The Commissioners entrusted by the King with the task of examining animal magnetism, as they were writing the conclusions that are to be presented to His Majesty and that may be presented to the public one day, believed that it was their responsibility to suppress one particular observation, which is not to be divulged. They did not, however, conceal it from the Minister of His Majesty, who asked them to write a note that would be read by his person only.

The important observation that we omitted concerns morals. The Commissioners have found that the main causes for the effects attributed to animal magnetism are physical contact, imagination, and imitation. They observed that women were always much more prone to enter into a trance than men were. This difference is accounted for by the different makeup of the sexes. Women have, as a rule, more responsive nerves. Their imagination is more lively, more excitable, and thus more easily awakened. The great responsiveness of their nerves, which accounts for their having more delicate and more exquisite senses, makes them more susceptible to the impression of a touch. To touch any part of their body is as though one touched them all over. This responsiveness of their nerves makes them more open to imitation. Women, as has been noted before, are similar to the chords of an instrument, perfectly taut and vibrating in unison. One need only set one woman in motion: in an instant, the motion of the one spreads to the rest of the group. This is what the Commissioners observed on a number of occasions: as soon as one woman experiences a fit, the others soon follow suit.

These characteristics help to explain why women have more frequent, more intense, and longer nervous fits than do men; and most of their fits can be attributed to the sensitivity of their nerves. Some of these fits have a hidden but altogether natural origin, which lies in the emotions and to which all women are more or less susceptible. This cause exercises its influence indirectly, from a distance; and by allowing the emotions to accumulate, to reach their point of greatest intensity, it may have a role in producing a convulsive state which is mistaken often for other kinds of fits. This cause, this emotional susceptibility, is the power nature has given to one sex over the other, to attract the other, to move and stir her. It is always the man who magnetizes the woman. The relationship between them remains that of patient and doctor, but the doctor remains a man. However affected by illness we are, we remain sexed beings, at the mercy of the power of attraction of the other. Sickness may weaken these sensations without ever annihilating them.

Moreover, most of the women who undergo a treatment of magnetism are not truly ill. Many of them go out of idleness. Others who suffer from minor ailments nevertheless remain youthful and healthy. Their senses are intact, their youthful sensitivities fully alive. They have enough charm to exert an influence on the doctor, just as they are healthy enough for the doctor to have an effect on them: thus danger is reciprocal. Extended proximity, indispensable palpations, the communication of human warmth, troubled glances, these are the usual ways that nature has contrived from time immemorial to carry out infallibly the communication of sensations and affections. The one who magnetizes usually squeezes the woman's knees between his. Consequently both the knees and the lower parts of the body are in contact. The hand is applied to both sides of the abdomen and sometimes on the ovaries. The touch is thus applied simultaneously on a great number of places of the body, and in the vicinity of some of the most sensitive ones. Oftentimes, the man applying his left hand on the abdomen, places the right hand on the back of the woman's body. The movement of both the woman and the doctor causes them lean over each other to facilitate this double palpation. They are as close as they can be. His face almost touches her face, they inhale one another's breath. All physical sensations are instantly shared. The reciprocal attraction of the sexes is at its height. It is not surprising that the senses fire up. The imagination, acting simultaneously, upsets all parts of the machine. It suspends judgement, puts attention aside. Women cannot possibly realize what they are experiencing, and they are unaware of the state they are in.

The medical commissioners attending this scene and attentive to the treatment that was being administered have carefully noted what happened. When this kind of crisis is building, the face is inflamed by degrees, the eyes glow: these are the signs by which nature signifies desire.

The woman lowers her head, raising her hand to her forehead and her eyes to cover them. Unbeknownst to the woman her usual modesty is still alert and inspires in her the need to hide herself. However, the fit progresses and her vision is clouded: this is the clearest sign of the utter disarray of her senses. This confusion may escape the notice of the very person who is experiencing it. It could not escape the observation of the doctors.

As soon as this sign appears, the eyelids become moist, breathing becomes rapid, then halting, while the chest heaves up and down in quick movements. She is seized by convulsions. Her limbs or even her whole body moves rapidly and jerkily. For lively and sensitive women, the last stage, this end point of the sweetest of emotions, is a convulsion. This state is followed by languor, despondency, a kind of dozing of the senses, which is nothing more than the rest needed after a strong agitation.

The proof that this convulsive state, however extraordinary it may appear to the observer, is not painful and is naturally induced in those who experience it, is that it does not produce any harmful results that would linger after it has ended. The memory of it is not unpleasant. Women actually feel better for it, and are not reluctant to experience it again. Since the experience of these emotions is the seed of affections and tender inclinations, one understands why the one who magnetizes inspires so great an attachment. This attachment will always be stronger and more pronounced in women than in men so long as the practice of magnetizing is entrusted solely to men. Many women have obviously not felt these effects. Others are unaware of the cause of the effects they have experienced. The more loyal they are, the more difficult it is for them even to conceive of it. We are told that several have realized what has happened and have stopped the treatment, but those who remain ignorant of it need to be protected.

