Balder Ex-Libris - Le Bon GustaveReview of books rare and missing2024-03-16T01:56:42+00:00urn:md5:aa728a70505b2fae05796923271581c2DotclearLe Bon Gustave - The World Unbalancedurn:md5:bee46590510a4cd6cdadeafad9f01a592012-08-15T02:03:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:53+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveCivilizations <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_World_Unbalanced_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The World Unbalanced</strong><br />
Year : 1924<br />
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Modern civilisations present themselves to us under two aspects which are so dissimilar, so contradictory, that if viewed from a distant planet they would seem to belong to two totally different worlds. One of these aspects is the realm of science and its applications. Its structures radiate the brilliant illuminations of harmony and pure truth. The other is the dark domain of political and social life. Its shaky edifices remain enveloped in illusions, errors, and hatreds, and furious struggles frequently lay them low. This striking contrast between the different domains of the great civilisations is due to the fact that their structural elements do not obey the same laws, and have no common measure. Social life is governed by needs, sentiments, and instincts bequeathed to us by heredity, which through whole strata of evolution represented the only guides of conduct. In this domain, progressive evolution remains feeble. The feelings of ambition, jealousy, ferocity, and hatred, which animated our first ancestors, remain unchanged. During vast periods, whose tedious length is revealed by science, man was but slightly differentiated from that animal world which it was destined some day to transcend so enormously in intellect. Having remained the equals of animals in the domain of organic life, we are not much beyond them in the domain of sentiment. It is only \n the cycle of intelligence that our superiority has become immense. It is owing to this that the continents have been joined and that thought is transmitted from hemisphere to hemisphere with the speed of light. But the intellect which, in the recesses of our laboratories, arrives at so many discoveries has hitherto exercised but a feeble influence upon social life. It remains under the dominance of impulses which are not governed by reason. The sentiments and the rages of the earliest ages have kept their hold on the souls of the nations, and determine their actions. We cannot understand events unless we take account of the profound differences which separate mystic and emotional impulses from rational considerations. They explain why individuals of superior intelligence have at all times accepted the most infantile beliefs such as the worship of the Serpent or of Moloch. Millions of human beings are still dominated by the imaginings of illustrious hallucinated founders of religious and political faiths. Even in our days, communistic chimeras have had the power to ruin a gigantic empire and to threaten other countries. It is also because intellectual development has little influence on the sentiments that we saw in the last war men of high culture set fire to cathedrals, massacre the old people and ravage provinces for the sole lust of destruction. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The world in revolt A psychological study of our timesurn:md5:d3fb2d730ad2fed5d37f42d190a5f0142012-08-15T01:54:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:49+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveEuropeSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_world_in_revolt_A_psychological_study_of_our_times_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The world in revolt A psychological study of our times</strong><br />
Year : 1921<br />
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The year 1918 marked a bright and conspicuous date in the annals of our history. After a series of successes which seemed to forecast their eventual triumph, our aggressors suddenly foundered in a cataclysm which at a single blow destroyed the oldest monarchies of Europe. Never did such contradictory and unforeseen events occur within so brief a period. In the age of miracles it would have seemed a thing beyond doubt that the mysterious higher powers had intervened to change the path of destiny. The powers capable, despite all forecasts, of subjugating the most formidable Empire that the world has ever known were mighty indeed, but not mysterious. They belonged to that transcendent domain of psychological forces which, in the course of the centuries, have so often succeeded in dominating material powers, whatever their magnitude. In all the phases of the terrible conflict these moral powers manifested their activity. In countries formerly devoid of military material and without soldiers they called up innumerable legions, armed with ships and guns. Day after day material and visible agencies came into being under the influence of the invisible powers, until the moment when the former became capable of surmounting obstacles regarded as invincible. Psychological forces, in which moral activities are included, do not control the fate of battles merely. They rule over all the departments of national life and determine the destinies of peoples. Conceived in the same spirit as our previous volumes on the war, this new volume will examine, from the psychological point of view, some of the problems to which the great conflict has given rise. We shall see once again that the majority of political, mihtary, economic or social questions belong to the province of psychology. This science, so uncertain in the past, when it confined itself to the domain of pure theory, has become capable of throwing light upon the most difficult problems. Statesmen, generals and manufacturers even invoke its services daily. That so many problems, past and present, are of a psychological order is due to the fact that the motive forces of national life, apart from biological needs, are to be found in the national conceptions of things. Now these conceptions are derived from passions and feelings, which have always been the great motive forces of humanity from the very beginnings of its history. New civilizations have been born, and the conflicts which of old were fought upon land or at sea are now carried on underground, under the surface of the seas and in the air ; but while the understanding has evolved in the course of the ages, our feelings are identical with those which inspired our remotest ancestors. Although the nature of our feelings has not altered, the aggregations which they are capable of forming, the complex of which constitutes character, have always varied from race to race, which explains why the destinies of the different countries have been so different. It was always dangerous to disregard these differences. The Germans lost the war because they did not understand them. Their blunders in respect of national psychology armed against them nations which asked no better than to remain neutral. The Allies, too, have made blunders of the same nature, especially since the peace. These will be examined in the pages of this book. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Study of Races and Present-day Anthropologyurn:md5:b6d5ab120b20b32f3246d8c90df9ef942012-08-15T01:50:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:45+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveAnthropologyRacesRacialism <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Study_of_Races_and_Present-day_Anthropology_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Study of Races and Present-day Anthropology</strong><br />
Year : 1881<br />
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Among the sciences that have drawn the most attention in recent years, one can certainly rank anthropology. Before the revelations we owe to prehistoric archeology and to progress in the natural sciences, the study of man appeared to defy being able to transform itself. By seizing so many marvelous discoveries, a new science undoubtedly opens up for us new horizons. Like Minerva going out wholly armed with the brain of Jupiter, the young goddess—that is, anthropology—will shine with a deep wisdom. To her comes the solution to all those mysterious problems that over the centuries philosophers have in vain exhausted themselves over. The eternal sphinx, having tamed mankind for so long with her magic rod, will at last deliver her secrets. Of all the many expectations evoked by this science from its dawn, what has occurred? For twenty years anthropology has continued its persevering labor. The hour has arrived to ask of it what it has yielded, above all inquiring into what it intends to yet produce. We shall begin first of all by attempting to define anthropology. In appearance this seems easy, but, in reality, it is hardly such at all. If we look to deduce its definition from etymology, we see that anthropology is the science of man; however, this is quite vague. If we wish to take our definition from books, we find indications that are even vaguer. In the first of its articles, the Anthropology Society of Paris restricts itself to saying that anthropology “has for its goal the scientific study of the human races.” Such concise definitions, however, possess a false clarity. In order to obtain a clear idea of their value, one must inquire into what they in reality hide. As a general proposition, one ought not to demand too much for information relating to the limits of a science; whenever this is done, the natural tendency is to usher in very dissimilar things or things which are connected only in a very remote way. For example, a distinguished anthropologist recently maintained that music and sculpture comprise part of the anthropological sciences. Undoubtedly, they are connected just as legitimately as linguistics, demography, and medical geography are, fields which some have also wished to unite. But, anatomy, physiology, chemistry, physics, history—in a word, all that concerns man—it is puerile to fancy that a new science can be formed from what one reassembles from others. If anthropology truly includes, as its disciples maintain, “the ensemble of sciences contributing to the complete knowledge of mankind,” then the best actual anthropology treatise will be some sort of universal encyclopedia. Moreover, all these definitions amount to very little; what we must simply be aware of, I repeat, is what they in reality hide. In researching them we shall easily discover what are the usual subjects of the works of present-day anthropologists. Such research will prove quite easy to perform. It will suffice, in fact, to peruse the Bulletins of the Anthropology Society, the Instructions that it publishes, and the collections that it assembles. The most cursory examination of all these documents shows us from the very first one essential fact. Whereas anthropology in prior days—and this science has not been around all that long—only occupied itself with moral man, present-day anthropology occupies itself with anatomical man, devoting itself to the variations of the body in the various human races. In its General Instructions for conducting anthropological research on the living, the Anthropology Society of Paris does not recommend anything else but the investigation of these variations. The moral, intellectual and social study of peoples seems so outside of the research plans of today’s anthropologists that it did not obtain in the Instructions’ 300 pages a single line of mention. The works of present-day anthropologists, moreover, also mirror the direction indicated by the Instructions, and the collections assembled by these scientists evidence the same tendency. Measurements of skulls and sometimes of skeletons: this is what their research amounts to; meanwhile, the fundamental part of their museums is restricted to displaying and storing collections of skulls and skeletons. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Question of Criminalsurn:md5:b2b4299791c5a55d25f86fafa3521b0f2012-08-15T01:48:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:41+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Question_of_Criminals_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Question of Criminals</strong><br />
