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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: capable, if need be, of going back to the point of view from
which a start was made, and, above all, to divine from instant to
instant the sentiments to which one's discourse is giving birth.
This necessity of ceaselessly varying one's language in
accordance with the effect produced at the moment of speaking
deprives from the outset a prepared and studied harangue of all
efficaciousness. In such a speech the orator follows his own
line of thought, not that of his hearers, and from this fact
alone his influence is annihilated.
[16] My first observations with regard to the art of impressing
crowds and touching the slight assistance to be derived in this
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