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The crowd : $b A study of the popular mind Flashcards

Gustave Le Bon · Public domain edition · 166 cards · 44 chapters

Gustave Le Bon argues that individuals in a crowd lose conscious personality and act from suggestion and instinct rather than reason. The deck covers his claims on crowd psychology, social reform, illusion, science, taxation, and Napoleon's grasp of mass persuasion.

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Chapter 1 · Question

According to Le Bon, what new psychological characteristics arise when individuals form a crowd?

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Section 13 cards

According to Le Bon, what new psychological characteristics arise when individuals form a crowd?
Le Bon states that when a certain number of individuals of a race gather in a crowd for purposes of action, the mere fact of their being assembled produces new psychological characteristics. These are added to the racial characteristics endowed by heredity, and at times differ from them to a very considerable degree.
Chapter 1
Why does Le Bon oppose sudden far-reaching social reforms despite crowds' mental inferiority?
The author argues social organisms are as complicated as living beings, so they cannot be forced into sudden transformations. Nature uses radical measures but never after human fashion. He holds that nothing is more fatal to a people than the mania for great reforms, however excellent theoretically, since only time can change the genius of nations; institutions and laws merely express character.
Chapter 1
How does Le Bon use the cube and circle to distinguish absolute from practical truth?
Le Bon notes that as absolute truth a cube and circle are rigorously defined by formulas, but as impressions on the eye perspective transforms the cube into a pyramid or square and the circle into an ellipse or line. He argues these fictitious shapes matter more, since they alone are seen and reproduced, and in certain cases there is more truth in the unreal than the real.
Chapter 1

Section 24 cards

What does Le Bon say about the role of the unconscious versus reason in human action?
The author argues that the unconscious plays an immense part in all our acts while reason plays a very small one. He claims crowds are always unconscious and that this unconsciousness may be a secret of their strength, comparing it to instinct in the natural world. He adds that reason is too recent and imperfect to reveal the laws of the unconscious or replace it.
Chapter 2
What limits does Le Bon place on drawing conclusions from observation of crowd phenomena?
The author argues that if we wish to stay within the narrow but safe limits of scientific knowledge rather than wander into vague conjecture, we should simply note phenomena accessible to us and confine ourselves to them. He adds that every conclusion drawn from observation is as a rule premature, since behind clearly seen phenomena lie others seen indistinctly, and perhaps others not seen at all.
Chapter 2
What two fundamental factors does Le Bon identify behind the present transformation of thought?
The author identifies first the destruction of the religious, political, and social beliefs in which all elements of our civilisation are rooted, and second the creation of entirely new conditions of existence and thought resulting from modern scientific and industrial discoveries. Because past ideas are half destroyed but still powerful while replacement ideas are still forming, he calls the modern age a period of transition and anarchy.
Chapter 2
According to Le Bon, how did the power of the masses grow, and what does he say they now claim?
The author argues the progressive growth of mass power came first through the propagation of ideas slowly implanted in minds, then through gradual association of individuals seeking to realise theoretical conceptions. Through association, crowds formed syndicates and labour unions and gained consciousness of their strength. He claims their demands now amount to destroying existing society and returning to primitive communism, listing shorter hours, nationalisation, equal distribution, and elimination of upper classes.
Chapter 2

Section 34 cards

What does Le Bon claim crowds are powerful for, and what have civilisations always been created by?
The author argues crowds are only powerful for destruction, and that their rule is always tantamount to a barbarian phase. Civilisations, he claims, have only ever been created and directed by a small intellectual aristocracy, never by crowds. He says civilisation requires fixed rules, discipline, forethought for the future, and an elevated degree of culture—conditions crowds left to themselves have invariably shown themselves incapable of realising.
Chapter 3
According to Le Bon, what did science promise, and did he accept the 'bankruptcy of science'?
The author argues there has been no bankruptcy of science, and that science had no share in the present intellectual anarchy or in making the new power of crowds. Science, he says, promised us truth, or at least knowledge of relations our intelligence can seize; it never promised peace or happiness. It is sovereignly indifferent to our feelings and deaf to our lamentations. He concludes we must live with science, since nothing can bring back the illusions it destroyed.
Chapter 3
Why does Le Bon say an indirect tax is better tolerated by crowds than a proportional tax?
The author argues a legislator should not choose the theoretically most just tax; the most unjust may work best for the masses. An indirect tax, however exorbitant, is paid daily in fractions of a farthing on consumer goods, so it passes unperceived and does not disturb habits. A proportional tax on wages or income, paid in a lump sum, would provoke unanimous protest even if theoretically ten times less burdensome, because the large visible sum strikes the imagination.
Chapter 3
What does Le Bon say about Napoleon's understanding of crowd psychology?
The author argues Napoleon had a marvellous insight into the psychology of the masses of the country he reigned over, but at times completely misunderstood the psychology of crowds belonging to other races. Because of this misunderstanding he engaged in Spain and notably Russia in conflicts that dealt blows destined within a brief space of time to ruin his power. A footnote adds that Talleyrand wrongly predicted Spain would receive his soldiers as liberators.
Chapter 3

Section 44 cards

What distinguishes a psychological crowd from a mere gathering of people?
Le Bon argues a psychological crowd requires that sentiments and ideas of all persons take one and the same direction and their conscious personality vanishes, forming a collective mind. A thousand individuals accidentally gathered without a determined object do not constitute a crowd psychologically; certain predisposing causes are necessary.
Chapter 4
Can a psychological crowd form without people physically assembled together?
Yes. Le Bon states that thousands of isolated individuals may acquire the characteristics of a psychological crowd under certain violent emotions, such as a great national event, if chance brings them together. Conversely, half a dozen men might constitute a psychological crowd while hundreds gathered by accident may not.
Chapter 4
Why does Le Bon criticize the historian Taine's account of the French Revolution?
The author argues Taine imperfectly understood the Revolution because he never studied the genius of crowds. Taine used the descriptive method of naturalists, but moral forces are almost absent from the phenomena naturalists study, and Le Bon claims these forces are the true mainsprings of history.
Chapter 4
What does Le Bon say about the character of men like the French Convention members?
Le Bon argues mental constitutions contain possibilities of character manifested by sudden changes of environment. Among the most savage members of the French Convention were inoffensive citizens who would ordinarily have been peaceable notaries or virtuous magistrates; once the storm passed they resumed quiet, law-abiding lives, and Napoleon found them docile servants.
Chapter 4

Section 54 cards

What does Le Bon say a crowd does to its members' mental qualities?
The author argues that becoming a psychological crowd gives individuals a collective mind, making them feel, think, and act differently than in isolation. Intellectual aptitudes and individuality are weakened, while unconscious, homogeneous qualities dominate. He claims crowds accumulate stupidity rather than wit, and that assemblies of distinguished specialists are no better than gatherings of imbeciles on matters of general interest.
Chapter 5
How does Le Bon refute Spencer's view of crowd aggregation?
The author argues that a crowd is not a summing-up or average of its elements, contrary to Herbert Spencer's opinion. Instead, combination creates new characteristics, like chemical elements forming a new body with different properties. He compares the crowd to cells forming a living body that displays traits none of the cells possess singly.
Chapter 5
What three causes produce characteristics peculiar to crowds?
The author identifies three causes: first, numerical considerations give the individual a sentiment of invincible power, and anonymity removes responsibility; second, contagion spreads every sentiment and act, making individuals sacrifice personal interest; third, and most important, suggestibility, of which contagion is merely an effect, puts the individual in a hypnotic-like state.
Chapter 5
What hypnotic state does Le Bon claim crowd members enter?
The author argues that an individual immersed in an active crowd enters a special state resembling fascination under a hypnotiser. The brain's activity is paralysed, conscious personality vanishes, and will and discernment are lost, leaving the person a slave to unconscious spinal activities directed at will. He admits the exact cause is unknown.
Chapter 5

