Wounded and worn, he still commands- And shouts through their thinn'd ranks the cry, They charged-but though with fearful shock, The riving thunderbolt of Heaven. The eye that seeks amid those crowds The centre of an anxious group, Which tells him that the foemen yield. That cry was heard again—again 'For Wolfe and England! rang the cry, So wildly rose those shouts and high, New life a moment filled his frame, and died! P. H. M. A DIALOGUE ON SYMPATHIES. SCEPTICUS. Why so thoughtful, my friend? Are you forming some new theory, or as is too often your wont, endeavoring to explain some of the absurdities of the old schools? THEORETICUS. Neither. I have just laid down Southey's Memoirs of Wesley, and was attempting to fathom his idea of the cause of the strange actions and sensations of the Methodists, when under the 'influence of the Spirit.' You remember he pronounces it to be a physical disease, and imparted involuntarily from one individual to another. SCEPT. Yes, I recollect well an instance he gives of this disease in the case of two persons who were seized with strong pain, and constrained to roar for the disquietness of their hearts,' but who shortly after burst forth in a song of praise; apparently no difficult matter for those possessed of strong lungs, and capable of deception in so serious a subject. THEO. There is no question but that many affect these extravagancies, for the purpose of attracting attention; but the story of the satirizing Quaker should make us hesitate before deciding every case to be imposture. He was present at a meeting, inveighed against what he called the dissimulation of these creatures, caught the contagious emotion himself, and even while he was biting his lips and knitting his brows, dropped down as if he had been struck by lightning.' I was present at one of their forest-meetings but lately, and was perfectly convinced that fraud is not the only explanation. SCEPT. You caught the contagion, I suppose, and are about to silence me by your own experience? THEO. No, though had I been affected, it would have been hardly more than natural, there was so much to excite even apathy to enthusiasm. It was a most striking and fit scene for arousing the imagination, and awakening the most solemn feelings. I wonder not at their fondness for these assemblies. Figure to yourself a dense forest of tall noble pines, lighted with fires and torches, a series of tents circularly arranged, and forming an area filled with a mass of human beings gathered to the worship of their God. The fitful light flashes irregularly over a multitude of anxious countenances, already trembling with the irritability of expected excitement, and shows the dark foliage of the trees struggling into sight in the distance, while beyond lies the blackness of night. The voice of prayer, the solemn song of praise, the consciousness that they are worshipping their Maker in his grandest temple, draw near their hearts to a sympathy with the earnest appeals from the pulpit, while every object of the strange and picturesque scene prepares their nerves for the greatest extravagancies. SCEPT. A fit time and place, indeed, for calling from the weaknesses of our nature that sense of religion which should owe its origin to higher and purer sources than such artificial auxiliaries. THEо. Spare your sneer. I am speaking of the effect, not contending about the principle, of these assemblies. I remembered the remark of the biographer of Wesley, that under his preaching some were seized with trembling, others sank down and uttered loud and piercing cries, and others fell into a species of agony,' and I determined to observe for myself whether hypocrisy would not explain these extraordinary physical appearances. A beautiful girl sat near me, too young, and fair, and holy for artifice. There was a truth in her expression, a light of purity in her eye, betokening a spirit above all show or pretence of feeling. As the discourse commenced in a mild and sober strain, gradually became more persuasive and energetic, the color rose to her cheek, and she leaned forward, gazing steadfastly at the speaker. He alluded to the horrors of eternal woe, and her look became imploring. He appealed to the young, and the tear stood in With fervid eloquence he called upon them to consecrate their lives to Heaven; the finely curved lip quivered, the muscles of the face trembled, the delicate hand was violently clenched. He announced the doom of the unrepentant; her eyes burned like livid coals; the countenance was distorted; and as he concluded, thus their souls shall die!' she sprung up convulsively, her arms were tossed wildly in the air, as if impelled by a shock from a galvanic battery, a scream shot from her lips, and she sunk, weak and fainting, on the earth. her eye. SCEPT. Well, are you prepared, from this exhibition, to coincide with Coleridge as to the possibility of the existence of animal magnet ism? I should think such a conclusion rather rashly and hastily drawn. There is nothing new in these cases