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author: nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> 2025-02-06 16:46:45 -0800
committer: nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> 2025-02-06 16:46:45 -0800
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-
-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War, by 
-Wilfred Trotter
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War
-
-Author: Wilfred Trotter
-
-Release Date: November 5, 2016 [EBook #53453]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team, with
-RichardW, at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced
-from images generously made available by The Internet
-Archive)
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-</pre>
-
-
-<div id="dcover">
-<img id="coverpage"
- src="images/cover.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="" />
-</div>
-
-<div class="dfront section">
-<h1 class="h1thisbook">INSTINCTS OF
- THE HERD IN PEACE AND WAR</h1>
-
-<div class="fsz7">BY</div>
-
-<div class="fsz3">W. TROTTER</div>
-
-<div class="fsz5 padtopa">T. FISHER UNWIN LTD</div>
-
-<div class="fsz5">LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE</div>
-</div><!--dfront-->
-
-<div class="dfront section">
-<ul class="nowrap fsz7">
-<li class="pleft">
- <span class="spnfr"><i>February, 1916</i></span>
- <i>First Published</i></li>
-<li class="pleft">
- <span class="spnfr"><i>March, 1917</i></span>
- <i>Second Impression</i></li>
-<li class="pleft">
- <span class="spnfr"><i>July, 1917</i></span>
- <i>Third Impression</i></li>
-<li class="pleft">
- <span class="spnfr"><i>November, 1919</i></span>
- <i>Second Edition</i></li>
-<li class="pleft">
- <span class="spnfr"><i>March, 1920</i></span>
- <i>Fifth Impression</i></li>
-<li class="pleft">
- <span class="spnfr"><i>February, 1921</i></span>
- <i>Sixth Impression</i></li>
-</ul>
-<div class="fsz7 padtopa">(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</div>
-</div><!--dfront-->
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p005">PREFACE</h2></div>
-
-<p class="pfirst">The
-first two essays in this book were written some
-ten years ago and published in the <i>Sociological
-Review</i> in 1908 and 1909. They had formed a
-single paper, but it was found necessary to publish
-in two instalments at an interval of six months,
-and to cut down to a considerable extent the total
-bulk.</p>
-
-<p>It was lately suggested to me that as the numbers
-of the review in which the two essays appeared
-were out of print, the fact that the subject concerned
-was not without some current interest might justify
-a republication. It was not possible to do this
-without trying to embody such fruits as there
-might be of ten years’ further speculation and
-some attempt to apply to present affairs the principles
-which had been sketched out.</p>
-
-<p>The new comment very soon surpassed by far
-in bulk the original text, and constitutes, in fact, all
-but a comparatively few pages of this book. This
-rather minute record is made here not because it
-has any interest of its own, but especially to point
-out that I have been engaged in trying to apply
-to the affairs of to-day principles which had taken
-shape ten years ago. I point this out not in order
-<span class="xxpn" id="p006">{6}</span>
-to claim any gift of foresight in having suggested
-so long ago reasons for regarding the stability of
-civilization as unsuspectedly slight, but because it
-is notorious that the atmosphere of a great war
-is unfavourable to free speculation. If the principles
-upon which my argument is based had been
-evolved during the present times, the reader would
-have had special reason to suspect their validity,
-however plausible they might seem in the refracting
-air of national emergency.</p>
-
-<p>The general purpose of this book is to suggest
-that the science of psychology is not the mass of
-dreary and indefinite generalities of which it sometimes
-perhaps seems to be made up; to suggest that,
-especially when studied in relation to other branches
-of biology, it is capable of becoming a guide in
-the actual affairs of life and of giving an understanding
-of the human mind such as may enable
-us in a practical and useful way to foretell some
-of the course of human behaviour. The present
-state of public affairs gives an excellent chance
-for testing the truth of this suggestion, and adds
-to the interest of the experiment the strong incentive
-of an urgent national peril.</p>
-
-<p>If this war is becoming, as it obviously is, daily
-more and more completely a contest of moral forces,
-some really deep understanding of the nature and
-sources of national morale must be at least as
-important a source of strength as the technical
-knowledge of the military engineer and the maker
-of cannon. One is apt to suppose that the chief
-function of a sound morale is the maintenance of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p007">{7}</span>
-a high courage and resolution through the ups and
-downs of warfare. In a nation whose actual independence
-and existence are threatened from without
-such qualities may be taken for granted and may
-be present when the general moral forces are
-seriously disordered. A satisfactory morale gives
-something much more difficult to attain. It gives
-smoothness of working, energy and enterprise to the
-whole national machine, while from the individual
-it ensures the maximal outflow of effort with a
-minimal interference from such egoistic passions
-as anxiety, impatience, and discontent. A practical
-psychology would define these functions and indicate
-means by which they are to be called into activity.</p>
-
-<p>The more we consider the conduct of government
-in warfare the clearer does it become that every
-act of authority produces effects in two distinct
-fields—that of its primary function as directed more
-or less immediately against the enemy, and that of
-its secondary action upon the morale of the nation.
-The first of these two constituents possesses the
-uncertainty of all military enterprises, and its success
-or failure cannot be foretold; the influence of the
-second constituent is susceptible of definition and
-foresight and need never be wholly ambiguous to
-any but the ignorant or the indifferent.</p>
-
-<p>The relative importance of the military and the
-moral factors in any act or enterprise varies much,
-but it may be asserted that while the moral factor
-may sometimes be enormously the more important,
-it is never wholly absent. This constant and
-admittedly significant factor in all acts of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p008">{8}</span>
-government is usually awarded an attention so thoroughly
-inexpert and perfunctory, as to justify the feeling
-that the customary belief in its importance is no
-more than a conventional expression.</p>
-
-<p>The method I have used is frankly speculative,
-and I make no apology for it because the facts are
-open to the observation of all and available for
-confirmation or disproof. I have tried to point out
-a way; I have tried not to exhort or persuade
-to the use of it—these are matters outside my
-province.
-<span class="spndate"><i>November, 1915.</i></span></p>
-
-<h2 class="h2nobreak">PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION</h2>
-
-<p class="pfirst">A few
-errors in the text of the First Edition have
-been corrected, and a sentence which had caused
-misunderstanding has been omitted. No other
-change has been made. A Postscript has been
-added in order to point out some of the directions
-in which the psychological inquiry made during
-the war gave a practical foresight that was confirmed
-by the course of events, and in order to
-examine the remarkable situation in which society
-now finds itself.</p>
-
-<p>In the Preface to the First Edition I ventured to
-suggest that some effective knowledge of the mind
-might be of value to a nation at war; I take this
-opportunity of suggesting that such knowledge
-might be not less useful to a tired nation seeking
-peace. At the same time it should perhaps be added
-that this book is concerned wholly with the examination
-of principles, is professedly speculative in
-methods and conclusions, and is quite without
-pretensions to advise upon the conduct of affairs.
-<span class="spndate"><i>August, 1919.</i></span></p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<ul class="dfront"><li class="ltrspca">
-<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p009">CONTENTS</h2>
-<ul>
-<li class="fsz6 ltrspca"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p005">5</a></span>
- <span class="smcap">P<b>REFACE</b></span></li>
-
-<li class="fsz6 ltrspca"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p008">8</a></span>
- <span class="smcap">P<b>REFACE</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">TO</span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>ECOND</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">E<b>DITION</b></span></li>
-
-<li class="ltrspca">HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING
- ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CIVILIZED MAN
-<ul class="ulina">
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p011">11</a></span>
- INTRODUCTION</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p015">15</a></span>
- PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF INSTINCT</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p018">18</a></span>
- BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GREGARIOUSNESS</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p023">23</a></span>
- MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL</li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li class="ltrspca">SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HERD INSTINCT
-<ul class="ulina">
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p060">60</a></span>
- GREGARIOUSNESS AND THE FUTURE OF MAN</li></ul></li>
-
-<li class="ltrspca">SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915
-<ul class="ulina">
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p066">66</a></span>
- MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE AND NATURE’S PLACE IN MAN</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p069">69</a></span>
- COMMENTS ON AN OBJECTIVE SYSTEM OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p091">91</a></span>
- SOME PRINCIPLES OF A BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p101">101</a></span>
- THE BIOLOGY OF GREGARIOUSNESS</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p112">112</a></span>
- CHARACTERS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL DISPLAYED BY MAN</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p120">120</a></span>
- SOME PECULIARITIES OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p132">132</a></span>
- IMPERFECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p139">139</a></span>
- GREGARIOUS SPECIES AT WAR</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p156">156</a></span>
- ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY—GERMANY</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p201">201</a></span>
- ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY—ENGLAND</li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li class="ltrspca">POSTSCRIPT OF 1919
-<ul class="ulina">
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p214">214</a></span>
- PREJUDICE IN TIME OF WAR</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p224">224</a></span>
- PSYCHOLOGICAL ANTICIPATIONS</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p235">235</a></span>
- AFTER THE WAR</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p241">241</a></span>
- THE INSTABILITY OF CIVILIZATION</li>
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p251">251</a></span>
- SOME CHARACTERS OF A RATIONAL STATECRAFT</li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p261">261</a></span>
- <span class="smcap">I<b>NDEX</b></span></li>
-</ul></li></ul></div><!--section for the page break-->
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div id="p011">INSTINCTS
- OF THE HERD IN PEACE AND WAR</div>
-
-<h2 class="h2nobreak">HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING ON
-THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CIVILIZED MAN</h2>
-
-<h3>I. <span class="smcap">I<b>NTRODUCTION</b></span></h3>
-</div><!--chapter-->
-
-<p class="pfirst">Few
-subjects have led to discussion so animated and
-prolonged as has the definition of the science of
-sociology. It is therefore necessary, as it is hoped
-that this essay may be capable of sociological applications,
-that the writer should define the sense in
-which he uses the term. By calling it a science is,
-of course, denoted the view that sociology is a
-body of knowledge derived from experience of its
-material and co-ordinated so that it shall be useful
-in forecasting and, if possible, directing the future
-behaviour of that material. This material is man in
-society of associated man.</p>
-
-<p>Sociology, therefore, is obviously but another
-name for psychology, in the widest sense, for, that
-is to say, a psychology which can include all the
-phenomena of the mind without the exception even
-of the most complex, and is essentially practical in a
-fuller sense than any orthodox psychology which has
-yet appeared.</p>
-
-<p>Sociology has, of course, often been described
-as social psychology and has been regarded as
-differing from ordinary psychology in being
-<span class="xxpn" id="p012">{12}</span>
-concerned with those forms of mental activity which
-man displays in his social relations, the assumption
-being made that society brings to light a special
-series of mental aptitudes with which ordinary psychology,
-dealing as it does essentially with the individual,
-is not mainly concerned. It may be stated
-at once that it is a principal thesis of this essay that
-this attitude is a fallacious one, and has been responsible
-for the comparative sterility of the
-psychological method in sociology. The two fields—the
-social and the individual—are regarded here
-as absolutely continuous; all human psychology, it
-is contended, must be the psychology of associated
-man, since man as a solitary animal is unknown to
-us, and every individual must present the characteristic
-reactions of the social animal if such exist. The
-only difference between the two branches of the
-science lies in the fact that ordinary psychology
-makes no claim to be practical in the sense of
-conferring useful foresight; whereas sociology does
-profess to deal with the complex, unsimplified
-problems of ordinary life, ordinary life being, by a
-biological necessity, social life. If, therefore,
-sociology is to be defined as psychology, it would
-be better to call it practical or applied psychology
-than social psychology.</p>
-
-<p>The first effect of the complete acceptance of
-this point of view is to render very obvious the
-difficulty and immensity of the task of sociology;
-indeed, the possibility of such a science is sometimes
-denied. For example, at an early meeting of
-the Sociological Society, Professor Karl Pearson expressed
-the opinion that the birth of the science of
-sociology must await the obstetrical genius of some
-one man of the calibre of Darwin or Pasteur. At a
-later meeting Mr. H. G. Wells went farther, and
-maintained that as a science sociology not only does
-not but cannot exist.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p013">{13}</span></p>
-
-<p>Such scepticism appears in general to be based
-upon the idea that a practical psychology in the
-sense already defined is impossible. According to
-some this is because the human will introduces
-into conduct an element necessarily incommensurable,
-which will always render the behaviour of
-man subject to the occurrence of true variety and
-therefore beyond the reach of scientific generalization;
-according to another and a more deterministic
-school, human conduct, while not theoretically liable
-to true variety in the philosophic sense or to the
-intrusion of the will as a first cause, is in fact so
-complex that no reduction of it to a complete system
-of generalizations will be possible until science in
-general has made very great progress beyond its
-present position. Both views lead in practice to
-attitudes of equal pessimism towards sociology.</p>
-
-<p>The observable complexity of human conduct is,
-undoubtedly, very great and discouraging. The
-problem of generalizing from it presents, however,
-one important peculiarity, which is not very evident at
-first sight. It is that as observers we are constantly
-pursued by man’s own account of his
-behaviour; that of a given act our observation is
-always more or less mixed with a knowledge, derived
-from our own feelings, of how it seems to
-the author of the act, and it is much more difficult
-than is often supposed to disentangle and allow for
-the influence of this factor. Each of us has the
-strongest conviction that his conduct and beliefs
-are fundamentally individual and reasonable and in
-essence independent of external causation, and each
-is ready to furnish a series of explanations of his
-conduct consistent with these principles. These explanations,
-moreover, are the ones which will occur
-spontaneously to the observer watching the conduct
-of his fellows.</p>
-
-<p>It is suggested here that the sense of the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p014">{14}</span>
-unimaginable complexity and variability of human
-affairs is derived less than is generally supposed
-from direct observation and more from this second
-factor of introspectual interpretation which may be
-called a kind of anthropomorphism. A reaction
-against this in human psychology is no less necessary
-therefore than was in comparative psychology the
-similar movements the extremer developments of
-which are associated with the names of Bethe, Beer,
-Uexküll and Nuel. It is contended that it is this
-anthropomorphism in the general attitude of psychologists
-which, by disguising the observable
-uniformities of human conduct, has rendered so slow
-the establishment of a really practical psychology.
-Little as the subject has been studied from the point
-of view of a thorough-going objectivism, yet even
-now certain generalizations summarising some of the
-ranges of human belief and conduct might already be
-formulated. Such an inquiry, however, is not the
-purpose of this essay, and these considerations have
-been advanced, in the first place, to suggest that
-theory indicates that the problem of sociology is not
-so hopelessly difficult as it at first appears, and
-secondly, as a justification for an examination of
-certain aspects of human conduct by the deductive
-method. The writer would contend that while that
-method is admittedly dangerous when used as a substitute
-for a kind of investigation in which deductive
-processes are reduced to a minimum, yet it has its
-special field of usefulness in cases where the significance
-of previously accumulated facts has been misinterpreted,
-or where the exacter methods have
-proved unavailing through the investigator having
-been without indications of precisely what facts were
-likely to be the most fruitful subject for measurement.
-This essay, then, will be an attempt to obtain
-by a deductive consideration of conduct some
-guidance for the application of those methods of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p015">{15}</span>
-measurement and co-ordination of facts upon which
-all true science is based.</p>
-
-<p>A very little consideration of the problem of
-conduct makes it plain that it is in the region of
-feeling, using the term in its broadest sense, that the
-key is to be sought. Feeling has relations to instinct
-as obvious and fundamental as are the analogies
-between intellectual processes and reflex action; it
-is with the consideration of instinct, therefore, that
-this paper must now be occupied.</p>
-
-<div class="section"><h3>II.
-<span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGICAL</b></span>
-<span class="smcap">A<b>SPECTS</b></span>
-<span class="smmaj">OF</span>
-<span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCT.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-
-<p>Many years ago, in a famous chapter of his Text
-Book of Psychology, William James analysed and
-established with a quite final delicacy and precision
-the way in which instinct appears to introspection.
-He showed that the impulse of an instinct reveals
-itself as an axiomatically obvious proposition, as
-something which is so clearly “sense” that any idea
-of discussing its basis is foolish or
-wicked.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc1" href="#fn1">1</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn1" href="#afnanc1">1</a>
-Not one man in a billion, when taking his
-dinner, ever thinks of utility. He eats because the food tastes good
-and makes him want more. If you ask him why he should want to eat more
-of what tastes like that, instead of revering you as a philosopher
-he will probably laugh at you for a fool. The connexion between the
-savoury sensation and the act it awakens is for him absolute and
-<i>selbstverständlich</i>, an “<i>a priori</i> synthesis” of the most perfect
-sort needing no proof but its own evidence. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. To the
-metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when
-pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as to a
-single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside
-down? The common man can only say, “<i>Of course</i> we smile, <i>of course</i>
-our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, <i>of course</i> we love the
-maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and
-flagrantly made from all eternity to be loved” (W. James, “Principles
-of Psychology” vol. ii. p. 386).</p></div>
-
-<p>When we recognize that decisions due to instinct
-come into the mind in a form so characteristic and
-easily identifiable we are encouraged at once to ask
-<span class="xxpn" id="p016">{16}</span>
-whether all decisions having this form must be
-looked upon as essentially of instinctive origin.
-Inquiry, however, reveals the fact that the bulk of
-opinion based upon assumptions having these introspectual
-characters is so vast that any answer but
-a negative one would seem totally incompatible with
-current conceptions of the nature of human
-thought.&#xfeff;&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc2" href="#fn2">2</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn2" href="#afnanc2">2</a>
-This introspectual quality of the “<i>a priori</i> synthesis
-of the most perfect sort” is found, for example, in the assumptions
-upon which is based the bulk of opinion in matters of Church and State,
-the family, justice, probity, honour, purity, crime, and so forth.
-Yet clearly we cannot say that there is a specific instinct concerned
-with each of these subjects, for that, to say the least, would be to
-postulate an unimaginable multiplicity of instincts, for the most part
-wholly without any conceivable biological usefulness. For example,
-there are considerable difficulties in imagining an instinct for making
-people Wesleyans or Roman Catholics, or an instinct for making people
-regard British family life as the highest product of civilization,
-yet there can be no question that these positions are based upon
-assumptions having all the characters described by James as belonging
-to the impulses of instinct.</p></div>
-
-<p>Many attempts have been made to explain the
-behaviour of man as dictated by instinct. He is,
-in fact, moved by the promptings of such obvious
-instincts as self-preservation, nutrition, and sex
-enough to render the enterprise hopeful and its early
-spoils enticing. So much can so easily be generalized
-under these three impulses that the temptation to
-declare that all human behaviour could be resumed
-under them was irresistible. These early triumphs
-of materialism soon, however, began to be troubled
-by doubt. Man, in spite of his obvious duty to the
-contrary, would continue so often not to preserve
-himself, not to nourish himself and to prove resistant
-to the blandishments of sex, that the attempt to
-squeeze his behaviour into these three categories
-began to involve an increasingly obvious and finally
-intolerable amount of pushing and pulling, as well
-as so much pretence that he was altogether “in,”
-<span class="xxpn" id="p017">{17}</span>
-when, quite plainly, so large a part of him remained
-“out,” that the enterprise had to be given up, and
-it was once more discovered that man escaped and
-must always escape any complete generalization by
-science.</p>
-
-<p>A more obvious inference would have been that
-there was some other instinct which had not been
-taken into account, some impulse, perhaps, which
-would have no very evident object as regarded the
-individual, but would chiefly appear as modifying
-the other instincts and leading to new combinations
-in which the primitive instinctive impulse was unrecognizable
-as such. A mechanism such as this
-very evidently would produce a series of actions
-in which uniformity might be very difficult to recognize
-by direct observation, but in which it would
-be very obvious if the characters of this unknown
-“x” were available.</p>
-
-<p>Now, it is a striking fact that amongst animals
-there are some whose conduct can be generalized
-very readily in the categories of self-preservation,
-nutrition, and sex, while there are others whose
-conduct cannot be thus summarized. The behaviour
-of the tiger and the cat is simple, and easily
-comprehensible, presenting no unassimilable anomalies,
-whereas that of the dog, with his conscience,
-his humour, his terror of loneliness, his capacity for
-devotion to a brutal master, or that of the bee, with
-her selfless devotion to the hive, furnishes phenomena
-which no sophistry can assimilate without the aid
-of a fourth instinct. But little examination will
-show that the animals whose conduct it is difficult
-to generalize under the three primitive instinctive
-categories are gregarious. If then it can be shown
-that gregariousness is of a biological significance
-approaching in importance that of the other instincts,
-we may expect to find in it the source of these
-anomalies of conduct, and if we can also show
-<span class="xxpn" id="p018">{18}</span>
-that man is gregarious, we may look to it for the
-definition of the unknown “x” which might account
-for the complexity of human behaviour.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3>III. <span class="smcap">B<b>IOLOGICAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>IGNIFICANCE</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>The animal kingdom presents two relatively
-sudden and very striking advances in complexity
-and in the size of the unit upon which natural selection
-acts unmodified. These advances consist in the
-aggregation of units which were previously independent
-and exposed to the full normal action of
-natural selection, and the two instances are, of course,
-the passage from the unicellular to the multicellular,
-and from the solitary to the social.</p>
-
-<p>It is obvious that in the multicellular organism
-individual cells lose some of the capacities of the
-unicellular—reproductive capacity is regulated and
-limited, nutrition is no longer possible in the old
-simple way and response to stimuli comes only in
-certain channels. In return for these sacrifices we
-may say, metaphorically, that the action of natural
-selection is withdrawn from within the commune.
-Unfitness of a given cell or group of cells can be
-eliminated only through its effect upon the whole
-organism. The latter is less sensitive to the vagaries
-of a single cell than is the organism of which
-the single cell is the whole. It would seem, therefore,
-that there is now allowed a greater range of
-variability for the individual cells, and perhaps,
-therefore, an increased richness of the material to
-be selected from. Variations, moreover, which were
-not immediately favourable would now have a
-chance of surviving.</p>
-
-<p>Looked at in this way, multicellularity presents
-itself as an escape from the rigour of natural selection,
-which for the unicellular organism had narrowed
-<span class="xxpn" id="p019">{19}</span>
-competition to so desperate a struggle that any
-variation outside the straitest limits was fatal, for
-even though it might be favourable in one respect,
-it would, in so small a kingdom, involve a loss in
-another. The only way, therefore, for further advantageous
-elaboration to occur was by the enlargement
-of the competing unit. Various species of
-multicellular organisms might in time be supposed
-in turn to reach the limit of their powers. Competition
-would be at its maximum, smaller and smaller
-variations would be capable of producing serious
-results. In the species where these conditions prevail
-an enlargement of the unit is imminent if progress
-is to occur. It is no longer possible by increases
-of physical complexity and the apparently inevitable
-sequence is the appearance of gregariousness. The
-necessity and inevitableness of the change are shown
-by its scattered development in very widely separated
-regions (for example, in insects and in mammals)
-just as, we may suspect, multicellularity appeared.</p>
-
-<p>Gregariousness seems frequently to be regarded
-as a somewhat superficial character, scarcely deserving,
-as it were, the name of an instinct, advantageous
-it is true, but not of fundamental importance or
-likely to be deeply ingrained in the inheritance of
-the species. This attitude may be due to the fact
-that among mammals at any rate the appearance
-of gregariousness has not been accompanied by any
-very gross physical changes which are obviously
-associated with
-it.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc3" href="#fn3">3</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn3" href="#afnanc3">3</a>
-Among gregarious insects there are of course physical
-changes arising out of and closely dependent on the social
-organization.</p></div>
-
-<p>To whatever it may be due, this method of regarding
-the social habit is, in the opinion of the present
-writer, not justified by the facts, and prevents the
-attainment of conclusions of considerable fruitfulness.</p>
-
-<p>A study of bees and ants shows at once how
-<span class="xxpn" id="p020">{20}</span>
-fundamental the importance of gregariousness may
-become. The individual in such communities is
-completely incapable, often physically, of existing
-apart from the community, and this fact at once
-gives rise to the suspicion that even in communities
-less closely knit than those of the ant and the bee,
-the individual may in fact be more dependent on
-communal life than appears at first sight.</p>
-
-<p>Another very striking piece of general evidence
-of the significance of gregariousness as no mere
-late acquirement is the remarkable coincidence of
-its occurrence with that of exceptional grades of
-intelligence or the possibility of very complex reactions
-to environment. It can scarcely be regarded
-as an unmeaning accident that the dog, the horse,
-the ape, the elephant, and man are all social animals.
-The instances of the bee and the ant are perhaps
-the most amazing. Here the advantages of gregariousness
-seem actually to outweigh the most
-prodigious differences of structure, and we find a
-condition which is often thought of as a mere habit,
-capable of enabling the insect nervous system to
-compete in the complexity of its power of adaptation
-with that of the higher vertebrates.</p>
-
-<p>If it be granted that gregariousness is a phenomenon
-of profound biological significance and one
-likely therefore to be responsible for an important
-group of instinctive impulses, the next step in our
-argument is the discussion of the question as to
-whether man is to be regarded as gregarious in
-the full sense of the word, whether, that is to say,
-the social habit may be expected to furnish him
-with a mass of instinctive impulse as mysteriously
-potent as the impulses of self-preservation, nutrition,
-and sex. Can we look to the social instinct for an
-explanation of some of the “<i>a priori</i> syntheses of
-the most perfect sort needing no proof but their
-own evidence,” which are not explained by the three
-<span class="xxpn" id="p021">{21}</span>
-primitive categories of instinct, and remain stumbling-blocks
-in the way of generalizing the conduct of man?</p>
-
-<p>The conception of man as a gregarious animal is,
-of course, extremely familiar; one frequently meets
-with it in the writings of psychologists and sociologists,
-and it has obtained a respectable currency
-with the lay public. It has, indeed, become so
-hackneyed that it is the first duty of a writer who
-maintains the thesis that its significance is not even
-yet fully understood, to show that the popular conception
-of it has been far from exhaustive. As
-used hitherto the idea seems to have had a certain
-vagueness which greatly impaired its practical value.
-It furnished an interesting analogy for some of the
-behaviour of man, or was enunciated as a half serious
-illustration by a writer who felt himself to be in
-an exceptionally sardonic vein, but it was not at
-all widely looked upon as a definite fact of biology
-which must have consequences as precise and a
-significance as ascertainable as the secretion of the
-gastric juice or the refracting apparatus of the eye.
-One of the most familiar attitudes was that which
-regarded the social instinct as a late development.
-The family was looked upon as the primitive unit;
-from it developed the tribe, and by the spread of
-family feeling to the tribe the social instinct arose.
-It is interesting that the psychological attack upon
-this position has been anticipated by sociologists
-and anthropologists, and that it is already being
-recognized that an undifferentiated horde rather than
-the family must be regarded as the primitive basis
-of human society.</p>
-
-<p>The most important consequence of this vague
-way of regarding the social habit of man has been
-that no exhaustive investigation of its psychological
-corollaries has been carried out. When we see
-the enormous effect in determining conduct that the
-gregarious inheritance has in the bee, the ant, the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p022">{22}</span>
-horse, or the dog, it is quite plain that if the gregariousness
-of man had been seriously regarded
-as a definite fact a great amount of work would
-have been done in determining precisely what
-reactive tendencies it had marked out in man’s mind.
-Unfortunately, the amount of precise work of this
-kind has been very small.</p>
-
-<p>From the biological standpoint the probability of
-gregariousness being a primitive and fundamental
-quality in man seems to be considerable. As already
-pointed out, like the other great enlargement of
-the biological unit, but in a much more easily recognizable
-degree, it would appear to have the effect of
-enlarging the advantages of variation. Varieties not
-immediately favourable, varieties departing widely
-from the standard, varieties even unfavourable to
-the individual may be supposed to be given by it
-a chance of survival. Now the course of the development
-of man seems to present many features incompatible
-with its having proceeded amongst isolated
-individuals exposed to the unmodified action of
-natural selection. Changes so serious as the assumption
-of the upright posture, the reduction in the
-jaw and its musculature, the reduction in the acuity
-of smell and hearing, demand, if the species is to
-survive, either a delicacy of adjustment with the
-compensatingly developing intelligence so minute as
-to be almost inconceivable, or the existence of some
-kind of protective enclosure, however imperfect, in
-which the varying individuals were sheltered from
-the direct influence of natural selection. The existence
-of such a mechanism would compensate losses
-of physical strength in the individual by the greatly
-increased strength of the larger unit, of the unit,
-that is to say, upon which natural selection still acts
-unmodified.</p>
-
-<p>A realization, therefore, of this function of
-gregariousness relieves us from the necessity of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p023">{23}</span>
-supposing that the double variations of diminishing
-physical and increasing mental capacity always
-occurred <i>pari passu</i>. The case for the primitiveness
-of the social habit would seem to be still
-further strengthened by a consideration of such
-widely aberrant developments as speech and the
-æsthetic activities, but a discussion of them here
-would involve an unnecessary indulgence of biological
-speculation.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3>IV. <span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERISTICS</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span> <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
- <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMAL.</b></span></h3>
-
-<h4>(<i>a</i>) Current Views in Sociology and Psychology.</h4>
-</div>
-<p>If we now assume that gregariousness may be
-regarded as a fundamental quality of man, it
-remains to discuss the effects we may expect it
-to have produced upon the structure of his mind.
-It would be well, however, first, to attempt to form
-some idea of how far investigation has already gone
-in this direction. It is of course clear that no complete
-review of all that has been said concerning a
-conception so familiar can be attempted here, and,
-even if it were possible, it would not be a profitable
-enterprise, as the great bulk of writers have
-not seen in the idea anything to justify a fundamental
-examination of it. What will be done here,
-therefore, will be to mention a few representative
-writers who have dealt with the subject, and to
-give in a summary way the characteristic features
-of their exposition.</p>
-
-<p>As far as I am aware, the first person to point
-out any of the less obvious biological significance
-of gregariousness was Professor Karl
-Pearson.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc4" href="#fn4">4</a>
-<span class="xxpn" id="p024">{24}</span></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn4" href="#afnanc4">4</a>
-Many references to the subject will be found in his published
-works, for example in “The Grammar of Science,” in “National Life
-from the Standpoint of Science,” and in “The Chances of Death.”
-In the collection of Essays last named the essay entitled “Socialism
-and Natural Selection” deals most fully with the subject.</p></div>
-
-<p>He called attention to the enlargement of the
-selective unit effected by the appearance of gregariousness,
-and to the fact that therefore within
-the group the action of natural selection becomes
-modified. This conception had, as is well known,
-escaped the insight of Haeckel, of Spencer, and
-of Huxley, and Pearson showed into what confusions
-in their treatment of the problems of society these
-three had been led by the
-oversight.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc5" href="#fn5">5</a> For example
-may be mentioned the famous antithesis of the
-“cosmical” and the “ethical” processes expounded
-in Huxley’s Romanes Lecture. It was quite definitely
-indicated by Pearson that the so-called ethical
-process, the appearance, that is to say, of altruism,
-is to be regarded as a directly instinctive product
-of gregariousness, and as natural, therefore, as any
-other instinct.</p>
-
-<p>These very clear and valuable conceptions do not
-seem, however, to have received from biologists the
-attention they deserved, and as far as I am aware
-their author has not continued further the examination
-of the structure of the gregarious mind,
-which would undoubtedly have yielded in his hands
-further conclusions of equal value.</p>
-
-<p>We may next examine the attitude of a modern
-sociologist. I have chosen for this purpose the
-work of an American sociologist, Lester Ward, and
-propose briefly to indicate his position as it may
-be gathered from his book entitled “Pure
-Sociology.”&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc6" href="#fn6">6</a>
-<span class="xxpn" id="p025">{25}</span></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn5" href="#afnanc5">5</a>
-“Socialism and Natural Selection” in “The Chances of Death.”</p></div>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn6" href="#afnanc6">6</a>
-Lester F. Ward, “Pure Sociology: a Treatise on the Origin and
-Spontaneous Development of Society.” New York: The Macmillan
-Co. 1903. I do not venture to decide whether this work may be
-regarded as representative of orthodox sociology, if there be such a
-thing; I have made the choice because of the author’s capacity for
-fresh and ingenious speculation and his obviously wide knowledge of
-sociological literature.</p></div>
-
-<p>The task of summarizing the views of any
-sociologist seems to me to be rendered difficult
-by a certain vagueness in outline of the positions
-laid down, a certain tendency for a description of
-fact to run into an analogy, and an analogy to fade
-into an illustration. It would be discourteous to
-doubt that these tendencies are necessary to the
-fruitful treatment of the material of sociology, but,
-as they are very prominent in connection with the
-subject of gregariousness, it is necessary to say that
-one is fully conscious of the difficulties they give
-rise to, and feels that they may have led one into
-unintentional misrepresentation.</p>
-
-<p>With this proviso it may be stated that the
-writings of Ward produce the feeling that he regards
-gregariousness as furnishing but few precise and
-primitive characteristics of the human mind. The
-mechanisms through which group “instinct” acts
-would seem to be to him largely rational processes,
-and group instinct itself is regarded as a relatively
-late development more or less closely associated
-with a rational knowledge that it “pays.” For
-example, he says: “For want of a better name,
-I have characterized this social instinct, or instinct
-of race safety, as religion, but not without clearly
-perceiving that it constitutes the primordial
-undifferentiated plasm out of which have subsequently
-developed all the more important human
-institutions. This .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. if it be not an instinct,
-is at least the human homologue of animal instinct,
-and served the same purpose <i>after the instincts
-had chiefly disappeared</i>, and when the egotistic
-reason would otherwise have rapidly carried the
-race to destruction in its mad pursuit of pleasure
-for its own
-sake.”&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc7" href="#fn7">7</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn7" href="#afnanc7">7</a>
-“Pure Sociology,” p. 134. Italics not in original.
-Passages of a similar tendency will be found on pp. 200 and 556.</p></div>
-
-<p>That gregariousness has to be considered amongst
-<span class="xxpn" id="p026">{26}</span>
-the factors shaping the tendencies of the human
-mind has long been recognized by the more
-empirical psychologists. In the main, however, it
-has been regarded as a quality perceptible only in
-the characteristics of actual crowds—that is to say,
-assemblies of persons being and acting in association.
-This conception has served to evoke a certain
-amount of valuable work in the observation of the
-behaviour of
-crowds.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc8" href="#fn8">8</a></p>
-
-<p>Owing, however, to the failure to investigate as
-the more essential question the effects of gregariousness
-in the mind of the normal individual man,
-the theoretical side of crowd psychology has remained
-incomplete and relatively sterile.</p>
-
-<p>There is, however, one exception, in the case of
-the work of Boris Sidis. In a book entitled “The
-Psychology of
-Suggestion”&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc9" href="#fn9">9</a> he has described certain
-psychical qualities as necessarily associated with
-the social habit in the individual as in the crowd.
-His position, therefore, demands some discussion.
-The fundamental element in it is the conception
-of the normal existence in the mind of a subconscious
-self. This subconscious or subwaking self
-is regarded as embodying the “lower” and more
-obviously brutal qualities of man. It is irrational,
-imitative, credulous, cowardly, cruel, and lacks all
-individuality, will, and
-self-control.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc10" href="#fn10">10</a> This personality
-takes the place of the normal personality during
-hypnosis and when the individual is one of an
-active crowd, as, for example, in riots, panics,
-lynchings, revivals, and so forth.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p027">{27}</span></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn8" href="#afnanc8">8</a>
-For example, the little book of Gustave Le Bon—“Psychologie
-des Foules,” Paris: Felix Alcan—in which are formulated many
-generalizations.</p></div>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn9" href="#afnanc9">9</a>
-“The Psychology of Suggestion: a Research into the Subconscious
-Nature of Man and Society,” by Boris Sidis, with an Introduction by
-Prof. Wm. James. New York. 1903.</p></div>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn10" href="#afnanc10">10</a>
-“Psychology of Suggestion,” p. 295.</p></div>
-
-<p>Of the two personalities—the subconscious and
-the normal—the former alone is suggestible; the
-successful operation of suggestion implies the recurrence,
-however transient, of a disaggregation of
-personality, and the emergence of the subwaking
-self as the controlling mind (pp. 89 and 90). It
-is this suggestibility of the subwaking self which
-enables man to be a social animal. “Suggestibility
-is the cement of the herd, the very soul of the
-primitive social group. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Man is a social animal,
-no doubt, but he is social because he is suggestible.
-Suggestibility, however, requires disaggregation of
-consciousness, hence society presupposes a cleavage
-of the mind. Society and mental epidemics are
-intimately related; for the social gregarious self
-is the suggestible subconscious self” (p. 310).</p>
-
-<p>Judged from our present standpoint, the most
-valuable feature of Sidis’s book is that it calls attention
-to the undoubtedly intimate relation between
-gregariousness and suggestibility. The mechanism,
-however, by which he supposes suggestibility to
-come into action is more open to criticism. The
-conception of a permanent subconscious self is
-one to which it is doubtful whether the evidence
-compels
-assent.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc11" href="#fn11">11</a> The essential difference, however,
-which Sidis’s views present from those to be
-developed below, lies in his regarding suggestibility
-as being something which is liable to intrude
-upon the normal mind as the result of a disaggregation
-of consciousness, instead of as a necessary
-quality of every normal mind, continually present,
-and an inalienable accompaniment of human thought.
-A careful reading of his book gives a very clear
-impression that he looks upon suggestibility as a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p028">{28}</span>
-disreputable and disastrous legacy of the brute and
-the savage, undesirable in civilized life, opposed
-to the satisfactory development of the normal individuality,
-and certainly in no way associated at its
-origin with a quality so valuable as altruism. Moreover,
-one gets the impression that he regards
-suggestibility as being manifested chiefly, if not
-solely, in crowds, in panics, revivals, and in conditions
-generally in which the element of close
-association is well marked.</p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn11" href="#afnanc11">11</a>
-In this connexion the “Symposium on the Subconscious” in the
-<i>Journal of Abnormal Psychology</i>, vol. ii. Nos. 1 and 2, is of much
-interest. The discussion is contributed to by Münsterberg, Ribot
-Jastrow, Pierre Janet, and Morton Prince.</p></div>
-
-<h4>(<i>b</i>) Deductive Considerations</h4>
-
-<p>The functions of the gregarious habit in a species
-may broadly be defined as offensive or defensive,
-or both. Whichever of these modes it has
-assumed in the animal under consideration, it
-will be correlated with effects which will be
-divisible into two classes—the general characteristics
-of the social animal, and the special characteristics
-of the form of social habit possessed
-by the given animal. The dog and the sheep
-illustrate well the characteristics of the two simple
-forms of gregariousness—offensive and defensive.</p>
-
-<h5>1. <i>Special Characteristics of the Gregarious Animal.</i></h5>
-
-<p>These need not be dealt with here, as they are
-the qualities which for the most part have been
-treated of by psychologists in such work as has
-been done on the corollaries of gregariousness in
-man. This is because they are qualities which are
-most evident in man’s behaviour when he acts in
-crowds, and are then evident as something temporarily
-superadded to the possibilities of the isolated
-individual. Hence it has come about that they
-have been taken for the most part as constituting
-the whole of man’s gregarious inheritance, while
-the possibility that that inheritance might have
-<span class="xxpn" id="p029">{29}</span>
-equally important consequences for the individual
-has been relatively neglected.</p>
-
-<h5>2. <i>General Characteristics of the Gregarious Animal.</i></h5>
-
-<p>The cardinal quality of the herd is homogeneity.
-It is clear that the great advantage of the social habit
-is to enable large numbers to act as one, whereby
-in the case of the hunting gregarious animal strength
-in pursuit and attack is at once increased to beyond
-that of the creatures preyed
-upon,&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc12" href="#fn12">12</a> and in protective
-socialism the sensitiveness of the new unit to
-alarms is greatly in excess of that of the individual
-member of the flock.</p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn12" href="#afnanc12">12</a>
-The wolf pack forms an organism, it is interesting to
-note, stronger than the lion or the tiger; capable of compensating for
-the loss of members; inexhaustible in pursuit, and therefore capable by
-sheer strength of hunting down without wile or artifice the fleetest
-animals; capable finally of consuming all the food it kills, and thus
-possessing another considerable advantage over the large solitary
-carnivora in not tending uselessly to exhaust its food supply. The
-advantages of the social habit in carnivora is well shown by the
-survival of wolves in civilized countries even to-day.</p></div>
-
-<p>To secure these advantages of homogeneity, it
-is evident that the members of the herd must possess
-sensitiveness to the behaviour of their fellows. The
-individual isolated will be of no meaning, the individual
-as part of the herd will be capable of
-transmitting the most potent impulses. Each
-member of the flock tending to follow its neighbour
-and in turn to be followed, each is in some sense
-capable of leadership; but no lead will be followed
-that departs widely from normal behaviour. A lead
-will be followed only from its resemblance to the
-normal. If the leader go so far ahead as definitely
-to cease to be in the herd, he will necessarily be
-ignored.</p>
-
-<p>The original in conduct, that is to say resistiveness
-to the voice of the herd, will be suppressed
-<span class="xxpn" id="p030">{30}</span>
-by natural selection; the wolf which does not
-follow the impulses of the herd will be starved;
-the sheep which does not respond to the flock will
-be eaten.</p>
-
-<p>Again, not only will the individual be responsive
-to impulses coming from the herd, but he will treat
-the herd as his normal environment. The impulse
-to be in and always to remain with the herd will have
-the strongest instinctive weight. Anything which
-tends to separate him from his fellows, as soon as
-it becomes perceptible as such, will be strongly
-resisted.</p>
-
-<p>So far, we have regarded the gregarious animal
-objectively. We have seen that he behaves as if
-the herd were the only environment in which he can
-live, that he is especially sensitive to impulses
-coming from the herd, and quite differently affected
-by the behaviour of animals not in the herd. Let us
-now try to estimate the mental aspects of these
-impulses. Suppose a species in possession of
-precisely the instinctive endowments which we have
-been considering, to be also self-conscious, and let
-us ask what will be the forms under which these
-phenomena will present themselves in its mind. In
-the first place, it is quite evident that impulses
-derived from herd feeling will enter the mind with
-the value of instincts—they will present themselves
-as “<i>a priori</i> syntheses of the most perfect sort
-needing no proof but their own evidence.” They
-will not, however, it is important to remember,
-necessarily always give this quality to the same
-specific acts, but will show this great distinguishing
-characteristic that they may give to <i>any opinion
-whatever</i> the characters of instinctive belief, making
-it into an “<i>a priori synthesis</i>”; so that we shall
-expect to find acts which it would be absurd to look
-upon as the results of specific instincts carried out
-with all the enthusiasm of instinct, and displaying
-<span class="xxpn" id="p031">{31}</span>
-all the marks of instinctive behaviour. The failure
-to recognize this appearance of herd impulse as a
-tendency, as a power which can confer instinctive
-sanctions on any part of the field of belief or action,
-has prevented the social habit of man from attracting
-as much of the attention of psychologists as it
-might profitably have done.</p>
-
-<p>In interpreting into mental terms the consequences
-of gregariousness, we may conveniently begin with
-the simplest. The conscious individual will feel
-an unanalysable primary sense of comfort in the
-actual presence of his fellows, and a similar sense
-of discomfort in their absence. It will be obvious
-truth to him that it is not good for the man to be
-alone. Loneliness will be a real terror, insurmountable
-by reason.</p>
-
-<p>Again, certain conditions will become secondarily
-associated with presence with, or absence from, the
-herd. For example, take the sensations of heat
-and cold. The latter is prevented in gregarious
-animals by close crowding, and experienced in the
-reverse condition; hence it comes to be connected
-in the mind with separation, and so acquires
-altogether unreasonable associations of harmfulness.
-Similarly, the sensation of warmth is associated with
-feelings of the secure and salutary. It has taken
-medicine many thousands of years to begin to doubt
-the validity of the popular conception of the harmfulness
-of cold; yet to the psychologist such a
-doubt is immediately
-obvious.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc13" href="#fn13">13</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn13" href="#afnanc13">13</a>
-Any one who has watched the behaviour of the dog and the cat
-towards warmth and cold cannot have failed to notice the effect of the
-gregarious habit on the former. The cat displays a moderate liking
-for warmth, but also a decided indifference to cold, and will quietly
-sit in the snow in a way which would be impossible to the dog.</p></div>
-
-<p>Slightly more complex manifestations of the same
-tendency to homogeneity are seen in the desire for
-identification with the herd in matters of opinion.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p032">{32}</span>
-Here we find the biological explanation of the ineradicable
-impulse mankind has always displayed
-towards segregation into classes. Each one of us
-in his opinions and his conduct, in matters of dress,
-amusement, religion, and politics, is compelled to
-obtain the support of a class, of a herd within the
-herd. The most eccentric in opinion or conduct
-is, we may be sure, supported by the agreement
-of a class, the smallness of which accounts for his
-apparent eccentricity, and the preciousness of which
-accounts for his fortitude in defying general opinion.
-Again, anything which tends to emphasize difference
-from the herd is unpleasant. In the individual mind
-there will be an unanalysable dislike of the novel
-in action or thought. It will be “wrong,”
-“wicked,” “foolish,” “undesirable,” or as we say
-“bad form,” according to varying circumstances
-which we can already to some extent define.</p>
-
-<p>Manifestations relatively more simple are shown
-in the dislike of being conspicuous, in shyness and
-in stage fright. It is, however, sensitiveness to the
-behaviour of the herd which has the most important
-effects upon the structure of the mind of the gregarious
-animal. This sensitiveness is closely
-associated with the suggestibility of the gregarious
-animal, and therefore with that of man. The effect
-of it will clearly be to make acceptable those suggestions
-which come from the herd, and those only.
-It is of especial importance to note that this suggestibility
-is not general, and that it is only herd suggestions
-which are rendered acceptable by the action
-of instinct. Man is, for example, notoriously
-insensitive to the suggestions of experience. The
-history of what is rather grandiosely called human
-progress everywhere illustrates this. If we look
-back upon the development of some such thing as
-the steam-engine, we cannot fail to be struck by
-the extreme obviousness of each advance, and how
-<span class="xxpn" id="p033">{33}</span>
-obstinately it was refused assimilation until the
-machine almost invented itself.</p>
-
-<p>Again, of two suggestions, that which the more
-perfectly embodies the voice of the herd is the
-more acceptable. The chances an affirmation has of
-being accepted could therefore be most satisfactorily
-expressed in terms of the bulk of the herd by which
-it is backed.</p>
-
-<p>It follows from the foregoing that anything which
-dissociates a suggestion from the herd will tend to
-ensure such a suggestion being rejected. For
-example, an imperious command from an individual
-known to be without authority is necessarily disregarded,
-whereas the same person making the same
-suggestion in an indirect way so as to link it up
-with the voice of the herd will meet with success.</p>
-
-<p>It is unfortunate that in discussing these facts it
-has been necessary to use the word “suggestibility,”
-which has so thorough an implication of the
-abnormal. If the biological explanation of suggestibility
-here set forth be accepted, the latter must
-necessarily be a normal quality of the human mind.
-To believe must be an ineradicable natural bias
-of man, or in other words an affirmation, positive
-or negative, is more readily accepted than rejected,
-unless its source is definitely dissociated from the
-herd. Man is not, therefore, suggestible by fits
-and starts, not merely in panics and in mobs, under
-hypnosis, and so forth, but always, everywhere, and
-under any circumstances. The capricious way in
-which man reacts to different suggestions has been
-attributed to variations in his suggestibility. This
-in the opinion of the present writer is an incorrect
-interpretation of the facts which are more satisfactorily
-explained by regarding the variations as
-due to the differing extent to which suggestions
-are identified with the voice of the herd.</p>
-
-<p>Man’s resistiveness to certain suggestions, and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p034">{34}</span>
-especially to experience, as is seen so well in his
-attitude to the new, becomes therefore but another
-evidence of his suggestibility, since the new has
-always to encounter the opposition of herd tradition.</p>
-
-<p>The apparent diminution in direct suggestibility
-with advancing years, such as was demonstrated
-in children by Binet, is in the case of the adult
-familiar to all, and is there usually regarded as
-evidence of a gradually advancing organic change
-in the brain. It can be regarded, at least plausibly,
-as being due to the fact that increase of years
-must bring an increase in the accumulations of herd
-suggestion, and so tend progressively to fix opinion.</p>
-
-<p>In the early days of the human race, the appearance
-of the faculty of speech must have led to an
-immediate increase in the extent to which the decrees
-of the herd could be promulgated, and the field
-to which they applied. Now the desire for certitude
-is one of profound depth in the human mind, and
-possibly a necessary property of any mind, and it
-is very plausible to suppose that it led in these early
-days to the whole field of life being covered by
-pronouncements backed by the instinctive sanction
-of the herd. The life of the individual would be
-completely surrounded by sanctions of the most
-tremendous kind. He would know what he might
-and might not do, and what would happen if he
-disobeyed. It would be immaterial if experience
-confirmed these beliefs or not, because it would
-have incomparably less weight than the voice of
-the herd. Such a period is the only trace perceptible
-by the biologist of the Golden Age fabled by the
-poet, when things happened as they ought, and
-hard facts had not begun to vex the soul of man.
-In some such condition we still find the Central
-Australian native. His whole life, to its minutest
-detail, is ordained for him by the voice of the
-herd, and he must not, under the most dreadful
-<span class="xxpn" id="p035">{35}</span>
-sanctions, step outside its elaborate order. It does
-not matter to him that an infringement of the code
-under his very eyes is not followed by judgment,
-for with tribal suggestion so compactly organized,
-such cases are in fact no difficulty, and do not
-trouble his belief, just as in more civilized countries
-apparent instances of malignity in the reigning deity
-are not found to be inconsistent with his benevolence.</p>
-
-<p>Such must everywhere have been primitive human
-conditions, and upon them reason intrudes as an
-alien and hostile power, disturbing the perfection
-of life, and causing an unending series of conflicts.</p>
-
-<p>Experience, as is shown by the whole history of
-man, is met by resistance because it invariably encounters
-decisions based upon instinctive belief, and
-nowhere is this fact more clearly to be seen than
-in the way in which the progress of science has
-been made.</p>
-
-<p>In matters that really interest him, man cannot
-support the suspense of judgment which science so
-often has to enjoin. He is too anxious to feel
-certain to have time to know. So that we see of
-the sciences, mathematics appearing first, then astronomy,
-then physics, then chemistry, then biology,
-then psychology, then sociology—but always the new
-field was grudged to the new method, and we still
-have the denial to sociology of the name of science.
-Nowadays, matters of national defence, of politics,
-of religion, are still too important for knowledge,
-and remain subjects for certitude; that is to say, in
-them we still prefer the comfort of instinctive belief,
-because we have not learnt adequately to value the
-capacity to foretell.</p>
-
-<p>Direct observation of man reveals at once the
-fact that a very considerable proportion of his beliefs
-are non-rational to a degree which is immediately
-obvious without any special examination, and with
-<span class="xxpn" id="p036">{36}</span>
-no special resources other than common knowledge.
-If we examine the mental furniture of the average
-man, we shall find it made up of a vast number of
-judgments of a very precise kind upon subjects of
-very great variety, complexity, and difficulty. He
-will have fairly settled views upon the origin and
-nature of the universe, and upon what he will probably
-call its meaning; he will have conclusions
-as to what is to happen to him at death and after,
-as to what is and what should be the basis of
-conduct. He will know how the country should
-be governed, and why it is going to the dogs, why
-this piece of legislation is good and that bad.
-He will have strong views upon military and naval
-strategy, the principles of taxation, the use of alcohol
-and vaccination, the treatment of influenza, the prevention
-of hydrophobia, upon municipal trading, the
-teaching of Greek, upon what is permissible in art,
-satisfactory in literature, and hopeful in science.</p>
-
-<p>The bulk of such opinions must necessarily be
-without rational basis, since many of them are concerned
-with problems admitted by the expert to be
-still unsolved, while as to the rest it is clear that
-the training and experience of no average man can
-qualify him to have any opinion upon them at all.
-The rational method adequately used would have told
-him that on the great majority of these questions
-there could be for him but one attitude—that of
-suspended judgment.</p>
-
-<p>In view of the considerations that have been discussed
-above, this wholesale acceptance of non-rational
-belief must be looked upon as normal. The
-mechanism by which it is effected demands some
-examination, since it cannot be denied that the facts
-conflict noticeably with popularly current views as to
-the part taken by reason in the formation of opinion.</p>
-
-<p>It is clear at the outset that these beliefs are
-invariably regarded by the holder as rational, and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p037">{37}</span>
-defended as such, while the position of one who
-holds contrary views is held to be obviously unreasonable.
-The religious man accuses the atheist
-of being shallow and irrational, and is met by a
-similar reply; to the Conservative, the amazing thing
-about the Liberal is his incapacity to see reason and
-accept the only possible solution of public problems.
-Examination reveals the fact that the differences are
-not due to the commission of the mere mechanical
-fallacies of logic, since these are easily avoided, even
-by the politician, and since there is no reason to
-suppose that one party in such controversies is less
-logical than the other. The difference is due rather
-to the fundamental assumptions of the antagonists
-being hostile, and these assumptions are derived
-from herd suggestion; to the Liberal, certain basal
-conceptions have acquired the quality of instinctive
-truth, have become “<i>a priori</i> syntheses,” because
-of the accumulated suggestions to which he has
-been exposed, and a similar explanation applies to
-the atheist, the Christian, and the Conservative.
-Each, it is important to remember, finds in consequence
-the rationality of his position flawless, and
-is quite incapable of detecting in it the fallacies
-which are obvious to his opponent, to whom that
-particular series of assumptions has not been
-rendered acceptable by herd suggestion.</p>
-
-<p>To continue further the analysis of non-rational
-opinion, it should be observed that the mind rarely
-leaves uncriticized the assumptions which are forced
-on it by herd suggestion, the tendency being for it
-to find more or less elaborately rationalized justifications
-of them. This is in accordance with the
-enormously exaggerated weight which is always
-ascribed to reason in the formation of opinion and
-conduct, as is very well seen, for example, in the
-explanation of the existence of altruism as being
-due to man seeing that it “pays.”
-<span class="xxpn" id="p038">{38}</span></p>
-
-<p>It is of cardinal importance to recognize that in
-this process of the rationalization of instinctive belief,
-it is the belief which is the primary thing, while
-the explanation, although masquerading as the cause
-of the belief, as the chain of rational evidence
-on which the belief is founded, is entirely secondary,
-and but for the belief would never have been thought
-of. Such rationalizations are often, in the case of
-intelligent people, of extreme ingenuity, and may be
-very misleading unless the true instinctive basis of
-the given opinion or action is thoroughly understood.</p>
-
-<p>This mechanism enables the English lady, who, to
-escape the stigma of having normal feet, subjects
-them to a formidable degree of lateral compression,
-to be aware of no logical inconsequence when she
-subscribes to missions to teach the Chinese lady how
-absurd it is to compress her feet longitudinally;
-it enables the European lady who wears rings in her
-ears to smile at the barbarism of the coloured lady
-who wears her rings in her nose; it enables the
-Englishman who is amused by the African chieftain’s
-regard for the top hat as an essential piece of the
-furniture of state to ignore the identity of his own
-behaviour when he goes to church beneath the same
-tremendous ensign.</p>
-
-<p>The objectivist finds himself compelled to regard
-these and similar correspondences between the behaviour
-of civilized and barbarous man as no mere
-interesting coincidences, but as phenomena actually
-and in the grossest way identical, but such an
-attitude is possible only when the mechanism is
-understood by which rationalization of these customs
-is effected.</p>
-
-<p>The process of rationalization which has just been
-illustrated by some of its simpler varieties is best
-seen on the largest scale, and in the most elaborate
-form, in the pseudosciences of political economy and
-ethics. Both of these are occupied in deriving
-<span class="xxpn" id="p039">{39}</span>
-from eternal principles justifications for masses of
-non-rational belief which are assumed to be permanent
-merely because they exist. Hence the
-notorious acrobatic feats of both in the face of any
-considerable variation in herd belief.</p>
-
-<p>It would seem that the obstacles to rational thought
-which have been pointed out in the foregoing discussion
-have received much less attention than should
-have been directed towards them. To maintain an
-attitude of mind which could be called scientific in
-any complete sense, it is of cardinal importance to
-recognize that belief of affirmations sanctioned by
-the herd is a normal mechanism of the human
-mind, and goes on however much such affirmations
-may be opposed by evidence, that reason cannot
-enforce belief against herd suggestion, and finally
-that totally false opinions may appear to the holder
-of them to possess all the characters of rationally
-verifiable truth, and may be justified by secondary
-processes of rationalization which it may be impossible
-directly to combat by argument.</p>
-
-<p>It should be noticed, however, that verifiable
-truths may acquire the potency of herd suggestion,
-so that the suggestibility of man does not necessarily
-or always act against the advancement of
-knowledge. For example, to the student of biology
-the principles of Darwinism may acquire the force
-of herd suggestion through being held by the
-class which he most respects, is most in contact
-with and the class which has therefore acquired
-suggestionizing power with him. Propositions consistent
-with these principles will now necessarily
-be more acceptable to him, whatever the evidence
-by which they are supported, than they would be
-to one who had not been exposed to the same
-influences. The opinion, in fact, may be hazarded
-that the acceptance of any proposition is invariably
-the resultant of suggestive influences, whether the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p040">{40}</span>
-proposition be true or false, and that the balance
-of suggestion is usually on the side of the false,
-because, education being what it is, the scientific
-method—the method, that is to say, of experience—has
-so little chance of acquiring suggestionizing
-force.</p>
-
-<p>Thus far sensitiveness to the herd has been
-discussed in relation to its effect upon intellectual
-processes. Equally important effects are traceable
-in feeling.</p>
-
-<p>It is obvious that when free communication is
-possible by speech, the expressed approval or disapproval
-of the herd will acquire the qualities of
-identity or dissociation from the herd respectively.
-To know that he is doing what would arouse the
-disapproval of the herd will bring to the individual
-the same profound sense of discomfort which would
-accompany actual physical separation, while to know
-that he is doing what the herd would approve will
-give him the sense of rightness, of gusto, and of
-stimulus which would accompany physical presence
-in the herd and response to its mandates. In both
-cases it is clear that no actual expression by the herd
-is necessary to arouse the appropriate feelings,
-which would come from within and have, in fact,
-the qualities which are recognized in the dictates
-of conscience. Conscience, then, and the feelings of
-guilt and of duty are the peculiar possessions of
-the gregarious animal. A dog and a cat caught in
-the commission of an offence will both recognize
-that punishment is coming; but the dog, moreover,
-knows that he has done <i>wrong</i>, and he will come
-to be punished, unwillingly it is true, and as if
-dragged along by some power outside him, while the
-cat’s sole impulse is to escape. The rational recognition
-of the sequence of act and punishment is
-equally clear to the gregarious and to the solitary
-animal, but it is the former only who understands
-<span class="xxpn" id="p041">{41}</span>
-that he has committed a <i>crime</i>, who has, in fact, the
-<i>sense of sin</i>. That this is the origin of what we
-call conscience is confirmed by the characteristics
-of the latter which are accessible to observation.
-Any detailed examination of the phenomena of
-conscience would lead too far to be admissible here.
-Two facts, however, should be noticed. First, the
-judgments of conscience vary in different circles,
-and are dependent on local environments; secondly,
-they are not advantageous to the species to the
-slightest degree beyond the dicta of the morals
-current in the circle in which they originate. These
-facts—stated here in an extremely summary way—demonstrate
-that conscience is an indirect result
-of the gregarious instinct, and is in no sense derived
-from a special instinct forcing men to consider
-the good of the race rather than individual desires.
-<span class="spndate">1908</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p042">SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE
-PSYCHOLOGY OF HERD INSTINCT</h2></div>
-
-<p class="pfirst">It
-was shown in the previous essay that the
-gregarious mental character is evident in man’s
-behaviour, not only in crowds and other circumstances
-of actual association, but also in his behaviour
-as an individual, however isolated. The conclusions
-were arrived at that man’s suggestibility is not
-the abnormal casual phenomenon it is often supposed
-to be, but a normal instinct present in every individual,
-and that the apparent inconstancy of its
-action is due to the common failure to recognize
-the extent of the field over which suggestion acts;
-that the only medium in which man’s mind can
-function satisfactorily is the herd, which therefore
-is not only the source of his opinions, his credulities,
-his disbeliefs, and his weaknesses, but of
-his altruism, his charity, his enthusiasms, and his
-power.</p>
-
-<p>The subject of the psychological effects of herd
-instinct is so wide that the discussion of it in the
-former essay covered only a comparatively small
-part of the field, and that in a very cursory way.
-Such as it was, however, it cannot be further
-amplified here, where an attempt will rather be
-made to sketch some of the practical corollaries of
-such generalizations as were laid down there.</p>
-
-<p>In the first place, it must be stated with emphasis
-that deductive speculation of this sort finds its
-principal value in opening up new possibilities for
-<span class="xxpn" id="p043">{43}</span>
-the application of a more exact method. Science is
-measurement, but the deductive method may indicate
-those things which can be most profitably measured.</p>
-
-<p>When the overwhelming importance of the suggestibility
-of man is recognized our first effort should
-be to obtain exact numerical expressions of it. This
-is not the place to attempt any exposition of the
-directions in which experiment should proceed; but
-it may be stated that what we want to know is,
-how much suggestion can do in the way of inducing
-belief, and it may be guessed that we shall ultimately
-be able to express the force of suggestion in terms
-of the number of undifferentiated units of the herd
-it represents. In the work that has already been
-done, chiefly by Binet and by Sidis, the suggestive
-force experimented with was relatively feeble, and
-the effects consequently were rendered liable to
-great disturbance from the spontaneous action of
-other forces of suggestion already in the mind.
-Sidis, for example, found that his subjects often
-yielded to his suggestions out of “politeness”;
-this source of difficulty was obviously due to his
-use of pure individual suggestion, a variety which
-theory shows to be weak or even directly resisted.</p>
-
-<p>The next feature of practical interest is connected
-with the hypothesis, which we attempted in the
-former article to demonstrate, that irrational belief
-forms a large bulk of the furniture of the mind,
-and is indistinguishable by the subject from rational
-verifiable knowledge. It is obviously of cardinal
-importance to be able to effect this distinction, for
-it is the failure to do so which, while it is not
-the cause of the slowness of advance in knowledge,
-is the mechanism by which this delay is brought
-about. Is there, then, we may ask, any discoverable
-touchstone by which non-rational opinion may
-be distinguished from rational? Non-rational judgments,
-being the product of suggestion, will have
-<span class="xxpn" id="p044">{44}</span>
-the quality of instinctive opinion, or, as we may
-call it, of belief in the strict sense. The essence
-of this quality is obviousness; the truth held in
-this way is one of James’s “<i>a priori</i> syntheses of
-the most perfect sort”; to question it is to the
-believer to carry scepticism to an insane degree,
-and will be met by contempt, disapproval, or condemnation,
-according to the nature of the belief in
-question. When, therefore, we find ourselves entertaining
-an opinion about the basis of which there
-is a quality of feeling which tells us that to inquire
-into it would be absurd, obviously unnecessary, unprofitable,
-undesirable, bad form, or wicked, we may
-know that that opinion is a non-rational one, and
-probably, therefore, founded upon inadequate evidence.</p>
-
-<p>Opinions, on the other hand, which are acquired
-as the result of experience alone do not possess this
-quality of primary certitude. They are true in
-the sense of being verifiable, but they are unaccompanied
-by that profound feeling of truth which
-belief possesses, and, therefore, we have no sense
-of reluctance in admitting inquiry into them. That
-heavy bodies tend to fall to the earth and that fire
-burns fingers are truths verifiable and verified every
-day, but we do not hold them with impassioned
-certitude, and we do not resent or resist inquiry
-into their basis; whereas in such a question as that
-of the survival of death by human personality we
-hold the favourable or the adverse view with a
-quality of feeling entirely different, and of such
-a kind that inquiry into the matter is looked upon
-as disreputable by orthodox science and as wicked
-by orthodox religion. In relation to this subject, it
-may be remarked, we often see it very interestingly
-shown that the holders of two diametrically opposed
-opinions, one of which is certainly right, may both
-show by their attitude that the belief is held
-<span class="xxpn" id="p045">{45}</span>
-instinctively and non-rationally, as, for example,
-when an atheist and a Christian unite in repudiating
-inquiry into the existence of the soul.</p>
-
-<p>A third practical corollary of a recognition of
-the true gregariousness of man is the very obvious
-one that it is not by any means necessary that
-suggestion should always act on the side of unreason.
-The despair of the reformer has always been the
-irrationality of man, and latterly some have come
-to regard the future as hopeless until we can breed
-a rational species. Now, the trouble is not irrationality,
-not a definite preference for unreason, but
-suggestibility—that is, a capacity for accepting reason
-or unreason if it comes from the proper source.</p>
-
-<p>This quality we have seen to be a direct consequence
-of the social habit, of a single definite
-instinct, that of gregariousness, the same instinct
-which makes social life at all possible and altruism
-a reality.</p>
-
-<p>It does not seem to have been fully understood
-that if you attack suggestibility by selection—and
-that is what you do if you breed for rationality—you
-are attacking gregariousness, for there is at present
-no adequate evidence that the gregarious instinct
-is other than a simple character and one which
-cannot be split up by the breeder. If, then, such
-an effort in breeding were successful, we should
-exchange the manageable unreason of man for the
-inhuman rationality of the tiger.</p>
-
-<p>The solution would seem rather to lie in seeing to
-it that suggestion always acts on the side of reason;
-if rationality were once to become really respectable,
-if we feared the entertaining of an unverifiable
-opinion with the warmth with which we fear using
-the wrong implement at the dinner table, if the
-thought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as
-does a foul disease, then the dangers of man’s
-suggestibility would be turned into advantages. We
-<span class="xxpn" id="p046">{46}</span>
-have seen that suggestion already has begun to
-act on the side of reason in some small part of the
-life of the student of science, and it is possible that
-a highly sanguine prophetic imagination might detect
-here a germ of future changes.</p>
-
-<p>Again, a fourth corollary of gregariousness in man
-is the fact expounded many years ago by Pearson
-that human altruism is a natural instinctive product.
-The obvious dependence of the evolution of altruism
-upon increase in knowledge and inter-communication
-has led to its being regarded as a late and a
-conscious development—as something in the nature
-of a judgment by the individual that it pays him
-to be unselfish. This is an interesting rationalization
-of the facts because in the sense in which “pay”
-is meant it is so obviously false. Altruism does
-not at present, and cannot, pay the individual in
-anything but feeling, as theory declares it must.
-It is clear, of course, that as long as altruism is
-regarded as in the nature of a judgment, the fact
-is overlooked that necessarily its only reward can
-be in feeling. Man is altruistic because he must
-be, not because reason recommends it, for herd
-suggestion opposes any advance in altruism, and
-when it can the herd executes the altruist, not of
-course as such but as an innovator. This is a
-remarkable instance of the protean character of the
-gregarious instinct and the complexity it introduces
-into human affairs, for we see one instinct producing
-manifestations directly hostile to each other—prompting
-to ever advancing developments of
-altruism, while it necessarily leads to any new product
-of advance being attacked. It shows, moreover,
-as will be pointed out again later, that a
-gregarious species rapidly developing a complex
-society can be saved from inextricable confusion
-only by the appearance of reason and the application
-of it to life.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p047">{47}</span></p>
-
-<p>When we remember the fearful repressing force
-which society has always exercised on new forms
-of altruism and how constantly the dungeon, the
-scaffold, and the cross have been the reward of
-the altruist, we are able to get some conception
-of the force of the instinctive impulse which has
-triumphantly defied these terrors, and to appreciate
-in some slight degree how irresistible an enthusiasm
-it might become if it were encouraged by
-the unanimous voice of the herd.</p>
-
-<p>In conclusion we have to deal with one more consequence
-of the social habit in man, a consequence
-the discussion of which involves some speculation of
-a necessarily quite tentative kind.</p>
-
-<p>If we look in a broad, general way at the four
-instincts which bulk largely in man’s life, namely,
-those of self-preservation, nutrition, sex, and the
-herd, we shall see at once that there is a striking
-difference between the mode of action of the first
-three and that of the last. The first three, which
-we may, for convenience and without prejudice, call
-the primitive instincts, have in common the characteristic
-of attaining their maximal activities only
-over short periods and in special sets of circumstances,
-and of being fundamentally pleasant to yield
-to. They do not remain in action concurrently, but
-when the circumstances are appropriate for the yielding
-to one, the others automatically fall into the
-background, and the governing impulse is absolute
-master. Thus these instincts cannot be supposed
-at all frequently to conflict amongst themselves, and
-the animal possessing them alone, however highly
-developed his consciousness might be, would lead
-a life emotionally quite simple, for at any given
-moment he would necessarily be doing what he
-most wanted to do. We may, therefore, imagine
-him to be endowed with the feelings of free-will
-and reality to a superb degree, wholly unperplexed
-by doubt and wholly secure in his unity of purpose.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p048">{48}</span></p>
-
-<p>The appearance of the fourth instinct, however,
-introduces a profound change, for this instinct has
-the characteristic that it exercises a controlling
-power upon the individual from without. In the
-case of the solitary animal yielding to instinct the
-act itself is pleasant, and the whole creature, as it
-were body and soul, pours itself out in one smooth
-concurrence of reaction. With the social animal
-controlled by herd instinct it is not the actual deed
-which is instinctively done, but the order to do it
-which is instinctively obeyed. The deed, being
-ordained from without, may actually be unpleasant,
-and so be resisted from the individual side and
-yet be forced instinctively into execution. The
-instinctive act seems to have been too much
-associated in current thought with the idea of
-yielding to an impulse irresistibly pleasant to the
-body, yet it is very obvious that herd instinct at
-once introduces a mechanism by which the sanctions
-of instinct are conferred upon acts by no means
-necessarily acceptable to the body or mind. This,
-of course, involves an enormous increase of the
-range through which instinct can be made use of.
-Its appearance marks the beginning of the multifarious
-activities of man and of his stupendous
-success as a species; but a spectator watching the
-process at its outset, had he been interested in the
-destiny of the race, might have felt a pang of
-apprehension when he realized how momentous was
-the divorce which had been accomplished between
-instinct and individual desire. Instinctive acts are
-still done because they are based on “<i>a priori</i>
-syntheses of the most perfect sort,” but they are
-no longer necessarily pleasant. Duty has first appeared
-in the world, and with it the age-long conflict
-which is described in the memorable words
-of Paul: “I delight in the law of God after the
-inward man;
-but I see another law in my members
-<span class="xxpn" id="p049">{49}</span>
-warring against the law of my mind and bringing
-me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
-my members.”</p>
-
-<p>Into the features and consequences of this conflict
-it is now necessary for us to probe a little
-farther.</p>
-
-<p>The element of conflict in the normal life of all
-inhabitants of a civilized state is so familiar that no
-formal demonstration of its existence is necessary.
-In childhood the process has begun. The child
-receives from the herd the doctrines, let us say,
-that truthfulness is the most valuable of all the
-virtues, that honesty is the best policy, that to the
-religious man death has no terrors, and that there
-is in store a future life of perfect happiness and
-delight. And yet experience tells him with persistence
-that truthfulness as often as not brings him
-punishment, that his dishonest playfellow has as
-good if not a better time than he, that the religious
-man shrinks from death with as great a terror as
-the unbeliever, is as broken-hearted by bereavement,
-and as determined to continue his hold upon
-this imperfect life rather than trust himself to what
-he declares to be the certainty of future bliss. To
-the child, of course, experience has but little suggestive
-force, and he is easily consoled by the perfunctory
-rationalizations offered him as explanations by
-his elders. Yet who of us is there who cannot
-remember the vague feeling of dissatisfaction, the
-obscure and elusive sense of something being wrong,
-which is left by these and similar conflicts?</p>
-
-<p>When the world begins to open out before us
-and experience to flow in with rapidly increasing
-volume, the state of affairs necessarily becomes more
-obvious. The mental unrest which we, with a certain
-cynicism, regard as normal to adolescence is evidence
-of the heavy handicap we lay upon the developing
-mind in forcing it to attempt to assimilate with
-<span class="xxpn" id="p050">{50}</span>
-experience the dicta of herd suggestion. Moreover,
-let us remember, to the adolescent experience is
-no longer the shadowy and easily manipulable series
-of dreams which it usually is to the child. It has
-become touched with the warmth and reality of
-instinctive feeling. The primitive instincts are now
-fully developed and finding themselves balked at
-every turn by herd suggestion; indeed, even products
-of the latter are in conflict among themselves.
-Not only sex, self-preservation, and nutrition are at
-war with the pronouncements of the herd, but
-altruism, the ideal of rationality, the desire for
-power, the yearning for protection, and other feelings
-which have acquired instinctive force from group
-suggestion.</p>
-
-<p>The sufferings entailed by this condition are
-commonplace knowledge, and there is scarcely a
-novelist who has not dealt with them. It is around
-matters of sex and of religion that the conflict is
-most severe, and while it is no part of our purpose
-to make any detailed survey of the condition, it
-may be of interest to point out some of the more
-obvious significances of this localization.</p>
-
-<p>Religion has always been to man an intensely
-serious matter, and when we realize its biological
-significance we can see that this is due to a deeply
-ingrained need of his mind. The individual of
-a gregarious species can never be truly independent
-and self-sufficient. Natural selection has ensured
-that as an individual he must have an abiding sense
-of incompleteness, which, as thought develops in
-complexity, will come to be more and more
-abstractly expressed. This is the psychological germ
-which expresses itself in the religious feelings, in
-the desire for completion, for mystical union, for
-incorporation with the infinite, which are all provided
-for in Christianity and in all the successful sub-varieties
-of Christianity which modern times have
-<span class="xxpn" id="p051">{51}</span>
-seen develop. This need seems with the increasing
-complexity of society to become more and more
-imperious, or rather to be satisfiable only by
-more and more elaborately rationalized expressions.
-The following is a representative passage from a
-recent very popular book of mystical religion:
-“The great central fact in human life, in your life
-and in mine, is the coming into a conscious vital
-realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life and
-the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow.”
-It is very interestingly shown here to what lengths
-of rationalization may be forced the consequences
-of that yearning in us which is identical with the
-mechanism that binds the wolf to the pack, the sheep
-to the flock, and to the dog makes the company
-of his master like walking with God in the cool of
-the evening.</p>
-
-<p>Did an opportunity offer, it would be interesting
-to inquire into the relation of the same instinctive
-impulse to the genesis of philosophy. Such an
-attempt would, however, involve too great a
-digression from the argument of this essay.</p>
-
-<p>That sex should be a chief field for the conflicts
-we are discussing is comprehensible not only from
-the immense strength of the impulse and the fact
-that it is a mode of man’s activity which herd
-suggestion has always tried to regulate, but also
-because there is reason to believe that the sex
-impulse becomes secondarily associated with another
-instinctive feeling of great strength, namely,
-altruism. We have seen already that altruism is
-largely antagonized by herd tradition, and it is
-plausible to suppose that the overwhelming rush
-of this feeling which is usually associated with sex
-feelings is not altogether sexual in quality, but
-secondarily associated therewith as being the only
-outlet through which it is allowed by the herd to
-indulge manifestations of really passionate intensity.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p052">{52}</span>
-If this were so it would clearly be of great practical
-importance should the rational method ever come
-to be applied to the solution of the problems for
-the sociologist and statesman which surround the
-relations of the sexes.</p>
-
-<p>The conflicts which we are discussing are of
-course by no means limited to the periods of childhood
-and adolescence, but are frequently carried
-over into adult life. To understand how the
-apparent calm of normal adult life is attained, it is
-necessary to consider the effects upon the mind of
-these processes of contention.</p>
-
-<p>Let us consider the case of a person caught in one
-of those dilemmas which society presents so
-abundantly to its members—a man seized with a
-passion for some individual forbidden to him by
-the herd, or a man whose eyes have been opened to
-the vision of the cruelty which everywhere lies close
-below the surface of life, and yet has deeply
-ingrained in him the doctrine of the herd that things,
-on the whole, are fundamentally right, that the
-universe is congruous with his moral feelings, that
-the seeming cruelty is mercy and the apparent indifference
-long-suffering. Now, what are the
-possible developments in such a tormented soul?</p>
-
-<p>The conflict may end through the subsidence
-of either antagonist. Years, other instincts, or
-grosser passions may moderate the intensity of
-ungratified love or take away the sharpness from
-the sight of incomprehensible pain.</p>
-
-<p>Again, scepticism may detect the nature of the
-herd suggestion and deprive it of its compelling
-force.</p>
-
-<p>Thirdly, the problem may be shirked by the easy
-mechanism of rationalization. The man may take
-his forbidden pleasure and endow a chapel, persuading
-himself that his is a special case, that at
-any rate he is not as bad as X, or Y, or Z, who
-<span class="xxpn" id="p053">{53}</span>
-committed such and such enormities, that after all
-there is Divine mercy, and he never beat his wife,
-and was always regular with his subscriptions to
-missions and the hospitals. Or, if his difficulty
-is the ethical one, he will come to see how right
-the herd view really is; that it is a very narrow
-mind which cannot see the intrinsic excellence of
-suffering; that the sheep and cattle we breed for
-eating, the calf we bleed to death that its meat may
-be white, the one baby out of four we kill in the
-first year of life, that cancer, consumption, and
-insanity and the growing river of blood which bathes
-the feet of advancing mankind, all have their part
-in the Increasing Purpose which is leading the race
-ever upwards and onwards to a Divine consummation
-of joy. Thus the conflict ceases, and the
-man is content to watch the blood and the Purpose
-go on increasing together and to put on flesh unperplexed
-by the shallow and querulous scruples of
-his youth.</p>
-
-<p>Of these three solutions that of scepticism is
-unquestionably the least common, though the impression
-that this is not the case is created by the
-frequency of apparent scepticism, which, in fact,
-merely masks the continuation of conflict in the
-deeper strata of the mind. A man the subject of
-such submerged conflict, though he may appear to
-others, and, of course, to himself, to have reached
-a secure and uncontested basis of stability, may,
-after a period of apparently frictionless mental life,
-betray by unmistakable evidence the fact that conflict
-has continued disastrously below the surface.</p>
-
-<p>The solutions by indifference and by rationalization
-or by a mixture of these two processes are
-characteristic of the great class of normal, sensible,
-reliable middle age, with its definite views, its
-resiliency to the depressing influence of facts, and
-its gift for forming the backbone of the State. In
-<span class="xxpn" id="p054">{54}</span>
-them herd suggestion shows its capacity to triumph
-over experience, to delay the evolution of altruism,
-and to obscure the existence and falsify the results of
-the contest between personal and social desires.
-That it is able to do so has the advantage of
-establishing existing society with great firmness, but
-it has also the consequence of entrusting the conduct
-of the State and the attitude of it towards life to a
-class which their very stability shows to possess
-a certain relative incapacity to take experience
-seriously, a certain relative insensibility to the value
-of feeling and to suffering, and a decided preference
-for herd tradition over all other sources of conduct.</p>
-
-<p>Early in history the bulk of mankind must have
-been of this type, because experience, being still
-relatively simple, would have but little suggestive
-force, and would therefore readily be suppressed by
-herd suggestion. There would be little or no mental
-conflict, and such as there was would be readily
-stilled by comparatively simple rationalizations. The
-average man would then be happy, active, and
-possessed of an inexhaustible fund of motive and
-energy, capable of intense patriotism and even of
-self-immolation for the herd. The nation consequently,
-in an appropriate environment, would be
-an expanding one and rendered ruthless and formidable
-by an intense, unshakable conviction of its
-divine mission. Its blindness towards the new in
-experience would keep its patriots narrow and fierce,
-its priests bigoted and bloodthirsty, its rulers
-arrogant, reactionary, and over-confident. Should
-chance ordain that there arose no great environmental
-change rendering necessary great modifications,
-such a nation would have a brilliant career of
-conquest as has been so often demonstrated by
-history.</p>
-
-<p>Amongst the first-class Powers to-day the mentally
-stable are still the directing class, and their
-<span class="xxpn" id="p055">{55}</span>
-characteristic tone is discernible in national attitudes
-towards experience, in national ideals and religions,
-and in national morality. It is this possession of
-the power of directing national opinion by a class
-which is in essence relatively insensitive towards
-new combinations of experience; this persistence
-of a mental type which may have been adequate
-in the simpler past, into a world where environments
-are daily becoming more complex—it is this survival,
-so to say, of the waggoner upon the footplate of
-the express engine, which has made the modern
-history of nations a series of such breathless adventures
-and hairbreadth escapes. To those who
-are able to view national affairs from an objective
-standpoint, it is obvious that each of these escapes
-might very easily have been a disaster, and that
-sooner or later one of them must be such.</p>
-
-<p>Thus far we have seen that the conflict between
-herd suggestion and experience is associated with
-the appearance of the great mental type which is
-commonly called normal. Whether or not it is in
-fact to be regarded as such is comparatively unimportant
-and obviously a question of statistics;
-what is, however, of an importance impossible to
-exaggerate is the fact that in this type of mind
-personal satisfactoriness or adequacy, or, as we may
-call it, mental comfort, is attained at the cost of an
-attitude towards experience which greatly affects the
-value to the species of the activities of minds of
-this type. This mental stability, then, is to be regarded
-as, in certain important directions, a loss;
-and the nature of the loss resides in a limitation of
-outlook, a relative intolerance of the new in thought,
-and a consequent narrowing of the range of facts
-over which satisfactory intellectual activity is
-possible. We may, therefore, for convenience, refer
-to this type as the resistive, a name which serves as
-a reminder of the exceedingly important fact that,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p056">{56}</span>
-however “normal” the type may be, it is one which
-falls far short of the possibilities of the human
-mind.</p>
-
-<p>If we now turn to a consideration of the mental
-characteristics of the constituents of society other
-than those of the resistive type, we shall find a
-common quality traceable, and another great type
-capable of broad definition. We must at once,
-however, guard ourselves against being misled by the
-name “normal” as applied to the resistant into the
-supposition that this type is in a numerical majority
-in society. Intellectually unquestionably of inferior
-value, there is good reason to suppose that in mere
-numbers it has already passed its zenith, as may be
-gathered from the note of panic which what is
-called the increase of degeneracy is beginning to
-excite.</p>
-
-<p>Outside the comfortable and possibly diminishing
-ranks of the “normal,” society is everywhere
-penetrated by a steadily increasing degree of what
-we may call in the broadest possible way mental
-instability. All observers of society, even the most
-optimistic, are agreed that the prevalence of this
-mental quality is increasing, while those who are
-competent to trace its less obtrusive manifestations
-find it to be very widespread.</p>
-
-<p>When the twenty years just past come to be
-looked back upon from the distant future, it is
-probable that their chief claim to interest will be
-that they saw the birth of the science of abnormal
-psychology. That science, inconspicuous as has
-been its development, has already given us a few
-generalizations of the first importance. Amongst
-such, perhaps the most valuable is that which has
-taught us that certain mental and physical manifestations
-which have usually been regarded as
-disease in the ordinary sense are due to the effects
-upon the mind of the failure to assimilate the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p057">{57}</span>
-experience presented to it into a harmonious unitary
-personality. We have seen that the stable-minded
-deal with an unsatisfactory piece of experience by
-rejecting its significance. In certain minds such
-successful exclusion does not occur, and the unwelcome
-experience persists as an irritant, so to
-say, capable neither of assimilation nor rejection.
-Abnormal psychology discloses the fact that such
-minds are apt to develop the supposed diseases we
-have just referred to, and the fact that these and
-other manifestations of what we have called mental
-instability are the consequences of mental conflict.</p>
-
-<p>Now, we have already seen that a gregarious
-animal, unless his society is perfectly organized,
-must be subject to lasting and fierce conflict between
-experience and herd
-suggestion.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc14" href="#fn14">14</a> It is natural,
-therefore, to assume that the manifestations of
-mental instability are not diseases of the individual
-in the ordinary sense at all, but inevitable consequences
-of man’s biological history and exact
-measures of the stage now reached of his assimilation
-into the gregarious life. The manifestations of
-mental instability and disintegration were at first
-supposed to be of comparatively rare occurrence
-and limited to certain well-known “diseases,” but
-they are coming to be recognized over a larger and
-larger field, and in a great variety of phenomena.</p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn14" href="#afnanc14">14</a>
-The word “experience” is used here in a special sense
-that perhaps renders necessary a word or two of definition. The
-experience meant is everything that comes to the individual, not only
-his experience of events in the external world, but also his experience
-of the instinctive and often egoistic impulses at work within his own
-personality. 1915.</p></div>
-
-<p>Conditions which at first sight give rise to no
-suspicion of being acquired injuries to the mind,
-when they are looked at in the light of the facts we
-have been considering, reveal themselves as being
-scars inflicted by conflict as certainly as are some
-<span class="xxpn" id="p058">{58}</span>
-forms of insanity. Characteristics which pass as
-vices, eccentricities, defects of temper, peculiarities
-of disposition, come when critically examined to be
-explicable as minor grades of defective mental
-stability, although, on account of their great frequency,
-they have been looked upon as normal, or at
-any rate in the natural order of things.</p>
-
-<p>Few examples could be found to illustrate better
-such conditions than alcoholism. Almost universally
-regarded as either, on the one hand, a sin or vice,
-or on the other hand, as a disease, there can be
-little doubt that in fact it is essentially a response
-to a psychological necessity. In the tragic conflict
-between what he has been taught to desire and
-what he is allowed to get, man has found in alcohol,
-as he has found in certain other drugs, a sinister
-but effective peacemaker, a means of securing, for
-however short a time, some way out of the prison
-house of reality back to the Golden Age. There
-can be equally little doubt that it is but a comparatively
-small proportion of the victims of conflict
-who find a solace in alcohol, and the prevalence of
-alcoholism and the punishments entailed by the use
-of that dreadful remedy cannot fail to impress upon
-us how great must be the number of those whose
-need was just as great, but who were too ignorant,
-too cowardly, or perhaps too brave to find a release
-there.</p>
-
-<p>We have seen that mental instability must be
-regarded as a condition extremely common, and produced
-by the mental conflict forced upon man by
-his sensitiveness to herd suggestion on the one hand
-and to experience on the other. It remains for us
-to estimate in some rough way the characteristics
-of the unstable, in order that we may be able to
-judge of their value or otherwise to the State and
-the species. Such an estimate must necessarily be
-exaggerated, over-sharp in its outlines, omitting
-<span class="xxpn" id="p059">{59}</span>
-much, and therefore in many respects false. The
-most prominent characteristic in which the mentally
-unstable contrast with the “normal” is what we
-may vaguely call motive. They tend to be weak
-in energy, and especially in persistence of energy.
-Such weakness may translate itself into a vague
-scepticism as to the value of things in general,
-or into a definite defect of what is popularly called
-will power, or into many other forms, but it is
-always of the same fundamental significance, for
-it is always the result of the thwarting of the
-primary impulses to action resident in herd suggestion
-by the influence of an experience which cannot
-be disregarded. Such minds cannot be stimulated
-for long by objects adequate to normal ambition;
-they are apt to be sceptical in such matters as
-patriotism, religion, politics, social success, but the
-scepticism is incomplete, so that they are readily
-won to new causes, new religions, new quacks, and
-as readily fall away therefrom.</p>
-
-<p>We saw that the resistive gain in motive what
-they lose in adaptability; we may add that in a
-sense the unstable gain in adaptability what they
-lose in motive. Thus we see society cleft by the
-instinctive qualities of its members into two great
-classes, each to a great extent possessing what the
-other lacks, and each falling below the possibilities
-of human personality. The effect of the gradual
-increase of the unstable in society can be seen to
-a certain extent in history. We can watch it through
-the careers of the Jews and of the Romans. At
-first, when the bulk of the citizens were of the
-stable type, the nation was enterprising, energetic,
-indomitable, but hard, inelastic, and fanatically convinced
-of its Divine mission. The inevitable effect
-of the expansion of experience which followed success
-was that development of the unstable and sceptical
-which ultimately allowed the nation, no longer
-<span class="xxpn" id="p060">{60}</span>
-believing in itself or its gods, to become the almost
-passive prey of more stable peoples.</p>
-
-<p>In regard to the question of the fundamental
-significance of the two great mental types found
-in society, a tempting field for speculation at once
-opens up, and many questions immediately arise
-for discussion. Is, for example, the stable normal
-type naturally in some special degree insensitive
-to experience, and if so, is such a quality inborn or
-acquired? Again, may the characteristics of the
-members of this class be the result of an experience
-relatively easily dealt with by rationalization
-and exclusion? Then again, are the unstable naturally
-hypersensitive to experience, or have they met
-with an experience relatively difficult to assimilate?