Section 64 cards

What does Le Bon say happens to a man's personality in a crowd?
The author argues that in a crowd the conscious personality disappears and the unconscious personality predominates. Through suggestion and contagion, feelings and ideas turn in an identical direction, and suggested ideas tend to be transformed immediately into acts. The individual is no longer himself but an automaton no longer guided by his will.
Chapter 6
Why is crowd impetuosity more irresistible than that of a hypnotised subject?
Le Bon argues that the suggestion is the same for all individuals in the crowd, so it gains strength through reciprocity. The few who might resist are too weak to struggle against the current and can at most attempt a diversion, such as a happy expression or an opportunely evoked image, which has occasionally deterred crowds from bloodthirsty acts.
Chapter 6
What is Le Bon's conclusion about the crowd's intellect and morality?
The author argues the crowd is always intellectually inferior to the isolated individual, but in feelings and resulting acts it may be better or worse depending on the nature of the suggestion. He criticizes writers who studied crowds only from the criminal point of view, noting crowds are often criminal but also often heroic, as in the Crusades or in '93.
Chapter 6
How does Le Bon illustrate that crowds act against individual judgment?
He cites juries delivering verdicts each juror would disapprove, and parliamentary assemblies adopting measures each member would reject personally. The men of the Convention, enlightened and peaceful separately, united in a crowd endorsed savage proposals and voted to guillotine the clearly innocent. He also notes the nobility's renunciation of privileges on the night of August 4, 1789, which no member would have consented to singly.
Chapter 6

Section 74 cards

Why does Le Bon say a crowd's sentiments can swing so quickly?
The author argues crowds are extremely mobile because they obey whatever exciting cause acts on them at the moment, and those causes vary widely. Impulses may be generous or cruel, heroic or cowardly, yet always imperious enough to override individual interest and even self-preservation. Hence a crowd may act as executioner or martyr, and any premeditation is out of the question.
Chapter 7
How does numerical strength change an individual's sense of what is possible?
The author argues that in a crowd the notion of impossibility disappears. An isolated person knows he cannot alone burn a palace or loot a shop and can resist temptation, but as part of a crowd he feels irresistible power from numbers. A mere suggestion of murder or pillage is then yielded to at once, and any obstacle is destroyed with frenzied rage.
Chapter 7
What makes crowds credulous and prone to legends, according to Le Bon?
The author argues crowds hover on the borderland of unconsciousness, yield readily to suggestion, and lack critical faculty, so they are excessively credulous; the improbable does not exist for them. Legends also arise because crowds think in images, and each image evokes others without logical connection, so the simplest event is transformed. A crowd scarcely distinguishes subjective from objective and accepts evoked images as real.
Chapter 7
How does Le Bon compare Latin and Anglo-Saxon crowds?
The author argues all crowds are irritable and impulsive, but the degree varies with race, which he calls the unvarying source of sentiments. He contrasts Latin and Anglo-Saxon crowds: in France a telegram about an insult to an ambassador triggered fury and war, and news of a reverse at Langson toppled the government, while a more serious English reverse at Khartoum caused only slight emotion and no ministry fell.
Chapter 7

Section 84 cards

According to Le Bon, what is the mechanism of collective hallucination?
The author argues a collective hallucination begins with one individual's illusion or first perversion of the truth, which becomes the starting-point of a contagious suggestion. By suggestion and contagion, the same perversion spreads and takes the same shape in all assembled individuals, so the miracle perceived by one person is immediately accepted by all.
Chapter 8
What happened to the crew of the Belle Poule?
While cruising in daylight, the watch signalled a disabled vessel. Officers and sailors clearly perceived a raft covered with men towed by boats signalling distress. A boat sent to rescue them found only branches of trees covered with leaves swept from the coast. Le Bon cites this as a typical collective hallucination arising from expectant attention plus suggestion and contagion.
Chapter 8
What did Mr. Davey's experiment show about witnesses?
Davey convoked distinguished observers, including Mr. Wallace, performed spiritualistic phenomena, let them examine objects and place seals, then obtained written reports attributing the phenomena to supernatural means. He revealed they were simple tricks. The account stresses the extreme weakness of noninitiated witnesses' reports, showing that numerous witnesses may give circumstantial but completely erroneous relations.
Chapter 8
How does Le Bon explain erroneous recognition of a corpse?
The starting-point is an illusion produced in an individual by vague reminiscences, then contagion follows from that first affirmation. A very impressionable observer may need only some peculiarity—a scar or detail of toilet—to evoke the idea of another person. The idea becomes a nucleus of crystallisation invading the understanding and paralysing critical faculty, so the observer sees the evoked image, not the object.
Chapter 8

Section 94 cards

What does Le Bon conclude about the reliability of crowds' collective observations?
The author argues that crowds' collective observations are as erroneous as possible and usually represent one individual's illusion spread to others by contagion and suggestion. He cites contradictory testimony about who commanded a cavalry charge at Sedan and Lord Wolseley's claim that grave factual errors persist about Waterloo, concluding that the most doubted events are often those witnessed by the greatest number of people.
Chapter 9
What does Le Bon claim about children's testimony in courts?
The author argues children's statements should never be invoked, claiming that although magistrates repeat that children do not lie, children invariably lie—innocently, but still falsely. He asserts it would be better to decide an accused person's fate by tossing a coin than by a child's evidence, and notes that the mistaken corpse recognitions were mostly made by women and children, the most impressionable persons.
Chapter 9
How does Le Bon say legends of great men change over time?
The author argues legends have no stability: crowd imagination transforms them over time and through racial causes. He notes the gulf between the Old Testament's Jehovah and Sainte Therese's God of Love, and that Buddha is worshipped differently in China and India. Napoleon's legend shifted within fifty years from liberal philanthropist to sanguinary despot, and the author expects future scholars to doubt heroes' very existence.
Chapter 9
What does Le Bon conclude about works of history and historical truth?
The author argues history books are works of pure imagination—fanciful accounts of ill-observed facts with reflective explanations—and writing them is a waste of time. He claims we know nothing real about figures like Hercules, Buddha, or Mahomet, and that only legendary heroes, not real ones, impress crowds. Without literary, artistic, and monumental works, we would know nothing of bygone times.
Chapter 9

Section 104 cards

What two qualities does Le Bon say characterize all crowd feelings, good or bad?
The author argues crowd feelings are always very simple and very exaggerated. A person in a crowd resembles a primitive being: blind to fine distinctions and intermediate phases, seeing things only as a whole. Exaggeration is heightened because any feeling, once shown, spreads quickly by suggestion and contagion, and evident approval increases its force.
Chapter 10
How does the absence of responsibility affect crowd sentiments?
The author argues that in crowds, especially heterogeneous ones, the absence of any sense of responsibility increases the violence of feelings. Certainty of impunity grows with the crowd's size, and the notion of immense momentary force from numbers makes possible sentiments and acts impossible for an isolated individual. The foolish, ignorant, and envious feel freed from insignificance and possessed of brutal temporary strength.
Chapter 10
What methods does Le Bon say an orator must use to move a crowd?
Because a crowd is impressed only by excessive sentiments, the author argues an orator must make abusive use of violent affirmations. To exaggerate, affirm, repeat, and never attempt to prove anything by reasoning are the methods well known to speakers at public meetings. A crowd also demands exaggerated courage, morality, and virtue from its heroes, more than exists in real life.
Chapter 10
What does Le Bon claim about crowd intolerance and its variation by race?
The author argues crowds accept or reject ideas as whole absolute truths or errors, never tolerating contradiction or discussion; at public meetings a contradictor faces howls, blows, and expulsion. He claims dictatorialness and intolerance vary by race, being highest in Latin crowds, which he says destroyed the Anglo-Saxon sense of individual independence, seeking instead collective independence for their own sect.
Chapter 10

Section 113 cards

What kind of master do crowds favor, according to the author?
The author argues crowds show docile respect for force and are little impressed by kindness, which they see as weakness. Their sympathies go not to easy-going masters but to tyrants who vigorously oppress them, and these tyrants receive the loftiest statues. Crowds will trample a despot once he loses his power, because he then joins the feeble who are despised for not being feared.
Chapter 11
Why does the author say crowds are fundamentally conservative despite violent outbursts?
The author argues crowds' rebellious and destructive outbursts are always very transitory. Governed by unconscious considerations and hereditary influences, crowds soon weary of disorder and instinctively turn to servitude. Their mobility affects only superficial matters, while their respect for tradition is absolute and their horror of novelty deeply rooted. He notes the fiercest Jacobins acclaimed Bonaparte when he suppressed liberty.
Chapter 11
How does the author define morality, and how do crowds measure up?
The author distinguishes two senses. If morality means constant respect for social conventions and permanent repression of selfish impulses, crowds are too impulsive and mobile to be moral. But if it means transitory displays of abnegation, self-sacrifice, disinterestedness, devotion, and need of equity, crowds may at times exhibit a very lofty morality.
Chapter 11

