Braid's later works did not attract the attention which they deserved, and perhaps it is proper to base an estimate of his insight into the phenomena of hypnotism upon his more mature but less influential writings. In these, Braid recognized the subjective nature of the phenomena as fully as they are recognized by the extreme representatives of the "suggestionist" school of to-day. Indeed, he spoke of the state as "Monoideism," to emphasize the fact that, while in this condition, the subject's mind was totally absorbed in one idea; and that this narrow concentration of consciousness, this influence of the dominant idea, completely controlled mental and physical action, and rendered the subject insensible to all other stimuli. Braid acquired a profound knowledge of the effects of suggestion, both directly, as verbal suggestion, and the indirect suggestion of manner and expectation. He tells of a physician in London who used "mesmerism" with his patients, and who produced catalepsy of the hands and arms and other wonderful effects by the application of magnets. Braid recognized that the subject, though asleep, was in a condition in which she could hear what was going on. He assured the physician (in the subject's hearing) that he had a little instrument in his pocket, which though not a magnet, would produce equally marked effects. Braid gave the patient the little instrument, with the remark to the physician that it would produce catalepsy in both hands and arms; and such was the result. Next, Braid declared that now she would be unable to hold it, which also was the case, the little instrument dropping out of her hands whenever it was given to her. When the patient was aroused, Braid next told the physician that when the little instrument was suspended on the third finger of the right hand of the patient, it would send her to sleep; to which the physician responded, "It never will." But Braid insisted that it would; and the event proved that he was correct. The little instrument, so variously potent in combination with a proper suggestion, was nothing more than his portmanteau key and ring. It illustrates the reverse of Voltaire's saying, that incantations, together with a sufficient amount of arsenic, will kill your neighbor's sheep. In the same way Braid proved that the experiments which seemed to show that certain persons were sensitive to metals were in reality due to unconscious suggestion, and that when, unknown to the subjects, wood was substituted for metals, the expected results ensued. The peculiar effects described by Reichenbach's sensitives he naturally referred to the same cause; as also the doctrine, then brought forward, that susceptible individuals could perceive the effects of drugs enclosed in sealed vials. All these alleged phenomena were correctly referred to unconscious suggestion and to hyperæsthesia. Homœopathic remedies, he argued, owed their efficiency to the same action of the expectant imagination; for the effect could hardly be ascribed to a quantity so minute that a patient would have to take a dose every second of the day and night for 30,000 years to get a single grain of the substance. He analyzed the possibilities of error in the interpretation of clairvoyance; and showed that perfectly natural and well-understood processes were sufficient to furnish an intelligible mode of accounting for so much of the success as could be verified. He recognized the dangers of hypnotism in inexperienced hands; although he believed that the moral sensibility of the subject was sufficiently retained in the hypnotic condition to prevent the abuse of the state for criminal purposes. He appreciated its field of applicability in the cure of disease, though he by no means regarded it as a panacea, and also its special use in surgical operations. In fine, Braid, in spite of certain shortcomings, which are characteristic only of his earlier writings, stands out preëminently as the first to appreciate at their true value the entire range of the complex factors of the hypnotic condition; to distinguish the genuine phenomena from those which owed their marvelous aspect to unconscious suggestion; and to show the relation of the whole topic to the recognized body of scientific knowledge.