February 17, 1888.] 



SCIENCE 



from two pupils of Charcot, to whom, more than to any other single 

 person, the admission of hypnotism as an accredited scientific pro- 

 ceeding is due. 



The work itself is very well arranged, and introduces for the 

 first time to English readers a fairly complete account of the mod- 

 ern studies in hypnotism. Our literature in this field is mostly con- 

 . cerned with the proofs of the genuineness of the states and accounts 

 of remarkable performances, to the exclusion of the systematic study 

 of the symptoms. The opening chapters are devoted to a concise 

 history of hypnotism since Mesmer. The fate of this pretentious 

 adventurer is full of interest. Mesmer appeared with his gigan- 

 tic presumption, and offered a series of dogmatic propositions about 

 the magnetic fluid coursing through the universe and influencing 

 men. He next demonstrated to the satisfaction of the wealthy and 

 frivolous Parisians the curative powers of this fluid. And his suc- 

 cess was unparalleled ; but, like that of most adventurers, his down- 

 fall was equally hurried. In 1784 a commission, including among 

 its members Franklin, Bailly, and Lavoisier, was appointed to ex- 

 amine into the phenomena ; and with commendable good sense 

 they demonstrated the utter baselessness of Mesmer's pretensions, 

 and ascribed all that occurred to the action of the imagination in 

 nervously disposed individuals. Again and again is this same pro- 

 cess repeated. A bold experimenter claims to have performed some 

 remarkable feat ; a commission is appointed, finds the pretension 

 unwarranted, and dismisses the whole topic. A valuable prize was 

 for several years open for any one who could read with a bandage 

 across his eyes, as several subjects claimed to do, but no one ever 

 successfully passed the tests. At last the scientific men were forced 

 to the conclusion, that, while the more remarkable of the phenom- 

 ena were probably exaggerated, enough remained to merit a real 

 investigation, and that to refer every thing to the action of the 

 imagination was no real explanation at all. This recognition was 

 all that was necessary to give the impulse to the study of hypnotism 

 as a more or less morbid manifestation of the nervous system. 



The next chapters are devoted to the methods of producing the 

 several kinds of hypnosis and the symptoms of the several stages. 

 Here the authors follow Charcot's well-known three states, — leth- 

 argy, catalepsy, and somnambulism. These states are marked off 

 from one another by distinct physical symptoms, and, though we 

 have no satisfactory explanation of the reason why the raising or 

 closing of the eye should cause certain subjects to pass from one to 

 the other, yet the phenomena seem well enough established to be 

 accepted as empirical facts. Again, the stages are found pure and 

 typical only in hysterical hypnosis ; and many subjects exhibit only 

 one or two stages, and the symptoms manifested frequently diverge 

 from what is here considered typical. The account of the symp- 

 toms is largely restricted to the more purely physical ones, which, 

 though less striking, are much more convincing and valuable to the 

 scientist. The writings of the pulse and the respiration, and of the 

 curve of muscular fatigue, are figured, and speak more plainly than 

 pages of description. 