Section 124 cards

How does Le Bon classify the ideas accessible to crowds?
He divides them into two classes: accidental and passing ideas created by momentary influences, such as infatuation for an individual or doctrine, and fundamental ideas given great stability by environment, heredity, and public opinion, such as past religious beliefs and present social and democratic ideas. He compares fundamental ideas to a stream's slow volume and transitory ideas to surface waves.
Chapter 12
Under what conditions can ideas influence crowds, according to Le Bon?
The author argues that whatever ideas are suggested to crowds, they exert effective influence only if they assume a very absolute, uncompromising, and simple shape. They then present themselves as images, the only form accessible to the masses. Such image-like ideas lack logical bonds of analogy or succession and can replace one another like slides in a magic lantern.
Chapter 12
Why can contradictory ideas coexist in a crowd's mind?
Because image-like ideas are not connected by logical bonds of analogy or succession and may replace each other like lantern slides, a crowd can hold the most contradictory ideas simultaneously. Depending on the moment, one stored idea takes hold and the crowd may commit the most dissimilar acts; its lack of critical spirit prevents it from perceiving the contradictions.
Chapter 12
What happens to lofty ideas when they reach crowds?
The author argues that ideas must assume a very simple shape to be accessible to crowds, so lofty philosophic or scientific ideas undergo far-reaching transformations that are always belittling and simplifying. From the social point of view there is scarcely a hierarchy of ideas, and an idea's intrinsic worth matters less than the effects it produces.
Chapter 12

Section 134 cards

According to Le Bon, when does an idea begin to influence crowds?
Le Bon argues an idea influences crowds only after it has entered the unconscious and become a sentiment, which requires much time. Even a clearly proved idea does not produce effective action in most minds; an educated convert soon reverts to original conceptions because anterior ideas that have become sentiments govern our acts and utterances.
Chapter 13
What does Le Bon say about how long ideas take to establish and be eradicated in crowds?
Le Bon argues a long time is needed for ideas to establish themselves in crowd minds, and just as long for them to be eradicated. Therefore crowds, as far as ideas go, are always several generations behind learned men and philosophers. Statesmen know the errors in prevailing ideas yet must govern by principles they no longer believe.
Chapter 13
How does Le Bon characterize the reasoning of crowds?
Le Bon argues crowds' reasoning is inferior, based on association of ideas joined only by apparent analogy or succession, plus immediate generalization from particular cases. His examples include the Esquimaux inferring glass melts like ice, and a workman concluding all employers exploit their men. Logical chains are incomprehensible to crowds, so orators use images, not argument.
Chapter 13
What role does imagination play in the mental life of crowds, per Le Bon?
Le Bon argues crowds' figurative imagination is powerful and easily impressed; images seem almost as lifelike as reality, as in a sleeper whose reason is suspended. Crowds lack the notion of improbability, so the marvellous and legendary strike them most, and appearances matter more than reality in history. They are impressed only by images, as in theatre.
Chapter 13

Section 143 cards

According to the chapter, what is the basis of the power of great statesmen and conquerors?
The author argues that the power of conquerors and the strength of States rests on the popular imagination, and that crowds are led by working upon it. He claims all great statesmen, including absolute despots, have treated the popular imagination as the basis of their power and never tried to govern against it, citing Napoleon as an example.
Chapter 14
How does the chapter say the imagination of crowds must be impressed?
The author argues it is never achieved by working on the intelligence or reasoning faculty, that is, by demonstration. Instead, whatever strikes the crowd's imagination must appear as a startling, very clear image, freed from accessory explanation or accompanied only by a few marvellous or mysterious facts. Antony moved the populace by reading Caesar's will and pointing to his corpse, not by cunning rhetoric.
Chapter 14
Why does the chapter say a great accident impresses crowds more than a larger statistical disaster?
The author argues it is not the facts themselves but the way they occur and are brought to notice. A single great accident, visible and public on one day, produces a startling image that fills the mind. By contrast, the influenza epidemic that killed five thousand in Paris made little impression because it was known only through weekly statistics, not embodied in a visible image.
Chapter 14

Section 154 cards

What form do Le Bon claims crowd convictions always take?
The author argues that all convictions of crowds assume a religious form: blind submission, fierce intolerance, and the need for violent propaganda. He says a hero acclaimed by a crowd becomes a veritable god to it, citing Napoleon as worshipped for fifteen years, and claims Christian and Pagan gods never held more absolute empire over minds.
Chapter 15
How does Fustel de Coulanges explain Roman obedience to the Empire?
Le Bon cites Fustel de Coulanges' work on Roman Gaul, which argues the Empire was maintained not by force but by religious admiration. He notes thirty legions could not constrain a hundred million men for five centuries; instead the Emperor was worshipped as a divinity by unanimous consent, with altars in even the smallest townships.
Chapter 15
What does Le Bon say about atheism and the religious sentiment?
The author argues it is useless to say religion is necessary for the masses, because all creeds take root only by assuming a religious shape that obviates discussion. He claims even atheism, if adopted, would show intolerant religious ardour and become a cult, citing the Positivist sect and Dostoiewsky's Nihilist who replaced icons with atheist philosophers' works yet relit the candles.
Chapter 15
How does Le Bon explain the violence of the French Revolution?
The author argues the Revolution's violence, massacres, propaganda, and war on all things are explained only by seeing it as the establishment of a new religious belief in the masses. He groups it with the Reformation, Saint Bartholomew, the Inquisition, and the Reign of Terror as identical phenomena, and criticizes Taine for studying the Revolution as a naturalist without crowd psychology.
Chapter 15

Section 164 cards

What are the two kinds of factors that determine crowd opinions and beliefs?
Le Bon divides the factors into remote and immediate. Remote factors prepare the ground, making crowds capable of adopting certain convictions and refractory to others. Immediate factors, acting on top of this long preparatory work, serve as the source of active persuasion and set ideas loose with their consequences, such as a riot or a strike.
Chapter 16
Which remote factor does Le Bon rank first, and why?
Le Bon places race in the first rank, claiming it far surpasses all other factors in importance. He argues race is the product of heredity and ancestors, so that beliefs, institutions, and arts are merely outward expressions of a people's genius. Environment and events are momentary suggestions that cannot override the inherited suggestions of the race.
Chapter 16
How does Le Bon describe the role of traditions in crowd life?
Traditions are the ideas, needs, and sentiments of the past, the synthesis of the race, weighing on people with immense force. Le Bon argues civilization is impossible without traditions but progress impossible without destroying worn-out ones. Crowds are the most obstinate maintainers of traditional ideas, and change usually touches only names and outward forms.
Chapter 16
What does Le Bon claim about political and social institutions?
Le Bon argues institutions have extremely weak influence and are effects, not causes. Nations cannot choose what appear to them the best institutions; the same label may shelter very dissimilar things. He holds that certain theoretically bad institutions, such as centralization, may be obligatory for some nations, and that institutions are created slowly rather than decreed.
Chapter 16

Section 173 cards

What does Le Bon claim about crowds and traditional ideas?
The author argues that crowds cling most tenaciously to traditional ideas and resist change most obstinately, especially caste crowds. He cites post-Revolutionary France: after churches were destroyed and priests expelled or guillotined, the abolished system of public worship was re-established within a few years in deference to universal demands, showing that old traditions resumed their sway once briefly blotted out.
Chapter 17
According to Le Bon, what power does time have over the beliefs of crowds?
The author argues time is the sole real creator and sole great destroyer. It causes the birth, growth, and death of all beliefs; they gain strength and lose it through time. Time prepares the opinions and beliefs of crowds, or at least the soil where they germinate, so ideas are realizable at one epoch and not another. Beliefs are daughters of the past and mothers of the future, yet slaves of time.
Chapter 17
What error does Le Bon attribute to the belief that institutions can reform society?
The author argues it is a grave delusion to think institutions can remedy social defects or that social changes can be effected by decrees, an idea he says started the French Revolution. Institutions are the product of race, created by an epoch rather than creating it. A people cannot really change its institutions; revolutions change names, not essence. England is democratic under a monarchy, while Spanish-American republics suffer despotism despite republican constitutions.
Chapter 17

