EXPERIMENTS WITH LIVING HUMAN BEINGS. 615 



objective state induced by a supposed fluid, or force, or influence, then 

 and now known as animal magnetism. 



In order to be able always to guard effectively and absolutely against 

 these two sources of error that I have thus far specified, just two things 

 are necessary for the experimenter : 



1. A general knowledge of the phenomena of the involuntary 

 life, including both the action of mind on body and of body on mind, in 

 health and in disease, and especially of the real nature and philosophy 

 of trance, the state in which the involuntary life culminates. 



2. The subject experimented on must always be deceived in the 

 experiments in such a way that this involuntary action of his mind 

 or bodj' can not come in and destroy the experiment. The subject may 

 be successfully deceived in three different ways, which I shall presently 

 specify. 



Burq, Charcot, Westphal, and their coadjutors in the now well-known 

 metalloscopy experiments, failed on both of these points. Many of the 

 critics of those experiments, as Althaus, Reynolds, and other physicians 

 in England, also failed to com^Drehend these points, hence the incon- 

 sistency and unsatisfactoriness of the discussions to which these experi- 

 ments gave rise. The claim of Burq and Charcot and Westphal in 

 regard to the temporary relief of hj'sterical and sometimes of organic 

 anaesthesia by the local application of metals might be entirely true, but 

 thus far they have failed, in a scientific sense, to prove it to be true. 

 I do not deny their results — indeed, there is a possibility that some of 

 them may be genuine — although in my own experience with the same 

 method I fail to confirm their claims ; it is in the manner in which the 

 experiments were conducted, without regard to the results, that the non- 

 expertness of these experimenters appeared. The criticism I have to 

 make on Charcot is that, in his elaborate lectures on this subject, he 

 nowhere gives evidence of a full appreciation of the power of the 

 involuntary life, particularly in hysterical conditions, or of the true and 

 only method of systematically and successfully guarding against it. 

 The experiments now going on under the same superintendence in the 

 hospital of Salpetriere with mesmeric trance, and with the effects of 

 magnets and lights on catalepsy and kindred conditions, are all open to 

 the same criticism. 



If some savage fresh from the jungles were put on board of an 

 engine, and told how to open the valves, he might very naturally infer 

 that his own feeble strength caused the train to move ; in like man- 

 ner, scientific experimenters with living human beings attribute the 

 phenomena that follow the application of metals and magnets and 

 passes and flummeries solely to the objective influence of these appli- 

 ances, whereas in truth these and similar performances but serve to let 

 on the potent forces of the subject's own mind. The mistake of these 

 philosophers is indeed quite analogous to that of the little boy who, 



