The second division of this historical development is carried on by Braid, whose most important service was emphasizing the subjectivity of the phenomena. Without any connection with him, and yet by following out almost exactly the same experiments, Professor Heidenhain reached his physiological explanations. A third division is based upon the discovery of the hypnotic condition in animals, and connects itself to the _experimentum mirabile_. In 1872 the first writings on this subject appear from the pen of the physiologist Czermak; and since then the investigations have been continued, particularly by Professor Preyer.
While England and Germany were led quite independently to the study of the same phenomena, France experienced a strange development, which shows, as nothing else could, how truth everywhere comes to the surface, and from small beginnings swells to a flood which carries irresistibly all opposition with it. This fourth division of the history of hypnotism is the more important, because it forms the foundation of a transcendental psychology, and will exert a great influence upon our future culture; and it is this division to which we wish to turn our attention. We have intentionally limited ourselves to a chronological arrangement, since a systematic account would necessarily fall into the study of single phenomena, and would far exceed the space offered to us.
James Braid's writings, although they were discussed in detail in Littré and Robin's "Lexicon," were not at all the cause of Dr. Philips' first books, who therefore came more independently to the study of the same phenomena. Braid's theories became known to him later by the observations made upon them in Béraud's "Elements of Physiology" and in Littré's notes in the translation of Müller's "Handbook of Physiology;" and he then wrote a second brochure, in which he gave in his allegiance to braidism. His principal effort was directed to withdrawing the veil of mystery from the occurrences, and by a natural explanation relegating them to the realm of the known. The trance caused by regarding fixedly a gleaming point produces in the brain, in his opinion, an accumulation of a peculiar nervous power, which he calls "electrodynamism." If this is directed in a skillful manner by the operator upon certain points, it manifests itself in certain situations and actions that we call hypnotic. Beyond this somewhat questionable theory, both books contained a detailed description of some of the most important phenomena; but with the practical meaning of the phenomena, and especially with their therapeutic value, the author concerned himself but slightly. Just on account of this pathological side, however, a certain attention has been paid to hypnotism up to the present time.