Mackec'HNIE. — A BIystcrkms Tlierapcutic Agent. 125 



ture to call the" receptive iiiind," for it receives without hesi- 

 tation, doubt, or examination every idea i^resented to it, adopts 

 and acts upon it as if it had originated within itseU". Hence 

 the best hypnotic subjects are taken from the working-class,, 

 stupid burly soldiers, and youthful persons. All these are 

 accustomed to obey without resisting, or even having an opinion 

 of their own. They are simply automatic machines, obeying 

 without thinking. But the mind which rejects each thought 

 presented from within or without, carefully examining before 

 adopting it. is not found to yield itself readily to the operator's 

 will. Hence the higher-educated class are not easily influ- 

 enced ; and if they refuse to concentrate their thoughts, or 

 concentrate them to resist the suggestions of the operator, 

 they are not hypnotizable. The estimate is, that only about 

 one person in twelve can be hypnotized. 



NoM', I will ask you to imagine tlie patient far advanced 

 in the hypnotic state ; his sense of taste, touch, colour, and 

 temperature entirely lost ; the forms before him indistinct, the 

 eye immovable, and himself unconscious. Yet whilst in this 

 state the sense of hearing remains on the alert, the auditory 

 sense does not slumber. The same plienomena, it may be 

 observed, appear during somnambulism. At any noise the 

 somnambulist pauses in whatever he may be doing, and listens 

 intently : if all is quiet he continues to walk, or proceeds with 

 what he was about. Why the portals of the ear should be 

 open while all other senses and mind-powers are dormant, and 

 why open to the operator's voice alone, I am unable to dis- 

 cover. The mind of tlie hypnotic sleeper is said to come into 

 communication with that of the operator ; but the statement 

 affords me no explanation of the difficulty. The patient, being, 

 then, in the state I have described, is found to believe what is 

 said to him by the operator, and to obe}' all his commands. 

 The thoughts and ideas suggested by the operator take, ap- 

 parently, complete possession of tlie patient's brain, and con- 

 trol his will, his brain being reduced to the condition of an 

 imitating- or repeating-machine. That is the explanation I 

 shall endeavour to make clear to you. The statement that I 

 am at present reading was prepared hurriedly to meet an 

 emergency — a promised paper for this evening not being forth- 

 coming — and the time at my disposal did not admit of my 

 looking for an article on hypnotism which I am told appeared 

 recently in one of the English magazines. I must therefore 

 proceed with my explanations without the aid I might have 

 derived from its perusal. Now, it is not essential to what I 

 have to say that I should dwell on the different substances 

 composing the brain, or its division into parts, or the localisa- 

 tion of its powers : it is sufficient to know from those who 

 have examined its structure microscopically that much of it 



