The Crowd | Page 7

to a barbarian phase. A
civilisation involves fixed rules, discipline, a passing from the instinctive to the rational
state, forethought for the future, an elevated degree of culture--all of them conditions that

crowds, left to themselves, have invariably shown themselves incapable of realising. In
consequence of the purely destructive nature of their power crowds act like those
microbes which hasten the dissolution of enfeebled or dead bodies. When the structure of
a civilisation is rotten, it is always the masses that bring about its downfall. It is at such a
juncture that their chief mission is plainly visible, and that for a while the philosophy of
number seems the only philosophy of history.
Is the same fate in store for our civilisation? There is ground to fear that this is the case,
but we are not as yet in a position to be certain of it.
However this may be, we are bound to resign ourselves to the reign of the masses, since
want of foresight has in succession overthrown all the barriers that might have kept the
crowd in check.
We have a very slight knowledge of these crowds which are beginning to be the object of
so much discussion. Professional students of psychology, having lived far from them,
have always ignored them, and when, as of late, they have turned their attention in this
direction it has only been to consider the crimes crowds are capable of committing.
Without a doubt criminal crowds exist, but virtuous and heroic crowds, and crowds of
many other kinds, are also to be met with. The crimes of crowds only constitute a
particular phase of their psychology. The mental constitution of crowds is not to be learnt
merely by a study of their crimes, any more than that of an individual by a mere
description of his vices.
However, in point of fact, all the world's masters, all the founders of religions or empires,
the apostles of all beliefs, eminent statesmen, and, in a more modest sphere, the mere
chiefs of small groups of men have always been unconscious psychologists, possessed of
an instinctive and often very sure knowledge of the character of crowds, and it is their
accurate knowledge of this character that has enabled them to so easily establish their
mastery. Napoleon had a marvellous insight into the psychology of the masses of the
country over which he reigned, but he, at times, completely misunderstood the
psychology of crowds belonging to other races;[1] and it is because he thus
misunderstood it that he engaged in Spain, and notably in Russia, in conflicts in which
his power received blows which were destined within a brief space of time to ruin it. A
knowledge of the psychology of crowds is to-day the last resource of the statesman who
wishes not to govern them--that is becoming a very difficult matter--but at any rate not to
be too much governed by them.
[1] His most subtle advisers, moreover, did not understand this psychology any better.
Talleyrand wrote him that "Spain would receive his soldiers as liberators." It received
them as beasts of prey. A psychologist acquainted with the hereditary instincts of the
Spanish race would have easily foreseen this reception.

It is only by obtaining some sort of insight into the psychology of crowds that it can be
understood how slight is the action upon them of laws and institutions, how powerless
they are to hold any opinions other than those which are imposed upon them, and that it is
not with rules based on theories of pure equity that they are to be led, but by seeking what
produces an impression on them and what seduces them. For instance, should a legislator,
wishing to impose a new tax, choose that which would be theoretically the most just? By
no means. In practice the most unjust may be the best for the masses. Should it at the
same time be the least obvious, and apparently the least burdensome, it will be the most

easily tolerated. It is for this reason that an indirect tax, however exorbitant it be, will
always be accepted by the crowd, because, being paid daily in fractions of a farthing on
objects of consumption, it will not interfere with the habits of the crowd, and will pass
unperceived. Replace it by a proportional tax on wages or income of any other kind, to be
paid in a lump sum, and were this new imposition theoretically ten times less burdensome
than the other, it would give rise to unanimous protest. This arises from the fact that a
sum relatively high, which will appear immense, and will in consequence strike the
imagination, has been substituted for the unperceived fractions of a farthing. The new tax
would only appear light had it been saved