We may regard the phenomena of hypnotism in two aspects--first and chiefly as illustrating the influence of imagination on the functions of the body; secondly, as showing under what conditions the imagination may be most readily brought to bear in producing such influence. These phenomena deserve far closer and at the same time far wider attention than they have yet received. Doubt has been thrown upon them because they have been associated with false theories, and in many cases with fraud and delusion. But, rightly viewed, they are at once instructive and valuable. On the one hand they throw light on some of the most interesting problems of mental physiology; on the other they promise to afford valuable means of curing certain ailments, and of influencing in useful ways certain powers and functions of the body. All that is necessary, it should seem, to give hypnotic researches their full value, is that all association of these purely mental phenomena with charlatanry and fraud should be abruptly and definitely broken off. Those who make practical application of the phenomena of hypnotism should not only divest their own minds of all idea that some occult and as it were extra-natural force is at work, but should encourage no belief in such force in those on whom the hypnotic method is employed. Their influence on the patient will not be lessened, I believe, by the fullest knowledge on the patient's part that all which is to happen to him is purely natural--that, in fact, advantage is simply to be taken of an observed property of the imagination to obtain an influence not otherwise attainable over the body as a whole (as when the so-called magnetic sleep is to be produced), or over special parts of the body. Whether advantage might not be taken of other than the curative influences of hypnotism is a question which will probably have occurred to some who may have followed the curious accounts given in the preceding pages. If special powers may be obtained, even for a short time, by the hypnotised subject, these powers might be systematically used for other purposes than mere experiment. If, again, the repetition of hypnotic curative processes eventually leads to a complete and lasting change in the condition of certain parts or organs of the body, the repetition of the exercise of special powers during the hypnotic state may after a while lead to the definite acquisition of such powers. As it now appears that the hypnotic control may be obtained without any effort on the part of the operator, the effort formerly supposed to be required being purely imaginary and the hypnotic state being in fact readily attainable without any operation whatever, we seem to recognise possibilities which, duly developed, might be found of extreme value to the human race. In fine, it would seem that man possesses a power which has hitherto lain almost entirely dormant, by which, under the influence of properly-guided imagination, the will