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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Crowd by Gustave le Bon: being convinced that this is the truth, unless, indeed, we are
given to reading another paper of the contrary opinion, in which
the two qualifications are reversed. Affirmation and repetition
are alone powerful enough to combat each other.
When an affirmation has been sufficiently repeated and there is
unanimity in this repetition--as has occurred in the case of
certain famous financial undertakings rich enough to purchase
every assistance-- what is called a current of opinion is formed
and the powerful mechanism of contagion intervenes. Ideas,
sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious
power as intense as that of microbes. This phenomenon is very
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