hat floats,--not because they
have any good reason for doing so, but simply because the suggestion
has "taken." As for the harbingers of spring, they are neither the
birds nor the wild flowers, but the blooming windows of the
milliners, which successfully suggest in wintry February that summer
is coming, and that felt and fur are out of season. It is evident that
all advertising is suggestion.

The training of children, also, if it is done in the right way, is
largely a matter of suggestion. The little child who falls down and
bumps his head is very likely to cry if met with a sympathetic show of
concern, while the same child will often take his mishaps as a joke if
his elders meet them with a laugh or a diverting remark. Unlucky is
the child whose mother does not know, either consciously or
intuitively, that example and contagion are more powerful--and more
pleasant--than command and prohibition.

=Everything Suggestive.= Human beings are constantly communicating,
one to another. Sometimes they "get over" an idea by means of words,
but often they do it in more subtle ways,--by the elevation of an
eyelid, the gesture of a hand, composure of manner in a crisis, or a
laugh in a delicate situation. A suggestion is merely an idea passed
from one person to another, an idea that is accepted with conviction
and acted upon, even though there may be no logic, no reason, no proof
of its truth. It is an influence that takes hold of the mind and works
itself out to fulfilment, quite apart from its worth or
reasonableness. Of course, logical persuasion and argument have their
place in the communication of ideas; an idea may be conveyed by other
ways than suggestion. But while suggestion is not everything, it is
equally true that there is suggestion in everything. The doctor may
give a patient a very rational explanation of his case, but the
doubtful shake of the head or the encouraging look of his eye is quite
likely to color the patient's general impression. The eyes of our
subconscious are always open, and they are constantly getting
impressions, subtle suggestions that are implied rather than
expressed.

=Abnormal Suggestibility.= While everybody is suggestible, nervous
people are abnormally so. It may be, as McDougall suggests, that they
have so large an amount of submission or negative self-feeling in
their make-up that they believe anything, just because some one else
says it is true. Sometimes it is lack of knowledge that