1878.] 
A New Theory of Trance . 
79 
which is the first observed and most distinguishing feature. 
That, in his normal state, man is, to say the least, 
nine-tenths a machine. The involuntary life — that which 
aCts without the will, or in spite of the will — is the chief 
faCt in human life and in human history. Comparing life 
to a wheel, as Dr. S. S. Laws has also done, the voluntary 
functions may represent the narrow hub, while the involun- 
tary functions are represented by all the area between the 
hub and the periphery. In this little inner circle lies all 
human responsibility and all the vast influence of punish- 
ment or reward ; in all the rest of his functions man is as 
much an automaton as a tree or a flower. Now, in the 
trance, this little inner circle of what is called volition is 
encroached upon by the involuntary life, and in the deeper 
stages is entirely displaced by it. The fully entranced person 
has no will ; what he wishes to do he cannot do ; what he 
wishes not to do he does ; he is at the mercy of any external 
or internal suggestions. 
This hypothesis of the concentration of the cerebral activity 
in a limited region accounts for the displacement of the will 
in this way : — The will may be defined as the co-ordinated 
activity of all the faculties of the mind, including, in general 
terms, the perception, the emotions, and the intellect. 
Cerebro-physiologistswill agree — all questions of phrenology, 
or cranioscopy, or minute specialisations of functions aside 
— that the brain does not aCt as a unit, but that different 
parts are the organs of different faculties. When the cere- 
bral activity is harmoniously diffused, as in the normal state, 
through all the different regions, the man is said to be under 
the control of the will. When the cerebral activity is con- 
centrated in some limited region of the brain — say that 
devoted to the emotions, or that devoted to the intellect, the 
activity of the rest of the brain being suspended for the 
time — the man would have no will ; he would be under the 
control of that group of faculties ; he would be a conscious 
living automaton, as a fully-entranced person always is. 
Secondly, — That his hypothesis proves why trance is 
an abnormal state. It shows that it must be a morbid 
pathological condition, and also shows in what this 
morbidness consists. The man whose mental faculties 
are mostly suspended, who has no will, but is under the 
control of some single faculty, is surely in an abnormal 
state, and in this respeCt the popular idea is correct. It is 
a functional disturbance relating only to circulation and in- 
nervation, and not causing structural changes, although it 
may be caused by structural cerebral diseases, and not 
