The Psychology of Revolution | Page 5

to
history we must mention, above all, a more profound understanding of
ancestral influences, the laws which rule the actions of the crowd, data
relating to the disaggregation of personality, mental contagion, the
unconscious formation of beliefs, and the distinction between the
various forms of logic.
To tell the truth, these applications of science, which are utilised in this
book, have not been so utilised hitherto. Historians have generally
stopped short at the study of documents, and even that study is
sufficient to excite the doubts of which I have spoken.
The great events which shape the destinies of peoples-- revolutions, for
example, and the outbreak of religious beliefs-- are sometimes so
difficult to explain that one must limit oneself to a mere statement.
From the time of my first historical researches I have been struck by the
impenetrable aspect of certain essential phenomena, those relating to
the genesis of beliefs especially; I felt convinced that something
fundamental was lacking that was essential to their interpretation.
Reason having said all it could say, nothing more could be expected of
it, and other means must be sought of comprehending what had not
been elucidated.
For a long time these important questions remained obscure to me.
Extended travel, devoted to the study of the remnants of vanished
civilisations, had not done much to throw light upon them.
Reflecting upon it continually, I was forced to recognise that the

problem was composed of a series of other problems, which I should
have to study separately. This I did for a period of twenty years,
presenting the results of my researches in a succession of volumes.
One of the first was devoted to the study of the psychological laws of
the evolution of peoples. Having shown that the historic races--that is,
the races formed by the hazards of history--finally acquired
psychological characteristics as stable as their anatomical
characteristics, I attempted to explain how a people transforms its
institutions, its languages, and its arts. I explained in the same work
why it was that individual personalities, under the influence of sudden
variations of environment, might be entirely disaggregated.
But besides the fixed collectivities formed by the peoples, there are
mobile and transitory collectivities known as crowds. Now these
crowds or mobs, by the aid of which the great movements of history are
accomplished, have characteristics absolutely different from those of
the individuals who compose them. What are these characteristics, and
how are they evolved? This new problem was examined in The
Psychology of the Crowd.
Only after these studies did I begin to perceive certain influences which
had escaped me.
But this was not all. Among the most important factors of history one
was preponderant--the factor of beliefs. How are these beliefs born, and
are they really rational and voluntary, as was long taught? Are they not
rather unconscious and independent of all reason? A difficult question,
which I dealt with in my last book, Opinions and Beliefs.
So long as psychology regards beliefs as voluntary and rational they
will remain inexplicable. Having proved that they are usually irrational
and always involuntary, I was able to propound the solution of this
important problem; how it was that beliefs which no reason could
justify were admitted without difficulty by the most enlightened spirits
of all ages.
The solution of the historical difficulties which had so long been sought

was thenceforth obvious. I arrived at the conclusion that beside the
rational logic which conditions thought, and was formerly regarded as
our sole guide, there exist very different forms of logic: affective logic,
collective logic, and mystic logic, which usually overrule the reason
and engender the generative impulses of our conduct.
This fact well established, it seemed to me evident that if a great
number of historical events are often uncomprehended, it is because we
seek to interpret them in the light of a logic which in reality has very
little influence upon their genesis.
All these researches, which are here summed up in a few lines,
demanded long years for their accomplishment. Despairing of
completing them, I abandoned them more than once to return to those
labours of the laboratory in which one is always sure of skirting the
truth and of acquiring fragments at least of certitude.
But while it is very interesting to explore the world of material
phenomena, it is still more so to decipher men, for which reason I have
always been led back to psychology.
Certain principles deduced from my researches appearing likely to
prove fruitful, I resolved to apply them to the study of concrete
instances, and was thus led to deal with the Psychology of
Revolutions--notably that of the French Revolution.
Proceeding in the analysis of our great Revolution, the greater part of
the opinions determined by the reading of books deserted