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beings. There may be diversity of opinion concerning a 

 common aim, but the common aim organises the crowd. 



Sir Martin Conway's book must not be judged by its errors 

 alone. No living being could write 332 pages on crowds 

 that would stand undisproved through all time. It is a book 

 to be read and to be reckoned with. Though time bury it 

 at last, it will have a long life. It should be read by all who 

 are interested in the pressing and complicated problems pre- 

 sented by modern societies — problems that, urgent as they 

 were before, are being intensified by the Great War. Those 

 who are not interested will become so if they will only read 

 it. We are at present, however, in the critical vein and belong 

 to the critical crowd. This need not prevent us from being 

 also members of an appreciative and approving crowd, to meet 

 when its turn comes. But in this article the critical crowd 

 assembles. 



It is, no doubt, true in a general sense that emotions are 

 stronger and intellect weaker in the crowd than in the indi- 

 vidual. It is true that suggestion, on the whole, is more 

 influential over our beliefs than our individual reason. It is 

 true again that the suggestive influences of the crowd tend 

 to predominate over logic or intellect. We are moulded and 

 influenced and driven into beliefs by the steady pressure of 

 the opinions expressed by the newspapers we read, of the 

 sentiments and habits of thought of the class to which we 

 belong, of the prevailing customs of our occupations or profes- 

 sions, of the authors, speakers, and traditions that unite to 

 form our milieu. We do absorb, in short, the suggestions of 

 the crowds to which we belong. Sir Martin quotes from " A 

 Neutral Correspondent," who writes that when " he entered 

 Germany he believed himself . . . proof against atmosphere." 

 He found everything published or written in Germany was 

 carefully calculated to suggest the virtue of the Fatherland 

 and the evil designs of England and the Entente Powers. 

 " The cumulative effect upon me of this constant suggestion 

 . . . was such that I seemed ... to become merged in the 

 German mass." The " crowdologist," however, in his turn, 

 is subject to the suggestion of his own particular crowd when 

 he assumes that the individualities of the units are invariably 

 merged in the collective mind of their group, under all circum- 

 stances and whatever the nature of the " crowd " to which 



