Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Reading Pathological Society, on September 3rd, 1890, on hypnotism, its nature & its cause / by R.C. Shettle.

  • Shettle, Richard Charles.
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Reading Pathological Society, on September 3rd, 1890, on hypnotism, its nature & its cause / by R.C. Shettle. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    magnet, is constantly acting on the body in all its conditions, and regular, or irregular variations. The fact is these lines of magnetic force as they pass away from the crust of the earth provide a magnetic atmosphere; which, by the polarising influence it exerts upon all forms of matter even to the most minute condition in the form of atoms, must be productive of a series of phenomena, the character and extent of which must be regulated by the nature of the matter and by the varying extent of the external influences. We have thus a normal condition of increased variation as to influence and susceptibility, inseparable from the atomic structure of matter; and unquestionably we have at times most marked and decided causes of influence resulting from the similarity or dissimilarity, the excess or deficiency of magnetic energy. Each form of matter when free to move acquires, under impressed force, a definite description of motion or vibration. The contractions of the heart are intermittent; they commu- nicate the same description of motion to the blood, and thence to the tissues, and to the lines of terrestrial magnetic energy by which they are polarised; and so the vibratory motion natural to magnetic force is not only maintained, but increased by the mechanical motion as well as by the magnetic energy of the blood. Thus, in my view, animal life is the final resultant of physical forces—the term physical being here taken to include chemical—which are the direct outcome of the energy which is inherent in all matter, one form of which—magnetism—by the polarising influence it exerts upon matter, may be said to underlie every disturbance or variation of intensity either from changes in the body itself, or from vibrations which take their origin in some external source, and are then impressed upon the body in general, or some portion of it in particular.'^ * I venture to think that by thus tracing the existence of animal life to the influence which atoms of matter exert upon impressed force, the strongest evidence is given not only of the vifisdom of the Creator in the formation of the atoms, but of the constant exercise of His power; for it is evident that though each form of life is due to a definite combination of a variety of atoms; yet the combinations would be ineffectual in the production of results, were it not for the impressed force; which force must take its origin in something outside all matter. We can therefore only regard the atoms, the combination, and the force as expressions of the Will of the Creator.