One repeatedly hears stories of how the dowser has found water when geologists have failed, but the man who is sufficiently uncritical to accept the working of the twig as due to some strange 'gift' is likely to be as credulous in observation and beliefs concerning the rest of the phenomena.
CHAPTER VI
SUGGESTION
'The power of suggestion' is a plausible explanation of varied phenomena. By it the feelings of a crowd are swayed, fashions are spread, mistakes are made, and beliefs are imposed upon the multitude, and in the production of hypnotic and hysterical manifestation the words 'power of suggestion' and 'personal magnetism' are sufficient explanation of all things visible and invisible.
'Personal magnetism' and its kindred phrases implying the existence of some subtle physical force are, except when used figuratively, mere incoherences, but suggestion is an undoubted cause of certain effects and we must try to understand the meaning of the word.
McDougall defines suggestion as 'a process of communication resulting in the acceptance with conviction of the communicated proposition in the absence of logical grounds for its acceptance'.[8]
Our thinking (apart from the observation of cause and effect in the small affairs of ordinary life) is generally a matter of complexes, logic being concerned only in rare cases; hence if we use the above definition the greater part of our accepted propositions owe their acceptance to suggestion. This is true as regards most of our political, religious, and social beliefs, and, since children believe what they are taught chiefly because the teacher says so, there does not seem much opinion or knowledge of the abstract for which suggestion is not accountable.
If a suggestion agrees with the complexes already existing in the mind of the hearer then acceptance is likely to follow; this partly explains the psychology of crowds and the power of oratory, which appeals to emotions and prejudice rather than to reason. The knowledge that one's fellows believe is sufficient to convince the ordinary man, and often the existence of widespread belief is used as an argument to prove the truth of a proposition. One recognises this tendency at once in people of another race and other superstitions. An educated Chinese once assured me that blood from those nearly related would mix if dropped into a bowl of water, and drops from the veins of strangers would remain apart, and that this test was used to decide cases of disputed relationship. When I showed incredulity my friend assured me, 'It's true, quite true, every one knows it.'