Year : 1880<br />
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Utilizing the resources of present-day scientific methods, we propose to consider here under the above title an important anthropological and social question, one which is hardly being studied nowadays by jurists, philosophers, and historians. The main preoccupation of any science is always to define its aim. Definitions elicited from etymology come easily, but are generally insufficient because the object of every science, including those which seem the most organized, such as physics, for example, varies from each epoque according to the tendencies of the moment. Anthropology is, as its name indicates, the study of man. Social science--or if one prefers another word, sociology-is the study of societies. However, these concise definitions cast a very misleading light. For where does the science of man begin or end? Physiology, anatomy, pathology, archeology, history, etc., with each one forming a part of the field of anthropology, it is indeed difficult to name many sciences that are not attached to this field by sorne bond. Furthermore, a professional anthropologist recently asserted that music and sculpture also comprise part of the anthropological sciences. They undoubtedly are connected by the same right that unites linguistics and demography to the sciences of man. Additionally, chemistry, which reveals tous the composition of our tissues, and the art of nutrition, which supplies us the means to restore our tissues' !osses, can likewise be associated with anthropology. Looked upon in this way, anthropology will soon become nothing but an aggregate of disparate sciences and will end up disappearing for lack of an aim or purpose. In fact, it is only necessary in any science to search for those things that are really vital in promoting its development, and not those which tend to stifle it. The anthropology of the ancients, because it had little time to gain experience, only concemed itself with moral man. The new anthropology of today only occupies itself with anatomical man. It has entirely abandoned the study of the intellectual functions, so much so that the professional anthropologist cited above does not himself make mention of psychology (although he includes music and sculpture) in the quite diversified list of anthropological sciences. In order to pass judgment on the tendencies of modem anthropology, it is necessary then to study the works of anthropologists; however, nothing more than a quick glanee is sufficient in order to leam that the principal object of their research is the study of human races. What anthropologists generally study the most in human races are variations of the skeleton's shape, particularly those relating to the skull. Such an examination certainly qualifies as a useful task, for it's better to provide value by affixing precise notions upon a small nook of science, no matter how limited this nook may be, than it is to toss out vague generalities lacking any firm basis; it is a task, though, which anthropology, under penalty of being soon considered as only a branch of osteology and by consequence losing ali credit, should not confine itself to for much longer. lndeed, pretending to understand a man just by studying his remains or skin color, this requires one to imagine and make sense out of a table containing a chemical analysis of ali the colors which have served to constitute the man. The fact of the matter is, understanding the psychology of an individual will always be more important than knowing about his skeleton. Our current classifications of the human races are obviously quite provisional and cannot withstand anything more than a superficial examination; but, since we are obliged to content ourselves with these provisional classifications, they will better merit being divisions if they were founded upon the moral and intellectual aptitudes of diverse human groups than if they are fundamentally based on qualities as secondary as the shape of one's hair (which sorne truly childish classifications emphasize ). As for sociology, it is definitely still far from being able to lay claim to the title of science, because up to now it has hardly attempted to delineate anything but highly insufficient rough outlines. lt is a science that really has not been born yet and which we see breaking through the horizon with difficulty. Sociology is not open to further development until anthropology-and 1 mainly intend here by "anthropology" the study of the comparative psychology of races-has left its period of infancy where it currently still finds itself. Within these new sciences in the process of formation each one is able to communicate its ideas, but chiefly the facts and methods that it commands. The future will easily separate out what is useful from that which only merits oblivion. ln entertaining in this Revue questions which seem to us to faU under the purview of the two sciences that we have seen to enumerate and to which we have devoted our most recent work, we do not bring with us any preconceived ideas or doctrinal ties. This is because we have striven to remember that if it is always indispensable to have a method, it is often fatal to possess a doctrine. Although physical man will be studied, we shall also study moral man (an endeavor so disdained nowadays by anthropologists). If we only had in hand the antiquated methods of the old out-of-date psychology, then it is with reason that our study could be considered as undeserving of one's attention. But, the methods we shall use owe their existence to the work of the physiologists, whose methods enable one to approach the study of man with the precision that modern scientists employ in the study of any sort of physical phenomenon; regrettably, despite their great utility, the methods of the physiologists continue to be ignored by France's classical education system. We shall today only consider a single question: that concerning criminals. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The psychology of the great warurn:md5:76180d9608d5f0b21f06e0cea7bead382012-08-15T01:44:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:38+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveFirst World WarSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_psychology_of_the_great_war_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The psychology of the great war</strong><br />
Year : 1916<br />
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One of the plainest lessons taught by history, and one of those most substantially verified by the present war, is that nations are not ruled by realities, but by the more or less illusory ideas which they form of these realities . The truth about an historical event may be revealed fifty years after it has taken place, but is seldom known at the time of its occurrence. The origins of the European War are a fresh justification of this theory, for the Germans are firmly convinced that the conflict is due to a conspiracy secretly plotted by England, and yet England, as a perusal of the diplomatic correspondence shows us, was eminently desirous of peace, and until the very last moment made the most desperate efforts to preserve it. At no period of her history had England been so ill-prepared for war, and never had she so wished to avoid it at any price. Her parliamentary dissensions and the civil war which threatened her in Ireland were enough to make her statesmen relinquish any bellicose desires which they might have cherished, but, nevertheless, they were induced to take up the gauntlet. The mental differences which divide the various nations are so deep-seated that it is very difficult for them to understand the motives of one another's conduct. Legal theorists in Germany are so contemptuous of treaties that the idea of a nation embarking upon hostilities merely because it considered itself bound as a signatory, could never enter their minds. No Teutonic statesman could understand that any one would make war for such a reason, and to the German nation it was even less intelligible. This is why the present struggle is a conflict of principles even more than of interests. The question is whether the conquests which it has taken civilization so long to secure, and which are the foundations of social and international life, must disappear for ever. If the Teutons are to win brute force alone will reign over the world and none of our former moral laws will be respected. But Germany will never prevail until the last Briton has perished. The English people have been slow—too slow, as their Allies may think — in adapting themselves to the exigencies of modern warfare ; but their adjustment is now complete. The change was more difficult for England than for the other nations, because she was obliged to relinquish her time-honoured traditions of liberty, to adopt universal compulsory military service, for which she had an intense dislike, and to renounce her commercial freedom in order to militarize her industry. She has had to do many other things besides ; but it is all over now . England has been slow, but she is ready to-day, and with what crushing weight her puissant might will press upon Germany's destiny the Teutonic Empire will henceforth know to its cost. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The psychology of socialismurn:md5:7623db13bcd25147f6e2aabedf6fc82c2012-08-15T01:42:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:34+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveJewSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_psychology_of_socialism_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The psychology of socialism</strong><br />
Year : 1899<br />
