involuntarily. The whole is, however, extremely valuable from its
_probability_, and still more from its suggesting experiment in a much
more useful direction than that followed in the majority of cases
recorded in most books, which, especially in France, seem chiefly to
have been conducted from a melodramatic or merely medical point of
view. Very few indeed seem to have ever dreamed that a hypnotized
subject was anything but a being to be cured of some disorder,
operated on without pain, or made to undergo and perform various
tricks, often extremely cruel, silly, and wicked--the main object of
all being to advertise the skill of the operator. In fact, if it were
to be accepted that the main object of hypnotism is to repeat such
experiments as are described in most of the French works on the
subject, humanity and decency would join in prohibiting the practice
of the art altogether. These books point out and make clear in the
minutest manner, how every kind of crime can be committed, and the
mind brought to regard all that is evil as a matter of course. The
making an innocent person attempt to commit a murder or steal is among
the most usual experiments; while, on the contrary, any case like that
of the reform of Jeanne S---- is either very rare, or else is treated
simply as a proof of the skill of some _medico_. The fact that if the
successes which are recorded are _true_, there exists a _stupendous_
power by means of which the average morality and happiness of mankind
can be incredibly advanced and sustained, and Education, Art in every
branch, and, in a word, all Culture be marvelously developed on a far
more secure basis than in the old systems, does not seem to have
occurred to any of those who possessed, as it were, gold, without
having the least idea of its value or even its qualities.

Happiness in the main is a pleasant, contented condition of the mind,
that is to say, "a state of mind." To be perfect, as appears from an