COLLECTED WORKS OF CHARLES BAUDOUIN

Volume 1

SUGGESTION AND pageThis intentionally left blank AND AUTOSUGGESTION

A Psychological and Pedagogical Study based upon the Investigations made by the new Nancy School

CHARLES BAUDOUIN

Translated from the French by EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL First published in 1920 This edition first published in 2015 by Routledge 27 Church Road, Hove BN3 2FA and by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 1920 Charles Baudouin All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION

A Psychological and Pedagogical Study based u pon the Investigations made by the new N ancy School

Tran.flaud from Ilu French by Eden and Cedar Paul

London George Allen & U nwin Ltd FIRST PUBLISHED OCTOBER 1920 REPRINTED MAY 1921, OCTOBER 19~H, JANUARY 1922 FEBRUARY 1922, MARCH 1922, APRIL 1922 AUGUST 1922 SECOND EDITION (NINTH IMPRESSION) 1924 TENTH IMPRESSION (SECOND EDITION) 1937 ELEVENTH IMPRESSION (SECOND EDITION) 1949 TWELFTH IMPRESSION (SECOND EDITION) 1954 THIRTEENTH IMPRESSION 1962

TMs book is copyright under the Berne Convention. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, crilicism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act 1956, no portion may be reproduced by a'!)l process without written permission. Enquiries should be addreSSfd 10 lhe publisher.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY BRADFORD AND DICKENS, WNDON, W.C. I DEDICATED

WITH GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

TO

EMILE couE

THE STEADFAST WORKER AND PIONEER pageThis intentionally left blank TRANSLATORS' PREFACE

