The Crowd...........................................................................................................................................................1

The whole of the common characteristics with which heredity endows the individuals of a race constitute the

genius of the race. When, however, a certain number of these individuals are gathered together in a crowd for

purposes of action, observation proves that, from the mere fact of their being assembled, there result certain

new psychological characteristics, which are added to the racial characteristics and differ from them at times

Organised crowds have always played an important part in the life of peoples, but this part has never been of

such moment as at present. The substitution of the unconscious action of crowds for the conscious activity of

I have endeavoured to examine the difficult problem presented by crowds in a purely scientific mannerthat

is, by making an effort to proceed with method, and without being influenced by opinions, theories, and

doctrines. This, I believe, is the only mode of arriving at the discovery of some few particles of truth,

especially when dealing, as is the case here, with a question that is the subject of impassioned controversy. A

man of science bent on verifying a phenomenon is not called upon to concern himself with the interests his

verifications may hurt. In a recent publication an eminent thinker, M. Goblet d'Alviela, made the remark that,

belonging to none of the contemporary schools, I am occasionally found in opposition of sundry of the

conclusions of all of them. I hope this new work will merit a similar observation. To belong to a school is

Still I should explain to the reader why he will find me draw conclusions from my investigations which it

might be thought at first sight they do not bear; why, for instance, after noting the extreme mental inferiority

of crowds, picked assemblies included, I yet affirm it would be dangerous to meddle with their organisation,

The reason is, that the most attentive observation of the facts of history has invariably demonstrated to me

that social organisms being every whit as complicated as those of all beings, it is in no wise in our power to

force them to undergo on a sudden farreaching transformations. Nature has recourse at times to radical

measures, but never after our fashion, which explains how it is that nothing is more fatal to a people than the

mania for great reforms, however excellent these reforms may appear theoretically. They would only be

useful were it possible to change instantaneously the genius of nations. This power, however, is only

possessed by time. Men are ruled by ideas, sentiments, and customsmatters which are of the essence of

ourselves. Institutions and laws are the outward manifestation of our character, the expression of its needs.

The study of social phenomena cannot be separated from that of the peoples among whom they have come

into existence. From the philosophic point of view these phenomena may have an absolute value; in practice

It is necessary, in consequence, when studying a social phenomenon, to consider it successively under two

very different aspects. It will then be seen that the teachings of pure reason are very often contrary to those of

practical reason. There are scarcely any data, even physical, to which this distinction is not applicable. From

the point of view of absolute truth a cube or a circle are invariable geometrical figures, rigorously defined by

certain formulas. From the point of view of the impression they make on our eye these geometrical figures

may assume very varied shapes. By perspective the cube may be transformed into a pyramid or a square, the

circle into an ellipse or a straight line. Moreover, the consideration of these fictitious shapes is far more

important than that of the real shapes, for it is they and they alone that we see and that can be reproduced by

photography or in pictures. In certain cases there is more truth in the unreal than in the real. To present

objects with their exact geometrical forms would be to distort nature and render it unrecognisable. If we

imagine a world whose inhabitants could only copy or photograph objects, but were unable to touch them, it

would be very difficult for such persons to attain to an exact idea of their form. Moreover, the knowledge of

this form, accessible only to a small number of learned men, would present but a very minor interest.

The philosopher who studies social phenomena should bear in mind that side by side with their theoretical

value they possess a practical value, and that this latter, so far as the evolution of civilisation is concerned, is

alone of importance. The recognition of this fact should render him very circumspect with regard to the

There are other motives that dictate to him a like reserve. The complexity of social facts is such, that it is

impossible to grasp them as a whole and to foresee the effects of their reciprocal influence. It seems, too, that

behind the visible facts are hidden at times thousands of invisible causes. Visible social phenomena appear to

be the result of an immense, unconscious working, that as a rule is beyond the reach of our analysis.

Perceptible phenomena may be compared to the waves, which are the expression on the surface of the ocean

of deeplying disturbances of which we know nothing. So far as the majority of their acts are considered,

crowds display a singularly inferior mentality; yet there are other acts in which they appear to be guided by

those mysterious forces which the ancients denominated destiny, nature, or providence, which we call the

voices of the dead, and whose power it is impossible to overlook, although we ignore their essence. It would

seem, at times, as if there were latent forces in the inner being of nations which serve to guide them. What,

for instance, can be more complicated, more logical, more marvellous than a language? Yet whence can this

admirably organised production have arisen, except it be the outcome of the unconscious genius of crowds?

The most learned academics, the most esteemed grammarians can do no more than note down the laws that

govern languages; they would be utterly incapable of creating them. Even with respect to the ideas of great

men are we certain that they are exclusively the offspring of their brains? No doubt such ideas are always

created by solitary minds, but is it not the genius of crowds that has furnished the thousands of grains of dust

Crowds, doubtless, are always unconscious, but this very unconsciousness is perhaps one of the secrets of

their strength. In the natural world beings exclusively governed by instinct accomplish acts whose marvellous

complexity astounds us. Reason is an attribute of humanity of too recent date and still too imperfect to reveal

to us the laws of the unconscious, and still more to take its place. The part played by the unconscious in all

our acts is immense, and that played by reason very small. The unconscious acts like a force still unknown.

If we wish, then, to remain within the narrow but safe limits within which science can attain to knowledge,

and not to wander in the domain of vague conjecture and vain hypothesis, all we must do is simply to take

note of such phenomena as are accessible to us, and confine ourselves to their consideration. Every

conclusion drawn from our observation is, as a rule, premature, for behind the phenomena which we see

clearly are other phenomena that we see indistinctly, and perhaps behind these latter, yet others which we do

The evolution of the present ageThe great changes in civilisation are the consequence of changes in

National thoughtModern belief in the power of crowdsIt transforms the traditional policy of the

European statesHow the rise of the popular classes comes about, and the manner in which they exercise

their powerThe necessary consequences of the power of the crowdCrowds unable to play a part other

than destructiveThe dissolution of wornout civilisations is the work of the crowdGeneral ignorance of

the psychology of crowds Importance of the study of crowds for legislators and statesmen.

The great upheavals which precede changes of civilisations such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the

foundation of the Arabian Empire, seem at first sight determined more especially by political transformations,

foreign invasion, or the overthrow of dynasties. But a more attentive study of these events shows that behind

their apparent causes the real cause is generally seen to be a profound modification in the ideas of the

peoples. The true historical upheavals are not those which astonish us by their grandeur and violence. The

only important changes whence the renewal of civilisations results, affect ideas, conceptions, and beliefs. The

memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. The reason

these great events are so rare is that there is nothing so stable in a race as the inherited groundwork of its

The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process

Two fundamental factors are at the base of this transformation. The first is the destruction of those religious,

political, and social beliefs in which all the elements of our civilisation are rooted. The second is the creation

of entirely new conditions of existence and thought as the result of modern scientific and industrial

The ideas of the past, although half destroyed, being still very powerful, and the ideas which are to replace

them being still in process of formation, the modern age represents a period of transition and anarchy.

It is not easy to say as yet what will one day be evolved from this necessarily somewhat chaotic period. What

will be the fundamental ideas on which the societies that are to succeed our own will be built up? We do not

at present know. Still it is already clear that on whatever lines the societies of the future are organised, they

will have to count with a new power, with the last surviving sovereign force of modern times, the power of

crowds. On the ruins of so many ideas formerly considered beyond discussion, and today decayed or

decaying, of so many sources of authority that successive revolutions have destroyed, this power, which

alone has arisen in their stead, seems soon destined to absorb the others. While all our ancient beliefs are

tottering and disappearing, while the old pillars of society are giving way one by one, the power of the crowd

is the only force that nothing menaces, and of which the prestige is continually on the increase. The age we

Scarcely a century ago the traditional policy of European states and the rivalries of sovereigns were the

principal factors that shaped events. The opinion of the masses scarcely counted, and most frequently indeed

did not count at all. Today it is the traditions which used to obtain in politics, and the individual tendencies

and rivalries of rulers which do not count; while, on the contrary, the voice of the masses has become

preponderant. It is this voice that dictates their conduct to kings, whose endeavour is to take note of its

utterances. The destinies of nations are elaborated at present in the heart of the masses, and no longer in the

The entry of the popular classes into political lifethat is to say, in reality, their progressive transformation

into governing classesis one of the most striking characteristics of our epoch of transition. The introduction

of universal suffrage, which exercised for a long time but little influence, is not, as might be thought, the

distinguishing feature of this transference of political power. The progressive growth of the power of the

masses took place at first by the propagation of certain ideas, which have slowly implanted themselves in

men's minds, and afterwards by the gradual association of individuals bent on bringing about the realisation

of theoretical conceptions. It is by association that crowds have come to procure ideas with respect to their

interests which are very clearly defined if not particularly just, and have arrived at a consciousness of their

strength. The masses are founding syndicates before which the authorities capitulate one after the other; they

are also founding labour unions, which in spite of all economic laws tend to regulate the conditions of labour

and wages. They return to assemblies in which the Government is vested, representatives utterly lacking

initiative and independence, and reduced most often to nothing else than the spokesmen of the committees

Today the claims of the masses are becoming more and more sharply defined, and amount to nothing less

than a determination to utterly destroy society as it now exists, with a view to making it hark back to that

primitive communism which was the normal condition of all human groups before the dawn of civilisation.

Limitations of the hours of labour, the nationalisation of mines, railways, factories, and the soil, the equal

distribution of all products, the elimination of all the upper classes for the benefit of the popular classes, such

Little adapted to reasoning, crowds, on the contrary, are quick to act. As the result of their present

organisation their strength has become immense. The dogmas whose birth we are witnessing will soon have

the force of the old dogmas; that is to say, the tyrannical and sovereign force of being above discussion. The

The writers who enjoy the favour of our middle classes, those who best represent their rather narrow ideas,

their somewhat prescribed views, their rather superficial scepticism, and their at times somewhat excessive

egoism, display profound alarm at this new power which they see growing; and to combat the disorder in

men's minds they are addressing despairing appeals to those moral forces of the Church for which they

formerly professed so much disdain. They talk to us of the bankruptcy of science, go back in penitence to

Rome, and remind us of the teachings of revealed truth. These new converts forget that it is too late. Had they

been really touched by grace, a like operation could not have the same influence on minds less concerned

with the preoccupations which beset these recent adherents to religion. The masses repudiate today the gods

which their admonishers repudiated yesterday and helped to destroy. There is no power, Divine or human,

There has been no bankruptcy of science, and science has had no share in the present intellectual anarchy, nor

in the making of the new power which is springing up in the midst of this anarchy. Science promised us truth,

or at least a knowledge of such relations as our intelligence can seize: it never promised us peace or

happiness. Sovereignly indifferent to our feelings, it is deaf to our lamentations. It is for us to endeavour to

Universal symptoms, visible in all nations, show us the rapid growth of the power of crowds, and do not

admit of our supposing that it is destined to cease growing at an early date. Whatever fate it may reserve for

us, we shall have to submit to it. All reasoning against it is a mere vain war of words. Certainly it is possible

that the advent to power of the masses marks one of the last stages of Western civilisation, a complete return

to those periods of confused anarchy which seem always destined to precede the birth of every new society.

Up to now these thoroughgoing destructions of a wornout civilisation have constituted the most obvious

task of the masses. It is not indeed today merely that this can be traced. History tells us, that from the

moment when the moral forces on which a civilisation rested have lost their strength, its final dissolution is

brought about by those unconscious and brutal crowds known, justifiably enough, as barbarians. Civilisations

as yet have only been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. Crowds are

only powerful for destruction. Their rule is always tantamount to a barbarian phase. A civilisation involves

fixed rules, discipline, a passing from the instinctive to the rational state, forethought for the future, an

elevated degree of cultureall of them conditions that crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown

themselves incapable of realising. In consequence of the purely destructive nature of their power crowds act

like those microbes which hasten the dissolution of enfeebled or dead bodies. When the structure of a

civilisation is rotten, it is always the masses that bring about its downfall. It is at such a juncture that their

chief mission is plainly visible, and that for a while the philosophy of number seems the only philosophy of

Is the same fate in store for our civilisation? There is ground to fear that this is the case, but we are not as yet

However this may be, we are bound to resign ourselves to the reign of the masses, since want of foresight has

in succession overthrown all the barriers that might have kept the crowd in check.

We have a very slight knowledge of these crowds which are beginning to be the object of so much

discussion. Professional students of psychology, having lived far from them, have always ignored them, and

when, as of late, they have turned their attention in this direction it has only been to consider the crimes

crowds are capable of committing. Without a doubt criminal crowds exist, but virtuous and heroic crowds,

and crowds of many other kinds, are also to be met with. The crimes of crowds only constitute a particular

phase of their psychology. The mental constitution of crowds is not to be learnt merely by a study of their

However, in point of fact, all the world's masters, all the founders of religions or empires, the apostles of all

beliefs, eminent statesmen, and, in a more modest sphere, the mere chiefs of small groups of men have

always been unconscious psychologists, possessed of an instinctive and often very sure knowledge of the

character of crowds, and it is their accurate knowledge of this character that has enabled them to so easily

establish their mastery. Napoleon had a marvellous insight into the psychology of the masses of the country

over which he reigned, but he, at times, completely misunderstood the psychology of crowds belonging to

other races;[1] and it is because he thus misunderstood it that he engaged in Spain, and notably in Russia, in

conflicts in which his power received blows which were destined within a brief space of time to ruin it. A

knowledge of the psychology of crowds is today the last resource of the statesman who wishes not to govern

themthat is becoming a very difficult matterbut at any rate not to be too much governed by them.

[1] His most subtle advisers, moreover, did not understand this psychology any better. Talleyrand wrote him

that "Spain would receive his soldiers as liberators." It received them as beasts of prey. A psychologist

acquainted with the hereditary instincts of the Spanish race would have easily foreseen this reception.

It is only by obtaining some sort of insight into the psychology of crowds that it can be understood how slight

is the action upon them of laws and institutions, how powerless they are to hold any opinions other than those

which are imposed upon them, and that it is not with rules based on theories of pure equity that they are to be

led, but by seeking what produces an impression on them and what seduces them. For instance, should a

legislator, wishing to impose a new tax, choose that which would be theoretically the most just? By no

means. In practice the most unjust may be the best for the masses. Should it at the same time be the least

obvious, and apparently the least burdensome, it will be the most easily tolerated. It is for this reason that an

indirect tax, however exorbitant it be, will always be accepted by the crowd, because, being paid daily in

fractions of a farthing on objects of consumption, it will not interfere with the habits of the crowd, and will

pass unperceived. Replace it by a proportional tax on wages or income of any other kind, to be paid in a lump

sum, and were this new imposition theoretically ten times less burdensome than the other, it would give rise

to unanimous protest. This arises from the fact that a sum relatively high, which will appear immense, and

will in consequence strike the imagination, has been substituted for the unperceived fractions of a farthing.

The new tax would only appear light had it been saved farthing by farthing, but this economic proceeding

The example which precedes is of the simplest. Its appositeness will be easily perceived. It did not escape the

attention of such a psychologist as Napoleon, but our modern legislators, ignorant as they are of the

characteristics of a crowd, are unable to appreciate it. Experience has not taught them as yet to a sufficient

Many other practical applications might be made of the psychology of crowds. A knowledge of this science

throws the most vivid light on a great number of historical and economic phenomena totally

incomprehensible without it. I shall have occasion to show that the reason why the most remarkable of

modern historians, Taine, has at times so imperfectly understood the events of the great French Revolution is,

that it never occurred to him to study the genius of crowds. He took as his guide in the study of this

complicated period the descriptive method resorted to by naturalists; but the moral forces are almost absent in

the case of the phenomena which naturalists have to study. Yet it is precisely these forces that constitute the

In consequence, merely looked at from its practical side, the study of the psychology of crowds deserved to

be attempted. Were its interest that resulting from pure curiosity only, it would still merit attention. It is as

interesting to decipher the motives of the actions of men as to determine the characteristics of a mineral or a

plant. Our study of the genius of crowds can merely be a brief synthesis, a simple summary of our

investigations. Nothing more must be demanded of it than a few suggestive views. Others will work the

ground more thoroughly. Today we only touch the surface of a still almost virgin soil.

What constitutes a crowd from the psychological point of viewA numerically strong agglomeration of

individuals does not suffice to form a crowdSpecial characteristics of psychological crowdsThe turning

in a fixed direction of the ideas and sentiments of individuals composing such a crowd, and the disappearance

of their personalityThe crowd is always dominated by considerations of which it is unconsciousThe

disappearance of brain activity and the predominance of medullar activityThe lowering of the intelligence

and the complete transformation of the sentimentsThe transformed sentiments may be better or worse than

those of the individuals of which the crowd is composedA crowd is as easily heroic as criminal.

In its ordinary sense the word "crowd" means a gathering of individuals of whatever nationality, profession,

or sex, and whatever be the chances that have brought them together. From the psychological point of view

the expression "crowd" assumes quite a different signification. Under certain given circumstances, and only

under those circumstances, an agglomeration of men presents new characteristics very different from those of

the individuals composing it. The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the

same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes. A collective mind is formed, doubtless transitory,

but presenting very clearly defined characteristics. The gathering has thus become what, in the absence of a

better expression, I will call an organised crowd, or, if the term is considered preferable, a psychological

crowd. It forms a single being, and is subjected to the LAW OF THE MENTAL UNITY OF CROWDS.

It is evident that it is not by the mere fact of a number of individuals finding themselves accidentally side by

side that they acquire the character of an organised crowd. A thousand individuals accidentally gathered in a

public place without any determined object in no way constitute a crowd from the psychological point of

view. To acquire the special characteristics of such a crowd, the influence is necessary of certain predisposing

The disappearance of conscious personality and the turning of feelings and thoughts in a definite direction,

which are the primary characteristics of a crowd about to become organised, do not always involve the

simultaneous presence of a number of individuals on one spot. Thousands of isolated individuals may acquire

at certain moments, and under the influence of certain violent emotionssuch, for example, as a great

national eventthe characteristics of a psychological crowd. It will be sufficient in that case that a mere

chance should bring them together for their acts to at once assume the characteristics peculiar to the acts of a

crowd. At certain moments half a dozen men might constitute a psychological crowd, which may not happen

in the case of hundreds of men gathered together by accident. On the other hand, an entire nation, though

there may be no visible agglomeration, may become a crowd under the action of certain influences.

A psychological crowd once constituted, it acquires certain provisional but determinable general

characteristics. To these general characteristics there are adjoined particular characteristics which vary

according to the elements of which the crowd is composed, and may modify its mental constitution.

Psychological crowds, then, are susceptible of classification; and when we come to occupy ourselves with

this matter, we shall see that a heterogeneous crowdthat is, a crowd composed of dissimilar

elementspresents certain characteristics in common with homogeneous crowdsthat is, with crowds

composed of elements more or less akin (sects, castes, and classes)and side by side with these common

characteristics particularities which permit of the two kinds of crowds being differentiated.

But before occupying ourselves with the different categories of crowds, we must first of all examine the

characteristics common to them all. We shall set to work like the naturalist, who begins by describing the

general characteristics common to all the members of a family before concerning himself with the particular

characteristics which allow the differentiation of the genera and species that the family includes.

It is not easy to describe the mind of crowds with exactness, because its organisation varies not only

according to race and composition, but also according to the nature and intensity of the exciting causes to

which crowds are subjected. The same difficulty, however, presents itself in the psychological study of an

individual. It is only in novels that individuals are found to traverse their whole life with an unvarying

character. It is only the uniformity of the environment that creates the apparent uniformity of characters. I

have shown elsewhere that all mental constitutions contain possibilities of character which may be

manifested in consequence of a sudden change of environment. This explains how it was that among the most

savage members of the French Convention were to be found inoffensive citizens who, under ordinary

circumstances, would have been peaceable notaries or virtuous magistrates. The storm past, they resumed

their normal character of quiet, lawabiding citizens. Napoleon found amongst them his most docile servants.

It being impossible to study here all the successive degrees of organisation of crowds, we shall concern

ourselves more especially with such crowds as have attained to the phase of complete organisation. In this

way we shall see what crowds may become, but not what they invariably are. It is only in this advanced phase

of organisation that certain new and special characteristics are superposed on the unvarying and dominant

character of the race; then takes place that turning already alluded to of all the feelings and thoughts of the

collectivity in an identical direction. It is only under such circumstances, too, that what I have called above

Among the psychological characteristics of crowds there are some that they may present in common with

isolated individuals, and others, on the contrary, which are absolutely peculiar to them and are only to be met

with in collectivities. It is these special characteristics that we shall study, first of all, in order to show their

The most striking peculiarity presented by a psychological crowd is the following: Whoever be the

individuals that compose it, however like or unlike be their mode of life, their occupations, their character, or

their intelligence, the fact that they have been transformed into a crowd puts them in possession of a sort of

collective mind which makes them feel, think, and act in a manner quite different from that in which each

individual of them would feel, think, and act were he in a state of isolation. There are certain ideas and

feelings which do not come into being, or do not transform themselves into acts except in the case of

individuals forming a crowd. The psychological crowd is a provisional being formed of heterogeneous

elements, which for a moment are combined, exactly as the cells which constitute a living body form by their

reunion a new being which displays characteristics very different from those possessed by each of the cells

Contrary to an opinion which one is astonished to find coming from the pen of so acute a philosopher as

Herbert Spencer, in the aggregate which constitutes a crowd there is in no sort a summingup of or an

average struck between its elements. What really takes place is a combination followed by the creation of

new characteristics, just as in chemistry certain elements, when brought into contactbases and acids, for

examplecombine to form a new body possessing properties quite different from those of the bodies that

It is easy to prove how much the individual forming part of a crowd differs from the isolated individual, but it

To obtain at any rate a glimpse of them it is necessary in the first place to call to mind the truth established by

modern psychology, that unconscious phenomena play an altogether preponderating part not only in organic

life, but also in the operations of the intelligence. The conscious life of the mind is of small importance in

comparison with its unconscious life. The most subtle analyst, the most acute observer, is scarcely successful

in discovering more than a very small number of the unconscious motives that determine his conduct. Our

conscious acts are the outcome of an unconscious substratum created in the mind in the main by hereditary

influences. This substratum consists of the innumerable common characteristics handed down from

generation to generation, which constitute the genius of a race. Behind the avowed causes of our acts there

undoubtedly lie secret causes that we do not avow, but behind these secret causes there are many others more

secret still which we ourselves ignore. The greater part of our daily actions are the result of hidden motives

It is more especially with respect to those unconscious elements which constitute the genius of a race that all

the individuals belonging to it resemble each other, while it is principally in respect to the conscious elements

of their characterthe fruit of education, and yet more of exceptional hereditary conditionsthat they differ

from each other. Men the most unlike in the matter of their intelligence possess instincts, passions, and

feelings that are very similar. In the case of every thing that belongs to the realm of sentimentreligion,

politics, morality, the affections and antipathies, most eminent men seldom surpass the standard of the most

ordinary individuals. From the intellectual point of view an abyss may exist between a great mathematician

and his boot maker, but from the point of view of character the difference is most often slight or

It is precisely these general qualities of character, governed by forces of which we are unconscious, and

possessed by the majority of the normal individuals of a race in much the same degreeit is precisely these

qualities, I say, that in crowds become common property. In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of

the individuals, and in consequence their individuality, are weakened. The heterogeneous is swamped by the

This very fact that crowds possess in common ordinary qualities explains why they can never accomplish acts

demanding a high degree of intelligence. The decisions affecting matters of general interest come to by an

assembly of men of distinction, but specialists in different walks of life, are not sensibly superior to the

decisions that would be adopted by a gathering of imbeciles. The truth is, they can only bring to bear in

common on the work in hand those mediocre qualities which are the birthright of every average individual. In

crowds it is stupidity and not motherwit that is accumulated. It is not all the world, as is so often repeated,

that has more wit than Voltaire, but assuredly Voltaire that has more wit than all the world, if by "all the

If the individuals of a crowd confined themselves to putting in common the ordinary qualities of which each

of them has his share, there would merely result the striking of an average, and not, as we have said is

actually the case, the creation of new characteristics. How is it that these new characteristics are created? This

Different causes determine the appearance of these characteristics peculiar to crowds, and not possessed by

isolated individuals. The first is that the individual forming part of a crowd acquires, solely from numerical

considerations, a sentiment of invincible power which allows him to yield to instincts which, had he been

alone, he would perforce have kept under restraint. He will be the less disposed to check himself from the

consideration that, a crowd being anonymous, and in consequence irresponsible, the sentiment of

The second cause, which is contagion, also intervenes to determine the manifestation in crowds of their

special characteristics, and at the same time the trend they are to take. Contagion is a phenomenon of which it

is easy to establish the presence, but that it is not easy to explain. It must be classed among those phenomena

of a hypnotic order, which we shall shortly study. In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and

contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest.

This is an aptitude very contrary to his nature, and of which a man is scarcely capable, except when he makes

A third cause, and by far the most important, determines in the individuals of a crowd special characteristics

which are quite contrary at times to those presented by the isolated individual. I allude to that suggestibility

of which, moreover, the contagion mentioned above is neither more nor less than an effect.

To understand this phenomenon it is necessary to bear in mind certain recent physiological discoveries. We

know today that by various processes an individual may be brought into such a condition that, having

entirely lost his conscious personality, he obeys all the suggestions of the operator who has deprived him of

it, and commits acts in utter contradiction with his character and habits. The most careful observations seem

to prove that an individual immerged for some length of time in a crowd in action soon finds himselfeither

in consequence of the magnetic influence given out by the crowd, or from some other cause of which we are

ignorantin a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotised

individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotiser. The activity of the brain being paralysed in the case of

the hypnotised subject, the latter becomes the slave of all the unconscious activities of his spinal cord, which

the hypnotiser directs at will. The conscious personality has entirely vanished; will and discernment are lost.

All feelings and thoughts are bent in the direction determined by the hypnotiser.

Such also is approximately the state of the individual forming part of a psychological crowd. He is no longer

conscious of his acts. In his case, as in the case of the hypnotised subject, at the same time that certain

faculties are destroyed, others may be brought to a high degree of exaltation. Under the influence of a

suggestion, he will undertake the accomplishment of certain acts with irresistible impetuosity. This

impetuosity is the more irresistible in the case of crowds than in that of the hypnotised subject, from the fact

that, the suggestion being the same for all the individuals of the crowd, it gains in strength by reciprocity. The

individualities in the crowd who might possess a personality sufficiently strong to resist the suggestion are

too few in number to struggle against the current. At the utmost, they may be able to attempt a diversion by

means of different suggestions. It is in this way, for instance, that a happy expression, an image opportunely

We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the predominance of the unconscious

personality, the turning by means of suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical direction,

the tendency to immediately transform the suggested ideas into acts; these, we see, are the principal

characteristics of the individual forming part of a crowd. He is no longer himself, but has become an

Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man descends several rungs in the

ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarianthat is, a

creature acting by instinct. He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm

and heroism of primitive beings, whom he further tends to resemble by the facility with which he allows

himself to be impressed by words and imageswhich would be entirely without action on each of the

isolated individuals composing the crowdand to be induced to commit acts contrary to his most obvious

interests and his bestknown habits. An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid other grains of sand,

It is for these reasons that juries are seen to deliver verdicts of which each individual juror would disapprove,

that parliamentary assemblies adopt laws and measures of which each of their members would disapprove in

his own person. Taken separately, the men of the Convention were enlightened citizens of peaceful habits.

United in a crowd, they did not hesitate to give their adhesion to the most savage proposals, to guillotine

individuals most clearly innocent, and, contrary to their interests, to renounce their inviolability and to

It is not only by his acts that the individual in a crowd differs essentially from himself. Even before he has

entirely lost his independence, his ideas and feelings have undergone a transformation, and the transformation

is so profound as to change the miser into a spendthrift, the sceptic into a believer, the honest man into a

criminal, and the coward into a hero. The renunciation of all its privileges which the nobility voted in a

moment of enthusiasm during the celebrated night of August 4, 1789, would certainly never have been

The conclusion to be drawn from what precedes is, that the crowd is always intellectually inferior to the

isolated individual, but that, from the point of view of feelings and of the acts these feelings provoke, the

crowd may, according to circumstances, he better or worse than the individual. All depends on the nature of

the suggestion to which the crowd is exposed. This is the point that has been completely misunderstood by

writers who have only studied crowds from the criminal point of view. Doubtless a crowd is often criminal,

but also it is often heroic. It is crowds rather than isolated individuals that may be induced to run the risk of

death to secure the triumph of a creed or an idea, that may be fired with enthusiasm for glory and honour, that

are led onalmost without bread and without arms, as in the age of the Crusadesto deliver the tomb of

Christ from the infidel, or, as in '93, to defend the fatherland. Such heroism is without doubt somewhat

unconscious, but it is of such heroism that history is made. Were peoples only to be credited with the great

actions performed in cold blood, the annals of the world would register but few of them.

