Chapter VIII: Part 8

I am satisfied that the essential excellence of the old fashioned racing style as used in the old fashioned boats becomes an inherent defect in the same style as used in modern racing boats. I refer to the principle involved in the words italicised (by myself) in the following quotation from 'Principles of Rowing':--'The instant the oar touches the water the arms and body begin to fall backwards, the _former continuing at their full stretch till the back is perpendicular_. They are then bent, the elbows being brought close past the sides, till the hands, which are now brought home sharply, strike the body above the lowest ribs.' Such was the stroke that brave old Coombes used to teach, and such was the stroke by which, time and again, races were won before 1850. But in proportion as the racing boat has been improved, both by diminution of weight and resistance and by change of leverage, the necessity has increased for a more energetic application of the oarsman's power. A stroke which resulted in mere jerking, injurious to the rower and not adding to speed, in the old racing boats, is absolutely essential to the effective propulsion of the modern racing boat, when once at least full speed has been attained, for before this the old fashioned long drag with lightning feather is as useful now as ever. Now, no one who has watched a really good Oxford crew at full speed can fail to observe the way in which the oars literally smite the water at the beginning of each stroke. No one who considers the velocity with which they must move to give this sledge-hammer stroke at the beginning can fail to perceive that the body alone cannot give this velocity of impulse in the first part of the stroke. There is only one way in which it can be attained, and that is by making the arms work from the beginning, not merely in the sense in which they may be said to work when continuing at their full stretch, but by actual and energetic contraction. In the Cambridge style arms and body only work together after the back is perpendicular; in the Oxford style they work together from the beginning. The result is that by the time the Oxford oars man has brought his back perpendicular his stroke is finished; whereas the Cambridge oarsman has still to give that drag at the end which used to be so much esteemed, and still is justly esteemed, by sailors for sea-racing. The oar of the Oxford rower is a much shorter time in the water, simply because it is propelled through the water with far greater, or rather with much more concentrated energy. The Oxford stroke, again, is necessarily a few inches shorter. For as Cambridge men go as far forward and swing further backward, it stands to reason that they get a little more length. But they get this additional length at the cost of a great strain on the abdominal muscles, and with no proportional effect. A very strong crew which can maintain the long, dragging stroke with the lightning feather from beginning to end may win, as Cambridge men have won, but only because of their superior strength, not by virtue of that lift at the end, which wearies the most stalwart, causes sluggish disengagement of the hands, and in a long race has often caused a powerful crew to be beaten by weaker men rowing in a more scientific manner. It is not impossible, now that the Oxford crew have had set them the true Oxford stroke that we may have an opportunity of witnessing something of this kind on Saturday, though the manifest superiority of the Cambridge crew in strength and the lateness of the change in the Oxford boat are unfavourable to the chances of the dark blue. To return to the point from which we started. The just style of propulsion for each class of boat is a matter to be determined on scientific principles. There is no real conflict between theory and practice in this matter. Every change which has tended to increase the speed of racing boats has (like the changes in Poncelet's experiment) rendered necessary an increased energy, or, as one may say, an increased intensity of propulsion.

_ARTIFICIAL SOMNAMBULISM._

Rather more than a quarter of a century ago two Americans visited London, who called themselves professors of Electro-Biology, and claimed the power of 'subjugating the most determined wills, paralysing the strongest muscles, preventing the evidence of the senses, destroying the memory of the most familiar events or of the most recent occurrences, inducing obedience to any command, and making an individual believe himself transformed into any one else.' All this and more was to be effected, they said, by the action of a small disc of zinc and copper held in the hand of the 'subject,' and steadily gazed at by him, 'so as to concentrate the electro-magnetic action.' The pretensions of these professors received before long a shock as decisive as that which overthrew the credit of the professors of animal magnetism when Haygarth and Falconer successfully substituted wooden tractors for the metallic tractors which had been supposed to convey the magnetic fluid. In 1851, Mr. Braid, a Scotch surgeon, who had witnessed some of the exhibitions of the electro-biologists, conceived the idea that the phenomena were not due to any special qualities possessed by the discs of zinc and copper, but simply to the fixed look of the 'subject' and the entire abstraction of his attention. The same explanation applied to the so-called 'magnetic passes' of the mesmerists. The monotonous manipulation of the operator produced the same effect as the fixed stare of the 'subject.' He showed by his experiments that no magnetiser, with his imaginary secret agents or fluids, is in the least wanted; but that the subjects can place themselves in the same condition as the supposed subjects of electro-biological influences by simply gazing fixedly at some object for a long time with fixed attention.

