THE RELATIONS OF MINDS TO OTHER THINGS. 211 



by suggesting to tliem in hypnotism the hallucination of a 

 mustard-poultice of any special shajDe. "J'ai tout le 

 temps pense a votre sinapisme," says the subject, when 

 put back into trance after the suggestion has taken effect. 

 A man N., . . . whom M. Janet operated on at long in- 

 tervals, was betweenwhiles tamjjered with by another 

 operator, and when put to sleep again by M. Janet, said he 

 was ' too far away to receive orders, being in Algiers.' 

 The other operator, having suggested that hallucination, 

 had forgotten to remove it before waking the subject from 

 his trance, and the poor passive trance-personality had 

 stuck for weeks in the stagnant dream. Leonie's sub-con- 

 scious performances having been illustrated to a caller, by 

 a ' pied de nez ' executed with her left hand in the course 

 of conversation, when, a year later, she meets him again, 

 up goes the same hand to her nose again, without Leonie's 

 normal self suspecting the fact. 



All these facts, taken togecher, form unquestionably the 

 beginning of an inquiry which is destined to throw a new 

 light into the very abysses of our nature. It is for that 

 reason that I have cited them at such length in this early 

 chapter of the book. They prove one thing conclusively, 

 namely, that we must never take a person's testimony, hoio- 

 ever sincere, that he has fdt nothing, as proof positive that 

 no feeling has been there. It may have been there as part of 

 the consciousness of a * secondary personage,' of whose ex- 

 periences the primary one whom we are consulting can 

 naturally give no account. In hyj^notic subjects (as we 

 shall see in a later chapter) just as it is the easiest thing in 

 the world to paralyze a movement or member by simple 

 suggestion, so it is easy to produce what is called a system 

 atized anaesthesia by word of command. A systematized 

 anaesthesia means an insensibility, not to any one element 

 of things, but to some one concrete thing or class of things. 

 The subject is made blind or deaf to a certain person in the 

 room and to no one else, and thereupon denies that that per- 

 son is present, or has spoken, etc. M. P. Janet's Lucie, blind 

 to some of the numbered cards in her lap (p. 207 above\ is 

 a case in point. Now when the object is simple, like a red 



