[Footnote 20: See Dr. Thaw's paper, _Proc. Soc. Psych. Research_, vol. viii. pp. 422 _et seq._] [Footnote 21: Records of these experiments will be found in the _Proc. of the Soc. Psych. Research_, vol. i. pp. 263-283; vol. ii. pp. 1-5, 24-42, 189-200; vol. iii. pp. 424-452.] [Footnote 22: _Proc. Soc. Psych. Research_, vol. ii. pp. 194-196.] [Footnote 23: _Proc. Soc. Psych. Research_, vol. iv. pp. 324 _et seq._; vol. v. pp. 169 _et seq._] [Footnote 24: _Proc. S.P.R._, vol. vii. pp. 3-22.] [Footnote 25: _Trasmissione del Pensiero_, etc., Naples, 1891.] CHAPTER III. EXPERIMENTAL TRANSFERENCE OF SIMPLE SENSATIONS WITH HYPNOTISED PERCIPIENTS. As already stated, the hypnotic state offers peculiar facilities for observing the transmission of thought and sensation. It is possible that the superior susceptibility of the hypnotised percipient is in some measure due simply to the quiescence and freedom from spontaneous mental activity very generally induced by the state of sleep-waking. There are indications, moreover, that the hypnotic state itself may present in many cases a specialised manifestation of that rapport which would appear to exist generally between Agent and Percipient in thought-transference. But the close association of the telepathic activities with the consciousness which emerges in hypnotism and allied states suggests an explanation of a more general kind, and may possibly throw light on the evolution of the faculty itself.[26] However this may be, there can be no question that the most remarkable results in experimental telepathy so far recorded are those given in this and the following chapters with hypnotised percipients. _Transference of Tastes._ The fact that notwithstanding this recognised facility comparatively few observers have experimented with hypnotised subjects, except in one or two directions, calls for some explanation. There are, indeed, innumerable records of the transmission of sensations of taste and pain in the hypnotic state. The uncertainty attending any experiment in the first direction with subjects in whom special exaltation of any particular sense is not merely possible, but even under the conditions of the experiments probable, has been already pointed out. Such trials, conducted with a variety of substances nearly all of which are in some degree odorous, must necessarily lie under suspicion. To the references quoted in the preceding chapter (p. 21) and to the experiments of this nature recorded in the _Proceedings of the S.P.R._[27] it will suffice here to add one further instance, in which the hypothesis of hyperæsthesia seems hardly an adequate explanation of the result. In a communication to the _Revue Philosophique_ in February 1889, Dr. Dufay quotes the following passage from a letter received by him from Dr. Azam, the veteran historian of Félida X.:-- No. 10.--By DR. AZAM.