mmunicated from the brain to the
organs if unchecked by any other representation or impulse. The
transmission of the idea to the limbs is inevitable as long as the idea
is isolated or unopposed. This I have called the law of idea-forces, and
I think I have satisfactorily explained the curious facts in connection
with the impulsive actions of the idea.

The well-known experiments of Chevreul on the "pendule explorateur," and
on the divining rod, show that if we represent to ourselves a movement
in a certain direction, the hand will finally execute this movement
without our consciousness, and so will transmit it to the instrument.
Table-turning is the realization of the expected movement by means of
the unconscious motion of the hands. Thought-reading is the
interpretation of imperceptible movements, in which the thought of the
subject betrays itself, even without his being conscious of it. In the
process that goes on when we are fascinated or on the point of fainting,
a process more obvious in children than in adults, there is an inchoate
movement which the paralysis of the will fails to check. When I was a
lad, I was once running over a plank across the weir of a river, it
never entering my head that I ran any risk of falling; suddenly this
idea came into play like a force obliquely compounded with the straight
course of thought which had up to that moment been guiding my footsteps.
I felt as if an invisible arm had seized me and was dragging me down. I
shrieked and stood trembling above the foaming water until assistance
came. Here the mere idea of vertigo produced vertigo. A plank on the
ground may be crossed without arousing any idea of falling; but if it is
above a precipice, and we think of the distance below, the impulse to
fall is very strong. Even when we are in perfect safety we may feel what
is known as the "fascination" of a precipice. The sight of the gulf
below, becoming a fixed idea, produces a resultant inhibition on all
other ideas. Temptation, which is always besetting a child because
everything is new to it, is nothing but the power of an idea and its
motor impulse.

The power of an idea is the greater, the more prominently it is singled
out from the general content of consciousness. This selection of an
idea, which becomes so exclusive that the whole consciousness is
absorbed in it, is called _monoideism_. This state is precisely that of
a person who has been hypnotized. What is called hypnotic sugge