Page:Psychology and preaching.djvu/34

16 with it. As men become more free, more consciously self-directing, the appeal to their rational nature and through that to their emotions becomes more appropriate and more necessary if one seeks to influence their action. On the lower levels of development custom and physical force are the prevailing means of influencing the actions of men; in the later stages they lose their effectiveness, and a larger use must be made of appeals to rational and moral considerations. Literature becomes relatively more important; but this does not mean that public speech declines in power. It must, however, follow the general trend and become more rational, depending less upon the direct stimulation of the basal instincts, crude emotions and fixed prejudices, and more upon the excitation of the higher feelings by the presentation of ideas. Preaching should keep pace with this movement, and if it does, the sphere of its usefulness will not contract but expand. If it be true — and at most it seems to be true only in a relative sense — that preaching is declining in power, the explanation can only be found in the defective character of the preaching. Certainly the opportunities for influencing the actions of men by moral suasion become larger and more various; and if preachers find their power failing, it only emphasizes their duty better to adapt their noble function to the changing conditions of human life.

VI. This chapter should not be closed without some reference to the perplexing problem of the subconscious, although it has no very direct bearing upon the subject of preaching. Coe has given a good summary of the theories of the subconscious as follows: "Three types of theory exist: (1) The neural theory, which holds that all deliverances called subconscious are due to restimulation of brain tracts that have been organized in a particular way through previous experiences of the individual. According to this view, there is no subconscious elaboration or ripening, but only plain reproduction. (2) The