At the bidding of a Peter the Hermit millions of men
hurled themselves against the East; the words of an
hallucinated enthusiast such as Mahomet created a force
capable of triumphing over the Graeco-Roman world; an obscure
monk like Luther bathed Europe in blood. The voice of a
Galileo or a Newton will never have the least echo among the
masses. The inventors of genius hasten the march of
civilization. The fanatics and the hallucinated create
history.
-- Gustave Le Bon. The psychology of peoples.(1899) p. 204