; but to
accomplish its particular object it is immeasurably superior.

If, then, we are to accomplish anything by taking advantage of the very
peculiar crowd or group psychology--owing to which a collected body of men
may feel as a group and act as a group, differently from the way in which
any one of its components would feel or act--we must see that our group is
properly selected and constituted. This does not mean that we are to go
about and choose individuals, one by one, by the exercise of personal
judgment. Such a method is generally inferior and unnecessary. If we
desire to separate the fine from the coarse grains in a sand-pile we do
not set to work with a microscope to measure them, grain by grain; we use
a sieve. The sieve will not do to separate iron filings from copper
filings of exactly the same size, but here a magnet will do the business.
And so separation or selection can almost always be accomplished by
choosing an agency adapted to the conditions; and such agencies often act
automatically without the intervention of the human will. In a voluntary
association formed to accomplish a definite purpose we have a
self-selected group. Such a body may be freely open to the public, as all
our library clubs and associations practically are; yet it is still
selective, for no one would care to join it who is not in some way
interested in its objects. On the other hand, the qualifications for
membership may be numerous and rigid, in which case the selection is more
limited. The ideal of efficiency in an association is probably reached
when the body is formed for a single definite purpose and the terms of
admission are so arranged that each of its members is eager above all
things to achieve its end and is specially competent to work for it, the
purpose of the grouping being merely to attain the object more surely,
thoroughly and rapidly. A good example is a thoroughly trained military
organization, all of whose members are enthusiastic in the cause for which
the body is fighting--a band of patriots, we will say--or perhaps a band
of brigands, for what we have been saying applies to evil as well as to
good associations. The most efficient of such bodies may be very
temporary, as when three persons, meeting by chance, unite to help each
other over a wall that none of them could scale by himself, and, having
reached the other side, separate again. The more clearly cut and definite
the purpose the less the necessity of