Magnetic treatment can be only harmful to our morals. While offering to heal illnesses that require long-term care, the magnetic treatment arouses emotions that are both pleasant and comforting. These emotions are then missed and sought again because they hold a natural charm for us and physically contribute to our happiness. They nevertheless remain morally condemnable and are all the more dangerous because one easily becomes accustomed to them. Such a state, experienced almost in public, among other women who seem to be experiencing it too, raises no alarms in the patient. She lingers in it, comes back to it, and perceives the danger only when it's too late. Exposed to this danger, a strong woman will withdraw, while a weaker one may lose both her moral bearings and her health.

M. Deslon is aware of this. M. the Chief of Police asked him a few related questions in the presence of the Commissioners. In an assembly held at M. Deslon's on May 9th, M. Le Noir addressed him in the following manner: "As Chief of Police, I ask you, once a woman has been magnetized and has entered into this trance-like state, would it not be easy to take advantage of her?" M. Deslon replied in the affirmative. One must do him justice and recognize that he has always insisted that only doctors, sworn to honesty by their profession, be allowed to practice magnetism on patients. One must also add that even though he has a room in his house originally intended for patients who reach a state of trance, he does not use it. Everything takes place in full view of the public. But despite this notable sense of decency, the danger remains so long as the doctor can, if he so wishes, abuse his patient. Occasions arise daily, at every moment. He is sometimes exposed to this passion for two or three hours on end. Who can vouch that he will always remain master of himself? Even granting that he is endowed with superhuman virtue, once he has aroused emotions that call for satisfaction, the imperious law of nature will summon somebody else to this task. He must then answer for an evil that he did not commit directly but has certainly engineered.

There is yet another way to provoke convulsions. The commissioners could not obtain any direct and positive proof of this, but could nevertheless not help suspecting it. It is a simulated crisis which gives a signal or stimulus, provoking a great number of other convulsions in imitation of the first one. This artifice serves to kindle and fan the crises, without which the magnetizing process could not be sustained.

This system does not cure anything. Treatments are exceedingly long and ineffective. A patient can be treated for 18 months or two years without any relief. In the end, one would probably grow weary and eventually stop attending altogether. Crises, however, make for a theatrical performance. They attract attention and draw people's interest: indeed, to the observer, they are the result of magnetism, and proof that it exists, when in reality it is the product of the imagination.

As they undertook their report, the commissioners announced that the sole object of their study was the magnetism practiced by M. Deslon. Indeed, the order of the King that prompted this examination sent them only to M. Deslon. But it is obvious that their observations, their experiments and their opinion concern magnetism in general. M. Mesmer will not fail to point out that the commissioners examined neither his methods, nor his processes, nor the effects they induce. The commissioners are doubtless too prudent to pronounce themselves on something they have not had the chance to study and hence would not be familiar with. However, they will have to point out that M. Deslon's principles are the same as the twenty-seven propositions that M. Mesmer had published in 1779.

If M. Mesmer puts forward a grander theory, it will only be all the more absurd. Celestial influences are an old chimera whose falseness has long been known. This whole theory may be judged in advance because it is based on magnetism and therefore can have no reality whatsoever since animal fluid does not exist. Both magnetism and this brilliant theory exist only in the imagination. M. Deslon's magnetizing method is the same as M. Mesmer's. M. Deslon was once a disciple of Mesmer's. Then, when they got closer, they brought together their patients, treating them without distinction and by the same method. M. Delon's current method, therefore, can only be M. Mesmer's.

The effects correspond too. There are crises as violent, as numerous in M. Deslon's patients as in M. Mesmer's. They are also indicated by similar symptoms. What can M. Mesmer intend by alleging an unknown and imperceptible difference when their principles, their practices, and the effects are the same? Moreover, even if this difference existed, what could one infer concerning the efficacy of the treatment when faced with the dangers outlined both in the commissioners' reports and in this note to His Majesty? Public opinion has it that there is no more a cure with M. Mesmer's treatment than with M. Deslon's. There is nothing to prevent convulsions from becoming customary at M. Mesmer's, as at M. Delon's. These occurrences might spread in epidemic fashion in the big cities and extend even to future generations. These practices and these gatherings also have the most serious effect on our morals. The commissioners' experiments, which demonstrated that the effects of magnetism stem from physical contact with the body, a vivid imagination and imitation, account for M. Mesmer's results as well for M. Deslon's. One can reasonably conclude that, whatever the mystery behind M. Mesmer's magnetism, that magnetism can be no more real than M. Deslon's, nor less dangerous. Written in Paris, today Aug. 11th, 1784