764 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A mass of men is thus always more afraid of novelty than the 

 men that compose it : these may change their feelings and their 

 ideas, but they come together ; the feelings and ideas acquired by 

 the individuals will have no influence, or but little, upon their 

 conduct. What is the cause of this contradiction ? Why is a 

 mass of men always more conservative than its components ? 

 Man, according to the law demonstrated by M. Lombroso, hates 

 all novelty and tries to preserve everything that exists — his ideas 

 and feelings — so long as he can, without changing them. Yet, 

 when very strong necessities urge him, man succeeds in disturb- 

 ing his inertia: he changes his habits and his ideas, and rebels 

 against institutions and laws which he had once venerated ; but 

 it is always a painful task, a disagreeable effort for every man, 

 even the best endowed, to carry this revolution into the system of 

 his ideas and habits. Difficult as this change may be for each 

 man, it is still more so when a collective usage is concerned ; for 

 then the opinion of all the other men to the same effect and imi- 

 tation re-enforce the neophoby (or fear of novelty) natural to 

 the man. The struggle is not only against one's own conserva- 

 tive instincts, but also against the fear of being alone in neglect- 

 ing a usage which all others observe. " Everybody does it/' is 

 the answer most persons will give you when you ask them why 

 they practice some quite absurd and ridiculous ceremonies. Fur- 

 ther, no one has any particular interest in these collective usages, 

 and therefore no one has special reasons for abandoning them ; 

 for these usages to pass away there must, therefore, be causes act- 

 ing upon the whole mass of those who observe them, producing 

 gradual decadence. Now these causes would naturally act more 

 slowly than those which produce individual changes of manners, 

 ideas, etc. ; they will act more slowly, too, as the aggregate of 

 men subject to their influence is greater. 



80 the genesis of criminal festivals is explained. When crimes 

 become the object of legal repression and then of moral repulsion, 

 men begin, each on his own account, to abstain from commit- 

 ting them ; their views in relation to criminal actions gradually 

 change, and those acts which formerly appeared honorable and 

 glorious become gradually blamable. But these criminal festi- 

 vals, to which the ancient liberty and the ancient glory of crime 

 have given rise, being usages common to a whole tribe or people, 

 enjoy the advantage of the greater stability we have remarked in 

 collective usages. Each man removes himself slowly from crime 

 but to return to it, as a member of the tribe, when the time for 

 these civil or religious festivals of a criminal character returns. 

 Thus, the Dahomeyan, who is no longer a cannibal, becomes an 

 anthropophagist again in the great public festivals that are cele- 

 brated after a victory ; the East Indians slay men upon the 



