1.3.
CHAPTER III.
THE IDEAS, REASONING POWER, AND IMAGINATION
OF CROWDS.
§ 1. The ideas of crowds. Fundamental and accessory ideas —
How contradictory ideas may exist simultaneously — The transformation
that must be undergone by lofty ideas before they are accessible to
crowds — The social influence of ideas is independent of the degree of
truth they may contain. § 2. The reasoning power of crowds.
Crowds are not to be influenced by reasoning — The reasoning of crowds is
always of a very inferior order — There is only the appearance of analogy
or succession in the ideas they associate. § 3. The imagination
of crowds. Strength of the imagination of crowds — Crowds think in
images, and these images succeed each other without any connecting
link — Crowds are especially impressed by the marvellous — Legends and the
marvellous are the real pillars of civilisation — The popular imagination
has always been the basis of the power of statesmen — The manner in which
facts capable of striking the imagination of crowds present themselves
for observation.
§ 1. THE IDEAS OF CROWDS.
WHEN studying in a preceding work the part played by ideas in the
evolution of nations, we showed that every civilisation is the outcome
of a small number of fundamental ideas that are very
rarely
renewed. We showed how these ideas are implanted in the minds of
crowds, with what difficulty the process is effected, and the power
possessed by the ideas in question when once it has been accomplished.
Finally we saw that great historical perturbations are the result, as a
rule, of changes in these fundamental ideas.
Having treated this subject at sufficient length, I shall not
return to it now, but shall confine myself to saying a few words on the
subject of such ideas as are accessible to crowds, and of the forms
under which they conceive them.
They may be divided into two classes. In one we shall place
accidental and passing ideas created by the influences of the moment:
infatuation for an individual or a doctrine, for instance. In the other
will be classed the fundamental ideas, to which the environment, the
laws of heredity and public opinion give a very great stability; such
ideas are the religious beliefs of the past and the social and
democratic ideas of to-day.
These fundamental ideas resemble the volume of the water of a
stream slowly pursuing its course; the transitory ideas are like the
small waves, for ever changing, which agitate its surface, and are more
visible than the progress of the stream itself although without real
importance.
At the present day the great fundamental ideas which were the
mainstay of our fathers are
tottering more and more. They have lost
all solidity, and at the same time the institutions resting upon them
are severely shaken. Every day there are formed a great many of those
transitory minor ideas of which I have just been speaking; but very few
of them to all appearance seem endowed with vitality and destined to
acquire a preponderating influence.
Whatever be the ideas suggested to crowds they can only exercise
effective influence on condition that they assume a very absolute, uncompromising,
and simple shape. They present themselves then in the
guise of images, and are only accessible to the masses under this form.
These imagelike ideas are not connected by any logical bond of analogy
or succession, and may take each other's place like the slides of a
magic-lantern which the operator withdraws from the groove in which they
were placed one above the other. This explains how it is that the most
contradictory ideas may be seen to be simultaneously current in crowds.
According to the chances of the moment, a crowd will come under the
influence of one of the various ideas stored up in its understanding,
and is capable, in consequence, of committing the most dissimilar acts.
Its complete lack of the critical spirit does not allow of its perceiving
these contradictions.
This phenomenon is not peculiar to crowds. It
is to be
observed in many isolated individuals, not only among primitive beings,
but in the case of all those — the fervent sectaries of a religious
faith, for instance — who by one side or another of their intelligence
are akin to primitive beings. I have observed its presence to a curious
extent in the case of educated Hindoos brought up at our European
universities and having taken their degree. A number of Western ideas
had been superposed on their unchangeable and fundamental hereditary or
social ideas. According to the chances of the moment, the one or the
other set of ideas showed themselves each with their special
accompaniment of acts or utterances, the same individual presenting in
this way the most flagrant contradictions. These contradictions are
more apparent than real, for it is only hereditary ideas that have
sufficient influence over the isolated individual to become motives of
conduct. It is only when, as the result of the intermingling of
different races, a man is placed between different hereditary tendencies
that his acts from one moment to another may be really entirely
contradictory. It would be useless to insist here on these phenomena,
although their psychological importance is capital. I am of opinion
that at least ten years of travel and observation would be necessary to
arrive at a comprehension of them.
Ideas being only accessible to crowds after having assumed a very
simple shape must often undergo the most thoroughgoing transformations
to become popular. It is especially when we are dealing with somewhat
lofty philosophic or scientific ideas that we see how far-reaching are
the modifications they require in order to lower them to the level of
the intelligence of crowds. These modifications are dependent on the
nature of the crowds, or of the race to which the crowds belong, but
their tendency is always belittling and in the direction of
simplification. This explains the fact that, from the social point of
view, there is in reality scarcely any such thing as a hierarchy of
ideas — that is to say, as ideas of greater or less elevation. However
great or true an idea may have been to begin with, it is deprived of
almost all that which constituted its elevation and its greatness by the
mere fact that it has come within the intellectual range of crowds and
exerts an influence upon them.
