222
��PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
��this revolution has as yet only indirectly influenced the lives of the great masses of women.
Under these circumstances it would be remarkable if women were not far more suggestible then men. In mat ters which lie wholly beyond the range of their experience they, of course, accept with little questioning what they have heard or read, just as everybody does. There are many important affairs in which they take only an indirect or secondary interest, about which they entertain, however, very positive and perhaps intolerant opinions the reflec tion of the opinions of their fathers or husbands or broth ers, or the men to whom they for some reason look for leading. This is true as to politics, theology, and the the ory of life in general. In these matters women are very suggestible, if the suggestions come from the men who are their acknowledged leaders; extremely unsuggestible if the suggestions come from some other source and conflict with the authority which they have accepted. Most women have no first-hand interest in such matters. Their primary in terest is in persons, not theories, and from the persons who enjoy their supreme confidence and allegiance they usually receive uncritically their theoretical views, which are likely to be held with passionate positiveness simply because the personal relations which determine them involve such deep feelings. It is their extreme readiness to receive sug gestions as to such matters from certain persons which renders them extraordinarily resistant to suggestions from others.
Women are also more subject to collective suggestion than men. Prevalent social standards and codes are more readily accepted by them, and it is alleged that " fashion " is all-powerful with them. Probably men would have diffi culty in establishing their claim to as great a degree of superiority in this respect as they assume ; but all the con ditions of their life tend to make women especially sus ceptible to this form of suggestion. It is quite impossible to explain on any other ground numerous anomalies and
�� �
