Three well established facts have, in recent years, greatly strengthened the conviction that hypnotism may be of service in moral disorders. The first of these is its utility as a therapeutic agent in certain classes of physical ailments. It is hardly open to doubt that most disorders of a functional nature yield to neuropathic suggestion when, treated by a skilled operator. It must be conceded, too, that the term "functional" must have a wide interpretation when, in addition to relieving hysteria, melancholia, insomnia and the like, hypnotism is able to produce or re-move stigmata, can cause exudation of the blood from the skin, or play with the phenomena of post-hypnotic suggestion and double consciousness.

The second fact which tends to establish a priori, the value of hypnotism in moral therapeutics, is the proof that immorality and criminality have a physical basis. It follows that whatever force can work a physiological transformation can at the same time influence the quality of the mental and moral life.

A third consideration is the close correspondence between every mental state or process, whether it be a moral obsession or any other psychosis on the one hand, and nervous functioning on the other. Along with the abandonment of phrenology and the development of brain localization, the belief in parallelism of mind and body is placed beyond question. Every impulse, every cognition, every act or inhibition, in this point of view, is at least conditioned by a nervous reaction. . A moral aspiration, an ignoble craving, or a base antipathy, each corresponds to an impulsion towards a neural discharge of a certain kind. Hypnotism, or physiological suggestion, as Fouillee chooses to designate it, has it within its power to induce the particular neuro:es which underlie desired conditions in the moral consciousness and by repetition tends to make them permanent.

With this glimpse of the law involved in the use of hypnotism in moral cures, it will have been a foregone conclusion that such instances as the following might occur. Bernheim records among his cases that of Henry H-------, a boy of ten. 1 The child was of strong constitution and somewhat lymphatic in disposition. His appetite wa3 poor. He was frequently angry and naughty. When his mother tried to correct him he would strike her and throw everything around out of reach. He was always in bad humor and disobedient. He seldom would go to school. Within a month, after six seances, Bernheim notes, "The child looks better; he eats with appetite, is very obedient, goes to school regularly, works well and has made some progress." In another month with one additional seance he had gone up ten places in his class, while before he was always the last. After occasional treatment for six months, the child was not brought back, since the mother believed he was completely changed. He had no more fits of anger, was very docile, industrious and obedient.

Treatment of similar cases by Voisin, Berillon, Farez, Bourdon and many others are more or less familiar .2 Guyan in his excellent discussion of the question in hand* gives instances of the wholesome effect of hypnotism. "After the civil disturbances in Belgium, M. was terribly afraid of going out at nightfall; even a bell at that time would make him tremble. M. Delboeuf hypnotizes and reassures him and orders him to be more courageous in the future; his alarm disappears as if by magic and his conduct was modified in consequence. * Jeanne Sch-------, age 22, a thief and prostitute, lazy and slovenly, has been transformed by M. Voisin of the Salpetriere, - thanks to hypnotic suggestion, - into a submissive, obedient, honest, clean and hard-working woman. For many years she had not voluntarily opened a book; now she learns by heart pages of a moral work; all her affections are awakened and finally she has been admitted into a charitable institution as a servant, where her conduct is irreproachable." It is true this is simply substituting a pleasant for an unpleasant neurosis.

Numerous cases of moral cures of the same kind have been affected at the Salpetriere. Even in his private practice, M. Voisin claims to have transformed by hypnotic suggestion, a woman whose character was unbearable, and to have made her gentle and affectionate to her husband and henceforth free from exhibitions of temper. In the same way Dr. Liebault, of Nancy, succeeded by means of a single suggestion in making a persistently idle boy diligent for a period of six weeks. 1

1. H. Bernheim. Suggestive Therapeutics, observations XLIV., p. 230.

2. For description of cases of Berillon and Bourdon see Arthur MacDon-ald's "The Power of Suggestion," Phila Med. Journal, Sept. 9, 1899, and "Pedagogic Hypnotism," Medical Progress, Sept., '99.

*J. M. Gunyan, "Education and Heredity." Scribner's, 1895, p. 23-45. *Revue Philosophique, Aug. 1SS6. M. Delboeuf.

Without multiplying instances, a partial list of the moral defects hypnotism has seemed more or less completely to relieve, will indicate the extent of the claim that is made for its utility. 'Berillon has accomplished by means of suggestion the cure of cases of kleptomania, lying, biting the nails, cowardice, fear of the dark, etc." 2 "Cases of chronic alcoholism which have been successfully treated by hypnotic suggestion by several experimenters (Forel, A. Voisin, Ladame, Widner, Wetterstrand, Corral) belong here."3 Others have added to these cases of irritability, idleness, cruelty, sexual disorders, in fact almost any species of moral ugliness that arises either from an over-emphasis or from too great weakness of any natural impulse.

It may be asked in what way does hypnotism induce those attitudes which determine character? Two things, psychologically, are the necessary condition of a wholesome personality. The first of these is the quality of the perceptions and ideas which form the content of the conscious life; the second is the substratum of right impulses which respond readily to the perceptions and ideas. The former depends on the nature of the cerebral reactions, the latter on the reactions to which the sympathetic vaso-motor mechanisms are most inclined. A man's character is not determined by what he thinks, simply, but on whether his deeper nature vibrates in tune with his mental imagery, - that is, it is determined by what he thinks in his heart. Hypnotism in-fluences both these aspects of life. It is coming to be more and more conceded that it is impossible to enslave the subconscious self without first bringing about a certain conscious attitude .1 The operator not only acts upon the conscious life, but because he can hold that within his control, uses it as an avenue of approach to the subliminal self.