Section 184 cards

What does Le Bon say about the task of manufacturing cut-and-dried constitutions?
The author argues it is a puerile task, the useless labour of an ignorant rhetorician. He claims necessity and time elaborate constitutions when we are wise enough to let them act, citing Macaulay's account of England's slowly changed constitution as the model Latin politicians should learn by heart.
Chapter 18
According to Macaulay, what rules guided England's Parliaments from John to Victoria?
Macaulay's rules: think nothing of symmetry and much of convenience; never remove an anomaly merely because it is an anomaly; never innovate except when a grievance is felt, and only so far as to get rid of it; never lay down any proposition wider than the particular case needing provision. These guided deliberations of two hundred and fifty Parliaments.
Chapter 18
What examples does Le Bon use to argue institutions do not create national greatness?
The author argues institutions are foreign to greatness and decadence alike. He contrasts the United States, prosperous under democratic institutions, with the Spanish-American Republics, in anarchy under absolutely similar institutions. Peoples are governed by their character, and institutions not modelled on that character are merely a borrowed garment, a transitory disguise.
Chapter 18
What evidence does Le Bon cite against the dogma that instruction improves and equalises men?
The author argues democratic ideas here conflict with psychology and experience. He cites Herbert Spencer showing instruction changes neither instincts nor hereditary passions, statisticians noting criminality rises with instruction, and magistrate Adolphe Guillot's figures: 3,000 educated criminals per 1,000 illiterate delinquents, and the criminal rate rising from 227 to 552 per 100,000 over fifty years.
Chapter 18

Section 194 cards

What fundamental psychological error does Le Bon say Latin education rests on?
The author argues it rests on the error that intelligence is developed by learning text-books by heart. Students from primary school through university only memorize books, with judgment and personal initiative never called into play. Education becomes reciting by heart and obeying, a system Le Bon calls a ludicrous form of education.
Chapter 19
What social danger does Le Bon say this education produces?
Beyond being useless, it gives those subjected to it a violent dislike of their born station and an intense desire to escape it. Workers no longer wish to remain workers, peasants no longer peasants, and middle-class families see only State-paid careers for their sons. It creates discontented proletarians ready to revolt below and a frivolous, State-dependent bourgeoisie above.
Chapter 19
According to Le Bon, what happens to the many diploma-holders the State cannot employ?
The State manufactures diploma-holders through text-books but can utilize only a small number, so it must feed some and face the rest as enemies. The mass of diploma-holders besieges the professions while businesses struggle to find colonial agents. Le Bon cites 20,000 unemployed schoolmasters in the Seine alone, and says unused knowledge drives men to revolt.
Chapter 19
What does Le Bon, citing Taine, say about how ideas are truly formed?
Taine holds that ideas form only in natural surroundings, through countless sensory impressions received in the workshop, mine, law court, or hospital—at the sight of tools, materials, and operations. These trifling perceptions of eye, ear, and hand are silently elaborated into new combinations and inventions. The young Frenchman is shut in school for seven or eight years, deprived of this direct experience.
Chapter 19

Section 204 cards

What does the author say happens to knowledge crammed for exams?
The author argues that exam candidates are living repertories of knowledge for the test day, but a month later they could not pass the examination again. Their too numerous and burdensome acquisitions slip from the mind and are not replaced; mental vigour declines and the capacity for growth dries up, leaving a used-up man.
Chapter 20
How does the Anglo-Saxon system train an engineer, according to the chapter?
The chapter says the Anglo-Saxons do not rely on book-learning but on object lessons: the engineer is trained in a workshop, never at a school. Each individual reaches the level his intelligence permits, becoming a workman, foreman, or engineer. The author argues this is more democratic and socially beneficial than making a career depend on one exam at nineteen or twenty.
Chapter 20
What does Taine say the French school system fails to give young men?
Taine argues that book-based, exam-driven schooling, boarding-school systems, and mechanical cramming postpone practical apprenticeship and ignore the adult world. Schools fail to provide sturdy common sense, nerve, and will-power; instead they disqualify the young man, so his first steps in action are painful falls that may leave him bruised or disabled for life.
Chapter 20
How does Paul Bourget's comparison of French and American schools support the chapter?
The chapter cites Bourget's 'Outre-Mer' as noting that French education produces narrow-minded bourgeois lacking initiative and will-power, or anarchists—two harmful types of civilized man. He contrasts the French lycees, called factories of degeneration, with American schools that prepare a man admirably for life, exposing the gulf between truly democratic nations and those democratic only in speeches.
Chapter 20

Section 214 cards

According to Le Bon, what does the power of words depend on?
The author argues that the power of words is bound up with the images they evoke and is independent of their real significance. Words with the vaguest meaning, such as democracy, socialism, equality, and liberty, sometimes carry the most influence, since they synthesise diverse unconscious aspirations and the hope of their realisation.
Chapter 21
What happens to words and formulas that lose their image-evoking power?
Le Bon states that some words once evoked images but lose this power through use and cease to awaken any response. They become vain sounds whose main utility is relieving the speaker of the obligation to think. A small stock of formulas learned young, he argues, lets people traverse life without the tiring need to reflect.
Chapter 21
Why does Le Bon claim absolute translation, especially of dead languages, is impossible?
The author argues that words change slowly across ages while the images and meanings attached to them change ceaselessly. Translating substitutes modern notions for the distinct ideas ancient life produced in races under very different conditions. He cites the Revolutionaries, who gave ancient words a sense the Greeks and Romans never had.
Chapter 21
What does Le Bon say about the education of the present generation?
The author argues that the instruction given a country's youth reveals what that country will one day be, and that the education of the present generation justifies the most gloomy previsions. He claims the schoolroom now produces socialists and anarchists and paves the way for a period of decadence for the Latin peoples.
Chapter 21

Section 223 cards

According to Le Bon, what determines a word's meaning when used to influence a crowd?
Le Bon argues words have only mobile and transitory significations that change from age to age and people to people. To influence a crowd, one must know the meaning the crowd gives a word at a given moment, not its former meaning or the meaning it may hold for individuals of a different mental constitution.
Chapter 22
What does Le Bon say is a statesman's essential function regarding words?
Le Bon argues statesmen must baptize with popular or indifferent words the things crowds cannot endure under their old names, changing words without touching the things themselves, since these are bound to the inherited constitution. He cites Tocqueville on the consulate and empire renaming past institutions, such as the taille becoming the land tax.
Chapter 22
What role do illusions play in civilization according to Le Bon?
The author argues crowds have always been influenced by illusions, raising more temples and altars to their creators than to any other class. He claims these religious, philosophic, and social illusions stand at the head of every civilization, and that without them man would never have left his primitive barbarian state and would soon return to it.
Chapter 22

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According to Le Bon, why do the masses turn to rhetoricians rather than science?
The author argues the masses must have illusions at all cost, and science has been compromised in hearts hungering after the ideal because it does not dare to be lavish enough of promises and cannot lie. So the masses turn instinctively, as the insect seeks the light, to rhetoricians who accord them what they want.
Chapter 23
What does Le Bon claim about truth and error in the evolution of nations?
The author asserts that not truth but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution of nations. He says the masses have never thirsted after truth, turn aside from evidence not to their taste, and prefer to deify error if it seduces them. Whoever supplies illusions is their master; whoever destroys them is their victim.
Chapter 23
What conditions make experience effective in establishing truth in crowd minds?
Experience is almost the only effective process by which a truth may be solidly established in the minds of the masses and dangerous illusions destroyed. But the experience must take place on a very large scale and be very frequently repeated. Experiences undergone by one generation are usually useless for the next, which is why historical facts cited as demonstrations serve no purpose.
Chapter 23
How does Le Bon say orators should appeal to crowds, and why do prepared speeches fail?
The author argues crowds are not influenced by reasoning and comprehend only rough-and-ready associations of ideas, so orators appeal to sentiments, never to reason. The speaker must share the crowd's sentiments, evoke suggestive notions, and divine from instant to instant the feelings his words produce. This ceaselessly varying language deprives a prepared, studied harangue of all efficaciousness.
Chapter 23

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Why does Le Bon say reasoning fails to persuade crowds?
The author argues crowds cannot follow or even understand chains of logical association, comparing them to an inorganic mass in this respect. He notes that even among primitive minds, such as savages or children, argument by reasoning has slight value. He adds that reasoning is powerless when it must fight against sentiment, citing centuries of religious superstition that resisted the simplest logic.
Chapter 24
What does Le Bon claim about reason's role in civilization?
The author argues it should not be regretted that crowds are never guided by reason. He contends human reason alone would not have spurred humanity along the path of civilization with the ardour and hardihood that illusions have done, and that these illusions, offspring of unconscious forces, were doubtless necessary. He concludes sentiments such as honour, self-sacrifice, religious faith, patriotism, and love of glory are created not by reason but often in spite of it.
Chapter 24
How does Le Bon describe the typical leader of crowds?
The author argues a crowd instinctively places itself under a chief, and that the leader's will is the nucleus around which opinions group. Leaders are more often men of action than thinkers, lacking keen foresight, and are recruited especially from morbidly nervous, excitable persons bordering on madness. Their convictions are so strong that reasoning is lost on them; they may sacrifice everything and even seek martyrdom. The leader has usually first been led, hypnotised by the idea he then spreads.
Chapter 24
What examples does Le Bon give of improbable historical events?
The author argues that if isolated facts alone were considered, history would seem a series of improbable chances. His examples: a Galilean carpenter becoming an all-powerful God for two thousand years; a few bands of Arabs from the deserts conquering most of the old Graeco-Roman world and building an empire greater than Alexander's; and an obscure artillery lieutenant in a hierarchised Europe reigning over many peoples and kings.
Chapter 24

