The Works of Edgar Allan Poe Volume II Part 7

_P._ You say that divested of the body man will be G.o.d?

_V._ [_After much hesitation._] I could not have said this; it is an absurdity.

_P._ [_Referring to my notes._] You _did_ say that "divested of corporate invest.i.ture man were G.o.d."

_V._ And this is true. Man thus divested _would be_ G.o.d--would be unindividualized. But he can never be thus divested--at least never _will be_--else we must imagine an action of G.o.d returning upon itself--a purposeless and futile action. Man is a creature. Creatures are thoughts of G.o.d. It is the nature of thought to be irrevocable.

_P._ I do not comprehend. You say that man will never put off the body?

_V._ I say that he will never be bodiless.

_P._ Explain.

_V._ There are two bodies--the rudimental and the complete; corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the b.u.t.terfly.

What we call "death," is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.

_P._ But of the worm's metamorphosis we are palpably cognizant.

_V._ _We_, certainly--but not the worm. The matter of which our rudimental body is composed, is within the ken of the organs of that body; or, more distinctly, our rudimental organs are adapted to the matter of which is formed the rudimental body; but not to that of which the ultimate is composed. The ultimate body thus escapes our rudimental senses, and we perceive only the sh.e.l.l which falls, in decaying, from the inner form; not that inner form itself; but this inner form, as well as the sh.e.l.l, is appreciable by those who have already acquired the ultimate life.

_P._ You have often said that the mesmeric state very nearly resembles death. How is this?

_V._ When I say that it resembles death, I mean that it resembles the ultimate life; for when I am entranced the senses of my rudimental life are in abeyance, and I perceive external things directly, without organs, through a medium which I shall employ in the ultimate, unorganized life.

_P._ Unorganized?

_V._ Yes; organs are contrivances by which the individual is brought into sensible relation with particular cla.s.ses and forms of matter, to the exclusion of other cla.s.ses and forms. The organs of man are adapted to his rudimental condition, and to that only; his ultimate condition, being unorganized, is of unlimited comprehension in all points but one--the nature of the volition of G.o.d--that is to say, the motion of the unparticled matter. You will have a distinct idea of the ultimate body by conceiving it to be entire brain. This it is _not_; but a conception of this nature will bring you near a comprehension of what it _is_. A luminous body imparts vibration to the luminiferous ether.

The vibrations generate similar ones within the retina; these again communicate similar ones to the optic nerve. The nerve conveys similar ones to the brain; the brain, also, similar ones to the unparticled matter which permeates it. The motion of this latter is thought, of which perception is the first undulation. This is the mode by which the mind of the rudimental life communicates with the external world; and this external world is, to the rudimental life, limited, through the idiosyncrasy of its organs. But in the ultimate, unorganized life, the external world reaches the whole body, (which is of a substance having affinity to brain, as I have said,) with no other intervention than that of an infinitely rarer ether than even the luminiferous; and to this ether--in unison with it--the whole body vibrates, setting in motion the unparticled matter which permeates it. It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages necessary to confine them until fledged.

_P._ You speak of rudimental "beings." Are there other rudimental thinking beings than man?

_V._ The mult.i.tudinous conglomeration of rare matter into nebulae, planets, suns, and other bodies which are neither nebulae, suns, nor planets, is for the sole purpose of supplying _pabulum_ for the idiosyncrasy of the organs of an infinity of rudimental beings. But for the necessity of the rudimental, prior to the ultimate life, there would have been no bodies such as these. Each of these is tenanted by a distinct variety of organic, rudimental, thinking creatures. In all, the organs vary with the features of the place tenanted. At death, or metamorphosis, these creatures, enjoying the ultimate life--immortality--and cognizant of all secrets but _the one_, act all things and pa.s.s everywhere by mere volition:--indwelling, not the stars, which to us seem the sole palpabilities, and for the accommodation of which we blindly deem s.p.a.ce created--but that s.p.a.cE itself--that infinity of which the truly substantive vastness swallows up the star-shadows--blotting them out as non-ent.i.ties from the perception of the angels.

_P._ You say that "but for the _necessity_ of the rudimental life" there would have been no stars. But why this necessity?

_V._ In the inorganic life, as well as in the inorganic matter generally, there is nothing to impede the action of one simple _unique_ law--the Divine Volition. With the view of producing impediment, the organic life and matter, (complex, substantial, and law-enc.u.mbered,) were contrived.

_P._ But again--why need this impediment have been produced?

