I think that there is a disposition, among experimenters in mesmerism, to attribute too much to the agency of the will. There was with me in the autumn of 1849 a young lady, who was extremely susceptible of mesmerism. A gentleman who came with the family had been in the habit of entrancing her daily, and at last she was so sensitive that a wave of his hand would fix her motionless. His presence even in the room affected her; and if he then tried to mesmerise her sister, she herself invariably became entranced. The operator was a person of remarkable mesmeric power. Then at my request, made unknown to her, he went to the end window of the room, and, looking out upon the Rhine, tried at the same time with the most forcible mental efforts to will her into sleep. The attempt failed entirely. Another day that he was in my room, about fifty feet from the room in which the young lady was sitting, he tried again by the will to entrance her. But it was all in vain. Therefore, if the will ever acts independently of Od influence, I am disposed to think that its action in producing trance must be infinitely feebler than the direct use of Od. However, some are convinced of the positive agency of the will in mesmerising. The following statement by Mr. H. S. Thompson of Fairfield, made in a letter to Dr. Elliotson, published in the _Zoist_, admits the inferiority in force of the will to the material agency of Od, at the same time that it goes far to prove its efficiency. “I have succeeded,” says Mr. Thompson, “in arresting spasms, and taking away every species of pain, and in producing intense heat and perspiration, by the will only; and in many instances without the knowledge of the patients, who have been all unconscious of the power I have been exerting, until after the results have occurred. At the same time, I have generally found that the passes in combination with the will, or attention, most readily produce the effects we desire; and that manipulations are much less fatiguing to the operator than the exertion of the will.”