274 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
ables them to maintain an attitude of scepticism on general principles, are without the means of protecting themselves against the emotional tide. This is a purely negative condi tion and of itself does not furnish an adequate explana tion of a mental epidemic ; but it is of great practical impor tance because it gives an open opportunity for positive causes to work unhindered. We may in this way account in large part for the town booms in the South, referred to above. The southern people could not be fairly called unintelligent ; but their civilization had been for the most part of the rural type ; they were not acquainted with the conditions and laws of modern industrial development and had had little expe rience in city-building. Much was said about that time of the vast natural resources of their section of the country ; they were just awakening to the realization that their land must inevitably attract large investments of capital. And so, lack ing the experience and knowledge which would have given them a better appreciation of the time-element always neces sary in the development of a great industrial civilization, their imaginations saw their towns expanding as by magic into vast cities within a decade, while shrewd land agents, themselves partly under the spell of the contagion, painted glowing pictures of the rise of factories, the influx of pop ulation and the fat fortunes which awaited those who in vested early in town lots.
3. Positive conditions also may be found in the experi ence of a people, which may have been such as to predispose them to accept without question suggestions of a certain kind.
Consider, for instance, the " Great Fear " that obsessed the minds of the French people in the months of July and August, 1789. A report, originating nobody knew where, that the king was going to send brigands among the people to rob them, was readily believed, and the cry, " The brig ands are coming! " was enough to cast a spell of terror over a neighbourhood. A predisposing cause of the uncritical ac ceptance of the idea was clearly the fact that the people had
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