As a group gets larger, it is less and less thinking collectively, and more and more having moods, to the extent it is self-directing at all. A group of more than, say, a thousand, is safely characterized as moody but not thinking unless it is directed.
But this is not a put-down of crowds. If anything, it is a sort of deification. A person alive in a crowded world finds himself in the hands of the crowd, whether the crowd or the person would have it so or not. They - and their moods - are simply there. And there is a sort of dance of acceptance and resistance that follows, on the part of both. A mutual interference as a better alternative to self-loss, or bloodshed.
