William Atkinson - The Complete Works of William Walker Atkinson

What is true of the individual regarding the effect and power of feeling and emotion, is doubly true of the crowd. Those who have studied the subject of “the psychology of the crowd” know that when people are gathered together in a crowd or assemblage they are peculiarly liable to emotional excitement, and “emotional contagion.” As Prof. Davenport says: “The mind of the crowd is strangely like that of primitive man. Most of the people in it may be far from primitive in emotion, in thought, in character; nevertheless, the result always tends to be the same. Stimulation immediately begets action. Reason is in abeyance. The cool, rational speaker has little chance beside the skillful, emotional orator. The crowd thinks in images, and speech must take this form to be accessible to it. The images are not connected by any natural bond, and they take each other’s place like the slides of a magic lantern. It follows from this, of course, that appeals to the imagination have paramount influence. The crowd is united and governed by emotion rather than by reason. Emotion is the natural bond, for men differ much less in this respect than in intellect. It is also true that in a crowd of a thousand men the amount of emotion actually generated and existing is far greater than the sum which might conceivably be obtained by adding together the emotion of the individuals taken by themselves. * * * As in the case of the primitive mind, imagination has unlocked the floodgates of emotion, which on occasion may become wild enthusiasm or demoniac frenzy.”

Recognizing the psychological effect of appeals to the emotion and feelings, the best authorities are of the opinion that it would be folly to leave this effective weapon in the hands of unscrupulous demagogues, and to unworthy causes. They feel that the weapon should be employed for good and worthy purposes as well as for those of the opposite character. And so we find that the best speakers employ this phase of discoursive expression, often with great effect.

Burke says: “In painting, we may represent any fine figure we please; but we never can give it those enlivening touches which we may receive from words. To represent an angel in a picture, you can only draw a beautiful young man winged, but what painting can furnish us any thing so grand as the addition of one word, ‘the angel of the Lord? ’ * * * Now as there is a moving tone of voice, an impassioned countenance, an agitated gesture, which affect independently of the things about which they are exerted, so there are words, and certain dispositions of words, which being peculiarly devoted to passionate subjects, and always used by those who are under the influence of any passion, touch and move us more than those which far more clearly and distinctly express the subject matter. We yield to sympathy what we refuse to description.”

Halleck gives the following excellent description of the ideas best fitted to raise emotion in the minds of one’s hearers: “Feeling cannot be compelled. Even if a person wishes to feel sorry, he cannot merely because some one tells him he should. There must be an adequate cause, just as so much fuel must be consumed to raise the temperature of water a given number of degrees. Many would-be orators rave and gesticulate wildly, but excite no emotion save disgust in their hearers. * * * A large part of the business of life consists in moving the emotions of men so as to get them to act. Those ideas which give vivid pictures of a concrete act of injustice, of the doer of a noble deed, of an actual sufferer, seldom fail to raise emotion. If a man intends to get a contribution for the sick poor, let him not speak in general terms of the inconvenience of sickness, the pains of poverty. One vivid picture of a forlorn room where a feeble mother is watching her sick child, for whom she is unable to procure proper food, will be infinitely more effective. Any idea which suggests gratification of desire, any idea which vividly pictures something affecting the welfare of the self or of others, is apt to be followed by emotion. Probably no one can even imagine a person in a burning car, or lying helpless with broken limbs on a lonely road, without feeing the emotion of pity arise.”

Whitefield, the eminent preacher, possessed this art of painting emotional word pictures to a wonderful degree. This, coupled with his dramatic instinct, was probably the secret of his great power over people. An English writer once said of him: “Wherein lies the secret of Whitefield’s power? What was the spell by which he not only enthralled the multitude, but also men of clear judgments and capacious intellects and cold hearts? When we read Whitefield’s sermons we find nothing in them that explains this mystery. He was not a theologian; he was not a thinker; he had no high poetical imagination; his diction is commonplace; his imagery conventional; his range of illustration limited; and it is remarkable that he has left nothing in literature, not even in devotional literature, by which he deserves to be remembered—not a single treatise, not a hymn, not a page of discourse. Face to face with men he did with them as he chose, but he had no skill to sway them by written words.”

The following, from the pen of Nathan Sheppard, will give you the answer regarding the nature and source of Whitefield’s power:

“Whitefield came nearer to the Demosthenic standard than is possible with many speakers of our western race. He utilized the histrionic art in public speaking beyond any other preacher of his age and tongue. The actors heard him with envy. Garrick was jealous of the skill and grace with which he handled his handkerchief. His manners, it is said, captivated the fastidious Chesterfield, he extorted admiration from the philosophical Bolingbroke, and the elegant skeptic, David Hume, went great distances to hear doctrines that he detested delivered in a style that fascinated him.

“When Whitefield acted an old blind man advancing by slow steps toward the edge of the precipice, Lord Chesterfield started up and cried: ‘Good God, he is gone!’ And when the seaman heard and saw his description of the ship on her beam-ends, they sprang to their feet and shouted: ‘The long-boat—take to the long-boat!’ This scene is worth reproducing. Suddenly assuming a nautical air and manner that were irresistible, he broke in with: ‘Well, my boys, we have a clear sky, and are making fine headway over a smooth sea before a light breeze, and we shall soon lose sight of land. But what means this—this sudden lowering of the heavens, and that dark cloud arising from beneath the western horizon? Hark! Don’t you hear distant thunder! Don’t you see those flashes of lightning! There is a storm gathering! Every man to his duty! How the waves rise and dash against the ship! The air is dark!—the tempest rages!— our masts are gone!—the ship is on her beam-ends! What next!’ This appeal instantly brought the sailors to their feet, with a shout: ‘The long-boat—take to the long-boat!’”

Benjamin Franklin, in his “Autobiography,” tells the following story of Whitefield’s power over the emotions of men: “Returning northward, he preached up this charity and made large collections, for his eloquence had a wonderful power over the hearts and purses of his hearers, of which I, myself, was an instance. I did not approve of the design. * * * but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I refused to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded I began to soften and concluded to give the coppers. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pockets wholly into the collector’s dish, gold and all.”