And here I may remark that this has always been found to be the case whenever tests have been applied to the so-called animal magnetisers or electro-biologists and their subjects. The fact is, that the word 'animal magnetism' applied to any of these phenomena of induced sleep, human automatism, hypnotic suggestion, or faith-cure, is a pure misnomer. It is an example of that tendency satirised by Voltaire when he speaks of the tendency of mystics and charlatans to consecrate their ignorance and to impose its conclusions upon others by giving a name which has no meaning to phenomena which (hoy do not understand. There is, of coarse, electrical reaction in the living tissues of the body, and all muscular contractions are associated with simultaneous electric changes; but electric fluid has no special relations to nerve rather than to muscle tissue; it has no relation whatever to mental influence. Animal magnetism, in the sense in which it is commonly applied as related to faith-cures, hypnotic performances, and the like, is a term without meaning; while the whole tribe of self-styled animal magnetisers may be dismissed as conscious or unconscious impostors.

After this parenthesis I return to a second kind of control-experiment. Apart from the magnetic fluid which was supposed to emanate from the magnetiser, there was then, had lived for many years, and still exists, a theory that the will of the operator had much to do with bringing the subjects into a state of fascination or sleep. I therefore eliminated my will in one set of experiments, and in another I set it in direct opposition to the result to be obtained. Thus I dispensed with all passes or gestures, and simply sat in front of my subjects in a mental attitude of indifference and curiosity. I did not will them to sleep, but I allowed them to look at me, or at a coin, or at a silver spoon suspended six inches in front of the eye, or at the tip of their own nose. The same results were attained. I went further. Mesmer, who had mesmerised as many as eight thousand people in one year in Paris, and his disciple Puysegur, had on various occasions mesmerised, as it was called, the trunk of a tree, and, in virtue of the influences with which the tree was supposed to be thus impregnated, people joining hands and surrounding it, and gazing at it fixedly, had fallen into the mesmeric sleep, or had received the same kind of benefits in their rheumatic, neuralgic, paralytic, and other nervous affections as from the direct treatment of the 6age himself.

Staying at the well-known country house in Kent of a distinguished banker in this city, formerly member for Greenwich, I had been called upon to set to sleep, and to arrest a continuous barking cough from which a young lady who was staying in the house was suffering, and who, consequently, was a torment to herself and he friends. I thought this a good opportunity for a control-experiment, and I sat her down in front of a lighted candle which I assured her that I had previously mesmerised. Presently her cough ceased and she fell into a profound sleep, which lasted till twelve o'clock next day. When I returned from shooting, I was informed that she was still asleep and could not be awoke, and I had great difficulty in awaking her. That night there was a large dinner-party, and, unluckily, I sat opposite to her. Presently she again became drowsy, and had to be led from the table, alleging, to my great confusion, that I was again mesmerising her. So susceptible did she become to my supposed mesmeric influence, which I vainly assured her, as was the case, that I was very far from exercising or attempting to exercise, that it was found expedient to take her up to London. I was out riding in the afternoon that she left, and as we passed the railway station, my host, who was riding with me, suggested that, as his friends were just leaving by that train, he would like to alight and take leave of them.

I dismounted with him and went on to the platform, and avoided any leave-taking; but unfortunately in walking up and down it seems that I twice passed the window of the young lady's carriage. She was again self-mesmerised, and fell into a sleep which lasted throughout the journey, and recurred at intervals for some days afterwards. Such was the history of a candle supposed to be invested with mesmeric influence, and therefore acting as though it were. It is an instructive and a suggestive incident, which I could parallel with many others, and I dare say it will easily be seen in what direction it is leading- I may add that when I proceeded to a more active and direct intervention of the will, opposing sleep, the results were not affected negatively. So long as the person operated on believed that my will was that she should sleep, sleep followed. The most energetic willing in my internal consciousness that there should be no sleep failed to prevent it, where the usual physical methods of hypnotisation, stillness, repose, a fixed gaze, or the verbal expression of an order to sleep, were employed.

Thus, then, we have arrived at the point at which it will be plain that the condition produced in these cases, and known under a varied jargon invented either to conceal ignorance, to express false hypotheses, or to mask the design of impressing the imagination and possibly prey upon the pockets of a credulous and wonder-loving public - such names as the mesmeric condition, magnetic sleep, clairvoyance, electro-biology, animal magnetism, faith-trance, and many other aliases - such a condition, I say, is always subjective. It is independent of passes or gestures; it has no relation to any fluid emanating from the operator; it has no relation to his will, or to any influence which he exercises upon brute objects; distance does not affect it, nor proximity, nor the intervention of any conductors or non-conductors, whether silk or glass or stone, or even a brick wall. We can transmit the order to sleep by telephone or by telegraph. We can practically get the same results while eliminating even the operator, if we can contrive to influence the imagination or to affect the physical condition of the subject by any one of a great number of con-tmaijces.