The Crowd, Gustave le Bon [read ebook pdf .TXT] 📗

solely on personal ascendency,

military glory, and religious terror; it may have a more modest

origin and still be considerable. Our century furnishes several

examples. One of the most striking ones that posterity will

recall from age to age will be supplied by the history of the

illustrious man who modified the face of the globe and the

commercial relations of the nations by separating two continents.

He succeeded in his enterprise owing to his immense strength of

will, but also owing to the fascination he exercised on those

surrounding him. To overcome the unanimous opposition he met

with, he had only to show himself. He would speak briefly, and

in face of the charm he exerted his opponents became his friends.

The English in particular strenuously opposed his scheme; he had

only to put in an appearance in England to rally all suffrages.

In later years, when he passed Southampton, the bells were rung

on his passage; and at the present day a movement is on foot in

England to raise a statue in his honour.

 

“Having vanquished whatever there is to vanquish, men and things,

marshes, rocks, and sandy wastes,” he had ceased to believe in

obstacles, and wished to begin Suez over again at Panama. He

began again with the same methods as of old; but he had aged,

and, besides, the faith that moves mountains does not move them

if they are too lofty. The mountains resisted, and the

catastrophe that ensued destroyed the glittering aureole of glory

that enveloped the hero. His life teaches how prestige can grow

and how it can vanish. After rivalling in greatness the most

famous heroes of history, he was lowered by the magistrates of

his country to the ranks of the vilest criminals. When he died

his coffin, unattended, traversed an indifferent crowd. Foreign

sovereigns are alone in rendering homage to his memory as to that

of one of the greatest men that history has known.[20]

 

[20] An Austrian paper, the Neue Freie Presse, of Vienna, has

indulged on the subject of the destiny of de Lesseps in

reflections marked by a most judicious psychological insight. I

therefore reproduce them here:—

 

“After the condemnation of Ferdinand de Lesseps one has no longer

the right to be astonished at the sad end of Christopher

Columbus. If Ferdinand de Lesseps were a rogue every noble

illusion is a crime. Antiquity would have crowned the memory of

de Lesseps with an aureole of glory, and would have made him

drink from the bowl of nectar in the midst of Olympus, for he has

altered the face of the earth and accomplished works which make

the creation more perfect. The President of the Court of Appeal

has immortalised himself by condemning Ferdinand de Lesseps, for

the nations will always demand the name of the man who was not

afraid to debase his century by investing with the convict’s cap

an aged man, whose life redounded to the glory of his

contemporaries.

 

“Let there be no more talk in the future of inflexible justice,

there where reigns a bureaucratic hatred of audacious feats. The

nations have need of audacious men who believe in themselves and

overcome every obstacle without concern for their personal

safety. Genius cannot be prudent; by dint of prudence it could

never enlarge the sphere of human activity.

 

“… Ferdinand de Lesseps has known the intoxication of triumph

and the bitterness of disappointment—Suez and Panama. At this

point the heart revolts at the morality of success. When de

Lesseps had succeeded in joining two seas princes and nations

rendered him their homage; to-day, when he meets with failure

among the rocks of the Cordilleras, he is nothing but a vulgar

rogue… . In this result we see a war between the classes of

society, the discontent of bureaucrats and employes, who take

their revenge with the aid of the criminal code on those who

would raise themselves above their fellows… . Modern

legislators are filled with embarrassment when confronted by the

lofty ideas due to human genius; the public comprehends such

ideas still less, and it is easy for an advocate-general to prove

that Stanley is a murderer and de Lesseps a deceiver.”

 

Still, the various examples that have just been cited represent

extreme cases. To fix in detail the psychology of prestige, it

would be necessary to place them at the extremity of a series,

which would range from the founders of religions and empires to

the private individual who endeavours to dazzle his neighbours by

a new coat or a decoration.

 

Between the extreme limits of this series would find a place all

the forms of prestige resulting from the different elements

composing a civilisation—sciences, arts, literature, &c.—and it

would be seen that prestige constitutes the fundamental element

of persuasion. Consciously or not, the being, the idea, or the

thing possessing prestige is immediately imitated in consequence

of contagion, and forces an entire generation to adopt certain

modes of feeling and of giving expression to its thought. This

imitation, moreover, is, as a rule, unconscious, which accounts

for the fact that it is perfect. The modern painters who copy

the pale colouring and the stiff attitudes of some of the

Primitives are scarcely alive to the source of their inspiration.

They believe in their own sincerity, whereas, if an eminent

master had not revived this form of art, people would have

continued blind to all but its naive and inferior sides. Those

artists who, after the manner of another illustrious master,

inundate their canvasses with violet shades do not see in nature

more violet than was detected there fifty years ago; but they are

influenced, “suggestioned,” by the personal and special

impressions of a painter who, in spite of this eccentricity, was

successful in acquiring great prestige. Similar examples might

be brought forward in connection with all the elements of

civilisation.

 

It is seen from what precedes that a number of factors may be

concerned in the genesis of prestige; among them success was

always one of the most important. Every successful man, every

idea that forces itself into recognition, ceases, ipso facto, to

be called in question. The proof that success is one of the

principal stepping-stones to prestige is that the disappearance

of the one is almost always followed by the disappearance of the

other. The hero whom the crowd acclaimed yesterday is insulted

to-day should he have been overtaken by failure. The reaction,

indeed, will be the stronger in proportion as the prestige has

been great. The crowd in this case considers the fallen hero as

an equal, and takes its revenge for having bowed to a superiority

whose existence it no longer admits. While Robespierre was

causing the execution of his colleagues and of a great number of

his contemporaries, he possessed an immense prestige. When the

transposition of a few votes deprived him of power, he

immediately lost his prestige, and the crowd followed him to the

guillotine with the self-same imprecations with which shortly

before it had pursued his victims. Believers always break the

statues of their former gods with every symptom of fury.

 

Prestige lost by want of success disappears in a brief space of

time. It can also be worn away, but more slowly by being

subjected to discussion. This latter power, however, is

exceedingly sure. From the moment prestige is called in question

it ceases to be prestige. The gods and men who have kept their

prestige for long have never tolerated discussion. For the crowd

to admire, it must be kept at a distance.