Suggestion

“ We must not neglect one other feature of the suggestion. Not every proposition to action or to belief can be called a suggestion. Essential too remains the other side of it, the overcoming of the resistance. ”

“ Are we not the product of whatever thought we have absorbed during our life? In short, we are that thought embodied, neither more nor less. Steady suggestion makes public [Pg 214] opinion, that terrible, formidable, irresistible wall against which new thought must beat and hack and storm for centuries sometimes before an incision can be made in it. ”

“ It is obvious that in everyday life when by arguments, persuasion, suggestion, punishment, exhortation, or prayer we change the viewpoint of a person, we do so by building up complexes which shall act as settings and give new meanings to his ideas. I 369may add, if we wish to sway him to carry this new viewpoint to fulfilment through action we introduce into the complex an emotion which by the driving force of its impulses shall carry the ideas to practical fruition. ”

“ I beg leave to make use of the word suggestion, because I know not one more proper, to express a power of the mind. which seems entirely to have escaped the notice of philosophers, and to which we owe many of our simple notions which are neither impressions nor ideas, as well as many original principles of belief. I shall endeavour to illustrate, by an example, what I understand by this word. We all know, that a certain kind of sound suggests immediately to the mind, a coach passing in the street; and not only produces the imagination, but the belief, that a coach is passing. ”

“ Intellectually, we conceive or we judge; our past feelings, in Simple Suggestion, of image after image, arise again, in colours more or less faint, without any known cause exterior to the mind. By our capacity of the other species of Suggestion, we are impressed with feelings of a different order, that arise when two or more objects are contemplated together,—feelings of their agreement, proportion, or some one or other of the variety of their relations. ”

“ And this influence, not through persuasion, imagination, citation, but through those still unexplained remote effects which may be best compared with “determining.” Suggestion is as widespread as language. We receive suggestions through the stories of friends, through the examples of strangers, through our physical condition, through our food, through our small and large experiences. Our simplest actions may be due to suggestion and the whole world may appear subject to the suggestion of a single individual. ”

“ For, when a belief is propagated by collective suggestion through the large mass of men, each falls under the suggestive sway of the whole mass; and under these conditions the operation of suggestion is further aided by the universal tendency of mankind to imitation and sympathy, the tendency to imitate the actions of, and to experience the emotions expressed by, those about one. ”

“ Nathan C. Schaeffer, Thinking and Learning to Think.
When we weigh, compare, and decide upon the value of any given ideas, we reason; when an idea produces in us an opinion or an action, without first being subjected to deliberation, we are moved by suggestion. ”

“ That being so, the great thing is to get a standard for fundamental, unchangeable, and sufficient suggestion to which you can always turn, and which is automatically impressed upon your subconscious mind so deeply that no counter-suggestion can ever take its place ”

“ In the treatment of thought and feeling they wanted clearness, they wanted ideas which the mass of men would readily apprehend and assent to, and they wanted not hints or half-spoken suggestions but complete statement. ”

“ We have not space to be exhaustive, nor in fact to offer much more than suggestions; but we want the suggestions to be explicit, and we hope that they may stimulate some reader, and may perhaps help him in completing his own trains of thought. ”

“ The same is the case with the ideas which the composer of a discourse selects out of the multitudes, which the continual suggestions of the interesting Idea by which he is actuated, that of his end, bring before him. ”

“ Reason (or, as some prefer to call it in this limited sense, Understanding) is the power by which we compare, and, from our comparisons, draw inferences or conclusions. By means of it we compare the suggestions of the Imagination with the suggestions of Experience, and accept or reject the former in accordance with the result of our comparison.
xii. Hope
Hope is desire, of which we imagine the fulfilment, while recognizing the presence of doubt. ”

“ These suggestions should be made in the form of spoken words, and they should be steadily persisted in until the desired effect is produced. A constant reiteration of the declaration that the head is better will inevitably produce the desired result ”

“ It is in the writings of these illustrious characters that we find originality of thought, justice of sentiment, and force of reasoning, occasionally elevating our conceptions, convincing our judgments, and softening our feelings. Many more examples might be adduced of those who prefer the exercise of composition to that of conversation, and who, in silently meditating upon some rational subject, and in recording the spontaneous flow of ideas and reflections, have felt a silent satisfaction, and an enlargement of mind, never found among the restraints, or the gaieties of society. ”

“ There is a literature of reasoned thought; but by far the greater part of those writings which we reckon worthy of47 that great name is the product, not of reasoned thought, but of the imagination and of the spiritual vision of those who see,—writings winged, not with knowledge, but with sympathy, with sentiment, with heartiness. Even the literature of reasoned thought gets its life, not from its logic, but from the spirit, the insight, and the inspiration which are the vehicle of its logic. Thought presides, but sentiment has the executive powers; the motive functions belong to feeling. ”

“ I assent to the veracity of sense, and I believe that the very perception or sensible image is the external object, and on no account whatever will I consent 'to disclaim this principle.' Your philosophy—your more rational opinions— representation—your reasonings which, you say, necessitate me to depart from my primary instincts—all these I give, without reservation, to the winds. ”

“ But the universal form in which any opinion comes to your consciousness, and gets its definition for your own mind, is this form of an appeal to an insight that is superior in grasp, in unity, in coherence, in reasonableness to your momentary insight. ”

“ Every one does in fact understand the question ‘Is this good?’ When he thinks of it, his state of mind is different from what it would be, were he asked ‘Is this pleasant, or desired, or approved?’ It has a distinct meaning for him, even though he may not recognise in what respect it is distinct. ”

