A SEVENTH SENSE.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 3374, 26 January 1884, Page 2

A SEVENTH SENSE.

Sir William Thomson, the eminent Professor of Mathematics in the Unii versity of Glasgow, in his inaugural address as President of the Midland Institute at Birmingham, broached the idea of the existence of magnetic senses—namely, those of sight, hearing, taste, smell, heat and force. He said that, in speaking of a possible magnetic sense, he in no way supported that wretched grovelling superstition of animal magnetism, spiritualism, mesmerism, or clairvoyance, of which they had heard so much. There was no seventh sense of a mystic kind. Clairvoyance, and so on, was the result of bad observation chiefly, somewhat mixed up with the effects of wilful imposture, acting on an innocent and trust

ing mind, If there was not a distinct magnetic sense, it was a very great wonder that there was not. The study of magnetism was a very recondite subject. One very wonderful discovery that was made in electric manetism was made by Faraday, and worked out very admirably by Foucauld,an excellent French experimenter, showing that a piece of copper, or a piece of silver, let fall between the poles of a magnet, would fall down slowly as if through mud. Was it conceivable that, if a piece of copper could scarcely move through the air between the poles of an electric magnet, that a human being or living creature, in tire same position, would experience no effect. Lord Lindsay got an enormous magnet, so large that the head of any person wishing to try the experiment could get well between the poles, and the result of the experiment was marvellous, the marvel being that nothing was perceived. Sir William Thomson, however, was not willing to admit that the investigation was completed. He could not but think that the quality of matter in the air, which produced such a prodigious effect on a piece of metal, could be absolutely without any perceptible effect whatever on a living body. He thought the experiment was worth repeating ; and it was worth examining whether or not an exceedingly powerful magnetic force was without perceptible effect on a living vegetable or animal body. His own speculations had led him to conclude that there might be a 7th or magnetic sense ; and that it was possible an exceedingly powerful magnetic effect might be produced on living bodies that could not be explained by heat, force, or any other sensation—British Medical Journal.