is some vivid and dominating anti-sinning idea rammed deep into the brain.  The religions have been the chief means of effecting this; and the Church, that draws men together, and into the presence of God, for the reinforcing of their better selves, is the most efficacious of instruments for the control of sin.  But the existence of a vast, and by most men hardly tapped, reservoir of power for righteousness (whether or not it is thought of as God) is recognized today by science as well as by religion; and we must here discuss the matter in a purely secular way.  We can control our conduct if we care enough to set about using the forces at our disposal.  The various religions have found and used them; modern psychology, analyzing their success, shows us clearly and exactly how to succeed, even if we stand aloof from religion altogether.

Psychologically considered, this whole affair of saintliness or sinfulness is a matter of the preponderant idea.  To have merely resolved is not enough; our moral forces must be drilled and made ready before the battle.  This fortifying process we nowadays call “suggestion.”  By it we can so “set” our minds, so deepen the channels that flow toward the right actions, that when the time of conflict comes our minds will work along those grooves.  Habit, to be sure, means a deep-cut channel in the mind; it may require much effort to dig a deeper one to take its place.  Unless the work is persistently carried through, the mental currents, diverted temporarily into the new course, will soak through the barriers and find their old bed again.  Moreover, different minds differ greatly in their plasticity, their susceptibility to suggestion.  But the great fact remains that habits can be made over, temptations rendered harmless, and character formed, by this simple means.

It may be worthwhile to remind ourselves of the remarkable power of suggestion.  It is most strikingly seen at work in the phenomena of hypnotism, because a person who is hypnotized is in a peculiarly susceptible state; he is asleep to everything but the words of the hypnotist, which thus have full influence over him, except as checked and balanced by the preexisting bias of his mind.  Hypnotism is simply the perfect case of suggestion, isolated from disturbing factors.  The hypnotizing process itself, the putting to sleep, is only preliminary to the suggestion; and to patients who are difficult to hypnotize, “waking suggestion” is given, with the patient in as relaxed and empty a state of mind as possible.  The popular notion that healing through hypnotism is uncanny and dangerous is, of course, entirely erroneous.  To be sure, every great power has its dangers from misuse, and hypnotism is not to be used except for proper ends; but there is nothing occult about it.  It simply uses the psychological truth that the mind acts on the predominating idea, by lulling to sleep all ideas but the one wanted and impressing that upon the mind.  Immediate and lasting moral changes are daily being effected through suggestion by professional hypnotists.