It is not necessary, I think, to discuss in detail the meaning of this much-abused but, in the main, very well- defined word, 'suggestion.' The general conception may be sufficiently well indicated for the present by the fol- lowing quotations from authorities. They all agree on the main phenomenon, their definitions differing in the place of emphasis, according as one aspect rather than another supplies ground for a theory. I may gather them up in my own definition, which aims to describe the fundamental fact apart from theory, and is therefore better suited to our preliminary exposition. I have myself defined suggestion as "from the side of consciousness...the tendency of a sensory or an ideal state to be followed by a motor 1 See, however, Chap- XIII., below.
io6 Suggestion.
state/* ^ and it is " typified by the abrupt entrance from without into consciousness of an idea or image, or a vaguely conscious stimulation, which tends to bring about the muscular or volitional effects which ordinarily follow upon its presence."^ Janet defines suggestion as **a motor reaction brought about by language or perception."^ This narrows the field to certain classes of stimulations, well defined in con- sciousness, and overlooks the more subtle suggestive in- fluences emphasized by the Nancy school of theorizers. Schmidkunz makes it: ''die Herbeirufung eines Ereig- nisses durch die Erweckung seines psychischen Bildes."^ This again makes a mental picture of the suggested * event ' in consciousness necessary, and, besides, does not rule out ordinary complex associations. It neglects the requirement insisted upon by Janet, i.e., that the stimu- lus be from without, as from hearing words, seeing actions, objects, etc. Wundt says: " Suggestion ist Association mit gleichzeitiger Verengerung des Bevvusstseins auf die durch die Association angeregten Vorstellungen." ^ In this definition Wundt meets the objection urged against the definition of suggestion in terms of complex associa- tion, by holding down the association to a 'narrowed con- sciousness;* but he, again, neglects the outward nature of the stimulus, and does not give an adequate account of how this narrowing of consciousness upon one or two associated terms, usually a sensori-motor association, is 1 Science, Feb. 27, 1891, where many of the observations given in this chapter were first recorded.
2 Handbook of Psychology., II., 297.
* Psych, der Suggestion.
" Hypnotismus u. Suggestion, II. Abs.
General Definition. 107 brought about. Zieheu: *' In dcr Bcibringung der Vor- stellung liegt das Wesen der Suggestion." ^ Here we have the sufficient recognition of the artificial and external source of the stimulation, but yet we surely cannot say that all such stimulations succeed in getting suggestive force. A thousand things suggested to us are rejected, scorned, laughed at. This is so marked a fact in current theory, especially on the pathological side, that I have found it convenient to use a special phrase for conscious- ness when in the purely suggestible condition, i.e., ' reac- tive consciousness.' 2 The phrase 'conscious reflex' is sometimes used, but is not good as applied to these sug- gestive reactions: for they are cortical in their brain seat, and are not as definite as ordinary reflexes.
For my present purposes, the definition I have given from my earlier work is sufficient, since it emphasizes the movement side of suggestion. The fundamental fact about all suggestion, — not hypnotic suggestion alone, which some of the definitions which I have cited have exclusive reference to,^ — is, in my view, the removal of inhibitions to movement brought about by a certain condition of con- sciousness, which may be called 'suggestibility.' The fur- ther question, what makes consciousness suggestible, is open to some debate. There are two general statements, — not to elaborate a theory here however, — which are not done justice to by any of the earlier theories. We may say, first, that a suggestible consciousness is one in which the ordinary criteria of belief are in abeyance; the coeffi- 2 Loc. cit., pp. 60 ff., and Chap. XII.
8 See the section below in this chapter (§ 7) in which the main facts of hypnosis are briefly stated, and the further references to the theory of hypnotism in § 3 of the chapter on Volition, below.
1 08 Sicggestion.
cients of reality, to use the terms of my earlier discussion of belief,^ are no longer apprehended. Consciousness finds all presentations of equal value, in terms of uncritical reality-feeling. It accordingly responds to them all, each in turn, readily and equally. Second: this state of things is due primarily to a violent reaction or fixation of atten- tion, resulting in its usual monoideism, or 'narrowing of consciousness.' For belief is a motor attitude resting upon complexity of presentation and representation. Just as soon as this mature complexity is destroyed, belief dis- appears, and all ideas ' become free and equal ' in doing their executive work. Each presentation streams out in action by suggestion; and stands itself fully in the pos- session of consciousness, with none of the pros and cons of its usual claim to be accepted as real, gaining also the still greater establishment which comes from the return wave upon itself of its own motor discharge. The ques- tion of suggestion becomes then that of the mechanism of attention in working three results: (i) the narrowing of consciousness upon the suggested idea, (2) the conse- quent narrowing of the motor impulses to simpler lines of discharge, and (3) the consequent inhibition of the discriminating and selective attitude which constitutes belief in reality.