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SOCIALISM consists of a synthesis of beliefs, aspirations, and ideas of reform which appeals profoundly to the mind. Governments fear it, legislators manipulate it, nations behold in it the dawn of happier destinies. This book is devoted to the study of Socialism. In it will be found the application of those principles already set forth in my two last works - The Psychology of Peoples and The Psychology of the Crowd. Passing rapidly over the details of the doctrines in question, and retaining their essentials alone, I shall examine the causes which have given birth to Socialism, and those which favour or retard its propagation. I shall show the conflict of those ancient ideas, fixed by heredity, on which societies are still reposed, with the new ideas, born of the new conditions which have been created by the evolution of modern science and industry. Without contesting the lawfulness of the tendencies of the greater number to ameliorate their condition, I shall inquire whether it is possible for institutions to have a real influence in this amelioration, or whether our destinies are not decided by necessities entirely independent of the institutions which our wills may create. Socialism has not wanted apologists to write its history, economists to discuss its dogmas, and apostles to propagate its faith. Hitherto psychologists have disdained to study it, perceiving in it only one of those elusive and indefinite subjects, like theology and politics, which can lead only to such impassioned and futile discussions as are hateful to the scientific mind. It would seem, however, that nothing but an intent psychology can exhibit the genesis of the new doctrines, or explain the influence exerted by them over the vulgar mind as well as over a certain number of cultivated understandings. We must dive to the deepest roots of the events whose evolution we are considering if we would attain a comprehension of the blossom. No apostle has ever doubted of the future of his faith, and the Socialists are persuaded of the approaching triumph of theirs. Such a victory implies of necessity the destruction of the present society, and its reconstruction on other bases. To the disciples of the new dogmas nothing appears more simple. It is evident that a society may be disorganised by violence, just as a building, laboriously constructed, may be destroyed in an hour by fire. But does our modern knowledge of the evolution of things allow us to admit that man is able to re-fashion, according to his liking, a society that has so been destroyed ? So soon as we penetrate a little into the mechanism of civilisations we quickly discover that a society, with its institutions, its beliefs, and its arts, represents a tissue of ideas, sentiments, customs, and modes of thought determined by heredity, the cohesion of which constitutes its strength. No society is firmly held together unless this moral heritage is solidly established, and established not in codes but in the natures of men; the one declines when the other crumbles, and when this moral heritage is finally disintegrated the society is doomed to disappear. Such a conception has never influenced the writers and the peoples of the Latin States. Persuaded as they are that the necessities of nature will efface themselves before their ideal of levelment, regularity, and justice, they believe it sufficient to imagine enlightened constitutions, and laws founded on reason, in order to re-fashion the world. They are still possessed by the illusions of the heroic epoch of the Revolution, when philosophers and legislators held it certain that a society was an artificial thing, which benevolent dictators could rebuild in entirety. Such theories do not appear tenable to-day. We must not, however, disdain them, for they constitute the motives of action of a destructive influence which is greatly to be feared, because very considerable. The power of creation waits upon time and place ; it is beyond the immediate reach of our desires ; but the destructive faculty is always at hand. The destruction of a society may be very rapid, but its reconstruction is always very slow. Sometimes man requires centuries of effort to rebuild, painfully, that which he destroyed in a day. If we would comprehend the profound influence of modern Socialism we need only to examine its doctrines. When we come to investigate the causes of its success we find that this success is altogether alien to the theories proposed, and the negations imposed by these doctrines. Like religions (and Socialism is tending more and more to put on the guise of a religion) it propagates itself in any manner rather than by reason. Feeble in the extreme when it attempts to reason, and to support itself by economic arguments, it becomes on the contrary extremely powerful when it remains in the region of dreams, affirmations, and chimerical promises, and if it were never to issue thence it would become even more redoubtable. Thanks to its promises of regeneration, thanks to the hope it flashes before all the disinherited of life. Socialism is becoming a belief of a religious character rather than a doctrine. Now the great power of beliefs, when they ffe^nd to assume this religious form, of whose mechanism I have elsewhere treated, lies in the fact that their propagation is independent of the proportion of truth or error that they may contain, for as soon as a belief has gained a lodging in the minds of men its absurdity no longer appears ; reason cannot reach it, and only time can impair it. The most profound thinkers of humanity—Leibnitz, Descartes, Newton—have bowed themselves without a murmur before religious doctrines whose weaknesses reason would quickly have discovered, had they been able to submit them to the ordeal of criticism. What has once entered the region of sentiment can no longer be touched by discussion. Religions, acting as they do only on the sentiments, cannot be destroyed by arguments, and it is for this reason that their power over the mind has always been so absolute. The present age is one of those periods of transition in which the old beliefs have lost their empire, while those which must replace the old are not yet estabhshed. Hitherto man has been unable to live without divinities. They fall often from their throne, but that throne has, never remained empty ; new phantoms are rising always from the dust of the dead gods. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Psychology of Revolutionurn:md5:9b6c2cfc65f27427e433e3f3616ae0ea2012-08-15T01:38:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:31+01:00balderLe Bon GustavePropagandaRevolutionSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Psychology_of_Revolution_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Psychology of Revolution</strong><br />
Year : 1913<br />
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The present age is not merely an epoch of discovery; it is also a period of revision of the various elements of knowledge. Having recognised that there are no phenomena of which the first cause is still accessible, science has resumed the examination of her ancient certitudes, and has proved their fragility. To-day she sees her ancient principles vanishing one by one. Mechanics is losing its axioms, and matter, formerly the eternal substratum of the worlds, becomes a simple aggregate of ephemeral forces in transitory condensation. Despite its conjectural side, by virtue of which it to some extent escapes the severest form of criticism, history has not been free from this universal revision. There is no longer a single one of its phases of which we can say that it is certainly known. What appeared to be definitely acquired is now once more put in question. Among the events whose study seemed completed was the French Revolution. Analysed by several generations of writers, one might suppose it to be perfectly elucidated. What new thing can be said of it, except in modification of some of its details? And yet its most positive defenders are beginning to hesitate in their judgments. Ancient evidence proves to be far from impeccable. The faith in dogmas once held sacred is shaken. The latest literature of the Revolution betrays these uncertainties. Having related, men are more and more chary of drawing conclusions. Not only are the heroes of this great drama discussed without indulgence, but thinkers are asking whether the new dispensation which followed the ancien régime would not have established itself naturally, without violence, in the course of progressive civilisation. The results obtained no longer seem in correspondence either with their immediate cost or with the remoter consequences which the Revolution evoked from the possibilities of history. Several causes have led to the revision of this tragic period. Time has calmed passions, numerous documents have gradually emerged from the archives, and the historian is learning to interpret them independently. But it is perhaps modern psychology that has most effectually influenced our ideas, by enabling us more surely to read men and the motives of their conduct. Among those of its discoveries which are henceforth applicable to history we must mention, above all, a more profound understanding of ancestral influences, the laws which rule the actions of the crowd, data relating to the disaggregation of personality, mental contagion, the unconscious formation of beliefs, and the distinction between the various forms of logic. To tell the truth, these applications of science, which are utilised in this book, have not been so utilised hitherto. Historians have generally stopped short at the study of documents, and even that study is sufficient to excite the doubts of which I have spoken. The great events which shape the destinies of peoples — revolutions, for example, and the outbreak of religious beliefs — are sometimes so difficult to explain that one must limit oneself to a mere statement. From the time of my first historical researches I have been struck by the impenetrable aspect of certain essential phenomena, those relating to the genesis of beliefs especially; I felt convinced that something fundamental was lacking that was essential to their interpretation. Reason having said all it could say, nothing more could be expected of it, and other means must be sought of comprehending what had not been elucidated. For a long time these important questions remained obscure to me. Extended travel, devoted to the study of the remnants of vanished civilisations, had not done much to throw light upon them. Reflecting upon it continually, I was forced to recognise that the problem was composed of a series of other problems, which I should have to study separately. This I did for a period of twenty years, presenting the results of my researches in a succession of volumes. One of the first was devoted to the study of the psychological laws of the evolution of peoples. Having shown that the historic races — that is, the races formed by the hazards of history — finally acquired psychological characteristics as stable as their anatomical characteristics, I attempted to explain how a people transforms its institutions, its languages, and its arts. I explained in the same work why it was that individual personalities, under the influence of sudden variations of environment, might be entirely disaggregated. But besides the fixed collectivities formed by the peoples, there are mobile and transitory collectivities known as crowds. Now these crowds or mobs, by the aid of which the great movements of history are accomplished, have characteristics absolutely different from those of the individuals who compose them. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Psychology of Peoplesurn:md5:60804dc47c9976bc8e4ad1e83a2355f62012-08-15T01:34:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:29+01:00balderLe Bon GustavePropagandaSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Psychology_of_Peoples_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Psychology of Peoples</strong><br />
Year : 1898<br />
