, he will experience a feeling of lassitude. I
steadily gaze at his eyes, and in a monotonous tone I continue to
suggest the various stages of sleep. As for instance, I say, 'Your
breathing is heavy. Your whole body is relaxed.' I raise his arm,
holding it in a horizontal position for a second or two, and suggest to
him that it is getting heavier and heavier. I let my hand go and his arm
falls to his side.

"'Your eyes,' I continue, 'feel tired and sleepy. They are fast closing'
repeating in a soothing tone the words 'sleepy, sleepy, sleep.' Then in
a self-assertive tone, I emphasize the suggestion by saying in an
unhesitating and positive tone, 'sleep.'

"I do not, however, use this method with all patients. It is an error to
state, as some specialists do, that from their formula there can be no
deviation; because, as no two minds are constituted alike, so they
cannot be affected alike. While one will yield by intense will exerted
through my eyes, another may, by the same means, become fretful, timid,
nervous, and more wakeful than he was before. The same rule applies to
gesture, tones of the voice, and mesmeric passes. That which has a
soothing and lulling effect on one, may have an opposite effect on
another. There can be no unvarying rule applicable to all patients. The
means must be left to the judgment of the operator, who by a long course
of psychological training should be able to judge what measures are
necessary to obtain control of his subject. Just as in drugs, one person
may take a dose without injury that will kill another, so in hypnosis,
one person can be put into a deep sleep by means that would be totally
ineffectual in another, and even then the mental states differ in each
individual--that which in one induces a gentle slumber may plunge his
neighbor into a deep cataleptic state."

That hypnotism may be produced by purely physical or mechanical means
seems to have been demonstrated by an incident which started Doctor
Burq, a Frenchman, upon a scientific inquiry which lasted many years.
"While practising as a young doctor, he had one day been obliged to go
out and had deemed it advisable to lock up a patient in his absence.
Just as he was leaving the house he heard the sound as of a body
suddenly falling. He hurried back into the room and found his patient in
a state of catalepsy. Monsieur Burq was at that time studying magnetism,
and he at once sought for the cause of this phenomenon. He noticed th