352 Miscellanea. 
Lecturer stated that he could entertain no doubt whatever, since they had 
been presented to himself and to other scientific enquirers by numerous indi- 
viduals, on whose honesty and freedom from all tendency to deceive them- 
selves or others implicit reliance could be placed. But from the account 
commonly given of these phenomena,—to the effect that the will of the ‘‘biolo- 
gized” subject is entirely subjected to that of the operator,—he eutirely dis- 
sented ; and believed that he should be able to show that the state in question 
is essentially one of reverie, in which the voluntary control over the current 
of thought is entirely suspended, the individual being for the time (so to 
speak) a mere thinking automaton, the whole course of whose ideas is deter- 
minable by suggestions operating from without. The “ biologized” indivi- 
dual cannot get rid of any notion with which he thus becomes possessed, by 
any effort of his own; because the abeyance of his voluntary power alike 
prevents him from directing the current of his thoughts into another chan- 
nel, and from having recourse to his ordinary experience for the correction 
of its fallacies; and so long as he is under its domination, all his conversa- 
tion and actions are nothing else than an expression of it. A condition very 
similar to this is often seen in that form of artificial somnambulism which 
is termed ‘“ hypnotism,” by Mr. Braid, and less frequently in natural 
somnambulism.* 
But it is the peculiar feature of the “biological” state, that the subject 
of it is still awake, that he has generally the use of all his senses, and that 
he has in most cases a perfect recollection of what has taken place, when 
he returns to his ordinary state of mental activity, though sometimes the 
recollection does not extend to particulars. 
_ All the phenomena of the “ biologized” state, when attentively examined, 
will be found to consist in the occupation of the mind by the ideas which 
have been suggested to it, aud in the influence which these ideas exert upon 
the actions of the body. Thus the operator asserts that the “ subject ” can- 
not rise from his chair, or open his eyes, or continue to hold a stick; and 
the ‘‘ subject” thereby becomes so completely possessed with the fixed be- 
lief of the impossibility of the act, that he is incapacitated from executing it, 
not because that his will is controlled by that of another, but because his 
will is in abeyance, and his muscles are entirely under the guidance of his 
ideas. So again, when he is made to drink a glass of water, and is assured 
that it is coffee, or wine, or milk, that assurance, delivered in a decided tone, 
makes a stronger impression on his mind than that which he receives 
through his taste, smell, or sight; and not being able to judge and com- 
* In natural somnambulism, the mind is generally engrossed by some 
‘‘ dominant idea” of its own, and cannot be directed by external suggestions, 
except such as may be in harmony with it. ‘There are numerous instances 
on record, however, (among the best known of which is that of the Officer 
who served in the expedition to Louisburgh in 1758, and at whose expense 
his comrades were accustomed to amuse themselves, as narrated by Dr. 
James Gregory), in which the current of thought and the course of action of 
a natural somnambulist have been entirely governed by the suggestions 
of those around, 
