We must think of suggestion both as an effect and as a cause.  Considered as an effect, or objectively, there must be something in the hearer that predisposes him to receive suggestion; considered as a cause, or subjectively, there must be some methods by which the speaker can move upon that particularly susceptible attitude of the hearer.  How to do this honestly and fairly is our problem—­to do it dishonestly and trickily, to use suggestion to bring about conviction and action without a basis of right and truth and in a bad cause, is to assume the terrible responsibility that must fall on the champion of error.  Jesus scorned not to use suggestion so that he might move men to their benefit, but every vicious trickster has adopted the same means to reach base ends.  Therefore honest men will examine well into their motives and into the truth of their cause, before seeking to influence men by suggestion.

Three fundamental conditions make us all susceptive to suggestion: 

We naturally respect authority. In every mind this is only a question of degree, ranging from the subject who is easily hypnotized to the stubborn mind that fortifies itself the more strongly with every assault upon its opinion.  The latter type is almost immune to suggestion.

One of the singular things about suggestion is that it is rarely a fixed quantity.  The mind that is receptive to the authority of a certain person may prove inflexible to another; moods and environments that produce hypnosis readily in one instance may be entirely inoperative in another; and some minds can scarcely ever be thus moved.  We do know, however, that the feeling of the subject that authority—­influence, power, domination, control, whatever you wish to call it—­lies in the person of the suggester, is the basis of all suggestion.

The extreme force of this influence is demonstrated in hypnotism.  The hypnotic subject is told that he is in the water; he accepts the statement as true and makes swimming motions.  He is told that a band is marching down the street, playing “The Star Spangled Banner;” he declares he hears the music, arises and stands with head bared.

In the same way some speakers are able to achieve a modified hypnotic effect upon their audiences.  The hearers will applaud measures and ideas which, after individual reflection, they will repudiate unless such reflection brings the conviction that the first impression is correct.

A second important principle is that our feelings, thoughts and wills tend to follow the line of least resistance.  Once open the mind to the sway of one feeling and it requires a greater power of feeling, thought, or will—­or even all three—­to unseat it.  Our feelings influence our judgments and volitions much more than we care to admit.  So true is this that it is a superhuman task to get an audience to reason fairly on a subject on which it feels deeply, and when this result is accomplished the success becomes noteworthy, as in the case of Henry Ward Beecher’s Liverpool speech.  Emotional ideas once accepted are soon cherished, and finally become our very inmost selves.  Attitudes based on feelings alone are prejudices.