Rough Ways Made Smooth: A series of familiar essays on scientific subjects

by Richard A. Proctor

In some respects, the increase of muscular power, or rather of the power of special muscles, is even more striking, because it is commonly supposed by most persons that the muscular power depends entirely on the size and quality of the muscles, the state of health, and like conditions, not on the imagination. Of course every one knows that the muscles are capable of greater efforts when the mind is much excited by fear and other emotions. But the general idea is, I think, that whatever the body is capable of doing under circumstances of great excitement, it is in reality capable of doing at all times if only a resolute effort is made. Nor is it commonly supposed that a very wide difference exists between the greatest efforts of the body under excitement and those of which it is ordinarily capable. Now, the condition of the hypnotised subject is certainly not one of excitement. The attempts which he is directed to make are influenced only by the idea that he can do what he is told, not that he must do so. When a man pursued by a bull leaps over a wall which under ordinary conditions he would not even think of climbing, we can understand that he only does, because he must, what if he liked he could do at any time. But if a man who had been making his best efforts in jumping, cleared only a height of four feet, and presently being told to jump over an eight-feet wall, cleared that height with apparent ease, we should be disposed to regard the feat as savouring of the miraculous.

Now Dr. Carpenter saw one of Mr. Braid's hypnotised subjects—a man so remarkable for the poverty of his physical development that he had not for many years ventured to lift up a weight of twenty pounds in his ordinary state—take up a quarter of a hundredweight upon his little finger, and swing it round his head with the utmost apparent ease, on being told that it was as light as a feather. 'On another occasion he lifted a half-hundredweight on the last joint of his forefinger as high as his knee.' The personal character of the man placed him above all suspicion of deceit, in the opinion of those who best knew him; and as Dr. Carpenter acutely remarks, 'the impossibility of any trickery in such a case would be evident to the educated eye, since, if he had practised such feats (which very few, even of the strongest men could accomplish without practice), the effect would have made itself visible in his muscular development.' 'Consequently,' he adds, 'when the same individual afterwards declared himself unable, with the greatest effort, to lift a handkerchief from the table, after having been assured that he could not possibly move it, there was no reason for questioning the truth of his conviction, based as this was upon the same kind of suggestion as that by which he had been just before prompted to what seemed an otherwise impossible action.'

The explanation of this and the preceding cases cannot be mistaken by physiologists, and is very important in its bearing on the phenomena of hypnotism generally, at once involving an interpretation of the whole series of phenomena, and suggesting other relations not as yet illustrated experimentally. It is well known that in our ordinary use of any muscles we employ but a small part of the muscle at any given moment. What the muscle is actually capable of is shown in convulsive contractions, in which far more force is put forth than the strongest effort of the will could call into play. We explain, then, the seeming increase of strength in any set of muscles during the hypnotic state as due to the concentration of the subject's will in an abnormal manner, or to an abnormal degree, on that set of muscles. In a similar way, the great increase of certain powers of perception may be explained as due to the concentration of the will upon the corresponding parts of the nervous system. In like manner, the will may be directed so entirely to the operations necessary for the performances of difficult feats, that the hypnotised or somnambulistic subject may be able to accomplish what in his ordinary condition would be impossible or even utterly appalling to him. Thus sleep-walkers (whose condition precisely resembles that of the artificially hypnotised, except that the suggestions they experience come from contact with inanimate objects, instead of being aroused by the actions of another person) 'can clamber walls and roofs, traverse narrow planks, step firmly along high parapets, and perform other feats which they would shrink from attempting in their waking state.' This is simply, as Dr. Carpenter points out, because they are not distracted by the sense of danger which their vision would call up, from concentrating their exclusive attention on the guidance afforded by their muscular sense.'