THE dissociation of hypnotism from mysticism and super• stition was efficiently begun by two investigators, Alexandre Bertrand and J ames llraid. Bertrand (TraiU du somnam• bulisme, Paris, I823; Du magnetisme animal en France, Paris, I826) insisted especially upon the psychological deter• minants of the phenomena in question. He maintained that what we now eall the hypnotic state was brought about through the infiuence of the imagination .of the patients acting upon themselves. Her.ein we have the germ of Coue's theory of autosuggestion as expounded in the following pages. Braid, on the other hand (various writings, from I84I to his death in I860), inclined at the outset rather to the physiological explanation of what he was the first to term " hypnotism." It is interesting to note that Braid was a pioneer in the therapeutic use of reflective autosuggestion. He describes his own sufferings. in September I844, from a severe attaek of muscular rheumatism, wh ich had made it impossible for hirn to sleep for three successive nights. He then hypnotised hirnself in the presence of two friends. "At the expiration of nine minutes they aroused me, and, to my agreeable surprise, I was quite free from pain, being able to move in any way with perfect ease .... I had seen like results with many patients; but it is one thing to hear of pain, and another to feel it. My suffering was so exquisite that I could not imagine anyone else ever suffered so intensely as myself on that occasion; and therefore I merely expeeted mitigation, so that I was truly and agreeably surprised to find myself quite free from pain .... A week thereafter I had a slight return, whieh I removed by hypnotising myself onee more; and I ha ve remained quite free from vü viii SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION rheumatism ever sinee, now nearly six years." The observation is quoted by Arthur Edward Waite in his biographical introduetion to Braid on Hypnotism (pp. 45-6). To the eontemporary reader, and above all to students of Coue and Baudouin, it is obvious that the essential feature in the eure was not the "hypnotism" but the autosuggestion. Yet the idea that unconscious autosuggestion is respon• sible for many of our troubles, moral and physical, was slow to mature. Even to-day, people fail to recognise that they are largely wrong when they speak of " the ills that flesh is heir to," and that they should rather in many cases speak of "the ills that fancy breeds." Still more slowly has come the reeognition that in reflective auto• suggestion, scientifically applied, we have in very truth the faith that moves mountains. Healers, official and unofficial, have at all tim es made use of the power of suggestion, but the use has been for the most part uneon• scious. James Goodhart, in his Harveian lectures on Common Neuroses (I894, p. I29), teHs us that "there are many conditions in which the eure must eome mainly from within, our function in chief being to call out this dormant power." But for Goodhart the "rational treatment" of disea-se was still to be found in skilled advice as to regimen and the like; the "dormant power" of reflective autosuggestion was not yet revealed to his discerning gaze. In the most outstanding British work on psychotherapeutics, J. Milne BramweH's Hypnotism (third edition, I9I3), the word autosuggestion is not to be found in the index. Yet Bramwell indines to accept the theory that the phenomena of hypnotism are chiefly explicable by the conception of " the subliminal eonscious• ness," and he reeords as the main feature of this theory that " the essential eharaeteristic of the hypnotie state is the subjeet's power over his own organism." Here we obviously verge upon Coue's teaching. But the affiliations of that teaching can be best understood in the light of a brief analysis of the development of the theory of hypnotism subsequent to the days of Bertrand and Braid. TRANSLATORS' PREFACE ix Substantially, it may be said that the theory of the psychological determination of these phenomena now holds the field. Heidenhain and others cultivated the physio• logical theory with vigour, and for a time with success. Charcot and the Salp~triere school maintained that the phenomena of hypnotism were chiefly, if not exdusively, morbid; that they were manifestations of major hysteria or hystero-epilepsy. But by serious investigators to-day it is gene rally admitted that the views of the Nancy school the views of Liebault and Bernheim, represent the truth, and that the pathological theory of hypnotism now pos• ses ses no more than historical interest. For twenty years A. A. Liebault practised hypnotism at Nancy, having a gratuitous dinic for his poorer patients. He rediscovered that expectation is the primary factor in the causation of hypnotism, that increased suggestibility is the leading characteristic of the hypnotic state, and that the suggester's influence upon his subjects is exerted through mental rat her than through bodilychannels. , professor of medicine at Nancy, was the philosophical expounder of these theories, and it is with the name of Bernheim (died in 1919, at the age of eighty) that the ideas of the first Nancy school are especially associated. Emile Coue, as Charles Baudouin explains in his Preface, has like Liebault devoted many of his best years to the practice of psychotherapeutics in a free dinic, for a time at Troyes and subsequently at Nancy. Baudouin is the first great theoretical exponent of Coue's teaching. He bears much the same relatioJJship to Coue that Bernheim bore to Liebault. He and Coue will speak for themselves through• out the present volume. Enough here to insist on three of the most essential and novel features in the teaching of the New Nancy School: I. The main factor in hypnotic phenomena is not heterosuggestion but autosuggestion; and, as a corollary, the chief advantages of psychotherapeutics can be secured without a suggester and without the more salient features of the hypnotic state. 2. Of fundamental importance to success is the recog- x SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION nition of what Coue terms" the law of reversed effort," the law that so long as the imagination is adverse, so long as a countersuggestion is at work, eftort of the conscious will acts by contraries. We must think rightly, or rather must imagine rightly, before we can will rightly. In a word, our formula must not be, "who wills can"; but " who thinks can " or .. who imagines can." 3. The most significant phenomena of autosuggestion occur in the domain of the subconsdous (unconscious). The new powers which autosuggestion ofters to mankind are based upon the acquirement of a reflective control of the operations of the subconscious. Herein, as Baudouin shows in his Preface and his Conc1usion, the teachings of thc New Nancy School at once confirm and supplement the theories of thc Freudians and the data of .

