excludes unsympathetic ideas. We have only to exaggerate in imagination this condition of normal reflection-to suppose it to deepen through different depths of reverie, until it reaches the morbid degree of hypnotism-and we shall have a partial mental function with susceptibility to related impressions and a complete inhibition of the rest of the mental functions.

When a person has been so unwise as to suffer himself to be thrown many times into the hypnotic state he is very easily affected; the expectant idea will induce the state without anything whatever being put before the eyes. Reichenbach's experiments on his sensitive subjects whom he kept in his house proved, in a ludicrous way sometimes, that there was hardly any circumstance whatever, however trivial in itself, which might not occasion it in persons who expected it and were accustomed to it. The habit grew upon them, as we know that habits of nervous action, good or bad, normal or abnormal, will do if they are encouraged. In the first instance, however, a fixing of the attention through vision seems to be helpful or even necessary, and if the object gazed at be something so placed a little above the level of the eyes as to necessitate a greater strain of the ocular muscles it will be more effectual. By fixing consciousness in this way, in other words, by keeping up a single act of undivided attention, there is a subsidence of the general activities of the brain, which thereupon goes to sleep. Were consciousness prevented from wandering by being held in any other act of undivided attention, whether it were by a mental image or by a muscular strain, the result would no doubt be the same. The reason why the hypnotic subject is best affected through sight probably is that his attention is easily arrested so, and that in no other way would he be so capable of an undistracted act of voluntary attention for any length of time: ask him to think of one thing steadfastly for a few minutes, without ever allowing his attention to stray, he would fail to do so; but when his attention is fixed in a steadfast gaze upon some object to which it is solemnly directed, with the expectation of something extraordinary being about to happen, it is held involuntarily—distraction of consciousness is prevented.

It is not a mere harmless amusement for one who is suscep

tible to the hypnotic trance to suffer himself to be frequently practised upon, for there is danger of his mind being weakened temporarily or permanently. Indeed were his will strong and well-fashioned the operation could not succeed, for its success is a surrender of the subject's will to the will of the operator, and he is sometimes plainly conscious of a lessening resistance to the latter's commands before he is completely subdued and yields unconditionally. After coming out of the trance, a little time must elapse before his will recovers its power; for a while he remains unduly susceptible to the suggestions of others, and too easily influenced by commands. In the end, if the practice be continued, he is likely to lose all control over his own mind and to become insane; the compact consensus of the supreme centres has been broken up, a dis-ordinate tendency fostered, and the dissociated centres are prone to continue their abnormal and independent action. And assuredly that way madness lies.

I have only to remark further with regard to hypnotism that it or a similar trance-like state is produced sometimes by entirely physical causes. It has occurred now and then in con

sequence of injury and of disease of the brain, without our being able to trace the connection between the particular injury or disease and the singular affection of consciousness. It is not difficult, however, to conceive that a physical cause of irritation in the brain may easily suffice for the induction of a state of nonconduction, general or partial, in its delicate structural elements, and that strange aberrations of consciousness will ensue in consequence; but of what really happens we know nothing definite at present.

The condition which most resembles the hypnotic state is natural somnambulism; indeed the former might not unjustly be described as an artificial somnambulism. We observe great differences in the conditions of the senses in natural as in artificial somnambulism: the person may see without hearing, or hear without seeing; his eyes may be shut or wide open; apparently he may see some things and not see other things that are equally within the field of vision; the sensibility of one or more of the senses may be considerably increased; indeed, the gradations of sense in different cases are such that the somnambulist may be

on the one hand almost as clearly conscious of his surroundings as when awake, or, on the other hand, almost as unconscious as when fast asleep. Like the hypnotic, he sometimes remembers during one attack the events of a former attack, although he has no remembrance of them while he is in his normal state of consciousness. At other times he forgets altogether everything that happened during the attack: a fact which is in accordance with the experience that the dreams in which a sleeper talks are those which are least remembered. In a few instances he reinembers something of his dream, imperfectly and confusedly, especially when a scene or incident in the day chances to recall it.

