the only way to reach him. Suggest subtly and persistently that the opinions of

those in the audience who are opposed to your views are changing, and it

requires an effort of the will--in fact, a summoning of the forces of feeling,

thought and will--to stem the tide of change that has subconsciously set in.

 

But, not only are we moved by authority, and tend toward channels of least

resistance: _We are all influenced by our environments_. It is difficult to rise

above the sway of a crowd--its enthusiasms and its fears are contagious because

they are suggestive. What so many feel, we say to ourselves, must have some

basis in truth. Ten times ten makes more than one hundred. Set ten men to

speaking to ten audiences of ten men each, and compare the aggregate power of

those ten speakers with that of one man addressing one hundred men. The ten

speakers may be more logically convincing than the single orator, but the

chances are strongly in favor of the one man's reaching a greater total effect,

for the hundred men will radiate conviction and resolution as ten small groups

could not. We all know the truism about the enthusiasm of numbers. (See the

chapter on "Influencing the Crowd.")

 

Environment controls us unless the contrary is strongly suggested. A gloomy day,

in a drab room, sparsely tenanted by listeners, invites platform disaster.

Everyone feels it in the air. But let the speaker walk squarely up to the issue

and suggest by all his feeling, manner and words that this is going to be a

great gathering in every vital sense, and see how the suggestive power of

environment recedes before the advance of a more potent suggestion--if such the

speaker is able to make it.