The Topeka state journal., 1914-01-26
PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION.

PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION.
In the crowd the higher psychic
centers, those latest developed in the
aeon-long process OF evolution. the
nearer "superhumannish' of the hu-
man faculties-reason, intellection,
judgment, self-mastery, the kingship
of all that is under ones own hat
are for the time being cut out of the
normal circuit in the nervous system;
they are temporarily in allegiance. and
the organism passes under the domin-
alton of the earlier developed centers.
which underlie the primitive instincts
and emotions, writes John B. Huber,
M. D., in Harper's Weekly. In the
crowd the mind of the unit is as that
of the savage or of the child; 1t Is ba-
sic, primeval. impulsive: he. in the
crowd, does things at which. imme-
diately on becoming free of its dread
full contagion, he is amazed, and OF
which he is heartily ashamed; he Is
precisely as one who has been hypno-
tized, which state Is possible only
through inhibition of the higher cere-
bral centers; the conscious has been
abased, the subconscious has become
exalted and paramount. And yet. the
subconscious in man. besides being
fundamental, is the repository of ra-
cial traditions, of the soul Of people,
of a faith perhaps long since ignored
or forgotten by the conscious mind,
or aspirations hopeless OF attainment
in reason: wherefore the crowd.
though it is capable of, and has too
| often in history done. things most hor-
ribie (witness St. Bartholomew's and
the French Revolution). Ia also ca
pable on the other hand Of most won
drous heroisms Gas witness the Cru
sades.) Both extremes have been
possible through utter absence of any
sense of responsibility. or of any cal
culation such as would normally OBJ
tain in the individual who would. as
an individual, never think of attempt
ing them.
| The evolution of the human mind
has BEEN a most laborious. painful
process Step by step. the nervous
centers first formed in evolution.
Those In the spinal column are basic;
the higher nerve centers have as
cended consecutively up the spine to
the neck, thence to the base Of the
brain, and finally to those supreme
ganglia in the cerebral cortex, imme-
diately beneath the calvarium-the
latter having for their office intellec-
tion, judgment, aspiration, altruism,
the willie yum guten, divine reason. by
means of which faculties has been
evolved civilization as we know 1t to-
day. Herein lies the differentiation
of man from the brute. by which the
former has become the most magnifi-
cent product we have any knowledge
of. And the psychatrist will explain
the mental contagion by which ideas
(the most powerful entities for good
or for i'll in the cosmos), rushing
through pathways of discharge in the
nervous system, are in crowds in the
instant acted on and 80 often made
terribly, real. Thus it is that the par
liamentary crowds, by spinal cord
legislation" chow superb the phrase)
oftentimes enact the widest and most
iniquitous laws. And the physical
phenomena exhibited by religious
camp meeting crowds are possible b,
reason that psychism, directed to any
one area, determines an excessive flow
OF blood to it. Through such conges.
ton come about the hideous thing.
done by the Holy Rollers, the Holy
Laughers, the Barkers and the like
by suggestion and imitation, the stim.
uli are transferred to the allotted ner
vous area controlling the muscles EN-
ployed in that act.
In the crowd the individuals nor
> NAL cerebration avails him not at all
{ from the moment they are in tn,
: crowd the ignorant and the learned
are equally incapable of observation
: equally elemental. equally prone {.
2 epidemic emotionalism. Give the yer
: lest sharper only time to get his re
4 peated asseverations Embedded in tn
subconscious. and he may have in hi