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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: themselves into acts. The story has often been told of the
manager of a popular theatre who, in consequence of his only
playing sombre dramas, was obliged to have the actor who took the
part of the traitor protected on his leaving the theatre, to
defend him against the violence of the spectators, indignant at
the crimes, imaginary though they were, which the traitor had
committed. We have here, in my opinion, one of the most
remarkable indications of the mental state of crowds, and
especially of the facility with which they are suggestioned. The
unreal has almost as much influence on them as the real. They
have an evident tendency not to distinguish between the two.
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