THE SENTIMENTS AND MORALITY OF CROWDS
1.IMPULSIVENESS, MOBILITY, AND IRRITABILITY OF CROWDS.
The crowd is at the mercy of all exterior exciting causes, and reflects their incessant variations--The impulses which the crowd obeys are so imperious as to annihilate the feeling of personal interest-- Premeditation is absent from crowds--Racial influence.
2.CROWDS ARE CREDULOUS AND READILY INFLUENCED BYSUGGESTION.The obedience of crowds to suggestions--The images evoked in the mind of crowds are accepted by them as realities--Why these images are identical for all the individuals composing a crowd--The equality of the educated and the ignorant man in a crowd--Various examples of the illusions to which the individuals in a crowd are subject--The impossibility of according belief to the testimony of crowds--The unanimity of numerous witnesses is one of the worst proofs that can be invoked to establish a fact--The slight value of works of history.
3.THE EXAGGERATION AND INGENUOUSNESS OF THE SENTIMENTS OFCROWDS.Crowds do not admit doubt or uncertainty, and always go to extremes--Their sentiments always excessive.4.THEINTOLERANCE, DICTATORIALNESS, AND CONSERVATISM OF CROWDS.The reasons of these sentiments--The servility of crowds in the face of a strong authority--The momentary revolutionary instincts of crowds do not prevent them from being extremely conservative--Crowds instinctively hostile to changes and progress.5.THE MORALITY OF CROWDS.The morality of crowds, according to the suggestions under which they act, may be much lower or much higher than that of the individuals composing them--Explanation and examples-- Crowds rarely guided by those considerations of interest which are most often the exclusive motives of the isolated individual--The moralising role of crowds.
Having indicated in a general way the principal characteristics of crowds, it remains to study these characteristics in detail.
It will be remarked that among the special characteristics of crowds there are several--such as impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgment and of the critical spirit, the exaggeration of the sentiments, and others besides--which are almost always observed in beings belonging to inferior forms of evolution--in women, savages, and children, for instance.However, I merely indicate this analogy in passing;its demonstration is outside the scope of this work.It would, moreover, be useless for persons acquainted with the psychology of primitive beings, and would scarcely carry conviction to those in ignorance of this matter.
I now proceed to the successive consideration of the different characteristics that may be observed in the majority of crowds.
1.IMPULSIVENESS, MOBILITY, AND IRRITABILITY OF CROWDS.
When studying the fundamental characteristics of a crowd we stated that it is guided almost exclusively by unconscious motives.Its acts are far more under the influence of the spinal cord than of the brain.In this respect a crowd is closely akin to quite primitive beings.The acts performed may be perfect so far as their execution is concerned, but as they are not directed by the brain, the individual conducts himself according as the exciting causes to which he is submitted may happen to decide.Acrowd is at the mercy of all external exciting causes, and reflects their incessant variations.It is the slave of the impulses which it receives.The isolated individual may be submitted to the same exciting causes as the man in a crowd, but as his brain shows him the inadvisability of yielding to them, he refrains from yielding.This truth may be physiologically expressed by saying that the isolated individual possesses the capacity of dominating his reflex actions, while a crowd is devoid of this capacity.
The varying impulses to which crowds obey may be, according to their exciting causes, generous or cruel, heroic or cowardly, but they will always be so imperious that the interest of the individual, even the interest of self-preservation, will not dominate them.The exciting causes that may act on crowds being so varied, and crowds always obeying them, crowds are in consequence extremely mobile.This explains how it is that we see them pass in a moment from the most bloodthirsty ferocity to the most extreme generosity and heroism.A crowd may easily enact the part of an executioner, but not less easily that of a martyr.It is crowds that have furnished the torrents of blood requisite for the triumph of every belief.It is not necessary to go back to the heroic ages to see what crowds are capable of in this latter direction.They are never sparing of their life in an insurrection, and not long since a general,[2] becoming suddenly popular, might easily have found a hundred thousand men ready to sacrifice their lives for his cause had he demanded it.
[2] General Boulanger.
Any display of premeditation by crowds is in consequence out of the question.They may be animated in succession by the most contrary sentiments, but they will always be under the influence of the exciting causes of the moment.They are like the leaves which a tempest whirls up and scatters in every direction and then allows to fall.When studying later on certain revolutionary crowds we shall give some examples of the variability of their sentiments.
This mobility of crowds renders them very difficult to govern, especially when a measure of public authority has fallen into their hands.Did not the necessities of everyday life constitute a sort of invisible regulator of existence, it would scarcely be possible for democracies to last.Still, though the wishes of crowds are frenzied they are not durable.Crowds are as incapable of willing as of thinking for any length of time.