The truth of these general statements is thoroughly confirmed by the observation of children in whom the gen- eral system of adjustments, which constitute the 'worlds of reality ' of us adults, are not yet effected. Little chil- dren are credulous, in an unreflective sense, even to illusion. Tastes, colours, sensations generally, pains, pleasures, may 1 Handbook, II., Chap. VII.
Physiological Suggestion. 109 be suggested to them, as is shown by the instances given in later pages.
It is, however, to the truth of the fundamental fact of normal motor suggestion found in children, that I wish to devote a large part of this chapter; and observations of reactions clearly due to such suggestion, either under nat- ural conditions or by experiment, lead me to distinguish the following kinds of suggestion, mentioned in the follow- ing paragraphs, in what I find to be about the order of their appearance in child-life.
By * suggestion ' is understood ordinarily ideal or ideo- motor suggestion, — the origination from without of a motor reaction, by producing in consciousness the state which is ordinarily antecedent to that reaction; but obser- vation of an infant for the first month or six weeks of its life leads to the conviction that its life is mainly physiolog- ical. The vacancy of consciousness as regards anything not immediately given as sensation, principally pleasure and pain, precludes the possibility of ideal suggestion as such. The infant at this acfe has no ideas in the sense of distinct memory images. Its conscious states are largely affective. Accordingly, when the reactions which are purely reflex, and certain random impulsive movements, are excluded, we seem to exhaust the contents of its motor consciousness.
Yet even at this remarkably early stage H. was found to be in a degree receptive of suggestion, — suggestion conveyed by repeated stimulation under uniform condi- tions. In the first place, the suggestions of sleep began to tell upon her before the end of the first month. Her 1 1 o Suggestion.
1 1 o Suggestion.
nurse put her to sleep by laying her face down and pat- ting gently upon the end of her spine. This position soon became itself not only suggestive to the child of sleep, but sometimes necessary to sleep, even when she was laid across the nurse's lap in what seemed to be an uncomfortable position.
This case illustrates what I mean by physiological sug- gestion. It shows the law of physiological habit as it bor- ders on the conscious. No doubt some such effect would be produced by pure habit apart from consciousness; but, consciousness being present, its nascent indefinite states may be supposed to have a quality of suggestiveness, which indicates the degree of fixedness of the habit. Yet the fact of such a colouring of consciousness in connection with the growth of physiological habit is important more as a transition to more evident suggestion.
The same kind of phenomena appear also in adult life. Positions given to the limbs of a sleeper lead to movements ordinarily associated with these positions. The sleeper defends himself, withdraws himself from cold, etc. Chil- dren learn gradually the reactions upon conditions of posi- tion, lack of support, etc., of the body, necessary to keep from falling out of bed, which adults have so perfectly. All secondary automatic reactions may be classed here, the sensations coming from one reaction, as in walking, being suggestions to the next movement, unconsciously acted upon. The state of consciousness at any stage in the chain of movements, if present at all, must be similar to the baby's in the case above, — a mere internal glim- mering, whose reproduction, however brought about, re- enforces its appropriate reaction.
The most we can say of such physiological suggestion is, that the conscious state is always present, and that the ordinary reflexes may be subsequently abbreviated and facilitated.
Professor Ribot says as much as this. ''When a physio- logical state has become a state of consciousness, through this very fact it has acquired a particular character...It has become a new factor in the psychic life of the individual — a result that can serve as a starting-point to some new (either conscious or unconscious) work." And again: "Volition is a state of consciousness...it marks a series, i.e., the possibihty of being recommenced, modi- fied, prevented. Nothing similar exists in regard to auto- matic acts that are not accompanied by consciousness...Each state of consciousness...in relation to the future development of the individual, is a factor of the first order." ^ Schneider, also, writing from the phylogenetic point of view, says: "All purely physiological movements serve a single definite purpose, are always the same; psy- chological movements, on the contrary, have the peculiar- ity that they serve dijferent purposes, follow upon quite different stimulations, and adapt themselves to circum- stances by combination and modification...Other- wise we would not have any consciousness, for there would be no use for it...So in connection with every movement which is accompanied by a phenomenon of consciousness, we may hold, that this phenomenon of con- sciousness is really necessary {ivirklicJi noting ist) for the determination of the movement." ^ A more positive pro- 1 Diseases of Personality., pp. 15-16. Ribot in his text, however, notes mainly the phylogenetic advantage of consciousness as memory, on which see below, Chap. IX., § 3, and Chap. X., §§ 2, 4.
