516. From monotonous excitations which, whatever their part in inducing hypnosis, are, at any rate, such as can sensibly affect the organism, I come down to the trivial monotonies of watch-tickings, "passes," etc, which are still by a certain school regarded as capable of producing a profound change in the nervous condition of the person before whose face the hypnotiser's hands are slowly waved for ten or twenty minutes. I regard this as a much exaggerated view. The clock's ticking, for instance, if it is marked at all, is at least as likely to irritate as to soothe; and the constant experience of life shows that continued monotonous stimuli, say the throbbing of the screw at sea, soon escape notice and produce no hypnotic effect at all. It is true, indeed, that monotonous rocking sends some babies to sleep; but other babies are merely irritated by the process, and such soporific effect as rocking may possess is probably an effect on spinal centres or on the semicircular canals. It depends less on mere monotony than on massive movement of the whole organism.

I think, then, that there is no real ground for supposing that the trivial degree of monotonous stimulation produced by passes often repeated can induce in any ordinary physiological manner that "profound nervous change" which is recognised as the prerequisite condition of any hypnotic results. I think that passes are effectual generally as mere suggestions, and must primâ facie be regarded in that light, as they are, in fact, regarded by many experienced hypnotisers (as Milne Bramwell) who employ them with good effect. Afterwards, when reason is given for believing in a telepathic influence or impact occasionally transmitted from the operator to the subject at a distance, we shall consider whether passes may represent some other form of the same influence, operating in close physical contiguity.

517. First, however, let us consider the point which we have now reached. We have successively dismissed various supposed modes of physiologically inducing hypnotic trance. We stand at present in the position of the Nancy school; - we have found nothing but suggestion which really induces the phenomena.

But on the other hand we cannot possibly regard the word suggestion as any real answer to the important question how the hypnotic responsiveness is induced, on what conditions it depends.

Does suggestion (asks Dr. Bramwell1) explain hypnosis and its phenomena?

The answer to this question must, I think, be a distinctly negative one. The success of suggestion depends, not on the suggestion itself, but on conditions inherent in the subject. These are (1) willingness to accept and carry out the suggestion, and (2) the power to do so. In the hypnotised subject, except in reference to criminal or improper suggestions, the first condition is generally present. The second varies according to the depth of the hypnosis and the personality of the patient. For instance, I might suggest analgesia, in precisely similar terms, to three subjects and yet obtain quite different results. One might become profoundly analgesic, the second slightly so, and the third not at all. Just in the same way, if three jockeys attempt to make their horses gallop a certain distance in a given time, the suggestions conveyed by voice, spur, and whip may be similar, and yet the results quite different. One horse, in response to suggestion, may easily cover the required distance in the allotted time. It was both able and willing to perform the feat. The second, in response to somewhat increased suggestion, may nearly do so. It was willing, but had not sufficient staying power.

The third, able but unwilling, not only refuses to begin the race, but bolts off in the contrary direction. With this horse we have the exact opposite of the result obtained in the first instance; and yet possibly the amount of suggestion it received largely exceeded that administered to the others. As Mr. Myers has pointed out, the operator directs the condition upon which hypnotic phenomena depend, but does not create it. " Professor Bernheim's command, 'Feel pain no more,' is no more a scientific instruction how not to feel pain, than the prophet's 'Wash in Jordan and be clean' was a pharmacopoeal prescription for leprosy." In hypnosis the essential condition is not the means used to excite the phenomena, but the peculiar state which enables them to be evoked. Suggestion no more explains the phenomena of hypnotism than the crack of a pistol explains a boat race. Both are simply signals, mere points of departure, and nothing more. In Bernheim's hands the word "suggestion " has acquired an entirely new signification, and differs only in name from the odyllic force of the mesmerists. It has become mysterious and all-powerful, and is supposed to be capable, not only of evoking and explaining all the phenomena of hypnotism, but also of originating, nay even of being, the condition itself.

According to his view, suggestion not only 'starts the race, but also creates the rowers and builds the boat!

Besides what is here said with obvious truth, it must be remembered that many of the results which follow upon suggestion are of a type which no amount of willingness to follow the suggestion could induce, since they lie quite outside the voluntary realm. However disposed a man may be to believe me, however anxious to please me, one does not see how that should enable him, for instance, to govern the morbidly-secreting cells in an eruption of erysipelas. He already fruitlessly wishes them to stop their inflammation; the mere fact of my expressing the same wish can hardly alter his cellular tissue.

1 "What is Hypnotism ?" By Dr. J. Milne Bramwell. Proceedings S.P.R., vol. xii. p. 224.

Here, then, we come to an important conclusion which cannot well be denied, yet is seldom looked fully in the face. Suggestion from without must for the most part resolve itself into suggestion from within. Unless there be some telepathic or other supernormal influence at work between hypnotiser and patient (which I shall presently show ground for believing to be sometimes, though not often, the case), the hypnotiser can plainly do nothing by his word of command beyond starting a train of thought which the patient has in most cases started many times for himself with no result; the difference being that now at last the patient starts it again, and it has a result. But why it thus succeeds on this particular occasion, we simply do not know. We cannot predict when the result will occur; still less can we bring it about at pleasure.

Nay, we do not even know whether it might not be possible to dispense altogether with suggestion from outside in most of the cases now treated in this way, and merely to teach the patient to make the suggestions for himself. If there be no "mesmeric effluence" passing from hypnotiser to patient, the hypnotiser seems little more than a mere objet de luxe; - a personage provided simply to impress the imagination, who must needs become even absurdly useless so soon as it is understood that he has no other function or power.