Mrs. Lett is equally insistent that the recognition was not due to any suggestion from the persons already in the room, but she was unaware that suggestion can occur without intent and that the most powerful suggestion is that which is unintentional. Can we suppose that there were no signs of wonder and awe on the faces of those present, no excited exclamations, no glances towards the wardrobe, no pointing of hands: only a few calm and self-possessed people asking each newcomer if he or she saw anything? If two or three people tried by suggestion to persuade others to see a ghost they would not be able to reach the emotional state of the actors in this scene, and the intentional effort at suggestion would have a good chance of failure. The minute account of the apparition, given by some one who was not present, and told as if it were the result of the immediate observations of the first two witnesses, has been influenced by discussion after the incident and is itself another product of suggestion. The narrator has over-shot the mark in his protest against the possibility of suggestion, and has produced a story in which the apparition is not the only improbability. I have given this analysis because the story is quoted repeatedly by writers on the spiritualist side, and until one examines it critically it appears convincing. The rumour of the Russian troops passing through England in September, 1914, will go down in history as a proof that mass credulity was then as powerful as ever. The rumour, however it began, was aided by the usual forces: Herd Instinct (for what every one believed was felt to be true), the desire to believe in what we wanted to happen, and the desire to be personally connected with important events. The last factor was shown by the number of people who claimed to have personal experience of the transit of the Russian reinforcements; every one had seen the troops or knew some one who had. One of my friends, a man eminent in a profession which demands clear thinking, told me that his own brother-in-law was responsible for arrangements for their railway transport. The reader will see in this rumour a perfect example of the working of suggestion in a case familiar to every one, and if the lesson is borne in mind a list of believers in some unnatural occurrence will not necessarily carry conviction. CHAPTER VII HYPNOTISM The history of hypnotism is closely associated with that of charlatanry, though at some periods the practice has reached an honourable position in therapeutics. The 'temple sleep' of ancient Greek medicine was a hypnosis, but in later days hypnotism fell into oblivion till the time of Mesmer, when it was so mingled with quackery and theatrical display that some disrepute is even to this day attached to its honest use in curative medicine.