Youth Charles-Marie Gustave Le Bon was born in
Nogent-le-Rotrou,
Centre-Val de Loire on 7 May 1841 to a family of
Breton ancestry. At the time of Le Bon's birth, his mother, Annette Josephine Eugénic Tétiot Desmarlinais, was twenty-six and his father, Jean-Marie Charles Le Bon, was forty-one and a provincial functionary of the French government. Le Bon was a direct descendant of Jean-Odet Carnot, whose grandfather, Jean Carnot, had a brother, Denys, from whom the fifth president of the
French Third Republic,
Marie François Sadi Carnot, was directly descended. When Le Bon was eight years old, his father obtained a new post in French government and the family, including Gustave's younger brother Georges, left Nogent-le-Rotrou never to return. Nonetheless, the town was proud that Gustave Le Bon was born there and later named a street after him. In 1860, he began medicinal studies at the
University of Paris. He completed his internship at
Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, and received his
doctorate in 1866. From that time on, he referred to himself as "Doctor" though he never formally worked as a physician. During his university years, Le Bon wrote articles on a range of medical topics, the first of which related to the maladies that plagued those who lived in
swamp-like conditions. He published several other about
loa loa filariasis and
asphyxia before releasing his first full-length book in 1866,
De la mort apparente et des inhumations prématurées. This work dealt with the definition of
death, preceding 20th-century
legal debates on the issue.
Life in Paris After his graduation, Le Bon remained in Paris, where he taught himself
English and
German by reading
William Shakespeare's works in each language. He maintained his passion for writing and authored several papers on
physiological studies, as well as an 1868 textbook about
sexual reproduction, before joining the
French Army as a medical officer after the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War in July 1870. During the war, Le Bon organised a division of
military ambulances. In that capacity, he observed the behaviour of the military under the worst possible condition—total defeat, and wrote about his reflections on military discipline, leadership and the behaviour of man in a state of stress and suffering. These reflections garnered praise from generals, and were later studied at
Saint-Cyr and other military academies in France. At the end of the war, Le Bon was named a
Chevalier of the
Legion of Honour. Le Bon also witnessed the
Paris Commune of 1871, which deeply affected his worldview. The then thirty-year-old Le Bon looked on as Parisian revolutionary crowds burned down the
Tuileries Palace, the library of the
Louvre, the
Hôtel de Ville, the
Gobelins Manufactory, the
Palais de Justice, and other irreplaceable works of architectural art. From 1871 on, Le Bon was an avowed opponent of
socialist pacifists and
protectionists, who he believed were halting France's martial development and stifling her industrial growth; stating in 1913: "Only people with lots of cannons have the right to be pacifists." He also warned his countrymen of the deleterious effects of political rivalries in the face of German military might and rapid industrialisation, and therefore was uninvolved in the
Dreyfus Affair which dichotomised France. During his research, he invented a portable
cephalometer to aid with measuring the physical characteristics of remote peoples, and in 1881 published a paper, "
The Pocket Cephalometer, or Compass of Coordinates", detailing his invention and its application. In 1884, he was commissioned by the French government to travel around
Asia and report on the civilisations there. The first book, entitled
La Civilisation des Arabes, was released in 1884. In this, Le Bon praised
Arabs highly for their contributions to civilisation, but criticised
Islamism as an agent of stagnation. He also described their culture as superior to that of the
Turks who governed them, and translations of this work were inspirational to early
Arab nationalists. He followed this with a trip to
Nepal, becoming the first Frenchman to visit the country, and released
Voyage au Népal in 1886. He next published ''Les Civilisations de l'Inde
(1887), in which he applauded Indian architecture, art and religion but argued that Indians were comparatively inferior to Europeans in regard to scientific advancements, and that this had facilitated British domination. In 1889, he released Les Premières Civilisations de l'Orient
, giving in it an overview of the Mesopotamian, Indian, Chinese and Egyptian civilisations. The same year, he delivered a speech to the International Colonial Congress criticising colonial policies which included attempts of cultural assimilation, stating: "Leave to the natives their customs, their institutions and their laws." Le Bon released the last book on the topic of his travels, entitled Les monuments de l'Inde'', in 1893, again praising the architectural achievements of the Indian people.
