the face of the earth! Is it impossible? Ah, then, that could only be because the ideal is too great and beautiful to realize in such a fool of a world as this-or in a world where the majority are such foolsor worse. But let no one blaspheme against humanity by saying that we are rebels and iconoclasts, when we declare that this is a Brotherhood not a mob, and that all our political and social arrangements should be based upon that fundamental fact. We are a family. One is weak and another strong; one sick, another well; one has bad luck, another good; one is wise, another is a fool; one is bright and apt, another dull; one is successful in the battle of life, another gets kicked into the gutter, and over his body the successful men get across the dirty road. What do we do in the little home where, in miniature, most of that is true? We do not play each for his own hand no but the home ideal is that the strong should help the weak; that the well should care for the sick; that the bright should encourage the dull, not plunder them; and that the wise should protect the foolish. That is so in a civilized home, and it should be so in a civilized nation. In so far as that ideal is made real, we make the best and not the worst of everything-the crooked things become straight, and the rough places plain. It is not mere sentiment, it is practical politics, to say that human happiness and prosperity keep exact pace with the world's realization of the Brotherhood of Man.

2. There are rights of poverty as well as rights of property. An ugly proposition! But society is more and more being driven to admit it and act upon it. The doctrine of ransom lost none of its force when the modern preacher of it dropped it and it will have to be worked out. The man who makes a gigantic "pile" does so, as a rule, at somebody's expense, probably at the expense of a great many people-possibly as the lucky last comer when the thing is ripe-perhaps as the lucky competitor in the general scramble. Here come in the rights of the men who are down. Poverty must be alleviated, and the strugglers must be left free. Property must pay. Some day that will be one of the strongest planks of the Democratic "platform." There are, undoubtedly, some forms of poverty without

any claims to more than existence; but, to cite only one crying evil, our treatment of the aged poor is, in England, something that should make us all ashamed.

3. The statement that there exists no absolute and unrestrained right to do as one likes with one's own will not escape derision; and, indeed, it might easily be pushed to monstrous or even malignant extremes. But this doctrine, again, is already very extensively recognized, and, of late years, the legal recognition of it startles even some Radicals. Our Poor Laws, our Factory Acts, our Sanitary Laws, our Education Acts, our Land Laws (chiefly in Ireland), all prevent people doing as they like with their own, even with their own children. That is not tyranny; it is civilization, for civilization is the art and science of living together. The policy of grab and hold may be very English, but it is essentially barbaric. Tennyson, not long ago, described a very characteristic English habit when he wrote: "Britons, hold your own." It was not necessary to urge it. It is the one thing we never forget. As a nation, we not only hold our own, but as much of other people's as we can lay our hands on. But the ideal is not that.

Anyhow, in the nation itself that is not the ideal. In an ideal community, every personal possession would be held in trust for the whole. It is the only humanitarian (to say nothing of the only Christian) theory of life. The very idea of society carries this with it, and suggests that, as everything comes from the whole, everything should, as far as possible, be returned to the whole. Beneath the maddest and most wasteful extremes of the Socialists there is a truth to which they bear witness, and it is that truth which has got to be brought into living relations with the practical politics of the future.

4. The proposition that a nation should govern itself in its own way and for its own advantage ought to be the sheerest commonplace; but it is the very essence of Nihilism, and, but for its repudiation on the part of a governing gang, Nihilism would cease to exist. Home Rule is everywhere an elementary right; and where it is denied there must be struggle and clash. If brutally denied, passion and indignation and despair will call forth crime as in Russia, France, Ireland-as more than once in England. In every age

the rebels are, as a rule, the patriots, the lovers of liberty; not the turbulent spirits, but those to whom chaos and strife are really hateful, and whose longing is that the nation shall live.

5. The idea that the soil on which the nation stands belongs to the nation, and should be improved and used for the good of the people, and not for a class, some may call a vain dream. That is not denied; but what is denied is that it is the dream of a demon. It is really the dream of a very sympathetic and noble type of It is a dream that may have come too late; but the spirit of that dream is the spirit of a profound patriotism, inspired by the longing to see the nation come to the possession of its own, and to let the greatest good of the greatest number prevail over the plunder of the public, by private greed.

man.