The condition thus superinduced is not hypnotism, or artificial somnambulism, properly so called. 'The electro-biological' condition may be regarded as simply a kind of reverie or abstraction artificially produced. But Braid discovered that a more perfect control might be obtained over 'subjects,' and a condition resembling that of the sleepwalker artificially induced, by modifying the method of fixing the attention. Instead of directing the subject's gaze upon a bright object placed at a considerable distance from the eyes, so that no effect was required to concentrate vision upon it, he placed a bright object somewhat above and in front of the eyes at so short a distance that the convergence of their axes upon it was accompanied with sufficient effect to produce even a slight amount of pain. The condition to which the 'subjects' of this new method were reduced was markedly different from the ordinary 'electro-biological' state. Thus on one occasion, in the presence of 800 persons, fourteen men were experimented upon. 'All began the experiment at the same time; the former with their eyes fixed upon a projecting cork, placed securely on their foreheads; the others at their own will gazed steadily at certain points in the direction of the audience. In the course of ten minutes the eyelids of these ten persons had involuntarily closed. With some, consciousness remained; others were in catalepsy, and entirely insensible to being stuck with needles; and others on awakening knew absolutely nothing of what had taken place during their sleep.' The other four simply passed into the ordinary condition of electro-biologised 'subjects,' retaining the recollection of all that happened to them while in the state of artificial abstraction or reverie.

Dr. Carpenter, in that most interesting work of his, 'Mental Physiology,' thus describes the state of hypnotism:--'The process is of the same kind as that employed for the induction of the "biological" state; the only difference lying in the _greater intensity_ of the gaze, and in the more complete concentration of will upon the direction of the eyes, which the nearer approximation of the object requires for the maintenance of the convergence. In hypnotism, as in ordinary somnambulism, no remembrance whatever is preserved in the waking state of anything that may have occurred during its continuance; although the previous train of thought may be taken up and continued uninterruptedly on the next occasion that the hypnotism is induced. And when the mind is not excited to activity by the stimulus of external impressions, the hypnotised subject appears to be profoundly asleep; a state of complete torpor, in fact, being usually the first result of the process, and any subsequent manifestation of activity being procurable only by the prompting of the operator. The hypnotised subject, too, rarely opens his eyes; his bodily movements are usually slow; his mental operations require a considerable time in their performance; and there is altogether an appearance of heaviness about him, which contrasts strongly with the comparatively wide-awake air of him who has not passed beyond the ordinary "biological" state.'

We must note, however, in passing, that the condition of complete hypnotism had been obtained in several instances by some of the earlier experimenters in animal magnetism. One remarkable instance was communicated to the surgical section of the French Academy on April 16, 1829, by Jules Cloquet. Two meetings were entirely devoted to its investigation. The following account presents all the chief points of the case, surgical details being entirely omitted, however, as not necessary for our present purpose:--A lady, aged sixty-four, consulted M. Cloquet on April 8, 1829, on account of an ulcerated cancer of the right breast which had continued, gradually growing worse, during several years. M. Chapelain, the physician attending the lady, had 'magnetised' her for some months, producing no remedial effects, but only a very profound sleep or torpor, during which all sensibility seemed to be annihilated, while the ideas retained all their clearness. He proposed to M. Cloquet to operate upon her while she was in this state of torpor, and, the latter, considering the operation the only means of saving her life, consented. The two doctors do not appear to have been troubled by any scruples as to their right thus to conduct an operation to which, when in her normal condition, the patient strenuously objected. It sufficed for them that when they had put her to sleep artificially, she could be persuaded to submit to it. On the appointed day M. Cloquet found the patient ready 'dressed and seated in an elbow-chair, in the attitude of a person enjoying a quiet natural sleep.' In reality, however, she was in the somnambulistic state, and talked calmly of the operation. During the whole time that the operation lasted--from ten to twelve minutes--she continued to converse quietly with M. Cloquet, 'and did not exhibit the slightest sign of sensibility. There was no motion of the limbs or of the features, no change in the respiration nor in the voice; no motions even in the pulse. The patient continued in the same state of automatic indifference and impassibility in which she had been some minutes before the operation.' For forty-eight hours after this, the patient remained in the somnambulistic state, showing no sign of pain during the subsequent dressing of the wound. When awakened from this prolonged sleep she had no recollection of what had passed in the interval; 'but on being informed of the operation, and seeing her children around her, she experienced a very lively emotion which the "magnetiser" checked by immediately setting her asleep.' Certainly none of the hypnotised 'subjects' of Mr. Braid's experiments showed more complete abstraction from their normal condition than this lady; and other cases cited in Bertrand's work, 'Le Magnetisme Animal en France' (1826), are almost equally remarkable. As it does not appear that in any of these cases Braid's method of producing hypnotism by causing the eyes, or rather their optical axes, to be converged upon a point, was adopted, we must conclude that this part of the method is not absolutely essential to success. Indeed, the circumstance that in some of Braid's public experiments numbers of the audience became hypnotised without his knowledge, shows that the more susceptible 'subjects' do not require to contemplate a point near and slightly above the eyes, but may be put into the true hypnotic state by methods which, with the less susceptible, produce only the electro-biological condition.

