“You may soon be relieved from that surprise,” answered Hugh:  “he took a valuable diamond of mine as well.”

“The rascal!  We may catch him, but you are not likely to find your diamond again.  Still, there is some possibility.”

“How do you know she was not willing to take it from me?”

“Because, by her own account, he had to destroy her power of volition entirely, before he could make her do it.  He threw her into a mesmeric sleep.”

“I should like to understand his power over her a little better.  In such cases of biology —­ how they came to abuse the word, I should like to know —­ "

“Just as they call table-rapping, &c., spiritualism.”

“I suppose his relation to her must be classed amongst phenomena of that sort?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, tell me, does the influence outlast the mesmeric condition?”

“If by mesmeric condition you mean any state evidently approaching to that of sleep —­ undoubtedly.  It is, in many cases, quite independent of such a condition.  Perhaps the degree of willing submission at first, may have something to do with it.  But mesmeric influence, whatever it may mean, is entirely independent of sleep.  That is an accident accompanying it, perhaps sometimes indicating its culmination.”

“Does the person so influenced act with or against his will?”

“That is a most difficult question, involving others equally difficult.  My own impression is, that the patient —­ for patient in a very serious sense he is —­ acts with his inclination, and often with his will; but in many cases with his inclination against his will.  This is a very important distinction in morals, but often overlooked.  When a man is acting with his inclination, his will is in abeyance.  In our present imperfect condition, it seems to me that the absolute will has no opportunity of pure action, of operating entirely as itself, except when working in opposition to inclination.  But to return:  the power of the biologist appears to me to lie in this —­ he is able, by some mysterious sympathy, to produce in the mind of the patient such forceful impulses to do whatever he wills, that they are in fact irresistible to almost all who are obnoxious to his influence.  The will requires an especial training and a distinct development, before it is capable of acting with any degree of freedom.  The men who have undergone this are very few indeed; and no one whose will is not educated as well, can, if subjected to the influences of biology, resist the impulses roused in his passive brain by the active brain of the operator.  This at least is my impression.