but it is entirely in harmony with the point of view being developed in this paper to insist that the function of ideas in suggestion is to act as signals. But signals rather for what is essentially an instinctive process; and not all ideas are capable of this function, and, further, it is not only ideas that can set the instinctive machinery in motion.

Of the definitely therapeutic school of psychologists Freud1 comes probably nearest to the social and biological point of view, in his doctrine that suggestion is transference, or more accurately stated, that “suggestibility is nothing else but the tendency to transference." Transference, which is "the radiation of Libido towards other persons in object-investment" is a natural capacity in all persons, and therefore suggestibility is normal and potentially universal. The way it works (as positive) is to endow the person to whom the transference is made with authority; it "transforms itself into faith in his findings and in his views." And "faith repeats the history of its own origin; it is a derivative of love and at first it needed no arguments." Consequently the person on whom the libido is fixed is a perpetual and prolific source of suggestion to the subject, precisely because his reason is in abeyance, and his instinctive tendencies are in a state of heightened activity. There are two points that call for comment here: (1) Freud's use of the term 'libido' as equivalent to 'sexuality,' which might seem to be artificially limiting the range of those conative tendencies which are the ultimate power-house of suggestion. This point is of no great importance, however, if we remember that Freud practically means by 'sexuality' the whole range of instinct energy, and not merely 'adult sexuality.' Jung, of course, definitely uses the term for psychic energy, or force, which flows along the channels of the special instincts2. (2) Freud lays strong emphasis on 'faith' as the characteristic element in suggestibility. It is perfectly true that faith does increase suggestibility (or at least may do so), but it is not true that faith and suggestibility are the same. Faith is characterised by a conscious mental activity (whatever other elements enter also into its constitution) which is conspicuously absent in suggestion, and the process of suggestion as such does not necessarily involve faith at all. Faith, which is to be absolutely distinguished from blind credulity (which may probably be the result of suggestion) is a conscious and intelligent state of mental activity; suggestion essentially is an unconscious and instinctive reaction to certain kinds of stimulus. 1 Sigmund Freud, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, translated by Joan Riviere, 1922, pp. 372-3.

C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious, translated by Beatrice M. Hinkle, 1919, ch. II.

McDougall1, though he approaches the problem from the social point of view, makes the same mistake. His definition, which is perhaps the best known and most widely accepted, is: "Suggestion is a process of communication resulting in the acceptance with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of logically adequate grounds for its acceptance." There is not necessarily any question of conviction involved in a process of suggestion at all. It would not be correct to describe the state of mind of a hypnotised subject whose right arm has been rendered anaesthetic by suggestion as 'conviction' about anything -the state of mind is really one of domination by an influence outside the range of consciousness. It is, indeed, very largely the fact that there is an absence of conviction and of the power to have convictions, that constitutes suggestibility in this case. What McDougall presumably means is that the subject of suggestion behaves in regard to what is suggested as other persons might behave if they were deeply and profoundly convinced. It is quite possible to recognise that there are no adequate grounds for the acceptance of some article of religious faith and yet to determine to believe that article of faith because you would rather it were true than false, but such acceptance is not the result of suggestion. Religious faiths do actually get accepted by suggestion, but the people who are most suggestible are those with few settled convictions, and what results in their minds cannot be called conviction; it is obsessional opinion. You only have a feeling of conviction about something which has involved some measure of mental effort to gain; what arrives through suggestion is beyond all feelings of this character: it is altogether taken for granted, rooted in the ultimate reality of things. While in this direction McDougall is too wide in his definition, in another he is too narrow, just as the psychotherapists tend to be. Suggestion is very frequently a process of communicating propositions, but it is not only this. Indeed proposition would seem to be narrower than idea which has already been criticised as inadequate. The trouble with all the theories so far considered is essentially that they look upon the problem not only from a purely human point of view, but from a partial human point of view, emphasising those aspects of suggestion which most naturally lend themselves to the conscious manipulation of the physician.

Once it is realised that suggestion is not a rational process it is natural to conclude that it is not a merely human phenomenon, and that when physicians or others make use of suggestion for therapeutic purposes they are really setting in motion a mechanism which has or has

1 William McDougall, Social Psychology, 2nd ed. 1909, p. 97.

had some biological function to play in the evolution of mind as part of life as a whole. If so what is essential in the process will be that which is common to lower forms of mind and the human, not what is characteristic of the human, complicated as that inevitably is by the presence and operation of free ideas and reason. Dr Rivers, approaching this and other psychological problems from the point of view of a happy combination of the therapeutic and the anthropological interests, definitely attempted to account for suggestion in terms of its biological function, and this led him to define it (so far as he regarded it as 'definable1') as 'a process or mechanism of instinct.' In Mind and Medicine he said: "I use the term for a process which belongs essentially to the instinctive side of mind. It is the representative in Man of one aspect of the gregarious instinct, the instinct which makes it possible for all the members of a group to act in unison so that they seem to be actuated by a common purpose. According to this view it is a process which differs essentially in nature from those mental processes which produce uniformity of behaviour by endowing the members of a group with a common idea or a common sentiment. Its activities lie definitely within the unconscious sphere, so that when the physician employs suggestion consciously, he is using in an artificial manner an agency which belongs properly to the region of the unconscious." Accordingly "...it is convenient to use the term suggestion...as a comprehensive term for the whole process whereby one mind acts upon another unwittingly." The gregarious instinct, Rivers maintained, is one which came into existence "in order to produce and maintain the cohesion of the group" and "the essential function of the gregarious instinct is that it shall lead all the members of a group to act together towards the common purpose of furthering the welfare of the group5." Thus just as the sex instinct acts within a given individual in such a way as to make it peculiarly sensitive to the presence of an individual of the opposite sex of the same species, and to stir up feeling and activities which normally end in union, without there being any definite idea of sexual union, so we are to suppose that the gregarious instinct acts within any

