The necessity of such a hypothesis evidently upset Mesmerism from its very foundations; yet the illuminati did not judge thus.  All bodies became a focus of special emanations, more or less subtle, more or less abundant, and more or less dissimilar.  So far the hypothesis found very few contradictors, even among rigorous minds; but soon these individual corporeal emanations were endowed, relatively towards those, (without the least appearance of proof,) either with a great power of assimilation, or with a decided antagonism, or with a complete neutrality; but they pretended to see in these occult qualities the material causes of the most mysterious affections of the soul.  Oh! then doubt had a legitimate right to take possession of all those minds that had been taught by the strict proceedings of science not to rest satisfied with vain words.  In the singular system that I have been explaining, when Corneille says,—­

     “There are some secret knots, some sympathies,
     By whose relations sweet assorted souls
     Attach themselves the one to the other...."[11]

and when the celebrated Spanish Jesuit Balthazar Gracian spoke of the natural relationship of minds and hearts, both the one and the other alluded, assuredly without suspecting it, to the mixture, penetration, and easy crossing of two atmospheres.

“I love thee not, Sabidus,” wrote Martial, “and I know not why; all that I can tell thee is, that I love thee not.”  Mesmerists would soon have relieved the poet from his doubts.  If Martial loved not Sabidus, it was because their atmospheres could not intermingle without occasioning a kind of storm.

Plutarch informs us that the conqueror of Arminius fainted at the sight of a cock.  Antiquity was astonished at this phenomenon.  What could be more simple, however? the corporeal emanations of Germanicus and of the cock exercised a repulsive action the one on the other.

The illustrious biographer of Cheronea declares, it is true, that the presence of the cock was not requisite, that its crowing produced exactly the same effect on the adopted son of Tiberius.  Now, the crowing may be heard a long way off; the crowing, then, would seem to possess the power of transporting the corporeal emanations of the king of the lower court with great rapidity through space.  The thing may appear difficult to believe.  As for myself, I think it would be puerile to stop at such a difficulty; have we not leaped high over other difficulties far more embarrassing?

The Marechal d’Albret was still worse off than Germanicus:  the atmosphere that made him fall into a syncope exhaled from the head of a wild boar.  A live, complete, whole wild boar produced no effect; but on perceiving the head of the animal detached from the body, the Marechal was struck as if with lightning.  You see, gentlemen, to what sad trials military men would be exposed, if the Mesmerian theory of atmospheric conflicts were to regain favour.  We ought to be carefully on our guard against a ruse de guerre, of which no one till then had ever thought,—­that is, against cocks, wild boars, &c.,—­for through them an army might suddenly be deprived of its commander-in-chief.  “It would also be requisite not to entrust command,” Montaigne says, “to men who would fly from apples more than from arquebusades.”