TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Southland Times, Issue 21849, 28 October 1932, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE TIMES

Parliamentary Method. “The fundamental problem of government is, is it possible to make decent planning compatible with existing institutions?” said Sir Arthur Salter, M.P., at the recent Liberal Summer School. “I personally cannot visualize a sudden reversal of all existing institutions. I am not encouraged by Italy and Russia. They have not known free government for very long. We should search for an alternative method to one which means the ab-

negation of the fundamentals of liberty. I should like to see a Parliament, not meeting as now, but for two or three months in the year only. Its functions would be to review the work of the Administration of the past, year and change the Administration if necessary, and to legislate for the coming period. But the legislation should not be in detail, for which Parliament is unsuitable: not by clauses hammered out in detail by a committee of hundreds, but a statement of main principle within which legislation could thereafter be made by Orders in Council. The Government should be unnagged and unimpeded for the greater part of the year, but it should be responsible to the people for carrying out its mandate. That is not an impossible ideal. I would like to see Parliament delegate, but not abdicate.”

Auto-Suggestion. Addressing the Psychology Section of the British Association, Dr. William Brown, Wilde Reader in Mental Philosophy at Oxford, said modern investigations in the phenomena of auto-sug-gestion were throwing further light upon the nature of the will. According to any systematic theory of psychology, the will was the highest form of mental activity, expressing the entire mind in action in its unity. The will in its complete form carried with it the belief that we should succeed in any effort. Where we know that a wished-for result was impossible we could not will. The essential constituent of will, belief in the possibility of success, was absent, and we had only wish instead of will. Here there was no real conflict between will and suggestion, but only a conflict between the suggestion of success and the suggestion of failure —i.e., a conflict between two imaginations, unaccompanied by any special emotion. Our increased knowledge of suggestion, derived from its use in psycho-therapy, had deepened our insight into the nature of the will. Suggestion treatment was a supplementation of the will, or a help toward the completion of the will, and was important, not only for psycho-neurotic patients, but for us all. We could train our imagination so that fear could be replaced by confidence, and we ought all to do this. One should make affirmation to oneself that, whatever happened, one was not going to be afraid or disturbed. This was more than the spirit of Stoicism. It was not the mere tolerance of evil, but the denial of evil. Dr. Brown said he wanted to emphasize the value and importance of suggestion and auto-suggestion to the normal person as a means of increasing his mental power in various directions. Often suggestion treatment from another person was needed to give one a start, and then one could carry on unaided. Perseverance in the practice of auto-suggestion sometimes so transformed the temperament of an individual, that from being a worrying and self-tormenting hypochondriac he was changed into a man of calm tenacity of purpose and serene selfconfidence.