It will be well, however, to inquire somewhat carefully into this point. My present object, I would note, is not merely to indicate the remarkable nature of the phenomena of hypnotism, but to consider these phenomena with direct reference to their probable cause. It may not be possible to obtain a satisfactory explanation of them. But it is better to view them as phenomena to be accounted for than merely as surprising but utterly inexplicable circumstances.

Now we have fortunately the means of determining the effect of the physical relations involved in these experiments, apart from those which are chiefly due to imagination. For animals can be hypnotised, and the conditions necessary for this effect to be fully produced have been ascertained.

The most familiar experiment of this sort is sometimes known as Kircher's. Let the feet of a hen be tied together (though this is not necessary in all cases), and the hen placed on a level surface. Then if the body of the hen is gently pressed down, the head extended with the beak pointing downwards, touching the surface on which the hen stands, and a chalk mark is drawn slowly along the surface, from the tip of the beak in a line extending directly from the bird's eye, it is found that the hen will remain for a considerable time perfectly still, though left quite free to move. She is, in fact, hypnotised.

We have now to inquire what parts of the process just described are effective in producing the hypnotic condition, or whether all are essential to success in the experiment.

In the first place, the fastening of the feet may be dispensed with. But it has its influence, and makes the experiment easier. An explanation, or rather an illustration, of its effect is afforded by a singular and interesting experiment devised by Lewissohn of Berlin:--If a frog is placed on its back, it immediately, when the hand which had held it is removed, turns over and escapes. But if the two fore-legs are tied with a string, the frog, when placed on its back, breathes heavily but is otherwise quite motionless, and does not make the least attempt to escape, even when the experimenter tries to move it. 'It is as though,' say Czermak, describing the experiment as performed by himself, 'its small amount of reasoning power had been charmed away, or else that it slept with open eyes. Now I press upon the cutaneous nerves of the frog, while I loosen and remove the threads on the fore-legs. Still the animal remains motionless upon its back, in consequence of some remaining after-effect; at last, however, it returns to itself, turns over, and quickly escapes.'

Thus far the idea suggested is that the animal is so affected by the cutaneous pressure as to suppose itself tied and therefore unable to move. In other words, this experiment suggests that imagination acts on animals as on men, only in a different degree. I may cite here a curious case which I once noticed and have never been able to understand, though it seems to suggest the influence of imagination on an animal one would hardly suspect of being at all under the influence of any but purely physical influences. Hearing a noise as of a cat leaping down from a pantry window which looked out on an enclosed yard, I went directly into the yard, and there saw a strange cat running off with a fish she had stolen. She was at the moment leaping on to a bin, from the top of which, by another very easy leap, she could get on to the wall enclosing the yard, and so escape. With the idea rather of frightening her than of hurting her (does one missile out of a hundred flung at cats ever hit them?) I threw at the thief a small piece of wood which I had in my hand at the moment. It struck the wall above her just as she was going to leap to the top of the wall, and it fell, without touching her, between her and the wall. To my surprise, she stood perfectly still, looking at the piece of wood; her mouth, from which the fish had fallen, remaining open, and her whole attitude expressing stupid wonder. I make no doubt I could have taken her prisoner, or struck her heavily, if I had wished, for she made no effort to escape, until, with a parlour broom which stood by, I pushed her along the top of the bin towards the wall, when she seemed suddenly to arouse herself, and leaping to the top of the wall she made off. My wife witnessed the last scene of this curious little comedy. In fact, it was chiefly, perhaps, because she pleaded for mercy on 'the poor thing' that the soft end of the broom alone came into operation; for, though not altogether agreeing with the Count of Rousillon that anything can be endured before a cat, I did not at the moment regard that particular cat with special favour.

The extension of the neck and depression of the head, in the experiment with the hen, have no special significance, for Czermak has been able to produce the same phenomena of hypnotism without them, and has failed to produce the hypnotic effect on pigeons when attending to this point, and in other respects proceeding as nearly as possible in the same way as with hens. 'With the hens,' he says, 'I often hung a piece of twine, or a small piece of wood, directly over their crests, so that the end fell before their eyes. The hens not only remained perfectly motionless, but closed their eyes, and slept with their heads sinking until they came in contact with the table. Before falling asleep, the hens' heads can be either pressed down or raised up, and they will remain in this position as if they were pieces of wax. That is, however, a symptom of a cataleptic condition, such as is seen in human beings, under certain pathological conditions of the nervous system.'