1. IMPULSIVENESS, MOBILITY, AND IRRITABILITY OF CROWDS. The crowd is at the mercy of all

exterior exciting causes, and reflects their incessant variationsThe impulses which the crowd obeys are so

imperious as to annihilate the feeling of personal interest Premeditation is absent from crowdsRacial

obedience of crowds to suggestionsThe images evoked in the mind of crowds are accepted by them as

realitiesWhy these images are identical for all the individuals composing a crowdThe equality of the

educated and the ignorant man in a crowdVarious examples of the illusions to which the individuals in a

crowd are subjectThe impossibility of according belief to the testimony of crowdsThe unanimity of

numerous witnesses is one of the worst proofs that can be invoked to establish a factThe slight value of

CROWDS. Crowds do not admit doubt or uncertainty, and always go to extremesTheir sentiments always

reasons of these sentimentsThe servility of crowds in the face of a strong authorityThe momentary

revolutionary instincts of crowds do not prevent them from being extremely conservativeCrowds

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 themExplanation and examples Crowds rarely guided by those considerations of

interest which are most often the exclusive motives of the isolated individualThe moralising role of

Having indicated in a general way the principal characteristics of crowds, it remains to study these

It will be remarked that among the special characteristics of crowds there are severalsuch as

impulsiveness, irritability, incapacity to reason, the absence of judgment and of the critical spirit, the

exaggeration of the sentiments, and others besideswhich are almost always observed in beings belonging

to inferior forms of evolutionin 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

I now proceed to the successive consideration of the different characteristics that may be observed in the

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. A crowd 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

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 selfpreservation, 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.

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

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.

A crowd is not merely impulsive and mobile. Like a savage, it is not prepared to admit that anything can

come between its desire and the realisation of its desire. It is the less capable of understanding such an

intervention, in consequence of the feeling of irresistible power given it by its numerical strength. The notion

of impossibility disappears for the individual in a crowd. An isolated individual knows well enough that

alone he cannot set fire to a palace or loot a shop, and should he be tempted to do so, he will easily resist the

temptation. Making part of a crowd, he is conscious of the power given him by number, and it is sufficient to

suggest to him ideas of murder or pillage for him to yield immediately to temptation. An unexpected obstacle

will be destroyed with frenzied rage. Did the human organism allow of the perpetuity of furious passion, it

might be said that the normal condition of a crowd baulked in its wishes is just such a state of furious passion.

The fundamental characteristics of the race, which constitute the unvarying source from which all our

sentiments spring, always exert an influence on the irritability of crowds, their impulsiveness and their

mobility, as on all the popular sentiments we shall have to study. All crowds are doubtless always irritable

and impulsive, but with great variations of degree. For instance, the difference between a Latin and an

AngloSaxon crowd is striking. The most recent facts in French history throw a vivid light on this point. The

mere publication, twentyfive years ago, of a telegram, relating an insult supposed to have been offered an

ambassador, was sufficient to determine an explosion of fury, whence followed immediately a terrible war.

Some years later the telegraphic announcement of an insignificant reverse at Langson provoked a fresh

explosion which brought about the instantaneous overthrow of the government. At the same moment a much

more serious reverse undergone by the English expedition to Khartoum produced only a slight emotion in

England, and no ministry was overturned. Crowds are everywhere distinguished by feminine characteristics,

but Latin crowds are the most feminine of all. Whoever trusts in them may rapidly attain a lofty destiny, but

to do so is to be perpetually skirting the brink of a Tarpeian rock, with the certainty of one day being

When defining crowds, we said that one of their general characteristics was an excessive suggestibility, and

we have shown to what an extent suggestions are contagious in every human agglomeration; a fact which

explains the rapid turning of the sentiments of a crowd in a definite direction. However indifferent it may be

supposed, a crowd, as a rule, is in a state of expectant attention, which renders suggestion easy. The first

suggestion formulated which arises implants itself immediately by a process of contagion in the brains of all

assembled, and the identical bent of the sentiments of the crowd is immediately an accomplished fact.

As is the case with all persons under the influence of suggestion, the idea which has entered the brain tends to

transform itself into an act. Whether the act is that of setting fire to a palace, or involves selfsacrifice, a

crowd lends itself to it with equal facility. All will depend on the nature of the exciting cause, and no longer,

as in the case of the isolated individual, on the relations existing between the act suggested and the sum total

In consequence, a crowd perpetually hovering on the borderland of unconsciousness, readily yielding to all

suggestions, having all the violence of feeling peculiar to beings who cannot appeal to the influence of

reason, deprived of all critical faculty, cannot be otherwise than excessively credulous. The improbable does

not exist for a crowd, and it is necessary to bear this circumstance well in mind to understand the facility with

[3] Persons who went through the siege of Paris saw numerous examples of this credulity of crowds. A

candle alight in an upper story was immediately looked upon as a signal given the besiegers, although it was

evident, after a moment of reflection, that it was utterly impossible to catch sight of the light of the candle at a

The creation of the legends which so easily obtain circulation in crowds is not solely the consequence of their

extreme credulity. It is also the result of the prodigious perversions that events undergo in the imagination of

a throng. The simplest event that comes under the observation of a crowd is soon totally transformed. A

crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls up a series of other images, having no logical

connection with the first. We can easily conceive this state by thinking of the fantastic succession of ideas to

which we are sometimes led by calling up in our minds any fact. Our reason shows us the incoherence there

is in these images, but a crowd is almost blind to this truth, and confuses with the real event what the

deforming action of its imagination has superimposed thereon. A crowd scarcely distinguishes between the

subjective and the objective. It accepts as real the images evoked in its mind, though they most often have

The ways in which a crowd perverts any event of which it is a witness ought, it would seem, to be

innumerable and unlike each other, since the individuals composing the gathering are of very different

temperaments. But this is not the case. As the result of contagion the perversions are of the same kind, and

The first perversion of the truth effected by one of the individuals of the gathering is the startingpoint of the

contagious suggestion. Before St. George appeared on the walls of Jerusalem to all the Crusaders he was

certainly perceived in the first instance by one of those present. By dint of suggestion and contagion the

Such is always the mechanism of the collective hallucinations so frequent in historyhallucinations which

seem to have all the recognised characteristics of authenticity, since they are phenomena observed by

To combat what precedes, the mental quality of the individuals composing a crowd must not be brought into

consideration. This quality is without importance. From the moment that they form part of a crowd the

This thesis may seem paradoxical. To demonstrate it beyond doubt it would be necessary to investigate a

great number of historical facts, and several volumes would be insufficient for the purpose.

Still, as I do not wish to leave the reader under the impression of unproved assertions, I shall give him some

The following fact is one of the most typical, because chosen from among collective hallucinations of which

a crowd is the victim, in which are to be found individuals of every kind, from the most ignorant to the most

highly educated. It is related incidentally by Julian Felix, a naval lieutenant, in his book on "Sea Currents,"

The frigate, the Belle Poule, was cruising in the open sea for the purpose of finding the cruiser Le Berceau,

from which she had been separated by a violent storm. It was broad daylight and in full sunshine. Suddenly

the watch signalled a disabled vessel; the crew looked in the direction signalled, and every one, officers and

sailors, clearly perceived a raft covered with men towed by boats which were displaying signals of distress.

Yet this was nothing more than a collective hallucination. Admiral Desfosses lowered a boat to go to the

rescue of the wrecked sailors. On nearing the object sighted, the sailors and officers on board the boat saw

"masses of men in motion, stretching out their hands, and heard the dull and confused noise of a great number

of voices." When the object was reached those in the boat found themselves simply and solely in the presence

of a few branches of trees covered with leaves that had been swept out from the neighbouring coast. Before

The mechanism of a collective hallucination of the kind we have explained is clearly seen at work in this

example. On the one hand we have a crowd in a state of expectant attention, on the other a suggestion made

by the watch signalling a disabled vessel at sea, a suggestion which, by a process of contagion, was accepted

It is not necessary that a crowd should be numerous for the faculty of seeing what is taking place before its

eyes to be destroyed and for the real facts to be replaced by hallucinations unrelated to them. As soon as a

few individuals are gathered together they constitute a crowd, and, though they should be distinguished men

of learning, they assume all the characteristics of crowds with regard to matters outside their speciality. The

faculty of observation and the critical spirit possessed by each of them individually at once disappears. An

ingenious psychologist, Mr. Davey, supplies us with a very curious example in point, recently cited in the

Annales des Sciences Psychiques, and deserving of relation here. Mr. Davey, having convoked a gathering of

distinguished observers, among them one of the most prominent of English scientific men, Mr. Wallace,

executed in their presence, and after having allowed them to examine the objects and to place seals where

they wished, all the regulation spiritualistic phenomena, the materialisation of spirits, writing on slates,

Having subsequently obtained from these distinguished observers written reports admitting that the

phenomena observed could only have been obtained by supernatural means, he revealed to them that they

were the result of very simple tricks. "The most astonishing feature of Monsieur Davey's investigation,"

writes the author of this account, "is not the marvellousness of the tricks themselves, but the extreme

weakness of the reports made with respect to them by the noninitiated witnesses. It is clear, then," he says,

"that witnesses even in number may give circumstantial relations which are completely erroneous, but whose

result is THAT, IF THEIR DESCRIPTIONS ARE ACCEPTED AS EXACT, the phenomena they describe

are inexplicable by trickery. The methods invented by Mr. Davey were so simple that one is astonished that

he should have had the boldness to employ them; but he had such a power over the mind of the crowd that he

could persuade it that it saw what it did not see." Here, as always, we have the power of the hypnotiser over

the hypnotised. Moreover, when this power is seen in action on minds of a superior order and previously

invited to be suspicious, it is understandable how easy it is to deceive ordinary crowds.

Analogous examples are innumerable. As I write these lines the papers are full of the story of two little girls

found drowned in the Seine. These children, to begin with, were recognised in the most unmistakable manner

by half a dozen witnesses. All the affirmations were in such entire concordance that no doubt remained in the

mind of the juge d'instruction. He had the certificate of death drawn up, but just as the burial of the children

was to have been proceeded with, a mere chance brought about the discovery that the supposed victims were

alive, and had, moreover, but a remote resemblance to the drowned girls. As in several of the examples

previously cited, the affirmation of the first witness, himself a victim of illusion, had sufficed to influence the

In parallel cases the startingpoint of the suggestion is always the illusion produced in an individual by more

or less vague reminiscences, contagion following as the result of the affirmation of this initial illusion. If the

first observer be very impressionable, it will often be sufficient that the corpse he believes he recognises

should present apart from all real resemblancesome peculiarity, a scar, or some detail of toilet which

may evoke the idea of another person. The idea evoked may then become the nucleus of a sort of

crystallisation which invades the understanding and paralyses all critical faculty. What the observer then sees

is no longer the object itself, but the image evoked in his mind. In this way are to be explained erroneous

recognitions of the dead bodies of children by their own mother, as occurred in the following case, already

old, but which has been recently recalled by the newspapers. In it are to be traced precisely the two kinds of

"The child was recognised by another child, who was mistaken. The series of unwarranted recognitions then

"An extraordinary thing occurred. The day after a schoolboy had recognised the corpse a woman exclaimed,

"She was taken up to the corpse; she examined the clothing, and noted a scar on the forehead. `It is certainly,'

she said, `my son who disappeared last July. He has been stolen from me and murdered.'

"The woman was concierge in the Rue du Four; her name was Chavandret. Her brotherinlaw was

summoned, and when questioned he said, `That is the little Filibert.' Several persons living in the street

recognised the child found at La Villette as Filibert Chavandret, among them being the boy's schoolmaster,

"Nevertheless, the neighbours, the brotherinlaw, the schoolmaster, and the mother were mistaken. Six

weeks later the identity of the child was established. The boy, belonging to Bordeaux, had been murdered

It will be remarked that these recognitions are most often made by women and childrenthat is to say, by

precisely the most impressionable persons. They show us at the same time what is the worth in law courts of

such witnesses. As far as children, more especially, are concerned, their statements ought never to be

invoked. Magistrates are in the habit of repeating that children do not lie. Did they possess a psychological

culture a little less rudimentary than is the case they would know that, on the contrary, children invariably lie;

the lie is doubtless innocent, but it is none the less a lie. It would be better to decide the fate of an accused

person by the toss of a coin than, as has been so often done, by the evidence of a child.

To return to the faculty of observation possessed by crowds, our conclusion is that their collective

observations are as erroneous as possible, and that most often they merely represent the illusion of an

individual who, by a process of contagion, has suggestioned his fellows. Facts proving that the most utter

mistrust of the evidence of crowds is advisable might be multiplied to any extent. Thousands of men were

present twentyfive years ago at the celebrated cavalry charge during the battle of Sedan, and yet it is

impossible, in the face of the most contradictory ocular testimony, to decide by whom it was commanded.

The English general, Lord Wolseley, has proved in a recent book that up to now the gravest errors of fact

have been committed with regard to the most important incidents of the battle of Waterloofacts that

[5] Do we know in the case of one single battle exactly how it took place? I am very doubtful on the point.

We know who were the conquerors and the conquered, but this is probably all. What M. D'Harcourt has said

with respect to the battle of Solferino, which he witnessed and in which he was personally engaged, may be

applied to all battles"The generals (informed, of course, by the evidence of hundreds of witnesses) forward

their official reports; the orderly officers modify these documents and draw up a definite narrative; the chief

of the staff raises objections and rewrites the whole on a fresh basis. It is carried to the Marshal, who

exclaims, `You are entirely in error,' and he substitutes a fresh edition. Scarcely anything remains of the

original report." M. D'Harcourt relates this fact as proof of the impossibility of establishing the truth in

Such facts show us what is the value of the testimony of crowds. Treatises on logic include the unanimity of

numerous witnesses in the category of the strongest proofs that can be invoked in support of the exactness of

a fact. Yet what we know of the psychology of crowds shows that treatises on logic need on this point to be

rewritten. The events with regard to which there exists the most doubt are certainly those which have been

observed by the greatest number of persons. To say that a fact has been simultaneously verified by thousands

of witnesses is to say, as a rule, that the real fact is very different from the accepted account of it.

It clearly results from what precedes that works of history must be considered as works of pure imagination.

They are fanciful accounts of illobserved facts, accompanied by explanations the result of reflection. To

write such books is the most absolute waste of time. Had not the past left us its literary, artistic, and

monumental works, we should know absolutely nothing in reality with regard to bygone times. Are we in

possession of a single word of truth concerning the lives of the great men who have played preponderating

parts in the history of humanitymen such as Hercules, Buddha, or Mahomet? In all probability we are not.

In point of fact, moreover, their real lives are of slight importance to us. Our interest is to know what our

great men were as they are presented by popular legend. It is legendary heroes, and not for a moment real

Unfortunately, legendseven although they have been definitely put on record by bookshave in

themselves no stability. The imagination of the crowd continually transforms them as the result of the lapse

of time and especially in consequence of racial causes. There is a great gulf fixed between the sanguinary

Jehovah of the Old Testament and the God of Love of Sainte Therese, and the Buddha worshipped in China

It is not even necessary that heroes should be separated from us by centuries for their legend to be

transformed by the imagination of the crowd. The transformation occasionally takes place within a few years.

In our own day we have seen the legend of one of the greatest heroes of history modified several times in less

than fifty years. Under the Bourbons Napoleon became a sort of idyllic and liberal philanthropist, a friend of

the humble who, according to the poets, was destined to be long remembered in the cottage. Thirty years

afterwards this easygoing hero had become a sanguinary despot, who, after having usurped power and

destroyed liberty, caused the slaughter of three million men solely to satisfy his ambition. At present we are

witnessing a fresh transformation of the legend. When it has undergone the influence of some dozens of

centuries the learned men of the future, face to face with these contradictory accounts, will perhaps doubt the

very existence of the hero, as some of them now doubt that of Buddha, and will see in him nothing more than

a solar myth or a development of the legend of Hercules. They will doubtless console themselves easily for

this uncertainty, for, better initiated than we are today in the characteristics and psychology of crowds, they

will know that history is scarcely capable of preserving the memory of anything except myths.

Whether the feelings exhibited by a crowd be good or bad, they present the double character of being very

simple and very exaggerated. On this point, as on so many others, an individual in a crowd resembles

primitive beings. Inaccessible to fine distinctions, he sees things as a whole, and is blind to their intermediate

phases. The exaggeration of the sentiments of a crowd is heightened by the fact that any feeling when once it

is exhibited communicating itself very quickly by a process of suggestion and contagion, the evident

The simplicity and exaggeration of the sentiments of crowds have for result that a throng knows neither doubt

nor uncertainty. Like women, it goes at once to extremes. A suspicion transforms itself as soon as announced

into incontrovertible evidence. A commencement of antipathy or disapprobation, which in the case of an

isolated individual would not gain strength, becomes at once furious hatred in the case of an individual in a

The violence of the feelings of crowds is also increased, especially in heterogeneous crowds, by the absence

of all sense of responsibility. The certainty of impunity, a certainty the stronger as the crowd is more

numerous, and the notion of a considerable momentary force due to number, make possible in the case of

crowds sentiments and acts impossible for the isolated individual. In crowds the foolish, ignorant, and

envious persons are freed from the sense of their insignificance and powerlessness, and are possessed instead

Unfortunately, this tendency of crowds towards exaggeration is often brought to bear upon bad sentiments.

These sentiments are atavistic residuum of the instincts of the primitive man, which the fear of punishment

obliges the isolated and responsible individual to curb. Thus it is that crowds are so easily led into the worst

Still this does not mean that crowds, skilfully influenced, are not capable of heroism and devotion and of

evincing the loftiest virtues; they are even more capable of showing these qualities than the isolated

individual. We shall soon have occasion to revert to this point when we come to study the morality of

Given to exaggeration in its feelings, a crowd is only impressed by excessive sentiments. An orator wishing

to move a crowd must make an abusive use of violent affirmations. To exaggerate, to affirm, to resort to

repetitions, and never to attempt to prove anything by reasoning are methods of argument well known to

Moreover, a crowd exacts a like exaggeration in the sentiments of its heroes. Their apparent qualities and

virtues must always be amplified. It has been justly remarked that on the stage a crowd demands from the

hero of the piece a degree of courage, morality, and virtue that is never to be found in real life.

Quite rightly importance has been laid on the special standpoint from which matters are viewed in the theatre.

Such a standpoint exists no doubt, but its rules for the most part have nothing to do with common sense and

logic. The art of appealing to crowds is no doubt of an inferior order, but it demands quite special aptitudes. It

is often impossible on reading plays to explain their success. Managers of theatres when accepting pieces are

themselves, as a rule, very uncertain of their success, because to judge the matter it would be necessary that

[6] It is understandable for this reason why it sometimes happens that pieces refused by all theatrical

managers obtain a prodigious success when by a stroke of chance they are put on the stage. The recent

success of Francois Coppee's play "Pour la Couronne" is well known, and yet, in spite of the name of its

author, it was refused during ten years by the managers of the principal Parisian theatres.

"Charley's Aunt," refused at every theatre, and finally staged at the expense of a stockbroker, has had two

hundred representations in France, and more than a thousand in London. Without the explanation given above

of the impossibility for theatrical managers to mentally substitute themselves for a crowd, such mistakes in

judgment on the part of competent individuals, who are most interested not to commit such grave blunders,

would be inexplicable. This is a subject that I cannot deal with here, but it might worthily tempt the pen of a

writer acquainted with theatrical matters, and at the same time a subtle psychologistof such a writer, for

Here, once more, were we able to embark on more extensive explanations, we should show the

preponderating influence of racial considerations. A play which provokes the enthusiasm of the crowd in one

country has sometimes no success in another, or has only a partial and conventional success, because it does

I need not add that the tendency to exaggeration in crowds is only present in the case of sentiments and not at

all in the matter of intelligence. I have already shown that, by the mere fact that an individual forms part of a

crowd, his intellectual standard is immediately and considerably lowered. A learned magistrate, M. Tarde,

has also verified this fact in his researches on the crimes of crowds. It is only, then, with respect to sentiment

that crowds can rise to a very high or, on the contrary, descend to a very low level.

Crowds are only cognisant of simple and extreme sentiments; the opinions, ideas, and beliefs suggested to

them are accepted or rejected as a whole, and considered as absolute truths or as not less absolute errors. This

is always the case with beliefs induced by a process of suggestion instead of engendered by reasoning. Every

one is aware of the intolerance that accompanies religious beliefs, and of the despotic empire they exercise on

Being in doubt as to what constitutes truth or error, and having, on the other hand, a clear notion of its

strength, a crowd is as disposed to give authoritative effect to its inspirations as it is intolerant. An individual

may accept contradiction and discussion; a crowd will never do so. At public meetings the slightest

contradiction on the part of an orator is immediately received with howls of fury and violent invective, soon

followed by blows, and expulsion should the orator stick to his point. Without the restraining presence of the

representatives of authority the contradictor, indeed, would often be done to death.

Dictatorialness and intolerance are common to all categories of crowds, but they are met with in a varying

degree of intensity. Here, once more, reappears that fundamental notion of race which dominates all the

feelings and all the thoughts of men. It is more especially in Latin crowds that authoritativeness and

intolerance are found developed in the highest measure. In fact, their development is such in crowds of Latin

origin that they have entirely destroyed that sentiment of the independence of the individual so powerful in

the AngloSaxon. Latin crowds are only concerned with the collective independence of the sect to which

they belong, and the characteristic feature of their conception of independence is the need they experience of

bringing those who are in disagreement with themselves into immediate and violent subjection to their

beliefs. Among the Latin races the Jacobins of every epoch, from those of the Inquisition downwards, have

Authoritativeness and intolerance are sentiments of which crowds have a very clear notion, which they easily

conceive and which they entertain as readily as they put them in practice when once they are imposed upon

them. Crowds exhibit a docile respect for force, and are but slightly impressed by kindness, which for them is

scarcely other than a form of weakness. Their sympathies have never been bestowed on easygoing masters,

but on tyrants who vigorously oppressed them. It is to these latter that they always erect the loftiest statues. It

is true that they willingly trample on the despot whom they have stripped of his power, but it is because,

having lost his strength, he has resumed his place among the feeble, who are to be despised because they are

not to be feared. The type of hero dear to crowds will always have the semblance of a Caesar. His insignia

attracts them, his authority overawes them, and his sword instils them with fear.

A crowd is always ready to revolt against a feeble, and to bow down servilely before a strong authority.

Should the strength of an authority be intermittent, the crowd, always obedient to its extreme sentiments,

However, to believe in the predominance among crowds of revolutionary instincts would be to entirely

misconstrue their psychology. It is merely their tendency to violence that deceives us on this point. Their

rebellious and destructive outbursts are always very transitory. Crowds are too much governed by

unconscious considerations, and too much subject in consequence to secular hereditary influences not to be

extremely conservative. Abandoned to themselves, they soon weary of disorder, and instinctively turn to

servitude. It was the proudest and most untractable of the Jacobins who acclaimed Bonaparte with greatest

It is difficult to understand history, and popular revolutions in particular, if one does not take sufficiently into

account the profoundly conservative instincts of crowds. They may be desirous, it is true, of changing the

names of their institutions, and to obtain these changes they accomplish at times even violent revolutions, but

the essence of these institutions is too much the expression of the hereditary needs of the race for them not

invariably to abide by it. Their incessant mobility only exerts its influence on quite superficial matters. In fact

they possess conservative instincts as indestructible as those of all primitive beings. Their fetish like respect

for all traditions is absolute; their unconscious horror of all novelty capable of changing the essential

conditions of their existence is very deeply rooted. Had democracies possessed the power they wield today

at the time of the invention of mechanical looms or of the introduction of steampower and of railways, the

realisation of these inventions would have been impossible, or would have been achieved at the cost of

revolutions and repeated massacres. It is fortunate for the progress of civilisation that the power of crowds

only began to exist when the great discoveries of science and industry had already been effected.

Taking the word "morality" to mean constant respect for certain social conventions, and the permanent

repression of selfish impulses, it is quite evident that crowds are too impulsive and too mobile to be moral. If,

however, we include in the term morality the transitory display of certain qualities such as abnegation,

selfsacrifice, disinterestedness, devotion, and the need of equity, we may say, on the contrary, that crowds

The few psychologists who have studied crowds have only considered them from the point of view of their

criminal acts, and noticing how frequent these acts are, they have come to the conclusion that the moral

Doubtless this is often the case; but why? Simply because our savage, destructive instincts are the inheritance

left dormant in all of us from the primitive ages. In the life of the isolated individual it would be dangerous

for him to gratify these instincts, while his absorption in an irresponsible crowd, in which in consequence he

is assured of impunity, gives him entire liberty to follow them. Being unable, in the ordinary course of events,

to exercise these destructive instincts on our fellow men, we confine ourselves to exercising them on

animals. The passion, so widespread, for the chase and the acts of ferocity of crowds proceed from one and

the same source. A crowd which slowly slaughters a defenceless victim displays a very cowardly ferocity; but

for the philosopher this ferocity is very closely related to that of the huntsmen who gather in dozens for the

pleasure of taking part in the pursuit and killing of a luckless stag by their hounds.

A crowd may be guilty of murder, incendiarism, and every kind of crime, but it is also capable of very lofty

acts of devotion, sacrifice, and disinterestedness, of acts much loftier indeed than those of which the isolated

individual is capable. Appeals to sentiments of glory, honour, and patriotism are particularly likely to

influence the individual forming part of a crowd, and often to the extent of obtaining from him the sacrifice

of his life. History is rich in examples analogous to those furnished by the Crusaders and the volunteers of

1793. Collectivities alone are capable of great disinterestedness and great devotion. How numerous are the

crowds that have heroically faced death for beliefs, ideas, and phrases that they scarcely understood! The

crowds that go on strike do so far more in obedience to an order than to obtain an increase of the slender

salary with which they make shift. Personal interest is very rarely a powerful motive force with crowds, while

it is almost the exclusive motive of the conduct of the isolated individual. It is assuredly not selfinterest that

has guided crowds in so many wars, incomprehensible as a rule to their intelligencewars in which they

have allowed themselves to be massacred as easily as the larks hypnotised by the mirror of the hunter.

Even in the case of absolute scoundrels it often happens that the mere fact of their being in a crowd endows

them for the moment with very strict principles of morality. Taine calls attention to the fact that the

perpetrators of the September massacres deposited on the table of the committees the pocketbooks and

jewels they had found on their victims, and with which they could easily have been able to make away. The

howling, swarming, ragged crowd which invaded the Tuileries during the revolution of 1848 did not lay

hands on any of the objects that excited its astonishment, and one of which would have meant bread for many

This moralisation of the individual by the crowd is not certainly a constant rule, but it is a rule frequently

observed. It is even observed in circumstances much less grave than those I have just cited. I have remarked

that in the theatre a crowd exacts from the hero of the piece exaggerated virtues, and it is a commonplace

observation that an assembly, even though composed of inferior elements, shows itself as a rule very prudish.

The debauchee, the souteneur, the rough often break out into murmurs at a slightly risky scene or expression,

If, then, crowds often abandon themselves to low instincts, they also set the example at times of acts of lofty

morality. If disinterestedness, resignation, and absolute devotion to a real or chimerical ideal are moral

virtues, it may be said that crowds often possess these virtues to a degree rarely attained by the wisest

philosophers. Doubtless they practice them unconsciously, but that is of small import. We should not

complain too much that crowds are more especially guided by unconscious considerations and are not given

to reasoning. Had they, in certain cases, reasoned and consulted their immediate interests, it is possible that

no civilisation would have grown up on our planet and humanity would have had no history.

1. THE IDEAS OF CROWDS. Fundamental and accessory ideasHow contradictory ideas may exist

simultaneouslyThe transformation that must be undergone by lofty ideas before they are accessible to

crowds The social influence of ideas is independent of the degree of truth they may contain. 2. THE

REASONING POWER OF CROWDS. Crowds are not to be influenced by reasoningThe reasoning of

crowds is always of a very inferior orderThere is only the appearance of analogy or succession in the ideas

they associate. 3. THE IMAGINATION OF CROWDS. Strength of the imagination of crowdsCrowds

think in images, and these images succeed each other without any connecting linkCrowds are especially

impressed by the marvellousLegends and the marvellous are the real pillars of civilisationThe popular

imagination has always been the basis of the power of statesmenThe manner in which facts capable of

WHEN studying in a preceding work the part played by ideas in the evolution of nations, we showed that

every civilisation is the outcome of a small number of fundamental ideas that are very rarely renewed. We

showed how these ideas are implanted in the minds of crowds, with what difficulty the process is effected,

and the power possessed by the ideas in question when once it has been accomplished. Finally we saw that

great historical perturbations are the result, as a rule, of changes in these fundamental ideas.

