The crowd, in fact, is composed of individuals; it must therefore be in
every man's power to become what he is, an individual. From becoming an
individual no one, no one at all, is excluded, except he who excludes
himself by becoming a crowd. To become a crowd, to collect a crowd about
one, is on the contrary to affirm the distinctions of human life. The
most well-meaning person who talks about these distinctions can easily
offend an individual. But then it is not the crowd which possesses
power, influence, repute, and mastery over men, but it is the invidious
distinctions of human life which despotically ignore the single
individual as the weak and impotent, which in a temporal and worldly
interest ignore the eternal truth- the single individual.
