THE MOB MIND. , 395 



Mob mind working in vast bodies of dispersed individuals gives 

 us the craze ot fad. This may be defined as that irrational una- 

 nimity of interest, feeling, opinion, or deed in a body of communi- 

 cating individuals which results from suggestion and imitation. 

 In the chorus of execration at a sensational crime, in the clamor 

 for the blood of an assassin or dynamiter, in waves of national 

 feeling, in war fevers, in political " landslides " and " tidal waves," 

 in passionate "sympathetic" strikes, in cholera scares, in public 

 frights, in popular delusions, in religious crazes, in " booms " and 

 panics, in agitations, insurrections, and revolutions, we witness 

 contagion on a gigantic scale, favored in some cases by popular 

 hysteria. It is best to keep the term " craze " for an imitative 

 unanimity arrived at under great excitement, while " fad " is that 

 milder form of imitation which appears in sudden universal in- 

 terest in some novelty. 



As there must be in the typical mob a center which radiates 

 impulses by fascination till they have subdued enough people to 

 continue their course by sheer intimidation, so for the craze there 

 must be an excitant, overcoming so many people that these can 

 affect the rest by mere volume of suggestion. This first orienta- 

 tion is produced by some event or incident. The murder of a 

 leader, an insult to an ambassador, the sermons of a crazy fanatic, 

 the words of a " prophet " or " Messiah," a sensational procla- 

 mation, a scintillating phrase, the arrest of an agitator, a coup 

 d'etat, the advent of a new railroad, the collapse of a trusted bank- 

 ing house, a number of deaths by an epidemic, a series of myste- 

 rious murders, and an inexplicable occurrence such as a comet, 

 an eclipse, a star shower, an earthquake, or a monstrous birth 

 each of these has been the starting point of some fever, mania, 

 crusade, uprising, boom, panic, delusion, or fright. The more ex- 

 pectant, overwrought, or hysterical is the public mind, the easier 

 it is to set up a great perturbation. Even clergymen noted a con- 

 nection between the " great revival " of 1858 and the panic of 

 1857. . After a series of public calamities, a train of startling 

 events, a pestilence, earthquake, or war, the anchor of reason finds 

 no " holding ground," and minds are blown about by every breath 

 of passion or sentiment. 



The fad originates in the surprise or interest excited by 

 novelty. Roller-skating, blue glass, the planchette, a forty days' 

 fast, the " new woman," tiddledy-winks, faith-healing, the " 13- 

 14-15" puzzle, baseball, telepathy, or the sexual novel attract 

 those restless folk who are always running hither and thither 

 after some new thing. This creates a swirl which rapidly sucks 

 into its vortex the soft-headed and weak-minded, and at last, 

 grown bigger, involves even the saner kind. As no department 

 of life is safe from the invasion of novelty, we have all kinds of 



