SUGGESTION 211
classification; but it is unimportant, especially as that class of phenomena will receive special treatment in another chapter. Obviously, whatever exceptional and mysterious features may differentiate these abnormal states and proc esses from those of ordinary life, the suggestion which is practised in them falls within our general definition the bringing of presentations before the mind in such a way as to secure their uncritical acceptance. 1
But while hypnotic suggestion falls within this general definition, it is nevertheless differentiated markedly from all other forms. Usually the subject must co-operate with the operator in the induction of the hypnotic state. He must fix his attention in a given direction or upon a given object, thus narrowing the range of his consciousness, and passively submit himself to the suggestive power of the hypnotist. Such co-operation seems to be generally necessary, except when the subject has been frequently hypnotized by the same operator. Repetition brings him more and more under the operator s influence, and his co-operation becomes less and less necessary, i.e., he graduallly loses his power to resist the influence of the one who has thus become his hypnotic mas ter. Now and then there may be a case in which a person is at the beginning unable to resist a particular operator ; and in these rare instances, of course, the statement does not hold good that the consent and co-operation of the subject is necessary. But as a general rule it is true. 2 This power to fix the attention upon a certain object implies, of course, an important measure of will power, a mental organiza tion of a fair measure of strength and stability. The im pression sometimes prevails that weak-minded persons can with ease, while the strong-minded can only with difficulty, be hypnotized. This is not at all the case. Moll says: " The ability to give the thoughts a certain prescribed direc tion is partly natural capacity, partly a matter of habit, and often an affair of will. Those, on the contrary, who can by no possibility fix their attention, who suffer from con-
1 Moll s " Hypnotism," p. 55. 2 Ibid., p. 55.
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