1884.] Moral Epidemics and Contagions. 573 
difficulty. This can be remarked in all persons who are 
accustomed to respeCt the usages of good society. 
Further, we remark in such persons that they acquire the 
power of resisting this reflex aCtion instinctively, and even 
unconsciously, the reflective voluntary resistance thus be- 
coming instinctive by repetition. 
This faCt is important, since the truth which it teaches 
may be generalised and be applied to other contagious nervous 
phenomena. 
Thus men who have reached a certain stage of culture, 
intellectual and moral, become proof against the contagion 
emanating from the platform orator, and, retaining their 
cool judgment, they smile at his rhetoric ; they see 
through his sophisms, and deteCt the nature of his 
quasi- faCts. Should the people of England ever reach this 
stage, the professional agitator will have to seek some other 
calling. 
A number of automatic movements may, by attention and 
exercise, pass under the dominion of the will, and in like 
manner a number of aCtions originally voluntary and re- 
flective may by dint of exercise become automatic, and this 
as well in ordinary reflex aCtions as in those which give rise 
to contagion. 
2. Various similar movements, simultaneous or suc- 
cessive, may be produced in an assemblage of indivi- 
duals, and may thus give rise to reflex aCtions 
concurring to one and the same effeCt. We see this 
especially in military exercises where similar move- 
ments are executed together. 
Says the Baron Larroy, “ It is in the manoeuvres of 
troops that precise and rapid reflex aCtions are best seen and 
appreciated. . . . There remains an influence which must 
be taken into account in this study of the reflex aCtions that 
is the influence of proximity, of individual upon individual. 
Contact in the ranks produced the most decided reciprocal 
or reflex aCtion in a troop. 
“ Is it not, in a situation of a quite different order, what 
may be observed in the case of two performers singing a 
duet, if they hold each other by the hand ? It has often 
seemed to me that thus instinctively approximated by taCtile 
union they understand and support each other the better, 
giving to the piece which is sung more accord, more cor- 
rectness, and more harmony ; such is the reflex aCtion of 
music.” 
