288 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



action, not action of thought, even in the individual ; but in the 

 crowd this characteristic is intensified. The mob acts first, and 

 thinks afterwards. 



It has been demonstrated that the processes of thought in 

 the individual occupy a definite time from ingemination to com- 

 pletion ; and we are all familiar with the fact that when a 

 thought is presented to us from outside, the more remote it is 

 from our accustomed mental processes, the longer it takes to 

 assimilate. In the crowd this time-reaction is almost 

 grotesquely exaggerated. An obvious proposition — " Down 

 with the House of Lords," " We want eight and we won't wait," 

 " Hang the Kaiser " — requires no mental effort and is under- 

 stood at once ; it produces instant reactions, of approval or 

 disapproval. But a more novel or more recondite suggestion 

 may require years, and even generations, before it is generally 

 understood. It has to sink in, and some heads are very thick. 

 But the slow working of the more recondite suggestion m.ay 

 have a permanent effect on public policy, whereas the catch- 

 word which raises public enthusiasm to fever heat is forgotten 

 in a few months, and almost unintelligible after some years. 

 Nothing on earth is quite so dead as an old political speech. 



Probably the greatest difficulty of the propagandist is to 

 secure attention ; proverbially he finds it better business to be 

 attacked than ignored. But it is a world of multitudinous 

 variety, people are interested in many things, and the attention 

 of the crowd is easily distracted. (A stray dog in church will 

 notoriously ruin the most eloquent sermon.) It is precisely 

 because public attention is so easily distracted that the orator, 

 like the advertiser, repeats himself — he is in fact advertising his 

 own remedy for current ills — and thus repetition, which is 

 suspect in literature, is essential in speaking. The reason is 

 simple. The writer appeals to the individual whose attention 

 is less easily distracted ; the orator appeals to the crowd. Only 

 the great orator can hold the attention of the whole crowd all 

 the time ; it is the highest triumph of technical efficiency in his 

 art. And it is far more difficult to hold attention with a 

 reasoned argument than with an emotional appeal ; for that 

 reason platform speaking to the general public is always more 

 emotional than a speech in the House of Commons, which is a 

 selected crowd. But even in the House of Commons, the 

 emotional appeal will sometimes outclass the reasoned argu- 

 ment, because the House, although a selected crowd, is still a 

 crowd ; for the same reason appeals to a jury are more emotional 

 than arguments addressed to a judge. 



This fact constitutes one of the great difficulties of the 

 modern democratic State, which is, at least nominally, ruled 

 by public opinion. The demagogue knows perfectly well that 



