Remote Factors of Opinions and Beliefs
The factors that determine the opinions and beliefs of crowds can be classified as remote and immediate.
Remote factors render crowds capable of adopting certain convictions and refracting others. These factors influence the individuals in a crowd before they become a crowd, and guide the manner in which they will participate.
Immediate factors are those perceived by the crowds during their formation or maturity, which cause an idea to take shape in a sudden manner, even in ways that are contradictory to the remote factors.
That is, people may assemble under the influence of a remote factor, but become cohesive and decide upon a course of action, such as a riot or a strike, based on the immediate factors.
The present chapter will focus on some of the remote factors that seem to have a broad influence over crowds - the immediate factors will be considered in the following chapter.
Culture
Culture, which Le Bon refers to as "race," is likely of the greatest influence among the remote factors. The culture of a group of people defines their beliefs and gives rise to institutions and all the elements of its civilization, which are all manifestations of cultural beliefs.
The environment, circumstances, and events may represent the ideas of a moment, and may have a considerable influence, but this is always momentary if it is contrary to a culture.
It is for this reason that crowds in different countries are significantly different to one another, and crowds within a given country seem quote consistent in certain regards.
Traditions
Whereas culture represents the sentiments of the present, tradition represents those of the past, which "weigh upon us with great force."
A culture is shaped by its past, which is the foundation of its present. Pure reason may influence an individual, but it has no hold upon a nation unless it derives from its history, and like every other organism a people can only be modified by slow steps as each generation departs slightly from tradition.
Because crowds are unable to reason beyond a very primitive level, they are largely guided by their traditions.
There are benefits to this process, as a civilization would not be possible without traditions: a people whose beliefs and values change from one moment to the next is not a culture, but a chaos.
At the same time, allowing traditions to become to firmly rooted leads a civilization to stagnation and decay, much as an organism that fails to adapt to a changing environment, it will inevitably become extinct. The collapse of Rome and the dimunition of the English empire in more recent times are testaments to the necessity of evolution.
The violent revolutions within a nation do not occur because of some new development, but because society has refused to budge from its tradition in spite of changes that had already taken place in its environment. As such it must be violently wrested from its place.
Time
By time, Le Bon means the war of decades and centuries, over which small changes accumulate to create dramatic differences. Time levels mountains and turns oceans into deserts, and has equally significant effects over much shorter periods on the cultures of mankind.
The Italians in the present day bear little resemblance to their Roman ancestors, nor do the modern day French resemble the barbarian tribes from which they descended. It is only through an act of extreme hubris that we would seek to accomplish anything that will stand the test of time.
(EN: This goes on for a while, and it's all very poetic, but essentially boils down to what has already been said: that a nation today is not the same as it was even fifty years ago. And it will be as a different nation fifty years into the future.)
Knowledge and Education
Knowledge is capable of profoundly and indelibly changing men. Whereas beliefs may be held very passionately, their basis in emotion makes them weaker in the long run than reason, logic, and facts. And while men will cling to religious beliefs in defiance of their knowledge, it is never without some doubt in their beliefs.
That is not to say that men are not governed by their passions, as even men of education and good character can be found in the midst of an orgy of barbarism, merely that they cannot sustain this emotion in the face of reason for very long.
Education can be an institution by which knowledge is disseminated, but it is also subject to propaganda, and becoming little different than a religious institution or the puppet of political parties. A school devoted to teaching the facts will only teach those facts that are in line with the politics of the day.
But ultimately, knowledge and education is not what one is told in lecture halls, but what is proven by experience. When what is taught in the school, or in the home, or in the church, does not agree with experience, the lessons are disregarded in favor of experience.
There follows some comparison of the Latin method of education (textbooks and lectures) and the Anglo-Saxon method (demonstration and hands-on practice), and the superiority of the latter for teaching practical skills. The Latin method is superior at teaching philosophies, theories, and beliefs - but again, these notions crumble when they are contradicted by experience.
(EN: He never does seem to tie this to the psychology of crowds, and given his statements about the limited reasoning ability and poor logic of crowds, it would seem that knowledge and education may be entirely incidental.)