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The civilisation of a people is based on a small number of fundamental ideas, which determine its institutions, its literature and its arts. These ideas come very slowly into being, and they are also very slow to disappear. Long after their erroneous nature has become clear to cultivated minds, they remain indisputable truths for the masses, and continue to exert their influence on the rank and file of a nation. It is difficult to obtain recognition for a new idea, but it is no less difficult to discredit an idea that has long been generally accepted. Humanity has always been exceedingly loth to abandon its decayed ideas and its moribund gods. It is barely a century and a half ago that certain philosophers, who, it should be remarked^ were very ignorant of the primitive history of man, of the variations of his mental constitution and of the laws of heredity, propounded the idea of the equality of individuals and races. This idea, which would naturally be most attractive to the masses, ended by firmly implanting itself in their mind, and speedily bore fruit. It has shaken the foundation of the old societies, given birth to the most formidable of revolutions, and thrown the Western world into a series of convulsions, the end of which it is impossible to foresee. Doubtless certain of the inequalities among individuals and races were too apparent to be seriously disputed ; but people found it easy to persuade themselves that these inequalities were merely the outcome of differences of education, that all men are bom equally intelligent and good, and that the sole respon-r sibility for their perversion lies with the institutions they live under. This being the case the remedy was simple in the extreme : all that had to be done was to reform the institutions and to give every man an identical education. It is in this way that institutions and education have ended by becoming the great panaceas of modern democrats, the means of remedying inequalities which clash with the immortal principles that are the only divinities that survive to-day. And yet science, as it has progressed, has proved the vanity of the theories of equality and shown that the mental gulf created by the past between individuals and races can only be filled up by the slowly accumulating action of heredity. Modern psychology, together with the stern lessons of experience, has demonstrated that the institutions and the education which suit some individuals and some races are most harmful to others. But when ideas are once in circulation it is not in the power of philosophers to destroy them when they arrive at the conviction that they are erroneous. Like a swollen stream that has overflown its banks, the idea continues its destructive progress with which nothing can interfere. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Pocket Cephalometer, or Compass of Coordinatesurn:md5:cfeffd5fddeed33c767b0559a51fe1972012-08-15T01:28:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:24+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveRacesRacialism <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Pocket_Cephalometer_or_Compass_of_Coordinates_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Pocket Cephalometer, or Compass of Coordinates, Allowing One to Very Rapidly Obtain the Diverse Diameters, Angles and Profiles of the Head, and To Reproduce in 3-D Any Solid Figure</strong><br />
Year : 1929<br />
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The instruments used up to now in anthropology laboratories to measure the diverse diameters, curves and angles of the head, either upon the living or upon skeletons, are complicated, expensive and by no means portable. What has resulted is that the majority of anthropological measurements have orùy been effectuated upon skeletons, and it is most rare to see a travelling scientist bring back any craniometric measures of races visited by hlm. Taking central Africa as an example, already thoroughly travelled through by many explorers, information on head measurements is wanting in a nearly absolute way. A simple, inexpensive instrument, easy to handle and extremely portable would obviously render important services. The instrument that I have fancied, and which has been manufactured from my designs by a master builder, Monsieur Molteni, entirely realizes the conditions that I have just enumerated. It is extremely portable being that, as will be demonstrated, it can be stored in a carry case possessing ordinary dimensions. Its operation and handling is very easy because orùy a few minutes of use is sufficient in order for one to succeed in supplying himself the desired information. Finally, its priee is not at all high. I have bestowed upon this cephalometer the name compass of coordinates, by reason of the geometrie principles upon which it is founded. One knows that in analytic geometry coordinates are named for the elements which permit for the fixing of the position of a point or a series of points either upon a plane or in space. Given two axes set perpendicular to each other, the horizontal one or axis of the abscissas, the other or axis of ordinales being vertical, the position of various points are determined whenever one knows their distance from these two axes, that is to say, when one knows their abscissas and ordinates. These distances constitute the coordinates of these points. If one can imagine a third axis bisecting the two others, the position of a point in space can be determined if one knows its coordinates, meaning its distances from these three axes. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Nubians of the Jardin d'Acclimatationurn:md5:7c18ad8758c347134a4c431ce1892c832012-08-15T01:27:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:20+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveAfricaNubia <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Nubians_of_the_Jardin_d_Acclimatation_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Nubians of the Jardin d'Acclimatation</strong><br />
Year : 1879<br />
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Messieurs, it is my honor to place before the eyes of the Society photographs that I have taken and which show the Nubians of the Jardin d’Acclimatation. These photographs present the Nubians in diverse poses. In order to indicate the scale of proportion, one can place on these pictures a strip of paper one decimeter in length, which permits one to determine the scale to which each photograph has been made. Among these photographs there is one which has especially attracted my attention. It depicts a naked Nubian, and looks like the drawing known under the name of Canon of Lepsius. This drawing was discovered on an Egyptian tomb, and is marked by crossed lines as if one had desired to note the dimensions of the body. It is remarkable that this particular drawing corresponds so closely to the photograph of our Nubian. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Influence of Race in Historyurn:md5:ebf6c4e366643516f0ab2d420a6a82972012-08-15T01:23:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:16+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveCivilizationsRaces <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Influence_of_Race_in_History_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Influence of Race in History</strong><br />
Year : 1888<br />
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Historical studies are undergoing in our day a profound transformation: from being almost exclusively literary but a few years ago, they are tending to become almost exclusively scientific today. From the reading room of the litterateur, they are crossing over into the laboratory of the scientist. It is not only the progress of modern-day archeology that has given new vigor to our learnings and ideas in history. The discoveries realized in the physical and natural sciences have contributed even more; it is thanks to them that the notion of natural causes is becoming imbued more and more in history, and we are getting used to considering historical phenomena as being subject to laws that are just as invariable as the ones that guide the course of the stars or the transformations of the body. The role that all the historians of old has attributed for so long to Providence or to chance is today only attributed to natural laws, as entirely withdrawn from the action of chance as from the will of the gods. Certain of these laws govern chemical combinations and the attraction of matter; likewise, it is other of these laws which govern thoughts, the actions of men, as well as the birth and waning of beliefs and empires. These laws of the mental and moral world, we often disregard them, but we are never able to elude them. “They operate sometimes for us, sometimes against us,” justly noted an eminent historian, “but always the same and without taking heed of us: rather, it is we who need to take heed of them.” Above all, though, it is the progress of the natural sciences that is responsible for the ideas that are beginning to be assimilated more and more in history. They are the ones which, having brought to light the totally preponderant influence of the past on the evolution of living beings, show us that it is the past of societies that one ought to first study in order to understand their present state and ascertain their future. Just as the naturalist today discovers the explanation of living beings in the study of their ancestral forms, likewise the philosopher who desires to understand the origin of our ideas, institutions, and beliefs must first study their earlier forms. Envisaged in this way, history, the interest in which will seem very weak when it restricts itself to the enumeration of dynasties and battles, acquires today an immense interest. Of all the sciences it is bound to be the foremost one, because it is the synthesis of all the others. The sciences that we usually devote ourselves to direct us to figure out and decipher a substance, an animal or a plant. By contrast, history teaches us to decipher humanity and permits us to understand it; indeed, the human spirit cannot propose any higher and more useful pursuit than this. The method that the modern-day scientist applies today to history is identical to the one that the naturalist employs in his laboratory. A society can be considered like an organism that is undergoing development. There is a social embryology just like there is an animal or plant embryology, and the laws of evolution that regulate them are of the same order. Animal embryology, in going back step by step in time in the ladder of existence, proves that our earliest ancestors are most closely related to lower animals than to ourselves, and allows us to see how each of our organs has emerged by slow transformations, chosen by selection and accumulated by heredity, from a much coarser organ. We know how the fin of the amphibian became the membrane that sustained in the air the pterodactyl, then the wing of the bird, next the paw of the mammal, and finally the hand of man. Social embryology, or, to employ a simpler term, the study of civilizations, shows us 1) the series of the progressions in which the marvelous and complicated mechanism of civilized societies makes it way from the savage state where for a long time mankind maintained itself, and 2) how our ideas, sentiments, institutions, and beliefs have their roots in the earliest ages of humanity. Instead of observing how formerly an abyss existed between peoples who ate their aged parents and those who waste their attentions on their old, crying on their tombs, between peoples who regarded women as lower animals belonging to all members of the tribe and those who have enwrapped them in a chivalrous cult, between those who put to death all their deformed children and those who lodge in magnificent asylums the idiots and incurable, I shall focus on the tight bonds which across the ages have united the most different ideas, institutions, and beliefs. We will discover that today’s civilizations have sprung from past civilizations, and contain the germ of all civilizations to come. The evolution of ideas, religion, industry and the arts, in a word, of all the elements which enter into the make-up of a civilization, is just as regular and inevitable as the one comprising the diverse forms of an animal series. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Influence of Education and European Institutions on the Indigenous Populations of the Coloniesurn:md5:e146a218b4179111f5c4ce26de9393dc2012-08-15T01:20:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:13+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveAfricaAsiaEducationEurope <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Influence_of_Education_and_European_Institutions_on_the_Indigenous_Populations_of_the_Colonies_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Influence of Education and European Institutions on the Indigenous Populations of the Colonies</strong><br />
