Gustave Le Bon

, too, that behind the visible facts are hidden at times thousands of invisible causes

age we are about to enter will in truth be the Era of Crowds.

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.

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.

It forms a single being, and is subjected to the Law of the Mental Unity of Crowds.

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 decimate themselves.

All depends on the nature of the suggestion to which the crowd is exposed.

Doubtless a crowd is often criminal, but also it is often heroic.

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.

which are almost always observed in beings belonging to inferior forms of evolution-in women, savages, and children, for instance.