the similarity of the method employed strengthens this belief, for it
indicates that the mind is dwelling upon the actual vision of the
relative's suicide, and is not merely contemplating suicide in the
abstract. This theory would imply that any case of suicide, upon which
the mind would dwell and concentrate itself, would exercise the same
influence, and this is the case. A few years ago in Dunedin an
accountant who was involved in financial difficulties, shot himself with
a pistol. His executor, against the advice of friends, took charge of
the pistol. Becoming involved in financial difficulties himself, he too
committed suicide by shooting himself with the same weapon! Almost,
without a doubt, we may say that the circumstances of the first suicide
exerted upon the mind of the trustee a hypnotic influence which combined
with and gave the final impulse to the other contributing causes of his
act.

Another instance is that of a young man who, contemplating suicide,
carried a revolver about with him for a whole day. He spoke of suicide
to his friends, occasionally discharged shots into the ground, and
finally, during the evening, blew his brains out. That he contemplated
suicide was evident from his conversation, but that his mind was not
made up, is also evident from the delay he occasioned. In fact, his
whole behaviour indicates a faint desire to cling to something stronger
than himself in order to brace himself against his haunting fears. The
revolver fascinated him. He dallied with it, made up his mind, changed
it again, and finally the influence became supreme for a moment, and he
fired the fatal shot. Throughout the day, he very probably thought of
the grief of his relatives and of the young woman he was soon to marry,
he pictured the consternation of his friends, read the newspaper
accounts of his act, saw his funeral, and let his mind run altogether in
morbid channels. Thus it was that the vision of his own act exerted an
hypnotic influence upon him which became at the critical moment supreme
and irresistible.

When the picture is real and not imaginary, and when the circumstances
of a parent's or brother's or friend's suicide may easily be recalled
and the mind allowed to dwell upon them, how much greater would the
influence become, especially when the same example has served to
diminish the idea of the enormity of the act. Where persons lend
themselves to the idea that an hereditary influence exists and may