188 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



'mission of intelligence depends upon suggestion and imi- 

 tation. "Suggestion is a j^rocess of communication result- 

 ing in the acceptance with conviction of the communicated 

 proposition in the absence of logically adequate grounds 

 for its acceptance." -~' Suggestion is an incitement to act 

 that is implanted or aroused, while the individual. affected 

 remains unaware of wliat is happening.^^ The sugges- 

 tion does not have to take the shape of formal language ; 

 it may be conveyed by mere gesture or interjection. 

 During the Great Plague in London, when in the streets 

 lay heaps of dead bodies, and the terrified imagination of 

 the poor people furnished them with all sorts of wild ma- 

 terial to work upon, half-crazed persons thought they 

 saw apparitions of flaming swords held in the air above 

 the city. A woman pointed to an angel clothed in white, 

 and brandishing a sword over his head. She described it 

 with such realism that the crowd about her believed, and, 

 "Yes! I see it plainly, says one, there's the sword as 

 plain as can be; another saw the angel; one saw' his 

 very face and cried out. What a glorious creature he 

 was! One saw one thing and one another. I looked 

 as earnestly as the rest, but, perhaps, not with so much 

 willingness to be imposed upon; and I said indeed, that 

 I could see nothing, but a white cloud, bright upon one 

 side, by the shining of the sun on the other part. The 

 woman endeavored to show it to me, but could not make 

 me confess that I saw it, which, indeed, if I had, I must 

 have lied . . . she turned to me, called me a profane 

 fellow, and a scoffer, told me that it was a time of God's 

 anger, and dreadful judgments were approaching, and 

 that despiserSj.such as I, should wonder and ]ierish."-^ 



27 McDougall, Social Psychology, p. 97. 



28 Giddings, Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 145. 



28 Daniel De Foe — A Journal of the Plague Year, pp. 2.5-28. 



