ers of reference employed. The same fault is to be found in the
"Attempt &c.," as we originally saw it. The solution consists in a
series of minute explanations, (accompanied by wood-cuts, the whole
occupying many pages) in which the object is to show the _possibility
_of _so shifting the partitions _of the box, as to allow a human being,
concealed in the interior, to move portions of his body from one part of
the box to another, during the exhibition of the mechanism--thus eluding
the scrutiny of the spectators. There can be no doubt, as we have before
observed, and as we will presently endeavor to show, that the principle,
or rather the result, of this solution is the true one. Some person is
concealed in the box during the whole time of exhibiting the interior.
We object, however, to the whole verbose description of the _manner _in
which the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the movements of the
person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory assumed in the
first place, and to which circumstances are afterwards made to adapt
themselves. It was not, and could not have been, arrived at by any
inductive reasoning. In whatever way the shifting is managed, it is of
course concealed at every step from observation. To show that certain
movements might possibly be effected in a certain way, is very far from
showing that they are actually so effected. There may be an infinity of
other methods by which the same results may be obtained. The probability
of the one assumed proving the correct one is then as unity to infinity.
But, in reality, this particular point, the shifting of the partitions,
is of no consequence whatever. It was altogether unnecessary to devote
seven or eight pages for the purpose of proving what no one in his
senses would deny--viz: that the wonderful mechanical genius of Baron
Kempelen could invent the necessary means for shutting a door or
slipping aside a pannel, with a human agent too at his service in actual
contact with the pannel or the door, and the whole operations carried
on, as the author of the Essay himself shows, and as we shall attempt to
show more fully hereafter, entirely out of reach of the observation of
the spectators.

In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will, in
the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are effected,
and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the nature of the
_observations _from which we have deduced our result.

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