36 Mr. J. N. Langleij [March 14, 



telling the subject to keep his arm extended whilst he is still gazing 

 at the object, or whilst the passes are being made. And that is the 

 whole of the process. The man thus mesmerised sinks from manhood 

 to a highly complicated piece of machinery. He is a machine which 

 for a time is conscious, and in which ideas can be excited by appro- 

 priate stimulation ; anyone acquainted with the machinery can set it 

 in action. 



The distinguishing feature of the earlier stages of mesmerism 

 in man is that by slight stimulation any one centre can be easily 

 set in violent activity, and its activity easily stopped, without the 

 activity spreading to other distant centres. It is on this that the 

 mesmeric j^henomena usually exhibited depend ; with most of these 

 phenomena you are no doubt familiar, so that I need mention one or 

 two only. 



Complicated reflexes may be produced in various ways, just as we 

 have seen is the case with a frog even when without its cerebral 

 hemispheres. Thus Braid mentions that on one occasion an old 

 lady who had never danced, and who indeed considered it a sinful pas- 

 time, when mesmerised began to dance as soon as a waltz tune was 

 played. 



A statement made to a subject will often produce implicit belief 

 notwithstanding the evidence of his senses. I remember telling a 

 subject that I was about to bring a hot body near his face, and he was 

 to tell me when it was painful. I put my finger on his cheek, upon 

 which he cried out violently that I was burning him. When he was 

 awakened he remembered that I had touched him with something 

 very hot. The idea I had given him was remembered, the evidence 

 of his sense of touch was disregarded. Even in ordinary, apparently 

 wakeful, life an idea may produce a belief in no way borne out by 

 the evidence of the senses. Dr. Beard narrates that once when 

 crossing the Atlantic, the steamer he was in ran into a sailing- 

 vessel. It was at night, and amidst the roar of the wind, the shrieks, 

 and cries, and prayers of the passengers, the cry went forth that the 

 steamer was stove in and the bow sinking; straightway all eyes 

 were turned to the bow, and to every eye it seemed to be sinking. 

 " I sha,ll never forget," he says, " how it gradually lowered in the 

 darkness." In fact, however, the vessel was uninjured, and the bow 

 did not sink at all. Here probably tht? majority of the people present 

 passed simultaneously into a condition resembling the mesmeric con- 

 dition ; the idea presented to them by the cry " the bow is sinking " 

 being more powerful than the ideas aroused by the objects actually 

 seen. 



But even in the absence of strong emotion, it may happen that an 

 idea suggested by a statement may be more powerful than the proper 

 sensory impression. There are some persons, apparently perfectly 

 trustworthy, who nevertheless, if they were told to look closely at the 

 top of this bell jar and sec the faint flame coming from it, would very 

 soon see the flame quite distinctly. In health, as well as in disease. 



