Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/404

392 The inhibitive power which measures our ability to go our own way undisturbed grows with the variety and number of suggestions that reach us. This may be because conflicting suggestions block each other off. The power of independent choice seems to develop best when the clash of suggestions reduces to a minimum the ascendency of the outer world over the individual. This is why age, travel, and contact with affairs build up character. But when numerous identical suggestions beset one, one's power of resistance is gradually undermined. As many taps of a hammer fracture the bowlder, so the onset of multitudinous suggestion breaks the strongest will. Men who can readily throw off the thousand suggestions of everyday life will be quite swept away by the reiteration of a single idea from all sides. As a mighty organ compels even benches and windows to vibrate in unison with it, so the crowd dominated by a single mood emits a volume of suggestion that gives an emotional pitch and tone to every individual in it.

Besides the volume of suggestion possible in a crowd, there is usually a condition of excitement or expectancy. Frequently, too, there is a pressure on the body which prevents voluntary movement while conveying promptly to each all those electrifying swayings and tremors that express the emotions of the mass. The mere physical contact in the excited crowd, therefore, provides certain conditions of suggestibility.

A cross-section of the mob sometimes shows a concentric structure. There is in the center a leader from whom suggestions proceed. These, caught up by those near by and most dominated by his personality, are transmitted to the next circle with an added force. Thus the suggestion passes outward from zone to zone of the crowd, at each stage gathering volume and hence power to master the rest. That, therefore, which started at the center as fascination becomes sheer mental intimidation at the rim. This symmetrical type of mob has led some to look in every case for the leader who controls the mass by his personality or prestige. But the quest for a nucleus, while it makes the study of mobs more mysterious and sensational, certainly does not make it more scientific. Rarely does the primitive impulse proceed from one man. Usually the first orientation of minds is brought about by some object, spectacle, or event. This original phase, the moment it is observed by the members of the crowd, gives rise to three results: (1) By mere contagion the feeling extends to others till there is complete unanimity; (2) each feels more intensely the moment he perceives that the rest share his feeling; (3) the perceived unison calls forth a sympathy that makes the next agreement easier, and so paves the way for the mental unity of the crowd.