On the other hand, repeated experiments convinced Czermak that the pressure on the animal as it is held is of primary importance. It is frequently the case, he says, that a hen, which for a minute has been in a motionless state, caused by simply extending the neck and depressing the head, awakes and flies away, but on being caught again immediately, she can be placed once more in the condition of lethargy, if we place the animal in a squatting position, and overcome with gentle force the resistance of the muscles, by firmly placing the hand upon its back. During the slow and measured suppression, one often perceives an extremely remarkable position of the head and neck, which are left entirely free. The head remains as if held by an invisible hand in its proper place, the neck being stretched out of proportion, while the body by degrees is pushed downwards. If the animal is thus left entirely free, it remains for a minute or so in this peculiar condition with wide-open staring eyes. 'Here,' as Czermak remarks, 'the actual circumstances are only the effect of the emotion which the nerves of the skin excite, and the gentle force which overcomes the animal's resistance. Certainly the creature a short time before had been in a condition of immobility, and might have retained some special inclination to fall back into the same, although the awakening, flight, and recapture, together with the refreshment given to the nervous system, are intermediate circumstances.' Similar experiments are best made upon small birds. Now, it is well known to bird fanciers that goldfinches, canary-birds, &c. can be made to remain motionless for some time by simply holding them firmly for a moment and then letting them go. 'Here, in my hand,' said Czermak, in his lecture, 'is a timid bird, just brought from market. If I place it on its back, and hold its head with my left hand, keeping it still for a few seconds, it will lie perfectly motionless after I have removed my hands, as if charmed, breathing heavily, and without making any attempt to change its position or to fly away.' ('Two of the birds,' says the report, 'were treated in this manner without effect; but the third, a siskin, fell into a sleeping condition, and remained completely immovable on its back, until pushed with a glass tube, when it awoke and flew actively around the room.')

Also when a bird is in a sitting position, and the head is pressed slightly back, the bird falls into a sleeping condition, even though the eyes had been open. 'I have often noticed,' says Czermak, 'that the birds under these circumstances close their eyes for a few minutes or even a quarter of an hour, and are more or less fast asleep.'

Lastly, as to the chalk-line in Kircher's experiment. Czermak found, as already said, that pigeons do not become motionless, as happens to hens, if merely held firmly in the hand, and their heads and necks pressed gently on the table. Nor can they be hypnotised like small birds in the experiment last mentioned. 'That is,' he says, 'I held them with a thumb placed on each side of the head, which I bent over a little, while the other hand held the body gently pressed down upon the table; but even this treatment, which has such an effect on little birds, did not seem to succeed at first with the pigeons: almost always they flew away as soon as I liberated them and entirely removed my hands.' But he presently noticed that the short time during which the pigeons remained quiet lengthened considerably when the finger only of the hand which held the head was removed. Removing the hand holding the body made no difference, but retaining the other hand near the bird's head, the hand made all the difference in the world. Pursuing the line of research thus indicated, Czermak found to his astonishment that the fixing of the pigeon's look on the finger placed before its eyes was the secret of the matter. In order to determine the question still more clearly, he tried the experiment on a pigeon which he had clasped firmly by the body in his left hand, but whose neck and head were perfectly free. 'I held one finger of my right hand steadily before the top of its beak,--and what did I see? The first pigeon with which I made this attempt remained rigid and motionless, as if bound, for several minutes, before the outstretched forefinger of my right hand! Yes, I could take my left hand, with which I had held the bird, and again touch the pigeon without waking it up; the animal remained in the same position while I held my outstretched finger still pointing towards the beak.' 'The lecturer,' says the report, 'demonstrated this experiment in the most successful manner with a pigeon which was brought to him.'

Yet it is to be noticed that among animals as among men, different degrees of subjectivity exist. 'Individual inward relations,' says Czermak, 'as well as outward conditions, must necessarily exercise some disturbing influence, whether the animal will give itself up to the requisite exertions of certain parts of its brain with more or less inclination or otherwise. We often see, for example, that a pigeon endeavours to escape from confinement by a quick turning of its head from side to side. In following these singular and characteristic movements of the head and neck, with the finger held before the bird, one either gains his point, or else makes the pigeon so perplexed and excited that it at last becomes quiet, so that, if it is held firmly by the body and head, it can be forced gently down upon the table. As Schopenhauer says of sleeping, "The brain must bite." I will also mention here, by the way, that a tame parrot, which I have in my house, can be placed in this sleepy condition by simply holding the finger steadily before the top of its beak.'

I may cite here a singular illustration of the effect of perplexity in the case of a creature in all other respects much more naturally circumstanced than the hens, pigeons, and small birds of Czermak's experiments. In the spring of 1859, when I was an undergraduate at Cambridge, I and a friend of mine were in canoes on the part of the Cam which flows through the College grounds. Here there are many ducks and a few swans. It occurred to us, not, I fear, from any special scientific spirit, but as a matter of curiosity, to inquire whether it was possible to pass over a duck in a canoe. Of course on the approach of either canoe a duck would try to get out of the way on one side or the other; but on the course of the canoe being rapidly changed, the duck would have to change his course. Then the canoe's course would again be changed, so as to compel the duck to try the other side. The canoe drawing all the time nearer, and her changes of course being made very lightly and in quicker and quicker alternation as she approached, the duck would generally get bewildered, and finally would allow the canoe to pass over him, gently pressing him under water in its course. The process, in fact, was a sort of mild keelhauling. The absolute rigidity of body and the dull stupid stare with which some of the ducks met their fate seems to me (_now_: I was not in 1859 familiar with the phenomena of hypnotism) to suggest that the effect was to be explained as Czermak explains the hypnotism of the pigeons on which he experimented.