In the subtitle of Suggestion and Autosuggestion we are told that it is a " psychological and pedagogical study." The educational applications of the teachings of the New Nancy School are, if possible, of even greater interest and importance than the curative applications. It is not always easy to separate the two categories, for from a wide outlook the mentality of the majority of " normal" human beings, the products of what passes to-day by the name of education and the outcome of the of our exceedingly rudimentary sodal environment, may be said to have an essentially morbid quality and to need all the relief that can possibly be given by the healing art. Consequently the apostles of thc new psychology, the Freudians equally with the pu pils of the New Nancy Schoo], are educationists as wen as therapeutists. We find a wh oIe section on "Education and Child-Study" in Ernest ]ones's Psychoanalysis; while the American writer Wilfrid Lay has recently supplemented his volume Man's Unconscious Conflict by a work devoted to the educational side of Freudianism, and entitled The Cht'ld's Unconscious Mind. But the implications of coues prac• tical discoveries and of Baudouin's theories are destined to influence educational work more radically even than TRANSLATORS' PREFACE xi Freudianism can infiuence it. Intelligent educationists have long recognised thatalarge proportion of the effects of education, good or bad, are due to suggestion; but a few years aga M. W. Keatinge, in his volume Su,ggestion in Education (first edition Ig07, second edition IgII) criticised the term autosuggestion as misleading. He wrote, "the idea is really suggested from without, and appears to be • self-suggested' only to the person in whose mind it has been latent." Nevertheless, most careful readers of Baudouin's book will we think agree that in education, as in psychotherapeutics, what goes on in the subject's subconscious is what really counts in the whole process, and that upon the successful appeal to the subconscious largely depends the success of the teacher no less than the success of the healer. Educational theory will have to be wholly reconsidered in the light of the doctrine of autosuggestion as taught at Nancy and at the Jean Jacques Rousseau Institute in Geneva. A careful examination of the successes of the latest educational methods, like those of Maria Montessori and those of Faria de Vasconcellos (A New School in Belgium, London. Iglg), will show that their value is in large part due to an un• witting appeal to the subconscious, and to a skilful though not as yet fully understood utilisation of the pu pils , powers of autosuggestion.

As for the philosophical, psychological, and ethical implications of the new doctrine, yet more interesting (to persons interested in such abstractions) than its bearings upon pedagogy and upon therapeutics, it is not for the translators to add a word here to what Baudouin writes in his eloquent Conc1usion on " Suggestion and thc Will." Those who like to know whither they are being led, may usefully read this brief philosophical section before ap• proaching the preliminary problem" What is Suggestion." In our opinion the Conc1usion is equally valuable as a prcamble to the Introduction, and might be read first as weIl as last. For, after making that intimate acquaintance• ship with Suggestion and Autosuggestion which is one of Xll SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION the privileg es of a translator, we unhesitatingly endorse the author's claim that the teachings of the New Nancy School are destined, in conjunction with the teachings of psychoanalysis, to effect arenovation of psychology. medicine, and pedagogy. As supplements to Bergson• ism the two will probably achieve the renovation of philosoph y as weIl.

EDEN AND CEDAR PAUL. LONDON, May, 1920. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE THIRD FRENCH EDITION, CONTAINING AN ANSWER TO CRITICISM.

WHEN the first edition of Suggestion and Autosuggestion was published, the members of the New Nancy School were few in number, and their reputation was small. The development of the School had been checked by the war, and was only just beginning to show a fresh impetus. Hardly any region had suffered from the scourge more than Lorraine, and here the arrest of social life was even more conspicuous than eIsewhere. The champions of autosuggestion had to concentrate their attention upon practical matters, and they continued to negiect theory. No one had hitherto published an ade• quate account of the movement. In the first volume of Medications psychologiques (I9I9), , who cast his net very wide, made no mention of Coue, although he found a place for the most anomalous therapeutists, even including Antoine the Healer. My childhood and most of my youth were spent in Nancy. My imagination had been stirred by the wonders performed by Bemheim, who would order his subjects to "bum" themselves by touching a cold stove-the burn duly making its appearance. Naturally, therefore, I was ready to feel an interest, somewhat later, in Coue's early successes. Those were the days when all his work was still done in a little room. How few, now, remember the good old days. People who are ready to accuse Coue of beating the big drum, know nothing of these modest beginnings. For my part, I was immediately convinced that the