Moreover, from the social point of view the hierarchical value of
an idea, its intrinsic worth, is without importance. The necessary
point to consider is the effects it produces. The Christian ideas of
the Middle Ages, the democratic ideas of the last century, or the social
ideas of to-day are assuredly not very elevated. Philosophically considered,
they can only be regarded as somewhat
sorry errors, and yet
their power has been and will be immense, and they will count for a long
time to come among the most essential factors that determine the conduct
of States.
Even when an idea has undergone the transformations which render it
accessible to crowds, it only exerts influence when, by various
processes which we shall examine elsewhere, it has entered the domain of
the unconscious, when indeed it has become a sentiment, for which much
time is required.
For it must not be supposed that merely because the justness of an
idea has been proved it can be productive of effective action even on
cultivated minds. This fact may be quickly appreciated by noting how
slight is the influence of the clearest demonstration on the majority of
men. Evidence, if it be very plain, may be accepted by an educated
person, but the convert will be quickly brought back by his unconscious
self to his original conceptions. See him again after the lapse of a
few days and he will put forward afresh his old arguments in exactly the
same terms. He is in reality under the influence of anterior ideas,
that have become sentiments, and it is such ideas alone that influence
the more recondite motives of our acts and utterances. It cannot be
otherwise in the case of crowds.
When by various processes an idea has ended
by penetrating into
the minds of crowds, it possesses an irresistible power, and brings
about a series of effects, opposition to which is bootless. The
philosophical ideas which resulted in the French Revolution took nearly
a century to implant themselves in the mind of the crowd. Their
irresistible force, when once they had taken root, is known. The
striving of an entire nation towards the conquest of social equality,
and the realisation of abstract rights and ideal liberties, caused the
tottering of all thrones and profoundly disturbed the Western world.
During twenty years the nations were engaged in internecine conflict,
and Europe witnessed hecatombs that would have terrified Ghengis Khan
and Tamerlane. The world had never seen on such a scale what may result
from the promulgation of an idea.
A long time is necessary for ideas to establish themselves in the
minds of crowds, but just as long a time is needed for them to be
eradicated. For this reason crowds, as far as ideas are concerned, are
always several generations behind learned men and philosophers. All
statesmen are well aware to-day of the admixture of error contained in
the fundamental ideas I referred to a short while back, but as the
influence of these ideas is still very powerful they are obliged to
govern in accordance with principles in the truth of which they have
ceased to believe.
§ 2. THE REASONING POWER OF CROWDS.
It cannot absolutely be said that crowds do not reason and are not
to be influenced by reasoning.
However, the arguments they employ and those which are capable of
influencing them are, from a logical point of view, of such an inferior
kind that it is only by way of analogy that they can be described as
reasoning.
The inferior reasoning of crowds is based, just as is reasoning of
a high order, on the association of ideas, but between the ideas
associated by crowds there are only apparent bonds of analogy or succession.
The mode of reasoning of crowds resembles that of the
Esquimaux who, knowing from experience that ice, a transparent body,
melts in the mouth, concludes that glass, also a transparent body,
should also melt in the mouth; or that of the savage who imagines that
by eating the heart of a courageous foe he acquires his bravery; or of
the workman who, having been exploited by one employer of labour,
immediately concludes that all employers exploit their men.
The characteristics of the reasoning of crowds are the association
of dissimilar things possessing a merely apparent connection between
each other, and the immediate generalisation of particular cases. It is
arguments of this kind that are always presented to crowds by those who
know how to manage them. They are the only arguments
by which
crowds are to be influenced. A chain of logical argumentation is
totally incomprehensible to crowds, and for this reason it is
permissible to say that they do not reason or that they reason falsely
and are not to be influenced by reasoning. Astonishment is felt at
times on reading certain speeches at their weakness, and yet they had an
enormous influence on the crowds which listened to them, but it is
forgotten that they were intended to persuade collectivities and not to
be read by philosophers. An orator in intimate communication with a
crowd can evoke images by which it will be seduced. If he is successful
his object has been attained, and twenty volumes of harangues — always
the outcome of reflection — are not worth the few phrases which appealed
to the brains it was required to convince.
It would be superfluous to add that the powerlessness of crowds to
reason aright prevents them displaying any trace of the critical spirit,
prevents them, that is, from being capable of discerning truth from
error, or of forming a precise judgment on any matter. Judgments
accepted by crowds are merely judgments forced upon them and never
judgments adopted after discussion. In regard to this matter the
individuals who do not rise above the level of a crowd are numerous.
The ease with which certain opinions obtain general acceptance results
more especially from the impossibility
experienced by the majority
of men of forming an opinion peculiar to themselves and based on
reasoning of their own.
§ 3. THE IMAGINATION OF CROWDS.
Just as is the case with respect to persons in whom the reasoning
power is absent, the figurative imagination of crowds is very powerful,
very active and very susceptible of being keenly impressed. The images
evoked in their mind by a personage, an event, an accident, are almost
as lifelike as the reality. Crowds are to some extent in the position
of the sleeper whose reason, suspended for the time being, allows the
arousing in his mind of images of extreme intensity which would quickly
be dissipated could they be submitted to the action of reflection.