We shall be better able now to understand the phenomena of artificial somnambulism in the case of human beings. If the circumstances observed by Kircher, Czermak, Lewissohn, and others, suggest, as I think they do, that animal hypnotism is a form of the phenomenon sometimes called fascination, we may be led to regard the possibility of artificial somnambulism in men as a survival of a property playing in all probability an important and valuable part in the economy of animal life. It is in this direction, at present, that the evidence seems to tend.

The most remarkable circumstance about the completely hypnotised subject is the seemingly complete control of the will of the 'subject' and even of his opinions. Even the mere suggestions of the operator, not expressed verbally or by signs, but by movements imparted to the body of the subject, are at once responded to, as though, to use Dr. Garth Wilkinson's expression, the _whole man_ were given to each perception. Thus, 'if the hand be placed,' says Dr. Carpenter, 'upon the top of the head, the somnambulist will frequently, of his own accord, draw up his body to its fullest height, and throw his head slightly back; his countenance then assumes an expression of the most lofty pride, and his whole mind is obviously possessed by that feeling. When the first action does not of itself call forth the rest, it is sufficient for the operator to straighten the legs and spine, and to throw the head somewhat back, to arouse that feeling and the corresponding expression to its fullest intensity. During the most complete domination of this emotion, let the head be bent forward, and the body and limbs gently flexed; and the most profound humility then instantaneously takes its place.' Of course in some cases we may well believe that the expressions thus described by Dr. Carpenter have been simulated by the subject. But there can be no reason to doubt the reality of the operator's control in many cases. Dr. Carpenter says that he has not only been an eye-witness of them on various occasions, but that he places full reliance on the testimony of an intelligent friend, who submitted himself to Mr. Braid's manipulations, but retained sufficient self-consciousness and voluntary power to endeavour to exercise some resistance to their influence at the time, and subsequently to retrace his course of thought and feeling. 'This gentleman declares,' says Dr. Carpenter, 'that, although accustomed to the study of character and to self-observation, he could not have conceived that the whole mental state should have undergone so instantaneous and complete a metamorphosis, as he remembers it to have done, when his head and body were bent forward in the attitude of humility, after having been drawn to their full height in that of self-esteem.'

A most graphic description of the phenomena of hypnotism is given by Dr. Garth Wilkinson:--'The preliminary state is that of abstraction, produced by fixed gaze upon some unexciting and empty thing (for poverty of object engenders abstraction), and this abstraction is the logical premiss of what follows. Abstraction tends to become more and more abstract, narrower and narrower; it tends to unity and afterwards to nullity. There, then, the patient is, at the summit of attention, with no object left, a mere statue of attention, a listening, expectant life; a perfectly undistracted faculty, dreaming of a lessening and lessening mathematical point: the end of his mind sharpened away to nothing. What happens? Any sensation that appeals is met by this brilliant attention, and receives its diamond glare; being perceived with a force of leisure of which our distracted life affords only the rudiments. External influences are sensated, sympathised with, to an extraordinary degree; harmonious music sways the body into graces the most affecting; discords jars it, as though they would tear it limb from limb. Cold and heat are perceived with similar exaltation; so also smells and touches. In short, _the whole man appears to be given to each perception_. The body trembles like down with the wafts of the atmosphere; the world plays upon it as upon a spiritual instrument finely attuned.'

This state, which may be called the natural hypnotic state, may be artificially modified. 'The power of suggestion over the patient,' says Dr. Garth Wilkinson, 'is excessive. If you say, "What animal is it?" the patient will tell you it is a lamb, or a rabbit, or any other. "Does he see it?" "Yes." "What animal is it _now_?" putting depth and gloom into the tone of _now_, and thereby suggesting a difference. "Oh!" with a shudder, "it is a wolf!" "What colour is it?" still glooming the phrase. "Black." "What colour is it now?" giving the _now_ a cheerful air. "Oh! a beautiful blue!" (rather an unusual colour for a wolf, I would suggest), spoken with the utmost delight (and no wonder! especially if the hypnotic subject were a naturalist). And so you lead the subject through any dreams you please, by variations of questions and of inflections of the voice! and _he sees and feels all as real_.'

We have seen how the patient's mind can be influenced by changing the posture of his body. Dr. Wilkinson gives very remarkable evidence on this point. 'Double his fist and pull up his arm, if you dare,' he says, of the subject, 'for you will have the strength of your ribs rudely tested. Put him on his knees and clasp his hands, and the saints and devotees of the artists will pale before the trueness of his devout actings. Raise his head while in prayer, and his lips pour forth exulting glorifications, as he sees heaven opened, and the majesty of God raising him to his place; then in a moment depress the head, and he is in dust and ashes, an unworthy sinner, with the pit of hell yawning at his feet. Or compress the forehead, so as to wrinkle it vertically, and thorny-toothed clouds contract in from the very horizon' (in the subject's imagination, it will be understood); 'and what is remarkable, the smallest pinch and wrinkle, such as will lie between your nipping nails, is sufficient nucleus to crystallise the man into that shape, and to make him all foreboding, as, again, the smallest expansion in a moment brings the opposite state, with a full breathing of delight.'

