offered have any material effect as processes of ratiocination in producing any logical conviction upon their minds.  An English boy is Whig or Tory because his father, and his brothers, and his uncles are Whigs or Tories.  He may, indeed, have many arguments at his command with which to maintain his opinions, but it is not the force of the arguments that has convinced him, nor do they have any force as a means of convincing the other boys to whom he offers them. They are controlled by their sympathies, as he is by his.  But if he is a popular boy, and makes himself a favorite among his companions, the very fact that he is of this or that party will have more effect upon the other boys than the most logical and conclusive trains of reasoning that can be conceived.

So it is with the religious and political differences in this and in every other country.  Every one’s opinions—­or rather the opinion of people in general, for of course there are many individual exceptions—­are formed from sympathy with those with whom in mind and heart they have been in friendly communication during their years of childhood and youth.  And even in those cases where persons change their religious opinions in adult age, the explanation of the mystery is generally to be found, not in seeking for the argument that convinced them, but for the person that led them, in the accomplishment of the change.  For such changes can very often, and perhaps generally, be traced to some person or persons whose influence over them, if carefully scrutinized, would be found to consist really not in the force of the arguments they offered, but in the magic power of a silent and perhaps unconscious sympathy.  The way, therefore, to convert people to our ideas and opinions is to make them like us or love us, and then to avoid arguing with them, but simply let them perceive what our ideas and opinions are.

The well-known proverb, “Example is better than precept,” is only another form of expressing the predominating power of sympathy; for example can have little influence except so far as a sympathetic feeling in the observer leads him to imitate it.  So that, example is better than precept means only that sympathy has more influence in the human heart than reasoning.

The Power of Sympathy in Childhood.

This principle, so powerful at every period of life, is at its maximum in childhood.  It is the origin, in a very great degree, of the spirit of imitation which forms so remarkable a characteristic of the first years of life.  The child’s thoughts and feelings being spontaneously drawn into harmony with the thoughts and feelings of those around him whom he loves, leads, of course, to a reproduction of their actions, and the prevalence and universality of the effect shows how constant and how powerful is the cause.  So the great secret of success for a mother, in the formation of the character of her children, is to make her children respect and love her, and then simply to be herself what she wishes them to be.