-Into the discussion of such questions we shall here
-make no attempt to enter, but shall limit ourselves
-to reiterating that these two types divide society
-between them, that they both must be regarded as
-seriously defective and as evidence that civilization
-has not yet provided a medium in which the average
-human mind can grow undeformed and to its full
-stature.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
- <span class="smcap">F<b>UTURE</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smcap">M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
-
-<p>Thus far we have attempted to apply biological
-conceptions to man and society as they actually exist
-at present. We may now, very shortly, inquire
-whether or not the same method can yield some
-hint as to the course which human development
-will take in the future.</p>
-</div>
-<p>As we have already seen reason to believe, in
-the course of organic development when the limits
-of size and efficiency in the unicellular organism
-were reached, the only possible access of advantage
-to the competing organism was gained by the appearance
-of combination. In the scale of the metazoa
-<span class="xxpn" id="p061">{61}</span>
-we see the advantages of combination and division
-of labour being more and more made use of, until
-the individual cells lose completely the power of
-separate existence, and their functions come to be
-useful only in the most indirect way and through the
-organisms of which the cells are constituents. This
-complete submergence of the cell in the organism
-indicates the attainment of the maximum advantages
-to be obtained from this particular access in
-complexity, and it indicates to us the direction in
-which development must proceed within the limits
-which are produced by that other access of
-complexity—gregariousness.</p>
-
-<p>The success and extent of such development clearly
-depend on the relation of two series of activities in
-the individual which may in the most general way
-be described as the capacity for varied reaction
-and the capacity for communication. The process
-going on in the satisfactorily developing gregarious
-animal is the moulding of the varied reactions of
-the individual into functions beneficial to him only
-indirectly through the welfare of the new unit—the
-herd. This moulding process is a consequence
-of the power of intercommunication amongst the
-individual constituents of the new unit. Intercommunication
-is thus seen to be of cardinal importance
-to the gregarious, just as was the nervous system
-to the multicellular.</p>
-
-<p>Moreover, in a given gregarious species the existence
-of a highly developed power of reaction in
-the individual with a proportionately less developed
-capacity for communication will mean that the
-species is not deriving the advantages it might
-from the possession of gregariousness, while the full
-advantages of the type will be attained only when
-the two sets of activities are correspondingly strong.</p>
-
-<p>Here we may see perhaps the explanation of the
-astounding success and completeness of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p062">{62}</span>
-gregariousness in bees and ants. Their cycle of development
-was early complete because the possibilities
-of reaction of the individual were so small, and
-consequently the capacity for intercommunication
-of the individual was relatively soon able to attain
-a corresponding grade. The individual has become
-as completely merged in the hive as the single
-cell in the multicellular animal, and consequently
-the whole of her activities is available for the uses
-of the State. It is interesting to notice that, considered
-from this aspect, the wonderful society of
-the bee, with its perfect organization and its wonderful
-adaptability and elasticity, owes its early
-attainment of success to the smallness of the brain
-power of the individual.</p>
-
-<p>For the mammals with their greater powers of
-varied reaction the path to the consummation of
-their possibilities must be longer, more painful, and
-more dangerous, and this applies in an altogether
-special degree to man.</p>
-
-<p>The enormous power of varied reaction possessed
-by man must render necessary for his attainment
-of the full advantages of the gregarious
-habit a power of intercommunication of absolutely
-unprecedented fineness. It is clear that scarcely a
-hint of such power has yet appeared, and it is
-equally obvious that it is this defect which gives
-to society the characteristics which are the contempt
-of the man of science and the disgust of
-the humanitarian.</p>
-
-<p>We are now in a position to understand how
-momentous is the question as to what society does
-with the raw material of its minds to encourage
-in them the potential capacity for intercommunication
-which they undoubtedly by nature possess. To
-that question there is but one answer. By providing
-its members with a herd tradition which is constantly
-at war with feeling and with experience,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p063">{63}</span>
-society, drives them inevitably into resistiveness on
-the one hand, or into mental instability on the
-other, conditions which have this in common, that
-they tend to exaggerate that isolation of the individual
-which is shown us by the intellect to be
-unnatural and by the heart to be cruel.</p>
-
-<p>Another urgent question for the future is provided
-by the steady increase, relative and absolute,
-of the mentally unstable. The danger to the State
-constituted by a large unstable class is already
-generally recognized, but unfortunately realization
-has so far only instigated a yet heavier blow at
-the species. It is assumed that instability is a
-primary quality, and therefore only to be dealt with
-by breeding it out. With that indifference to the
-mental side of life which is characteristic of the
-mentally resistant class, the question as to the real
-meaning of instability has been begged by the
-invention of the disastrous word “degenerate.” The
-simplicity of the idea has charmed modern speculation,
-and the only difficulty in the whole problem
-has come to be the decision as to the most expeditious
-way of getting rid of this troublesome flaw
-in an otherwise satisfactory world.</p>
-
-<p>The conception that the natural environment of
-man must be modified if the body is to survive
-has long been recognized, but the fact that the mind
-is incomparably more delicate than the body has
-scarcely been noticed at all. We assume that the
-disorderly environment with which we surround the
-mind has no effect, and are ingenuously surprised
-when mental instability arises apparently from nowhere;
-but although we know nothing of its origin
-our temerity in applying the cure is in no sense
-daunted.</p>
-
-<p>It has already been pointed out how dangerous
-it would be to breed man for reason—that is, against
-suggestibility. The idea is a fit companion for the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p064">{64}</span>
-device of breeding against “degeneracy.” The
-“degenerate”—that is, the mentally unstable—have
-demonstrated by the mere fact of instability that
-they possess the quality of sensitiveness to feeling
-and to experience, for it is this which has prevented
-them from applying the remedy of rationalization or
-exclusion when they have met with experience conflicting
-with herd suggestion. There can be no
-doubt as to the value to the State of such sensitiveness
-were it developed in a congruous environment.
-The “degeneracy,” therefore, which we see
-developed as a secondary quality in these sensitive
-minds is no evidence against the degenerate, but
-an indictment of the disorderly environment which
-has ruined them, just as the catchword associating
-insanity and genius tells us nothing about genius
-but a great deal about the situation into which it
-has had the misfortune to be born.</p>
-
-<p>Sensitiveness to feeling and experience is undoubtedly
-the necessary antecedent of any high
-grade of that power of intercommunication which
-we have seen to be necessary to the satisfactory
-development of man. Such sensitiveness, however,
-in society as it now is, inevitably leads merely to
-mental instability. That such sensitiveness increases
-with civilization is shown by the close association
-between civilization and mental instability. There
-is no lack, therefore, of the mental quality of all
-others most necessary to the gregarious animal.
-The pressing problem which in fact faces man in
-the immediate future is how to readjust the mental
-environment in such a way that sensitiveness may
-develop and confer on man the enormous advantages
-which it holds for him, without being transformed
-from a blessing into the curse and menace
-of instability. To the biologist it is quite clear
-that this can be effected only by an extension of
-the rational method to the whole field of experience, a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p065">{65}</span>
-process of the greatest difficulty, but one which must
-be the next great variation in man’s development if
-that development is to continue to be an evolution.</p>
-
-<p>Outside this possibility the imagination can see
-nothing but grounds for pessimism. It needs but
-little effort of foresight to realize that without some
-totally revolutionary change in man’s attitude towards
-the mind, even his very tenure of the earth
-may come to be threatened. Recent developments
-in the study of disease have shown us how blind and
-fumbling have been our efforts against the attacks
-of our immemorial enemies the unicellular organisms.
-When we remember their capacities for variation
-and our fixity, we can see that for the race effectually
-and permanently to guard itself against even this
-one danger are necessary that fineness and complexity
-of organization, that rendering available of
-the utmost capacity of its members, against which
-the face of society seems at present to be so steadily
-set. We see man to-day, instead of the frank and
-courageous recognition of his status, the docile attention
-to his biological history, the determination to
-let nothing stand in the way of the security and
-permanence of his future, which alone can establish
-the safety and happiness of the race, substituting
-blind confidence in his destiny, unclouded faith in
-the essentially respectful attitude of the universe
-towards his moral code, and a belief no less firm
-that his traditions and laws and institutions necessarily
-contain permanent qualities of reality. Living
-as he does in a world where outside his race no
-allowances are made for infirmity, and where
-figments however beautiful never become facts, it
-needs but little imagination to see how great are
-the probabilities that after all man will prove but
-one more of Nature’s failures, ignominously to be
-swept from her work-table to make way for another
-venture of her tireless curiosity and patience.
-<span class="spndate">1909.</span></p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p066">SPECULATIONS UPON
- THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915</h2>
-
-<h3><span class="smcap">M<b>AN’S</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">PLACE</span> <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
- <span class="smcap">N<b>ATURE</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">AND</span>
- <span class="smcap">N<b>ATURE’S</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">PLACE</span>
- <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
- <span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span></h3></div>
-
-<p class="pfirst">As
-the nineteenth century draws away into the past
-and it is possible to get a comprehensive view of
-the intellectual legacies it has left to its successor,
-certain of its ideas stand out from the general mass
-by reason of the greatness of their scale and scope.
-Ideas of the first order of magnitude are from
-their very greatness capable of full appreciation
-only in a comparatively distant view. However
-much they have been admired and studied by contemporary
-thought, it is with the passage of time
-only that all their proportions come gradually into
-focus. The readjustments of thought as to what
-used to be called man’s place in nature, which were
-so characteristic a work of the latter half of the
-nineteenth century, embodied an idea of this imperial
-type which, fruitful as it has proved, has even now
-yielded far less than its full harvest of truth.</p>
-
-<p>The conception of man as an animal, at first entertained
-only in a narrow zoological sense, has gradually
-extended in significance, and is now beginning
-to be understood as a guiding principle in the study
-of all the activities of the individual and the species.
-In the early days such a conception was regarded
-by non-scientific thought as degrading to man, and
-as denying to him the possibility of moral progress
-<span class="xxpn" id="p067">{67}</span>
-and the reality of his higher æsthetic and emotional
-capabilities; at the same time, men of science found
-themselves compelled, however unwillingly, to deny
-that the moral activities of man could be made
-consistent with his status as an animal. It may
-still be remembered how even the evolutionary enthusiasm
-of Huxley was baffled by the incompatibility
-he found to subsist between what he called
-the ethical and the cosmical processes, and how
-he stood bewildered by the sight of moral beauty
-blossoming incorrigibly amidst the cruelty, lust,
-and bloodshed of the world.</p>
-
-<p>The passage of time has tended more and more
-to clear up these lingering confusions of an anthropocentric
-biology, and thought is gradually gaining
-courage to explore, not merely the body of man
-but his mind and his moral capacities, in the knowledge
-that these are not meaningless intrusions into
-an otherwise orderly world, but are partakers in him
-and his history just as are his vermiform appendix
-and his stomach, and are elements in the complex
-structure of the universe as respectably established
-there, and as racy of that soil as the oldest saurian
-or the newest gas.</p>
-
-<p>Man is thus not merely, as it were, rescued from
-the inhuman loneliness which he had been taught
-was his destiny and persuaded was his pride, but
-he is relieved from perplexities and temptations which
-had so long proved obstacles to his finding himself
-and setting out valiantly on an upward path. Cut
-off from his history and regarded as an exile into
-a lower world, he can scarcely fail to be appalled
-and crushed by the discrepancy between his lofty
-pretensions and his lowly acts. If he but recognize
-that he himself and his virtues and aspirations are
-integral strands in the fabric of life, he will learn
-that the great tissue of reality loses none of its
-splendour by the fact that near by where the pattern
-<span class="xxpn" id="p068">{68}</span>
-glows with his courage and his pride it burns with
-the radiance of the tiger, and over against his
-intellect and his genius it mocks in the grotesques
-of the ape.</p>
-
-<p>The development of an objective attitude towards
-the status of man has had, perhaps, its most significant
-effect in the influence it has exercised upon the
-study of the human mind.</p>
-
-<p>The desire to understand the modes of action of
-the mind, and to formulate about them generalizations
-which shall be of practical value, has led to inquiries
-being pursued along three distinct paths. These
-several methods may be conveniently distinguished
-as the primitive, the human, and the comparative.</p>
-
-<p>What I have called the primitive method of
-psychological inquiry is also the obvious and natural
-one. It takes man as it finds him, accepts his
-mind for what it professes to be, and examines into
-its processes by introspection of a direct and simple
-kind. It is necessarily subject to the conditions
-that the object of study is also the medium through
-which the observations are made, and that there
-is no objective standard by which the accuracy of
-transmission through this medium can be estimated
-and corrected. In the result the materials collected
-are subjected to a very special and very stringent
-kind of censorship. If an observation is acceptable
-and satisfactory to the mind itself, it is reported as
-true; if it contains material which is unwelcome
-to the mind, it is reported as false; and in both
-cases the failure is in no sense due to any conscious
-dishonesty in the observing mind, but is a fallacy
-necessarily inherent in the method. A fairly characteristic
-product of inquiries of this type is the conception,
-which seems so obvious to common sense,
-that introspection does give access to all mental
-processes, so that a conscious motive must be discoverable
-for all the acts of the subject. Experience
-<span class="xxpn" id="p069">{69}</span>
-with more objective methods has shown that when
-no motive is found for a given act or no motive
-consistent with the mind’s pretensions as to itself,
-there will always be a risk of a presentable one
-being extemporized.</p>
-
-<p>Psychology of this primitive type—the naïve psychology
-of common sense—is always necessarily
-tainted with what may be called in a special sense
-anthropomorphism; it tells us, that is to say, not
-what man is but what he thinks and feels himself
-to be. Judged by its fruits in enabling us to foretell
-or to influence conduct, it is worthless. It has
-been studied for thousands of years and infinite
-ingenuities have been expended on it, and yet at
-its best it can only tell us how the average man
-thinks his mind works—a body of information not
-sensibly superior in reality to the instructions of
-a constitutional monarch addressed to an unruly
-parliament. It has distracted thought with innumerable
-falsifications, but in all its secular cultivation
-has produced no body of generalizations of value in
-the practical conduct of life.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">C<b>OMMENTS</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">ON</span> <span class="smmaj">AN</span>
- <span class="smcap">O<b>BJECTIVE</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>YSTEM</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smcap">H<b>UMAN</b> P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span></h3>
-
-<h4 class="h4center">I</h4>
-</div>
-<p>Until comparatively recent years the fact that what
-was called psychology did not even pretend to be
-of any practical value in affairs was tolerated by
-its professors and regarded as more or less in the
-nature of things. The science, therefore, outside a
-small class of specialists was in very dismal reputation.
-It had come to comprise two divergent
-schools, one which busied itself with the apparatus
-of the experimental physiologist and frankly studied
-the physiology of the nervous system, the other
-<span class="xxpn" id="p070">{70}</span>
-which occupied itself with the faded abstractions of
-logic and metaphysics, while both agreed in ignoring
-the study of the mind. This comparative sterility
-may in a broad way be traced back to the one
-fundamental defect from which the science suffered—the
-absence of an objective standard by which
-the value of mental observations could be estimated.
-Failing such a standard, any given mental
-phenomenon might be as much a product of the
-observing mind as of the mind observed, or the
-varying degrees in which both of these factors contributed
-might be inextricably mixed. Of late years
-the much-needed objective standard has been sought
-and to some extent found in two directions. What
-I have called “human” psychology has found it
-in the study of diseases of the mind. In states of
-disease mental processes and mechanisms which had
-eluded observation in the normal appear in an
-exaggerated form which renders recognition less
-difficult. The enlightenment coming from the
-understanding of such pathological material has
-made it possible to argue back to the less obtrusive
-or more effectively concealed phenomena of the
-normal and more or less to exclude the fallacies of
-the observing mind, and, at any rate in part, to
-dissipate the obscurity which for so long had successfully
-hidden the actual mental phenomena
-themselves.</p>
-
-<p>The most remarkable attack upon the problems
-of psychology which has been made from the purely
-human standpoint is that in which the rich genius
-of Sigmund Freud was and still is the pioneer.
-The school which his work has founded was concerned
-at first wholly with the study of abnormal mental
-states, and came into notice as a branch of medicine
-finding the verification of its principles in the success
-it laid claim to in the treatment of certain mental
-diseases. It now regards itself as possessing a body
-<span class="xxpn" id="p071">{71}</span>
-of doctrine of general applicability to mental
-phenomena, normal or abnormal. These principles
-are the product of laborious and minute inquiries
-into the working of the mind, rendered possible by
-the use of a characteristic method known as psycho-analysis.
-This method, which constitutes a definite
-and elaborate technique of investigation, is looked
-upon by those who practise it as the sole means
-by which access can be obtained to the veritable
-phenomena of the mind, and as rendering possible a
-truly objective view of the facts. It is no part of
-my purpose to examine the validity of psycho-analysis
-as a scientific method. It is enough to notice that
-the exponents of it completely repudiate the teachings
-of what I have called “common-sense”
-psychology, that they maintain that objectivity in
-the collection and collation of psychical facts is
-in no way to be obtained by the light of nature but
-demands very special methods and precautions, and
-that their claims to the possession of a truly objective
-method appear to be open to verification or disproof
-by actual experiment in the treatment of
-disease. Whatever value, then, psycho-analysis may
-ultimately prove to possess in solving the peculiar
-difficulties of psychological research, the evolution
-of it marks a very definite advance in principle and
-shows that it is the product of a mind determined
-by whatever effort to get to close quarters with
-the facts.</p>
-
-<p>The body of doctrine enunciated by Freud concerns
-us more directly than the peculiarities of his
-method. Some very general and summary account
-may therefore be attempted as illustrating the characteristics
-of this vigorous, aggressive, and essentially
-“human” school of research.</p>
-
-<p>The Freudian psychology regards the mind of
-the adult as the outcome of a process of development
-the stages of which are within limits, orderly
-<span class="xxpn" id="p072">{72}</span>
-and inevitable. The trend of this development in
-each individual is determined by forces which are
-capable of precise definition, and the final product
-of it is capable of yielding to expert examination
-clear evidence of the particular way in which these
-forces have acted and interacted during the developmental
-process. The mind of the adult, then, is
-like the body in bearing traces which betray to
-the skilled observer the events of its developmental
-history. Inconspicuous and apparently insignificant
-structures and peculiarities in the one no less than
-in the other prove to have had a meaning and a
-function in the past, however little significance their
-final form may seem to possess, and thus the psychologist
-is able to reconstruct the history of a given
-subject’s mind, although the most important stages
-of its development are hidden from direct observation
-as effectively as is the prenatal growth of the
-body.</p>
-
-<p>It seems to be a fundamental conception of the
-Freudian system that the development of the mind
-is accompanied and conditioned by mental conflict.
-The infant is regarded as being impelled by instinctive
-impulses which at first are solely egoistic.
-From the earliest moments of its contact with the
-world resistance to the full indulgence of these
-impulses is encountered. With the growth and
-intensification of such impulses, the resistance from
-external interference—the beginnings of social
-pressure—becomes more formidable, until at a quite
-unexpectedly early age a veritable condition of
-mental conflict is established—egoistic impulses
-fatally pressing for indulgence regardless of their
-acceptability to the environment, while environmental
-influences bear equally heavily against any
-indulgence unwelcome to surrounding standards of
-discipline, taste, or morality.</p>
-
-<p>Of the two parties in this conflict—the instinctive
-<span class="xxpn" id="p073">{73}</span>
-impulse and the repressive force—the first, according
-to Freud, is wholly the product of the sex
-instinct. This instinct is conceived of as being
-much more active and potent in the infant and
-child than had been suspected by any previous investigator.
-The normal sexual interest and activity
-as manifested in the adult are developed out of the
-sexual impulse of the child by a regular series
-of modifications, which appear to be regarded as
-due partly to a process of natural development and
-partly to the influence of external repressive forces.
-In the infant the instinct is egocentric and the object
-of its interest is the individual’s own body; with
-the increase of the mental field consequent on
-enlarging experience the instinctive activity is externalized,
-and its object of interest changes so that
-the child acquires a specific inclination towards other
-individuals without distinction of sex; finally, as
-a last stage of development the instinctive inclination
-is localized to members of the opposite sex.
-This series of transformations is regarded as normal
-by Freud, and as essential to the appearance of the
-“normal” adult type. The evolution of this series
-is sensitive to interference by outside influences,
-and any disturbance of it either by way of anticipation
-or delay will have profound effects upon
-the ultimate character and temperament of the subject.
-The psychical energy of an instinct so
-important as that of sex is very great, and is not
-dissipated by the forces of repression brought to
-bear upon it, but transformed into activities ostensibly
-quite different and directed into channels having
-no obvious connection with their source. It is a
-fundamental characteristic of the mind to be able
-to accept these substitutes for the actual indulgence
-of the instinct, and to enjoy a symbolical gratification
-in manifestations which have no overt sexual significance.
-When development proceeds normally the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p074">{74}</span>
-surplus energy of the sex instinct finds an outlet
-in activities of social value—æsthetic, poetic, altruistic;
-when development is interfered with the
-outflow of energy is apt to result in definite disease
-of the mind or in peculiarities of character scarcely
-to be distinguished therefrom.</p>
-
-<p>Thus the mind of the adult, according to Freud,
-in addition to activities which are conscious and
-fully accessible to the subject, carries on activities
-and holds memories which are unconscious and
-totally inaccessible to the subject by any ordinary
-method of introspection. Between these two fields
-there is a barrier sedulously guarded by certain
-repressive forces. The unconscious is the realm
-of all the experiences, memories, impulses, and
-inclinations which during the subject’s life have
-been condemned by the standards of the conscious,
-have proved incompatible with it and have therefore
-been outlawed from it. This banishment in no way
-deprives these excluded mental processes of their
-energy, and they constantly influence the feelings
-and behaviour of the subject. So strict, however,
-is the guard between them and the conscious that
-they are never allowed to pass the barrier between
-one sphere and the other except in disguised and
-fantastically distorted forms by which their true
-meaning is closely concealed. It has been perhaps
-Freud’s most remarkable thesis that dreams are
-manifestations of this emergence of desires and
-memories from the unconscious into the conscious
-field. During sleep the repressing force which
-guards the frontier between conscious and unconscious
-is weakened. Even then, however, such ideas
-as emerge into the conscious can do so only in a
-worked up and distorted form, so that their significance
-can be disengaged from the grotesque
-jumble of the actual dream only by a minute inquiry
-according to a difficult and highly technical method.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p075">{75}</span>
-By this method, however, is to be obtained a deep
-insight into the otherwise irrecoverable emotional
-history of the individual, the structure of his temperament,
-and, if he is mentally abnormal, the
-meaning of his symptoms.</p>
-
-<h4 class="h4center">II</h4>
-
-<p>The foregoing enumeration of the chief doctrines
-of the Freudian psychology is intended to be no
-more than a mere outline to serve as a basis
-for certain comments which seem to be relevant
-to the general argument of this essay. The point
-of view from which this slight sketch is made, that
-of an interested but detached observer, is naturally
-somewhat different from that of the actual authorities
-themselves. Here it is desired to get the broadest
-possible view in the most general terms, and as
-we have no concern with immediate problems of
-practical therapeutics—which remain at least the
-chief preoccupation of writers of the psycho-analytic
-school—an effort has been made to avoid the use of
-the rich and rather forbidding technical vocabulary
-in which the writings of the school abound.
-It may well be that this generalized method of
-description has yielded an ill-proportioned or distorted
-picture. The subject has proved to be so
-much at the mercy of prejudice that the least impassioned
-spectator, however completely he may believe
-himself to be free from advocacy or detraction, is
-far from being able to claim immunity from these
-influences.</p>
-
-<p>Keeping constantly in mind this general caution,
-which is at least as necessary in the field of criticism
-as in that of mere description, we may pass on
-to make certain comments on the psychology of
-Freud which are relevant to the general argument
-being followed out here.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p076">{76}</span></p>
-
-<p>A discussion in any way detailed of this immense
-subject is very obviously impossible here, but it is
-desirable to say a few words as to the general
-validity of Freud’s chief thesis. However much one
-may be impressed by his power as a psychologist and
-his almost fierce resolution to get at the actual
-facts of mental processes, one can scarcely fail to
-experience in reading Freud’s works that there is a
-certain harshness in his grasp of facts and even
-a trace of narrowness in his outlook which tend
-to repel the least resistant mind and make one
-feel that his guidance in many matters—perhaps
-chiefly of detail—is open to suspicion. He seems to
-have an inclination for the enumeration of absolute
-rules, a confidence in his hypotheses which might
-be called superb if that were not in science a term
-of reproach, and a tendency to state his least acceptable
-propositions with the heaviest emphasis as if
-to force belief upon an unwilling and shrinking mind
-were an especial gratification. All these traits of
-manner—at the worst mere foibles of a distinguished
-and successful investigator—appear to exercise some
-considerable effect on the acceptance his writings
-meet with, and are perhaps indications in which
-direction, if he is open to fallacy, such might be
-looked for.</p>
-
-<p>Nevertheless with regard to the main propositions
-of his system there can be little doubt that their
-<i>general validity</i> will be increasingly accepted.
-Among such propositions must be put the conception
-of the significance of mental conflict, the importance
-of the emotional experiences of infancy and childhood
-in the determination of character and the
-causing of mental disease, and his conception of
-the general structure of the mind as comprising
-conscious and unconscious fields.</p>
-
-<p>The comments which I shall venture to make
-upon the work of Freud will be such as are suggested
-<span class="xxpn" id="p077">{77}</span>
-by the biological point of view of which this essay
-is intended to be an exposition. The standard of
-interest upon which they are based will therefore
-necessarily differ to some extent from that which
-is usually adopted in writings of the psycho-analytic
-school.</p>
-
-<p>To the biologist perhaps the most striking
-characteristic of the work of this school is its
-complete acceptance of what one may call the human
-point of view. It seems to be satisfied that no
-useful contribution to psychology is to be obtained
-outside the limits of human feeling and behaviour,
-and to feel no impatience to expand its inquiries
-into a still larger field. It is not that the school
-has failed to show an extremely vigorous movement
-of expansion. Beginning as a mere province
-of medicine, and while its foothold there was still
-far from general recognition, it invaded the regions
-of general psychology, of æsthetics, ethnology, the
-study of folklore and myth, and indeed of all matters
-in which it could find its essential material—the
-records of human feeling and conduct. Beyond
-the human species it has shown remarkably little of
-this aggressive spirit, and it seems to feel no need
-of bringing its principles into relation with what
-little is known of the mental activities of the non-human
-animals.</p>
-
-<p>The absence of any strong pressure in the
-direction of establishing a correlation of all mental
-phenomena, whether human or not, is not a matter
-of merely theoretical interest. The actual practical
-success to be obtained to-day in such an attempt
-might possibly be insignificant and yet of great
-value in moulding the whole attitude of mind of
-the investigator towards matters lying wholly within
-the sphere of human psychology. However much
-one may be impressed by the greatness of the edifice
-which Freud has built up and by the soundness of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p078">{78}</span>
-his architecture, one can scarcely fail, on coming
-into it from the bracing atmosphere of the biological
-sciences, to be oppressed by the odour of humanity
-with which it is pervaded. One finds everywhere
-a tendency to the acceptance of human standards
-and even sometimes of human pretensions which
-cannot fail to produce a certain uneasiness as to
-the validity, if not of his doctrines, at any rate of
-the forms in which they are expounded. The
-quality I am trying to describe is extremely difficult
-to express in concrete terms without exaggeration or
-distortion. To those who have approached Freud’s
-work solely by the path of medicine the idea that
-it can give any one the feeling of a certain conventionality
-of standard and outlook and of a certain
-over-estimation of the objectivity of man’s moral
-values will seem perhaps merely absurd. That this
-is an impression which I have not been able altogether
-to escape I record with a good deal of
-hesitation and diffidence and without any wish to
-lay stress upon it.</p>
-
-<p>Psycho-analytic psychology has grown up under
-conditions which may very well have encouraged
-the persistence of the human point of view. Originally
-its whole activity was concentrated upon the
-investigation and treatment of disease. Many of
-its early disciples were those who had received
-proof of its value in their own persons, those, that
-is to say, who had been sufferers from their very
-susceptibility to the influence of human standards.
-The objective standard of validity by which the
-system was judged was necessarily that of the
-physician, namely the capacity to restore the
-abnormal mind to the “normal.” Normal in this
-sense is of course no more than a statistical expression
-implying the condition of the average man.
-It could scarcely fail, however, to acquire the
-significance of “healthy.”
-If once the statistically
-<span class="xxpn" id="p079">{79}</span>
-normal mind is accepted as being synonymous with
-the psychologically healthy mind (that is, the mind
-in which the full capacities are available for use),
-a standard is set up which has a most fallacious
-appearance of objectivity. The statistically normal
-mind can be regarded only as a mind which has
-responded in the usual way to the moulding and
-deforming influence of its environment—that is, to
-human standards of discipline, taste, and morality.
-If it is to be looked upon as typically healthy also,
-the current human standards of whose influence it is
-a product must necessarily be accepted as qualified
-to call forth the best in the developing mind they
-mould. Writers of the psycho-analytic school seem
-in general to make some such assumption as this.</p>
-
-
-<h4 class="h4center">III</h4>
-
-<p>The conception of mental conflict is the central
-feature of the Freudian system. Of its importance
-and validity there can be no doubt. In a general
-way the idea is familiar and even commonplace,
-but Freud had developed it and shown how deeply
-the principle penetrates the structure and development
-of the mind from the earliest period and to
-an extent quite unsuspected by earlier psychologists.</p>
-
-<p>From an early period of life the child finds the
-gratification of its instinctive impulses checked or
-even prevented by the pressure of its environment.
-Conflict is thus set up between the two forces of
-instinctive pressure within and social pressure from
-without. Instinctive impulses which thus come into
-conflict with the repressing force are not destroyed
-but are deflected from their natural outlet, are
-repressed within the mind and ultimately prevented
-from rising into the conscious field at all except
-in disguised or symbolic forms. To the adult his
-childhood seems to have been altogether free from
-<span class="xxpn" id="p080">{80}</span>
-any kind of sexual activity or interest, not because,
-as is generally supposed, such has never existed, but
-because it proved incapable of persisting in the
-conscious field and was suppressed into the unconscious
-with the increase of the social repressing
-forces. Similarly impulses experienced in adult life
-which are for the same reason incompatible with
-conscious recognition do not become conscious, but
-live their life in the unconscious, though they may
-exercise the profoundest influence on the happiness
-and health of the subject.</p>
-
-<p>The work of Freud has been concentrated chiefly
-upon the one party in these conflicts—the instinctive
-impulse of which the only considerable one according
-to him is the sexual. To the other party—the
-repressing forces—he has given very much less
-attention, and in them has found apparently much
-less interest. By most writers of his school also
-they seem to be taken very much as a matter of
-course.</p>
-
-<p>When we consider, however, what they can
-accomplish—how they can take the immensely
-powerful instinct of sex and mould and deform its
-prodigious mental energy—it is clear that the repressing
-forces are no less important than the
-antagonist with which they contend.</p>
-
-<p>It is desirable, perhaps, to discuss a little more
-closely the nature of mental conflict, and especially
-first to define the precise meaning of the conception.</p>
-
-<p>It may readily be granted that the young child’s
-mind is wholly egocentric, though the proposition
-is not without a certain element of assumption which
-it is not wise altogether to ignore. He experiences
-certain desires and impulses which he assumes with
-the blandest unconsciousness of any other desires
-but his own are there to be gratified. The failure
-to gratify such an impulse may come about in several
-ways, not all of which are equally significant in
-<span class="xxpn" id="p081">{81}</span>
-establishing mental conflict. The gratification may
-be physically impossible. Here there is no basis for
-internal conflict. The resistance is wholly external;
-the whole child still desires its pleasure and its whole
-resources, mental and physical, are directed to gain
-the object. Mere failure may be painful and may
-lead to an outburst of rage which possibly even
-discharges some of the mental energy of the wish,
-but the situation psychically is simple and the incident
-tends of itself to go no farther.</p>
-
-<p>The gratification may prove to be physically
-painful in itself. This seems to promise certain
-elements of mental conflict in balancing the pleasure
-of the gratification against the remembered pain
-it involves. We are assuming that the pain is the
-immediate consequence of the act, as when, for
-example, a child makes the immemorial scientific
-discovery that fire burns fingers. Such a direct
-experience without the interposition of a second
-person or the pointing of a moral does not in fact
-involve any real mental conflict. The source of the
-pain is external, its only emotional quality is that of
-its simple unpleasantness, and this cannot, as it were,
-enter into the child’s mind and divide it against
-itself.</p>
-
-<p>True conflict, the conflict which moulds and
-deforms, must be actually within the mind—must
-be endopsychic to use a term invented by Freud,
-though not used by him in this exact application.
-In order that a desire may set up conflict it must be
-thwarted, not by a plain impossibility or by a mere
-physical pain, but by another impulse within the
-mind antagonizing it. It seems clear that the
-counter-impulse to be strong enough to contend
-with an impulse having in it the energy of the sex
-instinct must itself derive its force from some potent
-instinctive mechanism. We cannot suppose that
-the immense power of the sex impulse can be
-<span class="xxpn" id="p082">{82}</span>
-controlled, moulded, and directed by any influence
-except such as have access to the stores of
-psychical energy which the instinctive activities
-alone possess.</p>
-
-<p>We are thus led to the proposition that the essence
-of mental conflict is the antagonism of two impulses
-which both have instinct behind them, and are both,
-as it were, intimate constituents in the personality of
-the subject. Thus only can the mind become, in
-the worn but still infinitely appropriate metaphor, a
-house divided against itself. The counter-impulses
-to the developing sexual interest and activity of the
-child are, as we have seen, the result of social
-pressure—that is to say, the result of the influence of
-the human environment. This influence is manifested,
-not merely in direct precept, in warning, in
-punishment, in expressions of disapproval or disgust,
-but in the whole system of secrecy, of significant
-silences, of suppressions, of nods and winks and
-surreptitious signallings, of sudden causeless snubs
-and patently lame explanations amid which such
-sexual interest as the child possesses has to find a
-<i>modus vivendi</i> and an intelligible meaning.</p>
-
-<p>Whence does this environmental pressure obtain
-the power which enables it to exercise in the child’s
-mind the regal functions of instinct? Clearly it can
-do so only if the mind possesses a specific sensitiveness
-to external opinion and the capacity to confer
-on its precepts the sanction of instinctive force.
-In the two earlier essays of this book I attempted
-to show that the essential specific characteristic of
-the mind of the gregarious animal is this very
-capacity to confer upon herd opinion the psychical
-energy of instinct. It is this sensitiveness, then,
-which lays the child’s mind open to the influence
-of his environment and endows for him the
-mental attitude of that environment with all the
-sanction of instinct. Thus do the repressing forces
-<span class="xxpn" id="p083">{83}</span>
-become actually constituent in the child’s personality,
-and as much a part of his being as the egoistic
-desires with which they are now able to contend on
-equal terms.</p>
-
-<p>The specific sensitiveness of the gregarious mind
-seems, then, to be a necessary condition for the
-establishment of true mental conflict, and a character
-which must be taken into account if we are to
-develop a complete theory of the evolution of the
-individual mind.</p>
-
-<p>Assuming the validity of the proposition that
-there are two primary factors in the development of
-the mind in each individual—the egoistic impulses
-of the child and his specific sensitiveness to environing
-influences—it may well be asked why it is
-that the product, the “normal” adult mind, is so
-uniform in its characters. It is true that this uniformity
-may very easily be exaggerated, for in a
-very considerable number of cases gross “abnormalities”
-are the result of the process of development,
-but, as I pointed out in an earlier essay, the
-result on the whole is to produce two broadly
-distinguishable types of mind—the unstable and the
-stable—the latter on account of its numerical
-superiority being also dignified as normal. A considerable
-uniformity in the final products must
-therefore be accepted. If, however, environmental
-influences are an essential factor in the production
-of this result, there seems no little difficulty in
-accounting for the uniformity seeing that environments
-vary so much from class to class, nation to
-nation, and race to race. Where, we may ask, is the
-constant in the environmental factors which the
-uniformity of the outcome leads us to expect?
-Assuming with Freud that of the egoistic impulses
-of the child, the sexual alone seriously counts in the
-formation of character, can it be shown that the
-influences which surround the child are uniform
-<span class="xxpn" id="p084">{84}</span>
-in their general direction against this? At first
-sight it would seem certainly not. Even in the same
-country the variations in taste, reticence, modesty,
-and morality towards matters of sex interest vary
-greatly from class to class, and presumably are
-accompanied by corresponding variations in the type
-of influence exercised by the environment of the
-child.</p>
-
-<p>Adequately to deal with this difficulty would involve
-examining in detail the actual mental attitude
-of the adult towards the young, especially in regard
-to matters directly or indirectly touching upon
-interests of sex. The subject is a difficult one, and if
-we limit ourselves to the purely human standpoint,
-ugly and depressing. The biologist, however, need
-not confine himself to so cramped an outlook, and
-by means of collecting his observations over a much
-larger field is able to some extent to escape the
-distorting effects of natural human prejudice.
-Viewed in a broad way, it is neither surprising nor
-portentous that there should naturally exist a strong
-and persistent jealousy between the adult and the
-young. Indeed, many of the superficial consequences
-of this fact are mere commonplaces.
-Throughout most of the lower animals the relation
-is obvious and frankly manifested. Indeed, it may
-be regarded as a more or less inevitable consequence
-of any form of social life among animals. As such,
-therefore, it may be expected to appear in some form
-or other in the human mind. The manifestations of
-it, however, will by no means necessarily take easily
-recognizable forms. The social pressure to which
-the mind is subject will tend to exclude such a
-feeling from at any rate full consciousness, and such
-manifestations as are allowed it will be in disguised
-and distorted forms.</p>
-
-<p>It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that
-some dim and unrealized offshoot of such a jealousy
-<span class="xxpn" id="p085">{85}</span>
-between adult and young is responsible for the
-unanimity with which man combines to suppress
-and delay the development of any evidence of sexual
-interest by the young. The intensity of the dislike
-which is felt for admitting the young to share any
-part of the knowledge of the adult about the
-physiology of sex is well illustrated by the difficulty
-parents feel in communicating to their children
-some of the elementary facts which they may feel
-very strongly it is their duty to impart. A parent
-may find himself under these circumstances trying
-to quiet his conscience with all sorts of excuses and
-subterfuges while he postpones making the explanations
-which duty and affection urge upon him as
-necessary for the health and happiness of his child.
-An unwillingness so strong and irrational as this
-must have its root in subconscious processes charged
-with strong feeling.</p>
-
-<p>The tendency to guard children from sexual knowledge
-and experience seems to be truly universal
-in civilized man and to surpass all differences of
-morals, discipline, or taste. Amongst primitive
-savages the principle has not acquired the altruistic
-signification which civilized man has given it, but
-operates as a definite exclusion to be overcome only
-by solemn ceremonies of initiation and at the price
-of submission to painful and sometimes mutilating
-rites.</p>
-
-<p>The constancy of attitude of the adult towards
-the young, which is thus seen to be so general,
-evidently gives to the environmental influences which
-surround the child a fundamental uniformity, and
-as we have seen, the theory of the development of
-the individual mind demands that such a uniformity
-of environmental influence should be shown to be
-in action.</p>
-
-<p>This is no place to follow out the practical consequences
-of the fact that every adult necessarily
-<span class="xxpn" id="p086">{86}</span>
-possesses a primary bias in his attitude towards
-the young, and a bias which is connected with
-instinctive impulses of great mental energy. However
-much this tendency is overlaid by moral
-principles, by altruism, by natural affection, as long
-as its true nature is unrecognized and excluded from
-full consciousness its influence upon conduct must
-be excessive and full of dangerous possibilities. To
-it must ultimately be traced the scarcely veiled
-distrust and dislike with which comparative youth is
-always apt to be met where matters of importance are
-concerned. The attitude of the adult and elderly
-towards the enthusiasms of youth is stereotyped in
-a way which can scarcely fail to strike the psychologist
-as remarkable and illuminating in its commonplaceness.
-The youthful revolutionary, who after
-all is no more essentially absurd than the elderly
-conservative, is commonly told by the latter that he
-too at the same age felt the same aspirations, burnt
-with the same zeal, and yearned with the same hope
-until he learnt wisdom with experience—“as you
-will have, my boy, by the time you are my age.”
-To the psychologist the kindly contempt of such
-pronouncements cannot conceal the pathetic jealousy
-of declining power. Herd instinct, inevitably siding
-with the majority and the ruling powers, has always
-added its influence to the side of age and given a
-very distinctly perceptible bias to history, proverbial
-wisdom, and folklore against youth and confidence
-and enterprise and in favour of age and caution,
-the immemorial wisdom of the past, and even
-the toothless mumblings of senile decay.</p>
-
-<p>Any comprehensive survey of modern civilized
-life cannot fail to yield abundant instances of the
-disproportionate influence in the conduct of affairs
-which has been acquired by mere age. When we
-remember how little in actual practice man proves
-himself capable of the use of reason, how very little
-<span class="xxpn" id="p087">{87}</span>
-he actually does profit by experience though the
-phrase is always in his mouth, it must be obvious
-that there is some strong psychological reason for
-the predominance of age, something which must be
-determinative in its favour quite apart from its merits
-and capacity when competing with youth. The
-“monstrous regiment” of old men—and to the
-biologist it is almost as “monstrous” as the
-regiment of Mary Stuart was to poor indignant
-Knox—extends into every branch of man’s activity.
-We prefer old judges, old lawyers, old politicians,
-old doctors, old generals, and when their functions
-involve any immediacy of cause and effect and are
-not merely concerned with abstractions, we contentedly
-pay the price which the inelasticity of these
-ripe minds is sometimes apt to incur.</p>
-
-<h4 class="h4center">IV</h4>
-
-<p>If the propositions already laid down prove to be
-sound, we must regard the personality of the adult
-as the resultant of three groups of forces to which
-the mind from infancy onwards is subject; <i>first</i>
-the egoistic instincts of the individual pressing for
-gratification and possessing the intense mental
-energy characteristic of instinctive processes,
-<i>secondly</i> the specific sensitiveness to environmental
-influences which the mind as that of a gregarious
-animal necessarily possesses, a quality capable of
-endowing outside influences with the energy of
-instinct and, <i>thirdly</i> the environmental influences
-which act upon the growing mind and are also
-essentially determined in their intensity and uniformity
-by instinctive mechanisms.</p>
-
-<p>The work of Freud has been directed mainly
-to the elucidation of the processes included in the
-first group—that is to say, to the study of the
-primarily egoistic impulses and the modifications
-<span class="xxpn" id="p088">{88}</span>
-they develop under restraint. He has worked out,
-in fact, a veritable embryology of the mind.</p>
-
-<p>The embryology of the body is to those who have
-had no biological training far from being a
-gratifying subject of contemplation. The stages
-through which the body passes before reaching its
-familiar form have a superficial aspect of ugly and
-repulsive caricature with which only a knowledge
-of the great compressed pageant of nature they
-represent can reconcile the mind. The stages
-through which, according to the doctrines of Freud,
-the developing mind passes are not less repulsive
-when judged from the purely human point of view
-than are the phases of the body, which betray
-its cousinship with the fish and the frog, the lemur
-and the ape. The works of Nature give no support
-to the social convention that to be truly respectable
-one must always have been respectable. All her
-most elaborate creations have “risen in the world”
-and are descended in the direct line from creatures of
-the mud and dust. It is characteristic of her method
-to work with the humblest materials and to patch
-and compromise at every step. Any given structure
-of her making is thus not by any means necessarily
-the best that could conceivably be contrived, but
-a workable modification of something else, always
-more or less conditioned in its functioning by the
-limitations of the thing from which it was made.</p>
-
-<p>To the biologist, therefore, the fact that Freud’s
-investigations of the development of the mind have
-shown it passing through stages anything but gratifying
-to self-esteem will not be either surprising
-or a ground for disbelief. That Freud’s conclusions
-are decidedly unpalatable when judged by a narrowly
-human standard is very obvious to any one who is
-at all familiar with the kind of criticism they have
-received. It must be acknowledged, moreover, that
-his methods of exposition have not always tended
-<span class="xxpn" id="p089">{89}</span>
-to disguise the nauseousness of the dose he attempts
-to administer. Such matters, however, lie altogether
-apart from the question whether his conclusions are
-or are not just, though it is perhaps justifiable to
-say that had these conclusions been immediately
-acceptable, the fact would be presumptive evidence
-that they were either not new or were false.</p>
-
-<p>The work of Freud embodies the most determined,
-thorough, and scientific attempt which has been made
-to penetrate the mysteries of the mind by the direct
-human method of approach, making use of introspection—guided
-and guarded, it is true, by an
-elaborate technique—as its essential instrument. To
-have shaped so awkward and fallacious an instrument
-into an apparatus for which accuracy and fruitfulness
-can be claimed is in itself a notable triumph of
-psychological skill.</p>
-
-<p>The doctrines of Freud seem to be regarded by
-his school as covering all the activities of the mind
-and making a complete, though of course not necessarily
-exhaustive, survey of the whole field. I have
-already pointed out directions in which it appears
-to me that inquiries by other methods than those
-of the psycho-analytic school can be pursued with
-success. Regarded in a broad way, the Freudian
-body of doctrine which I have already ventured
-to describe as essentially an embryology of the
-mind gives one the impression of being mainly
-descriptive and systematic rather than dynamic, if
-one may with due caution use such words. It is
-able to tell us how such and such a state of affairs
-has arisen, what is its true significance, and to
-describe in minute detail the factors into which it
-can be analysed. When the question of acting upon
-the mind is raised its resources seem less striking.
-In this direction its chief activities have been in
-the treatment of abnormal mental states, and these
-are dealt with by a laborious process of analysis
-<span class="xxpn" id="p090">{90}</span>
-in which the subject’s whole mental development is
-retraced, and the numerous significant experiences
-which have become excluded from the conscious
-field are brought back into it.</p>
-
-<p>When the unconscious processes which underlie
-the symptoms have been assimilated to the conscious
-life of the patient, the symptoms necessarily disappear,
-and the patient’s mind gains or regains
-the “normal” condition. However precious such
-a cure may be to the patient, and however interesting
-to the physician, its value to the species has to be
-judged in relation to the value of the “normal”
-to which the patient has been restored—that is, in
-relation to the question as to whether any move,
-however small, in the direction of an enlargement
-of the human mind has been made. Until some
-clearer evidence has been furnished of a capacity
-for development in this direction the Freudian system
-should, perhaps, be regarded as more notably a
-psychology of knowledge than a psychology of
-power.</p>
-
-<p>It is interesting to notice that in discussing the
-mechanism of psycho-analysis in liberating the
-“abnormal” patient from his symptoms, Freud
-repeatedly lays stress on the fact that the efficient
-factor in the process is not the actual introduction
-of the suppressed experiences into the conscious field,
-but the overcoming of the resistances to such an
-endeavour. I have attempted to show that these
-resistances or counter-impulses are of environmental
-origin, and owe their strength to the specific sensitiveness
-of the gregarious mind. Resistances of
-similar type and identical origin are responsible for
-the formation of the so-called normal type of mind.
-It is a principal thesis of an earlier essay in this
-book that this normal type is far from being psychologically
-healthy, is far from rendering available
-the full capacity of the mind for foresight and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p091">{91}</span>
-progress, and being in exclusive command of directing
-power in the world, is a danger to civilization.
-An investigation of the resistant forces that are
-encountered by the developing mind is clearly, then,
-a matter of the utmost importance. They are now
-allowed to come into being haphazard, and while
-they undoubtedly contain elements of social value
-and necessary restraints, they are the products, not
-of a courageous recognition of facts but of fears,
-prejudices, and repressed instinctive impulses, and
-are consolidated by ignorance, indolence, and tribal
-custom.</p>
-
-<p>The interest of the psycho-analytic school has been
-turned remarkably little into this field. The speculation
-may be hazarded that in this direction it might
-find the sources of a directer power over the human
-mind, and at least some attenuation of that atmosphere
-of the consulting-room and the mad-house
-which does so much to detract from its pretensions
-to be a psychological system of universal validity.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">S<b>OME</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">P<b>RINCIPLES</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smmaj">A</span>
- <span class="smcap">B<b>IOLOGICAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>The third method by which it has been attempted
-to attack the problems of psychology is that which
-I have called the comparative. Its characteristic note
-is a distrust of that attitude towards phenomena
-which I have called the human point of view.
-Man’s description and interpretation of his own
-mental experience being so liable to distortion by
-prejudice, by self-esteem, by his views as to his
-own nature and powers, as well as so incomplete by
-reason of his incapacity to reach by ordinary introspection
-the deeper strata of his mind, it becomes
-necessary to make action as far as possible the
-subject of observation rather than speech, and to
-regard it as a touchstone of motive more important
-than the actor’s own views. The principle
-<span class="xxpn" id="p092">{92}</span>
-may be exemplified in a simple and concrete form.
-If a given piece of human behaviour bears the
-closest resemblance to behaviour which is characteristic
-of the ape, the sheep, or the wolf, the
-biologist in attempting to arrive at the actual cause
-will ascribe an importance to this resemblance at
-least no less than that he will give to any explanation
-of the action as rational and deliberate which
-may be furnished by the actor or by his own
-intelligence.</p>
-
-<p>A second principle of the method will be by a
-study of the whole range of animal life, and especially
-of forms whose conduct presents obvious
-resemblances to that of man, to discover what
-instinctive impulses may be expected to operate in
-him.</p>
-
-<p>A third principle will be to search for criteria,
-whereby instinctive impulses or their derivatives
-arising in the mind can be distinguished from
-rational motives, or at any rate motives in which
-the instinctive factor is minimal. Thus will be
-furnished for the method the objective standard for
-the judgment of mental observations which is the
-one indispensable requirement in all psychological
-inquiries.</p>
-
-<p>When it is known what types of instinctive
-mechanisms are to be expected, and under what
-aspects they will appear in the mind, it is possible
-to press inquiry into many of the obscurer regions
-of human behaviour and thought, and to arrive
-at conclusions which, while they are in harmony
-with the general body of biological science, have
-the additional value of being immediately useful
-in the conduct of affairs.</p>
-
-<p>At the very outset of such researches we are
-met by an objection which illustrates how different
-the biological conception of the mind is from that
-current amongst those whose training has been
-<span class="xxpn" id="p093">{93}</span>
-literary and philosophic. The objection I am thinking
-of is that of the ordinary intellectualist view of
-man. According to this we must regard him as
-essentially a rational creature, subject, it is true,
-to certain feeble relics of instinctive impulsion, but
-able to control such without any great expense of
-will power, irrational at times in an amiable and
-rather “nice” way, but fundamentally always independent,
-responsible, and captain of his soul. Most
-holders of this opinion will of course admit that
-in a distant and vague enough past man must have
-been much more definitely an instinctive being, but
-they regard attempts to trace in modern man any
-considerable residue of instinctive activities as a
-tissue of fallacious and superficial analogies, based
-upon a shallow materialism and an ignorance of
-the great principles of philosophy or a crudeness
-which cannot assimilate them.</p>
-
-<p>This objection is an expression of the very
-characteristic way in which mankind over-estimates
-the practical functioning of reason in his mind and
-the influence of civilization on his development. In
-an earlier essay I have tried to show to how great
-an extent the average educated man is willing to
-pronounce decided judgments, all of which he believes
-himself to have arrived at by the exercise
-of pure reason, upon the innumerable complex
-questions of the day. Almost all of them concern
-highly technical matters upon none of which has
-he the slightest qualification to pronounce. This
-characteristic, always obvious enough, has naturally
-during the war shown the exaggeration so apt to
-occur in all non-rational processes at a time of
-general stress. It is not necessary to catalogue
-the various public functions in regard to which
-the common citizen finds himself in these days moved
-to advise and exhort. They are numerous, and
-for the most part highly technical. Generally the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p094">{94}</span>
-more technical a given matter is, the more vehement
-and dogmatic is the counsel of the utterly uninstructed
-counsellor. Even when the questions involved
-are not especially such as can be dealt with
-only by the expert, the fact that the essential data
-are withheld from the public by the authorities
-renders all this amateur statecraft and generalship
-more than usually ridiculous. Nevertheless, those
-who find the materials insufficient for dogmatism
-and feel compelled to a suspense of judgment are
-apt to fall under suspicion of the crime of failing
-to “realize” the seriousness of the war. When it
-is remembered that the duty of the civilian is in
-no way concerned with these matters of high technique,
-while he has very important functions to carry
-out in maintaining the nation’s strength if he could
-be brought to take an interest in them, it seems
-scarcely possible to argue that such conduct is that
-of a very highly rational being. In reality the
-objective examination of man’s behaviour, if attention
-is directed to the facts and not to what the
-actors think of them, yields at once in every field
-example after example of similar irrational features.</p>
-
-<p>When the influence of civilization is looked upon
-as having rendered man’s instincts of altogether
-secondary importance in modern life, it is plain
-that such a conclusion involves a misconception of
-the nature of instinct. This well-worn term has
-come to have so vague a connotation that some
-definition of it is necessary. The word “instinct”
-is used here to denote inherited modes of reaction
-to bodily need or external stimulus. It is difficult
-to draw a sharp distinction between instinct and
-mere reflex action, and an attempt to do so with
-exact precision is of no particular value. In general
-we may say that the reactions which should be
-classed under the head of instinct are delayed (that
-is, not necessarily carried out with fatal promptitude
-<span class="xxpn" id="p095">{95}</span>
-immediately upon the stimulus), complex (that is,
-consist of acts rather than mere movements), and
-may be accompanied by quite elaborate mental processes.
-In a broad way also it may be said that
-the mental accompaniments of an instinctive process
-are for the most part matters of feeling. During
-the growth of the need or stimulus there will be
-a desire or inclination which may be quite intense,
-and yet not definitely focused on any object that
-is consciously realized; the act itself will be distinguished
-to the actor by its rightness, obviousness,
-necessity, or inevitableness, and the sequel
-of the act will be satisfaction. This mere hint
-of the psychical manifestations of instinctive activity
-leaves quite out of account the complex effects which
-may ensue when two instinctive impulses that have
-come to be antagonistic reach the mind at the same
-time. The actual amount of mental activity which
-accompanies an instinctive process is very variable;
-it may be quite small, and then the subject of it
-is reduced to a mere automaton, possessed, as we
-say, by an ungovernable passion such as panic, lust,
-or rage; it may be quite large, and sometimes
-the subject, deceived by his own rationalizations and
-suppressions, may suppose himself to be a fully
-rational being in undisputed possession of free will
-and the mastery of his fate at the very moment
-when he is showing himself to be a mere puppet
-dancing to the strings which Nature, unimpressed
-by his valiant airs, relentlessly and impassively pulls.</p>
-
-<p>The extent of the psychical accompaniments of
-instinctive activity in civilized man should not, therefore,
-be allowed to obscure the fact that the
-instincts are tendencies deeply ingrained in the very
-structure of his being. They are as necessarily
-inherited, as much a part of himself, and as
-essential a condition for the survival of himself
-and his race, as are the vital organs of his body.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p096">{96}</span>
-Their persistence in him is established and enforced
-by the effects of millions of years of selection, so
-that it can scarcely be supposed that a few thousand
-years of civilized life which have been accompanied
-by no steady selection against any single instinct can
-have had any effect whatever in weakening them.
-The common expression that such an effect has been
-produced is doubtless due to the great development
-in civilized man of the mental accompaniments of
-instinctive processes. These mental phenomena surround
-the naked reality of the impulse with a
-cloud of rationalized comment and illusory explanation.
-The capacity which man possesses for free
-and rational thought in matters untainted by instinctive
-inclination is of course indubitable, but he
-has not realized that there is no obvious mental
-character attached to propositions having an
-instinctive basis which should expose them to
-suspicion. As a matter of fact, it is just those
-fundamental propositions which owe their origin to
-instinct which appear to the subject the most obvious,
-the most axiomatic, and the least liable to doubt
-by any one but an eccentric or a madman.</p>
-
-<p>It has been customary with certain authors—perhaps
-especially such as have interested themselves
-in sociological subjects—to ascribe quite a
-large number of man’s activities to separate instincts.
-Very little consideration of most of these propositions
-shows that they are based upon too lax
-a definition or a want of analysis, for most of the
-activities referred to special instincts prove to be
-derivatives of the great primal instincts which are
-common to or very widely distributed over the
-animal kingdom. Man and a very large number
-of all animals inherit the capacity to respond to
-physical need or emergency according to the
-demands which we classify, as the three primary
-instincts of self-preservation, nutrition, and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p097">{97}</span>
-reproduction. If a series of animals of increasing brain
-power be examined, it will be found that a growth
-of intelligence, while it does nothing to enfeeble
-the instinctive impulse, modifies the appearances of
-it by increasing the number of modes of reaction it
-may use. Intelligence, that is to say, leaves its
-possessor no less impelled by instinct than his
-simpler ancestor, but endows him with the capacity
-to respond in a larger variety of ways. The response
-is now no longer directly and narrowly confined to
-a single path, but may follow a number of indirect
-and intricate ways; there is no reason, however, to
-suppose that the impulse is any the weaker for that.
-To mistake indirectness of response for enfeeblement
-of impulse is a fundamental error to which all inquiry
-into the psychology of instinct is liable.</p>
-
-<p>To man his big brain has given a maximal
-power of various response which enables him to
-indulge his instinctive impulses in indirect and
-symbolic activities to a greater extent than any other
-animal. It is for this reason that the instincts of
-man are not always obvious in his conduct and
-have come to be regarded by some as practically
-no more than vestigial. Indirect modes of response
-may indeed become so involved as to assume the
-appearance of the negation of the very instincts
-of which they are the expression. Thus it comes
-to be no paradox to say that monks and nuns,
-ascetics and martyrs, prove the strength of the great
-primary instincts their existence seems to deny.</p>
-
-<p>Man and a certain number of other species widely
-distributed throughout the animal kingdom show,
-in addition to the instincts of self-preservation,
-nutrition, and sex, specialized inherited modes of
-response to the needs, not directly of the individual
-but of the herd to which he belongs. These
-responses, which are perfectly well marked and
-characteristic, are those of the herd instinct. It is
-<span class="xxpn" id="p098">{98}</span>
-important to grasp clearly the relation of this instinct
-to the individual. It must be understood that each
-separate member of a gregarious species inherits
-characters deeply rooted in his being which effectually
-differentiate him from any non-gregarious
-animal. These characters are such that in presence
-of certain stimuli they will ensure his responding
-in a specialized way which will be quite different
-from the response of a solitary animal. The
-response when examined will be found not necessarily
-to favour the survival of the individual as
-such, but to favour his survival as a member of
-a herd. A very simple example will make this
-plain. The dog and the cat are our two most
-familiar examples of the social and the solitary
-animal respectively. Their different attitudes towards
-feeding must have been observed by all.
-The cat takes her food leisurely, without great
-appearance of appetite and in small amounts at a
-time; the dog is voracious and will eat hurriedly
-as much as he can get, growling anxiously if he
-is approached. In doing so he is expressing a deeply
-ingrained characteristic. His attitude towards food
-was built up when he hunted in packs and to get a
-share of the common kill had to snatch what came in
-his way and gulp it down before it could be taken
-from him. In slang which has a sound biological
-basis we say he “wolfs” his food. When in
-domestication his food supply is no longer limited
-in the primitive way, his instinctive tendency persists;
-he is typically greedy and will kill himself by overeating
-if he is allowed to. Here we have a perfect
-instance of an instinctive response being disadvantageous
-to the survival of the individual as such,
-and favouring his survival only as a member of a
-herd. This example, trivial as it may seem, is
-worthy of close study. It shows that the individual
-of the gregarious species, as an individual and in
-<span class="xxpn" id="p099">{99}</span>
-isolation, possesses indelible marks of character
-which effectually distinguish him from all solitary
-animals.</p>
-
-<p>The same principle applies with equal force to
-man. Whether he is alone or in company, a hermit
-philosopher or a mere unit of a mob, his responses
-will bear the same stamp of being regulated by the
-existence and influence of his fellows.</p>
-
-<p>The foregoing considerations, elementary and
-incomplete as they are, suggest that there is a
-strong prima facie case for rejecting the common
-conceptions that man is among animals the least
-endowed with an inheritance of instinct, and that
-civilization has produced in him profound modifications
-in his primitive instinctive impulses. If the
-conception which I have put forward be correct,
-namely, that man is not at all less subject to
-instinctive impulsions than any other animal but
-disguises the fact from the observer and from
-himself by the multiplicity of the lines of response
-his mental capacity enables him to take, it should
-follow that his conduct is much less truly variable
-and much more open to generalization than has
-generally been supposed. Should this be possible,
-it would enable the biologist to study the actual
-affairs of mankind in a really practical way, to
-analyse the tendencies of social development, to
-discover how deeply or superficially they were based
-in the necessity of things, and above all, to foretell
-their course. Thus might be founded a true science
-of politics which would be of direct service to the
-statesman.</p>
-
-<p>Many attempts have been made to apply biological
-principles to the interpretation of history
-and the guidance of statecraft, especially since the
-popularization of the principles associated with the
-name of Darwin. Such attempts have generally
-been undertaken less in the spirit of the scientific
-<span class="xxpn" id="p100">{100}</span>
-investigator than in that of the politician; the
-point of departure has been a political conviction
-and not a biological truth; and as might be expected,
-when there has been any conflict between political
-conviction and biological truth it is the latter that
-has had to give way. Work of this kind has brought
-the method into deserved contempt by its crudity,
-its obvious subservience to prejudice, and its pretentious
-gestures of the doctrinaire. England has
-not been without her examples of these scientific
-politicians and historians, but they cannot be said
-to have flourished here as they have in the more
-scholastic air of Germany. The names of several
-such are now notorious in this country and their
-works are sufficiently familiar for it to be obvious
-that their claims to scientific value do not admit of
-discussion. It is not necessary to consider their
-conclusions, they are condemned by their manner;
-and however interesting their political vociferation
-may be to fellow-patriots, it plainly has no meaning
-whatsoever as science. In face of the spectacle
-presented by these leather-lunged doctrinaires, it
-needs some little hardihood to maintain that it is
-possible profitably to apply biological principle to
-the consideration of human affairs; nevertheless, that
-is an essential thesis of this essay.</p>
-
-<p>In attempting to illuminate the records of history
-by the principles of biology, an essential difficulty is
-the difference of scale in time upon which these
-two departments of knowledge work. Historical
-events are confined within a few thousands of years,
-the biological record covers many millions; it is
-scarcely to be expected, therefore, that even a gross
-movement on the cramped historical scale will be
-capable of detection in the vast gulf of time the
-biological series represents. A minor difficulty is
-the fact that the data of history come to us through
-a dense and reduplicated veil of human
-<span class="xxpn" id="p101">{101}</span>
-interpretation, whereas the biological facts are comparatively
-free from this kind of obscuration. The former
-obstacle is undoubtedly serious. It is to be
-remarked, however, that there is strong reason to
-suppose that the process of organic evolution has not
-been and is not always infinitely slow and gradual.
-It is more than suspected that, perhaps as the result
-of slowly accumulated tendency or perhaps as the
-result of a sudden variation of structure or capacity,
-there have been periods of rapid change which
-might have been perceptible to direct observation.
-The infinitely long road still tending upwards comes
-to where it branches and meets another path, tending
-perhaps downwards or even upwards at a different
-slope. May not the meeting or branching form,
-as it were, a node in the infinite line, a resting
-place for the eye, a point in the vast extension
-capable of recognition by a finite mind and of
-expression in terms of human affairs? It is the
-belief of the writer that the human race stands
-at such a nodal point to-day.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">T<b>HE</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">B<b>IOLOGY</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>In order to set forth the evidence on which is
-based the conclusion that the present juncture of
-affairs is not merely, as it very obviously is, a
-meeting-place of epochs in the historical series, but
-also marks a stage in the biological series which
-will prove to have been a moment of destiny in the
-evolution of the human species, it will be necessary
-to inquire somewhat closely into the biological
-meaning of the social habit in animals. In an earlier
-essay certain speculations in the same subject were
-indulged, and a certain amount of repetition will
-be necessary. The point of view then taken up,
-however, was different from that from which I shall
-now attempt to review the facts. Then the main
-<span class="xxpn" id="p102">{102}</span>
-interest lay in an examination of the meaning of
-gregariousness for the individual mind, and although
-reasons enough were found for uneasiness at the
-course of events, and at the instability of civilization
-which any radical examination displayed, the
-inquiry was not pursued under any immediate imminence
-of disaster to the social fabric as it must
-be now. Naturally, therefore, at the present time
-certain aspects of the subject which before were
-of no special relevance become of great importance
-and demand close examination.</p>
-
-<p>In a general view of the social habit in animals
-certain outstanding facts are readily to be observed.
-It is of wide distribution and sporadic occurrence, it
-varies much in the completeness of its development,
-and there seems to be an inverse relation between
-its completeness and the brain power of the animal
-concerned.</p>
-
-<p>From the wideness of its distribution the social
-habit may be supposed to represent a forward step
-in complexity which comes about readily. It has
-the appearance of being upon a path which species
-have a natural tendency to follow, a line of evolution
-which is perhaps rendered possible by constantly
-occurring small variations common to all animals and
-taken advantage of only under certain circumstances
-of pressure or increase. It seems not to depend on
-any sudden large variation of type, and such is not
-necessary to account for it. It differs from many
-other modifications which we know animal life to
-have undergone in being immediately useful to the
-species from its very beginning and in its least
-perfect forms. Once started, however imperfectly,
-the new habit will have a natural tendency to
-progress towards fuller forms of sociality by reason
-of special selective forces which it inevitably sets
-going. The fact that it is valuable to the species
-in which it develops even in its most larval forms,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p103">{103}</span>
-combined with its tendency to progress, no doubt
-accounts for the wonderful series of all degrees
-of gregariousness which the field of natural history
-presents.</p>
-
-<p>I have pointed out elsewhere that the fundamental
-biological meaning of gregariousness is that it allows
-of an indefinite enlargement of the unit upon which
-the undifferentiated influence of natural selection is
-allowed to act, so that the individual merged in the
-larger unit is shielded from the immediate effects
-of natural selection and is exposed directly only to
-the special form of selection which obtains within
-the new unit.</p>
-
-<p>There seems little doubt that this sheltering of
-the individual allows him to vary and to undergo
-modifications with a freedom which would have
-been dangerous to him as an isolated being, but is
-safe under the new conditions and valuable to the
-new unit of which he now is a part.</p>
-
-<p>In essence the significance of the passage from
-the solitary to the gregarious seems to be closely
-similar to that of the passage from the unicellular
-to the multicellular organism—an enlargement of
-the unit exposed to natural selection, a shielding of
-the individual cell from that pressure, an endowment
-of it with freedom to vary and specialize in safety.</p>
-
-<p>Nature has thus made two great experiments of
-the same type, and if one be reasonably careful to
-avoid arguing from analogy, it is possible to use
-one case to illuminate the other by furnishing hints
-as to what mechanisms may be looked for and in
-what directions inquiry may profitably be pursued.</p>
-
-<p>The sporadic occurrence of gregariousness at
-widely separated points of the animal field—in man
-and sheep, in ant and elephant—inclines one to
-suppose that multicellularity must have arisen also at
-multiple points, and that the metazoa did not arise
-from the protozoa by a single line of descent. It
-<span class="xxpn" id="p104">{104}</span>
-suggests also that there is some inherent property
-in mobile living organisms that makes combination
-of individuals into larger units a more or less inevitable
-course of development under certain circumstances
-and without any gross variation being
-necessary to initiate it. The complex evolution
-which multicellularity made possible, and perhaps
-enforced, can scarcely fail to make one wonder
-whether the gregarious animal has not entered upon
-a path which must of necessity lead to increasing
-complexity and co-ordination, to a more and more
-stringent intensity of integration or to extinction.</p>
-
-<p>The varying degrees to which the social habit
-has developed among different animals provide a
-very interesting branch of study. The class of
-insects is remarkable in furnishing an almost inexhaustible
-variety of stages to which the instinct
-is developed. Of these that reached by the humble
-bee, with its small, weak families, is a familiar
-example of a low grade; that of the wasp, with its
-colonies large and strong, but unable to survive the
-winter, is another of more developed type; while that
-of the honey bee represents a very high grade of
-development in which the instinct seems to have
-completed its cycle and yielded to the hive the
-maximum advantages of which it is capable. In
-the honey bee, then, the social instinct may be said
-to be complete.</p>
-
-<p>It is necessary to examine somewhat closely into
-what is denoted by the completeness or otherwise
-of the social habit in a given species.</p>
-
-<p>To return for a moment to the case of the
-change from the unicellular to the multicellular, it
-is obvious that in the new unit, to get the full
-advantage of the change there must be specialization
-involving both loss and gain to the individual cell;
-one loses power of digestion and gains a special
-sensitiveness to stimulation, another loses locomotion
-<span class="xxpn" id="p105">{105}</span>
-to gain digestion, and so forth in innumerable series
-as the new unit becomes more complex. Inherent,
-however, in the new mechanism is the need for
-co-ordination if the advantages of specialization are
-to be obtained. The necessity of a nervous system—if
-progress is to be maintained—early becomes
-obvious, and it is equally clear that the primary
-function of the nervous system is to facilitate co-ordination.
-Thus it would seem that the individual
-cell incorporated in a larger unit must possess a
-capacity for specialization, the ability to originate
-new methods of activity, and a capacity for response—that
-is, the ability to limit itself to action
-co-ordinated suitably to the interests of the new
-unit rather than to those that would have been its
-own if it had been a free unit in itself. Specialization
-and co-ordination will be the two necessary
-conditions for success of the larger unit, and advance
-in complexity will be possible as long only as these
-two are unexhausted. Neither, of course, will be of
-avail without the other. The richest specialization
-will be of no good if it cannot be controlled to the
-uses of the whole organism, and the most perfect
-control of the individual cells will be incapable
-of ensuring progress if it has no material of original
-variation to work on.</p>
-
-<p>The analogy is helpful in the consideration of
-the mechanisms brought into play by the social
-habit. The community of the honey bee bears
-a close resemblance to the body of a complex animal.
-The capacity for actual structural specialization of
-the individuals in the interests of the hive has
-been remarkable and has gone far, while at the
-same time co-ordination has been stringently enforced,
-so that each individual is actually absorbed
-into the community, expends all its activities therein,
-and when excluded from it is almost as helpless
-as a part of the naked flesh of an animal
-<span class="xxpn" id="p106">{106}</span>
-detached from its body. The hive may, in fact,
-without any very undue stretch of fantasy, be
-described as an animal of which all the individual
-cells have retained the power of locomotion. When
-one watches the flight of a swarm of bees its
-unanimity and directness very easily produce the
-illusion that one is witnessing the migration of
-a single animal usually sedentary but at times
-capable of undertaking journeys with a formidable
-and successful energy. This new animal differs
-from the other animals of the metazoa which it
-has outdistanced in the race of evolution, not merely
-in its immense power, energy, and flexibility, but
-also in the almost startling fact that it has
-recovered the gift of immortality which seemed to
-have been lost with its protozoal ancestors.</p>
-
-<p>The extent to which the hive makes use of the
-powers of its individuals is the measure of the
-completeness with which the social habit is developed
-in it. The worker bee has practically no activities
-which are not directly devoted to the hive, and yet
-she goes about her ceaseless tasks in a way that
-never fails to impress the observer with its exuberant
-energy and even its appearance of joyfulness. It
-is thought that the average worker bee <i>works herself
-to death</i> in about two months. That is a fact
-which can scarcely fail to arouse, even in the least
-imaginative, at any rate a moment of profound
-contemplation.</p>
-
-<p>If we could suppose her to be conscious in the
-human sense, we must imagine the bee to be
-possessed by an enthusiasm for the hive more intense
-than a mother’s devotion to her son, without personal
-ambitions, or doubts or fears, and if we are to
-judge by the imperfect experience man has yet
-had of the same lofty passion, we must think of her
-consciousness, insignificant spark as it is, as a little
-fire ablaze with altruistic feeling. Doubtless, such
-<span class="xxpn" id="p107">{107}</span>
-an attribution of emotion to the bee is a quite
-unjustified fallacy of anthropomorphism. Nevertheless,
-it is not altogether valueless as a hint of what
-social unity might effect in an animal of larger
-mental life. There can be little doubt that the
-perfection to which the communal life of the bee
-has attained is dependent on the very smallness of
-the mental development of which the individuals
-are capable. Their capacity to assimilate experience
-is necessarily from their structure, and is known
-by experience to be, small and their path is marked
-out so plainly by actual physical modifications that
-the almost miraculous absorption of the worker in
-the hive is after all perhaps natural enough. If she
-were able to assimilate general experience on a larger
-scale, to react freely and appropriately to stimuli
-external to the hive, there can be little doubt that
-the community would show a less concentrated
-efficiency than it does to-day. The standing miracle
-of the bee—her sensitiveness to the voice of the
-hive and her capacity to communicate with her
-fellows—would undoubtedly be less marvellously
-perfect if she were not at the same time deaf to all
-other voices.</p>
-
-<p>When we come to consider animals in which
-the anatomist can recognize a brain and the
-psychologist an individual mind, the types of gregariousness
-we meet with are found to have lost
-the magnificent intensity of the bee. This decline
-in intensity seems to be due to the greatly increased
-variety of reaction of which the individual is capable.
-The gregarious mammalia are most of them
-relatively intelligent, they are capable of assimilating
-experience to a certain extent and have a
-definite capacity for individual existence. In them
-the social habit shows comparatively little tendency
-to a gradual intensification, but is a more static
-condition. Doubtless, there are other conditions
-<span class="xxpn" id="p108">{108}</span>
-which also limit it. For example, the slowness
-of multiplication and fixity of structure in the
-mammalia obviously deprive them of the possibility
-of undergoing a continuous social integration as the
-insects have. Be this as it may, we find in them the
-social habit but little or scarcely at all expressed
-in physical specialization but shown as a deeply
-ingrained mental character which profoundly influences
-their habits and their modes of reaction
-to bodily and external impressions. Among the
-mammalia other than man and possibly apes and
-monkeys, gregariousness is found in two broadly
-distinguishable types according to the function it subserves.
-It may be either protective as in the sheep,
-the deer, the ox, and the horse, or aggressive as in
-the wolf and allied animals. In both forms it will
-involve certain common types of capacity, while the
-distinguishing characteristic of each will be a special
-kind of reaction to certain stimuli. It is important
-to understand that these peculiarities are possessed
-by each individual of the larger unit, and will be
-displayed by him in a characteristic way whether
-he is in the company of his fellows or not. It is not
-necessary to repeat here in any detail the characters
-of the gregarious mammal. They have been dealt
-with in an earlier essay, but it is desirable to emphasize
-here certain features of exceptional importance
-and some which were but little discussed before.</p>
-
-<p>The quite fundamental characteristic of the social
-mammal, as of the bee, is sensitiveness to the voice
-of his fellows. He must have the capacity to react
-fatally and without hesitation to an impression
-coming to him from the herd, and he must react
-in a totally different way to impressions coming to
-him from without. In the presence of danger
-his first motion must be, not to fly or to attack as
-the case may be, but to notify the herd. This
-characteristic is beautifully demonstrated in the low
-<span class="xxpn" id="p109">{109}</span>
-growl a dog will give at the approach of a stranger.
-This is obviously in no way part of the dog’s
-programme of attack upon his enemy—when his
-object is intimidation he bursts into barking—but
-his first duty is to put the pack on its guard.
-Similarly the start of the sheep is a notification
-and precedes any motion of flight.</p>
-
-<p>In order that the individual shall be sensitive
-in a special degree to the voice of the herd, he must
-have developed in him an infallible capacity for
-recognizing his fellow-members. In the lower
-mammalia this seems almost exclusively a function
-of the sense of smell, as is natural enough since
-that sense is as a general rule highly developed in
-them. The domestic dog shows admirably the
-importance of the function of recognition in his
-species. Comparatively few recognize even their
-masters at any distance by sight or sound, while
-obviously with their fellows they are practically
-dependent on smell. The extent to which the ceremonial
-of recognition has developed in the dog is,
-of course, very familiar to every one. It shows
-unmistakable evidence of the rudiments of social
-organization, and is not the less illuminating to the
-student of human society for having a bodily orientation
-and technique which at first sight obscures
-its resemblance to similar, and it is supposed more
-dignified, mechanisms in man.</p>
-
-<p>Specialization fitting the animal for social life
-is obviously in certain directions restrictive; that is,
-it denies him certain capacities and immunities which
-the solitary animal possesses; equally obviously is it
-in certain directions expansive and does it confer
-qualities on the social which the solitary does not
-possess. Among qualities of restrictive specialization
-are inability to live satisfactorily apart from the herd
-or some substitute for it, the liability to loneliness,
-a dependence on leadership, custom, and tradition, a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p110">{110}</span>
-credulity towards the dogmas of the herd and an
-unbelief towards external experience, a standard of
-conduct no longer determined by personal needs
-but influenced by a power outside the ego—a conscience,
-in fact, and a sense of sin—a weakness of
-personal initiative and a distrust of its promptings.
-Expansive specialization, on the other hand, gives the
-gregarious animal the sense of power and security
-in the herd, the capacity to respond to the call of
-the herd with a maximum output of energy and
-endurance, a deep-seated mental satisfaction in unity
-with the herd, and a solution in it of personal doubts
-and fears.</p>
-
-<p>All these characters can be traced in an animal
-such as the dog. The mere statement of them,
-necessarily in mental terms, involves the liability
-to a certain inexactitude if it is not recognized that
-no hypothesis as to the consciousness of the dog is
-assumed but that the description in mental terms is
-given because of its convenient brevity. An
-objective description of the actual conduct on which
-such summarized statements are founded would be
-impossibly voluminous.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">The
-advantage the new unit obtains by aggressive
-gregariousness is chiefly its immense accession
-of strength as a hunting and fighting organism.
-Protective gregariousness confers on the flock or
-herd advantages perhaps less obvious but certainly
-not less important. A very valuable gain is the
-increased efficiency of vigilance which is possible.
-Such efficiency depends on the available number
-of actual watchers and the exquisite sensitiveness
-of the herd and all its members to the signals of
-such sentries. No one can have watched a herd
-of sheep for long without being impressed with
-the delicacy with which a supposed danger is
-detected, transmitted throughout the herd, and met
-<span class="xxpn" id="p111">{111}</span>
-by an appropriate movement. Another advantage
-enjoyed by the new unit is a practical solution of
-the difficulties incident upon the emotion of fear.
-Fear is essentially an enfeebling passion, yet in the
-sheep and such animals it is necessarily developed
-to a high degree in the interests of safety. The
-danger of this specialization is neutralized by the
-implication of so large a part of the individual’s
-personality in the herd and outside of himself.
-Alarm becomes a passion, as it were, of the herd
-rather than of the individual, and the appropriate
-response by the individual is to an impulse received
-from the herd and not directly from the actual
-object of alarm. It seems to be in this way that the
-paralysing emotion of fear is held back from the
-individual, while its effect can reach him only as the
-active and formidable passion of panic. The
-gregarious herbivora are in fact timid but not fearful
-animals. All the various mechanisms in which the
-social habit shows itself apparently have as their
-general function a maximal sensitiveness to danger
-of the herd as a whole, combined with maintaining
-with as little interruption as possible an atmosphere
-of calm within the herd, so that the individual
-members can occupy themselves in the serious
-business of grazing. It must be doubted whether
-a truly herbivorous animal of a solitary habit could
-ever flourish when we remember how incessant must
-be his industry in feeding if he is to be properly
-nourished, and how much such an occupation will
-be interfered with by the constant alarms he must be
-subject to if he is to escape the attacks of carnivorous
-enemies. The evidence suggests that protective gregariousness
-is a more elaborate manifestation of
-the social habit than the aggressive form. It is
-clear that the security of the higher herbivora, such
-as the ox and especially the horse and their allies, is
-considerable in relation to the carnivora. One may
-<span class="xxpn" id="p112">{112}</span>
-permissibly perhaps indulge the speculation that in
-the absence of man the horse possibly might have
-developed a greater complexity of organization than
-it has actually been able to attain; that the facts
-should seem to contain this hint is a curious
-testimony to the wonderful constructive imagination
-of Swift.</p>
-
-<p>Setting aside such guesses and confining ourselves
-to the facts, we may say in summary that we find the
-infrahuman mammalia to present two distinctly
-separable strains of the social habit. Both are of
-great value to the species in which they appear, and
-both are associated with certain fundamentally
-similar types of reactive capacity which give a
-general resemblance of character to all gregarious
-animals. Of the two forms the protective is perhaps
-capable of absorbing more fully the personality of
-the individual than is the aggressive, but both seem
-to have reached the limit of their intensification at a
-grade far lower than that which has been attained
-in the insects.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERS</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
- <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">D<b>ISPLAYED BY </b>M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>When we come to consider man we find ourselves
-faced at once by some of the most interesting
-problems in the biology of the social habit. It is
-probably not necessary now to labour the proof of
-the fact that man is a gregarious animal in literal
-fact, that he is as essentially gregarious as the
-bee and the ant, the sheep, the ox, and the horse.
-The tissue of characteristically gregarious reactions
-which his conduct presents furnishes incontestable
-proof of this thesis, which is thus an indispensable
-clue to an inquiry into the intricate problems of
-human society.</p>
-
-<p>It is desirable perhaps to enumerate in a summary
-<span class="xxpn" id="p113">{113}</span>
-way the more obvious gregarious characters which
-man displays.</p>
-
-<p>1. He is intolerant and fearful of solitude, physical
-or mental. This intolerance is the cause of the
-mental fixity and intellectual incuriousness which,
-to a remarkable degree for an animal with so
-capacious a brain, he constantly displays. As is
-well known, the resistance to a new idea is always
-primarily a matter of prejudice, the development
-of intellectual objections, just or otherwise, being
-a secondary process in spite of the common delusion
-to the contrary. This intimate dependence on the
-herd is traceable not merely in matters physical
-and intellectual, but also betrays itself in the deepest
-recesses of personality as a sense of incompleteness
-which compels the individual to reach out towards
-some larger existence than his own, some encompassing
-being in whom his perplexities may find
-a solution and his longings peace. Physical loneliness
-and intellectual isolation are effectually solaced
-by the nearness and agreement of the herd. The
-deeper personal necessities cannot be met—at any
-rate, in such society as has so far been evolved—by
-so superficial a union; the capacity for intercommunication
-is still too feebly developed to bring
-the individual into complete and soul-satisfying
-harmony with his fellows, to convey from one to
-another</p>
-
-<div id="dp113">
-<p>Thoughts hardly to be packed</p>
-<p>Into a narrow act,</p>
-<p>Fancies that broke through language and escaped.</p>
-</div>
-
-<p class="pcontinue">Religious
-feeling is therefore a character inherent
-in the very structure of the human mind, and is the
-expression of a need which must be recognized
-by the biologist as neither superficial nor transitory.
-It must be admitted that some philosophers and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p114">{114}</span>
-men of science have at times denied to the religious
-impulses of man their true dignity and importance.
-Impelled perhaps by a desire to close the circle
-of a materialistic conception of the universe, they
-have tended to belittle the significance of such
-phenomena as they were unable to reconcile with
-their principles and bring within the iron circle of
-their doctrine. To deal with religion in this way
-has not only been an outrage upon true scientific
-method, but has always led to a strong reaction in
-general opinion against any radical inquiry by
-science into the deeper problems of man’s nature
-and status. A large and energetic reaction of this
-kind prevails to-day. There can be little doubt
-that it was precipitated, if not provoked, by attempts
-to force a harsh and dogmatic materialism into the
-status of a general philosophy. As long as such a
-system is compelled to ignore, to depreciate, or
-to deny the reality of such manifestly important
-phenomena as the altruistic emotions, the religious
-needs and feelings, the experiences of awe and
-wonder and beauty, the illumination of the mystic,
-the rapture of the prophet, the unconquerable endurance
-of the martyr, so long must it fail in its
-claims to universality. It is therefore necessary to
-lay down with the strongest emphasis the proposition
-that the religious needs and feelings of man
-are a direct and necessary manifestation of the
-inheritance of instinct with which he is born, and
-therefore deserve consideration as respectful and
-observation as minute as any other biological
-phenomenon.</p>
-
-<p>2. He is more sensitive to the voice of the herd
-than to any other influence. It can inhibit or
-stimulate his thought and conduct. It is the source
-of his moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and
-philosophy. It can endow him with energy, courage,
-and endurance, and can as easily take these away.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p115">{115}</span>
-It can make him acquiese in his own punishment
-and embrace his executioner, submit to poverty,
-bow to tyranny, and sink without complaint under
-starvation. Not merely can it make him accept
-hardship and suffering unresistingly, but it can make
-him accept as truth the explanation that his perfectly
-preventable afflictions are sublimely just and gentle.
-It is in this acme of the power of herd suggestion
-that is perhaps the most absolutely incontestable
-proof of the profoundly gregarious nature of man.
-That a creature of strong appetites and luxurious
-desires should come to tolerate uncomplainingly his
-empty belly, his chattering teeth, his naked limbs,
-and his hard bed is miracle enough. What are we
-to say of a force which, when he is told by the full-fed
-and well-warmed that his state is the more
-blessed can make him answer, “How beautiful!
-How true!” In the face of so effectual a negation,
-not merely of experience and common sense but also
-of actual hunger and privation, it is not possible to
-set any limits to the power of the herd over the
-individual.</p>
-
-<p>3. He is subject to the passions of the pack in
-his mob violence and the passions of the herd in
-his panics. These activities are by no means limited
-to the outbursts of actual crowds, but are to be
-seen equally clearly in the hue and cry of newspapers
-and public after some notorious criminal or
-scapegoat, and in the success of scaremongering by
-the same agencies.</p>
-
-<p>4. He is remarkably susceptible to leadership.
-This quality in man may very naturally be thought
-to have a basis essentially rational rather than instinctive
-if its manifestations are not regarded with
-a special effort to attain an objective attitude. How
-thoroughly reasonable it appears that a body of men
-seeking a common object should put themselves
-under the guidance of some strong and expert
-<span class="xxpn" id="p116">{116}</span>
-personality who can point out the path most profitably
-to be pursued, who can hearten his followers
-and bring all their various powers into a harmonious
-pursuit of the common object. The rational basis
-of the relation is, however, seen to be at any rate
-open to discussion when we consider the qualities
-in a leader upon which his authority so often rests,
-for there can be little doubt that their appeal is
-more generally to instinct than to reason. In ordinary
-politics it must be admitted that the gift of
-public speaking is of more decisive value than anything
-else. If a man is fluent, dextrous, and ready
-on the platform, he possesses the one indispensable
-requisite for statesmanship; if in addition he has
-the gift of moving deeply the emotions of his hearers,
-his capacity for guiding the infinite complexities
-of national life becomes undeniable. Experience
-has shown that no exceptional degree of any other
-capacity is necessary to make a successful leader.
-There need be no specially arduous training, no great
-weight of knowledge either of affairs or the human
-heart, no receptiveness to new ideas, no outlook
-into reality. Indeed, the mere absence of such seems
-to be an advantage; for originality is apt to appear
-to the people as flightiness, scepticism as feebleness,
-caution as doubt of the great political principles
-that may happen at the moment to be immutable.
-The successful shepherd thinks like his sheep, and
-can lead his flock only if he keeps no more than the
-shortest distance in advance. He must remain, in
-fact, recognizable as one of the flock, magnified
-no doubt, louder, coarser, above all with more urgent
-wants and ways of expression than the common
-sheep, but in essence to their feeling of the same
-flesh with them. In the human herd the necessity
-of the leader bearing unmistakable marks of identification
-is equally essential. Variations from the
-normal standard in intellectual matters are tolerated
-<span class="xxpn" id="p117">{117}</span>
-if they are not very conspicuous, for man has never
-yet taken reason very seriously, and can still look
-upon intellectuality as not more than a peccadillo
-if it is not paraded conspicuously; variations from
-the moral standard are, however, of a much greater
-significance as marks of identification, and when
-they become obvious, can at once change a great
-and successful leader into a stranger and an outcast,
-however little they may seem to be relevant
-to the adequate execution of his public work. If
-a leader’s marks of identity with the herd are of
-the right kind, the more they are paraded the better.
