646 Moral Epidemics and Contagions. [November, 
moving. Hence they please us, and easily become con- 
tagious. 
Meanwhile, though at the first outset we may feel an 
extreme repugnance at feeling ourselves invaded — so to 
speak — by an expressive movement against which we are 
contending, yet on frequent recurrence this repugnance 
diminishes and disappears, when of course we give way to 
the external impulse. This has been already amply demon- 
strated. 
If movements expressive of improper or criminal actions 
are communicated to the brain of persons present, those 
who are inclined to such actions will feel satisfied and will 
be easily carried away, whilst indifferent spectators will be 
more or less shaken. Good men will be wearied and revolted 
by the movement which seeks to invade them. Evidently 
such persons will not readily receive the contagion. Still 
in the long run, as in all other cases, these persons will 
more or less submit to the influence if they are not upon 
their guard. 
These faCts, if well understood and carefully analysed, 
yield a signal confirmation of M. Rambosson’s law. We 
see very distinctly two movements contending in opposite 
directions; the movement coming from a foreign brain 
seeking to invade every brain which it can reach, to deter- 
mine a reflex contagious aCtion and to impose itself upon 
the ego, and, on the other hand, the ego which resists by an 
opposite aCtion. 
In a word, we easily see why some given expression may 
please and soothe us at one moment and displease and 
weary us at another ; why it may be useful under certain 
circumstances and harmful under others, and why it may in 
different cases be more or less contagious. 
These considerations will go far to explain not a few 
moral and social phenomena. We can now understand the 
influences — good or evil — of example and companionship, 
and see tangible reasons for avoiding scenes where our 
principles may be endangered. 
We have already referred, in passing, to the relations be- 
tween a public speaker and his hearers. We have seen 
why some men can take an audience as it were by storm, 
whilst their arguments, if taken down verbatim and quietly 
read over, are found impotent and worthless. In the former 
case any candid or impartial hearer who happens to be pre- 
sent is exposed not merely to the impulse derived from the 
brain of the speaker, but to that emanating from sympa- 
thetic hearers. Consequently to retain an even balance of 