Having treated this subject at sufficient length, I shall not return to it now, but shall confine myself to saying

a few words on the subject of such ideas as are accessible to crowds, and of the forms under which they

They may be divided into two classes. In one we shall place accidental and passing ideas created by the

influences of the moment: infatuation for an individual or a doctrine, for instance. In the other will be classed

the fundamental ideas, to which the environment, the laws of heredity and public opinion give a very great

stability; such ideas are the religious beliefs of the past and the social and democratic ideas of today.

These fundamental ideas resemble the volume of the water of a stream slowly pursuing its course; the

transitory ideas are like the small waves, for ever changing, which agitate its surface, and are more visible

At the present day the great fundamental ideas which were the mainstay of our fathers are tottering more and

more. They have lost all solidity, and at the same time the institutions resting upon them are severely shaken.

Every day there are formed a great many of those transitory minor ideas of which I have just been speaking;

but very few of them to all appearance seem endowed with vitality and destined to acquire a preponderating

Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise effective influence on condition that they

assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. They present themselves then in the guise of

images, and are only accessible to the masses under this form. These imagelike ideas are not connected by

any logical bond of analogy or succession, and may take each other's place like the slides of a magiclantern

which the operator withdraws from the groove in which they were placed one above the other. This explains

how it is that the most contradictory ideas may be seen to be simultaneously current in crowds. According to

the chances of the moment, a crowd will come under the influence of one of the various ideas stored up in its

understanding, and is capable, in consequence, of committing the most dissimilar acts. Its complete lack of

This phenomenon is not peculiar to crowds. It is to be observed in many isolated individuals, not only among

primitive beings, but in the case of all thosethe fervent sectaries of a religious faith, for instancewho by

one side or another of their intelligence are akin to primitive beings. I have observed its presence to a curious

extent in the case of educated Hindoos brought up at our European universities and having taken their degree.

A number of Western ideas had been superposed on their unchangeable and fundamental hereditary or social

ideas. According to the chances of the moment, the one or the other set of ideas showed themselves each with

their special accompaniment of acts or utterances, the same individual presenting in this way the most

flagrant contradictions. These contradictions are more apparent than real, for it is only hereditary ideas that

have sufficient influence over the isolated individual to become motives of conduct. It is only when, as the

result of the intermingling of different races, a man is placed between different hereditary tendencies that his

acts from one moment to another may be really entirely contradictory. It would be useless to insist here on

these phenomena, although their psychological importance is capital. I am of opinion that at least ten years of

Ideas being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very simple shape must often undergo the most

thoroughgoing transformations to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat lofty

philosophic or scientific ideas that we see how farreaching are the modifications they require in order to

lower them to the level of the intelligence of crowds. These modifications are dependent on the nature of the

crowds, or of the race to which the crowds belong, but their tendency is always belittling and in the direction

of simplification. This explains the fact that, from the social point of view, there is in reality scarcely any

such thing as a hierarchy of ideasthat is to say, as ideas of greater or less elevation. However great or true

an idea may have been to begin with, it is deprived of almost all that which constituted its elevation and its

greatness by the mere fact that it has come within the intellectual range of crowds and exerts an influence

Moreover, from the social point of view the hierarchical value of an idea, its intrinsic worth, is without

importance. The necessary point to consider is the effects it produces. The Christian ideas of the Middle

Ages, the democratic ideas of the last century, or the social ideas of today are assuredly not very elevated.

Philosophically considered, they can only be regarded as somewhat sorry errors, and yet their power has been

and will be immense, and they will count for a long time to come among the most essential factors that

Even when an idea has undergone the transformations which render it accessible to crowds, it only exerts

influence when, by various processes which we shall examine elsewhere, it has entered the domain of the

unconscious, when indeed it has become a sentiment, for which much time is required.

For it must not be supposed that merely because the justness of an idea has been proved it can be productive

of effective action even on cultivated minds. This fact may be quickly appreciated by noting how slight is the

influence of the clearest demonstration on the majority of men. Evidence, if it be very plain, may be accepted

by an educated person, but the convert will be quickly brought back by his unconscious self to his original

conceptions. See him again after the lapse of a few days and he will put forward afresh his old arguments in

exactly the same terms. He is in reality under the influence of anterior ideas, that have become sentiments,

and it is such ideas alone that influence the more recondite motives of our acts and utterances. It cannot be

When by various processes an idea has ended by penetrating into the minds of crowds, it possesses an

irresistible power, and brings about a series of effects, opposition to which is bootless. The philosophical

ideas which resulted in the French Revolution took nearly a century to implant themselves in the mind of the

crowd. Their irresistible force, when once they had taken root, is known. The striving of an entire nation

towards the conquest of social equality, and the realisation of abstract rights and ideal liberties, caused the

tottering of all thrones and profoundly disturbed the Western world. During twenty years the nations were

engaged in internecine conflict, and Europe witnessed hecatombs that would have terrified Ghengis Khan and

Tamerlane. The world had never seen on such a scale what may result from the promulgation of an idea.

A long time is necessary for ideas to establish themselves in the minds of crowds, but just as long a time is

needed for them to be eradicated. For this reason crowds, as far as ideas are concerned, are always several

generations behind learned men and philosophers. All statesmen are well aware today of the admixture of

error contained in the fundamental ideas I referred to a short while back, but as the influence of these ideas is

still very powerful they are obliged to govern in accordance with principles in the truth of which they have

It cannot absolutely be said that crowds do not reason and are not to be influenced by reasoning.

However, the arguments they employ and those which are capable of influencing them are, from a logical

point of view, of such an inferior kind that it is only by way of analogy that they can be described as

The inferior reasoning of crowds is based, just as is reasoning of a high order, on the association of ideas, but

between the ideas associated by crowds there are only apparent bonds of analogy or succession. The mode of

reasoning of crowds resembles that of the Esquimaux who, knowing from experience that ice, a transparent

body, melts in the mouth, concludes that glass, also a transparent body, should also melt in the mouth; or that

of the savage who imagines that by eating the heart of a courageous foe he acquires his bravery; or of the

workman who, having been exploited by one employer of labour, immediately concludes that all employers

The characteristics of the reasoning of crowds are the association of dissimilar things possessing a merely

apparent connection between each other, and the immediate generalisation of particular cases. It is arguments

of this kind that are always presented to crowds by those who know how to manage them. They are the only

arguments by which crowds are to be influenced. A chain of logical argumentation is totally

incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is permissible to say that they do not reason or that they

reason falsely and are not to be influenced by reasoning. Astonishment is felt at times on reading certain

speeches at their weakness, and yet they had an enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them,

but it is forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to be read by philosophers. An

orator in intimate communication with a crowd can evoke images by which it will be seduced. If he is

successful his object has been attained, and twenty volumes of haranguesalways the outcome of

reflectionare not worth the few phrases which appealed to the brains it was required to convince.

It would be superfluous to add that the powerlessness of crowds to reason aright prevents them displaying

any trace of the critical spirit, prevents them, that is, from being capable of discerning truth from error, or of

forming a precise judgment on any matter. Judgments accepted by crowds are merely judgments forced upon

them and never judgments adopted after discussion. In regard to this matter the individuals who do not rise

above the level of a crowd are numerous. The ease with which certain opinions obtain general acceptance

results more especially from the impossibility experienced by the majority of men of forming an opinion

Just as is the case with respect to persons in whom the reasoning power is absent, the figurative imagination

of crowds is very powerful, very active and very susceptible of being keenly impressed. The images evoked

in their mind by a personage, an event, an accident, are almost as lifelike as the reality. Crowds are to some

extent in the position of the sleeper whose reason, suspended for the time being, allows the arousing in his

mind of images of extreme intensity which would quickly be dissipated could they be submitted to the action

of reflection. Crowds, being incapable both of reflection and of reasoning, are devoid of the notion of

improbability; and it is to be noted that in a general way it is the most improbable things that are the most

This is why it happens that it is always the marvellous and legendary side of events that more specially strike

crowds. When a civilisation is analysed it is seen that, in reality, it is the marvellous and the legendary that

are its true supports. Appearances have always played a much more important part than reality in history,

Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be impressed by images. It is only images that

For this reason theatrical representations, in which the image is shown in its most clearly visible shape,

always have an enormous influence on crowds. Bread and spectacular shows constituted for the plebeians of

ancient Rome the ideal of happiness, and they asked for nothing more. Throughout the successive ages this

ideal has scarcely varied. Nothing has a greater effect on the imagination of crowds of every category than

theatrical representations. The entire audience experiences at the same time the same emotions, and if these

emotions are not at once transformed into acts, it is because the most unconscious spectator cannot ignore

that he is the victim of illusions, and that he has laughed or wept over imaginary adventures. Sometimes,

however, the sentiments suggested by the images are so strong that they tend, like habitual suggestions, to

transform themselves into acts. The story has often been told of the manager of a popular theatre who, in

consequence of his only playing sombre dramas, was obliged to have the actor who took the part of the traitor

protected on his leaving the theatre, to defend him against the violence of the spectators, indignant at the

crimes, imaginary though they were, which the traitor had committed. We have here, in my opinion, one of

the most remarkable indications of the mental state of crowds, and especially of the facility with which they

are suggestioned. The unreal has almost as much influence on them as the real. They have an evident

The power of conquerors and the strength of States is based on the popular imagination. It is more

particularly by working upon this imagination that crowds are led. All great historical facts, the rise of

Buddhism, of Christianity, of Islamism, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and, in our own time, the

threatening invasion of Socialism are the direct or indirect consequences of strong impressions produced on

Moreover, all the great statesmen of every age and every country, including the most absolute despots, have

regarded the popular imagination as the basis of their power, and they have never attempted to govern in

opposition to it "It was by becoming a Catholic," said Napoleon to the Council of State, "that I terminated the

Vendeen war. By becoming a Mussulman that I obtained a footing in Egypt. By becoming an Ultramontane

that I won over the Italian priests, and had I to govern a nation of Jews I would rebuild Solomon's temple."

Never perhaps since Alexander and Caesar has any great man better understood how the imagination of the

crowd should be impressed. His constant preoccupation was to strike it. He bore it in mind in his victories, in

his harangues, in his speeches, in all his acts. On his deathbed it was still in his thoughts.

How is the imagination of crowds to be impressed? We shall soon see. Let us confine ourselves for the

moment to saying that the feat is never to be achieved by attempting to work upon the intelligence or

reasoning faculty, that is to say, by way of demonstration. It was not by means of cunning rhetoric that

Antony succeeded in making the populace rise against the murderers of Caesar; it was by reading his will to

Whatever strikes the imagination of crowds presents itself under the shape of a startling and very clear image,

freed from all accessory explanation, or merely having as accompaniment a few marvellous or mysterious

facts: examples in point are a great victory, a great miracle, a great crime, or a great hope. Things must be

laid before the crowd as a whole, and their genesis must never be indicated. A hundred petty crimes or petty

accidents will not strike the imagination of crowds in the least, whereas a single great crime or a single great

accident will profoundly impress them, even though the results be infinitely less disastrous than those of the

hundred small accidents put together. The epidemic of influenza, which caused the death but a few years ago

of five thousand persons in Paris alone, made very little impression on the popular imagination. The reason

was that this veritable hecatomb was not embodied in any visible image, but was only learnt from statistical

information furnished weekly. An accident which should have caused the death of only five hundred instead

of five thousand persons, but on the same day and in public, as the outcome of an accident appealing strongly

to the eye, by the fall, for instance, of the Eiffel Tower, would have produced, on the contrary, an immense

impression on the imagination of the crowd. The probable loss of a transatlantic steamer that was supposed,

in the absence of news, to have gone down in midocean profoundly impressed the imagination of the crowd

for a whole week. Yet official statistics show that 850 sailing vessels and 203 steamers were lost in the year

1894 alone. The crowd, however, was never for a moment concerned by these successive losses, much more

important though they were as far as regards the destruction of life and property, than the loss of the Atlantic

It is not, then, the facts in themselves that strike the popular imagination, but the way in which they take

place and are brought under notice. It is necessary that by their condensation, if I may thus express myself,

they should produce a startling image which fills and besets the mind. To know the art of impressing the

What is meant by the religious sentimentIt is independent of the worship of a divinityIts

characteristicsThe strength of convictions assuming a religious shapeVarious examplesPopular gods

atheismImportance of these notions from the historical point of view The Reformation, Saint

Bartholomew, the Terror, and all analogous events are the result of the religious sentiments of crowds and not

We have shown that crowds do not reason, that they accept or reject ideas as a whole, that they tolerate

neither discussion nor contradiction, and that the suggestions brought to bear on them invade the entire field

of their understanding and tend at once to transform themselves into acts. We have shown that crowds

suitably influenced are ready to sacrifice themselves for the ideal with which they have been inspired. We

have also seen that they only entertain violent and extreme sentiments, that in their case sympathy quickly

becomes adoration, and antipathy almost as soon as it is aroused is transformed into hatred. These general

indications furnish us already with a presentiment of the nature of the convictions of crowds.

When these convictions are closely examined, whether at epochs marked by fervent religious faith, or by

great political upheavals such as those of the last century, it is apparent that they always assume a peculiar

form which I cannot better define than by giving it the name of a religious sentiment.

This sentiment has very simple characteristics, such as worship of a being supposed superior, fear of the

power with which the being is credited, blind submission to its commands, inability to discuss its dogmas, the

desire to spread them, and a tendency to consider as enemies all by whom they are not accepted. Whether

such a sentiment apply to an invisible God, to a wooden or stone idol, to a hero or to a political conception,

provided that it presents the preceding characteristics, its essence always remains religious. The supernatural

and the miraculous are found to be present to the same extent. Crowds unconsciously accord a mysterious

power to the political formula or the victorious leader that for the moment arouses their enthusiasm.

A person is not religious solely when he worships a divinity, but when he puts all the resources of his mind,

the complete submission of his will, and the wholesouled ardour of fanaticism at the service of a cause or an

Intolerance and fanaticism are the necessary accompaniments of the religious sentiment. They are inevitably

displayed by those who believe themselves in the possession of the secret of earthly or eternal happiness.

These two characteristics are to be found in all men grouped together when they are inspired by a conviction

of any kind. The Jacobins of the Reign of Terror were at bottom as religious as the Catholics of the

The convictions of crowds assume those characteristics of blind submission, fierce intolerance, and the need

of violent propaganda which are inherent in the religious sentiment, and it is for this reason that it may be

said that all their beliefs have a religious form. The hero acclaimed by a crowd is a veritable god for that

crowd. Napoleon was such a god for fifteen years, and a divinity never had more fervent worshippers or sent

men to their death with greater ease. The Christian and Pagan Gods never exercised a more absolute empire

All founders of religious or political creeds have established them solely because they were successful in

inspiring crowds with those fanatical sentiments which have as result that men find their happiness in

worship and obedience and are ready to lay down their lives for their idol. This has been the case at all

epochs. Fustel de Coulanges, in his excellent work on Roman Gaul, justly remarks that the Roman Empire

was in no wise maintained by force, but by the religious admiration it inspired. "It would be without a parallel

in the history of the world," he observes rightly, "that a form of government held in popular detestation

should have lasted for five centuries. . . . It would be inexplicable that the thirty legions of the Empire should

have constrained a hundred million men to obedience." The reason of their obedience was that the Emperor,

who personified the greatness of Rome, was worshipped like a divinity by unanimous consent. There were

altars in honour of the Emperor in the smallest townships of his realm. "From one end of the Empire to the

other a new religion was seen to arise in those days which had for its divinities the emperors themselves.

Some years before the Christian era the whole of Gaul, represented by sixty cities, built in common a temple

near the town of Lyons in honour of Augustus. . . . Its priests, elected by the united Gallic cities, were the

principal personages in their country. . . . It is impossible to attribute all this to fear and servility. Whole

nations are not servile, and especially for three centuries. It was not the courtiers who worshipped the prince,

it was Rome, and it was not Rome merely, but it was Gaul, it was Spain, it was Greece and Asia."

Today the majority of the great men who have swayed men's minds no longer have altars, but they have

statues, or their portraits are in the hands of their admirers, and the cult of which they are the object is not

notably different from that accorded to their predecessors. An understanding of the philosophy of history is

only to be got by a thorough appreciation of this fundamental point of the psychology of crowds. The crowd

It must not be supposed that these are the superstitions of a bygone age which reason has definitely banished.

Sentiment has never been vanquished in its eternal conflict with reason. Crowds will hear no more of the

words divinity and religion, in whose name they were so long enslaved; but they have never possessed so

many fetishes as in the last hundred years, and the old divinities have never had so many statues and altars

raised in their honour. Those who in recent years have studied the popular movement known under the name

of Boulangism have been able to see with what ease the religious instincts of crowds are ready to revive.

There was not a country inn that did not possess the hero's portrait. He was credited with the power of

remedying all injustices and all evils, and thousands of men would have given their lives for him. Great might

have been his place in history had his character been at all on a level with his legendary reputation.

It is thus a very useless commonplace to assert that a religion is necessary for the masses, because all

political, divine, and social creeds only take root among them on the condition of always assuming the

religious shapea shape which obviates the danger of discussion. Were it possible to induce the masses to

adopt atheism, this belief would exhibit all the intolerant ardour of a religious sentiment, and in its exterior

forms would soon become a cult. The evolution of the small Positivist sect furnishes us a curious proof in

point. What happened to the Nihilist whose story is related by that profound thinker Dostoiewsky has quickly

happened to the Positivists. Illumined one day by the light of reason he broke the images of divinities and

saints that adorned the altar of a chapel, extinguished the candles, and, without losing a moment, replaced the

destroyed objects by the works of atheistic philosophers such as Buchner and Moleschott, after which he

piously relighted the candles. The object of his religious beliefs had been transformed, but can it be truthfully

Certain historical eventsand they are precisely the most importantI again repeat, are not to be

understood unless one has attained to an appreciation of the religious form which the convictions of crowds

always assume in the long run. There are social phenomena that need to be studied far more from the point of

view of the psychologist than from that of the naturalist. The great historian Taine has only studied the

Revolution as a naturalist, and on this account the real genesis of events has often escaped him. He has

perfectly observed the facts, but from want of having studied the psychology of crowds he has not always

been able to trace their causes. The facts having appalled him by their bloodthirsty, anarchic, and ferocious

side, he has scarcely seen in the heroes of the great drama anything more than a horde of epileptic savages

abandoning themselves without restraint to their instincts. The violence of the Revolution, its massacres, its

need of propaganda, its declarations of war upon all things, are only to be properly explained by reflecting

that the Revolution was merely the establishment of a new religious belief in the mind of the masses. The

Reformation, the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the French religious wars, the Inquisition, the Reign of

Terror are phenomena of an identical kind, brought about by crowds animated by those religious sentiments

which necessarily lead those imbued with them to pitilessly extirpate by fire and sword whoever is opposed

to the establishment of the new faith. The methods of the Inquisition are those of all whose convictions are

genuine and sturdy. Their convictions would not deserve these epithets did they resort to other methods.

Upheavals analogous to those I have just cited are only possible when it is the soul of the masses that brings

them about. The most absolute despots could not cause them. When historians tell us that the massacre of

Saint Bartholomew was the work of a king, they show themselves as ignorant of the psychology of crowds as

of that of sovereigns. Manifestations of this order can only proceed from the soul of crowds. The most

absolute power of the most despotic monarch can scarcely do more than hasten or retard the moment of their

apparition. The massacre of Saint Bartholomew or the religious wars were no more the work of kings than the

Reign of Terror was the work of Robespierre, Danton, or Saint Just. At the bottom of such events is always to

be found the working of the soul of the masses, and never the power of potentates.

Preparatory factors of the beliefs of crowdsThe origin of the beliefs of crowds is the consequence of a

preliminary process of elaboration Study of the different factors of these beliefs. 1. RACE. The

predominating influence it exercisesIt represents the suggestions of ancestors. 2. TRADITIONS. They are

the synthesis of the soul of the raceSocial importance of traditionsHow, after having been necessary

they become harmfulCrowds are the most obstinate maintainers of traditional ideas. 3. TIME. It prepares

in succession the establishment of beliefs and then their destruction. It is by the aid of this factor that order

may proceed from chaos. 4. POLITICAL AND SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. Erroneous idea of their

partTheir influence extremely weakThey are effects, not causesNations are incapable of choosing

what appear to them the best institutionsInstitutions are labels which shelter the most dissimilar things

under the same title How institutions may come to be createdCertain institutions theoretically bad, such

as centralisation obligatory for certain nations. 5. INSTITUTIONS AND EDUCATION. Falsity of prevalent

ideas as to the influence of instruction on crowds Statistical indicationsDemoralising effect of Latin

system of educationPart instruction might playExamples furnished by various peoples.

Having studied the mental constitution of crowds and become acquainted with their modes of feeling,

thinking, and reasoning, we shall now proceed to examine how their opinions and beliefs arise and become

The factors which determine these opinions and beliefs are of two kinds: remote factors and immediate

The remote factors are those which render crowds capable of adopting certain convictions and absolutely

refractory to the acceptance of others. These factors prepare the ground in which are suddenly seen to

germinate certain new ideas whose force and consequences are a cause of astonishment, though they are only

spontaneous in appearance. The outburst and putting in practice of certain ideas among crowds present at

times a startling suddenness. This is only a superficial effect, behind which must be sought a preliminary and

The immediate factors are those which, coming on the top of this long, preparatory working, in whose

absence they would remain without effect, serve as the source of active persuasion on crowds; that is, they

are the factors which cause the idea to take shape and set it loose with all its consequences. The resolutions

by which collectivities are suddenly carried away arise out of these immediate factors; it is due to them that a

riot breaks out or a strike is decided upon, and to them that enormous majorities invest one man with power

The successive action of these two kinds of factors is to be traced in all great historical events. The French

Revolutionto cite but one of the most striking of such eventshad among its remote factors the writings

of the philosophers, the exactions of the nobility, and the progress of scientific thought. The mind of the

masses, thus prepared, was then easily roused by such immediate factors as the speeches of orators, and the

Among the remote factors there are some of a general nature, which are found to underlie all the beliefs and

opinions of crowds. They are race, traditions, time, institutions, and education.

This factor, race, must be placed in the first rank, for in itself it far surpasses in importance all the others. We

have sufficiently studied it in another work; it is therefore needless to deal with it again. We showed, in a

previous volume, what an historical race is, and how, its character once formed, it possesses, as the result of

the laws of heredity such power that its beliefs, institutions, and artsin a word, all the elements of its

civilisationare merely the outward expression of its genius. We showed that the power of the race is such

that no element can pass from one people to another without undergoing the most profound

[7] The novelty of this proposition being still considerable and history being quite unintelligible without it, I

devoted four chapters to its demonstration in my last book ("The Psychological Laws of the Evolution of

Peoples"). From it the reader will see that, in spite of fallacious appearances, neither language, religion, arts,

or, in a word, any element of civilisation, can pass, intact, from one people to another.

Environment, circumstances, and events represent the social suggestions of the moment. They may have a

considerable influence, but this influence is always momentary if it be contrary to the suggestions of the race;

that is, to those which are inherited by a nation from the entire series of its ancestors.

We shall have occasion in several of the chapters of this work to touch again upon racial influence, and to

show that this influence is so great that it dominates the characteristics peculiar to the genius of crowds. It

follows from this fact that the crowds of different countries offer very considerable differences of beliefs and

Traditions represent the ideas, the needs, and the sentiments of the past. They are the synthesis of the race,

The biological sciences have been transformed since embryology has shown the immense influence of the

past on the evolution of living beings; and the historical sciences will not undergo a less change when this

conception has become more widespread. As yet it is not sufficiently general, and many statesmen are still no

further advanced than the theorists of the last century, who believed that a society could break off with its

A people is an organism created by the past, and, like every other organism, it can only be modified by slow

It is tradition that guides men, and more especially so when they are in a crowd. The changes they can effect

in their traditions with any ease, merely bear, as I have often repeated, upon names and outward forms.

This circumstance is not to be regretted. Neither a national genius nor civilisation would be possible without

traditions. In consequence man's two great concerns since he has existed have been to create a network of

traditions which he afterwards endeavours to destroy when their beneficial effects have worn themselves out.

Civilisation is impossible without traditions, and progress impossible without the destruction of those

traditions. The difficulty, and it is an immense difficulty, is to find a proper equilibrium between stability and

variability. Should a people allow its customs to become too firmly rooted, it can no longer change, and

becomes, like China, incapable of improvement. Violent revolutions are in this case of no avail; for what

happens is that either the broken fragments of the chain are pieced together again and the past resumes its

empire without change, or the fragments remain apart and decadence soon succeeds anarchy.

The ideal for a people is in consequence to preserve the institutions of the past, merely changing them

insensibly and little by little. This ideal is difficult to realise. The Romans in ancient and the English in

It is precisely crowds that cling the most tenaciously to traditional ideas and oppose their being changed with

the most obstinacy. This is notably the case with the category of crowds constituting castes. I have already

insisted upon the conservative spirit of crowds, and shown that the most violent rebellions merely end in a

changing of words and terms. At the end of the last century, in the presence of destroyed churches, of priests

expelled the country or guillotined, it might have been thought that the old religious ideas had lost all their

strength, and yet a few years had barely lapsed before the abolished system of public worship had to be

[8] The report of the exConventionist, Fourcroy, quoted by Taine, is very clear on this point.

"What is everywhere seen with respect to the keeping of Sunday and attendance at the churches proves that

the majority of Frenchmen desire to return to their old usages and that it is no longer opportune to resist this

natural tendency. . . . The great majority of men stand in need of religion, public worship, and priests. IT IS

to believe in the possibility of instruction being so general as to destroy religious prejudices, which for a great

number of unfortunate persons are a source of consolation. . . . The mass of the people, then, must be allowed

No example could better display the power of tradition on the mind of crowds. The most redoubtable idols do

not dwell in temples, nor the most despotic tyrants in palaces; both the one and the other can be broken in an

instant. But the invisible masters that reign in our innermost selves are safe from every effort at revolt, and

In social as in biological problems time is one of the most energetic factors. It is the sole real creator and the

sole great destroyer. It is time that has made mountains with grains of sand and raised the obscure cell of

geological eras to human dignity. The action of centuries is sufficient to transform any given phenomenon. It

has been justly observed that an ant with enough time at its disposal could level Mount Blanc. A being

possessed of the magical force of varying time at his will would have the power attributed by believers to

In this place, however, we have only to concern ourselves with the influence of time on the genesis of the

opinions of crowds. Its action from this point of view is still immense. Dependent upon it are the great forces

such as race, which cannot form themselves without it. It causes the birth, the growth, and the death of all

beliefs. It is by the aid of time that they acquire their strength and also by its aid that they lose it.

It is time in particular that prepares the opinions and beliefs of crowds, or at least the soil on which they will

germinate. This is why certain ideas are realisable at one epoch and not at another. It is time that accumulates

that immense detritus of beliefs and thoughts on which the ideas of a given period spring up. They do not

grow at hazard and by chance; the roots of each of them strike down into a long past. When they blossom it is

time that has prepared their blooming; and to arrive at a notion of their genesis it is always back in the past

that it is necessary to search. They are the daughters of the past and the mothers of the future, but throughout

Time, in consequence, is our veritable master, and it suffices to leave it free to act to see all things

transformed. At the present day we are very uneasy with regard to the threatening aspirations of the masses

and the destructions and upheavals foreboded thereby. Time, without other aid, will see to the restoration of

equilibrium. "No form of government," M. Lavisse very properly writes, "was founded in a day. Political and

social organisations are works that demand centuries. The feudal system existed for centuries in a shapeless,

chaotic state before it found its laws; absolute monarchy also existed for centuries before arriving at regular

methods of government, and these periods of expectancy were extremely troubled."

