Читать книгу The Philosophy Which Shows the Physiology of Mesmerism and Explains the Phenomenon of Clairvoyance - T. H. Pasley - Страница 5

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Long as clairvoyance has remained the riddle, jest and wonder of the world, it is questioned by none why the established philosophy of this superiorly enlightened age is incompetent to account for this or any other mesmerically produced phenomenon, or afford the least glimmer of light by which it were possible to arrive at the physiology. Why the philosophy of Aristotle, Bacon, Newton, Des Cartes, Davy, Liebig—honoured names, and most justly, as the ancient and modern fathers in science—can afford no scintillation whereby to lessen the obscurity in which this most interesting subject is involved, should appear strange and unaccountable to all lovers of philosophy. By Professors the question should be answered. To consider it unworthy of being looked into, would be a tacit confession that Professors are indifferent to the natural truth; which proves all such to be but half reasoners, and not philosophers, notwithstanding all their mathematical learning and experimental experience.

It should have been questioned long since, whether the philosophy be not untrue which leaves all mankind in the dark, in a mere physical case, however mysterious the psychological result, the effect of manual application, and in the power of almost every person to produce. The mesmerising operation and effect includes nothing of necromancy or trick; is openly performed, and produced mechanically; and although the passes make a living being appear as if in a novel state of existence, the immediate effect, polarisation of the extremities of the body, is the same precisely as is effected on the iron bar when passed along the poles of a loadstone. This, and numerous other physical phenomena, which to the present day remain unexplained, and as if inexplicable, afford much reason for at least the conjecture, that modern philosophy is not the philosophy of physical nature; which, if not, it must be false and misleading, inasmuch as there can be but one philosophy, by reason of there being but one species of matter throughout all nature, and but one cause of action—the general pressure. From which it follows, that as the philosophy of nature is that of matter universally, there can be no physical phenomenon which it does not explain. Therefore, the phenomena which modern philosophy has neither laws nor rules competent to explain, are so many proofs that the established philosophy of the age is false philosophy; which is provable throughout all its particulars, however rash and adventurous may appear the announcement. Besides, at the present day, there are several different philosophies maintained; every profession has its own; which is proof of the strongest nature that not one is true, dissent from the truly natural being impossible, so universally is it applicable. Eventually it will be admitted that the philosophy of the nineteenth century is founded on the crude ideas of the imperfectly learned in the earliest days of science, ever since adopted, and never investigated, instead of being deduced solely from the inert nature of matter, the only true basis. On modern philosophy, Davy makes the shrewd remark, that "it is no better than a mere compilation of isolated facts and circumstances, differently accounted for, and leading to no general theory:" such is not the philosophy of nature.

That matter is inert, is made manifest in there being nothing whatever throughout the whole of inanimate nature which can act or move of itself. Matter does nothing, cannot act; it is the passive patient of the general pressure, which alone can act; and pressure is universal, because of matter being inert. Matter is not only inert, but unalterable; on which principles the constancy of the order and laws of nature depend. Inert, unalterable matter can suffer no change but of a local nature—change of place, which implies motion, for which there is no analogous cause but impulsive pressure. These unquestionable physical truisms are stated in advance, from being intimately connected with every physical change, in order to serve as a standard of comparison from which to form an opinion while canvassing the principles and laws by which the scientific world has been for centuries not only governed, but misled.

Newton admits the principle of inertia, but considers it an innate passive power, which enables a body to resist against being moved; and when in motion, enables it to resist that which would put it out of motion. Inertia, a passive power, is as death, being passive animation; and inertia enabling a body to act against force, is nothing short of active inertia, or vis inertiæ, which means the force of inability. This monstrous perversion of a natural fundamental principle, and by such high authority, pervades the whole of the established philosophy. It makes the planets, which are but clumps of deadly inert matter, gravitate themselves through space; and makes inert atoms competent to perform attraction on each other wherever they exist. A more absurd article of belief has no place in the Athanasian code of mind-perverting dogmas; yet admitted as true by the most eminently talented and highly learned of the present age. While such inconsistent principles of common-place use are gravely defended, the known facts of mesmerism are obstinately and ignorantly denied; and only because of not being understood; that, were it not for the good sense and philanthropic perseverance of the enlightened, noble-minded Elliotsons, Ashburners, and Esdailes, of the British empire—honourable, heroic champions and victors in the cause of truth, humanity and science, in despite of the self-conceit which affects the knowledge of the limits of possibility; that, were it not for the magnanimity of those superiors belonging to the learned profession, this heaven-bestowed boon, carrying healing on the wing to suffering humanity, would have been contemptuously received, ungratefully acknowledged, and long since consigned to the rubbish of oblivion. Yet all have claim to the common apology, false scientific education, excepting those who have assented to what they have seen with wonder, and afterwards denied their admission.

The established philosophy cannot account for the boy's marble going farther through the air than the fullest extent of the impelling thumb. The proposition may appear trifling and insignificant, yet is it worthy the consideration of the Chair of Knowledge, from which it has never been explained nor there understood, as involving the cause of planetary motion; for, in all nature there are not two causes of motion. That the marble "partakes" of the force, and "partakes" of the motion of that by which it is impelled, is an absurd idea; the force and motion of a body were not, and cannot become, the force and motion of any other body.

The established philosophy cannot account for the splinters of a stone having motion out of the direction of impulse, nor for having motion in every direction but that of the stone-breaker's impelling hammer, which appears at variance with the natural, immutable dynamic law, which says, that as a body cannot move itself, so must it have motion in the direction only of that by which it is being moved. Neither is there any philosophy extant, which explains why the stone at Texteth of one hundred tons should rise, as if of itself, six inches in the air, under which the quarrymen could have shoved a hand and withdrawn it safely, before the immense mass fell crushingly on the former bed.

