tempted at last to try it when suffering from an illness of a similar kind. If we
always read in the same papers that A is an arrant scamp and B a most honest
man we finish by being convinced that this is the truth, unless, indeed, we are
given to reading another paper of the contrary opinion, in which the two
qualifications are reversed. Affirmation and repetition are alone powerful
enough to combat each other. When an affirmation has been sufficiently
repeated and there is unanimity in this repetition — as has occurred in the case
of certain famous financial undertakings rich enough to purchase every
assistance — what is called a current of opinion is formed and the powerful
mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs
possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes. This
phenomenon is very natural, since it is observed even in animals when they are
together in number. Should a horse in a stable take to biting his manger the
other horses in the stable will imitate him. A panic that has seized on a few
sheep will soon extend to the whole flock. In the case of men collected in a
crowd all emotions are very rapidly contagious, which explains the suddenness
of panics. Brain disorders, like madness, are themselves contagious. The
frequency of madness among doctors who are specialists for the mad is
notorious. Indeed, forms of madness have recently been cited — agoraphobia,
for instance — which are communicable from men to animals.
For individuals to succumb to contagion their simultaneous presence on the
same spot is not indispensable. The action of contagion may be felt from a
distance under the influence of events which give all minds an individual trend
and the characteristics peculiar to crowds. This is especially the case when
men’s minds have been prepared to undergo the influence in question by those
remote factors of which I have made a study above. An example in point is the
revolutionary movement of 1848, which, after breaking out in Paris, spread
rapidly over a great part of Europe and shook a number of thrones.
Imitation, to which so much influence is attributed in social phenomena, is
in reality a mere effect of contagion. Having shown its influence elsewhere, I
shall confine myself to reproducing what I said on the subject fifteen years
ago. My remarks have since been developed by other writers in recent
publications.
“Man, like animals, has a natural tendency to imitation. Imitation is a
necessity for him, provided always that the imitation is quite easy. It is this
necessity that makes the influence of what is called fashion so powerful.
Whether in the matter of opinions, ideas, literary manifestations, or merely of
Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd, 74
dress, how many persons are bold enough to run counter to the fashion? It is
by examples not by arguments that crowds are guided. At every period there
exists a small number of individualities which react upon the remainder and
are imitated by the unconscious mass. It is needful however, that these
individualities should not be in too pronounced disagreement with received
ideas. Were they so, to imitate them would be too difficult and their influence
would be nil. For this very reason men who are too superior to their epoch are
generally without influence upon it. The line of separation is too strongly
marked. For the same reason too Europeans, in spite of all the advantages of
their civilisation, have so insignificant an influence on Eastern people; they
differ from them to too great an extent.
“The dual action of the past and of reciprocal imitation renders, in the long
run, all the men of the same country and the same period so alike that even in
the case of individuals who would seem destined to escape this double
influence, such as philosophers, learned men, and men of letters, thought and
style have a family air which enables the age to which they belong to be
immediately recognised. It is not necessary to talk for long with an individual
to attain to a thorough knowledge of what he reads, of his habitual occupations,
and of the surroundings amid which he lives.”17
Contagion is so powerful that it forces upon individuals not only certain
opinions, but certain modes of feeling as well. Contagion is the cause of the
contempt in which, at a given period, certain works are held — the example
of “Tannhaüser” may be cited — which, a few years later, for the same reason
are admired by those who were foremost in criticising them.
The opinions and beliefs of crowds are specially propagated by contagion,
but never by reasoning. The conceptions at present rife among the working
classes have been acquired at the public-house as the result of affirmation,
repetition, and contagion, and indeed the mode of creation of the beliefs of
crowds of every age has scarcely been different. Renan justly institutes a
comparison between the first founders of Christianity and “the socialist
working men spreading their ideas from public-house to public-house”; while
Voltaire had already observed in connection with the Christian religion that
“for more than a hundred years it was only embraced by the vilest riff-raff.”
It will be noted that in cases analogous to those I have just cited, contagion,
after having been at work among the popular classes, has spread to the higher
classes of society. This is what we see happening at the present day with
Gustave Le Bon, The Crowd, 75
regard to the socialist doctrines which are beginning to be held by those who
will yet be their first victims. Contagion is so powerful a force that even the
sentiment of personal interest disappears under its action.
This is the explanation of the fact that every opinion adopted by the populace
always ends in implanting itself with great vigour in the highest social strata,
however obvious be the absurdity of the triumphant opinion. This reaction of
the lower upon the higher social classes is the more curious, owing to the
circumstance that the beliefs of the crowd always have their origin to a greater
or less extent in some higher idea, which has often remained without influence
in the sphere in which it was evolved. Leaders and agitators, subjugated by this
higher idea, take hold of it, distort it and create a sect which distorts it afresh,
and then propagates it amongst the masses, who carry the process of deformation
still further. Become a popular truth the idea returns, as it were, to its
source and exerts an influence on the upper classes of a nation. In the long run
it is intelligence that shapes the destiny of the world, but very indirectly. The
philosophers who evolve ideas have long since returned to dust, when, as the
result of the process I have just described, the fruit of their reflection ends by
triumphing.
- Prestige.
Great power is given to ideas propagated by affirmation, repetition, and
contagion by the circumstance that they acquire in time that mysterious force
known as prestige.
Whatever has been a ruling power in the world, whether it be ideas or men,