“ Mind, mode of thinking, mode of thinking and feeling, moral and intellectual constitution, that mystic transparency full of pulses and motions, this thinking apparatus,—whichever phrase or image we adopt, there are certain appertaining considerations which we have to take along with us.
(1.) There is the consideration of differences of degree, quality, and worth. Mind may be great or small, noble or mean, strong or weak; the mode of thinking of one person or one time may be higher, finer, grander than that of another ”

“ Whether the wish is father to the thought, or whether sentiment and idea have a common genesis, there equally arises the question—Whence comes the sentiment? That it is a constituent in man’s nature is implied by the hypothesis ”

“ First, then, there are certain respects in which I fully agree with recent pragmatism. I agree that every opinion expresses an attitude of the will, a preparedness for action, a determination to guide a plan of action in accordance with an idea. Whoever asserts anything about the way out of the woods, or about the cause and possible cure of a toothache, defines a course of action in accordance with some purpose, and amongst other things predicts the {146} possible outcome of that course of action. ”

“ If you will be candid, and bring your mind into a suitable condition to be reasoned with, we will call you to the consideration of questions which, if properly answered, will lead us into the true light of our subject. ”

“ If the discussion of such comparatively tangible matters can occupy a large part of one's attention, imagine the result of the insistent desire, on the part of the doubter, to solve such problems as "What is thought?" "What is existence?" ”

“ For, on the other hand, it has been urged and we feel, that it is thought which constructs and sustains the fabric of experience, and that it is thought-determinations which invest even sense-experience with its value and its meaning. ”

“ I mean by this that the conceiving or theorizing faculty—the mind's middle department—functions exclusively for the sake of ends that do not exist at all in the world of impressions we receive by way of our senses, but are set by our emotional and practical subjectivity altogether. [2] It is a transformer of the world of our impressions into a totally different world,—the world of our conception; and the transformation is effected in the interests of our volitional nature, and for no other purpose whatsoever. ”

“ That all these, both within and without, are Suggestive; that one idea, or image, or object, suggests another, or others, no one will deny, who has ever thought about his own thinking. It is like saying, all mental pictures are composite ”

“ In other words, we shall find that while, for our purposes, we, the critics, must first sharply distinguish the apparently external purpose that, as it were, from without, we assign to the idea, from the internal meaning of the idea, as present to a passing conscious instant, still, this our assignment of the external purpose, this our assertion that the idea knows or resembles, or imitates, or corresponds to, fact wholly beyond itself, must in the end be justified, if at all, by appeal to the truth, i.e. ”

“ Now, if we will annex a meaning to our words, and speak only of what we can conceive, I believe we shall acknowledge that an idea which, considered in itself, is particular, becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort. ”

“ In the elaboration of each separate idea, a compensating mutual relation with some other cognate idea is found, which brings a fresh agency to bear upon, assimilate or clash with it; such attrition, different from that which wastes and diminishes physical bodies, serving to sharpen and refine the mind, correct, enlarge or perfect the idea. ”

“ As a result we shall soon find that, just as our first statement of the insight of reason, if indeed it is a true statement, transforms our view of the sense in which the world is real, so a deeper study of the relations of insight to action transforms our first cruder notion of the reason itself, of its office in life, and of the truth that it reveals. ”

“ Consideration, as it were, opens the door between the head and the heart. The understanding having received truths, lays them up in the memory, and consideration conveys them from thence to the affections. ”

“ If we would have our resolutions take effect, we must take heed unto our ways, set a watch before the door of our lips, and examine the motions that arise in our heart, whence they come, and whither they go; whether it be pride or passion, or any corrupt humour, that prompteth us to any design, and whether God will be pleased with it? ”

“ In their conversation and on their crockery, before every house and behind every counter, the elegant formula makes its appearance, teaching people not merely how to think, but what should be thought, and when. ”

“ And so, in fact, your opinions are always appeals to some form of wider or larger or deeper or richer insight that, in the act of appealing to it, you regard as a present or as a past or as a future reality--in brief, as a live and perfectly concrete insight to whose verdict you appeal. Philosophers often express this by saying that all opinions are nothing but efforts to formulate the real contents of experience. ”

“ By the side of the intellectual element, by which we estimate our thoughts and actions, there is feeling; that is, the sensibility which modifies the judgment and enlightens the deep thought determining our responsibility. ”

“ We should propose to ourselves nobler views, namely, to recreate and exalt the mind with a prospect of the beauty, order, extent, and variety of natural things: hence, by proper inferences, to enlarge our notions of the grandeur, wisdom, and beneficence of the Creator," etc., etc., etc. ”

“ However, to win ampler credence for my conclusion, I will pursue both paths, and draw confirmation for my statements first in one way and then in the other.
'The carrying out of any human action depends upon two things—to wit, will and power; if either be wanting, nothing can be accomplished. ”

“ In this sense, when we say, "What a wonderful idea!" we really mean, what a wonderful fitness of form to idea,-- which is the same as saying, what a wonderful form, or more technically, what a wonderful unity. ”

“ Let the ideas of being and matter be strongly joined, either by education or much thought; whilst these are still combined in the mind, what notions, what reasonings, will there be about separate spirits? ”

“ Besides, in questions of expression so intricate, it is almost impossible to advance fixed principles; every mind will have perceptions of its own, which will guide its speculations, every hand, and eye, and peculiar feeling, varying even from year to year. ”

“ And again, in all persuasions that are wrought by eloquence, and other impressions of like nature, which do paint and disguise the true appearance of things, the chief recommendation unto reason is from the imagination. ”