In the first place one may say that of the anti-mesmeric schools of opinion, the "purely physiological" school has on the whole failed, the "purely suggestive" school has triumphantly succeeded. The school of Nancy, reinforced by hypnotists all over Europe, has abundantly proved that "pure suggestion" (whatever that be) is the determining cause of a very large proportion of hypnotic phenomena. That is beyond dispute; and the two other schools, the "pure physiologists" and the "mesmerists" alike, must now manage to prove as best they can that their favourite methods play any real part in the induction of any case of hypnosis. For to the pure suggestionist, monotonous stimulation and mesmeric passes are alike in themselves inert, are alike mere facilitations of suggestion, acting not directly on the patient's organism, but rather on his state of mental expectation. I reply that there is absolutely no need to go as far as this. In admitting suggestion as a _vera causa_ of hypnosis, we are recognising a cause which, if we really try to grasp it, resolves itself into _subliminal operation, brought about we know not how_. So far, therefore, from negativing and excluding any obscure and perhaps supernormal agency, the suggestion theory leaves the way for any such agency broadly open. Some unknown cause or other must determine whether each suggestion is to "take" or no; and that unknown cause must presumably act somehow upon the subliminal self. We should have something like a real explanation of suggestion, if we could show that a suggestion's success or failure was linked with some telepathic impact from the suggester's mind, or with some mesmeric effluence from his person. I know well that in many cases we can establish no link of this kind. In Bernheim's rapid hospital practice there seems no opportunity to bring the hypnotist's will, or the hypnotiser's organism, into any effective _rapport_ with the subject. Rather, the subject seems to do all that is wanted for himself almost instantaneously. He often falls into the suggested slumber almost before the word "_Dormez!_" has left the physician's mouth. But on the other hand, this is by no means the only type of hypnotic success. Just as in the mesmeric days, so also now there are continual instances where much more than the mere command has been needed for effective hypnotisation. Persistence, proximity, passes--all these prove needful still in the practice even of physicians who place no faith at all in the old mesmeric theory.