Year : 1889<br />
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Messieurs, I propose to consider and investigate with you today a serious and important question, namely: what is the influence that our European civilization is able to produce on the indigenous populations of the colonies? I have seen to research the action that we can exercise over these peoples by means of the European life that we furnish them, by the institutions that we might impose on them, and finally by our education. Now, the subject that I am drawing your attention to has for some time been in France the object of passionate debate, and it is easy to ascertain in what ways public opinion and the government authorities tend more and more to be engaged. Every day government officials and others talk to us about Frenchifying the Arabs of Algeria, the yellowish populations of Indo-China, the negroes of Martinique; of providing to all these colonies institutions, laws, and organization identical to those of our French departments. It is not, moreover, only France which finds itself seriously interested in studying these momentous questions. The problem under consideration here is essentially international. It poses or will sooner or later pose itself to all nations that possess colonies, which, needless to say, includes most of Europe. The questions of colonization that we are proceeding to study together here have not been able to be entertained before by an assembly more competent than your own. Indeed, among the delegates sent by foreign countries to this Congress, I see around me statesmen, eminent jurisconsults, and administrators who head or oversee important colonies. Among the French members, I notice retired First Lords of the Admiralty, illustrious admirals, colonial senators, governors general of our foreign possessions, learned university professors, and famous explorers. In short, it would be quite difficult to come upon a meeting of men more fit to deal with the questions that I intend to raise. It is therefore a heavy task in inaugurating the first general meeting of this great Congress to be the first speaker to talk on a subject that you know so well. The missions that your organizing committee has conferred on me calls for a voice more eloquent than my own, and I therefore very much count upon your forbearance as I proceed. I am of the opinion that this forbearance is even the more necessary given that in the French delegation of this assembly the general principles that I have seen to advance have never received many approbations. In order for me to uphold them before you, it is necessary to possess this deep conviction, resulting from numerous personal observations, that it is by the sustained application of these principles that the English and Dutch colonies owe the persistent prosperity which they enjoy; whereas our colonies, governed by very different principles, find themselves in an unflourishing situation if one goes by the statistical indications, the unanimous complaints of their representatives, and finally by the continually increasing costs that they impose on our budget. Now, I have earlier uttered the term “general principles;” but, I have only done so for the sake of convenience, and I do not want to leave you believing for a single moment that I desire to defend before you a particular system while opposing another. Indeed, I do not know of any general systems that are applicable to all cases. Whenever general, broad solutions have been applied to the most different situations, an approach which no doubt the simplest mind find attractive, their rigorous application has always led to the most disastrous results. The main purpose of my speech today is to demonstrate to you the terrible danger posed by these very general, broad solutions. France, unfortunately, is inclined to adopt such solutions, whereas neighboring nations energetically resist them. England, for example, has carefully varied its colonial system from one country to another, and often from one region to another within the same country. If I were to go over with you the comparative history of the foreign colonies and the French colonies, I would be able to easily show you that the prosperity of the former is ever increasing, thanks to this flexible form of governing which varies according to the circumstances, whereas in ours I would only be able to relate the fatal results engendered by the uniform system known under the name of assimilation. This system of assimilation, marvelously simple in appearance, consists, as you know, of providing the very diverse populations which inhabit our colonies—and whatever be their morals, customs, and part—the entirety of our laws and institutions, in a word to treat them exactly like a French department. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The evolution of matterurn:md5:0fdfe25f8700100cc29a893e60a401bb2012-08-15T01:16:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:11+01:00balderLe Bon GustavePhysics <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_evolution_of_matter_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The evolution of matter</strong><br />
Year : 1907<br />
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There is, fortunately, no need for me to introduce Dr. Gustave Le Bon to the British public, inasmuch as his works on psychology have a European reputation, and his Psychology of Crowds (long since translated into English) has become, in some sort, a classic. About ten years ago, however, he began to turn his attention to physical science, with ifhe result that he entered upon the long course of experimental research which is summarized in the following pages. This led him to the conclusion—to put the affair in its simplest form—that all matter is radio-active in the same manner as uranium, radium, and the other so-called radio-active metals, and that this radioactivity is but a step in the process by which it gradually sinks back into the ether from which it was originally formed. To this he has lately added the corollary that, in the course of this disintegration, energies of an intensity transcending anything of the kind previously observed are very slowly and gradually liberated. Conclusions so subversive of all that formerly passed under the name of scientific teaching could hardly be promulgated without causing an uproar, and that which followed the first ventilation of them left nothing to be desired on the score of vehemence. In France, even more than in England, it has always been considered an impertinence for any one not engaged in the tuition of youth to possess original ideas on any scientific subject, and the violence of Dr. Le Bon's adversaries -was only equalled by the volubility with which they contradicted themselves and each other. How this storm gradually abated, and was succeeded first by impartial consideration and then by a pretty general acceptance of his theories, he tells us at sufficient length in the book itself. But I may perhaps remark here that his earliest adherents on the Continent were drawn from the ranks of those who—as was my own case until some two years ago—had no other acquaintance with him than through his writings. In our own country the same thing occurred on a smaller scale and with a difference. No sooner had the volume of which this is a translation reached England than it was assailed, with more rashness than ingenuousness, by two of the younger members of the University of Cambridge. As I have dealt elsewhere, with the one of them who constituted himself the spokesman of the two, there is no occasion for me to re-open the polemic; but it may be noted that this time Dr. Le Bon's assailants admitted that his theory was (to use their own words) "in the main correct," and contented them-selves with challenging the sufficiency of nis experiments and the originality of his doctrine. To those who have studied without prejudice the controversies which have raged round nearly every scientific generalization on its first appearance, this will doubtless appear but a premonitory symptom of its universal acceptance in the near future. They will be confirmed in this view by the fact that over 12,000 copies of this book have been sold in France since its publication in June 1905, which, in the present state of the book market, may be considered an extraordinary event. The rendering of the work into English has been in a double sense a labour of love, my task having been much facilitated by Dr. Le Bon's bold and positive style, as well as by his clear and excellent French. But, while an author necessarily and justly looks upon his translator as a traducer, it is seldom, perhaps, that a translator imbued with the critical spirit for long remains satisfied with the literary workmanship of his author. I do not venture to say, therefore, that there is nothing in these pages that would have been better left unsaid, or even nothing that could have been more clearly stated. What I would recommend to the reader, and especially to the expert reader who feels himself attracted by them, is to go from their study to the original memoirs on which they are based, and of which a list is appended. He will there find among the deviations and slips which usually attend our first faltering steps on the path to scientific truth many shrewd and pregnant hints that of necessity have made their escape in the process of compression into the present volume. To Dr. Le Bon's original text I have added a few notes, designed for the most part to collate his conclusions with the latest researches on their subject, and these notes can be distinguished from the author's by my initials. F. LEGGE. Royal Institution of Great Britain, December 1906. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The evolution of forcesurn:md5:a5c67024b6be3ba9cc60a68eeac3abd52012-08-15T01:12:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:07+01:00balderLe Bon GustavePhysics <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_evolution_of_forces_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The evolution of forces</strong><br />