Crowds, being incapable both of reflection and of reasoning, are devoid
of the notion of improbability; and it is to be noted that in a general
way it is the most improbable things that are the most striking.
This is why it happens that it is always the marvellous and
legendary side of events that more specially strike crowds. When a
civilisation is analysed it is seen that, in reality, it is the marvellous
and the legendary that are its true supports. Appearances have
always played a much more important part than reality in history, where
the unreal is always of greater moment than the real.
Crowds being only capable of thinking in images are only to be
impressed by images. It is only images that terrify or attract them and
become motives of action.
For this reason theatrical representations, in which the image is
shown in its most clearly visible shape, always have an enormous
influence on crowds. Bread and spectacular shows constituted for the
plebeians of ancient Rome the ideal of happiness, and they asked for
nothing more. Throughout the successive ages this ideal has scarcely
varied. Nothing has a greater effect on the imagination of crowds of
every category than theatrical representations. The entire audience
experiences at the same time the same emotions, and if these emotions
are not at once transformed into acts, it is because the most
unconscious spectator cannot ignore that he is the victim of illusions,
and that he has laughed or wept over imaginary adventures. Sometimes,
however, the sentiments suggested by the images are so strong that they
tend, like habitual suggestions, to transform themselves into acts. The
story has often been told of the manager of a popular theatre who, in
consequence of his only playing sombre dramas, was obliged to have the
actor who took the part of the traitor protected on his leaving the
theatre, to defend him against the violence of the spectators, indignant
at the crimes, imaginary
though they were, which the traitor had
committed. We have here, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable
indications of the mental state of crowds, and especially of the
facility with which they are suggestioned. The unreal has almost as
much influence on them as the real. They have an evident tendency not
to distinguish between the two.
The power of conquerors and the strength of States is based on the
popular imagination. It is more particularly by working upon this
imagination that crowds are led. All great historical facts, the rise
of Buddhism, of Christianity, of Islamism, the Reformation, the French
Revolution, and, in our own time, the threatening invasion of Socialism
are the direct or indirect consequences of strong impressions produced
on the imagination of the crowd.
Moreover, all the great statesmen of every age and every country,
including the most absolute despots, have regarded the popular
imagination as the basis of their power, and they have never attempted
to govern in opposition to it "It was by becoming a Catholic," said
Napoleon to the Council of State, "that I terminated the Vendéen war.
By becoming a Mussulman that I obtained a footing in Egypt. By becoming
an Ultramontane that I won over the Italian priests, and had I to govern
a nation of Jews I would rebuild Solomon's
temple." Never perhaps
since Alexander and Cæsar has any great man better understood how the
imagination of the crowd should be impressed. His constant
preoccupation was to strike it. He bore it in mind in his victories, in
his harangues, in his speeches, in all his acts. On his deathbed it was
still in his thoughts.
How is the imagination of crowds to be impressed? We shall soon
see. Let us confine ourselves for the moment to saying that the feat is
never to be achieved by attempting to work upon the intelligence or
reasoning faculty, that is to say, by way of demonstration. It was not
by means of cunning rhetoric that Antony succeeded in making the
populace rise against the murderers of Cæsar; it was by reading his
will to the multitude and pointing to his corpse.
Whatever strikes the imagination of crowds presents itself under
the shape of a startling and very clear image, freed from all accessory
explanation, or merely having as accompaniment a few marvellous or
mysterious facts: examples in point are a great victory, a great
miracle, a great crime, or a great hope. Things must be laid before the
crowd as a whole, and their genesis must never be indicated. A hundred
petty crimes or petty accidents will not strike the imagination of
crowds in the least, whereas a single great crime or a single great
accident will profoundly impress them, even though the
results be
infinitely less disastrous than those of the hundred small accidents put
together. The epidemic of influenza, which caused the death but a few
years ago of five thousand persons in Paris alone, made very little
impression on the popular imagination. The reason was that this
veritable hecatomb was not embodied in any visible image, but was only
learnt from statistical information furnished weekly. An accident which
should have caused the death of only five hundred instead of five
thousand persons, but on the same day and in public, as the outcome of
an accident appealing strongly to the eye, by the fall, for instance, of
the Eiffel Tower, would have produced, on the contrary, an immense
impression on the imagination of the crowd. The probable loss of a
transatlantic steamer that was supposed, in the absence of news, to have
gone down in mid-ocean profoundly impressed the imagination of the crowd
for a whole week. Yet official statistics show that 850 sailing vessels
and 203 steamers were lost in the year 1894 alone. The crowd, however,
was never for a moment concerned by these successive losses, much more
important though they were as far as regards the destruction of life and
property, than the loss of the Atlantic liner in question could possibly
have been.
It is not, then, the facts in themselves that strike the popular
imagination, but the way in which
they take place and are brought
under notice. It is necessary that by their condensation, if I may thus
express myself, they should produce a startling image which fills and
besets the mind. To know the art of impressing the imagination of
crowds is to know at the same time the art of governing them.
