There
are unorganized strikes and boycotts, not merely industrial ones,
where the grievance is so plain that virtually without leadership the
same reaction takes place in many people. But even in these
rudimentary cases there are persons who know what they want to do more
quickly than the rest, and who become impromptu ringleaders. Where
they do not appear a crowd will mill about aimlessly beset by all its
private aims, or stand by fatalistically, as did a crowd of fifty
persons the other day, and watch a man commit suicide.
For what we make out of most of the impressions that come to us from
the invisible world is a kind of pantomime played out in revery. The
number of times is small that we consciously decide anything about
events beyond our sight, and each man's opinion of what he could
accomplish if he tried, is slight. There is rarely a practical issue,
and therefore no great habit of decision. This would be more evident
were it not that most information when it reaches us carries with it
an aura of suggestion as to how we ought to feel about the news. That
suggestion we need, and if we do not find it in the news we turn to
the editorials or to a trusted adviser. The revery, if we feel
ourselves implicated, is uncomfortable until we know where we stand,
that is, until the facts have been formulated so that we can feel Yes
or No in regard to them.
When a number of people all say Yes they may have all kinds of reasons
for saying it.
Pages:
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244