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 ASSEMBLIES 243

powerful influence of the crowd-suggestion. He has reached a stage which is similar to, though not identical with, hypnosis. It should again be noted that he is not conscious of the limitation that is upon him; he does not realize that the action of his rational faculties is suspended. He simply does not differentiate himself in thought from the mass. His actions no more represent himself than those of the hypnotic subject under the influence of the operator. Indeed, his true self is more completely annihilated for the time. The hypnotic subject nearly always refuses to obey a suggestion which runs counter to his instincts and deep moral habits. But in the mob state the personality is so completely suspended that a man may be induced to do things which are in absolute contradiction to his self-respect and his profoundest moral convictions. How often is a man thus led to commit murder who would be horrified at the suggestion under ordinary circumstances and would re sist it even in the hypnotic trance ! Not only ridiculous but disgraceful acts are sometimes performed under the sway of the crowd-suggestion, the sense of personal de cency being lost in the wholesale collapse of the personality. It is doubtless true that when the psychic fusion of the crowd reaches its limit, it involves a disintegration of the personality more thoroughgoing than can be accomplished by any other known means, except certain forms of dis ease. Of course, there is no responsibility, in the ordinary sense of the word, for the deed performed under such con ditions. The individuals in such a mass I speak only of the extreme phenomena of this type are like so many leaves in a tornado. They are merely a herd of cattle in a panic or a fury except that there is in each one a tem porarily paralysed rational and voluntary power, which may by some means be awakened again into activity. Until that, is done their action, because of the complexity of the forces involved, is more incalculable than the shifting of the wind. The mob may not only do deeds that are disgraceful or criminal, but also deeds that are chivalrous or heroic.

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