The idea that institutions can remedy the defects of societies, that national progress is the consequence of the

improvement of institutions and governments, and that social changes can be effected by decrees this idea,

I say, is still generally accepted. It was the startingpoint of the French Revolution, and the social theories of

The most continuous experience has been unsuccessful in shaking this grave delusion. Philosophers and

historians have endeavoured in vain to prove its absurdity, but yet they have had no difficulty in

demonstrating that institutions are the outcome of ideas, sentiments, and customs, and that ideas, sentiments,

and customs are not to be recast by recasting legislative codes. A nation does not choose its institutions at

will any more than it chooses the colour of its hair or its eyes. Institutions and governments are the product of

the race. They are not the creators of an epoch, but are created by it. Peoples are not governed in accordance

with their caprices of the moment, but as their character determines that they shall be governed. Centuries are

required to form a political system and centuries needed to change it. Institutions have no intrinsic virtue: in

themselves they are neither good nor bad. Those which are good at a given moment for a given people may

Moreover, it is in no way in the power of a people to really change its institutions. Undoubtedly, at the cost of

violent revolutions, it can change their name, but in their essence they remain unmodified. The names are

mere futile labels with which an historian who goes to the bottom of things need scarcely concern himself. It

is in this way, for instance, that England,[9] the most democratic country in the world, lives, nevertheless,

under a monarchical regime, whereas the countries in which the most oppressive despotism is rampant are the

SpanishAmerican Republics, in spite of their republican constitutions. The destinies of peoples are

determined by their character and not by their government. I have endeavoured to establish this view in my

[9] The most advanced republicans, even of the United States, recognise this fact. The American magazine,

The Forum, recently gave categorical expression to the opinion in terms which I reproduce here from the

"It should never be forgotten, even by the most ardent enemies of an aristocracy, that England is today the

most democratic country of the universe, the country in which the rights of the individual are most respected,

To lose time in the manufacture of cutanddried constitutions is, in consequence, a puerile task, the useless

labour of an ignorant rhetorician. Necessity and time undertake the charge of elaborating constitutions when

we are wise enough to allow these two factors to act. This is the plan the AngloSaxons have adopted, as

their great historian, Macaulay, teaches us in a passage that the politicians of all Latin countries ought to learn

by heart. After having shown all the good that can be accomplished by laws which appear from the point of

view of pure reason a chaos of absurdities and contradictions, he compares the scores of constitutions that

have been engulfed in the convulsions of the Latin peoples with that of England, and points out that the latter

has only been very slowly changed part by part, under the influence of immediate necessities and never of

"To think nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never to remove an anomaly merely because it is

an anomaly; never to innovate except when some grievance is felt; never to innovate except so far as to get

rid of the grievance; never to lay down any proposition of wider extent than the particular case for which it is

necessary to provide; these are the rules which have, from the age of John to the age of Victoria, generally

It would be necessary to take one by one the laws and institutions of each people to show to what extent they

are the expression of the needs of each race and are incapable, for that reason, of being violently transformed.

It is possible, for, instance, to indulge in philosophical dissertations on the advantages and disadvantages of

centralisation; but when we see a people composed of very different races devote a thousand years of efforts

to attaining to this centralisation; when we observe that a great revolution, having for object the destruction of

all the institutions of the past, has been forced to respect this centralisation, and has even strengthened it;

under these circumstances we should admit that it is the outcome of imperious needs, that it is a condition of

the existence of the nation in question, and we should pity the poor mental range of politicians who talk of

destroying it. Could they by chance succeed in this attempt, their success would at once be the signal for a

frightful civil war,[10] which, moreover, would immediately bring back a new system of centralisation much

[10] If a comparison be made between the profound religious and political dissensions which separate the

various parties in France, and are more especially the result of social questions, and the separatist tendencies

which were manifested at the time of the Revolution, and began to again display themselves towards the

close of the FrancoGerman war, it will be seen that the different races represented in France are still far

from being completely blended. The vigorous centralisation of the Revolution and the creation of artificial

departments destined to bring about the fusion of the ancient provinces was certainly its most useful work.

Were it possible to bring about the decentralisation which is today preoccupying minds lacking in foresight,

the achievement would promptly have for consequence the most sanguinary disorders. To overlook this fact

The conclusion to be drawn from what precedes is, that it is not in institutions that the means is to be sought

of profoundly influencing the genius of the masses. When we see certain countries, such as the United States,

reach a high degree of prosperity under democratic institutions, while others, such as the SpanishAmerican

Republics, are found existing in a pitiable state of anarchy under absolutely similar institutions, we should

admit that these institutions are as foreign to the greatness of the one as to the decadence of the others.

Peoples are governed by their character, and all institutions which are not intimately modelled on that

character merely represent a borrowed garment, a transitory disguise. No doubt sanguinary wars and violent

revolutions have been undertaken, and will continue to be undertaken, to impose institutions to which is

attributed, as to the relics of saints, the supernatural power of creating welfare. It may be said, then, in one

sense, that institutions react on the mind of the crowd inasmuch as they engender such upheavals. But in

reality it is not the institutions that react in this manner, since we know that, whether triumphant or

vanquished, they possess in themselves no virtue. It is illusions and words that have influenced the mind of

the crowd, and especially words words which are as powerful as they are chimerical, and whose

Foremost among the dominant ideas of the present epoch is to be found the notion that instruction is capable

of considerably changing men, and has for its unfailing consequence to improve them and even to make them

equal. By the mere fact of its being constantly repeated, this assertion has ended by becoming one of the most

steadfast democratic dogmas. It would be as difficult now to attack it as it would have been formerly to have

On this point, however, as on many others, democratic ideas are in profound disagreement with the results of

psychology and experience. Many eminent philosophers, among them Herbert Spencer, have had no

difficulty in showing that instruction neither renders a man more moral nor happier, that it changes neither his

instincts nor his hereditary passions, and that at timesfor this to happen it need only be badly directedit

is much more pernicious than useful. Statisticians have brought confirmation of these views by telling us that

criminality increases with the generalisation of instruction, or at any rate of a certain kind of instruction, and

that the worst enemies of society, the anarchists, are recruited among the prizewinners of schools; while in a

recent work a distinguished magistrate, M. Adolphe Guillot, made the observation that at present 3,000

educated criminals are met with for every 1,000 illiterate delinquents, and that in fifty years the criminal

percentage of the population has passed from 227 to 552 for every 100,000 inhabitants, an increase of 133 per

cent. He has also noted in common with his colleagues that criminality is particularly on the increase among

young persons, for whom, as is known, gratuitous and obligatory schooling hasin Francereplaced

It is not assuredlyand nobody has ever maintained this proposition that welldirected instruction may

not give very useful practical results, if not in the sense of raising the standard of morality, at least in that of

developing professional capacity. Unfortunately the Latin peoples, especially in the last twentyfive years,

have based their systems of instruction on very erroneous principles, and in spite of the observations of the

most eminent minds, such as Breal, Fustel de Coulanges, Taine, and many others, they persist in their

lamentable mistakes. I have myself shown, in a work published some time ago, that the French system of

education transforms the majority of those who have undergone it into enemies of society, and recruits

The primary danger of this system of educationvery properly qualified as Latinconsists in the fact that it

is based on the fundamental psychological error that the intelligence is developed by the learning by heart of

textbooks. Adopting this view, the endeavour has been made to enforce a knowledge of as many

handbooks as possible. From the primary school till he leaves the university a young man does nothing but

acquire books by heart without his judgment or personal initiative being ever called into play. Education

"Learning lessons, knowing by heart a grammar or a compendium, repeating well and imitating wellthat,"

writes a former Minister of Public Instruction, M. Jules Simon, "is a ludicrous form of education whose every

effort is an act of faith tacitly admitting the infallibility of the master, and whose only results are a belittling

Were this education merely useless, one might confine one's self to expressing compassion for the unhappy

children who, instead of making needful studies at the primary school, are instructed in the genealogy of the

sons of Clotaire, the conflicts between Neustria and Austrasia, or zoological classifications. But the system

presents a far more serious danger. It gives those who have been submitted to it a violent dislike to the state

of life in which they were born, and an intense desire to escape from it. The working man no longer wishes to

remain a working man, or the peasant to continue a peasant, while the most humble members of the middle

classes admit of no possible career for their sons except that of Statepaid functionaries. Instead of preparing

men for life French schools solely prepare them to occupy public functions, in which success can be attained

without any necessity for selfdirection or the exhibition of the least glimmer of personal initiative. At the

bottom of the social ladder the system creates an army of proletarians discontented with their lot and always

ready to revolt, while at the summit it brings into being a frivolous bourgeoisie, at once sceptical and

credulous, having a superstitious confidence in the State, whom it regards as a sort of Providence, but without

forgetting to display towards it a ceaseless hostility, always laying its own faults to the door of the

Government, and incapable of the least enterprise without the intervention of the authorities.

The State, which manufactures by dint of textbooks all these persons possessing diplomas, can only utilise a

small number of them, and is forced to leave the others without employment. It is obliged in consequence to

resign itself to feeding the first mentioned and to having the others as its enemies. From the top to the bottom

of the social pyramid, from the humblest clerk to the professor and the prefect, the immense mass of persons

boasting diplomas besiege the professions. While a business man has the greatest difficulty in finding an

agent to represent him in the colonies, thousands of candidates solicit the most modest official posts. There

are 20,000 schoolmasters and mistresses without employment in the department of the Seine alone, all of

them persons who, disdaining the fields or the workshops, look to the State for their livelihood. The number

of the chosen being restricted, that of the discontented is perforce immense. The latter are ready for any

revolution, whoever be its chiefs and whatever the goal they aim at. The acquisition of knowledge for which

[11] This phenomenon, moreover, is not peculiar to the Latin peoples. It is also to be observed in China,

which is also a country in the hands of a solid hierarchy of mandarins or functionaries, and where a function

is obtained, as in France, by competitive examination, in which the only test is the imperturbable recitation of

bulky manuals. The army of educated persons without employment is considered in China at the present day

as a veritable national calamity. It is the same in India where, since the English have opened schools, not for

educating purposes, as is the case in England itself, but simply to furnish the indigenous inhabitants with

instruction, there has been formed a special class of educated persons, the Baboos, who, when they do not

obtain employment, become the irreconcilable enemies of the English rule. In the case of all the Baboos,

whether provided with employment or not, the first effect of their instruction has been to lower their standard

of morality. This is a fact on which I have insisted at length in my book, "The Civilisations of India"a fact,

too, which has been observed by all authors who have visited the great peninsula.

It is evidently too late to retrace our steps. Experience alone, that supreme educator of peoples, will be at

pains to show us our mistake. It alone will be powerful enough to prove the necessity of replacing our odious

textbooks and our pitiable examinations by industrial instruction capable of inducing our young men to

return to the fields, to the workshop, and to the colonial enterprise which they avoid today at all costs.

The professional instruction which all enlightened minds are now demanding was the instruction received in

the past by our forefathers. It is still in vigour at the present day among the nations who rule the world by

their force of will, their initiative, and their spirit of enterprise. In a series of remarkable pages, whose

principal passages I reproduce further on, a great thinker, M. Taine, has clearly shown that our former system

of education was approximately that in vogue today in England and America, and in a remarkable parallel

between the Latin and AngloSaxon systems he has plainly pointed out the consequences of the two

One might consent, perhaps, at a pinch, to continue to accept all the disadvantages of our classical education,

although it produced nothing but discontented men, and men unfitted for their station in life, did the

superficial acquisition of so much knowledge, the faultless repeating by heart of so many textbooks, raise

the level of intelligence. But does it really raise this level? Alas, no! The conditions of success in life are the

possession of judgment, experience, initiative, and characterqualities which are not bestowed by books.

Books are dictionaries, which it is useful to consult, but of which it is perfectly useless to have lengthy

How is it possible for professional instruction to develop the intelligence in a measure quite beyond the reach

"Ideas, he says, are only formed in their natural and normal surroundings; the promotion of the growth is

effected by the innumerable impressions appealing to the senses which a young man receives daily in the

workshop, the mine, the law court, the study, the builder's yard, the hospital; at the sight of tools, materials,

and operations; in the presence of customers, workers, and labour, of work well or ill done, costly or

lucrative. In such a way are obtained those trifling perceptions of detail of the eyes, the ear, the hands, and

even the sense of smell, which, picked up involuntarily, and silently elaborated, take shape within the learner,

and suggest to him sooner or, later this or that new combination, simplification, economy, improvement, or

invention. The young Frenchman is deprived, and precisely at the age when they are most fruitful, of all these

precious contacts, of all these indispensable elements of assimilation. For seven or eight years on end he is

shut up in a school, and is cut off from that direct personal experience which would give him a keen and

" . . . At least nine out of ten have wasted their time and pains during several years of their lifetelling,

important, even decisive years. Among such are to be counted, first of all, the half or twothirds of those who

present themselves for examinationI refer to those who are rejected; and then among those who are

successful, who obtain a degree, a certificate, a diploma, there is still a half or twothirdsI refer to the

overworked. Too much has been demanded of them by exacting that on a given day, on a chair or before a

board, they should, for two hours in succession, and with respect to a group of sciences, be living repertories

of all human knowledge. In point of fact they were that, or nearly so, for two hours on that particular day, but

a month later they are so no longer. They could not go through the examination again. Their too numerous

and too burdensome acquisitions slip incessantly from their mind, and are not replaced. Their mental vigour

has declined, their fertile capacity for growth has dried up, the fullydeveloped man appears, and he is often

a usedup man. Settled down, married, resigned to turning in a circle, and indefinitely in the same circle, he

shuts himself up in his confined function, which he fulfils adequately, but nothing more. Such is the average

yield: assuredly the receipts do not balance the expenditure. In England or America, where, as in France

previous to 1789, the contrary proceeding is adopted, the outcome obtained is equal or superior."

The illustrious psychologist subsequently shows us the difference between our system and that of the

AngloSaxons. The latter do not possess our innumerable special schools. With them instruction is not based

on booklearning, but on object lessons. The engineer, for example, is trained in a workshop, and never at a

school; a method which allows of each individual reaching the level his intelligence permits of. He becomes a

workman or a foreman if he can get no further, an engineer if his aptitudes take him as far. This manner of

proceeding is much more democratic and of much greater benefit to society than that of making the whole

career of an individual depend on an examination, lasting a few hours, and undergone at the age of nineteen

"In the hospital, the mine, the factory, in the architect's or the lawyer's office, the student, who makes a start

while very young, goes through his apprenticeship, stage by stage, much as does with us a law clerk in his

office, or an artist in his studio. Previously, and before making a practical beginning, he has had an

opportunity of following some general and summary course of instruction, so as to have a framework ready

prepared in which to store the observations he is shortly to make. Furthermore he is able, as a rule, to avail

himself of sundry technical courses which he can follow in his leisure hours, so as to coordinate step by step

the daily experience he is gathering. Under such a system the practical capabilities increase and develop of

themselves in exact proportion to the faculties of the student, and in the direction requisite for his future task

and the special work for which from now onwards he desires to fit himself. By this means in England or the

United States a young man is quickly in a position to develop his capacity to the utmost. At twentyfive years

of age, and much sooner if the material and the parts are there, he is not merely a useful performer, he is

capable also of spontaneous enterprise; he is not only a part of a machine, but also a motor. In France, where

the contrary system prevailsin France, which with each succeeding generation is falling more and more

The great philosopher arrives at the following conclusion with respect to the growing incongruity between

"In the three stages of instruction, those of childhood, adolescence and youth, the theoretical and pedagogic

preparation by books on the school benches has lengthened out and become overcharged in view of the

examination, the degree, the diploma, and the certificate, and solely in this view, and by the worst methods,

by the application of an unnatural and antisocial regime, by the excessive postponement of the practical

apprenticeship, by our boardingschool system, by artificial training and mechanical cramming, by

overwork, without thought for the time that is to follow, for the adult age and the functions of the man,

without regard for the real world on which the young man will shortly be thrown, for the society in which we

move and to which he must be adapted or be taught to resign himself in advance, for the struggle in which

humanity is engaged, and in which to defend himself and to keep his footing he ought previously to have

been equipped, armed, trained, and hardened. This indispensable equipment, this acquisition of more

importance than any other, this sturdy common sense and nerve and willpower our schools do not procure

the young Frenchman; on the contrary, far from qualifying him for his approaching and definite state, they

disqualify him. In consequence, his entry into the world and his first steps in the field of action are most often

merely a succession of painful falls, whose effect is that he long remains wounded and bruised, and

sometimes disabled for life. The test is severe and dangerous. In the course of it the mental and moral

equilibrium is affected, and runs the risk of not being reestablished. Too sudden and complete disillusion

has supervened. The deceptions have been too great, the disappointments too keen."[12]

[12] Taine, "Le Regime moderne," vol. ii., 1894. These pages are almost the last that Taine wrote. They

resume admirably the results of the great philosopher's long experience. Unfortunately they are in my opinion

totally incomprehensible for such of our university professors who have not lived abroad. Education is the

only means at our disposal of influencing to some extent the mind of a nation, and it is profoundly saddening

to have to think that there is scarcely any one in France who can arrive at understanding that our present

system of teaching is a grave cause of rapid decadence, which instead of elevating our youth, lowers and

A useful comparison may be made between Taine's pages and the observations on American education

recently made by M. Paul Bourget in his excellent book, "OutreMer." He, too, after having noted that our

education merely produces narrowminded bourgeois, lacking in initiative and willpower, or

anarchists"those two equally harmful types of the civilised man, who degenerates into impotent platitude

or insane destructiveness"he too, I say, draws a comparison that cannot be the object of too much

reflection between our French lycees (public schools), those factories of degeneration, and the American

schools, which prepare a man admirably for life. The gulf existing between truly democratic nations and

those who have democracy in their speeches, but in no wise in their thoughts, is clearly brought out in this

Have we digressed in what precedes from the psychology of crowds? Assuredly not. If we desire to

understand the ideas and beliefs that are germinating today in the masses, and will spring up tomorrow, it

is necessary to know how the ground has been prepared. The instruction given the youth of a country allows

of a knowledge of what that country will one day be. The education accorded the present generation justifies

the most gloomy previsions. It is in part by instruction and education that the mind of the masses is improved

or deteriorated. It was necessary in consequence to show how this mind has been fashioned by the system in

vogue, and how the mass of the indifferent and the neutral has become progressively an army of the

discontented ready to obey all the suggestions of utopians and rhetoricians. It is in the schoolroom that

socialists and anarchists are found nowadays, and that the way is being paved for the approaching period of

1. IMAGES, WORDS AND FORMULAE. The magical power of words and formulaeThe power of words

bound up with the images they evoke, and independent of their real senseThese images vary from age to

age, and from race to raceThe wear and tear of wordsExamples of the considerable variations of sense

of muchused wordsThe political utility of baptizing old things with new names when the words by which

they were designated produced an unfavourable impression on the masses variations of the sense of words

in consequence of race differencesThe different meanings of the word "democracy" in Europe and

America. 2. ILLUSIONS. Their importanceThey are to be found at the root of all civilisationsThe social

necessity of illusionsCrowds always prefer them to truths. 3. EXPERIENCE. Experience alone can fix in

the mind of crowds truths become necessary and destroy illusions grown dangerousExperience is only

effective on the condition that it be frequently repeatedThe cost of the experiences requisite to persuade

crowds. 4. REASON. The nullity of its influence on crowdsCrowds only to be influenced by their

unconscious sentiments The role of logic in historyThe secret causes of improbable events.

We have just investigated the remote and preparatory factors which give the mind of crowds a special

receptivity, and make possible therein the growth of certain sentiments and certain ideas. It now remains for

us to study the factors capable of acting in a direct manner. We shall see in a forthcoming chapter how these

factors should be put in force in order that they may produce their full effect.

In the first part of this work we studied the sentiments, ideas, and methods of reasoning of collective bodies,

and from the knowledge thus acquired it would evidently be possible to deduce in a general way the means of

making an impression on their mind. We already know what strikes the imagination of crowds, and are

acquainted with the power and contagiousness of suggestions, of those especially that are presented under the

form of images. However, as suggestions may proceed from very different sources, the factors capable of

acting on the minds of crowds may differ considerably. It is necessary, then, to study them separately. This is

not a useless study. Crowds are somewhat like the sphinx of ancient fable: it is necessary to arrive at a

solution of the problems offered by their psychology or to resign ourselves to being devoured by them.

When studying the imagination of crowds we saw that it is particularly open to the impressions produced by

images. These images do not always lie ready to hand, but it is possible to evoke them by the judicious

employment of words and formulas. Handled with art, they possess in sober truth the mysterious power

formerly attributed to them by the adepts of magic. They cause the birth in the minds of crowds of the most

formidable tempests, which in turn they are capable of stilling. A pyramid far loftier than that of old Cheops

could be raised merely with the bones of men who have been victims of the power of words and formulas.

The power of words is bound up with the images they evoke, and is quite independent of their real

significance. Words whose sense is the most illdefined are sometimes those that possess the most influence.

Such, for example, are the terms democracy, socialism, equality, liberty, whose meaning is so vague that

bulky volumes do not suffice to precisely fix it. Yet it is certain that a truly magical power is attached to those

short syllables, as if they contained the solution of all problems. They synthesise the most diverse

Reason and arguments are incapable of combatting certain words and formulas. They are uttered with

solemnity in the presence of crowds, and as soon as they have been pronounced an expression of respect is

visible on every countenance, and all heads are bowed. By many they are considered as natural forces, as

supernatural powers. They evoke grandiose and vague images in men's minds, but this very vagueness that

wraps them in obscurity augments their mysterious power. They are the mysterious divinities hidden behind

The images evoked by words being independent of their sense, they vary from age to age and from people to

people, the formulas remaining identical. Certain transitory images are attached to certain words: the word is

All words and all formulas do not possess the power of evoking images, while there are some which have

once had this power, but lose it in the course of use, and cease to waken any response in the mind. They then

become vain sounds, whose principal utility is to relieve the person who employs them of the obligation of

thinking. Armed with a small stock of formulas and commonplaces learnt while we are young, we possess all

that is needed to traverse life without the tiring necessity of having to reflect on anything whatever.

If any particular language be studied, it is seen that the words of which it is composed change rather slowly in

the course of ages, while the images these words evoke or the meaning attached to them changes ceaselessly.

This is the reason why, in another work, I have arrived at the conclusion that the absolute translation of a

language, especially of a dead language, is totally impossible. What do we do in reality when we substitute a

French for a Latin, Greek, or Sanscrit expression, or even when we endeavour to understand a book written in

our own tongue two or three centuries back? We merely put the images and ideas with which modern life has

endowed our intelligence in the place of absolutely distinct notions and images which ancient life had

brought into being in the mind of races submitted to conditions of existence having no analogy with our own.

When the men of the Revolution imagined they were copying the Greeks and Romans, what were they doing

except giving to ancient words a sense the latter had never had? What resemblance can possibly exist

between the institutions of the Greeks and those designated today by corresponding words? A republic at

that epoch was an essentially aristocratic institution, formed of a reunion of petty despots ruling over a crowd

of slaves kept in the most absolute subjection. These communal aristocracies, based on slavery, could not

The word "liberty," again, what signification could it have in any way resembling that we attribute to it

today at a period when the possibility of the liberty of thought was not even suspected, and when there was

no greater and more exceptional crime than that of discussing the gods, the laws and the customs of the city?

What did such a word as "fatherland" signify to an Athenian or Spartan unless it were the cult of Athens or

Sparta, and in no wise that of Greece, composed of rival cities always at war with each other? What meaning

had the same word "fatherland" among the ancient Gauls, divided into rival tribes and races, and possessing

different languages and religions, and who were easily vanquished by Caesar because he always found allies

among them? It was Rome that made a country of Gaul by endowing it with political and religious unity.

Without going back so far, scarcely two centuries ago, is it to be believed that this same notion of a fatherland

was conceived to have the same meaning as at present by French princes like the great Conde, who allied

themselves with the foreigner against their sovereign? And yet again, the same word had it not a sense very

different from the modern for the French royalist emigrants, who thought they obeyed the laws of honour in

fighting against France, and who from their point of view did indeed obey them, since the feudal law bound

the vassal to the lord and not to the soil, so that where the sovereign was there was the true fatherland?

Numerous are the words whose meaning has thus profoundly changed from age to agewords which we can

only arrive at understanding in the sense in which they were formerly understood after a long effort. It has

been said with truth that much study is necessary merely to arrive at conceiving what was signified to our

great grandfathers by such words as the "king" and the "royal family." What, then, is likely to be the case

Words, then, have only mobile and transitory significations which change from age to age and people to

people; and when we desire to exert an influence by their means on the crowd what it is requisite to know is

the meaning given them by the crowd at a given moment, and not the meaning which they formerly had or

Thus, when crowds have come, as the result of political upheavals or changes of belief, to acquire a profound

antipathy for the images evoked by certain words, the first duty of the true statesman is to change the words

without, of course, laying hands on the things themselves, the latter being too intimately bound up with the

inherited constitution to be transformed. The judicious Tocqueville long ago made the remark that the work

of the consulate and the empire consisted more particularly in the clothing with new words of the greater part

of the institutions of the pastthat is to say, in replacing words evoking disagreeable images in the

imagination of the crowd by other words of which the novelty prevented such evocations. The "taille" or

tallage has become the land tax; the "gabelle," the tax on salt; the "aids," the indirect contributions and the

One of the most essential functions of statesmen consists, then, in baptizing with popular or, at any rate,

indifferent words things the crowd cannot endure under their old names. The power of words is so great that

it suffices to designate in wellchosen terms the most odious things to make them acceptable to crowds.

Taine justly observes that it was by invoking liberty and fraternitywords very popular at the time that

the Jacobins were able "to install a despotism worthy of Dahomey, a tribunal similar to that of the Inquisition,

and to accomplish human hecatombs akin to those of ancient Mexico." The art of those who govern, as is the

case with the art of advocates, consists above all in the science of employing words. One of the greatest

difficulties of this art is, that in one and the same society the same words most often have very different

meanings for the different social classes, who employ in appearance the same words, but never speak the

In the preceding examples it is especially time that has been made to intervene as the principal factor in the

changing of the meaning of words. If, however, we also make race intervene, we shall then see that, at the

same period, among peoples equally civilised but of different race, the same words very often correspond to

extremely dissimilar ideas. It is impossible to understand these differences without having travelled much,

and for this reason I shall not insist upon them. I shall confine myself to observing that it is precisely the

words most often employed by the masses which among different peoples possess the most different

meanings. Such is the case, for instance, with the words "democracy" and "socialism" in such frequent use

In reality they correspond to quite contrary ideas and images in the Latin and AngloSaxon mind. For the

Latin peoples the word "democracy" signifies more especially the subordination of the will and the initiative

of the individual to the will and the initiative of the community represented by the State. It is the State that is

charged, to a greater and greater degree, with the direction of everything, the centralisation, the

monopolisation, and the manufacture of everything. To the State it is that all parties without exception,

radicals, socialists, or monarchists, constantly appeal. Among the AngloSaxons and notably in America this

same word "democracy" signifies, on the contrary, the intense development of the will of the individual, and

as complete a subordination as possible of the State, which, with the exception of the police, the army, and

diplomatic relations, is not allowed the direction of anything, not even of public instruction. It is seen, then,

that the same word which signifies for one people the subordination of the will and the initiative of the

individual and the preponderance of the State, signifies for another the excessive development of the will and

the initiative of the individual and the complete subordination of the State.[13]

[13] In my book, "The Psychological Laws of the Evolution of Peoples," I have insisted at length on the

differences which distinguish the Latin democratic ideal from the AngloSaxon democratic ideal.

Independently, and as the result of his travels, M. Paul Bourget has arrived, in his quite recent book,

From the dawn of civilisation onwards crowds have always undergone the influence of illusions. It is to the

creators of illusions that they have raised more temples, statues, and altars than to any other class of men.

Whether it be the religious illusions of the past or the philosophic and social illusions of the present, these

formidable sovereign powers are always found at the head of all the civilisations that have successively

flourished on our planet. It is in their name that were built the temples of Chaldea and Egypt and the religious

edifices of the Middle Ages, and that a vast upheaval shook the whole of Europe a century ago, and there is

not one of our political, artistic, or social conceptions that is free from their powerful impress. Occasionally,

at the cost of terrible disturbances, man overthrows them, but he seems condemned to always set them up

again. Without them he would never have emerged from his primitive barbarian state, and without them again

he would soon return to it. Doubtless they are futile shadows; but these children of our dreams have forced

the nations to create whatever the arts may boast of splendour or civilisation of greatness.

"If one destroyed in museums and libraries, if one hurled down on the flagstones before the churches all the

works and all the monuments of art that religions have inspired, what would remain of the great dreams of

humanity? To give to men that portion of hope and illusion without which they cannot live, such is the reason

for the existence of gods, heroes, and poets. During fifty years science appeared to undertake this task. But

science has been compromised in hearts hungering after the ideal, because it does not dare to be lavish

The philosophers of the last century devoted themselves with fervour to the destruction of the religious,

political, and social illusions on which our forefathers had lived for a long tale of centuries. By destroying

them they have dried up the springs of hope and resignation. Behind the immolated chimeras they came face

to face with the blind and silent forces of nature, which are inexorable to weakness and ignore pity.

