The names of Milne Bramwell,
Fechner, Liebault, William James, Myers and Gurney, he found, bore a
value now that would have astonished their contemporaries. Several
practical applications of psychology were now in general use; it had
largely superseded drugs, antiseptics and anesthetics in medicine; was
employed by almost all who had any need of mental concentration. A real
enlargement of human faculty seemed to have been effected in this
direction. The feats of "calculating boys," the wonders, as Graham had
been wont to regard them, of mesmerisers, were now within the range of
anyone who could afford the services of a skilled hypnotist. Long ago
the old examination methods in education had been destroyed by these
expedients. Instead of years of study, candidates had substituted a few
weeks of trances, and during the trances expert coaches had simply to
repeat all the points necessary for adequate answering, adding a
suggestion of the post-hypnotic recollection of these points. In process
mathematics particularly, this aid had been of singular service, and it
was now invariably invoked by such players of chess and games of manual
dexterity as were still to be found. In fact, all operations conducted
under finite rules, of a quasi-mechanical sort that is, were now
systematically relieved from the wanderings of imagination and emotion,
and brought to an unexampled pitch of accuracy. Little children of the
labouring classes, so soon as they were of sufficient age to be
hypnotised, were thus converted into beautifully punctual and
trustworthy machine minders, and released forthwith from the long, long
thoughts of youth.
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