DISCOVERY 



297 



" I am falling asleep." A detail insisted on by tlic 

 New Nancy School is that the formula should be 

 gabbled. This is to prevent the spontaneous auto- 

 suggestion contradicting the formula from arising in 

 the mind between each repetition of it. For example, 

 if when we are trying to go to sleep we repeat slowly, 

 " I am falling asleep," it \vill be difficult to prevent 

 the mind from thinking between each repetition, " I 

 am not really, I am still as wide awake as ever." If 

 this happens, the spontaneous autosuggestion of 

 remaining awake will realise itself and defeat our efforts 

 to realise the reflective autosuggestion of falling 

 asleep. 



The following are the uses of reflective autosugges- 

 tion. It can undo the evil work of noxious spon- 

 taneous autosuggestions, the illnesses which are the 

 result of preoccupation with our health, and so on. It 

 can be used for the cure of all functional disorders 

 such as tics and hysterical paralyses or swellings. It 

 is also of value in certain organic complaints. It can 

 alwaj's help the natural process of cure, and it can 

 undo the part played even in real organic disorders 

 by spontaneous autosuggestion. Dr. Baudouin claims 

 that it can cure pimples, warts, varicose ulcers, and 

 eczema. It may also be used as a means of removing 

 bad habits, and of obtaining complete control over 

 sleep. 



In the New Nancy School, it is not recommended 

 that particular suggestions for the removal of specific 

 troubles should be frequently repeated. After a 

 trouble has been made the subject of a particular 

 suggestion, it is claimed that it is sufficient to repeat 

 about twenty times every night and morning the 

 general formula : " Day by day, in all respects, I 

 grow better and better." We are directed not to 

 gabble this, but to repeat it piously, mentally under- 

 lining the worlds in all respects, and making them 

 refer to all the troubles which it is desired to 

 remove. 



In this short space, it has only been possible to give 

 the barest outline of a work of fascinating interest. 

 The writer of this article will feel that his work has 

 been of most value if it leads many readers to read 

 Dr. Baudouin's book for themselves. It is absorbingly 

 interesting, and its lucidity makes it an easy and a 

 delightful book to read. 



BOOKS RECOMMENDED 



Siiggeslion et Autosuggestion, by Charles Baudouin. English 

 translation by Eden and Cedar Paul. (Kegan Paul, 

 Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 15s.) 



Instinct and the Unconscious, by Dr. W. H. R. Rivers. (Cam- 

 bridge University Press, i6s.) 



An Introduction to Social Psychology, by Professor W. 

 McDougall. (Methuen & Co., Ltd., Ss. 6d.) 



An Eighteenth-Century 

 Character 



By Rowlands Goldicott, M.C, B.Litt. 



[Confinued from the September number) 

 As a physician in orders, the future satirist of George 

 the Third held during his Truro period a somewhat 

 peculiar position. He dressed in black and wore 

 ruffles, and was not particularly pleased to say grace 

 when people asked him. The real object of his life 

 during the eight or nine years that elapsed before his 

 final departure for London was the accumulation of 

 sufficient money to place him " beyond the caprice of 

 a mob." To compass this end there is evidence that 

 he lived with great parsimony in his own house, though 

 his wit and verse and personality made him very 

 frequently seen wherever amusement was toward. He 

 shared in full the not unlively society of a West- 

 country town in the last quarter of the eighteenth 

 centurj'. There were picnics and boating parties, 

 dances on the green by moonlight, and much eating 

 and drinking in neighbours' houses. This society and 

 the excitement of local politics and scandals furnished 

 Wolcot with plenty of material for eloquent epistles 

 and virulent lampoons. The epistles, addressed to 

 Sukey or Joyce Nankivell, Miss Dickenson or Betsy 

 Giddy, were of this nature : 



When sweet Cecilia ' sought the skies. 

 In tears were all the tuneful wits ; 



The fiddles poured chromatic sighs. 

 And music had hysteric fits. 



But, 'ere she vanished, thus she said : 

 " A short farewell I mean to bid ye." 

 . To keep her word the harmonious maid 

 Appears in form of Betsy Giddy ! 



These were pleasant enough, but his lampoons 

 gained him the ear not only of a few friends, but of all 

 that local public. Most have disappeared, but four 

 more than usually popular ones have survived in old 

 books of reminiscence. These are, in order of com- 

 position, " The Dame of Fowey," " The Roast Pork of 

 Old Truro," "A Christmas Carol," and "The Hall." 

 The last was part of a combat between him and the 

 Corporation ; " measter auld cat," as the peasants 

 called the doctor, had refused to take an apprentice, 

 who, according to the custom of the time, were assigned 

 to doctors by lot. The Corporation of Truro had been 

 remarkably patient, but at last they became exasper- 

 ated. Early in 1779 they commenced a prosecution 



' St. Cecilia, martyred at Rome about a.d. 280, became 

 venerated later as the patron-saint of music, and in this connec- 

 tion many poets of the eighteenth century, including Dryden, 

 Shadwell, Pope, and Addison, wrote odes for her day — Novem- 

 ber 22. 



