The Society for Psychical Research has done, and is doing, much good work in the scientific investigation of hypnotism, and its members were among the first persons in this country to recognize its importance as an aid to experimental psychology. The clear and able papers contributed by the late Henry Sidgwick, F. W. H. Myers, Edmund Gurney, Richard Hodgson, Frank Podmore, and by the Hon. Everard Feilding, and other writers, in the Proceedings of the society, are among the best things which have been written on the subject. A medical branch of the society has been established, and has already published an important volume of transactions. The great posthumous work by Mr. Myers, ' Human Immortality,' devotes several chapters to the psychological aspects of hypnotism, and will be read by every earnest student.

To James Braid, the Manchester surgeon, is due the credit of having seen the germs of truth which lay hidden and obscured in the writings of Mesmer and the animal magnetizers. He attempted to explain by physical laws the effects produced by mesmerizers, * and he ridiculed the notion of there being any such thing as a magnetic fluid or current. His disgust for the mysticism of mesmerism drove him, perhaps, too far towards the other extreme, and made him more rationalistic than the facts warranted him in being. Although he publicly demonstrated his system of healing - which he practised with much success - and wrote several works upon the subject, it appears to have died with him, and it remained for Liebeault to arrive at the truth of psycho-therapeutics.

* ' Neurypnology,' London, 1843; 'The Power of the Mind over the Body,' London, 1846.

The most important recent event connected with the progress of hypnotism in this country was the appointment of a commission by the British Medical Association as a result of the important discussion at the annual meeting held at Birmingham in 1890. The report of this committee will be found in the Appendix. It is hoped that the result will be increased interest in the subject by medical men and the prohibition of its use by showmen and idlers. No one wishes to restrict the use of hypnotism in the researches of men of science, for this most interesting study affords a key, as Professor Preyer says, to many psychical and physical processes connected with the nervous system; but we feel convinced that in the interest of the public, and for the dignity of the subject, it will be necessary to surround its employment with precautions against abuse.

One looks forward to a time, in a not very remote future, when Englishmen will take that leading position in the investigation and practice of hypnotism which one would expect from the compatriots of James Braid.

The present movement is practically the third revival of psycho-therapeutics in modern times. That inaugurated by Mesmer in 1776 came to nothing on account of the fraud, ignorance, and exaggeration with which it was surrounded, and the second under Braid ound even less acceptance from contemporary men of science; but the revival we now see is probably destined to make a deep and permanent impression on the history of medicine. It is the outcome of evolution and scientific progress in all departments of medical knowledge, and the time is ripe for its recognition and reception.

I believe that all great discoveries are led up to by previous half-discoveries; and it does not detract from Liebeault's credit that he started with a large amount of evidence on the subject collected by earlier observers, any more than Darwin's claim to be the first evolutionist is weakened by his having drawn on the material supplied by Lyell, Hooker, and a multitude of others. Liebeault's genius taught him to arrange and systematize the facts collected by his predecessors, and to find the true explanation of phenomena which they had misunderstood. His patience and steadfast courage led him to persevere in his work, undeterred by opposition or neglect, until now we find him the founder of a school which, as I have said, has its representatives all over the Continent - acute and clear-sighted men of science, of a class quite unlikely to entertain the fanciful theories of mesmerism on the one hand, or those of ' faith-healing ' on the other.*

I need hardly say that medical hypnotism has nothing in common with spiritualism, and it is a curious thing that in this country some persons seem to think them associated.

* The truth of this assertion has been agreeably verified by events. Dr. Liebeault retired from practice in 1891, and visitors to Nancy will no longer have the pleasure of seeing him at his clinique and listening to his kindly talk. He worked all his life from love of his profession, not from desire for gain, and he retired on a modest competence not acquired from his practice, which was wholly un-remunerative. To celebrate the occasion, many of those who had enjoyed his friendship and derived profit from his instruction decided to present him with a testimonial. The movement was joined in by medical men from all parts of the world, and the presentation was made in May, 1891. There were over sixty subscribers to this testimonial, and among the contributors one finds many names of eminence in the profession, as Dumontpallier, of Paris; Preyer, of Berlin; Krafft-Ebing, of Vienna; Morselli, of Genoa; Cruise, of Dublin. Vide Lancet, June 27, 1891, and Revue de l'Hypnotisme, June, 1891.

Since the above was written Dr. Liebeault has died (February, 1904) in the house at Nancy he had inhabited so many years. The street has been renamed in his honour ' Rue Liebeault,' and a handsome bronze bust of him will be set up in the public gardens of Nancy. So the prophet has been honoured in his own city. Dr. Wingfield, who was, I believe, the first English physician of note to visit Liebeault at Nancy and seriously study his treatment, writes: 'He was a great man, the nobility of whose character surpassed even the value of his work' (op. cit., p. 118).