As I shall try to show later, the common confusion of the crowd with "society" is an error. The crowd is a social phenomenon only in the sense that it affects a number of persons at the same time. As I have indicated, people may be highly social without becoming a crowd. They may meet, mingle, associate in all sorts of ways, and organize and co-operate for the sake of common ends--in fact, the greater part of our social life might normally have nothing in common with crowd-behavior. Crowd-behavior is pseudo-social--if social organizations be regarded as a means to the achievement of realizable goods. The phenomena which we call the crowd-mind, instead of being the outgrowth of the directly social, are social only in the sense that all mental life has social significance; they are rather the result of forces hidden in the personal and unconscious psyche of the members of the crowd, forces which are merely _released_ by social gatherings of a certain sort. Let us notice what happens in a public meeting as it develops into a crowd, and see if we can trace some of the steps of the process. Picture a large meeting-hall, fairly well filled with people. Notice first of all what sort of interest it is which as a rule will most easily bring an assemblage of people together. It need not necessarily be a matter of great importance, but it must be something which catches and challenges attention without great effort. It is most commonly, therefore, an _issue_ of some sort. I have seen efforts made in New York to hold mass meetings to discuss affairs of the very greatest importance, and I have noted the fact that such efforts usually fail to get out more than a handful of specially interested persons, no matter how well advertised, if the subject to be considered happens not to be of a controversial nature. I call especial attention to this fact because later we shall see that it is this element of conflict, directly or indirectly, which plays an overwhelming part in the psychology of every crowd. It is the element of contest which makes baseball so popular. A debate will draw a larger crowd than a lecture. One of the secrets of the large attendance of the forum is the fact that discussion--"talking back"--is permitted and encouraged. The evangelist Sunday undoubtedly owes the great attendance at his meetings in no small degree to the fact that he is regularly expected to abuse some one. If the matter to be considered is one about which there is keen partisan feeling and popular resentment--if it lends itself to the spectacular personal achievement of one whose name is known, especially in the face of opposition or difficulties--or if the occasion permits of resolutions of protest, of the airing of wrongs, of denouncing abuse of some kind, or of casting statements of external principles in the teeth of "enemies of humanity," then, however trivial the occasion, we may count on it that our assembly will be well attended. Now let us watch the proceedings.