80' I \i. iii.i:i:i)lTV 187 



In the crowd, the close grouping of people, the shoulder 

 to shoulder contact, furnishes a dense medium for the 



transmission of ideas and notions. In crowd-, in.-n and 

 women are subject to swift contagion of feeling. Ideas 

 spread like liuhininir. Suwstihility is heightened, for 

 eiample, when a wave of applause sweeps over an audi 

 ence. Thus crowds are impulsive, nml.il.-, credulous, and 

 readily influenced by suggestion. Tin- imair > invoked 

 in the in UK! of the crowd are accepted as real 

 Crowds do not admit of doul.t or uncertainty; they always 

 go to extremes. 1! follows that the morality of 



crowds, according to the suggestions under which they 

 nay be much >r lower than the morality of 



the individuals composing them.-" The emotional na- 



agion of feeling, the close conta 

 tend to force upon the individual a. sense of invii. 

 power. Tli'- individual loses all sense of personal re- 

 sponsihility. He becomes merged with the crowd, and, 

 as men are more alike emotionally than intellectually, the 

 individual loses his identity. The feeling of responsi- 

 hility which controls individuals when alone, disappears 

 in the wild gusts of passion that sweep over the mob. 

 individual does things and gives way to impulses 

 which if alone he would have control 1,-d. Thus, in the 

 crowd, all the conditions which determine the degree of 

 communication are intensified, with the result that im- 

 pulsive and emotional activity goes beyond the bounds 

 ire under normal conditions set by rational control. 

 When the community is densely populated, and 

 of communication have been developed whereby 



\v ideas spread, the further trans- 



* Giddingt, P. H.-DrMomry 4 Km^rr. P . M; and L* Boa, G.- 