Year : 1908<br />
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In the following pages, Dr. Gustave Le Bon develops further the strikingly novel and original theories put forward by him in L'Involution de la Matiirc} As in the last-named work, he enunciated the doctrine, which he was the first to deduce, that all matter is continually in a state of dissociation and decay, so in this he goes in detail into the corollary, there only briefly stated, that the atom is a great reservoir of energy, and itself the source of most of the forces of the universe. In support of this position, he calls in the aid of his earlier researches into the nature of invisible radiations, phosphorescence, and the Hertzian waves, all which, with several related phenomena, he declares to be explicable by the hypothesis that the atom, on dissociating, sets free, either wholly or in part, the energy stored up within it on its formation. Yet he is careful to declare that this is rather suggested than demonstrated by his researches, and that the conclusive proof of the vahdity of his assertion must be delayed for the result of further experiments by himself or others. In the meantime, it is :well to notice that both Dr. Le Bon's original thesis and its corollary have received approval from an unexpected quarter. Every new scientific theory, if sufiBciently farreaching, is received with disapproval by those brought up on the ideas it would supplant, and Dr. Le Bon's assertion of the universal dissociation" of matter formed no exception to this rule. In France, as he reminds us in L'involution cle la Matidre, his first discovery of the phenomena which he classed together under the odd name of " Black Light," aroused a perfect storm of obloquy which has long since died away. In England, whither his theories penetrated only after they had been in great part accepted by the scientific world, this was not the case ; but two members of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge took upon themselves, upon the appearance of L'J^volution cle la Matiere, to assail its teaching as well as its novelty with more virulence than force.^ It is therefore pleasing to find Mr. P. D. Innes, himself a member of the Cavendish Laboratory, writing, with the apparent approval of its Director, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, with regard to radio-active phenomena, that " the only theory which can satisfactorily account for the phenomena observed is that of atomic disintegration, a process that is apparently going on in several, if not in all, of the elements " ; and further (p. 443), " that there is a great store of energy in the atom seems now beyond question, and if this reservoir could only become available, all our present conditions might be completely revolutionised." This is exactly—as any one can see for himself —the position taken up by Dr. Le Bon in L'Evolution de la Mature, and further defined and emphasized by him in the present work. There seems therefore good reason to suppose that Dr. Le Bon's later theories, as well as his earlier ones, are now widely accepted by men of science, and that before long this acceptance will be extended to all points of his doctrine. It should be added that the present work was written expressly for the International Scientific Series, and was intended to appear simultaneously in England and France. Difficulties connected witli the reproduction of the illustrations have caused the appearance of this version to lag some months behind the French, of which eight editions of 1000 copies apiece have been rapidly exhausted. The delay has not been useless, as it has enabled me to add a few corrections and notes, together with indexes, which are wanting in the French editions. F. LEGGE. Royal Institution of Gekat Bbitain, February, 1908. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - The Crowd A Study of the Popular Mindurn:md5:e9c510c63c35dc95c99c4aa941bb69622012-08-15T01:03:00+01:002014-05-05T15:55:02+01:00balderLe Bon GustavePropagandaSociology <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_The_Crowd_A_Study_of_the_Popular_Mind_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>The Crowd A Study of the Popular Mind</strong><br />
Year : 1896<br />
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The following work is devoted to an account of the characteristics of crowds. The whole of the common characteristics with which heredity endows the individuals of a race constitute the genius of the race. When, however, a certain number of these individuals are gathered together in a crowd for purposes of action, observation proves that, from the mere fact of their being assembled, there result certain new psychological characteristics, which are added to the racial characteristics and differ from them at times to a very considerable degree. Organised crowds have always played an important part in the life of peoples, but this part has never been of such moment as at present. The substitution of the unconscious action of crowds for the conscious activity of individuals is one of the principal characteristics of the present age. I have endeavoured to examine the difficult problem presented by crowds in a purely scientific manner — that is, by making an effort to proceed with method, and without being influenced by opinions, theories, and doctrines. This, I believe, is the only mode of arriving at the discovery of some few particles of truth, especially when dealing, as is the case here, with a question that is the subject of impassioned controversy. A man of science bent on verifying a phenomenon is not called upon to concern himself with the interests his verifications may hurt. In a recent publication an eminent thinker, M. Goblet d’Alviela, made the remark that, belonging to none of the contemporary schools, I am occasionally found in opposition of sundry of the conclusions of all of them. I hope this new work will merit a similar observation. To belong to a school is necessarily to espouse its prejudices and preconceived opinions. Still I should explain to the reader why he will find me draw conclusions from my investigations which it might be thought at first sight they do not bear; why, for instance, after noting the extreme mental inferiority of crowds, picked assemblies included, I yet affirm it would be dangerous to meddle with their organisation, notwithstanding this inferiority. The reason is, that the most attentive observation of the facts of history has invariably demonstrated to me that social organisms being every whit as complicated as those of all beings, it is in no wise in our power to force them to undergo on a sudden far-reaching transformations. Nature has recourse at times to radical measures, but never after our fashion, which explains how it is that nothing is more fatal to a people than the mania for great reforms, however excellent these reforms may appear theoretically. They would only be useful were it possible to change instantaneously the genius of nations. This power, however, is only possessed by time. Men are ruled by ideas, sentiments, and customs — matters which are of the essence of ourselves. Institutions and laws are the outward manifestation of our character, the expression of its needs. Being its outcome, institutions and laws cannot change this character. The study of social phenomena cannot be separated from that of the peoples among whom they have come into existence. From the philosophic point of view these phenomena may have an absolute value; in practice they have only a relative value. It is necessary, in consequence, when studying a social phenomenon, to consider it successively under two very different aspects. It will then be seen that the teachings of pure reason are very often contrary to those of practical reason. There are scarcely any data, even physical, to which this distinction is not applicable. From the point of view of absolute truth a cube or a circle are invariable geometrical figures, rigorously defined by certain formulas. From the point of view of the impression they make on our eye these geometrical figures may assume very varied shapes. By perspective the cube may be transformed into a pyramid or a square, the circle into an ellipse or a straight line. Moreover, the consideration of these fictitious shapes is far more important than that of the real shapes, for it is they and they alone that we see and that can be reproduced by photography or in pictures. In certain cases there is more truth in the unreal than in the real. To present objects with their exact geometrical forms would be to distort nature and render it unrecognisable. If we imagine a world whose inhabitants could only copy or photograph objects, but were unable to touch them, it would be very difficult for such persons to attain to an exact idea of their form. Moreover, the knowledge of this form, accessible only to a small number of learned men, would present but a very minor interest. The philosopher who studies social phenomena should bear in mind that side by side with their theoretical value they possess a practical value, and that this latter, so far as the evolution of civilisation is concerned, is alone of importance. The recognition of this fact should render him very circumspect with regard to the conclusions that logic would seem at first to enforce upon him. There are other motives that dictate to him a like reserve. The complexity of social facts is such, that it is impossible to grasp them as a whole and to foresee the effects of their reciprocal influence. It seems, too, that behind the visible facts are hidden at times thousands of invisible causes. Visible social phenomena appear to be the result of an immense, unconscious working, that as a rule is beyond the reach of our analysis. Perceptible phenomena may be compared to the waves, which are the expression on the surface of the ocean of deep-lying disturbances of which we know nothing. So far as the majority of their acts are considered, crowds display a singularly inferior mentality; yet there are other acts in which they appear to be guided by those mysterious forces which the ancients denominated destiny, nature, or providence, which we call the voices of the dead, and whose power it is impossible to overlook, although we ignore their essence. It would seem, at times, as if there were latent forces in the inner being of nations which serve to guide them. What, for instance, can be more complicated, more logical, more marvellous than a language? Yet whence can this admirably organised production have arisen, except it be the outcome of the unconscious genius of crowds? The most learned academics, the most esteemed grammarians can do no more than note down the laws that govern languages; they would be utterly incapable of creating them. Even with respect to the ideas of great men are we certain that they are exclusively the offspring of their brains? No doubt such ideas are always created by solitary minds, but is it not the genius of crowds that has furnished the thousands of grains of dust forming the soil in which they have sprung up? Crowds, doubtless, are always unconscious, but this very unconsciousness is perhaps one of the secrets of their strength. In the natural world beings exclusively governed by instinct accomplish acts whose marvellous complexity astounds us. Reason is an attribute of humanity of too recent date and still too imperfect to reveal to us the laws of the unconscious, and still more to take its place. The part played by the unconscious in all our acts is immense, and that played by reason very small. The unconscious acts like a force still unknown. If we wish, then, to remain within the narrow but safe limits within which science can attain to knowledge, and not to wander in the domain of vague conjecture and vain hypothesis, all we must do is simply to take note of such phenomena as are accessible to us, and confine ourselves to their consideration. Every conclusion drawn from our observation is, as a rule, premature, for behind the phenomena which we see clearly are other phenomena that we see indistinctly, and perhaps behind these latter, yet others which we do not see at all. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - On the Present Formation of a Race in the Tatras Mountainsurn:md5:8d31212f2659a29dba3b614b751bd48b2012-08-15T01:00:00+01:002014-05-05T15:57:03+01:00balderLe Bon GustavePolandRaces <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_On_the_Present_Formation_of_a_Race_in_the_Tatras_Mountains_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>On the Present Formation of a Race in the Tatras Mountains</strong><br />