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According to Le Bon, what is the primary function of great leaders of crowds?
The author argues that the arousing of faith—whether religious, political, or social, whether faith in a work, a person, or an idea—has always been the function of great leaders of crowds. He claims this is why their influence is always very great, and that faith is one of the most tremendous forces at humanity's disposal.
Chapter 25
How does Le Bon divide the ringleaders and agitators of crowds into two classes?
Le Bon divides them into men with energetic but intermittent strength of will, who are violent, brave, and audacious and useful for sudden violent enterprises, and the rarer men of enduring strength of will, whom he calls the true founders of religions and great undertakings, citing St. Paul, Mahomet, Columbus, and de Lesseps.
Chapter 25
What does Le Bon say is always predominant in the soul of crowds?
The author argues that it is the need not of liberty but of servitude that is always predominant in the soul of crowds. They are so bent on obedience that they instinctively submit to whoever declares himself their master, obeying these leaders more docilely than they have obeyed any government.
Chapter 25
What example does Le Bon give of a strike ended by arresting its leaders?
Le Bon cites the last strike of the Parisian omnibus employes, during which the arrest of the two leaders directing it was at once sufficient to bring it to an end. He uses this to illustrate that if leaders are removed, the crowd returns to a collectivity without cohesion or force of resistance.
Chapter 25

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What three means do leaders use to implant ideas and beliefs in crowds?
The author identifies three principal means: affirmation, repetition, and contagion. Their action is slow, but once effects are produced they are very lasting. Affirmation must be concise and free of proof; repetition fixes it in the unconscious mind; contagion then spreads it. These differ from the rapid suggestion and example used to stir a crowd briefly.
Chapter 26
Why does the author say repetition gives an affirmation the force of demonstrated truth?
The author argues repetition embeds a statement in the unconscious regions where motives are forged. After enough repetition we forget who authored the assertion and end by believing it. He cites advertising: reading many times that a brand is best makes us imagine we heard it from many quarters and acquire certitude. Only affirmation and repetition, he says, are powerful enough to combat each other.
Chapter 26
According to the chapter, what is contagion and how far can it reach?
Contagion is the spread of ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs with a power the author compares to microbes. It appears even in animals, such as horses imitating a stablemate or panic spreading through sheep. Simultaneous presence is not required: under remote factors, contagion can act at a distance, as when the 1848 revolutionary movement spread from Paris across much of Europe.
Chapter 26
Why does the author claim imitation is merely an effect of contagion, and who escapes influence?
The author argues people imitate by natural tendency, provided imitation is easy, and that crowds are guided by examples rather than arguments. A small number of individualities are imitated by the unconscious mass, but only if they do not clash too strongly with received ideas. For that reason, men too superior to their epoch, and Europeans among Eastern peoples, have little influence.
Chapter 26

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According to Le Bon, how are crowd opinions and beliefs propagated?
The author argues that the opinions and beliefs of crowds are propagated specially by contagion, never by reasoning. He claims the conceptions then current among the working classes were acquired at the public-house through affirmation, repetition, and contagion, and that the mode of creation of crowd beliefs in every age has scarcely differed.
Chapter 27
What happens to an opinion after contagion spreads it among the popular classes?
Le Bon argues contagion spreads from the popular classes to the higher strata of society, so every opinion adopted by the populace ends by implanting itself vigorously in the highest social strata, however absurd. He claims even the sentiment of personal interest disappears under contagion's action, and that the higher classes may embrace doctrines that will make them their first victims.
Chapter 27
How does Le Bon define prestige and its effect on judgment?
Prestige is, in reality, a sort of domination exercised on our mind by an individual, a work, or an idea. This domination entirely paralyses our critical faculty and fills the soul with astonishment and respect. Le Bon calls prestige the mainspring of all authority, and says its special characteristic is to prevent us seeing things as they are and to paralyse judgment entirely.
Chapter 27
What two kinds of prestige does Le Bon distinguish?
Le Bon groups prestige under two heads: acquired prestige, resulting from name, fortune, and reputation, which may be independent of personal prestige; and personal prestige, something essentially peculiar to the individual, which may coexist with reputation, glory, and fortune or exist in their absence. He notes acquired or artificial prestige is much the most common, citing the soldier's uniform and the judge's robes and wigs.
Chapter 27

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What two factors does Le Bon credit for de Lesseps's success at Suez?
The author attributes de Lesseps's success to his immense strength of will and to the fascination he exercised over those around him. He overcame unanimous opposition simply by appearing and speaking briefly, turning opponents into friends. The English, who strenuously opposed the scheme, rallied to him once he appeared in England, and bells were rung at Southampton when he passed.
Chapter 29
According to Le Bon, what happens to prestige when success disappears?
The author argues that success is one of the most important stepping-stones to prestige, so the disappearance of success is almost always followed by the disappearance of prestige. The hero acclaimed yesterday is insulted today after failure. The reaction is stronger in proportion to the prestige previously held, since the crowd treats the fallen hero as an equal and takes revenge for having bowed to a superiority it no longer admits.
Chapter 29
How does Le Bon illustrate the unconscious nature of imitation caused by prestige?
The author argues imitation is usually unconscious, which is why it is perfect. Modern painters who copy the pale colouring and stiff attitudes of the Primitives believe in their own sincerity, unaware that an eminent master's revival of that style inspired them. Likewise, artists who flood canvases with violet do not see more violet in nature than fifty years ago; they are influenced by a successful painter's personal impressions.
Chapter 29
What does Le Bon say prestige does to those under its influence?
The author argues that prestige is the fundamental element of persuasion. Consciously or not, the being, idea, or thing possessing prestige is immediately imitated through contagion and forces an entire generation to adopt certain modes of feeling and expression. This imitation is usually unconscious, which accounts for its perfection, and examples appear across all elements of civilisation, including sciences, arts, and literature.
Chapter 29

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What two classes does Le Bon divide the beliefs and opinions of crowds into?
Le Bon divides them into great permanent beliefs, which endure for several centuries and on which an entire civilisation may rest (e.g., feudalism, Christianity, the nationalist principle), and transitory, changing opinions, which are superficial and as changeable as fashion, like the theories that mould literature and art. He compares the latter to ripples on a deep lake.
Chapter 30
According to the chapter, what marks the moment a great belief is doomed?
The author argues that the precise moment a great belief is doomed is when its value begins to be called in question. Every general belief, being little more than a fiction, can only survive on the condition that it not be subjected to examination. Once prestige is questioned it ceases to be prestige, and the crowd must be kept at a distance to admire.
Chapter 30
What happens to a nation when it changes its beliefs, per Le Bon?
The author argues that a nation has never been able to change its beliefs without also being condemned to transform all the elements of its civilisation. It remains in a state of anarchy until it accepts a new general belief. General beliefs are the indispensable pillars of civilisations, determining the trend of ideas and inspiring faith and duty.
Chapter 30
Why does Le Bon call intolerance a virtue in the life of a people?
The author argues that nations have always shown intolerance defending their opinions because it is the most necessary of virtues, despite being open to philosophical criticism. General beliefs inspire faith and duty, and intolerance founds or upholds them. He notes that even figures like Galileo, Newton, and Leibnitz never questioned the dogmas of their age.
Chapter 30