2 Der theorische Wille, p. 53.
1 1 2 Suggestion.
nouncement on the presence of consciousness in all reac- tions to which the term ' suggestion ' may be applied is that of Moll. He says: "■ TJiere is no suggestion without co7i- sciousness. It makes no difference whether the suggestion is made through imitation or by a command...I must insist in opposition to Mendel that there is consciousness of what is suggested, and that this is the main point in the matter. A suggestion without consciousness is to me inconceivable." ^ In hypnotic experimentation, the influence of such sub- conscious or physiological suggestions is now generally recognized under the general doctrine of hyperaesthesia of the senses. Ochorowicz calls the general phenomenon of suggestion ideoplasty,^ and when no clear idea is neces- sary to the effect as in my 'physiological' suggestion, he speaks of 'physical ideoplasty.' He says: ''We have ideoplasty whenever the thought alone of any functional modification determines such functional modification...• the thought of yawning itself produces yawning, etc." ^ A particular observation made upon my child E. dur- ing her second year, may serve to make clear this first stage of suggestion. She learned to go to sleep sucking her bottle, the rubber of which was left in her mouth while she slept. Now, at any sound, touch, or other sud- den stimulation, such as the flaring up of the light, she began with more or less vigour to suck the bottle, giving no other sign of awaking whatever, and really not awaking, but only passing from a deeper sleep, or less consciousness, to a lighter sleep, or more consciousness. Now, as I inter- 2 Ochorowicz, Mental Suggestion, p. 25.
pret it, the stimulus, arousing more brain process, height- ened the sleep or dream consciousness, brought out the sensations in the lips about the rubber, and these sensa- tions by physiological suggestion set up the sucking move- ments. These movements in turn had their habitual in- fluence in sending the child off into deep sleep again. Then, later, it is probable that even the lip sensations were not necessary; but the increased dynamogeny of the increased sensory consciousness simply poured itself into the lip- movement channels, since they were associated last and always with the conditions of sleep.
Liebault was brought to recognize this phenomenon by the possibility of suggesting purely physical functions suc- cessfully to very young children. ^ I have also a remarkable case of the sug-o^estion of a DO function to report from the life of my child E. She, at a little over two years, was well trained to cleanly personal habits, always informing her nurse or mother of her needs. Her sister H, and she were about this time busy with the inventive games of childhood, in which H., the older, took the place of 'mama,' and the little one became her 'baby.' This play was carried consistently into the most minute and sustained details. Very soon the children's mother was astonished to find that E. was making use occasion- ally of certain hidden corners for a minor function, which she would announce by violent weeping after its perform- ance. It turned out that in the game of ' mama ' and 'baby,' 'mama' was accustomed to put 'baby' to sleep 1 See the case of chronic constipation cured by suggestion by Liebault in a babe one year old, quoted by Ochorovvicz, loc. ciL, p. 247 (with his context). Certain facts in the habits of animals, such as the stopping of a dog at a tree because some other dog has stopped there, are analogous.
1 1 4 Suggestion.
1 1 4 Suggestion.
on sofa, floor, etc., but told her to perform the custom- ary physical functions before 'going to bed.' The child acted upon the suggestion in the way of docile obe- dience to her supposed 'mama.' And it was only after the act, that her sense of the true realities of her train- ing, and her proper personal relationships, broke in to destroy the semblance of reality which had made the suggestion so effective.
We may adopt a diagrammatic representation of the ele- ments of a motor reaction at this point for convenience, calling it the 'motor square.' Figure IX. presents a square of which each corner represents a physiological process, as it may occur with or without consciousness, as follows: — Let sg = suggestion (sensory process); mp = seat of motor process; int = movement of muscle; inc — conscious- FiG. IX. — ' Motor Square.' Fig. X. — Physiological Suggestion.
ness of movement (kinaesthetic process). The sides of the square are connections between the seats of these pro- cesses. The relation of the elements of the 'motor square' to other cerebral elements, and the relation of this scheme to others proposed by Lichtheim, Kussmaul, etc., are spoken of later.^ The stimulus sg (Fig. X., in which crosses at the corners indicate nervous processes only, and circles indicate vague 1 Below, Chap. XIII., § 3.
states of consciousness) starts the hiotor process vip; it leads to movement, vit, which is reported to conscious- ness, inc. The line between sg and mc is broken, because at this stage in infancy, associations are only just beginning to be formed between a feehng of muscular movement and its stimulating sensation.
