T8 THE AMERiCAK MONTHLY [April, 



world. He is in the very prime of life and full of hope and joy. He 

 will surely surprise us with new achievements, and in the future will, 

 we hope, carry the art of healing from triumph to triumph. 



Hypnotism. 



By henry L. OSBORN, ^ 



HAMLINE, MINN. 



The obscure phenomena of psychology, some of which have been 

 known very many years and have been practised for the most part by 

 charlatans or for the amusement of audiences of a somewliat dubious 

 grade of respectability, are now in the way of being well sifted by sci- 

 entific students, and the good in them, if any, brought to light and 

 utilized. The modern methods of psychological study, the improved 

 ways of studying the neurological aspects of psychic phenomena, the 

 very active spirit of inquiry which now so thoroughly inspires every 

 department of science and more particularly the science of biology, 

 and the numerous possible applications of hypnotism in medical prac- 

 tice and even in the legal profession, have combined to raise the study 

 of the phenomena of mesmerism from the realm of mere guess-^vork 

 or wanton curiosity into the field of serious scientific attention. Albert 

 Moll, of Berlin, has* written the best exppsition of the subject of the 

 many which have recently appeared in the Englisii language. 



The biological world has too long sneered and scoffed at hypnotism. 

 A very large preponderance of indisputable facts now renders it prac- 

 tically certain that hypnotism has played a large part in the mental his- 

 tory of many delusions on a large as well as a small scale, that it must 

 be recognized as a possible factor in all cases where we have to deal 

 with the mind of another. The physician must allow for it, so, too, the 

 judge and jury, and the teacher. Dr. W. B. Carpenter long ago in his 

 admirable " Mental Physiology " called attention to the importance of 

 expectation or the "predominance of an idea" in an explanation of 

 mesmeric and allied phenomena. Prof. Moll, from his investigation 

 of the phenomena, thinks that the facts of hypnotism are not siii gen- 

 eris^ but are only peculiar manifestations of ordinary mental activities, 

 heightened because of undivided attention. Three factors will suffice 

 to explain all the facts of hypnotism ; i , expectant attention ; 2, external 

 suggestion ; 3, the ordinary operation of the laws of mental associa- 

 tion. All of these are operative in normal psychic life. Thus, for ex- 

 ample, a judicial examiner at an exhumation declared that he smelled 

 a putrefactive odor; when the cofiin was opened it was found empty. 

 Here expectation produced an hallucination of the sense of smell. The 

 force of external suggestion is, if we notice it, constantly operative in 

 daily life. How lai'gely we shape our actions in conformity with the 

 laws of society, /. e., what is expected of us. 



Hypnotism is a matter of degree ; in some cases there is, on the part 

 of the subject, perfect concurrent consciousness with obedience to the 

 suggestion of the hypnotizer. At other times there is only faint con- 



* Hypnotism — Contemporary Science Series. Scribner, N. Y. 



