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 ASSEMBLIES 26l

strength might, if not carried to an excess which obliterates their reason, render them to some extent more open to divine influences. We have stated it as a possibility, but can it not be safely asserted as a universal fact that each man does acquire in individual experience some peculiar attitude of mind, or mode of thought, or point of view a mental trait of some kind or other which forms an obstruction to the forces of moral regeneration? If this be true and it is en tirely consonant with the teaching of psychology the con clusion is that a moderate degree of mental fusion is nor mally conducive to genuine religious experience, especially in the case of adults.

2. Something should be said in conclusion about the de liberative body. Manifestly this is an assembly of a distinct psychological type. It is at the farthest possible remove from the accidental concourse; and the individuals compos ing it are drawn together for the definite purpose, not of receiving some intellectual or emotional stimulation, but of taking part in discussion and contributing each his part to ward a collective decision of certain issues. This gives them a special attitude of mind, which largely determines the character of the mental processes of the body. So long as this attitude is maintained the suggestibility of each is reduced to a minimum; his critical faculties are in the as cendant. But how shall this attitude be preserved ?

(i) In the first place it is much easier to maintain the deliberative attitude if the assembly is a small one. The reasons are obvious. The greater the number of persons between whom a common feeling is reflected back and forth, the more intense becomes the emotion. A dozen people who read in each other s faces the same impulse or sentiment will each be proportionately affected; if a thousand people see the same feeling reflected in each other s countenances, each is again proportionately affected, though one qualifying condition must be taken into account, viz., that each will be more powerfully affected by those near him than by those more distant, because he discerns more clearly the bodily

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