Year : 1882<br />
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In our previous article devoted to the state of anthropology in France, we examined the results that the current methods applied to the study of races had provided and could provide. We demonstrated the extreme insufficiency of these methods, and showed that professed anthropologists, with the pretense of embracing all the sciences, hardly troubled themselves during their travels but to measure skulls and skeletons; that the majority of the measurements asked for by these travellers were entirely useless and caused them to waste precious time.1 We pointed out that it is silly to believe that one knows something of a people just because one measured sorne bones, that many more important studies assert themselves to the attention of such travellers. We finally arrived to this conclusion that, in order to assemble accurate and comparable records concerning the physical, intellectual and social state of the human races, there was urgency to draft in the form of a questionnaire very simple instructions. The approval that the most authoritative anthropologists have expressly given to these notions, and the weakness of the criticisms formulated against them by professed craniologists, little anxious to see the uselessness of their research diwlged, only serve to confirm us in the principles that we have set forth. Setting aside for now theoretical considerations, we shall proceed to consider the practical side of the question and investigate how anthropology can be carried out abroad. Until the above simple instructions of which we have spoken exist, we believe it useful to indicate what arefrom our personal experiencethe data that a traveller can easily collect on a human agglomeration visited by him. It is evident that depending on the special knowledge of the traveller and the populations he observes, the questions to study can be vastly different; but, for each people there is a common ground that the reader can easily make out and which is important to know. lt is only, moreover, by way of suggestion that we have given the indications that will be seen to follow. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - On the Inequality of the Corresponding Regions of the Skullurn:md5:da2a4dd044ef293fafa3afcdae00c5bc2012-08-15T00:56:00+01:002014-05-05T15:57:13+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveRacesRacialism <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_On_the_Inequality_of_the_Corresponding_Regions_of_the_Skull_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>On the Inequality of the Corresponding Regions of the Skull</strong><br />
Year : 1878<br />
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Messieurs, during my studies that I have pursued for a long time concerning the variations of the brain’s size and shape that one observes among individuals belonging to the same race—studies whose findings I intend to soon entertain you with—I have had occasion to investigate whether the different parts of the cerebral hemispheres on the right side and on the left side habitually possess the same size. Not being able to easily obtain a determination of the weight of the brain and its associated parts, I was obliged to effectuate my research upon the skull itself. My measurements have been taken on nearly 300 skulls belonging to different series in the collection of the Museum of Anthropology, which were graciously placed at my disposal by Doctor Broca. For a long time anatomists have wondered whether the two cerebral hemispheres are quite alike. The most widely-held opinion has been that of Bichat, who considered that a lack of symmetry of these organs must be accompanied by a lack of sound judgment. The autopsy of this famous anatomist, whose own skull proved to be most irregular, demonstrates how little this opinion is well-founded. With man, the majority of the organs are generally more developed on the right side than on the left; but, considering that the left portion of the brain presides over the functions of the right part of the body, one might deduce that it is the left hemisphere of the brain which must be the most developed. A professor in Bordeaux, Doctor H. Fleury, recently affirmed a similar opinion, based on his contention that blood circulation is more active in the brain’s left hemisphere than in the right hemisphere, because of the dissymmetrical divisions of the aortic arch. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - On the Capacity of the Skull of a Certain Number of Celebrated Menurn:md5:6fe754c4e1049d8946164cc0f3a0ab642012-08-15T00:53:00+01:002014-05-05T15:58:28+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveRacesRacialism <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_On_the_Capacity_of_the_Skull_of_a_Certain_Number_of_Celebrated_Men_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>On the Capacity of the Skull of a Certain Number of Celebrated Men</strong><br />
Year : 1879<br />
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Messieurs, I have the honor of presenting before the Society the results of research that I have seen to undertake on a very curious collection which the Natural History Museum of Paris possesses, and which is composed of original skulls relating to known persons, some of whom are very famous, as included among them are Marshal Jourdan, General Wurmser, Boileau, Gall, etc. Many of these skulls originate from fragments previously reassembled by Gall during the period of his greatness, others from the estate of a prominent collector, Dumoutier, whose specialty was robbing the sepulchral vaults of illustrious men for the benefit of his collection. These two collections, which emanate from the uniting of pieces of diverse provenances, have been acquired at great expense by the Museum of Paris, and afterwards have been stored for some time in one of the rooms of the laboratory of this establishment, where I have been able to study them, thanks to the obligingness of the laboratory's directors. Their scientific study has not yet been made; for, among the various records that the Museum possesses about them, there does not exist a single measurement, and, relative to all those skulls which had passed through the hands of Gall, not one record in his catalog indicates those which were striking by their smallness or their largeness. It is not necessary to insist at length on the interest that exists for anthropology to study the skulls representing well-known individuals. The skulls that our museums possess nearly always are those of unknown persons, and if their study may furnish some information from the standpoint of the race, they do not supply anything from the standpoint of the affinities possibly existing between the exterior forms and the intellectual aptitudes. The study of these skulls was, moreover, of considerable interest to me, because it enabled me to verify, regarding those persons whose aptitudes had been well understood, some of my conclusions appearing in a recent work of mine concerning the affinities existing between the development of the skull and the corresponding level of intelligence-conclusions which have occasioned lively polemics within important French and foreign reviews. I shall recount here only a few of these conclusions: Among the diverse factors correlating with the intellectual condition, one of the most important is the volume of the brain. Within each race the most voluminous skulls nearly always belong to the most intelligent persons. In proportion as one rises up the scale of the races, greater differences in brain capacity are seen amongst individuals. Far from restricting the differences existing among men, civilization only serves but to increase them, and consequently, it is not towards an intellectual equality that we advance, but towards an inequality more and more accentuated. Anatomical, and therefore physiological, equality is not possible among people belonging to entirely inferior races. From the anatomical standpoint, and intellectual as well, there exists among the diverse classes of the superior races immense differences. A great number of men occupy, by the very small volume of their skulls, an intermediate place between the anthropoid apes and those individuals whose brains are the most developed. The research whose results I have seen to set forth deals only with cranial capacity. In no way, like I have already said, and I stress besides, have I held true for a single instant that skull volume is the sole factor which determines the development of the intelligence. Plenty of other factors, the shape for example, as I hope to fully demonstrate some day, account for this; but, because one is unable to simultaneously grapple with all these factors, I shall begin with one of them. The volume is the one that I have entertained to approach, and it is for this single matter that I again present myself. If one eliminates from the collection of which I have spoken the women, criminals, and pathological persons, classifications comprising another part of the Museum from where I have conducted my research, there remains 42 skulls having belonged to individuals who were well-known during their lifetime. A good part pertain to quite famous men, others to persons possessing an intelligence obviously well above the average, and others to individuals who, although they had not presented proof of a superior intelligence, figure in the collection only because of the high social position which they had occupied in the world. These are then, in reality, distinct categories; but, as one may debate about their limits, and given that I do not wish to see anyone accusing me of having eliminated unfavorable persons from my thesis, I have brought together all of the skulls before separating them. In spite of incorporating disadvantageous data, the results obtained are, as I shall demonstrate, most convincing, and absolutely confirm the theory that I have previously expounded. The average capacity of these 42 skulls is, in fact, enormous; whereas the average for one of the most intelligent contemporary groups, modern day Parisians of the masculine sex, is 1559 cubic centimeters, that of the 42 famous men is 1682 cubic centimeters. Now, given that the average for negroes is about 1430 cubic centimeters, it follows that the average capacity of the skulls of the well-known or eminent men surpasses by almost as much that of the Parisians as the skull volume of the latter surpasses the cranial capacity of the negroes. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - On the Applications of Photography to Anthropology with Respect to the Photographs Taken of the Fuegians Housed at the Jardin d'Acclimatationurn:md5:a39309828cc52e57e4e99bf94e8507072012-08-15T00:50:00+01:002014-05-05T15:58:32+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveRacesSouth America <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_On_the_Applications_of_Photography_to_Anthropology_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>On the Applications of Photography to Anthropology with Respect to the Photographs Taken of the Fuegians Housed at the Jardin d'Acclimatation</strong><br />