Some will perhaps think the next instance the most remarkable of all, perfectly natural though one half of the performance may have been. The subject being a young lady, the operator asks whether she or another is the prettier, raising her head as he puts the question. 'Observe,' says Dr. Wilkinson, 'the inexpressible hauteur, and the puff sneers let off from the lips' (see Darwin's treatise on the 'Expression of the Emotions,' plate IV. i, and plate V. i) 'which indicate a conclusion too certain to need utterance. Depress the head, and repeat the question, and mark the self-abasement with which she now says "_She is_," as hardly worthy to make the comparison.'

In this state, in fact, 'whatever posture of any passion is induced, the passion comes into it at once, and dramatises the body accordingly.'

It might seem that there must of necessity be some degree of exaggeration in this description, simply because the power of adequately expressing any given emotion is not possessed by all. Some can in a moment bring any expression into the face, or even simulate at once the expression and the aspect of another person, while many persons, probably most, possess scarcely any power of the sort, and fail ridiculously even in attempting to reproduce the expressions corresponding to the commonest emotions. But it is abundantly clear that the hypnotised subject possesses for the time being abnormal powers. No doubt this is due to the circumstance that for the time being 'the whole man is given to each perception.' The stories illustrative of this peculiarity of the hypnotised state are so remarkable that they have been rejected as utterly incredible by many who are not acquainted with the amount of evidence we have upon this point.

The instances above cited by Dr. Garth Wilkinson, remarkable though they may be, are surpassed altogether in interest by a case which Dr. Carpenter mentions,--of a factory girl, whose musical powers had received little cultivation, and who could scarcely speak her own language correctly, who nevertheless exactly imitated both the words and the music of vocal performances by Jenny Lind. Dr. Carpenter was assured by witnesses in whom he could place implicit reliance, that this girl, in the hypnotised state, followed the Swedish nightingale's songs in different languages 'so instantaneously and correctly, as to both words and music, that it was difficult to distinguish the two voices. In order to test the powers of the somnambulist to the utmost, Mademoiselle Lind extemporised a long and elaborate chromatic exercise, which the girl imitated with no less precision, though in her waking state she durst not even attempt anything of the sort.'

The exaltation of the senses of hypnotised subjects is an equally wonderful phenomenon. Dr. Carpenter relates many very remarkable instances as occurring within his own experience. He has 'known a youth, in the hypnotised state,' he says, 'to find out, by the sense of smell, the owner of a glove which was placed in his hand, from amongst a party of more than sixty persons, scenting at each of them one after the other until he came to the right individual. In another case, the owner of a ring was unhesitatingly found out from amongst a company of twelve, the ring having been withdrawn from the finger before the somnambule was introduced.' The sense of touch has, in other cases, been singularly intensified, insomuch that slight differences of heat, which to ordinary feeling were quite inappreciable, would be at once detected, while such differences as can be but just perceived in the ordinary state would produce intense distress.

In some respects, the increase of muscular power, or rather of the power of special muscles, is even more striking, because it is commonly supposed by most persons that the muscular power depends entirely on the size and quality of the muscles, the state of health, and like conditions, not on the imagination. Of course every one knows that the muscles are capable of greater efforts when the mind is much excited by fear and other emotions. But the general idea is, I think, that whatever the body is capable of doing under circumstances of great excitement, it is in reality capable of doing at all times if only a resolute effort is made. Nor is it commonly supposed that a very wide difference exists between the greatest efforts of the body under excitement and those of which it is ordinarily capable. Now, the condition of the hypnotised subject is certainly not one of excitement. The attempts which he is directed to make are influenced only by the idea that he _can_ do what he is told, not that he _must_ do so. When a man pursued by a bull leaps over a wall which under ordinary conditions he would not even think of climbing, we can understand that he only does, because he must, what if he liked he could do at any time. But if a man who had been making his best efforts in jumping, cleared only a height of four feet, and presently being told to jump over an eight-feet wall, cleared that height with apparent ease, we should be disposed to regard the feat as savouring of the miraculous.

