Page:The Psychology of Jingoism.djvu/29

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CHAPTER I

CREDULITY

A recent French writer, discoursing on the nature of 'a crowd,' attributes to it a character and conduct which is lower, intellectually and morally, than the character and conduct of its average member. Even when the crowd is little other than a fortuitous concourse, and not an organized gathering of persons already assimilated by some common feeling or idea, a sort of common mind is temporarily set up, which often seems to dominate, or even to supersede, the normal mind of the individual. A sensational rumour, a sudden unusual spectacle, the powerful appeal of a mob orator, so agitates the mass of individuals, hitherto related by mere propinquity, as to raise, by a largely unconscious interaction of personalities, a quick ferment of thought and feeling which impels individuals to take part

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