1 W. H. R. Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, 2nd ed. 1922, p. 93, says: "As soon as we recognize that suggestion is essentially a process of the unconscious, and that its different aspects also have this nature, we have to renounce the clearness of definition which is possible in the case of the processes and products of consciousness."

2 Ibid. p. 91.

3 Mind and Medicine. A lecture delivered in the John Rylands Library on the 9th April, 1919, 2nd ed. 1920, p. 17.

Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, p. 91.

5 Ibid. p. 90.

individual of a species in such a manner as to render it peculiarly sensitive to the presence of the group as a whole, and to stir up feeling and activities which normally end in action of that kind which is in the interest of the group as a whole. This sensitiveness to the group presence and the tendencies to common or harmonious action which are initiated is suggestion in its essence, unqualified by the various additional factors which arise from the operation of free ideas and reason.

The same view is accepted and worked out by W. Trotter1. For him suggestibility is essentially sensitiveness to the voice of the herd, a characteristic which is indispensable to the homogeneity of the herd. Every member of the herd tends to follow the lead of other members, and in turn to act as leader; but the leader who is most representative of the normal will be the most followed. Looking at this, so far as possible, from within, and assuming a species thus instinctively endowed and also self-conscious, it is clear that "impulses derived from herd feeling will enter the mind with the value of instincts-they will present themselves as a priori syntheses of the most perfect sort needing no proof but their own evidence."" This feeling will not be limited to specific acts, but will be characteristic of any opinion derived from herd suggestion. We are thus led to see that suggestion is not a peculiar process which happens only when we are dealing with abnormal people, but as we know it, in its various forms, it is still the same essentially instinctive mechanism which operates throughout the wide field of animal mind, only modified and artificialised by the interaction with it of other and later developed mechanisms of mind. The physician, the priest, or the orator who communicates ideas or stirs up feeling and action through suggestion is stimulating the psychic traces of the gregarious instinct in those upon whom he practises, though he may also be skilfully combining other methods of influence with that which is rooted in instinct. The growth of intelligence indeed renders it difficult to present a case of pure instinctive suggestion, for in all experiment, whether in therapy or in a laboratory, the process is no longer of the unwitting character which it is in its simplest and most elementary form. Even the widespread phenomena of herd suggestion to which Trotter points in the everyday life of modern society do not display the process in the quite unwitting form; there is a good deal of witting manipulation on the part of 'leaders' of public opinion, and a good deal of 'faith' on the part of many who are the subjects of suggestion. This interpretation of suggestion will be found to cover all the actual 1 W. Trotter, Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. J. of Psych. (Med. Sect.) III

2 Ibid. p. 30.

facts of suggestion as they appear in human society, and also to link these facts up with that larger range of facts which is involved in the thoroughgoing application of the doctrine of evolution to mind. It is impossible to attempt to demonstrate this in detail within the limits of this paper, but reference may be made to one outstanding question which is frequently discussed, but which cannot be answered by reference to any objective standard on the merely therapeutic or abnormal theories of suggestion. Why are there the remarkable variations which experience presents us with in suggestibility? In view of all the facts the reply that it is a sort of mental disease or weakness is no reply at all. We are all suggestible, more or less. The majority of us are far more so than less. If we judge by mere numbers and apply the term 'abnormal' at all those who are most indifferent to suggestion are the abnormal people-which only shews, incidentally, as Trotter has insisted, how futile the term is as ordinarily used. But once the essential fact is grasped that suggestion is an original mechanism of the mental equipment, it becomes simply a matter of psychological analysis to trace the course by which this original mechanism is overlaid and modified by the growth of intelligence, and the building up of instinctive and emotional raw material into organised sentiments. The tendency is for suggestibility in general to decrease in proportion to the increase of general education. In the language of Freud the more the libido is directed towards objects which form a rational system, so that mental energy is being usefully and intelligently expended, the less libido is available for being side tracked by suggestion. But there are few who can claim that the whole of their mental activity is satisfactorily engaged upon a completely rational system of ends or purposes, and therefore there are few who are not in some measure, and at some point liable to suggestion. The variation of suggestibility in different persons thus depends upon two main factors: (1) the amount of instinct energy with which they are endowed, (2) the extent to which this energy in any person is under the guiding control of organised sentiments and rational purposes. The ordinary person is only rational in some few more or less specific directions. He may be rational in his business, but wholly irrational in politics, religion and so forth, and consequently suggestible in these directions. Consequently the only way to eliminate suggestion altogether would be to eliminate ignorance altogether. Until such time all members of the human herd will be suggestible in varying degrees, the variations depending on the extent to which reason is actually and continuously at the helm.