if the suggestion of an idea means belief,
and if belief means a preparation for action, we have indeed no new
factor before us if the action for which we prepare the subject is from
the start related to a definite time. If we do not link it with the
consciousness of a special time or of a special occasion which will
occur later, the suggestion soon fades away. That my library is an
orchard is forgotten perhaps within ten minutes, if I have not come back
to it in the conversation. But if I say that after awaking as soon as I
shall knock on my desk three times, you will be in the orchard again,
the psychophysical apparatus is prepared, a new setting has set in, the
three knocks will bring about the complete transformation. In short the
difficulties disappear as soon as we are consistent in interpreting all
suggestive influences as changes in the motor setting and as the result
of the antagonistic character of all of our motor paths.

We say the difficulties disappear. Of course, that is meant in a
relative sense only. It means essentially that we are able to bring the
complex state of hypnotism down to the similar state of attention and
motor adjustment, but of course we must not forget that we are far from
a satisfactory explanation of the process in attention itself. We know
that the opening of motor channels in one direction somewhat closes the
channels for discharge in the opposite direction, but what mechanism
does that work is still very obscure. Whichever principle of
hypothetical explanation we might prefer, it certainly leads to
difficulties in view of the extreme complexity of attention in states of
suggestion and hypnotism. We might think of a mechanism which through
the medium of the finest blood-vessels should produce a localized anaemia
in those centers which lead to the antagonistic action. Or we might
fancy that by extremely subtle machinery the resistance is increased in
those tissues which lie between the various neurons, or we might even
think of toxic and antitoxic processes in the cerebral regions; and any
day may open entirely new ways of explanation. We may add that even if
the mechanism of attention were completely explained, we are also still
far from understanding the physiological changes which go on in the
sphere of the blood-vessels or of the glands and the internal organs. We
understand easily that the idea of the subject that he cannot move his
arm keeps the arm stiff; but that his idea to