Development of theories On his travels, Le Bon travelled largely on horseback and noticed that techniques used by horse breeders and trainers varied dependent on the region. He returned to Paris and in 1892, while riding a high-spirited horse, he was bucked off and narrowly escaped death. He was unsure as to what caused him to be thrown off the horse, and decided to begin a study of what he had done wrong as a rider. The result of his study was ''L'Équitation actuelle et ses principes. Recherches expérimentales'' (1892), which consisted of numerous photographs of horses in action combined with analysis by Le Bon. This work became a respected cavalry manual, and Le Bon extrapolated his studies on the behaviour of horses to develop theories on
early childhood education. Le Bon's behavioural study of horses also sparked a long-standing interest in
psychology, and in 1894 he released ''Lois psychologiques de l'évolution des peuples
. This work was dedicated to his friend Charles Richet though it drew much from the theories of Théodule-Armand Ribot, to whom Le Bon dedicated Psychologie des Foules (1895). Psychologie des Foules'' was in part a summation of Le Bon's 1881 work, ''L'Homme et les sociétés,
to which Émile Durkheim referred in his doctoral dissertation, De la division du travail social''. Both were best-sellers, with
Psychologie des Foules being translated into nineteen languages within one year of its appearance. Le Bon followed these with two more books on psychology,
Psychologie du Socialisme and ''Psychologie de l'Éducation'', in 1896 and 1902 respectively. These works rankled the largely socialist academic establishment of France. Le Bon constructed a home laboratory in the early 1890s, and in 1896 reported observing "black light", a new kind of
radiation that he believed was distinct from, but possibly related to,
X-rays and
cathode rays. Not the same type of radiation as what is now known as
black light, its existence was never confirmed and, similar to
N rays, it is now generally understood to be non-existent, but the discovery claim attracted much attention among French scientists at the time, many of whom supported it and Le Bon's general ideas on matter and radiation, and he was even nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903. In 1902, Le Bon began a series of weekly luncheons to which he invited prominent intellectuals, nobles and ladies of fashion. The strength of his personal networks is apparent from the guest list: participants included cousins
Henri and
Raymond Poincaré,
Paul Valéry,
Alexander Izvolsky,
Henri Bergson,
Marcellin Berthelot and
Aristide Briand. In ''L'Évolution de la Matière'' (1905), Le Bon anticipated the
mass–energy equivalence, and in a 1922 letter to
Albert Einstein complained about his lack of recognition. Einstein responded and conceded that a mass–energy equivalence had been proposed before him, but only the
theory of relativity had cogently proved it.
Gaston Moch gave Le Bon credit for anticipating Einstein's theory of relativity. In ''L'Évolution des Forces'' (1907), Le Bon prophesied the
Atomic Age. He wrote about "the manifestation of a new force—namely
intra-atomic energy—which surpasses all others by its colossal magnitude," and stated that a scientist who discovered a way to
dissociate rapidly one gram of any metal would "not witness the results of his experiments ... the explosion produced would be so formidable that his laboratory and all neighbouring houses, with their inhabitants, would be instantaneously pulverised." Le Bon discontinued his research in physics in 1908, and turned again to psychology. He released
La Psychologie politique et la défense sociale,
Les Opinions et les croyances,
La Révolution Française et la Psychologie des Révolutions,
Aphorismes du temps présent, and
La Vie des vérités in back-to-back years from 1910 to 1914, expounding in which his views on affective and rational thought, the psychology of race, and the history of civilisation.
Later life and death Le Bon continued writing throughout
World War I, publishing
Enseignements Psychologiques de la Guerre Européenne (1915),
Premières conséquences de la guerre: transformation mentale des peuples (1916) and
Hier et demain. Pensées brèves (1918) during the war. He then released
Psychologie des Temps Nouveaux (1920) before resigning from his position as Professor of Psychology and Allied Sciences at the University of Paris and retiring to his home. He released
Le Déséquilibre du Monde, ''Les Incertitudes de l'heure présente
and L'évolution actuelle du monde, illusions et réalités'' in 1923, 1924 and 1927 respectively, giving in them his views of the world during the volatile
interwar period. He became a
Grand-Croix of the Legion of Honour in 1929. He published his last work, entitled ''Bases scientifiques d'une philosophie de l'histoire'', in 1931 and on 13 December, died in
Marnes-la-Coquette,
Île-de-France at the age of ninety. == Le Bonian thought ==