Now Dr. Carpenter saw one of Mr. Braid's hypnotised subjects--a man so remarkable for the poverty of his physical development that he had not for many years ventured to lift up a weight of twenty pounds in his ordinary state--take up a quarter of a hundredweight upon his little finger, and swing it round his head with the utmost apparent ease, on being told that it was as light as a feather. 'On another occasion he lifted a half-hundredweight on the last joint of his forefinger as high as his knee.' The personal character of the man placed him above all suspicion of deceit, in the opinion of those who best knew him; and as Dr. Carpenter acutely remarks, 'the impossibility of any trickery in such a case would be evident to the educated eye, since, if he had practised such feats (which very few, even of the strongest men could accomplish without practice), the effect would have made itself visible in his muscular development.' 'Consequently,' he adds, 'when the same individual afterwards declared himself unable, with the greatest effort, to lift a handkerchief from the table, after having been assured that he could not possibly move it, there was no reason for questioning the truth of his conviction, based as this was upon the same kind of suggestion as that by which he had been just before prompted to what seemed an otherwise impossible action.'

The explanation of this and the preceding cases cannot be mistaken by physiologists, and is very important in its bearing on the phenomena of hypnotism generally, at once involving an interpretation of the whole series of phenomena, and suggesting other relations not as yet illustrated experimentally. It is well known that in our ordinary use of any muscles we employ but a small part of the muscle at any given moment. What the muscle is actually capable of is shown in convulsive contractions, in which far more force is put forth than the strongest effort of the will could call into play. We explain, then, the seeming increase of strength in any set of muscles during the hypnotic state as due to the concentration of the subject's will in an abnormal manner, or to an abnormal degree, on that set of muscles. In a similar way, the great increase of certain powers of perception may be explained as due to the concentration of the will upon the corresponding parts of the nervous system. In like manner, the will may be directed so entirely to the operations necessary for the performances of difficult feats, that the hypnotised or somnambulistic subject may be able to accomplish what in his ordinary condition would be impossible or even utterly appalling to him. Thus sleep-walkers (whose condition precisely resembles that of the artificially hypnotised, except that the suggestions they experience come from contact with inanimate objects, instead of being aroused by the actions of another person) 'can clamber walls and roofs, traverse narrow planks, step firmly along high parapets, and perform other feats which they would shrink from attempting in their waking state.' This is simply, as Dr. Carpenter points out, because they are _not distracted_ by the sense of danger which their vision would call up, from concentrating their exclusive attention on the guidance afforded by their muscular sense.'

But the most remarkable and suggestive of all the facts known respecting hypnotism is the influence which can by its means be brought to bear upon special parts or functions of the body. We know that imagination will hasten or retard certain processes commonly regarded as involuntary (indeed, the influence of imagination is itself in great degree involuntary). We know further that in some cases imagination will do much more than this, as in the familiar cases of the disappearance of warts under the supposed influence of charms, the cure of scrofula at a touch, and hundreds of well-attested cases of so-called miraculous cures. But although the actual cases of the curative influence obtained over hypnotised patients may not be in reality more striking than some of these, yet they are more suggestive at any rate to ordinary minds, because they are known not to be the result of any charm or miraculous interference, but to be due to simply natural processes initiated by natural though unfamiliar means.

Take, for instance, such a case as the following, related by Dr. Carpenter (who has himself witnessed many remarkable cases of hypnotic cure):--'A female relative of Mr. Braid's was the subject of a severe rheumatic fever, during the course of which the left eye became seriously implicated, so that after the inflammatory action had passed away, there was an opacity over more than one half of the cornea, which not only prevented distinct vision, but occasioned an annoying disfigurement. Having placed herself under Mr. Braid's hypnotic treatment for the relief of violent pain in her arm and shoulder, she found, to the surprise alike of herself and Mr. Braid, that her sight began to improve very perceptibly. The operation was therefore continued daily; and in a very short time the cornea became so transparent that close inspection was required to discover any remains of the opacity.' On this, Carpenter remarks that he has known other cases in which secretions that had been morbidly suspended have been reinduced by this process; and is satisfied that, if applied with skill and discrimination, it would take rank as one of the most potent methods of treatment which the physician has at his command. He adds that 'the channel of influence is obviously the system of nerves which regulates the secretions--nerves which, though not under direct subjection to the will, are peculiarly affected by emotional states.'

I may remark, in passing, that nerves which are not ordinarily under the influence of the will, but whose office would be to direct muscular movements if only the will could influence them, may by persistent attention become obedient to the will. When I was last in New York, I met a gentleman who gave me a long and most interesting account of certain experiments which he had made on himself. The account was not forced on me, the reader must understand, but was elicited by questions suggested by one or two remarkable facts which he had casually mentioned as falling within his experience. I had only his own word for much that he told me, and some may perhaps consider that there was very little truth in the narrative. I may pause here to make some remarks by the way, on the traits of truthful and untruthful persons. I believe very slight powers of observation are necessary to detect want of veracity in any man, though absence of veracity in any particular story may not be easily detected or established. I am not one of those who believe every story they hear, and trust in every one they meet. But I have noticed one or two features by which the habitual teller of untruths may be detected very readily, as may also one who, without telling actual falsehoods, tries to heighten the effect of any story he may have to tell, by strengthening all the particulars. My experience in this respect is unlike Dickens's, who believed, and indeed found, that a man whom on first seeing he distrusted, and justly, could explain away the unfavourable impression. 'My first impression,' he says, 'about such people, founded on face and manner alone, was invariably true; my mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away.' I have found it otherwise; though of course Dickens was right about his own experience: the matter depends entirely on the idiosyncrasies of the observer. I have often been deceived by face and expression: never, to the best of my belief (and belief in this case is not mere opinion, but is based on results), by manner of speaking. One peculiarity I have never found wanting in habitually mendacious persons--a certain intonation which I cannot describe, but recognise in a moment, suggestive of the weighing of each sentence as it is being uttered, as though to consider how it would tell. Another, is a peculiarity of manner, but it only shows itself during speech; it is a sort of watchfulness often disguised under a careless tone, but perfectly recognisable however disguised. Now, the gentleman who gave me the experience I am about to relate, conveyed to my mind, by every intonation of his voice and every peculiarity and change of manner, the idea of truthfulness. I cannot convey to others the impression thus conveyed to myself: nor do I expect that others will share my own confidence: I simply state the case as I know it, and as far as I know it. It will, however, be seen that a part of the evidence was confirmed on the spot.