Notwithstanding all its progress, philosophy has been unable as yet to offer the masses any ideal that can

charm them; but, as they must have their illusions at all cost, they turn instinctively, as the insect seeks the

light, to the rhetoricians who accord them what they want. Not truth, but error has always been the chief

factor in the evolution of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful today is that it constitutes the

last illusion that is still vital. In spite of all scientific demonstrations it continues on the increase. Its principal

strength lies in the fact that it is championed by minds sufficiently ignorant of things as they are in reality to

venture boldly to promise mankind happiness. The social illusion reigns today upon all the heapedup ruins

of the past, and to it belongs the future. The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from

evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them

with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.

Experience constitutes almost the only effective process by which a truth may be solidly established in the

mind of the masses, and illusions grown too dangerous be destroyed. To this end, however, it is necessary

that the experience should take place on a very large scale, and be very frequently repeated. The experiences

undergone by one generation are useless, as a rule, for the generation that follows, which is the reason why

historical facts, cited with a view to demonstration, serve no purpose. Their only utility is to prove to what an

extent experiences need to be repeated from age to age to exert any influence, or to be successful in merely

shaking an erroneous opinion when it is solidly implanted in the mind of the masses.

Our century and that which preceded it will doubtless be alluded to by historians as an era of curious

The most gigantic of these experiments was the French Revolution. To find out that a society is not to be

refashioned from top to bottom in accordance with the dictates of pure reason, it was necessary that several

millions of men should be massacred and that Europe should be profoundly disturbed for a period of twenty

years. To prove to us experimentally that dictators cost the nations who acclaim them dear, two ruinous

experiences have been required in fifty years, and in spite of their clearness they do not seem to have been

sufficiently convincing. The first, nevertheless, cost three millions of men and an invasion, the second

involved a loss of territory, and carried in its wake the necessity for permanent armies. A third was almost

attempted not long since, and will assuredly be attempted one day. To bring an entire nation to admit that the

huge German army was not, as was currently alleged thirty years ago, a sort of harmless national guard,[15]

the terrible war which cost us so dear had to take place. To bring about the recognition that Protection ruins

the nations who adopt it, at least twenty years of disastrous experience will be needful. These examples might

[15] The opinion of the crowd was formed in this case by those roughandready associations of dissimilar

things, the mechanism of which I have previously explained. The French national guard of that period, being

composed of peaceable shopkeepers, utterly lacking in discipline and quite incapable of being taken

seriously, whatever bore a similar name, evoked the same conception and was considered in consequence as

harmless. The error of the crowd was shared at the time by its leaders, as happens so often in connection with

opinions dealing with generalisations. In a speech made in the Chamber on the 31st of December, 1867, and

quoted in a book by M. E. Ollivier that has appeared recently, a statesman who often followed the opinion of

the crowd but was never in advance of itI allude to M. Thiersdeclared that Prussia only possessed a

national guard analogous to that of France, and in consequence without importance, in addition to a regular

army about equal to the French regular army; assertions about as accurate as the predictions of the same

In enumerating the factors capable of making an impression on the minds of crowds all mention of reason

might be dispensed with, were it not necessary to point out the negative value of its influence.

We have already shown that crowds are not to be influenced by reasoning, and can only comprehend

roughandready associations of ideas. The orators who know how to make an impression upon them always

appeal in consequence to their sentiments and never to their reason. The laws of logic have no action on

crowds.[16] To bring home conviction to crowds it is necessary first of all to thoroughly comprehend the

sentiments by which they are animated, to pretend to share these sentiments, then to endeavour to modify

them by calling up, by means of rudimentary associations, certain eminently suggestive notions, to be

capable, if need be, of going back to the point of view from which a start was made, and, above all, to divine

from instant to instant the sentiments to which one's discourse is giving birth. This necessity of ceaselessly

varying one's language in accordance with the effect produced at the moment of speaking deprives from the

outset a prepared and studied harangue of all efficaciousness. In such a speech the orator follows his own line

of thought, not that of his hearers, and from this fact alone his influence is annihilated.

[16] My first observations with regard to the art of impressing crowds and touching the slight assistance to be

derived in this connection from the rules of logic date back to the seige of Paris, to the day when I saw

conducted to the Louvre, where the Government was then sitting, Marshal V, whom a furious crowd

asserted they had surprised in the act of taking the plans of the fortifications to sell them to the Prussians. A

member of the Government (G. P), a very celebrated orator, came out to harangue the crowd, which

was demanding the immediate execution of the prisoner. I had expected that the speaker would point out the

absurdity of the accusation by remarking that the accused Marshal was positively one of those who had

constructed the fortifications, the plan of which, moreover, was on sale at every booksellers. To my immense

stupefactionI was very young thenthe speech was on quite different lines. "Justice shall be done,"

exclaimed the orator, advancing towards the prisoner, "and pitiless justice. Let the Government of the

National Defence conclude your inquiry. In the meantime we will keep the prisoner in custody." At once

calmed by this apparent concession, the crowd broke up, and a quarter of an hour later the Marshal was able

to return home. He would infallibly have been torn in pieces had the speaker treated the infuriated crowd to

the logical arguments that my extreme youth induced me to consider as very convincing.

Logical minds, accustomed to be convinced by a chain of somewhat close reasoning, cannot avoid having

recourse to this mode of persuasion when addressing crowds, and the inability of their arguments always

surprises them. "The usual mathematical consequences based on the syllogismthat is, on associations of

identitiesare imperative . . ." writes a logician. "This imperativeness would enforce the assent even of an

inorganic mass were it capable of following associations of identities." This is doubtless true, but a crowd is

no more capable than an inorganic mass of following such associations, nor even of understanding them. If

the attempt be made to convince by reasoning primitive mindssavages or children, for instancethe slight

It is not even necessary to descend so low as primitive beings to obtain an insight into the utter powerlessness

of reasoning when it has to fight against sentiment. Let us merely call to mind how tenacious, for centuries

long, have been religious superstitions in contradiction with the simplest logic. For nearly two thousand years

the most luminous geniuses have bowed before their laws, and modern times have to be reached for their

veracity to be merely contested. The Middle Ages and the Renaissance possessed many enlightened men, but

not a single man who attained by reasoning to an appreciation of the childish side of his superstitions, or who

promulgated even a slight doubt as to the misdeeds of the devil or the necessity of burning sorcerers.

Should it be regretted that crowds are never guided by reason? We would not venture to affirm it. Without a

doubt human reason would not have availed to spur humanity along the path of civilisation with the ardour

and hardihood its illusions have done. These illusions, the offspring of those unconscious forces by which we

are led, were doubtless necessary. Every race carries in its mental constitution the laws of its destiny, and it

is, perhaps, these laws that it obeys with a resistless impulse, even in the case of those of its impulses which

apparently are the most unreasoned. It seems at times as if nations were submitted to secret forces analogous

to those which compel the acorn to transform itself into an oak or a comet to follow its orbit.

What little insight we can get into these forces must be sought for in the general course of the evolution of a

people, and not in the isolated facts from which this evolution appears at times to proceed. Were these facts

alone to be taken into consideration, history would seem to be the result of a series of improbable chances. It

was improbable that a Galilean carpenter should become for two thousand years an allpowerful God in

whose name the most important civilisations were founded; improbable, too, that a few bands of Arabs,

emerging from their deserts, should conquer the greater part of the old GracoRoman world, and establish an

empire greater than that of Alexander; improbable, again, that in Europe, at an advanced period of its

development, and when authority throughout it had been systematically hierarchised, an obscure lieutenant of

artillery should have succeeded in reigning over a multitude of peoples and kings.

Let us leave reason, then, to philosophers, and not insist too strongly on its intervention in the governing of

men. It is not by reason, but most often in spite of it, that are created those sentiments that are the

mainsprings of all civilisationsentiments such as honour, self sacrifice, religious faith, patriotism, and the

1. THE LEADERS OF CROWDS. The instinctive need of all beings forming a crowd to obey a leaderThe

psychology of the leaders of crowdsThey alone can endow crowds with faith and organise themThe

leaders forcibly despoticClassification of the leadersThe part played by the will. 2. THE MEANS OF

ACTION OF THE LEADERS. Affirmation, repetition, contagionThe respective part of these different

factorsThe way in which contagion may spread from the lower to the upper classes in a societyA

popular opinion soon becomes a general opinion. 3. PRESTIGE. Definition of prestige and classification of

its different kindsAcquired prestige and personal prestigeVarious examplesThe way in which

We are now acquainted with the mental constitution of crowds, and we also know what are the motives

capable of making an impression on their mind. It remains to investigate how these motives may be set in

As soon as a certain number of living beings are gathered together, whether they be animals or men, they

In the case of human crowds the chief is often nothing more than a ringleader or agitator, but as such he plays

a considerable part. His will is the nucleus around which the opinions of the crowd are grouped and attain to

identity. He constitutes the first element towards the organisation of heterogeneous crowds, and paves the

way for their organisation in sects; in the meantime he directs them. A crowd is a servile flock that is

The leader has most often started as one of the led. He has himself been hypnotised by the idea, whose

apostle he has since become. It has taken possession of him to such a degree that everything outside it

vanishes, and that every contrary opinion appears to him an error or a superstition. An example in point is

Robespierre, hypnotised by the philosophical ideas of Rousseau, and employing the methods of the

The leaders we speak of are more frequently men of action than thinkers. They are not gifted with keen

foresight, nor could they be, as this quality generally conduces to doubt and inactivity. They are especially

recruited from the ranks of those morbidly nervous, excitable, halfderanged persons who are bordering on

madness. However absurd may be the idea they uphold or the goal they pursue, their convictions are so

strong that all reasoning is lost upon them. Contempt and persecution do not affect them, or only serve to

excite them the more. They sacrifice their personal interest, their familyeverything. The very instinct of

selfpreservation is entirely obliterated in them, and so much so that often the only recompense they solicit is

that of martyrdom. The intensity of their faith gives great power of suggestion to their words. The multitude

is always ready to listen to the strongwilled man, who knows how to impose himself upon it. Men gathered

in a crowd lose all force of will, and turn instinctively to the person who possesses the quality they lack.

Nations have never lacked leaders, but all of the latter have by no means been animated by those strong

convictions proper to apostles. These leaders are often subtle rhetoricians, seeking only their own personal

interest, and endeavouring to persuade by flattering base instincts. The influence they can assert in this

manner may be very great, but it is always ephemeral. The men of ardent convictions who have stirred the

soul of crowds, the Peter the Hermits, the Luthers, the Savonarolas, the men of the French Revolution, have

only exercised their fascination after having been themselves fascinated first of all by a creed. They are then

able to call up in the souls of their fellows that formidable force known as faith, which renders a man the

The arousing of faithwhether religious, political, or social, whether faith in a work, in a person, or an

ideahas always been the function of the great leaders of crowds, and it is on this account that their

influence is always very great. Of all the forces at the disposal of humanity, faith has always been one of the

most tremendous, and the gospel rightly attributes to it the power of moving mountains. To endow a man

with faith is to multiply his strength tenfold. The great events of history have been brought about by obscure

believers, who have had little beyond their faith in their favour. It is not by the aid of the learned or of

philosophers, and still less of sceptics, that have been built up the great religions which have swayed the

In the cases just cited, however, we are dealing with great leaders, and they are so few in number that history

can easily reckon them up. They form the summit of a continuous series, which extends from these powerful

masters of men down to the workman who, in the smoky atmosphere of an inn, slowly fascinates his

comrades by ceaselessly drumming into their ears a few set phrases, whose purport he scarcely comprehends,

but the application of which, according to him, must surely bring about the realisation of all dreams and of

In every social sphere, from the highest to the lowest, as soon as a man ceases to be isolated he speedily falls

under the influence of a leader. The majority of men, especially among the masses, do not possess clear and

reasoned ideas on any subject whatever outside their own speciality. The leader serves them as guide. It is

just possible that he may be replaced, though very inefficiently, by the periodical publications which

manufacture opinions for their readers and supply them with ready made phrases which dispense them of

The leaders of crowds wield a very despotic authority, and this despotism indeed is a condition of their

obtaining a following. It has often been remarked how easily they extort obedience, although without any

means of backing up their authority, from the most turbulent section of the working classes. They fix the

hours of labour and the rate of wages, and they decree strikes, which are begun and ended at the hour they

At the present day these leaders and agitators tend more and more to usurp the place of the public authorities

in proportion as the latter allow themselves to be called in question and shorn of their strength. The tyranny

of these new masters has for result that the crowds obey them much more docilely than they have obeyed any

government. If in consequence of some accident or other the leaders should be removed from the scene the

crowd returns to its original state of a collectivity without cohesion or force of resistance. During the last

strike of the Parisian omnibus employes the arrest of the two leaders who were directing it was at once

sufficient to bring it to an end. It is the need not of liberty but of servitude that is always predominant in the

soul of crowds. They are so bent on obedience that they instinctively submit to whoever declares himself

These ringleaders and agitators may be divided into two clearly defined classes. The one includes the men

who are energetic and possess, but only intermittently, much strength of will, the other the men, far rarer than

the preceding, whose strength of will is enduring. The first mentioned are violent, brave, and audacious. They

are more especially useful to direct a violent enterprise suddenly decided on, to carry the masses with them in

spite of danger, and to transform into heroes the men who but yesterday were recruits. Men of this kind were

Ney and Murat under the First Empire, and such a man in our own time was Garibaldi, a talentless but

energetic adventurer who succeeded with a handful of men in laying hands on the ancient kingdom of Naples,

Still, though the energy of leaders of this class is a force to be reckoned with, it is transitory, and scarcely

outlasts the exciting cause that has brought it into play. When they have returned to their ordinary course of

life the heroes animated by energy of this description often evince, as was the case with those I have just

cited, the most astonishing weakness of character. They seem incapable of reflection and of conducting

themselves under the simplest circumstances, although they had been able to lead others. These men are

leaders who cannot exercise their function except on the condition that they be led themselves and

continually stimulated, that they have always as their beacon a man or an idea, that they follow a line of

conduct clearly traced. The second category of leaders, that of men of enduring strength of will, have, in spite

of a less brilliant aspect, a much more considerable influence. In this category are to be found the true

founders of religions and great undertakings: St. Paul, Mahomet, Christopher Columbus, and de Lesseps, for

example. Whether they be intelligent or narrowminded is of no importance: the world belongs to them. The

persistent willforce they possess is an immensely rare and immensely powerful faculty to which everything

yields. What a strong and continuous will is capable of is not always properly appreciated. Nothing resists it;

The most recent example of what can be effected by a strong and continuous will is afforded us by the

illustrious man who separated the Eastern and Western worlds, and accomplished a task that during three

thousand years had been attempted in vain by the greatest sovereigns. He failed later in an identical

enterprise, but then had intervened old age, to which everything, even the will, succumbs.

When it is desired to show what may be done by mere strength of will, all that is necessary is to relate in

detail the history of the difficulties that had to be surmounted in connection with the cutting of the Suez

Canal. An ocular witness, Dr. Cazalis, has summed up in a few striking lines the entire story of this great

"From day to day, episode by episode, he told the stupendous story of the canal. He told of all he had had to

vanquish, of the impossible he had made possible, of all the opposition he encountered, of the coalition

against him, and the disappointments, the reverses, the defeats which had been unavailing to discourage or

depress him. He recalled how England had combatted him, attacking him without cessation, how Egypt and

France had hesitated, how the French Consul had been foremost in his opposition to the early stages of the

work, and the nature of the opposition he had met with, the attempt to force his workmen to desert from thirst

by refusing them fresh water; how the Minister of Marine and the engineers, all responsible men of

experienced and scientific training, had naturally all been hostile, were all certain on scientific grounds that

disaster was at hand, had calculated its coming, foretelling it for such a day and hour as an eclipse is

The book which relates the lives of all these great leaders would not contain many names, but these names

have been bound up with the most important events in the history of civilisation.

When it is wanted to stir up a crowd for a short space of time, to induce it to commit an act of any natureto

pillage a palace, or to die in defence of a stronghold or a barricade, for instancethe crowd must be acted

upon by rapid suggestion, among which example is the most powerful in its effect. To attain this end,

however, it is necessary that the crowd should have been that he who wishes to work upon it should possess

When, however, it is proposed to imbue the mind of a crowd with ideas and beliefswith modern social

theories, for instancethe leaders have recourse to different expedients. The principal of them are three in

number and clearly definedaffirmation, repetition, and contagion. Their action is somewhat slow, but its

Affirmation pure and simple, kept free of all reasoning and all proof, is one of the surest means of making an

idea enter the mind of crowds. The conciser an affirmation is, the more destitute of every appearance of proof

and demonstration, the more weight it carries. The religious books and the legal codes of all ages have always

resorted to simple affirmation. Statesmen called upon to defend a political cause, and commercial men

pushing the sale of their products by means of advertising are acquainted with the value of affirmation.

Affirmation, however, has no real influence unless it be constantly repeated, and so far as possible in the

same terms. It was Napoleon, I believe, who said that there is only one figure in rhetoric of serious

importance, namely, repetition. The thing affirmed comes by repetition to fix itself in the mind in such a way

The influence of repetition on crowds is comprehensible when the power is seen which it exercises on the

most enlightened minds. This power is due to the fact that the repeated statement is embedded in the long run

in those profound regions of our unconscious selves in which the motives of our actions are forged. At the

end of a certain time we have forgotten who is the author of the repeated assertion, and we finish by believing

it. To this circumstance is due the astonishing power of advertisements. When we have read a hundred, a

thousand, times that X's chocolate is the best, we imagine we have heard it said in many quarters, and we end

by acquiring the certitude that such is the fact. When we have read a thousand times that Y's flour has cured

the most illustrious persons of the most obstinate maladies, we are tempted at last to try it when suffering

from an illness of a similar kind. If we always read in the same papers that A is an arrant scamp and B a most

honest man we finish by being convinced that this is the truth, unless, indeed, we are given to reading another

paper of the contrary opinion, in which the two qualifications are reversed. Affirmation and repetition are

When an affirmation has been sufficiently repeated and there is unanimity in this repetitionas has occurred

in the case of certain famous financial undertakings rich enough to purchase every assistance what is

called a current of opinion is formed and the powerful mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas, sentiments,

emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes. This phenomenon

is very natural, since it is observed even in animals when they are together in number. Should a horse in a

stable take to biting his manger the other horses in the stable will imitate him. A panic that has seized on a

few sheep will soon extend to the whole flock. In the case of men collected in a crowd all emotions are very

rapidly contagious, which explains the suddenness of panics. Brain disorders, like madness, are themselves

contagious. The frequency of madness among doctors who are specialists for the mad is notorious. Indeed,

forms of madness have recently been citedagoraphobia, for instancewhich are communicable from men

For individuals to succumb to contagion their simultaneous presence on the same spot is not indispensable.

The action of contagion may be felt from a distance under the influence of events which give all minds an

individual trend and the characteristics peculiar to crowds. This is especially the case when men's minds have

been prepared to undergo the influence in question by those remote factors of which I have made a study

above. An example in point is the revolutionary movement of 1848, which, after breaking out in Paris, spread

Imitation, to which so much influence is attributed in social phenomena, is in reality a mere effect of

contagion. Having shown its influence elsewhere, I shall confine myself to reproducing what I said on the

subject fifteen years ago. My remarks have since been developed by other writers in recent publications.

"Man, like animals, has a natural tendency to imitation. Imitation is a necessity for him, provided always that

the imitation is quite easy. It is this necessity that makes the influence of what is called fashion so powerful.

Whether in the matter of opinions, ideas, literary manifestations, or merely of dress, how many persons are

bold enough to run counter to the fashion? It is by examples not by arguments that crowds are guided. At

every period there exists a small number of individualities which react upon the remainder and are imitated

by the unconscious mass. It is needful however, that these individualities should not be in too pronounced

disagreement with received ideas. Were they so, to imitate them would be too difficult and their influence

would be nil. For this very reason men who are too superior to their epoch are generally without influence

upon it. The line of separation is too strongly marked. For the same reason too Europeans, in spite of all the

advantages of their civilisation, have so insignificant an influence on Eastern people; they differ from them to

"The dual action of the past and of reciprocal imitation renders, in the long run, all the men of the same

country and the same period so alike that even in the case of individuals who would seem destined to escape

this double influence, such as philosophers, learned men, and men of letters, thought and style have a family

air which enables the age to which they belong to be immediately recognised. It is not necessary to talk for

long with an individual to attain to a thorough knowledge of what he reads, of his habitual occupations, and

Contagion is so powerful that it forces upon individuals not only certain opinions, but certain modes of

feeling as well. Contagion is the cause of the contempt in which, at a given period, certain works are

heldthe example of "Tannhauser" may be citedwhich, a few years later, for the same reason are admired

The opinions and beliefs of crowds are specially propagated by contagion, but never by reasoning. The

conceptions at present rife among the working classes have been acquired at the publichouse as the result of

affirmation, repetition, and contagion, and indeed the mode of creation of the beliefs of crowds of every age

has scarcely been different. Renan justly institutes a comparison between the first founders of Christianity

and "the socialist working men spreading their ideas from publichouse to publichouse"; while Voltaire had

already observed in connection with the Christian religion that "for more than a hundred years it was only

It will be noted that in cases analogous to those I have just cited, contagion, after having been at work among

the popular classes, has spread to the higher classes of society. This is what we see happening at the present

day with regard to the socialist doctrines which are beginning to be held by those who will yet be their first

victims. Contagion is so powerful a force that even the sentiment of personal interest disappears under its

This is the explanation of the fact that every opinion adopted by the populace always ends in implanting itself

with great vigour in the highest social strata, however obvious be the absurdity of the triumphant opinion.

This reaction of the lower upon the higher social classes is the more curious, owing to the circumstance that

the beliefs of the crowd always have their origin to a greater or less extent in some higher idea, which has

often remained without influence in the sphere in which it was evolved. Leaders and agitators, subjugated by

this higher idea, take hold of it, distort it and create a sect which distorts it afresh, and then propagates it

amongst the masses, who carry the process of deformation still further. Become a popular truth the idea

returns, as it were, to its source and exerts an influence on the upper classes of a nation. In the long run it is

intelligence that shapes the destiny of the world, but very indirectly. The philosophers who evolve ideas have

long since returned to dust, when, as the result of the process I have just described, the fruit of their reflection

Great power is given to ideas propagated by affirmation, repetition, and contagion by the circumstance that

Whatever has been a ruling power in the world, whether it be ideas or men, has in the main enforced its

authority by means of that irresistible force expressed by the word "prestige." The term is one whose meaning

is grasped by everybody, but the word is employed in ways too different for it to be easy to define it. Prestige

may involve such sentiments as admiration or fear. Occasionally even these sentiments are its basis, but it can

perfectly well exist without them. The greatest measure of prestige is possessed by the dead, by beings, that

is, of whom we do not stand in fearby Alexander, Caesar, Mahomet, and Buddha, for example. On the

other hand, there are fictive beings whom we do not admirethe monstrous divinities of the subterranean

temples of India, for instancebut who strike us nevertheless as endowed with a great prestige.

Prestige in reality is a sort of domination exercised on our mind by an individual, a work, or an idea. This

domination entirely paralyses our critical faculty, and fills our soul with astonishment and respect. The

sentiment provoked is inexplicable, like all sentiments, but it would appear to be of the same kind as the

fascination to which a magnetised person is subjected. Prestige is the mainspring of all authority. Neither

The various kinds of prestige may be grouped under two principal heads: acquired prestige and personal

prestige. Acquired prestige is that resulting from name, fortune, and reputation. It may be independent of

personal prestige. Personal prestige, on the contrary, is something essentially peculiar to the individual; it

may coexist with reputation, glory, and fortune, or be strengthened by them, but it is perfectly capable of

Acquired or artificial prestige is much the most common. The mere fact that an individual occupies a certain

position, possesses a certain fortune, or bears certain titles, endows him with prestige, however slight his own

personal worth. A soldier in uniform, a judge in his robes, always enjoys prestige. Pascal has very properly

noted the necessity for judges of robes and wigs. Without them they would be stripped of half their authority.

The most unbending socialist is always somewhat impressed by the sight of a prince or a marquis; and the

[18] The influence of titles, decorations, and uniforms on crowds is to be traced in all countries, even in those

in which the sentiment of personal independence is the most strongly developed. I quote in this connection a

curious passage from a recent book of travel, on the prestige enjoyed in England by great persons.

"I had observed, under various circumstances, the peculiar sort of intoxication produced in the most

"Provided his fortune enables him to keep up his rank, he is sure of their affection in advance, and brought

into contact with him they are so enchanted as to put up with anything at his hands. They may be seen to

redden with pleasure at his approach, and if he speaks to them their suppressed joy increases their redness,

and causes their eyes to gleam with unusual brilliance. Respect for nobility is in their blood, so to speak, as

with Spaniards the love of dancing, with Germans that of music, and with Frenchmen the liking for

revolutions. Their passion for horses and Shakespeare is less violent, the satisfaction and pride they derive

from these sources a less integral part of their being. There is a considerable sale for books dealing with the

peerage, and go where one will they are to be found, like the Bible, in all hands."

The prestige of which I have just spoken is exercised by persons; side by side with it may be placed that

exercised by opinions, literary and artistic works, Prestige of the latter kind is most often merely the result of

accumulated repetitions. History, literary and artistic history especially, being nothing more than the

repetition of identical judgments, which nobody endeavours to verify, every one ends by repeating what he

learnt at school, till there come to be names and things which nobody would venture to meddle with. For a

modern reader the perusal of Homer results incontestably in immense boredom; but who would venture to

say so? The Parthenon, in its present state, is a wretched ruin, utterly destitute of interest, but it is endowed

with such prestige that it does not appear to us as it really is, but with all its accompaniment of historic

memories. The special characteristic of prestige is to prevent us seeing things as they are and to entirely

paralyse our judgment. Crowds always, and individuals as a rule, stand in need of readymade opinions on

all subjects. The popularity of these opinions is independent of the measure of truth or error they contain, and

I now come to personal prestige. Its nature is very different from that of artificial or acquired prestige, with

which I have just been concerned. It is a faculty independent of all titles, of all authority, and possessed by a

small number of persons whom it enables to exercise a veritably magnetic fascination on those around them,

although they are socially their equals, and lack all ordinary means of domination. They force the acceptance

of their ideas and sentiments on those about them, and they are obeyed as is the tamer of wild beasts by the

The great leaders of crowds, such as Buddha, Jesus, Mahomet, Joan of Arc, and Napoleon, have possessed

this form of prestige in a high degree, and to this endowment is more particularly due the position they

attained. Gods, heroes, and dogmas win their way in the world of their own inward strength. They are not to

The great personages I have just cited were in possession of their power of fascination long before they

became illustrious, and would never have become so without it. It is evident, for instance, that Napoleon at

the zenith of his glory enjoyed an immense prestige by the mere fact of his power, but he was already

endowed in part with this prestige when he was without power and completely unknown. When, an obscure

general, he was sent, thanks to influential protection, to command the army of Italy, he found himself among

rough generals who were of a mind to give a hostile reception to the young intruder dispatched them by the

Directory. From the very beginning, from the first interview, without the aid of speeches, gestures, or threats,

at the first sight of the man who was to become great they were vanquished. Taine furnishes a curious

"The generals of division, amongst others Augereau, a sort of swashbuckler, uncouth and heroic, proud of his

height and his bravery, arrive at the staff quarters very badly disposed towards the little upstart dispatched

them from Paris. On the strength of the description of him that has been given them, Augereau is inclined to

be insolent and insubordinate; a favourite of Barras, a general who owes his rank to the events of

Vendemiaire who has won his grade by streetfighting, who is looked upon as bearish, because he is always

thinking in solitude, of poor aspect, and with the reputation of a mathematician and dreamer. They are

introduced, and Bonaparte keeps them waiting. At last he appears, girt with his sword; he puts on his hat,

explains the measures he has taken, gives his orders, and dismisses them. Augereau has remained silent; it is

only when he is outside that he regains his selfpossession and is able to deliver himself of his customary

oaths. He admits with Massena that this little devil of a general has inspired him with awe; he cannot

understand the ascendency by which from the very first he has felt himself overwhelmed."

