266 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
is, of course, impossible to draw a hard and fast line be tween normal and abnormal phenomena of this type ; but the distinction is nevertheless one of great practical importance, for in general it coincides with the distinction between healthy and unhealthy group action.
The phenomena to which the term, "popular mania," is applied are common emotional states which are intense enough to stop in large measure, if not wholly, the rational processes. The people become " wild." The reader who lived in a certain section of the South during the epoch of the land booms along in the eighties of the last century can recall typical experiences of this kind. A land company would be organized and, by advertisement far and wide, would " boom " a village or town as destined in a short time to become a great city. The enthusiasm would spread with astonishing rapidity. Conservative, cool-headed sceptics, who could see no real basis for such extravagant expecta tions, were ridiculed as old fogies, or denounced as " kick ers " who were indifferent or unfriendly to the interests of the community. Streets were opened through old fields or thick forests traces of some of them remaining to this day as visible relics of the craze of a third of a century ago. Building lots were sold at high figures over areas large enough to contain the population of a metropolis; and the purchasers saw fortunes in these investments. In a little while the crest of the wave of excitement passed; the shrewder ones began to unload. Scepticism spread rapidly, and one by one the boom bubbles burst, leaving many people sadder and wiser.
As illustrative of the extreme irrationality which may characterize such phenomena the tulip mania in Holland has been frequently referred to. Sidis * relates the story as fol lows : " About the year 1634 the Dutch became suddenly possessed with a mania for tulips. The ordinary industry of the country was neglected, and the population, even to its lowest dregs, embarked in the tulip trade. The tulip rose
l " The Psychology of Suggestion," pp. 343-345-
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