the same
feelings and thoughts have stirred in every member of the group; they
have felt the pull of the same desires and interests; they have put
themselves in motion toward the same goal; they have greeted one
another in similar fashion, and they find satisfaction in talking
together on a common topic; but they do not constitute a permanent or
organized group, and once separated they may never repeat this chance
meeting.

22. =The Impulse of the Crowd.=--Once within the ball park and seated
on the long benches they are part of a far larger group of like-minded
human beings, and they feel a common thrill in anticipation of the
pleasure of the sport. They feel the stimulus that comes from
obedience to a common impulse. A shout or a joke arouses a sympathetic
outburst from hundreds. When they came together at first most of them
were strangers, but common interests and emotions have produced a
group consciousness. The game is called, and hundreds in unison fix
their attention on the men in action. A hit is made, in breathless
suspense the crowd watches to see the result, and with a common
impulse cries out simultaneously in approbation or disgust over the
play. As the game proceeds primitive passions play over the crowd and
emotions find free expression in the language that habit and custom
provide. The crowd is in a state of high suggestibility; it responds
to the stimulus of a chance remark, the misplay of a player, or the
misjudgment of an umpire; one moment it is thrown into panic by the
prospect of defeat, and the next into paroxysms of delight as the tide
of victory turns. On sufficient provocation the crowd gets into
motion, impelled by a common excitement to unreasoning action; it
pours upon the field, and, unless prevented, wreaks its anger upon
team or umpire that has aroused it to fury, but met with superior
force the crowd melts away, dissolving into its smaller groups and
then into its individual elements. A crowd of the sort described
constitutes one type of the incomplete group. It is a chance assembly,
moved by a common purpose but coalescing only temporarily, guided by
elemental impulses, and readily breaking up without permanent
achievement other than obtaining the recreation sought.

23. =The Mass-Meeting.=--Another and more orderly type appears in a
meeting of American residents in a foreign city to protest against an
outrage to their flag or an injustice to one of their number. Those
who assemble