The fact is, that since the days of those old controversies between mesmerists proper and hypnotists proper, the conditions of the controversy have greatly changed. The supposed mesmeric effluence was then treated as an entirely isolated, yet an entirely physiological phenomenon. There was supposed to be a kind of radiation or infection passing from one nervous system to another. It was of this that Cuvier (for instance) was convinced; it was this theory which Elliotson defended in the _Zoist_ with a wealth of illustration and argument to which little justice has even yet been done. Yet it was hard to prove _effluence_ as opposed to _suggestion_, because where there was proximity enough for effluence to be effective there was also proximity enough for suggestion to be possible. Only in some few circumstances,--such as Esdaile's mesmerisation of a blind man over a wall,[93]--was it possible to claim that the mesmeric trance had been induced without any suspicion whatever on the subject's part that the mesmerist was trying to entrance him. Since those days, however, the evidence for _telepathy_--for psychical influence from a distance--has grown to goodly proportions. A new form of experiment has been found possible, from which the influence of suggestion can be entirely excluded. It has now, as I shall presently try to show, been actually proved that the hypnotic trance can be induced from a distance so great, and with precautions so complete, that telepathy or some similar supernormal influence is the only efficient cause which can be conceived. I subjoin one of a series of experiments in this "telepathic hypnotism." (See Appendix V. C.) These experiments are not easy to manage, since it is essential at once to prevent the subject from suspecting that the experiment is being tried, and also to provide for his safety in the event of its success. In Dr. Gibert's experiment, for instance, it was a responsible matter to bring this elderly woman in her dream-like state through the streets of Havre. It was needful to provide her with an unnoticed escort; and, in fact, several persons had to devote themselves for some hours to a single experiment.