The psychological process most admirably illustrated by hypnot- 

 ic subjects is that of suggestion, and to this Binet and Fere wisely 

 devote a liberal portion of their pages. This process is simply un- 

 usually active in the hypnotic subject : it is exemplified daily in the 

 influence of a strong-willed person over a weaker, of the teacher 

 over the scholar ; in short, " we have only to glance at social rela- 

 tions in order to see that individuals fall into two categories, — 

 the leaders and the led ; that is, the givers and the recipients of 

 suggestions." These suggestions can be taken up by any of the 

 senses, and, in brief, suggestion may be defined as the execution of 

 an act through the intervention of the psychic faculties, the original 

 impulse coming from another individual. One school of students 

 of hypnotism (often knov^fn as the School of Nancy) regard all the 

 facts observed in hypnotic states as due to suggestion, conscious or 

 unconscious ; and their explanation of such phenomena as the action 

 of a magnet in transferring sensations from one side to the other, 

 of the supposed action of drugs at a distance, of mind-reading, is 

 that these effects are due to the unconscious suggestion of the re- 

 sults by the operator. The hypnotic state makes the subject keenly 

 on the alert for the remotest hint ; and many cases where the ex- 

 pected has been guessed at with a remarkable shrewdness, far be- 

 yond the capabilities of the subject in a normal condition, are on 



record. The Paris school, on the other hand, regard suggestion as- 

 applicable to only a portion of the phenomena, and hold that cer- 

 tain purely physical symptoms are produced with which conscious- 

 ness has nothing to do. For example ; the methods of inducing 

 sleep by passes, intense fixation, etc., the Nancy school regard 

 as devices for impressing the mind of the subject with the idea that 

 he is to be hypnotized, and that the same results follow from any 

 signal to which the subject is accustomed ; while the Paris school 

 regard these physical manoeuvres as of peculiar efficiency and in- 

 fluence upon the nervous system. Both schools agree that the 

 process of suggestion is the key to a majority of the more striking 

 hypnotic phenomena, and that a knowledge of the possibilities of 

 suggestion is indispensable to every student of what is now termed 

 ' psychic research.' 



The chapter dealing with hypnotic hallucinations is full of in- 

 terest. The instances of unilateral hallucinations, in which only 

 one-half of the body, one eye, one ear, or whatever it may be, has 

 responded to a suggestion, lead one to connect with them the 

 theories regarding the action of the two halves of the brain. An 

 important part of the investigation concerns itself with the genuine- 

 ness of these hallucinations, for this is the field where simulation is 

 to be guarded against at every step. Binet and Fere have elabo- 

 rated a series of tests, which leave no doubt as to the conclusion that 

 these induced hallucinations are real in every sense. If they are 

 visual, as most of them are, they are doubled and refracted if a 

 prism be interposed between the eyes of the subject and the imagi- 

 nary image ; the image is enlarged or grows smaller, as the right 

 or the wrong end of an opera-glass is put to the subject's eyes ; and 

 so on. Another interesting type of hallucination occurs when the 

 subject conjures up from a blank card a picture or portrait at the 

 command of the operator. If the card be inverted, the supposed 

 picture is seen upside-down : if another precisely similar blank card 

 is substituted, the change is instantly detected, for the imaginary 

 picture vanishes. The explanation is, that the abnormally keen 

 sight of the subject has detected upon the apparently uniform sur- 

 face some little mark, some trifling irregularity, and that this is 

 sufficient to arouse the suggested image. This view is supported, 

 to mention one fact of many, by the observation that at a great dis- 

 tance the subject no longer distinguishes between the card with 

 which her hallucination was connected and other blank cards, 

 while, if an opera-glass be given her, the image is again aroused 

 when the right card is shown. 



Under the term ' psychic paralysis,' the authors bring together a 

 most interesting series of facts, which would perhaps be more fit- 

 tingly viewed as psychic inhibitions. The type of the psychic pro- 

 cess here specified is easily made clear. A subject is given the sug- 

 gestion that a certain person in the room is invisible. From that 

 moment on, she does not see him. If he places himself in her way,, 

 she tries to avoid him, but is sorely perplexed to understand the 

 nature of the obstacle. A hat placed upon the gentleman's head 

 is to her mysteriously suspended in the air, and so on. Now, in all 

 such processes the subject sees every thing else : she has not been, 

 made blind, and the image of the invisible individual striking upon 

 her retina makes her see him, in a sense. But the orders have 

 been issued from the cortex that when such and such an image is. 

 impressed upon the retina, it shall not be converted into a sensa- 

 tion. While consciousness is at home, it is not at home to that 

 particular sensation ; or, as another writer has expressed it, it is the 

 process we make use of when we cut a friend in the street. It is. 

 not that we do not see him, but that we make ourselves believe as 

 far as possible that we do not see him. This process (though it is- 

 not so original with the authors as they claim) is sure to yield in- 

 teresting results from future study. 



The final chapters of the work deal with the question of the 

 therapeutic value of hypnotism, its relation to the problems of re- 

 sponsibility, and so on. On all these topics the authors hold very 

 sound opinions, and are as keenly alive to the dangers and possible 

 abuses of hypnotism as they are to its importance as a department 

 of experimental psychology or as a curative agent. 



The volume can be warmly recommended to all anxious to ac- 

 quire a familiarity with the most truly scientific work in this field,, 

 although it represents only one of many equally able productions of 

 the French school. It should also be remembered that the authors 



