Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/414

FUKTHER PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. (II.) 401 stimulation from without or by projection from within. Now if we accept this forceful quality, this tendency to push on into an extreme form, in one class of telepathic effects, we shall naturally look out for it in another class ; and the recognition of it as a tolerably general characteristic is perhaps the only sort of explanation that it at present admits of. What sign then do we find of it in the hypnotic cases ? No conclusive sign, at first sight, it must be ad- mitted. For the mere idea, the mental suggestion, of the trance-condition, in association with that of the hypnotiser's personality, has been already represented as an adequate ground for the supervention of the trance, alike whether the idea be suggested by the hypnotiser's words and presence or by telepathic transference the exceptional effect being accounted for by the exceptional sensitiveness of the pre- viously-hypnotised ' subject,' who is in a state, so to speak, of highly unstable equilibrium. It would clearly then be illegitimate to supplement this view by attributing an excep- tional impulsive quality, or vigour of impact, to the tele- pathically-transferred idea, unless we were able to suppose some similar condition in the cases where the hypnotiser's words and presence are ostensibly the only cause that works on the * subject '. Well, the point is now reached at which this very supposition can not only be intelligibly made, but shown to be in some instances at any rate indispensable. It will be remembered that in speaking of verbal or phy- sical suggestion of the idea of trance, I pointed out that this alone was not enough to induce the state even in a sensitised ' subject,' who might meet with the idea in a book without undergoing any effect whatever ; and that the idea of the original hypnotiser's personality was at any rate an indis- pensable element. But it may be urged with equal reason that something more still is needed ; for this other idea might also be met with in a book e.g., the ' subject ' might read a printed account of his previous entrancements by his special hypnotiser without a fresh entrancement ensuing. What, then, makes the difference? Is it the sense of the operator's authority, which the ' subject ' is made to feel either by his tone and manner or by a general belief in his power ? Very often, probably, this is enough ; but the French cases epitomised in my former paper clearly show that it is not always enough, and no single point in them is more instructive than this. Prof. Pierre Janet, Dr. Hericourt, and Dr. Dusart all observed that the ' subject's ' belief that the entrancement was being then and there attempted and willed by the special hypnotiser was ineffective, if the hyp- 26