286 PSYCHOLOGY AND PREACHING
age man of by-gone ages. The multiplication and dif ferentiation of the interests of the individual are among the most characteristic features of modern life. When some current of social emotion pours through a community of such persons it is not nearly so likely to become powerful enough to monopolize time and thought, because the other interests are clamouring for attention, and their neglect is apt to entail serious consequences. It is hard now, therefore, to secure the focalization of attention necessary for the devel opment of very high waves of common emotion. On the whole, then, our premises lead irresistibly to the conclu sion that mental epidemics must be, as a rule, less over whelming in their intensity now than in past times.
Now, are these inferences, that greater frequency, more diffusiveness and lowered intensity characterize mental epi demics in modern society, in accord with the facts?
It does not seem that there can be any reasonable ques tion as to greater frequency. The appeal, of course, is to history, and there is scarcely a doubt that the facts con firm our contention. If there be such a doubt it probably arises from the fact that the mental epidemics of earlier times were more isolated and more striking; and seen in the perspective of history appear to be closer together in time than the less pronounced types of the same phenomena through which we are living. There is even less ground for doubt as to greater diffusion and reduced intensity. It is, of course, difficult or impossible to measure the force of a mental movement or to determine the extent to which, as compared with other movements, it spreads through all classes of the population ; but I am persuaded that a careful study of this class of phenomena as they have been re corded will convince the sceptical that the propositions above stated have a firm basis in facts. Limitation of space will not permit me to go here into an examination of the histori cal evidence; but one fact which is apparently inconsistent with our conclusion should be briefly noticed, viz., the severity of financial panics in modern times. As a matter
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