1 1 2 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION inconspicuous achievements at Nancy would, in the end, become famous. I was convinced (why should I not say so frankly?) that they would mark an epoch in the history of the human mind. I was certain of it by the time I was twenty years old. But it was equally dear to me that the movement was likely to be ignored for a considerable period unless it could find an exponent of its theoretical aspects. When I wrote my book on the subject, it was to bear witness to what I had seen. Some of my friends and readers were surprised that I should enter this new field of work, that I should write a psycho• logical treatise with therapeutical implications. Some of them even blamed me, and perhaps with justice. The excursion was hardly in accordance with my own prin• ciples, hardly in accordance with the " concentration " I advocated. But there were extenuating circumstances. As I have explained, I had to bear testimony, for no better qualified witness was forthcoming. Besides, I did not pretend that .1 was myself building a monument of experimental science. The monument is now being built, stone by stone, and it will be the work of many hands. Medical practitioners and psychologists of various countries in the old world and the new are labouring at it. My only ambition was to urge them to the task. In this respect, I have had a fair measure of success, and my part is played. On the other hand, I think I am entitled to say that the excursion of which I have spoken was not an idle excursion, that my book was not amateurish. Although I consider a lack of concentration disastrous, I share Goethe's opinion, that we may strive to retain a certain amount of universality without falling into the pit of dilettantism. I even think that the effort to retain universality is a necessary part of mental hygiene, in an age when over-specialisation is rife, so that the specialists appear at times to be burrowing blindly like moles. Do I seem to be offering excuses for having written this book? As a matter of fact, my conscience pricks me. fI One who overshoots the mark, misses the target," PREFACE TO THIRD FRENCH EDITION 3 and I am rather afraid that I have overshot the mark! My aim was to draw attention to researches which were being ignored. The result has been, an excess of atten• tion-which is as bad as no attention at all. And fashion has taken a hand in the game. I learn from the

