Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  position, now informs the company that the Automaton will play a game

  of chess with any one disposed to encounter him. This challenge being

  accepted, a small table is prepared for the antagonist, and placed

  close by the rope, but on the spectators' side of it, and so situated

  as not to prevent the company from obtaining a full view of the

  Automaton. From a drawer in this table is taken a set of chess-men,

  and Maelzel arranges them generally, but not always, with his own

  hands, on the chess board, which consists merely of the usual number

  of squares painted upon the table. The antagonist having taken his

  seat, the exhibiter approaches the drawer of the box, and takes

  therefrom the cushion, which, after removing the pipe from the hand

  of the Automaton, he places under its left arm as a support. Then

  taking also from the drawer the Automaton's set of chess-men, he

  arranges them upon the chessboard before the figure. He now proceeds

  to close the doors and to lock them--leaving the bunch of keys in

  door No. 1. He also closes the drawer, and, finally, winds up the

  machine, by applying a key to an aperture in the left end (the

  spectators' left) of the box. The game now commences--the Automaton

  taking the first move. The duration of the contest is usually limited

  to half an hour, but if it be not finished at the expiration of this

  period, and the antagonist still contend that he can beat the

  Automaton, M. Maelzel has seldom any objection to continue it. Not to

  weary the company, is the ostensible, and no doubt the real object of

  the limitation. It Wits of course be understood that when a move is

  made at his own table, by the antagonist, the corresponding move is

  made at the box of the Automaton, by Maelzel himself, who then acts

  as the representative of the antagonist. On the other hand, when the

  Turk moves, the corresponding move is made at the table of the

  antagonist, also by M. Maelzel, who then acts as the representative

  of the Automaton. In this manner it is necessary that the exhibiter

  should often pass from one table to the other. He also frequently

  goes in rear of the figure to remove the chess-men which it has

  taken, and which it deposits, when taken, on the box to the left (to

  its own left) of the board. When the Automaton hesitates in relation

  to its move, the exhibiter is occasionally seen to place himself very

  near its right side, and to lay his hand, now and then, in a careless

  manner upon the box. He has also a peculiar shuffle with his feet,

  calculated to induce suspicion of collusion with the machine in minds

  which are more cunning than sagacious. These peculiarities are, no

  doubt, mere mannerisms of M. Maelzel, or, if he is aware of them at

  all, he puts them in practice with a view of exciting in the

  spectators a false idea of the pure mechanism in the Automaton.

  The Turk plays with his left hand. All the movements of the arm are

  at right angles. In this manner, the hand (which is gloved and bent

  in a natural way,) being brought directly above the piece to be

  moved, descends finally upon it, the fingers receiving it, in most

  cases, without difficulty. Occasionally, however, when the piece is

  not precisely in its proper situation, the Automaton fails in his

  attempt at seizing it. When this occurs, no second effort is made,

  but the arm continues its movement in the direction originally

  intended, precisely as if the piece were in the fingers. Having thus

  designated the spot whither the move should have been made, the arm

  returns to its cushion, and Maelzel performs the evolution which the

  Automaton pointed out. At every movement of the figure machinery is

  heard in motion. During the progress of the game, the figure now and

  then rolls its eyes, as if surveying the board, moves its head, and

  pronounces the word _echec _(check) when necessary. {*3} If a false

  move be made by his antagonist, he raps briskly on the box with the

  fingers of his right hand, shakes his head roughly, and replacing the

  piece falsely moved, in its former situation, assumes the next move

  himself. Upon beating the game, he waves his head with an air of

  triumph, looks round complacently upon the spectators, and drawing

  his left arm farther back than usual, suffers his fingers alone to

  rest upon the cushion. In general, the Turk is victorious--once or

  twice he has been beaten. The game being ended, Maelzel will again if

  desired, exhibit the mechanism of the box, in the same manner as

  before. The machine is then rolled back, and a curtain hides it from

  the view of the company.

  There have been many attempts at solving the mystery of the

  Automaton. The most general opinion in relation to it, an opinion too

  not unfrequently adopted by men who should have known better, was, as

  we have before said, that no immediate human agency was employed--in

  other words, that the machine was purely a machine and nothing else.

  Many, however maintained that the exhibiter himself regulated the

  movements of the figure by mechanical means operating through the

  feet of the box. Others again, spoke confidently of a magnet. Of the

  first of these opinions we shall say nothing at present more than we

  have already said. In relation to the second it is only necessary to

  repeat what we have before stated, that the machine is rolled about

  on castors, and will, at the request of a spectator, be moved to and

  fro to any portion of the room, even during the progress of a game.

  The supposition of the magnet is also untenable--for if a magnet were

  the agent, any other magnet in the pocket of a spectator would

  disarrange the entire mechanism. The exhibiter, however, will suffer

  the most powerful loadstone to remain even upon the box during the

  whole of the exhibition.

  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, an
d 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.

  In attempting ourselves an explanation of the Automaton, we will, in

  the first place, endeavor to show how its operations are effected,

  and afterwards describe, as briefly as possible, the nature of the

  _observations _from which we have deduced our result.

  It will be necessary for a proper understanding of the subject, that

  we repeat here in a few words, the routine adopted by the exhibiter

  in disclosing the interior of the box--a routine from which he _never

  _deviates in any material particular. In the first place he opens the

  door No. I. Leaving this open, he goes round to the rear of the box,

  and opens a door precisely at the back of door No. I. To this back

  door he holds a lighted candle. He then _closes the back door, _locks

  it, and, coming round to the front, opens the drawer to its full

  extent. This done, he opens the doors No. 2 and No. 3, (the folding

  doors) and displays the interior of the main compartment. Leaving

  open the main compartment, the drawer, and the front door of cupboard

  No. I, he now goes to the rear again, and throws open the back door

  of the main compartment. In shutting up the box no particular order

  is observed, except that the folding doors are always closed before

  the drawer.

  Now, let us suppose that when the machine is first rolled into the

  presence of the spectators, a man is already within it. His body is

  situated behind the dense machinery in cupboard No. T. (the rear

  portion of which machinery is so contrived as to slip _en masse,

  _from the main compartment to the cupboard No. I, as occasion may

  require,) and his legs lie at full length in the main compartment.

  When Maelzel opens the door No. I, the man within is not in any

  danger of discovery, for the keenest eve cannot penetrate more than

  about two inches into the darkness within. But the case is otherwise

  when the back door of the cupboard No. I, is opened. A bright light

  then pervades the cupboard, and the body of the man would be

  discovered if it were there. But it is not. The putting the key in

  the lock of the back door was a signal on hearing which the person

  concealed brought his body forward to an angle as acute as

  possible--throwing it altogether, or nearly so, into the main

  compartment. This, however, is a painful position, and cannot be long

  maintained. Accordingly we find that Maelzel _closes the back door.

  _This being done, there is no reason why the body of the man may not

  resume its former situation--for the cupboard is again so dark as to

  defy scrutiny. The drawer is now opened, and the legs of the person

  within drop down behind it in the space it formerly occupied. {*4}