CONCENTRATIONinstinct .... An individual in a crowd is a grain of sand amid
other grains of sand, which the wind stirs up at will."
Professor [Frederick Morgan] Davenport, in his book
Primitive Traits in Religious Revivals, says:
"The mind of the crowd is strangely like that of primi-
tive man. Most of the people in it may be far from primitive
in emotion, in thought, in character; nevertheless, the result
tends always to be the same. Stimulation immediately begets
action. Reason is in abeyance. The cool, rational speaker
has little chance beside the skillful emotional orator. The
crowd thinks in images, and speech must take this form to
be accessible to it .... It follows from this, of course, that
appeals to the imagination have paramount influence ....
The crowd is united and governed by emotion rather than by
reason .... The explanation of this is that the attention of
the crowd is always directed either by the circumstances of
the occasion or by the speaker to certain common ideas-as
'salvation' in religious gatherings ... and every individual in
the gathering is stirred with emotion, not only because the
idea or the shibboleth stirs him, but also because he is con-
scious that every other individual in the gathering believes in
the idea or the shibboleth, and is stirred by it, too ... :'
As [Emile] Durkheim observed in his psychological
investigations, the average individual is "intimidated by the
mass" of the crowd around him, or before him, and exper-
iences that peculiar psychological influence exerted by the
mere number of people as against his individual self. Not
only does the suggestible person find it easy to respond
to the authoritative suggestions of the preacher and the
exhortations of his helpers, but he is also brought under
the direct fire of the imitative suggestions of those on all
sides who are experiencing emotional activities and who are
manifesting them outwardly .... Human beings, in times
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