[Footnote 1:  Translated for Science from Der Spinx.]

The voluntary production of those abnormal conditions of the nerves which to-day are denoted by the term “hypnotic researches” has manifested itself in all ages and among most of the nations that are known to us.  Within modern times these phenomena were first reduced to a system by Mesmer, and, on this account, for the future deserve the attention of the scientific world.  The historical description of this department, if one intends to give a connected account of its development, and not a series of isolated facts, must begin with a notice of Mesmer’s personality, and we must not confound the more recent development of our subject with its past history.

The period of mesmerism is sufficiently understood from the numerous writings on the subject, but it would be a mistake to suppose that in Braid’s “Exposition of Hypnotism” the end of this subject had been reached.  In a later work I hope to show that the fundamental ideas of biomagnetism have not only had in all periods of this century capable and enthusiastic advocates, but that even in our day they have been subjected to tests by French and English investigators from which they have issued triumphant.

The second division of this historical development is carried on by Braid, whose most important service was emphasizing the subjectivity of the phenomena.  Without any connection with him, and yet by following out almost exactly the same experiments, Professor Heidenhain reached his physiological explanations.  A third division is based upon the discovery of the hypnotic condition in animals, and connects itself to the experimentum mirabile.  In 1872 the first writings on this subject appear from the pen of the physiologist Czermak; and since then the investigations have been continued, particularly by Professor Preyer.

While England and Germany were led quite independently to the study of the same phenomena, France experienced a strange development, which shows, as nothing else could, how truth everywhere comes to the surface, and from small beginnings swells to a flood which carries irresistibly all opposition with it.  This fourth division of the history of hypnotism is the more important, because it forms the foundation of a transcendental psychology, and will exert a great influence upon our future culture; and it is this division to which we wish to turn our attention.  We have intentionally limited ourselves to a chronological arrangement, since a systematic account would necessarily fall into the study of single phenomena, and would far exceed the space offered to us.