11 Westminster Gazette" that the English version of my book, published in the autumn of 1920, promptly aroused a "sensation," both among scientists and the general public. As a result of this wave of popularity, spreading all over Britain and beyond, there have been daily refer• ences to autosuggestion in the British newspapers• references that range from grave to gay. They are to be encountered in the advertisements of sermons, in political caricatures, in the puffs of life assurance societies. Autosuggestion is the fashion. Now, fashion is often a misfortune; and when I saw this sort of success looming, I found it hard to resist the temptation to despise my own work. Suggestion has attained the degree of popularity in which men and doctrines find their worst enemies among their admirers. Enthusiasts voice such preposterous exag• gerations that they discredit the method in the minds of serious thinkers. We must react vigorously against these exaggerations, even if, in thus reacting, we have to say things that will be disagreeable to certain adepts, and have to give them a salutary cold douche. I am indebted to my English translators, Eden and Cedar Paul, for having promptly taken such a line, and for ha ving denounced the "epidemie mania" which was spreading through their country. Is it necessary to repeat yet again that we have nothing to do with mesmerism, Christian Science, theosophy, spiritualisrn, or any form of occultism; and that the essential task of the New Nancy School has been to disentangle autosuggestion from the nebula of these doctrines? (A nebula that may be rich in promise for the science of to-morrow, but which to-day is nothing but a nebula.) Our endeavour has been to lay the first foundations-nothing more than the first foundations-of the experimental study of auto- 4 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION suggestion. Nowhere have we trespassed into thc realm of metaphysics or into the domain of religion. Let none seek in this book what it makes no attempt to give. The criticisms of scientists have really been levelled against the exaggerations of misguided enthusiasts. I do not hesitate to say that I have far more sympathy with some of my critics than with a great many of my admirers. I may add that the adversaries who have brought autosuggestion back to the platform of the critical spirit and of rational discussion, have done yeo• man's service to the cause they believed themselves to be opposing. By an ironical compensation, the fanatical admirers have hindered the movement they hoped to further. The criticisms may be classed under two heads, theo• retical and practical. Different critics raised much the same objections, so that there is no reason to answer any one critic in particular. A complete and extremely interesting general statement of objections will be found in two articles that appeared in the Genevese periodical " Vers l'Unite " for March and April, 1922. The first, by Monsieur Frutiger, is entitled Volonte ou Imagination; and the second, by Dr. Chades Odier, is entitled Toujours d propos de Coue. In other quarters, substantially the same objections have been raised, though not always with the intelligence and courtesy displayed by these authors. I Most of the theoretical objections are the outcome of misunderstanding or of inadequate information. The critics launch their shafts at "Coueism." But the very word, minted in England, conveys a misunderstanding. The termination "ism," generally speaking, denotes a theory. Now, Coue is not a theoretician and has no ambition to be one, so there can be no such thing as " Coueism " in the sense of " Coue's theory." Obviously, the critic who turns over the pages af Coue's papular handbook Self-Mastery through conscious Autosuggestion PREFACE TO THIRD FRENCH EDITION 5 will have no difficulty in exposing its deficiencies on the theoretical side. But to pass judgment on autosuggestion simply as the outcome of a study of this lecture (a lecture which excellently fulfils the purpose for which it was designed), is as if we were to pass judgment upon Einstein's physics after reading a popular magazine article on the subject. I have good reason to know that some of the most acrimonious criticisms ha ve been written by persons who have not found time to read Suggestion and Autosuggestion. The foregoing remarks apply also to the critics who quote from my booklet Culture de la force morale. The text of this little volume consists of popular lectures in which the presentation of theory was subordinated to the need for plain and forcible exposition. I have a right to ask that those who criticise my theories should examine the work I have devoted to the theoretical aspects of the topic. Those who take the trouble to read Suggestion and Autosuggestion will see that the famous struggle between the "imagination" and the " will " is not there presented as a struggle between two entities. I showed that the phenomena of that struggle may be subsumed under a Iaw which I have termed the law of reversed effort, a law which operates under specific conditions-though I do not deny for a moment that these conditions have not as yet been fully eluci• dated. Moreover, I have referred to Abramowsky's experiments on the psychogalvanic reflex as bearing on the law of reversed effort, and have written (Suggestion and Autosuggestion, p. 193): "I am confident that here will be found an experimental verification of the law of reversed effort, and a way of measuring its effects." Some of the critics have described the New Nancy School as a sort of mutual admiration society. Readers of Suggestion and Autosuggestion will know that the charge is quite unwarranted. The very name of " school " is inapposite. The" New Nancy School" comprises a group of investigators-medical practitioners, psychoIo· gists, and university professors-many of whom live 6 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION and work a long way from Nancy; and the adherents of the School are anything but dogmatic. We are not one another's "disciples." Nor, indeed, are we Coue's disciples, as that term is onlinarily understood. We look upon Coue as the unassuming but talented originator of a movement which has already become much bigger than its founder, and will soon