-We like to see photographs of him nursing his
-little grand-daughter, we like to know that he plays
-golf badly, and rides the bicycle like our common
-selves, we enjoy hearing of “pretty incidents” in
-which he has given the blind crossing-sweeper a
-penny or begged a glass of water at a wayside
-cottage—and there are excellent biological reasons
-for our gratification.</p>
-
-<p>In times of war leadership is not less obviously
-based on instinct, though naturally, since the herd
-is exposed to a special series of stresses, manifestations
-of it are also somewhat special. A people
-at war feels the need of direction much more intensely
-than a people at peace, and as always they
-want some one who appeals to their instinctive feeling
-of being directed, comparatively regardless of whether
-he is able in fact to direct. This instinctive feeling
-inclines them to the choice of a man who presents
-at any rate the appearance and manners of authority
-and power rather than to one who possesses the
-substance of capacity but is denied the shadow.
-They have their conventional pictures of the desired
-type—the strong, silent, relentless, the bold, outspoken,
-hard, and energetic—but at all costs he
-must be a “man,” a “leader who can lead,” a
-shepherd, in fact, who, by his gesticulations and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p118">{118}</span>
-his shouts, leaves his flock in no doubt as to his
-presence and his activity. It is touching to remember
-how often a people in pursuit of this ideal has obtained
-and accepted in response to its prayers nothing
-but melodramatic bombast, impatience, rashness, and
-foolish, boasting truculence; and to remember how
-often a great statesman in his country’s need has
-had to contend not merely with her foreign enemies,
-but with those at home whose vociferous malignity
-has declared his magnanimous composure to be
-sluggishness, his cautious scepticism to be feebleness,
-and his unostentatious resolution to be stupidity.</p>
-
-<p>5. His relations with his fellows are dependent
-upon the recognition of him as a member of the
-herd. It is important to the success of a gregarious
-species that individuals should be able to move
-freely within the large unit while strangers are excluded.
-Mechanisms to secure such personal recognition
-are therefore a characteristic feature of the
-social habit. The primitive olfactory greeting
-common to so many of the lower animals was doubtless
-rendered impossible for man by his comparative
-loss of the sense of smell long before it ceased to
-accord with his pretensions, yet in a thriving active
-species the function of recognition was as necessary
-as ever. Recognition by vision could be of
-only limited value, and it seems probable that speech
-very early became the accepted medium. Possibly
-the necessity to distinguish friend from foe was
-one of the conditions which favoured the development
-of articulate speech. Be this as it may, speech
-at the present time retains strong evidence of the
-survival in it of the function of herd recognition.
-As is usual with instinctive activities in man, the
-actual state of affairs is concealed by a deposit
-of rationalized explanation which is apt to discourage
-merely superficial inquiry. The function of conversation
-is, it is to be supposed, ordinarily regarded
-<span class="xxpn" id="p119">{119}</span>
-as being the exchange of ideas and information.
-Doubtless it has come to have such a function, but
-an objective examination of ordinary conversation
-shows that the actual conveyance of ideas takes
-a very small part in it. As a rule the exchange
-seems to consist of ideas which are necessarily
-common to the two speakers, and are known to
-be so by each. The process, however, is none
-the less satisfactory for this; indeed, it seems even
-to derive its satisfactoriness therefrom. The interchange
-of the conventional lead and return is
-obviously very far from being tedious or meaningless
-to the interlocutors. They can, however, have
-derived nothing from it but the confirmation to one
-another of their sympathy and of the class or classes
-to which they belong.</p>
-
-<p>Conversations of greeting are naturally particularly
-rich in the exchange of purely ceremonial
-remarks, ostensibly based on some subject like the
-weather, in which there must necessarily be an
-absolute community of knowledge. It is possible,
-however, for a long conversation to be made up
-entirely of similar elements, and to contain no trace
-of any conveyance of new ideas; such intercourse
-is probably that which on the whole is most satisfactory
-to the “normal” man and leaves him more
-comfortably stimulated than would originality or
-brilliance, or any other manifestation of the strange
-and therefore of the disreputable.</p>
-
-<p>Conversation between persons unknown to one
-another is also—when satisfactory—apt to be rich
-in the ritual of recognition. When one hears or
-takes part in these elaborate evolutions, gingerly
-proffering one after another of one’s marks of
-identity, one’s views on the weather, on fresh air
-and draughts, on the Government and on uric acid,
-watching intently for the first low hint of a growl,
-which will show one belongs to the wrong pack
-<span class="xxpn" id="p120">{120}</span>
-and must withdraw, it is impossible not to be
-reminded of the similar manœuvres of the dog, and
-to be thankful that Nature has provided us with a
-less direct, though perhaps a more tedious, code.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">It may appear that we have been dealing here
-with a far-fetched and laboured analogy, and making
-much of a comparison of trivialities merely for the
-sake of compromising, if that could be done, human
-pretensions to reason. To show that the marvel
-of human communion began, perhaps, as a very
-humble function, and yet retains traces of its origin,
-is in no way to minimize the value or dignity of
-the more fully developed power. The capacity for
-free intercommunication between individuals of the
-species has meant so much in the evolution of man,
-and will certainly come in the future to mean so
-incalculably more, that it cannot be regarded as
-anything less than a master element in the shaping
-of his destiny.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">S<b>OME</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">P<b>ECULIARITIES</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">H<b>ABIT</b></span>
- <span class="smcap"><b>IN </b>M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>It is apparent after very little consideration that
-the extent of man’s individual mental development
-is a factor which has produced many novel characters
-in his manifestations of the social habit, and
-has even concealed to a great extent the profound
-influence this instinct has in regulating his conduct,
-his thought, and his society.</p>
-
-<p>Large mental capacity in the individual, as we
-have already seen, has the effect of providing a
-wide freedom of response to instinctive impulses,
-so that, while the individual is no less impelled by
-instinct than a more primitive type, the manifestations
-of these impulses in his conduct are very
-varied, and his conduct loses the appearance of a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p121">{121}</span>
-narrow concentration on its instinctive object. It
-needs only to pursue this reasoning to a further stage
-to reach the conclusion that mental capacity,
-while in no way limiting the impulsive power of
-instinct, may, by providing an infinite number of
-channels into which the impulse is free to flow,
-actually prevent the impulse from attaining the goal
-of its normal object. In the ascetic the sex instinct
-is defeated, in the martyr that of self-preservation,
-not because these instincts have been abolished,
-but because the activity of the mind has found new
-channels for them to flow in. As might be expected,
-the much more labile herd instinct has been still
-more subject to this deflection and dissipation without
-its potential impulsive strength being in any
-way impaired. It is this process which has enabled
-primitive psychology so largely to ignore the fact
-that man still is, as much as ever, endowed with
-a heritage of instinct and incessantly subject to
-its influence. Man’s mental capacity, again, has
-enabled him as a species to flourish enormously, and
-thereby to increase to a prodigious extent the size
-of the unit in which the individual is merged.
-The nation, if the term be used to describe every
-organization under a completely independent,
-supreme government, must be regarded as the
-smallest unit on which natural selection now unrestrictedly
-acts. Between such units there is free
-competition, and the ultimate regulator of these
-relations is physical force. This statement needs
-the qualification that the delimitation between two
-given units may be much sharper than that between
-two others, so that in the first case the resort to
-force is likely to occur readily, while in the second
-case it will be brought about only by the very
-ultimate necessity. The tendency to the enlargement
-of the social unit has been going on with certain
-temporary relapses throughout human history.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p122">{122}</span>
-Though repeatedly checked by the instability of
-the larger units, it has always resumed its activity,
-so that it should probably be regarded as a fundamental
-biological drift the existence of which is a
-factor which must always be taken into account in
-dealing with the structure of human society.</p>
-
-<p>The gregarious mind shows certain characteristics
-which throw some light on this phenomenon of the
-progressively enlarging unit. The gregarious animal
-is different from the solitary in the capacity to
-become conscious in a special way of the existence
-of other creatures. This specific consciousness of
-his fellows carries with it a characteristic element
-of communion with them. The individual knows
-another individual of the same herd as a partaker
-in an entity of which he himself is a part, so that
-the second individual is in some way and to a certain
-extent identical with himself and part of his own
-personality. He is able to feel with the other and
-share his pleasures and sufferings as if they were
-an attenuated form of his own personal experiences.
-The degree to which this assimilation of the interests
-of another person is carried depends, in a general
-way, on the extent of the intercommunication between
-the two. In human society a man’s interest
-in his fellows is distributed about him concentrically
-according to a compound of various relations they
-bear to him which we may call in a broad way their
-nearness. The centrifugal fading of interest is seen
-when we compare the man’s feeling towards one
-near to him with his feeling towards one farther off.
-He will be disposed, other things being equal, to
-sympathize with a relative as against a fellow-townsman,
-with a fellow-townsman as against a mere
-inhabitant of the same county, with the latter as
-against the rest of the country, with an Englishman
-as against a European, with a European as against
-an Asiatic, and so on until a limit is reached beyond
-<span class="xxpn" id="p123">{123}</span>
-which all human interest is lost. The distribution
-of interest is of course never purely geographical,
-but is modified by, for example, trade and professional
-sympathy, and by special cases of intercommunication
-which bring topographically distant
-individuals into a closer grade of feeling than their
-mere situation would demand. The essential principle,
-however, is that the degree of sympathy with
-a given individual varies directly with the amount
-of intercommunication with him. The capacity to
-assimilate the interests of another individual with
-one’s own, to allow him, as it were, to partake in
-one’s own personality, is what is called altruism, and
-might equally well perhaps be called expansive
-egoism. It is a characteristic of the gregarious
-animal, and is a perfectly normal and necessary
-development in him of his instinctive inheritance.</p>
-
-<p>Altruism is a quality the understanding of which
-has been much obscured by its being regarded from
-the purely human point of view. Judged from this
-standpoint, it has been apt to appear as a breach
-in the supposedly “immutable” laws of “Nature
-red in tooth and claw,” as a virtue breathed into
-man from some extra-human source, or as a weakness
-which must be stamped out of any race which
-is to be strong, expanding, and masterful. To the
-biologist these views are equally false, superfluous,
-and romantic. He is aware that altruism occurs only
-in a medium specifically protected from the unqualified
-influence of natural selection, that it is the
-direct outcome of instinct, and that it is a source of
-strength because it is a source of union.</p>
-
-<p>In recent times, freedom of travel, and the
-development of the resources rendered available by
-education, have increased the general mass of intercommunication
-to an enormous extent. Side by
-side with this, altruism has come more and more into
-recognition as a supreme moral law. There is
-<span class="xxpn" id="p124">{124}</span>
-already a strong tendency to accept selfishness as
-a test of sin, and consideration for others as a
-test of virtue, and this has influenced even those who
-by public profession are compelled to maintain that
-right and wrong are to be defined only in terms of
-an arbitrary extra-natural code.</p>
-
-<p>Throughout the incalculable ages of man’s existence
-as a social animal, Nature has been hinting
-to him in less and less ambiguous terms that altruism
-must become the ultimate sanction of his moral
-code. Her whispers have never gained more than
-grudging and reluctant notice from the common
-man, and from those intensified forms of the
-common man, his pastors and masters. Only to the
-alert senses of moral genius has the message been
-at all intelligible, and when it has been interpreted
-to the people it has always been received with
-obloquy and derision, with persecution and martyrdom.
-Thus, as so often happens in human society,
-has one manifestation of herd instinct been met
-and opposed by another.</p>
-
-<p>As intercommunication tends constantly to widen
-the field of action of altruism, a point is reached
-when the individual becomes capable of some kind
-of sympathy, however attenuated, with beings outside
-the limits of the biological unit within which
-the primitive function of altruism lies. This extension
-is perhaps possible only in man. In a creature
-like the bee the rigidly limited mental capacity of
-the individual and the closely organized society of
-the hive combine to make the boundary of the hive
-correspond closely with the uttermost limit of the
-field over which altruism is active. The bee, capable
-of great sympathy and understanding in regard to
-her fellow-members of the hive, is utterly callous
-and without understanding in regard to any creature
-of external origin and existence. Man, however,
-with his infinitely greater capacity for assimilating
-<span class="xxpn" id="p125">{125}</span>
-experience, has not been able to maintain the rigid
-limitation of sympathy to the unit, the boundaries
-of which tend to acquire a certain indefiniteness
-not seen in any of the lower gregarious
-types.</p>
-
-<p>Hence tends to appear a sense of international
-justice, a vague feeling of being responsibly concerned
-in all human affairs and by a natural consequence
-the ideas and impulses denoted under the
-term “pacifism.”</p>
-
-<p>One of the most natural and obvious consequences
-of war is a hardening of the boundaries of the
-social unit and a retraction of the vague feelings
-towards international sympathy which are a characteristic
-product of peace and intercommunication.
-Thus it comes about that pacifism and internationalism
-are in great disgrace at the present
-time; they are regarded as the vapourings of cranky
-windbags who have inevitably been punctured at
-the first touch of the sword; they are, our political
-philosophers tell us, but products of the miasm
-of sentimental fallacy which tends to be bred in the
-relaxing atmosphere of peace. Perhaps no general
-expressions have been more common since the
-beginning of the war, in the mouths of those who
-have undertaken our instruction in the meaning of
-events, than the propositions that pacifism is now
-finally exploded and shown always to have been
-nonsense, that war is and always will be an inevitable
-necessity in human affairs as man is what is called
-a fighting animal, and that not only is the abolition
-of war an impossibility, but should the abolition
-of it unhappily prove to be possible after all and
-be accomplished, the result could only be degeneration
-and disaster.</p>
-
-<p>Biological considerations would seem to suggest
-that these generalizations contain a large element
-of inexactitude. The doctrine of pacifism is
-<span class="xxpn" id="p126">{126}</span>
-a perfectly natural development, and ultimately
-inevitable in an animal having an unlimited appetite
-for experience and an indestructible inheritance of
-social instinct. Like all moral discoveries made
-in the haphazard, one-sided way which the lack of
-co-ordination in human society forces upon its moral
-pioneers, it has necessarily an appearance of crankiness,
-of sentimentality, of an inaptitude for the grasp
-of reality. This is normal and does not in the least
-affect the value of the truth it contains. Legal
-and religious torture were doubtless first attacked
-by cranks; slavery was abolished by them. Advocacy
-by such types does not therefore constitute
-an argument of any weight against their doctrines,
-which can adequately be judged only by some purely
-objective standard. Judged by such a standard,
-pacifism, as we have seen, appears to be a natural
-development, and is directed towards a goal which
-unless man’s nature undergoes a radical change will
-probably be attained. That its attainment has so
-far been foreseen only by a class of men possessing
-more than the usual impracticability of the
-minor prophet is hardly to be considered a relevant
-fact.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">It is impossible to leave this subject without some
-comment on the famous doctrine that war is a
-biological necessity. Even if one knew nothing
-of those who have enunciated this proposition, its
-character would enable one to suspect it of being
-the utterance of a soldier rather than a biologist.
-There is about it a confidence that the vital effects
-of war are simple and easy to define and a cheerful
-contempt for the considerable biological difficulties
-of the subject that remind one of the bracing military
-atmosphere, in which a word of command is the
-supreme fact, rather than that of the laboratory,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p127">{127}</span>
-where facts are the masters of all. It may be
-supposed that even in the country of its birth the
-doctrine seemed more transcendently true in times
-of peace amid a proud and brilliant regime
-than it does now after more than twelve months of
-war. The whole conception is of a type to arouse
-interest in its psychological origin rather than in a
-serious discussion of its merits. It arose in a
-military State abounding in prosperity and progress
-of very recent growth, and based upon three short
-wars which had come closely one after another and
-formed an ascending series of brilliant success. In
-such circumstances even grosser assumptions might
-very well flourish and some such doctrine was a
-perfectly natural product. The situation of the
-warrior-biologist was in some way that of the
-orthodox expounder of ethics or political economy—his
-conclusions were ready-made for him; all he
-had to do was to find the “reasons” for them.
-War and war only had produced the best and
-greatest and strongest State—indeed, the only State
-worthy of the name; therefore war is the great
-creative and sustaining force of States, or the
-universe is a mere meaningless jumble of accidents.
-If only wars would always conform to the original
-Prussian pattern, as they did in the golden age
-from 1864 to 1870—the unready adversary, the
-few pleasantly strenuous weeks or months, the
-thumping indemnity! That is the sort of biological
-necessity one can understand. But twelve
-months of agonizing, indecisive effort in Poland and
-Russia and France, might have made the syllogism
-a little less perfect, the new law of Nature not quite
-so absolute.</p>
-
-<p>These matters, however, are quite apart from the
-practical question whether war is a necessity to maintain
-the efficiency and energy of nations and to
-prevent them sinking into sloth and degeneracy. The
-<span class="xxpn" id="p128">{128}</span>
-problem may be stated in another form. When we
-take a comprehensive survey of the natural history
-of man—using that term to include the whole of his
-capacities, activities, and needs, physical, intellectual,
-moral—do we find that war is the indispensable
-instrument whereby his survival and progress as
-a species are maintained? We are assuming in this
-statement that progress or increased elaboration is
-to continue to be a necessary tendency in his course
-by which his fate, through the action of inherited
-needs, powers, and weaknesses, and of external
-pressure is irrevocably conditioned. The assumption,
-though commonly made, is by no means
-obviously true. Some of the evidence justifying
-it will be dealt with later; it will not be necessary
-here to do more than note that we are for the
-moment treating the doctrine of human progress
-as a postulate.</p>
-
-<p>Man is unique among gregarious animals in the
-size of the major unit upon which natural selection
-and its supposedly chief instrument, war, is open to
-act unchecked. There is no other animal in
-which the size of the unit, however laxly held
-together, has reached anything even remotely
-approaching the inclusion of one-fifth or one-quarter
-of the whole species. It is plain that a
-mortal contest between two units of such a monstrous
-size introduces an altogether new mechanism into
-the hypothetical “struggle for existence” on which
-the conception of the biological necessity of war
-is founded. It is clear that that doctrine, if it is
-to claim validity, must contemplate at any rate the
-possibility of a war of extremity, even of something
-like extermination, which shall implicate perhaps a
-third of the whole human race. There is no parallel
-in biology for progress being accomplished as the
-result of a racial impoverishment so extreme,
-even if it were accompanied by a closely specific
-<span class="xxpn" id="p129">{129}</span>
-selection instead of a mere indiscriminate destruction.
-Progress is undoubtedly dependent mainly
-on the material that is available for selection being
-rich and varied. Any great reduction in the amount
-and variety of what is to be regarded as the raw
-material of elaboration necessarily must have as
-an infallible effect, the arrest of progress. It may be
-objected, however, that anything approaching extermination
-could obviously not be possible in a war
-between such immense units as those of modern man.
-Nevertheless, the object of each of the two adversaries
-would be to impose its will on the other, and to
-destroy in it all that was especially individual, all
-the types of activity and capacity which were the
-most characteristic in its civilization and therefore
-the cause of hostility. The effect of success in such
-an endeavour would be an enormous impoverishment
-of the variety of the race and a corresponding effect
-on progress.</p>
-
-<p>To this line of speculation it may perhaps further
-be objected that the question is not of the necessity
-of war to the race as a whole, but to the individual
-nation or major unit. The argument has been used
-that when a nation is obviously the repository of
-all the highest gifts and tendencies of civilization,
-the race must in the end benefit, if this nation, by
-force if necessary, imposes its will and its principles
-on as much of the world as it can. To the biologist
-the weakness of this proposition—apart from the
-plain impossibility of a nation attaining an objective
-estimate of the value of its own civilization—is that
-it embodies a course of action which tends to the
-spread of uniformity and to limit that variety of
-material which is the fundamental quality essential
-for progress. In certain cases of very gross discrepancy
-between the value of two civilizations, it
-is quite possible that the destruction of the simpler
-by the more elaborate does not result in any great
-<span class="xxpn" id="p130">{130}</span>
-loss to the race through the suppression of valuable
-varieties. Even this admission is, however,
-open to debate, and it may well be doubted whether
-in some ways the wholesale extermination of “inferior”
-races has not denied to the species the
-perpetuation of lines of variation which might have
-been of great value.</p>
-
-<p>It seems remarkable that among gregarious
-animals other than man direct conflict between major
-units such as can lead to the suppression of the less
-powerful is an inconspicuous phenomenon. They
-are, it may be supposed, too busily engaged in maintaining
-themselves against external enemies to have
-any opportunities for fighting within the species.
-Man’s complete conquest of the grosser enemies of
-his race has allowed him leisure for turning his
-restless pugnacity—a quality no longer fully occupied
-upon his non-human environment—against his
-own species. When the major units of humanity
-were small the results of such conflict were not
-perhaps very serious to the race as a whole, except
-in prolonging the twilight stages of civilization. It
-can scarcely be questioned that the organization
-of a people for war tends to encourage unduly a
-type of individual who is abnormally insensitive to
-doubt, to curiosity, and to the development of original
-thought. With the enlargement of the unit and the
-accompanying increase in knowledge and resources,
-war becomes much more seriously expensive to the
-race. In the present war the immense size of the
-units engaged and their comparative equality in
-power have furnished a complete <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>
-of the proposition that war in itself is
-a good thing even for the individual nation. It
-would seem, then, that in the original proposition
-the word “war” must be qualified to mean a war
-against a smaller and notably weaker adversary.
-The German Empire was founded on such wars.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p131">{131}</span>
-The conception of the biological necessity of war
-may fairly be expected to demonstrate its validity
-in the fate of that Empire if such a demonstration
-is ever to be possible. Every condition for a crucial
-experiment was present: a brilliant inauguration in
-the very atmosphere of military triumph, a conscious
-realization of the value of the martial spirit, a determination
-to keep the warrior ideal conspicuously
-foremost with a people singularly able and willing
-to accept it. If this is the way in which an ultimate
-world-power is to be founded and maintained,
-no single necessary factor is lacking. And yet
-after a few years, in what should be the very first
-youth of an Empire, we find it engaged against
-a combination of Powers of fabulous strength, which,
-by a miracle of diplomacy no one else could have
-accomplished, it has united against itself. It is
-an irrelevance to assert that this combination is the
-result of malice, envy, treachery, barbarism; such
-terms are by hypothesis not admissible. If the
-system of Empire-building is not proof against those
-very elementary enemies, any further examination
-of it is of course purely academic. To withstand
-those is just what the Empire is there for; if it
-falls a victim to them, it fails in its first and simplest
-function and displays a radical defect in its structure.
-To the objectivist practice is the only test in human
-affairs, and he will not allow his attention to be
-distracted from what did happen by the most perfectly
-logical demonstration of what ought to have
-happened. It is the business of an Empire not to
-encounter overwhelming enemies. Declaring itself
-to be the most perfect example of its kind and
-the foreordained heir of the world will remain no
-more than a pleasant—and dangerous—indulgence,
-and will not prevent it showing by its fate that
-the fruits of perfection and the promise of permanence
-are not demonstrated in the wholesale
-<span class="xxpn" id="p132">{132}</span>
-manufacture of enemies and in the combination of
-them into an alliance of unparalleled strength.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">The doctrine of the biological necessity of war
-may, then, be regarded as open to strong suspicion
-on theoretical grounds of being contrary to the
-evolutionary tendency already plainly marked out
-for the human species. The fact that the nation
-in which its truth was most generally accepted has
-been led—and undoubtedly to some extent by it—into
-a war which can scarcely fail to prove disastrous
-suggests that in the practical field it is
-equally fallacious. It may well, therefore, be
-removed to the lumber-room of speculation and
-stored among the other pseudo-scientific dogmas
-of political “biologists”—the facile doctrines of
-degeneracy, the pragmatic lecturings on national
-characteristics, on Teutons and Celts, on Latins and
-Slavs, on pure races and mixed races, and all the
-other ethnological conceits with which the ignorant
-have gulled the innocent so long.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">I<b>MPERFECTIONS</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">H<b>ABIT</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
- <span class="smcap">M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>The study of man as a gregarious animal has
-not been pursued with the thoroughness and objectivity
-it deserves and must receive if it is to yield
-its full value in illuminating his status and in the
-management of society. The explanation of this
-comparative neglect is to be found in the complex
-irregularity which obscures the social habit as manifested
-by man. Thus it comes to be believed that
-gregariousness is no longer a fully functional and
-indispensable inheritance, but survives at the present
-day merely in a vestigial form as an interesting
-but quite unimportant relic of primitive activities.
-We have already shown that man is ruled by instinctive
-impulses just as imperative and just as
-<span class="xxpn" id="p133">{133}</span>
-characteristically social as those of any other gregarious
-animal. A further argument that he is
-to-day as actively and essentially a social animal
-as ever is furnished by the fact that he suffers
-from the disadvantages of such an animal to a
-more marked degree perhaps than any other. In
-physical matters he owes to his gregariousness and
-its uncontrolled tendency to the formation of crowded
-communities with enclosed dwellings, the seriousness
-of many of his worst diseases, such as tuberculosis,
-typhus, and plague; there is no evidence
-that these diseases effect anything but an absolutely
-indiscriminate destruction, killing the strong and
-the weakly, the socially useful and the socially useless,
-with equal readiness, so that they cannot be
-regarded as even of the least selective value to
-man. The only other animal which is well known
-to suffer seriously from disease as a direct consequence
-of its social habit is the honey bee—as
-has been demonstrated by recent epidemics of
-exterminating severity.</p>
-
-<p>In mental affairs, as I have tried to show, man
-owes to the social habit his inveterate resistiveness
-to new ideas, his submission to tradition and precedent,
-and the very serious fact that governing
-power in his communities tends to pass into the hands
-of what I have called the stable-minded—a class
-the members of which are characteristically insensitive
-to experience, closed to the entry of new
-ideas, and obsessed with the satisfactoriness of things
-as they are. At the time when this corollary of
-gregariousness was first pointed out—some ten years
-ago—it was noted as a serious flaw in the stability
-of civilization. The suggestion was made that as
-long as the great expert tasks of government necessarily
-gravitated into the hands of a class which
-characteristically lacked the greater developments of
-mental capacity and efficiency, the course of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p134">{134}</span>
-civilization must continue to be at the mercy of accident
-and disaster. The present European war—doubtless
-in the actual state of affairs a remedy no less
-necessary because of its dreadfulness—is an example
-on the greatest possible scale of the kind of price
-the race has to pay for the way in which minds
-and temperaments are selected by its society.</p>
-
-<p>When we see the great and serious drawbacks
-which gregariousness has entailed on man, it cannot
-but be supposed that that course of evolution has
-been imposed upon him by a real and deep-seated
-peculiarity of his nature—a fatal inheritance which
-it is impossible for him to repudiate.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">When
-we inquire why it is that the manifestations
-of gregariousness in man are so ambiguous
-that their biological significance has been to a great
-extent overlooked, the answer seems to be furnished
-by that capacity for various reaction which is the
-result of his general mental development, and which
-has tended almost equally to obscure his other instinctive
-activities. It may be repeated once more
-that in a creature such as the bee the narrow mental
-capacity of the individual limits reaction to a few
-and relatively simple courses, so that the dominance
-of instinct in the species can to the attentive observer
-never be long in doubt. In man the equal dominance
-of instinct is obscured by the kaleidoscopic
-variety of the reactions by which it is more or
-less effectually satisfied.</p>
-
-<p>While to a superficial examination of society the
-evidences of man’s gregarious inheritance are
-ambiguous and trivial, to the closer scrutiny of the
-biologist it soon becomes obvious that in society
-as constituted to-day the advantageous mechanisms
-rendered available by that inheritance are not being
-made use of to anything approaching their full
-possibilities. To such an extent is this the case
-<span class="xxpn" id="p135">{135}</span>
-that the situation of man as a species even is probably
-a good deal more precarious than has usually
-been supposed by those who have come to be in charge
-of its destinies. The species is irrevocably committed
-to a certain evolutionary path by the inheritance
-of instinct it possesses. This course brings with
-it inevitable and serious disadvantages as well as
-enormously greater potential advantages. As long
-as the spirit of the race is content to be submissive
-to the former and indifferent to the discovery and
-development of the latter, it can scarcely have a
-bare certainty of survival and much less of progressive
-enlargement of its powers.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">In the society of the bee two leading characteristics
-are evident—an elaborate and exact specialization
-of the individual, and a perfect absorption
-of the interests of the individual in those of the hive;
-these qualities seem to be the source of the unique
-energy and power of the whole unit and of the
-remarkable superiority of intelligence it possesses
-over the individual member. It is a commonplace
-of human affairs that combined action is almost
-invariably less intelligent than individual action, a
-fact which shows how very little the members of
-the species are yet capable of combination and
-co-ordination and how far inferior—on account, no
-doubt, of his greater mental capacity—man is in this
-respect to the bee.</p>
-
-<p>This combination of specialization and moral
-homogeneity should be evident in human society
-if it is taking advantage of its biological resources.
-Both are, in fact, rather conspicuously absent.</p>
-
-<p>There is abundant specialization of a sort; but
-it is inexact, lax, wasteful of energy, and often quite
-useless through being on the one hand superfluous
-or on the other incomplete. We have large
-numbers of experts in the various branches of science
-<span class="xxpn" id="p136">{136}</span>
-and the arts, but we insist upon their adding to
-the practice of their specialisms the difficult task
-of earning their living in an open competitive
-market. The result is that we tend to get at the
-summit of our professions only those rare geniuses
-who combine real specialist capacity with the arts
-of the bagman. An enormous proportion of our
-experts have to earn their living by teaching—an
-exhausting and exacting art for which they are not
-at all necessarily qualified, and one which demands
-a great amount of time for the earning of a very
-exiguous pittance.</p>
-
-<p>The teaching of our best schools, a task so
-important that it should be entrusted to none but
-those highly qualified by nature and instruction in
-the art, is almost entirely in the hands of athletes and
-grammarians of dead languages. We choose as
-our governors amateurs of whom we demand fluency,
-invincible prejudice, and a resolute blindness to dissentient
-opinion. In commerce we allow ourselves
-to be overrun by a multitude of small and mostly
-inefficient traders struggling to make a living by
-the supply of goods from the narrow and ageing
-stocks which are all they can afford to keep. We
-allow the supply of our foodstuffs to be largely
-in the hands of those who cannot afford to be clean,
-and submit out of mere indifference to being fed
-on meat, bread, vegetables which have been for an
-indefinite period at the mercy of dirty middlemen,
-the dust and mud and flies of the street, and the
-light-hearted thumbing errand-boy. We allow a
-large proportion of our skilled workers to waste
-skill and energy on the manufacture of things which
-are neither useful nor beautiful, on elaborate
-specialist valeting, cooking, gardening for those
-who are their inferiors in social activity and
-value.</p>
-
-<p>The moral homogeneity so plainly visible in the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p137">{137}</span>
-society of the bee is replaced in man by a segregation
-into classes which tends always to obscure
-the unity of the nation and often is directly
-antagonistic to it. The readiness with which such
-segregation occurs seems to be due to the invincible
-strength of the gregarious impulse in the individual
-man and to the immense size and strength of the
-modern major unit of the species. It would appear
-that in order that a given unit should develop the
-highest degree of homogeneity within itself it must
-be subject to direct pressure from without. A great
-abundance of food supply and consequent relaxed
-external pressure may in the bee lead to indiscriminate
-swarming, while in man the size and
-security of the modern State lead to a relaxation
-of the closer grades of national unity—in the absence
-of deliberate encouragement of it or of the stimulus
-of war. The need of the individual for homogeneity
-is none the less present, and the result is
-segregation into classes which form, as it were, minor
-herds in which homogeneity is maintained by the
-external pressure of competition, of political or
-religious differences and so forth. Naturally enough
-such segregations have come to correspond in a
-rough way with the various types of imperfect
-specialization which exist. This tendency is clearly
-of unfavourable effect on national unity, since it
-tends to obscure the national value of specialization
-and to give it a merely local and class significance.
-Segregation in itself is always dangerous in that it
-provides the individual with a substitute for the
-true major unit—the nation—and in times when there
-is an urgent need for national homogeneity may
-prove to be a hostile force.</p>
-
-<p>It has been characteristic of the governing classes
-to acquiesce in the fullest developments of segregation
-and even to defend them by force and to
-fail to realize in times of emergency that national
-<span class="xxpn" id="p138">{138}</span>
-homogeneity must always be a partial and weakly
-passion as long as segregation actively persists.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Class segregation has thus come to be regarded
-as a necessary and inevitable part of the structure
-of society. Telling as it does much more in the
-favour of certain classes than others, it has come to
-be defended by a whole series of legal and moral
-principles invented for the purpose, and by arguments
-that to objective examination are no more
-than rationalized prejudice. The maintenance of
-the social system—that is, of the segregation of
-power and prestige, of ease and leisure, and the
-corresponding segregations of labour, privation, and
-poverty—depends upon an enormously elaborate
-system of rationalization, tradition, and morals, and
-upon almost innumerable indirect mechanisms
-ranging from the drugging of society with alcohol
-to the distortion of religious principle in the interests
-of the established order. To the biologist the whole
-immensely intricate system is a means for combating
-the slow, almost imperceptible, pressure of Nature
-in the direction of a true national homogeneity.
-That this must be attained if human progress is to
-continue is, and has long been, obvious. The further
-fact that it can be attained only by a radical change
-in the whole human attitude towards society is but
-barely emerging from obscurity.</p>
-
-<p>The fact that even the immense external stimulus
-of a great war now fails to overcome the embattled
-forces of social segregation, and can bring about
-only a very partial kind of national homogeneity in
-a society where segregation is deeply ingrained,
-seems to show that simple gregariousness has run its
-course in man and has been defeated of its full
-maturity by the disruptive power of man’s capacity
-for varied reaction. No state of equilibrium can be
-reached in a gregarious society short of complete
-<span class="xxpn" id="p139">{139}</span>
-homogeneity, so that, failing the emergence of some
-new resource of Nature, it might be suspected that
-man, as a species, has already begun to decline from
-his meridian. Such a new principle is the conscious
-direction of society by man, the refusal by him to
-submit indefinitely to the dissipation of his energies
-and the disappointment of his ideals in inco-ordination
-and confusion. Thus would appear a function
-for that individual mental capacity of man which
-has so far, when limited to local and personal ends,
-tended but to increase the social confusion.</p>
-
-<p>A step of evolution such as this would have consequences
-as momentous as the first appearance of
-the multicellular or of the gregarious animal. Man,
-conscious as a species of his true status and destiny,
-realizing the direction of the path to which he is
-irrevocably committed by Nature, with a moral code
-based on the unshakable natural foundation of
-altruism, could begin to draw on those stores of
-power which will be opened to him by a true combination,
-and the rendering available in co-ordinated
-action of the maximal energy of each individual.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>PECIES</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">AT</span>
- <span class="smcap">W<b>AR.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>The occurrence of war between nations renders
-obvious certain manifestations of the social instinct
-which are apt to escape notice at other times. So
-marked is this that a certain faint interest in the
-biology of gregariousness has been aroused during
-the present war, and has led to some speculation
-but no very radical examination of the facts or
-explanation of their meaning. Expression, of course,
-has been found for the usual view that primitive
-instincts normally vestigial or dormant are aroused
-into activity by the stress of war, and that there is
-a process of rejuvenation of “lower” instincts at
-the expense of “higher.” All such views, apart
-<span class="xxpn" id="p140">{140}</span>
-from their theoretical unsoundness, are uninteresting
-because they are of no practical value.</p>
-
-<p>It will be convenient to mention some of the more
-obvious psychological phenomena of a state of war
-before dealing with the underlying instinctive processes
-which produce them.</p>
-
-<p>The war that began in August 1914 was of a kind
-peculiarly suitable to produce the most marked and
-typical psychological effects. It had long been foreseen
-as no more than a mere possibility of immense
-disaster—of disaster so outrageous that by that very
-fact it had come to be regarded with a passionate
-incredulity. It had loomed before the people, at
-any rate of England, as an event almost equivalent
-to the ultimate overthrow of all things. It had been
-led up to by years of doubt and anxiety, sometimes
-rising to apprehension, sometimes lapsing into unbelief,
-and culminating in an agonized period of
-suspense, while the avalanche tottered and muttered
-on its base before the final and still incredible
-catastrophe. Such were the circumstances which
-no doubt led to the actual outbreak producing a
-remarkable series of typical psychological reactions.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">The first
-feeling of the ordinary citizen was fear—an
-immense, vague, aching anxiety, perhaps typically
-vague and unfocused, but naturally tending soon to
-localize itself in channels customary to the individual
-and leading to fears for his future, his food supply,
-his family, his trade, and so forth. Side by side
-with fear there was a heightening of the normal
-intolerance of isolation. Loneliness became an
-urgently unpleasant feeling, and the individual
-experienced an intense and active desire for the
-company and even physical contact of his fellows.
-In such company he was aware of a great accession
-of confidence, courage, and moral power. It was
-possible for an observant person to trace the actual
-<span class="xxpn" id="p141">{141}</span>
-influence of his circumstances upon his judgment,
-and to notice that isolation tended to depress his
-confidence while company fortified it. The necessity
-for companionship was strong enough to break down
-the distinctions of class, and dissipate the reserve
-between strangers which is to some extent a
-concomitant mechanism. The change in the customary
-frigid atmosphere of the railway train, the
-omnibus, and all such meeting-places was a most
-interesting experience to the psychologist, and he
-could scarcely fail to be struck by its obvious
-biological meaning. Perhaps the most striking of
-all these early phenomena was the strength and
-vitality of rumour, probably because it afforded by
-far the most startling evidence that some other and
-stronger force than reason was at work in the formation
-of opinion. It was, of course, in no sense an
-unusual fact that non-rational opinion should be so
-widespread; the new feature was that such opinion
-should be able to spread so rapidly and become established
-so firmly altogether regardless of the limits
-within which a given opinion tends to remain localized
-in times of peace. Non-rational opinion under
-normal conditions is as a rule limited in its extent
-by a very strict kind of segregation; the successful
-rumours of the early periods of the war invaded
-all classes and showed a capacity to overcome
-prejudice, education, or scepticism. The observer,
-clearly conscious as he might be of the mechanisms
-at work, found himself irresistibly drawn to the
-acceptance of the more popular beliefs; and even
-the most convinced believer in the normal prevalence
-of non-rational belief could scarcely have exaggerated
-the actual state of affairs. Closely allied
-with this accessibility to rumour was the readiness
-with which suspicions of treachery and active
-hostility grew and flourished about any one of even
-foreign appearance or origin. It is not intended to
-<span class="xxpn" id="p142">{142}</span>
-attempt to discuss the origin and meaning of the
-various types of fable which have been epidemic
-in opinion; the fact we are concerned with here
-is their immense vitality and power of growth.</p>
-
-<p>We may now turn to some consideration of the
-psychological significance of these phenomena of
-a state of war.</p>
-
-<p>The characteristic feature of a really dangerous
-national struggle for existence is the intensity of the
-stimulus it applies to the social instinct. It is
-not that it arouses “dormant” or decayed instincts,
-but simply that it applies maximal stimulation to
-instinctive mechanisms which are more or less
-constantly in action in normal times. In most of
-his reactions as a gregarious animal in times of
-peace, man is acting as a member of one or another
-class upon which the stimulus acts. War acts upon
-him as a member of the greater herd, the nation,
-or, in other words, the true major unit. As I have
-repeatedly pointed out, the cardinal mental characteristic
-of the gregarious animal is his sensitiveness
-to his fellow-members of the herd. Without them
-his personality is, so to say, incomplete; only in relation
-to them can he attain satisfaction and personal
-stability. Corresponding with his dependence on
-them is his openness towards them, his specific
-accessibility to stimuli coming from the herd.</p>
-
-<p>A threat directed towards the whole herd is the
-intensest stimulus to these potentialities, and the
-individual reacts towards it in the most vigorous
-way.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc15" href="#fn15">15</a> The first response is a thrill of alarm which
-<span class="xxpn" id="p143">{143}</span>
-passes through the herd from one member to another
-with magic rapidity. It puts him on the alert, sets
-him looking for guidance, prepares him to receive
-commands, but above all draws him to the herd in
-the first instinctive concentration against the enemy.
-In the presence of this stimulus even such partial
-and temporary isolation as was possible without it
-becomes intolerable. The physical presence of the
-herd, the actual contact and recognition of its
-members, becomes indispensable. This is no mere
-functionless desire, for re-embodiment in the herd
-at once fortifies courage and fills the individual
-with moral power, enthusiasm, and fortitude. The
-meaning that mere physical contact with his fellows
-still has for man is conclusively shown in the
-use that has been made of attacks in close formation
-in the German armies. It is perfectly clear
-that a densely crowded formation has psychological
-advantages in the face of danger, which enable
-quite ordinary beings to perform what are in fact
-prodigies of valour. Even undisciplined civil mobs
-have, on occasion, proved wonderfully valorous,
-though their absence of unity often causes their
-enterprise to alternate with panic. A disciplined
-mob—if one may use that word merely as a physical
-expression, without any derogatory meaning—has
-been shown in this war on innumerable occasions to
-be capable of facing dangers the facing of which by
-isolated individuals would be feats of fabulous
-bravery. <span class="xxpn" id="p144">{144}</span></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn15" href="#afnanc15">15</a>
-War in itself is by no means necessarily a maximal
-stimulus to herd instinct if it does not involve a definite threat to
-the whole herd. This fact is well shown in the course of the South
-African War of 1899–1901. This war was not and was not regarded as
-capable of becoming a direct threat to the life of the nation. There
-was consequently no marked moral concentration of the people, no
-massive energizing of the Government by a homogeneous nation, and
-therefore
-the conduct of the war was in general languid, timid, and pessimistic.
-The morale of the people was as a whole bad; there was an
-exaggerated hunger for good news, and an excessive satisfaction in
-it; an exaggerated pessimism was excited by bad news, and public
-fortitude was shaken by casualties which we should now regard as
-insignificant. Correspondingly the activity and vitality of rumour
-were enormously less than they have been in the present war. The
-weaker stimulus is betrayed throughout the whole series of events by
-the weakness of all the characteristic gregarious responses.</p></div>
-
-<p>The psychological significance of the enormous
-activity of rumour in this war is fairly plain. That
-rumours spread readily and are tenacious of
-life is evidence of the sensitiveness to herd
-opinion which is so characteristic of the social
-instinct. The gravity of a threat to the herd is
-shown by nothing better than by the activity of
-rumour. The strong stimulus to herd instinct
-produces the characteristic response in the individual
-of a maximal sensitiveness to his fellows—to their
-presence or absence, their alarms and braveries,
-and in no less degree to their opinions. With
-the establishment of this state of mind the spread
-and survival of rumours become inevitable, and will
-vary directly with the seriousness of the external
-danger. Into the actual genesis of the individual
-rumours and the meaning of their tendency to take
-a stereotyped form we cannot enter here.</p>
-
-<p>The potency of rumour in bearing down rational
-scepticism displays unmistakably the importance of
-the instinctive processes on which it rests. It is
-also one of the many evidences that homogeneity
-within the herd is a deeply rooted necessity for
-gregarious animals and is elaborately provided for
-by characteristics of the gregarious mind.</p>
-
-<p>The establishment of homogeneity in the herd is
-the basis of morale. From homogeneity proceed
-moral power, enthusiasm, courage, endurance, enterprise,
-and all the virtues of the warrior. The peace
-of mind, happiness, and energy of the soldier come
-from his feeling himself to be a member in a body
-solidly united for a single purpose. The impulse
-towards unity that was so pronounced and universal
-at the beginning of the war was, then, a true and
-sound instinctive movement of defence. It was
-prepared to sacrifice all social distinctions and local
-prejudices if it could liberate by doing so Nature’s
-inexhaustible stores of moral power for the defence
-<span class="xxpn" id="p145">{145}</span>
-of the herd. Naturally enough its significance was
-misunderstood, and a great deal of its beneficent
-magic was wasted by the good intentions which
-man is so touchingly ready to accept as a substitute
-for knowledge. Even the functional value of unity
-was, and still is, for the most part ignored. We
-are told to weariness that the great objection to
-disunion is that it encourages the enemy. According
-to this view, apparent disunion is as serious as
-real; whereas it must be perfectly obvious that
-anything which leads our enemy to under-estimate
-our strength, as does the belief that we are disunited
-when we are not, is of much more service to us
-than is neutralized by any more or less visionary
-disservice we do ourselves by fortifying his morale.
-The morale of a nation at war proceeds from within
-itself, and the mere pharisaism and conceit that
-come from the contemplation of another’s misfortunes
-are of no moral value. Modern civilians
-in general are much too self-conscious to conduct
-the grave tragedy of war with the high, preoccupied
-composure it demands. They are apt to think too
-much of what sort of a figure they are making
-before the world, to waste energy in superfluous
-explanations of themselves, in flustered and voluble
-attempts to make friends with bystanders, in posing
-to the enemy, and imagining they can seriously
-influence him by grimaces and gesticulations. As
-a matter of fact, it must be confessed that if such
-manœuvres could be conducted with a deliberate and
-purposeful levity which few would now have the
-fortitude to employ, there would be a certain satisfaction
-to be obtained in this particular war by the
-knowledge of our adversary conscientiously, perhaps
-a little heavily, and with immense resources of
-learning “investigating our psychology” upon
-materials of a wholly fantastic kind. Such a design,
-however, is very far from being the intention of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p146">{146}</span>
-our interpreters to the world, and as long as they
-cannot keep the earnest and hysterical note out of
-their exposition it were much better for us that
-they were totally dumb.</p>
-
-<p>To the psychologist it is plain that the seriousness
-of disunion is the discouragement to ourselves it
-necessarily involves. In this lies its single and its
-immense importance. Every note of disunion is
-a loss of moral power of incalculable influence;
-every evidence of union is an equally incalculable
-gain of moral power. Both halves of this statement
-deserve consideration, but the latter is incomparably
-the more important. If disunion were
-the more potent influence, a great deal might be
-done for national morale by the forcible control of
-opinion and expression. That, however, could yield
-nothing positive, and we must rely upon voluntary
-unity as the only source of all the higher developments
-of moral power.</p>
-
-<p>It was towards this object that we dimly groped
-when we felt in the early weeks of the war the
-impulses of friendliness, tolerance, and goodwill
-towards our fellow-citizens, and the readiness to
-sacrifice what privileges the social system had
-endowed us with in order to enjoy the power which a
-perfect homogeneity of the herd would have given
-us.</p>
-
-<p>A very small amount of conscious, authoritative
-direction at that time, a very little actual sacrifice
-of privilege at that psychological moment, a series
-of small, carefully selected concessions none of which
-need have been actually subversive of prescriptive
-right, a slight relaxation in the vast inhumanity
-of the social machine would have given the needed
-readjustment out of which a true national homogeneity
-would necessarily have grown.</p>
-
-<p>The psychological moment was allowed to pass,
-and the country was spared the shock of seeing its
-<span class="xxpn" id="p147">{147}</span>
-moral strength, which should of course be left to
-luck, fortified by the hand of science. The history
-of England during the first fourteen months of the
-war was thus left to pursue its characteristically
-English course. The social system of class segregation
-soon repented of its momentary softness and
-resumed its customary rigidity. More than that,
-it decided that, far from the war being a special
-occasion which should penetrate with a transforming
-influence the whole of society from top to bottom,
-as the common people were at first inclined to
-think, the proper pose before the enemy was to be
-that it made no difference at all. We were to continue
-imperturbably with the conduct of our business,
-and to awe the Continent with a supreme exhibition
-of British phlegm. The national consciousness of
-the working-man was to be stimulated by his
-continuing to supply us with our dividends, and
-ours by continuing to receive them. It is not
-necessary to pursue the history of this new substitute
-for unity. It is open to doubt whether our enemies
-were greatly appalled by the spectacle, or more so
-than our friends; it is certain that the stimulant supplied
-to the working-man proved to be inadequate
-and had to be supplemented by others.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
-
-<p>The problem of the function of the common
-citizen in war was of course left unsolved. It was
-accepted that if a man were unfit for service and
-not a skilled worker, he himself was a mere dead
-weight, and his intense longing for direct service,
-of however humble a kind, a by-product of which
-the State could make no use.</p>
-
-<p>That the working classes have to a certain extent
-failed to develop a complete sense of national unity
-is obvious enough. It is contended here that what
-would have been easy in the early days of the war
-and actually inexpensive to prescriptive right, has
-steadily become more and more costly to effect
-<span class="xxpn" id="p148">{148}</span>
-and less and less efficiently done. We are already
-faced with the possibility of having to make profound
-changes in the social system to convince
-the working-man effectually that his interests and
-ours in this war are one.</p>
-
-<p>That a very large class of common citizens,
-incapable of direct military work, has been left
-morally derelict during all these agonizing months of
-war has probably not been any less serious a fact,
-although the recognition of it has not been forced
-unavoidably on public notice. It must surely be
-clear that in a nation engaged in an urgent
-struggle for existence, the presence of a large class
-who are as sensitive as any to the call of the herd,
-and yet cannot respond in any active way, contains
-very grave possibilities. The only response to that
-relentless calling that can give peace is in service;
-if that be denied, restlessness, uneasiness, and anxiety
-must necessarily follow. To such a mental state are
-very easily added impatience, discontent, exaggerated
-fears, pessimism, and irritability. It must be
-remembered that large numbers of such individuals
-were persons of importance in peace time and retain
-a great deal of their prestige under the social
-system we have decided to maintain, although in
-war time they are obviously without function. This
-group of idle and flustered parasites has formed
-a nucleus from which have proceeded some of
-the many outbursts of disunion which have done so
-much to prevent this country from developing her
-resources with smoothness and continuity. It is
-not suggested that these eruptions of discontent
-are due to any kind of disloyalty; they are the
-result of defective morale, and bear all the evidences
-of coming from persons whose instinctive response
-to the call of the herd has been frustrated and who,
-therefore, lack the strength and composure of
-those whose souls are uplifted by a satisfactory
-<span class="xxpn" id="p149">{149}</span>
-instinctive activity. Moral instability has been
-characteristic of all the phenomena of disunion
-we are now considering, such as recrudescences
-of political animus, attacks on individual members
-of the Government, outbursts of spy mania,
-campaigns of incitement against aliens and
-of blustering about reprisals. Similar though
-less conspicuous manifestations are the delighted
-circulation of rumours, the wild scandalmongering,
-the eager dissemination of pessimistic inventions
-which are the pleasure of the smaller amongst these
-moral waifs. Of all the evidences of defective
-morale, however, undoubtedly the most general has
-yet to be mentioned, and that is the proffering of
-technical advice and exhortation. If we are to judge
-by what we read, there are few more urgent temptations
-than this, and yet it is easy to see that there
-are few enterprises which demand a more complete
-abrogation of reason. It is almost always the case
-that the subject of advice is one upon which all
-detailed knowledge is withheld by the authorities.
-This restriction of materials, however, seems generally
-to be regarded by the volunteer critic as giving
-him greater scope and freedom rather than as a
-reason for silence or even modesty.</p>
-
-<p>It is interesting to notice in this connection what
-those who have the ear of the public have conceived
-to be their duty towards the nation and to try
-to estimate its value from the point of view of
-morale. It is clear that they have in general very
-rightly understood that one of their prime functions
-should be to keep the Government working in the
-interests of the nation to the fullest stretch of its
-energy and resources. Criticism is another function,
-and advice and instruction a third which have also
-been regarded as important.</p>
-
-<p>The third of these activities is, no doubt, that
-which has been most abused and is least important.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p150">{150}</span>
-It tends on the one hand to get involved in technical
-military matters and consequent absurdity, and on
-the other hand, in civil matters, to fall back into
-the bad old ways of politics. Criticism is obviously
-a perfectly legitimate function, and one of value
-as long as it keeps to the field of civil questions,
-and can free itself of the moral failure of being
-acrimonious in tone. In a government machine
-engaged upon the largest of tasks there will always
-be enough injustice and inhumanity, fraud and
-foolishness to keep temperate critics beneficially
-employed.</p>
-
-<p>It is in the matter of stimulating the energy
-and resolution of the Government that the psychologist
-might perhaps differ to some extent from the
-popular guides of opinion. In getting work out
-of a living organism it is necessary to determine
-what is the most efficient stimulus. One can make
-a man’s muscles contract by stimulating them with
-an electric battery, but one can never get so
-energetic a contraction with however strong a
-current as can be got by the natural stimulus sent
-out from the man’s brain. Rising to a more complex
-level, we find that a man does not do work by
-order so well or so thoroughly as he does work
-that he desires to do voluntarily. The best way
-to get our work done is to get the worker to want
-to do it. The most urgent and potent of all stimuli,
-then, are those that come from within the man’s
-soul. It is plain, therefore, that the best way to
-extract the maximum amount of work from members
-of a Government—and it is to yield this, at whatever
-cost to themselves, that they are there—is
-not by the use of threats and objurgations, by talk
-of impeachment or dismissal, or by hints of a day
-of reckoning after the war, but by keeping their
-souls full of a burning passion of service. Such
-a supply of mental energy can issue only from a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p151">{151}</span>
-truly homogeneous herd, and it is therefore to the
-production of such a homogeneity of feeling that
-we come once more as the one unmistakable
-responsibility of the civilian.</p>
-
-<p>We have seen reason to believe that there was
-a comparatively favourable opportunity of establishing
-such a national unity in the early phases of
-the war, and that the attainment of the same result
-at this late period is likely to be less easy and more
-costly of disturbance to the social structure.</p>
-
-<p>The simplest basis of unity is equality, and this
-has been an important factor in the unity which in
-the past has produced the classically successful manifestations
-of moral and military power, as for example
-in the cases of Puritan England and Revolutionary
-France. Such equality as obtained in these cases
-was doubtless chiefly moral rather than material,
-and it can scarcely be questioned that equality of
-consideration and of fundamental moral estimation
-is a far more efficient factor than would be equality
-of material possessions. The fact that it is difficult
-to persuade a man with thirty shillings a week that
-he has as much to lose by the loss of national
-independence as a man with thirty thousand a year,
-is merely evidence that the imagination of the former
-is somewhat restricted by his type of education,
-and that we habitually attach an absurd moral significance
-to material advantages. It seems certain
-that it would still be possible to attain a very fair
-approximation to a real moral equality without any
-necessary disturbance of the extreme degree of
-material inequality which our elaborate class segregation
-has imposed upon us.</p>
-
-<p>A serious and practical attempt to secure a true
-moral unity of the nation would render necessary
-a general understanding that the state to be striven
-for was something different, not only in degree
-but also in quality, from anything which has yet
-<span class="xxpn" id="p152">{152}</span>
-been regarded as satisfactory. A mere intellectual
-unanimity in the need for prosecuting the war with
-all vigour, we may be said actually to possess, but
-its moral value is not very great. A state of mind
-directed more to the nation and less immediately
-to the war is what is needed; the good soldier
-absorbed in his regiment has little inclination to
-concern himself with the way the war is going,
-and the civilian should be similarly absorbed in
-the nation. To attain this he must feel that he
-belongs to the country and to his fellow-citizens,
-and that it and they also belong to him. The
-established social system sets itself steadily to deny
-these propositions, and not so much by its abounding
-material inequalities as by the moral inequalities
-that correspond with them. The hierarchies of rank,
-prestige, and consideration, at all times showing
-serious inconsistencies with functional value, and in
-war doing so more than ever, are denials of the
-essential propositions of perfect citizenship, not,
-curiously enough, through their arbitrary distribution
-of wealth, comfort, and leisure, but through
-their persistent, assured, and even unconscious
-assumption that there exists a graduation of moral
-values equally real and, to men of inferior station,
-equally arbitrary. To a gregarious species at war
-the only tolerable claim to any kind of superiority
-must be based on leadership. Any other affectation
-of superiority, whether it be based on prescriptive
-right, on tradition, on custom, on wealth,
-on birth, or on mere age, arrogance, or fussiness,
-and not on real functional value to the State, is,
-however much a matter of course it may seem,
-however blandly it may be asserted or picturesquely
-displayed, an obstacle to true national unity.</p>
-
-<p>Psychological considerations thus appear to indicate
-a very plain duty for a large class of civilians
-who have complained of and suffered patriotically
-<span class="xxpn" id="p153">{153}</span>
-from the fact that the Government has found nothing
-for them to do. Let all those of superior and
-assured station make it a point of honour and duty
-to abrogate the privileges of consideration and
-prestige with which they are arbitrarily endowed.
-Let them persuade the common man that they also
-are, in the face of national necessity, common men.
-The searching test of war has shown that a proportion
-of the population, serious enough in mere
-numbers, but doubly serious in view of its power
-and influence, has led an existence which may fairly
-be described as in some degree parasitic. That
-is to say, what they have drawn from the common
-stock in wealth and prestige has been immensely
-larger than what they have contributed of useful
-activity in return. Now, in time of war, they have
-still less to give proportionally to what they have
-received. Their deplorably good bargain was in
-no way of their making; no one has the slightest
-right to attack their honour or good faith; they
-are as patriotically minded as any class, and have
-contributed their fighting men to the Army as generously
-as the day labourer and the tradesman. It
-is therefore not altogether impossible that they might
-come to understand the immense opportunity that
-is given them by fate to promote a true, deep,
-and irresistibly potent national unity.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">A further contribution to the establishment of
-a national unity of this truly Utopian degree might
-come from a changed attitude of mind towards his
-fellows in the individual. There would have to
-be an increased kindliness, generosity, patience, and
-tolerance in all his relations with others, a deliberate
-attempt to conquer prejudice, irritability,
-impatience, and self-assertiveness, a deliberate encouragement
-of cheerfulness, composure, and fortitude.
-All these would be tasks for the individual
-<span class="xxpn" id="p154">{154}</span>
-to carry out for himself alone; there would be no
-campaign-making, no direct exhortation, no appeals.
-Towards the Army and the Navy the central fact
-of each man’s attitude would be the question, “Am
-I worth dying for?” and his strongest effort would
-be the attempt to make himself so.</p>
-
-<p>That question may perhaps make one wonder
-why it has not been heard more often during the
-war as a text of the Church. There is little doubt
-that very many men whose feeling towards the
-Church is in no way disrespectful or hostile are
-conscious of a certain uneasiness in hearing her
-vigorously defending the prosecution of the war
-and demonstrating its righteousness. They feel, in
-spite of however conclusive demonstrations to the
-contrary, that there is a deep-seated inconsistency
-between war for whatever object and the Sermon
-on the Mount, and they cannot but remember, when
-they are told that this is a holy war, that that also
-the Germans say. They perhaps feel that the justification
-of the war is, after all, a matter for politicians
-and statesmen, and that the Church would be more
-appropriately employed in making it as far as she
-can a vehicle of good, rather than trying to justify
-superfluously its existence. A people already awed
-by the self-sacrifice of its armies may be supposed
-to be capable of profiting by the exhortations of
-a Church whose cardinal doctrine is concerned with
-the responsibility that attaches to those for whose
-sake life has voluntarily been given up. One cannot
-imagine an institution more perfectly qualified by
-its faith and its power to bring home to this people
-the solemnity of the sanction under which they lie
-to make themselves worthy of the price that is
-still being unreservedly paid. If it were consciously
-the determination of every citizen to make himself
-worth dying for, who can doubt that a national
-unity of the sublimest kind would be
-within reach? <span class="xxpn" id="p155">{155}</span></p>
-
-<p>Of all the influences which tend to rob the citizen
-of the sense of his birthright, perhaps one of the
-strongest, and yet the most subtle, is that of
-officialism. It seems inevitable that the enormously
-complex public services which are necessary in the
-modern State should set up a barrier between the
-private citizen and the official, whereby the true
-relation between them is obscured. The official
-loses his grasp of the fact that the mechanism of
-the State is established in the interests of the citizen;
-the citizen comes to regard the State as a hostile
-institution, against which he has to defend himself,
-although it was made for his defence. It is a crime
-for him to cheat the State in the matter of tax-paying,
-it is no crime for the State to defraud
-him in excessive charges. Considered in the light
-of the fundamental relation of citizen and State, it
-seems incredible that in a democratic country it is
-possible for flourishing establishments to exist the
-sole business of which is to save the private
-individual from being defrauded by the tax-gathering
-bureaucracy. This is but a single and rather
-extreme example of the far-stretching segregation
-effected by the official machine. The slighter kinds
-of aloofness, of inhuman etiquette, of legalism and
-senseless dignity, of indifference to the individual,
-of devotion to formulæ and routine are no less
-powerful agents in depriving the common man of
-the sense of intimate reality in his citizenship which
-might be so valuable a source of national unity.
-If the official machine through its utmost parts were
-animated by an even moderately human spirit and
-used as a means of binding together the people,
-instead of as an engine of moral disruption, it might
-be of incalculable value in the strengthening of
-morale. <span class="xxpn" id="p156">{156}</span></p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">E<b>NGLAND</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">AGAINST</span>
- <span class="smcap">G<b>ERMANY—</b>G<b>ERMANY.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>In an earlier part of this book the statement was
-made that the present juncture in human affairs
-probably forms one of those rare nodes of circumstance
-in which the making of an epoch in history
-corresponds with a perceptible change in the secular
-progress of biological evolution. It remains to
-attempt some justification of this opinion.</p>
-
-<p>England and Germany face one another as perhaps
-the two most typical antagonists of the war. It may
-seem but a partial way of examining events if we
-limit our consideration to them. Nevertheless, it is
-in this duel that the material we are concerned
-with is chiefly to be found, and it may be added
-Germany herself has abundantly distinguished this
-country as her typical foe—an instinctive judgment
-not without value.</p>
-
-<p>By the end of September 1914 it had become
-reasonably clear that the war would be one of
-endurance, and the comparatively equal though
-fluctuating strength of the two groups of adversaries
-has since shown that in such endurance the main
-factor will be the moral factor rather than the
-material. An examination of the moral strength
-of the two arch-enemies will therefore have the
-interest of life and death behind it, as well as such
-as may belong to the thesis which stands at the head
-of this chapter.</p>
-
-<p>Germany affords a profoundly interesting study
-for the biological psychologist, and it is very
-important that we should not allow what clearness
-of representation we can get into our picture of her
-mind to be clouded by the heated atmosphere of
-national feeling in which our work must be done.
-As I have said elsewhere, it is merely to encourage
-fallacy to allow oneself to believe that one is without
-prejudices. The most one can do is to recognize
-<span class="xxpn" id="p157">{157}</span>
-what prejudices are likely to exist and liberally
-to allow for them.</p>
-
-<p>If I were to say that at the present moment I can
-induce myself to believe that it will ever be possible
-for Europe to contain a strong Germany of the
-current type and remain habitable by free peoples,
-the apparent absence of national bias in the statement
-would be a mere affectation, and by no means
-an evidence of freedom from prejudice. I am
-much more likely to get into reasonable relations
-with the truth if I admit to myself, quite frankly,
-my innermost conviction that the destruction of the
-German Empire is an indispensable preliminary to
-the making of a civilization tolerable by rational
-beings. Having recognized the existence of that
-belief as a necessary obstacle to complete freedom
-of thought, it may be possible to allow for it and to
-counteract what aberrations of judgment it may be
-likely to produce.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">In making an attempt to estimate the relative
-moral resources of England and Germany at the
-present time it is necessary to consider them as
-biological entities or major units of the human
-species in the sense of that term we have already
-repeatedly used. We shall have to examine the
-evolutionary tendencies which each of these units
-has shown, and if possible to decide how far they
-have followed the lines of development which
-psychological theory indicates to be those of healthy
-and progressive development for a gregarious
-animal.</p>
-
-<p>I have already tried to show that the acquirement
-of the social habit by man—though in fact there is
-reason to believe that the social habit preceded
-and made possible his distinctively human characters—has
-committed him to an evolutionary process
-which is far from being completed yet, but which
-<span class="xxpn" id="p158">{158}</span>
-nevertheless must be carried out to its consummation
-if he is to escape increasingly severe disadvantages
-inherent in that biological type. In other words, the
-gregarious habit in an animal of large individual
-mental capacity is capable of becoming, and indeed
-must become a handicap rather than a bounty unless
-the society of the species undergoes a continuously
-progressive co-ordination which will enable it to
-attract and absorb the energy and activities of its
-individual members. We have seen that in a species
-such as man, owing to the freedom from the direct
-action of natural selection within the major unit, the
-individual’s capacity for varied reaction to his environment
-has undergone an enormous development,
-while at the same time the capacity for intercommunication—upon
-which the co-ordination of the
-major unit into a potent and frictionless mechanism
-depends—has lagged far behind. The term “intercommunication”
-is here used in the very widest
-sense to indicate the ties that bind the individual
-to his fellows and them to him. It is not a very
-satisfactory word; but as might be expected in
-attempting to express a series of functions so
-complex and so unfamiliar to generalization, it is not
-easy to find an exact expression ready made.
-Another phrase applicable to a slightly different
-aspect of the same function is “herd accessibility,”
-which has the advantage of suggesting by its first
-constituent the limitation, primitively at any rate, an
-essential part of the capacities it is desired to denote.
-The conception of herd accessibility includes the
-specific sensitiveness of the individual to the
-existence, presence, thought, and feelings of his
-fellow-members of the major unit; the power he
-possesses of reacting in an altruistic and social mode
-to stimuli which would necessarily evoke a merely
-egoistic response from a non-social animal—that is
-to say, the power to deflect and modify egoistic
-<span class="xxpn" id="p159">{159}</span>
-impulses into a social form without emotional loss or
-dissatisfaction; the capacity to derive from the impulses
-of the herd a moral power in excess of any
-similar energy he may be able to develop from
-purely egoistic sources.</p>
-
-<p>Intercommunication, the development of which
-of course depends upon herd-accessibility, enables
-the herd to act as a single creature whose power
-is greatly in excess of the sum of the powers of its
-individual members.</p>
-
-<p>Intercommunication in the biological sense has,
-however, never been systematically cultivated by
-man, but has been allowed to develop haphazard
-and subject to all the hostile influences which must
-infest a society in which unregulated competition
-and selection are allowed to prevail. The extravagance
-of human life and labour, the indifference to
-suffering, the harshness and the infinite class segregation
-of human society are the result. The use of
-what I have called conscious direction is apparently
-the only means whereby this chaos can be converted
-into organized structure.</p>
-
-<p>Outside the gregarious unit, the forms of organic
-life at any given time seem to be to some considerable
-extent determined by the fact that the pressure
-of environmental conditions and of competition tends
-to eliminate selectively the types which are comparatively
-unsuited to the conditions in which they
-find themselves. However much or little this process
-of natural selection has decided the course which the
-general evolutionary process has taken, there can
-be no doubt that it is a condition of animal life, and
-has an active influence. The suggestion may be
-hazarded that under circumstances natural selection
-tends rather to restrict variation instead of encouraging
-it as it has sometimes been supposed to
-do. When the external pressure is very severe it
-might be supposed that anything like free variation
-<span class="xxpn" id="p160">{160}</span>
-would be a serious disadvantage to a species, and
-if it persisted might result in actual extermination.
-It is conceivable, therefore, that natural selection is
-capable of favouring stable and non-progressive
-types at the expense of the variable and possibly
-“progressive,” if such a term can be applied to
-species advancing towards extinction. Such a
-possible fixative action of natural selection is suggested
-by the fact that the appearance of mechanisms
-whereby the individual is protected from the direct
-action of natural selection seems to have led to an
-outburst of variation. In the multicellular animal
-the individual cells passing from under the direct
-pressure of natural selection become variable, and
-so capable of a very great specialization. In the
-gregarious unit the same thing happens, the individual
-member gaining freedom to vary and to
-become specialized without the risk that would have
-accompanied such an endowment in the solitary state.</p>
-
-<p>Within the gregarious unit, then, natural selection
-in the strict sense is in abeyance, and the consequent
-freedom has allowed of a rich variety among the
-individual members. This variety provides the
-material from which an elaborate and satisfactory
-society might be constructed if there were any constant
-and discriminating influence acting upon it.
-Unfortunately, the forces at work in human society
-to-day are not of this kind, but are irregular in
-direction and fluctuating in strength, so that the
-material richness which would have been so valuable,
-had it been subject to a systematic and co-ordinate
-selection, has merely contributed to the
-confusion of the product. The actual mechanism
-by which society, while it has grown in strength
-and complexity, has also grown in confusion and
-disorder, is that peculiarity of the gregarious mind
-which automatically brings into the monopoly of
-power the mental type which I have called the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p161">{161}</span>
-stable and common opinion calls normal. This
-type supplies our most trusted politicians and officials,
-our bishops and headmasters, our successful lawyers
-and doctors, and all their trusty deputies, assistants,
-retainers, and faithful servants. Mental stability is
-their leading characteristic, they “know where they
-stand” as we say, they have a confidence in the
-reality of their aims and their position, an inaccessibility
-to new and strange phenomena, a belief in
-the established and customary, a capacity for ignoring
-what they regard as the unpleasant, the undesirable,
-and the improper, and a conviction that
-on the whole a sound moral order is perceptible
-in the universe and manifested in the progress of
-civilization. Such characteristics are not in the least
-inconsistent with the highest intellectual capacity,
-great energy and perseverance as well as kindliness,
-generosity, and patience, but they are in no way
-redeemed in social value by them.</p>
-
-<p>In the year 1915 it is, unfortunately, in no way
-necessary to enumerate evidences of the confusion,
-the cruelty, the waste, and the weaknesses with
-which human society, under the guidance of minds
-of this type, has been brought to abound. Civilization
-through all its secular development under
-their rule has never acquired an organic unity of
-structure; its defects have received no rational treatment,
-but have been concealed, ignored, and denied;
-instead of being drastically rebuilt, it has been kept
-presentable by patches and buttresses, by paint, and
-putty, and whitewash. The building was already
-insecure, and now the storm has burst upon it,
-threatens incontinently to collapse.</p>
-
-<p>The fact that European civilization, approaching
-what appeared to be the very meridian of its strength,
-could culminate in a disaster so frightful as the
-present war is proof that its development was radically
-unsound. This is by no means to say that
-<span class="xxpn" id="p162">{162}</span>
-the war could have been avoided by those immediately
-concerned. That is almost certainly not the
-case. The war was the consequence of inherent
-defects in the evolution of civilized life; it was
-the consequence of human progress being left to
-chance, and to the interaction of the heterogeneous
-influences which necessarily arise within a gregarious
-unit whose individual members have a large power
-of varied reaction. In such an atmosphere minds
-essentially resistive alone can flourish and attain
-to power, and they are by their very qualities incapable
-of grasping the necessities of government
-or translating them into action.</p>
-
-<p>The method of leaving the development of society
-to the confused welter of forces which prevail within
-it is now at last reduced to absurdity by the unmistakable
-teaching of events, and the conscious direction
-of man’s destiny is plainly indicated by Nature
-as the only mechanism by which the social life of
-so complex an animal can be guaranteed against
-disaster and brought to yield its full possibilities.</p>
-
-<p>A gregarious unit informed by conscious direction
-represents a biological mechanism of a wholly new
-type, a stage of advance in the evolutionary process
-capable of consolidating the supremacy of man
-and carrying to its full extent the development of
-his social instincts.</p>
-
-<p>Such a directing intelligence or group of intelligences
-would take into account before all things
-the biological character of man, would understand
-that his condition is necessarily progressive along
-the lines of his natural endowments or downward
-to destruction. It would abandon the static view
-of society as something merely to be maintained,
-and adopt a more dynamic conception of statesmanship
-as something active, progressive, and experimental,
-reaching out towards new powers for human
-activity and new conquests for the human will.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p163">{163}</span>
-It would discover what natural inclinations in man
-must be indulged, and would make them respectable,
-what inclinations in him must be controlled
-for the advantage of the species, and make them
-insignificant. It would cultivate intercommunication
-and altruism on the one hand, and bravery,
-boldness, pride, and enterprise on the other. It
-would develop national unity to a communion of
-interest and sympathy far closer than anything yet
-dreamed of as possible, and by doing so would
-endow the national unit with a self-control, fortitude,
-and moral power which would make it so obviously
-unconquerable that war would cease to be a possibility.
-To a people magnanimous, self-possessed,
-and open-eyed, unanimous in sentiment and aware
-of its strength, the conquest of fellow-nations would
-present its full futility. They would need for the
-acceptable exercise of their powers some more difficult,
-more daring, and newer task, something that
-stretches the human will and the human intellect
-to the limit of their capacity; the mere occupation
-and re-occupation of the stale and blood-drenched
-earth would be to them barbarians’ work; time
-and space would be their quarry, destiny and the
-human soul the lands they would invade; they
-would sail their ships into the gulfs of the ether
-and lay tribute upon the sun and stars.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">It is one of the features of the present crisis
-that gives to it its biological significance, that one
-of the antagonists—Germany—has discovered the
-necessity and value of conscious direction of the
-social unit. This is in itself an epoch-making event.
-Like many other human discoveries of similar importance,
-it has been incomplete, and it has not
-been accompanied by the corresponding knowledge
-of man and his natural history which alone could
-have given it full fertility and permanent value.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p164">{164}</span></p>
-
-<p>It seems to have been in no way a revelation of
-genius, and, indeed, the absence of any great profundity
-and scope of speculation is rather remarkable
-in the minds of the numerous German political
-philosophers. The idea would appear rather to have
-been developed out of the circumstances of the
-country, and to have been almost a habit before
-it became a conception. At any rate, its appearance
-was greatly favoured by the political conditions and
-history of the region in which it arose. If this
-had not been the case, it is scarcely conceivable
-that the principle could have been accepted so readily
-by the people, and in a form which was not without
-its asperities and its hardships for them, or that
-it could have been discovered without the necessary
-biological corollaries which are indispensable to the
-successful application of it.</p>
-
-<p>Germany in some ways resembles a son who has
-been educated at home, and has taken up the
-responsibilities of the adult, and become bound by
-them without ever tasting the free intercourse of
-the school and university. She has never tasted
-the heady liquor of political liberty, she has had no
-revolution, and the blood of no political martyrs
-calls to her disturbingly from the ground. To
-such innocent and premature gravity the reasonable
-claims of what, after all, had to her the appearance
-of no more than an anxiously paternal Government
-could not fail to appeal.</p>
-
-<p>Explain it how we may, there can be no doubt
-that to the German peoples the theoretical aspects
-of life have long had a very special appeal. Generalizations
-about national characteristics are notoriously
-fallacious, but it seems that with a certain reserve
-one may fairly say that there is a definite contrast
-in this particular between the Germans and, let
-us say, the English.</p>
-
-<p>To minds of a theoretical bias the appeal of a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p165">{165}</span>
-closely regulative type of Government, with all the
-advantages of organization which it possesses, must
-be very strong, and there is reason to believe that
-this fact has had influence in reconciling the people
-to the imposition upon it of the will of the Government.</p>
-
-<p>Between a docile and intelligent people and a
-strong, autocratic, and intelligent Government the
-possibilities of conscious national direction could
-scarcely fail to become increasingly obvious and
-to be increasingly developed. A further and
-enormously potent factor in the progress of the
-idea was an immense accession of national feeling,
-derived from three almost bewilderingly successful
-wars, accomplished at surprisingly small cost,
-and culminating in a grandiose and no less successful
-scheme of unification. Before rulers and people
-an imperial destiny of unlimited scope, and allowing
-of unbounded dreams, now inevitably opened
-itself up. Alone, amongst the peoples of Europe,
-Germany saw herself a nation with a career. No
-longer disunited and denationalized, she had come
-into her inheritance. The circumstances of her
-rebirth were so splendid, the moral exaltation of
-her new unity was so great that she could scarcely
-but suppose that her state was the beginning of
-a career of further and unimagined glories and
-triumphs. There were not lacking enthusiastic and
-prophetic voices to tell her she was right.</p>
-
-<p>The decade that followed the foundation of the
-Empire was, perhaps, more pregnant with destiny
-than that which preceded it, for it saw the final
-determination of the path which Germany was to
-follow. She had made the immense stride in the
-biological scale of submitting herself to conscious
-direction; would she also follow the path which
-alone leads to a perfect concentration of national
-life and a permanent moral stability?
-<span class="xxpn" id="p166">{166}</span></p>
-
-<p>To a nation with a purpose and a consciously
-realized destiny some principle of national unity
-is indispensable. Some strand of feeling which all
-can share, and in sharing which all can come into
-communion with one another, will be the framework
-on which is built up the structure of national
-energy and effort.</p>
-
-<p>The reactions in which the social instinct manifests
-itself are not all equally developed in the different
-social species. It is true that there is a certain group
-of characteristics common to all social animals; but
-it is also found that in one example there is a special
-development of one aspect of the instinct, while
-another example will show a characteristic development
-of a different aspect. Taking a broad survey
-of all gregarious types, we are able to distinguish
-three fairly distinct trends of evolution. We have
-the aggressive gregariousness of the wolf and dog,
-the protective gregariousness of the sheep and the
-ox, and, differing from both these, we have the more
-complex social structure of the bee and the ant,
-which we may call socialized gregariousness. The
-last-named is characterized by the complete absorption
-of the individual in the major unit, and the
-fact that the function of the social habit seems no
-longer to be the simple one of mere attack or
-defence, but rather the establishment of a State
-which shall be, as a matter of course, strong in
-defence and attack, but a great deal more than
-this as well. The hive is no mere herd or pack,
-but an elaborate mechanism for making use by
-co-ordinate and unified action of the utmost powers
-of the individual members. It is something which
-appears to be a complete substitute for individual
-existence, and as we have already said, seems like
-a new creature rather than a congeries united for
-some comparatively few and simple purposes. The
-hive and the ant’s nest stand to the flock and the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p167">{167}</span>
-pack as the fully organized multicellular animal
-stands to the primitive zooglœa which is its forerunner.
-The wolf is united for attack, the sheep
-is united for defence, but the bee is united for all
-the activities and feelings of its life.</p>
-
-<p>Socialized gregariousness is the goal of man’s
-development. A transcendental union with his
-fellows is the destiny of the human individual,
-and it is the attainment of this towards which the
-constantly growing altruism of man is directed.
-Poets and prophets have, at times, dimly seen this
-inevitable trend of Nature, biology detects unmistakable
-evidence of it, and explains the slowness of
-advance, which has been the despair of those others,
-by the variety and power of man’s mind, and
-consoles us for the delay these qualities still cause
-by the knowledge that they are guarantees of the
-exactitude and completeness that the ultimate union
-will attain.</p>
-
-<p>When a nation takes to itself the idea of conscious
-direction, as by a fortunate combination of circumstances
-Germany has been induced to do, it is
-plain that some choice of a principle of national
-unity will be its first and most important task. It
-is plain, also, from the considerations we have just
-laid down, that such a principle of national unity
-must necessarily be a manifestation of the social
-instinct, and that the choice is necessarily limited
-to one of three types of social habit which
-alone Nature has fitted gregarious animals to follow.
-No nation has ever made a conscious choice amongst
-these three types, but circumstances have led to
-the adoption of one or another of them often enough
-for history to furnish many suggestive instances.</p>
-
-<p>The more or less purely aggressive or protective
-form has been adopted for the most part by
-primitive peoples. The history of the natives of
-North America and Australia furnishes examples of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p168">{168}</span>
-almost pure types of both. The aggressive type was
-illustrated very fully by the peoples who profited
-by the disintegration of the Roman Empire. These
-northern barbarians showed in the most perfect form
-the lupine type of society in action. The ideals
-and feelings exemplified by their sagas are comprehensible
-only when one understands the biological
-significance of them. It was a society of wolves
-marvellously indomitable in aggression but fitted for
-no other activity in any corresponding degree, and
-always liable to absorption by the peoples they
-had conquered. They were physically brave beyond
-belief, and made a religion of violence and brutality.
-To fight was for them man’s supreme activity. They
-were restless travellers and explorers, less out of
-curiosity than in search of prey, and they irresistibly
-overran Europe in the missionary zeal of the sword
-and torch, each man asking nothing of Fate but,
-after a career of unlimited outrage and destruction,
-to die gloriously fighting. It is impossible not
-to recognize the psychological identity of these
-ideals with those which we might suppose a highly
-developed breed of wolves to entertain.</p>
-
-<p>With all its startling energy, and all its magnificent
-enterprise, the lupine type of society has not
-proved capable of prolonged survival. Probably
-its inherent weakness is the very limited scope
-of interest it provides for active and progressive
-minds, and the fact that it tends to engender a
-steadily accumulating hostility in weaker but more
-mentally progressive peoples to which it has no
-correspondingly steady resistiveness to oppose.</p>
-
-<p>The history of the world has shown a gradual
-elimination of the lupine type. It has recurred
-sporadically at intervals, but has always been
-suppressed. Modern civilization has shown a
-constantly increasing manifestation of the socialized
-type of gregariousness in spite of the complexities
-<span class="xxpn" id="p169">{169}</span>
-and disorders which the slowness of its development
-towards completeness has involved. It may be
-regarded now as the standard type which has been
-established by countless experiments, as that which
-alone can satisfy and absorb the moral as well as
-the intellectual desires of modern man.</p>
-
-<p>From the point of view of the statesman desiring
-to enforce an immediate and energetic national unity,
-combined with an ideal of the State as destined
-to expand into a larger and larger sphere, the
-socialized type of gregarious evolution is extremely
-unsatisfactory. Its course towards the production
-of a truly organized State is slow, and perplexed
-by a multitudinous confusion of voices and ideals;
-its necessary development of altruism gives the
-society it produces an aspect of sentimentality and
-flabbiness; its tendency slowly to evolve towards
-the moral equality of its members gives the State
-an appearance of structural insecurity.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">If Germany was to be capable of a consistent
-aggressive external policy as a primary aim, the
-peculiarity of her circumstances rendered her unable
-to seek national inspiration by any development
-of the socialized type of instinctive response, because
-that method can produce the necessary moral power
-only through a true unity of its members, such as
-implies a moral, if not a material, equality among
-them. That the type is capable of yielding a
-passion of aggressive nationalism is shown by the
-early enterprise and conquests of the first French
-Republic. But that outburst of power was attained
-only because it was based on a true, though doubtless
-imperfect, moral equality. Such a method was
-necessarily forbidden to the German Empire by the
-intense rigidity of its social segregation, with its
-absolute differentiation between the aristocracy and
-the common people. In such a society there could
-<span class="xxpn" id="p170">{170}</span>
-be no thought of permitting the faintest hint of
-even moral equality.</p>
-
-<p>This is the reason, therefore, why the rulers of
-Germany, of course in complete ignorance of how
-significant was their choice, were compelled to
-abandon the ideals of standard civilization, to relapse
-upon the ideals of a more primitive type of
-gregariousness, and to throw back their people into
-the anachronism of a lupine society. In this connection
-it is interesting to notice how persistently
-the political philosophers of Germany have sought
-their chief inspiration in the remote past, and in
-times when the wolf society and the wolf ideals
-were widespread and successful.</p>
-
-<p>It is not intended to imply that there was here
-any conscious choice. It is remarkable enough that
-the rulers of Germany recognized the need for
-conscious direction of all the activities of a nation
-which proposes for itself a career; it would have
-been a miracle if they had understood the biological
-significance of the differentiation of themselves from
-other European peoples that they were to bring
-about. To them it doubtless appeared merely that
-they were discarding the effete and enfeebling
-ideals which made other nations the fit victims of
-their conquests. They may be supposed to have
-determined to eradicate such germs of degeneracy
-from themselves, to have seen that an ambitious
-people must be strong and proud and hard, enterprising,
-relentless, brave, and fierce, prepared to
-believe in the glory of combat and conquest, in
-the supreme moral greatness of the warrior, in force
-as the touchstone of right, honour, justice, and truth.
-Such changes in moral orientation seem harmless
-enough, and it can scarcely be suspected that their
-significance was patent to those who adopted them.
-They were impressed upon the nation with all the
-immense power of suggestion at the disposal of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p171">{171}</span>
-an organized State. The readiness with which they
-were received and assimilated was more than could
-be accounted for by even the power of the immense
-machine of officials, historians, theologians, professors,
-teachers, and newspapers by which they
-were, in season and out of season, enforced. The
-immense success that was attained owed much to
-the fact that suggestion was following a natural,
-instinctive path. The wolf in man, against which
-civilization has been fighting for so long, is still
-within call and ready to respond to incantations
-much feebler than those the German State could
-employ. The people were intoxicated with the glory
-of their conquests and their imposing new confederation;
-if we are to trust the reputation the
-Prussian soldier has had for a hundred years, they
-were perhaps already less advanced in humanity
-than the other European peoples. The fact is unquestionable
-that they followed their teachers with
-enthusiasm.</p>
-
-<p>It may be well for us, before proceeding farther,
-to define precisely the psychological hypothesis we
-are advancing in explanation of the peculiarities of
-the German national character as now manifested.</p>
-
-<p>Herd instinct is manifested in three distinct types,
-the aggressive, the protective, and the socialized,
-which are exemplified in Nature by the wolf, the
-sheep, and the bee respectively. Either type can
-confer the advantages of the social habit, but the
-socialized is that upon which modern civilized man
-has developed. It is maintained here that the
-ambitious career consciously planned for Germany
-by those who had taken command of her destinies,
-and the maintenance at the same time of her social
-system, were inconsistent with the further development
-of gregariousness of the socialized type. New
-ideals, new motives, and new sources of moral power
-had therefore to be sought. They were found in a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p172">{172}</span>
-recrudescence of the aggressive type of gregariousness—in
-a reappearance of the society of the wolf.
-It is conceivable that those who provided Germany
-with her new ideals thought themselves to be
-exercising a free choice. The choice, however,
-was forced upon them by Nature. They wanted
-some of the characters of the wolf; they got them
-all. One may imagine that those who have so
-industriously inculcated the national gospel have
-wondered at times that while it has been easy to
-implant certain of the desired ideals, it has not been
-possible to prevent the appearance of others which,
-though not so desirable, belong to the same legacy
-and must be taken up with it.</p>
-
-<p>Before examining the actual mental features of
-Germany to-day, it may be desirable to consider <i>a
-priori</i> what would be the mental characteristics of
-an aggressive gregarious animal were he to be self-conscious
-in the sense that man is.</p>
-
-<p>The functional value of herd instinct in the wolf
-is to make the pack irresistible in attacking and
-perpetually aggressive in spirit. The individual
-must, therefore, be especially sensitive to the leadership
-of the herd. The herd must be to him, not
-merely as it is to the protectively gregarious animal,
-a source of comfort, and stimulus, and general
-guidance, but must be able to make him <i>do things</i>
-however difficult, however dangerous, even however
-senseless, and must make him yield an absolute,
-immediate, and slavish obedience. The carrying
-out of the commands of the herd must be in itself
-an absolute satisfaction in which there can be no
-consideration of self. Towards anything outside
-the herd he will necessarily be arrogant, confident,
-and inaccessible to the appeals of reason or feeling.
