a at at bch ai 
1894.] The Psychology of Hypnotism. 927 
regard hypnosis as a state analogous to that of the “brown 
study " in which active conciousness is obtunded or asleep. 
It is, however, an intensified and aggravated form of mental 
abstraction, in which active conciousness is, more or less, pro- 
foundly affected. Why is it, that in the case of the favorable 
subject of hypnotism, the active conciousness can be so easily 
overcome? Simple because it is weakened by neurotic degen- 
eration. That portion of the psychic system in which dwells 
active conciousness is always the first to degenerate and lose 
its tonicity. This is shown by the thousands of erotic mental 
habitudes and perversions that are to be noticed in neuro- 
pathic and psychopathic individuals. Active conciousness— 
the balance-wheel of the psychic system, becomes disordered 
and at once a flood of erotic fancies make themselves evident. 
It stands to reason that, in an individual, who shows by his 
actions and his thoughts that he is the victim of nervous degen- 
eration, his active conciousness would be easily obtunded and 
put to sleep. This is, emphatically, the case, a fact that is clearly 
demonstrated by the favorable hynotic subject, who is always 
neuropathic. We know that subconciousness is capable of 
receiving an impression and of acting entirely independent of 
active conciousness-—witness the phenomena of somnambulism. 
When this fact is admitted the phenomena of hypnotic sug- 
gestion are readily accounted for and understood. We have 
seen that many subjects fall into the hypnotic state when 
excited by the most trivial extraneous influences such as the 
scratching of a match ; a sudden noise; or a sudden stillness 
coming after long and continuous noise. Again, hypnosis can 
be produced by the favorable subject, sometimes, without the 
aid of extraneous influences. A patient of mine, an hysterical 
woman, would seat herself in a chair, “look cross-eyed,” and, 
in a very few moments, become hypnotized. On one occasion, 
in order to test her condition, I commanded her to repeat the 
following lines, in lieu of the usual blessing, the next morning 
at breakfast: “Juro tibi sanctz per mystica sacra Dianz me tibi 
venturam comitem sponsamque futuram." I wrote these lines on 
a slip of paper and gave it to her husband, a good Latin 
Scholar, who declared that she repeated them word for word, 