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According to the chapter, what is the only real tyranny, and why?
The author argues the only real tyranny is the unconscious tyranny exercised over men's minds by beliefs and customs, because it cannot be fought against. He contrasts this with tyrants like Tiberius, Genghis Khan, and Napoleon, claiming that Moses, Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet exert a far profounder despotism from their graves. A conspiracy may overthrow a tyrant, but nothing avails against a firmly established belief.
Chapter 31
Why does the chapter say socialist beliefs will lose prestige once realized?
The author argues general beliefs often triumph despite philosophic absurdity. Religious beliefs offered happiness realizable only in a future life, so no one could contest them. The socialist ideal of happiness is meant to be realized on earth, so its vanity will appear as soon as the first efforts toward realization are made, and the belief will lose its prestige. Its strength increases only until its practical realization begins.
Chapter 31
What does the thirty-year French example (1790–1820) illustrate about crowds?
The chapter uses it to show apparent changeability: within one generation the crowd went from monarchical to revolutionary to imperialist and back to monarchical, and in religion from Catholicism to atheism to deism and back to pronounced Catholicism. Even leaders changed, as Convention members became Napoleon's servants and later carried candles in religious processions under Louis XVIII.
Chapter 31
Why does the chapter say changeable opinions are more numerous today?
The author gives three reasons, of which the first is stated here: as old beliefs lose influence, they cease to shape ephemeral opinions as they once did. The weakening of general beliefs clears the ground for a crop of haphazard opinions without a past or a future. Such opinions, unlinked to general beliefs or racial sentiment, lack stability and are at the mercy of circumstance.
Chapter 31

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What three causes does Le Bon give for the extreme mobility of ideas?
The author argues three causes: the growing and increasingly unchecked power of crowds, which lets their natural mobility of ideas operate freely; the recent development of the newspaper press, which constantly brings contrary opinions before crowds so each suggestion is destroyed by an opposite one; and the resulting failure of any opinion to become widespread before dying out.
Chapter 32
What new phenomenon does Le Bon say results from these causes?
The author argues the result is the powerlessness of governments to direct opinion. In the past, governments, a few writers, and a small number of newspapers reflected public opinion; now writers have lost influence, newspapers merely reflect opinion, and statesmen only try to follow it, sometimes with a dread amounting to terror that produces unstable conduct.
Chapter 32
How has the press's role changed, according to Le Bon?
The author argues the press formerly directed opinion but has humbled itself before crowds. It retains influence only as a reflection of crowd opinions and their variations, having become a mere supplier of information that renounced enforcing any idea or doctrine. Competition forces it to follow public thought, and old oracle-like papers have vanished or turned into modern papers mixing news with light articles and gossip.
Chapter 32
What does Le Bon claim about the state of convictions in his time?
The author argues the absence of opinion direction and the destruction of general beliefs have produced extreme divergency of convictions and growing indifference to anything not touching immediate interests. Doctrines like socialism recruit genuine believers mainly among the illiterate, while the lower middle class and educated workers are sceptical or unstable. He contrasts this with the recent past, when a fundamental belief shaped all one's opinions.
Chapter 32

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What does Le Bon say about the effect of a single opinion gaining prestige among crowds?
The author argues that if a single opinion acquired enough prestige to be generally accepted, it would soon gain such tyrannical strength that everything would bend before it and the era of free discussion would close for a long time. He notes crowds can be easy-going masters but are also violently capricious.
Chapter 33
How does Le Bon classify crowds, and what distinguishes heterogeneous from homogeneous crowds?
He divides organised crowds into heterogeneous crowds (anonymous, like street crowds, and non-anonymous, like juries and parliaments) and homogeneous crowds (sects, castes, and classes). Heterogeneous crowds are composed of individuals of any description, profession, or intelligence; homogeneous crowds share common beliefs or a common profession.
Chapter 33
According to Le Bon, how does the strength of the race's spirit relate to crowd characteristics?
The author argues it is an essential law that the inferior characteristics of crowds are less accentuated in proportion as the spirit of the race is strong. He claims the crowd state equals the barbarian state, and that a solidly constituted collective spirit lets a race free itself from the unreflecting power of crowds.
Chapter 33
What distinguishes a sect from a caste in Le Bon's classification of homogeneous crowds?
A sect is the first step in organising homogeneous crowds: it links individuals who differ greatly in education, profession, and social class through common beliefs, as with religious and political sects. A caste is the highest degree of organisation, composed of individuals of the same profession, similarly educated and of much the same social status, such as the military and priestly castes.
Chapter 33

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According to Le Bon, what distinguishes a 'class' from a sect or caste?
Le Bon states a class is formed of individuals of diverse origin linked not by a community of beliefs, as with a sect, nor by common professional occupations, as with a caste, but by certain interests and certain habits of life and education almost identical. He gives the middle class and the agricultural class as examples, and reserves study of these homogeneous crowds for another volume.
Chapter 34
Why does Le Bon hesitate to call crowds criminal, and what does he compare their acts to?
Le Bon argues that after excitement crowds enter a purely automatic, unconscious state guided by suggestion, so it is difficult to qualify them as criminal. He retains the term only because recent psychological investigations made it current. He says certain crowd acts are criminal in themselves, but in the same way as a tiger devouring a Hindoo after letting its young maul him for amusement.
Chapter 34
What motive does Le Bon attribute to the usual crimes of crowds?
Le Bon states the usual motive of crowd crimes is a powerful suggestion, and the individuals who take part are afterwards convinced they acted in obedience to duty. He notes this is far from being the case with the ordinary criminal. The murderer of M. de Launay, a cook, believed he deserved a medal for destroying a monster, enjoying the unanimous approval of fellow citizens.
Chapter 34
How does Le Bon describe the makeup and self-image of the September massacres crowd?
Le Bon says the crowd of murderers numbered some three hundred, a typical heterogeneous crowd composed mainly of shopkeepers and artisans of every trade, with only a very small number of professional scoundrels. Under the suggestion received they are convinced, like the cook, that they accomplish a patriotic duty. They fill a double office of judge and executioner but do not regard themselves as criminals, forming a sort of tribunal first.
Chapter 34

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What did Le Bon claim about jury verdicts regardless of juror social class?
The author argues jury verdicts stay the same no matter the jurors' social level. He notes France once picked educated jurors—professors, officials, writers—but now draws mainly small tradesmen and employees. Yet decisions remained identical, a fact magistrates hostile to juries had to concede. Berard des Glajeux is quoted saying the jury's spirit has not changed and its verdicts have remained the same.
Chapter 35
What did Lachaud do with his right to object to jurors, and what did experience show?
Lachaud, a celebrated barrister at the Court of Assize, systematically used his right to object to any juror of intelligence on the list. Experience alone showed such objections were utterly useless. Today Parisian prosecutors and barristers have entirely renounced the right to object, and verdicts have not changed—neither better nor worse, as des Glajeux remarks.
Chapter 35
According to Le Bon, which crimes do juries treat leniently and which severely?
The author argues juries are strongly moved by sentiment, not argument, and show no pity for crimes they might themselves suffer—the most socially dangerous. Conversely they are indulgent toward crimes of passion: rarely severe on infanticide by girl-mothers, or on a young woman who throws vitriol at a seducer who deserted her, since society faces slight danger and such vengeance may deter future seducers.
Chapter 35
What does Le Bon say about the purpose of criminal law versus magistrates' mindset?
The author argues criminal law exists to protect society from dangerous criminals, not to avenge it. He claims the French code and magistrates remain imbued with the old primitive spirit of vengeance—the term 'vindicte' still in daily use. He cites magistrates refusing to apply Berenger's law, which spares a condemned person from serving unless they reoffend, even though statistics show a first punishment leads to further crime.
Chapter 35

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What does Le Bon say juries are aristocratic about, despite democratic composition?
Le Bon cites President des Glajeux: juries are very aristocratic in their likes and dislikes. Name, birth, great wealth, celebrity, and the assistance of an illustrious counsel—anything that lends brilliancy to the accused—stand him in extremely good stead. Like all crowds, juries are profoundly impressed by prestige.
Chapter 36
Whom must an orator convince on a jury, and how?
Not all jurors, but the leading spirits who determine general opinion. In juries, as in all crowds, a small number serve as guides. The cited counsel says one or two energetic men suffice to carry the rest. These few must be convinced by skilful suggestions—and above all pleased, since a pleased crowd member is on the point of being convinced.
Chapter 36
Why does Le Bon defend the jury against reformers who would replace it with judges?
The author argues judicial errors blamed on juries were first made by magistrates—the juge d'instruction, prosecutor, and Court of Arraignment—so the accused judged by magistrates would lose his only chance of being admitted innocent. The jury alone can temper the law's severity, feeling that a seduced girl driven to infanticide is less guilty than her seducer.
Chapter 36

