Thus far the different schools have distrusted or denied each other's facts, and waged war upon each other's theories. The most carefully conducted experiments of one school will, in the hands of the other, produce opposite results. Hence each experimenter is irresistibly led to distrust the scientific accuracy of the methods employed by others, or to admit their integrity only at the expense of their intelligence. In the mean time each school has conducted its experiments seemingly by the most rigid scientific methods and with conscientious fidelity to truth; but the results of each apparently disprove the conclusions of all the others. Hence it is that, in the bibliography of hypnotism, we find an immense mass of well-authenticated facts which, tried by the standards of any one of the different schools, appears like an appalling hodge-podge of falsehood and delusion, chicanery and superstition. Indeed, no other science, since the dawn of creation, has suffered so much at the hands of ignorance and superstition as the science under discussion. Its ancient history is the record of the supernatural in all the nations of the earth. Its phenomena have been the foundation of all the religions and all the superstitions of ancient times. Its modern history has also been largely a record of superstitious belief, fostered by chicanery and ignorance; the nature of the phenomena being such that in the hands alike of honest ignorance and conscious fraud they may be made to sanction every belief, confirm every dogma, and foster every superstition. It was these facts which drove scientific men from the field of investigation in the early modern history of the science. Mesmer himself, in the light of modern knowledge of the subject, is apt to be accused of charlatanism; but, as we shall see further on, he is entitled, in common with all investigators, to the largest measure of charity. As before remarked, the facts of hypnotism obtained by the experimenters of the different schools appear to contradict each other. This, however, is obviously only an apparent contradiction, for it is axiomatic that no one fact in Nature is inconsistent with any other fact. It follows that there must be some underlying principle or principles, heretofore overlooked, which will harmonize the facts. It is the purpose of this chapter to outline a few fundamental principles which, properly understood, will enable the student of hypnotism to reconcile many seeming inconsistencies. An understanding of the salient points of difference between the various schools can best be conveyed by briefly outlining the modern history of the science.