The Crowd

(1895)  In this work Le Bon makes a careful study of the character and scope of the activities of crowds and mobs. He bases all his propositions about these phenomena on his general theory of the nature of social interpretation as set forth in his prior work, Lois psychologiques de l'evolution des peuples.  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.