lainable influence
over another, as if the will of the one could control in a mysterious
way the will of the other. But as soon as we see that every action is
the result of the cooeperation of hundreds of thousands of psychomotor
impulses which are in definite relation to antagonistic energies, and
that the result depends upon the struggling and balancing of this most
complex apparatus, then we understand more easily how outer influences
may help the one or the other side to preponderance: as soon as the
balance turns to the one side, a completely new adjustment must set in.
And we understand especially that there is nowhere a sharp demarcation
line between receiving communications and receiving suggestions. By
small steps suggestion shades over into the ordinary exchange of ideas,
propositions, and impressions, just as attention shades over into a
neutral perception.

To be suggestible means thus to be provided with a psychophysical
apparatus in which new propositions for actions close easily the
channels for antagonistic activity. Such an apparatus carries with it
the disadvantage that the personality may too easily be guided contrary
to his own knowledge and experience. He will be carried away by every
new proposition and will accept beliefs which his own thoughts ought to
reject. On the other hand, it has the advantage that he will be open to
new ideas, be ready to follow good examples, never stubbornly close his
mind to the unaccustomed and the uncomfortable. It is easy to determine
the degree of suggestibility. Take this case. I draw on the blackboard
of a classroom two circles of an equal size, and write in the one the
number fourteen and in the other the number eighty-nine, and ask the
children which is the larger circle. The suggestible ones will believe
that the circle with the higher number in it is really larger than the
other, the unsuggestible children will follow the advice of their senses
and call both equal, and there may be a few children with negative
suggestibility who would call the circle with the higher number the
smaller circle. What happened to the suggestible ones was that the
higher number brought about a motor attitude which faced that whole
complex as being more imposing and this new motor setting was with them
strong enough to overcome the motor adjustment which the circles alone
produced. Such experiments of the psychological laboratory can be varied
a thousandfold, and it might not be unw