Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 9.djvu/377

 MOOT POINTS IN SOCIOLOGY 363

readers will be on a level with that guidance which the experi- enced orator supplies to the crowd.

For all these reasons the psychology of the public, though similar to that of the crowd, is more normal. The public exhibits, indeed, the same vices and follies that afflict the crowd, but does not suffer from them in the same degree.

Ours is not the era of hereditary rulers, oligarchies, hierar- chies, or close corporations. But neither is it, as Le Bon insists, "the era of crowds." It is, in fact, the era of publics. Those who perceive that today under the influence of universal discus- sion the old, fixed groupings which held their adherents so tena- ciously sects, parties, castes, and the like are liquefying, that allegiances sit lightly, and men are endlessly passing into new combinations, seek to characterize these loose associa- tions as " crowds." The true crowd is, however, playing a declining role. Where are the numbers that once pressed about Abelard or St. Bernard ? The mass-meeting and the primary assembly have plainly sunk in political importance. Universal contact by means of print ushers in the rule of "public opinion," which is a very different thing from government by the mob.

The sect, composed of those who vibrate to the same chord or cleave to the same article of faith, is, broadly speaking, a homogeneous group. It will, therefore, present the salient char- acteristics of its units and present them in an exaggerated form. Why this will be so is easy to see. Take a category of persons a class or ethnic element; perhaps only a strain or type pre- disposed to a certain attitude or view. So long as these persons remain apart, their idiosyncrasy will not assert its full strength. The eccentricity of opinion, the intensity of emotion, or the violence of action of a person mingling with those of another mental stripe, is moderated by their indifference or ridicule. Amicable relations with minds of an alien cast prompt us to empha- size agreements and to minimize differences. This instinctive accommodation is the entrance fee we pay in order to enjoy social life. The full tide of intercourse is the best corrective of crankiness, and it is a bad symptom when the eccentric shuns the unsympathizing world and courts solitude.