of our Sensations. 267 



sensations quite different from those which I had simulated. 

 Thus I usually pretend that I find out the card by feeling a 

 trembling in my fingers, but I request each person to look 

 out for any sensation that may come. Now there have been 

 subjects who asserted that they felt nothing at all in the 

 fingers, but had experienced a dazzling sensation. It is of 

 course essential at starting to surround the performance of the 

 experiment with a certain stage effect, a certain mystery, 

 which ensures its success. 



A young man, who was evidently ill, and who got up in the 

 night in a state of somnambulism, spontaneously declared this 

 trick to be " dangerous," saying that when he had been made 

 to repeat it several times he felt himself strongly affected and 

 was made unwell by it. 



Second Series. 

 Experiments made with pieces of Metal. 



The experiment with the cards may be varied in the follow- 

 ing manner. Under this new form it particularly enables us 

 to excite olfactive hallucinations. At least I have hitherto 

 employed it only for this purpose. 



Take a certain number of small metal plates of various 

 forms, or pieces of money with different effigies, so as to be 

 able to recognize them afterwards. Then, performing a little 

 comedy which may be infinitely varied according to the inge- 

 nuity of the performer, but the foundation of which is always 

 to appear to magnetize these pieces or the person to be expe- 

 rimented upon, one undertakes to recognize the piece touched 

 in one's absence by this person " by virtue of the exquisite 

 delicacy of smell produced by the fluid." On reentering the 

 room, while talking of something else in order to distract 

 the attention of the spectators, one hastens to take up all the 

 pieces one after the other so as to judge which piece has been 

 touched by the difference of temperature, which alone renders 

 it recognizable. This has the advantage over the preceding 

 experiment that an accomplice can be dispensed with. As 

 soon as one has thus naturally fixed upon the touched piece, 

 they are all applied to the nose with a pretence of smelling 

 them to recognize the accusing odour. 



The person touching the piece must hold it for a moment 

 between the fingers; by doing this he warms it sufficiently to 

 ensure the success of the experiment. Odour there is none; but 

 if one asserts its existence, and indicates it by any descriptive 

 qualification, one is nearly certain to make the " deceived " 

 persons perceive it when the experiment is repeated upon them. 



