Psychology of Revolution

by Gustave Le Bon

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781515454724
Publisher:	Wilder Publications, Inc.
Publication date:	01/29/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	196
File size:	2 MB

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER II RELIGIOUS REVOLUTIONS I. The importance of the study of Religious Revolutions in respect of the comprehension of the great Political Revolutions. A Portion of this work will be devoted to the French Revolution. It was full of acts of violence which naturally had their psychological causes. These exceptional events will always fill us with astonishment, and we even feel them to be inexplicable. They become comprehensible, however, if we consider that the French Revolution, constituting a new religion, was bound to obey the laws which condition the propagation of all beliefs. Its fury and its hecatombs will then become intelligible. In studying the history of a great religious revolution, that of the Reformation, we shall see that a number of psychological elements which figured therein were equally active during the French Revolution. In both we observe the insignificant bearing of the rational value of a belief upon its propagation, the inefficacy of persecution, the impossibility of tolerance between contrary beliefs, and the violence and the desperate struggles resulting from the conflict of different faiths. We also observe the exploitation of a belief by interests quite independent of that belief. Finally we see that it is impossible to modify the convictions of men without also modifying their existence. These phenomena verified, we shall see plainly why the gospel of the Revolution was propagated by the same methods as all the religious gospels, notably that of Calvin. It could not have been propagated otherwise. But although there are close analogies between the genesis of a religious revolution, such as the Reformation, and that of a great political revolutionlike our own, their remote consequences are very different, which explains the diffe...