bulk far more largely than all those who are at present working in it. Coue is for us what Pestalozzi is for the advocates of the new methods of education. His role was to give the practical demonstration that was to launch new and inchoate ideas-ideas which, for a Iong time to come, will be subject to revision and further revision. Since he has not the pen of a ready writer, and since he has no itch for fame, it would have been easy for one or other of us to steal his thunder and to pose as leader of a school. If some one with a recognised position, some university professor perhaps, had been willing to play so mean apart, the cause might have been weIl served. What our official scientists find the hardest morsel to swallow is that Coue does not belong to their own caste. For them, the habit makes the monk ! Utterly wrong-headed is the attempt to belittle the " empiricism" of such as Coue by contrasting it with the abstraction "science"; for without this despised empiricism, there would ne ver have been any science at all. No less mistaken, on the other hand, is it to con• found Coue's practical work with the theories of auto• suggestion which ha ve been elaborated and are still being elaborated in connection with that work. These two opposing tactics, that of sowing division in the hope of conquest, and that of confusing the issues, may be good diplomacy; I am certain that they are neither good criticism nor good science. II Let us turn to the practical objections. They may be summarised as follows: "In most cases, all that sugges• tion can do is to suppress symptoms, among them, pain ; PREFACE TO TEaRD FRENCH EDITION 7 hut it cannot affect the primary disorder. Pain is a useful reaction. The patient, when his pain has been relieved, will fancy himself cured. Neglecting further treatment, he will grow worse. The danger of such an issue will be greater in proportion as suggestion is practised with less medical supervision." The criticism contains elements of truth; but sub• stantially, it, likewise, is based on misunderstandings. Nor do I think that I shall find it difficult to come to terms with my opponents. Clearness will be promoted by examining the question of symptoms under three heads: physical, psychical, and moral. I. As far as concerns bodily disorders, suffice it to say that, in many instances, suggestion leads to a tangible eure of the disease, and not to the mere suppression of pain and other symptoms. Still, we must agree that, at times, the effect of suggestion does not go beyond the relief of symptoms. That is no reason against the use of suggestion, any more than it is a reason against the use of other ealmatives. Moreover, the suppression of a symptom is often the first step towards eure. For instance, we have to treat a consumptive. Let us suppose that suggestion enables us (and. in fact, it often does enable us) to relieve the insomnia, to restore the appetite, and to alleviate the violence of the cough without suppressing the expectora• tion. Of course we have merely relieved symptoms, and have had no direct influence on the tubercle bacillus. But if a eonsumptive can sleep nine hours at a stretch without being wakened by a thunderstorm; if he has a hearty appetite and digests weIl if he is no longer racked and exhausted by useless eoughing fits-he is on the high road to recovery. This example must not be unduly generalised. Relief of suffering is not always eurative, but that is not an argument against the relief of suffering. The suggester has been eompared to a practitioner who is content to preseribe a soporifie when a surgieal operation is urgently 8 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION indicated. But we can turn the comparison the other way about. If we admit that the operation is essential, does it follow that we ought not to give the patient an anresthetic ? Wh at remains valid in the criticism is that the patient must not be led to mistake relief for eure, and that he must be medically examined. I fully agree. If practitioners of suggestion have been accused of disregarding the need for medical examination, this has been because the critics have so often failed to draw a distinction between autosuggestion and Christian Science. As regards the latter method, the criticism is an old one, and is justified, for the teachers of Christian Science expressly forbid the faithful to consult a doctor. For my part, I have always insisted upon the need for medical examination. Nevertheless, in existing circumstances, the practitioner of autosuggestion may feel entitled to dispense with medical examination. "Then his patient is to be treated without any diagnosis having been made?" No, not at all! On the continent of Europe, at any rate, suggestion does not as yet enjoy a large measure of public confidence. People turn to it as a last resort, when all other means have failed. Those who visit the suggester, do not come without a diagnosis. They come with twenty diagnoses ! The need for a twenty-first is not always obvious. Sound, therefore, though the criticism is theoretically, it has not for the moment much practical importance. But in the near future, if present trends continue, it will become increasingly weighty. Suggestion being now fashionable, there is danger that people will adopt it blindly, will rush headlong to its use. Suggestion is here on the same footing as physical culture. We cannot forbid chamber gymnastics; we cannot insist upon a qualifying examination fOT every practitioner of physical culture (though there is scope for a good farce in the idea); but the general public must be made to under• stand that the practice of physical culture may be inex• pedient unless there is medical supervision. In like PREFACE TO THIRD FRENCH EDITION 9 manner, where suggestion is concerned, we have some• times to be iterative in our insistence on the need for medical examination-and on the need for a critical attitude of mind. Doctors who have recognised the dangers here touched upon, and who are at the same time convinced of the value of autosuggestion, desire collaboration between the practitioners of .. Coueism 11 and the medical faculty. The idea is an excellent one, but those who propound it as a novelty, and still more those who express doubts as to the possibility of its realisation, are a day too late for the fair, for the collaboration has been going on for a long time, to the perfect satisfaction of both parties Besides, medical practitioners are to an increasing extent adopting Coue's methods. Various institutes for the application of these methods have been organised under medical supervision. There is one at Vevey, the Institut Coue d' Autosuggestion, where physical treatment (electro• therapeutic, hydrotherapeutic, and dietetic) is reinforced by psychological methods-by suggtstion and psycho• analysis. There is also the Coue Institute for the Practice of Autosuggestion in London. 