Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/140

 122 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

on the part of an audience. Each audience will bear or will require more or less of it, according to its average level of culture; but in every case there is a limit beyond which it becomes intolerable. But apart from the grade of culture of the audience, there is a second important qualifying con dition. Even the casual observer must have noted the fact that a large assembly calls for higher tones of voice and more vigorous gesticulation than a small gathering, and the speaker will by a sort of instinct use them. Higher tones of voice are, of course, necessary simply in order to be heard, and as there is a natural correlation of the tones of the voice with gestures, the higher pitch of voice is almost inevitably accompanied by more vigorous gesticulation. And there is not only need of louder tones in order to be heard, but of more ample physical movements in order to be adequately seen. This, however, is not the whole explanation. In a great mass of people the emotional situation is more in tense, 1 and this naturally affects the speaker, intensifying his emotions, which normally find vent in more emphatic and excited modes of expression. A third qualification of the rule should also be noted. Much depends upon the speaker s temperamental peculiarities. His nervous system may be so organized that he tends naturally to over-do, or what is almost as bad under-do vociferation and ges ticulation. Either defect should, of course, be corrected as far as possible by stern self-discipline under the direction of a competent instructor in expression. But all qualifying conditions aside, the rule is a safe one avoid excessive vociferation and gesticulation. Restraint of a tendency to free expression of feeling in these ways, if it be manifestly the exercise of self-control, and not timidity or embarrass ment, heightens the effect upon intelligent hearers, because it increases the internal organic tension in the speaker and produces a similar effect upon the observers. For the prin ciple is that, so far as emotional effects are concerned, 2 the

1 See Chapter on Assemblies.

2 Of course, the voice and gesture have another use besides the

�� �