122 CREATIVE INVOLUTION 



birthright of every average individual. In crowds 

 it is stupidity and not mother-wit that is accumu- 

 lated." 



It is also true that our young people were never 

 so thirstily avid of pleasure as now, nor so irrespon- 

 sible and devoid of a sense of duty. But the wonder 

 would be if this were otherwise, for the special char- 

 acteristics of the group-mind are defined as irrespon- 

 sibility, incapacity to reason, absence of judgment 

 and of the critical spirit. In consequence, its mem- 

 bers lack the virtues born of self-control: veracity, 

 prudence, thrift, perseverance, respect for another's 

 right, obedience to law. The individual isolated 

 possesses the capacity of inhibiting his reflex action, 

 but the individual of the crowd is the " creature of 

 his spinal cord." The Sunday Supplement and the 

 cheap show foster, but do not create, the trivialness 

 by which they flourish. They are simply indica- 

 tions of a mental reversion to a lower thought-form 

 of development. 



But with all its faults, it is conceded that the Ris- 

 ing Generation is amiable, attractive and lovable. 

 This should not surprise it also follows as a nat- 

 ural result of socialisation. Crowds are impulsive; 

 suitably influenced, they are ready to sacrifice them- 

 selves for an ideal. They exaggerate the senti- 

 ments; sympathy quickly becomes adoration. 

 While the crowd-mind is always intellectually in- 

 ferior to the isolated individual, its emotions and 



