And even in those cases where persons change their religious opinions in adult age, the explanation of the mystery is generally to be found, not in seeking for the _argument that convinced them_, but for the _person that led them_, in the accomplishment of the change.

For such changes can very often, and perhaps generally, be traced to some person or persons whose influence over them, if carefully scrutinized, would be found to consist really not in the force of the arguments they offered, but in the magic power of a silent and perhaps unconscious sympathy.

The way, therefore, to convert people to our ideas and opinions is to make them like us or love us, and then to avoid arguing with them, but simply let them perceive what our ideas and opinions are.
The well-known proverb, "Example is better than precept," is only another form of expressing the predominating power of sympathy; for example can have little influence except so far as a sympathetic feeling in the observer leads him to imitate it.

So that, example is better than precept means only that sympathy has more influence in the human heart than reasoning.
_The Power of Sympathy in Childhood_.
This principle, so powerful at every period of life, is at its maximum in childhood.

It is the origin, in a very great degree, of the spirit of imitation which forms so remarkable a characteristic of the first years of life.