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Why does Le Bon prefer a jury to magistrates if wrongly accused?
The author argues that crowds are open to conviction while castes never are. He states that if wrongly accused of a crime, he would prefer to face a jury rather than magistrates, since he would have some chance of his innocence being recognised by the former and not the slightest chance with the latter. He concludes that the power of crowds is to be dreaded, but the power of certain castes is to be dreaded yet more.
Chapter 37
What characteristics do electoral crowds display, and what factors influence their decisions?
Electoral crowds are heterogeneous crowds whose action is confined to choosing between candidates. Of the traits peculiar to crowds, they show slight aptitude for reasoning, absence of critical spirit, irritability, credulity, and simplicity. In their decisions, the influence of leaders of crowds and the factors of affirmation, repetition, prestige, and contagion are also traced.
Chapter 37
Why do working men and peasants rarely elect candidates from their own class, according to Le Bon?
The author argues that a candidate must possess prestige, which can only be replaced by that resulting from wealth; talent and even genius are not seriously important to success. Electors, a majority of whom are working men or peasants, rarely choose a man from their own ranks because such a person enjoys no prestige among them. When they do elect an equal, it is usually for subsidiary reasons, such as spiting an eminent man or an employer.
Chapter 37
What does Le Bon say about a candidate's written versus verbal programme and promises?
The author argues the candidate's written programme should not be too categorical, since adversaries might later use it against him; his verbal programme, however, cannot be too exaggerated. The most important reforms may be fearlessly promised. Such exaggerations produce a great effect at the moment and are not binding, since the elector never troubles himself to know how far the returned candidate has followed the programme he applauded.
Chapter 37

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What does Le Bon say replaces argument at election meetings?
The author argues election meetings feature affirmations, invectives, and sometimes blows, but never arguments. Silence falls only when a notorious "tough customer" promises to heckle the candidate with an embarrassing question, and his voice is soon drowned by adversaries. Le Bon claims this pattern appears in every anonymous assembly, even one of highly educated persons, because crowd membership produces mental levelling.
Chapter 38
Who does Le Bon say actually controls the electors' opinions and votes?
The author argues crowds never hold reasoned opinions; their opinions and votes are in the hands of election committees, whose leading spirits are usually publicans with great influence over working men to whom they extend credit. He quotes M. Scherer calling the election committee the corner-stone of French institutions, and states France is governed by election committees.
Chapter 38
What financial claim does Le Bon make about influencing electoral crowds?
The author argues that influencing electoral crowds is not difficult if the candidate is personally acceptable and has adequate financial resources. He cites the donors' own admissions that three million francs sufficed to secure General Boulanger's repeated elections. He concludes that the psychology of electoral crowds is identical with that of other crowds, neither better nor worse.
Chapter 38
Why does Le Bon keep universal suffrage despite its flaws?
The author argues that although universal suffrage's weak side is obvious and its votes dangerous, the objections lose force in practice. The dogma of crowd sovereignty holds the absolute power religious dogmas once held and is as unattackable; opposing crowd beliefs with discussion is as wise as opposing cyclones. He would preserve it for practical reasons, since time alone can act on such dogmas.
Chapter 38

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Why does Le Bon reject restricting suffrage to the intellectually capable?
The author argues restricting suffrage to educated or intellectually capable voters would not improve outcomes, because all collectivities level their members: a vote by forty academicians is no better than one by forty water-carriers. He notes political economists, though highly educated, fail to agree on general questions like protection or bimetallism, since on social problems men are substantially equally ignorant.
Chapter 39
According to Tocqueville, why do equal men trust public judgment so much?
Le Bon quotes Tocqueville's argument that in an era of equality men have no faith in each other because they are all alike, yet this same similitude gives them almost limitless confidence in the judgment of the public. The reason is that, all men being equally enlightened, it does not appear probable that truth and numerical superiority should not go hand in hand.
Chapter 39
What does Le Bon say ultimately determines the votes of crowds?
The author argues that whether suffrage is restricted or general, and whether under a republic or monarchy, it is everywhere identical, expressing the unconscious aspirations and needs of the race. The average opinions of those elected represent the genius of the race and do not alter sensibly from generation to generation. Race and the slavery of daily necessities are the mysterious master-causes ruling destiny.
Chapter 39
What characteristics do parliamentary assemblies share with other crowds?
Le Bon states that parliamentary assemblies, as heterogeneous crowds that are not anonymous, display the general characteristics of crowds: intellectual simplicity, irritability, suggestibility, exaggeration of the sentiments, and the preponderating influence of a few leaders. Their special composition adds distinctive features, and the influence of race may weaken or exaggerate these traits but never prevents their manifestation.
Chapter 39

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On what kind of questions do assembly members hold fixed, unalterable opinions?
On questions of local or regional interest, every member of an assembly has fixed, unalterable opinions that no argument can shake. Le Bon says even a Demosthenes would be powerless to change a Deputy's vote on matters like protection or the privilege of distilling alcohol, because these involve the interests of influential electors. The suggestion from those electors, undergone before the vote, outweighs suggestions from any other source.
Chapter 40
How does Le Bon explain a Deputy voting contradictorily within a quarter of an hour?
On general questions, such as overthrowing a Cabinet or imposing a tax, there is no fixity of opinion. Each party has leaders who may exert equal influence, so the Deputy is placed between two contrary suggestions and inevitably made to hesitate. This explains why he may vote in contrary fashion within a quarter of an hour, or add an article to a law and then nearly nullify it by an amendment.
Chapter 40
What does Le Bon say the influence of assembly leaders mainly rests on?
Le Bon argues the leaders' influence is due in very small measure to the arguments they employ, but in large degree to their prestige. The best proof is that if they lose their prestige by any circumstance, their influence disappears. He cites Jules Simon's examples from the Assembly of 1848, noting that Louis Napoleon was entirely without importance two months before he was all-powerful.
Chapter 40
What eloquence does Le Bon say a leader must possess to persuade crowds?
Le Bon argues a leader must grasp crowd psychology, especially the fascinating influence of words, phrases, and images. He should possess a special eloquence of energetic affirmations unburdened with proofs, impressive images, and very summary arguments. He quotes Maine that Commons debates often consist of weak generalities and violent personalities, and that general formulas exercise prodigious influence on a pure democracy's imagination.
Chapter 40

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According to Le Bon, what makes 'striking terms' effective with crowds?
Le Bon argues that words and formulas must be chosen to evoke very vivid images. He cites a speech whose image of a vessel carrying a shady politician and a murderer to fever-haunted penal settlements made adversaries feel personally threatened. Such vivid, threatening imagery, he claims, intimidates audiences into silence or submission, since protesting risks being labeled a traitor or accomplice.
Chapter 41
What does Le Bon claim about intelligence in great leaders of crowds?
The author argues that intelligence harms a crowd leader: by revealing complexity and promoting understanding, it makes its owner indulgent and blunts the intense, violent conviction needed for apostleship. He claims the great leaders of crowds, especially in the Revolution, had lamentably narrow intellects, and that those with the most restricted intelligence exercised the greatest influence. He cites Robespierre's incoherent speeches as an example.
Chapter 41
What determines a speech's success in a parliamentary assembly, per Le Bon?
Le Bon argues that success depends almost solely on the speaker's prestige, not on the arguments presented. His proof: when a speaker loses prestige, he simultaneously loses all influence, including the power to sway votes. An unknown speaker with good arguments will likely get only a hearing. Le Bon quotes M. Desaubes' portrait of a prestige-less Deputy whose reasoned speech drowns in noise and inattention.
Chapter 41
How do parliamentary assemblies behave when highly excited, according to Le Bon?
Le Bon claims that at a certain pitch of excitement, assemblies become identical with ordinary heterogeneous crowds, with sentiments always extreme. They commit acts of great heroism or the worst excesses; the individual is no longer himself and may vote against his own interests. He cites the nobility renouncing privileges and the Convention renouncing inviolability, quoting Billaud-Varennes that the crisis, not the members, produced such decisions.
Chapter 41

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How does Le Bon characterize parliamentary assemblies when sufficiently excited and hypnotised?
The author argues that parliamentary assemblies, when sufficiently excited and hypnotised, become an unstable flock obedient to every impulsion. He cites Taine's account of the Convention, where members unanimously approved measures they held in horror, and Spuller's description of the Assembly of 1848 as changeable, passing from moment to moment between entirely opposite sentiments.
Chapter 42
According to Le Bon, why are assemblies sometimes capable of producing excellent technical laws?
The author argues assemblies only constitute crowds at certain moments; otherwise individuals retain their individuality. Excellent technical laws are actually the work of a specialist who prepared them quietly in his study, not the assembly. Such laws risk becoming disastrous only after amendments turn them into a collective effort. The specialist is a temporary leader who influences the Assembly without being influenced by it.
Chapter 42
What two serious dangers does Le Bon say parliamentary assemblies present?
The author argues assemblies present two serious dangers: inevitable financial waste and progressive restriction of individual liberty. Financial waste arises because deputies fear electoral consequences and dare not reject measures like old-age pensions or wage increases, and because each deputy must accept colleagues' local grants to obtain his own. He notes such expenditure growth could end in bankruptcy.
Chapter 42
What is Le Bon's overall verdict on parliamentary assemblies as a form of government?
Despite their difficulties, the author argues parliamentary assemblies are the best form of government mankind has discovered, especially as a means to escape personal tyrannies. He calls them the ideal government for philosophers, thinkers, writers, artists, and learned men—those who form the cream of a civilisation. He nonetheless insists the work of a crowd is always inferior to that of an isolated individual.
Chapter 42

