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'In this work Le Bon makes a careful study of the character and scope of the activities of crowds and mobs. He bases all his propositions about these phenomena on his general theory of the nature of social interpretation as set forth in his prior work, Lois psychologiques de l'evolution des peuples. This theory involves a very sharp distinction between the social institutions and the social soul, the institutions being simply manifestations of the soul, and the latter alone a living or creative element. L'me du peuple must then be studied first and foremost by the sociologist and all social phenomena must be explained by reference to this soul as cause.

In the present work this theory appears throughout ; for it is the mind of the crowd that is primarily studied. The sub-title for the English edition of the work is "A Study of the Popular Mind." This raises in the thought of the reader at once all the difficulties which were involved in the other work referred to.

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