The cases of ' physiological suggestion,' as now de- scribed, tend, inasmuch as they involve elements of con- sciousness, to take more definite form, as * sensori-motor suggestions,' to which we may now turn.
These cases of suggestion may again be best illustrated from the phenomena of infancy, before a close definition is attempted. And first we may note some instances of what may be called general suggestions of this sort.
I. General. — Variotis Sleep Suggestions. — From the first month on, there was a deepening of the hold upon the child H. of the early method of inducing sleep. The nurse, in the meantime, added two nursery rhymes. Thus position, pats, and rhyme sounds were the suggesting stimuli. Not until the third month, however, was there any dif- ference noticed, when the same suggestions came from other persons. I myself learned, during the fourth month, to put her to sleep, and learned with great difficulty, though pursuing the nurse's method as nearly as possi- ble. Here, therefore, was a sleep suggestion from the personality of the nurse, — her peculiar voice, touch, etc., — of which mention is made more fully below. At this time I assumed exclusive charge of putting H. to sleep, in order to observe the phenomena more closely. For a month or 1 1 6 Suggestion.
1 1 6 Suggestion.
six weeks I made regular improvement, reducing the time required from three-quarters of an hour to half an hour, finding it easier at night than at midday. This indicated that darkness had already become an additional sleep sug- gestion, probably because it shut out the whole class of sensations from sight, thus reducing the attention to stimulations which were monotonous, ^ In the following month (sixth), I reduced the time required, day or night, to about a quarter of an hour, on an average. In this way I found it possible to send her off to sleep at any hour of the night that she might wake and cry out.
I then determined to omit the patting, and endeavour to bring on sleep by singing only. The time was at first lengthened, then greatly shortened. I now found it pos- sible (sixth to seventh month) to put her to sleep, when she waked in the dark, by a simple refrain repeated monotonously two or three times. In the meantime she was developing active attention, and resisted all endeavours of her nurse and mother, who had been separated from her through illness, very stubbornly for hours, while she would go to sleep for myself, even when most restless, in from fifteen to thirty minutes. This result required sometimes firm holding down of the infant and a deter- mined expression of countenance.
At the end of the year, this treatment being regular, she would voluntarily throw herself in the old position at a single word from me, and go to sleep, if only patted ^ I found by accident, in this connection, the curious fact that a single flash of bright light would often put H. immediately to sleep when all other pro- cesses were futile. In her fifth month I despaired one evening, after nearly an hour's vain effort, and lighted the gas at a brilliant flash unintentionally. She closed her eyes by the usual reflex, and did not open them again, sleeping uniformly, in from four to ten minutes. This continued through the second year; even when she was so restless that her nurse was unable to keep her from gaining her feet, and when she screamed if forced by her to lie down. The sight of myself was sufficient to make her quiet; and in five minutes, rarely more, she was sound asleep. I found it of service, when she was teething and in pain, to be able thus to give her quiet, healthful sleep.
This illustrates, I think, as conclusively as could be desired, the passage of purely physiological over into sensory suggestion; and this is all that I care, in this connection, to emphasize.
Food and ClotJiing Suggestion. — H. gave unmistak- able signs of response to the sight of her food-bottle as early, at least, as the fourth month, probably a fortnight earlier. The reactions were a kind of general movement toward the bottle, especially with the hands, a brightening of the face, and crowing sounds. It is curious that the rubber on the bottle seemed to be the point of identifica- tion, the bottle being generally not responded to when the rubber was removed. This was also true of E., to whom the rubber alone without the bottle became a remarkable quieting agent, as I have already mentioned. The sight of the bottle, also, was suggestive much earlier than the touch of it with her hands.
H. began to show a vague sense of the use of her articles of clothing about the fifth month, responding at the proper time, when being clothed, by ducking her head, soundly and long. I afterwards resorted to this method on several occasions, carefully shielding her eyes from the direct light rays, and it generally, but not always, succeeded. Shortly after noticing this in the columns of Science (Feb. 27, 1 891), I heard from a prominent psychologist that his wife could confirm the observation from experience with her own children.
