28a ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



that it is in this direction we are to look for the explanation 

 of many mysterious phenomena formerly regarded as super- 

 natural, but probably all admitting (at least all that have 

 been .properly authenticated) of being interpreted so soon 

 as the circumstances on which consciousness depends shall 

 have been determined. Thus the following account of 

 experiments made at the village school in Westmeath seem 

 especially suggestive : 'Selecting some of the village 

 children, and placing them in a quiet room, giving each 

 some small object to look at steadily, he found one amongst 

 the number who readily passed into a state of reverie. In 

 that state the subject could be made to believe the most 

 extravagant statements, such as that the table was a moun- 

 tain, a chair a pony, a mark on the floor, an insuperable 

 obstacle. The girl thus mesmerised passed on the second 

 occasion into a state of deeper sleep or trance, wherein no 

 sensation whatever was experienced, unless accompanied by 

 pressure on the eyebrows of the subject. When the pressure 

 of the fingers was removed, the girl fell back in her chair 

 utterly unconscious of all around, and had lost all control 

 over her voluntary muscles. On reapplying the pressure, 

 though her eyes remained closed, she sat up and answered 

 questions readily, but the manner in which she answered 

 them, her acts and expressions, were capable of wonderful 

 diversity, by merely altering the place on the head where 

 the pressure was applied. So sudden and marked were the 

 changes produced by a movement of the fingers, that the 

 operation seemed very like playing on some musical instru- 

 ment. On a third occasion the subject, after passing through 

 these, which have been termed the biological and phreno- 

 logical states, became at length keenly and wonderfully 

 sensitive to the voice and acts of the operator. It was 

 impossible for the latter to call the girl by her name, how- 

 ever faintly and inaudibly to those around, without at once 

 eliciting a prompt response. If the operator tasted, smelt, 

 or touched anything, or experienced any sudden sensation 

 of warmth or cold, a corresponding effect was produced on 