of physical excitement. They are only the effect of a sympathy between the mind and the body, the ordinary result of an intensity of thought acting on the frame. The aroused energy of the orator produces an eloquence and power of gesture as well as of language. The hot fury of the soldier gives an almost superhuman force to his blows. The high-wrought enthusiastic ambition of Napoleon endued him with a hardihood and strength under the fatigues of the African desert, when many an Herculean form sunk faint and powerless. A curious instance is afforded of this sympathy, in the account which is given of a knight upon whom, though pardoned, it was determined to inflict the disgrace of proceeding to the scaffold. Upon being blind-folded, instead of the axe, a stream of cold water was poured on his neck. Upon taking off the bandage, they found he had expired—a victim to imagination. THEO. True, all this is owing to sympathy; but whence does this sympathy proceed? Cannot this influence be accounted for on physical grounds? May not some subtle matter, generated by mental action, pervade the system, and in periods of excitement be produced and discharged so abundantly as to cause extraordinary phenomena ? SCEPT. Ridiculous! In your rage for explanation, you are falling into an adoption of the antiquated theory of animal spirits-a system erected, like most of the old speculations, as a dernier resort of ignorance, and long since contemned in true philosophy. THEO. I dislike your hasty condemnation of ancient systems, for there were many visions of the morning of knowledge which time has realized, and many more long since censured as false whose verification hereafter will convince us that dreams, at least dreams of philosophy, may be prophetic. SCEPT. I imagined rightly, then: you are indeed a believer in that absurd theory? THEO. I do in truth think there is much consideration to be attached to it, though I would by no means carry it to so fanciful an extent. There appears to be much probability in Dr. Arnott's suggestion, that the brain is an electric pile, producing by its repeated discharges, the pulsations of the heart, an idea which is sanctioned also by Sir John Herschel, who supposes it to be analogous to the dry pile of De Luc.* An apparatus of this kind made by Mr. Singer, affords an apt and beautiful illustration of the theory. By the action of piles, two bells are regularly struck by a ball suspended between them, and thus a ringing may be continued for years. SCEPT. Were the brain capable of producing these electrical effects, the beating of the heart might possibly be accounted for on the same principle; but you do not mean to task my credulity, I hope, by asserting that there are metallic plates, acting as dry piles, in the head? THEO. By no means; but you forget the experiments of Lagrave and Baconis, who formed piles of galvanic power not only from vegetables, but also by alternate layers of muscle and brain.† Galvani, by * Discourse on the study of Natural Philosophy, p. 257. † Journal de Physique, 56, 235. connecting by a conducting medium the muscles of the leg and the crural nerves of a frog, produced convulsions evidently galvanic, and Aldini effected the same result by bringing the muscles of one animal in contact with the nerves of another, or by connecting the nerves and muscles of the same animal; thus proving incontrovertibly some natural provision in the conformation of these organs for electric action, and that the brain and the nerves in certain relative situations with muscle, must act as galvanic instruments. Take these facts in connexion with those which prove the effect of galvanism on muscular motion, and they are so similar that it is impossible to refer the latter to any other cause. A current of electricity passed along a nerve, contracts the muscles connected with it in a violent manner; the water serpent was found by Humboldt to have its movements accelerated by the influence of galvanism; the muscles of the heart, as shown by Fowler and Nysten, are similarly affected; and it is an usual amusement of the dissection-room to produce by the same means violent gestures and contortions in the dead It seems quite probable, if galvanism produces muscular contraction, and the brain and nerves in conjunction with muscle form a galvanic current, that the immediate cause of muscular action is galWere it so, the phenomenon would not be a singular one; for we have an enlarged, more perfect and powerful instrument, of the same general character, provided for smaller animals as a weapon of defence. The Silurus Electricus found in the Nile, the Raasch or Thunder of the Arabs, has the faculty of communicating an electric shock, and the organ by which it operates possesses a great abundance of nerves. The Tetrasdon Electricus, the Torpedo and the Gymnotrus Electricus, possess the same power, obviously dependent upon the will, and the apparatus in which it resides exhibits likewise large and numerous nerves.