If one considers what has been said, one is inclined to accept that the earlier hazy conception of hypnotism must become identified in the conception of suggestion. The explanation of the greatest portion, if not of the whole, of the phenomena under consideration is to be found herein.

3. The so-called "somatic" theories of hypnotism can be collectively considered as those theories which lie, as it were, midway between the other two already dealt with. It is true that no "fluid," no "spirits," are conjured forth; but an attempt was made to trace some, if not all, of the phenomena of hypnosis to known elementary forces, without the intermediation of psychical activity. The influence of peripheral stimuli from without on the nerve endings is accredited with a principal part, and thus again the necessity of an outer agent partly appears in the foreground.

1 Ringier. "Results of Therapeutic Hypnotism in Country Practice," 1891.

2 Many medirul men practising hypnotism have not collected their cases statistically. Stilt, we dare say thai everyone who has grasped the Nancy method (Libeault, Bernbeim, Beaunis, Liegeois) and has to some extent practised it, is capable of influencing more or less strongly between 90 and 96 percent. of the persons whom he tries to hypnotize. the insane excepted. The number of practitioners who have busied themselves with the suggestion treatment, or with the scientific investigation of the question according to the Nancy method, has greatly increased since the firs' edition of this book appeared, and 1 know that all of these gentlemen will bear me out in what I have slated.

It was the Charcot school or that of the Salpetriere in Paris before all others which believed in a direct hypnogenous influence of the metals and of the magnet on the nervous system (without the intermediation of conceptions), which believed in a conveyance (carrying over of a paralysis, catalepsy, or of heimanaesthesia, etc., from one side of the body to the other by means of the magnetic influence), in a direct stimulation of the localized motor cortical centers by stroking the scalp, etc. This school believed that typical different stages and kinds of hypnosis can be produced by means of different peripheral mechanical stimulations. These stimulations include (1) fixation of the vision, (2) raising of the lids, and (3) stroking of the forehead. The forms of hypnosis corresponding to these would be lethargy, catalepsy, and somnambulism, and these would be associated with specific intrinsic reactions of the muscles and of sensation - e.g., the so-called hyperexcitabilite neuromuscu-laire. It is important to emphasize that the Charcot school believed that the hypnotized in the condition of lethargy were completely unconscious, and that they could not be influenced by suggestions, which one imparts to them through the organs of sense by means of representations. This school further believed that the hysterical alone were capable of being hypnotized, and included hypnosis among the neuroses.

It was Bernheim who demonstrated most strikingly what a confusion of ideas had arisen from this theory. All facts which have been demonstrated year after year on the few prepared hysterics in the Salpetriere can be easily explained by long practised suggestions, which had become in part unconceived and automatic, since, for example, the alleged lethargist hears and employs psychically to a great extent all that which is said and done in his presence. Braid's fixing of a shining object, to which so much importance has been attached in Paris and in Germany does not produce hypnosis by itself. When anyone is hypnotized by this inefficient method, the result is achieved by the conception that this procedure must send him to sleep, and not by the procedure itself. The latter generally only produced a nervous excitement, and occasionally also hysterical attacks in the hysterical. At most, in a few cases, tiring and the falling of the lids might act unconceivedly as a suggestion, just as in very susceptible persons any means of producing hypnosis leads to the desired result

It was formerly a common practice to awaken the hypnotized by blowing in the face. I have not employed this method for a long time, and, on the contrary, have combined blowing with the suggestion that headache should disappear and the like. In this way, I can blow in the faces of my hypnotized patients as much as I please, but not one will be awakened thereby. This is an argument against the alleged action of such mechanical stimuli put forward by the "somatic" school, which regards blowing as the specific awakening stimulus.

Liebeault himself reported on forty-five cases in which he claims to have obtained extraordinary good results by laying both his hands on the affected part in young children.1 Thirty-two of the patients were children under three years of age, and Liebeault considered that be could exclude suggestion at this age. However, Liebeault has lately been forced to admit that he misinterpreted the facts at the time .2 Following the advice of Bernheim, he substituted for the hands first "magnetized" water, and later not magnetized water, telling the parents and nurses of the children that the water was magnetized, and promising a cure definitely. He achieved equally good results in this way. The results can only be explained by accepting that the persons around the children were unconsciously influenced by Lieheanlt's suggestion, and the children in their turn received the suggestion from those remaining with them.

