equal to this.  I generally put the wish into this form:  “I will forget and forgive all causes of enmity and anger, and should they arise I determine at once to cast them aside.”  It is a prayer, as it were, to the Will to stand by me, and truly the will is Deus in nobis to those who believe that God helps those who help themselves.  For as we can get into the fearful state of constantly recalling all who have ever vexed or wronged us, or nursing the memory of what we hate or despise, until our minds are like sewers or charnel-houses of dead and poisonous things, so we can resolutely banish them, at first by forethought, then by suggestion, and finally by waking will.  And verily there are few people living who would not be the better for such exercise.  Many there are who say that they would fain forget and be serene, yet cannot.  I do not believe this.  We can all exorcise our devils—­all of them—­if we will.

To restrain irritability in our intercourse with others.  It will not be quite sufficient as regards controlling the temper to merely will, or wish to subdue it.  We must also will that when the temptation arises it may be preceded by forethought or followed by regret.  As it often happens to a young soldier to be frightened or run away the first time he is under fire, and yet learn courage in the future, so the aspirant resolved to master his passions must not doubt because he finds that the first step slips. Apropos of which I would note that in all the books on Hypnotism that I have read their authors testify to a certain false quantity or amount of base alloy in the most thoroughly suggested patients.  Something of modesty, something of a moral conscience always remains.  Thus, as Dr. COCKE declares, Hypnotism has not succeeded in cases suffering from what are called imperative conceptions, or irresistible belief.  “Cases suffering from various imperative conceptions are, while possessing their reasons, either irresistibly led by certain impulses or they cannot rid themselves of erroneous ideas concerning themselves and others.”  This means, in fact, that they had been previously hypnotised to a definite conception which had become imperative.  As in Witchcraft, it is a law that one sorcerer cannot undo the work of another without extraordinary pains; so in hypnotism it is hard to undo what is already established by a similar agent.

One can will to remember or recall anything forgotten.  I will not be responsible that this will invariably succeed at the first time, but that it does often follow continued determination I know from experience.  I believe that where an operator hypnotizes a subject it very often succeeds, if we may believe the instances recorded.  And I am also inclined to believe that in many cases, though assuredly not in all, whatever is effected by one person upon another can also be brought about in one’s self by patience in forethought, self-suggestion, and the continued will which they awaken.