ccount.

12. Illustrate how the same anecdote, or a section of a historical
address, may be given two different effects by personal prejudice.

13. What would be the effect of shifting the viewpoint in the midst of a
narration?

14. What is the danger of using too much humor in an address? Too much
pathos?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 24: _How to Attract and Hold an Audience_, J. Berg Esenwein.]

CHAPTER XXII

INFLUENCING BY SUGGESTION

Sometimes the feeling that a given way of looking at things is
undoubtedly correct prevents the mind from thinking at all....
In view of the hindrances which certain kinds or degrees of
feeling throw into the way of thinking, it might be inferred
that the thinker must suppress the element of feeling in the
inner life. No greater mistake could be made. If the Creator
endowed man with the power to think, to feel, and to will, these
several activities of the mind are not designed to be in
conflict, and so long as any one of them is not perverted or
allowed to run to excess, it necessarily aids and strengthens
the others in their normal functions.

--NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER, _Thinking and Learning to Think_.

When we weigh, compare, and decide upon the value of any given ideas, we
reason; when an idea produces in us an opinion or an action, without
first being subjected to deliberation, we are moved by suggestion.

Man was formerly thought to be a reasoning animal, basing his actions on
the conclusions of natural logic. It was supposed that before forming an
opinion or deciding on a course of conduct he weighed at least some of
the reasons for and against the matter, and performed a more or less
simple process of reasoning. But modern research has shown that quite
the opposite is true. Most of our opinions and actions are not based
upon conscious reasoning, but are the result of suggestion. In fact,
some authorities declare that an act of pure reasoning is very rare in
the average mind. Momentous decisions are made, far-reaching actions
are determined upon, primarily by the force of suggestion.

Notice that word "primarily," for simple thought, and even mature
reasoning, often follows a suggestion accepted in the mind, and the
thinker fondly supposes that his conclusion is from first to last based
on cold logic.

_The Basis of Suggestion_

We must think of suggestion both as an effect and as a cause. Considered
as an effect