On the other hand, what the established philosophy undertakes to explain, it explains erroneously. Beside maintaining the transfer of a local casualty, in accounting for continuous motion, it teaches that the power of steam consists in heat, and that cold congeals water: whereas heat and cold have no physical existence; each is a sensation, anything similar to which it is impossible for either fire or water to possess. So that to the present day the power of steam, the cause of combustion and of congelation has in each instance remained unknown.

So simple is nature, so few her laws, that were any one of her phenomena known throughout all its bearings, it would be found that the knowledge includes the philosophy of the whole of matter. Of this Aristotle was aware when announcing, that he who is unacquainted with motion, is ignorant of all things in true philosophy. Motion being the only effect producible on inert, unalterable matter, the knowledge of the phenomenon includes that of all effect. The substance of all things being of the same species, and the power of Nature consisting in universal pressure, the formations in general nature and in the laboratory of art can have but the same principles, laws, theory, and philosophy. Paul may plant and Apollos water; nature germinates, the weather or climate grows and fructifies. The chymist's fire does not burn itself; in the absence of air and its pressure there is no combustion; neither is there growth, respiration, nor life.

According to the philosophy of the astronomer, the earth has projectile motion, from "impulse once impressed, at the beginning, and not since renewed;" which is effect six thousand times, at least, greater than the cause. Then, again, as motion must be in the direction of impulse and cease out of that direction, the earth, from "impulse once impressed," goes round the sun without being impelled; or of its own accord, and should be centripetally attracted to the sun, if solar attraction were possible. It needs no mathematical calculation to prove, that, from such philosophy being wholly independent of all consideration of natural cause, it is untrue, and at variance with common sense.

The philosophy of the chymist is of every-day make. It assumes different species of matter; chymical matter and matter not chymical; attractions innumerable, such as chymical, electric, galvanic, capillary, and attraction of cohesion; likewise magnetic forces, chymical affinities, and affections of matter—"while as yet there is none of them"—matter being inert naturally. To mechanical nature the entire is useless and foreign, and their value lies solely in being terms of professional application in the highly important chymical art; but to the discovery of true philosophy they are an insurmountable obstacle. How chymical matter differs from the common matter of the world, no chymist can say or conceive; nor is there any difference in the substance and nature of inert matter: as well might it be maintained that motion is not always mechanical, but sometimes chymical. The true philosophy of chymistry is dynamic, the basis inertia, the laws those of quantity and relative position.

The philosophy of the anatomist and physiologist is semi-natural, semi-spiritual, mechanical and vital. Life, throughout all belonging to the frame, does not suffice; the heart and blood have each an imputed, distinct, living principle; the nerves are sensitive, the muscles irritable; the flesh has its susceptibility, according to the modern physiology. The sainted health-preserver shudders at the irreligious notion of the economy being philosophised on at all; more especially according to the laws of hydrostatics; it being "impious beyond measure" to reason on the work of God's own hand, formed after his own image and likeness, (malformations excepted,) as on human mechanism. Yet, where are any of these vitalities and living principles when respiration is suddenly stopped? Verily, these professionals endow, most gratuitously, the animal frame with as many vitalities and living principles as the lives bestowed on the tailor's—so much the more unfortunate—cat. As every organ of the body is inert; no organ, of itself, performs the function; every function is mechanically performed, and every effect analogous to impulsive pressure, whether consisting in formation, intermixture, or dissolution, all depend on elementary local change. The contrary is not in the power of the anatomist and physiologist to prove of inert, unalterable, atomic substance; nor should more causes be assumed than what are natural, common, sufficient, and analogous to effects. Spiritual principles for mechanical purposes are as little requisite for animal organism as for the steam-engine, or the performances of a watch.

The last on the list of professional philosophies is that of the Therapeutist; the least misleading, from being the most concise. The word action includes the whole. There is no inquiry to which the word action is not the deeply-learned significant reply; being indefinite, it stands for a dead-stop silencer. The doctor knows best—with much room for knowing better. The doctor knows, and assures from his own certain knowledge, that the action of the dose on the stomach upheaves the sac; but rather than be thought positive, allows that the effect may be from the action of the stomach on the dose. The good easy man of M.D. celebrity, or mediocrity, has to learn, that the dose is as inert as when in the tea-cup, and the stomach as inert as when it has arrived at the predicted destiny, the dissecting table. Again, the action of the pain prevents the action of the physic, otherwise the cure would have been immediate. Such philosophy is harmless, if so to the patient; from its insignificance it corrupts neither pathology, osteology, nor dynamics. Not so the learning, published on high surgical authority, to enlighten ward-walking noviciates—that "pain may exist in the flesh and bones without being felt, owing to the insensible sensibility of the part," which amounts to an excruciating, painless toothache, and, the being unconscious of excited consciousness. Pain is not in the diseased or wounded part, being the consequence of cerebral excitement; pain is one of the objects of perception belonging to the scenery of the sensorium, from which it cannot migrate. The disorganised part is but the apparent place of pain; and wisely such, or else all remedial applications would be to the brain. As to the dose and stomach action, it stands corrected by the diagnosis; the stomach is lifted in consequence of the equilibrium of pressure being destroyed by means of the dose, notwithstanding its additional weight, within the stomach. Chymical action of the dose and self-lifting muscles are all of Esculapian surmise. The faculty should cease to identify feeling, pain, sensation, with organic ailments and disorganization of the flesh.