Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/517

 THE PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. 505 hypnotic experiment, and which concern the very processes on which the hypnotic explanations are made to rest. At the very outset, there is the difficulty of the vast differences of degree that exist in the power to produce the results a difficulty which has never been fairly faced, much less surmounted. It has been asserted, and in a sense it may be true, that any one can hypnotise any one : any one, that is, may be competent to make passes in the gentle and monotonous manner which acts on the organism of sensitive ' subjects,' and with immense perseverance may produce some amount of the hypnotic effect. But let a score of likely ' subjects ' be taken who have never before been hypnotised, and let a dozen persons who have been in- structed in the right method of making the passes be in turn to operate on them, and let this dozen include one recognised and successful ' mesmerist ' : if the experiment be often repeated, always with fresh ' subjects,' it may be safely asserted that in the long run the successes of the ' mesmerist ' will outnumber those of all his rivals put together, and moreover will as a rule be far more marked in character and far more rapidly effected. And this is the more noticeable in that, supposing the usual process to be adopted, the condition which on the hypnotic hypothesis would appear to be the most important the staling fixedly at an object in the hand would be common to all the attempts, and little if any of the required monotonous stimulation would be derived from the actual passes the operator's hands not being in contact with the ' subject ; till perhaps the very final stage of closing the eyelids. But if the truth of the above assertion be denied and fully to carry out the experiment with a new set of ' subjects ' daily would involve great practical difficulties the result of repeated attempts with the same ' subject ' will afford a still stronger argument. A recognised ' mesmerist,' after a very few successful trials on favourable ' subjects,' can send them into the trance in a very short time, sometimes even with a single pass ; but except in response to him they will show no particular susceptibility ; and no attempt of others, extending only over the few seconds that suffice the success- ful operator, will produce any effect whatever. To account for facts like these, as Heidenhain has done, by differences in the moisture or temperature of the operating hands, seems little better than childish as if a somewhat warm and moist hand (even were it indispensable, which it is not) were a sort of li'-sus naturce. Somewhat more plausible is the suggestion that the facts really exemplify the dominance