Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/627

 REVIEWS 613

foremost by the sociologist and all social phenomena must be explained by reference to this soul as cause.

In the present work this theory appears throughout ; for it is the mind of the crowd that is primarily studied. The sub-title for the English edition of the work is "A Study of the Popular Mind." This raises in the thought of the reader at once all the difficulties which were involved in the other work referred to.

One form of this difficulty may be illustrated by reference to what Le Bon calls the "law of the mental unity of crowds." This law, pro- pounded at the outset of the work, sets up for each crowd its own soul, permanent or transitory as the case may be. While Le Bon has here undoubtedly a firm basis of fact, his general theory leads him to give it very inadequate expression. It is on this account, I think, that the proposition estranges so many readers at the start. If the same phe- nomena were stated in terms of a unity of activity (these activities understood as intelligent) the proposition would be much fuller and truer and would carry much more force than when stated as a mere soul-unity in the sense, to me very abstract, which Le Bon gives to the term "soul."

Another result of Le Bon's general theory is seen in his continual use of the "unconscious" as a factor in society. Here again there are at the basis of Le Bon's remarks facts which much need to be recog- nized ; but with a more adequate statement of them that mystic, awe- inspiring unconscious would quickly disappear.

Although the question brought up in the points just referred to is probably the most fundamental one which the book raises, involving, as it does, the whole subject of social interpretation and of the adequate statement of social phenomena, it is not the most important matter in the author's own intention, and should not be further insisted on in a brief note.

Let us look, then, at the more concrete issues of the book.

Le Bon holds that this is an age of crowds, and that their activities are increasing in range and in power day by day. The organized crowd is a group of men acting together under stimuli which are in most cases novel and transitory. The activities of crowds are usually described as unconscious, and the best of them exhibit only very slight rational elements Pictures, symbols, sparkling superficiality can best move them. Yet race characteristics of the men who compose them act largely as determining elements. Their deeds arc marked by an