I know more than one person who would second the request that I am about to
make through "NOTES AND QUERIES" to DR. MAITLAND, that he would publish the
remaining parts of his _Illustrations and Enquiries relating to Mesmerism_:
he would do so, I know, at once, if he thought that anybody would benefit
by them; and I can bear witness to Part I. as having been already of some
use. It is high time that Christians should be decided as to whether or no
they may meddle with the fearful power whose existence is is impossible to
ridicule any longer. DR. MAITLAND has suggested the true course of thought
upon the subject, and promised to lead us along it; but it is impossible at
present to use anything that he has said, on account of its incompleteness.
In tracing the subject through history, DR. MAITLAND would no doubt mention
the "[Greek: Omphalopsuchoi], or Umbilicani," of the fourteenth century,
whose practices make a page (609.) of Waddington's _History of the Church_
read like a sketch of Middle-age Mesmerism, contemptuously given. Also, in
Washington Irving's _Life of Mahomet_, a belief somewhat similar to theirs
is stated to have been preached in the seventh century (_Bohn's Reprint in
Shilling Series_, p. 191.) by a certain Moseilma, a false prophet.
I may add that Miss Martineau's new book, _Letters of the Development of
Man's Nature, by Atkinson and Martineau_, which cannot be called sceptical,
for its unbelief is unhesitating, is the immediate cause of my writing
to-day.