† Though there are no organs of this character, or any thing resembling them in structure‡ in the human body, still this electric faculty in animals, unquestionably under the direction of volition, proves the possibility of nerves and muscle producing galvanic or electrical effects, and that the strength of this faculty is connected in some way with a great extension of the nervous system. Were more attention devoted to this interesting subject, curious and brilliant discoveries would be made; but even with the narrow range of facts we now possess, there is much ground for inferring that most of the phenomena of vitality, and especially those of muscular motion, proceed from electric action. If future observation should find this to be the truth, it will be a beautiful explication, though a secondary one, of the close sympathy between the body and the mind, and perhaps even of the convulsions peculiar to the Methodists. There are some eircumstances which appear to corroborate this idea. Exercise is known to quicken the pulsations of the heart. As motion must require an excitation of the brain, the galvanic organ, in order to produce that flow of the nervous or electric fluid which animates the nerves of motion, so must the heart, when the body is exercised, beat more rapidly in consequence of the increased action of the Nicholson's Journal, 3, 298. + Cuvier's Animal Kingdom. Vol. 2: pp. 161, 220, 262, 292. M. Jeoffrey St. Hilaire has found an organic structure very similar to that of the torpedo in other animals of the genus, which nevertheless do not possess any electrical powers. Lib. U. K. Gal. common galvanic organ. When the brain also is impelled to more vigorous action by intense mental emotion, its discharges become more frequent, the heart contracts more rapidly, the blood rushes quickly through the system, and the body becomes extremely nervous. SCEPT. But if this be so, why should passion vary in its effects on different individuals? To some, you well know, an emotion will be an invigorating power, while in another it paralyzes with utter helplessness. Some suffer the severest mental agony without a change of countenance, or the motion of a muscle, while others, under the infliction of the same feeling, writhe under the torture. How do you reconcile this contradiction? THEO. It is but an apparent incongruity, I think. It is true, one will be nerved with strength, while another under the same circumstances sinks powerless; but from no other reason, I imagine, than that their minds are differently influenced in similar situations. Impending danger rouses one to action, for his is a soul which spurns submission to any fate — it palsies the coward, for fear conquers courage. When Malebranche first took up Descartes, he was obliged frequently to interrupt his reading by a violent palpitation of the heart.' Many might have perused it without a single emotion, and consequently without a quickened pulse. When the first idea of the essay on the arts and sciences rushed on the mind of Rousseau, it occasioned such a feverish agitation, that it approached to a delirium.' Another, in whom the same idea of a great and glorious work might have originated, but unaccompanied with the same burning enthusiasm, would have seen the vision burst upon him with apathy. The effects would be different, because the mental affections were unlike. But generally, the same feelings should produce the same excitement in the system, varied of course, in a greater or less degree, by the peculiar physical constitution of individuals. Thus, diffidence has its downcast look, modesty its blush, love its delicate confusion, and anger its pallor. Words are denied to deep feeling, and the knees of the coward tremble. SCEPT. Were this so, it would indeed be a solution of the sympathy between the mind and body; yet I cannot perceive how the influence of the body on the mind can be explained on the same principles. There is the case of Nicolai, the bookseller, who saw and conversed with crowds of persons who visited his rooms, invisible to others, and that of a person mentioned by Scott, who at a certain period after dinner was subject to the society of an old hag; both of them occasioned by a diseased state of the bodily organs, and not merely the consequence of a heated fancy. How strangely too, the moon affects maniacs, and how unaccountable also, the influence of weather, frequently causing a despondency of spirit terminating in suicide. THEO. Nicolai's is an instance of an action on the brain by the body, and the others of an action on the body and nerves, by external objects, and through them on the brain. Though the manner is at present unknown, experiment will probably demonstrate it to be electrical. The late report of the French Committee, appointed to investigate the claims of Animal Magnetism, affords many curious facts in regard to this mysterious subject; and from the character of the persons who engaged in the examination, it is certainly entitled to much consideration. Though it has met with severe criticism, which per |