388 HYPNOTISM. 



of persons who pass, the first time they are hypnotised, into 

 a sufficiently deep somnambulism for the suggestion of a 

 crime to be accepted is very small ; so that generally some 

 evidence could be obtained of the person having been hyp- 

 notised several times. Again, a post-hypnotic act, if other 

 than some simple automatic movement, will be done in either 

 a hypnotic state or consciously : if in the former, the person 

 will not remember what he did, and witnesses will probably 

 have noticed some change suddenly taking place in his de- 

 meanour; if in the latter state, the person will recognise 

 some impulsive idea which he could not resist (though igno- 

 rant of its origin), and this will be the greater, the greater 

 the dissonance between his character and the act. And, in 

 any of these cases, if the person be hypnotised, the events 

 of former hypnotic states will be remembered. 



It would appear, then, that the only really difficult case 

 would be when the h3'-pnotiser had not merely given the 

 post-hypnotic suggestion of the crimes, but also the sugges- 

 tion that no one but he could hypnotise the person. It is, 

 however, probable that the exclusive influence of one hypno- 

 tiser over a subject is not permanent, so that after a little 

 time a skilful hypnotiser would be successful in re-h3''pnotising 

 the subject. 



With these few remarks on the legal aspect of the question, 

 which is of much greater importance on the Continent than 

 in England, I must bring this paper to a close. 



It has only been possible to sketch the main outlines of 

 our knowledge of hypnotism, to give an account of the more 

 certain facts and of the theories which appear to afford us, 

 in the present state of our knowledge, the best explanation 

 of these. 