-This tense bond of instinct, constantly keyed up to
-the pitch of action, will give him a certain
-simplicity of character and even ingenuousness, a
-<span class="xxpn" id="p173">{173}</span>
-coarseness and brutality in his dealings with others,
-and a complete failure to understand any motive
-unsanctioned by the pack. He will believe the
-pack to be impregnable and irresistible, just and
-good, and will readily ascribe to it any other attribute
-which may take his fancy however ludicrously inappropriate.</p>
-
-<p>The strength of the wolf pack as a gregarious
-unit is undoubtedly, in suitable circumstances,
-enormous. This strength would seem to depend on
-a continuous possibility of attack and action. How
-far it can be maintained in inactivity and mere
-defence is another matter.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Since the beginning of this war attracted a
-really concentrated attention to the psychology of
-the German people, it has been very obvious that
-one of the most striking feelings amongst Englishmen
-has been bewilderment. They have found an
-indescribable strangeness in the utterances of almost
-all German personages and newspapers, in their
-diplomacy, in their friendliness to such as they wished
-to propitiate, in their enmity to those they wished
-to alarm and intimidate. This strange quality is
-very difficult to define or even to attempt to describe,
-and has very evidently perplexed almost all writers
-on the war. The only thing one can be sure
-of is that it is there. It shows itself at times as a
-simplicity or even childishness, as a boorish cunning,
-as an incredible ant-like activity, as a sudden blast
-of maniacal boasting, a reckless savagery of
-gloating in blood, a simple-minded sentimentality,
-as outbursts of idolatry, not of the pallid, metaphorical,
-modern type, but the full-blooded African
-kind, with all the apparatus of idol and fetish and
-tom-tom, and with it all a steady confidence that
-these are the principles of civilization, of truth, of
-justice, and of Christ.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p174">{174}</span></p>
-
-<p>I have tried to put down at random some of the
-factors in this curious impression as they occur
-to the memory, but the mere enumeration of them
-is not possible without risking the objective composure
-of one’s attitude—an excellent incidental
-evidence that the strangeness is a reality.</p>
-
-<p>The incomprehensibility to the English of the
-whole trend of German feeling and expression suggests
-that there is some deeply rooted instinctive
-conflict of attitude between them. One may risk
-the speculation that this conflict is between socialized
-gregariousness and aggressive gregariousness. As
-the result of the inculcation of national arrogance
-and aggression, Germany has lapsed into a special
-type of social instinct which has opened a gulf of
-separation in feeling between her and other civilized
-peoples. Such an effect is natural enough. Nothing
-produces the sense of strangeness so much as
-differences of instinctive reaction. A similar though
-wider gap in instinctive reaction gives to us the
-appearance of strangeness and queerness in the
-behaviour of the cat as contrasted with the dog,
-which is so much more nearly allied in feeling to
-ourselves.</p>
-
-<p>If, then, we desire to get any insight into the
-mind and moral power of Germany, we must begin
-with the realization that the two peoples are separated
-by a profound difference in instinctive feeling.
-Nature has provided but few roads for gregarious
-species to follow. Between the path England finds
-herself in and that which Germany has chosen there
-is a divergence which almost amounts to a specific
-difference in the biological scale. In this, perhaps,
-lies the cause of the desperate and unparalleled
-ferocity of this war. It is a war not so much of
-contending nations as of contending species. We
-are not taking part in a mere war, but in one of
-Nature’s august experiments. It is as if she had
-<span class="xxpn" id="p175">{175}</span>
-set herself to try out in her workshop the strength
-of the socialized and the aggressive types. To
-the socialized peoples she has entrusted the task
-of proving that her old faith in cruelty and blood
-is at last an anachronism. To try them, she has
-given substance to the creation of a nightmare, and
-they must destroy this werewolf or
-die.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc16" href="#fn16">16</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn16" href="#afnanc16">16</a>
-It may be noted that the members of the small group of
-so-called “pro-German” writers and propagandists for the most part
-make it a fundamental doctrine, either explicit or implicit, that
-there is no psychological difference between the English and the
-Germans. They seem to maintain that the latter are moved and are to
-be influenced by exactly the same series of feelings and ideals as
-the former, and show in reality no observable “strangeness” in their
-expressions and emotions. By arguments based on this assumption very
-striking conclusions are reached. All moral advancement has been the
-work of unpopular minorities, the members of which have been branded
-as cranks or criminals until time has justified their doctrine. Even
-the greatest of such pioneers have not, however, been invariably right.
-Their genius has usually been shown most clearly in matters with which
-they have been most familiar, while in matters less intimately part of
-their experience their judgments have often not stood the test of time
-any better than those of smaller men. If therefore our “pro-Germans”
-include amongst them men of moral genius, we may expect that such of
-their psychological intuitions as deal with England are more likely
-to prove true than those that deal with Germany. The importance of
-this reservation lies in the probability that the chief psychological
-problems connected with the origin and prosecution of this war relate
-to the Germans rather than to the English.</p></div>
-
-<p>In attempting to estimate the actual phenomena of the German mind
-at the present time, we must remember that our sources of knowledge
-are subject to a rigid selection. Those of us who are unable to give
-time to the regular reading of German publications must depend on
-extracts which owe their appearance in our papers to some striking
-characteristic which may be supposed to be pleasing to the prejudices
-or hopes of the English reader. The main facts, however, are clear
-enough to yield
-<span class="xxpn" id="p176">{176}</span> valuable conclusions, if such are made on broad
-lines without undue insistence on minor points.</p>
-
-<p>An intense but often ingenuous and even childish national arrogance
-is a character that strikes one at once. It seems to be a serious and
-often a solemn emotion impregnably armoured against the comic sense,
-and expressed with a childlike confidence in its justness. It is
-usually associated with a language of metaphor, which is almost always
-florid and banal, and usually grandiose and strident. This fondness for
-metaphor and inability to refer to common things by plain names affects
-all classes, from Emperor to journalist, and gives an impression of
-peculiar childishness. It reminds one of the primitive belief in the
-transcendental reality and value of names.</p>
-
-<p>The national arrogance of the German is at the
-same time peculiarly sensitive and peculiarly obtuse.
-It is readily moved by praise or blame, though that
-be the most perfunctory and this the most mild, but
-it has no sense of a public opinion outside the pack.
-It is easily aroused to rage by external criticism,
-and when it finds its paroxysms make it ridiculous
-to the spectator it cannot profit by the information
-but becomes, if possible, more angry. It is quite
-unable to understand that to be moved to rage by
-an enemy is as much a proof of slavish automatism
-as to be moved to fear by him. The really extraordinary
-hatred for England is, quite apart from
-the obvious association of its emotional basis with
-fear, a most interesting phenomenon. The fact that
-it was possible to organize so unanimous a howl
-shows very clearly how fully the psychological
-mechanisms of the wolf were in action. It is most
-instructive to find eminent men of science and
-philosophers bristling and baring their teeth with
-the rest, and would be another proof, if such were
-needed, of the infinite insecurity of the hold of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p177">{177}</span>
-reason in the most carefully cultivated minds when
-it is opposed by strong herd
-feeling.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc17" href="#fn17">17</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn17" href="#afnanc17">17</a>
-I have not included in these pages actual quotations from German
-authors illustrative of the national characteristics they so richly display.
-Such material may be found in abundance in the many books
-upon Germany which have appeared since the beginning of the war.
-The inclusion of it here would therefore have been superfluous, and
-would have tended perhaps to distract attention from the more general
-aspects of the subject which are the main objects of this study.
-During the process of final revision I am, however, tempted to add
-a single illustration which happens just to have caught my eye as
-being a representative and not at all an extreme example of the
-national arrogance I refer to above.
-</p>
-<p>
-In an article on “The German Mind” by Mr. John Buchan I find
-the following quotations from a Professor Werner Sombart, of Berlin:―
-</p>
-<p>
-“When the German stands leaning on his mighty sword, clad in steel
-from his sole to his head, whatsoever will may, down below, dance
-around his feet, and the intellectuals and the learned men of England,
-France, Russia, and Italy may rail at him and throw mud. But
-in his lofty repose he will not allow himself to be disturbed, and
-he will reflect in the sense of his old ancestors in Europe: <i>Oderint
-dum metuant</i>.”
-</p>
-<p>
-“We must purge from our soul the last fragments of the old ideal of a
-progressive development of humanity. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The ideal of humanity can
-only be understood in its highest sense when it attains its highest and
-richest development in particular noble nations. These for the time
-being are the representatives of God’s thought on earth. Such were the
-Jews. Such were the Greeks. And the chosen people of these centuries is
-the German people. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Now we understand why other peoples pursue us
-with their hatred. They do not understand us, but they are sensible of
-our enormous spiritual superiority. So the Jews were hated in antiquity
-because they were the representatives of God on earth” (“The German
-Mind,” <i>Land and Water</i>, November 6, 1915).</p>
-
-<p>These passages are almost too good to be true, and give one some of the
-pleasure of the collector who finds a perfect specimen. Here we have
-the gusto in childish and banal metaphor, the conception of the brutal
-conqueror’s state as permanently blissful—the colonizing principle
-of Prussia—the naïve generalizations from history, the confident
-assumption of any characteristic which appears desirable in morals or
-religion, the impenetrable self-esteem, and I think we should add the
-intense and honest conviction.
-</p>
-<p>
-If we judge from the standpoint of our own feelings and ideals such
-utterances as these, we cannot ignore the maniacal note in them, and
-we seem forced to assume some actually lunatic condition in the German
-people. Indeed, this is a conclusion which Mr. Buchan in the article
-from which I quote does not hesitate definitely and persuasively to
-draw.
-</p>
-<p>
-When we remember, however, that the definition of insanity is
-necessarily a statistical one, that in the last analysis we can but
-say that a madman is a man who behaves differently from the great bulk
-of his neighbours, we find that to describe a nation as mad—true as
-it may be in a certain sense—leaves us without much addition to our
-knowledge. In so far, however, as it impresses upon us the fact that
-some of that nation’s mental processes are fundamentally different
-from our own it is a useful conception. The statesman will do well to
-carry the analysis a stage farther. The ravings of a maniac do not
-help us much in forecasting his behaviour, the howlings of a pack of
-wolves, equally irrational, equally harsh, even, in the original sense,
-equally lunatic, betray to us with whom we have to deal, betray their
-indispensable needs, their uncontrollable passions, the narrow path of
-instinct in which they are held, enable us to foresee, and,
-foreseeing, to lay our plans.</p></div>
-
-<p>It is important, however, not to judge the
-functional value of these phenomena of herd arrogance
-and herd irritability and convulsive rage from
-the point of view of nations of the socialized
-gregarious type such as ourselves. To us they would
-be disturbants of judgment, and have no corresponding
-emotional recompense. In the wolf pack,
-however, they are indigenous, and represent a normal
-mechanism for inciting national enthusiasm and
-unity. The wolf, whose existence depends on the
-daily exercise of pursuit and slaughter, cannot afford
-<span class="xxpn" id="p178">{178}</span>
-to be open to external appeals and criticisms, must
-be supremely convinced of his superiority and that
-whoever dies he must live, and must be easily stimulated
-to the murderous rages by which he wins
-his food.</p>
-
-<p>Another difficulty in the understanding of the
-German mind is its behaviour with regard to influencing
-non-German opinion. There can be no
-doubt that it desires intensely to create impressions
-<span class="xxpn" id="p179">{179}</span>
-favourable to itself, not merely for the sake of
-practical advantages in conducting the war, but also
-because of the desire for sympathy. In considering
-the latter motive it is important that one’s
-attention should not be too much attracted by the
-comic aspects of the searchings of heart, publicly
-indulged by Germans, as to why they are not
-regarded with a more general and sincere affection,
-and of the answers which they themselves have
-furnished to this portentous problem. That they
-are too modest, too true, too self-obliterating, too
-noble, too brave, and too kind are answers the
-psychological significance of which should not be
-altogether lost in laughter. That they are honest
-expressions of belief cannot be doubted; indeed,
-there is strong theoretical reason to accept them
-as such, when we remember the
-fabulous&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc18" href="#fn18">18</a> impenetrability
-of lupine herd suggestion. In default of
-such an explanation they seem to be utterly incomprehensible.</p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn18" href="#afnanc18">18</a>
-The use of this adjective may perhaps call to mind how
-often the wolf has appeared in fable in just this mood. Usually,
-however, the fabulist—being of the unsympathetic socialized type—has
-ascribed the poor creature’s yearnings to hypocrisy.</p></div>
-
-<p>In her negotiations with other peoples, and her
-estimates of national character, Germany shows the
-characteristic features of her psychological type in
-a remarkable way. It appears to be a principal
-thesis of hers that altruism is, for the purposes of
-the statesman, non-existent, or if it exists is an
-evidence of degeneracy and a source of weakness.
-The motives upon which a nation acts are, according
-to her, self-interest and fear, and in no particular
-has her “strangeness” been more fully shown than
-in the frank way in which she appeals to both,
-either alternately or together.</p>
-
-<p>This disbelief in altruism, and over-valuation of
-fear and self-interest, seem to be regarded by her
-<span class="xxpn" id="p180">{180}</span>
-as evidence of a fearless and thorough grasp of
-biological truth, and are often fondly referred to
-as “true German objectivity” or the German “sense
-for reality.” How grossly, in fact, they conflict with
-the biological theory of gregariousness is clear
-enough. It is interesting that the German negotiators
-have been almost uniformly unsuccessful in
-imposing their wishes on States in which the
-socialized type of gregariousness is highly developed—Italy,
-the United States—and have succeeded with
-barbarous peoples of the lupine type, with the Turk,
-whose “objectivity” and appetite for massacre
-remain ever fresh, patriarch among wolves as he is,
-with Bulgaria, the wolf of the second Balkan War.</p>
-
-<p>There is strong reason to believe that defective
-insight into the minds of others is one of the chief
-disadvantages of the aggressive as compared with
-the socialized type of gregariousness. This disadvantage
-is so great, and yet so deeply inherent,
-as to justify the belief that the type is the most
-primitive of those now surviving, and that its
-present resuscitation in man is a phenomenon which
-will prove to be no more than transient.</p>
-
-<p>It would be of little value to enumerate the well-known
-instances in which failure of insight, and
-ignorance of the psychology of the herd, has been
-misleading or disadvantageous to Germany. It is
-relevant, however, to note the superb illustration
-of psychological principle which is afforded by the
-relations of Germany to England during the last
-fifteen years. That England was the great obstacle
-to indefinite expansion was clearly understood by
-those whom the conception of a consciously directed
-and overwhelmingly powerful German Empire had
-inspired. I have tried to show how great a conception
-this was, how truly in the line of natural
-evolution, how it marks an epoch even on the biological
-scale. Unfortunately for Germany, her social
-<span class="xxpn" id="p181">{181}</span>
-type was already fixed, with such advantages and
-defects as it possessed, and amongst them the
-immense defect of the lupine attitude towards an
-enemy—the over-mastering temptation to intimidate
-him rather than to understand, and to accept the easy
-and dangerous suggestions of hostility in estimating
-his strength.</p>
-
-<p>There is in the whole of human history perhaps
-no more impressive example of the omnipotence
-of instinct than that which is afforded by the
-reactions of Germany towards England. An intelligent,
-educated, organized people, directed consciously
-towards a definite ambition, finds its path
-blocked by an enemy in chief. Surely there are
-two principles of action which should at once be
-adopted: first, to estimate with complete objectivity
-the true strength of the enemy, and to allow no
-national prejudice, no liking for pleasant prophesying
-to distort the truth, and secondly, to guard
-against exasperating the enemy, lest the inevitable
-conflict should ultimately be precipitated by her
-at her moment.</p>
-
-<p>Both these principles the instinctive impulsions
-to which Germany was liable compelled her to
-violate. She allowed herself to accept opinions
-of England’s strength, moral and physical, which
-were pleasant rather than true. She listened eagerly
-to political philosophers and historians—the most
-celebrated of whom was, by an ominous coincidence,
-deaf—who told her that the Empire of England
-was founded in fraud and perpetuated in feebleness,
-that it consisted of a mere loose congeries of disloyal
-peoples who would fly asunder at the first touch of
-“reality,” that it was rotten with insurgency, senile
-decay and satiety, and would not and could not
-fight. Even if these things had been a full statement
-of the case, they must have been dangerous
-doctrines. They were defective because the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p182">{182}</span>
-observers were unaware that they were studying
-different instinctive reactions from their own, and
-were, therefore, deaf to the notes which might have
-put them on their guard.</p>
-
-<p>At the same time, Germany allowed herself to
-indulge the equally pleasant expression of her
-hostility with a freedom apparently unrestrained by
-any knowledge that such indulgences cannot be
-enjoyed for nothing. She produced in this country
-a great deal of alarm, and a great deal of irritation,
-an effect she no doubt regarded as gratifying, but
-which made it quite certain that sooner or later
-England would recognize her implacable enemy,
-though, inarticulate as usual, she might not say
-much about it.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Another feature of Germany’s social type, which
-has an important bearing on her moral strength,
-is the relation of the individual citizens to one
-another. The individual of the wolf pack is of
-necessity fierce, aggressive, and irritable, otherwise
-he cannot adequately fulfil his part in the major
-unit. Apparently it is beyond the power of Nature
-to confine the ferocity of the wolf solely to the
-external activities of the pack, as would obviously be
-in many ways advantageous, and to a certain extent
-therefore it affects the relations of members of
-the pack to one another. This is seen very well
-even in the habits of domesticated dogs, who are
-apt to show more or less suppressed suspicion and
-irritability towards one another even when well
-acquainted, an irritability moreover which is apt
-to blaze out into hostility on very slight provocation.</p>
-
-<p>Most external commentators on modern German
-life have called attention to the harshness which is
-apt to pervade social relations. They tell us of an
-atmosphere of fierce competition, of ruthless
-<span class="xxpn" id="p183">{183}</span>
-scandalmongering and espionage, of insistence upon minute
-distinctions of rank and title, of a rigid ceremonious
-politeness which obviously has little relation to
-courtesy, of a deliberate cultivation by superiors
-of a domineering harshness towards their inferiors,
-of habitual cruelty to animals, and indeed of the
-conscious, deliberate encouragement of harshness
-and hardness of manner and feeling as laudable
-evidences of virility. The statistics of crime, the
-manners of officials, the tone of newspapers, the
-ferocious discipline of the Army, and the general
-belief that personal honour is stained by endurance
-and purified by brutality are similar phenomena.</p>
-
-<p>Nothing in this category, however, is more
-illuminating than the treatment by Germany of
-colonies and conquered territories. To the English
-the normal method of treating a conquered country
-is to obliterate, as soon as possible, every trace
-of conquest, and to assimilate the inhabitants to
-the other citizens of the empire by every possible
-indulgence of liberty and self-government. It is,
-therefore, difficult for him to believe that the German
-actually likes to be reminded that a given province
-has been conquered, and is not unwilling that a
-certain amount of discontent and restiveness in the
-inhabitants should give him opportunities of forcibly
-exercising his dominion and resuscitating the glories
-of conquest. Although this fact has no doubt been
-demonstrated countless times, it was first displayed
-unmistakably to the world in the famous Zabern
-incident. Those who have studied the store of
-psychological material furnished by that affair, the
-trial and judgments which followed it, and the
-ultimate verdict of the people thereon, cannot fail
-to have reached the conclusion that here is exposed
-in a crucial experiment a people which is either
-totally incomprehensible, or is responding to the
-calls of herd instinct by a series of reactions almost
-<span class="xxpn" id="p184">{184}</span>
-totally different from those we regard as normal.
-When the biological key to the situation is discovered
-the series of events otherwise bizarre to
-the pitch of incredibility becomes not only intelligible
-and consistent, but also inevitable.</p>
-
-<p>The differences in instinctive social type between
-Germany and England are betrayed in many minor
-peculiarities of behaviour that cannot be examined
-or even enumerated here. Some of them are of
-little importance in themselves, though all of them
-are significant when the whole bulk of evidence
-to which they contribute a share is considered.
-Indeed, some of the less obviously important characteristics,
-by the very nicety with which they fulfil
-the conditions demanded by the biological necessities
-of the case, have a very special value as evidence
-in favour of the generalizations which I have
-suggested. I permit myself an illustration of this
-point. The use of war cries and shibboleths doubtless
-seems in itself an insignificant subject enough,
-yet I think an examination of it can be shown to
-lead directly to the very central facts of the
-international situation.</p>
-
-<p>Few phenomena have been more striking throughout
-the war than the way in which the German
-people have been able to take up certain cries—directed
-mostly against England—and bring them
-into hourly familiar and unanimous use. The phrase
-“God punish England!” seems actually to have
-attained a real and genuine currency, and to have
-been used by all classes and all ages as a greeting
-with a solemnity and gusto which are in no way the
-less genuine for being, to our unsympathetic eyes, so
-ludicrous. The famous “Hymn of Hate” had, no
-doubt, a popularity equally wide, and was used with
-a fervour which showed the same evidence of a
-mystic satisfaction.</p>
-
-<p>Attempts have been made to impose upon England
-<span class="xxpn" id="p185">{185}</span>
-similar watchwords with the object of keeping some
-of the direst events of the war before our eyes, and
-fortifying the intensity and scope of our horror.
-We have been adjured to “remember” Belgium,
-Louvain, the <i>Lusitania</i>, and latterly the name of
-an heroic and savagely murdered nurse. Horrible
-as has been the crime to which we have been
-recalled by each of these phrases, there has never
-been the slightest sign that the memory of it could
-acquire a general currency of quotation, and by that
-mechanism become a stronger factor in unity
-determination or endurance.</p>
-
-<p>An allied phenomenon which may perhaps be mentioned
-here is the difference in attitude of the
-German and the English soldier towards war songs.
-To the German the war song is a serious matter; it
-is for the most part a grave composition, exalted
-in feeling, and thrilling with the love of country;
-he is taught to sing it, and he sings it well, with
-obvious and touching sincerity and with equally
-obvious advantage to his morale.</p>
-
-<p>The attempt to introduce similar songs and a
-similar attitude towards them to the use of the
-English soldier has often been made, and exactly
-as often lamentably failed. On the whole it has
-been, perhaps, the most purely comic effort of the
-impulse to mimic Germany which has been in favour
-until of late with certain people of excellent aims
-but inadequate biological knowledge. The English
-soldier, consistently preferring the voice of Nature
-to that of the most eminent doctrinaire, has, to the
-scandal of his lyrical enemies, steadily drawn his
-inspiration from the music-hall and the gutter, or
-from his own rich store of flippant and ironic
-realism.</p>
-
-<p>The biological meaning of these peculiarities
-renders them intelligible and consistent with one
-another. The predaceous social animals in attack
-<span class="xxpn" id="p186">{186}</span>
-or pursuit are particularly sensitive to the encouragement
-afforded by one another’s voices. The pack
-gives tongue because of the functional value of the
-exercise, which is clearly of importance in keeping
-individuals in contact with one another, and in
-stimulating in each the due degree of aggressive
-rage. That serious and narrow passion tends
-naturally to concentrate itself upon some external
-object or quarry, which becomes by the very fact an
-object of hate to the exclusion of any other feeling,
-whether of sympathy, self-possession, or a sense of
-the ludicrous. The curious spectacle of Germans
-greeting one another with “God punish England!”
-and the appropriate response is therefore no accidental
-or meaningless phenomenon, but a manifestation
-of an instinctive necessity; and this explanation
-is confirmed by the immensely wide currency of the
-performance, and the almost simian gravity with
-which it could be carried out. It succeeded because
-it had a functional value, just as similar movements
-in England have failed because they have had no
-functional value, and could have none in a people of
-the socialized type, with whom unity depends on a
-different kind of bond.</p>
-
-<p>The wolf, then, is the father of the war song,
-and it is among peoples of the lupine type alone that
-the war song is used with real seriousness. Animals
-of the socialized type are not dependent for their
-morale upon the narrow intensities of aggressive
-rage. Towards such manifestations of it as concerted
-cries and war songs they feel no strong
-instinctive impulsion, and are therefore able to
-preserve a relatively objective attitude. Such
-cryings of the pack, seeming thus to be mere
-functionless automatisms, naturally enough come to
-be regarded as patently absurd.</p>
-
-<p>Examples of behaviour illustrating these deep
-differences of reaction are often to be met with in the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p187">{187}</span>
-stories of those who have described incidents of
-the war. It is recorded that German soldiers in
-trenches within hearing of the English, seeking to
-exasperate and appal the latter, have sung in an
-English version their fondly valued “Hymn of
-Hate.” Whereupon the English, eagerly listening
-and learning the words of the dreadful challenge,
-have petrified their enemies by repeating it with
-equal energy and gusto, dwelling no doubt with
-the appreciation of experts upon the curses of their
-native land.</p>
-
-<p>It would scarcely be possible to imagine a
-more significant demonstration of the psychological
-differences of the two social types.</p>
-
-<p>The peculiarities of a state of the wolfish type
-are admirably suited to conditions of aggression and
-conquest, and readily yield for those purposes a
-maximal output of moral strength. As long as such
-a nation is active and victorious in war, its moral
-resources cannot fail, and it will be capable of
-an indefinite amount of self-sacrifice, courage, and
-energy. Take away from it, however, the opportunities
-of continued aggression, interrupt the
-succession of victories by a few heavy defeats, and
-it must inevitably lose the perfection of its working
-as an engine of moral power. The ultimate and
-singular source of <i>inexhaustible</i> moral power in a
-gregarious unit is the perfection of communion
-amongst its individual members. As we have seen,
-this source is undeveloped in units of the aggressive
-type, and has been deliberately ignored by Germany.
-As soon, if ever, as she has to submit to a few unmistakable
-defeats in the field, as soon as, if it should
-happen, all outlets for fresh aggression are closed,
-she will become aware of how far she has staked
-her moral resources on continuous success, and will
-not be able for long to conceal her knowledge
-from the world.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p188">{188}</span></p>
-
-<p>That she herself has always been dimly aware
-of the nature of her strength—though not perhaps
-of her potential weakness—is shown by her steady
-insistence upon the necessity of aggression, upon
-maintaining the attack at whatever cost of life. This
-is a principle she has steadily acted upon throughout
-the war. It is exemplified by the whole series
-of terrible lunges at her enemies she has made. The
-strategic significance of these has, perhaps, become
-less as the moral necessity for them has become
-greater. France, Flanders, Russia, and the Balkans
-have in turn had to supply the moral food of victory
-and attack without which she would soon have
-starved. There is a quality at which the imagination
-cannot but be appalled in this fate of a great and
-wonderful nation, however much her alienation of
-herself from the instincts of mankind may have
-frozen the natural currents of pity. Panting with
-the exhaustion of her frightful blow at Russia, she
-must yet turn with who knows what weariness to
-yet another enterprise, in which to find the moral
-necessities which the Russian campaign was already
-ceasing to supply. It is to a similar mechanism that
-we must look to trace the ultimate source of the
-submarine and aircraft campaigns against England.
-Strategically, these proceedings may or may not
-have been regarded hopefully; possibly they were
-based on a definite military plan, though they do
-not to us have that appearance. Very probably
-they were expected to disorganize English morale.
-Behind them both, however, whether consciously or
-not, was the moral necessity to do something against
-England. This is indicated by the circumstances
-and the periods of the war at which they were
-seriously taken up. As both the submarine and
-the Zeppelin campaigns involve no great expenditure
-or dissipation of power, the fact that their
-value is moral rather than military, and concerned
-<span class="xxpn" id="p189">{189}</span>
-with the morale of their inventors rather than that
-of their victims, is chiefly of academic interest as
-throwing further light on the nature of Germany’s
-strength and weakness.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Its attitude towards discipline displays the German
-mind in a relation sufficiently instructive to merit
-some comment here. When Germany has been
-reproached with being contented to remain in what
-is, by comparison with other peoples, a condition
-of political infantilism, with allowing the personal
-liberty of her citizens to be restricted on all hands,
-and their political responsibility to be kept within
-the narrowest limits, the answer of the political
-theorists has generally contained two distinct and
-contradictory apologetic theses. It has been said
-that the German, recognizing the value of State
-organization, and that strict discipline is a necessary
-preliminary to it, consciously resigns the illusory
-privileges of the democrat in order to gain power,
-and submits to a kind of social contract which is
-unquestionably advantageous in the long run. The
-mere statement of such a proposition is enough to
-refute it, and we need give no further attention
-to an intellectualist fallacy so venerable and so
-completely inconsistent with experience. It is also
-said, however, that the German has a natural aptitude
-for discipline amounting to genius. In a sense
-a little less flattering than it is intended to have,
-this proposition is as true as that of the social contract
-is false. The aggressive social type lends
-itself naturally to discipline, and shows it in its
-grossest forms. The socialized type is, of course,
-capable of discipline, otherwise a State would be
-impossible, but the discipline that prevails in it is
-apt to become indirect, less harshly compulsory and
-more dependent on goodwill.</p>
-
-<p>It is perhaps natural that units within which
-<span class="xxpn" id="p190">{190}</span>
-ferocity and hardness are tolerated and encouraged
-should depend on a correspondingly savage method
-of enforcing their will. The flock of sheep has its
-shepherd, but the pack of hounds has its <i>Whips</i>.
-In human societies of the same type we should
-expect to find, therefore, a general acquiescence in
-the value of discipline, and a toleration of its enforcement,
-because, rather than in spite of, its being
-harsh. This seems to be the mechanism which
-underlies what is to the Englishman the mystery
-of German submission to direction and discipline.
-That an able-bodied soldier should submit to being
-lashed across the face by his officer for some trivial
-breach of etiquette—a type of incident common and
-well witnessed to—is evidence of a state of mind
-in <i>both</i> parties utterly incomprehensible to our feelings.
-The hypothesis I am suggesting would explain
-it by comparison with the only available similar
-phenomenon—the submission of a dog to a thrashing
-administered by his master. The dog illustrates
-very well that in a predaceous social animal
-the enforcement of a harsh and even brutal discipline
-is not only a possible but also a perfectly satisfactory
-procedure in the psychological sense. That
-other common victim of man’s brutality—the horse—provides
-an interesting complement to the proposition
-by showing that in a protectively social animal
-a savage enforcement of discipline is psychologically
-unsatisfactory. It seems justifiable, therefore, to
-conclude that the aggressive gregariousness of the
-Germans is the instinctive source of the marvellous
-discipline of their soldiers, and the contribution it
-makes to their amazing bravery. It must not be
-taken as any disrespect for that wonderful quality,
-but as a desire to penetrate as far as possible into
-its meaning, that compels one to point out that
-the theoretical considerations I have advanced are
-confirmed by the generally admitted dependence of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p191">{191}</span>
-the German soldier on his officers and the at least
-respectably attested liability he shows to the indulgence
-of an inhuman savagery towards any one who
-is not his master by suggestion or by force of arms.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">In the attempt I have made to get some insight
-into the German mind, and to define the meaning
-of its ideals, and needs, and impulses in biological
-terms, I have had to contend with the constant bias
-one has naturally been influenced by in discussing
-a people not only intensely hostile, but also animated
-by what I have tried to show is an alien type of
-the social habit. Nevertheless, there seem to be
-certain broad conclusions which may be usefully
-recalled in summary here as constituting reasonable
-probabilities. My purpose will have been
-effected if these are sufficiently consistent to afford
-a point of view slightly different from the customary
-one, and yielding some practical insight into the
-facts.</p>
-
-<p>Germany presents to the biological psychologist
-the remarkable paradox of being in the first place
-a State consciously directed towards a definite series
-of ideals and ambitions, and deliberately organized
-to obtain them, and in the second place a State in
-which prevails a primitive type of the gregarious
-instinct—the aggressive—a type which shows the
-closest resemblance in its needs, its ideals, and its
-reactions to the society of the wolf pack. Thus
-she displays, in one respect, what I have shown
-to be the summit of gregarious evolution, and in
-another its very antithesis—a type of society which
-has always been transient, and has failed to satisfy
-the needs of modern civilized man.</p>
-
-<p>When I compare German society with the wolf
-pack, and the feelings, desires, and impulses of the
-individual German with those of the wolf or dog,
-I am not intending to use a vague analogy, but
-<span class="xxpn" id="p192">{192}</span>
-to call attention to a real and gross identity. The
-aggressive social animal has a complete and consistent
-series of psychical reactions, which will necessarily
-be traceable in his feelings and his behaviour,
-whether he is a biped or a quadruped, a man or
-an insect. The psychical necessity that makes the
-wolf brave in a massed attack is the same as that
-which makes the German brave in a massed attack;
-the psychical necessity which makes the dog submit
-to the whip of his master and profit by it makes
-the German soldier submit to the lash of his officer
-and profit by it. The instinctive process which
-makes the dog among his fellows irritable, suspicious,
-ceremonious, sensitive about his honour, and
-immediately ready to fight for it is identical in
-the German and produces identical effects.</p>
-
-<p>The number and minuteness of the coincidences
-of behaviour between the German and other aggressive
-social species, the number and precision of
-the differences between the German and the other
-types of social animals make up together a body
-of evidence which is difficult to ignore.</p>
-
-<p>Moreover, we see Germany compelled to submit
-to disadvantages, consequent upon her social type,
-which, we may suppose, she would have avoided
-had they not been too deeply ingrained for even
-her thoroughness to remove. Thus she is unable
-to make or keep friends amongst nations of the
-socialized type; her instinctive valuation of fear
-as a compelling influence has allowed her to indulge
-the threatenings and warlike gestures which have
-alienated all the strong nations, and intimidated
-successfully only the weak—England, for example,
-is an enemy entirely of her own making; she
-has been forced to conduct the war on a plan
-of ceaseless and frightfully costly aggression,
-because her morale could have survived no other
-method.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p193">{193}</span></p>
-
-<p>The ultimate object of science is foresight. It
-may fairly be asked, therefore, supposing these
-speculations to have any scientific justification, what
-light do they throw on the future? It would be
-foolish to suppose that speculations so general can
-yield, in forecasting the future, a precision which
-they do not pretend to possess. Keeping, however,
-to the level of very general inference, two
-observations may be hazarded.</p>
-
-<p>First, the ultimate destiny of Germany cannot
-be regarded as very much in doubt. If we are
-content to look beyond this war, however it may
-issue, and take in a longer stretch of time, we can
-say with quite a reasonable degree of assurance
-that Germanic power, of the type we know and fear
-to-day, is impermanent. Germany has left the path
-of natural evolution, or rather, perhaps, has never
-found it. Unless, therefore, her civilization undergoes
-a radical change, and comes to be founded on
-a different series of instinctive impulses, it will
-disappear from the earth. All the advantages she
-has derived from conscious direction and organization
-will not avail to change her fate, because
-conscious direction is potent only when it works
-hand in hand with Nature, and its first task—which
-the directors of Germany have neglected—is to find
-out the path which man must follow.</p>
-
-<p>Secondly, a word may be ventured about the
-war in so far as the consideration of Germany alone
-can guide us. As I have tried to show, her morale
-is more rigidly conditioned than that of her
-opponents. They have merely to maintain their
-resistance, to do which they have certain psychological
-advantages, and they must win. She must
-continue aggressive efforts, and if these can be held
-by her enemies—not more—she must go on galvanizing
-her weary nerves until they fail to respond. I
-am not for a moment venturing to suppose myself
-<span class="xxpn" id="p194">{194}</span>
-competent to give the slightest hint upon the conduct
-of the war; I am merely pointing out what I regard
-as a psychological fact. Whether it has any
-practical military value is not in my province to
-decide.</p>
-
-<p>If one claimed the liberty of all free men, to have
-over and above considered judgment a real guess,
-one would be inclined to venture the opinion
-that, however well things go with the enemies of
-Germany, there will not be much fighting on
-German soil.</p>
-
-<p>The proposition that the strength and weakness
-of Germany are rigidly conditioned by definite and
-ascertainable psychological necessities is, if it is
-valid, chiefly of interest to the strategist and those
-who are responsible for the general lines of the
-campaign against her. We may well, however, ask
-whether psychological principle yields any hint of
-guidance in the solution of the further and equally
-important problem of how her enemies are to secure
-and render permanent the fruits of the victory upon
-which they are resolved.</p>
-
-<p>This problem has already been the subject of a
-good deal of controversy, which is likely to increase
-as the matter comes more and more into the field of
-practical affairs.</p>
-
-<p>Two types of solution have been expounded which,
-apart from what inessential agreement they may
-show in demanding the resurrection of such small
-nations as Germany has been able to assassinate,
-differ profoundly in the treatment they propose for
-the actual enemy herself. Both profess to be based
-upon the desire for a really permanent peace, and the
-establishment of a truly stable equilibrium between
-the antagonists. It is upon the means by which this
-result is to be secured that differences arise.</p>
-
-<p>The official solution, and that almost universally
-accepted by the bulk of the people, insists that the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p195">{195}</span>
-“military domination of Prussia,” “German militarism,”
-or the “German military system” as it is
-variously phrased, must be wholly and finally
-destroyed. This doctrine has received many interpretations.
-In spite, however, of criticism by moderates
-on the one hand and by unpractically ferocious
-root-and-branch men on the other, it seems to
-remain—significantly enough—an expression of
-policy which the common man feels for the time to
-be adequate.</p>
-
-<p>The most considerable criticism has come from
-the small class of accomplished and intellectual
-writers who from their pacifist and “international”
-tendencies have to some extent been accused, no
-doubt falsely, of being pro-German in the sense
-of anti-English. The complaint of this school
-against the official declaration of policy is, that it
-does not disclose a sufficiently definite object or the
-means by which this object is to be attained. We
-are told that as a nation we do not know what we
-are fighting for, and, what amounts to the same
-thing, that we cannot attain the object we profess
-to pursue by the exercise of military force however
-drastically it may be applied. We are warned
-that we should seek a “reasonable” peace and
-one which by its moderation would have an
-educative effect upon the German people, that to
-crush and especially in any way to dismember the
-German Empire would confirm its people in their
-belief that this war is a war of aggression by
-envious neighbours, and make revenge a national
-aspiration.</p>
-
-<p>Such criticism has not always been very effectually
-answered, and the generally current feeling has
-proved disconcertingly inarticulate in the presence
-of its agile and well-equipped opponents. Indeed,
-upon the ordinary assumptions of political debate,
-it is doubtful whether any quite satisfactory answer
-<span class="xxpn" id="p196">{196}</span>
-can be produced. It is just, however, these very
-assumptions which must be abandoned and replaced
-by more appropriate psychological principles when
-we are trying to obtain light upon the relations of
-two peoples of profoundly different social type and
-instinctive reaction. The common man seems to
-be dimly aware of this difference though he cannot
-define it; the intellectual of what, for want of a
-better term, I may call the pacifist type in all its
-various grades, proceeds upon the assumption that
-no such difference exists. Much as one must respect
-the courage and capacity of many of these latter,
-one cannot but recognize that their conceptions,
-however logical and however ingenious, lack the
-invigorating contact with reality which the instinctive
-feelings of the common man have not altogether
-failed to attain.</p>
-
-<p>Let us now consider what guidance in the solution
-of the problem can be got from a consideration
-of the peculiarities of the social type which the
-Germans of the present day so characteristically
-present.</p>
-
-<p>Regarded from this point of view, the war is seen
-to be directed against a social type which, when
-endowed with the technical resources of modern
-civilization, is, and must continue to be, a dangerous
-anachronism. A people of the aggressive social
-habit can never be in a state of stable equilibrium
-with its neighbours. The constitution of its society
-presents a rigid barrier to smooth and continuous
-internal integration; its energy, therefore, must be
-occupied upon essentially, though not always superficially,
-external objects, and its history will necessarily
-be made up of alternating periods of
-aggression and periods of preparation. Such a
-people has no conception of the benign use of power.
-It must regard war as an end in itself, as the summit
-of its national activities, as the recurring apogee
-<span class="xxpn" id="p197">{197}</span>
-of its secular orbit; it must regard peace as a
-necessary and somewhat irksome preparation for war
-in which it may savour reminiscently the joys of
-conquest by dragooning its new territories and
-drastically imposing upon them its national type.
-This instinctive insistence upon uniformity makes
-every conquest by such a people an impoverishment
-of the human race, and makes the resistance of
-such aggression an elementary human duty.</p>
-
-<p>In every particular Germany has proved true to
-her social type, and every detail of her history for
-the last fifty years betrays the lupine quality of
-her ideals and her morals.</p>
-
-<p>We have seen that in all gregarious animals
-the social instinct must follow one of three principal
-types, each of which will produce a herd having
-special activities and reactions. The major units
-of the human species appear limited to a similar
-number of categories, but it is probable that
-the perpetuation of a given type in a given herd
-is not chiefly a matter of heredity in the individual.
-The individual is gregarious by inheritance;
-the type according to which his gregarious
-reactions are manifested is not inherited, but will
-depend upon the form current in the herd to which
-he belongs, and handed down in it from generation
-to generation. Thus it has happened that nations
-have been able in the course of their history to pass
-from the aggressive to the socialized type. The
-change has perhaps been rendered possible by the
-existence of class segregation of a not too rigid
-kind, and has doubtless depended upon a progressive
-intercommunication and the consequently
-developing altruism. The extremely rigid Prussian
-social system seems clearly to be associated with the
-persistence of the aggressive form of society.</p>
-
-<p>In considering the permanent deliverance of
-Europe from the elements in Germany for which
-<span class="xxpn" id="p198">{198}</span>
-there can be no possible toleration, we therefore
-have not to deal with characters which must be
-regarded as inherited in the biological sense. We
-have to deal rather with a group of reactions which,
-while owing their unity, coherence, and power to
-the inherited qualities of the gregarious mind, owe
-their perpetuation to organized State suggestion, to
-tradition, and to their past success as a national
-method.</p>
-
-<p>There can be no doubt that the success of the
-German Empire has consolidated the hold of the
-aggressive social type upon its people, and has
-guarded it from the eroding effects of increasing
-communication with other peoples and knowledge
-of the world. As I have already tried to show,
-the moral power of such peoples is intimately
-associated with the continuance of aggression and
-of success. The German Empire has had no experience
-of failure, and for this reason has been able
-to maintain its ideals and aspirations untouched by
-modern influences. It needs no psychological insight
-to foretell that if the result of this war can be in
-any way regarded as a success for Germany, she
-will be thereby confirmed in her present ideals,
-however great her sufferings may have been, and
-however complete her exhaustion. It must be remembered
-that this type of people is capable of
-interpreting facts in accordance with its prejudices
-to an almost incredible extent, as we have seen
-time and again in the course of the war. The
-proof that the aggressive national type is intolerable
-in modern Europe, if it can be afforded by
-force of arms, must therefore be made very plain,
-or it will have no value as a lesson. Proof of failure
-adequate to convince a people of the socialized type
-might be quite inadequate to convince a people
-of the lupine type in whom, from the nature of the
-case, mental resistiveness is so much more
-<span class="xxpn" id="p199">{199}</span>
-impenetrable. This is the psychological fact of which
-the statesmen of Europe will have to be, above
-all things, aware when questions of peace come
-seriously to be discussed, for otherwise they will
-risk the loss of all the blood and treasure which
-have been expended without any corresponding gain
-for civilization.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">We have
-been warned that to “humiliate” Germany
-will merely be to set her upon the preparation
-of vengeance, and to confirm her belief in the
-supreme value of military strength. This opinion
-affects to be based on a knowledge of human nature,
-but its pretensions are not very well founded. The
-passion of revenge is habitually over-estimated as
-a motive—possibly through the influence of the
-novelists and playwrights to whom it is so useful.
-When we examine man’s behaviour objectively we
-find that revenge, however deathless a passion it
-is vowed to be at emotional moments, is in actual
-life constantly having to give way to more urgent
-and more recent needs and feelings. Between
-nations there is no reason to suppose that it has
-any more reality as a motive of policy, though it
-perhaps has slightly more value as a consolatory
-pose.</p>
-
-<p>It is curious that the naïve over-estimation of
-the revenge ideal should have been uninfluenced by
-so obvious an example as the relations of France
-and Germany. In 1870 the former was “humiliated”
-with brutal completeness and every element
-of insult. She talked of revenge, as she could
-scarcely fail to do, but she soon showed that her
-grasp on reality was too firm to allow her policy
-to be moved by that childish passion. Characteristically,
-it was the victorious aggressor who believed
-in her longing for revenge, and who at length
-attacked her again.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p200">{200}</span></p>
-
-<p>A psychological hint of great value may be obtained
-from our knowledge of those animals whose
-gregariousness, like that of the Germans, is of the
-aggressive type. When it is thought necessary to
-correct a dog by corporal measures, it is found
-that the best effect is got by what is rather callously
-called a “sound” thrashing. The animal must
-be left in no doubt as to who is the master, and
-his punishment must not be diluted by hesitation,
-nervousness, or compunction on the part of the
-punisher. The experience then becomes one from
-which the dog is capable of learning, and if the
-sense of mastery conveyed to him is unmistakable,
-he can assimilate the lesson without reservation or
-the desire for revenge. However repulsive the idea
-may be to creatures of the socialized type, no sentimentalism
-and no pacifist theorizing can conceal
-the fact that the respect of a dog can be won by
-violence. If there is any truth in the view I have
-expressed that the moral reactions of Germany follow
-the gregarious type which is illustrated by the wolf
-and the dog, it follows that her respect is to be
-won by a thorough and drastic beating, and it is
-just that elementary respect for other nations, of
-which she is now entirely free, which it is the duty
-of Europe to teach her. If she is allowed to escape
-under conditions which in any way can be sophisticated
-into a victory, or, at any rate, not a defeat,
-she will continue to hate us as she continued to hate
-her victim France.</p>
-
-<p>To the politician, devoted as he necessarily is to
-the exclusively human point of view, it may seem
-fantastic and scandalous to look for help in international
-policy to the conduct of dogs. The gulf
-between the two fields is not perhaps so impassably
-profound as he would like to think, but, however
-that may be, the analogy I have drawn is not unsupported
-by evidence of a more respectable kind.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p201">{201}</span>
-The susceptibility of the individual German to a
-harsh and even brutally enforced discipline is well
-known. The common soldier submits to be beaten
-by his sergeant, and is the better soldier for it;
-both submit to the bullying of their officer
-apparently also with profit; the common student
-is scarcely less completely subject to his professor,
-and becomes thereby a model of scientific excellence;
-the common citizen submits to the commands
-of his superiors, however unreasonably
-conceived and insultingly conveyed, and becomes
-a model of disciplined behaviour; finally the head
-of the State, combining the most drastic methods
-of the sergeant, the professor, and the official, wins
-not merely a slavish respect, but a veritable apotheosis.</p>
-
-<p>Germany has shown unmistakably the way to her
-heart; it is for Europe to take it.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">E<b>NGLAND</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">AGAINST</span>
- <span class="smcap">G<b>ERMANY—</b>E<b>NGLAND.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-
-<p>It is one of the most impressive facts about the
-war, that while Germany is the very type of a
-perfected aggressive herd, England is perhaps the
-most complete example of a socialized herd.
-Corresponding with this biological difference is the
-striking difference in their history. Germany has
-modelled her soul upon the wolf’s, and has rushed
-through the possibilities of her archetype in fifty
-feverish years of development; already she is a
-finished product, her moral ideal is fulfilled and
-leaves her nothing to strive for except the imposition
-of it upon the world. England has taken as her
-model the bee, and still lags infinitely far behind
-the fulfilment of her ideal. In the unbroken security
-of her land, for near a thousand years, she has
-leisurely, perhaps lazily, and with infinite slowness,
-pursued her path towards a social integration of an
-<span class="xxpn" id="p202">{202}</span>
-ever closer and deeper kind. She has stolidly,
-even stupidly, and always in a grossly practical
-spirit, held herself to the task of shaping a society
-in which free men could live and yet be citizens.
-She has had no theory of herself, no consciousness of
-her destiny, no will to power. She has had almost
-no national heroes, and has always been constitutionally
-frigid to her great men, grudging them
-the material for their experimentations on her people,
-indifferent to their expositions of her duty and her
-imperial destiny, granting them a chance to die for
-her with no more encouragement than an impatient
-sigh. She has allowed an empire to be won for
-her by her restless younger sons, has shown no
-gratification in their conquests, and so far from
-thrilling with the exultation of the conqueror, has
-always at the earliest moment set her new dominions
-at work upon the problem in which her wholly
-unromantic absorption has never relaxed. And after
-a thousand years she seems as far as ever from
-her goal. Her society is irregular, disorganized,
-inco-ordinate, split into classes at war with one
-another, weighted at one end with poverty, squalor,
-ignorance, and disease, weighted at the other end
-by ignorance, prejudice, and corpulent self-satisfaction.
-Nevertheless, her patience is no more
-shaken by what she is lectured upon as failure
-than was her composure by what she was assured
-was imperial success. She is no less bound by
-her fate than is Germany, and must continue her
-path until she reaches its infinitely remoter goal.
-Nations may model themselves on her expedients,
-and found the architecture of their liberty on the
-tabernacles she has set up by the wayside to rest in
-for a night—she will continue on her road unconscious
-of herself or her greatness, absent-mindedly
-polite to genius, pleasantly tickled by prophets with
-very loud voices, but apt to go to sleep under
-<span class="xxpn" id="p203">{203}</span>
-sermons, too awkward to boast or bluster, too
-composed to seem strong, too dull to be flattered,
-too patient to be flurried, and withal inflexibly
-practical and indifferent to dreams.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">No more perfect illustration of the characteristics
-of the two nations could be found than their attitude
-before the war. England the empiric, dimly conscious
-of trouble, was puzzled, restless, and uneasy
-in the face of a problem she was threatened with
-some day having to study; Germany, the theorist,
-cool, “objective,” conscious of herself, was convinced
-there was no problem at all.</p>
-
-<p>In studying the mind of England in the spirit of
-the biological psychologist, it is necessary to keep
-in mind the society of the bee, just as in studying
-the German mind it was necessary to keep in mind
-the society of the wolf.</p>
-
-<p>One of the most striking phenomena which
-observers of the bee have noticed is the absence of
-any obvious means of direction or government in
-the hive. The queen seems to be valued merely
-for her functions, which are in no way directive.
-Decisions of policy of the greatest moment appear,
-as far as we can detect, to arise spontaneously among
-the workers, and whether the future is to prove
-them right or wrong, are carried out without protest
-or disagreement. This capacity for unanimous
-decisions is obviously connected with the limited
-mental development of the individual, as is shown
-by the fact that in man it is very much more feeble.
-In spite of this, the unanimity of the hive is wonderfully
-effective and surprisingly successful. Speculators
-upon the physiology and psychology of bees
-have been forced—very tentatively of course—to
-imagine that creatures living in such intensely close
-communion are able to communicate to one another,
-and, as it were, to a common stock, such extremely
-<span class="xxpn" id="p204">{204}</span>
-simple conceptions as they can be supposed to
-entertain, and produce, so to say, a communal mind
-which comes to have, at any rate in times of crisis,
-a quasi-independent existence. The conception is
-difficult to express in concrete terms, and even to
-grasp in more than an occasional intuitive flash.
-Whether we are to entertain such a conception or
-are to reject it, the fact remains that societies of
-a very closely communal habit are apt to give the
-appearance of being ruled by a kind of common
-mind—a veritable spirit of the hive—although no
-trace of any directive apparatus can be detected.</p>
-
-<p>A close study of England gives the impression of
-some agency comparable with a “spirit of the hive”
-being at work within it. The impression is not
-perhaps to be taken as altogether fantastic, when we
-remember how her insular station and her long
-history have forced upon her a physical seclusion
-and unity resembling, though of course far less
-complete than, that of the hive. I am of course not
-unaware that disquisitions upon the national spirit
-are very familiar to us. These, however, are so
-loosely conceived, so much concerned with purely
-conventional personifications of quite imaginary
-qualities, that I cannot regard them as referring
-to the phenomenon I am trying to describe.</p>
-
-<p>The conception in my mind is that of an old and
-isolated people, developing, by the slow mingling
-and attrition of their ideas, and needs, and impulses,
-a certain deeply lying unity which becomes a kind
-of “instinct” for national life, and gives to national
-policy, without the conscious knowledge of any
-individual citizen, without the direction of statesmen,
-and perhaps in spite of them all, a continuity of
-trend, and even an intelligence, by which events may
-be influenced in a profoundly important way.</p>
-
-<p>The making of some such assumption, helped as
-it is by the analogy of the bee, seems to be
-<span class="xxpn" id="p205">{205}</span>
-necessary when we consider at all objectively the history
-of England and her Empire. She has done so
-much without any leading, so much in spite of her
-ostensible leaders, so often a great policy or a
-successful stroke has been apparently accidental.
-So much of her work that seemed, while it was
-doing, to be local and narrow in conception and
-motive displays at a distance evidences of design on
-the great scale. Her contests with Philip of Spain,
-with Louis XIV, with Napoleon, and the foundation
-of her Colonial Empire, would seem to be the
-grandiose conceptions of some supreme genius did
-we not know how they were undertaken and in
-what spirit pursued.</p>
-
-<p>It appears, then, that England has something
-with which to retort upon the conscious direction
-to which Germany owes so much of her strength.
-Among the number of embattled principles and
-counter principles which this war has brought into
-the field, we must include as not the least interesting
-the duel between conscious national direction on the
-one side and unconscious national will and knowledge
-on the other.</p>
-
-<p>It is quite outside my province to touch upon
-the diplomatic events which led up to the war. They
-seem to me to be irrelevant to the biological type
-of analysis we are trying to pursue. There can be
-no doubt at all that the ordinary consciousness of
-the vast majority of citizens of this country was
-intensely averse from the idea of war. Those
-who were in general bellicose were for the
-moment decidedly out of influence. Can we
-suppose, however, that the deep, still spirit of
-the hive that whispers unrecognized in us all had
-failed to note that strange, gesticulating object across
-the North Sea? In its vast, simple memory would
-come up other objects that had gone on like that.
-It would remember a mailed fist that had been
-<span class="xxpn" id="p206">{206}</span>
-flourished across the Bay of Biscay three hundred
-years ago, a little man in shining armour who had
-strutted threateningly on the other shore of the
-Channel, and the other little man who had stood
-there among his armies, and rattled his sabre in
-the scabbard. It had marked them all down in their
-time, and it remembered the old vocabulary. It
-would turn wearily and a little impatiently to this
-new portent over the North Sea. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Wise with
-the experience of a thousand years, it would know
-when to strike.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Such deeply buried combined national impulses
-as we are here glancing at are far removed from
-the influence of pacifist or jingo. Any attempt to
-define them must be a matter of guesswork and
-groping, in which the element of speculation is
-far in excess of the element of ascertained fact. It
-seems, however, that, as in the case of the bee,
-they concern chiefly actual decisions of crucial
-matters of policy. To put this suggestion in another
-form, we might say the spirit of the people makes the
-great wars, but it leaves the statesman to conduct
-them. It may make, therefore, a decision of incredible
-profundity, launch the people on the necessary
-course at the necessary moment, and then leave
-them to flounder through the difficulties of their
-journey as best they can. Herein is the contrast
-it presents with the German resource of conscious
-direction—superficial, apt to blunder in all the larger,
-deeper matters of human nature, but constant, alert,
-and ingenious in making immediate use of every
-available means and penetrating every department
-of activity.</p>
-
-<p>During the conduct of war it is only in the
-simplest, broadest matters that the spirit of the people
-can bring its wisdom to bear. One of the most
-striking manifestations of it has, for example, been
-<span class="xxpn" id="p207">{207}</span>
-the way in which it has shown a knowledge that the
-war would be long and hard. The bad news has been,
-in general, received without complaint, reproach, or
-agitation, the good news, such as it has been, with
-a resolute determination not to exult or rejoice.
-That so many months of a deadly war have produced
-no <i>popular</i> expression of exultation or dismay
-is a substantial evidence of moral power, and not
-the less impressive for being so plainly the work
-of the common man himself.</p>
-
-<p>Such manifestations of the spirit of the people
-are rare, and meet with very little encouragement
-from those who have access to the public. It is
-astonishing how absent the gift of interpretation
-seems to be. A few, a very few, stand
-out as being able to catch those whispers of immemorial
-wisdom; many seem to be occupied in
-confusing them with a harsh and discordant
-clamour of speech.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">If we are correct in our analogy of the bee and
-the wolf, England has one great moral advantage
-over Germany, namely, that there is in the structure
-of her society no inherent obstacle to perfect unity
-among her people. The utmost unity Germany can
-compass is that of the aggressive type, which brings
-with it a harsh, non-altruistic relation among individuals,
-and can yield its full moral value only
-during the maintenance of successful attack. England,
-on the other hand, having followed the
-socialized type of gregariousness, is free to integrate
-her society to an indefinite extent. The
-development of the altruistic relation among her
-individuals lies in her natural path. Her system of
-social segregation is not necessarily a rigid one,
-and if she can bring about an adequate acceleration
-of the perfectly natural consolidation towards
-which she is, and has slowly been, tending, she will
-<span class="xxpn" id="p208">{208}</span>
-attain access to a store of moral power literally
-inexhaustible, and will reach a moral cohesion which
-no hardship can shake, and an endurance which
-no power on earth can overcome.</p>
-
-<p>These are no figures of speech, but plain biological
-fact, capable of immediate practical application
-and yielding an immediate result. It must
-be admitted that she has made little progress towards
-this consummation since the beginning of the
-war. Leaders, including not only governing politicians
-but also those who in any way have
-access to public notice, tend to enjoin a
-merely conventional unity, which is almost functionless
-in the promotion of moral strength. It is
-not much more than an agreement to say we are
-united; it produces no true unity of spirit and no
-power in the individual to deny himself the indulgence
-of his egoistic impulses in action and in
-speech, and is therefore as irritating as it is useless.
-It is unfortunate that the education and circumstances
-of many public men deny them any opportunity of
-learning the very elementary principles which are
-necessary for the development of a nation’s moral
-resources. Occasionally one or another catches
-an intuitive glimpse of some fragment of the
-required knowledge, but never enough to enable
-him to develop any effective influence. For the
-most part their impulses are as likely to be destructive
-of the desired effect as favourable to it.
-In the past England’s wars have always been conducted
-in an atmosphere of disunion, of acrimony,
-and of criticism designed to embarrass the Government
-rather than, as it professes, to strengthen the
-country. It is a testimony to the moral sturdiness
-of the people, and to the power and subtlety of the
-spirit of the hive, that success has been possible
-in such conditions. When one remembers how
-England has flourished on domestic discord in
-<span class="xxpn" id="p209">{209}</span>
-critical times, one is tempted to believe that she derives
-some mysterious power from such a state, and that
-the abolition of discord might not be for her the
-advantageous change it appears so evidently to be.
-Consideration, however, must show that this hypothesis
-is inadmissible, and that England has won
-through on these occasions in spite of the handicap
-discord has put upon her. In the present war,
-tough and hard as is her moral fibre, she will need
-every element of her power to avoid the weariness
-and enfeeblement that will otherwise come upon
-her before her task is done.</p>
-
-<p>Throughout the months of warfare that have
-already passed no evidence has become public of
-any recognition that the moral power of a nation
-depends upon causes which can be identified, formulated,
-and controlled. It seems to be unknown
-that that domination of egoistic impulses by social
-impulses which we call a satisfactory morale is
-capable of direct cultivation as such, that by it the
-resources of the nation are made completely available
-to the nation’s leaders, that without it every
-demand upon the citizen is liable to be grudgingly
-met or altogether repudiated.</p>
-
-<p>We are told by physicians that uninstructed
-patients are apt to insist upon the relief of their
-symptoms, and to care nothing for the cure of
-their diseases, that a man will demand a bottle of
-medicine to stop the pain of an ulcer in his stomach,
-but will refuse to allow the examination that would
-establish the nature of his disease. The statesman
-embarrassed by the manifestations of an imperfect
-morale seems to incline to a similar method. When
-he finds he cannot get soldiers at the necessary rate,
-he would invent a remedy for that particular
-symptom. When he has difficulties in getting one
-or another industrial class to suspend its charters
-in the interests of the State, he must have a new
-<span class="xxpn" id="p210">{210}</span>
-and special nostrum for that. When he would relax
-the caution of the capitalist or restrain the wastefulness
-of the self-indulgent, again other remedies must
-be found. And so he passes from crisis to crisis,
-never knowing from moment to moment what trouble
-will break out next, harassed, it is to be supposed,
-by the doubt whether his stock of potions and pills
-will hold out, and how long their very moderate
-efficiency will continue.</p>
-
-<p>None of these troubles is a disease in itself; all
-are evidences of an imperfect national morale, and
-any attempt to deal with them that does not reach
-their common cause will necessarily therefore be
-unsatisfactory and impermanent.</p>
-
-<p>The sole basis of a satisfactory morale in a people
-of the social type that obtains in England is a true
-national unity, which is therefore the singular and
-complete remedy for all the civil difficulties incident
-upon a great and dangerous war.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">It is
-impossible to form any guess whether England
-will keep to her traditional methods or will
-depart so far from them as to take a bold and
-comprehensive view of her present and her growing
-moral needs. A carefully conceived and daringly
-carried out organization of a real national unity would
-have no great difficulty in a country so rich in
-practical genius; it would make an end once for
-all of every internal difficulty of the State, and
-would convert the nation into an engine of war
-which nothing could resist.</p>
-
-<p>The more probable and the characteristic event
-will be a mere continuation in the old way. It will
-exemplify our usual and often admirable enough
-contempt for theoretical considerations and dreams,
-our want of interest in knowledge and foresight,
-our willingness to take any risk rather than endure
-the horrid pains of thought.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p211">{211}</span></p>
-
-<p>When we remember how costly is our traditional
-method, how long and painful it makes the way,
-how doubtful it even makes the goal, it is impossible
-for the most philosophic to restrain a sigh for the
-needless suffering it entails, and a thrill of alarm
-for the dangers it gives our path, the darkness around
-us and ahead, the unimaginable end.</p>
-
-<hr class="hr34" />
-
-<p>To the student, the end of the chapter is a chance
-to turn from the study of detail and allow his mind
-to range through a larger atmosphere and over
-a longer sequence. Closing our small chapter, we
-also may look at large over the great expanse of the
-biological series in whose illimitable panorama the
-war that covers our nearer skies with its blood-red
-cloud is no bigger than a pin point. As we
-contemplate in imagination the first minute spot
-of living jelly that crept and hungered in the mud,
-we can see the interplay of its necessities and its
-powers already pushing it along the path at the end
-of which we stand. Inherent in the dot of magic
-substance that was no longer mere carbon, hydrogen,
-oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and a little phosphorus,
-was the capacity to combine with its fellows and to
-profit by the fellowship, however loose. In the
-slow process of time combination brought freedom
-which, just like ours, was freedom to vary and,
-varying, to specialize. So in time great States of
-cells grew up, their individual citizen cells specialized
-to the finest pitch, perfect in communion with one
-another, co-ordinate in all their activities, incorporated
-with the State.</p>
-
-<p>These new and splendid organizations, by the
-very fact of giving freedom to the individual cells,
-had lost it themselves. Still, they retained their
-capacity for combination, and where the need of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p212">{212}</span>
-freedom was greatest they found it again in a new
-combination on a bigger scale. Thus again was
-obtained freedom to vary, to specialize, to react.
-Over the world fellowships of all grades and almost
-all types of creatures sprang up. Specialization,
-communion, co-ordination again appeared on the new
-plane. It was as if Nature, to protect her children
-against herself, was trying to crowd as much living
-matter into one unit as she could. She had failed
-with her giant lizards, with the mammoth and the
-mastodon. She would try a new method which
-should dispense with gross physical aggregations,
-but should minister to the same needs and afford the
-same powers. The body should be left free, the
-mind alone should be incorporated in the new unit.
-The non-material nexus proved as efficient as the
-physical one had been. The flock, the herd, the
-pack, the swarm, new creatures all, flourished and
-ranged the world. Their power depended on the
-capacity for intercommunication amongst their
-members and expanded until the limits of this were
-reached. As long as intercommunication was limited
-the full possibilities of the new experiment were
-concealed, but at length appeared a creature in
-whom this capacity could develop indefinitely. At
-once a power of a new magnitude was manifest.
-Puny as were his individuals, man’s capacity for
-communication soon made him master of the world.
-The very quality, however, which gave him success
-introduced a new complication of his fate. His
-brain power allowed him to speak and understand
-and so to communicate and combine more effectively
-than any other animal; his brain power gave him
-individuality and egoism, and the possibility of
-varied reaction which enabled him to obey the voice
-of instinct after the fashion of his own heart. All
-combination therefore was irregular, inco-ordinate,
-and only very slowly progressive. He has even at
-<span class="xxpn" id="p213">{213}</span>
-times wandered into blind paths where the possibility
-of progressive combination is lost.</p>
-
-<p>Nevertheless the needs and capacities that were
-at work in the primeval amœba are at work in him.
-In his very flesh and bones is the impulse towards
-closer and closer union in larger and larger fellowships.
-To-day he is fighting his way towards that
-goal, fighting for the perfect unit which Nature has
-so long foreshadowed, in which there shall be a
-complete communion of its members, unobstructed
-by egoism or hatred, by harshness or arrogance or
-the wolfish lust for blood. That perfect unit will
-be a new creature, recognizable as a single entity;
-to its million-minded power and knowledge no
-barrier will be insurmountable, no gulf impassable,
-no task too great.</p>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p214">POSTSCRIPT OF 1919</h2>
-
-<h3><span class="smcap">P<b>REJUDICE</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
- <span class="smcap">T<b>IME</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smcap">W<b>AR.</b></span></h3></div>
-
-<p class="pfirst">With the exception of the two preliminary essays,
-the foregoing chapters were written in the autumn
-of 1915. As the chief purpose of the book was to
-expound the conception that psychology is a science
-practically useful in actual affairs, it was inevitable
-that a great deal of the exemplary matter by
-which it was attempted to illustrate the theoretical
-discussion should be related to the war of 1914–1918.
-Rich, however, as this subject was in
-material with which to illustrate a psychological
-inquiry, it presented also the great difficulty of
-being surrounded and permeated by prejudices of
-the most deeply impassioned kind, prejudices, moreover,
-in one direction or another from which no
-inhabitant of one of the belligerent countries could
-have the least expectation of being free. To yield
-to the temptation offered by the psychological richness
-of war themes might thus be to sacrifice the
-detachment of mind and coolness of judgment without
-which scientific investigation is impossible. It
-had to be admitted, in fact, that there were strong
-grounds for such epistemological pessimism, and
-it will perhaps be useful in a broad way to define
-some of these here.</p>
-
-<p>In normal times a modern nation is made up of
-a society in which no regard is paid to moral
-unity, and in which therefore common feeling is to
-<span class="xxpn" id="p215">{215}</span>
-a great extent unorganized and inco-ordinate. In
-such a society the individual citizen cannot derive
-from the nation as a whole the full satisfaction
-of the needs special to him as a gregarious animal.
-The national feeling he experiences when at home
-among his fellows is too vague and remote to
-call forth the sense of moral vigour and security
-that his nature demands. As has already been
-pointed
-out&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc19" href="#fn19">19</a> the necessary consequence is the
-segregation of society into innumerable minor
-groups, each constituting in itself a small herd,
-and dispensing to its members the moral energy
-that in a fully organized society would come from
-the nation as a whole. Of such minor herds some
-are much more distinct from the common body than
-others. Some engage a part only of the life of
-their members, so that the individual citizen may
-belong to a number of groups and derive such
-moral energy as he possesses from a variety of
-sources. Thus in a fully segregated society in
-time of peace the moral support of the citizen
-comes from his social class and his immediate circle,
-his professional associations, his church, his chapel,
-his trade union and his clubs, rather than directly
-from the nation in which he is a unit. Indeed,
-so far from looking to the nation at large for the
-fulfilment of its natural function of providing “all
-hope, all sustainment, all reward,” he is apt to regard
-it as embodied by the tax-gatherer, the policeman,
-and the bureaucrat, at its best remote and indifferent,
-at its worst hostile and oppressive.</p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn19" href="#afnanc19">19</a>
-Pp. <a href="#p137">137</a>,
-<a href="#p138">138</a> <i>supra</i>.</p></div>
-
-<p>The more distinct of these intra-national groups
-may not only be very fully isolated from the common
-body, but may be the seat of an actual corporate
-hostility to it, or rather to the aggregated minor
-groups which have come officially to represent it.
-When war breaks upon a society thus constituted
-<span class="xxpn" id="p216">{216}</span>
-the intense stimulation of herd instinct that results
-tends to break down the moral restrictions set up
-by segregation, to throw back the individual citizen
-on to the nation at large for the satisfaction of
-his moral needs, and to replace class feeling by
-national feeling. The apprehended danger of the
-given war is the measure of the completeness with
-which occurs such a solution of minor groups into
-the national body. The extent of such solution
-and the consequently increased homogeneity it
-effects in the nation will determine the extent to
-which national feeling develops, the degree to which
-it approaches unanimity, and consequently the vigour
-with which the war is defended and conducted.
-If a minor group has already developed a certain
-hostility to the common body and resists the solvent
-effect of the outbreak of war, it becomes a potential
-source of anti-national feeling and of opposition to the
-national policy. Surrounded as it necessarily will be
-by an atmosphere of hostility, its character as a herd
-becomes hardened and invigorated, and it can endow
-its members with all the gifts of moral vigour and
-resistiveness a herd can give. Thus we may say,
-that in a country at war <i>every</i> citizen is exposed
-to the extremely powerful stimulation of herd instinct
-characteristic of that state. In the individual who
-follows in feeling the general body of his fellows,
-and in him who belongs to a dissentient minority,
-the reactions peculiar to the gregarious animal will
-be energetically manifested. Of such reactions, that
-which interests us particularly at the moment is
-the moulding of opinion in accordance with instinctive
-pressure, and we arrive at the conclusion that
-our citizen of the majority is no more—if no less—liable
-to the distortion of opinion than our citizen
-of the minority. Whence we conclude that in a
-country at war <i>all</i> opinion is necessarily more or
-less subject to prejudice, and that this liability to
-<span class="xxpn" id="p217">{217}</span>
-bias is a herd mechanism, and owes its vigour to
-that potent instinct.</p>
-
-<p>It is undoubtedly depressing to have to recognize
-this universality of prejudice and to have to abandon
-the opinion sometimes held that the characteristics
-of herd belief are limited to the judgments of the
-vulgar. The selectness of a minority in no way
-guarantees it against the fallacies of the mob. A
-minority sufficiently unpopular is, in a sense, a mob
-in which smallness is compensated for by density.
-The moral vigour and fortitude which unpopular
-minorities enjoy are evidences of herd instinct in
-vigorous action; the less admirable liability to
-prejudice being a part of the same instinctive
-process is a necessary accompaniment. We may
-lay it down, then, as fundamental that all opinion
-among the members of a nation at war is liable
-to prejudice, and when we remember with what
-vehemence such opinion is pronounced and with
-what fortitude it is defended we may regard as
-at least highly probable that such opinion always
-actually is prejudiced—rests, that is to say, on
-instinct rather than reason. Now, it is common
-knowledge that in the present state of society
-opinion in a given country is always divided as to
-the justice of an actual war. All of it sharing the
-common characteristic of war opinion in being
-prejudiced, some will pronounce more or less clearly
-that the war is just and necessary, some will
-pronounce more or less clearly against that view;
-there will be a division into what we may call
-pro-national and anti-national currents of opinion,
-each accompanied respectively by its counterpart
-of what we may call anti-hostile and pro-hostile
-opinion. It is a significant fact that the relative
-development of pro-national and anti-national
-feeling varies according to the degree in which
-the given war is apprehended as dangerous. A
-<span class="xxpn" id="p218">{218}</span>
-war apprehended as dangerous produces a more
-complete solution of the minor herds of society
-into the common body than does a war not so
-regarded; in consequence there is a nearer
-approach to homogeneity, and pro-national opinion
-is far in excess of anti-national opinion, which, if
-recognizable, is confined to insignificant minorities.
-A war regarded as not dangerous produces a less
-complete solution in the common body, a less degree
-of homogeneity, and allows anti-national opinion,
-that is, doubt of the justice of the war and opposition
-to the national policy, to develop on a large
-scale. These phenomena have been clearly visible
-in the history of recent wars. The South African
-War of 1899–1902 was not apprehended as
-dangerous in this country, and in consequence,
-though pro-national opinion prevailed among the
-majority, anti-national opinion was current in a
-large and respectable minority. The war of 1914–1918,
-regarded from the first as of the greatest
-gravity, gave to pro-national opinion an enormous
-preponderance, and restricted anti-national opinion
-within very narrow limits. The Russo-Japanese
-War provided an excellent double illustration of
-these mechanisms. On the Russian side regarded as
-not dangerous, it left national opinion greatly
-divided, and made the conduct of the war confused
-and languid; on the Japanese side apprehended
-as highly dangerous, it produced an enormous preponderance
-of pro-national opinion, and made the
-conduct of the war correspondingly vigorous. In
-the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 a further
-point is illustrated. The essential factor in the
-stimulation of herd instinct by war is not the actual
-danger of a given war, but the apprehended danger
-of it. The Prussians were dangerous enough to
-France, but were not generally regarded as such
-by the French, and in consequence national
-<span class="xxpn" id="p219">{219}</span>
-homogeneity did not develop as it did on a later occasion
-in face of the same menace.</p>
-
-<p>If pro-national and anti-national opinion, if belief
-and doubt in the justice of a given war, vary in
-relation to a single predominantly important psychological
-factor—the apprehended danger to the nation
-of the war in question—it is obvious that the
-ostensible and proclaimed grounds upon which such
-opinion is founded are less decisive than is
-commonly supposed. Finding, as we do, that
-the way in which a people responds to the outbreak
-of war depends certainly in the main and
-probably altogether on a condition not necessarily
-dependent on the causes of the war, it is obvious
-that the moral justifications which are usually
-regarded as so important in determining the people’s
-response are in fact comparatively insignificant.
-This conclusion agrees with the observed fact that
-no nation at war ever lacks the conviction that its
-cause is just. In the war of 1914–1918 each of
-the belligerents was animated by a passion of
-certainty that its participation was unavoidable and
-its purpose good and noble; each side defended
-its cause with arguments perfectly convincing and
-unanswerable to itself and wholly without effect on
-the enemy. Such passion, such certitude, such
-impenetrability were obviously products of something
-other than reason, and do not in themselves
-and directly give us any information as to the
-objective realities of the distribution of justice
-between the two sides. The sense of rectitude is
-in fact and manifestly a product of mere belligerency,
-and one which a nation at war may confidently
-expect to possess, no matter how nefarious its
-objects may ultimately appear to be in the eyes
-of general justice. The fact that such a sense of
-rectitude is a universal and inevitable accompaniment
-of war, and as strong in a predatory and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p220">{220}</span>
-criminal belligerent as in a generally pacific one,
-gives us a convenient measure of the extent to
-which prejudice must prevail in
-warfare.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc20" href="#fn20">20</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn20" href="#afnanc20">20</a>
-It is important that it should be quite clear that we have
-been speaking here of the reaction of the general body of a nation to
-the occurrence of war, and not of the reasons for which a given war was
-undertaken. In England and in Germany the feeling of the people that
-the late war was just and necessary was equally intense and equally a
-direct consequence of the danger to the herd it represented. It was
-therefore a non-rational instinctive response without reference to
-objective justice in either case. Had the threat to the herd on either
-side seemed less grave, opinion as to the justice of the war would in
-that country have been correspondingly more divided. By her calculated
-truculence in the years before the war Germany—intending doubtless to
-intimidate a decaying people—had made it certain that when the threat
-to this country did come it should be apprehended at once as dangerous
-to the last degree, and had thus herself organized the practical
-unanimity of her chief enemy. All such reactions upon the outbreak of
-war are instinctively determined. It is the burden of the statesman
-that his decision in a crisis in favour of war <i>automatically</i> renders
-impossible <i>rational</i> confirmation by the people.</p></div>
-
-<p>We thus arrive at the discouraging conclusion
-that in a belligerent country all opinion in any
-way connected with the war is subject to prejudice,
-either pro-national or anti-national, and is very
-likely in consequence to be of impaired validity.
-Must we then conclude further that speculation upon
-war themes is so liable to distortion that reasoned
-judgments of any practical value are impossible?
-Now, it is guidance in just such a difficulty as
-this that a psychology having any pretensions to
-be called practical may fairly be expected to yield,
-and psychology does in fact provide certain broad
-precautionary principles, which, although by no
-means infallible guides, do profess to be able to
-keep within bounds the disturbing effects of
-prejudice on judgment and so render possible the
-not wholly unprofitable discussion even of matters
-the most deeply implicated by war-time passion.</p>
-
-<p>First among such principles is the recognition of
-the fact that prejudice does not display itself as
-such to direct introspection. One who is being
-<span class="xxpn" id="p221">{221}</span>
-influenced by prejudice will never be able to detect
-his biassed judgments by an apparent defect in
-their plausibility or by any characteristic logical
-weakness. Agreement or disagreement with common
-opinion will as such be no help, since prejudice
-infests minorities no less than majorities. To
-suppose that when one has admitted the liability
-to prejudice one can free oneself from it by a
-direct voluntary effort is a common belief and an
-entirely fallacious one. Such a task is far beyond
-the powers of the most fully instructed mind, and
-is not likely to be undertaken except by those who
-have least chance of success. Prejudice, in fact,
-is for the individual like the ether of the physicist,
-infinitely pervasive and potent, but insusceptible of
-direct detection; its presence is to be assumed as
-general, but it escapes before immediate search by
-introspection as the ether eludes the balance and the
-test-tube.</p>
-
-<p>Secondly, it is possible for the investigator,
-having admitted the existence of prejudice as a
-condition of thought, to recognize the general direction
-of its action in his own mind, to recognize,
-that is to say, whether the tone of it is pro-national
-or anti-national, and thus to obtain a certain orientation
-for his efforts to neutralize it. Having frankly
-recognized this general tendency in his thinking,
-he will be able to do something towards correcting
-it by making allowance for it in his conclusion
-as a whole. If his tendency of feeling is pro-national,
-he will say to himself of any judgment
-favourable to his country, “This is a conclusion
-likely to have been influenced by prejudice, therefore
-for all the precautions I may have taken in
-forming it, and whatever scientific care and caution
-I may have used, in spite even of its agreeable
-appearance of self-evident truth, I must regard its
-validity as subject to some subtraction before it
-<span class="xxpn" id="p222">{222}</span>
-can safely be made the basis for further speculation.”
-If his tendency of feeling is anti-national,
-he will have a similar task of attenuation to carry
-out upon the conclusions unfavourable to his country
-that he may reach, and will be prudent to make
-very drastic deductions in view of the supposed
-immunity to prejudice with which minorities are
-rather apt to assume the absence of vulgar approval
-endows
-them.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc21" href="#fn21">21</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn21" href="#afnanc21">21</a>
-It is perhaps of interest to note in passing that war-time opinion
-and prejudice are characteristically pro-national and anti-national,
-rather than anti-hostile and pro-hostile respectively. The impulse that
-might have led an isolated German to defend the English at the
-expense of his countrymen, or an isolated Englishman to defend the
-Germans at the expense of his countrymen, was in its psychological
-essence anti-national and animated by no love of the enemy; it was
-an instinctive revolt against his country, or rather the groups which
-in the process of social segregation had come to represent it. Such
-terms, therefore, as pro-German, and in another association pro-Boer,
-though doubtless convenient implements of abuse, were inexactly
-descriptive psychologically. “Anti-English” would have been more
-just, but immensely less effective, as vituperation, for the prejudice it
-was desired to decry was for the most part a hostility not to the nation,
-but to its official embodiment. Probably, however, it was the very
-element of injustice in the term pro-German that made it so
-satisfactory a vehicle for exasperated feeling.</p></div>
-
-<p>Finally, one who attempts to deal usefully with
-matters in which strong feeling is inevitable will
-do well, however thoroughly he may try to guard
-himself from the effects of prejudice, to bring his
-speculative conclusions into such form that they
-are automatically tested by the progress of events.
-Symmetry and internal consistency are unfortunately
-but too often accepted as evidences of objective
-validity. That the items of a series of conclusions
-fit into one another neatly and compose a system
-logically sound and attractive to the intellect gives
-us practically no information of their truth. For
-this a frequently repeated contact with external
-reality is necessary, and of such contacts the most
-thoroughly satisfactory one is the power to foretell
-the course of events. Foresight is the supreme
-<span class="xxpn" id="p223">{223}</span>
-test of scientific validity, and the more a line of
-argument is liable to deflection by non-rational
-processes the more urgent is the need for it constantly
-to be put into forms which will allow its
-capacity for foresight to be tested. This was the
-one great advantage amongst heavy handicaps
-enjoyed by those who ventured into speculation
-upon the international situation during the late war.
-Events were moving so quickly from crisis to crisis
-that it was possible for the psychologist to see
-his judgments confirmed or corrected almost from
-day to day, to see in the authentic fabric of reality
-as it left the loom where he had had any kind
-of foreknowledge, where he had been altogether
-unprepared, and where he had failed in foresight
-of some development that should have been within
-his powers.</p>
-
-<p>These three principles were those in accordance
-with which it was attempted to conduct the discussion
-in this book of topics connected with the
-war. The writer was aware that neither was he
-by nature or art immune to prejudice nor able
-by some miracle of will power to lay down passion
-when he took up the pen, and he admitted to
-himself with what frankness he could command
-the liability under which his conclusions would lie
-of having been arrived at under the influence of
-pro-national prejudice. He hoped, however, that
-a liberal allowance for the direction of his instinctive
-bias and a grateful use of the diurnal corrective
-of events might enable him to reach at any rate
-some conclusions not altogether without a useful
-tincture of validity.</p>
-
-<p>It was possible, moreover, to put certain conclusions
-in a form which the development of the
-war must confirm or disprove, and it may be interesting
-as a test of what was put forward as an
-essay in an essentially practical psychology briefly
-<span class="xxpn" id="p224">{224}</span>
-to review these theoretical anticipations in the light
-of what actually has happened.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGICAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">A<b>NTICIPATIONS</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>The hypothesis was put forward that in the
-German people the reactions in which the herd
-instinct was manifesting itself were in accordance
-with the type to be seen in the predaceous social
-animals rather than the type which seems to be
-characteristic of modern Western civilizations. The
-next step was naturally to inquire whether the known
-characters of what we called aggressive gregariousness
-were able to account for the observed German
-peculiarities in reaction, and then to indicate what
-special features we might expect to appear in
-Germany under the developing stress of war if
-our hypothesis was sound.</p>
-
-<p>Under the guidance of the hypothesis we found
-reason to believe that the morale of the German
-people was of a special kind, and essentially dependent
-for the remarkable vigour it then showed upon
-the possibility of continued successful aggression.
-This suggestion was borne out by the long series
-of offensive movements, increasing in weight and
-culminating in the spring of 1918, in the great
-attacks on which Germany broke herself. From
-the way in which these movements were announced
-and expected it became evident that during an
-enforced defensive the morale of Germany declined
-more rapidly than did that of her opponents. This
-was the essential confirmation of the psychological
-view we had put forward. Apart from all question
-of the strategic and merely military advantages of
-the offensive it was plain that Germany’s moral need
-for the posture of attack was peculiarly and characteristically
-great. That she continually and convincedly—though
-perhaps injudiciously—declared the
-war to be one of defence only, that she had
-<span class="xxpn" id="p225">{225}</span>
-everything to hope from disunion among her enemies
-and little to fear from disunion among her friends,
-that she was in assured possession of the most
-important industrial districts of France, that she
-had successfully brought into something like
-equilibrium the resistance to the effects of the
-blockade, and had proved like her animal prototypes
-only to be more fierce and eager when she
-was hungry—all of these strong objective reasons
-for fighting a defensive delaying war were over-whelmed
-by the crucially important requirement of
-keeping the aggressive spirit strung up to the highest
-pitch. The fighting spirit must be that of attack
-and conquest, or it would break altogether. Our
-hypothesis, therefore, enabled us to foresee that she
-would have to go on torturing her declining frame
-with one great effort after another until she had
-fought herself to a standstill, and then, if her enemies
-but just succeeded in holding her, her morale would
-begin to decline, and to decline with terrible abruptness.
-We were even able to regard it as probable
-that for all the talk of the war on the German
-side being defensive only, for all the passionate
-devotion to the Fatherland and the profound belief
-in the sanctity of its frontiers, as a matter of cold
-and dry reality, if it came to invasion, Germany
-would not be defended by its inhabitants.</p>
-
-<p>Another subject upon which the psychological
-method of inquiry professed to yield some degree
-of foresight was that—at that time—fruitful cause
-of discussion, the objects for which the enemies
-of Germany were fighting. Opinion at that time
-was much ruled by the conception of a Germany
-gradually forced back upon and beyond her
-frontiers, grim, implacable, irreconcilable, her
-national spirit energized and made resilient by
-humiliation, and clinging unconquerably to the
-thought of a resurrection of her glory through the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p226">{226}</span>
-faith of her sons. Under the influence of ideas of
-this romantic type, it was not always possible for
-opinion to be very precise upon what was to be
-made the object of the war in order to secure from
-Germany the safety of the civilizations opposed to
-hers. Psychologically, however, the moral condition
-of a beaten Germany seemed relatively easy
-to foretell. If the behaviour of other predaceous
-types was of any value as a guide, it was plain
-that a sound beating alone and in itself would
-produce all the effect that was needful. There
-could be no fear of the national morale being
-invigorated by defeat, but an enemy successfully
-invading Germany would necessarily find the one
-essential condition on which any subsequent security
-must be set up—the replacement of the aggressive
-and predaceous morale by complete moral
-collapse. These were the considerations that
-enabled one to say that considered psychologically
-the mere beating of Germany was the single object
-of the war. The completeness of the moral
-collapse which accompanied her beating seems to
-have been found remarkable and astonishing by
-very many, but can have been so only to those who
-had not interested themselves in the psychological
-aspects of the problem.</p>
-
-<p>In stating, in 1915, these conclusions as to the
-social type and moral structure of Germany and
-in formulating the indications they seemed to give
-of the course of future events, it was necessary to
-make considerable deductions from the precision
-and detail with which one made one’s small efforts
-at foresight in order to allow for the effects one’s
-pro-national bias may have had in deflecting judgment.
-Enough, however, was stated definitely to
-enable the progress of events very clearly to confirm
-or disprove the conclusions arrived at. The
-not inconsiderable correspondences between the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p227">{227}</span>
-theoretical considerations and the actual development
-of events is perhaps enough to suggest that the
-method of speculation used has a certain validity.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">In considering the psychological case of England
-we came to the conclusion that her morale depended
-on mechanisms different from those which were
-in action in Germany, and indicating that social
-development had in her followed a different type.
-We saw reason to suppose that this social type
-would be very much more resistant to discouragement
-and disaster than the aggressive type embodied
-in Germany, and that if England won the war it
-would be by virtue of the toughness of her nerve.
-The form of social organization represented by
-England was seen to contain a germ of strength
-not possessed by her enemy, an intensely resistant
-nucleus of moral power that underlay the immeasurable
-waste and the inextricable confusion of her
-methods. If the moral structure of Germany was
-of its kind fully developed, it was also primitive;
-if the moral structure of England was embryonic,
-it was also integrative and still capable of growth.
-If it was very obvious at that time how immensely
-responsive to intelligent and conscious direction the
-moral powers of England would have been, if it
-was obvious how largely such direction would have
-diminished the total cost of the war in time and
-suffering, if it was obvious that such direction would
-not, and almost certainly could not, be forthcoming,
-it was equally clear that the muddle, the mediocrity,
-the vociferation with which the war was being conducted
-were phenomena within the normal of the
-type and evolutionary stage of our society, and were
-not much more than froth on the surface of an
-invisible and unsounded stream.</p>
-
-<p>If one had been content to estimate the moral
-condition of England at that time by the utterance of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p228">{228}</span>
-all ordinary organs of expression—public speeches,
-leading articles and so forth—one could scarcely
-have failed to reach the gloomiest conclusions. So
-common were ill-will, acrimony, suspicion and
-intrigue, so often was apparent self-possession mere
-languor, and apparent energy mere querulousness,
-so strong, in fact, were all the ordinary evidences
-of moral disintegration that an actual collapse might
-have seemed almost within sight. As a matter
-of fact, from the very necessities of her social type,
-in England the organs of public expression were
-characteristically not representative of the national
-mood; probably far less than were those of Germany
-representative of the German mood. Thus it came
-about that the actual driving force—the will of
-the common man, as inflexible as it was inarticulate—remained
-intact behind all the ambiguous manifestations
-which went forth as the voice of England.