Become a great man, his prestige increased in proportion as his glory grew, and came to be at least equal to

that of a divinity in the eyes of those devoted to him. General Vandamme, a rough, typical soldier of the

Revolution, even more brutal and energetic than Augereau, said of him to Marshal d'Arnano in 1815, as on

one occasion they mounted together the stairs of the Tuileries: "That devil of a man exercises a fascination on

me that I cannot explain even to myself, and in such a degree that, though I fear neither God nor devil, when I

am in his presence I am ready to tremble like a child, and he could make me go through the eye of a needle to

Napoleon exercised a like fascination on all who came into contact with him.[19]

[19] Thoroughly conscious of his prestige, Napoleon was aware that he added to it by treating rather worse

than stable lads the great personages around him, and among whom figured some of those celebrated men of

the Convention of whom Europe had stood in dread. The gossip of the period abounds in illustrations of this

fact. One day, in the midst of a Council of State, Napoleon grossly insults Beugnot, treating him as one might

an unmannerly valet. The effect produced, he goes up to him and says, "Well, stupid, have you found your

head again?" Whereupon Beugnot, tall as a drummajor, bows very low, and the little man raising his hand,

takes the tall one by the ear, "an intoxicating sign of favour," writes Beugnot, "the familiar gesture of the

master who waxes gracious." Such examples give a clear idea of the degree of base platitude that prestige can

provoke. They enable us to understand the immense contempt of the great despot for the men surrounding

Davoust used to say, talking of Maret's devotion and of his own: "Had the Emperor said to us, `It is important

in the interest of my policy that Paris should be destroyed without a single person leaving it or escaping,'

Maret I am sure would have kept the secret, but he could not have abstained from compromising himself by

seeing that his family got clear of the city. On the other hand, I, for fear of letting the truth leak out, would

It is necessary to bear in mind the astounding power exerted by fascination of this order to understand that

marvellous return from the Isle of Elba, that lightninglike conquest of France by an isolated man confronted

by all the organised forces of a great country that might have been supposed weary of his tyranny. He had

merely to cast a look at the generals sent to lay hands on him, and who had sworn to accomplish their

"Napoleon," writes the English General Wolseley, "lands in France almost alone, a fugitive from the small

island of Elba which was his kingdom, and succeeded in a few weeks, without bloodshed, in upsetting all

organised authority in France under its legitimate king; is it possible for the personal ascendency of a man to

affirm itself in a more astonishing manner? But from the beginning to the end of this campaign, which was

his last, how remarkable too is the ascendency he exercised over the Allies, obliging them to follow his

His prestige outlived him and continued to grow. It is his prestige that made an emperor of his obscure

nephew. How powerful is his memory still is seen in the resurrection of his legend in progress at the present

day. Illtreat men as you will, massacre them by millions, be the cause of invasion upon invasion, all is

permitted you if you possess prestige in a sufficient degree and the talent necessary to uphold it.

I have invoked, no doubt, in this case a quite exceptional example of prestige, but one it was useful to cite to

make clear the genesis of great religions, great doctrines, and great empires. Were it not for the power exerted

Prestige, however, is not based solely on personal ascendency, military glory, and religious terror; it may

have a more modest origin and still be considerable. Our century furnishes several examples. One of the most

striking ones that posterity will recall from age to age will be supplied by the history of the illustrious man

who modified the face of the globe and the commercial relations of the nations by separating two continents.

He succeeded in his enterprise owing to his immense strength of will, but also owing to the fascination he

exercised on those surrounding him. To overcome the unanimous opposition he met with, he had only to

show himself. He would speak briefly, and in face of the charm he exerted his opponents became his friends.

The English in particular strenuously opposed his scheme; he had only to put in an appearance in England to

rally all suffrages. In later years, when he passed Southampton, the bells were rung on his passage; and at the

"Having vanquished whatever there is to vanquish, men and things, marshes, rocks, and sandy wastes," he

had ceased to believe in obstacles, and wished to begin Suez over again at Panama. He began again with the

same methods as of old; but he had aged, and, besides, the faith that moves mountains does not move them if

they are too lofty. The mountains resisted, and the catastrophe that ensued destroyed the glittering aureole of

glory that enveloped the hero. His life teaches how prestige can grow and how it can vanish. After rivalling in

greatness the most famous heroes of history, he was lowered by the magistrates of his country to the ranks of

the vilest criminals. When he died his coffin, unattended, traversed an indifferent crowd. Foreign sovereigns

are alone in rendering homage to his memory as to that of one of the greatest men that history has known.[20]

[20] An Austrian paper, the Neue Freie Presse, of Vienna, has indulged on the subject of the destiny of de

Lesseps in reflections marked by a most judicious psychological insight. I therefore reproduce them here:

"After the condemnation of Ferdinand de Lesseps one has no longer the right to be astonished at the sad end

of Christopher Columbus. If Ferdinand de Lesseps were a rogue every noble illusion is a crime. Antiquity

would have crowned the memory of de Lesseps with an aureole of glory, and would have made him drink

from the bowl of nectar in the midst of Olympus, for he has altered the face of the earth and accomplished

works which make the creation more perfect. The President of the Court of Appeal has immortalised himself

by condemning Ferdinand de Lesseps, for the nations will always demand the name of the man who was not

afraid to debase his century by investing with the convict's cap an aged man, whose life redounded to the

"Let there be no more talk in the future of inflexible justice, there where reigns a bureaucratic hatred of

audacious feats. The nations have need of audacious men who believe in themselves and overcome every

obstacle without concern for their personal safety. Genius cannot be prudent; by dint of prudence it could

". . . Ferdinand de Lesseps has known the intoxication of triumph and the bitterness of disappointmentSuez

and Panama. At this point the heart revolts at the morality of success. When de Lesseps had succeeded in

joining two seas princes and nations rendered him their homage; today, when he meets with failure among

the rocks of the Cordilleras, he is nothing but a vulgar rogue. . . . In this result we see a war between the

classes of society, the discontent of bureaucrats and employes, who take their revenge with the aid of the

criminal code on those who would raise themselves above their fellows. . . . Modern legislators are filled with

embarrassment when confronted by the lofty ideas due to human genius; the public comprehends such ideas

still less, and it is easy for an advocategeneral to prove that Stanley is a murderer and de Lesseps a

Still, the various examples that have just been cited represent extreme cases. To fix in detail the psychology

of prestige, it would be necessary to place them at the extremity of a series, which would range from the

founders of religions and empires to the private individual who endeavours to dazzle his neighbours by a new

Between the extreme limits of this series would find a place all the forms of prestige resulting from the

different elements composing a civilisationsciences, arts, literature, it would be seen that prestige

constitutes the fundamental element of persuasion. Consciously or not, the being, the idea, or the thing

possessing prestige is immediately imitated in consequence of contagion, and forces an entire generation to

adopt certain modes of feeling and of giving expression to its thought. This imitation, moreover, is, as a rule,

unconscious, which accounts for the fact that it is perfect. The modern painters who copy the pale colouring

and the stiff attitudes of some of the Primitives are scarcely alive to the source of their inspiration. They

believe in their own sincerity, whereas, if an eminent master had not revived this form of art, people would

have continued blind to all but its naive and inferior sides. Those artists who, after the manner of another

illustrious master, inundate their canvasses with violet shades do not see in nature more violet than was

detected there fifty years ago; but they are influenced, "suggestioned," by the personal and special

impressions of a painter who, in spite of this eccentricity, was successful in acquiring great prestige. Similar

examples might be brought forward in connection with all the elements of civilisation.

It is seen from what precedes that a number of factors may be concerned in the genesis of prestige; among

them success was always one of the most important. Every successful man, every idea that forces itself into

recognition, ceases, ipso facto, to be called in question. The proof that success is one of the principal

steppingstones to prestige is that the disappearance of the one is almost always followed by the

disappearance of the other. The hero whom the crowd acclaimed yesterday is insulted today should he have

been overtaken by failure. The reaction, indeed, will be the stronger in proportion as the prestige has been

great. The crowd in this case considers the fallen hero as an equal, and takes its revenge for having bowed to

a superiority whose existence it no longer admits. While Robespierre was causing the execution of his

colleagues and of a great number of his contemporaries, he possessed an immense prestige. When the

transposition of a few votes deprived him of power, he immediately lost his prestige, and the crowd followed

him to the guillotine with the selfsame imprecations with which shortly before it had pursued his victims.

Believers always break the statues of their former gods with every symptom of fury.

Prestige lost by want of success disappears in a brief space of time. It can also be worn away, but more

slowly by being subjected to discussion. This latter power, however, is exceedingly sure. From the moment

prestige is called in question it ceases to be prestige. The gods and men who have kept their prestige for long

have never tolerated discussion. For the crowd to admire, it must be kept at a distance.

1. FIXED BELIEFS. The invariability of certain general beliefsThey shape the course of a

civilisationThe difficulty of uprooting themIn what respect intolerance is a virtue in a peopleThe

philosophic absurdity of a belief cannot interfere with its spreading. 2. THE CHANGEABLE OPINIONS OF

CROWDS. The extreme mobility of opinions which do not arise from general beliefsApparent variations

of ideas and beliefs in less than a centuryThe real limits of these variationsThe matters effected by the

variationThe disappearance at present in progress of general beliefs, and the extreme diffusion of the

newspaper press, have for result that opinions are nowadays more and more changeableWhy the opinions

of crowds tend on the majority of subjects towards indifferenceGovernments now powerless to direct

opinion as they formerly didOpinions prevented today from being tyrannical on account of their

A close parallel exists between the anatomical and psychological characteristics of living beings. In these

anatomical characteristics certain invariable, or slightly variable, elements are met with, to change which the

lapse is necessary of geological ages. Side by side with these fixed, indestructible features are to be found

others extremely changeable, which the art of the breeder or horticulturist may easily modify, and at times to

such an extent as to conceal the fundamental characteristics from an observer at all inattentive.

The same phenomenon is observed in the case of moral characteristics. Alongside the unalterable

psychological elements of a race, mobile and changeable elements are to be encountered. For this reason, in

studying the beliefs and opinions of a people, the presence is always detected of a fixed groundwork on

The opinions and beliefs of crowds may be divided, then, into two very distinct classes. On the one hand we

have great permanent beliefs, which endure for several centuries, and on which an entire civilisation may rest.

Such, for instance, in the past were feudalism, Christianity, and Protestantism; and such, in our own time, are

the nationalist principle and contemporary democratic and social ideas. In the second place, there are the

transitory, changing opinions, the outcome, as a rule, of general conceptions, of which every age sees the

birth and disappearance; examples in point are the theories which mould literature and the artsthose, for

instance, which produced romanticism, naturalism, mysticism, Opinions of this order are as superficial, as a

rule, as fashion, and as changeable. They may be compared to the ripples which ceaselessly arise and vanish

The great generalised beliefs are very restricted in number. Their rise and fall form the culminating points of

the history of every historic race. They constitute the real framework of civilisation.

It is easy to imbue the mind of crowds with a passing opinion, but very difficult to implant therein a lasting

belief. However, a belief of this latter description once established, it is equally difficult to uproot it. It is

usually only to be changed at the cost of violent revolutions. Even revolutions can only avail when the belief

has almost entirely lost its sway over men's minds. In that case revolutions serve to finally sweep away what

had already been almost cast aside, though the force of habit prevented its complete abandonment. The

The precise moment at which a great belief is doomed is easily recognisable; it is the moment when its value

begins to be called in question. Every general belief being little else than a fiction, it can only survive on the

But even when a belief is severely shaken, the institutions to which it has given rise retain their strength and

disappear but slowly. Finally, when the belief has completely lost its force, all that rested upon it is soon

involved in ruin. As yet a nation has never been able to change its beliefs without being condemned at the

same time to transform all the elements of its civilisation. The nation continues this process of transformation

until it has alighted on and accepted a new general belief: until this juncture it is perforce in a state of

anarchy. General beliefs are the indispensable pillars of civilisations; they determine the trend of ideas. They

Nations have always been conscious of the utility of acquiring general beliefs, and have instinctively

understood that their disappearance would be the signal for their own decline. In the case of the Romans, the

fanatical cult of Rome was the belief that made them masters of the world, and when the belief had died out

Rome was doomed to die. As for the barbarians who destroyed the Roman civilisation, it was only when they

had acquired certain commonly accepted beliefs that they attained a measure of cohesion and emerged from

Plainly it is not for nothing that nations have always displayed intolerance in the defence of their opinions.

This intolerance, open as it is to criticism from the philosophic standpoint, represents in the life of a people

the most necessary of virtues. It was to found or uphold general beliefs that so many victims were sent to the

stake in the Middle Ages and that so many inventors and innovators have died in despair even if they have

escaped martyrdom. It is in defence, too, of such beliefs that the world has been so often the scene of the

direst disorder, and that so many millions of men have died on the battlefield, and will yet die there.

There are great difficulties in the way of establishing a general belief, but when it is definitely implanted its

power is for a long time to come invincible, and however false it be philosophically it imposes itself upon the

most luminous intelligence. Have not the European peoples regarded as incontrovertible for more than fifteen

centuries religious legends which, closely examined, are as barbarous[21] as those of Moloch? The frightful

absurdity of the legend of a God who revenges himself for the disobedience of one of his creatures by

inflicting horrible tortures on his son remained unperceived during many centuries. Such potent geniuses as a

Galileo, a Newton, and a Leibnitz never supposed for an instant that the truth of such dogmas could be called

in question. Nothing can be more typical than this fact of the hypnotising effect of general beliefs, but at the

same time nothing can mark more decisively the humiliating limitations of our intelligence.

[21] Barbarous, philosophically speaking, I mean. In practice they have created an entirely new civilisation,

and for fifteen centuries have given mankind a glimpse of those enchanted realms of generous dreams and of

As soon as a new dogma is implanted in the mind of crowds it becomes the source of inspiration whence are

evolved its institutions, arts, and mode of existence. The sway it exerts over men's minds under these

circumstances is absolute. Men of action have no thought beyond realising the accepted belief, legislators

beyond applying it, while philosophers, artists, and men of letters are solely preoccupied with its expression

From the fundamental belief transient accessory ideas may arise, but they always bear the impress of the

belief from which they have sprung. The Egyptian civilisation, the European civilisation of the Middle Ages,

the Mussulman civilisation of the Arabs are all the outcome of a small number of religious beliefs which have

left their mark on the least important elements of these civilisations and allow of their immediate recognition.

Thus it is that, thanks to general beliefs, the men of every age are enveloped in a network of traditions,

opinions, and customs which render them all alike, and from whose yoke they cannot extricate themselves.

Men are guided in their conduct above all by their beliefs and by the customs that are the consequence of

those beliefs. These beliefs and customs regulate the smallest acts of our existence, and the most independent

spirit cannot escape their influence. The tyranny exercised unconsciously on men's minds is the only real

tyranny, because it cannot be fought against. Tiberius, Ghengis Khan, and Napoleon were assuredly

redoubtable tyrants, but from the depth of their graves Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet have exerted on

the human soul a far profounder despotism. A conspiracy may overthrow a tyrant, but what can it avail

against a firmly established belief? In its violent struggle with Roman Catholicism it is the French Revolution

that has been vanquished, and this in spite of the fact that the sympathy of the crowd was apparently on its

side, and in spite of recourse to destructive measures as pitiless as those of the Inquisition. The only real

tyrants that humanity has known have always been the memories of its dead or the illusions it has forged

The philosophic absurdity that often marks general beliefs has never been an obstacle to their triumph. Indeed

the triumph of such beliefs would seem impossible unless on the condition that they offer some mysterious

absurdity. In consequence, the evident weakness of the socialist beliefs of today will not prevent them

triumphing among the masses. Their real inferiority to all religious beliefs is solely the result of this

consideration, that the ideal of happiness offered by the latter being realisable only in a future life, it was

beyond the power of anybody to contest it. The socialist ideal of happiness being intended to be realised on

earth, the vanity of its promises will at once appear as soon as the first efforts towards their realisation are

made, and simultaneously the new belief will entirely lose its prestige. Its strength, in consequence, will only

increase until the day when, having triumphed, its practical realisation shall commence. For this reason, while

the new religion exerts to begin with, like all those that have preceded it, a destructive influence, it will be

Above the substratum of fixed beliefs, whose power we have just demonstrated, is found an overlying growth

of opinions, ideas, and thoughts which are incessantly springing up and dying out. Some of them exist but for

a day, and the more important scarcely outlive a generation. We have already noted that the changes which

supervene in opinions of this order are at times far more superficial than real, and that they are always

affected by racial considerations. When examining, for instance, the political institutions of France we

showed that parties to all appearance utterly distinctroyalists, radicals, imperialists, socialists, an ideal

absolutely identical, and that this ideal is solely dependent on the mental structure of the French race, since a

quite contrary ideal is found under analogous names among other races. Neither the name given to opinions

nor deceptive adaptations alter the essence of things. The men of the Great Revolution, saturated with Latin

literature, who (their eyes fixed on the Roman Republic), adopted its laws, its fasces, and its togas, did not

become Romans because they were under the empire of a powerful historical suggestion. The task of the

philosopher is to investigate what it is which subsists of ancient beliefs beneath their apparent changes, and to

identify amid the moving flux of opinions the part determined by general beliefs and the genius of the race.

In the absence of this philosophic test it might be supposed that crowds change their political or religious

beliefs frequently and at will. All history, whether political, religious, artistic, or literary, seems to prove that

As an example, let us take a very short period of French history, merely that from 1790 to 1820, a period of

thirty years' duration, that of a generation. In the course of it we see the crowd at first monarchical become

very revolutionary, then very imperialist, and again very monarchical. In the matter of religion it gravitates in

the same lapse of time from Catholicism to atheism, then towards deism, and then returns to the most

pronounced forms of Catholicism. These changes take place not only amongst the masses, but also amongst

those who direct them. We observe with astonishment the prominent men of the Convention, the sworn

enemies of kings, men who would have neither gods nor masters, become the humble servants of Napoleon,

and afterwards, under Louis XVIII., piously carry candles in religious processions.

Numerous, too, are the changes in the opinions of the crowd in the course of the following seventy years. The

"Perfidious Albion" of the opening of the century is the ally of France under Napoleon's heir; Russia, twice

invaded by France, which looked on with satisfaction at French reverses, becomes its friend.

In literature, art, and philosophy the successive evolutions of opinion are more rapid still. Romanticism,

naturalism, mysticism, spring up and die out in turn. The artist and the writer applauded yesterday are treated

When, however, we analyse all these changes in appearance so far reaching, what do we find? All those that

are in opposition with the general beliefs and sentiments of the race are of transient duration, and the diverted

stream soon resumes its course. The opinions which are not linked to any general belief or sentiment of the

race, and which in consequence cannot possess stability, are at the mercy of every chance, or, if the

expression be preferred, of every change in the surrounding circumstances. Formed by suggestion and

contagion, they are always momentary; they crop up and disappear as rapidly on occasion as the sandhills

At the present day the changeable opinions of crowds are greater in number than they ever were, and for three

The first is that as the old beliefs are losing their influence to a greater and greater extent, they are ceasing to

shape the ephemeral opinions of the moment as they did in the past. The weakening of general beliefs clears

The second reason is that the power of crowds being on the increase, and this power being less and less

counterbalanced, the extreme mobility of ideas, which we have seen to be a peculiarity of crowds, can

Finally, the third reason is the recent development of the newspaper press, by whose agency the most

contrary opinions are being continually brought before the attention of crowds. The suggestions that might

result from each individual opinion are soon destroyed by suggestions of an opposite character. The

consequence is that no opinion succeeds in becoming widespread, and that the existence of all of them is

ephemeral. An opinion nowadays dies out before it has found a sufficiently wide acceptance to become

A phenomenon quite new in the world's history, and most characteristic of the present age, has resulted from

these different causes; I allude to the powerlessness of governments to direct opinion.

In the past, and in no very distant past, the action of governments and the influence of a few writers and a

very small number of newspapers constituted the real reflectors of public opinion. Today the writers have

lost all influence, and the newspapers only reflect opinion. As for statesmen, far from directing opinion, their

only endeavour is to follow it. They have a dread of opinion, which amounts at times to terror, and causes

The opinion of crowds tends, then, more and more to become the supreme guiding principle in politics. It

goes so far today as to force on alliances, as has been seen recently in the case of the FrancoRussian

alliance, which is solely the outcome of a popular movement. A curious symptom of the present time is to

observe popes, kings, and emperors consent to be interviewed as a means of submitting their views on a

given subject to the judgment of crowds. Formerly it might have been correct to say that politics were not a

matter of sentiment. Can the same be said today, when politics are more and more swayed by the impulse of

changeable crowds, who are uninfluenced by reason and can only be guided by sentiment?

As to the press, which formerly directed opinion, it has had, like governments, to humble itself before the

power of crowds. It wields, no doubt, a considerable influence, but only because it is exclusively the

reflection of the opinions of crowds and of their incessant variations. Become a mere agency for the supply of

information, the press has renounced all endeavour to enforce an idea or a doctrine. It follows all the changes

of public thought, obliged to do so by the necessities of competition under pain of losing its readers. The old

staid and influential organs of the past, such as the Constitutionnel, the Debats, or the Siecle, which were

accepted as oracles by the preceding generation, have disappeared or have become typical modern papers, in

which a maximum of news is sandwiched in between light articles, society gossip, and financial puffs. There

can be no question today of a paper rich enough to allow its contributors to air their personal opinions, and

such opinions would be of slight weight with readers who only ask to be kept informed or to be amused, and

who suspect every affirmation of being prompted by motives of speculation. Even the critics have ceased to

be able to assure the success of a book or a play. They are capable of doing harm, but not of doing a service.

The papers are so conscious of the uselessness of everything in the shape of criticism or personal opinion,

that they have reached the point of suppressing literary criticism, confining themselves to citing the title of a

book, and appending a "puff" of two or three lines.[22] In twenty years' time the same fate will probably have

The close watching of the course of opinion has become today the principal preoccupation of the press and

of governments. The effect produced by an event, a legislative proposal, a speech, is without intermission

what they require to know, and the task is not easy, for nothing is more mobile and changeable than the

thought of crowds, and nothing more frequent than to see them execrate today what they applauded

This total absence of any sort of direction of opinion, and at the same time the destruction of general beliefs,

have had for final result an extreme divergency of convictions of every order, and a growing indifference on

the part of crowds to everything that does not plainly touch their immediate interests. Questions of doctrine,

such as socialism, only recruit champions boasting genuine convictions among the quite illiterate classes,

among the workers in mines and factories, for instance. Members of the lower middle class, and working men

possessing some degree of instruction, have either become utterly sceptical or extremely unstable in their

The evolution which has been effected in this direction in the last twentyfive years is striking. During the

preceding period, comparatively near us though it is, opinions still had a certain general trend; they had their

origin in the acceptance of some fundamental belief. By the mere fact that an individual was a monarchist he

possessed inevitably certain clearly defined ideas in history as well as in science, while by the mere fact that

he was a republican, his ideas were quite contrary. A monarchist was well aware that men are not descended

from monkeys, and a republican was not less well aware that such is in truth their descent. It was the duty of

the monarchist to speak with horror, and of the republican to speak with veneration, of the great Revolution.

There were certain names, such as those of Robespierre and Marat, that had to be uttered with an air of

religious devotion, and other names, such as those of Caesar, Augustus, or Napoleon, that ought never to be

mentioned unaccompanied by a torrent of invective. Even in the French Sorbonne this ingenuous fashion of

[23] There are pages in the books of the French official professors of history that are very curious from this

point of view. They prove too how little the critical spirit is developed by the system of university education

in vogue in France. I cite as an example the following extracts from the "French Revolution" of M. Rambaud,

"The taking of the Bastille was a culminating event in the history not only of France, but of all Europe; and

With respect to Robespierre, we learn with stupefaction that "his dictatorship was based more especially on

opinion, persuasion, and moral authority; it was a sort of pontificate in the hands of a virtuous man!" (pp. 91

At the present day, as the result of discussion and analysis, all opinions are losing their prestige; their

distinctive features are rapidly worn away, and few survive capable of arousing our enthusiasm. The man of

The general wearing away of opinions should not be too greatly deplored. That it is a symptom of decadence

in the life of a people cannot be contested. It is certain that men of immense, of almost supernatural insight,

that apostles, leaders of crowdsmen, in a word, of genuine and strong convictionsexert a far greater

force than men who deny, who criticise, or who are indifferent, but it must not be forgotten that, given the

power possessed at present by crowds, were a single opinion to acquire sufficient prestige to enforce its

general acceptance, it would soon be endowed with so tyrannical a strength that everything would have to

bend before it, and the era of free discussion would be closed for a long time. Crowds are occasionally

easygoing masters, as were Heliogabalus and Tiberius, but they are also violently capricious. A civilisation,

when the moment has come for crowds to acquire a high hand over it, is at the mercy of too many chances to

endure for long. Could anything postpone for a while the hour of its ruin, it would be precisely the extreme

instability of the opinions of crowds and their growing indifference with respect to all general beliefs.

The general divisions of crowdsTheir classification. 1. HETEROGENEOUS CROWDS. Different

varieties of themThe influence of raceThe spirit of the crowd is weak in proportion as the spirit of the

race is strongThe spirit of the race represents the civilised state and the spirit of the crowd the barbarian

state. 2. HOMOGENEOUS CROWDS. Their different varietiesSects, castes, and classes.

We have sketched in this work the general characteristics common to psychological crowds. It remains to

point out the particular characteristics which accompany those of a general order in the different categories of

collectivities, when they are transformed into a crowd under the influences of the proper exciting causes. We

Our startingpoint will be the simple multitude. Its most inferior form is met with when the multitude is

composed of individuals belonging to different races. In this case its only common bond of union is the will,

more or less respected of a chief. The barbarians of very diverse origin who during several centuries invaded

On a higher level than these multitudes composed of different races are those which under certain influences

have acquired common characteristics, and have ended by forming a single race. They present at times

characteristics peculiar to crowds, but these characteristics are overruled to a greater or less extent by racial

These two kinds of multitudes may, under certain influences investigated in this work, be transformed into

organised or psychological crowds. We shall break up these organised crowds into the following divisions:

1. Anonymous crowds (street crowds, for example). A. Heterogeneous 2. Crowds not anonymous crowds.

(juries, parliamentary assemblies, 1. Sects (political sects, religious sects, 2. Castes (the military caste, B.

Homogeneous the priestly caste, the crowds. working caste, 3. Classes (the middle classes, the peasant

We will point out briefly the distinguishing characteristics of these different categories of crowds.

It is these collectivities whose characteristics have been studied in this volume. They are composed of

individuals of any description, of any profession, and any degree of intelligence.

We are now aware that by the mere fact that men form part of a crowd engaged in action, their collective

psychology differs essentially from their individual psychology, and their intelligence is affected by this

differentiation. We have seen that intelligence is without influence in collectivities, they being solely under

A fundamental factor, that of race, allows of a tolerably thorough differentiation of the various heterogeneous

We have often referred already to the part played by race, and have shown it to be the most powerful of the

factors capable of determining men's actions. Its action is also to be traced in the character of crowds. A

crowd composed of individuals assembled at haphazard, but all of them Englishmen or Chinamen, will differ

widely from another crowd also composed of individuals of any and every description, but of other

The wide divergencies which their inherited mental constitution creates in men's modes of feeling and

thinking at once come into prominence when, which rarely happens, circumstances gather together in the

same crowd and in fairly equal proportions individuals of different nationality, and this occurs, however

identical in appearance be the interests which provoked the gathering. The efforts made by the socialists to

assemble in great congresses the representatives of the workingclass populations of different countries, have

always ended in the most pronounced discord. A Latin crowd, however revolutionary or however

conservative it be supposed, will invariably appeal to the intervention of the State to realise its demands. It is

always distinguished by a marked tendency towards centralisation and by a leaning, more or less pronounced,

in favour of a dictatorship. An English or an American crowd, on the contrary, sets no store on the State, and

only appeals to private initiative. A French crowd lays particular weight on equality and an English crowd on

liberty. These differences of race explain how it is that there are almost as many different forms of socialism

The genius of the race, then, exerts a paramount influence upon the dispositions of a crowd. It is the powerful

underlying force that limits its changes of humour. It should be considered as an essential law that THE

AS THE SPIRIT OF THE RACE IS STRONG. The crowd state and the domination of crowds is equivalent

to the barbarian state, or to a return to it. It is by the acquisition of a solidly constituted collective spirit that

the race frees itself to a greater and greater extent from the unreflecting power of crowds, and emerges from

the barbarian state. The only important classification to be made of heterogeneous crowds, apart from that

based on racial considerations, is to separate them into anonymous crowds, such as street crowds, and crowds

not anonymousdeliberative assemblies and juries, for example. The sentiment of responsibility absent from

crowds of the first description and developed in those of the second often gives a very different tendency to

The SECT represents the first step in the process of organisation of homogeneous crowds. A sect includes

individuals differing greatly as to their education, their professions, and the class of society to which they

belong, and with their common beliefs as the connecting link. Examples in point are religious and political

The CASTE represents the highest degree of organisation of which the crowd is susceptible. While the sect

includes individuals of very different professions, degrees of education and social surrounding, who are only

linked together by the beliefs they hold in common, the caste is composed of individuals of the same

profession, and in consequence similarly educated and of much the same social status. Examples in point are

The CLASS is formed of individuals of diverse origin, linked together not by a community of beliefs, as are

the members of a sect, or by common professional occupations, as are the members of a caste, but by certain

interests and certain habits of life and education almost identical. The middle class and the agricultural class

Being only concerned in this work with heterogeneous crowds, and reserving the study of homogeneous

crowds (sects, castes, and classes) for another volume, I shall not insist here on the characteristics of crowds

of this latter kind. I shall conclude this study of heterogeneous crowds by the examination of a few typical

Crowds termed criminal crowdsA crowd may be legally yet not psychologically criminalThe absolute

unconsciousness of the acts of crowdsVarious examplesPsychology of the authors of the September

massacresTheir reasoning, their sensibility, their ferocity, and their morality.

