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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: upon all things, are only to be properly explained by reflecting
that the Revolution was merely the establishment of a new
religious belief in the mind of the masses. The Reformation, the
massacre of Saint Bartholomew, the French religious wars, the
Inquisition, the Reign of Terror are phenomena of an identical
kind, brought about by crowds animated by those religious
sentiments which necessarily lead those imbued with them to
pitilessly extirpate by fire and sword whoever is opposed to the
establishment of the new faith. The methods of the Inquisition
are those of all whose convictions are genuine and sturdy. Their
convictions would not deserve these epithets did they resort to
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