M. Cahagnet wis an unlearned mechanic, a man of the

people and though a sensible and interesting writer, was neither well read, nor highly educated. He affirms that he was a " materialist " when first his attention was at- tracted to the subject of animal magnetism, but being of a thoughtful nature, he determined to devote all the leisure he could spare to a thorough examination of its possibilities. When he found that he possessed the power to induce the magnetic sleep in others, he proceeded on the plan then generally adopted by mesmerists, namely, to try how far he could succeed in biologizing his subjects, that is to say, to substitute his own senses, mind, and will, for those of the sleeper.
In the course of these experiments M. Cahagnet dis- covered that he could effect remarkable cures of disease, and being naturally of a benevolent disposition, he deter- mined to bend all his energies in this desirable direction. He soon found, however, that he was destined to realize the aphorism, " he builded wiser than he knew." A new and most perplexing obstacle arose to confound his phil- osophy and scatter his theories to the winds ; this was the fact, that some of his subjects, instead of representing what simply he willed, or manifesting— in accordance with his views of biology — merely the influence of his mind, began to transcend both will and mind, and wander off in space, to regions they persisted in calling the " land of spirits," and to describe people, whom they emphatically affirmed to be the souls of those whom the world called dead.
For a long time M. Cahagnet strove vehemently to com- bat what he termed these " wild hallucinations," but when he found them constantly recurring, and vast numbers of those who had come to witness the experiments in mag- netism recognising in the descriptions given by the somnam- bulists the spirits of those whom they had known on earth, and mourned as dead, conviction became inevitable, and. the magnetizer, like his visitors, was compelled to admit a new and wonderful phase of lucidity, and one which carried the vision of the clairvoyant from earth to heaven, and pierced the veil which separated the mortal from the realms of immortality. It was after a long series of care- fully conducted experiments of the above description, that