To show the conflict of personality: on one occasion as X------3 she tore up and threw away a bundle of banknotes so as to annoy and embarrass X------ 1. In her normal state she knew nothing of this, and thought she had been robbed. Dr. Prince hypnotized her, and brought back the personality of X------ 3, who confessed the deed with malignant satisfaction the next morning.

The end of this case is that Dr. Prince cured her of the ailments she consulted him for, and by suggestion suppressed the somewhat inconvenient personality of X------3.

An exciting story was thus cut short, for the curative aim of the physician is occasionally in conflict with the claims of the psychical researcher; and one sometimes feels it a duty in the interest of the patient to put a stop to interesting developments.

I do not mean to imply that 'seers' are always hysterical and in poor health; on the contrary, Miss Freer, who has been already referred to, is a lady of great talent and practical achievements in many directions; and I understand from Professor James and Dr. Hodgson that the well-known Mrs. Piper, whose case they have investigated with such care, is a healthy woman, and appears to be benefited by carefully-conducted psychical experiments. But rash and ignorant experimentation on such subjects is strongly to be deprecated.

These cases throw some light on much which goes by the name of clairvoyance and occultism, and it is, I think, a healthy sign that a physician of Dr. Morton Prince's position should be ready to investigate such phenomena. *

Myers' theory is that both by hypnotism and crystal-gazing one taps the ' subliminal consciousness,' and thus gets into touch with a far wider field of experience than our everyday consciousness supplies.

I have called the first state of Felida X------ 'normal,' but should it be thus called merely because it happened to be the first? It is incomparably inferior to her second state, which has now almost entirely replaced it. In this second state Felida is frank and cheerful in her manner, an active woman of business, and an excellent mother. * In her now rarely recurring first state - her etat bete, as she herself calls it - she is reserved, gloomy, and selfish. Which of these two is her sane, her truly natural condition? which her abnormal? Such instances lead us to inquire, Can the good effects which in this woman occurred spontaneously be brought about by outward means? The reassuring answer is that they can be, and have been, thus brought about, and in the future will be wrought more frequently and more completely. The newer hypnotism is still a young science, and before the physician and the moral reformer lies a vast field of psychical possibilities still to be explored.

* 'An Experimental Study of Visions,' by Morton Prince, M.D., Physician for Diseases of the Nervous System, Boston City Hospital, Brain, Winter, 1898.

Richet† describes how by hypnotic suggestion he changed an enthusiastic Bonapartist into an equally enthusiastic Republican, who furthermore recognized her conversion. 'Vive Gambetta!' cried this lady. 'A veil seems torn away! How mistaken I have been about him! The effects of such an experiment as this are of course superficial and transitory, but such incidents point to possible induced moral changes, which may be rendered deep and permanent.

Richet (op. cit., p. 250) and A. Pitres (Revue de l'Hypnotisme, December, 1890) suppose that personality depends upon memory of previous events and their relation to one's self, and that this condition is never affected in the lighter grades of hypnosis, and only with comparative rarity in the deeper states of somnambulism. According to Pitres we find alteration of personality taking place in three different ways - by alternation, alienation, and reversion. All these occur under certain circumstances in the waking state, and they may be induced in susceptible subjects by hypnotic suggestion. Thus, Azam (op. cit., p. 245) mentions the case of an insane patient who always told him of her own symptoms as if they belonged to a friend: ' I wish to consult you about a tumour which she has in her breast, and which causes her great pain,' etc., the person meant being herself. The way in which children speak of themselves in the third person is a matter of common observation. ' Freddy is a good boy, Freddy wants to go to bed,' etc. It is probable that, as memory is extremely limited in young children, their individuality and personality is vague and undeveloped.

In insanity it is common enough to meet patients who believe themselves to be other people, generally of historical or present celebrity or importance. In the advanced hypnotic state it is often possible to make the patient believe and act as if he were any person whose name is suggested to him, and he will endeavour to act the character exactly like one under insane delusion. It is this feature of hypnotism which is brought into such requisition by platform professors, and to the ignorant and careless it is a matter of merriment to see a stalwart countryman imagine himself a baby or a schoolgirl, or to see a young girl act the part of a general. For sex presents no bar to the reception of suggestions. The cases of change of personality by alternation cannot be better illustrated than by the foregoing ones of Victor V------ and Felida X------. Examples of alternation of personality by reversion are not uncommon in medical practice. A patient in delirium frequently fancies himself a boy again, and, forgetting everything which has occurred in recent years, will remember and act over again trivial scenes of an apparently long-forgotten childhood.

Dr. Pitres (loc. cit.) gives an interesting account of a hysterical patient who had frequent attacks of amnesia, during which the events of the preceding few years were absolutely forgotten, so that it was impossible to make her recognize her friends of the time. Not only did she speak and act as she had done in her youth, but it was evident that her mind was working in exactly the same way as it had done then. Pitres found he could at any time produce this reversion by making her fix her attention strongly on some event in her past life, and then hypnotizing her while she so thought of it; and he obtained the same result by pressing on certain parts of the body which seemed to act as ideogenic zones. In this case of Albertine M------she suffered from hemianesthesia in her normal condition, but if by hypnotic suggestion she was put back to a period prior to the incident of this symptom - i.e., to her childhood - this condition no longer was present. Just as we have seen in the case of Victor V------, per contra, the induction of paralytic symptoms brought the patient into the mental condition which went with this symptom.

The two cases are most instructive as showing the very close relationship between psychical changes and physical states.

* The changes are chiefly psychical. In both states she suffers from chronic asthma and general delicacy of health. † ' L'Homme et l'lntelligence': Appendix.