"I was out for a ride one day with an argumentative friend along the road, and was on a very celebrated old hunter that had been my friend and partner for many a season. We were talking on this subject, and my friend scoffed at the very idea of such a thing as a sort of visionary nonsense. A hundred yards ahead there was an intersecting cross-road, at right angles to that on which we were riding. I pulled up my horse. "'Now,' I said, 'look here; I will prove my theory to you. Choose and tell me which of these roads my horse shall take. You shall ride three lengths behind me; I will throw the reins on his neck, and I will bet you a sovereign he goes the way I will him; and you shall be the judge whether it is possible for me to have influenced him by any word, touch, or sign,--only, you must keep at a walk, and not utter a word or a sound.' "He made the bet, and fixed on the right hand cross-road as being the one he knew very well the horse had never been before, whilst the two others were both roads to 'meets.' "I simply fixed my eyes and my will on the road, and when the horse arrived at the spot, he turned down with the same alacrity as if his stable had been in full view. "I need not say that I have many times tried the same experiment, and that with many variations and many different horses, and hardly ever failed,--indeed, on American prairies I have found the habit once or twice a dangerous nuisance, inasmuch as the then involuntary exercise of the power has, when I have been myself lost, influenced the horse to go the wrong way, because I was thinking it was the right one, whereas, if he had been let alone, he would not have made a mistake. "Now, this magnetic power can be used with dogs, only in an inferior degree to horses." The author then goes on to relate numerous instances, some of them truly marvellous, in which he demonstrated his power over dogs. He was evidently intelligently conscious of his power, but did not know the conditions necessary to enable him to exercise it with uniform potency. The most striking manifestations of the force under consideration are by professional tamers of wild beasts. The reason of this lies in the simple fact that they uniformly employ the means necessary to its development,--namely, fixing their eyes upon those of the beast. This is the traditional method. Its potency has been recognized for ages, although the philosophical principles underlying it have never been understood. The conditions necessary for the exercise of this power are: first, the subjective, or partially subjective, condition of the operator; and secondly, his perfect faith and confidence in his power. The first is easily attained by the simple process developed by Braid. The second comes from successful practice, but may be commanded by the power of auto-suggestion, as I have already shown.