People, the masses, in that they tend to be silly and blindly do the same as other
people do, even if it's a bad idea.
from the romance Pantagruel, by Renaissance French author Francois Rabelais, in which, while aboard a ship, the character Panurge buys a
sheep from a flock that is aboard and casts it in the sea, at which point all the other beasts follow suit and jump in the sea.