-This is the psychological secret of the socialized
-type of gregarious animal. As evolved in England
-to-day, this type cannot attain to the conscious
-direction of its destiny, and cannot submit to the
-fertilizing discipline of science; it cannot select its
-agents or justly estimate their capacity, but it
-possesses the power of evolving under pressure a
-common purpose of great stability. Such a common
-purpose is necessarily simple, direct, and barely
-conscious; high-flown imperialism and elaborate
-policies are altogether beyond its range, and it can
-scarcely accomplish an intellectual process more
-complex than the recognition of an enemy. The
-conviction that the hostility between England and
-Germany was absolute and irreconcilable, and the
-war a matter of national life and death, was just
-such a primitive judgment as could be arrived at,
-and it gave rise to a common purpose as stable
-as it was
-simple.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc22" href="#fn22">22</a>
-<span class="xxpn" id="p229">{229}</span></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn22" href="#afnanc22">22</a>
-There can be little doubt that national consciousness with
-regard to the war was very much less developed in this country than
-in Germany. The theory of his country’s purpose in the war was
-far less a matter of interest and speculation to the average Englishman
-than it was to the average German. The German was far more fully aware
-of the relation the situation bore to general politics and to history,
-and was much more preoccupied with the defence of his country’s case
-by rational methods and accepted principles, and he displayed from
-the first great faith in the value of a propaganda which should
-appeal to reason. Clumsy and futile as so much of this intellectual
-effort was ultimately seen to be, it did show that the interest in
-national affairs was more conscious and elaborate, and stood from the
-intellectual point of view at a higher level than it did in England.</p></div>
-
-<p>The relatively complex national consciousness that
-is necessary to evolve a positive movement of
-national expansion or a definite policy of colonization
-and aggrandisement seems to be hostile to
-the development of a common purpose of the most
-powerful kind. Thus we find moral vigour and
-stability attaining their greatest strength in a nation
-that has no definite theory of its destiny, and that
-is content to allow confusion of thought and vagueness
-of aim to be common and even characteristic
-in its public life. In such a people national consciousness
-is of the most elementary kind, and
-only the simplest conceptions can be effectively
-apprehended by it. Negative judgments are in
-general simpler than positive ones, and the simplest
-of all, perhaps, is the identification of an enemy.
-The history of England seems to show with remarkable
-constancy that the national consciousness has
-been in its most effective action limited to those
-elementary conceptions which have been simple and
-broad enough to manifest themselves in a common
-purpose of great strength and tenacity. England
-has, in fact, been made by her enemies. Rightly or
-wrongly, Philip of Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon,
-Germany, impressed themselves on the elementary
-consciousness of England as enemies, and excited
-in response a unity of purpose that was characteristically
-as immune from the effects of discouragement,
-disaster and fatigue as it was independent of
-reasoned political theory.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p230">{230}</span></p>
-
-<p>Each of these enemies, in contrast with England,
-had the definite consciousness of a more or less
-elaborate political aim, and some of them embodied
-principles or methods in advance of those which
-obtained in England in corresponding fields.
-Whatever loftiness of aim they had availed them
-no more than their respect for principle and the
-intellect, and they all came to regret the mostly
-inadvertent effect of their pretensions in exciting
-the hostility of a people capable of an essential
-moral cohesion. The power of England would
-seem to have resided almost exclusively in this
-capacity for developing under pressure a common
-purpose. The immense moral energy she has been
-able to put forth in a crisis has enabled her to
-inspire such leaders as she has needed for the
-moment, but she has been characteristically infertile
-in the production of true leaders who could impose
-themselves upon her efficiently. Thus among her
-great men, for one true leader, such as Oliver
-Cromwell, who failed, there have been a score
-of successful mouthpieces and instruments of her
-purpose, such as Pitt and Wellington. The vigour
-of her great moments has always been the product of
-moral unity induced by the pressure of a supposed
-enemy, and therefore it has always tended to die
-down when the danger has passed. As the greatness
-of her leaders has been less a product of
-their own genius than that of the moral stimulus
-which has reached them from the nation at large,
-when the stimulus has been withdrawn with the
-cessation of danger, these men have almost invariably
-come to appear in times of peace of a less
-dominating capacity than their performance during
-the stress of war might have indicated. The great
-wars of England have usually, then, been the affair of
-the common man; he has supplied the impulse that
-has made and the moral vigour that has conducted
-<span class="xxpn" id="p231">{231}</span>
-them, he has created and inspired his leaders and
-has endowed his representatives in the field and
-on the sea with their stern and enduring pugnacity.</p>
-
-<p>These conclusions have been confirmed by the
-way in which the war progressed and came to
-an end. The war became more and more fully a
-contest of moral forces until it ended in the unique
-event of a surrender practically unconditional that
-was not preceded by a total physical defeat.
-German morale proved throughout extremely sensitive
-to any suspension of the aggressive posture,
-and showed the unsuitability of its type in modern
-conditions by undergoing at the mere threat of
-disaster a disintegration so absolute that it must
-remain a classical and perfect example in the records
-of psychology. There can be no doubt that had
-there been among her enemies the least understanding
-of her moral type and state, her collapse
-could have been brought about with comparative
-ease at a much earlier date. English morale, on
-the other hand, seemed actually to be invigorated
-by defeat, and even remained untouched by the
-more serious trials of uninspired and mediocre
-direction, of ill-will, petty tyranny, and confusion.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">The confrontation in war of two types of social
-structure differing so radically and by such clearly
-defined characters as did Germany and England
-was, as has been already suggested, a remarkable
-instance of statecraft being forced into a region of
-very much greater reality than that in which it
-usually operates. The historical scale of events,
-with its narrow range, its reckoning by dynasties and
-parliaments, its judgments in terms of tribal censure
-and approbation, was found momentarily to march
-with the biological scale where events are measured
-by the survival or extinction of species, where time
-acquires a new meaning, and the individual man,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p232">{232}</span>
-however conspicuous historically, takes on the insect-like
-sameness of his fellows. Here was an experiment
-set out in Nature’s laboratory, and for the
-first time the issues were so narrowly focussed as
-to be within the apprehension of the very subjects
-of the research. The matter to be tested concerned
-the whole validity of gregariousness. Two types
-were confronted. In one the social habit had taken
-a form that limited the participation of the individual
-in the social unit; a rigid segregation of the
-society made it impossible to admit the moral equality
-of its members, and resulted in the activities of
-the social instinct being available solely through
-leadership; it was a led society where internal
-cohesion and integration were replaced by what
-we may call external cohesion—a migratory society
-developing its highest manifestations of the herd when
-it was being successfully led. In the other type the
-social habit had tended, however slowly and incompletely,
-towards the unlimited participation of the
-individual in the social unit. The tendency of the
-society was towards integration and internal cohesion;
-it was therefore unaggressive, refractory to leadership,
-and apt to develop its highest herd manifestations
-when threatened and attacked. The former
-enjoyed all the advantages of a led society. It
-was tractable, and its leaders could impose upon it
-a relative uniformity of outlook and a high standard
-of general training. The latter had no advantage
-save the potentiality—and it was little more—of
-unlimited internal cohesion. It was intractable to
-leadership, and in consequence knowledge and
-training were limited and extremely localized within
-it; it had no approach to unity of outlook, and
-its interests were necessarily concentrated on its
-internal rather than its external relations.</p>
-
-<p>If the former type proved the stronger, any progressive
-evolution of society in a direction that
-<span class="xxpn" id="p233">{233}</span>
-promised the largest extension of human powers
-would become very, improbable; the internal
-cohesion of social units would have appeared to
-be subject to limits, and the most hopeful prospective
-solution of human difficulties would have
-vanished. Conceivably accidental factors might
-have decided the issue of the experiment and left
-the principle still in doubt. As it happened, every
-element of chance that intruded went against the
-type that ultimately proved the stronger, and in
-the final decision the moral element was so conspicuously
-more significant than the physical that
-the experiment has yielded a result which seems
-to be singularly conclusive and
-unexceptionable.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc23" href="#fn23">23</a></p>
-
-<div class="dfootnote">
-
-<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn23" href="#afnanc23">23</a>
-Anxiety has frequently been expressed since the armistice
-of November, 1918, as to whether Germany has properly assimilated the
-lesson of her defeat, and undergone the desired change of heart. In
-the face of such doubts it is well to remember that there is another
-conclusion about the assimilation of which there need be no anxiety.
-It is at any rate clearly proved that Germany’s enemies were able to
-beat her in spite of all the disadvantages of exterior lines, divided
-counsels, divergent points of view and inadequate preparation. The
-prestige of invulnerability need never be allowed again to accumulate
-about a social group of the aggressive migratory type, and to sit like
-an incubus upon a terrorized world.</p></div>
-
-<p>The result of the experiment has been decisive,
-and it is still a possibility that the progressive
-integration of society will ultimately yield a medium
-in which the utmost needs of the individual and of
-the race will be reconciled and satisfied. Had the
-more primitive social type—the migratory, aggressive
-society of leadership and the pack—had this proved
-still the master of the less primitive socialized and
-integrative type, the ultimate outlook for the race
-would have indeed been black. This is by no
-means to deny that German civilization had a vigour,
-a respect for knowledge, and even a benignity within
-which comfortable life was possible. But it is to
-assert that it was a regression, a choice of the
-easy path, a surrender to the tamer platitudes of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p234">{234}</span>
-the spirit that no aggressive vigour could altogether
-mask. To live dangerously was supposed to be
-its ideal, but dread was the very atmosphere it
-breathed. Its armies could be thrown into hysterical
-convulsions by the thought of the <i>franc-tireur</i>, and
-the flesh of its leaders made to creep by such
-naïve and transpontine machinations as its enemies
-ambitiously called propaganda. The minds that
-could make bugbears out of such material were
-little likely to attempt or permit the life of arduous
-and desperate spiritual adventure that was in the
-mind of the philosopher when he called on his
-disciples to live dangerously.</p>
-
-<p>This great experiment was conducted under the
-very eyes of humanity, and the conditions were
-unique in this that they would have permitted the
-effective intervention of the conscious human will.
-As it happened the evolution of society had not
-reached a stage at which an informed and scientific
-statecraft was possible. The experiment, therefore,
-went through without any general view of the whole
-situation being attained. Had such been possible,
-there can be no doubt at all that the war could
-have been shortened enough to keep the world
-back from the neighbourhood of spiritual and even
-material bankruptcy in which it finds itself to-day.
-The armed confrontation of the two types, while
-it has yielded a result that may well fill us with
-hope, took place at a moment of human evolution
-when it was bound to be immensely expensive.
-Material development had far exceeded social
-development, mankind, so to say, had become clever
-without becoming wise, and the war had to be
-fought as a purely destructive effort. Had it come
-at a later stage of evolution, so great a mobilization
-of social power as the war caused might have been
-taken advantage of to unify the nation to a completely
-coherent structure which the cessation of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p235">{235}</span>
-the external stimulating pressure would have left
-firmly and nobly established.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">A<b>FTER</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
- <span class="smcap">W<b>AR.</b></span></h3>
-
-<p>The psychological situation left by the conclusion
-of the war is likely to attract an increasing amount
-of attention as time passes, and it may be of interest
-to examine it in the light of the principles that
-we have been making use of in dealing with the
-war.</p></div>
-
-<p>It is a fact fundamental in psychology that the
-state of war furnishes the most powerful of all
-stimuli to the social instinct. It sets in motion a tide
-of common feeling by the power of which union
-and energy of purpose and self-sacrifice for the
-good of the social unit become possible to a degree
-unknown under any other circumstances. The war
-furnished many instances of the almost miraculous
-efficacy of this stimulus. Perhaps the most effective
-example of all, even by the side of the steely
-fortitude of France and the adventurous desperation
-of England, was the fact that the dying Austrian
-Empire could be galvanized for four years into
-aggressive gestures lifelike beyond simulation.</p>
-
-<p>The effect of this great liberation of feeling was
-to supersede the precarious equilibrium of society
-by a state very much more stable. Before the war
-moral power had come to the individual chiefly
-from the lesser herds in which he took part, and
-but little from the nation as a whole. Society had
-the appearance of stability because the forces at
-work were relatively small in proportion to the
-inertia of the whole fabric. But the actual firmness
-of the structure was small, and the individual led
-a life emotionally thin and tame because the social
-feelings were localized and faint. With the outbreak
-of war the national unit became the source
-of moral power, social feeling became wide in its
-<span class="xxpn" id="p236">{236}</span>
-basis and strong in intensity. To the individual
-life became more intense and more significant, and
-in essence, in spite of horror and pain, better worth
-living; the social fabric, moreover, displayed a
-new stability and a capacity for resisting disturbances
-that would have effectually upset its
-equilibrium in time of peace. The art of government,
-in fact, became actually easier to practise, though
-it had a superficial appearance of being more
-difficult from the comparative rapidity with which
-the progress of events unmasked the quack.
-Successful practitioners were, it will be remembered,
-always ready to call attention to the unprecedented
-difficulty of their labours, while shrewdly
-enough profiting by the fact that in the actual
-tasks of government—the creation of interest, the
-development of unity and the nourishing of impulse—their
-difficulties had wholly disappeared.</p>
-
-<p>With the cessation of war this great stream of
-moral power began rapidly to dry up at its source.
-Thinly continuing to trickle for a time as it were
-from habit, it is already almost dry. There is
-doubtless a tendency among responsible personages
-to persuade themselves that it still flows with all
-the power that made the war a veritable golden
-age of government. Such a persuasion is natural
-and fully to be expected. It would be difficult
-for those who have directed with whatever want of
-skill a power so great to avoid coming in time
-to be a little confused between the direction of
-power and the production of it, and to think that
-they still command the moral resources which war
-gave so abundantly. Such a mistake is likely to
-prove one of the elements of danger, though
-perhaps only a minor one, in the present situation.</p>
-
-<p>Western society, with perhaps even Western civilization,
-is in a situation of great interest to the
-sociologist, and probably also of some considerable
-<span class="xxpn" id="p237">{237}</span>
-danger. There are certain chief elements of
-danger which we may attempt to define.</p>
-
-<p>First, with the end of the war the mental orientation
-of the individual has undergone a great
-change. National feeling is no longer able to supply
-him with moral vigour and interest. He must
-turn once more to his class for what the nation
-as a whole has been so much more efficiently supplying.
-Life has regained for him much of its old
-tameness, the nation in which he has lived vividly
-during the war is resuming its vagueness and
-becoming once more merely the state, remote and
-quasi-hostile. But the war has shown him what
-interest and moral vigour are in life, and he will
-not easily accept the absence of these; he has
-acquired the appetite for them, he has, so to speak,
-tasted blood. The tasteless social dietary of pre-war
-England is not likely to satisfy his invigorated
-palate.</p>
-
-<p>Secondly, the transition from war to peace is in
-an imperfectly organized society a process necessarily
-dangerous because it involves the change from
-a condition of relative moral stability to one of
-relative moral instability. To get back to the
-precise state of delicately balanced but essentially
-insecure equilibrium of society before the war
-would seem, in fact, already shown to be impossible.
-The war ran its course without any attempt being
-made to replace the system of class segregation,
-through which the social instinct works in our
-society, by any more satisfactory mechanism.
-Before the war class segregation had reached a condition
-in which the individual had ceased to be
-conscious of the national unit as possessing any
-practical significance for himself while his class
-was the largest unit he was capable of recognizing
-as a source of moral power and an object
-of effort. There was no class which as such and
-<span class="xxpn" id="p238">{238}</span>
-in relation to other classes was capable of submitting
-to any restraint or self-sacrifice in the
-interests of the nation as a whole. Of course,
-in each case it was possible for a class by a
-very easy process of rationalization to show that its
-interests were those of the nation at large, but
-this was merely the effect of the moral blindness
-to which class segregation inevitably leads. Since
-every one of us is classified somehow, it is not
-easy to grasp how completely class segregation
-obtains throughout our society, and how fully in
-times of peace it replaces national unity. Those
-occupying the lower social strata may be very fully
-aware of the intensity of class feeling and how
-complete a substitute for national feeling it affords
-at the upper end of the social scale, just as those
-in the upper strata may be very much alive to
-the class bitterness of their inferiors; but it is difficult
-for both to believe how complete are segregation
-and its consequences throughout the whole
-social gamut.</p>
-
-<p>It is to this state of society that the return from
-the relative unity of war must be. The few conventional
-restraints upon the extremity of class
-feeling that were in any kind of activity before
-the war have been very greatly weakened. Change
-has become familiar, violence has been glorified
-in theory and shown to be effective in practice,
-the prestige of age has been undermined, and the
-sanctity of established things defied.</p>
-
-<p>It would, indeed, seem that to re-establish a society
-based solely on class segregation, and relying upon
-the maintenance by it of a state of equilibrium, will
-be a matter of some difficulty, and it will probably
-be a mistake to depend altogether on fatigue, on
-the relaxation of feeling, and on the celebration of
-victory as stabilizing forces.</p>
-
-<p>Thirdly, there is no reason to suppose that the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p239">{239}</span>
-tendencies of society which made possible so huge
-a disaster as the war have been in any way corrected
-by it. Great efforts are being made at present to
-establish conditions which will prevent future wars.
-Such efforts are entirely admirable, but it must
-be remembered that after all war is no more than
-a symptom of social defects. If, therefore, war as
-a symptom is merely suppressed, valuable as that
-will be in controlling the waste and destruction of
-life and effort, indeed indispensable to any kind
-of vigorous mental life, it may leave untouched
-potentialities of disaster comparable even with war
-itself.</p>
-
-<p>It was pointed out many years ago in the essays
-incorporated in this book that human society tends
-to restrict influence and leadership to minds of a
-certain type, and that these minds tend to have
-special and characteristic defects. Thus human
-affairs are in general under the direction of a
-class of thought that is not merely not the best
-of which the mind is capable, but tends to certain
-characteristic fallacies and to certain characteristic
-kinds of blindness and incapacity. The class of
-mind to which power in society gravitates I have
-ventured to describe as the stable type. Its characteristic
-virtues and deficiencies have been described
-more than once in this book, and we need do no
-more here than recall its vigour and resistiveness, its
-accessibility to the voice of the herd and its resistiveness
-to and even horror of the new in feeling
-and experience. The predominance of this type
-has been rigorously maintained throughout the war.
-This is why the war has been fought with a mere
-modicum of help from the human intellect, and why
-the result must be regarded as a triumph for the
-common man rather than for the ruling classes.
-The war was won by the inflexible resolution of
-the common citizen and the common soldier. No
-<span class="xxpn" id="p240">{240}</span>
-country has shown itself to be directed by the higher
-powers of the intellect, and nowhere has the continued
-action of clear, temperate, vigorous, and comprehensive
-thought made itself manifest, because
-even the utmost urgency of warfare failed to
-dislodge the stable-minded type from its monopoly
-of prestige and power. What the necessities of
-war could not do there is certainly no magic in
-peace to bring about. Society, therefore, is setting
-out upon what is generally regarded as a new era
-of hope without the defect that made the war
-possible having in any degree been corrected.
-Certain supposedly immutable principles such as
-democracy and national self-determination are
-regarded by some as being mankind’s guarantees
-against disaster. To the psychologist such principles
-represent mere vague and fluctuating drifts
-of feeling, arising out of deep instinctive needs, but
-not fully and powerfully embodying such; as
-automatic safeguards of society their claims are
-altogether bogus, and cannot be ranked as
-perceptibly higher than those of the ordinary run
-of political nostrums and doctrinaire specifics.
-Society can never be safe until the direction of
-it is entrusted only to those who possess high
-capacity rigorously trained and acute sensitiveness
-to experience and to feeling.</p>
-
-<p>Statecraft, after all, is a difficult art, and it seems
-unreasonable to leave the choice of those who
-practise it to accident, to heredity, or to the
-possession of the wholly irrelevant gifts that take
-the fancy of the crowd. The result of such methods
-of selection is not even a mere random choice from
-the whole population, but shows a steady drift
-towards the establishment in power of a type in
-certain ways almost characteristically unfitted for
-the tasks of government. The fact that man has
-always shirked the heavy intellectual and moral
-<span class="xxpn" id="p241">{241}</span>
-labour of founding a scientific and truly expert
-statecraft may contain a germ of hope for the
-future, in that it shows where effort may be usefully
-expended. But it cannot but justify uneasiness as
-to the immediate future of society. The essential
-factor in society is the subordination of the
-individual will to social needs. Our statecraft is
-still ignorant of how this can be made a fair and
-honest bargain to the individual and to the state,
-and recent events have convinced a very large proportion
-of mankind that accepted methods of
-establishing this social cohesion have proved to them
-at any rate the worst of bargains.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">T<b>HE</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">I<b>NSTABILITY</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smcap">C<b>IVILIZATION.</b></span></h3>
-</div>
-<p>The foregoing considerations are enough, perhaps,
-to make one wonder whether, after all, Western
-civilization may not be about to follow its unnumbered
-predecessors into decay and dissolution.
-There can be no doubt that such a suspicion is
-oppressing many thoughtful minds at the present
-time. It is not likely to be dispelled by the contemplation
-of history or by the nature of recent events.
-Indeed, the view can be maintained very plausibly
-that all civilizations must tend ultimately to break
-down, that they reach sooner or later a period when
-their original vigour is worn out, and then collapse
-through internal disruption or outside pressure. It
-is even believed by some that Western civilization
-already shows the evidences of decline which in
-its predecessors have been the forerunners of destruction.
-When we remember that our very short
-period of recorded history includes the dissolution of
-civilizations so elaborate as those of the Chaldeans,
-the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and of the Incas, that
-a social structure so complex as that but lately
-disclosed in Crete could leave no trace in human
-<span class="xxpn" id="p242">{242}</span>
-memory but a faint and dubious whisper of tradition,
-and that the dawn of history finds civilization
-already old, we can scarcely resist the conclusion that
-social life has, more often than one can bear to
-contemplate, swung laboriously up to a meaningless
-apogee and then lapsed again into darkness. We
-know enough of man to be aware that each of
-these unnumbered upward movements must have
-been infinitely painful, must have been at least as
-fruitful of torture, oppression, and anguish as the
-ones of which we know the history, and yet each
-was no more than the swing of a pendulum and a
-mere fruitless oscillation landing man once more
-at his starting point, impoverished and broken, with
-perhaps more often than not no transmissible vestige
-of his greatness.</p>
-
-<p>If we limit our view to the historical scale of
-time and the exclusively human outlook, we seem
-almost forced to accept the dreadful hypothesis that
-in the very structure and substance of all human
-constructive social efforts there is embodied a principle
-of death, that there is no progressive impulse
-but must become fatigued, that the intellect can
-provide no permanent defence against a vigorous
-barbarism, that social complexity is necessarily
-weaker than social simplicity, and that fineness of
-moral fibre must in the long run succumb to the
-primitive and coarse.</p>
-
-<p>Let us consider, however, what comments may
-be made on this hypothesis in view of the biological
-conceptions of man which have been put forward
-in this book. At the same time an opportunity
-is afforded to put in a more continuous form the
-view of society that has necessarily been touched
-on so far in an interrupted and incidental way.</p>
-
-<p>Whatever may be one’s view as to the larger
-pretensions that are put forward as to the significance
-and destiny of man, there can be no doubt
-<span class="xxpn" id="p243">{243}</span>
-that it is indispensable to recognize the full implications
-of his status as an animal completely
-indigenous in the zoological series. The whole of
-his physical and mental structure is congruous with
-that of other living beings, and is constantly giving
-evidence of the complicated network of relationships
-by which he is bound to them.</p>
-
-<p>The accumulation of knowledge is steadily amplifying
-the range over which this congruity with the
-natural order can be demonstrated, and is showing
-more and more fully that practical understanding
-and foresight of man’s behaviour are attained in
-proportion as this hypothesis of the complete
-“naturalness” of man is adhered to.</p>
-
-<p>The endowment of instinct that man possesses
-is in every detail cognate with that of other animals,
-provides no element that is not fully represented
-elsewhere, and above all—however little the individual
-man may be inclined to admit it—is in no
-degree less vigorous and intense or less important
-in relation to feeling and activity than it is in related
-animals. This supremely important side of mental
-life, then, will be capable of continuous illustration
-and illumination by biological methods. It is on
-the intellectual side of mental life that man’s congruity
-with other animals is least obvious at first
-sight. The departure from type, however, is
-probably a matter of degree only, and not of quality.
-Put in the most general terms, the work of the intellect
-is to cause delay between stimulus and response,
-and under circumstances to modify the direction
-of the latter. We may suppose all stimulation
-to necessitate response, and that such response must
-ultimately occur with undiminished total energy.
-The intellect, however, is capable of delaying such
-response, and within limits of directing its path
-so that it may superficially show no relation to the
-stimulus of which it is the discharge. If we extend
-<span class="xxpn" id="p244">{244}</span>
-the word stimulation to include the impulses arising
-from instinct, and grant that the delaying and
-deflecting influence of the intellect may be indefinitely
-enlarged, we have an animal in which instinct
-is as vigorous as in any of its primitive ancestors,
-but which is superficially scarcely an instinctive
-animal at all. Such is the case of man. His instinctive
-impulses are so greatly masked by the variety
-of response that his intellect opens to him that he
-has been commonly regarded until quite recent
-times as a practically non-instinctive creature,
-capable of determining by reason his conduct and
-even his desires. Such a conception made it almost
-impossible to gain any help in human psychology
-from the study of other animals, and scarcely less
-difficult to evolve a psychology which would be
-of the least use in foreseeing and controlling the
-behaviour of man.</p>
-
-<p>No understanding of the causes of stability and
-instability in human society is possible until the
-undiminished vigour of instinct in man is fully
-recognized.</p>
-
-<p>The significance of this rich instinctive endowment
-lies in the fact that mental health depends
-upon instinct finding a balanced but vigorous expression
-in functional activity. The response to instinct
-may be infinitely varied, and may even, under
-certain circumstances, be not more than symbolic
-without harm to the individual as a social unit, but
-there are limits beyond which the restriction of
-it to indirect and symbolic modes of expression
-cannot be carried without serious effects on
-personality. The individual in whom direct instinctive
-expression is unduly limited acquires a spiritual
-meagreness which makes him the worst possible
-social material.</p>
-
-<p>All recorded history shows that society developing
-under the conditions that have obtained up
-<span class="xxpn" id="p245">{245}</span>
-to the present time—developing, that is to say,
-spontaneously under the random influences of an
-uncontrolled environment of the individual—does not
-permit to the average man that balanced instinctive
-expression which is indispensable for the formation
-of a rich, vigorous, and functionally active personality.
-It has been one of my chief efforts in this
-book to show that the social instinct, while in itself
-the very foundation of society, takes, when its action
-is undirected and uncontrolled, a principal part in
-restricting the completeness and efficacy of the social
-impulse. This instinct is doubly responsible for
-the defects which have always inhered in society
-through the personal impoverishment of its individual
-constituents. In the first place, it is the
-great agent by which the egoistic instincts are
-driven into dwarfed, distorted, and symbolic modes
-of expression without any regard for the objective
-social necessity of such oppressive regulation. In
-the second place, it is an instinct which, while it
-embodies one of the deepest and potentially most
-invigorating passions of the soul, tends automatically
-to fall out of vigorous and constant activity with
-the expansion of societies. It is the common
-character of large societies to suffer heavily from
-the restrictive effect on personality of the social
-instinct, and at the same time to suffer in the highest
-degree from the debilitation of the common social
-impulse. Only in the smallest groups, such as
-perhaps was early republican Rome, can the common
-impulse inform and invigorate the whole society.
-As the group expands and ceases to feel the constant
-pressure of an environment it no longer has to
-fear, the common impulse droops, and the society
-becomes segregated into classes, each of which
-a lesser herd within the main body and under the
-reciprocated pressure of its fellows, now yields to
-its members the social feeling which the main body
-<span class="xxpn" id="p246">{246}</span>
-can no longer provide. The passage of the small,
-vigorous, homogeneous and fiercely patriotic group
-into the large, lax, segregated and ultimately
-decadent group is a commonplace of history. In
-highly segregated peoples the restrictive effect of
-the social instinct upon personality has usually been
-to some extent relaxed, and a relatively rich personal
-development has been possible. Such an amplification
-has always, however, been limited to
-privileged classes, has always been accompanied by
-a weakening of the national bond, and a tendency
-of the privileged class to the sincere conviction
-that its interests are identical with those of the
-nation. No nation has ever succeeded in liberating
-the personality of its citizens from the restrictive
-action of the social instinct and at the same time
-in maintaining national homogeneity and common
-impulse. In a small community intercommunication
-among its individual members is free enough to
-keep common feeling intense and vigorous. As
-the community increases in size the general intercommunication
-becomes attenuated, and with this
-common feeling is correspondingly weakened. If
-there were no other mechanism capable of inducing
-common action than the faint social stimulus coming
-from the nation at large, a segregated society would
-be incapable of national enterprise. There is, however,
-another mechanism which we may call
-leadership, using the word in a certain special
-sense. All social groups are more or less capable
-of being led, and it is manifest that the leadership
-of individuals, or perhaps more usually of classes,
-has been a dominant influence in the expansion and
-enterprise of all civilizations of which we have any
-knowledge. It is only in the small communities
-that we can detect evidence of a true common
-impulse shared alike by all the members acting as
-the cause of expansion. In larger groups,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p247">{247}</span>
-autocracies and dynasties, Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzars
-have imposed the impulse of expansion upon
-the people, and by virtue of human susceptibility
-to leadership have secured a virtual, though only a
-secondary, common purpose.</p>
-
-<p>Now leadership, potent as it undoubtedly is in
-calling forth the energy of the social instinct, is
-essentially a limited and therefore an exhaustible
-force. It depends for continued vigour upon
-successful enterprise. While it is succeeding there
-are only wide limits to the moral power it can
-set free and command, but in the face of misfortune
-and disaster its limitations become obvious, and its
-power inevitably declines. On the other hand, the
-moral power yielded by a true community of
-feeling, and not imposed by leadership, is enormously
-more resistant and even indestructible by failure
-and defeat. History gives many examples of the
-encounters of communities of these two types—the
-led society and the homogeneous society—and in
-spite of the invariably greater size and physical
-power of the former, frequently records the astoundingly
-successful resistance its greater moral vigour
-has given to the latter. This is perhaps why
-Carthage beat in vain against little Rome, and
-certainly why Austria failed to subdue Switzerland.</p>
-
-<p>All large societies that have had their day and
-have fallen from their zenith by internal dissolution
-or outward attack have been given their impulse
-to expansion by leadership and have depended on
-it for their moral power. If society is to continue
-to depend for its enterprise and expansion upon
-leadership, and can find no more satisfactory source
-of moral power, it is, to say the least, highly
-probable that civilizations will continue to rise and
-fall in a dreadful sameness of alternating aspiration
-and despair until perhaps some lucky accident of
-<span class="xxpn" id="p248">{248}</span>
-confusion finds for humanity in extinction the rest
-it could never win for itself in life.</p>
-
-<p>There is, however, reason to suppose that susceptibility
-to leadership is a characteristic of relatively
-primitive social types, and tends to diminish with
-increasing social complexity. I have already called
-attention to and attempted to define the apparently
-specific psychological differences between Germany
-and England before and during the war. These
-differences I attributed to variations in the type of
-reaction to herd instinct shown by the two peoples.
-The aggressive social type represented by Germany
-and analogous with that characteristic of the predaceous
-social animals I regarded as being relatively
-primitive and simple. The socialized type represented
-by England and presenting analogies with
-that characteristic of many social insects I regarded
-as being, though imperfect as are all the human
-examples available for study up to the present time,
-more complex and less primitive, and representing
-at any rate a tendency towards a satisfactory solution
-of the problems with which man as a gregarious
-animal is surrounded. Now, it is a very obvious
-fact that the susceptibility to leadership shown by
-Germany and by England before the war was
-remarkably different. The common citizen of
-Germany was strikingly open to and dependent upon
-discipline and leadership, and seemed to have a
-positive satisfaction in leaving to his masters the
-management of his social problems and accepting
-with alacrity the solutions that were imposed upon
-him. The nation consequently presented a close
-knit uniformity of purpose, a singleness of national
-consciousness and effort that gave it an aspect of
-moral power of the most formidable kind. In
-England a very different state of affairs prevailed.
-The common citizen was apt to meet with indifference
-or resentment all efforts to change the social
-<span class="xxpn" id="p249">{249}</span>
-structure, and it had long been a political axiom
-that “reform” should always await an irresistible
-demand for it. Instances will be within every one’s
-memory of politicians who met with crushing rebuffs
-through regarding the supposed desirability of a
-reform as a justification for imposing it. This
-almost sullen indifference to great projects and
-ideals, this unwillingness to take thought in the
-interests of the nation and the empire in spite of
-the apostolic zeal of the most eloquent political
-prophets, was generally regarded as evidence of
-a weakness and slackness in the body politic that
-could not but threaten disaster. And yet in the
-trials of the war the moral stability of England
-showed itself to be superior to that of Germany,
-which, in those rough waters, it jostled as mercilessly
-and as effectually as did the brass pot the earthen
-crock in the fable.</p>
-
-<p>During the war itself the submission to leadership
-that England showed was characteristic of the
-socialized type. It was to a great extent spontaneous,
-voluntary, and undisciplined, and gave
-repeated evidence that the passage of inspiration
-was essentially from the common people to its
-leaders rather than from the leaders to the common
-people. When the current of inspiration sets persistently
-in this direction, as it unquestionably did in
-England, it is very plain that the primitive type
-of leadership that has led so many civilizations
-to disaster is no longer in unmodified action.</p>
-
-<p>Germany has provided the most complete example
-of a culture of leadership that has ever been
-recorded, and has gone through the phases of her
-evolution with a precision which should make her
-case an illustration classical for all history. With
-a people showing strongly the characteristics of the
-aggressive social type, and a social structure deeply
-and rigidly segregated, the nation was ideally
-<span class="xxpn" id="p250">{250}</span>
-susceptible to discipline and leadership, and a
-leading class was available which possessed an
-almost superhuman prestige. The opportunity given
-to leadership was exploited with great energy and
-thoroughness and with an intelligence that by its
-intensity almost made up for being nowhere really
-profound. With all these advantages and the full
-uses of the huge resources science has made available
-to intelligently concerted effort, an extremely
-formidable power was created. The peoples of
-the socialized type towards whom from the first its
-hostility was scarcely veiled were under obvious
-disadvantages in rivalry with it. Their social type
-made it impossible for them to combine and organize
-themselves against what was to them no more than
-a vaguely hypothetical danger. Against peaceful
-conquest by Germany in the industrial sphere
-England was therefore practically helpless, and to
-it would probably in time have succumbed.
-Paradox as it may seem, there can be no doubt
-that it was in war only that England could contend
-with Germany on equal terms. Paradoxically again,
-it was war for which England was reluctant and
-Germany was eager.</p>
-
-<p>War brought Germany into contact with the, to
-her, inexplicable ferocity of peoples of the socialized
-type under attack, and it was by this disappointment
-that the first blow to her morale was struck.
-The wastage of modern warfare must very soon
-have begun to impair the isolation and prestige of
-the officer class through increasingly free importation
-from without the pale. With this necessarily
-began to be sapped the absolute and rigid segregation
-on which leadership of the type we are considering
-so largely depends. At the same time,
-the general tendency of the increasing pressure of
-war is to wear down class segregation over the
-whole social field. This tendency which intensified
-<span class="xxpn" id="p251">{251}</span>
-and invigorated the morale of her enemies would
-work steadily against the leadership morale of
-Germany. These factors must no doubt be added
-to the moral need for aggression, the exhaustion
-consequent upon forced offensives, and the specific
-intolerance of failure and retreat that combined to
-bring down the strongest example of the predaceous
-led society that history records.</p>
-
-<div class="section">
-<h3><span class="smcap">S<b>OME</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERS</b></span>
- <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
- <span class="smmaj">A</span>
- <span class="smcap">R<b>ATIONAL</b></span>
- <span class="smcap">S<b>TATECRAFT.</b></span></h3></div>
-
-<p>If the foregoing discussion has been sound, we may
-attribute the impermanence of all civilizations of
-which we have knowledge to the failure of society
-to preserve with increasing magnitude of its communities
-a true homogeneity and a progressive
-integration of its elements. We have seen that
-there is a type of society—distinguished here as
-the socialized type—in which a trace of this integrative
-tendency can be detected at work. Under the
-threat of war this tendency is accelerated in its action,
-and can attain a moderate, though very far indeed
-from a complete, degree of development. In the
-absence of such a powerful stimulus to homogeneity,
-however, segregation reasserts itself, and the society,
-necessarily deprived by its type of the advantages
-of leadership, becomes confused, disunited, and
-threatened with disruption. It seems probable,
-indeed, that the integrative tendency unaided and
-uncontrolled is too weak to surmount the obstacles
-with which it has to contend, and to anticipate disruption
-by welding the elements of society into
-a common life and common purpose. It has already
-been repeatedly suggested that these difficulties, due
-as they are to the human power of various reaction,
-can be met only by the interposition of the intellect
-as an active factor in the problem of the direction
-of society. In other words, the progressive evolution
-of society has reached a point where the
-<span class="xxpn" id="p252">{252}</span>
-construction and use of a scientific statecraft will
-become an indispensable factor in further development
-and the only means of arresting the dreary
-oscillations between progress and relapse which have
-been so ominous a feature in human history. We
-are perhaps in a position to-day to suggest tentatively
-some of the principles on which such a
-statecraft might be built.</p>
-
-<p>It would have to be based on a full recognition
-of the biological status of man, and to work out
-the tendencies which as an animal he is pursuing
-and must pursue. If we have evidence of the only
-course evolution can follow satisfactorily, then it is
-clear that any social and legislative effort not in
-line with that course must be entirely wasted. Moreover,
-since we are proceeding on the hypothesis
-that direct conscious effort is now a necessary factor
-in the process, we must clear our minds of the
-optimistic determinism which regards man as a
-special pet of nature and the pessimistic determinism
-which would reduce him to a mere spectator of his
-destiny. The trained and conscious mind must come
-to be regarded as a definite factor in man’s environment,
-capable of occupying there a larger and
-larger area.</p>
-
-<p>Such a statecraft would recognize how fully man
-is an instinctive being and how his mental vigour
-and stability depend entirely upon instinctive expression
-being adequate. The tyrannous power of the
-social instinct in repressing and distorting instinctive
-expression would have to be controlled and
-directed with the purpose of enlarging the personal
-and social effectiveness of the individual to the
-maximum extent; the social instinct would no
-longer be left to operate on the individual under
-the random direction of custom and habit, of fashion
-and social whim, or for the satisfaction of the
-jealousy of age.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p253">{253}</span></p>
-
-<p>Perhaps most important of all, a scientific statecraft
-would understand that the social instinct itself
-is as deep and powerful as any, and hungrily demands
-intense and positive gratification and expression.
-The social instinct drives the individual to seek
-union with some community of his fellows. The
-whole national body is in the present state of society
-the smallest unit in which the individual can find
-complete and permanent satisfaction. As long as
-the average man’s sense of possession in the state is
-kept so low as it is at present, as long as the sense
-of moral inequality between himself and his fellows
-is so vigorously maintained, so long will he continue
-to make his class rather than his nation the object
-of social passion, and so long will society continue
-to breed within itself a principle of death.</p>
-
-<p>The exploration of the psychology of man’s social
-relations has been left almost exclusively to the
-operation of what we may call the method of
-prophetic intuition, and there is no branch of knowledge
-where the fumbling methods of unclarified
-intuition have introduced more confusion. Intuitions
-in the sphere of feeling—moral intuitions—have
-more than the usual tendency of intuitions to
-appear as half-truths surrounded and corrupted by
-fantasies of the seer and isolated from correlation
-with the rest of knowledge. Let us consider, for
-example, the intuitional doctrine of philosophic
-anarchism. The nucleus of truth in this is the
-series of perfectly sound psychological conceptions
-that all social discipline should be, as experienced
-by the individual, spontaneous and voluntary, that
-man possesses the instinctive endowment which
-renders possible a voluntary organization of society,
-and that in such a society order would be
-more effectively maintained than under our present
-partially compulsory system. This nucleus, which
-of course is not understood or expressed in these
-<span class="xxpn" id="p254">{254}</span>
-definite psychological terms by the anarchist, is apt
-to be associated with dogmas which altogether
-obscure its strictly unassailable truth. Communism,
-again, is another doctrine which contains its core of
-psychological truth, namely, that individual property
-is an economic convention rather than a psychological
-necessity, and that social inequality is an
-infirmity of the state rather than its foundation stone.
-As it is exemplified in practice, however, communism
-is so deeply tainted by the belief in an inverted
-class segregation of its own, and by a horror of
-knowledge, that its elements of reality are wholly
-obscured and rendered useless.</p>
-
-<p>Every doctrine that makes disciples freely must
-contain in it some embodiment of psychological
-reality, however exiguous; but where it has been
-arrived at by the methods of the prophet, there
-is no reason to expect that stress will be laid on
-the true more than on the false elements of the
-doctrinal scheme, and experience shows that the
-inessential falsity has for the expositor as many,
-if not more, attractions than the essential truth. An
-expert statecraft would be able to identify the real
-elements of discovery that were present in any fresh
-prophetic appeal to public belief, and would be able
-at any rate to save the state from the condition of
-petrified embarrassment into which it now falls when
-faced by social dogmas and experiments which win
-attention and adhesion while at the same time they
-outrage convention and common sense.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">The examination of the functional satisfactoriness
-of society, which has been a chief object of this
-book, has yielded a certain general body of conclusions.
-An attempt will now be made to
-summarize these in a compact and even dogmatic
-form, and to add what further element of definition
-seems indispensable for clearness.
-<span class="xxpn" id="p255">{255}</span></p>
-
-<p>1. All societies of which we have any knowledge
-have shown two general defects—they have proved
-unable to develop and direct more than a small
-fraction of the resources they theoretically possess,
-and they have been impermanent, so that time after
-time laborious accumulations of constructive effort
-have been wasted. According to our analysis these
-defects are due to the drift of power into the hands
-of the stable-minded class, and to the derivation of
-moral power and enterprise from the mechanisms
-of leadership and class segregation.</p>
-
-<p>2. A society, in order to have stability and full
-functional effectiveness, must be capable of a continually
-progressive absorption of its individual
-members into the general body—an uninterrupted
-movement towards a complete moral homogeneity.</p>
-
-<p>3. A tendency towards a progressive integration
-of this kind can be detected in society to-day
-by direct observation. It is weak and its effects
-are fluctuating, so that there is doubt whether it
-can, unless directly encouraged by human effort,
-counteract the forces which up till now have always
-limited social evolution to movements of oscillation
-rather than of true progress.</p>
-
-<p>4. The only way in which society can be made
-safe from disruption or decay is by the intervention
-of the conscious and instructed intellect as a factor
-among the forces ruling its development.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">This last doctrine has been repeatedly stated, but
-we have perhaps scarcely defined it precisely enough
-to avoid misunderstanding. Some such definition
-is our concluding task. Of all the elements we
-find in a general examination of the whole biological
-series the human intellect is the one that most clearly
-gives the impression of a new and intrusive factor.
-The instinctive side of man, with its derivatives,
-such as his morals, his altruism, and his aspirations,
-<span class="xxpn" id="p256">{256}</span>
-falls very easily into line with the rest of the natural
-order, and is seen to be at work in modes which
-nowhere show any essential new departure. The
-intellect, however, brings with it a capacity for
-purpose as distinct from and additional to desire,
-and this does apparently introduce a factor virtually
-new to the biological series. The part that the
-purposive foresight of the intellect has been allowed
-to take in human affairs has always been limited
-by instinctive inhibitions. This limitation has effectually
-prevented man from defining his situation in
-the world, and he remains a captive in the house
-of circumstance, restrained as effectually by the mere
-painted canvas of habit, convention, and fear as by
-the solid masonry of essential instinctive needs.
-Being denied the freedom, which is its indispensable
-source of vigour, the intellect has necessarily failed
-to get a clear, comprehensive, and temperate view
-of man’s status and prospects, and has, of course,
-shrunk from the yet more exacting task of making
-itself responsible for his destiny. Nowhere has
-been and is the domination of the herd more absolute
-than in the field of speculation concerning man’s
-general position and fate, and in consequence
-prodigies of genius have been expended in obscuring
-the simple truth that there is no responsibility for
-man’s destiny anywhere at all outside his own
-responsibility, and that there is no remedy for his
-ills outside his own efforts. Western civilization
-has recently lost ten millions of its best lives as a
-result of the exclusion of the intellect from the
-general direction of society. So terrific an object
-lesson has made it plain enough how easy it is for
-man, all undirected and unwarned as he is, to sink to
-the irresponsible destructiveness of the monkey.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Such ostensible direction as societies obtain
-derives its sanction from one or more of three
-<span class="xxpn" id="p257">{257}</span>
-sources—the hereditary, the representative, and the
-official. No direction can be effective in the way
-needed for the preservation of society unless it
-comes from minds broad in outlook, deep in
-sympathy, sensitive to the new and strange in experience,
-capable of resisting habit, convention, and the
-other sterilizing influences of the herd, deeply
-learned in the human mind and vividly aware of
-the world. Plainly enough, neither of the classes
-enumerated above is any more likely to possess
-these characteristics than any one else. To the
-representative and official classes there even attaches,
-at any rate theoretically, the suspicion that the
-methods by which they are chosen and promoted,
-while they obviously in no way favour fitness, may
-actually tend to favour unfitness. Of the hereditary
-class it may at any rate be said that while it does
-not in any special degree include the fit, its composition
-is random and in no way tainted by popular
-standards of suitability or by the prejudices and
-conventions of the examination room. It would
-seem, then, that none of the methods by which society
-appoints its directors shows any promise of working
-towards the effective intervention of the intellect in
-social affairs. In reaching this conclusion we have
-perhaps passed too lightly over the claims of the
-trained official as a possible nucleus of an ultimate
-scientific statecraft. The present-day controversies
-as to the nationalization of various industries give
-an especial interest to this very problem, and illustrate
-how unpromising a source of knowledge is
-political discussion. One group of advocates points
-to the obvious economies of conducting industry
-on the great scale and without the destructive effects
-of competition; the other group points to the
-infirmities which always have infected officially conducted
-enterprises. Both sides would seem to be
-perfectly right so far and both to be wrong when
-<span class="xxpn" id="p258">{258}</span>
-the first goes on to affirm that governments as they
-now are can and do conduct industrial affairs quite
-satisfactorily, and the second goes on to affirm that
-the only mechanism by which society can get its
-work effectively done is commercial competition, and
-that the only adequate motive is greed. It seems
-to have escaped the notice of both parties to the
-controversy that no civilized country has evolved,
-or begun to evolve, or thought of evolving a method
-of selecting and training its public servants that
-bears any rational relation to their fitness for the
-art of government. It is not here denied that selection
-and training are both of them severe in many
-countries. Mere severity, however, as long as it
-is quite without relevance, is manifestly worthless.
-We are forced to the conclusion, therefore, that to
-expect an effective statecraft to be evolved from
-the official, whether of the Chinese, the Prussian,
-or any other type, is a mere dream. To encourage
-such a hope would be to strengthen the grip of
-the unsatisfactory stable-minded class upon the gullet
-of society. The evidence then shows that among
-the mechanisms whereby the directors of society
-are chosen there is none that favours that intervention
-of the conscious and instructed intellect that we
-have suggested is necessary to the effective evolution
-of civilization. Nowhere in the structure of
-society is there a class tending to develop towards
-this goal. Since from the point of view of social
-effectiveness segregation into classes has been
-entirely random, the appearance of such a
-class would have been indeed an extraordinary
-accident. Good as are the grounds for hoping that
-human society may ultimately mature into a coherent
-structure possessed of comprehensive and intelligent
-direction, it would be no more than idle optimism
-to suppose that there is any institution or class now
-existing which promises to inspire a fundamental
-<span class="xxpn" id="p259">{259}</span>
-reconstruction. If the effective intrusion of the
-intellect into social affairs does happily occur, it
-will come from no organ of society now recognizable,
-but through a slow elevation of the general standard
-of consciousness up to the level at which will be
-possible a kind of freemasonry and syndicalism of
-the intellect. Under such circumstances free communication
-through class barriers would be possible,
-and an orientation of feeling quite independent of
-the current social segregation would become
-manifest.</p>
-
-<p class="padtopb">Throughout
-the enormously long period during
-which modern man has been established on the
-earth human society has been left to the uncontrolled
-contention of constructive and destructive
-forces, and in the long run the destructive have
-always proved the stronger. Whether the general
-level of consciousness will reach the height necessary
-to give a decisive predominance to constructive
-tendencies, and whether such a development will
-occur in time to save Western civilization from the
-fate of its predecessors, are open questions. The
-small segment of the social process of which we
-have direct knowledge in the events of the day
-has no very encouraging appearance. Segregation
-has reasserted itself effectively; the dominion of
-the stable and resistive mind is as firmly established
-as ever, and no less dull and dangerous; while it
-is plain how far, in the atmosphere of relaxation
-and fatigue, the social inspiration of the common
-man has sunk from the high constancy of spirit by
-which throughout the long pilgrimage of war so
-many weary feet have been upborne, so many dry
-lips refreshed.</p>
-
-<div class="dindex section">
-<ul class="fsz6"><li class="ltrspca">
-<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p261">INDEX</h2>
-<ul>
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>FFIRMATIONS</b></span> of the herd, belief in normal, <a href="#p039">39</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>GE</b></span> and the herd instinct, <a href="#p086">86</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, the predominance of, <a href="#p087">87</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>GE</b></span> <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smcap">Y<b>OUTH</b></span>, jealousy between, <a href="#p086">86</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, reactions of, in relation to sex, <a href="#p084">84</a>, <a href="#p085">85</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>LCOHOLISM</b></span>, psychological meaning of, <a href="#p058">58</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>LTRUISM</b></span>, instinctive meaning of, <a href="#p122">122</a>–<a href="#p124">124</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, a natural instinctive product, <a href="#p046">46</a></li>
-<li>――, not a judgment, <a href="#p046">46</a></li>
-<li>――, energy of, <a href="#p047">47</a></li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>NARCHISM</b></span>, psychological basis of, <a href="#p253">253</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">A<b>NTHROPOMORPHISM</b></span> in psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">B<b>EER</b></span>, and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">B<b>ELIEF</b></span>, non-rational and rational, distinction of, <a href="#p043">43</a>, <a href="#p044">44</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, characters of, <a href="#p044">44</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">B<b>ETHE</b></span>, and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">B<b>INET</b></span>, <a href="#p034">34</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">B<b>REEDING</b></span> against degeneracy, objections to, <a href="#p064">64</a>
-<ul>
-<li>―― for rationality, objections to, <a href="#p045">45</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>AT</b></span> <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smcap">D<b>OG</b></span>, instinctive differences in feeling, <a href="#p098">98</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ERTITUDE</b></span> and knowledge, <a href="#p035">35</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>HURCH</b></span>, the, in wartime, <a href="#p154">154</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>IVILIZATION</b></span>, its influence on instinct in man, <a href="#p093">93</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>IVILIZATIONS</b></span>, the decline of, <a href="#p241">241</a>, <a href="#p242">242</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>OMMUNISM</b></span>, psychological basis of, <a href="#p254">254</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ONFLICT</b></span> in the adult, superficial aspects of, <a href="#p052">52</a>, <a href="#p053">53</a>
-<ul>
-<li>―― in childhood and adolescence, <a href="#p049">49</a></li>
-<li>―― in civilized man, <a href="#p049">49</a></li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ONSCIENCE</b></span>, peculiar to
- gregarious animals, <a href="#p040">40</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ONVERSATION</b></span> as a mode of recognition, <a href="#p119">119</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">D<b>ARWINISM</b></span> as a herd affirmation, <a href="#p039">39</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">D<b>EDUCTIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">M<b>ETHOD</b></span> in psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">D<b>UTY</b></span>, <a href="#p048">48</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">E<b>NGLAND</b></span>, social type, <a href="#p201">201</a>, <a href="#p202">202</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, morale of, <a href="#p207">207</a>–<a href="#p209">209</a></li>
-<li>――, and the spirit of the hive, <a href="#p203">203</a>–<a href="#p206">206</a></li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">E<b>NVIRONMENT</b></span> <span class="smmaj">OF</span> <span class="smmaj">THE</span> <span class="smcap">M<b>IND</b></span>, importance of, <a href="#p063">63</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, need for rational adjustment of, <a href="#p064">64</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">F<b>REUD’S</b></span> <span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span>, general discussion of, <a href="#p076">76</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, as an embryology of the mind, <a href="#p088">88</a></li>
-<li>――, biological criticism of, <a href="#p077">77</a>, <a href="#p078">78</a></li>
-<li>――, evolution of the “normal” mind, <a href="#p073">73</a></li>
-<li>――, hypothesis of mental development, <a href="#p072">72</a></li>
-<li>――, importance of conflict, <a href="#p072">72</a></li>
-<li>――, nature of mental conflict, <a href="#p073">73</a></li>
-<li>――, suggested deficiencies of, <a href="#p088">88</a>, <a href="#p089">89</a></li>
-<li>――, the unconscious, <a href="#p074">74</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">G<b>ERMANY</b></span>, features of government, <a href="#p163">163</a>–<a href="#p165">165</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, aggressive social type, <a href="#p167">167</a>, <a href="#p168">168</a></li>
-<li>――, social structure, <a href="#p169">169</a>, <a href="#p170">170</a></li>
-<li>――, observed mental characters, <a href="#p173">173</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
-<li>――, conscious direction of the State, <a href="#p163">163</a>, <a href="#p169">169</a>, <a href="#p191">191</a></li>
-<li>――, in relation to other nations, <a href="#p179">179</a>–<a href="#p182">182</a></li>
-<li>――, morale of, <a href="#p182">182</a>–<a href="#p188">188</a></li>
-<li>――, discipline, <a href="#p189">189</a>–<a href="#p191">191</a></li>
-<li>――, conditions of morale in, <a href="#p193">193</a>, <a href="#p194">194</a></li>
-<li>――, objects of war with, <a href="#p194">194</a>–<a href="#p201">201</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">G<b>OVERNMENT</b></span>, Sources of, <a href="#p257">257</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS</b></span>, not a superficial character, <a href="#p019">19</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, widespread occurrence in nature, <a href="#p020">20</a></li>
-<li>―― in man, probably primitive, <a href="#p022">22</a></li>
-<li>――, mental equivalents of, <a href="#p031">31</a>–<a href="#p033">33</a></li>
-<li>――, biological meaning of, <a href="#p101">101</a>, <a href="#p102">102</a></li>
-<li>――, analogy to multicellular structure, <a href="#p103">103</a></li>
-<li>――, meaning of wide distribution of, <a href="#p103">103</a>, <a href="#p104">104</a></li>
-<li>――, specialization and co-ordination, <a href="#p105">105</a>, <a href="#p106">106</a></li>
-<li>――, varieties of, <a href="#p107">107</a>, <a href="#p108">108</a></li>
-<li>――, in insects, <a href="#p105">105</a>–<a href="#p107">107</a></li>
-<li>――, in mammals, <a href="#p107">107</a>, <a href="#p108">108</a></li>
-<li>――, protective and aggressive, <a href="#p110">110</a>, <a href="#p111">111</a></li>
-<li>―― in man, disadvantages of:
- <ul class="ulina">
- <li>disease, <a href="#p133">133</a>;</li>
- <li>resistiveness, <a href="#p133">133</a></li></ul></li>
-<li>―― in man, defects
- <ul class="ulina">
- <li>of specialization, <a href="#p135">135</a>;</li>
- <li>of homogeneity, <a href="#p137">137</a></li></ul></li>
-<li>――, aggressive, protective, socialized, <a href="#p166">166</a>, <a href="#p167">167</a></li>
-</ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span> <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMAL</b></span>, special characteristics of, <a href="#p028">28</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, general characteristics of, <a href="#p029">29</a></li>
-<li>――, characters of, <a href="#p108">108</a>, <a href="#p109">109</a></li>
-<li>――, fear in, <a href="#p111">111</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERS</b></span> <span class="smmaj">IN</span> <span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span>:
-<ul class="ulina">
-<li>intolerance of solitude, <a href="#p113">113</a>;</li>
-<li>religion, <a href="#p113">113</a>;</li>
-<li>sensitiveness to the herd, <a href="#p114">114</a>;</li>
-<li>mob violence and panic, <a href="#p115">115</a>;</li>
-<li>susceptibility to leadership, <a href="#p115">115</a>;</li>
-<li>recognition by the herd, <a href="#p118">118</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">H<b>AECKEL</b></span>, <a href="#p024">24</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">H<b>ERD</b></span> <span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCT</b></span>, contrasted with other instincts, <a href="#p047">47</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, mode of action of, <a href="#p048">48</a></li>
-<li>―― in the individual, special character of, <a href="#p098">98</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">H<b>ISTORY</b></span>, biological interpretation of, <a href="#p099">99</a>, <a href="#p100">100</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">H<b>UMAN</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>ONDUCT</b></span>, apparent complexity of, <a href="#p013">13</a>, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">H<b>UXLEY</b></span>, antithesis of cosmical and ethical processes, <a href="#p024">24</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCT</b></span>, definition of, <a href="#p094">94</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, mental manifestations of, <a href="#p095">95</a></li>
-<li>――, disguised but not diminished in man, <a href="#p099">99</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCTIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">A<b>CTIVITIES</b></span>, obscured in proportion to brain-power, <a href="#p097">97</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCTIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">E<b>XPRESSION</b></span>, essential to mental health, <a href="#p244">244</a>, <a href="#p245">245</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NTELLECT</b></span>, the, essential function of, <a href="#p243">243</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, biological aspect of, <a href="#p255">255</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">J<b>AMES,</b></span> <span class="smcap">W<b>ILLIAM</b></span>, introspective aspect of instinct, <a href="#p015">15</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">L<b>EADERSHIP</b></span>, <a href="#p116">116</a>, <a href="#p117">117</a>
-<ul>
-<li>―― in society, <a href="#p246">246</a></li>
-<li>―― a substitute for common impulse, <a href="#p247">247</a></li>
-<li>――, defects of, <a href="#p247">247</a></li>
-<li>―― in Germany and in England, <a href="#p248">248</a>–<a href="#p250">250</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">L<b>E</b></span> <span class="smcap">B<b>ON,</b></span> <span class="smcap">G<b>USTAVE</b></span>, <a href="#p026">26</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span> as an animal, a fundamental conception, <a href="#p066">66</a>, <a href="#p067">67</a>, <a href="#p243">243</a>
-<ul>
-<li>―― as a gregarious animal, vagueness of earlier conceptions, <a href="#p021">21</a></li>
-<li>―― as an instinctive animal, current view of, <a href="#p093">93</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>APACITY</b></span> and instinctive expression, <a href="#p121">121</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>ONFLICT,</b></span> discussed in relation to Freud’s doctrines, <a href="#p079">79</a>–<a href="#p081">81</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, the antagonism to instinctive impulses, <a href="#p082">82</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>ONFLICT</b></span>, source of the repressive impulse in, <a href="#p082">82</a>, <a href="#p083">83</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">I<b>NSTABILITY</b></span>, and conflict, <a href="#p057">57</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, in modern society, <a href="#p056">56</a>, <a href="#p057">57</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>INORITIES</b></span> and prejudice, <a href="#p216">216</a>, <a href="#p217">217</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ORALE</b></span>, in England, <a href="#p207">207</a>–<a href="#p209">209</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, in Germany, <a href="#p182">182</a>–<a href="#p188">188</a></li>
-<li>――, maintenance of, <a href="#p147">147</a>–<a href="#p155">155</a></li>
-<li>――, relation of homogeneity to, <a href="#p144">144</a>–<a href="#p147">147</a></li>
-<li>―― and officialism, <a href="#p155">155</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ULTICELLULARITY</b></span> and natural selection, <a href="#p018">18</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ULTICELLULAR</b></span> <span class="smcap">O<b>RGANISMS</b></span>, the, <a href="#p018">18</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> consciousness, <a href="#p228">228</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, simplicity of, in England, <a href="#p228">228</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> feeling in war, <a href="#p216">216</a>–<a href="#p218">218</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, growth and common impulse, <a href="#p245">245</a>, <a href="#p246">246</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> industry and private enterprise, <a href="#p257">257</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> types contrasted, <a href="#p232">232</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ON-RATIONAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">O<b>PINION</b></span>, frequency of, <a href="#p035">35</a>, <a href="#p036">36</a>, <a href="#p093">93</a>, <a href="#p094">94</a></li>
-
-<li>“<span class="smcap">N<b>ORMAL</b></span>” type of mind, <a href="#p053">53</a>, <a href="#p054">54</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">N<b>UEL</b></span> and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>ACIFISM</b></span>, <a href="#p125">125</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>EARSON,</b></span> <span class="smcap">K<b>ARL</b></span>, biological significance of
- gregariousness, <a href="#p023">23</a>, <a href="#p024">24</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, possibility of sociology as a science, <a href="#p012">12</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>ERSONALITY</b></span>, elements in the evolution of, <a href="#p087">87</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>REJUDICE</b></span>, precautions against, <a href="#p220">220</a>–<a href="#p222">222</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>RIMITIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span>, rigidity of mental life, <a href="#p034">34</a></li>
-
-<li id="p264"><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHO-ANALYSIS</b></span>,
- characteristics of, <a href="#p070">70</a>,
- <a href="#p071">71</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGICAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">E<b>NQUIRY</b></span>, biological method, <a href="#p091">91</a>, <a href="#p092">92</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, primitive introspective method, <a href="#p068">68</a>, <a href="#p069">69</a></li>
-<li>――, objective introspective method of Freud, <a href="#p070">70</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span> of instinctive man, failure of earlier speculations, <a href="#p016">16</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ATIONALIZATION</b></span>, <a href="#p038">38</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ATIONAL</b></span> statecraft, need of, <a href="#p241">241</a>, <a href="#p251">251</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, basis of, <a href="#p252">252</a>, <a href="#p253">253</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ECOGNITION</b></span>, <a href="#p118">118</a>, <a href="#p119">119</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ELIGION</b></span> and the social animal, <a href="#p050">50</a>, <a href="#p051">51</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>EGREGATION</b></span> of society, effects of, <a href="#p215">215</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>ENSITIVENESS</b></span> to feeling, importance and danger of, <a href="#p064">64</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>IDIS,</b></span> <span class="smcap">B<b>ORIS</b></span>, and the social instinct in man, <a href="#p026">26</a>, <a href="#p027">27</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">E<b>VOLUTION</b></span>, in insects, relation to brain-power, <a href="#p062">62</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, in man, delayed by capacity for reaction, <a href="#p062">62</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span>, continuous with individual psychology, <a href="#p012">12</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> stability, an effect of war, <a href="#p235">235</a>, <a href="#p236">236</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> instability, a sequel of war, <a href="#p236">236</a>, <a href="#p237">237</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIOLOGY</b></span>, definition of, <a href="#p011">11</a>
-<ul>
-<li>――, psychological principles of, <a href="#p255">255</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OLITARY</b></span> <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span> <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMALS</b></span>, elementary differences, <a href="#p017">17</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OMBART,</b></span> <span class="smcap">W<b>ERNER</b></span>, Germans the representatives of God, <a href="#p177">177</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>PEECH</b></span> in man, and gregariousness, <a href="#p034">34</a>, <a href="#p040">40</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>PENCER</b></span>, <a href="#p024">24</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>TABLE-MINDED</b></span> type, <a href="#p054">54</a>, <a href="#p055">55</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">S<b>UGGESTION</b></span> and reason not necessarily opposed, <a href="#p045">45</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">U<b>EXKÜLL</b></span> and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">U<b>NSTABLE-MINDED</b></span> type, <a href="#p058">58</a>, <a href="#p059">59</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">V<b>ARIED</b></span> <span class="smcap">R<b>EACTION</b></span> and capacity for communication,
-importance to the herd of, <a href="#p061">61</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">W<b>AR</b></span>, instinctive reactions to, <a href="#p140">140</a>–<a href="#p143">143</a>
-<ul>
-<li>―― and rumour, <a href="#p144">144</a></li>
-<li>―― as a biological necessity, <a href="#p126">126</a>–<a href="#p132">132</a></li></ul></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">W<b>ARD,</b></span> <span class="smcap">L<b>ESTER</b></span>, views on gregariousness in man, <a href="#p024">24</a>, <a href="#p025">25</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">W<b>ELLS,</b></span> H. G., impossibility of sociology as a science, <a href="#p012">12</a></li>
-
-<li><span class="smcap">W<b>OLF</b></span> <span class="smcap">P<b>ACK</b></span>, the, as an organism, <a href="#p029">29</a></li>
-</ul></li></ul>
-
-<div class="fsz8 padtopa"><i>Printed in Great Britain by</i></div>
-
-<div class="fsz8">UNWIN BROTHERS,
- LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON</div>
-</div><!--dindex-->
-
-<div class="section transnote">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
-
-<ul>
-<li>Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with
-some exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown
-like this: {52}. Footnotes have been relabeled 1–23, and moved from
-within paragraphs to nearby locations between paragraphs. A few full
-stops and commas were added where they were required but were not
-clearly visible in the original print. The transcriber produced the
-cover image and hereby assigns it to the public domain. Original
-page images are available from archive.org&#x2014;search for
-"instinctsofherdi00trot".
-</li>
-
-<li>Page <a href="#p239">239</a>. The phrase “but it is must
-be remembered” was changed to “but it must
-be remembered”.</li>
-
-<li>Page <a href="#p264">264</a>. Index entry “<span class="smcap">U<b>EXKULL</b></span>” was changed
-to “<span class="smcap">U<b>EXKÜLL</b></span>” to agree
-with the text on page <a href="#p014">14</a>.</li></ul>
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-
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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 53453 ***</div>
+
+<div id="dcover">
+<img id="coverpage"
+ src="images/cover.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="" />
+</div>
+
+<div class="dfront section">
+<h1 class="h1thisbook">INSTINCTS OF
+ THE HERD IN PEACE AND WAR</h1>
+
+<div class="fsz7">BY</div>
+
+<div class="fsz3">W. TROTTER</div>
+
+<div class="fsz5 padtopa">T. FISHER UNWIN LTD</div>
+
+<div class="fsz5">LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE</div>
+</div><!--dfront-->
+
+<div class="dfront section">
+<ul class="nowrap fsz7">
+<li class="pleft">
+ <span class="spnfr"><i>February, 1916</i></span>
+ <i>First Published</i></li>
+<li class="pleft">
+ <span class="spnfr"><i>March, 1917</i></span>
+ <i>Second Impression</i></li>
+<li class="pleft">
+ <span class="spnfr"><i>July, 1917</i></span>
+ <i>Third Impression</i></li>
+<li class="pleft">
+ <span class="spnfr"><i>November, 1919</i></span>
+ <i>Second Edition</i></li>
+<li class="pleft">
+ <span class="spnfr"><i>March, 1920</i></span>
+ <i>Fifth Impression</i></li>
+<li class="pleft">
+ <span class="spnfr"><i>February, 1921</i></span>
+ <i>Sixth Impression</i></li>
+</ul>
+<div class="fsz7 padtopa">(<i>All rights reserved</i>)</div>
+</div><!--dfront-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p005">PREFACE</h2></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">The
+first two essays in this book were written some
+ten years ago and published in the <i>Sociological
+Review</i> in 1908 and 1909. They had formed a
+single paper, but it was found necessary to publish
+in two instalments at an interval of six months,
+and to cut down to a considerable extent the total
+bulk.</p>
+
+<p>It was lately suggested to me that as the numbers
+of the review in which the two essays appeared
+were out of print, the fact that the subject concerned
+was not without some current interest might justify
+a republication. It was not possible to do this
+without trying to embody such fruits as there
+might be of ten years’ further speculation and
+some attempt to apply to present affairs the principles
+which had been sketched out.</p>
+
+<p>The new comment very soon surpassed by far
+in bulk the original text, and constitutes, in fact, all
+but a comparatively few pages of this book. This
+rather minute record is made here not because it
+has any interest of its own, but especially to point
+out that I have been engaged in trying to apply
+to the affairs of to-day principles which had taken
+shape ten years ago. I point this out not in order
+<span class="xxpn" id="p006">{6}</span>
+to claim any gift of foresight in having suggested
+so long ago reasons for regarding the stability of
+civilization as unsuspectedly slight, but because it
+is notorious that the atmosphere of a great war
+is unfavourable to free speculation. If the principles
+upon which my argument is based had been
+evolved during the present times, the reader would
+have had special reason to suspect their validity,
+however plausible they might seem in the refracting
+air of national emergency.</p>
+
+<p>The general purpose of this book is to suggest
+that the science of psychology is not the mass of
+dreary and indefinite generalities of which it sometimes
+perhaps seems to be made up; to suggest that,
+especially when studied in relation to other branches
+of biology, it is capable of becoming a guide in
+the actual affairs of life and of giving an understanding
+of the human mind such as may enable
+us in a practical and useful way to foretell some
+of the course of human behaviour. The present
+state of public affairs gives an excellent chance
+for testing the truth of this suggestion, and adds
+to the interest of the experiment the strong incentive
+of an urgent national peril.</p>
+
+<p>If this war is becoming, as it obviously is, daily
+more and more completely a contest of moral forces,
+some really deep understanding of the nature and
+sources of national morale must be at least as
+important a source of strength as the technical
+knowledge of the military engineer and the maker
+of cannon. One is apt to suppose that the chief
+function of a sound morale is the maintenance of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p007">{7}</span>
+a high courage and resolution through the ups and
+downs of warfare. In a nation whose actual independence
+and existence are threatened from without
+such qualities may be taken for granted and may
+be present when the general moral forces are
+seriously disordered. A satisfactory morale gives
+something much more difficult to attain. It gives
+smoothness of working, energy and enterprise to the
+whole national machine, while from the individual
+it ensures the maximal outflow of effort with a
+minimal interference from such egoistic passions
+as anxiety, impatience, and discontent. A practical
+psychology would define these functions and indicate
+means by which they are to be called into activity.</p>
+
+<p>The more we consider the conduct of government
+in warfare the clearer does it become that every
+act of authority produces effects in two distinct
+fields—that of its primary function as directed more
+or less immediately against the enemy, and that of
+its secondary action upon the morale of the nation.
+The first of these two constituents possesses the
+uncertainty of all military enterprises, and its success
+or failure cannot be foretold; the influence of the
+second constituent is susceptible of definition and
+foresight and need never be wholly ambiguous to
+any but the ignorant or the indifferent.</p>
+
+<p>The relative importance of the military and the
+moral factors in any act or enterprise varies much,
+but it may be asserted that while the moral factor
+may sometimes be enormously the more important,
+it is never wholly absent. This constant and
+admittedly significant factor in all acts of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p008">{8}</span>
+government is usually awarded an attention so thoroughly
+inexpert and perfunctory, as to justify the feeling
+that the customary belief in its importance is no
+more than a conventional expression.</p>
+
+<p>The method I have used is frankly speculative,
+and I make no apology for it because the facts are
+open to the observation of all and available for
+confirmation or disproof. I have tried to point out
+a way; I have tried not to exhort or persuade
+to the use of it—these are matters outside my
+province.
+<span class="spndate"><i>November, 1915.</i></span></p>
+
+<h2 class="h2nobreak">PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION</h2>
+
+<p class="pfirst">A few
+errors in the text of the First Edition have
+been corrected, and a sentence which had caused
+misunderstanding has been omitted. No other
+change has been made. A Postscript has been
+added in order to point out some of the directions
+in which the psychological inquiry made during
+the war gave a practical foresight that was confirmed
+by the course of events, and in order to
+examine the remarkable situation in which society
+now finds itself.</p>
+
+<p>In the Preface to the First Edition I ventured to
+suggest that some effective knowledge of the mind
+might be of value to a nation at war; I take this
+opportunity of suggesting that such knowledge
+might be not less useful to a tired nation seeking
+peace. At the same time it should perhaps be added
+that this book is concerned wholly with the examination
+of principles, is professedly speculative in
+methods and conclusions, and is quite without
+pretensions to advise upon the conduct of affairs.
+<span class="spndate"><i>August, 1919.</i></span></p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<ul class="dfront"><li class="ltrspca">
+<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p009">CONTENTS</h2>
+<ul>
+<li class="fsz6 ltrspca"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p005">5</a></span>
+ <span class="smcap">P<b>REFACE</b></span></li>
+
+<li class="fsz6 ltrspca"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p008">8</a></span>
+ <span class="smcap">P<b>REFACE</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">TO</span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>ECOND</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">E<b>DITION</b></span></li>
+
+<li class="ltrspca">HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING
+ ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CIVILIZED MAN
+<ul class="ulina">
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p011">11</a></span>
+ INTRODUCTION</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p015">15</a></span>
+ PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF INSTINCT</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p018">18</a></span>
+ BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GREGARIOUSNESS</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p023">23</a></span>
+ MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL</li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="ltrspca">SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HERD INSTINCT
+<ul class="ulina">
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p060">60</a></span>
+ GREGARIOUSNESS AND THE FUTURE OF MAN</li></ul></li>
+
+<li class="ltrspca">SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915
+<ul class="ulina">
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p066">66</a></span>
+ MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE AND NATURE’S PLACE IN MAN</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p069">69</a></span>
+ COMMENTS ON AN OBJECTIVE SYSTEM OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p091">91</a></span>
+ SOME PRINCIPLES OF A BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p101">101</a></span>
+ THE BIOLOGY OF GREGARIOUSNESS</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p112">112</a></span>
+ CHARACTERS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL DISPLAYED BY MAN</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p120">120</a></span>
+ SOME PECULIARITIES OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p132">132</a></span>
+ IMPERFECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p139">139</a></span>
+ GREGARIOUS SPECIES AT WAR</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p156">156</a></span>
+ ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY—GERMANY</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p201">201</a></span>
+ ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY—ENGLAND</li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="ltrspca">POSTSCRIPT OF 1919
+<ul class="ulina">
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p214">214</a></span>
+ PREJUDICE IN TIME OF WAR</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p224">224</a></span>
+ PSYCHOLOGICAL ANTICIPATIONS</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p235">235</a></span>
+ AFTER THE WAR</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p241">241</a></span>
+ THE INSTABILITY OF CIVILIZATION</li>
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p251">251</a></span>
+ SOME CHARACTERS OF A RATIONAL STATECRAFT</li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li class="fsz6"><span class="spnfr"><a href="#p261">261</a></span>
+ <span class="smcap">I<b>NDEX</b></span></li>
+</ul></li></ul></div><!--section for the page break-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div id="p011">INSTINCTS
+ OF THE HERD IN PEACE AND WAR</div>
+
+<h2 class="h2nobreak">HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING ON
+THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CIVILIZED MAN</h2>
+
+<h3>I. <span class="smcap">I<b>NTRODUCTION</b></span></h3>
+</div><!--chapter-->
+
+<p class="pfirst">Few
+subjects have led to discussion so animated and
+prolonged as has the definition of the science of
+sociology. It is therefore necessary, as it is hoped
+that this essay may be capable of sociological applications,
+that the writer should define the sense in
+which he uses the term. By calling it a science is,
+of course, denoted the view that sociology is a
+body of knowledge derived from experience of its
+material and co-ordinated so that it shall be useful
+in forecasting and, if possible, directing the future
+behaviour of that material. This material is man in
+society of associated man.</p>
+
+<p>Sociology, therefore, is obviously but another
+name for psychology, in the widest sense, for, that
+is to say, a psychology which can include all the
+phenomena of the mind without the exception even
+of the most complex, and is essentially practical in a
+fuller sense than any orthodox psychology which has
+yet appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Sociology has, of course, often been described
+as social psychology and has been regarded as
+differing from ordinary psychology in being
+<span class="xxpn" id="p012">{12}</span>
+concerned with those forms of mental activity which
+man displays in his social relations, the assumption
+being made that society brings to light a special
+series of mental aptitudes with which ordinary psychology,
+dealing as it does essentially with the individual,
+is not mainly concerned. It may be stated
+at once that it is a principal thesis of this essay that
+this attitude is a fallacious one, and has been responsible
+for the comparative sterility of the
+psychological method in sociology. The two fields—the
+social and the individual—are regarded here
+as absolutely continuous; all human psychology, it
+is contended, must be the psychology of associated
+man, since man as a solitary animal is unknown to
+us, and every individual must present the characteristic
+reactions of the social animal if such exist. The
+only difference between the two branches of the
+science lies in the fact that ordinary psychology
+makes no claim to be practical in the sense of
+conferring useful foresight; whereas sociology does
+profess to deal with the complex, unsimplified
+problems of ordinary life, ordinary life being, by a
+biological necessity, social life. If, therefore,
+sociology is to be defined as psychology, it would
+be better to call it practical or applied psychology
+than social psychology.</p>
+
+<p>The first effect of the complete acceptance of
+this point of view is to render very obvious the
+difficulty and immensity of the task of sociology;
+indeed, the possibility of such a science is sometimes
+denied. For example, at an early meeting of
+the Sociological Society, Professor Karl Pearson expressed
+the opinion that the birth of the science of
+sociology must await the obstetrical genius of some
+one man of the calibre of Darwin or Pasteur. At a
+later meeting Mr. H. G. Wells went farther, and
+maintained that as a science sociology not only does
+not but cannot exist.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p013">{13}</span></p>
+
+<p>Such scepticism appears in general to be based
+upon the idea that a practical psychology in the
+sense already defined is impossible. According to
+some this is because the human will introduces
+into conduct an element necessarily incommensurable,
+which will always render the behaviour of
+man subject to the occurrence of true variety and
+therefore beyond the reach of scientific generalization;
+according to another and a more deterministic
+school, human conduct, while not theoretically liable
+to true variety in the philosophic sense or to the
+intrusion of the will as a first cause, is in fact so
+complex that no reduction of it to a complete system
+of generalizations will be possible until science in
+general has made very great progress beyond its
+present position. Both views lead in practice to
+attitudes of equal pessimism towards sociology.</p>
+
+<p>The observable complexity of human conduct is,
+undoubtedly, very great and discouraging. The
+problem of generalizing from it presents, however,
+one important peculiarity, which is not very evident at
+first sight. It is that as observers we are constantly
+pursued by man’s own account of his
+behaviour; that of a given act our observation is
+always more or less mixed with a knowledge, derived
+from our own feelings, of how it seems to
+the author of the act, and it is much more difficult
+than is often supposed to disentangle and allow for
+the influence of this factor. Each of us has the
+strongest conviction that his conduct and beliefs
+are fundamentally individual and reasonable and in
+essence independent of external causation, and each
+is ready to furnish a series of explanations of his
+conduct consistent with these principles. These explanations,
+moreover, are the ones which will occur
+spontaneously to the observer watching the conduct
+of his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>It is suggested here that the sense of the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p014">{14}</span>
+unimaginable complexity and variability of human
+affairs is derived less than is generally supposed
+from direct observation and more from this second
+factor of introspectual interpretation which may be
+called a kind of anthropomorphism. A reaction
+against this in human psychology is no less necessary
+therefore than was in comparative psychology the
+similar movements the extremer developments of
+which are associated with the names of Bethe, Beer,
+Uexküll and Nuel. It is contended that it is this
+anthropomorphism in the general attitude of psychologists
+which, by disguising the observable
+uniformities of human conduct, has rendered so slow
+the establishment of a really practical psychology.
+Little as the subject has been studied from the point
+of view of a thorough-going objectivism, yet even
+now certain generalizations summarising some of the
+ranges of human belief and conduct might already be
+formulated. Such an inquiry, however, is not the
+purpose of this essay, and these considerations have
+been advanced, in the first place, to suggest that
+theory indicates that the problem of sociology is not
+so hopelessly difficult as it at first appears, and
+secondly, as a justification for an examination of
+certain aspects of human conduct by the deductive
+method. The writer would contend that while that
+method is admittedly dangerous when used as a substitute
+for a kind of investigation in which deductive
+processes are reduced to a minimum, yet it has its
+special field of usefulness in cases where the significance
+of previously accumulated facts has been misinterpreted,
+or where the exacter methods have
+proved unavailing through the investigator having
+been without indications of precisely what facts were
+likely to be the most fruitful subject for measurement.
+This essay, then, will be an attempt to obtain
+by a deductive consideration of conduct some
+guidance for the application of those methods of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p015">{15}</span>
+measurement and co-ordination of facts upon which
+all true science is based.</p>
+
+<p>A very little consideration of the problem of
+conduct makes it plain that it is in the region of
+feeling, using the term in its broadest sense, that the
+key is to be sought. Feeling has relations to instinct
+as obvious and fundamental as are the analogies
+between intellectual processes and reflex action; it
+is with the consideration of instinct, therefore, that
+this paper must now be occupied.</p>
+
+<div class="section"><h3>II.
+<span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGICAL</b></span>
+<span class="smcap">A<b>SPECTS</b></span>
+<span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+<span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCT.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>Many years ago, in a famous chapter of his Text
+Book of Psychology, William James analysed and
+established with a quite final delicacy and precision
+the way in which instinct appears to introspection.
+He showed that the impulse of an instinct reveals
+itself as an axiomatically obvious proposition, as
+something which is so clearly “sense” that any idea
+of discussing its basis is foolish or
+wicked.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc1" href="#fn1">1</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn1" href="#afnanc1">1</a>
+Not one man in a billion, when taking his
+dinner, ever thinks of utility. He eats because the food tastes good
+and makes him want more. If you ask him why he should want to eat more
+of what tastes like that, instead of revering you as a philosopher
+he will probably laugh at you for a fool. The connexion between the
+savoury sensation and the act it awakens is for him absolute and
+<i>selbstverständlich</i>, an “<i>a priori</i> synthesis” of the most perfect
+sort needing no proof but its own evidence. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. To the
+metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile, when
+pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd as to a
+single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits so upside
+down? The common man can only say, “<i>Of course</i> we smile, <i>of course</i>
+our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd, <i>of course</i> we love the
+maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and
+flagrantly made from all eternity to be loved” (W. James, “Principles
+of Psychology” vol. ii. p. 386).</p></div>
+
+<p>When we recognize that decisions due to instinct
+come into the mind in a form so characteristic and
+easily identifiable we are encouraged at once to ask
+<span class="xxpn" id="p016">{16}</span>
+whether all decisions having this form must be
+looked upon as essentially of instinctive origin.
+Inquiry, however, reveals the fact that the bulk of
+opinion based upon assumptions having these introspectual
+characters is so vast that any answer but
+a negative one would seem totally incompatible with
+current conceptions of the nature of human
+thought.&#xfeff;&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc2" href="#fn2">2</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn2" href="#afnanc2">2</a>
+This introspectual quality of the “<i>a priori</i> synthesis
+of the most perfect sort” is found, for example, in the assumptions
+upon which is based the bulk of opinion in matters of Church and State,
+the family, justice, probity, honour, purity, crime, and so forth.
+Yet clearly we cannot say that there is a specific instinct concerned
+with each of these subjects, for that, to say the least, would be to
+postulate an unimaginable multiplicity of instincts, for the most part
+wholly without any conceivable biological usefulness. For example,
+there are considerable difficulties in imagining an instinct for making
+people Wesleyans or Roman Catholics, or an instinct for making people
+regard British family life as the highest product of civilization,
+yet there can be no question that these positions are based upon
+assumptions having all the characters described by James as belonging
+to the impulses of instinct.</p></div>
+
+<p>Many attempts have been made to explain the
+behaviour of man as dictated by instinct. He is,
+in fact, moved by the promptings of such obvious
+instincts as self-preservation, nutrition, and sex
+enough to render the enterprise hopeful and its early
+spoils enticing. So much can so easily be generalized
+under these three impulses that the temptation to
+declare that all human behaviour could be resumed
+under them was irresistible. These early triumphs
+of materialism soon, however, began to be troubled
+by doubt. Man, in spite of his obvious duty to the
+contrary, would continue so often not to preserve
+himself, not to nourish himself and to prove resistant
+to the blandishments of sex, that the attempt to
+squeeze his behaviour into these three categories
+began to involve an increasingly obvious and finally
+intolerable amount of pushing and pulling, as well
+as so much pretence that he was altogether “in,”
+<span class="xxpn" id="p017">{17}</span>
+when, quite plainly, so large a part of him remained
+“out,” that the enterprise had to be given up, and
+it was once more discovered that man escaped and
+must always escape any complete generalization by
+science.</p>
+
+<p>A more obvious inference would have been that
+there was some other instinct which had not been
+taken into account, some impulse, perhaps, which
+would have no very evident object as regarded the
+individual, but would chiefly appear as modifying
+the other instincts and leading to new combinations
+in which the primitive instinctive impulse was unrecognizable
+as such. A mechanism such as this
+very evidently would produce a series of actions
+in which uniformity might be very difficult to recognize
+by direct observation, but in which it would
+be very obvious if the characters of this unknown
+“x” were available.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is a striking fact that amongst animals
+there are some whose conduct can be generalized
+very readily in the categories of self-preservation,
+nutrition, and sex, while there are others whose
+conduct cannot be thus summarized. The behaviour
+of the tiger and the cat is simple, and easily
+comprehensible, presenting no unassimilable anomalies,
+whereas that of the dog, with his conscience,
+his humour, his terror of loneliness, his capacity for
+devotion to a brutal master, or that of the bee, with
+her selfless devotion to the hive, furnishes phenomena
+which no sophistry can assimilate without the aid
+of a fourth instinct. But little examination will
+show that the animals whose conduct it is difficult
+to generalize under the three primitive instinctive
+categories are gregarious. If then it can be shown
+that gregariousness is of a biological significance
+approaching in importance that of the other instincts,
+we may expect to find in it the source of these
+anomalies of conduct, and if we can also show
+<span class="xxpn" id="p018">{18}</span>
+that man is gregarious, we may look to it for the
+definition of the unknown “x” which might account
+for the complexity of human behaviour.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3>III. <span class="smcap">B<b>IOLOGICAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>IGNIFICANCE</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>The animal kingdom presents two relatively
+sudden and very striking advances in complexity
+and in the size of the unit upon which natural selection
+acts unmodified. These advances consist in the
+aggregation of units which were previously independent
+and exposed to the full normal action of
+natural selection, and the two instances are, of course,
+the passage from the unicellular to the multicellular,
+and from the solitary to the social.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious that in the multicellular organism
+individual cells lose some of the capacities of the
+unicellular—reproductive capacity is regulated and
+limited, nutrition is no longer possible in the old
+simple way and response to stimuli comes only in
+certain channels. In return for these sacrifices we
+may say, metaphorically, that the action of natural
+selection is withdrawn from within the commune.
+Unfitness of a given cell or group of cells can be
+eliminated only through its effect upon the whole
+organism. The latter is less sensitive to the vagaries
+of a single cell than is the organism of which
+the single cell is the whole. It would seem, therefore,
+that there is now allowed a greater range of
+variability for the individual cells, and perhaps,
+therefore, an increased richness of the material to
+be selected from. Variations, moreover, which were
+not immediately favourable would now have a
+chance of surviving.</p>
+
+<p>Looked at in this way, multicellularity presents
+itself as an escape from the rigour of natural selection,
+which for the unicellular organism had narrowed
+<span class="xxpn" id="p019">{19}</span>
+competition to so desperate a struggle that any
+variation outside the straitest limits was fatal, for
+even though it might be favourable in one respect,
+it would, in so small a kingdom, involve a loss in
+another. The only way, therefore, for further advantageous
+elaboration to occur was by the enlargement
+of the competing unit. Various species of
+multicellular organisms might in time be supposed
+in turn to reach the limit of their powers. Competition
+would be at its maximum, smaller and smaller
+variations would be capable of producing serious
+results. In the species where these conditions prevail
+an enlargement of the unit is imminent if progress
+is to occur. It is no longer possible by increases
+of physical complexity and the apparently inevitable
+sequence is the appearance of gregariousness. The
+necessity and inevitableness of the change are shown
+by its scattered development in very widely separated
+regions (for example, in insects and in mammals)
+just as, we may suspect, multicellularity appeared.</p>
+
+<p>Gregariousness seems frequently to be regarded
+as a somewhat superficial character, scarcely deserving,
+as it were, the name of an instinct, advantageous
+it is true, but not of fundamental importance or
+likely to be deeply ingrained in the inheritance of
+the species. This attitude may be due to the fact
+that among mammals at any rate the appearance
+of gregariousness has not been accompanied by any
+very gross physical changes which are obviously
+associated with
+it.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc3" href="#fn3">3</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn3" href="#afnanc3">3</a>
+Among gregarious insects there are of course physical
+changes arising out of and closely dependent on the social
+organization.</p></div>
+
+<p>To whatever it may be due, this method of regarding
+the social habit is, in the opinion of the present
+writer, not justified by the facts, and prevents the
+attainment of conclusions of considerable fruitfulness.</p>
+
+<p>A study of bees and ants shows at once how
+<span class="xxpn" id="p020">{20}</span>
+fundamental the importance of gregariousness may
+become. The individual in such communities is
+completely incapable, often physically, of existing
+apart from the community, and this fact at once
+gives rise to the suspicion that even in communities
+less closely knit than those of the ant and the bee,
+the individual may in fact be more dependent on
+communal life than appears at first sight.</p>
+
+<p>Another very striking piece of general evidence
+of the significance of gregariousness as no mere
+late acquirement is the remarkable coincidence of
+its occurrence with that of exceptional grades of
+intelligence or the possibility of very complex reactions
+to environment. It can scarcely be regarded
+as an unmeaning accident that the dog, the horse,
+the ape, the elephant, and man are all social animals.
