Цепочка: как рождается психологическая толпа

Магистральный аргумент главы I: от определения толпы к трём причинам её новых свойств и к падению личности. Здесь заложена вся книга.

1. Личность исчезает, рождается коллективный ум — psychological-crowd

   The sentiments and ideas of all the persons in the gathering take one and the same direction, and their conscious personality vanishes.
   — The Crowd, Book I, ch. I

2. Толпа — новое качество, а не сумма — psychological-crowd

   in the aggregate which constitutes a crowd there is in no sort a summing-up of or an average struck between its elements.
   — The Crowd, Book I, ch. I

3. Верх берёт унаследованное бессознательное — collective-unconscious

   In the collective mind the intellectual aptitudes of the individuals, and in consequence their individuality, are weakened. The heterogeneous is swamped by the homogeneous, and the unconscious qualities obtain the upper hand.
   — The Crowd, Book I, ch. I

4. Вторая причина — заражение — contagion

   In a crowd every sentiment and act is contagious, and contagious to such a degree that an individual readily sacrifices his personal interest to the collective interest.
   — The Crowd, Book I, ch. I

5. Третья и главная — внушаемость, как гипноз — suggestibility

   The conscious personality has entirely vanished; will and discernment are lost.
   — The Crowd, Book I, ch. I

6. Итог: человек — автомат, спустившийся к варварству — disappearance-of-personality

   by the mere fact that he forms part of an organised crowd, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilisation. Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian--that is, a creature acting by instinct.
   — The Crowd, Book I, ch. I