242 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
vinced and led. But his will has not been paralyzed; his action still represents his personality, though not the out come of so thorough and deliberate a consideration of all the issues involved. There are many cases in which the indi vidual has become so thoroughly subject to habit, so warped in his inclinations, so biased in mental action by long per sistence in certain courses of conduct that he is incapable under ordinary conditions of weighing with approximate fairness the pros and cons of an issue that involves those habits and inclinations. The scales of his judgment are loaded ; or he sees the better way but is unable to choose it when the test comes. The habitual drinker, the sensual libertine, the veterans of vice and the victims of bad habits in general see the evil of their ways, but have become so perverted that the reasons against indulgence are not effec tive with them, but are borne down and smothered by the clamorous insistence of appetite, which gives exaggerated force to the considerations in favour of indulgence. Fre quently in these sad cases of onesided or perverted develop ment it is the contagion of the crowd, if it does not reach the point of excess, which, by acting as an inhibition of these vicious inclinations, balances the man up and gives his rational nature a better chance to assert itself ; and by the aid of this influence he may be able to reach and fortify himself in moral decisions which give a new direction to his life.
(3) The third stage of psychic fusion is reached when the individuality of the personal units has disappeared ; or per haps we should say, when the only elements of individuality left to them are the reflexive and instinctive peculiarities of their individual nervous constitutions, and even these may be in part suspended. The modifications of their emotional natures resulting from their intellectual organ ization have disappeared. The fusion is complete. This is the mob state. The individual no longer thinks, reasons, chooses. His action does not represent his personality, but is simply his reflexive and instinctive reaction under the
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