+The instances of the bee and the ant are perhaps
+the most amazing. Here the advantages of gregariousness
+seem actually to outweigh the most
+prodigious differences of structure, and we find a
+condition which is often thought of as a mere habit,
+capable of enabling the insect nervous system to
+compete in the complexity of its power of adaptation
+with that of the higher vertebrates.</p>
+
+<p>If it be granted that gregariousness is a phenomenon
+of profound biological significance and one
+likely therefore to be responsible for an important
+group of instinctive impulses, the next step in our
+argument is the discussion of the question as to
+whether man is to be regarded as gregarious in
+the full sense of the word, whether, that is to say,
+the social habit may be expected to furnish him
+with a mass of instinctive impulse as mysteriously
+potent as the impulses of self-preservation, nutrition,
+and sex. Can we look to the social instinct for an
+explanation of some of the “<i>a priori</i> syntheses of
+the most perfect sort needing no proof but their
+own evidence,” which are not explained by the three
+<span class="xxpn" id="p021">{21}</span>
+primitive categories of instinct, and remain stumbling-blocks
+in the way of generalizing the conduct of man?</p>
+
+<p>The conception of man as a gregarious animal is,
+of course, extremely familiar; one frequently meets
+with it in the writings of psychologists and sociologists,
+and it has obtained a respectable currency
+with the lay public. It has, indeed, become so
+hackneyed that it is the first duty of a writer who
+maintains the thesis that its significance is not even
+yet fully understood, to show that the popular conception
+of it has been far from exhaustive. As
+used hitherto the idea seems to have had a certain
+vagueness which greatly impaired its practical value.
+It furnished an interesting analogy for some of the
+behaviour of man, or was enunciated as a half serious
+illustration by a writer who felt himself to be in
+an exceptionally sardonic vein, but it was not at
+all widely looked upon as a definite fact of biology
+which must have consequences as precise and a
+significance as ascertainable as the secretion of the
+gastric juice or the refracting apparatus of the eye.
+One of the most familiar attitudes was that which
+regarded the social instinct as a late development.
+The family was looked upon as the primitive unit;
+from it developed the tribe, and by the spread of
+family feeling to the tribe the social instinct arose.
+It is interesting that the psychological attack upon
+this position has been anticipated by sociologists
+and anthropologists, and that it is already being
+recognized that an undifferentiated horde rather than
+the family must be regarded as the primitive basis
+of human society.</p>
+
+<p>The most important consequence of this vague
+way of regarding the social habit of man has been
+that no exhaustive investigation of its psychological
+corollaries has been carried out. When we see
+the enormous effect in determining conduct that the
+gregarious inheritance has in the bee, the ant, the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p022">{22}</span>
+horse, or the dog, it is quite plain that if the gregariousness
+of man had been seriously regarded
+as a definite fact a great amount of work would
+have been done in determining precisely what
+reactive tendencies it had marked out in man’s mind.
+Unfortunately, the amount of precise work of this
+kind has been very small.</p>
+
+<p>From the biological standpoint the probability of
+gregariousness being a primitive and fundamental
+quality in man seems to be considerable. As already
+pointed out, like the other great enlargement of
+the biological unit, but in a much more easily recognizable
+degree, it would appear to have the effect of
+enlarging the advantages of variation. Varieties not
+immediately favourable, varieties departing widely
+from the standard, varieties even unfavourable to
+the individual may be supposed to be given by it
+a chance of survival. Now the course of the development
+of man seems to present many features incompatible
+with its having proceeded amongst isolated
+individuals exposed to the unmodified action of
+natural selection. Changes so serious as the assumption
+of the upright posture, the reduction in the
+jaw and its musculature, the reduction in the acuity
+of smell and hearing, demand, if the species is to
+survive, either a delicacy of adjustment with the
+compensatingly developing intelligence so minute as
+to be almost inconceivable, or the existence of some
+kind of protective enclosure, however imperfect, in
+which the varying individuals were sheltered from
+the direct influence of natural selection. The existence
+of such a mechanism would compensate losses
+of physical strength in the individual by the greatly
+increased strength of the larger unit, of the unit,
+that is to say, upon which natural selection still acts
+unmodified.</p>
+
+<p>A realization, therefore, of this function of
+gregariousness relieves us from the necessity of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p023">{23}</span>
+supposing that the double variations of diminishing
+physical and increasing mental capacity always
+occurred <i>pari passu</i>. The case for the primitiveness
+of the social habit would seem to be still
+further strengthened by a consideration of such
+widely aberrant developments as speech and the
+æsthetic activities, but a discussion of them here
+would involve an unnecessary indulgence of biological
+speculation.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3>IV. <span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERISTICS</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span> <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
+ <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMAL.</b></span></h3>
+
+<h4>(<i>a</i>) Current Views in Sociology and Psychology.</h4>
+</div>
+<p>If we now assume that gregariousness may be
+regarded as a fundamental quality of man, it
+remains to discuss the effects we may expect it
+to have produced upon the structure of his mind.
+It would be well, however, first, to attempt to form
+some idea of how far investigation has already gone
+in this direction. It is of course clear that no complete
+review of all that has been said concerning a
+conception so familiar can be attempted here, and,
+even if it were possible, it would not be a profitable
+enterprise, as the great bulk of writers have
+not seen in the idea anything to justify a fundamental
+examination of it. What will be done here,
+therefore, will be to mention a few representative
+writers who have dealt with the subject, and to
+give in a summary way the characteristic features
+of their exposition.</p>
+
+<p>As far as I am aware, the first person to point
+out any of the less obvious biological significance
+of gregariousness was Professor Karl
+Pearson.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc4" href="#fn4">4</a>
+<span class="xxpn" id="p024">{24}</span></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn4" href="#afnanc4">4</a>
+Many references to the subject will be found in his published
+works, for example in “The Grammar of Science,” in “National Life
+from the Standpoint of Science,” and in “The Chances of Death.”
+In the collection of Essays last named the essay entitled “Socialism
+and Natural Selection” deals most fully with the subject.</p></div>
+
+<p>He called attention to the enlargement of the
+selective unit effected by the appearance of gregariousness,
+and to the fact that therefore within
+the group the action of natural selection becomes
+modified. This conception had, as is well known,
+escaped the insight of Haeckel, of Spencer, and
+of Huxley, and Pearson showed into what confusions
+in their treatment of the problems of society these
+three had been led by the
+oversight.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc5" href="#fn5">5</a> For example
+may be mentioned the famous antithesis of the
+“cosmical” and the “ethical” processes expounded
+in Huxley’s Romanes Lecture. It was quite definitely
+indicated by Pearson that the so-called ethical
+process, the appearance, that is to say, of altruism,
+is to be regarded as a directly instinctive product
+of gregariousness, and as natural, therefore, as any
+other instinct.</p>
+
+<p>These very clear and valuable conceptions do not
+seem, however, to have received from biologists the
+attention they deserved, and as far as I am aware
+their author has not continued further the examination
+of the structure of the gregarious mind,
+which would undoubtedly have yielded in his hands
+further conclusions of equal value.</p>
+
+<p>We may next examine the attitude of a modern
+sociologist. I have chosen for this purpose the
+work of an American sociologist, Lester Ward, and
+propose briefly to indicate his position as it may
+be gathered from his book entitled “Pure
+Sociology.”&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc6" href="#fn6">6</a>
+<span class="xxpn" id="p025">{25}</span></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn5" href="#afnanc5">5</a>
+“Socialism and Natural Selection” in “The Chances of Death.”</p></div>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn6" href="#afnanc6">6</a>
+Lester F. Ward, “Pure Sociology: a Treatise on the Origin and
+Spontaneous Development of Society.” New York: The Macmillan
+Co. 1903. I do not venture to decide whether this work may be
+regarded as representative of orthodox sociology, if there be such a
+thing; I have made the choice because of the author’s capacity for
+fresh and ingenious speculation and his obviously wide knowledge of
+sociological literature.</p></div>
+
+<p>The task of summarizing the views of any
+sociologist seems to me to be rendered difficult
+by a certain vagueness in outline of the positions
+laid down, a certain tendency for a description of
+fact to run into an analogy, and an analogy to fade
+into an illustration. It would be discourteous to
+doubt that these tendencies are necessary to the
+fruitful treatment of the material of sociology, but,
+as they are very prominent in connection with the
+subject of gregariousness, it is necessary to say that
+one is fully conscious of the difficulties they give
+rise to, and feels that they may have led one into
+unintentional misrepresentation.</p>
+
+<p>With this proviso it may be stated that the
+writings of Ward produce the feeling that he regards
+gregariousness as furnishing but few precise and
+primitive characteristics of the human mind. The
+mechanisms through which group “instinct” acts
+would seem to be to him largely rational processes,
+and group instinct itself is regarded as a relatively
+late development more or less closely associated
+with a rational knowledge that it “pays.” For
+example, he says: “For want of a better name,
+I have characterized this social instinct, or instinct
+of race safety, as religion, but not without clearly
+perceiving that it constitutes the primordial
+undifferentiated plasm out of which have subsequently
+developed all the more important human
+institutions. This .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. if it be not an instinct,
+is at least the human homologue of animal instinct,
+and served the same purpose <i>after the instincts
+had chiefly disappeared</i>, and when the egotistic
+reason would otherwise have rapidly carried the
+race to destruction in its mad pursuit of pleasure
+for its own
+sake.”&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc7" href="#fn7">7</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn7" href="#afnanc7">7</a>
+“Pure Sociology,” p. 134. Italics not in original.
+Passages of a similar tendency will be found on pp. 200 and 556.</p></div>
+
+<p>That gregariousness has to be considered amongst
+<span class="xxpn" id="p026">{26}</span>
+the factors shaping the tendencies of the human
+mind has long been recognized by the more
+empirical psychologists. In the main, however, it
+has been regarded as a quality perceptible only in
+the characteristics of actual crowds—that is to say,
+assemblies of persons being and acting in association.
+This conception has served to evoke a certain
+amount of valuable work in the observation of the
+behaviour of
+crowds.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc8" href="#fn8">8</a></p>
+
+<p>Owing, however, to the failure to investigate as
+the more essential question the effects of gregariousness
+in the mind of the normal individual man,
+the theoretical side of crowd psychology has remained
+incomplete and relatively sterile.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, one exception, in the case of
+the work of Boris Sidis. In a book entitled “The
+Psychology of
+Suggestion”&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc9" href="#fn9">9</a> he has described certain
+psychical qualities as necessarily associated with
+the social habit in the individual as in the crowd.
+His position, therefore, demands some discussion.
+The fundamental element in it is the conception
+of the normal existence in the mind of a subconscious
+self. This subconscious or subwaking self
+is regarded as embodying the “lower” and more
+obviously brutal qualities of man. It is irrational,
+imitative, credulous, cowardly, cruel, and lacks all
+individuality, will, and
+self-control.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc10" href="#fn10">10</a> This personality
+takes the place of the normal personality during
+hypnosis and when the individual is one of an
+active crowd, as, for example, in riots, panics,
+lynchings, revivals, and so forth.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p027">{27}</span></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn8" href="#afnanc8">8</a>
+For example, the little book of Gustave Le Bon—“Psychologie
+des Foules,” Paris: Felix Alcan—in which are formulated many
+generalizations.</p></div>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn9" href="#afnanc9">9</a>
+“The Psychology of Suggestion: a Research into the Subconscious
+Nature of Man and Society,” by Boris Sidis, with an Introduction by
+Prof. Wm. James. New York. 1903.</p></div>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn10" href="#afnanc10">10</a>
+“Psychology of Suggestion,” p. 295.</p></div>
+
+<p>Of the two personalities—the subconscious and
+the normal—the former alone is suggestible; the
+successful operation of suggestion implies the recurrence,
+however transient, of a disaggregation of
+personality, and the emergence of the subwaking
+self as the controlling mind (pp. 89 and 90). It
+is this suggestibility of the subwaking self which
+enables man to be a social animal. “Suggestibility
+is the cement of the herd, the very soul of the
+primitive social group. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Man is a social animal,
+no doubt, but he is social because he is suggestible.
+Suggestibility, however, requires disaggregation of
+consciousness, hence society presupposes a cleavage
+of the mind. Society and mental epidemics are
+intimately related; for the social gregarious self
+is the suggestible subconscious self” (p. 310).</p>
+
+<p>Judged from our present standpoint, the most
+valuable feature of Sidis’s book is that it calls attention
+to the undoubtedly intimate relation between
+gregariousness and suggestibility. The mechanism,
+however, by which he supposes suggestibility to
+come into action is more open to criticism. The
+conception of a permanent subconscious self is
+one to which it is doubtful whether the evidence
+compels
+assent.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc11" href="#fn11">11</a> The essential difference, however,
+which Sidis’s views present from those to be
+developed below, lies in his regarding suggestibility
+as being something which is liable to intrude
+upon the normal mind as the result of a disaggregation
+of consciousness, instead of as a necessary
+quality of every normal mind, continually present,
+and an inalienable accompaniment of human thought.
+A careful reading of his book gives a very clear
+impression that he looks upon suggestibility as a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p028">{28}</span>
+disreputable and disastrous legacy of the brute and
+the savage, undesirable in civilized life, opposed
+to the satisfactory development of the normal individuality,
+and certainly in no way associated at its
+origin with a quality so valuable as altruism. Moreover,
+one gets the impression that he regards
+suggestibility as being manifested chiefly, if not
+solely, in crowds, in panics, revivals, and in conditions
+generally in which the element of close
+association is well marked.</p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn11" href="#afnanc11">11</a>
+In this connexion the “Symposium on the Subconscious” in the
+<i>Journal of Abnormal Psychology</i>, vol. ii. Nos. 1 and 2, is of much
+interest. The discussion is contributed to by Münsterberg, Ribot
+Jastrow, Pierre Janet, and Morton Prince.</p></div>
+
+<h4>(<i>b</i>) Deductive Considerations</h4>
+
+<p>The functions of the gregarious habit in a species
+may broadly be defined as offensive or defensive,
+or both. Whichever of these modes it has
+assumed in the animal under consideration, it
+will be correlated with effects which will be
+divisible into two classes—the general characteristics
+of the social animal, and the special characteristics
+of the form of social habit possessed
+by the given animal. The dog and the sheep
+illustrate well the characteristics of the two simple
+forms of gregariousness—offensive and defensive.</p>
+
+<h5>1. <i>Special Characteristics of the Gregarious Animal.</i></h5>
+
+<p>These need not be dealt with here, as they are
+the qualities which for the most part have been
+treated of by psychologists in such work as has
+been done on the corollaries of gregariousness in
+man. This is because they are qualities which are
+most evident in man’s behaviour when he acts in
+crowds, and are then evident as something temporarily
+superadded to the possibilities of the isolated
+individual. Hence it has come about that they
+have been taken for the most part as constituting
+the whole of man’s gregarious inheritance, while
+the possibility that that inheritance might have
+<span class="xxpn" id="p029">{29}</span>
+equally important consequences for the individual
+has been relatively neglected.</p>
+
+<h5>2. <i>General Characteristics of the Gregarious Animal.</i></h5>
+
+<p>The cardinal quality of the herd is homogeneity.
+It is clear that the great advantage of the social habit
+is to enable large numbers to act as one, whereby
+in the case of the hunting gregarious animal strength
+in pursuit and attack is at once increased to beyond
+that of the creatures preyed
+upon,&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc12" href="#fn12">12</a> and in protective
+socialism the sensitiveness of the new unit to
+alarms is greatly in excess of that of the individual
+member of the flock.</p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn12" href="#afnanc12">12</a>
+The wolf pack forms an organism, it is interesting to
+note, stronger than the lion or the tiger; capable of compensating for
+the loss of members; inexhaustible in pursuit, and therefore capable by
+sheer strength of hunting down without wile or artifice the fleetest
+animals; capable finally of consuming all the food it kills, and thus
+possessing another considerable advantage over the large solitary
+carnivora in not tending uselessly to exhaust its food supply. The
+advantages of the social habit in carnivora is well shown by the
+survival of wolves in civilized countries even to-day.</p></div>
+
+<p>To secure these advantages of homogeneity, it
+is evident that the members of the herd must possess
+sensitiveness to the behaviour of their fellows. The
+individual isolated will be of no meaning, the individual
+as part of the herd will be capable of
+transmitting the most potent impulses. Each
+member of the flock tending to follow its neighbour
+and in turn to be followed, each is in some sense
+capable of leadership; but no lead will be followed
+that departs widely from normal behaviour. A lead
+will be followed only from its resemblance to the
+normal. If the leader go so far ahead as definitely
+to cease to be in the herd, he will necessarily be
+ignored.</p>
+
+<p>The original in conduct, that is to say resistiveness
+to the voice of the herd, will be suppressed
+<span class="xxpn" id="p030">{30}</span>
+by natural selection; the wolf which does not
+follow the impulses of the herd will be starved;
+the sheep which does not respond to the flock will
+be eaten.</p>
+
+<p>Again, not only will the individual be responsive
+to impulses coming from the herd, but he will treat
+the herd as his normal environment. The impulse
+to be in and always to remain with the herd will have
+the strongest instinctive weight. Anything which
+tends to separate him from his fellows, as soon as
+it becomes perceptible as such, will be strongly
+resisted.</p>
+
+<p>So far, we have regarded the gregarious animal
+objectively. We have seen that he behaves as if
+the herd were the only environment in which he can
+live, that he is especially sensitive to impulses
+coming from the herd, and quite differently affected
+by the behaviour of animals not in the herd. Let us
+now try to estimate the mental aspects of these
+impulses. Suppose a species in possession of
+precisely the instinctive endowments which we have
+been considering, to be also self-conscious, and let
+us ask what will be the forms under which these
+phenomena will present themselves in its mind. In
+the first place, it is quite evident that impulses
+derived from herd feeling will enter the mind with
+the value of instincts—they will present themselves
+as “<i>a priori</i> syntheses of the most perfect sort
+needing no proof but their own evidence.” They
+will not, however, it is important to remember,
+necessarily always give this quality to the same
+specific acts, but will show this great distinguishing
+characteristic that they may give to <i>any opinion
+whatever</i> the characters of instinctive belief, making
+it into an “<i>a priori synthesis</i>”; so that we shall
+expect to find acts which it would be absurd to look
+upon as the results of specific instincts carried out
+with all the enthusiasm of instinct, and displaying
+<span class="xxpn" id="p031">{31}</span>
+all the marks of instinctive behaviour. The failure
+to recognize this appearance of herd impulse as a
+tendency, as a power which can confer instinctive
+sanctions on any part of the field of belief or action,
+has prevented the social habit of man from attracting
+as much of the attention of psychologists as it
+might profitably have done.</p>
+
+<p>In interpreting into mental terms the consequences
+of gregariousness, we may conveniently begin with
+the simplest. The conscious individual will feel
+an unanalysable primary sense of comfort in the
+actual presence of his fellows, and a similar sense
+of discomfort in their absence. It will be obvious
+truth to him that it is not good for the man to be
+alone. Loneliness will be a real terror, insurmountable
+by reason.</p>
+
+<p>Again, certain conditions will become secondarily
+associated with presence with, or absence from, the
+herd. For example, take the sensations of heat
+and cold. The latter is prevented in gregarious
+animals by close crowding, and experienced in the
+reverse condition; hence it comes to be connected
+in the mind with separation, and so acquires
+altogether unreasonable associations of harmfulness.
+Similarly, the sensation of warmth is associated with
+feelings of the secure and salutary. It has taken
+medicine many thousands of years to begin to doubt
+the validity of the popular conception of the harmfulness
+of cold; yet to the psychologist such a
+doubt is immediately
+obvious.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc13" href="#fn13">13</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn13" href="#afnanc13">13</a>
+Any one who has watched the behaviour of the dog and the cat
+towards warmth and cold cannot have failed to notice the effect of the
+gregarious habit on the former. The cat displays a moderate liking
+for warmth, but also a decided indifference to cold, and will quietly
+sit in the snow in a way which would be impossible to the dog.</p></div>
+
+<p>Slightly more complex manifestations of the same
+tendency to homogeneity are seen in the desire for
+identification with the herd in matters of opinion.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p032">{32}</span>
+Here we find the biological explanation of the ineradicable
+impulse mankind has always displayed
+towards segregation into classes. Each one of us
+in his opinions and his conduct, in matters of dress,
+amusement, religion, and politics, is compelled to
+obtain the support of a class, of a herd within the
+herd. The most eccentric in opinion or conduct
+is, we may be sure, supported by the agreement
+of a class, the smallness of which accounts for his
+apparent eccentricity, and the preciousness of which
+accounts for his fortitude in defying general opinion.
+Again, anything which tends to emphasize difference
+from the herd is unpleasant. In the individual mind
+there will be an unanalysable dislike of the novel
+in action or thought. It will be “wrong,”
+“wicked,” “foolish,” “undesirable,” or as we say
+“bad form,” according to varying circumstances
+which we can already to some extent define.</p>
+
+<p>Manifestations relatively more simple are shown
+in the dislike of being conspicuous, in shyness and
+in stage fright. It is, however, sensitiveness to the
+behaviour of the herd which has the most important
+effects upon the structure of the mind of the gregarious
+animal. This sensitiveness is closely
+associated with the suggestibility of the gregarious
+animal, and therefore with that of man. The effect
+of it will clearly be to make acceptable those suggestions
+which come from the herd, and those only.
+It is of especial importance to note that this suggestibility
+is not general, and that it is only herd suggestions
+which are rendered acceptable by the action
+of instinct. Man is, for example, notoriously
+insensitive to the suggestions of experience. The
+history of what is rather grandiosely called human
+progress everywhere illustrates this. If we look
+back upon the development of some such thing as
+the steam-engine, we cannot fail to be struck by
+the extreme obviousness of each advance, and how
+<span class="xxpn" id="p033">{33}</span>
+obstinately it was refused assimilation until the
+machine almost invented itself.</p>
+
+<p>Again, of two suggestions, that which the more
+perfectly embodies the voice of the herd is the
+more acceptable. The chances an affirmation has of
+being accepted could therefore be most satisfactorily
+expressed in terms of the bulk of the herd by which
+it is backed.</p>
+
+<p>It follows from the foregoing that anything which
+dissociates a suggestion from the herd will tend to
+ensure such a suggestion being rejected. For
+example, an imperious command from an individual
+known to be without authority is necessarily disregarded,
+whereas the same person making the same
+suggestion in an indirect way so as to link it up
+with the voice of the herd will meet with success.</p>
+
+<p>It is unfortunate that in discussing these facts it
+has been necessary to use the word “suggestibility,”
+which has so thorough an implication of the
+abnormal. If the biological explanation of suggestibility
+here set forth be accepted, the latter must
+necessarily be a normal quality of the human mind.
+To believe must be an ineradicable natural bias
+of man, or in other words an affirmation, positive
+or negative, is more readily accepted than rejected,
+unless its source is definitely dissociated from the
+herd. Man is not, therefore, suggestible by fits
+and starts, not merely in panics and in mobs, under
+hypnosis, and so forth, but always, everywhere, and
+under any circumstances. The capricious way in
+which man reacts to different suggestions has been
+attributed to variations in his suggestibility. This
+in the opinion of the present writer is an incorrect
+interpretation of the facts which are more satisfactorily
+explained by regarding the variations as
+due to the differing extent to which suggestions
+are identified with the voice of the herd.</p>
+
+<p>Man’s resistiveness to certain suggestions, and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p034">{34}</span>
+especially to experience, as is seen so well in his
+attitude to the new, becomes therefore but another
+evidence of his suggestibility, since the new has
+always to encounter the opposition of herd tradition.</p>
+
+<p>The apparent diminution in direct suggestibility
+with advancing years, such as was demonstrated
+in children by Binet, is in the case of the adult
+familiar to all, and is there usually regarded as
+evidence of a gradually advancing organic change
+in the brain. It can be regarded, at least plausibly,
+as being due to the fact that increase of years
+must bring an increase in the accumulations of herd
+suggestion, and so tend progressively to fix opinion.</p>
+
+<p>In the early days of the human race, the appearance
+of the faculty of speech must have led to an
+immediate increase in the extent to which the decrees
+of the herd could be promulgated, and the field
+to which they applied. Now the desire for certitude
+is one of profound depth in the human mind, and
+possibly a necessary property of any mind, and it
+is very plausible to suppose that it led in these early
+days to the whole field of life being covered by
+pronouncements backed by the instinctive sanction
+of the herd. The life of the individual would be
+completely surrounded by sanctions of the most
+tremendous kind. He would know what he might
+and might not do, and what would happen if he
+disobeyed. It would be immaterial if experience
+confirmed these beliefs or not, because it would
+have incomparably less weight than the voice of
+the herd. Such a period is the only trace perceptible
+by the biologist of the Golden Age fabled by the
+poet, when things happened as they ought, and
+hard facts had not begun to vex the soul of man.
+In some such condition we still find the Central
+Australian native. His whole life, to its minutest
+detail, is ordained for him by the voice of the
+herd, and he must not, under the most dreadful
+<span class="xxpn" id="p035">{35}</span>
+sanctions, step outside its elaborate order. It does
+not matter to him that an infringement of the code
+under his very eyes is not followed by judgment,
+for with tribal suggestion so compactly organized,
+such cases are in fact no difficulty, and do not
+trouble his belief, just as in more civilized countries
+apparent instances of malignity in the reigning deity
+are not found to be inconsistent with his benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>Such must everywhere have been primitive human
+conditions, and upon them reason intrudes as an
+alien and hostile power, disturbing the perfection
+of life, and causing an unending series of conflicts.</p>
+
+<p>Experience, as is shown by the whole history of
+man, is met by resistance because it invariably encounters
+decisions based upon instinctive belief, and
+nowhere is this fact more clearly to be seen than
+in the way in which the progress of science has
+been made.</p>
+
+<p>In matters that really interest him, man cannot
+support the suspense of judgment which science so
+often has to enjoin. He is too anxious to feel
+certain to have time to know. So that we see of
+the sciences, mathematics appearing first, then astronomy,
+then physics, then chemistry, then biology,
+then psychology, then sociology—but always the new
+field was grudged to the new method, and we still
+have the denial to sociology of the name of science.
+Nowadays, matters of national defence, of politics,
+of religion, are still too important for knowledge,
+and remain subjects for certitude; that is to say, in
+them we still prefer the comfort of instinctive belief,
+because we have not learnt adequately to value the
+capacity to foretell.</p>
+
+<p>Direct observation of man reveals at once the
+fact that a very considerable proportion of his beliefs
+are non-rational to a degree which is immediately
+obvious without any special examination, and with
+<span class="xxpn" id="p036">{36}</span>
+no special resources other than common knowledge.
+If we examine the mental furniture of the average
+man, we shall find it made up of a vast number of
+judgments of a very precise kind upon subjects of
+very great variety, complexity, and difficulty. He
+will have fairly settled views upon the origin and
+nature of the universe, and upon what he will probably
+call its meaning; he will have conclusions
+as to what is to happen to him at death and after,
+as to what is and what should be the basis of
+conduct. He will know how the country should
+be governed, and why it is going to the dogs, why
+this piece of legislation is good and that bad.
+He will have strong views upon military and naval
+strategy, the principles of taxation, the use of alcohol
+and vaccination, the treatment of influenza, the prevention
+of hydrophobia, upon municipal trading, the
+teaching of Greek, upon what is permissible in art,
+satisfactory in literature, and hopeful in science.</p>
+
+<p>The bulk of such opinions must necessarily be
+without rational basis, since many of them are concerned
+with problems admitted by the expert to be
+still unsolved, while as to the rest it is clear that
+the training and experience of no average man can
+qualify him to have any opinion upon them at all.
+The rational method adequately used would have told
+him that on the great majority of these questions
+there could be for him but one attitude—that of
+suspended judgment.</p>
+
+<p>In view of the considerations that have been discussed
+above, this wholesale acceptance of non-rational
+belief must be looked upon as normal. The
+mechanism by which it is effected demands some
+examination, since it cannot be denied that the facts
+conflict noticeably with popularly current views as to
+the part taken by reason in the formation of opinion.</p>
+
+<p>It is clear at the outset that these beliefs are
+invariably regarded by the holder as rational, and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p037">{37}</span>
+defended as such, while the position of one who
+holds contrary views is held to be obviously unreasonable.
+The religious man accuses the atheist
+of being shallow and irrational, and is met by a
+similar reply; to the Conservative, the amazing thing
+about the Liberal is his incapacity to see reason and
+accept the only possible solution of public problems.
+Examination reveals the fact that the differences are
+not due to the commission of the mere mechanical
+fallacies of logic, since these are easily avoided, even
+by the politician, and since there is no reason to
+suppose that one party in such controversies is less
+logical than the other. The difference is due rather
+to the fundamental assumptions of the antagonists
+being hostile, and these assumptions are derived
+from herd suggestion; to the Liberal, certain basal
+conceptions have acquired the quality of instinctive
+truth, have become “<i>a priori</i> syntheses,” because
+of the accumulated suggestions to which he has
+been exposed, and a similar explanation applies to
+the atheist, the Christian, and the Conservative.
+Each, it is important to remember, finds in consequence
+the rationality of his position flawless, and
+is quite incapable of detecting in it the fallacies
+which are obvious to his opponent, to whom that
+particular series of assumptions has not been
+rendered acceptable by herd suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>To continue further the analysis of non-rational
+opinion, it should be observed that the mind rarely
+leaves uncriticized the assumptions which are forced
+on it by herd suggestion, the tendency being for it
+to find more or less elaborately rationalized justifications
+of them. This is in accordance with the
+enormously exaggerated weight which is always
+ascribed to reason in the formation of opinion and
+conduct, as is very well seen, for example, in the
+explanation of the existence of altruism as being
+due to man seeing that it “pays.”
+<span class="xxpn" id="p038">{38}</span></p>
+
+<p>It is of cardinal importance to recognize that in
+this process of the rationalization of instinctive belief,
+it is the belief which is the primary thing, while
+the explanation, although masquerading as the cause
+of the belief, as the chain of rational evidence
+on which the belief is founded, is entirely secondary,
+and but for the belief would never have been thought
+of. Such rationalizations are often, in the case of
+intelligent people, of extreme ingenuity, and may be
+very misleading unless the true instinctive basis of
+the given opinion or action is thoroughly understood.</p>
+
+<p>This mechanism enables the English lady, who, to
+escape the stigma of having normal feet, subjects
+them to a formidable degree of lateral compression,
+to be aware of no logical inconsequence when she
+subscribes to missions to teach the Chinese lady how
+absurd it is to compress her feet longitudinally;
+it enables the European lady who wears rings in her
+ears to smile at the barbarism of the coloured lady
+who wears her rings in her nose; it enables the
+Englishman who is amused by the African chieftain’s
+regard for the top hat as an essential piece of the
+furniture of state to ignore the identity of his own
+behaviour when he goes to church beneath the same
+tremendous ensign.</p>
+
+<p>The objectivist finds himself compelled to regard
+these and similar correspondences between the behaviour
+of civilized and barbarous man as no mere
+interesting coincidences, but as phenomena actually
+and in the grossest way identical, but such an
+attitude is possible only when the mechanism is
+understood by which rationalization of these customs
+is effected.</p>
+
+<p>The process of rationalization which has just been
+illustrated by some of its simpler varieties is best
+seen on the largest scale, and in the most elaborate
+form, in the pseudosciences of political economy and
+ethics. Both of these are occupied in deriving
+<span class="xxpn" id="p039">{39}</span>
+from eternal principles justifications for masses of
+non-rational belief which are assumed to be permanent
+merely because they exist. Hence the
+notorious acrobatic feats of both in the face of any
+considerable variation in herd belief.</p>
+
+<p>It would seem that the obstacles to rational thought
+which have been pointed out in the foregoing discussion
+have received much less attention than should
+have been directed towards them. To maintain an
+attitude of mind which could be called scientific in
+any complete sense, it is of cardinal importance to
+recognize that belief of affirmations sanctioned by
+the herd is a normal mechanism of the human
+mind, and goes on however much such affirmations
+may be opposed by evidence, that reason cannot
+enforce belief against herd suggestion, and finally
+that totally false opinions may appear to the holder
+of them to possess all the characters of rationally
+verifiable truth, and may be justified by secondary
+processes of rationalization which it may be impossible
+directly to combat by argument.</p>
+
+<p>It should be noticed, however, that verifiable
+truths may acquire the potency of herd suggestion,
+so that the suggestibility of man does not necessarily
+or always act against the advancement of
+knowledge. For example, to the student of biology
+the principles of Darwinism may acquire the force
+of herd suggestion through being held by the
+class which he most respects, is most in contact
+with and the class which has therefore acquired
+suggestionizing power with him. Propositions consistent
+with these principles will now necessarily
+be more acceptable to him, whatever the evidence
+by which they are supported, than they would be
+to one who had not been exposed to the same
+influences. The opinion, in fact, may be hazarded
+that the acceptance of any proposition is invariably
+the resultant of suggestive influences, whether the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p040">{40}</span>
+proposition be true or false, and that the balance
+of suggestion is usually on the side of the false,
+because, education being what it is, the scientific
+method—the method, that is to say, of experience—has
+so little chance of acquiring suggestionizing
+force.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far sensitiveness to the herd has been
+discussed in relation to its effect upon intellectual
+processes. Equally important effects are traceable
+in feeling.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious that when free communication is
+possible by speech, the expressed approval or disapproval
+of the herd will acquire the qualities of
+identity or dissociation from the herd respectively.
+To know that he is doing what would arouse the
+disapproval of the herd will bring to the individual
+the same profound sense of discomfort which would
+accompany actual physical separation, while to know
+that he is doing what the herd would approve will
+give him the sense of rightness, of gusto, and of
+stimulus which would accompany physical presence
+in the herd and response to its mandates. In both
+cases it is clear that no actual expression by the herd
+is necessary to arouse the appropriate feelings,
+which would come from within and have, in fact,
+the qualities which are recognized in the dictates
+of conscience. Conscience, then, and the feelings of
+guilt and of duty are the peculiar possessions of
+the gregarious animal. A dog and a cat caught in
+the commission of an offence will both recognize
+that punishment is coming; but the dog, moreover,
+knows that he has done <i>wrong</i>, and he will come
+to be punished, unwillingly it is true, and as if
+dragged along by some power outside him, while the
+cat’s sole impulse is to escape. The rational recognition
+of the sequence of act and punishment is
+equally clear to the gregarious and to the solitary
+animal, but it is the former only who understands
+<span class="xxpn" id="p041">{41}</span>
+that he has committed a <i>crime</i>, who has, in fact, the
+<i>sense of sin</i>. That this is the origin of what we
+call conscience is confirmed by the characteristics
+of the latter which are accessible to observation.
+Any detailed examination of the phenomena of
+conscience would lead too far to be admissible here.
+Two facts, however, should be noticed. First, the
+judgments of conscience vary in different circles,
+and are dependent on local environments; secondly,
+they are not advantageous to the species to the
+slightest degree beyond the dicta of the morals
+current in the circle in which they originate. These
+facts—stated here in an extremely summary way—demonstrate
+that conscience is an indirect result
+of the gregarious instinct, and is in no sense derived
+from a special instinct forcing men to consider
+the good of the race rather than individual desires.
+<span class="spndate">1908</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p042">SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE
+PSYCHOLOGY OF HERD INSTINCT</h2></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">It
+was shown in the previous essay that the
+gregarious mental character is evident in man’s
+behaviour, not only in crowds and other circumstances
+of actual association, but also in his behaviour
+as an individual, however isolated. The conclusions
+were arrived at that man’s suggestibility is not
+the abnormal casual phenomenon it is often supposed
+to be, but a normal instinct present in every individual,
+and that the apparent inconstancy of its
+action is due to the common failure to recognize
+the extent of the field over which suggestion acts;
+that the only medium in which man’s mind can
+function satisfactorily is the herd, which therefore
+is not only the source of his opinions, his credulities,
+his disbeliefs, and his weaknesses, but of
+his altruism, his charity, his enthusiasms, and his
+power.</p>
+
+<p>The subject of the psychological effects of herd
+instinct is so wide that the discussion of it in the
+former essay covered only a comparatively small
+part of the field, and that in a very cursory way.
+Such as it was, however, it cannot be further
+amplified here, where an attempt will rather be
+made to sketch some of the practical corollaries of
+such generalizations as were laid down there.</p>
+
+<p>In the first place, it must be stated with emphasis
+that deductive speculation of this sort finds its
+principal value in opening up new possibilities for
+<span class="xxpn" id="p043">{43}</span>
+the application of a more exact method. Science is
+measurement, but the deductive method may indicate
+those things which can be most profitably measured.</p>
+
+<p>When the overwhelming importance of the suggestibility
+of man is recognized our first effort should
+be to obtain exact numerical expressions of it. This
+is not the place to attempt any exposition of the
+directions in which experiment should proceed; but
+it may be stated that what we want to know is,
+how much suggestion can do in the way of inducing
+belief, and it may be guessed that we shall ultimately
+be able to express the force of suggestion in terms
+of the number of undifferentiated units of the herd
+it represents. In the work that has already been
+done, chiefly by Binet and by Sidis, the suggestive
+force experimented with was relatively feeble, and
+the effects consequently were rendered liable to
+great disturbance from the spontaneous action of
+other forces of suggestion already in the mind.
+Sidis, for example, found that his subjects often
+yielded to his suggestions out of “politeness”;
+this source of difficulty was obviously due to his
+use of pure individual suggestion, a variety which
+theory shows to be weak or even directly resisted.</p>
+
+<p>The next feature of practical interest is connected
+with the hypothesis, which we attempted in the
+former article to demonstrate, that irrational belief
+forms a large bulk of the furniture of the mind,
+and is indistinguishable by the subject from rational
+verifiable knowledge. It is obviously of cardinal
+importance to be able to effect this distinction, for
+it is the failure to do so which, while it is not
+the cause of the slowness of advance in knowledge,
+is the mechanism by which this delay is brought
+about. Is there, then, we may ask, any discoverable
+touchstone by which non-rational opinion may
+be distinguished from rational? Non-rational judgments,
+being the product of suggestion, will have
+<span class="xxpn" id="p044">{44}</span>
+the quality of instinctive opinion, or, as we may
+call it, of belief in the strict sense. The essence
+of this quality is obviousness; the truth held in
+this way is one of James’s “<i>a priori</i> syntheses of
+the most perfect sort”; to question it is to the
+believer to carry scepticism to an insane degree,
+and will be met by contempt, disapproval, or condemnation,
+according to the nature of the belief in
+question. When, therefore, we find ourselves entertaining
+an opinion about the basis of which there
+is a quality of feeling which tells us that to inquire
+into it would be absurd, obviously unnecessary, unprofitable,
+undesirable, bad form, or wicked, we may
+know that that opinion is a non-rational one, and
+probably, therefore, founded upon inadequate evidence.</p>
+
+<p>Opinions, on the other hand, which are acquired
+as the result of experience alone do not possess this
+quality of primary certitude. They are true in
+the sense of being verifiable, but they are unaccompanied
+by that profound feeling of truth which
+belief possesses, and, therefore, we have no sense
+of reluctance in admitting inquiry into them. That
+heavy bodies tend to fall to the earth and that fire
+burns fingers are truths verifiable and verified every
+day, but we do not hold them with impassioned
+certitude, and we do not resent or resist inquiry
+into their basis; whereas in such a question as that
+of the survival of death by human personality we
+hold the favourable or the adverse view with a
+quality of feeling entirely different, and of such
+a kind that inquiry into the matter is looked upon
+as disreputable by orthodox science and as wicked
+by orthodox religion. In relation to this subject, it
+may be remarked, we often see it very interestingly
+shown that the holders of two diametrically opposed
+opinions, one of which is certainly right, may both
+show by their attitude that the belief is held
+<span class="xxpn" id="p045">{45}</span>
+instinctively and non-rationally, as, for example,
+when an atheist and a Christian unite in repudiating
+inquiry into the existence of the soul.</p>
+
+<p>A third practical corollary of a recognition of
+the true gregariousness of man is the very obvious
+one that it is not by any means necessary that
+suggestion should always act on the side of unreason.
+The despair of the reformer has always been the
+irrationality of man, and latterly some have come
+to regard the future as hopeless until we can breed
+a rational species. Now, the trouble is not irrationality,
+not a definite preference for unreason, but
+suggestibility—that is, a capacity for accepting reason
+or unreason if it comes from the proper source.</p>
+
+<p>This quality we have seen to be a direct consequence
+of the social habit, of a single definite
+instinct, that of gregariousness, the same instinct
+which makes social life at all possible and altruism
+a reality.</p>
+
+<p>It does not seem to have been fully understood
+that if you attack suggestibility by selection—and
+that is what you do if you breed for rationality—you
+are attacking gregariousness, for there is at present
+no adequate evidence that the gregarious instinct
+is other than a simple character and one which
+cannot be split up by the breeder. If, then, such
+an effort in breeding were successful, we should
+exchange the manageable unreason of man for the
+inhuman rationality of the tiger.</p>
+
+<p>The solution would seem rather to lie in seeing to
+it that suggestion always acts on the side of reason;
+if rationality were once to become really respectable,
+if we feared the entertaining of an unverifiable
+opinion with the warmth with which we fear using
+the wrong implement at the dinner table, if the
+thought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as
+does a foul disease, then the dangers of man’s
+suggestibility would be turned into advantages. We
+<span class="xxpn" id="p046">{46}</span>
+have seen that suggestion already has begun to
+act on the side of reason in some small part of the
+life of the student of science, and it is possible that
+a highly sanguine prophetic imagination might detect
+here a germ of future changes.</p>
+
+<p>Again, a fourth corollary of gregariousness in man
+is the fact expounded many years ago by Pearson
+that human altruism is a natural instinctive product.
+The obvious dependence of the evolution of altruism
+upon increase in knowledge and inter-communication
+has led to its being regarded as a late and a
+conscious development—as something in the nature
+of a judgment by the individual that it pays him
+to be unselfish. This is an interesting rationalization
+of the facts because in the sense in which “pay”
+is meant it is so obviously false. Altruism does
+not at present, and cannot, pay the individual in
+anything but feeling, as theory declares it must.
+It is clear, of course, that as long as altruism is
+regarded as in the nature of a judgment, the fact
+is overlooked that necessarily its only reward can
+be in feeling. Man is altruistic because he must
+be, not because reason recommends it, for herd
+suggestion opposes any advance in altruism, and
+when it can the herd executes the altruist, not of
+course as such but as an innovator. This is a
+remarkable instance of the protean character of the
+gregarious instinct and the complexity it introduces
+into human affairs, for we see one instinct producing
+manifestations directly hostile to each other—prompting
+to ever advancing developments of
+altruism, while it necessarily leads to any new product
+of advance being attacked. It shows, moreover,
+as will be pointed out again later, that a
+gregarious species rapidly developing a complex
+society can be saved from inextricable confusion
+only by the appearance of reason and the application
+of it to life.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p047">{47}</span></p>
+
+<p>When we remember the fearful repressing force
+which society has always exercised on new forms
+of altruism and how constantly the dungeon, the
+scaffold, and the cross have been the reward of
+the altruist, we are able to get some conception
+of the force of the instinctive impulse which has
+triumphantly defied these terrors, and to appreciate
+in some slight degree how irresistible an enthusiasm
+it might become if it were encouraged by
+the unanimous voice of the herd.</p>
+
+<p>In conclusion we have to deal with one more consequence
+of the social habit in man, a consequence
+the discussion of which involves some speculation of
+a necessarily quite tentative kind.</p>
+
+<p>If we look in a broad, general way at the four
+instincts which bulk largely in man’s life, namely,
+those of self-preservation, nutrition, sex, and the
+herd, we shall see at once that there is a striking
+difference between the mode of action of the first
+three and that of the last. The first three, which
+we may, for convenience and without prejudice, call
+the primitive instincts, have in common the characteristic
+of attaining their maximal activities only
+over short periods and in special sets of circumstances,
+and of being fundamentally pleasant to yield
+to. They do not remain in action concurrently, but
+when the circumstances are appropriate for the yielding
+to one, the others automatically fall into the
+background, and the governing impulse is absolute
+master. Thus these instincts cannot be supposed
+at all frequently to conflict amongst themselves, and
+the animal possessing them alone, however highly
+developed his consciousness might be, would lead
+a life emotionally quite simple, for at any given
+moment he would necessarily be doing what he
+most wanted to do. We may, therefore, imagine
+him to be endowed with the feelings of free-will
+and reality to a superb degree, wholly unperplexed
+by doubt and wholly secure in his unity of purpose.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p048">{48}</span></p>
+
+<p>The appearance of the fourth instinct, however,
+introduces a profound change, for this instinct has
+the characteristic that it exercises a controlling
+power upon the individual from without. In the
+case of the solitary animal yielding to instinct the
+act itself is pleasant, and the whole creature, as it
+were body and soul, pours itself out in one smooth
+concurrence of reaction. With the social animal
+controlled by herd instinct it is not the actual deed
+which is instinctively done, but the order to do it
+which is instinctively obeyed. The deed, being
+ordained from without, may actually be unpleasant,
+and so be resisted from the individual side and
+yet be forced instinctively into execution. The
+instinctive act seems to have been too much
+associated in current thought with the idea of
+yielding to an impulse irresistibly pleasant to the
+body, yet it is very obvious that herd instinct at
+once introduces a mechanism by which the sanctions
+of instinct are conferred upon acts by no means
+necessarily acceptable to the body or mind. This,
+of course, involves an enormous increase of the
+range through which instinct can be made use of.
+Its appearance marks the beginning of the multifarious
+activities of man and of his stupendous
+success as a species; but a spectator watching the
+process at its outset, had he been interested in the
+destiny of the race, might have felt a pang of
+apprehension when he realized how momentous was
+the divorce which had been accomplished between
+instinct and individual desire. Instinctive acts are
+still done because they are based on “<i>a priori</i>
+syntheses of the most perfect sort,” but they are
+no longer necessarily pleasant. Duty has first appeared
+in the world, and with it the age-long conflict
+which is described in the memorable words
+of Paul: “I delight in the law of God after the
+inward man;
+but I see another law in my members
+<span class="xxpn" id="p049">{49}</span>
+warring against the law of my mind and bringing
+me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
+my members.”</p>
+
+<p>Into the features and consequences of this conflict
+it is now necessary for us to probe a little
+farther.</p>
+
+<p>The element of conflict in the normal life of all
+inhabitants of a civilized state is so familiar that no
+formal demonstration of its existence is necessary.
+In childhood the process has begun. The child
+receives from the herd the doctrines, let us say,
+that truthfulness is the most valuable of all the
+virtues, that honesty is the best policy, that to the
+religious man death has no terrors, and that there
+is in store a future life of perfect happiness and
+delight. And yet experience tells him with persistence
+that truthfulness as often as not brings him
+punishment, that his dishonest playfellow has as
+good if not a better time than he, that the religious
+man shrinks from death with as great a terror as
+the unbeliever, is as broken-hearted by bereavement,
+and as determined to continue his hold upon
+this imperfect life rather than trust himself to what
+he declares to be the certainty of future bliss. To
+the child, of course, experience has but little suggestive
+force, and he is easily consoled by the perfunctory
+rationalizations offered him as explanations by
+his elders. Yet who of us is there who cannot
+remember the vague feeling of dissatisfaction, the
+obscure and elusive sense of something being wrong,
+which is left by these and similar conflicts?</p>
+
+<p>When the world begins to open out before us
+and experience to flow in with rapidly increasing
+volume, the state of affairs necessarily becomes more
+obvious. The mental unrest which we, with a certain
+cynicism, regard as normal to adolescence is evidence
+of the heavy handicap we lay upon the developing
+mind in forcing it to attempt to assimilate with
+<span class="xxpn" id="p050">{50}</span>
+experience the dicta of herd suggestion. Moreover,
+let us remember, to the adolescent experience is
+no longer the shadowy and easily manipulable series
+of dreams which it usually is to the child. It has
+become touched with the warmth and reality of
+instinctive feeling. The primitive instincts are now
+fully developed and finding themselves balked at
+every turn by herd suggestion; indeed, even products
+of the latter are in conflict among themselves.
+Not only sex, self-preservation, and nutrition are at
+war with the pronouncements of the herd, but
+altruism, the ideal of rationality, the desire for
+power, the yearning for protection, and other feelings
+which have acquired instinctive force from group
+suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>The sufferings entailed by this condition are
+commonplace knowledge, and there is scarcely a
+novelist who has not dealt with them. It is around
+matters of sex and of religion that the conflict is
+most severe, and while it is no part of our purpose
+to make any detailed survey of the condition, it
+may be of interest to point out some of the more
+obvious significances of this localization.</p>
+
+<p>Religion has always been to man an intensely
+serious matter, and when we realize its biological
+significance we can see that this is due to a deeply
+ingrained need of his mind. The individual of
+a gregarious species can never be truly independent
+and self-sufficient. Natural selection has ensured
+that as an individual he must have an abiding sense
+of incompleteness, which, as thought develops in
+complexity, will come to be more and more
+abstractly expressed. This is the psychological germ
+which expresses itself in the religious feelings, in
+the desire for completion, for mystical union, for
+incorporation with the infinite, which are all provided
+for in Christianity and in all the successful sub-varieties
+of Christianity which modern times have
+<span class="xxpn" id="p051">{51}</span>
+seen develop. This need seems with the increasing
+complexity of society to become more and more
+imperious, or rather to be satisfiable only by
+more and more elaborately rationalized expressions.
+The following is a representative passage from a
+recent very popular book of mystical religion:
+“The great central fact in human life, in your life
+and in mine, is the coming into a conscious vital
+realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life and
+the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow.”
+It is very interestingly shown here to what lengths
+of rationalization may be forced the consequences
+of that yearning in us which is identical with the
+mechanism that binds the wolf to the pack, the sheep
+to the flock, and to the dog makes the company
+of his master like walking with God in the cool of
+the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Did an opportunity offer, it would be interesting
+to inquire into the relation of the same instinctive
+impulse to the genesis of philosophy. Such an
+attempt would, however, involve too great a
+digression from the argument of this essay.</p>
+
+<p>That sex should be a chief field for the conflicts
+we are discussing is comprehensible not only from
+the immense strength of the impulse and the fact
+that it is a mode of man’s activity which herd
+suggestion has always tried to regulate, but also
+because there is reason to believe that the sex
+impulse becomes secondarily associated with another
+instinctive feeling of great strength, namely,
+altruism. We have seen already that altruism is
+largely antagonized by herd tradition, and it is
+plausible to suppose that the overwhelming rush
+of this feeling which is usually associated with sex
+feelings is not altogether sexual in quality, but
+secondarily associated therewith as being the only
+outlet through which it is allowed by the herd to
+indulge manifestations of really passionate intensity.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p052">{52}</span>
+If this were so it would clearly be of great practical
+importance should the rational method ever come
+to be applied to the solution of the problems for
+the sociologist and statesman which surround the
+relations of the sexes.</p>
+
+<p>The conflicts which we are discussing are of
+course by no means limited to the periods of childhood
+and adolescence, but are frequently carried
+over into adult life. To understand how the
+apparent calm of normal adult life is attained, it is
+necessary to consider the effects upon the mind of
+these processes of contention.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider the case of a person caught in one
+of those dilemmas which society presents so
+abundantly to its members—a man seized with a
+passion for some individual forbidden to him by
+the herd, or a man whose eyes have been opened to
+the vision of the cruelty which everywhere lies close
+below the surface of life, and yet has deeply
+ingrained in him the doctrine of the herd that things,
+on the whole, are fundamentally right, that the
+universe is congruous with his moral feelings, that
+the seeming cruelty is mercy and the apparent indifference
+long-suffering. Now, what are the
+possible developments in such a tormented soul?</p>
+
+<p>The conflict may end through the subsidence
+of either antagonist. Years, other instincts, or
+grosser passions may moderate the intensity of
+ungratified love or take away the sharpness from
+the sight of incomprehensible pain.</p>
+
+<p>Again, scepticism may detect the nature of the
+herd suggestion and deprive it of its compelling
+force.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, the problem may be shirked by the easy
+mechanism of rationalization. The man may take
+his forbidden pleasure and endow a chapel, persuading
+himself that his is a special case, that at
+any rate he is not as bad as X, or Y, or Z, who
+<span class="xxpn" id="p053">{53}</span>
+committed such and such enormities, that after all
+there is Divine mercy, and he never beat his wife,
+and was always regular with his subscriptions to
+missions and the hospitals. Or, if his difficulty
+is the ethical one, he will come to see how right
+the herd view really is; that it is a very narrow
+mind which cannot see the intrinsic excellence of
+suffering; that the sheep and cattle we breed for
+eating, the calf we bleed to death that its meat may
+be white, the one baby out of four we kill in the
+first year of life, that cancer, consumption, and
+insanity and the growing river of blood which bathes
+the feet of advancing mankind, all have their part
+in the Increasing Purpose which is leading the race
+ever upwards and onwards to a Divine consummation
+of joy. Thus the conflict ceases, and the
+man is content to watch the blood and the Purpose
+go on increasing together and to put on flesh unperplexed
+by the shallow and querulous scruples of
+his youth.</p>
+
+<p>Of these three solutions that of scepticism is
+unquestionably the least common, though the impression
+that this is not the case is created by the
+frequency of apparent scepticism, which, in fact,
+merely masks the continuation of conflict in the
+deeper strata of the mind. A man the subject of
+such submerged conflict, though he may appear to
+others, and, of course, to himself, to have reached
+a secure and uncontested basis of stability, may,
+after a period of apparently frictionless mental life,
+betray by unmistakable evidence the fact that conflict
+has continued disastrously below the surface.</p>
+
+<p>The solutions by indifference and by rationalization
+or by a mixture of these two processes are
+characteristic of the great class of normal, sensible,
+reliable middle age, with its definite views, its
+resiliency to the depressing influence of facts, and
+its gift for forming the backbone of the State. In
+<span class="xxpn" id="p054">{54}</span>
+them herd suggestion shows its capacity to triumph
+over experience, to delay the evolution of altruism,
+and to obscure the existence and falsify the results of
+the contest between personal and social desires.
+That it is able to do so has the advantage of
+establishing existing society with great firmness, but
+it has also the consequence of entrusting the conduct
+of the State and the attitude of it towards life to a
+class which their very stability shows to possess
+a certain relative incapacity to take experience
+seriously, a certain relative insensibility to the value
+of feeling and to suffering, and a decided preference
+for herd tradition over all other sources of conduct.</p>
+
+<p>Early in history the bulk of mankind must have
+been of this type, because experience, being still
+relatively simple, would have but little suggestive
+force, and would therefore readily be suppressed by
+herd suggestion. There would be little or no mental
+conflict, and such as there was would be readily
+stilled by comparatively simple rationalizations. The
+average man would then be happy, active, and
+possessed of an inexhaustible fund of motive and
+energy, capable of intense patriotism and even of
+self-immolation for the herd. The nation consequently,
+in an appropriate environment, would be
+an expanding one and rendered ruthless and formidable
+by an intense, unshakable conviction of its
+divine mission. Its blindness towards the new in
+experience would keep its patriots narrow and fierce,
+its priests bigoted and bloodthirsty, its rulers
+arrogant, reactionary, and over-confident. Should
+chance ordain that there arose no great environmental
+change rendering necessary great modifications,
+such a nation would have a brilliant career of
+conquest as has been so often demonstrated by
+history.</p>
+
+<p>Amongst the first-class Powers to-day the mentally
+stable are still the directing class, and their
+<span class="xxpn" id="p055">{55}</span>
+characteristic tone is discernible in national attitudes
+towards experience, in national ideals and religions,
+and in national morality. It is this possession of
+the power of directing national opinion by a class
+which is in essence relatively insensitive towards
+new combinations of experience; this persistence
+of a mental type which may have been adequate
+in the simpler past, into a world where environments
+are daily becoming more complex—it is this survival,
+so to say, of the waggoner upon the footplate of
+the express engine, which has made the modern
+history of nations a series of such breathless adventures
+and hairbreadth escapes. To those who
+are able to view national affairs from an objective
+standpoint, it is obvious that each of these escapes
+might very easily have been a disaster, and that
+sooner or later one of them must be such.</p>
+
+<p>Thus far we have seen that the conflict between
+herd suggestion and experience is associated with
+the appearance of the great mental type which is
+commonly called normal. Whether or not it is in
+fact to be regarded as such is comparatively unimportant
+and obviously a question of statistics;
+what is, however, of an importance impossible to
+exaggerate is the fact that in this type of mind
+personal satisfactoriness or adequacy, or, as we may
+call it, mental comfort, is attained at the cost of an
+attitude towards experience which greatly affects the
+value to the species of the activities of minds of
+this type. This mental stability, then, is to be regarded
+as, in certain important directions, a loss;
+and the nature of the loss resides in a limitation of
+outlook, a relative intolerance of the new in thought,
+and a consequent narrowing of the range of facts
+over which satisfactory intellectual activity is
+possible. We may, therefore, for convenience, refer
+to this type as the resistive, a name which serves as
+a reminder of the exceedingly important fact that,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p056">{56}</span>
+however “normal” the type may be, it is one which
+falls far short of the possibilities of the human
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>If we now turn to a consideration of the mental
+characteristics of the constituents of society other
+than those of the resistive type, we shall find a
+common quality traceable, and another great type
+capable of broad definition. We must at once,
+however, guard ourselves against being misled by the
+name “normal” as applied to the resistant into the
+supposition that this type is in a numerical majority
+in society. Intellectually unquestionably of inferior
+value, there is good reason to suppose that in mere
+numbers it has already passed its zenith, as may be
+gathered from the note of panic which what is
+called the increase of degeneracy is beginning to
+excite.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the comfortable and possibly diminishing
+ranks of the “normal,” society is everywhere
+penetrated by a steadily increasing degree of what
+we may call in the broadest possible way mental
+instability. All observers of society, even the most
+optimistic, are agreed that the prevalence of this
+mental quality is increasing, while those who are
+competent to trace its less obtrusive manifestations
+find it to be very widespread.</p>
+
+<p>When the twenty years just past come to be
+looked back upon from the distant future, it is
+probable that their chief claim to interest will be
+that they saw the birth of the science of abnormal
+psychology. That science, inconspicuous as has
+been its development, has already given us a few
+generalizations of the first importance. Amongst
+such, perhaps the most valuable is that which has
+taught us that certain mental and physical manifestations
+which have usually been regarded as
+disease in the ordinary sense are due to the effects
+upon the mind of the failure to assimilate the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p057">{57}</span>
+experience presented to it into a harmonious unitary
+personality. We have seen that the stable-minded
+deal with an unsatisfactory piece of experience by
+rejecting its significance. In certain minds such
+successful exclusion does not occur, and the unwelcome
+experience persists as an irritant, so to
+say, capable neither of assimilation nor rejection.
+Abnormal psychology discloses the fact that such
+minds are apt to develop the supposed diseases we
+have just referred to, and the fact that these and
+other manifestations of what we have called mental
+instability are the consequences of mental conflict.</p>
+
+<p>Now, we have already seen that a gregarious
+animal, unless his society is perfectly organized,
+must be subject to lasting and fierce conflict between
+experience and herd
+suggestion.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc14" href="#fn14">14</a> It is natural,
+therefore, to assume that the manifestations of
+mental instability are not diseases of the individual
+in the ordinary sense at all, but inevitable consequences
+of man’s biological history and exact
+measures of the stage now reached of his assimilation
+into the gregarious life. The manifestations of
+mental instability and disintegration were at first
+supposed to be of comparatively rare occurrence
+and limited to certain well-known “diseases,” but
+they are coming to be recognized over a larger and
+larger field, and in a great variety of phenomena.</p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn14" href="#afnanc14">14</a>
+The word “experience” is used here in a special sense
+that perhaps renders necessary a word or two of definition. The
+experience meant is everything that comes to the individual, not only
+his experience of events in the external world, but also his experience
+of the instinctive and often egoistic impulses at work within his own
+personality. 1915.</p></div>
+
+<p>Conditions which at first sight give rise to no
+suspicion of being acquired injuries to the mind,
+when they are looked at in the light of the facts we
+have been considering, reveal themselves as being
+scars inflicted by conflict as certainly as are some
+<span class="xxpn" id="p058">{58}</span>
+forms of insanity. Characteristics which pass as
+vices, eccentricities, defects of temper, peculiarities
+of disposition, come when critically examined to be
+explicable as minor grades of defective mental
+stability, although, on account of their great frequency,
+they have been looked upon as normal, or at
+any rate in the natural order of things.</p>
+
+<p>Few examples could be found to illustrate better
+such conditions than alcoholism. Almost universally
+regarded as either, on the one hand, a sin or vice,
+or on the other hand, as a disease, there can be
+little doubt that in fact it is essentially a response
+to a psychological necessity. In the tragic conflict
+between what he has been taught to desire and
+what he is allowed to get, man has found in alcohol,
+as he has found in certain other drugs, a sinister
+but effective peacemaker, a means of securing, for
+however short a time, some way out of the prison
+house of reality back to the Golden Age. There
+can be equally little doubt that it is but a comparatively
+small proportion of the victims of conflict
+who find a solace in alcohol, and the prevalence of
+alcoholism and the punishments entailed by the use
+of that dreadful remedy cannot fail to impress upon
+us how great must be the number of those whose
+need was just as great, but who were too ignorant,
+too cowardly, or perhaps too brave to find a release
+there.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that mental instability must be
+regarded as a condition extremely common, and produced
+by the mental conflict forced upon man by
+his sensitiveness to herd suggestion on the one hand
+and to experience on the other. It remains for us
+to estimate in some rough way the characteristics
+of the unstable, in order that we may be able to
+judge of their value or otherwise to the State and
+the species. Such an estimate must necessarily be
+exaggerated, over-sharp in its outlines, omitting
+<span class="xxpn" id="p059">{59}</span>
+much, and therefore in many respects false. The
+most prominent characteristic in which the mentally
+unstable contrast with the “normal” is what we
+may vaguely call motive. They tend to be weak
+in energy, and especially in persistence of energy.
+Such weakness may translate itself into a vague
+scepticism as to the value of things in general,
+or into a definite defect of what is popularly called
+will power, or into many other forms, but it is
+always of the same fundamental significance, for
+it is always the result of the thwarting of the
+primary impulses to action resident in herd suggestion
+by the influence of an experience which cannot
+be disregarded. Such minds cannot be stimulated
+for long by objects adequate to normal ambition;
+they are apt to be sceptical in such matters as
+patriotism, religion, politics, social success, but the
+scepticism is incomplete, so that they are readily
+won to new causes, new religions, new quacks, and
+as readily fall away therefrom.</p>
+
+<p>We saw that the resistive gain in motive what
+they lose in adaptability; we may add that in a
+sense the unstable gain in adaptability what they
+lose in motive. Thus we see society cleft by the
+instinctive qualities of its members into two great
+classes, each to a great extent possessing what the
+other lacks, and each falling below the possibilities
+of human personality. The effect of the gradual
+increase of the unstable in society can be seen to
+a certain extent in history. We can watch it through
+the careers of the Jews and of the Romans. At
+first, when the bulk of the citizens were of the
+stable type, the nation was enterprising, energetic,
+indomitable, but hard, inelastic, and fanatically convinced
+of its Divine mission. The inevitable effect
+of the expansion of experience which followed success
+was that development of the unstable and sceptical
+which ultimately allowed the nation, no longer
+<span class="xxpn" id="p060">{60}</span>
+believing in itself or its gods, to become the almost
+passive prey of more stable peoples.</p>
+
+<p>In regard to the question of the fundamental
+significance of the two great mental types found
+in society, a tempting field for speculation at once
+opens up, and many questions immediately arise
+for discussion. Is, for example, the stable normal
+type naturally in some special degree insensitive
+to experience, and if so, is such a quality inborn or
+acquired? Again, may the characteristics of the
+members of this class be the result of an experience
+relatively easily dealt with by rationalization
+and exclusion? Then again, are the unstable naturally
+hypersensitive to experience, or have they met
+with an experience relatively difficult to assimilate?
+Into the discussion of such questions we shall here
+make no attempt to enter, but shall limit ourselves
+to reiterating that these two types divide society
+between them, that they both must be regarded as
+seriously defective and as evidence that civilization
+has not yet provided a medium in which the average
+human mind can grow undeformed and to its full
+stature.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
+ <span class="smcap">F<b>UTURE</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smcap">M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
+
+<p>Thus far we have attempted to apply biological
+conceptions to man and society as they actually exist
+at present. We may now, very shortly, inquire
+whether or not the same method can yield some
+hint as to the course which human development
+will take in the future.</p>
+</div>
+<p>As we have already seen reason to believe, in
+the course of organic development when the limits
+of size and efficiency in the unicellular organism
+were reached, the only possible access of advantage
+to the competing organism was gained by the appearance
+of combination. In the scale of the metazoa
+<span class="xxpn" id="p061">{61}</span>
+we see the advantages of combination and division
+of labour being more and more made use of, until
+the individual cells lose completely the power of
+separate existence, and their functions come to be
+useful only in the most indirect way and through the
+organisms of which the cells are constituents. This
+complete submergence of the cell in the organism
+indicates the attainment of the maximum advantages
+to be obtained from this particular access in
+complexity, and it indicates to us the direction in
+which development must proceed within the limits
+which are produced by that other access of
+complexity—gregariousness.</p>
+
+<p>The success and extent of such development clearly
+depend on the relation of two series of activities in
+the individual which may in the most general way
+be described as the capacity for varied reaction
+and the capacity for communication. The process
+going on in the satisfactorily developing gregarious
+animal is the moulding of the varied reactions of
+the individual into functions beneficial to him only
+indirectly through the welfare of the new unit—the
+herd. This moulding process is a consequence
+of the power of intercommunication amongst the
+individual constituents of the new unit. Intercommunication
+is thus seen to be of cardinal importance
+to the gregarious, just as was the nervous system
+to the multicellular.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, in a given gregarious species the existence
+of a highly developed power of reaction in
+the individual with a proportionately less developed
+capacity for communication will mean that the
+species is not deriving the advantages it might
+from the possession of gregariousness, while the full
+advantages of the type will be attained only when
+the two sets of activities are correspondingly strong.</p>
+
+<p>Here we may see perhaps the explanation of the
+astounding success and completeness of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p062">{62}</span>
+gregariousness in bees and ants. Their cycle of development
+was early complete because the possibilities
+of reaction of the individual were so small, and
+consequently the capacity for intercommunication
+of the individual was relatively soon able to attain
+a corresponding grade. The individual has become
+as completely merged in the hive as the single
+cell in the multicellular animal, and consequently
+the whole of her activities is available for the uses
+of the State. It is interesting to notice that, considered
+from this aspect, the wonderful society of
+the bee, with its perfect organization and its wonderful
+adaptability and elasticity, owes its early
+attainment of success to the smallness of the brain
+power of the individual.</p>
+
+<p>For the mammals with their greater powers of
+varied reaction the path to the consummation of
+their possibilities must be longer, more painful, and
+more dangerous, and this applies in an altogether
+special degree to man.</p>
+
+<p>The enormous power of varied reaction possessed
+by man must render necessary for his attainment
+of the full advantages of the gregarious
+habit a power of intercommunication of absolutely
+unprecedented fineness. It is clear that scarcely a
+hint of such power has yet appeared, and it is
+equally obvious that it is this defect which gives
+to society the characteristics which are the contempt
+of the man of science and the disgust of
+the humanitarian.</p>
+
+<p>We are now in a position to understand how
+momentous is the question as to what society does
+with the raw material of its minds to encourage
+in them the potential capacity for intercommunication
+which they undoubtedly by nature possess. To
+that question there is but one answer. By providing
+its members with a herd tradition which is constantly
+at war with feeling and with experience,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p063">{63}</span>
+society, drives them inevitably into resistiveness on
+the one hand, or into mental instability on the
+other, conditions which have this in common, that
+they tend to exaggerate that isolation of the individual
+which is shown us by the intellect to be
+unnatural and by the heart to be cruel.</p>
+
+<p>Another urgent question for the future is provided
+by the steady increase, relative and absolute,
+of the mentally unstable. The danger to the State
+constituted by a large unstable class is already
+generally recognized, but unfortunately realization
+has so far only instigated a yet heavier blow at
+the species. It is assumed that instability is a
+primary quality, and therefore only to be dealt with
+by breeding it out. With that indifference to the
+mental side of life which is characteristic of the
+mentally resistant class, the question as to the real
+meaning of instability has been begged by the
+invention of the disastrous word “degenerate.” The
+simplicity of the idea has charmed modern speculation,
+and the only difficulty in the whole problem
+has come to be the decision as to the most expeditious
+way of getting rid of this troublesome flaw
+in an otherwise satisfactory world.</p>
+
+<p>The conception that the natural environment of
+man must be modified if the body is to survive
+has long been recognized, but the fact that the mind
+is incomparably more delicate than the body has
+scarcely been noticed at all. We assume that the
+disorderly environment with which we surround the
+mind has no effect, and are ingenuously surprised
+when mental instability arises apparently from nowhere;
+but although we know nothing of its origin
+our temerity in applying the cure is in no sense
+daunted.</p>
+
+<p>It has already been pointed out how dangerous
+it would be to breed man for reason—that is, against
+suggestibility. The idea is a fit companion for the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p064">{64}</span>
+device of breeding against “degeneracy.” The
+“degenerate”—that is, the mentally unstable—have
+demonstrated by the mere fact of instability that
+they possess the quality of sensitiveness to feeling
+and to experience, for it is this which has prevented
+them from applying the remedy of rationalization or
+exclusion when they have met with experience conflicting
+with herd suggestion. There can be no
+doubt as to the value to the State of such sensitiveness
+were it developed in a congruous environment.
+The “degeneracy,” therefore, which we see
+developed as a secondary quality in these sensitive
+minds is no evidence against the degenerate, but
+an indictment of the disorderly environment which
+has ruined them, just as the catchword associating
+insanity and genius tells us nothing about genius
+but a great deal about the situation into which it
+has had the misfortune to be born.</p>
+
+<p>Sensitiveness to feeling and experience is undoubtedly
+the necessary antecedent of any high
+grade of that power of intercommunication which
+we have seen to be necessary to the satisfactory
+development of man. Such sensitiveness, however,
+in society as it now is, inevitably leads merely to
+mental instability. That such sensitiveness increases
+with civilization is shown by the close association
+between civilization and mental instability. There
+is no lack, therefore, of the mental quality of all
+others most necessary to the gregarious animal.
+The pressing problem which in fact faces man in
+the immediate future is how to readjust the mental
+environment in such a way that sensitiveness may
+develop and confer on man the enormous advantages
+which it holds for him, without being transformed
+from a blessing into the curse and menace
+of instability. To the biologist it is quite clear
+that this can be effected only by an extension of
+the rational method to the whole field of experience, a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p065">{65}</span>
+process of the greatest difficulty, but one which must
+be the next great variation in man’s development if
+that development is to continue to be an evolution.</p>
+
+<p>Outside this possibility the imagination can see
+nothing but grounds for pessimism. It needs but
+little effort of foresight to realize that without some
+totally revolutionary change in man’s attitude towards
+the mind, even his very tenure of the earth
+may come to be threatened. Recent developments
+in the study of disease have shown us how blind and
+fumbling have been our efforts against the attacks
+of our immemorial enemies the unicellular organisms.
+When we remember their capacities for variation
+and our fixity, we can see that for the race effectually
+and permanently to guard itself against even this
+one danger are necessary that fineness and complexity
+of organization, that rendering available of
+the utmost capacity of its members, against which
+the face of society seems at present to be so steadily
+set. We see man to-day, instead of the frank and
+courageous recognition of his status, the docile attention
+to his biological history, the determination to
+let nothing stand in the way of the security and
+permanence of his future, which alone can establish
+the safety and happiness of the race, substituting
+blind confidence in his destiny, unclouded faith in
+the essentially respectful attitude of the universe
+towards his moral code, and a belief no less firm
+that his traditions and laws and institutions necessarily
+contain permanent qualities of reality. Living
+as he does in a world where outside his race no
+allowances are made for infirmity, and where
+figments however beautiful never become facts, it
+needs but little imagination to see how great are
+the probabilities that after all man will prove but
+one more of Nature’s failures, ignominously to be
+swept from her work-table to make way for another
+venture of her tireless curiosity and patience.
+<span class="spndate">1909.</span></p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p066">SPECULATIONS UPON
+ THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">M<b>AN’S</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">PLACE</span> <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
+ <span class="smcap">N<b>ATURE</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">AND</span>
+ <span class="smcap">N<b>ATURE’S</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">PLACE</span>
+ <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
+ <span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">As
+the nineteenth century draws away into the past
+and it is possible to get a comprehensive view of
+the intellectual legacies it has left to its successor,
+certain of its ideas stand out from the general mass
+by reason of the greatness of their scale and scope.
+Ideas of the first order of magnitude are from
+their very greatness capable of full appreciation
+only in a comparatively distant view. However
+much they have been admired and studied by contemporary
+thought, it is with the passage of time
+only that all their proportions come gradually into
+focus. The readjustments of thought as to what
+used to be called man’s place in nature, which were
+so characteristic a work of the latter half of the
+nineteenth century, embodied an idea of this imperial
+type which, fruitful as it has proved, has even now
+yielded far less than its full harvest of truth.</p>
+
+<p>The conception of man as an animal, at first entertained
+only in a narrow zoological sense, has gradually
+extended in significance, and is now beginning
+to be understood as a guiding principle in the study
+of all the activities of the individual and the species.
+In the early days such a conception was regarded
+by non-scientific thought as degrading to man, and
+as denying to him the possibility of moral progress
+<span class="xxpn" id="p067">{67}</span>
+and the reality of his higher æsthetic and emotional
+capabilities; at the same time, men of science found
+themselves compelled, however unwillingly, to deny
+that the moral activities of man could be made
+consistent with his status as an animal. It may
+still be remembered how even the evolutionary enthusiasm
+of Huxley was baffled by the incompatibility
+he found to subsist between what he called
+the ethical and the cosmical processes, and how
+he stood bewildered by the sight of moral beauty
+blossoming incorrigibly amidst the cruelty, lust,
+and bloodshed of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The passage of time has tended more and more
+to clear up these lingering confusions of an anthropocentric
+biology, and thought is gradually gaining
+courage to explore, not merely the body of man
+but his mind and his moral capacities, in the knowledge
+that these are not meaningless intrusions into
+an otherwise orderly world, but are partakers in him
+and his history just as are his vermiform appendix
+and his stomach, and are elements in the complex
+structure of the universe as respectably established
+there, and as racy of that soil as the oldest saurian
+or the newest gas.</p>
+
+<p>Man is thus not merely, as it were, rescued from
+the inhuman loneliness which he had been taught
+was his destiny and persuaded was his pride, but
+he is relieved from perplexities and temptations which
+had so long proved obstacles to his finding himself
+and setting out valiantly on an upward path. Cut
+off from his history and regarded as an exile into
+a lower world, he can scarcely fail to be appalled
+and crushed by the discrepancy between his lofty
+pretensions and his lowly acts. If he but recognize
+that he himself and his virtues and aspirations are
+integral strands in the fabric of life, he will learn
+that the great tissue of reality loses none of its
+splendour by the fact that near by where the pattern
+<span class="xxpn" id="p068">{68}</span>
+glows with his courage and his pride it burns with
+the radiance of the tiger, and over against his
+intellect and his genius it mocks in the grotesques
+of the ape.</p>
+
+<p>The development of an objective attitude towards
+the status of man has had, perhaps, its most significant
+effect in the influence it has exercised upon the
+study of the human mind.</p>
+
+<p>The desire to understand the modes of action of
+the mind, and to formulate about them generalizations
+which shall be of practical value, has led to inquiries
+being pursued along three distinct paths. These
+several methods may be conveniently distinguished
+as the primitive, the human, and the comparative.</p>
+
+<p>What I have called the primitive method of
+psychological inquiry is also the obvious and natural
+one. It takes man as it finds him, accepts his
+mind for what it professes to be, and examines into
+its processes by introspection of a direct and simple
+kind. It is necessarily subject to the conditions
+that the object of study is also the medium through
+which the observations are made, and that there
+is no objective standard by which the accuracy of
+transmission through this medium can be estimated
+and corrected. In the result the materials collected
+are subjected to a very special and very stringent
+kind of censorship. If an observation is acceptable
+and satisfactory to the mind itself, it is reported as
+true; if it contains material which is unwelcome
+to the mind, it is reported as false; and in both
+cases the failure is in no sense due to any conscious
+dishonesty in the observing mind, but is a fallacy
+necessarily inherent in the method. A fairly characteristic
+product of inquiries of this type is the conception,
+which seems so obvious to common sense,
+that introspection does give access to all mental
+processes, so that a conscious motive must be discoverable
+for all the acts of the subject. Experience
+<span class="xxpn" id="p069">{69}</span>
+with more objective methods has shown that when
+no motive is found for a given act or no motive
+consistent with the mind’s pretensions as to itself,
+there will always be a risk of a presentable one
+being extemporized.</p>
+
+<p>Psychology of this primitive type—the naïve psychology
+of common sense—is always necessarily
+tainted with what may be called in a special sense
+anthropomorphism; it tells us, that is to say, not
+what man is but what he thinks and feels himself
+to be. Judged by its fruits in enabling us to foretell
+or to influence conduct, it is worthless. It has
+been studied for thousands of years and infinite
+ingenuities have been expended on it, and yet at
+its best it can only tell us how the average man
+thinks his mind works—a body of information not
+sensibly superior in reality to the instructions of
+a constitutional monarch addressed to an unruly
+parliament. It has distracted thought with innumerable
+falsifications, but in all its secular cultivation
+has produced no body of generalizations of value in
+the practical conduct of life.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">C<b>OMMENTS</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">ON</span> <span class="smmaj">AN</span>
+ <span class="smcap">O<b>BJECTIVE</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>YSTEM</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smcap">H<b>UMAN</b> P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span></h3>
+
+<h4 class="h4center">I</h4>
+</div>
+<p>Until comparatively recent years the fact that what
+was called psychology did not even pretend to be
+of any practical value in affairs was tolerated by
+its professors and regarded as more or less in the
+nature of things. The science, therefore, outside a
+small class of specialists was in very dismal reputation.
+It had come to comprise two divergent
+schools, one which busied itself with the apparatus
+of the experimental physiologist and frankly studied
+the physiology of the nervous system, the other
+<span class="xxpn" id="p070">{70}</span>
+which occupied itself with the faded abstractions of
+logic and metaphysics, while both agreed in ignoring
+the study of the mind. This comparative sterility
+may in a broad way be traced back to the one
+fundamental defect from which the science suffered—the
+absence of an objective standard by which
+the value of mental observations could be estimated.
+Failing such a standard, any given mental
+phenomenon might be as much a product of the
+observing mind as of the mind observed, or the
+varying degrees in which both of these factors contributed
+might be inextricably mixed. Of late years
+the much-needed objective standard has been sought
+and to some extent found in two directions. What
+I have called “human” psychology has found it
+in the study of diseases of the mind. In states of
+disease mental processes and mechanisms which had
+eluded observation in the normal appear in an
+exaggerated form which renders recognition less
+difficult. The enlightenment coming from the
+understanding of such pathological material has
+made it possible to argue back to the less obtrusive
+or more effectively concealed phenomena of the
+normal and more or less to exclude the fallacies of
+the observing mind, and, at any rate in part, to
+dissipate the obscurity which for so long had successfully
+hidden the actual mental phenomena
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable attack upon the problems
+of psychology which has been made from the purely
+human standpoint is that in which the rich genius
+of Sigmund Freud was and still is the pioneer.
+The school which his work has founded was concerned
+at first wholly with the study of abnormal mental
+states, and came into notice as a branch of medicine
+finding the verification of its principles in the success
+it laid claim to in the treatment of certain mental
+diseases. It now regards itself as possessing a body
+<span class="xxpn" id="p071">{71}</span>
+of doctrine of general applicability to mental
+phenomena, normal or abnormal. These principles
+are the product of laborious and minute inquiries
+into the working of the mind, rendered possible by
+the use of a characteristic method known as psycho-analysis.
+This method, which constitutes a definite
+and elaborate technique of investigation, is looked
+upon by those who practise it as the sole means
+by which access can be obtained to the veritable
+phenomena of the mind, and as rendering possible a
+truly objective view of the facts. It is no part of
+my purpose to examine the validity of psycho-analysis
+as a scientific method. It is enough to notice that
+the exponents of it completely repudiate the teachings
+of what I have called “common-sense”
+psychology, that they maintain that objectivity in
+the collection and collation of psychical facts is
+in no way to be obtained by the light of nature but
+demands very special methods and precautions, and
+that their claims to the possession of a truly objective
+method appear to be open to verification or disproof
+by actual experiment in the treatment of
+disease. Whatever value, then, psycho-analysis may
+ultimately prove to possess in solving the peculiar
+difficulties of psychological research, the evolution
+of it marks a very definite advance in principle and
+shows that it is the product of a mind determined
+by whatever effort to get to close quarters with
+the facts.</p>
+
+<p>The body of doctrine enunciated by Freud concerns
+us more directly than the peculiarities of his
+method. Some very general and summary account
+may therefore be attempted as illustrating the characteristics
+of this vigorous, aggressive, and essentially
+“human” school of research.</p>
+
+<p>The Freudian psychology regards the mind of
+the adult as the outcome of a process of development
+the stages of which are within limits, orderly
+<span class="xxpn" id="p072">{72}</span>
+and inevitable. The trend of this development in
+each individual is determined by forces which are
+capable of precise definition, and the final product
+of it is capable of yielding to expert examination
+clear evidence of the particular way in which these
+forces have acted and interacted during the developmental
+process. The mind of the adult, then, is
+like the body in bearing traces which betray to
+the skilled observer the events of its developmental
+history. Inconspicuous and apparently insignificant
+structures and peculiarities in the one no less than
+in the other prove to have had a meaning and a
+function in the past, however little significance their
+final form may seem to possess, and thus the psychologist
+is able to reconstruct the history of a given
+subject’s mind, although the most important stages
+of its development are hidden from direct observation
+as effectively as is the prenatal growth of the
+body.</p>
+
+<p>It seems to be a fundamental conception of the
+Freudian system that the development of the mind
+is accompanied and conditioned by mental conflict.
+The infant is regarded as being impelled by instinctive
+impulses which at first are solely egoistic.
+From the earliest moments of its contact with the
+world resistance to the full indulgence of these
+impulses is encountered. With the growth and
+intensification of such impulses, the resistance from
+external interference—the beginnings of social
+pressure—becomes more formidable, until at a quite
+unexpectedly early age a veritable condition of
+mental conflict is established—egoistic impulses
+fatally pressing for indulgence regardless of their
+acceptability to the environment, while environmental
+influences bear equally heavily against any
+indulgence unwelcome to surrounding standards of
+discipline, taste, or morality.</p>
+
+<p>Of the two parties in this conflict—the instinctive
+<span class="xxpn" id="p073">{73}</span>
+impulse and the repressive force—the first, according
+to Freud, is wholly the product of the sex
+instinct. This instinct is conceived of as being
+much more active and potent in the infant and
+child than had been suspected by any previous investigator.
+The normal sexual interest and activity
+as manifested in the adult are developed out of the
+sexual impulse of the child by a regular series
+of modifications, which appear to be regarded as
+due partly to a process of natural development and
+partly to the influence of external repressive forces.
+In the infant the instinct is egocentric and the object
+of its interest is the individual’s own body; with
+the increase of the mental field consequent on
+enlarging experience the instinctive activity is externalized,
+and its object of interest changes so that
+the child acquires a specific inclination towards other
+individuals without distinction of sex; finally, as
+a last stage of development the instinctive inclination
+is localized to members of the opposite sex.
+This series of transformations is regarded as normal
+by Freud, and as essential to the appearance of the
+“normal” adult type. The evolution of this series
+is sensitive to interference by outside influences,
+and any disturbance of it either by way of anticipation
+or delay will have profound effects upon
+the ultimate character and temperament of the subject.
+The psychical energy of an instinct so
+important as that of sex is very great, and is not
+dissipated by the forces of repression brought to
+bear upon it, but transformed into activities ostensibly
+quite different and directed into channels having
+no obvious connection with their source. It is a
+fundamental characteristic of the mind to be able
+to accept these substitutes for the actual indulgence
+of the instinct, and to enjoy a symbolical gratification
+in manifestations which have no overt sexual significance.
+When development proceeds normally the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p074">{74}</span>
+surplus energy of the sex instinct finds an outlet
+in activities of social value—æsthetic, poetic, altruistic;
+when development is interfered with the
+outflow of energy is apt to result in definite disease
+of the mind or in peculiarities of character scarcely
+to be distinguished therefrom.</p>
+
+<p>Thus the mind of the adult, according to Freud,
+in addition to activities which are conscious and
+fully accessible to the subject, carries on activities
+and holds memories which are unconscious and
+totally inaccessible to the subject by any ordinary
+method of introspection. Between these two fields
+there is a barrier sedulously guarded by certain
+repressive forces. The unconscious is the realm
+of all the experiences, memories, impulses, and
+inclinations which during the subject’s life have
+been condemned by the standards of the conscious,
+have proved incompatible with it and have therefore
+been outlawed from it. This banishment in no way
+deprives these excluded mental processes of their
+energy, and they constantly influence the feelings
+and behaviour of the subject. So strict, however,
+is the guard between them and the conscious that
+they are never allowed to pass the barrier between
+one sphere and the other except in disguised and
+fantastically distorted forms by which their true
+meaning is closely concealed. It has been perhaps
+Freud’s most remarkable thesis that dreams are
+manifestations of this emergence of desires and
+memories from the unconscious into the conscious
+field. During sleep the repressing force which
+guards the frontier between conscious and unconscious
+is weakened. Even then, however, such ideas
+as emerge into the conscious can do so only in a
+worked up and distorted form, so that their significance
+can be disengaged from the grotesque
+jumble of the actual dream only by a minute inquiry
+according to a difficult and highly technical method.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p075">{75}</span>
+By this method, however, is to be obtained a deep
+insight into the otherwise irrecoverable emotional
+history of the individual, the structure of his temperament,
+and, if he is mentally abnormal, the
+meaning of his symptoms.</p>
+
+<h4 class="h4center">II</h4>
+
+<p>The foregoing enumeration of the chief doctrines
+of the Freudian psychology is intended to be no
+more than a mere outline to serve as a basis
+for certain comments which seem to be relevant
+to the general argument of this essay. The point
+of view from which this slight sketch is made, that
+of an interested but detached observer, is naturally
+somewhat different from that of the actual authorities
+themselves. Here it is desired to get the broadest
+possible view in the most general terms, and as
+we have no concern with immediate problems of
+practical therapeutics—which remain at least the
+chief preoccupation of writers of the psycho-analytic
+school—an effort has been made to avoid the use of
+the rich and rather forbidding technical vocabulary
+in which the writings of the school abound.