Table of Contents

	Introduction: The Revision of History	11
Part I	The Psychological Elements of Revolutionary Movements
Book I	General Characteristics of Revolutions
Chapter I.	Scientific and Political Revolutions	23
1.	Classification of Revolutions	23
2.	Scientific Revolutions	25
3.	Political Revolutions	26
4.	The results of Political Revolutions	31
Chapter II.	Religious Revolutions	34
1.	The importance of the study of Religious Revolutions in respect of the comprehension of the great Political Revolutions	34
2.	The beginnings of the Reformation and its first disciples	35
3.	Rational value of the doctrines of the Reformation	37
4.	Propagation of the Reformation	39
5.	Conflict between different religious beliefs. The impossibility of tolerance	40
6.	The results of Religious Revolutions	46
Chapter III.	The Action of Governments in Revolutions	49
1.	The feeble resistance of Governments in time of Revolution	49
2.	How the resistance of Governments may overcome Revolution	53
3.	Revolutions effected by Governments. Examples: China, Turkey, &c.	54
4.	Social elements which survive the changes of Government after Revolution	58
Chapter IV.	The Part Played by the People in Revolutions	60
1.	The stability and malleability of the national mind	60
2.	How the People regards Revolution	63
3.	The supposed part of the People during Revolution	66
4.	The popular entity and its constituent elements	69
Book II	The forms of Mentality Prevalent During Revolution
Chapter I.	Individual Variations of Character in time of Revolution	75
1.	Transformations of Personality	75
2.	Elements of character predominant in time of Revolution	77
Chapter II.	The Mystic Mentality and the Jacobin Mentality	86
1.	Classification of mentalities predominant in time of Revolution	86
2.	The Mystic Mentality	87
3.	The Jacobin Mentality	92
Chapter III.	The Revolutionary and Criminal Mentalities	97
1.	The Revolutionary Mentality	97
2.	The Criminal Mentality	99
Chapter IV.	The Psychology of Revolutionary Crowds	102
1.	General characteristics of the crowd	102
2.	How the stability of the racial mind limits the oscillations of the mind of the crowd	105
3.	The role of the leader in Revolutionary Movements	109
Chapter V.	The Psychology of the Revolutionary Assemblies	113
1.	Psychological characteristics of the great Revolutionary Assemblies	113
2.	The Psychology of the Revolutionary Clubs	116
3.	A suggested explanation of the progressive exaggeration of sentiments in assemblies	119
Part II
Book I	The Origins of the French Revolution
Chapter I.	The Opinions of Historians concerning the French Revolution	123
1.	The Historians of the Revolution	123
2.	The theory of Fatalism in respect of the Revolution	126
3.	The hesitation of recent Historians of the Revolution	130
4.	Impartiality in History	133
Chapter II.	The Psychological Foundations of the Ancien Regime	137
1.	The Absolute Monarchy and the Basis of the Ancien Regime	137
2.	The inconveniences of the Ancien Regime	138
3.	Life under the Ancien Regime	141
4.	Evolution of Monarchical feeling during the Revolution	144
Chapter III.	Mental Anarchy at the time of the Revolution and the influence attributed to the Philosophers	147
1.	Origin and Propagation of Revolutionary Ideas	147
2.	The supposed influence of the Philosophers of the eighteenth century upon the Genesis of the Revolution. Their dislike of Democracy	152
3.	The philosophical ideas of the Bourgeoisie at the time of the Revolution	156
Chapter IV.	Psychological Illusions respecting the French Revolution	158
1.	Illusions respecting Primitive Man, the return to the State of Nature, and the Psychology of the People	158
2.	Illusions respecting the possibility of separating Man from his Past and the power of Transformation attributed to the Law	160
3.	Illusions respecting the Theoretical Value of the great Revolutionary Principles	162
Book II	The Rational, Affective, Mystic, and Collective Influences Active During the Revolution
Chapter I.	The Psychology of the Constituent Assembly	167
1.	Psychological influences active during the French Revolution	167
2.	Dissolution of the Ancien Regime. The assembling of the States-General	170
3.	The constituent Assembly	172
Chapter II.	The Psychology of the Legislative Assembly	183
1.	Political events during the life of the Legislative Assembly	183
2.	Mental characteristics of the Legislative Assembly	185
Chapter III.	The Psychology of the Convention	190
1.	The Legend of the Convention	190
2.	Results of the triumph of the Jacobin Religion	193
3.	Mental characteristics of the Convention	197
Chapter IV.	The Government of the Convention	202
1.	The activity of the Clubs and the Commune during the Convention	202
2.	The Government of France during the Convention: the Terror	205
3.	The End of the Convention. The Beginnings of the Directory	210
Chapter V.	Instances of Revolutionary Violence	213
1.	Psychological Causes of Revolutionary Violence	213
2.	The Revolutionary Tribunals	215
3.	The Terror in the Provinces	218
Chapter VI.	The Armies of the Revolution	223
1.	The Revolutionary Assemblies and the Armies	223
2.	The Struggle of Europe against the Revolution	224
3.	Psychological and Military Factors which determined the success of the Revolutionary Armies	227
Chapter VII.	Psychology of the Leaders of the Revolution	232
1.	Mentality of the men of the Revolution. The respective influence of violent and feeble characters	232
2.	Psychology of the Commissaries or Representatives "on Mission"	234
3.	Danton and Robespierre	238
4.	Fouquier-Tinville, Marat, Billaud-Varenne, &c.	245
5.	The destiny of those Members of the Convention who survived the Revolution	250
Book III	The Conflict Between Ancestral Influences and Revolutionary Principles
Chapter I.	The Last Convulsions of Anarchy. The Directory	252
1.	Psychology of the Directory	252
2.	Despotic Government of the Directory. Recrudescence of the Terror	255
3.	The Advent of Bonaparte	259
4.	Causes of the Duration of the Revolution	262
Chapter II.	The Restoration of Order. The Consular Republic	265
1.	How the work of the Revolution was confirmed by the Consulate	265
2.	The re-organisation of France by the Consulate	267
3.	Psychological elements which determined the success of the work of the Consulate	270
Chapter III.	Political Results of the Conflict between Traditions and the Revolutionary Principles during the last Century	275
1.	The psychological causes of the continued Revolutionary Movements to which France has been subject	275
2.	Summary of a century's Revolutionary Movements in France	280
Part III	The Recent Evolution of the Revolutionary Principles
Chapter I.	The Progress of Democratic Beliefs since the Revolution	289
1.	Gradual propagation of Democratic Ideas after the Revolution	289
2.	The unequal influence of the three fundamental principles of the Revolution	292
3.	The Democracy of the "Intellectuals" and Popular Democracy	293
4.	Natural Inequalities and Democratic Equalisation	296
Chapter II.	The Results of Democratic Evolution	300
1.	The influence upon social evolution of theories of no rational value	300
2.	The Jacobin Spirit and the Mentality created by Democratic Beliefs	302
3.	Universal Suffrage and its representatives	307
4.	The craving for Reforms	310
5.	Social distinctions in Democracies and Democratic Ideas in various countries	312
Chapter III.	The New Forms of Democratic Belief	316
1.	The conflict between Capital and Labour	316
2.	The evolution of the Working Classes and the Syndicalist Movement	318
3.	Why certain modern Democratic Governments are gradually being transformed into Governments by Administrative Castes	322
	Conclusions	326