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According to Le Bon, what two effects of multiplying laws does Herbert Spencer identify in England?
The author cites Herbert Spencer arguing that English legislation increasingly restricts liberty in two ways: regulations impose constraints on acts formerly free and force citizens to perform acts formerly optional, while heavier public and especially local burdens reduce the income citizens may spend as they choose and increase what authorities spend for them.
Chapter 43
What consequence does Le Bon draw from the growth of restrictive laws for officials?
Le Bon argues that the endless series of restrictive legislative measures necessarily increases the number, power, and influence of the functionaries who apply them. Because the administrative caste alone survives the constant transfer of authority, possessing irresponsibility, impersonality, and perpetuity, its members tend to become the true masters of civilized countries.
Chapter 43
How does Le Bon describe the psychological effect on citizens accustomed to restrictive legislation?
The author argues that nations deluded into thinking equality and liberty are better assured by multiplying laws accept increasingly burdensome trammels. Accustomed to every yoke, citizens soon desire servitude and lose spontaneity and energy, becoming passive, unresisting, powerless automata who must seek outside themselves the forces they no longer find within.
Chapter 43
What phases does Le Bon say civilizations pass through, and what marks their decline?
Le Bon sketches a cycle: barbarian swarms sharing crowd traits; time, intermingling, and common life forming a race; acquisition of an ideal giving unity of sentiment and thought; birth of civilization and its creative growth; then decline once growth ceases. The inevitable old age is marked by the weakening of the ideal, shaking the religious, political, and social structures inspired by it.
Chapter 43

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What happens to a race as its ideal progressively perishes?
The author argues the race loses the qualities that gave it cohesion, unity, and strength. Individual personality and intelligence may increase, but collective egoism is replaced by excessive individual egoism, with weakened character and lessened capacity for action. What was a people becomes an agglomeration of individuals lacking cohesion, held together artificially by traditions and institutions.
Chapter 44
At this stage, why does the State gain absorbing influence?
The author argues that once the ideal perishes, men are divided by their interests and aspirations and are incapable of self-government. Because of this incapacity, they require direction in their pettiest acts, and it is then that the State exerts an absorbing influence over them.
Chapter 44
What does the race return to after losing its old ideal?
The author argues the genius of the race entirely disappears, leaving a mere swarm of isolated individuals that returns to its original state: a crowd. Without consistency or a future, it takes on all the transitory characteristics of crowds. Its civilisation becomes unstable and at the mercy of every chance, with the populace sovereign and the tide of barbarism mounting.
Chapter 44
How does the author describe the cycle of a people's life?
The author argues the cycle runs from barbarism to civilisation in pursuit of an ideal, then decline and death once that ideal loses its virtue. A civilisation may still seem brilliant because it keeps an outward front built by a long past, but it is really a crumbling edifice nothing supports, destined to fall at the first storm.
Chapter 44

Source and licence

Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #445 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.

Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-29. Cards reviewed 2026-10-29.

These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.

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All questions and answers

According to Le Bon, what new psychological characteristics arise when individuals form a crowd?

Why does Le Bon oppose sudden far-reaching social reforms despite crowds' mental inferiority?

How does Le Bon use the cube and circle to distinguish absolute from practical truth?

What does Le Bon say about the role of the unconscious versus reason in human action?

What limits does Le Bon place on drawing conclusions from observation of crowd phenomena?

What two fundamental factors does Le Bon identify behind the present transformation of thought?

According to Le Bon, how did the power of the masses grow, and what does he say they now claim?

What does Le Bon claim crowds are powerful for, and what have civilisations always been created by?

According to Le Bon, what did science promise, and did he accept the 'bankruptcy of science'?

Why does Le Bon say an indirect tax is better tolerated by crowds than a proportional tax?

What does Le Bon say about Napoleon's understanding of crowd psychology?

What distinguishes a psychological crowd from a mere gathering of people?

Can a psychological crowd form without people physically assembled together?

Why does Le Bon criticize the historian Taine's account of the French Revolution?

What does Le Bon say about the character of men like the French Convention members?

What does Le Bon say a crowd does to its members' mental qualities?

How does Le Bon refute Spencer's view of crowd aggregation?

What three causes produce characteristics peculiar to crowds?

What hypnotic state does Le Bon claim crowd members enter?

What does Le Bon say happens to a man's personality in a crowd?

Why is crowd impetuosity more irresistible than that of a hypnotised subject?

What is Le Bon's conclusion about the crowd's intellect and morality?

How does Le Bon illustrate that crowds act against individual judgment?

Why does Le Bon say a crowd's sentiments can swing so quickly?

How does numerical strength change an individual's sense of what is possible?

What makes crowds credulous and prone to legends, according to Le Bon?

How does Le Bon compare Latin and Anglo-Saxon crowds?

According to Le Bon, what is the mechanism of collective hallucination?

What happened to the crew of the Belle Poule?

What did Mr. Davey's experiment show about witnesses?

How does Le Bon explain erroneous recognition of a corpse?

What does Le Bon conclude about the reliability of crowds' collective observations?

What does Le Bon claim about children's testimony in courts?

How does Le Bon say legends of great men change over time?

What does Le Bon conclude about works of history and historical truth?

What two qualities does Le Bon say characterize all crowd feelings, good or bad?

How does the absence of responsibility affect crowd sentiments?

What methods does Le Bon say an orator must use to move a crowd?

What does Le Bon claim about crowd intolerance and its variation by race?

What kind of master do crowds favor, according to the author?

Why does the author say crowds are fundamentally conservative despite violent outbursts?

How does the author define morality, and how do crowds measure up?

How does Le Bon classify the ideas accessible to crowds?

Under what conditions can ideas influence crowds, according to Le Bon?

Why can contradictory ideas coexist in a crowd's mind?

What happens to lofty ideas when they reach crowds?

According to Le Bon, when does an idea begin to influence crowds?

What does Le Bon say about how long ideas take to establish and be eradicated in crowds?

How does Le Bon characterize the reasoning of crowds?

What role does imagination play in the mental life of crowds, per Le Bon?

According to the chapter, what is the basis of the power of great statesmen and conquerors?

How does the chapter say the imagination of crowds must be impressed?

Why does the chapter say a great accident impresses crowds more than a larger statistical disaster?

What form do Le Bon claims crowd convictions always take?

How does Fustel de Coulanges explain Roman obedience to the Empire?

What does Le Bon say about atheism and the religious sentiment?

How does Le Bon explain the violence of the French Revolution?

What are the two kinds of factors that determine crowd opinions and beliefs?

Which remote factor does Le Bon rank first, and why?

How does Le Bon describe the role of traditions in crowd life?

What does Le Bon claim about political and social institutions?

What does Le Bon claim about crowds and traditional ideas?

According to Le Bon, what power does time have over the beliefs of crowds?

What error does Le Bon attribute to the belief that institutions can reform society?

What does Le Bon say about the task of manufacturing cut-and-dried constitutions?

According to Macaulay, what rules guided England's Parliaments from John to Victoria?

What examples does Le Bon use to argue institutions do not create national greatness?

What evidence does Le Bon cite against the dogma that instruction improves and equalises men?

What fundamental psychological error does Le Bon say Latin education rests on?

What social danger does Le Bon say this education produces?

According to Le Bon, what happens to the many diploma-holders the State cannot employ?

What does Le Bon, citing Taine, say about how ideas are truly formed?

What does the author say happens to knowledge crammed for exams?

How does the Anglo-Saxon system train an engineer, according to the chapter?

What does Taine say the French school system fails to give young men?

How does Paul Bourget's comparison of French and American schools support the chapter?

According to Le Bon, what does the power of words depend on?

What happens to words and formulas that lose their image-evoking power?

Why does Le Bon claim absolute translation, especially of dead languages, is impossible?