The only real capacity to the crowd is as a destructive force. Appeals to sentiments of glory, honor and patriotism are particularly likely to influence the individual forming part of a crowd. History is rich in examples and logous to those furnished by the crusaders and the volunteers of 17 93. Collectives alone are capable of great disinterestedness and great devotion. How numerous are the crowds that have heroically faced death for the beliefs, ideas and phrases that are scarcely understood? Have another question. Gas, does sosobon? Don't know if i'm pronouncing that rightbon, the author. Bon, sorry. Labon, the french guy A, does he? Haha,
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The great upheavals which precede changes of civilization, such as the fall of the Roman Empire and the foundation of the Arabian Empire, seem at first sight determined more especially by political transformations, foreign invasion, or the overthrow of dynasties. But a more attentive study of these events shows that behind their apparent causes the real cause is generally seen to be a profound modification in the ideas of the people. The true historical upheavals are not those which astonish us by their grandeur and violence. The only important changes whence the renewal of civilizations results, affect ideas, conceptions and beliefs. The memorable events of history are the visible effects of the invisible changes of human thought. The reason these great events are so rare is that there is nothing so stable in a race as the inherited groundwork of its thoughts. The present epoch is one of these critical moments in which the thought of mankind is undergoing a process of transformation. Two fundamental factors are at the base of this transformation. The first is the destruction of those religions, political, and social beliefs in which all the elements of our civilization are rooted. The second is the creation of entirely new conditions of existence and thought as the result of modern scientific and industrial discoveries. The ideas of the past, although half destroyed, being still very powerful, and the ideas which are to replace them being still in process of formation, the modern age represents a period of transition and anarchy. It is not easy to say as yet what will one day be evolved from this necessarily somewhat chaotic period. What will the fundamental ideas on which the societies that are to succeed our own will be built up? We do not at present know. Still it is already clear that on whatever lines the societies of the future are organized, they will have to count with a new power, with the last surviving sovereign force of modern times, the power of crowds.
