A kind of dim, vague instinct may enable even an uncultured mind to get an inkling here of the subtler results of psychological science.  We know that it is possible to call up hallucinatory visions in a hypnotised subject by simple suggestion.  If he be told that a bird is perched on his hand, he will see the bird and watch it fly away.  The idea suggested, however, is far from being always accepted with like docility.  Not infrequently, the mesmeriser only succeeds in getting an idea into his subject’s head by slow degrees through a carefully graduated series of hints.  He will then start with objects really perceived by the subject, and will endeavour to make the perception of these objects more and more indefinite; then, step by step, he will bring out of this state of mental chaos the precise form of the object of which he wishes to create an hallucination.  Something of the kind happens to many people when dropping off to sleep; they see those coloured, fluid, shapeless masses, which occupy the field of vision, insensibly solidifying into distinct objects.

Consequently, the gradual passing from the dim and vague to the clear and distinct is the method of suggestion par excellence.  I fancy it might be found to be at the root of a good many comic suggestions, especially in the coarser forms of the comic, in which the transformation of a person into a thing seems to be taking place before our eyes.  But there are other and more subtle methods in use, among poets, for instance, which perhaps unconsciously lead to the same end.  By a certain arrangement of rhythm, rhyme and assonance, it is possible to lull the imagination, to rock it to and fro between like and like with a regular see-saw motion, and thus prepare it submissively to accept the vision suggested.  Listen to these few lines of Regnard, and see whether something like the fleeting image of a doll does not cross the field of your imagination: 

...  Plus, il doit a maints particuliers La somme de dix mil une livre une obole, Pour l’avoir sans relache un an sur sa parole Habille, voiture, chauffe, chausse, gante, Alimente, rase, desaltere, porte.

[Footnote:  Further, he owes to many an honest wight Item-the sum two thousand pounds, one farthing, For having on his simple word of honour Sans intermission for an entire year Clothed him, conveyed him, warmed him, shod him, gloved him, Fed him and shaved him, quenched his thirst and borne him.]

Is not something of the same kind found in the following sally of Figaro’s (though here an attempt is perhaps made to suggest the image of an animal rather than that of a thing):  “Quel homme est-ce?—­C’est un beau, gros, court, jeune vieillard, gris pommele, ruse, rase, blase, qui guette et furette, et gronde et geint tout a la fois.” [Footnote:  “What sort of man is here?—­He is a handsome, stout, short, youthful old gentleman, iron-grey, an artful knave, clean shaved, clean ‘used up,’ who spies and pries and growls and groans all in the same breath.”]