However, it must be admitted that it is very seldom we have the opportunity of experimenting with these, so to speak, ready-made mediums. As a rule we must try on patiently, until the longed-for phœnix has been discovered. At the same time, I ought to point out that the chances of encountering a medium will be greater if we look for him among nervous people. It seems to me that a certain impressionability—or nervous instability—is a favourable condition for the effervescence of medianity. I use the term ‘nervous instability’ for want of a better, but I do not use it in an ill sense. Hysterical people do not always give clear, decided phenomena; my best experiments have been made with those who were not in any way hysterical. Neurasthenics generally give no result whatever. The nervous instability of which I speak is, therefore, neither hysteria, nor neurasthenia, nor any nervous affection whatsoever. It is a state of the nervous system such as appears in hypertension. A lively impressionability, a delicate susceptibility, a certain unequalness of temper, establish analogy between mediums and certain neurotic patients; but they are to be distinguished from the latter by the integrity of their sensibilities, of their reflex movements, and of their visual range. As a rule, they have a lively intelligence, are susceptible to attention, and do not lack energy; their artistic sentiments are relatively developed; they are confiding and unreserved with those who show them sympathy; are distrustful and irritable if not treated gently. They pass easily from sadness to joy, and experience an irresistible need of physical agitation: these two characteristics are just the ones which made me choose the expression of nervous instability. I say instability, I do not say want of equilibrium. Many mediums whom I have known have an extremely well-balanced mind, from a mental and nervous point of view. My impression is that their nervous system is even superior to that of the average. This will, no doubt, surprise many well-informed people. Medical men and psychologists, ill-disposed, as a rule, to the study of so-called occult phenomena, have the habit of looking upon all mediums as hysterics. It suffices to read the works of these savants to perceive they have never been in the presence of veritable mediums. M. Paul Janet, for example—in _L’Automatisme Psychologique_—propounds general theories which cannot be applied to every case. It is a pity such an eminent thinker should not have taken the trouble to make himself better acquainted with the facts. Perhaps he has acted like the celebrated Abbot Vertot.[2] According to M. Janet’s theories, all mediums are on the high road to psychological disintegration: the constituent parts of their personality are dissociated under the influence of the weakening of the normal, personal activity.