mal, it tugged at its fetters and longed to be
free.

"The officers in charge, apprehensive of danger, hurried the poor
musician across, and bade him begone and trouble them no more. The
ragged genius, putting his well-worn instrument back in its case,
muttered to himself, 'I'd either crossed free or torn down the bridge.'"

"So the hypnotist," goes on the writer from which the above is quoted,
"finds the note on which the subjective side of the person is attuned,
and by playing upon it awakens into activity emotions and sensibilities
that otherwise would have remained dormant, unused and even
unsuspected."

No student of science will deny the truth of these statements. At the
same time it has been demonstrated again and again that persons can and
do frequently hypnotize themselves. This is what Mr. Hart means when he
says that any stick or stone may produce hypnotism. If a person will
gaze steadily at a bright fire, or a glass of water, for instance, he
can throw himself into a hypnotic trance exactly similar to the
condition produced by a professional or trained hypnotist. Such people,
however, must be possessed of imagination.

THEORIES OF HYPNOTISM.

We have now learned some facts in regard to hypnotism; but they leave
the subject still a mystery. Other facts which will be developed in the
course of this book will only deepen the mystery. We will therefore
state some of the best known theories.

Before doing so, however, it would be well to state concisely just what
seems to happen in a case of hypnotism. The word hypnotism means sleep,
and the definition of hypnotism implies artificially produced sleep.
Sometimes this sleep is deep and lasting, and the patient is totally
insensible; but the interesting phase of the condition is that in
certain stages the patient is only partially asleep, while the other
part of his brain is awake and very active.

It is well known that one part of the brain may be affected without
affecting the other parts. In hemiplegia, for instance, one half of the
nervous system is paralyzed, while the other half is all right. In the
stages of hypnotism we will now consider, the will portion of the brain
or mind seems to be put to sleep, while the other faculties are,
abnormally awake. Some explain this by supposing that the blood is
driven out of one portion of the brain and driven into other portions.
In any case, it is as though the human engine were uncoupled, and the
patient becom