6. Of the last idea I will only say that, however unattainable it may be in its entirety, it is full of practical value as well as of ideal beauty-that all the work done or do-able in a nation should be done for the nation's good, and not for the creation of an irresistibly wealthy class-always a danger as well as a tower of strength in a nation, tending to make flesh and blood too cheap, and money too mighty.

This, rightly understood, is the message of the Nihilisms and Socialisms of the world; and this, with very varying modes of manifestation, has been the inspiration of the revolutions and rebellions of our century.

One lesson, at all events, these weird reformers teach us-the divinest lesson of all-that of uncalculating self-sacrifice. For, condemn or dread them as we will, it is notorious that no selfish thoughts taint the simplicity of their aims. It is for an ideal that they give up all that the world counts dear; it is for an ideal that they become confessors or martyrs, criminals or Christs; it is for an ideal that they will even dare to die."

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But, after all, some may say: Grant all; and yet, what is the use of pursuing the impossible, however beautiful it may

be? My answer is: I have never yet discovered what that same impossible" may be nor will I ever stop, or say what bright dream may or may not come true. But I believe in looking at bright things. -at pictures of places I may never hope to see at grand mountains I may never hope to climb-or even at what poets only see in dreams. I do not mind men calling these ideals "visionary," for the history of the world is the history of the realization of derided dreams. "He that hath a dream, let him tell a dream," cried the old Hebrew prophet; for the dreamers have been the creators, the hearteners, the leaders, and the saviours of the world.

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The ma

And yet we know the sorrowful long road that still lies before us. jority will thrust the subject aside, as disagreeable or dangerous; and, at the best, will say: 'It is no business of mine." This is the too prevalent gospel of our time. time. But even the practical Englishman might do worse things than remember that it was a murderer who said: "Am I my brother's keeper?" This "It is no business of mine," sometimes only means, "It is not to be helped. It is natural that the weakest should go to the wall." Perhaps; but if it is natural for one man to fail, or to sink in the swirl of the stream, it is equally natural for another man, or for ten, or a hundred, or a thousand men to befriend him. No, it is not Nature that is to blame. It is

"Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn." But it will all come right-though after long waiting, through many weary years. The ape and the tiger will be worked out of the human race, and we shall lose the last survival of the old primeval snarl. The survival of the fittest will be the survival, not only of the toughest knuckles or the hardest head, but the survival of the most gracious spirit or the tenderest heart. And all that has been done and suffered for the race will shine out in large repayments in the end.-Contemporary Review.

II. SUGGESTIONS.

SUGGESTIONS form one of the most striking features in hypnotism and deserve a careful consideration. They are a late discovery and have only recently been employed, thanks to the patient investigations of French doctors, who have given to these interesting problems an impor tance formerly unknown. From the point of view of hypnotic phenomena, suggestion is the setting in motion of the patient's brain by the hypnotizer, who directs it to any point that he pleases. The patient under the influence of suggestion is thus experimentally affected by another's will which is substituted for his own, and which makes him think, feel, and act just as if he was himself the motive power, but with no consciousness of what is going on, without any recollection of it on waking, and therefore without the smallest responsibility for what he has done.

Hypnotic suggestion, however strange to one who studies it for the first time, is nevertheless no new phenomenon in the series of psychological operations. It constitutes, in reality, a normal phenomenon to which hypnotization gives an expansion and an impulse which are quite out of the common. In hypnotism, in deed, as in many other matters, the old saying is ever true, "There is nothing new under the sun, " and a few instances will sufficiently show how all of us, in the course of a single day, undergo ourselves and exercise on others a series of unconscious suggestions. The lecturer who talks to us, the author whose works we read, the friend who listens to and advises us, each and all exercise genuine" suggestions" upon us. Does not the journalist who boasts that he directs public opinion act in the same way? His part is to supply every morning to his customers a series of his own ideas, ready made, which become the necessary food of those who live on his strength. All the particolored advertisements on the walls, telling us of the marvellous discoveries of this or that inventor, panaceas for all diseases,

