In all these - action, or, more properly, volition that determines action, - feeling, sensation and perception, - the control exercised by the hypnotist is through the imagination of the subject - through ideas. The hypnotist controls these psychoses of the subject because he determines what ideas the subject shall have. He determines what ideas the subject shall have through control of the attention of the subject. He controls the attention of the subject, and the psychoses occur precisely as if his attention were personally controlled, or were controlled, by circum-stances independent of the will or action of the hypnotist.

True hypnotic control is primarily the control of the ideas, or imagination, of the hypnotized subject, through control of his attention. The psychoses of volition, feeling, sensation and perception are controlled in hypnosis by determining the imagination of the hypnotized subject. This is the thesis to be established by this discussion.

Whether or not neurosis produces psychosis depends upon attention. Neurosis may be complete - neural excitation, action and reaction may go on - without consciousness, without real mental activity - without true psychosis. This is because the neurosis does not extend to the "seat of consciousness" - that is, to the excitation or reaction of the center, or centers, whose excitation or reaction produces consciousness. That there is such a center, or are such centers, and that activity of this center or of these centers, is necessary to - takes place in - consciousness, will not be disputed by those who hold to the necessary relation between neurosis and psychosis. Or, if it is insisted that the activity of cortical centers always and necessarily, of itself, produces consciousness, it is still true that psychosis depends upon attention. It is true, also, that the degree or intensity of consciousness and, what is the same thing, the degree or intensity of the psychosis is in proportion, normally, to the degree or intensity of attention, within limits.

Illustrations of this are too numerous and too obvious to need citation.

From the relation of attention to consciousness - to psycho-is - it follows that control of attention gives control of con-sciousness - of psychosis. That is, control of attention determines whether or not neurosis shall produce psychosis or what neurosis shall produce psychosis. That is - and this is what is pertinent in this discussion - control of attention determines the ideas, the imagination, of the person whose attention is controlled. The hypnotist controls the attention of the hypnotized subject, and so controls his psychoses to the extent of determining his imagination, his ideas. In this there is nothing abnormal or unusual, except the abnormal or unusual control of attention, or more correctly, perhaps, the abnormal or unusual means employed by the hypnotist to get control of the attention.

It remains to be shown that the control of the imagination or ideas of the hypnotized subject by the hypnotist is competent to give him the control which he exercises over the action, feelings, sensations and perceptions of the subject.

True hypnotic control is the control of voluntary action. This is only apparently paradoxical or contradictory, as will appear presently, when the real distinction between reflex and voluntary action is considered.

Pure reflex action is without psychosis. It is without consciousness, and so is necessarily without personal control. It may be said to be under sub-personal control. It rises from and depends upon the excitation and reaction of the appropriate nerve centers, as in voluntary action. But the actor has nothing to do consciously with applying the stimulus or with directing or controlling the reaction. He, therefore, does not direct or control the resulting action. The action may be controlled by another by use of the appropriate stimulus, as a piece of machinery is worked by the appropriate manipulation.

Hypnosis may go to the extent of rendering all action of the subject reflex. The hypnotist, in a sense, controls the action of the subject. But the control is not true hypnotic control, because It is not exercised through ideas, through psychosis at all. It is control of the same kind as that exercised by an experimenter when, by applying stimulus to the sensory terminals of the nervous system of a frog deprived of its cerebrum, he determines the action of the frog.

Action may be with consciousness and much attention and still be reflex, or without personal control. The actor does not control the stimulation, or direct or inhibit the reaction, although he is fully conscious of, and intensely attentive to, the stimula tion, reaction and resulting action.

Hypnosis may go to this extent. The subject is conscious and attentive but passive. The hypnotist controls the action of the subject in the same way in which he controls it in the absence of consciousness - of psychosis. But such control is not hypnotic control. It is not exercised through control of the ideas, or imagination, of the subject.

Habitual action is action originally personally controlled, but has become reflex, or semi-reflex. Originally it was performed from purpose, through the direction and control of the excitation and reaction of appropriate centers. It is semi-reflex in the minimum of attention to the idea which arouses the neurosis that leads to the excitation and activity of the nerve centers producing the action. The connection, or succession, so to speak, of neuroses has been so well established by exercise that, the initial impulse, however slight and brief, being given, the neuroses follow without control - even without attention. There is even a tendency to follow in spite of control. In fact, they often do follow in spite of efforts to control. The acquired facility is so great that it overcomes ordinary inhibition - counteracting neuroses.