_V._ The result of law inviolate is perfection--right--negative happiness. The result of law violate is imperfection, wrong, positive pain. Through the impediments afforded by the number, complexity, and substantiality of the laws of organic life and matter, the violation of law is rendered, to a certain extent, practicable. Thus pain, which in the inorganic life is impossible, is possible in the organic.

_P._ But to what good end is pain thus rendered possible?

_V._ All things are either good or bad by comparison. A sufficient a.n.a.lysis will show that pleasure, in all cases, is but the contrast of pain. _Positive_ pleasure is a mere idea. To be happy at any one point we must have suffered at the same. Never to suffer would have been never to have been blessed. But it has been shown that, in the inorganic life, pain cannot be thus the necessity for the organic. The pain of the primitive life of Earth, is the sole basis of the bliss of the ultimate life in Heaven.

_P._ Still, there is one of your expressions which I find it impossible to comprehend--"the truly _substantive_ vastness of infinity."

_V._ This, probably, is because you have no sufficiently generic conception of the term "_substance_" itself. We must not regard it as a quality, but as a sentiment:--it is the perception, in thinking beings, of the adaptation of matter to their organization. There are many things on the Earth, which would be nihility to the inhabitants of Venus--many things visible and tangible in Venus, which we could not be brought to appreciate as existing at all. But to the inorganic beings--to the angels--the whole of the unparticled matter is substance--that is to say, the whole of what we term "s.p.a.ce" is to them the truest substantiality;--the stars, meantime, through what we consider their materiality, escaping the angelic sense, just in proportion as the unparticled matter, through what we consider its immateriality, eludes the organic.

As the sleep-waker p.r.o.nounced these latter words, in a feeble tone, I observed on his countenance a singular expression, which somewhat alarmed me, and induced me to awake him at once. No sooner had I done this, than, with a bright smile irradiating all his features, he fell back upon his pillow and expired. I noticed that in less than a minute afterward his corpse had all the stern rigidity of stone. His brow was of the coldness of ice. Thus, ordinarily, should it have appeared, only after long pressure from Azrael's hand. Had the sleep-waker, indeed, during the latter portion of his discourse, been addressing me from out the region of the shadows?

THE FACTS IN THE CASE OF M. VALDEMAR

OF course I shall not pretend to consider it any matter for wonder, that the extraordinary case of M. Valdemar has excited discussion. It would have been a miracle had it not-especially under the circ.u.mstances.

Through the desire of all parties concerned, to keep the affair from the public, at least for the present, or until we had farther opportunities for investigation--through our endeavors to effect this--a garbled or exaggerated account made its way into society, and became the source of many unpleasant misrepresentations, and, very naturally, of a great deal of disbelief.

It is now rendered necessary that I give the facts--as far as I comprehend them myself. They are, succinctly, these:

My attention, for the last three years, had been repeatedly drawn to the subject of Mesmerism; and, about nine months ago it occurred to me, quite suddenly, that in the series of experiments made hitherto, there had been a very remarkable and most unaccountable omission:--no person had as yet been mesmerized in articulo mortis. It remained to be seen, first, whether, in such condition, there existed in the patient any susceptibility to the magnetic influence; secondly, whether, if any existed, it was impaired or increased by the condition; thirdly, to what extent, or for how long a period, the encroachments of Death might be arrested by the process. There were other points to be ascertained, but these most excited my curiosity--the last in especial, from the immensely important character of its consequences.

In looking around me for some subject by whose means I might test these particulars, I was brought to think of my friend, M. Ernest Valdemar, the well-known compiler of the "Bibliotheca Forensica," and author (under the nom de plume of Issachar Marx) of the Polish versions of "Wallenstein" and "Gargantua." M. Valdemar, who has resided princ.i.p.ally at Harlaem, N.Y., since the year 1839, is (or was) particularly noticeable for the extreme spareness of his person--his lower limbs much resembling those of John Randolph; and, also, for the whiteness of his whiskers, in violent contrast to the blackness of his hair--the latter, in consequence, being very generally mistaken for a wig. His temperament was markedly nervous, and rendered him a good subject for mesmeric experiment. On two or three occasions I had put him to sleep with little difficulty, but was disappointed in other results which his peculiar const.i.tution had naturally led me to antic.i.p.ate. His will was at no period positively, or thoroughly, under my control, and in regard to clairvoyance, I could accomplish with him nothing to be relied upon. I always attributed my failure at these points to the disordered state of his health. For some months previous to my becoming acquainted with him, his physicians had declared him in a confirmed phthisis. It was his custom, indeed, to speak calmly of his approaching dissolution, as of a matter neither to be avoided nor regretted.