+It may well be that this generalized method of
+description has yielded an ill-proportioned or distorted
+picture. The subject has proved to be so
+much at the mercy of prejudice that the least impassioned
+spectator, however completely he may believe
+himself to be free from advocacy or detraction, is
+far from being able to claim immunity from these
+influences.</p>
+
+<p>Keeping constantly in mind this general caution,
+which is at least as necessary in the field of criticism
+as in that of mere description, we may pass on
+to make certain comments on the psychology of
+Freud which are relevant to the general argument
+being followed out here.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p076">{76}</span></p>
+
+<p>A discussion in any way detailed of this immense
+subject is very obviously impossible here, but it is
+desirable to say a few words as to the general
+validity of Freud’s chief thesis. However much one
+may be impressed by his power as a psychologist and
+his almost fierce resolution to get at the actual
+facts of mental processes, one can scarcely fail to
+experience in reading Freud’s works that there is a
+certain harshness in his grasp of facts and even
+a trace of narrowness in his outlook which tend
+to repel the least resistant mind and make one
+feel that his guidance in many matters—perhaps
+chiefly of detail—is open to suspicion. He seems to
+have an inclination for the enumeration of absolute
+rules, a confidence in his hypotheses which might
+be called superb if that were not in science a term
+of reproach, and a tendency to state his least acceptable
+propositions with the heaviest emphasis as if
+to force belief upon an unwilling and shrinking mind
+were an especial gratification. All these traits of
+manner—at the worst mere foibles of a distinguished
+and successful investigator—appear to exercise some
+considerable effect on the acceptance his writings
+meet with, and are perhaps indications in which
+direction, if he is open to fallacy, such might be
+looked for.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless with regard to the main propositions
+of his system there can be little doubt that their
+<i>general validity</i> will be increasingly accepted.
+Among such propositions must be put the conception
+of the significance of mental conflict, the importance
+of the emotional experiences of infancy and childhood
+in the determination of character and the
+causing of mental disease, and his conception of
+the general structure of the mind as comprising
+conscious and unconscious fields.</p>
+
+<p>The comments which I shall venture to make
+upon the work of Freud will be such as are suggested
+<span class="xxpn" id="p077">{77}</span>
+by the biological point of view of which this essay
+is intended to be an exposition. The standard of
+interest upon which they are based will therefore
+necessarily differ to some extent from that which
+is usually adopted in writings of the psycho-analytic
+school.</p>
+
+<p>To the biologist perhaps the most striking
+characteristic of the work of this school is its
+complete acceptance of what one may call the human
+point of view. It seems to be satisfied that no
+useful contribution to psychology is to be obtained
+outside the limits of human feeling and behaviour,
+and to feel no impatience to expand its inquiries
+into a still larger field. It is not that the school
+has failed to show an extremely vigorous movement
+of expansion. Beginning as a mere province
+of medicine, and while its foothold there was still
+far from general recognition, it invaded the regions
+of general psychology, of æsthetics, ethnology, the
+study of folklore and myth, and indeed of all matters
+in which it could find its essential material—the
+records of human feeling and conduct. Beyond
+the human species it has shown remarkably little of
+this aggressive spirit, and it seems to feel no need
+of bringing its principles into relation with what
+little is known of the mental activities of the non-human
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>The absence of any strong pressure in the
+direction of establishing a correlation of all mental
+phenomena, whether human or not, is not a matter
+of merely theoretical interest. The actual practical
+success to be obtained to-day in such an attempt
+might possibly be insignificant and yet of great
+value in moulding the whole attitude of mind of
+the investigator towards matters lying wholly within
+the sphere of human psychology. However much
+one may be impressed by the greatness of the edifice
+which Freud has built up and by the soundness of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p078">{78}</span>
+his architecture, one can scarcely fail, on coming
+into it from the bracing atmosphere of the biological
+sciences, to be oppressed by the odour of humanity
+with which it is pervaded. One finds everywhere
+a tendency to the acceptance of human standards
+and even sometimes of human pretensions which
+cannot fail to produce a certain uneasiness as to
+the validity, if not of his doctrines, at any rate of
+the forms in which they are expounded. The
+quality I am trying to describe is extremely difficult
+to express in concrete terms without exaggeration or
+distortion. To those who have approached Freud’s
+work solely by the path of medicine the idea that
+it can give any one the feeling of a certain conventionality
+of standard and outlook and of a certain
+over-estimation of the objectivity of man’s moral
+values will seem perhaps merely absurd. That this
+is an impression which I have not been able altogether
+to escape I record with a good deal of
+hesitation and diffidence and without any wish to
+lay stress upon it.</p>
+
+<p>Psycho-analytic psychology has grown up under
+conditions which may very well have encouraged
+the persistence of the human point of view. Originally
+its whole activity was concentrated upon the
+investigation and treatment of disease. Many of
+its early disciples were those who had received
+proof of its value in their own persons, those, that
+is to say, who had been sufferers from their very
+susceptibility to the influence of human standards.
+The objective standard of validity by which the
+system was judged was necessarily that of the
+physician, namely the capacity to restore the
+abnormal mind to the “normal.” Normal in this
+sense is of course no more than a statistical expression
+implying the condition of the average man.
+It could scarcely fail, however, to acquire the
+significance of “healthy.”
+If once the statistically
+<span class="xxpn" id="p079">{79}</span>
+normal mind is accepted as being synonymous with
+the psychologically healthy mind (that is, the mind
+in which the full capacities are available for use),
+a standard is set up which has a most fallacious
+appearance of objectivity. The statistically normal
+mind can be regarded only as a mind which has
+responded in the usual way to the moulding and
+deforming influence of its environment—that is, to
+human standards of discipline, taste, and morality.
+If it is to be looked upon as typically healthy also,
+the current human standards of whose influence it is
+a product must necessarily be accepted as qualified
+to call forth the best in the developing mind they
+mould. Writers of the psycho-analytic school seem
+in general to make some such assumption as this.</p>
+
+
+<h4 class="h4center">III</h4>
+
+<p>The conception of mental conflict is the central
+feature of the Freudian system. Of its importance
+and validity there can be no doubt. In a general
+way the idea is familiar and even commonplace,
+but Freud had developed it and shown how deeply
+the principle penetrates the structure and development
+of the mind from the earliest period and to
+an extent quite unsuspected by earlier psychologists.</p>
+
+<p>From an early period of life the child finds the
+gratification of its instinctive impulses checked or
+even prevented by the pressure of its environment.
+Conflict is thus set up between the two forces of
+instinctive pressure within and social pressure from
+without. Instinctive impulses which thus come into
+conflict with the repressing force are not destroyed
+but are deflected from their natural outlet, are
+repressed within the mind and ultimately prevented
+from rising into the conscious field at all except
+in disguised or symbolic forms. To the adult his
+childhood seems to have been altogether free from
+<span class="xxpn" id="p080">{80}</span>
+any kind of sexual activity or interest, not because,
+as is generally supposed, such has never existed, but
+because it proved incapable of persisting in the
+conscious field and was suppressed into the unconscious
+with the increase of the social repressing
+forces. Similarly impulses experienced in adult life
+which are for the same reason incompatible with
+conscious recognition do not become conscious, but
+live their life in the unconscious, though they may
+exercise the profoundest influence on the happiness
+and health of the subject.</p>
+
+<p>The work of Freud has been concentrated chiefly
+upon the one party in these conflicts—the instinctive
+impulse of which the only considerable one according
+to him is the sexual. To the other party—the
+repressing forces—he has given very much less
+attention, and in them has found apparently much
+less interest. By most writers of his school also
+they seem to be taken very much as a matter of
+course.</p>
+
+<p>When we consider, however, what they can
+accomplish—how they can take the immensely
+powerful instinct of sex and mould and deform its
+prodigious mental energy—it is clear that the repressing
+forces are no less important than the
+antagonist with which they contend.</p>
+
+<p>It is desirable, perhaps, to discuss a little more
+closely the nature of mental conflict, and especially
+first to define the precise meaning of the conception.</p>
+
+<p>It may readily be granted that the young child’s
+mind is wholly egocentric, though the proposition
+is not without a certain element of assumption which
+it is not wise altogether to ignore. He experiences
+certain desires and impulses which he assumes with
+the blandest unconsciousness of any other desires
+but his own are there to be gratified. The failure
+to gratify such an impulse may come about in several
+ways, not all of which are equally significant in
+<span class="xxpn" id="p081">{81}</span>
+establishing mental conflict. The gratification may
+be physically impossible. Here there is no basis for
+internal conflict. The resistance is wholly external;
+the whole child still desires its pleasure and its whole
+resources, mental and physical, are directed to gain
+the object. Mere failure may be painful and may
+lead to an outburst of rage which possibly even
+discharges some of the mental energy of the wish,
+but the situation psychically is simple and the incident
+tends of itself to go no farther.</p>
+
+<p>The gratification may prove to be physically
+painful in itself. This seems to promise certain
+elements of mental conflict in balancing the pleasure
+of the gratification against the remembered pain
+it involves. We are assuming that the pain is the
+immediate consequence of the act, as when, for
+example, a child makes the immemorial scientific
+discovery that fire burns fingers. Such a direct
+experience without the interposition of a second
+person or the pointing of a moral does not in fact
+involve any real mental conflict. The source of the
+pain is external, its only emotional quality is that of
+its simple unpleasantness, and this cannot, as it were,
+enter into the child’s mind and divide it against
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>True conflict, the conflict which moulds and
+deforms, must be actually within the mind—must
+be endopsychic to use a term invented by Freud,
+though not used by him in this exact application.
+In order that a desire may set up conflict it must be
+thwarted, not by a plain impossibility or by a mere
+physical pain, but by another impulse within the
+mind antagonizing it. It seems clear that the
+counter-impulse to be strong enough to contend
+with an impulse having in it the energy of the sex
+instinct must itself derive its force from some potent
+instinctive mechanism. We cannot suppose that
+the immense power of the sex impulse can be
+<span class="xxpn" id="p082">{82}</span>
+controlled, moulded, and directed by any influence
+except such as have access to the stores of
+psychical energy which the instinctive activities
+alone possess.</p>
+
+<p>We are thus led to the proposition that the essence
+of mental conflict is the antagonism of two impulses
+which both have instinct behind them, and are both,
+as it were, intimate constituents in the personality of
+the subject. Thus only can the mind become, in
+the worn but still infinitely appropriate metaphor, a
+house divided against itself. The counter-impulses
+to the developing sexual interest and activity of the
+child are, as we have seen, the result of social
+pressure—that is to say, the result of the influence of
+the human environment. This influence is manifested,
+not merely in direct precept, in warning, in
+punishment, in expressions of disapproval or disgust,
+but in the whole system of secrecy, of significant
+silences, of suppressions, of nods and winks and
+surreptitious signallings, of sudden causeless snubs
+and patently lame explanations amid which such
+sexual interest as the child possesses has to find a
+<i>modus vivendi</i> and an intelligible meaning.</p>
+
+<p>Whence does this environmental pressure obtain
+the power which enables it to exercise in the child’s
+mind the regal functions of instinct? Clearly it can
+do so only if the mind possesses a specific sensitiveness
+to external opinion and the capacity to confer
+on its precepts the sanction of instinctive force.
+In the two earlier essays of this book I attempted
+to show that the essential specific characteristic of
+the mind of the gregarious animal is this very
+capacity to confer upon herd opinion the psychical
+energy of instinct. It is this sensitiveness, then,
+which lays the child’s mind open to the influence
+of his environment and endows for him the
+mental attitude of that environment with all the
+sanction of instinct. Thus do the repressing forces
+<span class="xxpn" id="p083">{83}</span>
+become actually constituent in the child’s personality,
+and as much a part of his being as the egoistic
+desires with which they are now able to contend on
+equal terms.</p>
+
+<p>The specific sensitiveness of the gregarious mind
+seems, then, to be a necessary condition for the
+establishment of true mental conflict, and a character
+which must be taken into account if we are to
+develop a complete theory of the evolution of the
+individual mind.</p>
+
+<p>Assuming the validity of the proposition that
+there are two primary factors in the development of
+the mind in each individual—the egoistic impulses
+of the child and his specific sensitiveness to environing
+influences—it may well be asked why it is
+that the product, the “normal” adult mind, is so
+uniform in its characters. It is true that this uniformity
+may very easily be exaggerated, for in a
+very considerable number of cases gross “abnormalities”
+are the result of the process of development,
+but, as I pointed out in an earlier essay, the
+result on the whole is to produce two broadly
+distinguishable types of mind—the unstable and the
+stable—the latter on account of its numerical
+superiority being also dignified as normal. A considerable
+uniformity in the final products must
+therefore be accepted. If, however, environmental
+influences are an essential factor in the production
+of this result, there seems no little difficulty in
+accounting for the uniformity seeing that environments
+vary so much from class to class, nation to
+nation, and race to race. Where, we may ask, is the
+constant in the environmental factors which the
+uniformity of the outcome leads us to expect?
+Assuming with Freud that of the egoistic impulses
+of the child, the sexual alone seriously counts in the
+formation of character, can it be shown that the
+influences which surround the child are uniform
+<span class="xxpn" id="p084">{84}</span>
+in their general direction against this? At first
+sight it would seem certainly not. Even in the same
+country the variations in taste, reticence, modesty,
+and morality towards matters of sex interest vary
+greatly from class to class, and presumably are
+accompanied by corresponding variations in the type
+of influence exercised by the environment of the
+child.</p>
+
+<p>Adequately to deal with this difficulty would involve
+examining in detail the actual mental attitude
+of the adult towards the young, especially in regard
+to matters directly or indirectly touching upon
+interests of sex. The subject is a difficult one, and if
+we limit ourselves to the purely human standpoint,
+ugly and depressing. The biologist, however, need
+not confine himself to so cramped an outlook, and
+by means of collecting his observations over a much
+larger field is able to some extent to escape the
+distorting effects of natural human prejudice.
+Viewed in a broad way, it is neither surprising nor
+portentous that there should naturally exist a strong
+and persistent jealousy between the adult and the
+young. Indeed, many of the superficial consequences
+of this fact are mere commonplaces.
+Throughout most of the lower animals the relation
+is obvious and frankly manifested. Indeed, it may
+be regarded as a more or less inevitable consequence
+of any form of social life among animals. As such,
+therefore, it may be expected to appear in some form
+or other in the human mind. The manifestations of
+it, however, will by no means necessarily take easily
+recognizable forms. The social pressure to which
+the mind is subject will tend to exclude such a
+feeling from at any rate full consciousness, and such
+manifestations as are allowed it will be in disguised
+and distorted forms.</p>
+
+<p>It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that
+some dim and unrealized offshoot of such a jealousy
+<span class="xxpn" id="p085">{85}</span>
+between adult and young is responsible for the
+unanimity with which man combines to suppress
+and delay the development of any evidence of sexual
+interest by the young. The intensity of the dislike
+which is felt for admitting the young to share any
+part of the knowledge of the adult about the
+physiology of sex is well illustrated by the difficulty
+parents feel in communicating to their children
+some of the elementary facts which they may feel
+very strongly it is their duty to impart. A parent
+may find himself under these circumstances trying
+to quiet his conscience with all sorts of excuses and
+subterfuges while he postpones making the explanations
+which duty and affection urge upon him as
+necessary for the health and happiness of his child.
+An unwillingness so strong and irrational as this
+must have its root in subconscious processes charged
+with strong feeling.</p>
+
+<p>The tendency to guard children from sexual knowledge
+and experience seems to be truly universal
+in civilized man and to surpass all differences of
+morals, discipline, or taste. Amongst primitive
+savages the principle has not acquired the altruistic
+signification which civilized man has given it, but
+operates as a definite exclusion to be overcome only
+by solemn ceremonies of initiation and at the price
+of submission to painful and sometimes mutilating
+rites.</p>
+
+<p>The constancy of attitude of the adult towards
+the young, which is thus seen to be so general,
+evidently gives to the environmental influences which
+surround the child a fundamental uniformity, and
+as we have seen, the theory of the development of
+the individual mind demands that such a uniformity
+of environmental influence should be shown to be
+in action.</p>
+
+<p>This is no place to follow out the practical consequences
+of the fact that every adult necessarily
+<span class="xxpn" id="p086">{86}</span>
+possesses a primary bias in his attitude towards
+the young, and a bias which is connected with
+instinctive impulses of great mental energy. However
+much this tendency is overlaid by moral
+principles, by altruism, by natural affection, as long
+as its true nature is unrecognized and excluded from
+full consciousness its influence upon conduct must
+be excessive and full of dangerous possibilities. To
+it must ultimately be traced the scarcely veiled
+distrust and dislike with which comparative youth is
+always apt to be met where matters of importance are
+concerned. The attitude of the adult and elderly
+towards the enthusiasms of youth is stereotyped in
+a way which can scarcely fail to strike the psychologist
+as remarkable and illuminating in its commonplaceness.
+The youthful revolutionary, who after
+all is no more essentially absurd than the elderly
+conservative, is commonly told by the latter that he
+too at the same age felt the same aspirations, burnt
+with the same zeal, and yearned with the same hope
+until he learnt wisdom with experience—“as you
+will have, my boy, by the time you are my age.”
+To the psychologist the kindly contempt of such
+pronouncements cannot conceal the pathetic jealousy
+of declining power. Herd instinct, inevitably siding
+with the majority and the ruling powers, has always
+added its influence to the side of age and given a
+very distinctly perceptible bias to history, proverbial
+wisdom, and folklore against youth and confidence
+and enterprise and in favour of age and caution,
+the immemorial wisdom of the past, and even
+the toothless mumblings of senile decay.</p>
+
+<p>Any comprehensive survey of modern civilized
+life cannot fail to yield abundant instances of the
+disproportionate influence in the conduct of affairs
+which has been acquired by mere age. When we
+remember how little in actual practice man proves
+himself capable of the use of reason, how very little
+<span class="xxpn" id="p087">{87}</span>
+he actually does profit by experience though the
+phrase is always in his mouth, it must be obvious
+that there is some strong psychological reason for
+the predominance of age, something which must be
+determinative in its favour quite apart from its merits
+and capacity when competing with youth. The
+“monstrous regiment” of old men—and to the
+biologist it is almost as “monstrous” as the
+regiment of Mary Stuart was to poor indignant
+Knox—extends into every branch of man’s activity.
+We prefer old judges, old lawyers, old politicians,
+old doctors, old generals, and when their functions
+involve any immediacy of cause and effect and are
+not merely concerned with abstractions, we contentedly
+pay the price which the inelasticity of these
+ripe minds is sometimes apt to incur.</p>
+
+<h4 class="h4center">IV</h4>
+
+<p>If the propositions already laid down prove to be
+sound, we must regard the personality of the adult
+as the resultant of three groups of forces to which
+the mind from infancy onwards is subject; <i>first</i>
+the egoistic instincts of the individual pressing for
+gratification and possessing the intense mental
+energy characteristic of instinctive processes,
+<i>secondly</i> the specific sensitiveness to environmental
+influences which the mind as that of a gregarious
+animal necessarily possesses, a quality capable of
+endowing outside influences with the energy of
+instinct and, <i>thirdly</i> the environmental influences
+which act upon the growing mind and are also
+essentially determined in their intensity and uniformity
+by instinctive mechanisms.</p>
+
+<p>The work of Freud has been directed mainly
+to the elucidation of the processes included in the
+first group—that is to say, to the study of the
+primarily egoistic impulses and the modifications
+<span class="xxpn" id="p088">{88}</span>
+they develop under restraint. He has worked out,
+in fact, a veritable embryology of the mind.</p>
+
+<p>The embryology of the body is to those who have
+had no biological training far from being a
+gratifying subject of contemplation. The stages
+through which the body passes before reaching its
+familiar form have a superficial aspect of ugly and
+repulsive caricature with which only a knowledge
+of the great compressed pageant of nature they
+represent can reconcile the mind. The stages
+through which, according to the doctrines of Freud,
+the developing mind passes are not less repulsive
+when judged from the purely human point of view
+than are the phases of the body, which betray
+its cousinship with the fish and the frog, the lemur
+and the ape. The works of Nature give no support
+to the social convention that to be truly respectable
+one must always have been respectable. All her
+most elaborate creations have “risen in the world”
+and are descended in the direct line from creatures of
+the mud and dust. It is characteristic of her method
+to work with the humblest materials and to patch
+and compromise at every step. Any given structure
+of her making is thus not by any means necessarily
+the best that could conceivably be contrived, but
+a workable modification of something else, always
+more or less conditioned in its functioning by the
+limitations of the thing from which it was made.</p>
+
+<p>To the biologist, therefore, the fact that Freud’s
+investigations of the development of the mind have
+shown it passing through stages anything but gratifying
+to self-esteem will not be either surprising
+or a ground for disbelief. That Freud’s conclusions
+are decidedly unpalatable when judged by a narrowly
+human standard is very obvious to any one who is
+at all familiar with the kind of criticism they have
+received. It must be acknowledged, moreover, that
+his methods of exposition have not always tended
+<span class="xxpn" id="p089">{89}</span>
+to disguise the nauseousness of the dose he attempts
+to administer. Such matters, however, lie altogether
+apart from the question whether his conclusions are
+or are not just, though it is perhaps justifiable to
+say that had these conclusions been immediately
+acceptable, the fact would be presumptive evidence
+that they were either not new or were false.</p>
+
+<p>The work of Freud embodies the most determined,
+thorough, and scientific attempt which has been made
+to penetrate the mysteries of the mind by the direct
+human method of approach, making use of introspection—guided
+and guarded, it is true, by an
+elaborate technique—as its essential instrument. To
+have shaped so awkward and fallacious an instrument
+into an apparatus for which accuracy and fruitfulness
+can be claimed is in itself a notable triumph of
+psychological skill.</p>
+
+<p>The doctrines of Freud seem to be regarded by
+his school as covering all the activities of the mind
+and making a complete, though of course not necessarily
+exhaustive, survey of the whole field. I have
+already pointed out directions in which it appears
+to me that inquiries by other methods than those
+of the psycho-analytic school can be pursued with
+success. Regarded in a broad way, the Freudian
+body of doctrine which I have already ventured
+to describe as essentially an embryology of the
+mind gives one the impression of being mainly
+descriptive and systematic rather than dynamic, if
+one may with due caution use such words. It is
+able to tell us how such and such a state of affairs
+has arisen, what is its true significance, and to
+describe in minute detail the factors into which it
+can be analysed. When the question of acting upon
+the mind is raised its resources seem less striking.
+In this direction its chief activities have been in
+the treatment of abnormal mental states, and these
+are dealt with by a laborious process of analysis
+<span class="xxpn" id="p090">{90}</span>
+in which the subject’s whole mental development is
+retraced, and the numerous significant experiences
+which have become excluded from the conscious
+field are brought back into it.</p>
+
+<p>When the unconscious processes which underlie
+the symptoms have been assimilated to the conscious
+life of the patient, the symptoms necessarily disappear,
+and the patient’s mind gains or regains
+the “normal” condition. However precious such
+a cure may be to the patient, and however interesting
+to the physician, its value to the species has to be
+judged in relation to the value of the “normal”
+to which the patient has been restored—that is, in
+relation to the question as to whether any move,
+however small, in the direction of an enlargement
+of the human mind has been made. Until some
+clearer evidence has been furnished of a capacity
+for development in this direction the Freudian system
+should, perhaps, be regarded as more notably a
+psychology of knowledge than a psychology of
+power.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to notice that in discussing the
+mechanism of psycho-analysis in liberating the
+“abnormal” patient from his symptoms, Freud
+repeatedly lays stress on the fact that the efficient
+factor in the process is not the actual introduction
+of the suppressed experiences into the conscious field,
+but the overcoming of the resistances to such an
+endeavour. I have attempted to show that these
+resistances or counter-impulses are of environmental
+origin, and owe their strength to the specific sensitiveness
+of the gregarious mind. Resistances of
+similar type and identical origin are responsible for
+the formation of the so-called normal type of mind.
+It is a principal thesis of an earlier essay in this
+book that this normal type is far from being psychologically
+healthy, is far from rendering available
+the full capacity of the mind for foresight and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p091">{91}</span>
+progress, and being in exclusive command of directing
+power in the world, is a danger to civilization.
+An investigation of the resistant forces that are
+encountered by the developing mind is clearly, then,
+a matter of the utmost importance. They are now
+allowed to come into being haphazard, and while
+they undoubtedly contain elements of social value
+and necessary restraints, they are the products, not
+of a courageous recognition of facts but of fears,
+prejudices, and repressed instinctive impulses, and
+are consolidated by ignorance, indolence, and tribal
+custom.</p>
+
+<p>The interest of the psycho-analytic school has been
+turned remarkably little into this field. The speculation
+may be hazarded that in this direction it might
+find the sources of a directer power over the human
+mind, and at least some attenuation of that atmosphere
+of the consulting-room and the mad-house
+which does so much to detract from its pretensions
+to be a psychological system of universal validity.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">S<b>OME</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">P<b>RINCIPLES</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smmaj">A</span>
+ <span class="smcap">B<b>IOLOGICAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>The third method by which it has been attempted
+to attack the problems of psychology is that which
+I have called the comparative. Its characteristic note
+is a distrust of that attitude towards phenomena
+which I have called the human point of view.
+Man’s description and interpretation of his own
+mental experience being so liable to distortion by
+prejudice, by self-esteem, by his views as to his
+own nature and powers, as well as so incomplete by
+reason of his incapacity to reach by ordinary introspection
+the deeper strata of his mind, it becomes
+necessary to make action as far as possible the
+subject of observation rather than speech, and to
+regard it as a touchstone of motive more important
+than the actor’s own views. The principle
+<span class="xxpn" id="p092">{92}</span>
+may be exemplified in a simple and concrete form.
+If a given piece of human behaviour bears the
+closest resemblance to behaviour which is characteristic
+of the ape, the sheep, or the wolf, the
+biologist in attempting to arrive at the actual cause
+will ascribe an importance to this resemblance at
+least no less than that he will give to any explanation
+of the action as rational and deliberate which
+may be furnished by the actor or by his own
+intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>A second principle of the method will be by a
+study of the whole range of animal life, and especially
+of forms whose conduct presents obvious
+resemblances to that of man, to discover what
+instinctive impulses may be expected to operate in
+him.</p>
+
+<p>A third principle will be to search for criteria,
+whereby instinctive impulses or their derivatives
+arising in the mind can be distinguished from
+rational motives, or at any rate motives in which
+the instinctive factor is minimal. Thus will be
+furnished for the method the objective standard for
+the judgment of mental observations which is the
+one indispensable requirement in all psychological
+inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>When it is known what types of instinctive
+mechanisms are to be expected, and under what
+aspects they will appear in the mind, it is possible
+to press inquiry into many of the obscurer regions
+of human behaviour and thought, and to arrive
+at conclusions which, while they are in harmony
+with the general body of biological science, have
+the additional value of being immediately useful
+in the conduct of affairs.</p>
+
+<p>At the very outset of such researches we are
+met by an objection which illustrates how different
+the biological conception of the mind is from that
+current amongst those whose training has been
+<span class="xxpn" id="p093">{93}</span>
+literary and philosophic. The objection I am thinking
+of is that of the ordinary intellectualist view of
+man. According to this we must regard him as
+essentially a rational creature, subject, it is true,
+to certain feeble relics of instinctive impulsion, but
+able to control such without any great expense of
+will power, irrational at times in an amiable and
+rather “nice” way, but fundamentally always independent,
+responsible, and captain of his soul. Most
+holders of this opinion will of course admit that
+in a distant and vague enough past man must have
+been much more definitely an instinctive being, but
+they regard attempts to trace in modern man any
+considerable residue of instinctive activities as a
+tissue of fallacious and superficial analogies, based
+upon a shallow materialism and an ignorance of
+the great principles of philosophy or a crudeness
+which cannot assimilate them.</p>
+
+<p>This objection is an expression of the very
+characteristic way in which mankind over-estimates
+the practical functioning of reason in his mind and
+the influence of civilization on his development. In
+an earlier essay I have tried to show to how great
+an extent the average educated man is willing to
+pronounce decided judgments, all of which he believes
+himself to have arrived at by the exercise
+of pure reason, upon the innumerable complex
+questions of the day. Almost all of them concern
+highly technical matters upon none of which has
+he the slightest qualification to pronounce. This
+characteristic, always obvious enough, has naturally
+during the war shown the exaggeration so apt to
+occur in all non-rational processes at a time of
+general stress. It is not necessary to catalogue
+the various public functions in regard to which
+the common citizen finds himself in these days moved
+to advise and exhort. They are numerous, and
+for the most part highly technical. Generally the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p094">{94}</span>
+more technical a given matter is, the more vehement
+and dogmatic is the counsel of the utterly uninstructed
+counsellor. Even when the questions involved
+are not especially such as can be dealt with
+only by the expert, the fact that the essential data
+are withheld from the public by the authorities
+renders all this amateur statecraft and generalship
+more than usually ridiculous. Nevertheless, those
+who find the materials insufficient for dogmatism
+and feel compelled to a suspense of judgment are
+apt to fall under suspicion of the crime of failing
+to “realize” the seriousness of the war. When it
+is remembered that the duty of the civilian is in
+no way concerned with these matters of high technique,
+while he has very important functions to carry
+out in maintaining the nation’s strength if he could
+be brought to take an interest in them, it seems
+scarcely possible to argue that such conduct is that
+of a very highly rational being. In reality the
+objective examination of man’s behaviour, if attention
+is directed to the facts and not to what the
+actors think of them, yields at once in every field
+example after example of similar irrational features.</p>
+
+<p>When the influence of civilization is looked upon
+as having rendered man’s instincts of altogether
+secondary importance in modern life, it is plain
+that such a conclusion involves a misconception of
+the nature of instinct. This well-worn term has
+come to have so vague a connotation that some
+definition of it is necessary. The word “instinct”
+is used here to denote inherited modes of reaction
+to bodily need or external stimulus. It is difficult
+to draw a sharp distinction between instinct and
+mere reflex action, and an attempt to do so with
+exact precision is of no particular value. In general
+we may say that the reactions which should be
+classed under the head of instinct are delayed (that
+is, not necessarily carried out with fatal promptitude
+<span class="xxpn" id="p095">{95}</span>
+immediately upon the stimulus), complex (that is,
+consist of acts rather than mere movements), and
+may be accompanied by quite elaborate mental processes.
+In a broad way also it may be said that
+the mental accompaniments of an instinctive process
+are for the most part matters of feeling. During
+the growth of the need or stimulus there will be
+a desire or inclination which may be quite intense,
+and yet not definitely focused on any object that
+is consciously realized; the act itself will be distinguished
+to the actor by its rightness, obviousness,
+necessity, or inevitableness, and the sequel
+of the act will be satisfaction. This mere hint
+of the psychical manifestations of instinctive activity
+leaves quite out of account the complex effects which
+may ensue when two instinctive impulses that have
+come to be antagonistic reach the mind at the same
+time. The actual amount of mental activity which
+accompanies an instinctive process is very variable;
+it may be quite small, and then the subject of it
+is reduced to a mere automaton, possessed, as we
+say, by an ungovernable passion such as panic, lust,
+or rage; it may be quite large, and sometimes
+the subject, deceived by his own rationalizations and
+suppressions, may suppose himself to be a fully
+rational being in undisputed possession of free will
+and the mastery of his fate at the very moment
+when he is showing himself to be a mere puppet
+dancing to the strings which Nature, unimpressed
+by his valiant airs, relentlessly and impassively pulls.</p>
+
+<p>The extent of the psychical accompaniments of
+instinctive activity in civilized man should not, therefore,
+be allowed to obscure the fact that the
+instincts are tendencies deeply ingrained in the very
+structure of his being. They are as necessarily
+inherited, as much a part of himself, and as
+essential a condition for the survival of himself
+and his race, as are the vital organs of his body.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p096">{96}</span>
+Their persistence in him is established and enforced
+by the effects of millions of years of selection, so
+that it can scarcely be supposed that a few thousand
+years of civilized life which have been accompanied
+by no steady selection against any single instinct can
+have had any effect whatever in weakening them.
+The common expression that such an effect has been
+produced is doubtless due to the great development
+in civilized man of the mental accompaniments of
+instinctive processes. These mental phenomena surround
+the naked reality of the impulse with a
+cloud of rationalized comment and illusory explanation.
+The capacity which man possesses for free
+and rational thought in matters untainted by instinctive
+inclination is of course indubitable, but he
+has not realized that there is no obvious mental
+character attached to propositions having an
+instinctive basis which should expose them to
+suspicion. As a matter of fact, it is just those
+fundamental propositions which owe their origin to
+instinct which appear to the subject the most obvious,
+the most axiomatic, and the least liable to doubt
+by any one but an eccentric or a madman.</p>
+
+<p>It has been customary with certain authors—perhaps
+especially such as have interested themselves
+in sociological subjects—to ascribe quite a
+large number of man’s activities to separate instincts.
+Very little consideration of most of these propositions
+shows that they are based upon too lax
+a definition or a want of analysis, for most of the
+activities referred to special instincts prove to be
+derivatives of the great primal instincts which are
+common to or very widely distributed over the
+animal kingdom. Man and a very large number
+of all animals inherit the capacity to respond to
+physical need or emergency according to the
+demands which we classify, as the three primary
+instincts of self-preservation, nutrition, and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p097">{97}</span>
+reproduction. If a series of animals of increasing brain
+power be examined, it will be found that a growth
+of intelligence, while it does nothing to enfeeble
+the instinctive impulse, modifies the appearances of
+it by increasing the number of modes of reaction it
+may use. Intelligence, that is to say, leaves its
+possessor no less impelled by instinct than his
+simpler ancestor, but endows him with the capacity
+to respond in a larger variety of ways. The response
+is now no longer directly and narrowly confined to
+a single path, but may follow a number of indirect
+and intricate ways; there is no reason, however, to
+suppose that the impulse is any the weaker for that.
+To mistake indirectness of response for enfeeblement
+of impulse is a fundamental error to which all inquiry
+into the psychology of instinct is liable.</p>
+
+<p>To man his big brain has given a maximal
+power of various response which enables him to
+indulge his instinctive impulses in indirect and
+symbolic activities to a greater extent than any other
+animal. It is for this reason that the instincts of
+man are not always obvious in his conduct and
+have come to be regarded by some as practically
+no more than vestigial. Indirect modes of response
+may indeed become so involved as to assume the
+appearance of the negation of the very instincts
+of which they are the expression. Thus it comes
+to be no paradox to say that monks and nuns,
+ascetics and martyrs, prove the strength of the great
+primary instincts their existence seems to deny.</p>
+
+<p>Man and a certain number of other species widely
+distributed throughout the animal kingdom show,
+in addition to the instincts of self-preservation,
+nutrition, and sex, specialized inherited modes of
+response to the needs, not directly of the individual
+but of the herd to which he belongs. These
+responses, which are perfectly well marked and
+characteristic, are those of the herd instinct. It is
+<span class="xxpn" id="p098">{98}</span>
+important to grasp clearly the relation of this instinct
+to the individual. It must be understood that each
+separate member of a gregarious species inherits
+characters deeply rooted in his being which effectually
+differentiate him from any non-gregarious
+animal. These characters are such that in presence
+of certain stimuli they will ensure his responding
+in a specialized way which will be quite different
+from the response of a solitary animal. The
+response when examined will be found not necessarily
+to favour the survival of the individual as
+such, but to favour his survival as a member of
+a herd. A very simple example will make this
+plain. The dog and the cat are our two most
+familiar examples of the social and the solitary
+animal respectively. Their different attitudes towards
+feeding must have been observed by all.
+The cat takes her food leisurely, without great
+appearance of appetite and in small amounts at a
+time; the dog is voracious and will eat hurriedly
+as much as he can get, growling anxiously if he
+is approached. In doing so he is expressing a deeply
+ingrained characteristic. His attitude towards food
+was built up when he hunted in packs and to get a
+share of the common kill had to snatch what came in
+his way and gulp it down before it could be taken
+from him. In slang which has a sound biological
+basis we say he “wolfs” his food. When in
+domestication his food supply is no longer limited
+in the primitive way, his instinctive tendency persists;
+he is typically greedy and will kill himself by overeating
+if he is allowed to. Here we have a perfect
+instance of an instinctive response being disadvantageous
+to the survival of the individual as such,
+and favouring his survival only as a member of a
+herd. This example, trivial as it may seem, is
+worthy of close study. It shows that the individual
+of the gregarious species, as an individual and in
+<span class="xxpn" id="p099">{99}</span>
+isolation, possesses indelible marks of character
+which effectually distinguish him from all solitary
+animals.</p>
+
+<p>The same principle applies with equal force to
+man. Whether he is alone or in company, a hermit
+philosopher or a mere unit of a mob, his responses
+will bear the same stamp of being regulated by the
+existence and influence of his fellows.</p>
+
+<p>The foregoing considerations, elementary and
+incomplete as they are, suggest that there is a
+strong prima facie case for rejecting the common
+conceptions that man is among animals the least
+endowed with an inheritance of instinct, and that
+civilization has produced in him profound modifications
+in his primitive instinctive impulses. If the
+conception which I have put forward be correct,
+namely, that man is not at all less subject to
+instinctive impulsions than any other animal but
+disguises the fact from the observer and from
+himself by the multiplicity of the lines of response
+his mental capacity enables him to take, it should
+follow that his conduct is much less truly variable
+and much more open to generalization than has
+generally been supposed. Should this be possible,
+it would enable the biologist to study the actual
+affairs of mankind in a really practical way, to
+analyse the tendencies of social development, to
+discover how deeply or superficially they were based
+in the necessity of things, and above all, to foretell
+their course. Thus might be founded a true science
+of politics which would be of direct service to the
+statesman.</p>
+
+<p>Many attempts have been made to apply biological
+principles to the interpretation of history
+and the guidance of statecraft, especially since the
+popularization of the principles associated with the
+name of Darwin. Such attempts have generally
+been undertaken less in the spirit of the scientific
+<span class="xxpn" id="p100">{100}</span>
+investigator than in that of the politician; the
+point of departure has been a political conviction
+and not a biological truth; and as might be expected,
+when there has been any conflict between political
+conviction and biological truth it is the latter that
+has had to give way. Work of this kind has brought
+the method into deserved contempt by its crudity,
+its obvious subservience to prejudice, and its pretentious
+gestures of the doctrinaire. England has
+not been without her examples of these scientific
+politicians and historians, but they cannot be said
+to have flourished here as they have in the more
+scholastic air of Germany. The names of several
+such are now notorious in this country and their
+works are sufficiently familiar for it to be obvious
+that their claims to scientific value do not admit of
+discussion. It is not necessary to consider their
+conclusions, they are condemned by their manner;
+and however interesting their political vociferation
+may be to fellow-patriots, it plainly has no meaning
+whatsoever as science. In face of the spectacle
+presented by these leather-lunged doctrinaires, it
+needs some little hardihood to maintain that it is
+possible profitably to apply biological principle to
+the consideration of human affairs; nevertheless, that
+is an essential thesis of this essay.</p>
+
+<p>In attempting to illuminate the records of history
+by the principles of biology, an essential difficulty is
+the difference of scale in time upon which these
+two departments of knowledge work. Historical
+events are confined within a few thousands of years,
+the biological record covers many millions; it is
+scarcely to be expected, therefore, that even a gross
+movement on the cramped historical scale will be
+capable of detection in the vast gulf of time the
+biological series represents. A minor difficulty is
+the fact that the data of history come to us through
+a dense and reduplicated veil of human
+<span class="xxpn" id="p101">{101}</span>
+interpretation, whereas the biological facts are comparatively
+free from this kind of obscuration. The former
+obstacle is undoubtedly serious. It is to be
+remarked, however, that there is strong reason to
+suppose that the process of organic evolution has not
+been and is not always infinitely slow and gradual.
+It is more than suspected that, perhaps as the result
+of slowly accumulated tendency or perhaps as the
+result of a sudden variation of structure or capacity,
+there have been periods of rapid change which
+might have been perceptible to direct observation.
+The infinitely long road still tending upwards comes
+to where it branches and meets another path, tending
+perhaps downwards or even upwards at a different
+slope. May not the meeting or branching form,
+as it were, a node in the infinite line, a resting
+place for the eye, a point in the vast extension
+capable of recognition by a finite mind and of
+expression in terms of human affairs? It is the
+belief of the writer that the human race stands
+at such a nodal point to-day.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">T<b>HE</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">B<b>IOLOGY</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>In order to set forth the evidence on which is
+based the conclusion that the present juncture of
+affairs is not merely, as it very obviously is, a
+meeting-place of epochs in the historical series, but
+also marks a stage in the biological series which
+will prove to have been a moment of destiny in the
+evolution of the human species, it will be necessary
+to inquire somewhat closely into the biological
+meaning of the social habit in animals. In an earlier
+essay certain speculations in the same subject were
+indulged, and a certain amount of repetition will
+be necessary. The point of view then taken up,
+however, was different from that from which I shall
+now attempt to review the facts. Then the main
+<span class="xxpn" id="p102">{102}</span>
+interest lay in an examination of the meaning of
+gregariousness for the individual mind, and although
+reasons enough were found for uneasiness at the
+course of events, and at the instability of civilization
+which any radical examination displayed, the
+inquiry was not pursued under any immediate imminence
+of disaster to the social fabric as it must
+be now. Naturally, therefore, at the present time
+certain aspects of the subject which before were
+of no special relevance become of great importance
+and demand close examination.</p>
+
+<p>In a general view of the social habit in animals
+certain outstanding facts are readily to be observed.
+It is of wide distribution and sporadic occurrence, it
+varies much in the completeness of its development,
+and there seems to be an inverse relation between
+its completeness and the brain power of the animal
+concerned.</p>
+
+<p>From the wideness of its distribution the social
+habit may be supposed to represent a forward step
+in complexity which comes about readily. It has
+the appearance of being upon a path which species
+have a natural tendency to follow, a line of evolution
+which is perhaps rendered possible by constantly
+occurring small variations common to all animals and
+taken advantage of only under certain circumstances
+of pressure or increase. It seems not to depend on
+any sudden large variation of type, and such is not
+necessary to account for it. It differs from many
+other modifications which we know animal life to
+have undergone in being immediately useful to the
+species from its very beginning and in its least
+perfect forms. Once started, however imperfectly,
+the new habit will have a natural tendency to
+progress towards fuller forms of sociality by reason
+of special selective forces which it inevitably sets
+going. The fact that it is valuable to the species
+in which it develops even in its most larval forms,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p103">{103}</span>
+combined with its tendency to progress, no doubt
+accounts for the wonderful series of all degrees
+of gregariousness which the field of natural history
+presents.</p>
+
+<p>I have pointed out elsewhere that the fundamental
+biological meaning of gregariousness is that it allows
+of an indefinite enlargement of the unit upon which
+the undifferentiated influence of natural selection is
+allowed to act, so that the individual merged in the
+larger unit is shielded from the immediate effects
+of natural selection and is exposed directly only to
+the special form of selection which obtains within
+the new unit.</p>
+
+<p>There seems little doubt that this sheltering of
+the individual allows him to vary and to undergo
+modifications with a freedom which would have
+been dangerous to him as an isolated being, but is
+safe under the new conditions and valuable to the
+new unit of which he now is a part.</p>
+
+<p>In essence the significance of the passage from
+the solitary to the gregarious seems to be closely
+similar to that of the passage from the unicellular
+to the multicellular organism—an enlargement of
+the unit exposed to natural selection, a shielding of
+the individual cell from that pressure, an endowment
+of it with freedom to vary and specialize in safety.</p>
+
+<p>Nature has thus made two great experiments of
+the same type, and if one be reasonably careful to
+avoid arguing from analogy, it is possible to use
+one case to illuminate the other by furnishing hints
+as to what mechanisms may be looked for and in
+what directions inquiry may profitably be pursued.</p>
+
+<p>The sporadic occurrence of gregariousness at
+widely separated points of the animal field—in man
+and sheep, in ant and elephant—inclines one to
+suppose that multicellularity must have arisen also at
+multiple points, and that the metazoa did not arise
+from the protozoa by a single line of descent. It
+<span class="xxpn" id="p104">{104}</span>
+suggests also that there is some inherent property
+in mobile living organisms that makes combination
+of individuals into larger units a more or less inevitable
+course of development under certain circumstances
+and without any gross variation being
+necessary to initiate it. The complex evolution
+which multicellularity made possible, and perhaps
+enforced, can scarcely fail to make one wonder
+whether the gregarious animal has not entered upon
+a path which must of necessity lead to increasing
+complexity and co-ordination, to a more and more
+stringent intensity of integration or to extinction.</p>
+
+<p>The varying degrees to which the social habit
+has developed among different animals provide a
+very interesting branch of study. The class of
+insects is remarkable in furnishing an almost inexhaustible
+variety of stages to which the instinct
+is developed. Of these that reached by the humble
+bee, with its small, weak families, is a familiar
+example of a low grade; that of the wasp, with its
+colonies large and strong, but unable to survive the
+winter, is another of more developed type; while that
+of the honey bee represents a very high grade of
+development in which the instinct seems to have
+completed its cycle and yielded to the hive the
+maximum advantages of which it is capable. In
+the honey bee, then, the social instinct may be said
+to be complete.</p>
+
+<p>It is necessary to examine somewhat closely into
+what is denoted by the completeness or otherwise
+of the social habit in a given species.</p>
+
+<p>To return for a moment to the case of the
+change from the unicellular to the multicellular, it
+is obvious that in the new unit, to get the full
+advantage of the change there must be specialization
+involving both loss and gain to the individual cell;
+one loses power of digestion and gains a special
+sensitiveness to stimulation, another loses locomotion
+<span class="xxpn" id="p105">{105}</span>
+to gain digestion, and so forth in innumerable series
+as the new unit becomes more complex. Inherent,
+however, in the new mechanism is the need for
+co-ordination if the advantages of specialization are
+to be obtained. The necessity of a nervous system—if
+progress is to be maintained—early becomes
+obvious, and it is equally clear that the primary
+function of the nervous system is to facilitate co-ordination.
+Thus it would seem that the individual
+cell incorporated in a larger unit must possess a
+capacity for specialization, the ability to originate
+new methods of activity, and a capacity for response—that
+is, the ability to limit itself to action
+co-ordinated suitably to the interests of the new
+unit rather than to those that would have been its
+own if it had been a free unit in itself. Specialization
+and co-ordination will be the two necessary
+conditions for success of the larger unit, and advance
+in complexity will be possible as long only as these
+two are unexhausted. Neither, of course, will be of
+avail without the other. The richest specialization
+will be of no good if it cannot be controlled to the
+uses of the whole organism, and the most perfect
+control of the individual cells will be incapable
+of ensuring progress if it has no material of original
+variation to work on.</p>
+
+<p>The analogy is helpful in the consideration of
+the mechanisms brought into play by the social
+habit. The community of the honey bee bears
+a close resemblance to the body of a complex animal.
+The capacity for actual structural specialization of
+the individuals in the interests of the hive has
+been remarkable and has gone far, while at the
+same time co-ordination has been stringently enforced,
+so that each individual is actually absorbed
+into the community, expends all its activities therein,
+and when excluded from it is almost as helpless
+as a part of the naked flesh of an animal
+<span class="xxpn" id="p106">{106}</span>
+detached from its body. The hive may, in fact,
+without any very undue stretch of fantasy, be
+described as an animal of which all the individual
+cells have retained the power of locomotion. When
+one watches the flight of a swarm of bees its
+unanimity and directness very easily produce the
+illusion that one is witnessing the migration of
+a single animal usually sedentary but at times
+capable of undertaking journeys with a formidable
+and successful energy. This new animal differs
+from the other animals of the metazoa which it
+has outdistanced in the race of evolution, not merely
+in its immense power, energy, and flexibility, but
+also in the almost startling fact that it has
+recovered the gift of immortality which seemed to
+have been lost with its protozoal ancestors.</p>
+
+<p>The extent to which the hive makes use of the
+powers of its individuals is the measure of the
+completeness with which the social habit is developed
+in it. The worker bee has practically no activities
+which are not directly devoted to the hive, and yet
+she goes about her ceaseless tasks in a way that
+never fails to impress the observer with its exuberant
+energy and even its appearance of joyfulness. It
+is thought that the average worker bee <i>works herself
+to death</i> in about two months. That is a fact
+which can scarcely fail to arouse, even in the least
+imaginative, at any rate a moment of profound
+contemplation.</p>
+
+<p>If we could suppose her to be conscious in the
+human sense, we must imagine the bee to be
+possessed by an enthusiasm for the hive more intense
+than a mother’s devotion to her son, without personal
+ambitions, or doubts or fears, and if we are to
+judge by the imperfect experience man has yet
+had of the same lofty passion, we must think of her
+consciousness, insignificant spark as it is, as a little
+fire ablaze with altruistic feeling. Doubtless, such
+<span class="xxpn" id="p107">{107}</span>
+an attribution of emotion to the bee is a quite
+unjustified fallacy of anthropomorphism. Nevertheless,
+it is not altogether valueless as a hint of what
+social unity might effect in an animal of larger
+mental life. There can be little doubt that the
+perfection to which the communal life of the bee
+has attained is dependent on the very smallness of
+the mental development of which the individuals
+are capable. Their capacity to assimilate experience
+is necessarily from their structure, and is known
+by experience to be, small and their path is marked
+out so plainly by actual physical modifications that
+the almost miraculous absorption of the worker in
+the hive is after all perhaps natural enough. If she
+were able to assimilate general experience on a larger
+scale, to react freely and appropriately to stimuli
+external to the hive, there can be little doubt that
+the community would show a less concentrated
+efficiency than it does to-day. The standing miracle
+of the bee—her sensitiveness to the voice of the
+hive and her capacity to communicate with her
+fellows—would undoubtedly be less marvellously
+perfect if she were not at the same time deaf to all
+other voices.</p>
+
+<p>When we come to consider animals in which
+the anatomist can recognize a brain and the
+psychologist an individual mind, the types of gregariousness
+we meet with are found to have lost
+the magnificent intensity of the bee. This decline
+in intensity seems to be due to the greatly increased
+variety of reaction of which the individual is capable.
+The gregarious mammalia are most of them
+relatively intelligent, they are capable of assimilating
+experience to a certain extent and have a
+definite capacity for individual existence. In them
+the social habit shows comparatively little tendency
+to a gradual intensification, but is a more static
+condition. Doubtless, there are other conditions
+<span class="xxpn" id="p108">{108}</span>
+which also limit it. For example, the slowness
+of multiplication and fixity of structure in the
+mammalia obviously deprive them of the possibility
+of undergoing a continuous social integration as the
+insects have. Be this as it may, we find in them the
+social habit but little or scarcely at all expressed
+in physical specialization but shown as a deeply
+ingrained mental character which profoundly influences
+their habits and their modes of reaction
+to bodily and external impressions. Among the
+mammalia other than man and possibly apes and
+monkeys, gregariousness is found in two broadly
+distinguishable types according to the function it subserves.
+It may be either protective as in the sheep,
+the deer, the ox, and the horse, or aggressive as in
+the wolf and allied animals. In both forms it will
+involve certain common types of capacity, while the
+distinguishing characteristic of each will be a special
+kind of reaction to certain stimuli. It is important
+to understand that these peculiarities are possessed
+by each individual of the larger unit, and will be
+displayed by him in a characteristic way whether
+he is in the company of his fellows or not. It is not
+necessary to repeat here in any detail the characters
+of the gregarious mammal. They have been dealt
+with in an earlier essay, but it is desirable to emphasize
+here certain features of exceptional importance
+and some which were but little discussed before.</p>
+
+<p>The quite fundamental characteristic of the social
+mammal, as of the bee, is sensitiveness to the voice
+of his fellows. He must have the capacity to react
+fatally and without hesitation to an impression
+coming to him from the herd, and he must react
+in a totally different way to impressions coming to
+him from without. In the presence of danger
+his first motion must be, not to fly or to attack as
+the case may be, but to notify the herd. This
+characteristic is beautifully demonstrated in the low
+<span class="xxpn" id="p109">{109}</span>
+growl a dog will give at the approach of a stranger.
+This is obviously in no way part of the dog’s
+programme of attack upon his enemy—when his
+object is intimidation he bursts into barking—but
+his first duty is to put the pack on its guard.
+Similarly the start of the sheep is a notification
+and precedes any motion of flight.</p>
+
+<p>In order that the individual shall be sensitive
+in a special degree to the voice of the herd, he must
+have developed in him an infallible capacity for
+recognizing his fellow-members. In the lower
+mammalia this seems almost exclusively a function
+of the sense of smell, as is natural enough since
+that sense is as a general rule highly developed in
+them. The domestic dog shows admirably the
+importance of the function of recognition in his
+species. Comparatively few recognize even their
+masters at any distance by sight or sound, while
+obviously with their fellows they are practically
+dependent on smell. The extent to which the ceremonial
+of recognition has developed in the dog is,
+of course, very familiar to every one. It shows
+unmistakable evidence of the rudiments of social
+organization, and is not the less illuminating to the
+student of human society for having a bodily orientation
+and technique which at first sight obscures
+its resemblance to similar, and it is supposed more
+dignified, mechanisms in man.</p>
+
+<p>Specialization fitting the animal for social life
+is obviously in certain directions restrictive; that is,
+it denies him certain capacities and immunities which
+the solitary animal possesses; equally obviously is it
+in certain directions expansive and does it confer
+qualities on the social which the solitary does not
+possess. Among qualities of restrictive specialization
+are inability to live satisfactorily apart from the herd
+or some substitute for it, the liability to loneliness,
+a dependence on leadership, custom, and tradition, a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p110">{110}</span>
+credulity towards the dogmas of the herd and an
+unbelief towards external experience, a standard of
+conduct no longer determined by personal needs
+but influenced by a power outside the ego—a conscience,
+in fact, and a sense of sin—a weakness of
+personal initiative and a distrust of its promptings.
+Expansive specialization, on the other hand, gives the
+gregarious animal the sense of power and security
+in the herd, the capacity to respond to the call of
+the herd with a maximum output of energy and
+endurance, a deep-seated mental satisfaction in unity
+with the herd, and a solution in it of personal doubts
+and fears.</p>
+
+<p>All these characters can be traced in an animal
+such as the dog. The mere statement of them,
+necessarily in mental terms, involves the liability
+to a certain inexactitude if it is not recognized that
+no hypothesis as to the consciousness of the dog is
+assumed but that the description in mental terms is
+given because of its convenient brevity. An
+objective description of the actual conduct on which
+such summarized statements are founded would be
+impossibly voluminous.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">The
+advantage the new unit obtains by aggressive
+gregariousness is chiefly its immense accession
+of strength as a hunting and fighting organism.
+Protective gregariousness confers on the flock or
+herd advantages perhaps less obvious but certainly
+not less important. A very valuable gain is the
+increased efficiency of vigilance which is possible.
+Such efficiency depends on the available number
+of actual watchers and the exquisite sensitiveness
+of the herd and all its members to the signals of
+such sentries. No one can have watched a herd
+of sheep for long without being impressed with
+the delicacy with which a supposed danger is
+detected, transmitted throughout the herd, and met
+<span class="xxpn" id="p111">{111}</span>
+by an appropriate movement. Another advantage
+enjoyed by the new unit is a practical solution of
+the difficulties incident upon the emotion of fear.
+Fear is essentially an enfeebling passion, yet in the
+sheep and such animals it is necessarily developed
+to a high degree in the interests of safety. The
+danger of this specialization is neutralized by the
+implication of so large a part of the individual’s
+personality in the herd and outside of himself.
+Alarm becomes a passion, as it were, of the herd
+rather than of the individual, and the appropriate
+response by the individual is to an impulse received
+from the herd and not directly from the actual
+object of alarm. It seems to be in this way that the
+paralysing emotion of fear is held back from the
+individual, while its effect can reach him only as the
+active and formidable passion of panic. The
+gregarious herbivora are in fact timid but not fearful
+animals. All the various mechanisms in which the
+social habit shows itself apparently have as their
+general function a maximal sensitiveness to danger
+of the herd as a whole, combined with maintaining
+with as little interruption as possible an atmosphere
+of calm within the herd, so that the individual
+members can occupy themselves in the serious
+business of grazing. It must be doubted whether
+a truly herbivorous animal of a solitary habit could
+ever flourish when we remember how incessant must
+be his industry in feeding if he is to be properly
+nourished, and how much such an occupation will
+be interfered with by the constant alarms he must be
+subject to if he is to escape the attacks of carnivorous
+enemies. The evidence suggests that protective gregariousness
+is a more elaborate manifestation of
+the social habit than the aggressive form. It is
+clear that the security of the higher herbivora, such
+as the ox and especially the horse and their allies, is
+considerable in relation to the carnivora. One may
+<span class="xxpn" id="p112">{112}</span>
+permissibly perhaps indulge the speculation that in
+the absence of man the horse possibly might have
+developed a greater complexity of organization than
+it has actually been able to attain; that the facts
+should seem to contain this hint is a curious
+testimony to the wonderful constructive imagination
+of Swift.</p>
+
+<p>Setting aside such guesses and confining ourselves
+to the facts, we may say in summary that we find the
+infrahuman mammalia to present two distinctly
+separable strains of the social habit. Both are of
+great value to the species in which they appear, and
+both are associated with certain fundamentally
+similar types of reactive capacity which give a
+general resemblance of character to all gregarious
+animals. Of the two forms the protective is perhaps
+capable of absorbing more fully the personality of
+the individual than is the aggressive, but both seem
+to have reached the limit of their intensification at a
+grade far lower than that which has been attained
+in the insects.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERS</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
+ <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">D<b>ISPLAYED BY </b>M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>When we come to consider man we find ourselves
+faced at once by some of the most interesting
+problems in the biology of the social habit. It is
+probably not necessary now to labour the proof of
+the fact that man is a gregarious animal in literal
+fact, that he is as essentially gregarious as the
+bee and the ant, the sheep, the ox, and the horse.
+The tissue of characteristically gregarious reactions
+which his conduct presents furnishes incontestable
+proof of this thesis, which is thus an indispensable
+clue to an inquiry into the intricate problems of
+human society.</p>
+
+<p>It is desirable perhaps to enumerate in a summary
+<span class="xxpn" id="p113">{113}</span>
+way the more obvious gregarious characters which
+man displays.</p>
+
+<p>1. He is intolerant and fearful of solitude, physical
+or mental. This intolerance is the cause of the
+mental fixity and intellectual incuriousness which,
+to a remarkable degree for an animal with so
+capacious a brain, he constantly displays. As is
+well known, the resistance to a new idea is always
+primarily a matter of prejudice, the development
+of intellectual objections, just or otherwise, being
+a secondary process in spite of the common delusion
+to the contrary. This intimate dependence on the
+herd is traceable not merely in matters physical
+and intellectual, but also betrays itself in the deepest
+recesses of personality as a sense of incompleteness
+which compels the individual to reach out towards
+some larger existence than his own, some encompassing
+being in whom his perplexities may find
+a solution and his longings peace. Physical loneliness
+and intellectual isolation are effectually solaced
+by the nearness and agreement of the herd. The
+deeper personal necessities cannot be met—at any
+rate, in such society as has so far been evolved—by
+so superficial a union; the capacity for intercommunication
+is still too feebly developed to bring
+the individual into complete and soul-satisfying
+harmony with his fellows, to convey from one to
+another</p>
+
+<div id="dp113">
+<p>Thoughts hardly to be packed</p>
+<p>Into a narrow act,</p>
+<p>Fancies that broke through language and escaped.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="pcontinue">Religious
+feeling is therefore a character inherent
+in the very structure of the human mind, and is the
+expression of a need which must be recognized
+by the biologist as neither superficial nor transitory.
+It must be admitted that some philosophers and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p114">{114}</span>
+men of science have at times denied to the religious
+impulses of man their true dignity and importance.
+Impelled perhaps by a desire to close the circle
+of a materialistic conception of the universe, they
+have tended to belittle the significance of such
+phenomena as they were unable to reconcile with
+their principles and bring within the iron circle of
+their doctrine. To deal with religion in this way
+has not only been an outrage upon true scientific
+method, but has always led to a strong reaction in
+general opinion against any radical inquiry by
+science into the deeper problems of man’s nature
+and status. A large and energetic reaction of this
+kind prevails to-day. There can be little doubt
+that it was precipitated, if not provoked, by attempts
+to force a harsh and dogmatic materialism into the
+status of a general philosophy. As long as such a
+system is compelled to ignore, to depreciate, or
+to deny the reality of such manifestly important
+phenomena as the altruistic emotions, the religious
+needs and feelings, the experiences of awe and
+wonder and beauty, the illumination of the mystic,
+the rapture of the prophet, the unconquerable endurance
+of the martyr, so long must it fail in its
+claims to universality. It is therefore necessary to
+lay down with the strongest emphasis the proposition
+that the religious needs and feelings of man
+are a direct and necessary manifestation of the
+inheritance of instinct with which he is born, and
+therefore deserve consideration as respectful and
+observation as minute as any other biological
+phenomenon.</p>
+
+<p>2. He is more sensitive to the voice of the herd
+than to any other influence. It can inhibit or
+stimulate his thought and conduct. It is the source
+of his moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and
+philosophy. It can endow him with energy, courage,
+and endurance, and can as easily take these away.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p115">{115}</span>
+It can make him acquiese in his own punishment
+and embrace his executioner, submit to poverty,
+bow to tyranny, and sink without complaint under
+starvation. Not merely can it make him accept
+hardship and suffering unresistingly, but it can make
+him accept as truth the explanation that his perfectly
+preventable afflictions are sublimely just and gentle.
+It is in this acme of the power of herd suggestion
+that is perhaps the most absolutely incontestable
+proof of the profoundly gregarious nature of man.
+That a creature of strong appetites and luxurious
+desires should come to tolerate uncomplainingly his
+empty belly, his chattering teeth, his naked limbs,
+and his hard bed is miracle enough. What are we
+to say of a force which, when he is told by the full-fed
+and well-warmed that his state is the more
+blessed can make him answer, “How beautiful!
+How true!” In the face of so effectual a negation,
+not merely of experience and common sense but also
+of actual hunger and privation, it is not possible to
+set any limits to the power of the herd over the
+individual.</p>
+
+<p>3. He is subject to the passions of the pack in
+his mob violence and the passions of the herd in
+his panics. These activities are by no means limited
+to the outbursts of actual crowds, but are to be
+seen equally clearly in the hue and cry of newspapers
+and public after some notorious criminal or
+scapegoat, and in the success of scaremongering by
+the same agencies.</p>
+
+<p>4. He is remarkably susceptible to leadership.
+This quality in man may very naturally be thought
+to have a basis essentially rational rather than instinctive
+if its manifestations are not regarded with
+a special effort to attain an objective attitude. How
+thoroughly reasonable it appears that a body of men
+seeking a common object should put themselves
+under the guidance of some strong and expert
+<span class="xxpn" id="p116">{116}</span>
+personality who can point out the path most profitably
+to be pursued, who can hearten his followers
+and bring all their various powers into a harmonious
+pursuit of the common object. The rational basis
+of the relation is, however, seen to be at any rate
+open to discussion when we consider the qualities
+in a leader upon which his authority so often rests,
+for there can be little doubt that their appeal is
+more generally to instinct than to reason. In ordinary
+politics it must be admitted that the gift of
+public speaking is of more decisive value than anything
+else. If a man is fluent, dextrous, and ready
+on the platform, he possesses the one indispensable
+requisite for statesmanship; if in addition he has
+the gift of moving deeply the emotions of his hearers,
+his capacity for guiding the infinite complexities
+of national life becomes undeniable. Experience
+has shown that no exceptional degree of any other
+capacity is necessary to make a successful leader.
+There need be no specially arduous training, no great
+weight of knowledge either of affairs or the human
+heart, no receptiveness to new ideas, no outlook
+into reality. Indeed, the mere absence of such seems
+to be an advantage; for originality is apt to appear
+to the people as flightiness, scepticism as feebleness,
+caution as doubt of the great political principles
+that may happen at the moment to be immutable.
+The successful shepherd thinks like his sheep, and
+can lead his flock only if he keeps no more than the
+shortest distance in advance. He must remain, in
+fact, recognizable as one of the flock, magnified
+no doubt, louder, coarser, above all with more urgent
+wants and ways of expression than the common
+sheep, but in essence to their feeling of the same
+flesh with them. In the human herd the necessity
+of the leader bearing unmistakable marks of identification
+is equally essential. Variations from the
+normal standard in intellectual matters are tolerated
+<span class="xxpn" id="p117">{117}</span>
+if they are not very conspicuous, for man has never
+yet taken reason very seriously, and can still look
+upon intellectuality as not more than a peccadillo
+if it is not paraded conspicuously; variations from
+the moral standard are, however, of a much greater
+significance as marks of identification, and when
+they become obvious, can at once change a great
+and successful leader into a stranger and an outcast,
+however little they may seem to be relevant
+to the adequate execution of his public work. If
+a leader’s marks of identity with the herd are of
+the right kind, the more they are paraded the better.
+We like to see photographs of him nursing his
+little grand-daughter, we like to know that he plays
+golf badly, and rides the bicycle like our common
+selves, we enjoy hearing of “pretty incidents” in
+which he has given the blind crossing-sweeper a
+penny or begged a glass of water at a wayside
+cottage—and there are excellent biological reasons
+for our gratification.</p>
+
+<p>In times of war leadership is not less obviously
+based on instinct, though naturally, since the herd
+is exposed to a special series of stresses, manifestations
+of it are also somewhat special. A people
+at war feels the need of direction much more intensely
+than a people at peace, and as always they
+want some one who appeals to their instinctive feeling
+of being directed, comparatively regardless of whether
+he is able in fact to direct. This instinctive feeling
+inclines them to the choice of a man who presents
+at any rate the appearance and manners of authority
+and power rather than to one who possesses the
+substance of capacity but is denied the shadow.
+They have their conventional pictures of the desired
+type—the strong, silent, relentless, the bold, outspoken,
+hard, and energetic—but at all costs he
+must be a “man,” a “leader who can lead,” a
+shepherd, in fact, who, by his gesticulations and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p118">{118}</span>
+his shouts, leaves his flock in no doubt as to his
+presence and his activity. It is touching to remember
+how often a people in pursuit of this ideal has obtained
+and accepted in response to its prayers nothing
+but melodramatic bombast, impatience, rashness, and
+foolish, boasting truculence; and to remember how
+often a great statesman in his country’s need has
+had to contend not merely with her foreign enemies,
+but with those at home whose vociferous malignity
+has declared his magnanimous composure to be
+sluggishness, his cautious scepticism to be feebleness,
+and his unostentatious resolution to be stupidity.</p>
+
+<p>5. His relations with his fellows are dependent
+upon the recognition of him as a member of the
+herd. It is important to the success of a gregarious
+species that individuals should be able to move
+freely within the large unit while strangers are excluded.
+Mechanisms to secure such personal recognition
+are therefore a characteristic feature of the
+social habit. The primitive olfactory greeting
+common to so many of the lower animals was doubtless
+rendered impossible for man by his comparative
+loss of the sense of smell long before it ceased to
+accord with his pretensions, yet in a thriving active
+species the function of recognition was as necessary
+as ever. Recognition by vision could be of
+only limited value, and it seems probable that speech
+very early became the accepted medium. Possibly
+the necessity to distinguish friend from foe was
+one of the conditions which favoured the development
+of articulate speech. Be this as it may, speech
+at the present time retains strong evidence of the
+survival in it of the function of herd recognition.
+As is usual with instinctive activities in man, the
+actual state of affairs is concealed by a deposit
+of rationalized explanation which is apt to discourage
+merely superficial inquiry. The function of conversation
+is, it is to be supposed, ordinarily regarded
+<span class="xxpn" id="p119">{119}</span>
+as being the exchange of ideas and information.
+Doubtless it has come to have such a function, but
+an objective examination of ordinary conversation
+shows that the actual conveyance of ideas takes
+a very small part in it. As a rule the exchange
+seems to consist of ideas which are necessarily
+common to the two speakers, and are known to
+be so by each. The process, however, is none
+the less satisfactory for this; indeed, it seems even
+to derive its satisfactoriness therefrom. The interchange
+of the conventional lead and return is
+obviously very far from being tedious or meaningless
+to the interlocutors. They can, however, have
+derived nothing from it but the confirmation to one
+another of their sympathy and of the class or classes
+to which they belong.</p>
+
+<p>Conversations of greeting are naturally particularly
+rich in the exchange of purely ceremonial
+remarks, ostensibly based on some subject like the
+weather, in which there must necessarily be an
+absolute community of knowledge. It is possible,
+however, for a long conversation to be made up
+entirely of similar elements, and to contain no trace
+of any conveyance of new ideas; such intercourse
+is probably that which on the whole is most satisfactory
+to the “normal” man and leaves him more
+comfortably stimulated than would originality or
+brilliance, or any other manifestation of the strange
+and therefore of the disreputable.</p>
+
+<p>Conversation between persons unknown to one
+another is also—when satisfactory—apt to be rich
+in the ritual of recognition. When one hears or
+takes part in these elaborate evolutions, gingerly
+proffering one after another of one’s marks of
+identity, one’s views on the weather, on fresh air
+and draughts, on the Government and on uric acid,
+watching intently for the first low hint of a growl,
+which will show one belongs to the wrong pack
+<span class="xxpn" id="p120">{120}</span>
+and must withdraw, it is impossible not to be
+reminded of the similar manœuvres of the dog, and
+to be thankful that Nature has provided us with a
+less direct, though perhaps a more tedious, code.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">It may appear that we have been dealing here
+with a far-fetched and laboured analogy, and making
+much of a comparison of trivialities merely for the
+sake of compromising, if that could be done, human
+pretensions to reason. To show that the marvel
+of human communion began, perhaps, as a very
+humble function, and yet retains traces of its origin,
+is in no way to minimize the value or dignity of
+the more fully developed power. The capacity for
+free intercommunication between individuals of the
+species has meant so much in the evolution of man,
+and will certainly come in the future to mean so
+incalculably more, that it cannot be regarded as
+anything less than a master element in the shaping
+of his destiny.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">S<b>OME</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">P<b>ECULIARITIES</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">H<b>ABIT</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap"><b>IN </b>M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>It is apparent after very little consideration that
+the extent of man’s individual mental development
+is a factor which has produced many novel characters
+in his manifestations of the social habit, and
+has even concealed to a great extent the profound
+influence this instinct has in regulating his conduct,
+his thought, and his society.</p>
+
+<p>Large mental capacity in the individual, as we
+have already seen, has the effect of providing a
+wide freedom of response to instinctive impulses,
+so that, while the individual is no less impelled by
+instinct than a more primitive type, the manifestations
+of these impulses in his conduct are very
+varied, and his conduct loses the appearance of a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p121">{121}</span>
+narrow concentration on its instinctive object. It
+needs only to pursue this reasoning to a further stage
+to reach the conclusion that mental capacity,
+while in no way limiting the impulsive power of
+instinct, may, by providing an infinite number of
+channels into which the impulse is free to flow,
+actually prevent the impulse from attaining the goal
+of its normal object. In the ascetic the sex instinct
+is defeated, in the martyr that of self-preservation,
+not because these instincts have been abolished,
+but because the activity of the mind has found new
+channels for them to flow in. As might be expected,
+the much more labile herd instinct has been still
+more subject to this deflection and dissipation without
+its potential impulsive strength being in any
+way impaired. It is this process which has enabled
+primitive psychology so largely to ignore the fact
+that man still is, as much as ever, endowed with
+a heritage of instinct and incessantly subject to
+its influence. Man’s mental capacity, again, has
+enabled him as a species to flourish enormously, and
+thereby to increase to a prodigious extent the size
+of the unit in which the individual is merged.
+The nation, if the term be used to describe every
+organization under a completely independent,
+supreme government, must be regarded as the
+smallest unit on which natural selection now unrestrictedly
+acts. Between such units there is free
+competition, and the ultimate regulator of these
+relations is physical force. This statement needs
+the qualification that the delimitation between two
+given units may be much sharper than that between
+two others, so that in the first case the resort to
+force is likely to occur readily, while in the second
+case it will be brought about only by the very
+ultimate necessity. The tendency to the enlargement
+of the social unit has been going on with certain
+temporary relapses throughout human history.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p122">{122}</span>
+Though repeatedly checked by the instability of
+the larger units, it has always resumed its activity,
+so that it should probably be regarded as a fundamental
+biological drift the existence of which is a
+factor which must always be taken into account in
+dealing with the structure of human society.</p>
+
+<p>The gregarious mind shows certain characteristics
+which throw some light on this phenomenon of the
+progressively enlarging unit. The gregarious animal
+is different from the solitary in the capacity to
+become conscious in a special way of the existence
+of other creatures. This specific consciousness of
+his fellows carries with it a characteristic element
+of communion with them. The individual knows
+another individual of the same herd as a partaker
+in an entity of which he himself is a part, so that
+the second individual is in some way and to a certain
+extent identical with himself and part of his own
+personality. He is able to feel with the other and
+share his pleasures and sufferings as if they were
+an attenuated form of his own personal experiences.
+The degree to which this assimilation of the interests
+of another person is carried depends, in a general
+way, on the extent of the intercommunication between
+the two. In human society a man’s interest
+in his fellows is distributed about him concentrically
+according to a compound of various relations they
+bear to him which we may call in a broad way their
+nearness. The centrifugal fading of interest is seen
+when we compare the man’s feeling towards one
+near to him with his feeling towards one farther off.
+He will be disposed, other things being equal, to
+sympathize with a relative as against a fellow-townsman,
+with a fellow-townsman as against a mere
+inhabitant of the same county, with the latter as
+against the rest of the country, with an Englishman
+as against a European, with a European as against
+an Asiatic, and so on until a limit is reached beyond
+<span class="xxpn" id="p123">{123}</span>
+which all human interest is lost. The distribution
+of interest is of course never purely geographical,
+but is modified by, for example, trade and professional
+sympathy, and by special cases of intercommunication
+which bring topographically distant
+individuals into a closer grade of feeling than their
+mere situation would demand. The essential principle,
+however, is that the degree of sympathy with
+a given individual varies directly with the amount
+of intercommunication with him. The capacity to
+assimilate the interests of another individual with
+one’s own, to allow him, as it were, to partake in
+one’s own personality, is what is called altruism, and
+might equally well perhaps be called expansive
+egoism. It is a characteristic of the gregarious
+animal, and is a perfectly normal and necessary
+development in him of his instinctive inheritance.</p>
+
+<p>Altruism is a quality the understanding of which
+has been much obscured by its being regarded from
+the purely human point of view. Judged from this
+standpoint, it has been apt to appear as a breach
+in the supposedly “immutable” laws of “Nature
+red in tooth and claw,” as a virtue breathed into
+man from some extra-human source, or as a weakness
+which must be stamped out of any race which
+is to be strong, expanding, and masterful. To the
+biologist these views are equally false, superfluous,
+and romantic. He is aware that altruism occurs only
+in a medium specifically protected from the unqualified
+influence of natural selection, that it is the
+direct outcome of instinct, and that it is a source of
+strength because it is a source of union.</p>
+
+<p>In recent times, freedom of travel, and the
+development of the resources rendered available by
+education, have increased the general mass of intercommunication
+to an enormous extent. Side by
+side with this, altruism has come more and more into
+recognition as a supreme moral law. There is
+<span class="xxpn" id="p124">{124}</span>
+already a strong tendency to accept selfishness as
+a test of sin, and consideration for others as a
+test of virtue, and this has influenced even those who
+by public profession are compelled to maintain that
+right and wrong are to be defined only in terms of
+an arbitrary extra-natural code.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the incalculable ages of man’s existence
+as a social animal, Nature has been hinting
+to him in less and less ambiguous terms that altruism
+must become the ultimate sanction of his moral
+code. Her whispers have never gained more than
+grudging and reluctant notice from the common
+man, and from those intensified forms of the
+common man, his pastors and masters. Only to the
+alert senses of moral genius has the message been
+at all intelligible, and when it has been interpreted
+to the people it has always been received with
+obloquy and derision, with persecution and martyrdom.
+Thus, as so often happens in human society,
+has one manifestation of herd instinct been met
+and opposed by another.</p>
+
+<p>As intercommunication tends constantly to widen
+the field of action of altruism, a point is reached
+when the individual becomes capable of some kind
+of sympathy, however attenuated, with beings outside
+the limits of the biological unit within which
+the primitive function of altruism lies. This extension
+is perhaps possible only in man. In a creature
+like the bee the rigidly limited mental capacity of
+the individual and the closely organized society of
+the hive combine to make the boundary of the hive
+correspond closely with the uttermost limit of the
+field over which altruism is active. The bee, capable
+of great sympathy and understanding in regard to
+her fellow-members of the hive, is utterly callous
+and without understanding in regard to any creature
+of external origin and existence. Man, however,
+with his infinitely greater capacity for assimilating
+<span class="xxpn" id="p125">{125}</span>
+experience, has not been able to maintain the rigid
+limitation of sympathy to the unit, the boundaries
+of which tend to acquire a certain indefiniteness
+not seen in any of the lower gregarious
+types.</p>
+
+<p>Hence tends to appear a sense of international
+justice, a vague feeling of being responsibly concerned
+in all human affairs and by a natural consequence
+the ideas and impulses denoted under the
+term “pacifism.”</p>
+
+<p>One of the most natural and obvious consequences
+of war is a hardening of the boundaries of the
+social unit and a retraction of the vague feelings
+towards international sympathy which are a characteristic
+product of peace and intercommunication.
+Thus it comes about that pacifism and internationalism
+are in great disgrace at the present
+time; they are regarded as the vapourings of cranky
+windbags who have inevitably been punctured at
+the first touch of the sword; they are, our political
+philosophers tell us, but products of the miasm
+of sentimental fallacy which tends to be bred in the
+relaxing atmosphere of peace. Perhaps no general
+expressions have been more common since the
+beginning of the war, in the mouths of those who
+have undertaken our instruction in the meaning of
+events, than the propositions that pacifism is now
+finally exploded and shown always to have been
+nonsense, that war is and always will be an inevitable
+necessity in human affairs as man is what is called
+a fighting animal, and that not only is the abolition
+of war an impossibility, but should the abolition
+of it unhappily prove to be possible after all and
+be accomplished, the result could only be degeneration
+and disaster.</p>
+
+<p>Biological considerations would seem to suggest
+that these generalizations contain a large element
+of inexactitude. The doctrine of pacifism is
+<span class="xxpn" id="p126">{126}</span>
+a perfectly natural development, and ultimately
+inevitable in an animal having an unlimited appetite
+for experience and an indestructible inheritance of
+social instinct. Like all moral discoveries made
+in the haphazard, one-sided way which the lack of
+co-ordination in human society forces upon its moral
+pioneers, it has necessarily an appearance of crankiness,
+of sentimentality, of an inaptitude for the grasp
+of reality. This is normal and does not in the least
+affect the value of the truth it contains. Legal
+and religious torture were doubtless first attacked
+by cranks; slavery was abolished by them. Advocacy
+by such types does not therefore constitute
+an argument of any weight against their doctrines,
+which can adequately be judged only by some purely
+objective standard. Judged by such a standard,
+pacifism, as we have seen, appears to be a natural
+development, and is directed towards a goal which
+unless man’s nature undergoes a radical change will
+probably be attained. That its attainment has so
+far been foreseen only by a class of men possessing
+more than the usual impracticability of the
+minor prophet is hardly to be considered a relevant
+fact.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">It is impossible to leave this subject without some
+comment on the famous doctrine that war is a
+biological necessity. Even if one knew nothing
+of those who have enunciated this proposition, its
+character would enable one to suspect it of being
+the utterance of a soldier rather than a biologist.
+There is about it a confidence that the vital effects
+of war are simple and easy to define and a cheerful
+contempt for the considerable biological difficulties
+of the subject that remind one of the bracing military
+atmosphere, in which a word of command is the
+supreme fact, rather than that of the laboratory,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p127">{127}</span>
+where facts are the masters of all. It may be
+supposed that even in the country of its birth the
+doctrine seemed more transcendently true in times
+of peace amid a proud and brilliant regime
+than it does now after more than twelve months of
+war. The whole conception is of a type to arouse
+interest in its psychological origin rather than in a
+serious discussion of its merits. It arose in a
+military State abounding in prosperity and progress
+of very recent growth, and based upon three short
+wars which had come closely one after another and
+formed an ascending series of brilliant success. In
+such circumstances even grosser assumptions might
+very well flourish and some such doctrine was a
+perfectly natural product. The situation of the
+warrior-biologist was in some way that of the
+orthodox expounder of ethics or political economy—his
+conclusions were ready-made for him; all he
+had to do was to find the “reasons” for them.
+War and war only had produced the best and
+greatest and strongest State—indeed, the only State
+worthy of the name; therefore war is the great
+creative and sustaining force of States, or the
+universe is a mere meaningless jumble of accidents.
+If only wars would always conform to the original
+Prussian pattern, as they did in the golden age
+from 1864 to 1870—the unready adversary, the
+few pleasantly strenuous weeks or months, the
+thumping indemnity! That is the sort of biological
+necessity one can understand. But twelve
+months of agonizing, indecisive effort in Poland and
+Russia and France, might have made the syllogism
+a little less perfect, the new law of Nature not quite
+so absolute.</p>
+
+<p>These matters, however, are quite apart from the
+practical question whether war is a necessity to maintain
+the efficiency and energy of nations and to
+prevent them sinking into sloth and degeneracy. The
+<span class="xxpn" id="p128">{128}</span>
+problem may be stated in another form. When we
+take a comprehensive survey of the natural history
+of man—using that term to include the whole of his
+capacities, activities, and needs, physical, intellectual,
+moral—do we find that war is the indispensable
+instrument whereby his survival and progress as
+a species are maintained? We are assuming in this
+statement that progress or increased elaboration is
+to continue to be a necessary tendency in his course
+by which his fate, through the action of inherited
+needs, powers, and weaknesses, and of external
+pressure is irrevocably conditioned. The assumption,
+though commonly made, is by no means
+obviously true. Some of the evidence justifying
+it will be dealt with later; it will not be necessary
+here to do more than note that we are for the
+moment treating the doctrine of human progress
+as a postulate.</p>
+
+<p>Man is unique among gregarious animals in the
+size of the major unit upon which natural selection
+and its supposedly chief instrument, war, is open to
+act unchecked. There is no other animal in
+which the size of the unit, however laxly held
+together, has reached anything even remotely
+approaching the inclusion of one-fifth or one-quarter
+of the whole species. It is plain that a
+mortal contest between two units of such a monstrous
+size introduces an altogether new mechanism into
+the hypothetical “struggle for existence” on which
+the conception of the biological necessity of war
+is founded. It is clear that that doctrine, if it is
+to claim validity, must contemplate at any rate the
+possibility of a war of extremity, even of something
+like extermination, which shall implicate perhaps a
+third of the whole human race. There is no parallel
+in biology for progress being accomplished as the
+result of a racial impoverishment so extreme,
+even if it were accompanied by a closely specific
+<span class="xxpn" id="p129">{129}</span>
+selection instead of a mere indiscriminate destruction.
+Progress is undoubtedly dependent mainly
+on the material that is available for selection being
+rich and varied. Any great reduction in the amount
+and variety of what is to be regarded as the raw
+material of elaboration necessarily must have as
+an infallible effect, the arrest of progress. It may be
+objected, however, that anything approaching extermination
+could obviously not be possible in a war
+between such immense units as those of modern man.
+Nevertheless, the object of each of the two adversaries
+would be to impose its will on the other, and to
+destroy in it all that was especially individual, all
+the types of activity and capacity which were the
+most characteristic in its civilization and therefore
+the cause of hostility. The effect of success in such
+an endeavour would be an enormous impoverishment
+of the variety of the race and a corresponding effect
+on progress.</p>
+
+<p>To this line of speculation it may perhaps further
+be objected that the question is not of the necessity
+of war to the race as a whole, but to the individual
+nation or major unit. The argument has been used
+that when a nation is obviously the repository of
+all the highest gifts and tendencies of civilization,
+the race must in the end benefit, if this nation, by
+force if necessary, imposes its will and its principles
+on as much of the world as it can. To the biologist
+the weakness of this proposition—apart from the
+plain impossibility of a nation attaining an objective
+estimate of the value of its own civilization—is that
+it embodies a course of action which tends to the
+spread of uniformity and to limit that variety of
+material which is the fundamental quality essential
+for progress. In certain cases of very gross discrepancy
+between the value of two civilizations, it
+is quite possible that the destruction of the simpler
+by the more elaborate does not result in any great
+<span class="xxpn" id="p130">{130}</span>
+loss to the race through the suppression of valuable
+varieties. Even this admission is, however,
+open to debate, and it may well be doubted whether
+in some ways the wholesale extermination of “inferior”
+races has not denied to the species the
+perpetuation of lines of variation which might have
+been of great value.</p>
+
+<p>It seems remarkable that among gregarious
+animals other than man direct conflict between major
+units such as can lead to the suppression of the less
+powerful is an inconspicuous phenomenon. They
+are, it may be supposed, too busily engaged in maintaining
+themselves against external enemies to have
+any opportunities for fighting within the species.
+Man’s complete conquest of the grosser enemies of
+his race has allowed him leisure for turning his
+restless pugnacity—a quality no longer fully occupied
+upon his non-human environment—against his
+own species. When the major units of humanity
+were small the results of such conflict were not
+perhaps very serious to the race as a whole, except
+in prolonging the twilight stages of civilization. It
+can scarcely be questioned that the organization
+of a people for war tends to encourage unduly a
+type of individual who is abnormally insensitive to
+doubt, to curiosity, and to the development of original
+thought. With the enlargement of the unit and the
+accompanying increase in knowledge and resources,
+war becomes much more seriously expensive to the
+race. In the present war the immense size of the
+units engaged and their comparative equality in
+power have furnished a complete <i>reductio ad absurdum</i>
+of the proposition that war in itself is
+a good thing even for the individual nation. It
+would seem, then, that in the original proposition
+the word “war” must be qualified to mean a war
+against a smaller and notably weaker adversary.
+The German Empire was founded on such wars.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p131">{131}</span>
+The conception of the biological necessity of war
+may fairly be expected to demonstrate its validity
+in the fate of that Empire if such a demonstration
+is ever to be possible. Every condition for a crucial
+experiment was present: a brilliant inauguration in
+the very atmosphere of military triumph, a conscious
+realization of the value of the martial spirit, a determination
+to keep the warrior ideal conspicuously
+foremost with a people singularly able and willing
+to accept it. If this is the way in which an ultimate
+world-power is to be founded and maintained,
+no single necessary factor is lacking. And yet
+after a few years, in what should be the very first
+youth of an Empire, we find it engaged against
+a combination of Powers of fabulous strength, which,
+by a miracle of diplomacy no one else could have
+accomplished, it has united against itself. It is
+an irrelevance to assert that this combination is the
+result of malice, envy, treachery, barbarism; such
+terms are by hypothesis not admissible. If the
+system of Empire-building is not proof against those
+very elementary enemies, any further examination
+of it is of course purely academic. To withstand
+those is just what the Empire is there for; if it
+falls a victim to them, it fails in its first and simplest
+function and displays a radical defect in its structure.
+To the objectivist practice is the only test in human
+affairs, and he will not allow his attention to be
+distracted from what did happen by the most perfectly
+logical demonstration of what ought to have
+happened. It is the business of an Empire not to
+encounter overwhelming enemies. Declaring itself
+to be the most perfect example of its kind and
+the foreordained heir of the world will remain no
+more than a pleasant—and dangerous—indulgence,
+and will not prevent it showing by its fate that
+the fruits of perfection and the promise of permanence
+are not demonstrated in the wholesale
+<span class="xxpn" id="p132">{132}</span>
+manufacture of enemies and in the combination of
+them into an alliance of unparalleled strength.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">The doctrine of the biological necessity of war
+may, then, be regarded as open to strong suspicion
+on theoretical grounds of being contrary to the
+evolutionary tendency already plainly marked out
+for the human species. The fact that the nation
+in which its truth was most generally accepted has
+been led—and undoubtedly to some extent by it—into
+a war which can scarcely fail to prove disastrous
+suggests that in the practical field it is
+equally fallacious. It may well, therefore, be
+removed to the lumber-room of speculation and
+stored among the other pseudo-scientific dogmas
+of political “biologists”—the facile doctrines of
+degeneracy, the pragmatic lecturings on national
+characteristics, on Teutons and Celts, on Latins and
+Slavs, on pure races and mixed races, and all the
+other ethnological conceits with which the ignorant
+have gulled the innocent so long.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">I<b>MPERFECTIONS</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">H<b>ABIT</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
+ <span class="smcap">M<b>AN.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>The study of man as a gregarious animal has
+not been pursued with the thoroughness and objectivity
+it deserves and must receive if it is to yield
+its full value in illuminating his status and in the
+management of society. The explanation of this
+comparative neglect is to be found in the complex
+irregularity which obscures the social habit as manifested
+by man. Thus it comes to be believed that
+gregariousness is no longer a fully functional and
+indispensable inheritance, but survives at the present
+day merely in a vestigial form as an interesting
+but quite unimportant relic of primitive activities.