The conversation turned on the curability of consumption. My informant, whom I will henceforth call A., said that, though he could not assert from experience that consumption was curable, he believed that in many cases where the tendency to consumption is inherited, and the consumptive constitution indicated so manifestly that under ordinary conditions the person would before long be hopelessly consumptive, an entire change may be made in the condition of the body, and the person become strong and healthy. He said: 'I belong myself to a family many of whose members have died of consumption. My father and mother both died of it, and all my brothers and sisters save one brother; yet I do not look consumptive, do I?' and certainly he did not. He then took from a pocket-book a portrait of his brother, showing a young man manifestly in very bad health, looking worn, weary, and emaciated. From the same pocket-book A. then took another portrait, asking if I recognised it. I saw here again a worn and emaciated face and figure. The picture was utterly unlike the hearty well-built man before me, yet it manifestly represented no other. If I had been at all doubtful, my doubts would have been removed by certain peculiarities to which A. called my attention. I asked how the change in his health had been brought about. He told me a very remarkable story of his treatment of himself, part of which I omit because I am satisfied he was mistaken in attributing to that portion of his self-treatment any part of the good result which he had obtained, and that if many consumptive patients adopted the remedy, a large proportion, if not all, would inevitably succumb very quickly. The other portion of his account is all that concerns us here, being all that illustrates our present subject. He said: 'I determined to exercise every muscle of my body; I set myself in front of a mirror and concentrated my attention and all the power of my will on the muscle or set of muscles I proposed to bring into action. Then I exercised those muscles in every way I could think of, continuing the process till I had used in succession every muscle over which the will has control. While carrying out this system, I noticed that gradually the will acquired power over muscles which before I had been quite unable to move. I may say, indeed, that every set of muscles recognised by anatomists, except those belonging to internal organs, gradually came under the control of my will.' Here I interrupted, asking (not by any means as doubting his veracity, for I did not): 'Can you do what Dundreary said he thought some fellow might be able to do? can you waggle your left ear?' 'Why, certainly,' he replied; and turning the left side of his head towards me, he moved his left ear about; not, it is true, waggling it, but drawing it up and down in a singular way, which was, he said, the only exercise he ever gave it. He said, on this, that there are many other muscles over which the will has ordinarily no control, but may be made to obtain control; and forthwith, drawing the cloth of his trousers rather tight round the right thigh (so that the movement he was about to show might be discernible) he made in succession the three muscles of the front and inner side of the thigh rise about half an inch along some nine or ten inches of their length. Now, though these muscles are among those which are governed by the will, for they are used in a variety of movements, yet not one in ten thousand, perhaps in a million, can move them in the way described.

How far A.'s system of exciting the muscles individually as well as in groups may have operated in improving his health, as he supposed, I am not now inquiring. What I wish specially to notice is the influence which the will may be made to obtain over muscles ordinarily beyond its control. It may be that under the exceptional influence of the imagination, in the hypnotic condition, the will obtains a similar control for a while over even those parts of the nervous system which appertain to the so-called involuntary processes. In other words, the case I have cited may be regarded as occupying a sort of middle position between ordinary cases of muscular action and those perplexing cases in which the hypnotic subject seems able to influence pulsation, circulation, and processes of secretion in the various parts or organs of his body.

It must be noted, however, that the phenomena of hypnotism are due solely to the influence of the imagination. The quasi-scientific explanations which attributed them to magnetism, electricity, some subtle animal fluid, some occult force, and so forth, have been as completely negatived as the supernatural explanation. We have seen that painted wooden tractors were as effectual as the metal tractors of the earlier mesmerists; a small disc of card or wood is as effective as the disc of zinc and copper used by the electro-biologists; and now it appears that the mystical influence, or what was thought such, of the operator is no more essential to success than magnetic or electric apparatus.

Dr. Noble of Manchester made several experiments to determine this point. Some among them seem absolutely decisive.