Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 9.djvu/520

 508 EDMUND GUENEY I THE PROBLEMS OF HYPNOTISM. from a newspaper as long as the process continues, having been previously warned that he must carefully attend to what he is reading, as he will be examined in it afterwards. After this warning it is not surprising that he should stand the examination successfully ; but a little surprising, on the proposed theory, that the stiffness and insensibility should again have supervened. 1 When such an experiment has succeeded with ' subject ' after ' subject/ and when their expressions of astonishment have suggested that in many cases the idea of the result was not even latently present in their minds, it is natural to devise measures for preventing the possibility even of the latent idea ; as, e.g., by extending the ' subject's ' ten fingers on a table in front of him, with a thick screen between them and his eyes, selecting a couple of them (the combination being of course varied each time), and then subjecting the selected pair to the same process as the arm. But I am approaching the region of marvels and the theory of specific influence which I have here forsworn. To relieve one's mind by observing how fairly the mesmeric hypothesis embraces and explains the facts which so vio- lently break away from the hypnotic one, is perhaps riot more unscientific than to neglect and ignore those intract- able facts ; but to those who do not share it, such relief will naturally seem to resemble the escape from subordinate perplexities which the devout Catholic makes by swallowing one huge assumption at the outset. 1 With regard to the question how far the idea of his arm was present to the 'subject' of this experiment, it was instructive to compare his vivacious reading and subsequent remembrance in this case with his mechanical reading and subsequent oblivion when (as described in MIND XXXIII.) he had been thrown into the hypnotic state, and then had the idea of his arm prominently brought before his mind. In that case the idea remained truly dominant, and left no room for attention to the reading.