But in consequence of an acceptance of this theory with only a partial understanding of it, many people to-day are advocating the life of the crowd. The words society, crowd, and group are often used interchangeably for a number of people together. Crowd action is the outcome of agreement based on concurrence of emotion rather than thought, or if on the latter, then on a concurrence produced by becoming aware of similarities, not by a slow and gradual creating of unity. But his emotion was apparently as great, his sentiment as sincere, as if he had understood what Lincoln had done for his country. This is a good example of crowd suggestion because thought was in this case inhibited by contagious emotion.
Suggestion is the law of the crowd, interpenetration of the group.
A good example of the crowd fallacy is the syndicalist theory that the vote should be taken in a meeting of strikers not by ballot but by acclamation or show of hands. The idea is that in an open meeting enthusiasm passes from one to another and that, therefore, you can thus get the collective will which you could not get by every man voting one by one. The group on the other hand stimulates thought. Each person is swept away and does not stop to find out his own difference. In crowds we have unison, in groups harmony.