Such a standpoint, which is in itself thoroughly logical, Gombault considers mistaken; he thinks that if stigmatization cannot be explained in the present day, for that very reason the view that it is of supernatural origin is the only one that is warranted. In total opposition to this view, we are to-day much more justified in asserting that hypnosis and suggestion have provided us with a possible explanation of the phenomenon. The same remarks apply to the reports of other miracles, even if believers very frequently controvert the explanation provided by suggestion or other similar psychical influences. Lelong, for example, does this with regard to the psycho-therapeutic view of the cures which have occurred at Lourdes; but what he advances as disproof will hardly convince a scientific investigator - viz., a child that was supposed to be dying was plunged into the ice-cold spring in February and got well. For Lelong this can only be explained by a miracle. Now, it is exactly the study of hypnotism and suggestion that proffers numerous inducements for accepting a scientifically psychological view of the action of Lourdes on patients.

One of these inducements - viz., the psycho-therapeutic factor observable in the action of Lourdes, I have already discussed on page 355. As the result of a thorough investigation of original sources of information, Rouby has recently published A Study of Lourdes, in which he describes how that place came to acquire its renown. He traces everything to the fact that in the case of Bernadette Soubirous hysteria was overlooked at the time. It is usually related of this girl, that in 1858, when she was fourteen years old, she saw the Virgin Mary in the grotto. Rouby proves from authoritative sources that one day when the child was gathering sticks she stayed somewhat behind her companion, so as to take off her shoe, and hearing a rustling noise, looked up. When asked by her sister what was the matter, the child at first only said she had seen something white. Later on this developed into a marvellously beautiful lady of medium stature, clothed in a white dress with a blue girdle, and to this story fresh details were gradually added from time to time.

A simple noise had caused a sense-delusion in an obviously morbid child! It is not exactly improbable that the girl did at first actually see something white, and that afterwards all the other details were worked into the story by means of suggestive questions. It is extremely instructive to observe how a harmless incident has made Lourdes what it is to-day, and naturally the suggested therapeutic action of a locality so glorified was bound to keep the renown of the place ever on the increase amongst emotional believers. It is probable that the Oracles, Temples of Sleep, and other holy places of antiquity were created in a very similar manner.

In hypnotism, we may, perhaps, yet discover the key to many other miracles. Among such is the changing of a serpent into a rod, mentioned in the Bible. Verworn reports in his work on the so-called hypnosis of animals, that when experimenting with an Egyptian spectacle-snake, he observed that the snake lay motionless if adroitly seized at the back of the head and the nape of the neck pressed with the fingers. He connects this state of the snake with the changing of a serpent into a rod. Moreover, he himself, in contradistinction to other investigators, does not reckon these states of animals as true hypnoses. If these and other miracles mentioned in the Bible admit of an easy explanation through researches based on hypnotism, the attacks which some people have on that account made on investigators of hypnotism are surely quite unjustified. Rohnert and Ziegler, for example, are particularly opposed to any attempt being made to explain the miracles of the Bible by hypnosis. They consider it disparaging to Holy Writ. Even if, as is only natural, nobody's feelings should be wounded by the scientific explanation of miracles, we ought not to prevent investigators to-day explaining in a scientific way things which at one time passed for miracles.

The piety of people who after earnest deliberation can yet see in this any danger to religion, must be only very superficial. For certainly some people, and perhaps not the most irreligious, consider it jthe most miraculous work of the Deity that all things follow immutable laws. From the standppint of religion, the scientific explanation of miracles - i.e., the explanation according to the law of causality, will appear much more sublime than the dogmatic acceptance of insignificant wonders. At all events, the assumption that hypnotism is undermining religion by explaining miracles, is quite untenable.

In the foregoing paragraphs we have become acquainted with the connection of hypnotism with the history of civilization, and there is just such a connection with ethnology. Moral contagion, and the suggestibility upon which its efficacy depends, plays a great part in the morals, customs, and actions of uncivilized races. Vierkandt denotes it absolutely as an important advance in ethnology, that more attention is paid to the action of emotion, of suggestion, and of the prevailing habits of thought than was done formerly; moreover, he openly expresses the opinion, suppressed by so many people, that our own convictions also, and the actions that proceed from them, are frequently on no higher level than those of yore. But there is another special part that hypnotism plays with respect to ethnology, and to this Vierkandt has likewise called attention, He ascribes to suggestion an essential influence in producing the belief in sorcery, that certainly constitutes so essential a portion of the domain of ethnological research. "Human beings, especially when in a state of great excitement or of mental disturbance caused by the prevailing idea, often believe themselves really changed into animals.

People who have unwittingly eaten tabooed fruit have sometimes died when their offence was subsequently made known to them. It has frequently been proved that the knowledge of being bewitched can make people really ill. On the other hand, we see even in the present day how belief in the powers of sorcery can free from disease." Bartels, also, in his Medizin der Naturvolker gives many details concerning the suggestive power of magic practices. These and many other considerations prove, without further trouble, how hypnotism has assisted ethnology, and, more particularly, ethnological psychology.