideas existing in the memory, or to new impressions on the senses, in consequence of being possessed by some mistaken notion, to such an extent that it cannot view any subject or idea bearing any relation to that notion except in such a manner as shall confirm the false impression. Whatever is presented to the mind in association with that false impression, at once causes the mind, according to a common law of its operation, to attend to the prominent notion, which thus assumes the character of an indisputable truth-an