They have in turn retreated into the shadow of obscurity and oblivion or passed to the platform of other conjurers who 'show how it is done' But the love of mystery and the pursuit of the unknown are durable elements in what, in order to be quite modern, must perhaps be termed the psychology of mankind, and' the public' still clamour to be deceived.

Recently attention has been attracted anew to the phenomena which have been known and described in one form or other for centuries under the titles of fascination, mesmerism, animal magnetism, and hypnotism, phenomena which were for the first time intelli-gently investigated and rationally explained by our countryman Braid. Since the time of Braid little or nothing had been added to our knowledge of the phe-nomena in question nntil Professor charcot thoroughly studied the subject at the Salpetridere Hospital, convinced himself of the identity of the hypnotic susceptibility with the condition of hysteria in men and women, and worked upon those lines.

The long-continued studies of Charcot, and of his pupils Binet, Fere, Dejerine, Richer, Bourneville, Babinski and Ballet, and the continuous and much frequented public demonstrations at the Salpetriere Hospital, naturally attracted great attention to the .subject. These studies and demonstrations have helped materially to define and classify the forms and stages of the hypnotic and hysteric conditions.

In a lecture which I gave at Toynbee Hall, and which constitutes the first chapter of this book, I published for the first time the results of a series of experiments and observations made by me from time to time during the last thirty years on the facts and follies of mesmerism and hypnotism. These investigations had convinced me, after the employment of rigid test experiments and methods of control, that the familiar and now well-known phenomena of the hypnotic state are due to purely subjective conditions; that there is no fluid of any sort and no influence pf any sort tangible or intangible which passes in these cases from the operator to the subject, except a suggestion by word of mouth or visible indications, and that it is quite sufficient that the subject should have the belief that will is being exercised in order that the acts should be performed and the conditions induced which are supposed to be the result of a transferred influence or an unexpressed will. I have repeatedly ascertained by test experiments, which anyone can repeat, that the will or the 'emanations' from the person of the operator, so often invoked as causatives, have nothing essentially to do with the induced conditions in the hypnotic subject.

I have ascertained by repeated experiments that the making of passes is a senseless and unnecessary mummery, unless it be done to impress the imagination, and that the introduction of magnets, near or distant, has no real relation to the induced conditions. The sound of a gong or the light of a wax candle, or of a limelight, or an electric light, the striking of notes on a pianoforte, the vibrations of a tuning-fork, a look, or a word, the gazing at any bright object such as a metal spoon or a coin, or the mere belief, however false and contrary to the fact, that an external influence is being exercised, have in my experience sufficed to produce in what are called susceptible subjects partial or profound sleep, catalepsy, somnambulism, lethargy, or lucid slumber, and to reduce the subject to a condition of more or less complete automatism. In the more recent lecture on 'Mesmerism, Hypnotism, and Hysteria, which precedes this paper, I have aimed at showing, and as I believe have shown, how closely these results to which my experiments had long since led me are in accord with the carefully observed facts and elaborate conclusions of Professor Charcot and his school, and I have illustrated by photographs the identity of the phenomena of hypnotism with those of hysteria.

I had of course read for some years past from time to time the statements and publications of a certain school of writers, chiefly French, of whom the most. notable is Dr. Luys, physician to La Charit6 Hospital. I also had the opportunity of seeing a quaint series. of experiments carried out some years ago by Dr. Dumontpallier at La Pitie Hospital, which impressed me only as indicating a surprising credulity and a still more surprising ignorance or neglect of the ordinary phenomena of hysteria. The published lectures and reported demonstrations of Dr. Luys involved so many extravagances and such singular conclusions that I had purposely abstained from going to witness the performances. It was obviously difficult to test them impartially and independently, and it might have been hoped that they would in the end prove innocuous by reason of their extravagance, and would not seriously affect the mind of any large portion of the intelligent public in Paris, as they certainly had not had any success in influencing medical opinion in this country.

Shortly before my going to Paris, however, in response to an official invitation to the Pasteur Jubilee, there appeared in the 'Pall Mall Gazette' of December 2 and 15 two articles headed 'Hypnotisers and Hypnotised in Paris,' in which were picturesquely described, and vouched for in evident good faith, performances of an astounding character in the wards of La Charite and at the Ecole Polytechnique by a gentleman of considerable attainments, I believe, in physical science, and of undoubted sincerity. Other articles in the London journals, and in particular two communications on 'The New Mesmerism' in the' Times,' gave almost simultaneously still greater prominence to these performances. I determined, therefore, to take the opportunity of witnessing these demonstrations and of learning whatever there might be new and capable of verification in this series of experiments. They carried the pretensions of the magnetist and the hypnotiser much further in certain directions than had ever before been claimed by serious experimenters in modern times.