When the ideas to which I have alluded first occurred to me, it was of course very natural that I should think of M. Valdemar. I knew the steady philosophy of the man too well to apprehend any scruples from him; and he had no relatives in America who would be likely to interfere. I spoke to him frankly upon the subject; and, to my surprise, his interest seemed vividly excited. I say to my surprise, for, although he had always yielded his person freely to my experiments, he had never before given me any tokens of sympathy with what I did. His disease was of that character which would admit of exact calculation in respect to the epoch of its termination in death; and it was finally arranged between us that he would send for me about twenty-four hours before the period announced by his physicians as that of his decease.

It is now rather more than seven months since I received, from M.

Valdemar himself, the subjoined note:

My DEAR P---,

You may as well come now. D---- and F---- are agreed that I cannot hold out beyond to-morrow midnight; and I think they have hit the time very nearly.

VALDEMAR

I received this note within half an hour after it was written, and in fifteen minutes more I was in the dying man's chamber. I had not seen him for ten days, and was appalled by the fearful alteration which the brief interval had wrought in him. His face wore a leaden hue; the eyes were utterly l.u.s.treless; and the emaciation was so extreme that the skin had been broken through by the cheek-bones. His expectoration was excessive. The pulse was barely perceptible. He retained, nevertheless, in a very remarkable manner, both his mental power and a certain degree of physical strength. He spoke with distinctness--took some palliative medicines without aid--and, when I entered the room, was occupied in penciling memoranda in a pocket-book. He was propped up in the bed by pillows. Doctors D---- and F---- were in attendance.

After pressing Valdemar's hand, I took these gentlemen aside, and obtained from them a minute account of the patient's condition. The left lung had been for eighteen months in a semi-osseous or cartilaginous state, and was, of course, entirely useless for all purposes of vitality. The right, in its upper portion, was also partially, if not thoroughly, ossified, while the lower region was merely a ma.s.s of purulent tubercles, running one into another. Several extensive perforations existed; and, at one point, permanent adhesion to the ribs had taken place. These appearances in the right lobe were of comparatively recent date. The ossification had proceeded with very unusual rapidity; no sign of it had been discovered a month before, and the adhesion had only been observed during the three previous days.

Independently of the phthisis, the patient was suspected of aneurism of the aorta; but on this point the osseous symptoms rendered an exact diagnosis impossible. It was the opinion of both physicians that M.

Valdemar would die about midnight on the morrow (Sunday). It was then seven o'clock on Sat.u.r.day evening.

On quitting the invalid's bed-side to hold conversation with myself, Doctors D---- and F---- had bidden him a final farewell. It had not been their intention to return; but, at my request, they agreed to look in upon the patient about ten the next night.

When they had gone, I spoke freely with M. Valdemar on the subject of his approaching dissolution, as well as, more particularly, of the experiment proposed. He still professed himself quite willing and even anxious to have it made, and urged me to commence it at once. A male and a female nurse were in attendance; but I did not feel myself altogether at liberty to engage in a task of this character with no more reliable witnesses than these people, in case of sudden accident, might prove.

I therefore postponed operations until about eight the next night, when the arrival of a medical student with whom I had some acquaintance, (Mr.

Theodore L--l,) relieved me from farther embarra.s.sment. It had been my design, originally, to wait for the physicians; but I was induced to proceed, first, by the urgent entreaties of M. Valdemar, and secondly, by my conviction that I had not a moment to lose, as he was evidently sinking fast.

Mr. L--l was so kind as to accede to my desire that he would take notes of all that occurred, and it is from his memoranda that what I now have to relate is, for the most part, either condensed or copied verbatim.

It wanted about five minutes of eight when, taking the patient's hand, I begged him to state, as distinctly as he could, to Mr. L--l, whether he (M. Valdemar) was entirely willing that I should make the experiment of mesmerizing him in his then condition.

He replied feebly, yet quite audibly, "Yes, I wish to be. I fear you have mesmerized"--adding immediately afterwards, "deferred it too long."

While he spoke thus, I commenced the pa.s.ses which I had already found most effectual in subduing him. He was evidently influenced with the first lateral stroke of my hand across his forehead; but although I exerted all my powers, no further perceptible effect was induced until some minutes after ten o'clock, when Doctors D-- and F-- called, according to appointment. I explained to them, in a few words, what I designed, and as they opposed no objection, saying that the patient was already in the death agony, I proceeded without hesitation--exchanging, however, the lateral pa.s.ses for downward ones, and directing my gaze entirely into the right eye of the sufferer.

By this time his pulse was imperceptible and his breathing was stertorous, and at intervals of half a minute.