1 Liebeault, "Etude sur le Zoomagnetisme." (Paris: Masson, 1883.) 2 Item, "Therapeutique Suggestive." (Paris: Doin, 1891.)

Lastly, one must mention the presumed action of medicaments a distance, or of applying hermetically sealed vessels containing medicaments to the neck, etc (Luys and others). But the magnificent results reported by Luys to the Commission appointed to inquire into the matter proved a miserable failure when all unconceived suggestion was removed. They showed that a great lack of criticism had been exercised, and, above all, that nothing was done to exclude the possibility of suggestion, which could explain the whole situation.

Following the desire of my friend, Professor Seguin, of New York, I imitated with his assistance Luys' experiments with the closed medicine-bottles on four of my best somnambulists. Professor Seguin had himself witnessed Luys' experiments. The result was absolutely negative, as I had confidently expected. The following, however, is interesting: I asked a hypnotized lady, who had the alcohol bottle applied to her neck, and who had up till then declared that she felt nothing, if her head did not ache. She answered, "Yes." Then I asked if she did not feel giddy, as if she were drunk, and immediately she answered in the affirmative, and began to show signs of drunkenness. One can thus see how a single insinuating question may act suggestively. I need scarcely mention that I have produced all the symptoms of certain drugs, even vomiting, immediately by suggestion with spurious or empty glasses (as a control experiment).

If we consider the third group of theories collectively, which theories aim at being somatic and rational, we find that they are the most unfortunate of all; that they have created the worst confusion, and all the facts on which they lean are explainable by suggestion. The chief error of these theories lies in the fact that their results are mostly based on observations on hysterical persons. Now, the hysterical are, firstly, the most unreliable persons in existence, and are the most delicate (because they are the most unconscious) malingerers and comedians. Nextly, the hysterical are persons who apperceive sensually most delicately, hut at the same time possess, as a rule, extremely plastic imaginations, which make them, it is true, very suggestible, but actually much more "autosuggestible."

Lastly, the hysterical are inclined to catalepsy, to lethargy, and to fits, Charcot's cases were only prepared hypnoses in the hysterical.

One must call special attention in this place, in reference to what has been said in the first two chapters, to the blunder which Charcot's school made in opposing the terms "somatic" and "psychical" to one another, and in emphatically claiming scientific argument for itself alone, because it fancied that it had found somatic landmarks. The contradiction which lies in despisingly refusing to take psychical activities - i.e., perceptions - into consideration, although one refers everything that is psychical to brain activity, does not speak well for the "somatic" theorist. They always forget that all that is psychical - i.e., that every contents of consciousness - is at the same time "somatic."

Dumontpallier, the special supporter of Burq's metallo-therapy in Paris, adopted for the most part the views of the somatic school, as did also the Berlin physiologist Preyer, who, according to his book on hypnotism (1890), accepted Braid's views on the main questions, but dealt with suggestion as a chapter in hypnotism, as a sort of subsection of the latter, just as Charcot's school regarded it, and only lightly touched on the merits and investigations of Liebeault and Bernheim; while Danilewsky demonstrated brilliantly that the hypnosis of animals is absolutely homologous to that of human beings, and is based, as Liebeault had also stated, on suggestion - of course, meaning on a suggestion which is adapted to the psychical capabilities of the animals.1 Preyer persisted in his theory of cataplexy - i.e., rigidity from fright. He further persisted in his lactic acid theory of sleep, and believed that those cases in which hypnosis is produced with lightning rapidity - as, for example, is always the case with my hypnotized - are cataplexy and hypnosis; but forgets completely to explain the cases of somnolency and prolonged sleeplessness. Preyer goes as far as to call hypnosis a neurosis, just as Charcot did. In another place he admitted the moat intimate relationship of hypnosis and normal sleep; but we will not deduce from this that Preyer considered that normal sleep is a neurosis.

1 "Compte rendu du Congres international de physiologie psychologique, Parts, 1890," pp. 79-92.

However, one has not heard anything of Charcot's theory since his (Charcot's) death, and one may regard it by this time as having been finally buried. I have only discussed it for historical reasons.

There is, therefore, only one theory which stands in accord with the scientifically assured facts of hypnotism, and which explains the same satisfactorily, and this is the suggestion theory of the Nancy school. All the others are built up on misconceptions.

We need, therefore, only deal with the idea of suggestion and of suggestive sleep, which means the same as the idea of hypnotism.