e of the suggestion because a new motor adjustment has set
in, in which he is prepared to act as if there were no smell.

The difference between suggestion and attention lies thus only in this:
the motor response in attention aims towards a fuller clearness of the
idea, for instance, by fixating, listening, observing, searching; while
the motor response in suggestion aims towards the practical action in
which the object of the idea is accepted as real. In attention, we
change the object in making it clearer; in suggestion, we change
ourselves in adapting ourselves to the new situation in which we
believe. If you consider attention as a psychophysical process open to
physiological explanation, you have surely no reason to seek anything
mysterious in the process of suggestion; and no new principle is
involved, if we come from the effect of the smallest suggestive hint to
the complex and powerful suggestions which overwhelm the whole
personality.

The two great types of suggestion, the suggestion of actions and the
suggestion of ideas, have now come nearer together since we have seen
that the suggestion of ideas is really a suggestion of the practical
acceptance of ideas, and that means, of a preparation towards a certain
line of action. In the one case I suggest the idea of a certain action
and this motor idea leads to the action itself, and in the other case I
suggest a certain preparatory setting for action and that will lead to
the appropriate action whenever the time for action comes. Every
suggestion is thus ultimately a suggestion of activity. The most
effective suggestion for an action results, of course, if both methods
are combined, that is, if we suggest not only the will to perform the
action, but at the same time the belief that the end of the action will
be real. Suggestion reaches us usually from without. Yet there is again
no new principle involved, when the new motor setting results from one's
own associations and emotions. Then we speak of auto-suggestion. It is
the same difference which exists between the attention called forth
through an outer impression and the attention directed by our own will.
Loud noise demands our attention, and even a whispered word may awaken
associations which stir up the attention. In both cases the channels for
adjustment become opened without our intention. But if we are expecting
something of importance, if we start to watch a certain development and
to find something whic