H—W
CONTENTS
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| Foreword | [vii] | |
| I. | The Crowd and the Social Problem of To-day | [1] |
| II. | How Crowds Are Formed | [11] |
| III. | The Crowd and the Unconscious | [51] |
| IV. | The Egoism of the Crowd-Mind | [73] |
| V. | The Crowd a Creature of Hate | [92] |
| VI. | The Absolutism of the Crowd-Mind | [133] |
| VII. | The Psychology of Revolutionary Crowds | [166] |
| VIII. | The Fruits of Revolution—New Crowd-Tyrannies for Old | [219] |
| IX. | Freedom and Government by Crowds | [233] |
| X. | Education as a Possible Cure for Crowd-Thinking | [281] |
| Index | [305] | |
[FOREWORD]
Since the publication of Le Bons book, The Crowd, little has been added to our knowledge of the mechanisms of crowd-behavior. As a practical problem, the habit of crowd-making is daily becoming a more serious menace to civilization. Events are making it more and more clear that, pressing as are certain economic questions, the forces which threaten society are really psychological.
Interest in the economic struggle has to a large extent diverted attention from the significance of the problems of social psychology. Social psychology is still a rather embryonic science, and this notwithstanding the fact that psychiatry has recently provided us with a method with which we may penetrate more deeply than ever before into the inner sources of motive and conduct.
The remedy which I have suggested in Chapter X deserves a much more extended treatment than I have given it. It involves one of the great mooted questions of modern philosophical discussion. It is, however, not within the province of this book to enter upon a discussion of the philosophy of Humanism. The subject has been thoroughly thrashed over in philosophical journals and in the writings of James, Schiller, Dewey, and others. It is sufficient for my purpose merely to point out the fact that the humanist way of thinking may provide us with just that educational method which will break up the logical forms in which the crowd-mind intrenches itself.