the most important, determines in the
individuals of a crowd special characteristics which are quite contrary
at times to those presented by the isolated individual. I allude to that
suggestibility of which, moreover, the contagion mentioned above is
neither more nor less than an effect.

The most careful observations seem to prove that an individual immerged
for some length of time in a crowd in action soon finds himself--either
in consequence of the magnetic influence given out by the crowd or from
some other cause of which we are ignorant--in a special state, which
much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotized
individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotizer.

Such also is approximately the state of the individual forming part of a
psychological crowd. He is no longer conscious of his acts. In his case,
as in the case of the hypnotized subject, at the same time that certain
faculties are destroyed, others may be brought to a high degree of
exaltation. Under the influence of a suggestion, he will undertake the
accomplishment of certain acts with irresistible impetuosity. This
impetuosity is the more irresistible in the case of crowds than in that
of the hypnotized subject, from the fact that, the suggestion being the
same for all the individuals of the crowd, it gains in strength by
reciprocity. The individualities in the crowd who might possess a
personality sufficiently strong to resist the suggestion are too few in
number to struggle against the current. At the utmost, they may be able
to attempt a diversion by means of different suggestions. It is in this
way, for instance, that a happy expression, an image opportunely evoked,
have occasionally deterred crowds from the most bloodthirsty acts.

We see, then, that the disappearance of the conscious personality, the
predominance of the unconscious personality, the turning by means of
suggestion and contagion of feelings and ideas in an identical
direction, the tendency to immediately transform the suggested ideas
into acts; these, we see, are the principal characteristics of the
individual forming part of a crowd. He is no longer himself, but has
become an automaton who has ceased to be guided by his will.

Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized crowd, a
man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization. Isolated, he
may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian--that is,
a creature acting by