At length, however,
Messmer's authority became suspected; his pecuniary acquisitions were
now notorious, and our _humane and disinterested philosopher_ was
assailed with critical and satirical animadversions from every quarter.
The fertility of his process for medical purposes, as well as the bad
consequences it might procure in a moral point of view, soon became
topics of common conversation, and ultimately even excited the
apprehensions of government. One dangerous effect of magnetical
associations was, that young voluptuaries began to employ this art, to
promote their libidinous and destructive designs.
Matters having assumed this serious aspect, the French government, much
to its credit, deputed four respectable and unprejudiced men, to whom
were afterwards added four others of great learning and abilities, to
inquire into, and appreciate the merits of the new discovery of animal
magnetism. These philosophers, among whom we find the illustrious names
of Franklin and Lavoisier, recognised, indeed, very surprising and
unexpected phenomena in the physical state of magnetized individuals;
but they gave it as their opinion, that the powers of imagination, and
not animal magnetism, had produced these effects.
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