Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/434

 FUETHEE PEOBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. (II.) 421 to normal ears on the other side of the door, where a good deal of noise was going on. And now a final word as to what the na/ture of the specific influence in these various results can be supposed to be. If it exists, as a property of living tissue, there can be no doubt, I think, that the tissue concerned is that of the nerves. This would be a probable surmise from the analogy of electrical induction, and from the affinity supposed to exist between nervous and electric currents an affinity which would be manifest, even apart from the electrical properties of nervous currents, in the mere fact that the nerves are the only part of the body through which anything of at all the nature of a current (in the physical sense) passes. But a stronger argument is that immediate dependence of the in- fluence on the brain, which is strongly suggested by nearly all the cases. The proximity of Mr. Smith's hand to the ' subject's ' finger proved as ineffective, unless his attention was likewise concentrated, as his attention and moreover, as I have said, exactly the same proximity of the hand which produced the effect also removed it the only change being in the operator's intention. Similarly in the ' willing-game ' cases, the agent's concentration seemed to be the express condition of the curious effect ; and whether or not the same can be stated of Dr. Liebeault's therapeutical successes, it has at any rate been widely observed by other hypnotisers. It would seem, there- fore, that the nerve-currents must receive their specific character, in part at any rate, from the character of the cerebration which accompanies this concentration ; and, if so, then the influence is clearly physiological in character, not merely in the sense of belonging to a living tissue as such, but in the sense of being evoked at special moments by a special form of vital action. It has no analogy, for instance, to the alleged effects of particular substances, such as metals, applied to the human body ; nor is it due to a material emanation with peculiar properties, such as would come into play if the effect were produced through the organ of smell. Though finding its nearest analogue in induced electric currents, and though best, perhaps, described as nervous induction, it is essentially vital and sui generis. This very general statement is all, I think, that can be advanced with any positiveness. As soon as we try to ana- lyse the processes further, our means fail. The cases described, though they agree in pointing to the power of one organism specifically to affect another, are puzzlingly dif-
 * will ' had been without the aid of his hand ; and,