| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: everything outside it vanishes, and that every contrary opinion
appears to him an error or a superstition. An example in point
is Robespierre, hypnotised by the philosophical ideas of
Rousseau, and employing the methods of the Inquisition to
propagate them.
The leaders we speak of are more frequently men of action than
thinkers. They are not gifted with keen foresight, nor could
they be, as this quality generally conduces to doubt and
inactivity. They are especially recruited from the ranks of
those morbidly nervous, excitable, half-deranged persons who are
bordering on madness. However absurd may be the idea they uphold
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Psychology of Revolution by Gustave le Bon: not only is reason powerless to affect it, but it even finds
motives which impel it to interpret and so justify the faith in
question, and to strive to impose it upon others. There were
probably as many theologians and orators in the time of Moloch,
to prove the utility of human sacrifices, as there were at other
periods to glorify the Inquisition, the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and the hecatombs of the Terror.
We must not hope to see peoples possessed by strong beliefs
readily achieve tolerance. The only people who attained to
toleration in the ancient world were the polytheists. The
nations which practise toleration at the present time are those
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte: answered. 'He says I'm not to be soft with Catherine: she's my
wife, and it's shameful that she should wish to leave me. He says
she hates me and wants me to die, that she may have my money; but
she shan't have it: and she shan't go home! She never shall! -
she may cry, and be sick as much as she pleases!'
He resumed his former occupation, closing his lids, as if he meant
to drop asleep.
'Master Heathcliff,' I resumed, 'have you forgotten all Catherine's
kindness to you last winter, when you affirmed you loved her, and
when she brought you books and sung you songs, and came many a time
through wind and snow to see you? She wept to miss one evening,
Wuthering Heights |