Owing to the fact that crowds, after a period of excitement, enter upon a purely automatic and unconscious

state, in which they are guided by suggestion, it seems difficult to qualify them in any case as criminal. I only

retain this erroneous qualification because it has been definitely brought into vogue by recent psychological

investigations. Certain acts of crowds are assuredly criminal, if considered merely in themselves, but criminal

in that case in the same way as the act of a tiger devouring a Hindoo, after allowing its young to maul him for

The usual motive of the crimes of crowds is a powerful suggestion, and the individuals who take part in such

crimes are afterwards convinced that they have acted in obedience to duty, which is far from being the case

The murder of M. de Launay, the governor of the Bastille, may be cited as a typical example. After the taking

of the fortress the governor, surrounded by a very excited crowd, was dealt blows from every direction. It was

proposed to hang him, to cut off his head, to tie him to a horse's tail. While struggling, he accidently kicked

one of those present. Some one proposed, and his suggestion was at once received with acclamation by the

crowd, that the individual who had been kicked should cut the governor's throat.

"The individual in question, a cook out of work, whose chief reason for being at the Bastille was idle

curiosity as to what was going on, esteems, that since such is the general opinion, the action is patriotic and

even believes he deserves a medal for having destroyed a monster. With a sword that is lent him he strikes the

bared neck, but the weapon being somewhat blunt and not cutting, he takes from his pocket a small

blackhandled knife and (in his capacity of cook he would be experienced in cutting up meat) successfully

The working of the process indicated above is clearly seen in this example. We have obedience to a

suggestion, which is all the stronger because of its collective origin, and the murderer's conviction that he has

committed a very meritorious act, a conviction the more natural seeing that he enjoys the unanimous approval

of his fellowcitizens. An act of this kind may be considered crime legally but not psychologically.

The general characteristics of criminal crowds are precisely the same as those we have met with in all

crowds: openness to suggestion, credulity, mobility, the exaggeration of the sentiments good or bad, the

We shall find all these characteristics present in a crowd which has left behind it in French history the most

sinister memoriesthe crowd which perpetrated the September massacres. In point of fact it offers much

similarity with the crowd that committed the Saint Bartholomew massacres. I borrow the details from the

It is not known exactly who gave the order or made the suggestion to empty the prisons by massacring the

prisoners. Whether it was Danton, as is probable, or another does not matter; the one interesting fact for us is

The crowd of murderers numbered some three hundred persons, and was a perfectly typical heterogeneous

crowd. With the exception of a very small number of professional scoundrels, it was composed in the main of

shopkeepers and artisans of every trade: bootmakers, locksmiths, hairdressers, masons, clerks, messengers,

Under the influence of the suggestion received they are perfectly convinced, as was the cook referred to

above, that they are accomplishing a patriotic duty. They fill a double office, being at once judge and

Deeply conscious of the importance of their duty, they begin by forming a sort of tribunal, and in connection

with this act the ingenuousness of crowds and their rudimentary conception of justice are seen immediately.

In consideration of the large number of the accused, it is decided that, to begin with, the nobles, priests,

officers, and members of the king's householdin a word, all the individuals whose mere profession is proof

of their guilt in the eyes of a good patriotshall be slaughtered in a body, there being no need for a special

decision in their case. The remainder shall be judged on their personal appearance and their reputation. In this

way the rudimentary conscience of the crowd is satisfied. It will now be able to proceed legally with the

massacre, and to give free scope to those instincts of ferocity whose genesis I have set forth elsewhere, they

being instincts which collectivities always have it in them to develop to a high degree. These instincts,

howeveras is regularly the case in crowdswill not prevent the manifestation of other and contrary

"They have the expansive sympathy and prompt sensibility of the Parisian working man. At the Abbaye, one

of the federates, learning that the prisoners had been left without water for twentysix hours, was bent on

putting the gaoler to death, and would have done so but for the prayers of the prisoners themselves. When a

prisoner is acquitted (by the improvised tribunal) every one, guards and slaughterers included, embraces him

with transports of joy and applauds frantically," after which the wholesale massacre is recommenced. During

its progress a pleasant gaiety never ceases to reign. There is dancing and singing around the corpses, and

benches are arranged "for the ladies," delighted to witness the killing of aristocrats. The exhibition continues,

A slaughterer at the Abbaye having complained that the ladies placed at a little distance saw badly, and that

only a few of those present had the pleasure of striking the aristocrats, the justice of the observation is

admitted, and it is decided that the victims shall be made to pass slowly between two rows of slaughterers,

who shall be under the obligation to strike with the back of the sword only so as to prolong the agony. At the

prison de la Force the victims are stripped stark naked and literally "carved" for half an hour, after which,

when every one has had a good view, they are finished off by a blow that lays bare their entrails.

The slaughterers, too, have their scruples and exhibit that moral sense whose existence in crowds we have

already pointed out. They refuse to appropriate the money and jewels of the victims, taking them to the table

Those rudimentary forms of reasoning, characteristic of the mind of crowds, are always to be traced in all

their acts. Thus, after the slaughter of the 1,200 or 1,500 enemies of the nation, some one makes the remark,

and his suggestion is at once adopted, that the other prisons, those containing aged beggars, vagabonds, and

young prisoners, hold in reality useless mouths, of which it would be well on that account to get rid. Besides,

among them there should certainly be enemies of the people, a woman of the name of Delarue, for instance,

the widow of a poisoner: "She must be furious at being in prison, if she could she would set fire to Paris: she

must have said so, she has said so. Another good riddance." The demonstration appears convincing, and the

prisoners are massacred without exception, included in the number being some fifty children of from twelve

to seventeen years of age, who, of course, might themselves have become enemies of the nation, and of

At the end of a week's work, all these operations being brought to an end, the slaughterers can think of

reposing themselves. Profoundly convinced that they have deserved well of their country, they went to the

authorities and demanded a recompense. The most zealous went so far as to claim a medal.

The history of the Commune of 1871 affords several facts analogous to those which precede. Given the

growing influence of crowds and the successive capitulations before them of those in authority, we are

Criminal juriesGeneral characteristics of juriesstatistics show that their decisions are independent of

their compositionThe manner in which an impression may be made on juriesThe style and influence of

argumentThe methods of persuasion of celebrated counselThe nature of those crimes for which juries

are respectively indulgent or severeThe utility of the jury as an institution, and the danger that would result

Being unable to study here every category of jury, I shall only examine the most importantthat of the juries

of the Court of Assize. These juries afford an excellent example of the heterogeneous crowd that is not

anonymous. We shall find them display suggestibility and but slight capacity for reasoning, while they are

open to the influence of the leaders of crowds, and they are guided in the main by unconscious sentiments. In

the course of this investigation we shall have occasion to observe some interesting examples of the errors that

Juries, in the first place, furnish us a good example of the slight importance of the mental level of the

different elements composing a crowd, so far as the decisions it comes to are concerned. We have seen that

when a deliberative assembly is called upon to give its opinion on a question of a character not entirely

technical, intelligence stands for nothing. For instance, a gathering of scientific men or of artists, owing to the

mere fact that they form an assemblage, will not deliver judgments on general subjects sensibly different

from those rendered by a gathering of masons or grocers. At various periods, and in particular previous to

1848, the French administration instituted a careful choice among the persons summoned to form a jury,

picking the jurors from among the enlightened classes; choosing professors, functionaries, men of letters, At

the present day jurors are recruited for the most part from among small tradesmen, petty capitalists, and

employes. Yet, to the great astonishment of specialist writers, whatever the composition of the jury has been,

its decisions have been identical. Even the magistrates, hostile as they are to the institution of the jury, have

had to recognise the exactness of the assertion. M. Berard des Glajeux, a former President of the Court of

Assizes, expresses himself on the subject in his "Memoirs" in the following terms:

"The selection of jurymen is today in reality in the hands of the municipal councillors, who put people down

on the list or eliminate them from it in accordance with the political and electoral preoccupations inherent in

their situation. . . . The majority of the jurors chosen are persons engaged in trade, but persons of less

importance than formerly, and employes belonging to certain branches of the administration. . . . Both

opinions and professions counting for nothing once the role of judge assumed, many of the jurymen having

the ardour of neophytes, and men of the best intentions being similarly disposed in humble situations, the

Of the passage just cited the conclusions, which are just, are to be borne in mind and not the explanations,

which are weak. Too much astonishment should not be felt at this weakness, for, as a rule, counsel equally

with magistrates seem to be ignorant of the psychology of crowds and, in consequence, of juries. I find a

proof of this statement in a fact related by the author just quoted. He remarks that Lachaud, one of the most

illustrious barristers practising in the Court of Assize, made systematic use of his right to object to a juror in

the case of all individuals of intelligence on the list. Yet experienceand experience alonehas ended by

acquainting us with the utter uselessness of these objections. This is proved by the fact that at the present day

public prosecutors and barristers, at any rate those belonging to the Parisian bar, have entirely renounced their

right to object to a juror; still, as M. des Glajeux remarks, the verdicts have not changed, "they are neither

Like all crowds, juries are very strongly impressed by sentimental considerations, and very slightly by

argument. "They cannot resist the sight," writes a barrister, "of a mother giving its child the breast, or of

orphans." "It is sufficient that a woman should be of agreeable appearance," says M. des Glajeux, "to win the

Without pity for crimes of which it appears possible they might themselves be the victimssuch crimes,

moreover, are the most dangerous for societyjuries, on the contrary, are very indulgent in the case of

breaches of the law whose motive is passion. They are rarely severe on infanticide by girlmothers, or hard

on the young woman who throws vitriol at the man who has seduced and deserted her, for the reason that they

feel instinctively that society runs but slight danger from such crimes,[24] and that in a country in which the

law does not protect deserted girls the crime of the girl who avenges herself is rather useful than harmful,

[24] It is to be remarked, in passing, that this division of crimes into those dangerous and those not dangerous

for society, which is well and instinctively made by juries is far from being unjust. The object of criminal

laws is evidently to protect society against dangerous criminals and not to avenge it. On the other hand, the

French code, and above all the minds of the French magistrates, are still deeply imbued with the spirit of

vengeance characteristic of the old primitive law, and the term "vindicte" (prosecution, from the Latin

vindicta, vengeance) is still in daily use. A proof of this tendency on the part of the magistrates is found in the

refusal by many of them to apply Berenger's law, which allows of a condemned person not undergoing his

sentence unless he repeats his crime. Yet no magistrate can be ignorant, for the fact is proved by statistics,

that the application of a punishment inflicted for the first time infallibly leads to further crime on the part of

the person punished. When judges set free a sentenced person it always seems to them that society has not

been avenged. Rather than not avenge it they prefer to create a dangerous, confirmed criminal.

Juries, like all crowds, are profoundly impressed by prestige, and President des Glajeux very properly

remarks that, very democratic as juries are in their composition, they are very aristocratic in their likes and

dislikes: "Name, birth, great wealth, celebrity, the assistance of an illustrious counsel, everything in the nature

of distinction or that lends brilliancy to the accused, stands him in extremely good stead."

The chief concern of a good counsel should be to work upon the feelings of the jury, and, as with all crowds,

to argue but little, or only to employ rudimentary modes of reasoning. An English barrister, famous for his

successes in the assize courts, has well set forth the line of action to be followed:

"While pleading he would attentively observe the jury. The most favourable opportunity has been reached.

By dint of insight and experience the counsel reads the effect of each phrase on the faces of the jurymen, and

draws his conclusions in consequence. His first step is to be sure which members of the jury are already

favourable to his cause. It is short work to definitely gain their adhesion, and having done so he turns his

attention to the members who seem, on the contrary, illdisposed, and endeavours to discover why they are

hostile to the accused. This is the delicate part of his task, for there may be an infinity of reasons for

These few lines resume the entire mechanism of the art of oratory, and we see why the speech prepared in

advance has so slight an effect, it being necessary to be able to modify the terms employed from moment to

The orator does not require to convert to his views all the members of a jury, but only the leading spirits

among it who will determine the general opinion. As in all crowds, so in juries there are a small number of

individuals who serve as guides to the rest. "I have found by experience," says the counsel cited above, "that

one or two energetic men suffice to carry the rest of the jury with them." It is those two or three whom it is

necessary to convince by skilful suggestions. First of all, and above all, it is necessary to please them. The

man forming part of a crowd whom one has succeeded in pleasing is on the point of being convinced, and is

quite disposed to accept as excellent any arguments that may be offered him. I detach the following anecdote

"It is well known that during all the speeches he would deliver in the course of an assize sessions, Lachaud

never lost sight of the two or three jurymen whom he knew or felt to be influential but obstinate. As a rule he

was successful in winning over these refractory jurors. On one occasion, however, in the provinces, he had to

deal with a juryman whom he plied in vain for threequarters of an hour with his most cunning arguments;

the man was the seventh juryman, the first on the second bench. The case was desperate. Suddenly, in the

middle of a passionate demonstration, Lachaud stopped short, and addressing the President of the court said:

`Would you give instructions for the curtain there in front to be drawn? The seventh juryman is blinded by

the sun.' The juryman in question reddened, smiled, and expressed his thanks. He was won over for the

Many writers, some of them most distinguished, have started of late a strong campaign against the institution

of the jury, although it is the only protection we have against the errors, really very frequent, of a caste that is

under no control.[25] A portion of these writers advocate a jury recruited solely from the ranks of the

enlightened classes; but we have already proved that even in this case the verdicts would be identical with

those returned under the present system. Other writers, taking their stand on the errors committed by juries,

would abolish the jury and replace it by judges. It is difficult to see how these wouldbe reformers can forget

that the errors for which the jury is blamed were committed in the first instance by judges, and that when the

accused person comes before a jury he has already been held to be guilty by several magistrates, by the juge

d'instruction, the public prosecutor, and the Court of Arraignment. It should thus be clear that were the

accused to be definitely judged by magistrates instead of by jurymen, he would lose his only chance of being

admitted innocent. The errors of juries have always been first of all the errors of magistrates. It is solely the

magistrates, then, who should be blamed when particularly monstrous judicial errors crop up, such, for

instance, as the quite recent condemnation of Dr. L who, prosecuted by a juge d'instruction, of

excessive stupidity, on the strength of the denunciation of a halfidiot girl, who accused the doctor of having

performed an illegal operation upon her for thirty francs, would have been sent to penal servitude but for an

explosion of public indignation, which had for result that he was immediately set at liberty by the Chief of the

State. The honourable character given the condemned man by all his fellowcitizens made the grossness of

the blunder selfevident. The magistrates themselves admitted it, and yet out of caste considerations they did

all they could to prevent the pardon being signed. In all similar affairs the jury, confronted with technical

details it is unable to understand, naturally hearkens to the public prosecutor, arguing that, after all, the affair

has been investigated by magistrates trained to unravel the most intricate situations. Who, then, are the real

authors of the errorthe jurymen or the magistrates? We should cling vigorously to the jury. It constitutes,

perhaps, the only category of crowd that cannot be replaced by any individuality. It alone can temper the

severity of the law, which, equal for all, ought in principle to be blind and to take no cognisance of particular

cases. Inaccessible to pity, and heeding nothing but the text of the law, the judge in his professional severity

would visit with the same penalty the burglar guilty of murder and the wretched girl whom poverty and her

abandonment by her seducer have driven to infanticide. The jury, on the other hand, instinctively feels that

the seduced girl is much less guilty than the seducer, who, however, is not touched by the law, and that she

[25] The magistracy is, in point of fact, the only administration whose acts are under no control. In spite of all

its revolutions, democratic France does not possess that right of habeas corpus of which England is so proud.

We have banished all the tyrants, but have set up a magistrate in each city who disposes at will of the honour

and liberty of the citizens. An insignificant juge d'instruction (an examining magistrate who has no exact

counterpart in England.Trans.), fresh from the university, possesses the revolting power of sending to

prison at will persons of the most considerable standing, on a simple supposition on his part of their guilt, and

without being obliged investigation he can keep these persons in prison for six months or even a year, and

free them at last without owing them either an indemnity or excuses. The warrant in France is the exact

equivalent of the lettre de cachet, with this difference, that the latter, with the use of which the monarchy was

so justly reproached, could only be resorted to by persons occupying a very high position, while the warrant

is an instrument in the hands of a whole class of citizens which is far from passing for being very enlightened

Being well acquainted with the psychology of castes, and also with the psychology of other categories of

crowds, I do not perceive a single case in which, wrongly accused of a crime, I should not prefer to have to

deal with a jury rather than with magistrates. I should have some chance that my innocence would be

recognised by the former and not the slightest chance that it would be admitted by the latter. The power of

crowds is to be dreaded, but the power of certain castes is to be dreaded yet more. Crowds are open to

General characteristics of electoral crowdsThe manner of persuading themThe qualities that should be

possessed by a candidateNecessity of prestigeWhy working men and peasants so rarely choose

candidates from their own classThe influence of words and formulas on the electorThe general aspect of

election oratoryHow the opinions of the elector are formedThe power of political committeesThey

represent the most redoubtable form of tyrannyThe committees of the Revolution Universal suffrage

cannot be replaced in spite of its slight psychological valueWhy it is that the votes recorded would remain

the same even if the right of voting were restricted to a limited class of citizensWhat universal suffrage

ELECTORAL crowdsthat is to say, collectivities invested with the power of electing the holders of certain

functionsconstitute heterogeneous crowds, but as their action is confined to a single clearly determined

matter, namely, to choosing between different candidates, they present only a few of the characteristics

previously described. Of the characteristics peculiar to crowds, they display in particular but slight aptitude

for reasoning, the absence of the critical spirit, irritability, credulity, and simplicity. In their decision,

moreover, is to be traced the influence of the leaders of crowds and the part played by the factors we have

Let us examine by what methods electoral crowds are to be persuaded. It will be easy to deduce their

It is of primary importance that the candidate should possess prestige. Personal prestige can only be replaced

by that resulting from wealth. Talent and even genius are not elements of success of serious importance.

Of capital importance, on the other hand, is the necessity for the candidate of possessing prestige, of being

able, that is, to force himself upon the electorate without discussion. The reason why the electors, of whom a

majority are working men or peasants, so rarely choose a man from their own ranks to represent them is that

such a person enjoys no prestige among them. When, by chance, they do elect a man who is their equal, it is

as a rule for subsidiary reasonsfor instance, to spite an eminent man, or an influential employer of labour

on whom the elector is in daily dependence, and whose master he has the illusion he becomes in this way for

The possession of prestige does not suffice, however, to assure the success of a candidate. The elector stickles

in particular for the flattery of his greed and vanity. He must be overwhelmed with the most extravagant

blandishments, and there must be no hesitation in making him the most fantastic promises. If he is a working

man it is impossible to go too far in insulting and stigmatising employers of labour. As for the rival

candidate, an effort must be made to destroy his chance by establishing by dint of affirmation, repetition, and

contagion that he is an arrant scoundrel, and that it is a matter of common knowledge that he has been guilty

of several crimes. It is, of course, useless to trouble about any semblance of proof. Should the adversary be

illacquainted with the psychology of crowds he will try to justify himself by arguments instead of confining

himself to replying to one set of affirmations by another; and he will have no chance whatever of being

The candidate's written programme should not be too categorical, since later on his adversaries might bring it

up against him; in his verbal programme, however, there cannot be too much exaggeration. The most

important reforms may be fearlessly promised. At the moment they are made these exaggerations produce a

great effect, and they are not binding for the future, it being a matter of constant observation that the elector

never troubles himself to know how far the candidate he has returned has followed out the electoral

programme he applauded, and in virtue of which the election was supposed to have been secured.

In what precedes, all the factors of persuasion which we have described are to be recognised. We shall come

across them again in the action exerted by words and formulas, whose magical sway we have already insisted

upon. An orator who knows how to make use of these means of persuasion can do what he will with a crowd.

Expressions such as infamous capital, vile exploiters, the admirable working man, the socialisation of wealth,

always produce the same effect, although already somewhat worn by use. But the candidate who hits on a

new formula as devoid as possible of precise meaning, and apt in consequence to flatter the most varied

aspirations, infallibly obtains a success. The sanguinary Spanish revolution of 1873 was brought about by one

of these magical phrases of complex meaning on which everybody can put his own interpretation. A

contemporary writer has described the launching of this phrase in terms that deserve to be quoted:

"The radicals have made the discovery that a centralised republic is a monarchy in disguise, and to humour

them the Cortes had unanimously proclaimed a FEDERAL REPUBLIC, though none of the voters could

have explained what it was he had just voted for. This formula, however, delighted everybody; the joy was

intoxicating, delirious. The reign of virtue and happiness had just been inaugurated on earth. A republican

whose opponent refused him the title of federalist considered himself to be mortally insulted. People

addressed each other in the streets with the words: `Long live the federal republic!' After which the praises

were sung of the mystic virtue of the absence of discipline in the army, and of the autonomy of the soldiers.

What was understood by the `federal republic?' There were those who took it to mean the emancipation of the

provinces, institutions akin to those of the United States and administrative decentralisation; others had in

view the abolition of all authority and the speedy commencement of the great social liquidation. The

socialists of Barcelona and Andalusia stood out for the absolute sovereignty of the communes; they proposed

to endow Spain with ten thousand independent municipalities, to legislate on their own account, and their

creation to be accompanied by the suppression of the police and the army. In the southern provinces the

insurrection was soon seen to spread from town to town and village to village. Directly a village had made its

pronunciamento its first care was to destroy the telegraph wires and the railway lines so as to cut off all

communication with its neighbours and Madrid. The sorriest hamlet was determined to stand on its own

bottom. Federation had given place to cantonalism, marked by massacres, incendiarism, and every

description of brutality, and bloody saturnalia were celebrated throughout the length and breadth of the land."

With respect to the influence that may be exerted by reasoning on the minds of electors, to harbour the least

doubt on this subject can only be the result of never having read the reports of an electioneering meeting. In

such a gathering affirmations, invectives, and sometimes blows are exchanged, but never arguments. Should

silence be established for a moment it is because some one present, having the reputation of a "tough

customer," has announced that he is about to heckle the candidate by putting him one of those embarrassing

questions which are always the joy of the audience. The satisfaction, however, of the opposition party is

shortlived, for the voice of the questioner is soon drowned in the uproar made by his adversaries. The

following reports of public meetings, chosen from hundreds of similar examples, and taken from the daily

"One of the organisers of the meeting having asked the assembly to elect a president, the storm bursts. The

anarchists leap on to the platform to take the committee table by storm. The socialists make an energetic

defence; blows are exchanged, and each party accuses the other of being spies in the pay of the Government, .

"The committee is at length installed as best it may be in the midst of the tumult, and the right to speak

"The orator starts a vigorous attack on the socialists, who interrupt him with shouts of `Idiot, scoundrel,

blackguard!' epithets to which Comrade X. replies by setting forth a theory according to which the socialists

"The Allemanist party had organised yesterday evening, in the Hall of Commerce, in the Rue du

FaubourgduTemple, a great meeting, preliminary to the workers' fete of the 1st of May. The watchword of

"At these words there is an exchange of invectives and orators and audience come to blows. Chairs, tables,

It is not to be imagined for a moment that this description of discussion is peculiar to a determined class of

electors and dependent on their social position. In every anonymous assembly whatever, though it be

composed exclusively of highly educated persons, discussion always assumes the same shape. I have shown

that when men are collected in a crowd there is a tendency towards their mental levelling at work, and proof

of this is to be found at every turn. Take, for example, the following extract from a report of a meeting

composed exclusively of students, which I borrow from the Temps of 13th of February, 1895:

"The tumult only increased as the evening went on; I do not believe that a single orator succeeded in uttering

two sentences without being interrupted. At every instant there came shouts from this or that direction or

from every direction at once. Applause was intermingled with hissing, violent discussions were in progress

between individual members of the audience, sticks were brandished threateningly, others beat a tattoo on the

floor, and the interrupters were greeted with yells of `Put him out!' or `Let him speak!'

"M. C lavished such epithets as odious and cowardly, monstrous, vile, venal and vindictive, on the

How, it may be asked, can an elector form an opinion under such conditions? To put such a question is to

harbour a strange delusion as to the measure of liberty that may be enjoyed by a collectivity. Crowds have

opinions that have been imposed upon them, but they never boast reasoned opinions. In the case under

consideration the opinions and votes of the electors are in the hands of the election committees, whose

leading spirits are, as a rule, publicans, their influence over the working men, to whom they allow credit,

being great. "Do you know what an election committee is?" writes M. Scherer, one of the most valiant

champions of presentday democracy. "It is neither more nor less than the cornerstone of our institutions,

the masterpiece of the political machine. France is governed today by the election committees."[26]

[26] Committees under whatever name, clubs, syndicates, constitute perhaps the most redoubtable danger

resulting from the power of crowds. They represent in reality the most impersonal and, in consequence, the

most oppressive form of tyranny. The leaders who direct the committees being supposed to speak and act in

the name of a collectivity, are freed from all responsibility, and are in a position to do just as they choose.

The most savage tyrant has never ventured even to dream of such proscriptions as those ordained by the

committees of the Revolution. Barras has declared that they decimated the convention, picking off its

members at their pleasure. So long as he was able to speak in their name, Robespierre wielded absolute

power. The moment this frightful dictator separated himself from them, for reasons of personal pride, he was

lost. The reign of crowds is the reign of committees, that is, of the leaders of crowds. A severer despotism

To exert an influence over them is not difficult, provided the candidate be in himself acceptable and possess

adequate financial resources. According to the admissions of the donors, three millions of francs sufficed to

Such is the psychology of electoral crowds. It is identical with that of other crowds: neither better nor worse.

In consequence I draw no conclusion against universal suffrage from what precedes. Had I to settle its fate, I

should preserve it as it is for practical reasons, which are to be deduced in point of fact from our investigation

No doubt the weak side of universal suffrage is too obvious to be overlooked. It cannot be gainsaid that

civilisation has been the work of a small minority of superior intelligences constituting the culminating point

of a pyramid, whose stages, widening in proportion to the decrease of mental power, represent the masses of

a nation. The greatness of a civilisation cannot assuredly depend upon the votes given by inferior elements

boasting solely numerical strength. Doubtless, too, the votes recorded by crowds are often very dangerous.

They have already cost us several invasions, and in view of the triumph of socialism, for which they are

preparing the way, it is probable that the vagaries of popular sovereignty will cost us still more dearly.

