ows powerful. A man who accepts in the course of a day fifteen or
twenty suggestions that he is ill, has gone a considerable part of the
way towards actual illness. Similarly, when we thoughtlessly
commiserate with a friend on the difficulty of his daily work, or
represent it as irksome and uncongenial, we make it a little harder for
him to accomplish, and thereby slightly diminish his chances of success.

If we must supervise our speech in contact with adults, with children
we should exercise still greater foresight. The child's Unconscious is
far more accessible than that of the adult; the selective power
exercised by the conscious mind is much feebler, and consequently the
impressions received realise themselves with greater power. These
impressions are the material from which the child's growing life is
constructed, and if we supply faulty material the resultant structure
will be unstable. Yet the most attentive and well-meaning mothers are
engaged daily in sowing the seeds of weakness in their children's
minds. The little ones are constantly told they will take cold, will
be sick, will fall down, or will suffer some other misfortune. The
more delicate the child's health, the more likely it is to be subjected
to adverse suggestions. It is too often saturated with the idea of bad
health, and comes to look on disease as the normal state of existence
and health as exceptional. The same is equally true of the child's
mental and moral upbringing. How often do foolish parents tell their
children that they are naughty, disobedient, stupid, idle or vicious?
If these suggestions were accepted, which, thank Heaven, is not always
the case, the little ones would in very fact develop just these
qualities. But even when no word is spoken, a look or a gesture can
initiate an undesirable autosuggestion. The same child, visited by two
strangers, will immediately make friends with the one and avoid the
other. Why is this?--Because the one carries with him a healthful
atmosphere, while the other sends out waves of irritability or gloom.

"Men imagine," says Emerson, "that they communicate their virtue or
vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue and vice emit a
breath every moment."

With children, above all, it is not sufficient to refrain from the
expression of negative ideas; we must avoid harbouring them altogether.
Unless we possess a bright positive mind the suggestions derived from
us will be of litt