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THE CROWD
A Study of the Popular Mind
Gustave Le Bon
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
Mineola, New York
Publisher's Note:
Some of the opinions presented in this book reflect
attitudes that were common among some writers on social issues
during the final years of the nineteenth century, in Europe and the
United States, but no longer are common.
Bibliographical Note
This Dover edition, first published in 2002, is an unabridged republication of
the second English-language edition of the work originally published in France as
La psychologie des joules
in 1895 and first published in English in 1896 by
T. Fisher Unwin, London.
Library of Congress
Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Le Bon, Gustave, 1841-1931.
[Psychologie des foules. English]
The crowd : a study of the popular mind / Gustave Le Bon.
p. cm.
An unabridged republication of a standard English translation of the work
originally published in 1895 in France as La psychologie des foules.
ISBN 0-486-41956-8 (pbk.)
1. Crowds. I. Title.
HM871 .L4 2001
302.3'3—dc21
2001028670
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501
Preface
teristics of crowds.
The whole of the common characteristics with which hered-
ity endows the individuals of a race constitute the genius of the
race. When, however, a certain number of these individuals are
gathered together in a crowd for purposes of action, observation
proves that, from the mere fact of their being assembled, there
result certain new psychological characteristics, which are
added to the racial characteristics and differ from them at times
to a very considerable degree.
Organised crowds have always played an important part in the
life of peoples, but this part has never been of such moment as
at present. The substitution of the unconscious action of crowds
for the conscious activity of individuals is one of the principal
characteristics of the present age.
I have endeavoured to examine the difficult problem presented
by crowds in a purely scientific manner—that is, by making an
effort to proceed with method, and without being influenced by
opinions, theories, and doctrines. This, I believe, is the only
mode of arriving at the discovery of some few particles of truth,
especially when dealing, as is the case here, with a question that
is the subject of impassioned controversy. A man of science bent
on verifying a phenomenon is not called upon to concern him-
self with the interests his verifications may hurt. In a recent
publication an eminent thinker, M. Goblet d'Alviela, made the
remark that, belonging to none of the contemporary schools, I
am occasionally found in opposition of sundry of the conclusions
of all of them. I hope this new work will merit a similar obser-
vation. To belong to a school is necessarily to espouse its preju-
dices and preconceived opinions.
iii
T
he following work is devoted to an account of the charac-
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