But the most remarkable and suggestive of all the facts known respecting hypnotism is the influence which can by its means be brought to bear upon special parts or functions of the body. We know that imagination will hasten or retard certain processes commonly regarded as involuntary (indeed, the influence of imagination is itself in great degree involuntary). We know further that in some cases imagination will do much more than this, as in the familiar cases of the disappearance of warts under the supposed influence of charms, the cure of scrofula at a touch, and hundreds of well-attested cases of so-called miraculous cures. But although the actual cases of the curative influence obtained over hypnotised patients may not be in reality more striking than some of these, yet they are more suggestive at any rate to ordinary minds, because they are known not to be the result of any charm or miraculous interference, but to be due to simply natural processes initiated by natural though unfamiliar means.

Take, for instance, such a case as the following, related by Dr. Carpenter (who has himself witnessed many remarkable cases of hypnotic cure):—'A female relative of Mr. Braid's was the subject of a severe rheumatic fever, during the course of which the left eye became seriously implicated, so that after the inflammatory action had passed away, there was an opacity over more than one half of the cornea, which not only prevented distinct vision, but occasioned an annoying disfigurement. Having placed herself under Mr. Braid's hypnotic treatment for the relief of violent pain in her arm and shoulder, she found, to the surprise alike of herself and Mr. Braid, that her sight began to improve very perceptibly. The operation was therefore continued daily; and in a very short time the cornea became so transparent that close inspection was required to discover any remains of the opacity.' On this, Carpenter remarks that he has known other cases in which secretions that had been morbidly suspended have been reinduced by this process; and is satisfied that, if applied with skill and discrimination, it would take rank as one of the most potent methods of treatment which the physician has at his command. He adds that 'the channel of influence is obviously the system of nerves which regulates the secretions—nerves which, though not under direct subjection to the will, are peculiarly affected by emotional states.'

I may remark, in passing, that nerves which are not ordinarily under the influence of the will, but whose office would be to direct muscular movements if only the will could influence them, may by persistent attention become obedient to the will. When I was last in New York, I met a gentleman who gave me a long and most interesting account of certain experiments which he had made on himself. The account was not forced on me, the reader must understand, but was elicited by questions suggested by one or two remarkable facts which he had casually mentioned as falling within his experience. I had only his own word for much that he told me, and some may perhaps consider that there was very little truth in the narrative. I may pause here to make some remarks by the way, on the traits of truthful and untruthful persons. I believe very slight powers of observation are necessary to detect want of veracity in any man, though absence of veracity in any particular story may not be easily detected or established. I am not one of those who believe every story they hear, and trust in every one they meet. But I have noticed one or two features by which the habitual teller of untruths may be detected very readily, as may also one who, without telling actual falsehoods, tries to heighten the effect of any story he may have to tell, by strengthening all the particulars. My experience in this respect is unlike Dickens's, who believed, and indeed found, that a man whom on first seeing he distrusted, and justly, could explain away the unfavourable impression. 'My first impression,' he says, 'about such people, founded on face and manner alone, was invariably true; my mistake was in suffering them to come nearer to me and explain themselves away.' I have found it otherwise; though of course Dickens was right about his own experience: the matter depends entirely on the idiosyncrasies of the observer. I have often been deceived by face and expression: never, to the best of my belief (and belief in this case is not mere opinion, but is based on results), by manner of speaking. One peculiarity I have never found wanting in habitually mendacious persons—a certain intonation which I cannot describe, but recognise in a moment, suggestive of the weighing of each sentence as it is being uttered, as though to consider how it would tell. Another, is a peculiarity of manner, but it only shows itself during speech; it is a sort of watchfulness often disguised under a careless tone, but perfectly recognisable however disguised. Now, the gentleman who gave me the experience I am about to relate, conveyed to my mind, by every intonation of his voice and every peculiarity and change of manner, the idea of truthfulness. I cannot convey to others the impression thus conveyed to myself: nor do I expect that others will share my own confidence: I simply state the case as I know it, and as far as I know it. It will, however, be seen that a part of the evidence was confirmed on the spot.

