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 234 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING

make use of this art. It is also obvious from what has been said that it may sometimes be legitimately used for worthy purposes. But while it is freely granted that it has its spheres of legitimate use, it is also true that those spheres are limited. It is brought under suspicion by the very fact that it aims at the uncritical acceptance of the presentation. There is in it a certain lack of openness and straightforwardness. It is not exactly a form of mental burglary; but when one is dealing with adults it procures assent, belief and action captures the mind by indirec tion and evasion.

This characteristic sharply differentiates suggestion from persuasion. Both aim at influencing the belief and action of another; but the methods are very different, if not directly opposite. Persuasion seeks something more than uncritical assent and unreflective action; its objective is rational con viction and action, which is the reaction of the whole mind. Its method, therefore, is to face all the essential issues, to meet and fairly allay all opposing considerations by open reasoning. In persuasion, appeals to the feelings are legiti mate, important; but the appeals must be made in the light of all the relevant facts and conditions. In suggestion the effort is to avoid arousing the self of the person into full activity, often to reduce his self-activity to a minimum, and thus to graft one s own idea or purpose on to his mental life. In persuasion the effort is to help another in his self-activity to reach a rational and satisfactory conclusion, by a skilful and truthful presentation of the favouring and opposing considerations. This is the ideal, but of course persuasion often falls short of this ideal ; it may degenerate into an illegitimate appeal to motives which should have but a small influence, if any, in determining the decision a form of pressure which over-bears the reasons which ought to be determinative. Or the temptation to adopt the method of suggestion may become too strong, and the persuader seek to win his point by diverting attention from considerations which it would be inconvenient for him to meet by counter-

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