oses of vision, and even
in a superior manner. After hearing these things, shall we start at
the notion of mesmeric sensation being conveyed through another
medium than that in ordinary action? Even should the sleep-waker
perceive the most distant objects, (as some are said to have done,)
can we, from the moment a means of communication is hinted to us,
be so much amazed? If his perception be more vivid, there seems to
be an efficient cause in his abjuring the grosser media for such as
are more swift and subtle."--(P. 272.)

The electric medium is _not_ a messenger of vision. To call the light
produced by the electric spark electricity, would be the same as to call
magnetism electricity, heat electricity, motion electricity--for all
these are produced by it, and it by them. All modes of force are capable
of producing the other phenomenal effects of force. It is an obvious
fallacy to call the medium which transmits electric light, an electric
medium; this, if carried out, would overthrow natural as well as
conventional divisions, would subvert "the pales and forts of reason."

Mr Townshend, accustomed to metaphysical abstractions, shows, in these
and many other instances, a want of acquaintance with physical science,
and entirely fails when he bases his reasoning upon it. Many of the
arguments of Mr Townshend are of such a transcendental nature, that we
fear, should we attempt to follow them, our readers would lose their
clairvoyance in the mist of metaphysical speculation. The following will
give a fair specimen of the conclusion to which such reasoning tends:--

"Indeed, if we lay to heart the deceptiveness and mutability of all
the external species of matter, at the same time considering that
we have no reason to deem it capable of change in its ultimate and
imperceptible particles; if, also, we reflect, that whatever is not
palpable in itself is yet indicated by its effects, forces us on
pure reason by withdrawing at once the aid and the illusion of our
external senses, we shall perhaps come to the conclusion that the
Invisible is the only true, exclaiming, with the old Latinist,
'Invisibilia non decipiunt.'"--(P. 355.)

And yet the facts of mesmerism are to be judged of by the very senses
which mesmerism proves to be so fallacious. It is because we _see_ that
E---- A---- reads when the book is presented to the back of his hand,
t