The conversation turned on the curability of consumption. My informant, whom I will henceforth call A., said that, though he could not assert from experience that consumption was curable, he believed that in many cases where the tendency to consumption is inherited, and the consumptive constitution indicated so manifestly that under ordinary conditions the person would before long be hopelessly consumptive, an entire change may be made in the condition of the body, and the person become strong and healthy. He said: 'I belong myself to a family many of whose members have died of consumption. My father and mother both died of it, and all my brothers and sisters save one brother; yet I do not look consumptive, do I?' and certainly he did not. He then took from a pocket-book a portrait of his brother, showing a young man manifestly in very bad health, looking worn, weary, and emaciated. From the same pocket-book A. then took another portrait, asking if I recognised it. I saw here again a worn and emaciated face and figure. The picture was utterly unlike the hearty well-built man before me, yet it manifestly represented no other. If I had been at all doubtful, my doubts would have been removed by certain peculiarities to which A. called my attention. I asked how the change in his health had been brought about. He told me a very remarkable story of his treatment of himself, part of which I omit because I am satisfied he was mistaken in attributing to that portion of his self-treatment any part of the good result which he had obtained, and that if many consumptive patients adopted the remedy, a large proportion, if not all, would inevitably succumb very quickly. The other portion of his account is all that concerns us here, being all that illustrates our present subject. He said: 'I determined to exercise every muscle of my body; I set myself in front of a mirror and concentrated my attention and all the power of my will on the muscle or set of muscles I proposed to bring into action. Then I exercised those muscles in every way I could think of, continuing the process till I had used in succession every muscle over which the will has control. While carrying out this system, I noticed that gradually the will acquired power over muscles which before I had been quite unable to move. I may say, indeed, that every set of muscles recognised by anatomists, except those belonging to internal organs, gradually came under the control of my will.' Here I interrupted, asking (not by any means as doubting his veracity, for I did not): 'Can you do what Dundreary said he thought some fellow might be able to do? can you waggle your left ear?' 'Why, certainly,' he replied; and turning the left side of his head towards me, he moved his left ear about; not, it is true, waggling it, but drawing it up and down in a singular way, which was, he said, the only exercise he ever gave it. He said, on this, that there are many other muscles over which the will has ordinarily no control, but may be made to obtain control; and forthwith, drawing the cloth of his trousers rather tight round the right thigh (so that the movement he was about to show might be discernible) he made in succession the three muscles of the front and inner side of the thigh rise about half an inch along some nine or ten inches of their length. Now, though these muscles are among those which are governed by the will, for they are used in a variety of movements, yet not one in ten thousand, perhaps in a million, can move them in the way described.

How far A.'s system of exciting the muscles individually as well as in groups may have operated in improving his health, as he supposed, I am not now inquiring. What I wish specially to notice is the influence which the will may be made to obtain over muscles ordinarily beyond its control. It may be that under the exceptional influence of the imagination, in the hypnotic condition, the will obtains a similar control for a while over even those parts of the nervous system which appertain to the so-called involuntary processes. In other words, the case I have cited may be regarded as occupying a sort of middle position between ordinary cases of muscular action and those perplexing cases in which the hypnotic subject seems able to influence pulsation, circulation, and processes of secretion in the various parts or organs of his body.

It must be noted, however, that the phenomena of hypnotism are due solely to the influence of the imagination. The quasi-scientific explanations which attributed them to magnetism, electricity, some subtle animal fluid, some occult force, and so forth, have been as completely negatived as the supernatural explanation. We have seen that painted wooden tractors were as effectual as the metal tractors of the earlier mesmerists; a small disc of card or wood is as effective as the disc of zinc and copper used by the electro-biologists; and now it appears that the mystical influence, or what was thought such, of the operator is no more essential to success than magnetic or electric apparatus.

Dr. Noble of Manchester made several experiments to determine this point. Some among them seem absolutely decisive.