218 SOCIAL HEREDITY AND SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



has produced organizatiou. It is easy to rule a man 

 by impulse, but very difificult to rule him by reason. 

 It is easy to appeal to his emotions and get him to 

 perform any action we may choose, but to get him to 

 follow a line by appealing to his intelligence is a 

 very difificult task. The general actions of the race 

 are not controlled by intelligence, but by emotions 

 and instincts. In all crises the action of the race is 

 mob action. A mob frequently acts diametrically 

 opposite to the course which the wisdom of each 

 individual would tell him to follow, for it is never 

 controlled by logic, although it may be controlled by 

 enthusiasm. If a leader can take hold of the emo- 

 tions of a mob, he can lead it where he will; not 

 infrequently the whole action of a mob may be 

 changed by raising a laugh. Certainly, logic plays 

 no part at such a time, while emotion and enthusiasm 

 are supreme. 



Most crises in history have been controlled by 

 impulse. The leader may try to rule, but unless he 

 can get hold of the emotions of the people he is 

 powerless to produce great events. Among prim- 

 itive people the individual yields to the chieftain, not 

 from a sense of logic, but because of an impulse 

 that tells him to obey his leader. If we ask what, in 

 the last few centuries, has led to the heroism of the 

 soldier and the great conquests which have changed 

 the facts of history, we find it was commonly love for 

 the king, or that unintelligible something called loy- 

 alty. The obedience which the soldier gives to his 

 officers is the result of impulse, not intelligence. He 

 has been drilled and drilled until his whole nervous 

 mechanism is so molded that it will respond to a com- 

 mand just as would a machine. It is this machinery 



