There is nothing in all this witchcraft of yours but a very powerful moral influence at work--I mean apart from the mere faculty of clairvoyance which is possessed by hundreds of common somnambulists, and which, in you, is a mere accident.

The rest, this hypnotism, this suggestion, this direction of others' wills, is a moral affair, a matter of direct impression produced by words.

Mental suggestion may in rare cases succeed, when the person to be influenced is himself a natural clairvoyant.

But these cases are not worth taking into consideration.

Your influence is a direct one, chiefly exercised by means of your words and through the impression of power which you know how to convey in them.