Year : 1881<br />
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Messieurs, I have the honor of offering to the Society copies of several photographs of the Fuegians currently housed here in Paris at the Jardin d’Acclimatation; these pictures were taken with the assistance of my friend, Monsieur Jeanmaire. The subjects are reproduced both in profile and in full face, and attached to each picture is a scale consisting of a strip of paper 1 decimeter in length, which permits one to reconstitute the dimensions of all parts of the body and to execute by consequence on these photographs the same measurements that one is able to carry out upon the living. Because of the impossibility of getting these individuals to remain absolutely still, their reproduction by the old methods of photography would have been extremely laborious. In fact, a professional photographer who preceded us was obliged to return for five consecutive days, recommencing his operations non-stop for six hours each day. By using a dry emulsion of gelatino-silver bromide, which the latest method of photography calls for, we were able to operate in an instantaneous manner, and therefore did not have to preoccupy ourselves with trying to keep the subjects still. Also, our savages have been caught in the most diverse, but at the same time the most natural, poses. Two infants, of whom one sees only their heads emerging from the blanket wrappings where they are taking refuge, have a very curious physiognomic expression. One of them, who I was annoying a few moments before, kept on crying. From an aesthetic point of view, these photographs are perhaps not as good as those of the Nubians that I took last year. But, from the photographic point of view, their clearness is complete. We were able to enlarge them considerably, and I expect to show you in an upcoming meeting a print possessing very large dimensions. <strong>...</strong></p>Le Bon Gustave - How Races and Peoples Transform Their Civilization and Artsurn:md5:9e7ffff45ddf434ac3c57b9c6023d2ac2012-08-15T00:43:00+01:002014-05-05T15:58:35+01:00balderLe Bon GustaveCivilizationsRaces <p><img src="https://balderexlibris.com/public/img/.Le_Bon_Gustave_-_How_Races_and_Peoples_Transform_Their_Civilization_and_Arts_s.jpg" alt="" /><br />
Author : <strong>Le Bon Gustave</strong><br />
Title : <strong>How Races and Peoples Transform Their Civilization and Arts</strong><br />
Year : 1892<br />
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In a preceding work¹ I have attempted to show that it is completely impossible for superior races to impose their civilization on inferior races and make the latter accept it. Taking up and analyzing one by one the most powerful means of action which the Europeans have had at their command and have employed— education, institutions and beliefs—I have demonstrated the absolute insufficiency of these means of action for changing the social state of inferior peoples. In addition, I have tried to establish that all the elements of a civilization correspond to certain modes of feeling and thinking, that is to say, a mental constitution represents the past of all a race, the result of the experiences and actions of a long series of ancestors, the hereditary movers of behavior. In order to change the civilization of a people, it will be necessary to change its soul. Only centuries, and not conquerors, can accomplish such a task. We have also come to see that it is only by means of a series of successive stages, analogous to the ones that the Barbarians— destroyers of the Greco-Roman civilization—cleared, that a people may elevate themselves on the ladder of civilization. If, by means of education, one tries to make a people evade and by-pass these stages, one will only disorganize and throw into confusion these people’s morale and intelligence, and end up leading them back to a level lower than the one where they had arrived by themselves. Lastly, I have shown that today there is only one people—the Arabs—capable of civilizing inferior peoples, because it is the only one which still possesses very simple institutions and beliefs. It is thus that after having transformed an enormous swath of the Orient, Moslems are the only possible civilizers of Africa, whereas Europeans, its conquerors today, are only able to ravage it. Now, my argumentation, and the documents which will support it, relates above all to those inferior peoples who by reason of colonization are in contact with extremely civilized peoples. My intention here today is to generalize the question, and to show convincingly that superior races have never been influenced by a foreign civilization more rapidly than inferior races and that, if the former have sometimes adopted beliefs, institutions, languages and arts different from those of their ancestors, it is only after their having been transformed slowly and profoundly in a way that brings them into rapport with their mental constitution. History seems to contradict itself on each following page. One quite frequently sees, for example, peoples changing the elements of their civilization, adopting new religions, new languages, and new institutions. Some abandon centuries-old beliefs repeatedly in order to convert to Christianity, Buddhism or Islam; others change their language while, lastly, others radically modify their institutions and arts. It even seems that the appearance of a conqueror or an apostle is sufficient in order to produce very easily similar transformations. However, in our presenting the account of these abrupt revolutions, History only succeeds in accomplishing one of its habitual tasks: creating and propagating many mistakes. When one studies nearly all these supposed changes, one will soon notice that the names only of the things change readily, whereas the realities which hide themselves behind the words continue to live and only transform themselves with extreme slowness. Now, in order to substantiate and demonstrate how, behind the variable designations, the very slow evolution of things is accomplished, it will be necessary to study each element of each civilization among diverse peoples. This heavy task I have already attempted in many volumes²; I do not propose to recommence it here. Setting aside the numerous elements of civilizations, I shall only examine today one of them: the arts. Before entering upon the study of the evolution that the arts effect in passing from one people to another, I shall in the meantime make some remarks about the changes that the other elements of the civilization undergo, in order to show that the laws applicable to a single one of these elements are indeed applicable to all, and that, if the arts of a people are in rapport with a certain mental constitution, so also are the languages, institutions, beliefs, etc., and consequently, these elements cannot abruptly change, but instead are received indifferently by one people from another. It is mainly with regard to religious beliefs that this theory may seem paradoxical, but it is nevertheless in the history of these same beliefs that one can find the best examples to invoke in order to prove that it is just as impossible for a people to suddenly change the elements of its civilization as it is for an individual to change his height or the color of his eyes. Everybody is undoubtedly aware that all the great religions— Brahmanism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam—have instigated mass conversions in entire races who have seemed to adopt the new religion all at once; however, when one engages in a deeper study of these conversions, one soon ascertains that what the peoples have primarily changed is the name of their religion, and not the religion itself; that in reality the adopted beliefs have undergone the necessary transformations in order to put themselves in rapport with the old beliefs that they have come to replace and of which they are therefore only the simple continuation. These transformations, supported by the beliefs passing from one people to another, are themselves so considerable that the newly-adopted religion does not have any visible relationship with the one from which it takes its name. The best example of this is the one provided by Buddhism which, after having been transported to China, has become at this point unrecognizable, so much so that scholars had at first taken it to be an independent religion, and had for a long time missed recognizing that this religion was merely Buddhism transformed by the race who had adopted it. Chinese Buddhism is not at all the Buddhism of India, which itself is very different from the Buddhism of Nepal and likewise differs from the Buddhism of Ceylon. In India Buddhism was but a schism of Brahmanism, which had preceded it, and from which it fundamentally differed quite little; in China it was also a schism of the earlier beliefs to which it had tightly attached itself. What is rigorously demonstrated for Buddhism is not any less so for Brahmanism. The races of India being extremely diverse, it is easy to suppose that, under identical names, they will come to possess extremely different religious beliefs. Certainly, all the Brahmanic peoples consider Vishnu and Siva as their fundamental divinities, and the Vedas as their sacred books; however, these fundamental gods only leave behind in the religion their names, and the sacred books but their text. One sees this in the innumerable cults that have been formed throughout India— cults where one comes across, depending on the races, the most varied beliefs: monotheism, polytheism, fetishism, pantheism, cults worshipping ancestors, demons, animals, etc. To not judge the cults of India other than from what the Vedas say, one will not obtain the slightest idea of the gods and beliefs which reign in this immense peninsula. The title of the sacred books is venerated among all the Brahmans, but of the religion that these books teach, nothing fully remains. <strong>...</strong></p>