Because the somnambulist plainly does not see things near him sometimes, though his eyes are open, and nevertheless shows by his behaviour that he does perceive other things that are not so close to him, it has been supposed that he has the power to perceive through some other channel than the ordinary senses. If he manifestly does not see one thing which is right before his eyes, how can he see another, it may be reasonably asked? The answer is that he sees what is in relation with the ideas of his dream: the avenue of sense is open to the apprehension of an object the idea of which is active in his mind, and shut to those objects which are not in relation with the images of his dream. In like manner he may not hear some sounds, though they are pretty loud and startling, and yet may hear other sounds which are woven into the fabric of his dream and perhaps give a new direction to it. The occlusion of sense to what is not necessary to the immediate business is the main reason probably why he is able to walk cleverly and fearlessly over roofs of houses and other dangerous places where he would not like to venture if he was broad awake. Seeing only what he requires to see for his purpose, he is not distracted by seeing other things which might dissipate his attention, and his undivided energies are given unreservedly to the accomplishment of what he has to do. The way to do a difficult thing which is feasible is not to see vaguely the difficulties, but to see definitely the means of success; the energies are then undistracted by any halting considerations. The hypnotic, whom we may consider to be in a single state of consciousness, has been known sometimes to execute feats of

muscular strength or agility which he would have found it hard or impossible to do in his normal state. Another reason of the fearless feats of the somnambulist-fearless, but not so safe for him always as is popularly supposed-is perhaps the heightened sensibility of his muscular sense, by virtue of which, like a blind man, he is susceptible to finer impressions, and receives more precise and certain information to guide his movements. There is reason to believe that the sensibility of the other senses may be increased sometimes, as is undoubtedly the case in artificial somnambulism; through a keener sensibility of the retina he may get an advantage of discriminating objects in the dark equal to that possessed naturally by such nocturnal creatures as owls and cats; and the increase of auditory or tactile sensibility, by enabling him to apprehend such slight impressions as he could not discriminate in his normal state, might well give a miraculous semblance to his perceptions. Of one of his so-called "sensitives" Reichenbach relates that "all common light was a burthen to her, pained her, and dimmed the clearness of her perception. Her sight was good in proportion to the depth of darkness about her." But we have more sober and trustworthy authority, were it needed, in the testimony of Cabanis and others who have witnessed quickened sensibility of each sense in different cases of artificial somnambulism.

Notwithstanding the high authority of Sir W. Hamilton, who declared that, however astonishing, it was "now proved beyond all rational doubt that in certain abnormal states of the nervous system perceptions are possible through other than the ordinary channels of sense," it would not be profitable to discuss at length the question whether somnambulists, natural or artificial, ever perceive otherwise than by their natural senses-whether, for example, they ever read, as is sometimes affirmed, through the pit of the stomach or through the back of the head. Without doubt they sometimes imagine they do having perhaps, as hysterical women often have, anomalous sensations about the

"It is quite indifferent," says Reichenbach, "to the high-sensitives whether their eyes are bandaged and glued over or not; it is for them about the same as it would be to bandage the elbow of a non-sensitive who has good eyes to keep him from seeing a camel."

epigastrium or in other parts of the body, they misinterpret their character, and attribute to them perceptions which have been got actually in the ordinary way through the natural channels. But it invariably happens, when the extraordinary powers which they imagine or affirm themselves to have, and which credulous folk believe them to display, are rigidly tested by competent inquirers, that the miracle explodes. They will claim a power of looking into the bodies of other persons or into their own bodies, and will describe with measured utterance, as if their speech followed the gradual disclosures of the eye, the conditions of the internal organs and the nature and position of any disease which may be going on, raising much wonder and entire belief in the minds of persons who are ignorant of anatomy, or who have only a dim book-knowledge of it, but when their statements are tested by a competent physician they will be found to be vague and absurd, such as might have been easily founded on the remembrance of some anatomical drawing, and it will commonly be possible, by affecting an air of entire belief, and betraying not the least sign of suspicion of their powers, to lead them to the description of all sorts of impossible diseases in impossible places. They follow the suggestions made to them in the leading questions that are put, and express the vulgar notions of diseases and their treatment, just as the spirit of a great philosopher or a great poet, when it revisits earth to assist at a spiritualistic séance, utters the vulgar sentiments and thoughts of the medium who has summoned it. The predictions of future events which some of these somnambulistic performers rise by degrees to the audacity of making are equally fanciful; when soberly tested, the prophetic insight, like their medical insight, proves to be delusive. They usually grow to the height of their presumption step by step as they succeed in imposing upon the amazed believers in their pretensions, whose credulity to the end keeps pace with their audacity: Reichenbach was convinced that no secret act done in his house escaped "the all-piercing eye of the acute sensitive," and after saying that they are sometimes of service in the medical art, by discovering the nature of disease and foretelling its future course, and by telling such things as whether there is a prospect