Inadequate as these theories are to account for the testimony of the Three Witnesses, and contemptible as they are for their childishness, they do not fail of more modern advocates. In 1899 a work published by the Appletons, which, while it was a work of fiction, was nevertheless an earnest effort to account for Joseph Smith on some other basis than that of his being a conscious fraud, wickedly bent on deceiving mankind, adopted the theory that "Smith was genuinely deluded by the automatic freaks of a vigorous but undisciplined brain, and that yielding to these he became confirmed in the hysterical temperament, which always adds to delusion, self-deception, and to self-deception half-conscious fraud. In his day it was necessary to reject a marvel or admit its spiritual significance; granting an honest delusion as to his visions and his book, his only choice lay between counting himself the sport of devils or the agent of heaven; an optimistic temperament cast the die." [16] It remained, however, for the year of grace 1902 to witness the setting forth of these theories under the learned formulas of a scientific treatise, in which the testimony of the Witnesses received special consideration. Mr. I. Woodbridge Riley, the author of the work referred to, after quoting the account of the exhibition of the plates by the angel to the Three Witnesses, as related in the History of Joseph Smith, [17] regards the duty before him to be to find to what degree the manifestations are explicable on the grounds "of subjective hallucination, induced by hypnotic suggestion." [18] Mr. Riley proceeds to show that the Prophet possessed "magnetic power," and that the Witnesses were "sensitive subjects," and then says: