observation of the behaviour of crowds.8
Owing, however, to the failure to investigate as the more essential question the effects of gregariousness in the mind of the normal individual man, the theoretical side of crowd psychology has remained incomplete and relatively sterile.
There is, however, one exception, in the case of the work of Boris Sidis. In a book entitled “The Psychology of Suggestion”9 he has described certain psychical qualities as necessarily associated with the social habit in the individual as in the crowd. His position, therefore, demands some discussion. The fundamental element in it is the conception of the normal existence in the mind of a subconscious self. This subconscious or subwaking self is regarded as embodying the “lower” and more obviously brutal qualities of man. It is irrational, imitative, credulous, cowardly, cruel, and lacks all individuality, will, and self-control.10 This personality takes the place of the normal personality during hypnosis and when the individual is one of an active crowd, as, for example, in riots, panics, lynchings, revivals, and so forth. {27}