It was shown in the previous essay that the gregarious mental character is evident in man’s behaviour, not only in crowds and other circumstances of actual association, but also in his behaviour as an individual, however isolated. The conclusions were arrived at that man’s suggestibility is not the abnormal casual phenomenon it is often supposed to be, but a normal instinct present in every individual, and that the apparent inconstancy of its action is due to the common failure to recognize the extent of the field over which suggestion acts; that the only medium in which man’s mind can function satisfactorily is the herd, which therefore is not only the source of his opinions, his credulities, his disbeliefs, and his weaknesses, but of his altruism, his charity, his enthusiasms, and his power.
The subject of the psychological effects of herd instinct is so wide that the discussion of it in the former essay covered only a comparatively small part of the field, and that in a very cursory way. Such as it was, however, it cannot be further amplified here, where an attempt will rather be made to sketch some of the practical corollaries of such generalizations as were laid down there.
In the first place, it must be stated with emphasis that deductive speculation of this sort finds its principal value in opening up new possibilities for {43} the application of a more exact method. Science is