ABSTRACT
The course of modern European history has thrown up a character whom the people are accustomed to call the "mass man". The "masses" as they appear in modern European history are not composed of individuals; they are composed of "anti-individuals" united in revulsion from individuality. Nevertheless, the "anti-individual" had feelings rather than thoughts, impulses rather than opinions, inabilities rather than passions, and was only dimly aware of his power. The natural submissiveness of the "mass man" may itself be supposed to have been capable of prompting the appearance of appropriate leaders. The power of the "mass man" lay in his numbers, and this power could be brought to bear upon government by means of "the vote". The desire of "the masses" to enjoy the products of individuality has modified their destructive urge. And the antipathy of the "mass man" to the "happiness" of "self-determination" easily dissolves into self-pity.
