Madame Jullien and the Jacobins

World-events of the last forty years have forced historians to reconsider the character and importance of mass-movements. Is there such a thing as what the French call la psychologie des foules—has a crowd a mind of its own, does it carry out purposes of which the individuals composing it would be incapable? In particular, is there a revolutionary psychology, or a psychology of nationalism? A tendency has shown itself, especially in America, to answer all these questions in the affirmative. Psychologists study the methods and effects of propaganda, and their conclusions are taken to heart by publicists and politicians. The history of the French Revolution is rewritten in the light of a theory of revolutionism. Attempts are made to define nationalism, and to show that all nationalist movements conform to a type. On a bigger scale there has been a revival of the so-called philosophy of history, which finds a continuous or recurrent pattern in world-events.