of man as analogous to the force by which the chick imparts movement and life to the germ upon which she broods. It was, however, his practical influence, and not that of his decidedly fantastic views, which guided the progress of the antecedents of hypnotism. The contributions of his successors, as of his predecessors, cannot deprive him of the credit of discovery of the hypnotic condition and of the first clear appreciation of its importance. But the progress which Puységur's discovery had brought about was almost at once lost by the extravagant claims which were soon made for the somnambules in their prediction and direction of the course of disease. They came to be regarded as possessed of supernormal powers by which they could perceive the anatomical conditions of their patients; they predicted the future, or rather they were impressed in advance with a sensation of what was to happen--"_presentiment_" or "_optique preliminaire_"; they traveled in spirit to distant times and places; they were _en rapport_ with the magnetizer, hearing and obeying him alone, and interpreting his unexpressed thoughts and wishes; their remedies were declared infallible, and Puységur himself, after thirty years of experience, records that he had met with no case of a wrong prediction. The valuable discovery of an artificially induced condition, recognizable by definite physiological and psychological changes, was at once engulfed in a senseless search for the wonderful and the pursuit of fantastic theories.