marvellous programmes of candidates offered to astounded electors are not all

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these so many 66 suggestions'' which first strike the eye and finish by fatally impressing themselves on the mind? Everywhere, at every moment, we find the signs of suggestions given and received; in the world of science, of literature, or of art, we find the dominant individual, the "Master," as the phrase is, who possesses ideas and suggests them all round him to those who have none. Heads of schools, leaders of sections, leaders of parties, kings of fashion-the great man is a genuine social hypnotist: he becomes the leader of a group and gives the word of command to his followers; the chief man in meetings which he entrances by his eloquence; and all those unconsciously entranced persons, more or less struck with crédivité," applaud him, live on his words, and are content to be thus guided. Natural credulity is the second element in suggestion, so truly, indeed, that, from the social point of view, the hypnotizer and the hypnotized attract and serve as complements to each other, like the mower and the field of grass, like the sportsman and his game-thus it is that men of energetic will influence their fellow men and give to them a special direction and impart to them the ideas which they have engendered. In the midst of this combination and of this subordination of human minds the one to the other, one is surprised to think how precarious is the condition of human freedom, influenced as it constantly is by the force, more or less recent and more or less apparent, of what other people say. The power of suggestions is strongest in the period of somnambulism. They penetrate to the understanding through the organs of hearing. They are loud and expressed by sound, absolutely differing from the silent suggestions which we have treated of in the stage of catalepsy.

Suggestions are simple or complexthey are fresh, temporary, or of definite operation. Simple suggestions given to a patient appear with the same characteristics which belong to illusions and halluci

nations. You tell a patient that he is in a garden, and he takes what you say as the fact he believes that he is in a garden and tries to pick imaginary flowers; or tell him he is near a watercourse, and you thus arouse in him an association of ideas he wants to fish, to bathe, to row in a boat. In this there are genuine illusions of the patient's sight. You can in this stage change one color to another; if you show him a yellow paper and tell him it is blue, he will agree with you; or if you show him a column of figures to add up, and tell him not to see this or that figure, he will reckon up the total omitting the numbers which he is told not to see. You may even tell him not to recognize a given person when he awakes, and this suggestion, termed negative, will operate when he awakes and will last for a variable period of time. The individual thus transformed can live side by side with one of his neighbors and not see him at all, if such a suggestion has been made to him. In this manner various suggestions may be presented to him for instance he may be told, When you awake you will be completely paralyzed on one side of your body and will not feel stabs or burns on that side." The faculties of feeling, of hearing, of taste can be acted on in the same way. You can tell a patient that ten minutes after he awakes he will hear a peal of bells, or a familiar melody, and he will begin to sing it; you may place a bottle of ammonia under his nose and tell him it is eau de cologne, and he will agree that it is; you may make him swallow a pellet of paper, telling him that it is miut, and he agrees and perhaps adds that it is rather strong mint. On his motive power similar suggestions will have similar influences, e.g., if you tell him that when he wakes he will be paralyzed in an arm or a leg, that he cannot move his tongue or speak, and the like-this will produce a temporary inability to talk. Difficulties of digestion, difficulties of childbirth, and similar medical matters have been relieved and regulated in our hospital by this practice of suggestion; while peculiar marks on or discolorations of the skin have been made to disappear.

One of the special peculiarities of suggestions is the exactness with which they operate at a specified moment, once they have been impressed upon the patient's brain; an influence which has been placed

in reserve in the patient's mind will remain silent for several days in succession, even for several weeks, and appear at a given moment prescribed by the hypnotizer. The patient unconsciously carries in himself the germ of activity belonging to some one else, ready to burst out at a specified moment. The following instance is one from my own personal observation.

I said to -, a young hysterical woman, who was a very impressionable patient, "To-day is Saturday next Saturday you are to take a parcel which I will give you to such and such an address." After the suggestion had been given I awakened the patient. During the interval of seven days I saw the same patient nearly every day, and always asked her, "What is it that you have to do next Saturday?" Each time she replied very simply that she had nothing to do in particular on the following Saturday. On the day mentioned I went at the appointed time to the house that I had mentioned, and to my surprise I saw X- arrive in ten minutes and hand to the appointed person the parcel which had been given to her, and go away without saying a word after having exactly carried out the suggestion.

In all cases, the acts suggested are repeated by reason of the same mechanism. The strange thing which must strike us more particularly is the special condition of the patient under suggestion, keeping within him an impulse from without by which he arrives unconsciously at the moment when the act is to be done and, by virtue of the unconscious forces which for the moment are uppermost, faithfully carries out the mysterious suggestions made to him. He acts just like a torpedo which is primed to explode at a specified instant, and goes off at that very instant.

