HUMAN AGGREGATION AND CRIME, 451 



a grand corporation, like the France of Saint Louis. It was the 

 same with what were called corporations under the old system of 

 institutions ; they were less corporations in the usual sense than 

 federations of shops, these last very small corporations, each in 

 itself authoritatively ruled by a patron. But when a common 

 danger prompted all the workmen of the same branch of in- 

 dustry to unite for a common end, such as the gaining of a suit, 

 just as all the citizens of a nation would unite in war time, the 

 federative bond was closed up at once, and a governing person- 

 ality was revealed. In the intervals between these unanimous 

 co-operations, the association confined itself, in the associated 

 shops, to the pursuit of a certain aesthetic or economical ideal, as 

 in the intervals between wars the cultivation of a certain patri- 

 otic ideal constitutes the national life of citizens. A modern 

 nation, under the prolonged action of leveling ideas, tends to be- 

 come again a grand complex mob, directed to a greater or less ex- 

 tent by national or local leaders. But the necessity for hierarch- 

 ical order in these enlarged societies is so imperious that by a 

 paradox, the more remarkable as they are more democratic, they 

 are often forced to become more and more military. 



Between the two extreme poles which I have just marked may 

 be placed certain temporary groups, recruited according to a 

 fixed rule or subjected to a summary regulation, like the jury; or 

 habitual meetings for pleasure, such as a literary salon of the 

 eighteenth century, the court of Versailles, or a theater audience, 

 which, although their object and common interest are trivial, ac- 

 cept a rigorous etiquette and a fixed hierarchy of different sta- 

 tions; or scientific and literary conferences academies which 

 are rather collections of coexchangeable talents than groups of co- 

 laborers. Among the varieties of the species corporation may be 

 named conspiracies and sects, which are sometimes criminal. 

 Parliamentary assemblies are entitled to a place by themselves ; 

 they have more of the nature of mobs, complex and contradictory 

 mobs double mobs, we might say, as we speak of double mon- 

 sters in which a tumultuous majority is opposed by a minority 

 or a coalition of minorities, and in which, consequently and fortu- 

 nately, the evil of unanimity, that great danger of mobs, is par- 

 tially neutralized. 



Mob or corporation, however, all the species of true association 

 have this identical and permanent characteristic, that they are 

 produced, and led to a greater or less extent, by a chief, apparent 

 or hidden ; most frequently hidden in the case of mobs, but always 

 apparent and obvious in corporations. From the moment when 

 a mass of men begins to vibrate with an identical tremor, takes 

 life and advances toward its end, it may be assumed that some 

 guiding spirit or leader, or a group of leaders and moving spirits. 



