the same length, but the more suggestible individual keeps
on making each succeeding line longer. There are, however, various
tests for suggestibility, and an individual who succumbs to one does
not necessarily succumb to another, so that it may be doubted whether
we should baldly speak of one individual as more suggestible than
another.

{549}

Suggestion may be exerted by a person, or by the circumstances. If by
a person, the more "prestige" he enjoys in the estimation of the
subject, the greater his power of suggestion. A prestige person is one
to whom you are submissive. A child is so dependent on older people,
and so much accustomed to "being told", that he is specially
susceptible to prestige suggestion.

Suggestion exerted by the circumstances is about the same as what is
often called "auto-suggestion" or "self-suggestion". A man falls and
hurts his hip, and, finding his leg difficult to move, conceives that
it is paralyzed, and may continue paralyzed for some time.

"Counter-suggestion" applies to cases where a suggestion produces the
result contrary to what is suggested. You suggest to a person that he
should do a certain thing, and immediately he is set against that act,
though, left to himself, he would have performed it. Or, you advance a
certain opinion and at once your hearer takes the other side of the
question. Quite often skilful counter-suggestion can secure action,
from children or adults, which could not be had by positive suggestion
or direct command.

If suggestion succeeds by arousing the submissive tendency,
counter-suggestion succeeds by arousing the assertive tendency.
Suggestion works when it gets response without awakening the
resistance which might be expected, and counter-suggestion when it
arouses so much resistance that the suggestion itself does not have
the influence which might be expected. In terms of stimulus and
response, suggestion works when a particular stimulus (what is
suggested) arouses response without other stimuli being able to
contribute to the response; and counter-suggestion works when a
stimulus (what is suggested, again) is itself prevented from
contributing to the response. In counter-suggestion, response to the
suggestion itself is inhibited, and in positive {550} suggestion
response to other stimuli is inhibited. Both involve narrowness of
response, and are opposed to what we commonly speak of as "good
judgment", the taking of all relevant stimuli into accoun