The acts done by patients under sugges tion have peculiar characteristics in their manner of execution, showing the all-powerfulness of the automatic activities that are brought into play. In fact, at the moment when the patient dimly feels that the time for the act is come, if you examine him you see a strange gleam in his face; his glance becomes unsteady and wavering, his motions are sudden and violent, and sometimes he is affected by a temporary absence of sensation; this is a special condition which is developed with an absolute beclouding of his conscious

ness of the external world. Under these circumstances the explosion of the superinduced influence operates, and once ac complished the patient experiences a sensation of expansion, and gradually comes back to his normal condition, without remembering what has occurred. It thus seems a kind of passing madness, and when we see patients accomplish acts sug gested to them with incredible speed and violence, we cannot fail to compare them to the impulsive acts of genuine lunatics. I should add that, while as a rule patients under suggestion say nothing about the impulses which they have received, there are still circumstances in which these same suggestions exhibit themselves by outward signs and produce states of pain and discomfort in the persons who have received them. I have seen a patient in a state of profound sadness about which he could give no explanation; he began to sob with out knowing why, and to move about with no apparent motive. The sudden effacement of the saddening suggestion re-established his calmness and tranquillity of mind, and then the patient, unconsciously calm again, was astounded at the change which had been wrought within him. The effect of suggestions lasts for variable periods according to the receptivity of the patient and the nature of the suggestion. Bernheim, among other writers, cites a case where the suggestion took effect sixtythree days after it had been given.

The enormous influence of another person's words upon the nervous activity of a patient has been shown. This power can be used as a means of cure by its operation on sick people. The organic tissues of internal vitality can be modified and various alterations produced. These will be briefly dealt with hereafter.

Fascination or Entrancement (minor, hypnotism). Outside these various conditions of the higher hypnotism already treated, there is another series of similar phenomena constantly met with in actual practice, which represents, so to speak, a mixture of these different hypnotic states side by side in the same person. This mixed state has been principally studied by Dr. Brèmand, under the name of fascination. Some of its symptoms are akin to those of catalepsy, others to those of somnambulism. The symptoms peculiar to catalepsy are a fixity and wildness of look, motionlessness of limbs, which remain

in postures assigned to them; the features are stereotyped in a mute expression of profound surprise, and at the same time a kind of anxiety is manifested, the breathing is quickened, especially at the beginning of the crisis. The anesthesia of the skin and of the mucous membranes is complete. They may be pricked with needles, gripped with pincers, and so on; but the fascinated persons feel nothing. The symptoms peculiar to somnambulism are as follows. The fascinated patients hear and reply to questions; but it must be remarked that the mental isolation from one's surroundings is never so complete as in the genuine state of somnambulism of the higher hypnotism. Some traces of memory remain, so that they know where they are and who it is that speaks to them. Still, they are liable to the suggestive influence, and may be guided in a definite direction, and particularly in the matter of therapeutic treatment, just as one gives suggestions to them. Fascination, then, is a juxtaposition of catalepsy and somnambulism. It is a special phase with nothing original in itself, but only a mixed intermediate condition. It has been produced by Dr. Bièmand either directly by a look or by a bright substance. I have found my revolving mir, rors especially fitted to produce it, and in daily practice for the purpose of effecting useful cures, I prefer simple fascination to the production of the phases of the higher hypnotism. This is par excellence the field of hypnotism most fitted to be investigated; it is easily produced, rapidly developed in many patients, and absolutely without any risk. I have met with no disagreeable incident as yet in employing it. Thus it is peculiarly useful for therapeutic treatment.

The most remarkable fact about it is that it is compatible with the necessities of social life. Most of the persons on whom I have employed it are not hospital patients. They are usually men of business, clerks, shopwomen, and the like, whom one meets in the streets. They are generally brought in by friends who have had dealings with magnetizers; or they are instinctively attracted by the public exhibitions of hypnotism, and they come for any kind of ailment-a tired brain, dizziness, a dull aching, weakness of memory, and place themselves in the doctor's hands. They are sent to sleep by a re