Page:Willich, A. F. M. - The Domestic Encyclopædia (Vol. 1, 1802).djvu/84

60] operates at a great distance, without the intervention of any substance; is increased and reflected by mirrors; communicated, propagated, and augmented by sound; and may be accumulated, concentrated, and transported. By means of this fluid, some nervous disorders are cured immediately, and others mediately: its virtues, in short, extend to the universal benefit and preservation of mankind.

From this extraordinary theory, fabricated a paper, in which he asserted that all diseases arise from one common source; that they may be removed by one mode of cure; and that this cure consists in the application of animal magnetism. The folly and credulity of the times soon gained partizans to this new and plausible theory: it became at length so popular and fashionable in France, that the jealousy of the faculty was awakened, and an application was made to government. A committee, consisting of physicians and members of the Royal Academy of Sciences, of which the late illustrious was a principal member, was immediately appointed, to inquire into its merits, and to ascertain its effects. The consequence of this examination was such as might have been anticipated by every rational mind. The spell was quickly broken, and the whole disclosed to be an artful imposition on the weakness and credulity of mankind. It is now almost universally exploded, and treated with merited ridicule and contempt. The practice, however, and subsequent detection of this wild, and visionary doctrine, have not been altogether useless; since to the philosopher, it has added one more to the numerous catalogue of the errors and illusions of the human understanding; and affords a memorable instance of the power of imagination.—See and.  ANIMAL MOTION: various conjectures have been broached with a view to account for the origin of this important function in the animal economy: but, like most other springs of action, arising from a first cause, it is only in a slight degree cognizable to our senses, by its evident, mechanical effects.

Anatomists have, indeed, in their dissections demonstrated, that the contraction of the muscles causes motion, but by what peculiar process, or how produced, remains still doubtful, and involved in obscurity. Among other hypotheses advanced concerning animal motion, there prevails an opinion that it is occasioned by an impulse or irritation of the nerves; which, communicating with all parts of the body, produce muscular contraction, and consequent motion, either to a part or to the whole of the frame, in proportion to the force or frequency of the impression. The difficulty of comprehending, how mere impulse, or irritability of the nervous system, should alone be sufficient to produce such powerful effects, as often follow muscular contraction, has induced others, while they admitted this principle as a first cause of animal motion, to believe in the intervention of some other matter, which is the more immediate agent, in effecting a closer contact of the muscular fibres, and greater energy during the time of their contraction.

The existence of such a subtle matter, as may be capable of performing these wonderful  mena,