2. The mention of the use of psychoanalysis as weIl as suggestion at the Vevey Institute may serve to intro• duce us to the second form of the criticism we are con• sidering-its application to the use of suggestion in nervous and psychical disorders. There is a tendency to contrast psychoanalysis with suggestion, and to regard them as mutually exclusive. I shall not waste time rebutting the charges of " empiricism " and even " obscu• rantism" which have been levelled at suggestion by those who contend that psychoanalysis can monopolise the right to be termed .. scientific." Such charges can be brought against anything the accuser is pleased to select-and, in fact, everyone knows that in France the majority of medical practitioners continue to stigmatise psychoanalysis itself as empirical and obscurantist. Attacks of this calibre count for nothing against either psychoanalysis or suggestion. 10 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION A more interesting form of the eriticism is the eonten• tion that suggestion is dangerous beeause it ereates .. repressions." Here, again, is arepetition of the com• plaint that we considered in the previous section. Applied in the nervous and psychical sphere, it amounts to saying that suggestion can only suppress symptoms, whereas psychoanalysis, which works by overcoming repressions, effects a radical eure. This form of the criticism is the classical objection of the uncompromising psychoanalysts. I have discussed it in an artic1e entitled Les idees nouvelles sur la suggestion which I eontributed to the periodical "Scientia." The matter is also fully considered in my Studies in Psychoanalysis, Chapter Four, "Mixed Method, Psychoanalysis and Autosuggestion." It would be super• fiuous to reproduce the arguments used elsewhere. I am well aware that autosuggestion often fails, unaided, to eure nervous troubles; and I agree that in these cases psyehoanalysis is indicated. But I have yet to find a convincing argument against the joint use of psyeho• analysis and autosuggestion. The reasons given are of an apriori character. They are based upon psycho• analytical postulates which may have some value as working hypotheses, but are by no means endowed with absolute validity. The ultimate test must be the test ofexperience. As far as my own experience goes, the results of a joint use of the two methods have been most encouraging. 3. Finally we eome to the same criticism in the form voiced by the moralists. Autosuggestion can abolish pain. Is it always a good thing to do this? Ought we to aim at the total suppression of moral suffering? Should we not bear in mind the words of wisdom of those who have extolled the value of pain? Man, they tell us, is an apprentice; pain is the master-craftsman. On ce more I may be allowed to point out that I myself mooted the question. If the reader will turn to page 182 of this book, he will find the following passage: " To sum up, suggestion can assuage mental pain. But is such assuagement always desirable? Here we enter PREFACE TO TmRD FRENCH EDITION 11 upon a very different question, and it is one which lies beyond the scope of the present work." All the more, then, does it lie beyond the scope of this Preface. I do not underrate its importance, and I hope to return to it on another occasion-to discuss it as one among several problems which the new psychology presents to philosophy. It seems to me, however, that merely to insist on the fact that this criticism of the moralists is nothing more than arestatement of the old objection that suggestion suppresses symptoms, already throws light on our diffi.• culty. Monsieur Durand-Pallot sees this c1early. Let me summarise what he says in his artic1e L'autosuggestion et M. Coue de Nancy (" Semaine Litteraire," Geneva, March 4, I922). Just as it would be dangerous, he says, to suppress by suggestion the sensation of fatigue, seeing that fatigue is a useful reaction, so, in like manner, it may be dangerous to suppress moral s1.lffering. My comment is that the biological unity of the human being is such that we must certainly inc1ine to regard physical pain and moral suffering as akin, and to believe that the latter has a symptomatic value no less than the former. To that extent, and only to that extent, moral suffering may be a useful reaction. It teIls us that there is a trouble, it warns us that there is a conflict which ought to be resolved; it may thus manifest itself as a crisis in the development of the soul. But moral suffecing cannot be an end in itself. "Out of suffering, joy," said Beethoven; and the composer has been held up to us as an example, as the eulogist of pain. Yet we should err were we to make a cult of pain, just as we should err were we to extol for their own sake the growing• pains of childhood. Mankind has been far too ready to make a cult of suffering, and has been led thereby to self-suggest a superfluity of affliction, of which we can relieve ourselves by wiser suggestions. " Hitherto," writes Maeterlinck in Sagesse ct Dcstinee, " mankind has been like an invalid, tossing restlessly in bed, trying thus to find repose. None the less, the only helpful words ever said to this invalid have been said 12 SUGGESTION AND AUTOSUGGESTION by those who have spoken to hirn as if he had never been ill." This is not an argument for shunning or repudiating all pain. Here we trench on the concerns of philosophy and on those of our most intimate convictions. Science furnishes us with the means for the attainment of certain ends. It is a matter for further consideration, which arnong these ends are desirable. CHARLES BAUDOUIN. ]une, 1922.