1 1 8 Suggestion.
extending her liancl or withdrawing it. About this time she also showed signs of joy at the appearance of her mittens, hood, and cloak, before going out.
II. Siiggestiojis of Personality. — It was a poet, no doubt, who first informed us that the infant inherits a peculiar sensibility for its mother's face, — a readiness to answer it with a smile. This is all poetic fancy. It is true that the infant does smile very early; E. clearly smiled at me on her seventh day and at her mother on the ninth. But it is probably a purely reflex indica- tion of ao'reeable orcranic sensation. When the child does begin to show partiality for mother or nurse, it is because the kind treatment it has already experienced in connec- tion with the face has already brought out the same smile before in this organic way; the mother's face, that is, grows to suggest the smile. At first it is not the face alone, but the personality, the presence, to which the child responds; and of more special suggestion, the voice is first effectual, then touch, as in the case of sleep above, and then sight. Such suggestions are among the most impor- tant of infancy, serving as elements in the growth of the consciousness of self and of external reality, as we shall have occasion to see later on.
Delaying for the moment the further analysis of this remarkable class of suggestions, the question occurs, are not these so-called ' suggestions ' simply cases of the asso- ciation of ideas? I think we are warranted in answering, ' No '; for the reason that it is not an associated idea that is brought up; unless we are prepared to enlarge the ordi- nary conception of association to include phenomena of the vaguest psychological meaning. The muscular move- ment is produced without the production of an idea of that movement, largely through native pathways of dis- charge, or by the production of organic conditions, such as sleep, which involve muscular conditions. Can we say that the sleep suggestions first bring up an idea or image of the sleep condition, or that the bottle brings up an idea of the movements of grasping, or even of the sweet taste? I think the case is more direct. The energy of stimulation passes over into the motor reaction through the medium of the conscious state; although the con- scious state is undoubtedly enveloped in an envelope or fringe of organic and muscular sensation which is of marked hedonic quality. Further, as will appear clearer below, it is not an association plus a suggestion, or an association plus an association, as current atomistic doc- trines of association would lead us to expect. We cannot say that pleasure or pain always intervenes between the present state of consciousness and the motor reaction, i.e.y mother's face, pleasure recalled, expression of pleasure, or present bottle, sweet taste, movements to reach. I believe all this is quite artificial and unnatural. The most that can be said is that the conscious state as a whole, with its hedonic colouring, serves to bring about a modification of the reaction, whether it be a native one, or one established by association or habit. ^ The elements are as before for physiological suggestion, except that the reaction begins with a clearly conscious process at sg (Fig. XL), and the child is getting associa- tions between sg and mc.
The phenomenon of 'personality-suggestion,' to which we may now return, is so important in the growth of the 1 Ochorowicz describes the same class of phenomena as ' ideorganic associations based on habitude,' Mental Suggestion, p. 232.
1 20 Suggestion.
child's consciousness of himself, of his belief in realities about him, and of his social life, that it should be closely scrutinized. This is the more important because such an analysis has never been made upon the basis of actual ob- servation of children. The treatment which follows is Fig. XL — Sensori-motor Suggestion.
based upon most detailed and watchful inspection of H. and E., together with careful but less intimate observation of two other young children, one of them a boy, with es- pecial reference to the development of the sense of their own relation to the persons who moved about them.^ As outcome of this kind of observation, and with no intermixture of interpretation, which may be now left over, I find no less than four phases of attitude involved in what afterwards becomes the so-called 'social sense' in the child. I say 'afterwards becomes,' because all of them belong in the 'projective '2 stage of the child's sense of self, i.e., they all go to furnish data which he afterwards appropriates to himself as 'subject.' These four phases are indescribably subtle and indescribably intermixed in the subjective e7i- semble of the growing child. So much so that I shall not attempt in all cases to cite actual situations to justify ^ Some observations on the presence of something similar to this class of suggestions in animals have already been given above, p. 19; see also p. 126.
Sens ori-mo tor Suggestion. 121 each point: rather, the view I take rests upon innumerable situations, and their differences from one another. Just as one is utterly unable to give examples of his own phases of attitude expressive of the nuances of meaning which the actions of others bring out of him, so, entirely a matter of insight and intuition must his sense be of what is in the child's mind in the various social situations which confront him from day to day. Nevertheless, the drift of the infant's development is very clear to the sym- pathetic observer; and I think the instances which I cite will be sufficient to excite in all those familiar with little children a sense of the truth of the general portrayal.