Article March 6, 1920 Issue

Signs of the Times

[The Times (London), Educational Supplement]

In a recent article we were reminded that, according to "Dejerine," treatment by suggestion deals with symptoms alone. To put it shortly, what is to be desired is that we should be immune to suggestion, and that result is not to be produced by using suggestion, even as a cure....

Suggestion, by its very name, means, not an appeal to reason, but a working by some means upon the unconscious, so that we shall come to believe or do or feel something without knowing how we have been wrought upon or what is the reason of the change in our thoughts, feelings, and actions. Undoubtedly suggestion is one of the chief molders of human nature to-day, but it is also one of the chief dangers to our civilization; and those who use it habitually, and even with a good aim, especailly upon children, are on the side of darkness and against light. For by the use of suggestion, no matter for what purpose, they make their pupils less subject to reason, more at the mercy of any emotion; and the chief danger to our civilization, in these days of large publicity, is a public of all classes which would rather get its opinions and its feelings by the easy method of suggestion than by the hard way of knowledge.

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