I take it then, that the phenomenon that we call hypnotism, which quite plainly happens when special efforts are put forth, Is constantly happening in lesser degree all about us. The common sense which shapes language is a rich well for the more critical investigator. It is not without good warrant that certain forms of popular oratory are called "spell binding." * Let a condition arise in which men look for leadership and they are perfectly satisfied to take truth at second hand and act accordingly. This fact is both a stay and a menace in all forms of popular government. It is a stay in so far as the ideas which are presented are thereby exposed to devour or be devoured by the other ideas. It is a menace in so far as it makes the will of a small minority proxy for the willessness of the majority, which it immediately stamps with its brand. And it is certainly a just criticism which finds ordinary political discussions strangely lacking in power to make ideas, but wonderfully potent in persuading men to do just what the orator wishes. It is not uncommon for one to give testimony to the wonderful character of a speech not a single point of which he is able to recall.

In fact, one needs no better example of the banefulness of the undue influence of one mind over another than that which our system of political propaganda affords. Patent fallacies are favorite weapons of candidates from presidential aspirants down, and the deceiving of a part of the people all the time is a large factor in the politician's trade. I cannot believe that the tricks, which men to whom we give our attention frequently play upon us, are of a different kind or are rendered possible by any other means than that which the professional hypnotist employs.

But the politician is not alone in securing the too ready and uncritical attention of men. His brother of the cloth wields a power which is quite incommensurate in many cases with the quality of the truth which he presents. So notorious is his employment of it that it has become almost a byword that he can convince his close following of almost anything which he wishes them to believe, and, like the Sophists of old, can make the worse appear the better reason. This is not an indictment of motives, but merely an attempt to understand the power of a method which operates so successfully among us. If one dislikes a present application, he may ask himself whence came the power which spread an enthusiasm for evil deeds so generously in the past. Here again our discussion does not consider motives, but methods of communication, and it seems to me that it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that something almost as powerful as demoniac possession frequently spreads the contagion. The power to make converts, which all fanatics possess, is strangely proportionate, not with the reasonableness of their doctrines, but with the degree of their fanaticism. The breath of scandal is almost as effective in damnation as unquestioned conviction of crime.

Many are in the habit of railing against the truthlessness of the newspapers, but one and all repeat their tales. Most of us affect to despise gossip, yet man is a gossiping animal from the day of the birth of speech in him. It is difficult to convince a thoughtful man that advertising specialists have not mastered the art of suggestion, for their power to create wants, in order that they may supply them, is little short of magical. In fact, one is forced to conclude that much that passes to and fro in social commerce gets its dynamic qualities almost wholly from an interest other than that which normally attaches to it. There are certain rallying words in every vocabulary which possess the magic power of making war or peace (but more commonly the former) whenever they are enthusiastically employed. Crimes have not ceased to be committed in the name of liberty, and no single word has so much power to confuse issues as the various synonyms of the word freedom. The catchwords of any age or time, the demands of business, the exigencies of trade and war, the national life, etc., all exercise a mysterious power and secure a kind of unquestioned attention for which reflection does not always find a warrant.

The various technical fallacies as the psychologist's fallacy, the historian's fallacy, etc., which attach to each of the special sciences, are kindred phenomena of undue mental fixity. I cannot conceive of a social psychology being written which did not give much attention to this class of happenings. The detailed machinery of suggestion, which is employed in each particular attempt to capture the subject's thought, is still a matter for investigation. But undue dependence upon another, which is either voluntarily assumed or due to temporary absent-mindedness, lack of effort to criticize or a resolve to drift with the current, are unvarying marks of such influence. It may be objected that the important factor in social psychology to which I have been alluding is suggestion and not hypnotism. But the line which divides these two forms of phenomena is by no means so easily drawn, that nature which knows no leaps is partial to differences of degree rather than of kind.

* The author has here struck the key-ncte of personal magnetism. The theory that a magnetic personality is antithetic to hypnotic suggestion is entirely untenable and unwarranted by the facts. Whatever force or power one man exercises over another must come through the law of hypnotism. There is no other rational or scientific explanation.

Prof. Moore is in entire accord with all the leading authorities on this phase of hypnotism, and those who wish the secret of personal influence will find it in hypnotic suggestion. - Editor.

In spite of anything which may be said in criticism of such a position, the fact remains that forces which are almost irresistible by men in ordinary conditions, drive them hither and thither quite contrary to their more sober desires. To fear the flabby state of dependence upon another will, of the professional subject, is quite natural, but unwittingly to submit to the blighting influence of irrationality, simply because it comes cloaked in commanding personality or feeds a prejudice which has already put sanity partially asleep, is hardly less destructive. The genuinely democratic age is not yet, nor will it be, until each man begins to usher it in carefully, proving all things and holding fast only to that which is true.