he form of
ideas and there is "contagion without contact."[284]

The fundamental distinction between the crowd and the public, however,
is not to be measured by numbers nor by means of communication, but by
the form and effects of the interactions. In the public, interaction
takes the form of discussion. Individuals tend to act upon one another
critically; issues are raised and parties form. Opinions clash and thus
modify and moderate one another.

The crowd does not discuss and hence it does not reflect. It simply
"mills." Out of this milling process a collective impulse is formed
which dominates all members of the crowd. Crowds, when they act, do so
impulsively. The crowd, says Le Bon, "is the slave of its impulses."

"The varying impulses which crowds obey may be, according to their
exciting causes, generous or cruel, heroic or cowardly, but they will
always be so imperious that the interest of the individual, even the
interest of self-preservation, will not dominate them."[285]

When the crowd acts it becomes a mob. What happens when two mobs meet?
We have in the literature no definite record. The nearest approach to it
are the occasional accounts we find in the stories of travelers of the
contacts and conflicts of armies of primitive peoples. These
undisciplined hordes are, as compared with the armies of civilized
peoples, little more than armed mobs. Captain S. L. Hinde in his story
of the Belgian conquest of the Congo describes several such battles.
From the descriptions of battles carried on almost wholly between savage
and undisciplined troops it is evident that the morale of an army of
savages is a precarious thing. A very large part of the warfare consists
in alarms and excursions interspersed with wordy duels to keep up the
courage on one side and cause a corresponding depression on the
other.[286]

Gangs are conflict groups. Their organization is usually quite informal
and is determined by the nature and imminence of its conflicts with
other groups. When one crowd encounters another it either goes to pieces
or it changes its character and becomes a conflict group. When
negotiations and palavers take place as they eventually do between
conflict groups, these two groups, together with the neutrals who have
participated vicariously in the conflict, constitute a public. It is
possible that the two opposing savage hordes which seek, by threats and
boastings and beatings of drums, to play upon each other's f