SOME PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF HYPNOTISM. 527 



the card is taken away noted and returned to the pack and 

 the subject being given the whole series, is commanded to 

 choose this special card. The subject selected the card, 

 saying she knew it by its feel and weight. 



2. From the Ear. — A hypnotised subject was commanded 

 to sav when, amonof several men, a man with a watch entered 

 the next room : the subject did so, saying suddenly that she 

 heard the ticking of the watch in the man's pocket through 

 the w^all. 



In i)Oth these cases there was a possibility of a sense- 

 organ stimulus. The cards were not of equal weight and 

 consistence and the inequality affected the skin of all, but 

 the nervous impulses only forced a passage through the 

 central nervous system of one — that of the hypnotised sub- 

 ject. The sound of the watch ticking must have really 

 affected the ears of all, but the impression was so slight 

 that only the brain of the hypnotised subject responded 

 adequately to it. 



3. Sight. — Instances of sight are innumerable. A sensi- 

 tive subject, on being commanded to do so, was able to 

 discriminate with the unassisted eye the details of histo- 

 logical preparations which, under ordinary circumstances, 

 could only be ascertained by the use of a microscope, and 

 to read print, the letters of which were only ^io of an inch 

 long.^ 



The above instances are given as extreme cases illus- 

 trative of a very large number of analogous observations, and 

 I refer to them in order to point out to those sceptics who, 

 priding themselves on their common sense, are inclined to 

 scoff, that there is no physiological reason for incredulity, 

 although I fully admit there may be other grounds for 

 suspecting fraud and trickery. The physiological essentials 

 are an exquisitely sensitive nervous mechanism and a dis- 

 tinct initial sensory stimulus ; given these two, it is possible, 

 and on the whole probable, that a true physiological sequence 

 should ensue of the same character as that which would be 

 produced by the same stimulus, if it were more pronounced 

 but acting upon a less susceptible machine. 



^ Moll, Hypnotism., p. loi. 

 36 



