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Page 85
The first attempt at a written explanation of the secret, at least
the first attempt of which we ourselves have any knowledge, was made
in a large pamphlet printed at Paris in 1785. The author's hypothesis
amounted to this--that a dwarf actuated the machine. This dwarf he
supposed to conceal himself during the opening of the box by
thrusting his legs into two hollow cylinders, which were represented
to be (but which are not) among the machinery in the cupboard No. I,
while his body was out of the box entirely, and covered by the
drapery of the Turk. When the doors were shut, the dwarf was enabled
to bring his body within the box--the noise produced by some portion
of the machinery allowing him to do so unheard, and also to close the
door by which he entered. The interior of the automaton being then
exhibited, and no person discovered, the spectators, says the author
of this pamphlet, are satisfied that no one is within any portion of
the machine. This whole hypothesis was too obviously absurd to
require comment, or refutation, and accordingly we find that it
attracted very little attention.
In 1789 a book was published at Dresden by M. I. F. Freyhere in which
another endeavor was made to unravel the mystery. Mr. Freyhere's book
was a pretty large one, and copiously illustrated by colored
engravings. His supposition was that "a well-taught boy very thin and
tall of his age (sufficiently so that he could be concealed in a
drawer almost immediately under the chess-board") played the game of
chess and effected all the evolutions of the Automaton. This idea,
although even more silly than that of the Parisian author, met with a
better reception, and was in some measure believed to be the true
solution of the wonder, until the inventor put an end to the
discussion by suffering a close examination of the top of the box.
These bizarre attempts at explanation were followed by others equally
bizarre. Of late years however, an anonymous writer, by a course of
reasoning exceedingly unphilosophical, has contrived to blunder upon
a plausible solution--although we cannot consider it altogether the
true one. His Essay was first published in a Baltimore weekly paper,
was illustrated by cuts, and was entitled "An attempt to analyze the
Automaton Chess-Player of M. Maelzel." This Essay we suppose to have
been the original of the _pamphlet to _which Sir David Brewster
alludes in his letters on Natural Magic, and which he has no
hesitation in declaring a thorough and satisfactory explanation. The
_results _of the analysis are undoubtedly, in the main, just; but we
can only account for Brewster's pronouncing the Essay a thorough and
satisfactory explanation, by supposing him to have bestowed upon it a
very cursory and inattentive perusal. In the compendium of the Essay,
made use of in the Letters on Natural Magic, it is quite impossible
to arrive at any distinct conclusion in regard to the adequacy or
inadequacy of the analysis, on account of the gross misarrangement
and deficiency of the letters of reference employed. The same fault
is to be found in the '`Attempt &c.," as we originally saw it. The
solution consists in a series of minute explanations, (accompanied by
wood-cuts, the whole occupying many pages) in which the object is to
show the _possibility _of _so shifting the partitions _of the box, as
to allow a human being, concealed in the interior, to move portions
of his body from one part of the box to another, during the
exhibition of the mechanism--thus eluding the scrutiny of the
spectators. There can be no doubt, as we have before observed, and as
we will presently endeavor to show, that the principle, or rather the
result, of this solution is the true one. Some person is concealed in
the box during the whole time of exhibiting the interior. We object,
however, to the whole verbose description of the _manner _in which
the partitions are shifted, to accommodate the movements of the
person concealed. We object to it as a mere theory assumed in the
first place, and to which circumstances are afterwards made to adapt
themselves. It was not, and could not have been, arrived at by any
inductive reasoning. In whatever way the shifting is managed, it is
of course concealed at every step from observation. To show that
certain movements might possibly be effected in a certain way, is
very far from showing that they are actually so effected. There may
be an infinity of other methods by which the same results may be
obtained. The probability of the one assumed proving the correct one
is then as unity to infinity. But, in reality, this particular point,
the shifting of the partitions, is of no consequence whatever. It was
altogether unnecessary to devote seven or eight pages for the purpose
of proving what no one in his senses would deny--viz: that the
wonderful mechanical genius of Baron Kempelen could invent the
necessary means for shutting a door or slipping aside a pannel, with
a human agent too at his service in actual contact with the pannel or
the door, and the whole operations carried on, as the author of the
Essay himself shows, and as we shall attempt to show more fully
hereafter, entirely out of reach of the observation of the
spectators.
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