the acts of attention and of memory and of
imagination have shown. _The objective world is molded by the interests
of the mind. Events which are far distant from one another so that we
could not be physically present at all of them at the same time are
fusing in our field of vision, just as they are brought together in our
own consciousness._ Psychologists are still debating whether the mind
can ever devote itself to several groups of ideas at the same time. Some
claim that any so-called division of attention is really a rapid
alteration. Yet in any case subjectively we experience it as an actual
division. Our mind is split and can be here and there apparently in one
mental act. This inner division, this awareness of contrasting
situations, this interchange of diverging experiences in the soul, can
never be embodied except in the photoplay.

An interesting side light falls on this relation between the mind and
the pictured scenes, if we turn to a mental process which is quite
nearly related to those which we have considered, namely, suggestion. It
is similar in that a suggested idea which awakes in our consciousness is
built up from the same material as the memory ideas or the imaginative
ideas. The play of associations controls the suggestions, as it does the
reminiscences and fancies. Yet in an essential point it is quite
different. All the other associative ideas find merely their starting
point in those outer impressions. We see a landscape on the stage or on
the screen or in life and this visual perception is the cue which stirs
up in our memory or imagination any fitting ideas. The choice of them,
however, is completely controlled by our own interest and attitude and
by our previous experiences. Those memories and fancies are therefore
felt as our subjective supplements. We do not believe in their objective
reality. A suggestion, on the other hand, is forced on us. The outer
perception is not only a starting point but a controlling influence. The
associated idea is not felt as our creation but as something to which we
have to submit. The extreme case is, of course, that of the hypnotizer
whose word awakens in the mind of the hypnotized person ideas which he
cannot resist. He must accept them as real, he must believe that the
dreary room is a beautiful garden in which he picks flowers.

The spellbound audience in a theater or in a picture house is certainly
in a state of heightened suggestibility and is ready to r