Excellent, however, as these objections are in theory, in practice they lose all force, as will be admitted if the

invincible strength be remembered of ideas transformed into dogmas. The dogma of the sovereignty of

crowds is as little defensible, from the philosophical point of view, as the religious dogmas of the Middle

Ages, but it enjoys at present the same absolute power they formerly enjoyed. It is as unattackable in

consequence as in the past were our religious ideas. Imagine a modern freethinker miraculously transported

into the midst of the Middle Ages. Do you suppose that, after having ascertained the sovereign power of the

religious ideas that were then in force, he would have been tempted to attack them? Having fallen into the

hands of a judge disposed to send him to the stake, under the imputation of having concluded a pact with the

devil, or of having been present at the witches sabbath, would it have occurred to him to call in question the

existence of the devil or of the sabbath? It were as wise to oppose cyclones with discussion as the beliefs of

crowds. The dogma of universal suffrage possesses today the power the Christian dogmas formerly

possessed. Orators and writers allude to it with a respect and adulation that never fell to the share of Louis

XIV. In consequence the same position must be taken up with regard to it as with regard to all religious

Besides, it would be the more useless to attempt to undermine this dogma, inasmuch as it has an appearance

of reasonableness in its favour. "In an era of equality," Tocqueville justly remarks, "men have no faith in each

other on account of their being all alike; yet this same similitude gives them an almost limitless confidence in

the judgment of the public, the reason being that it does not appear probable that, all men being equally

Must it be believed that with a restricted suffragea suffrage restricted to those intellectually capable if it be

desiredan improvement would be effected in the votes of crowds? I cannot admit for a moment that this

would be the case, and that for the reasons I have already given touching the mental inferiority of all

collectivities, whatever their composition. In a crowd men always tend to the same level, and, on general

questions, a vote, recorded by forty academicians is no better than that of forty watercarriers. I do not in the

least believe that any of the votes for which universal suffrage is blamedthe reestablishment of the

Empire, for instance would have fallen out differently had the voters been exclusively recruited among

learned and liberally educated men. It does not follow because an individual knows Greek or mathematics, is

an architect, a veterinary surgeon, a doctor, or a barrister, that he is endowed with a special intelligence of

social questions. All our political economists are highly educated, being for the most part professors or

academicians, yet is there a single general questionprotection, bimetallism, which they have succeeded in

agreeing? The explanation is that their science is only a very attenuated form of our universal ignorance.

With regard to social problems, owing to the number of unknown quantities they offer, men are substantially,

In consequence, were the electorate solely composed of persons stuffed with sciences their votes would be no

better than those emitted at present. They would be guided in the main by their sentiments and by party spirit.

We should be spared none of the difficulties we now have to contend with, and we should certainly be

Whether the suffrage of crowds be restricted or general, whether it be exercised under a republic or a

monarchy, in France, in Belgium, in Greece, in Portugal, or in Spain, it is everywhere identical; and, when all

is said and done, it is the expression of the unconscious aspirations and needs of the race. In each country the

average opinions of those elected represent the genius of the race, and they will be found not to alter sensibly

It is seen, then, that we are confronted once more by the fundamental notion of race, which we have come

across so often, and on this other notion, which is the outcome of the first, that institutions and governments

play but a small part in the life of a people. Peoples are guided in the main by the genius of their race, that is,

by that inherited residue of qualities of which the genius is the sum total. Race and the slavery of our daily

Parliamentary crowds present most of the characteristics common to heterogeneous crowds that are not

anonymousThe simplicity of their opinionsTheir suggestibility and its limitsTheir indestructible,

fixed opinions and their changed opinionsThe reason of the predominance of indecisionThe role of the

leadersThe reason of their prestigeThey are the true masters of an assembly whose votes, on that

account, are merely those of a small minorityThe absolute power they exerciseThe elements of their

oratorical artPhrases and imagesThe psychological necessity the leaders are under of being in a general

way of stubborn convictions and narrowmindedIt is impossible for a speaker without prestige to obtain

recognition for his arguments The exaggeration of the sentiments, whether good or bad, of assemblies

At certain moments they become automaticThe sittings of the ConventionCases in which an assembly

loses the characteristics of crowdsThe influence of specialists when technical questions ariseThe

advantages and dangers of a parliamentary system in all countriesIt is adapted to modern needs; but it

involves financial waste and the progressive curtailment of all libertyConclusion.

In parliamentary assemblies we have an example of heterogeneous crowds that are not anonymous. Although

the mode of election of their members varies from epoch to epoch, and from nation to nation, they present

very similar characteristics. In this case the influence of the race makes itself felt to weaken or exaggerate the

characteristics common to crowds, but not to prevent their manifestation. The parliamentary assemblies of the

most widely different countries, of Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain, France, and America present great

analogies in their debates and votes, and leave the respective governments face to face with identical

Moreover, the parliamentary system represents the ideal of all modern civilised peoples. The system is the

expression of the idea, psychologically erroneous, but generally admitted, that a large gathering of men is

much more capable than a small number of coming to a wise and independent decision on a given subject.

The general characteristics of crowds are to be met with in parliamentary assemblies: intellectual simplicity,

irritability, suggestibility, the exaggeration of the sentiments and the preponderating influence of a few

leaders. In consequence, however, of their special composition parliamentary crowds offer some distinctive

Simplicity in their opinions is one of their most important characteristics. In the case of all parties, and more

especially so far as the Latin peoples are concerned, an invariable tendency is met with in crowds of this kind

to solve the most complicated social problems by the simplest abstract principles and general laws applicable

to all cases. Naturally the principles vary with the party; but owing to the mere fact that the individual

members are a part of a crowd, they are always inclined to exaggerate the worth of their principles, and to

push them to their extreme consequences. In consequence parliaments are more especially representative of

The most perfect example of the ingenuous simplification of opinions peculiar to assemblies is offered by the

Jacobins of the French Revolution. Dogmatic and logical to a man, and their brains full of vague generalities,

they busied themselves with the application of fixedprinciples without concerning themselves with events. It

has been said of them, with reason, that they went through the Revolution without witnessing it. With the aid

of the very simple dogmas that served them as guide, they imagined they could recast society from top to

bottom, and cause a highly refined civilisation to return to a very anterior phase of the social evolution. The

methods they resorted to to realise their dream wore the same stamp of absolute ingenuousness. They

confined themselves, in reality, to destroying what stood in their way. All of them, moreoverGirondists,

Parliamentary crowds are very open to suggestion; and, as in the case of all crowds, the suggestion comes

from leaders possessing prestige; but the suggestibility of parliamentary assemblies has very clearly defined

On all questions of local or regional interest every member of an assembly has fixed, unalterable opinions,

which no amount of argument can shake. The talent of a Demosthenes would be powerless to change the vote

of a Deputy on such questions as protection or the privilege of distilling alcohol, questions in which the

interests of influential electors are involved. The suggestion emanating from these electors and undergone

before the time to vote arrives, sufficiently outweighs suggestions from any other source to annul them and to

[27] The following reflection of an English parliamentarian of long experience doubtless applies to these

opinions, fixed beforehand, and rendered unalterable by electioneering necessities: "During the fifty years

that I have sat at Westminster, I have listened to thousands of speeches; but few of them have changed my

On general questionsthe overthrow of a Cabinet, the imposition of a tax, is no longer any fixity of opinion,

and the suggestions of leaders can exert an influence, though not in quite the same way as in an ordinary

crowd. Every party has its leaders, who possess occasionally an equal influence. The result is that the Deputy

finds himself placed between two contrary suggestions, and is inevitably made to hesitate. This explains how

it is that he is often seen to vote in contrary fashion in an interval of a quarter of an hour or to add to a law an

article which nullifies it; for instance, to withdraw from employers of labour the right of choosing and

dismissing their workmen, and then to very nearly annul this measure by an amendment.

It is for the same reason that every Chamber that is returned has some very stable opinions, and other

opinions that are very shifting. On the whole, the general questions being the more numerous, indecision is

predominant in the Chamberthe indecision which results from the ever present fear of the elector, the

suggestion received from whom is always latent, and tends to counterbalance the influence of the leaders.

Still, it is the leaders who are definitely the masters in those numerous discussions, with regard to the

subjectmatter of which the members of an assembly are without strong preconceived opinions.

The necessity for these leaders is evident, since, under the name of heads of groups, they are met with in the

assemblies of every country. They are the real rulers of an assembly. Men forming a crowd cannot do without

a master, whence it results that the votes of an assembly only represent, as a rule, the opinions of a small

The influence of the leaders is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in a large degree

to their prestige. The best proof of this is that, should they by any circumstance lose their prestige, their

The prestige of these political leaders is individual, and independent of name or celebrity: a fact of which M.

Jules Simon gives us some very curious examples in his remarks on the prominent men of the Assembly of

"Two months before he was allpowerful, Louis Napoleon was entirely without the least importance.

"Victor Hugo mounted the tribune. He failed to achieve success. He was listened to as Felix Pyat was listened

to, but he did not obtain as much applause. `I don't like his ideas,' Vaulabelle said to me, speaking of Felix

Pyat,' but he is one of the greatest writers and the greatest orator of France.' Edgar Quinet, in spite of his

exceptional and powerful intelligence, was held in no esteem whatever. He had been popular for awhile

"The splendour of genius makes itself less felt in political assemblies than anywhere else. They only give

heed to eloquence appropriate to the time and place and to party services, not to services rendered the

country. For homage to be rendered Lamartine in 1848 and Thiers in 1871, the stimulant was needed of

urgent, inexorable interest. As soon as the danger was passed the parliamentary world forgot in the same

I have quoted the preceding passage for the sake of the facts it contains, not of the explanations it offers, their

psychology being somewhat poor. A crowd would at once lose its character of a crowd were it to credit its

leaders with their services, whether of a party nature or rendered their country. The crowd that obeys a leader

is under the influence of his prestige, and its submission is not dictated by any sentiment of interest or

In consequence the leader endowed with sufficient prestige wields almost absolute power. The immense

influence exerted during a long series of years, thanks to his prestige, by a celebrated Deputy,[28] beaten at

the last general election in consequence of certain financial events, is well known. He had only to give the

signal and Cabinets were overthrown. A writer has clearly indicated the scope of his action in the following

"It is due, in the main, to M. X that we paid three times as dearly as we should have done for Tonkin,

that we remained so long on a precarious footing in Madagascar, that we were defrauded of an empire in the

region of the Lower Niger, and that we have lost the preponderating situation we used to occupy in Egypt.

The theories of M. X have cost us more territories than the disasters of Napoleon I."

We must not harbour too bitter a grudge against the leader in question. It is plain that he has cost us very

dear; but a great part of his influence was due to the fact that he followed public opinion, which, in colonial

matters, was far from being at the time what it has since become. A leader is seldom in advance of public

opinion; almost always all he does is to follow it and to espouse all its errors.

The means of persuasion of the leaders we are dealing with, apart from their prestige, consist in the factors

we have already enumerated several times. To make a skilful use of these resources a leader must have

arrived at a comprehension, at least in an unconscious manner, of the psychology of crowds, and must know

how to address them. He should be aware, in particular, of the fascinating influence of words, phrases, and

images. He should possess a special description of eloquence, composed of energetic

affirmationsunburdened with proofs and impressive images, accompanied by very summary arguments.

This is a kind of eloquence that is met with in all assemblies, the English Parliament included, the most

"Debates in the House of Commons," says the English philosopher Maine, "may be constantly read in which

the entire discussion is confined to an exchange of rather weak generalities and rather violent personalities.

General formulas of this description exercise a prodigious influence on the imagination of a pure democracy.

It will always be easy to make a crowd accept general assertions, presented in striking terms, although they

Too much importance cannot be attached to the "striking terms" alluded to in the above quotation. We have

already insisted, on several occasions, on the special power of words and formulas. They must be chosen in

such a way as to evoke very vivid images. The following phrase, taken from a speech by one of the leaders of

"When the same vessel shall bear away to the feverhaunted lands of our penitentiary settlements the

politician of shady reputation and the anarchist guilty of murder, the pair will be able to converse together,

and they will appear to each other as the two complementary aspects of one and the same state of society."

The image thus evoked is very vivid, and all the adversaries of the speaker felt themselves threatened by it.

They conjured up a double vision of the feverhaunted country and the vessel that may carry them away; for

is it not possible that they are included in the somewhat illdefined category of the politicians menaced?

They experienced the lurking fear that the men of the Convention must have felt whom the vague speeches of

Robespierre threatened with the guillotine, and who, under the influence of this fear, invariably yielded to

It is all to the interest of the leaders to indulge in the most improbable exaggerations. The speaker of whom I

have just cited a sentence was able to affirm, without arousing violent protestations, that bankers and priests

had subsidised the throwers of bombs, and that the directors of the great financial companies deserve the

same punishment as anarchists. Affirmations of this kind are always effective with crowds. The affirmation is

never too violent, the declamation never too threatening. Nothing intimidates the audience more than this sort

of eloquence. Those present are afraid that if they protest they will be put down as traitors or accomplices.

As I have said, this peculiar style of eloquence has ever been of sovereign effect in all assemblies. In times of

crisis its power is still further accentuated. The speeches of the great orators of the assemblies of the French

Revolution are very interesting reading from this point of view. At every instant they thought themselves

obliged to pause in order to denounce crime and exalt virtue, after which they would burst forth into

imprecations against tyrants, and swear to live free men or perish. Those present rose to their feet, applauded

On occasion, the leader may be intelligent and highly educated, but the possession of these qualities does

him, as a rule, more harm than good. By showing how complex things are, by allowing of explanation and

promoting comprehension, intelligence always renders its owner indulgent, and blunts, in a large measure,

that intensity and violence of conviction needful for apostles. The great leaders of crowds of all ages, and

those of the Revolution in particular, have been of lamentably narrow intellect; while it is precisely those

whose intelligence has been the most restricted who have exercised the greatest influence.

The speeches of the most celebrated of them, of Robespierre, frequently astound one by their incoherence: by

merely reading them no plausible explanation is to be found of the great part played by the powerful

"The commonplaces and redundancies of pedagogic eloquence and Latin culture at the service of a mind

childish rather than undistinguished, and limited in its notions of attack and defence to the defiant attitude of

schoolboys. Not an idea, not a happy turn of phrase, or a telling hit: a storm of declamation that leaves us

bored. After a dose of this unexhilarating reading one is attempted to exclaim `Oh!' with the amiable Camille

It is terrible at times to think of the power that strong conviction combined with extreme narrowness of mind

gives a man possessing prestige. It is none the less necessary that these conditions should be satisfied for a

man to ignore obstacles and display strength of will in a high measure. Crowds instinctively recognise in men

In a parliamentary assembly the success of a speech depends almost solely on the prestige possessed by the

speaker, and not at all on the arguments he brings forward. The best proof of this is that when for one cause

or another a speaker loses his prestige, he loses simultaneously all his influence, that is, his power of

When an unknown speaker comes forward with a speech containing good arguments, but only arguments, the

chances are that he will only obtain a hearing. A Deputy who is a psychologist of insight, M. Desaubes, has

recently traced in the following lines the portrait of the Deputy who lacks prestige:

"When he takes his place in the tribune he draws a document from his portfolio, spreads it out methodically

"He flatters himself that he will implant in the minds of his audience the conviction by which he is himself

animated. He has weighed and reweighed his arguments; he is well primed with figures and proofs; he is

certain he will convince his hearers. In the face of the evidence he is to adduce all resistance would be futile.

He begins, confident in the justice of his cause, and relying upon the attention of his colleagues, whose only

"He speaks, and is at once surprised at the restlessness of the House, and a little annoyed by the noise that is

"How is it silence is not kept? Why this general inattention? What are those Deputies thinking about who are

engaged in conversation? What urgent motive has induced this or that Deputy to quit his seat?

"An expression of uneasiness crosses his face; he frowns and stops. Encouraged by the President, he begins

again, raising his voice. He is only listened to all the less. He lends emphasis to his words, and gesticulates:

the noise around him increases. He can no longer hear himself, and again stops; finally, afraid that his silence

may provoke the dreaded cry, `The Closure!' he starts off again. The clamour becomes unbearable."

When parliamentary assemblies reach a certain pitch of excitement they become identical with ordinary

heterogeneous crowds, and their sentiments in consequence present the peculiarity of being always extreme.

They will be seen to commit acts of the greatest heroism or the worst excesses. The individual is no longer

himself, and so entirely is this the case that he will vote measures most adverse to his personal interests.

The history of the French Revolution shows to what an extent assemblies are capable of losing their

selfconsciousness, and of obeying suggestions most contrary to their interests. It was an enormous sacrifice

for the nobility to renounce its privileges, yet it did so without hesitation on a famous night during the sittings

of the Constituant Assembly. By renouncing their inviolability the men of the Convention placed themselves

under a perpetual menace of death and yet they took this step, and were not afraid to decimate their own

ranks, though perfectly aware that the scaffold to which they were sending their colleagues today might be

their own fate tomorrow. The truth is they had attained to that completely automatic state which I have

described elsewhere, and no consideration would hinder them from yielding to the suggestions by which they

were hypnotised. The following passage from the memoirs of one of them, BillaudVarennes, is absolutely

typical on this score: "The decisions with which we have been so reproached," he says, "WERE NOT

The same phenomena of unconsciousness were to be witnessed during all the stormy sittings of the

"They approved and decreed measures," says Taine, "which they held in horrormeasures which were not

only stupid and foolish, but measures that were crimesthe murder of innocent men, the murder of their

friends. The Left, supported by the Right, unanimously and amid loud applause, sent to the scaffold Danton,

its natural chief, and the great promoter and leader of the Revolution. Unanimously and amid the greatest

applause the Right, supported by the Left, votes the worst decrees of the revolutionary government.

Unanimously and amid cries of admiration and enthusiasm, amid demonstrations of passionate sympathy for

Collot d'Herbois, Couthon, and Robespierre, the Convention by spontaneous and repeated reelections keeps

in office the homicidal government which the Plain detests because it is homicidal, and the Mountain detests

because it is decimated by it. The Plain and the Mountain, the majority and the minority, finish by consenting

to help on their own suicide. The 22 Prairial the entire Convention offered itself to the executioner; the 8

Thermidor, during the first quarter of an hour that followed Robespierre's speech, it did the same thing

This picture may appear sombre. Yet it is accurate. Parliamentary assemblies, sufficiently excited and

hypnotised, offer the same characteristics. They become an unstable flock, obedient to every impulsion. The

following description of the Assembly of 1848 is due to M. Spuller, a parliamentarian whose faith in

democracy is above suspicion. I reproduce it from the Revue litteraire, and it is thoroughly typical. It offers

an example of all the exaggerated sentiments which I have described as characteristic of crowds, and of that

excessive changeableness which permits of assemblies passing, from moment to moment, from one set of

"The Republican party was brought to its perdition by its divisions, its jealousies, its suspicions, and, in turn,

its blind confidence and its limitless hopes. Its ingenuousness and candour were only equalled by its universal

mistrust. An absence of all sense of legality, of all comprehension of discipline, together with boundless

terrors and illusions; the peasant and the child are on a level in these respects. Their calm is as great as their

impatience; their ferocity is equal to their docility. This condition is the natural consequence of a

temperament that is not formed and of the lack of education. Nothing astonishes such persons, and everything

disconcerts them. Trembling with fear or brave to the point of heroism, they would go through fire and water

"They are ignorant of cause and effect and of the connecting links between events. They are as promptly

discouraged as they are exalted, they are subject to every description of panic, they are always either too

highly strung or too downcast, but never in the mood or the measure the situation would require. More fluid

than water they reflect every line and assume every shape. What sort of a foundation for a government can

Fortunately all the characteristics just described as to be met with in parliamentary assemblies are in no wise

constantly displayed. Such assemblies only constitute crowds at certain moments. The individuals composing

them retain their individuality in a great number of cases, which explains how it is that an assembly is able to

turn out excellent technical laws. It is true that the author of these laws is a specialist who has prepared them

in the quiet of his study, and that in reality the law voted is the work of an individual and not of an assembly.

These laws are naturally the best. They are only liable to have disastrous results when a series of amendments

has converted them into the outcome of a collective effort. The work of a crowd is always inferior, whatever

its nature, to that of an isolated individual. It is specialists who safeguard assemblies from passing illadvised

or unworkable measures. The specialist in this case is a temporary leader of crowds. The Assembly is without

In spite of all the difficulties attending their working, parliamentary assemblies are the best form of

government mankind has discovered as yet, and more especially the best means it has found to escape the

yoke of personal tyrannies. They constitute assuredly the ideal government at any rate for philosophers,

thinkers, writers, artists, and learned menin a word, for all those who form the cream of a civilisation.

Moreover, in reality they only present two serious dangers, one being inevitable financial waste, and the other

The first of these dangers is the necessary consequence of the exigencies and want of foresight of electoral

crowds. Should a member of an assembly propose a measure giving apparent satisfaction to democratic ideas,

should he bring in a Bill, for instance, to assure oldage pensions to all workers, and to increase the wages of

any class of State employes, the other Deputies, victims of suggestion in their dread of their electors, will not

venture to seem to disregard the interests of the latter by rejecting the proposed measure, although well aware

they are imposing a fresh strain on the Budget and necessitating the creation of new taxes. It is impossible for

them to hesitate to give their votes. The consequences of the increase of expenditure are remote and will not

entail disagreeable consequences for them personally, while the consequences of a negative vote might

In addition to this first cause of an exaggerated expenditure there is another not less imperativethe

necessity of voting all grants for local purposes. A Deputy is unable to oppose grants of this kind because

they represent once more the exigencies of the electors, and because each individual Deputy can only obtain

what he requires for his own constituency on the condition of acceding to similar demands on the part of his

[29] In its issue of April 6, 1895, the Economiste published a curious review of the figures that may be

reached by expenditure caused solely by electoral considerations, and notably of the outlay on railways. To

put Langayes (a town of 3,000 inhabitants, situated on a mountain) in communication with Puy, a railway is

voted that will cost 15 millions of francs. Seven millions are to be spent to put Beaumont (3,500 inhabitants)

in communication with CastelSarrazin; 7 millions to put Oust (a village of 523 inhabitants) in

communication with Seix (1,200 inhabitants); 6 millions to put Prade in communication with the hamlet of

Olette (747 inhabitants), In 1895 alone 90 millions of francs were voted for railways of only local utility.

There is other no less important expenditure necessitated also by electioneering considerations. The law

instituting workingmen's pensions will soon involve a minimum annual outlay of 165 millions, according to

the Minister of Finance, and of 800 millions according to the academician M. LeroyBeaulieu. It is evident

that the continued growth of expenditure of this kind must end in bankruptcy. Many European

countriesPortugal, Greece, Spain, Turkeyhave reached this stage, and others, such as Italy, will soon be

reduced to the same extremity. Still too much alarm need not be felt at this state of things, since the public

has successively consented to put up with the reduction of fourfifths in the payment of their coupons by

these different countries. Bankruptcy under these ingenious conditions allows the equilibrium of Budgets

difficult to balance to be instantly restored. Moreover, wars, socialism, and economic conflicts hold in store

for us a profusion of other catastrophes in the period of universal disintegration we are traversing, and it is

necessary to be resigned to living from hand to mouth without too much concern for a future we cannot

The second of the dangers referred to abovethe inevitable restrictions on liberty consummated by

parliamentary assembliesis apparently less obvious, but is, nevertheless, very real. It is the result of the

innumerable lawshaving always a restrictive actionwhich parliaments consider themselves obliged to

vote and to whose consequences, owing to their shortsightedness, they are in a great measure blind.

The danger must indeed be most inevitable, since even England itself, which assuredly offers the most

popular type of the parliamentary regime, the type in which the representative is most independent of his

elector, has been unable to escape it. Herbert Spencer has shown, in a work already old, that the increase of

apparent liberty must needs be followed by the decrease of real liberty. Returning to this contention in his

recent book, "The Individual versus the State," he thus expresses himself with regard to the English

"Legislation since this period has followed the course, I pointed out. Rapidly multiplying dictatorial measures

have continually tended to restrict individual liberties, and this in two ways. Regulations have been

established every year in greater number, imposing a constraint on the citizen in matters in which his acts

were formerly completely free, and forcing him to accomplish acts which he was formerly at liberty to

accomplish or not to accomplish at will. At the same time heavier and heavier public, and especially local,

burdens have still further restricted his liberty by diminishing the portion of his profits he can spend as he

chooses, and by augmenting the portion which is taken from him to be spent according to the good pleasure

This progressive restriction of liberties shows itself in every country in a special shape which Herbert

Spencer has not pointed out; it is that the passing of these innumerable series of legislative measures, all of

them in a general way of a restrictive order, conduces necessarily to augment the number, the power, and the

influence of the functionaries charged with their application. These functionaries tend in this way to become

the veritable masters of civilised countries. Their power is all the greater owing to the fact that, amidst the

incessant transfer of authority, the administrative caste is alone in being untouched by these changes, is alone

in possessing irresponsibility, impersonality, and perpetuity. There is no more oppressive despotism than that

This incessant creation of restrictive laws and regulations, surrounding the pettiest actions of existence with

the most complicated formalities, inevitably has for its result the confining within narrower and narrower

limits of the sphere in which the citizen may move freely. Victims of the delusion that equality and liberty are

the better assured by the multiplication of laws, nations daily consent to put up with trammels increasingly

burdensome. They do not accept this legislation with impunity. Accustomed to put up with every yoke, they

soon end by desiring servitude, and lose all spontaneousness and energy. They are then no more than vain

Arrived at this point, the individual is bound to seek outside himself the forces he no longer finds within him.

The functions of governments necessarily increase in proportion as the indifference and helplessness of the

citizens grow. They it is who must necessarily exhibit the initiative, enterprising, and guiding spirit in which

private persons are lacking. It falls on them to undertake everything, direct everything, and take everything

under their protection. The State becomes an allpowerful god. Still experience shows that the power of such

This progressive restriction of all liberties in the case of certain peoples, in spite of an outward license that

gives them the illusion that these liberties are still in their possession, seems at least as much a consequence

of their old age as of any particular system. It constitutes one of the precursory symptoms of that decadent

Judging by the lessons of the past, and by the symptoms that strike the attention on every side, several of our

modern civilisations have reached that phase of extreme old age which precedes decadence. It seems

inevitable that all peoples should pass through identical phases of existence, since history is so often seen to

It is easy to note briefly these common phases of the evolution of civilisations, and I shall terminate this work

with a summary of them. This rapid sketch will perhaps throw some gleams of light on the causes of the

If we examine in their main lines the genesis of the greatness and of the fall of the civilisations that preceded

At the dawn of civilisation a swarm of men of various origin, brought together by the chances of migrations,

invasions, and conquests. Of different blood, and of equally different languages and beliefs, the only common

bond of union between these men is the halfrecognised law of a chief. The psychological characteristics of

crowds are present in an eminent degree in these confused agglomerations. They have the transient cohesion

of crowds, their heroism, their weaknesses, their impulsiveness, and their violence. Nothing is stable in

At length time accomplishes its work. The identity of surroundings, the repeated intermingling of races, the

necessities of life in common exert their influence. The assemblage of dissimilar units begins to blend into a

whole, to form a race; that is, an aggregate possessing common characteristics and sentiments to which

heredity will give greater and greater fixity. The crowd has become a people, and this people is able to

emerge from its barbarous state. However, it will only entirely emerge therefrom when, after long efforts,

struggles necessarily repeated, and innumerable recommencements, it shall have acquired an ideal. The

nature of this ideal is of slight importance; whether it be the cult of Rome, the might of Athens, or the

triumph of Allah, it will suffice to endow all the individuals of the race that is forming with perfect unity of

At this stage a new civilisation, with its institutions, its beliefs, and its arts, may be born. In pursuit of its

ideal, the race will acquire in succession the qualities necessary to give it splendour, vigour, and grandeur. At

times no doubt it will still be a crowd, but henceforth, beneath the mobile and changing characteristics of

crowds, is found a solid substratum, the genius of the race which confines within narrow limits the

After having exerted its creative action, time begins that work of destruction from which neither gods nor

men escape. Having reached a certain level of strength and complexity a civilisation ceases to grow, and

having ceased to grow it is condemned to a speedy decline. The hour of its old age has struck.

This inevitable hour is always marked by the weakening of the ideal that was the mainstay of the race. In

proportion as this ideal pales all the religious, political, and social structures inspired by it begin to be shaken.

With the progressive perishing of its ideal the race loses more and more the qualities that lent it its cohesion,

its unity, and its strength. The personality and intelligence of the individual may increase, but at the same

time this collective egoism of the race is replaced by an excessive development of the egoism of the

individual, accompanied by a weakening of character and a lessening of the capacity for action. What

constituted a people, a unity, a whole, becomes in the end an agglomeration of individualities lacking

cohesion, and artificially held together for a time by its traditions and institutions. It is at this stage that men,

divided by their interests and aspirations, and incapable any longer of selfgovernment, require directing in

With the definite loss of its old ideal the genius of the race entirely disappears; it is a mere swarm of isolated

individuals and returns to its original statethat of a crowd. Without consistency and without a future, it has

all the transitory characteristics of crowds. Its civilisation is now without stability, and at the mercy of every

chance. The populace is sovereign, and the tide of barbarism mounts. The civilisation may still seem brilliant

because it possesses an outward front, the work of a long past, but it is in reality an edifice crumbling to ruin,

To pass in pursuit of an ideal from the barbarous to the civilised state, and then, when this ideal has lost its