PHILOSOPHICAL ESSAY ON ANIMAL FASCINATION, OR CHARMING. A common belief exists with a large portion of society, that serpents, and some other animals of a formidable character, are armed with a mysterious power, termed fascination, or charming, by which they exert a silent but efficient and destructive influence over their marked victims, which is operative through a space that would render nugatory the ordinary power which they possess for their arrest. Although it may not be strictly proper to consider such belief either as a credulity or superstition, yet as it is believed that this is one of the erroneous notions which have been derived from, and is dependent upon physical causes, existing principally in the victim of its supposed influence, and not from the existence of a real power in these animals themselves, any further than as being objects of dread and apprehension, it is, therefore, deemed not unprofitable to notice this asserted singular power, as a correlative of these, which has contributed its aid to the variety of fallacies proceeding from their prolific fountains of mental error. Whatever may be the facts upon which the belief in fascination, as a distinct animal power, is founded, it is most probable that the deductions therefrom are erroneous; and that these, instead of being adequate to establish such conclusions, ought to be viewed but as manifestations of faculties which all animals exhibit in a manner adapted to the varied conditions of their existence. If a belief in the real existence of ghosts, of witchcraft, or mesmerism, is to be alone tested by the apparent facts which are adduced in their support, their reality, as a consequence, must be admitted. But if (as is believed to be the fact) these can be shown to be illusions, emanating either from a disordered condition of the optic nerves, or the brain; from an excited imagination; or from an occasional singular manifestation of a diseased nervous system; then their existence as distinct agencies becomes annihilated, and they are to be considered merely as diseased, or abnormal actions, which vitality, when under peculiar influences, or when in an unnatural state, exhibits. So if it can be made to appear as probable, that the facts adduced in support of fascination, as a distinct and singular power attributed to some animals only, are but the varied exercise of a sagacity, which all, in a greater or less degree, possess, then the marvel of such incomprehensible agent ceases, and the mind is led rather to admire that superior wisdom which has devised such a wonderful adaptation in the economy of living beings, without resorting to a profuse multiplication of agencies in effecting its preservation. It is a characteristic of the mind, to invest with extra-natural power whatever excites its extreme dread and apprehension. This mental trait is more especially manifested when the cause of such affection is rendered difficult of investigation, either from the dangers with which it is attended, or from the subtleties and mystery by which it is enveloped. Thus death, to the philosophic spectator of the event, presents but the natural phenomena incident to the cessation of organic action; yet to the ignorant and credulous it often excites the notion of such extra-natural influences, superinduced at the period of dissolution, as to render it an object of superstitious dread and apprehension. The most deadly poisons have ever, by credulity, been invested with qualities allied to the marvelous, such as have never been verified in any substance in nature. But scientific analysis, by designating and defining their real properties, has mostly dispelled the mystery which once magnified their powers; and these, though now viewed as formidable agencies, excite but a small degree of terror, in comparison with that derived from their magical history. There are no members of the animal kingdom, however formidable many may be to man, that excite such natural abhorrence and dread, as do those of the serpent species. This affection, although mainly derived from their formidable and dangerous character, is, no doubt, essentially aggravated (in the view of many) by associations derived from sacred historical evidence regarding their agency in effecting original transgression, so vitally affecting human destiny. Such views and agency, associated with the observation of his wily instincts, together with his naturally repulsive form and singular actions, have, beyond doubt, presented the serpent species to the ever prolific imagination, as endowed with qualities more mysterious and formidable than any other species. It may perhaps be objected, that was fascination an imaginary power, derived from such source, it ought alone to be manifested in formidable animals, and not in those less noxious, as the feline, or cat species, and some others, ordinarily viewed with indifference. But it may be answered, that a character termed formidable, is to be estimated but in view of the relations that exist between the various species; and that these relations can alone be determined from observation of the natural hostility of animals, and the modes by which the stronger effect the destruction of their weaker adversaries. In all cases of the existence of these hostile connections, there is little question that the superior are viewed by the inferior kinds, in an attitude no less terrible and dangerous, than are the most venomous of the serpent species by man. Was the asserted power of fascination a real endowment of any animal, it might rationally be presumed, that it would be employed on all occasions, and at all seasons when the promptings of appetite were instant and urgent; which is evidently far from being the fact, as ordinary physical force is that generally employed, both by serpents and the feline kinds, in arresting the animals on which they prey. The species that are the reputed victims of fascination, such as the smaller birds, squirrels, &c., (from which most instances of the exertion of this singular faculty are derived,) generally seek the vicinity of the dwellings of man, at their periods of rearing offspring, probably from the instinctive or acquired consciousness, that most of their more powerful |