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 214 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

In addition to these elementary psychological principles, there are two other truths that must be considered in order to understand the phenomena of normal suggestibility. The first is that every organism shows some degree of resist ance to interference with its autonomy. One of the essen tial characteristics of an organism is that it has some degree of spontaneity, some capacity for development from within, some measure of autonomy. If it were to lose its autonomy altogether, it would cease to be an organism. Resistance to interference with its autonomy is a manifestation of the in stinct of self-preservation. The second truth is that the higher the organism stands in the scale of development, i.e., the more complex and the more highly integrated are its functions, the more jealous will it be of its autonomy, the more highly will it appreciate its capacity for development from within, the more stoutly will it resist any encroach ment upon its independent life. In other words, the more of an organism it is, the more will it value its fundamental character as an organism, the more vigorously will it main tain and assert this character. The higher the type of or ganism, indeed, the more dynamic will it be; not only will its resistance to domination by environing agencies be greater, but its disposition to exert a positive, controlling, shaping in fluence upon its environment will increase. According to this principle personalities may be classified as passive, stub born (resistant), and aggressive. Perhaps a better designa tion of the second and third types would be &quot; the contrary &quot; and &quot;the creative.&quot; Of course, none are absolutely passive to be so would be ipso facto the negation of personality. Likewise none are absolutely stubborn or resistant; and none are absolute!}* aggressive. The passive have, of course, some self -activity; the stubborn are in some measure subject to outside influence and exert some measure of posi tive control over others; the aggressive may also be in fluenced to some extent and are under the necessity some times of maintaining themselves by negative resistance. But

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