Notwithstanding the mystery that is often made of this, it appears to be simply a matter of impulsive personal judgment, an impression of power and a sense of yielding due to interpretation of the visible or audible symbols of personality, discussed in a previous chapter. Another may impress us with his power, and so exercise ascendency over us, either by grossly performing the act, or by exhibiting traits of personality which convince our imaginations that he can and will do the act if he wishes to. It is in this latter way, through imaginative inference, that people mostly work upon us in ordinary social intercourse. It would puzzle us, in many cases, to tell just how we know that a man is determined, dauntless, magnanimous, intrinsically powerful, or the reverse. Of course reputation and past record count for much; but we judge readily enough without them, and if, like Orlando in “As You Like It,” he “looks successfully,” we believe in him. The imagination is a sort of clearing-house through which great forces operate by convenient symbols and with a minimum of trouble. The man of action who, like Napoleon, can dominate the minds of others in a crisis, must have the general traits of leadership developed with special reference to the promptness of their action. His individual significance must take the form of a palpable decision and self-confidence; and breadth of sympathy becomes a quick tact to grasp the mental state of those with whom he deals, so that he may know how to plant the dominating suggestion. Into the vagueness and confusion that most of us feel in the face of a strange situation, such a man injects a clearcut idea. There is a definiteness about him which makes us feel that he will not leave us drifting, but will set a course, will substitute action for doubt, and give our energies an outlet. Again, his aggressive confidence is transmitted by suggestion, and acts directly upon our minds as a sanction of his leadership. And if he adds to this the tact to awaken no opposition, to make us feel that he is of our sort, that his suggestions are quite in our line, in a word that we are safe in his hands; he can hardly be resisted.