Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/519

 THE PBOBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. 507 ' subject,' who is perfectly docile in the hands of his mes- merist, will display when accidentally touched or interfered with by a bystander. If this be explained away as an in- stance of the ' dominance of an idea,' we ask, of what idea ? Is it the idea of the operator, with which the ' subject's ' niiud is so wholly engrossed as to react with violence on any attempt to divert it ? But if he is in the alert stage, his mind is so little riveted on his operator that it is abnormally ready to be borne off by any and every suggestion ; and if he is in the deep stage, it is an unwarrantable assumption that his mind is engrossed with anything at all. Xor can the view that suyrjestion is the cause of the phenomenon though a natural enough one to start with and applicable to some cases survive a prolonged and patient study of the facts. Instances will be found where it is practically certain that no idea, tending to make the ' subject ' dread inter- ference from all persons save one had been even remotely suggested to him ; and where, if any such idea were really dominant in his mind, it could only itself be an instance of the specific rapport which Hypnotism fails to account for. Such considerations as these, though they he across the threshold of the subject, are apt from their very generality to be disregarded ; but it is easy enough to find in single definite phenomena and these not among the outlying marvels above referred to, but among the experiments which are the stronghold of the hypnotic theories a starting-point for similar objections. A boy is placed in a chair and is not hypnotised ; but his arm is rendered stiff and insensible after a minute of downward stroking. ' Reflex irritability,' say some of our friends ; ' the monotonous sensory stimu- lation has produced the well-known tonic spasm.' A thoroughly sound explanation; but let us try the effect of downward passes made without contact or any possibility of sensory stimulation. The same result ensues ; the usual tests of torture and bribes may be applied, with complete impunity to the ' subject's ' arm in the former case, and to the experimenter's pocket in the latter. ' Expectant atten- tion,' say other of our friends ; ' an interesting example of the power of mind over body ; the boy believes in the operator's power, and his mental energy, being absorbed into the single channel of the expected effect, brings that effect to pass.' Very probably ; but on experimental prin- ciples it is surely just worth while, before promulgating this very probable theory, to test it by a single variation of con- ditions. Let the experiment be repeated, then, with this difference that the boy is made to read aloud a paragraph