+We have already shown that man is ruled by instinctive
+impulses just as imperative and just as
+<span class="xxpn" id="p133">{133}</span>
+characteristically social as those of any other gregarious
+animal. A further argument that he is
+to-day as actively and essentially a social animal
+as ever is furnished by the fact that he suffers
+from the disadvantages of such an animal to a
+more marked degree perhaps than any other. In
+physical matters he owes to his gregariousness and
+its uncontrolled tendency to the formation of crowded
+communities with enclosed dwellings, the seriousness
+of many of his worst diseases, such as tuberculosis,
+typhus, and plague; there is no evidence
+that these diseases effect anything but an absolutely
+indiscriminate destruction, killing the strong and
+the weakly, the socially useful and the socially useless,
+with equal readiness, so that they cannot be
+regarded as even of the least selective value to
+man. The only other animal which is well known
+to suffer seriously from disease as a direct consequence
+of its social habit is the honey bee—as
+has been demonstrated by recent epidemics of
+exterminating severity.</p>
+
+<p>In mental affairs, as I have tried to show, man
+owes to the social habit his inveterate resistiveness
+to new ideas, his submission to tradition and precedent,
+and the very serious fact that governing
+power in his communities tends to pass into the hands
+of what I have called the stable-minded—a class
+the members of which are characteristically insensitive
+to experience, closed to the entry of new
+ideas, and obsessed with the satisfactoriness of things
+as they are. At the time when this corollary of
+gregariousness was first pointed out—some ten years
+ago—it was noted as a serious flaw in the stability
+of civilization. The suggestion was made that as
+long as the great expert tasks of government necessarily
+gravitated into the hands of a class which
+characteristically lacked the greater developments of
+mental capacity and efficiency, the course of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p134">{134}</span>
+civilization must continue to be at the mercy of accident
+and disaster. The present European war—doubtless
+in the actual state of affairs a remedy no less
+necessary because of its dreadfulness—is an example
+on the greatest possible scale of the kind of price
+the race has to pay for the way in which minds
+and temperaments are selected by its society.</p>
+
+<p>When we see the great and serious drawbacks
+which gregariousness has entailed on man, it cannot
+but be supposed that that course of evolution has
+been imposed upon him by a real and deep-seated
+peculiarity of his nature—a fatal inheritance which
+it is impossible for him to repudiate.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">When
+we inquire why it is that the manifestations
+of gregariousness in man are so ambiguous
+that their biological significance has been to a great
+extent overlooked, the answer seems to be furnished
+by that capacity for various reaction which is the
+result of his general mental development, and which
+has tended almost equally to obscure his other instinctive
+activities. It may be repeated once more
+that in a creature such as the bee the narrow mental
+capacity of the individual limits reaction to a few
+and relatively simple courses, so that the dominance
+of instinct in the species can to the attentive observer
+never be long in doubt. In man the equal dominance
+of instinct is obscured by the kaleidoscopic
+variety of the reactions by which it is more or
+less effectually satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>While to a superficial examination of society the
+evidences of man’s gregarious inheritance are
+ambiguous and trivial, to the closer scrutiny of the
+biologist it soon becomes obvious that in society
+as constituted to-day the advantageous mechanisms
+rendered available by that inheritance are not being
+made use of to anything approaching their full
+possibilities. To such an extent is this the case
+<span class="xxpn" id="p135">{135}</span>
+that the situation of man as a species even is probably
+a good deal more precarious than has usually
+been supposed by those who have come to be in charge
+of its destinies. The species is irrevocably committed
+to a certain evolutionary path by the inheritance
+of instinct it possesses. This course brings with
+it inevitable and serious disadvantages as well as
+enormously greater potential advantages. As long
+as the spirit of the race is content to be submissive
+to the former and indifferent to the discovery and
+development of the latter, it can scarcely have a
+bare certainty of survival and much less of progressive
+enlargement of its powers.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">In the society of the bee two leading characteristics
+are evident—an elaborate and exact specialization
+of the individual, and a perfect absorption
+of the interests of the individual in those of the hive;
+these qualities seem to be the source of the unique
+energy and power of the whole unit and of the
+remarkable superiority of intelligence it possesses
+over the individual member. It is a commonplace
+of human affairs that combined action is almost
+invariably less intelligent than individual action, a
+fact which shows how very little the members of
+the species are yet capable of combination and
+co-ordination and how far inferior—on account, no
+doubt, of his greater mental capacity—man is in this
+respect to the bee.</p>
+
+<p>This combination of specialization and moral
+homogeneity should be evident in human society
+if it is taking advantage of its biological resources.
+Both are, in fact, rather conspicuously absent.</p>
+
+<p>There is abundant specialization of a sort; but
+it is inexact, lax, wasteful of energy, and often quite
+useless through being on the one hand superfluous
+or on the other incomplete. We have large
+numbers of experts in the various branches of science
+<span class="xxpn" id="p136">{136}</span>
+and the arts, but we insist upon their adding to
+the practice of their specialisms the difficult task
+of earning their living in an open competitive
+market. The result is that we tend to get at the
+summit of our professions only those rare geniuses
+who combine real specialist capacity with the arts
+of the bagman. An enormous proportion of our
+experts have to earn their living by teaching—an
+exhausting and exacting art for which they are not
+at all necessarily qualified, and one which demands
+a great amount of time for the earning of a very
+exiguous pittance.</p>
+
+<p>The teaching of our best schools, a task so
+important that it should be entrusted to none but
+those highly qualified by nature and instruction in
+the art, is almost entirely in the hands of athletes and
+grammarians of dead languages. We choose as
+our governors amateurs of whom we demand fluency,
+invincible prejudice, and a resolute blindness to dissentient
+opinion. In commerce we allow ourselves
+to be overrun by a multitude of small and mostly
+inefficient traders struggling to make a living by
+the supply of goods from the narrow and ageing
+stocks which are all they can afford to keep. We
+allow the supply of our foodstuffs to be largely
+in the hands of those who cannot afford to be clean,
+and submit out of mere indifference to being fed
+on meat, bread, vegetables which have been for an
+indefinite period at the mercy of dirty middlemen,
+the dust and mud and flies of the street, and the
+light-hearted thumbing errand-boy. We allow a
+large proportion of our skilled workers to waste
+skill and energy on the manufacture of things which
+are neither useful nor beautiful, on elaborate
+specialist valeting, cooking, gardening for those
+who are their inferiors in social activity and
+value.</p>
+
+<p>The moral homogeneity so plainly visible in the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p137">{137}</span>
+society of the bee is replaced in man by a segregation
+into classes which tends always to obscure
+the unity of the nation and often is directly
+antagonistic to it. The readiness with which such
+segregation occurs seems to be due to the invincible
+strength of the gregarious impulse in the individual
+man and to the immense size and strength of the
+modern major unit of the species. It would appear
+that in order that a given unit should develop the
+highest degree of homogeneity within itself it must
+be subject to direct pressure from without. A great
+abundance of food supply and consequent relaxed
+external pressure may in the bee lead to indiscriminate
+swarming, while in man the size and
+security of the modern State lead to a relaxation
+of the closer grades of national unity—in the absence
+of deliberate encouragement of it or of the stimulus
+of war. The need of the individual for homogeneity
+is none the less present, and the result is
+segregation into classes which form, as it were, minor
+herds in which homogeneity is maintained by the
+external pressure of competition, of political or
+religious differences and so forth. Naturally enough
+such segregations have come to correspond in a
+rough way with the various types of imperfect
+specialization which exist. This tendency is clearly
+of unfavourable effect on national unity, since it
+tends to obscure the national value of specialization
+and to give it a merely local and class significance.
+Segregation in itself is always dangerous in that it
+provides the individual with a substitute for the
+true major unit—the nation—and in times when there
+is an urgent need for national homogeneity may
+prove to be a hostile force.</p>
+
+<p>It has been characteristic of the governing classes
+to acquiesce in the fullest developments of segregation
+and even to defend them by force and to
+fail to realize in times of emergency that national
+<span class="xxpn" id="p138">{138}</span>
+homogeneity must always be a partial and weakly
+passion as long as segregation actively persists.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Class segregation has thus come to be regarded
+as a necessary and inevitable part of the structure
+of society. Telling as it does much more in the
+favour of certain classes than others, it has come to
+be defended by a whole series of legal and moral
+principles invented for the purpose, and by arguments
+that to objective examination are no more
+than rationalized prejudice. The maintenance of
+the social system—that is, of the segregation of
+power and prestige, of ease and leisure, and the
+corresponding segregations of labour, privation, and
+poverty—depends upon an enormously elaborate
+system of rationalization, tradition, and morals, and
+upon almost innumerable indirect mechanisms
+ranging from the drugging of society with alcohol
+to the distortion of religious principle in the interests
+of the established order. To the biologist the whole
+immensely intricate system is a means for combating
+the slow, almost imperceptible, pressure of Nature
+in the direction of a true national homogeneity.
+That this must be attained if human progress is to
+continue is, and has long been, obvious. The further
+fact that it can be attained only by a radical change
+in the whole human attitude towards society is but
+barely emerging from obscurity.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that even the immense external stimulus
+of a great war now fails to overcome the embattled
+forces of social segregation, and can bring about
+only a very partial kind of national homogeneity in
+a society where segregation is deeply ingrained,
+seems to show that simple gregariousness has run its
+course in man and has been defeated of its full
+maturity by the disruptive power of man’s capacity
+for varied reaction. No state of equilibrium can be
+reached in a gregarious society short of complete
+<span class="xxpn" id="p139">{139}</span>
+homogeneity, so that, failing the emergence of some
+new resource of Nature, it might be suspected that
+man, as a species, has already begun to decline from
+his meridian. Such a new principle is the conscious
+direction of society by man, the refusal by him to
+submit indefinitely to the dissipation of his energies
+and the disappointment of his ideals in inco-ordination
+and confusion. Thus would appear a function
+for that individual mental capacity of man which
+has so far, when limited to local and personal ends,
+tended but to increase the social confusion.</p>
+
+<p>A step of evolution such as this would have consequences
+as momentous as the first appearance of
+the multicellular or of the gregarious animal. Man,
+conscious as a species of his true status and destiny,
+realizing the direction of the path to which he is
+irrevocably committed by Nature, with a moral code
+based on the unshakable natural foundation of
+altruism, could begin to draw on those stores of
+power which will be opened to him by a true combination,
+and the rendering available in co-ordinated
+action of the maximal energy of each individual.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>PECIES</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">AT</span>
+ <span class="smcap">W<b>AR.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>The occurrence of war between nations renders
+obvious certain manifestations of the social instinct
+which are apt to escape notice at other times. So
+marked is this that a certain faint interest in the
+biology of gregariousness has been aroused during
+the present war, and has led to some speculation
+but no very radical examination of the facts or
+explanation of their meaning. Expression, of course,
+has been found for the usual view that primitive
+instincts normally vestigial or dormant are aroused
+into activity by the stress of war, and that there is
+a process of rejuvenation of “lower” instincts at
+the expense of “higher.” All such views, apart
+<span class="xxpn" id="p140">{140}</span>
+from their theoretical unsoundness, are uninteresting
+because they are of no practical value.</p>
+
+<p>It will be convenient to mention some of the more
+obvious psychological phenomena of a state of war
+before dealing with the underlying instinctive processes
+which produce them.</p>
+
+<p>The war that began in August 1914 was of a kind
+peculiarly suitable to produce the most marked and
+typical psychological effects. It had long been foreseen
+as no more than a mere possibility of immense
+disaster—of disaster so outrageous that by that very
+fact it had come to be regarded with a passionate
+incredulity. It had loomed before the people, at
+any rate of England, as an event almost equivalent
+to the ultimate overthrow of all things. It had been
+led up to by years of doubt and anxiety, sometimes
+rising to apprehension, sometimes lapsing into unbelief,
+and culminating in an agonized period of
+suspense, while the avalanche tottered and muttered
+on its base before the final and still incredible
+catastrophe. Such were the circumstances which
+no doubt led to the actual outbreak producing a
+remarkable series of typical psychological reactions.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">The first
+feeling of the ordinary citizen was fear—an
+immense, vague, aching anxiety, perhaps typically
+vague and unfocused, but naturally tending soon to
+localize itself in channels customary to the individual
+and leading to fears for his future, his food supply,
+his family, his trade, and so forth. Side by side
+with fear there was a heightening of the normal
+intolerance of isolation. Loneliness became an
+urgently unpleasant feeling, and the individual
+experienced an intense and active desire for the
+company and even physical contact of his fellows.
+In such company he was aware of a great accession
+of confidence, courage, and moral power. It was
+possible for an observant person to trace the actual
+<span class="xxpn" id="p141">{141}</span>
+influence of his circumstances upon his judgment,
+and to notice that isolation tended to depress his
+confidence while company fortified it. The necessity
+for companionship was strong enough to break down
+the distinctions of class, and dissipate the reserve
+between strangers which is to some extent a
+concomitant mechanism. The change in the customary
+frigid atmosphere of the railway train, the
+omnibus, and all such meeting-places was a most
+interesting experience to the psychologist, and he
+could scarcely fail to be struck by its obvious
+biological meaning. Perhaps the most striking of
+all these early phenomena was the strength and
+vitality of rumour, probably because it afforded by
+far the most startling evidence that some other and
+stronger force than reason was at work in the formation
+of opinion. It was, of course, in no sense an
+unusual fact that non-rational opinion should be so
+widespread; the new feature was that such opinion
+should be able to spread so rapidly and become established
+so firmly altogether regardless of the limits
+within which a given opinion tends to remain localized
+in times of peace. Non-rational opinion under
+normal conditions is as a rule limited in its extent
+by a very strict kind of segregation; the successful
+rumours of the early periods of the war invaded
+all classes and showed a capacity to overcome
+prejudice, education, or scepticism. The observer,
+clearly conscious as he might be of the mechanisms
+at work, found himself irresistibly drawn to the
+acceptance of the more popular beliefs; and even
+the most convinced believer in the normal prevalence
+of non-rational belief could scarcely have exaggerated
+the actual state of affairs. Closely allied
+with this accessibility to rumour was the readiness
+with which suspicions of treachery and active
+hostility grew and flourished about any one of even
+foreign appearance or origin. It is not intended to
+<span class="xxpn" id="p142">{142}</span>
+attempt to discuss the origin and meaning of the
+various types of fable which have been epidemic
+in opinion; the fact we are concerned with here
+is their immense vitality and power of growth.</p>
+
+<p>We may now turn to some consideration of the
+psychological significance of these phenomena of
+a state of war.</p>
+
+<p>The characteristic feature of a really dangerous
+national struggle for existence is the intensity of the
+stimulus it applies to the social instinct. It is
+not that it arouses “dormant” or decayed instincts,
+but simply that it applies maximal stimulation to
+instinctive mechanisms which are more or less
+constantly in action in normal times. In most of
+his reactions as a gregarious animal in times of
+peace, man is acting as a member of one or another
+class upon which the stimulus acts. War acts upon
+him as a member of the greater herd, the nation,
+or, in other words, the true major unit. As I have
+repeatedly pointed out, the cardinal mental characteristic
+of the gregarious animal is his sensitiveness
+to his fellow-members of the herd. Without them
+his personality is, so to say, incomplete; only in relation
+to them can he attain satisfaction and personal
+stability. Corresponding with his dependence on
+them is his openness towards them, his specific
+accessibility to stimuli coming from the herd.</p>
+
+<p>A threat directed towards the whole herd is the
+intensest stimulus to these potentialities, and the
+individual reacts towards it in the most vigorous
+way.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc15" href="#fn15">15</a> The first response is a thrill of alarm which
+<span class="xxpn" id="p143">{143}</span>
+passes through the herd from one member to another
+with magic rapidity. It puts him on the alert, sets
+him looking for guidance, prepares him to receive
+commands, but above all draws him to the herd in
+the first instinctive concentration against the enemy.
+In the presence of this stimulus even such partial
+and temporary isolation as was possible without it
+becomes intolerable. The physical presence of the
+herd, the actual contact and recognition of its
+members, becomes indispensable. This is no mere
+functionless desire, for re-embodiment in the herd
+at once fortifies courage and fills the individual
+with moral power, enthusiasm, and fortitude. The
+meaning that mere physical contact with his fellows
+still has for man is conclusively shown in the
+use that has been made of attacks in close formation
+in the German armies. It is perfectly clear
+that a densely crowded formation has psychological
+advantages in the face of danger, which enable
+quite ordinary beings to perform what are in fact
+prodigies of valour. Even undisciplined civil mobs
+have, on occasion, proved wonderfully valorous,
+though their absence of unity often causes their
+enterprise to alternate with panic. A disciplined
+mob—if one may use that word merely as a physical
+expression, without any derogatory meaning—has
+been shown in this war on innumerable occasions to
+be capable of facing dangers the facing of which by
+isolated individuals would be feats of fabulous
+bravery. <span class="xxpn" id="p144">{144}</span></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn15" href="#afnanc15">15</a>
+War in itself is by no means necessarily a maximal
+stimulus to herd instinct if it does not involve a definite threat to
+the whole herd. This fact is well shown in the course of the South
+African War of 1899–1901. This war was not and was not regarded as
+capable of becoming a direct threat to the life of the nation. There
+was consequently no marked moral concentration of the people, no
+massive energizing of the Government by a homogeneous nation, and
+therefore
+the conduct of the war was in general languid, timid, and pessimistic.
+The morale of the people was as a whole bad; there was an
+exaggerated hunger for good news, and an excessive satisfaction in
+it; an exaggerated pessimism was excited by bad news, and public
+fortitude was shaken by casualties which we should now regard as
+insignificant. Correspondingly the activity and vitality of rumour
+were enormously less than they have been in the present war. The
+weaker stimulus is betrayed throughout the whole series of events by
+the weakness of all the characteristic gregarious responses.</p></div>
+
+<p>The psychological significance of the enormous
+activity of rumour in this war is fairly plain. That
+rumours spread readily and are tenacious of
+life is evidence of the sensitiveness to herd
+opinion which is so characteristic of the social
+instinct. The gravity of a threat to the herd is
+shown by nothing better than by the activity of
+rumour. The strong stimulus to herd instinct
+produces the characteristic response in the individual
+of a maximal sensitiveness to his fellows—to their
+presence or absence, their alarms and braveries,
+and in no less degree to their opinions. With
+the establishment of this state of mind the spread
+and survival of rumours become inevitable, and will
+vary directly with the seriousness of the external
+danger. Into the actual genesis of the individual
+rumours and the meaning of their tendency to take
+a stereotyped form we cannot enter here.</p>
+
+<p>The potency of rumour in bearing down rational
+scepticism displays unmistakably the importance of
+the instinctive processes on which it rests. It is
+also one of the many evidences that homogeneity
+within the herd is a deeply rooted necessity for
+gregarious animals and is elaborately provided for
+by characteristics of the gregarious mind.</p>
+
+<p>The establishment of homogeneity in the herd is
+the basis of morale. From homogeneity proceed
+moral power, enthusiasm, courage, endurance, enterprise,
+and all the virtues of the warrior. The peace
+of mind, happiness, and energy of the soldier come
+from his feeling himself to be a member in a body
+solidly united for a single purpose. The impulse
+towards unity that was so pronounced and universal
+at the beginning of the war was, then, a true and
+sound instinctive movement of defence. It was
+prepared to sacrifice all social distinctions and local
+prejudices if it could liberate by doing so Nature’s
+inexhaustible stores of moral power for the defence
+<span class="xxpn" id="p145">{145}</span>
+of the herd. Naturally enough its significance was
+misunderstood, and a great deal of its beneficent
+magic was wasted by the good intentions which
+man is so touchingly ready to accept as a substitute
+for knowledge. Even the functional value of unity
+was, and still is, for the most part ignored. We
+are told to weariness that the great objection to
+disunion is that it encourages the enemy. According
+to this view, apparent disunion is as serious as
+real; whereas it must be perfectly obvious that
+anything which leads our enemy to under-estimate
+our strength, as does the belief that we are disunited
+when we are not, is of much more service to us
+than is neutralized by any more or less visionary
+disservice we do ourselves by fortifying his morale.
+The morale of a nation at war proceeds from within
+itself, and the mere pharisaism and conceit that
+come from the contemplation of another’s misfortunes
+are of no moral value. Modern civilians
+in general are much too self-conscious to conduct
+the grave tragedy of war with the high, preoccupied
+composure it demands. They are apt to think too
+much of what sort of a figure they are making
+before the world, to waste energy in superfluous
+explanations of themselves, in flustered and voluble
+attempts to make friends with bystanders, in posing
+to the enemy, and imagining they can seriously
+influence him by grimaces and gesticulations. As
+a matter of fact, it must be confessed that if such
+manœuvres could be conducted with a deliberate and
+purposeful levity which few would now have the
+fortitude to employ, there would be a certain satisfaction
+to be obtained in this particular war by the
+knowledge of our adversary conscientiously, perhaps
+a little heavily, and with immense resources of
+learning “investigating our psychology” upon
+materials of a wholly fantastic kind. Such a design,
+however, is very far from being the intention of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p146">{146}</span>
+our interpreters to the world, and as long as they
+cannot keep the earnest and hysterical note out of
+their exposition it were much better for us that
+they were totally dumb.</p>
+
+<p>To the psychologist it is plain that the seriousness
+of disunion is the discouragement to ourselves it
+necessarily involves. In this lies its single and its
+immense importance. Every note of disunion is
+a loss of moral power of incalculable influence;
+every evidence of union is an equally incalculable
+gain of moral power. Both halves of this statement
+deserve consideration, but the latter is incomparably
+the more important. If disunion were
+the more potent influence, a great deal might be
+done for national morale by the forcible control of
+opinion and expression. That, however, could yield
+nothing positive, and we must rely upon voluntary
+unity as the only source of all the higher developments
+of moral power.</p>
+
+<p>It was towards this object that we dimly groped
+when we felt in the early weeks of the war the
+impulses of friendliness, tolerance, and goodwill
+towards our fellow-citizens, and the readiness to
+sacrifice what privileges the social system had
+endowed us with in order to enjoy the power which a
+perfect homogeneity of the herd would have given
+us.</p>
+
+<p>A very small amount of conscious, authoritative
+direction at that time, a very little actual sacrifice
+of privilege at that psychological moment, a series
+of small, carefully selected concessions none of which
+need have been actually subversive of prescriptive
+right, a slight relaxation in the vast inhumanity
+of the social machine would have given the needed
+readjustment out of which a true national homogeneity
+would necessarily have grown.</p>
+
+<p>The psychological moment was allowed to pass,
+and the country was spared the shock of seeing its
+<span class="xxpn" id="p147">{147}</span>
+moral strength, which should of course be left to
+luck, fortified by the hand of science. The history
+of England during the first fourteen months of the
+war was thus left to pursue its characteristically
+English course. The social system of class segregation
+soon repented of its momentary softness and
+resumed its customary rigidity. More than that,
+it decided that, far from the war being a special
+occasion which should penetrate with a transforming
+influence the whole of society from top to bottom,
+as the common people were at first inclined to
+think, the proper pose before the enemy was to be
+that it made no difference at all. We were to continue
+imperturbably with the conduct of our business,
+and to awe the Continent with a supreme exhibition
+of British phlegm. The national consciousness of
+the working-man was to be stimulated by his
+continuing to supply us with our dividends, and
+ours by continuing to receive them. It is not
+necessary to pursue the history of this new substitute
+for unity. It is open to doubt whether our enemies
+were greatly appalled by the spectacle, or more so
+than our friends; it is certain that the stimulant supplied
+to the working-man proved to be inadequate
+and had to be supplemented by others.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p>The problem of the function of the common
+citizen in war was of course left unsolved. It was
+accepted that if a man were unfit for service and
+not a skilled worker, he himself was a mere dead
+weight, and his intense longing for direct service,
+of however humble a kind, a by-product of which
+the State could make no use.</p>
+
+<p>That the working classes have to a certain extent
+failed to develop a complete sense of national unity
+is obvious enough. It is contended here that what
+would have been easy in the early days of the war
+and actually inexpensive to prescriptive right, has
+steadily become more and more costly to effect
+<span class="xxpn" id="p148">{148}</span>
+and less and less efficiently done. We are already
+faced with the possibility of having to make profound
+changes in the social system to convince
+the working-man effectually that his interests and
+ours in this war are one.</p>
+
+<p>That a very large class of common citizens,
+incapable of direct military work, has been left
+morally derelict during all these agonizing months of
+war has probably not been any less serious a fact,
+although the recognition of it has not been forced
+unavoidably on public notice. It must surely be
+clear that in a nation engaged in an urgent
+struggle for existence, the presence of a large class
+who are as sensitive as any to the call of the herd,
+and yet cannot respond in any active way, contains
+very grave possibilities. The only response to that
+relentless calling that can give peace is in service;
+if that be denied, restlessness, uneasiness, and anxiety
+must necessarily follow. To such a mental state are
+very easily added impatience, discontent, exaggerated
+fears, pessimism, and irritability. It must be
+remembered that large numbers of such individuals
+were persons of importance in peace time and retain
+a great deal of their prestige under the social
+system we have decided to maintain, although in
+war time they are obviously without function. This
+group of idle and flustered parasites has formed
+a nucleus from which have proceeded some of
+the many outbursts of disunion which have done so
+much to prevent this country from developing her
+resources with smoothness and continuity. It is
+not suggested that these eruptions of discontent
+are due to any kind of disloyalty; they are the
+result of defective morale, and bear all the evidences
+of coming from persons whose instinctive response
+to the call of the herd has been frustrated and who,
+therefore, lack the strength and composure of
+those whose souls are uplifted by a satisfactory
+<span class="xxpn" id="p149">{149}</span>
+instinctive activity. Moral instability has been
+characteristic of all the phenomena of disunion
+we are now considering, such as recrudescences
+of political animus, attacks on individual members
+of the Government, outbursts of spy mania,
+campaigns of incitement against aliens and
+of blustering about reprisals. Similar though
+less conspicuous manifestations are the delighted
+circulation of rumours, the wild scandalmongering,
+the eager dissemination of pessimistic inventions
+which are the pleasure of the smaller amongst these
+moral waifs. Of all the evidences of defective
+morale, however, undoubtedly the most general has
+yet to be mentioned, and that is the proffering of
+technical advice and exhortation. If we are to judge
+by what we read, there are few more urgent temptations
+than this, and yet it is easy to see that there
+are few enterprises which demand a more complete
+abrogation of reason. It is almost always the case
+that the subject of advice is one upon which all
+detailed knowledge is withheld by the authorities.
+This restriction of materials, however, seems generally
+to be regarded by the volunteer critic as giving
+him greater scope and freedom rather than as a
+reason for silence or even modesty.</p>
+
+<p>It is interesting to notice in this connection what
+those who have the ear of the public have conceived
+to be their duty towards the nation and to try
+to estimate its value from the point of view of
+morale. It is clear that they have in general very
+rightly understood that one of their prime functions
+should be to keep the Government working in the
+interests of the nation to the fullest stretch of its
+energy and resources. Criticism is another function,
+and advice and instruction a third which have also
+been regarded as important.</p>
+
+<p>The third of these activities is, no doubt, that
+which has been most abused and is least important.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p150">{150}</span>
+It tends on the one hand to get involved in technical
+military matters and consequent absurdity, and on
+the other hand, in civil matters, to fall back into
+the bad old ways of politics. Criticism is obviously
+a perfectly legitimate function, and one of value
+as long as it keeps to the field of civil questions,
+and can free itself of the moral failure of being
+acrimonious in tone. In a government machine
+engaged upon the largest of tasks there will always
+be enough injustice and inhumanity, fraud and
+foolishness to keep temperate critics beneficially
+employed.</p>
+
+<p>It is in the matter of stimulating the energy
+and resolution of the Government that the psychologist
+might perhaps differ to some extent from the
+popular guides of opinion. In getting work out
+of a living organism it is necessary to determine
+what is the most efficient stimulus. One can make
+a man’s muscles contract by stimulating them with
+an electric battery, but one can never get so
+energetic a contraction with however strong a
+current as can be got by the natural stimulus sent
+out from the man’s brain. Rising to a more complex
+level, we find that a man does not do work by
+order so well or so thoroughly as he does work
+that he desires to do voluntarily. The best way
+to get our work done is to get the worker to want
+to do it. The most urgent and potent of all stimuli,
+then, are those that come from within the man’s
+soul. It is plain, therefore, that the best way to
+extract the maximum amount of work from members
+of a Government—and it is to yield this, at whatever
+cost to themselves, that they are there—is
+not by the use of threats and objurgations, by talk
+of impeachment or dismissal, or by hints of a day
+of reckoning after the war, but by keeping their
+souls full of a burning passion of service. Such
+a supply of mental energy can issue only from a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p151">{151}</span>
+truly homogeneous herd, and it is therefore to the
+production of such a homogeneity of feeling that
+we come once more as the one unmistakable
+responsibility of the civilian.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen reason to believe that there was
+a comparatively favourable opportunity of establishing
+such a national unity in the early phases of
+the war, and that the attainment of the same result
+at this late period is likely to be less easy and more
+costly of disturbance to the social structure.</p>
+
+<p>The simplest basis of unity is equality, and this
+has been an important factor in the unity which in
+the past has produced the classically successful manifestations
+of moral and military power, as for example
+in the cases of Puritan England and Revolutionary
+France. Such equality as obtained in these cases
+was doubtless chiefly moral rather than material,
+and it can scarcely be questioned that equality of
+consideration and of fundamental moral estimation
+is a far more efficient factor than would be equality
+of material possessions. The fact that it is difficult
+to persuade a man with thirty shillings a week that
+he has as much to lose by the loss of national
+independence as a man with thirty thousand a year,
+is merely evidence that the imagination of the former
+is somewhat restricted by his type of education,
+and that we habitually attach an absurd moral significance
+to material advantages. It seems certain
+that it would still be possible to attain a very fair
+approximation to a real moral equality without any
+necessary disturbance of the extreme degree of
+material inequality which our elaborate class segregation
+has imposed upon us.</p>
+
+<p>A serious and practical attempt to secure a true
+moral unity of the nation would render necessary
+a general understanding that the state to be striven
+for was something different, not only in degree
+but also in quality, from anything which has yet
+<span class="xxpn" id="p152">{152}</span>
+been regarded as satisfactory. A mere intellectual
+unanimity in the need for prosecuting the war with
+all vigour, we may be said actually to possess, but
+its moral value is not very great. A state of mind
+directed more to the nation and less immediately
+to the war is what is needed; the good soldier
+absorbed in his regiment has little inclination to
+concern himself with the way the war is going,
+and the civilian should be similarly absorbed in
+the nation. To attain this he must feel that he
+belongs to the country and to his fellow-citizens,
+and that it and they also belong to him. The
+established social system sets itself steadily to deny
+these propositions, and not so much by its abounding
+material inequalities as by the moral inequalities
+that correspond with them. The hierarchies of rank,
+prestige, and consideration, at all times showing
+serious inconsistencies with functional value, and in
+war doing so more than ever, are denials of the
+essential propositions of perfect citizenship, not,
+curiously enough, through their arbitrary distribution
+of wealth, comfort, and leisure, but through
+their persistent, assured, and even unconscious
+assumption that there exists a graduation of moral
+values equally real and, to men of inferior station,
+equally arbitrary. To a gregarious species at war
+the only tolerable claim to any kind of superiority
+must be based on leadership. Any other affectation
+of superiority, whether it be based on prescriptive
+right, on tradition, on custom, on wealth,
+on birth, or on mere age, arrogance, or fussiness,
+and not on real functional value to the State, is,
+however much a matter of course it may seem,
+however blandly it may be asserted or picturesquely
+displayed, an obstacle to true national unity.</p>
+
+<p>Psychological considerations thus appear to indicate
+a very plain duty for a large class of civilians
+who have complained of and suffered patriotically
+<span class="xxpn" id="p153">{153}</span>
+from the fact that the Government has found nothing
+for them to do. Let all those of superior and
+assured station make it a point of honour and duty
+to abrogate the privileges of consideration and
+prestige with which they are arbitrarily endowed.
+Let them persuade the common man that they also
+are, in the face of national necessity, common men.
+The searching test of war has shown that a proportion
+of the population, serious enough in mere
+numbers, but doubly serious in view of its power
+and influence, has led an existence which may fairly
+be described as in some degree parasitic. That
+is to say, what they have drawn from the common
+stock in wealth and prestige has been immensely
+larger than what they have contributed of useful
+activity in return. Now, in time of war, they have
+still less to give proportionally to what they have
+received. Their deplorably good bargain was in
+no way of their making; no one has the slightest
+right to attack their honour or good faith; they
+are as patriotically minded as any class, and have
+contributed their fighting men to the Army as generously
+as the day labourer and the tradesman. It
+is therefore not altogether impossible that they might
+come to understand the immense opportunity that
+is given them by fate to promote a true, deep,
+and irresistibly potent national unity.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">A further contribution to the establishment of
+a national unity of this truly Utopian degree might
+come from a changed attitude of mind towards his
+fellows in the individual. There would have to
+be an increased kindliness, generosity, patience, and
+tolerance in all his relations with others, a deliberate
+attempt to conquer prejudice, irritability,
+impatience, and self-assertiveness, a deliberate encouragement
+of cheerfulness, composure, and fortitude.
+All these would be tasks for the individual
+<span class="xxpn" id="p154">{154}</span>
+to carry out for himself alone; there would be no
+campaign-making, no direct exhortation, no appeals.
+Towards the Army and the Navy the central fact
+of each man’s attitude would be the question, “Am
+I worth dying for?” and his strongest effort would
+be the attempt to make himself so.</p>
+
+<p>That question may perhaps make one wonder
+why it has not been heard more often during the
+war as a text of the Church. There is little doubt
+that very many men whose feeling towards the
+Church is in no way disrespectful or hostile are
+conscious of a certain uneasiness in hearing her
+vigorously defending the prosecution of the war
+and demonstrating its righteousness. They feel, in
+spite of however conclusive demonstrations to the
+contrary, that there is a deep-seated inconsistency
+between war for whatever object and the Sermon
+on the Mount, and they cannot but remember, when
+they are told that this is a holy war, that that also
+the Germans say. They perhaps feel that the justification
+of the war is, after all, a matter for politicians
+and statesmen, and that the Church would be more
+appropriately employed in making it as far as she
+can a vehicle of good, rather than trying to justify
+superfluously its existence. A people already awed
+by the self-sacrifice of its armies may be supposed
+to be capable of profiting by the exhortations of
+a Church whose cardinal doctrine is concerned with
+the responsibility that attaches to those for whose
+sake life has voluntarily been given up. One cannot
+imagine an institution more perfectly qualified by
+its faith and its power to bring home to this people
+the solemnity of the sanction under which they lie
+to make themselves worthy of the price that is
+still being unreservedly paid. If it were consciously
+the determination of every citizen to make himself
+worth dying for, who can doubt that a national
+unity of the sublimest kind would be
+within reach? <span class="xxpn" id="p155">{155}</span></p>
+
+<p>Of all the influences which tend to rob the citizen
+of the sense of his birthright, perhaps one of the
+strongest, and yet the most subtle, is that of
+officialism. It seems inevitable that the enormously
+complex public services which are necessary in the
+modern State should set up a barrier between the
+private citizen and the official, whereby the true
+relation between them is obscured. The official
+loses his grasp of the fact that the mechanism of
+the State is established in the interests of the citizen;
+the citizen comes to regard the State as a hostile
+institution, against which he has to defend himself,
+although it was made for his defence. It is a crime
+for him to cheat the State in the matter of tax-paying,
+it is no crime for the State to defraud
+him in excessive charges. Considered in the light
+of the fundamental relation of citizen and State, it
+seems incredible that in a democratic country it is
+possible for flourishing establishments to exist the
+sole business of which is to save the private
+individual from being defrauded by the tax-gathering
+bureaucracy. This is but a single and rather
+extreme example of the far-stretching segregation
+effected by the official machine. The slighter kinds
+of aloofness, of inhuman etiquette, of legalism and
+senseless dignity, of indifference to the individual,
+of devotion to formulæ and routine are no less
+powerful agents in depriving the common man of
+the sense of intimate reality in his citizenship which
+might be so valuable a source of national unity.
+If the official machine through its utmost parts were
+animated by an even moderately human spirit and
+used as a means of binding together the people,
+instead of as an engine of moral disruption, it might
+be of incalculable value in the strengthening of
+morale. <span class="xxpn" id="p156">{156}</span></p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">E<b>NGLAND</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">AGAINST</span>
+ <span class="smcap">G<b>ERMANY—</b>G<b>ERMANY.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>In an earlier part of this book the statement was
+made that the present juncture in human affairs
+probably forms one of those rare nodes of circumstance
+in which the making of an epoch in history
+corresponds with a perceptible change in the secular
+progress of biological evolution. It remains to
+attempt some justification of this opinion.</p>
+
+<p>England and Germany face one another as perhaps
+the two most typical antagonists of the war. It may
+seem but a partial way of examining events if we
+limit our consideration to them. Nevertheless, it is
+in this duel that the material we are concerned
+with is chiefly to be found, and it may be added
+Germany herself has abundantly distinguished this
+country as her typical foe—an instinctive judgment
+not without value.</p>
+
+<p>By the end of September 1914 it had become
+reasonably clear that the war would be one of
+endurance, and the comparatively equal though
+fluctuating strength of the two groups of adversaries
+has since shown that in such endurance the main
+factor will be the moral factor rather than the
+material. An examination of the moral strength
+of the two arch-enemies will therefore have the
+interest of life and death behind it, as well as such
+as may belong to the thesis which stands at the head
+of this chapter.</p>
+
+<p>Germany affords a profoundly interesting study
+for the biological psychologist, and it is very
+important that we should not allow what clearness
+of representation we can get into our picture of her
+mind to be clouded by the heated atmosphere of
+national feeling in which our work must be done.
+As I have said elsewhere, it is merely to encourage
+fallacy to allow oneself to believe that one is without
+prejudices. The most one can do is to recognize
+<span class="xxpn" id="p157">{157}</span>
+what prejudices are likely to exist and liberally
+to allow for them.</p>
+
+<p>If I were to say that at the present moment I can
+induce myself to believe that it will ever be possible
+for Europe to contain a strong Germany of the
+current type and remain habitable by free peoples,
+the apparent absence of national bias in the statement
+would be a mere affectation, and by no means
+an evidence of freedom from prejudice. I am
+much more likely to get into reasonable relations
+with the truth if I admit to myself, quite frankly,
+my innermost conviction that the destruction of the
+German Empire is an indispensable preliminary to
+the making of a civilization tolerable by rational
+beings. Having recognized the existence of that
+belief as a necessary obstacle to complete freedom
+of thought, it may be possible to allow for it and to
+counteract what aberrations of judgment it may be
+likely to produce.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">In making an attempt to estimate the relative
+moral resources of England and Germany at the
+present time it is necessary to consider them as
+biological entities or major units of the human
+species in the sense of that term we have already
+repeatedly used. We shall have to examine the
+evolutionary tendencies which each of these units
+has shown, and if possible to decide how far they
+have followed the lines of development which
+psychological theory indicates to be those of healthy
+and progressive development for a gregarious
+animal.</p>
+
+<p>I have already tried to show that the acquirement
+of the social habit by man—though in fact there is
+reason to believe that the social habit preceded
+and made possible his distinctively human characters—has
+committed him to an evolutionary process
+which is far from being completed yet, but which
+<span class="xxpn" id="p158">{158}</span>
+nevertheless must be carried out to its consummation
+if he is to escape increasingly severe disadvantages
+inherent in that biological type. In other words, the
+gregarious habit in an animal of large individual
+mental capacity is capable of becoming, and indeed
+must become a handicap rather than a bounty unless
+the society of the species undergoes a continuously
+progressive co-ordination which will enable it to
+attract and absorb the energy and activities of its
+individual members. We have seen that in a species
+such as man, owing to the freedom from the direct
+action of natural selection within the major unit, the
+individual’s capacity for varied reaction to his environment
+has undergone an enormous development,
+while at the same time the capacity for intercommunication—upon
+which the co-ordination of the
+major unit into a potent and frictionless mechanism
+depends—has lagged far behind. The term “intercommunication”
+is here used in the very widest
+sense to indicate the ties that bind the individual
+to his fellows and them to him. It is not a very
+satisfactory word; but as might be expected in
+attempting to express a series of functions so
+complex and so unfamiliar to generalization, it is not
+easy to find an exact expression ready made.
+Another phrase applicable to a slightly different
+aspect of the same function is “herd accessibility,”
+which has the advantage of suggesting by its first
+constituent the limitation, primitively at any rate, an
+essential part of the capacities it is desired to denote.
+The conception of herd accessibility includes the
+specific sensitiveness of the individual to the
+existence, presence, thought, and feelings of his
+fellow-members of the major unit; the power he
+possesses of reacting in an altruistic and social mode
+to stimuli which would necessarily evoke a merely
+egoistic response from a non-social animal—that is
+to say, the power to deflect and modify egoistic
+<span class="xxpn" id="p159">{159}</span>
+impulses into a social form without emotional loss or
+dissatisfaction; the capacity to derive from the impulses
+of the herd a moral power in excess of any
+similar energy he may be able to develop from
+purely egoistic sources.</p>
+
+<p>Intercommunication, the development of which
+of course depends upon herd-accessibility, enables
+the herd to act as a single creature whose power
+is greatly in excess of the sum of the powers of its
+individual members.</p>
+
+<p>Intercommunication in the biological sense has,
+however, never been systematically cultivated by
+man, but has been allowed to develop haphazard
+and subject to all the hostile influences which must
+infest a society in which unregulated competition
+and selection are allowed to prevail. The extravagance
+of human life and labour, the indifference to
+suffering, the harshness and the infinite class segregation
+of human society are the result. The use of
+what I have called conscious direction is apparently
+the only means whereby this chaos can be converted
+into organized structure.</p>
+
+<p>Outside the gregarious unit, the forms of organic
+life at any given time seem to be to some considerable
+extent determined by the fact that the pressure
+of environmental conditions and of competition tends
+to eliminate selectively the types which are comparatively
+unsuited to the conditions in which they
+find themselves. However much or little this process
+of natural selection has decided the course which the
+general evolutionary process has taken, there can
+be no doubt that it is a condition of animal life, and
+has an active influence. The suggestion may be
+hazarded that under circumstances natural selection
+tends rather to restrict variation instead of encouraging
+it as it has sometimes been supposed to
+do. When the external pressure is very severe it
+might be supposed that anything like free variation
+<span class="xxpn" id="p160">{160}</span>
+would be a serious disadvantage to a species, and
+if it persisted might result in actual extermination.
+It is conceivable, therefore, that natural selection is
+capable of favouring stable and non-progressive
+types at the expense of the variable and possibly
+“progressive,” if such a term can be applied to
+species advancing towards extinction. Such a
+possible fixative action of natural selection is suggested
+by the fact that the appearance of mechanisms
+whereby the individual is protected from the direct
+action of natural selection seems to have led to an
+outburst of variation. In the multicellular animal
+the individual cells passing from under the direct
+pressure of natural selection become variable, and
+so capable of a very great specialization. In the
+gregarious unit the same thing happens, the individual
+member gaining freedom to vary and to
+become specialized without the risk that would have
+accompanied such an endowment in the solitary state.</p>
+
+<p>Within the gregarious unit, then, natural selection
+in the strict sense is in abeyance, and the consequent
+freedom has allowed of a rich variety among the
+individual members. This variety provides the
+material from which an elaborate and satisfactory
+society might be constructed if there were any constant
+and discriminating influence acting upon it.
+Unfortunately, the forces at work in human society
+to-day are not of this kind, but are irregular in
+direction and fluctuating in strength, so that the
+material richness which would have been so valuable,
+had it been subject to a systematic and co-ordinate
+selection, has merely contributed to the
+confusion of the product. The actual mechanism
+by which society, while it has grown in strength
+and complexity, has also grown in confusion and
+disorder, is that peculiarity of the gregarious mind
+which automatically brings into the monopoly of
+power the mental type which I have called the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p161">{161}</span>
+stable and common opinion calls normal. This
+type supplies our most trusted politicians and officials,
+our bishops and headmasters, our successful lawyers
+and doctors, and all their trusty deputies, assistants,
+retainers, and faithful servants. Mental stability is
+their leading characteristic, they “know where they
+stand” as we say, they have a confidence in the
+reality of their aims and their position, an inaccessibility
+to new and strange phenomena, a belief in
+the established and customary, a capacity for ignoring
+what they regard as the unpleasant, the undesirable,
+and the improper, and a conviction that
+on the whole a sound moral order is perceptible
+in the universe and manifested in the progress of
+civilization. Such characteristics are not in the least
+inconsistent with the highest intellectual capacity,
+great energy and perseverance as well as kindliness,
+generosity, and patience, but they are in no way
+redeemed in social value by them.</p>
+
+<p>In the year 1915 it is, unfortunately, in no way
+necessary to enumerate evidences of the confusion,
+the cruelty, the waste, and the weaknesses with
+which human society, under the guidance of minds
+of this type, has been brought to abound. Civilization
+through all its secular development under
+their rule has never acquired an organic unity of
+structure; its defects have received no rational treatment,
+but have been concealed, ignored, and denied;
+instead of being drastically rebuilt, it has been kept
+presentable by patches and buttresses, by paint, and
+putty, and whitewash. The building was already
+insecure, and now the storm has burst upon it,
+threatens incontinently to collapse.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that European civilization, approaching
+what appeared to be the very meridian of its strength,
+could culminate in a disaster so frightful as the
+present war is proof that its development was radically
+unsound. This is by no means to say that
+<span class="xxpn" id="p162">{162}</span>
+the war could have been avoided by those immediately
+concerned. That is almost certainly not the
+case. The war was the consequence of inherent
+defects in the evolution of civilized life; it was
+the consequence of human progress being left to
+chance, and to the interaction of the heterogeneous
+influences which necessarily arise within a gregarious
+unit whose individual members have a large power
+of varied reaction. In such an atmosphere minds
+essentially resistive alone can flourish and attain
+to power, and they are by their very qualities incapable
+of grasping the necessities of government
+or translating them into action.</p>
+
+<p>The method of leaving the development of society
+to the confused welter of forces which prevail within
+it is now at last reduced to absurdity by the unmistakable
+teaching of events, and the conscious direction
+of man’s destiny is plainly indicated by Nature
+as the only mechanism by which the social life of
+so complex an animal can be guaranteed against
+disaster and brought to yield its full possibilities.</p>
+
+<p>A gregarious unit informed by conscious direction
+represents a biological mechanism of a wholly new
+type, a stage of advance in the evolutionary process
+capable of consolidating the supremacy of man
+and carrying to its full extent the development of
+his social instincts.</p>
+
+<p>Such a directing intelligence or group of intelligences
+would take into account before all things
+the biological character of man, would understand
+that his condition is necessarily progressive along
+the lines of his natural endowments or downward
+to destruction. It would abandon the static view
+of society as something merely to be maintained,
+and adopt a more dynamic conception of statesmanship
+as something active, progressive, and experimental,
+reaching out towards new powers for human
+activity and new conquests for the human will.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p163">{163}</span>
+It would discover what natural inclinations in man
+must be indulged, and would make them respectable,
+what inclinations in him must be controlled
+for the advantage of the species, and make them
+insignificant. It would cultivate intercommunication
+and altruism on the one hand, and bravery,
+boldness, pride, and enterprise on the other. It
+would develop national unity to a communion of
+interest and sympathy far closer than anything yet
+dreamed of as possible, and by doing so would
+endow the national unit with a self-control, fortitude,
+and moral power which would make it so obviously
+unconquerable that war would cease to be a possibility.
+To a people magnanimous, self-possessed,
+and open-eyed, unanimous in sentiment and aware
+of its strength, the conquest of fellow-nations would
+present its full futility. They would need for the
+acceptable exercise of their powers some more difficult,
+more daring, and newer task, something that
+stretches the human will and the human intellect
+to the limit of their capacity; the mere occupation
+and re-occupation of the stale and blood-drenched
+earth would be to them barbarians’ work; time
+and space would be their quarry, destiny and the
+human soul the lands they would invade; they
+would sail their ships into the gulfs of the ether
+and lay tribute upon the sun and stars.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">It is one of the features of the present crisis
+that gives to it its biological significance, that one
+of the antagonists—Germany—has discovered the
+necessity and value of conscious direction of the
+social unit. This is in itself an epoch-making event.
+Like many other human discoveries of similar importance,
+it has been incomplete, and it has not
+been accompanied by the corresponding knowledge
+of man and his natural history which alone could
+have given it full fertility and permanent value.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p164">{164}</span></p>
+
+<p>It seems to have been in no way a revelation of
+genius, and, indeed, the absence of any great profundity
+and scope of speculation is rather remarkable
+in the minds of the numerous German political
+philosophers. The idea would appear rather to have
+been developed out of the circumstances of the
+country, and to have been almost a habit before
+it became a conception. At any rate, its appearance
+was greatly favoured by the political conditions and
+history of the region in which it arose. If this
+had not been the case, it is scarcely conceivable
+that the principle could have been accepted so readily
+by the people, and in a form which was not without
+its asperities and its hardships for them, or that
+it could have been discovered without the necessary
+biological corollaries which are indispensable to the
+successful application of it.</p>
+
+<p>Germany in some ways resembles a son who has
+been educated at home, and has taken up the
+responsibilities of the adult, and become bound by
+them without ever tasting the free intercourse of
+the school and university. She has never tasted
+the heady liquor of political liberty, she has had no
+revolution, and the blood of no political martyrs
+calls to her disturbingly from the ground. To
+such innocent and premature gravity the reasonable
+claims of what, after all, had to her the appearance
+of no more than an anxiously paternal Government
+could not fail to appeal.</p>
+
+<p>Explain it how we may, there can be no doubt
+that to the German peoples the theoretical aspects
+of life have long had a very special appeal. Generalizations
+about national characteristics are notoriously
+fallacious, but it seems that with a certain reserve
+one may fairly say that there is a definite contrast
+in this particular between the Germans and, let
+us say, the English.</p>
+
+<p>To minds of a theoretical bias the appeal of a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p165">{165}</span>
+closely regulative type of Government, with all the
+advantages of organization which it possesses, must
+be very strong, and there is reason to believe that
+this fact has had influence in reconciling the people
+to the imposition upon it of the will of the Government.</p>
+
+<p>Between a docile and intelligent people and a
+strong, autocratic, and intelligent Government the
+possibilities of conscious national direction could
+scarcely fail to become increasingly obvious and
+to be increasingly developed. A further and
+enormously potent factor in the progress of the
+idea was an immense accession of national feeling,
+derived from three almost bewilderingly successful
+wars, accomplished at surprisingly small cost,
+and culminating in a grandiose and no less successful
+scheme of unification. Before rulers and people
+an imperial destiny of unlimited scope, and allowing
+of unbounded dreams, now inevitably opened
+itself up. Alone, amongst the peoples of Europe,
+Germany saw herself a nation with a career. No
+longer disunited and denationalized, she had come
+into her inheritance. The circumstances of her
+rebirth were so splendid, the moral exaltation of
+her new unity was so great that she could scarcely
+but suppose that her state was the beginning of
+a career of further and unimagined glories and
+triumphs. There were not lacking enthusiastic and
+prophetic voices to tell her she was right.</p>
+
+<p>The decade that followed the foundation of the
+Empire was, perhaps, more pregnant with destiny
+than that which preceded it, for it saw the final
+determination of the path which Germany was to
+follow. She had made the immense stride in the
+biological scale of submitting herself to conscious
+direction; would she also follow the path which
+alone leads to a perfect concentration of national
+life and a permanent moral stability?
+<span class="xxpn" id="p166">{166}</span></p>
+
+<p>To a nation with a purpose and a consciously
+realized destiny some principle of national unity
+is indispensable. Some strand of feeling which all
+can share, and in sharing which all can come into
+communion with one another, will be the framework
+on which is built up the structure of national
+energy and effort.</p>
+
+<p>The reactions in which the social instinct manifests
+itself are not all equally developed in the different
+social species. It is true that there is a certain group
+of characteristics common to all social animals; but
+it is also found that in one example there is a special
+development of one aspect of the instinct, while
+another example will show a characteristic development
+of a different aspect. Taking a broad survey
+of all gregarious types, we are able to distinguish
+three fairly distinct trends of evolution. We have
+the aggressive gregariousness of the wolf and dog,
+the protective gregariousness of the sheep and the
+ox, and, differing from both these, we have the more
+complex social structure of the bee and the ant,
+which we may call socialized gregariousness. The
+last-named is characterized by the complete absorption
+of the individual in the major unit, and the
+fact that the function of the social habit seems no
+longer to be the simple one of mere attack or
+defence, but rather the establishment of a State
+which shall be, as a matter of course, strong in
+defence and attack, but a great deal more than
+this as well. The hive is no mere herd or pack,
+but an elaborate mechanism for making use by
+co-ordinate and unified action of the utmost powers
+of the individual members. It is something which
+appears to be a complete substitute for individual
+existence, and as we have already said, seems like
+a new creature rather than a congeries united for
+some comparatively few and simple purposes. The
+hive and the ant’s nest stand to the flock and the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p167">{167}</span>
+pack as the fully organized multicellular animal
+stands to the primitive zooglœa which is its forerunner.
+The wolf is united for attack, the sheep
+is united for defence, but the bee is united for all
+the activities and feelings of its life.</p>
+
+<p>Socialized gregariousness is the goal of man’s
+development. A transcendental union with his
+fellows is the destiny of the human individual,
+and it is the attainment of this towards which the
+constantly growing altruism of man is directed.
+Poets and prophets have, at times, dimly seen this
+inevitable trend of Nature, biology detects unmistakable
+evidence of it, and explains the slowness of
+advance, which has been the despair of those others,
+by the variety and power of man’s mind, and
+consoles us for the delay these qualities still cause
+by the knowledge that they are guarantees of the
+exactitude and completeness that the ultimate union
+will attain.</p>
+
+<p>When a nation takes to itself the idea of conscious
+direction, as by a fortunate combination of circumstances
+Germany has been induced to do, it is
+plain that some choice of a principle of national
+unity will be its first and most important task. It
+is plain, also, from the considerations we have just
+laid down, that such a principle of national unity
+must necessarily be a manifestation of the social
+instinct, and that the choice is necessarily limited
+to one of three types of social habit which
+alone Nature has fitted gregarious animals to follow.
+No nation has ever made a conscious choice amongst
+these three types, but circumstances have led to
+the adoption of one or another of them often enough
+for history to furnish many suggestive instances.</p>
+
+<p>The more or less purely aggressive or protective
+form has been adopted for the most part by
+primitive peoples. The history of the natives of
+North America and Australia furnishes examples of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p168">{168}</span>
+almost pure types of both. The aggressive type was
+illustrated very fully by the peoples who profited
+by the disintegration of the Roman Empire. These
+northern barbarians showed in the most perfect form
+the lupine type of society in action. The ideals
+and feelings exemplified by their sagas are comprehensible
+only when one understands the biological
+significance of them. It was a society of wolves
+marvellously indomitable in aggression but fitted for
+no other activity in any corresponding degree, and
+always liable to absorption by the peoples they
+had conquered. They were physically brave beyond
+belief, and made a religion of violence and brutality.
+To fight was for them man’s supreme activity. They
+were restless travellers and explorers, less out of
+curiosity than in search of prey, and they irresistibly
+overran Europe in the missionary zeal of the sword
+and torch, each man asking nothing of Fate but,
+after a career of unlimited outrage and destruction,
+to die gloriously fighting. It is impossible not
+to recognize the psychological identity of these
+ideals with those which we might suppose a highly
+developed breed of wolves to entertain.</p>
+
+<p>With all its startling energy, and all its magnificent
+enterprise, the lupine type of society has not
+proved capable of prolonged survival. Probably
+its inherent weakness is the very limited scope
+of interest it provides for active and progressive
+minds, and the fact that it tends to engender a
+steadily accumulating hostility in weaker but more
+mentally progressive peoples to which it has no
+correspondingly steady resistiveness to oppose.</p>
+
+<p>The history of the world has shown a gradual
+elimination of the lupine type. It has recurred
+sporadically at intervals, but has always been
+suppressed. Modern civilization has shown a
+constantly increasing manifestation of the socialized
+type of gregariousness in spite of the complexities
+<span class="xxpn" id="p169">{169}</span>
+and disorders which the slowness of its development
+towards completeness has involved. It may be
+regarded now as the standard type which has been
+established by countless experiments, as that which
+alone can satisfy and absorb the moral as well as
+the intellectual desires of modern man.</p>
+
+<p>From the point of view of the statesman desiring
+to enforce an immediate and energetic national unity,
+combined with an ideal of the State as destined
+to expand into a larger and larger sphere, the
+socialized type of gregarious evolution is extremely
+unsatisfactory. Its course towards the production
+of a truly organized State is slow, and perplexed
+by a multitudinous confusion of voices and ideals;
+its necessary development of altruism gives the
+society it produces an aspect of sentimentality and
+flabbiness; its tendency slowly to evolve towards
+the moral equality of its members gives the State
+an appearance of structural insecurity.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">If Germany was to be capable of a consistent
+aggressive external policy as a primary aim, the
+peculiarity of her circumstances rendered her unable
+to seek national inspiration by any development
+of the socialized type of instinctive response, because
+that method can produce the necessary moral power
+only through a true unity of its members, such as
+implies a moral, if not a material, equality among
+them. That the type is capable of yielding a
+passion of aggressive nationalism is shown by the
+early enterprise and conquests of the first French
+Republic. But that outburst of power was attained
+only because it was based on a true, though doubtless
+imperfect, moral equality. Such a method was
+necessarily forbidden to the German Empire by the
+intense rigidity of its social segregation, with its
+absolute differentiation between the aristocracy and
+the common people. In such a society there could
+<span class="xxpn" id="p170">{170}</span>
+be no thought of permitting the faintest hint of
+even moral equality.</p>
+
+<p>This is the reason, therefore, why the rulers of
+Germany, of course in complete ignorance of how
+significant was their choice, were compelled to
+abandon the ideals of standard civilization, to relapse
+upon the ideals of a more primitive type of
+gregariousness, and to throw back their people into
+the anachronism of a lupine society. In this connection
+it is interesting to notice how persistently
+the political philosophers of Germany have sought
+their chief inspiration in the remote past, and in
+times when the wolf society and the wolf ideals
+were widespread and successful.</p>
+
+<p>It is not intended to imply that there was here
+any conscious choice. It is remarkable enough that
+the rulers of Germany recognized the need for
+conscious direction of all the activities of a nation
+which proposes for itself a career; it would have
+been a miracle if they had understood the biological
+significance of the differentiation of themselves from
+other European peoples that they were to bring
+about. To them it doubtless appeared merely that
+they were discarding the effete and enfeebling
+ideals which made other nations the fit victims of
+their conquests. They may be supposed to have
+determined to eradicate such germs of degeneracy
+from themselves, to have seen that an ambitious
+people must be strong and proud and hard, enterprising,
+relentless, brave, and fierce, prepared to
+believe in the glory of combat and conquest, in
+the supreme moral greatness of the warrior, in force
+as the touchstone of right, honour, justice, and truth.
+Such changes in moral orientation seem harmless
+enough, and it can scarcely be suspected that their
+significance was patent to those who adopted them.
+They were impressed upon the nation with all the
+immense power of suggestion at the disposal of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p171">{171}</span>
+an organized State. The readiness with which they
+were received and assimilated was more than could
+be accounted for by even the power of the immense
+machine of officials, historians, theologians, professors,
+teachers, and newspapers by which they
+were, in season and out of season, enforced. The
+immense success that was attained owed much to
+the fact that suggestion was following a natural,
+instinctive path. The wolf in man, against which
+civilization has been fighting for so long, is still
+within call and ready to respond to incantations
+much feebler than those the German State could
+employ. The people were intoxicated with the glory
+of their conquests and their imposing new confederation;
+if we are to trust the reputation the
+Prussian soldier has had for a hundred years, they
+were perhaps already less advanced in humanity
+than the other European peoples. The fact is unquestionable
+that they followed their teachers with
+enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well for us, before proceeding farther,
+to define precisely the psychological hypothesis we
+are advancing in explanation of the peculiarities of
+the German national character as now manifested.</p>
+
+<p>Herd instinct is manifested in three distinct types,
+the aggressive, the protective, and the socialized,
+which are exemplified in Nature by the wolf, the
+sheep, and the bee respectively. Either type can
+confer the advantages of the social habit, but the
+socialized is that upon which modern civilized man
+has developed. It is maintained here that the
+ambitious career consciously planned for Germany
+by those who had taken command of her destinies,
+and the maintenance at the same time of her social
+system, were inconsistent with the further development
+of gregariousness of the socialized type. New
+ideals, new motives, and new sources of moral power
+had therefore to be sought. They were found in a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p172">{172}</span>
+recrudescence of the aggressive type of gregariousness—in
+a reappearance of the society of the wolf.
+It is conceivable that those who provided Germany
+with her new ideals thought themselves to be
+exercising a free choice. The choice, however,
+was forced upon them by Nature. They wanted
+some of the characters of the wolf; they got them
+all. One may imagine that those who have so
+industriously inculcated the national gospel have
+wondered at times that while it has been easy to
+implant certain of the desired ideals, it has not been
+possible to prevent the appearance of others which,
+though not so desirable, belong to the same legacy
+and must be taken up with it.</p>
+
+<p>Before examining the actual mental features of
+Germany to-day, it may be desirable to consider <i>a
+priori</i> what would be the mental characteristics of
+an aggressive gregarious animal were he to be self-conscious
+in the sense that man is.</p>
+
+<p>The functional value of herd instinct in the wolf
+is to make the pack irresistible in attacking and
+perpetually aggressive in spirit. The individual
+must, therefore, be especially sensitive to the leadership
+of the herd. The herd must be to him, not
+merely as it is to the protectively gregarious animal,
+a source of comfort, and stimulus, and general
+guidance, but must be able to make him <i>do things</i>
+however difficult, however dangerous, even however
+senseless, and must make him yield an absolute,
+immediate, and slavish obedience. The carrying
+out of the commands of the herd must be in itself
+an absolute satisfaction in which there can be no
+consideration of self. Towards anything outside
+the herd he will necessarily be arrogant, confident,
+and inaccessible to the appeals of reason or feeling.
+This tense bond of instinct, constantly keyed up to
+the pitch of action, will give him a certain
+simplicity of character and even ingenuousness, a
+<span class="xxpn" id="p173">{173}</span>
+coarseness and brutality in his dealings with others,
+and a complete failure to understand any motive
+unsanctioned by the pack. He will believe the
+pack to be impregnable and irresistible, just and
+good, and will readily ascribe to it any other attribute
+which may take his fancy however ludicrously inappropriate.</p>
+
+<p>The strength of the wolf pack as a gregarious
+unit is undoubtedly, in suitable circumstances,
+enormous. This strength would seem to depend on
+a continuous possibility of attack and action. How
+far it can be maintained in inactivity and mere
+defence is another matter.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Since the beginning of this war attracted a
+really concentrated attention to the psychology of
+the German people, it has been very obvious that
+one of the most striking feelings amongst Englishmen
+has been bewilderment. They have found an
+indescribable strangeness in the utterances of almost
+all German personages and newspapers, in their
+diplomacy, in their friendliness to such as they wished
+to propitiate, in their enmity to those they wished
+to alarm and intimidate. This strange quality is
+very difficult to define or even to attempt to describe,
+and has very evidently perplexed almost all writers
+on the war. The only thing one can be sure
+of is that it is there. It shows itself at times as a
+simplicity or even childishness, as a boorish cunning,
+as an incredible ant-like activity, as a sudden blast
+of maniacal boasting, a reckless savagery of
+gloating in blood, a simple-minded sentimentality,
+as outbursts of idolatry, not of the pallid, metaphorical,
+modern type, but the full-blooded African
+kind, with all the apparatus of idol and fetish and
+tom-tom, and with it all a steady confidence that
+these are the principles of civilization, of truth, of
+justice, and of Christ.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p174">{174}</span></p>
+
+<p>I have tried to put down at random some of the
+factors in this curious impression as they occur
+to the memory, but the mere enumeration of them
+is not possible without risking the objective composure
+of one’s attitude—an excellent incidental
+evidence that the strangeness is a reality.</p>
+
+<p>The incomprehensibility to the English of the
+whole trend of German feeling and expression suggests
+that there is some deeply rooted instinctive
+conflict of attitude between them. One may risk
+the speculation that this conflict is between socialized
+gregariousness and aggressive gregariousness. As
+the result of the inculcation of national arrogance
+and aggression, Germany has lapsed into a special
+type of social instinct which has opened a gulf of
+separation in feeling between her and other civilized
+peoples. Such an effect is natural enough. Nothing
+produces the sense of strangeness so much as
+differences of instinctive reaction. A similar though
+wider gap in instinctive reaction gives to us the
+appearance of strangeness and queerness in the
+behaviour of the cat as contrasted with the dog,
+which is so much more nearly allied in feeling to
+ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>If, then, we desire to get any insight into the
+mind and moral power of Germany, we must begin
+with the realization that the two peoples are separated
+by a profound difference in instinctive feeling.
+Nature has provided but few roads for gregarious
+species to follow. Between the path England finds
+herself in and that which Germany has chosen there
+is a divergence which almost amounts to a specific
+difference in the biological scale. In this, perhaps,
+lies the cause of the desperate and unparalleled
+ferocity of this war. It is a war not so much of
+contending nations as of contending species. We
+are not taking part in a mere war, but in one of
+Nature’s august experiments. It is as if she had
+<span class="xxpn" id="p175">{175}</span>
+set herself to try out in her workshop the strength
+of the socialized and the aggressive types. To
+the socialized peoples she has entrusted the task
+of proving that her old faith in cruelty and blood
+is at last an anachronism. To try them, she has
+given substance to the creation of a nightmare, and
+they must destroy this werewolf or
+die.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc16" href="#fn16">16</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn16" href="#afnanc16">16</a>
+It may be noted that the members of the small group of
+so-called “pro-German” writers and propagandists for the most part
+make it a fundamental doctrine, either explicit or implicit, that
+there is no psychological difference between the English and the
+Germans. They seem to maintain that the latter are moved and are to
+be influenced by exactly the same series of feelings and ideals as
+the former, and show in reality no observable “strangeness” in their
+expressions and emotions. By arguments based on this assumption very
+striking conclusions are reached. All moral advancement has been the
+work of unpopular minorities, the members of which have been branded
+as cranks or criminals until time has justified their doctrine. Even
+the greatest of such pioneers have not, however, been invariably right.
+Their genius has usually been shown most clearly in matters with which
+they have been most familiar, while in matters less intimately part of
+their experience their judgments have often not stood the test of time
+any better than those of smaller men. If therefore our “pro-Germans”
+include amongst them men of moral genius, we may expect that such of
+their psychological intuitions as deal with England are more likely
+to prove true than those that deal with Germany. The importance of
+this reservation lies in the probability that the chief psychological
+problems connected with the origin and prosecution of this war relate
+to the Germans rather than to the English.</p></div>
+
+<p>In attempting to estimate the actual phenomena of the German mind
+at the present time, we must remember that our sources of knowledge
+are subject to a rigid selection. Those of us who are unable to give
+time to the regular reading of German publications must depend on
+extracts which owe their appearance in our papers to some striking
+characteristic which may be supposed to be pleasing to the prejudices
+or hopes of the English reader. The main facts, however, are clear
+enough to yield
+<span class="xxpn" id="p176">{176}</span> valuable conclusions, if such are made on broad
+lines without undue insistence on minor points.</p>
+
+<p>An intense but often ingenuous and even childish national arrogance
+is a character that strikes one at once. It seems to be a serious and
+often a solemn emotion impregnably armoured against the comic sense,
+and expressed with a childlike confidence in its justness. It is
+usually associated with a language of metaphor, which is almost always
+florid and banal, and usually grandiose and strident. This fondness for
+metaphor and inability to refer to common things by plain names affects
+all classes, from Emperor to journalist, and gives an impression of
+peculiar childishness. It reminds one of the primitive belief in the
+transcendental reality and value of names.</p>
+
+<p>The national arrogance of the German is at the
+same time peculiarly sensitive and peculiarly obtuse.
+It is readily moved by praise or blame, though that
+be the most perfunctory and this the most mild, but
+it has no sense of a public opinion outside the pack.
+It is easily aroused to rage by external criticism,
+and when it finds its paroxysms make it ridiculous
+to the spectator it cannot profit by the information
+but becomes, if possible, more angry. It is quite
+unable to understand that to be moved to rage by
+an enemy is as much a proof of slavish automatism
+as to be moved to fear by him. The really extraordinary
+hatred for England is, quite apart from
+the obvious association of its emotional basis with
+fear, a most interesting phenomenon. The fact that
+it was possible to organize so unanimous a howl
+shows very clearly how fully the psychological
+mechanisms of the wolf were in action. It is most
+instructive to find eminent men of science and
+philosophers bristling and baring their teeth with
+the rest, and would be another proof, if such were
+needed, of the infinite insecurity of the hold of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p177">{177}</span>
+reason in the most carefully cultivated minds when
+it is opposed by strong herd
+feeling.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc17" href="#fn17">17</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn17" href="#afnanc17">17</a>
+I have not included in these pages actual quotations from German
+authors illustrative of the national characteristics they so richly display.
+Such material may be found in abundance in the many books
+upon Germany which have appeared since the beginning of the war.
+The inclusion of it here would therefore have been superfluous, and
+would have tended perhaps to distract attention from the more general
+aspects of the subject which are the main objects of this study.
+During the process of final revision I am, however, tempted to add
+a single illustration which happens just to have caught my eye as
+being a representative and not at all an extreme example of the
+national arrogance I refer to above.
+</p>
+<p>
+In an article on “The German Mind” by Mr. John Buchan I find
+the following quotations from a Professor Werner Sombart, of Berlin:―
+</p>
+<p>
+“When the German stands leaning on his mighty sword, clad in steel
+from his sole to his head, whatsoever will may, down below, dance
+around his feet, and the intellectuals and the learned men of England,
+France, Russia, and Italy may rail at him and throw mud. But
+in his lofty repose he will not allow himself to be disturbed, and
+he will reflect in the sense of his old ancestors in Europe: <i>Oderint
+dum metuant</i>.”
+</p>
+<p>
+“We must purge from our soul the last fragments of the old ideal of a
+progressive development of humanity. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. The ideal of humanity can
+only be understood in its highest sense when it attains its highest and
+richest development in particular noble nations. These for the time
+being are the representatives of God’s thought on earth. Such were the
+Jews. Such were the Greeks. And the chosen people of these centuries is
+the German people. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Now we understand why other peoples pursue us
+with their hatred. They do not understand us, but they are sensible of
+our enormous spiritual superiority. So the Jews were hated in antiquity
+because they were the representatives of God on earth” (“The German
+Mind,” <i>Land and Water</i>, November 6, 1915).</p>
+
+<p>These passages are almost too good to be true, and give one some of the
+pleasure of the collector who finds a perfect specimen. Here we have
+the gusto in childish and banal metaphor, the conception of the brutal
+conqueror’s state as permanently blissful—the colonizing principle
+of Prussia—the naïve generalizations from history, the confident
+assumption of any characteristic which appears desirable in morals or
+religion, the impenetrable self-esteem, and I think we should add the
+intense and honest conviction.
+</p>
+<p>
+If we judge from the standpoint of our own feelings and ideals such
+utterances as these, we cannot ignore the maniacal note in them, and
+we seem forced to assume some actually lunatic condition in the German
+people. Indeed, this is a conclusion which Mr. Buchan in the article
+from which I quote does not hesitate definitely and persuasively to
+draw.
+</p>
+<p>
+When we remember, however, that the definition of insanity is
+necessarily a statistical one, that in the last analysis we can but
+say that a madman is a man who behaves differently from the great bulk
+of his neighbours, we find that to describe a nation as mad—true as
+it may be in a certain sense—leaves us without much addition to our
+knowledge. In so far, however, as it impresses upon us the fact that
+some of that nation’s mental processes are fundamentally different
+from our own it is a useful conception. The statesman will do well to
+carry the analysis a stage farther. The ravings of a maniac do not
+help us much in forecasting his behaviour, the howlings of a pack of
+wolves, equally irrational, equally harsh, even, in the original sense,
+equally lunatic, betray to us with whom we have to deal, betray their
+indispensable needs, their uncontrollable passions, the narrow path of
+instinct in which they are held, enable us to foresee, and,
+foreseeing, to lay our plans.</p></div>
+
+<p>It is important, however, not to judge the
+functional value of these phenomena of herd arrogance
+and herd irritability and convulsive rage from
+the point of view of nations of the socialized
+gregarious type such as ourselves. To us they would
+be disturbants of judgment, and have no corresponding
+emotional recompense. In the wolf pack,
+however, they are indigenous, and represent a normal
+mechanism for inciting national enthusiasm and
+unity. The wolf, whose existence depends on the
+daily exercise of pursuit and slaughter, cannot afford
+<span class="xxpn" id="p178">{178}</span>
+to be open to external appeals and criticisms, must
+be supremely convinced of his superiority and that
+whoever dies he must live, and must be easily stimulated
+to the murderous rages by which he wins
+his food.</p>
+
+<p>Another difficulty in the understanding of the
+German mind is its behaviour with regard to influencing
+non-German opinion. There can be no
+doubt that it desires intensely to create impressions
+<span class="xxpn" id="p179">{179}</span>
+favourable to itself, not merely for the sake of
+practical advantages in conducting the war, but also
+because of the desire for sympathy. In considering
+the latter motive it is important that one’s
+attention should not be too much attracted by the
+comic aspects of the searchings of heart, publicly
+indulged by Germans, as to why they are not
+regarded with a more general and sincere affection,
+and of the answers which they themselves have
+furnished to this portentous problem. That they
+are too modest, too true, too self-obliterating, too
+noble, too brave, and too kind are answers the
+psychological significance of which should not be
+altogether lost in laughter. That they are honest
+expressions of belief cannot be doubted; indeed,
+there is strong theoretical reason to accept them
+as such, when we remember the
+fabulous&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc18" href="#fn18">18</a> impenetrability
+of lupine herd suggestion. In default of
+such an explanation they seem to be utterly incomprehensible.</p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn18" href="#afnanc18">18</a>
+The use of this adjective may perhaps call to mind how
+often the wolf has appeared in fable in just this mood. Usually,
+however, the fabulist—being of the unsympathetic socialized type—has
+ascribed the poor creature’s yearnings to hypocrisy.</p></div>
+
+<p>In her negotiations with other peoples, and her
+estimates of national character, Germany shows the
+characteristic features of her psychological type in
+a remarkable way. It appears to be a principal
+thesis of hers that altruism is, for the purposes of
+the statesman, non-existent, or if it exists is an
+evidence of degeneracy and a source of weakness.
+The motives upon which a nation acts are, according
+to her, self-interest and fear, and in no particular
+has her “strangeness” been more fully shown than
+in the frank way in which she appeals to both,
+either alternately or together.</p>
+
+<p>This disbelief in altruism, and over-valuation of
+fear and self-interest, seem to be regarded by her
+<span class="xxpn" id="p180">{180}</span>
+as evidence of a fearless and thorough grasp of
+biological truth, and are often fondly referred to
+as “true German objectivity” or the German “sense
+for reality.” How grossly, in fact, they conflict with
+the biological theory of gregariousness is clear
+enough. It is interesting that the German negotiators
+have been almost uniformly unsuccessful in
+imposing their wishes on States in which the
+socialized type of gregariousness is highly developed—Italy,
+the United States—and have succeeded with
+barbarous peoples of the lupine type, with the Turk,
+whose “objectivity” and appetite for massacre
+remain ever fresh, patriarch among wolves as he is,
+with Bulgaria, the wolf of the second Balkan War.</p>
+
+<p>There is strong reason to believe that defective
+insight into the minds of others is one of the chief
+disadvantages of the aggressive as compared with
+the socialized type of gregariousness. This disadvantage
+is so great, and yet so deeply inherent,
+as to justify the belief that the type is the most
+primitive of those now surviving, and that its
+present resuscitation in man is a phenomenon which
+will prove to be no more than transient.</p>
+
+<p>It would be of little value to enumerate the well-known
+instances in which failure of insight, and
+ignorance of the psychology of the herd, has been
+misleading or disadvantageous to Germany. It is
+relevant, however, to note the superb illustration
+of psychological principle which is afforded by the
+relations of Germany to England during the last
+fifteen years. That England was the great obstacle
+to indefinite expansion was clearly understood by
+those whom the conception of a consciously directed
+and overwhelmingly powerful German Empire had
+inspired. I have tried to show how great a conception
+this was, how truly in the line of natural
+evolution, how it marks an epoch even on the biological
+scale. Unfortunately for Germany, her social
+<span class="xxpn" id="p181">{181}</span>
+type was already fixed, with such advantages and
+defects as it possessed, and amongst them the
+immense defect of the lupine attitude towards an
+enemy—the over-mastering temptation to intimidate
+him rather than to understand, and to accept the easy
+and dangerous suggestions of hostility in estimating
+his strength.</p>
+
+<p>There is in the whole of human history perhaps
+no more impressive example of the omnipotence
+of instinct than that which is afforded by the
+reactions of Germany towards England. An intelligent,
+educated, organized people, directed consciously
+towards a definite ambition, finds its path
+blocked by an enemy in chief. Surely there are
+two principles of action which should at once be
+adopted: first, to estimate with complete objectivity
+the true strength of the enemy, and to allow no
+national prejudice, no liking for pleasant prophesying
+to distort the truth, and secondly, to guard
+against exasperating the enemy, lest the inevitable
+conflict should ultimately be precipitated by her
+at her moment.</p>
+
+<p>Both these principles the instinctive impulsions
+to which Germany was liable compelled her to
+violate. She allowed herself to accept opinions
+of England’s strength, moral and physical, which
+were pleasant rather than true. She listened eagerly
+to political philosophers and historians—the most
+celebrated of whom was, by an ominous coincidence,
+deaf—who told her that the Empire of England
+was founded in fraud and perpetuated in feebleness,
+that it consisted of a mere loose congeries of disloyal
+peoples who would fly asunder at the first touch of
+“reality,” that it was rotten with insurgency, senile
+decay and satiety, and would not and could not
+fight. Even if these things had been a full statement
+of the case, they must have been dangerous
+doctrines. They were defective because the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p182">{182}</span>
+observers were unaware that they were studying
+different instinctive reactions from their own, and
+were, therefore, deaf to the notes which might have
+put them on their guard.</p>
+
+<p>At the same time, Germany allowed herself to
+indulge the equally pleasant expression of her
+hostility with a freedom apparently unrestrained by
+any knowledge that such indulgences cannot be
+enjoyed for nothing. She produced in this country
+a great deal of alarm, and a great deal of irritation,
+an effect she no doubt regarded as gratifying, but
+which made it quite certain that sooner or later
+England would recognize her implacable enemy,
+though, inarticulate as usual, she might not say
+much about it.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.&nbsp;.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Another feature of Germany’s social type, which
+has an important bearing on her moral strength,
+is the relation of the individual citizens to one
+another. The individual of the wolf pack is of
+necessity fierce, aggressive, and irritable, otherwise
+he cannot adequately fulfil his part in the major
+unit. Apparently it is beyond the power of Nature
+to confine the ferocity of the wolf solely to the
+external activities of the pack, as would obviously be
+in many ways advantageous, and to a certain extent
+therefore it affects the relations of members of
+the pack to one another. This is seen very well
+even in the habits of domesticated dogs, who are
+apt to show more or less suppressed suspicion and
+irritability towards one another even when well
+acquainted, an irritability moreover which is apt
+to blaze out into hostility on very slight provocation.</p>
+
+<p>Most external commentators on modern German
+life have called attention to the harshness which is
+apt to pervade social relations. They tell us of an
+atmosphere of fierce competition, of ruthless
+<span class="xxpn" id="p183">{183}</span>
+scandalmongering and espionage, of insistence upon minute
+distinctions of rank and title, of a rigid ceremonious
+politeness which obviously has little relation to
+courtesy, of a deliberate cultivation by superiors
+of a domineering harshness towards their inferiors,
+of habitual cruelty to animals, and indeed of the
+conscious, deliberate encouragement of harshness
+and hardness of manner and feeling as laudable
+evidences of virility. The statistics of crime, the
+manners of officials, the tone of newspapers, the
+ferocious discipline of the Army, and the general
+belief that personal honour is stained by endurance
+and purified by brutality are similar phenomena.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing in this category, however, is more
+illuminating than the treatment by Germany of
+colonies and conquered territories. To the English
+the normal method of treating a conquered country
+is to obliterate, as soon as possible, every trace
+of conquest, and to assimilate the inhabitants to
+the other citizens of the empire by every possible
+indulgence of liberty and self-government. It is,
+therefore, difficult for him to believe that the German
+actually likes to be reminded that a given province
+has been conquered, and is not unwilling that a
+certain amount of discontent and restiveness in the
+inhabitants should give him opportunities of forcibly
+exercising his dominion and resuscitating the glories
+of conquest. Although this fact has no doubt been
+demonstrated countless times, it was first displayed
+unmistakably to the world in the famous Zabern
+incident. Those who have studied the store of
+psychological material furnished by that affair, the
+trial and judgments which followed it, and the
+ultimate verdict of the people thereon, cannot fail
+to have reached the conclusion that here is exposed
+in a crucial experiment a people which is either
+totally incomprehensible, or is responding to the
+calls of herd instinct by a series of reactions almost
+<span class="xxpn" id="p184">{184}</span>
+totally different from those we regard as normal.
+When the biological key to the situation is discovered
+the series of events otherwise bizarre to
+the pitch of incredibility becomes not only intelligible
+and consistent, but also inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>The differences in instinctive social type between
+Germany and England are betrayed in many minor
+peculiarities of behaviour that cannot be examined
+or even enumerated here. Some of them are of
+little importance in themselves, though all of them
+are significant when the whole bulk of evidence
+to which they contribute a share is considered.
+Indeed, some of the less obviously important characteristics,
+by the very nicety with which they fulfil
+the conditions demanded by the biological necessities
+of the case, have a very special value as evidence
+in favour of the generalizations which I have
+suggested. I permit myself an illustration of this
+point. The use of war cries and shibboleths doubtless
+seems in itself an insignificant subject enough,
+yet I think an examination of it can be shown to
+lead directly to the very central facts of the
+international situation.</p>
+
+<p>Few phenomena have been more striking throughout
+the war than the way in which the German
+people have been able to take up certain cries—directed
+mostly against England—and bring them
+into hourly familiar and unanimous use. The phrase
+“God punish England!” seems actually to have
+attained a real and genuine currency, and to have
+been used by all classes and all ages as a greeting
+with a solemnity and gusto which are in no way the
+less genuine for being, to our unsympathetic eyes, so
+ludicrous. The famous “Hymn of Hate” had, no
+doubt, a popularity equally wide, and was used with
+a fervour which showed the same evidence of a
+mystic satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Attempts have been made to impose upon England
+<span class="xxpn" id="p185">{185}</span>
+similar watchwords with the object of keeping some
+of the direst events of the war before our eyes, and
+fortifying the intensity and scope of our horror.
+We have been adjured to “remember” Belgium,
+Louvain, the <i>Lusitania</i>, and latterly the name of
+an heroic and savagely murdered nurse. Horrible
+as has been the crime to which we have been
+recalled by each of these phrases, there has never
+been the slightest sign that the memory of it could
+acquire a general currency of quotation, and by that
+mechanism become a stronger factor in unity
+determination or endurance.</p>
+
+<p>An allied phenomenon which may perhaps be mentioned
+here is the difference in attitude of the
+German and the English soldier towards war songs.
+To the German the war song is a serious matter; it
+is for the most part a grave composition, exalted
+in feeling, and thrilling with the love of country;
+he is taught to sing it, and he sings it well, with
+obvious and touching sincerity and with equally
+obvious advantage to his morale.</p>
+
+<p>The attempt to introduce similar songs and a
+similar attitude towards them to the use of the
+English soldier has often been made, and exactly
+as often lamentably failed. On the whole it has
+been, perhaps, the most purely comic effort of the
+impulse to mimic Germany which has been in favour
+until of late with certain people of excellent aims
+but inadequate biological knowledge. The English
+soldier, consistently preferring the voice of Nature
+to that of the most eminent doctrinaire, has, to the
+scandal of his lyrical enemies, steadily drawn his
+inspiration from the music-hall and the gutter, or
+from his own rich store of flippant and ironic
+realism.</p>
+
+<p>The biological meaning of these peculiarities
+renders them intelligible and consistent with one
+another. The predaceous social animals in attack
+<span class="xxpn" id="p186">{186}</span>
+or pursuit are particularly sensitive to the encouragement
+afforded by one another’s voices. The pack
+gives tongue because of the functional value of the
+exercise, which is clearly of importance in keeping
+individuals in contact with one another, and in
+stimulating in each the due degree of aggressive
+rage. That serious and narrow passion tends
+naturally to concentrate itself upon some external
+object or quarry, which becomes by the very fact an
+object of hate to the exclusion of any other feeling,
+whether of sympathy, self-possession, or a sense of
+the ludicrous. The curious spectacle of Germans
+greeting one another with “God punish England!”
+and the appropriate response is therefore no accidental
+or meaningless phenomenon, but a manifestation
+of an instinctive necessity; and this explanation
+is confirmed by the immensely wide currency of the
+performance, and the almost simian gravity with
+which it could be carried out. It succeeded because
+it had a functional value, just as similar movements
+in England have failed because they have had no
+functional value, and could have none in a people of
+the socialized type, with whom unity depends on a
+different kind of bond.</p>
+
+<p>The wolf, then, is the father of the war song,
+and it is among peoples of the lupine type alone that
+the war song is used with real seriousness. Animals
+of the socialized type are not dependent for their
+morale upon the narrow intensities of aggressive
+rage. Towards such manifestations of it as concerted
+cries and war songs they feel no strong
+instinctive impulsion, and are therefore able to
+preserve a relatively objective attitude. Such
+cryings of the pack, seeming thus to be mere
+functionless automatisms, naturally enough come to
+be regarded as patently absurd.</p>
+
+<p>Examples of behaviour illustrating these deep
+differences of reaction are often to be met with in the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p187">{187}</span>
+stories of those who have described incidents of
+the war. It is recorded that German soldiers in
+trenches within hearing of the English, seeking to
+exasperate and appal the latter, have sung in an
+English version their fondly valued “Hymn of
+Hate.” Whereupon the English, eagerly listening
+and learning the words of the dreadful challenge,
+have petrified their enemies by repeating it with
+equal energy and gusto, dwelling no doubt with
+the appreciation of experts upon the curses of their
+native land.</p>
+
+<p>It would scarcely be possible to imagine a
+more significant demonstration of the psychological
+differences of the two social types.</p>
+
+<p>The peculiarities of a state of the wolfish type
+are admirably suited to conditions of aggression and
+conquest, and readily yield for those purposes a
+maximal output of moral strength. As long as such
+a nation is active and victorious in war, its moral
+resources cannot fail, and it will be capable of
+an indefinite amount of self-sacrifice, courage, and
+energy. Take away from it, however, the opportunities
+of continued aggression, interrupt the
+succession of victories by a few heavy defeats, and
+it must inevitably lose the perfection of its working
+as an engine of moral power. The ultimate and
+singular source of <i>inexhaustible</i> moral power in a
+gregarious unit is the perfection of communion
+amongst its individual members. As we have seen,
+this source is undeveloped in units of the aggressive
+type, and has been deliberately ignored by Germany.
+As soon, if ever, as she has to submit to a few unmistakable
+defeats in the field, as soon as, if it should
+happen, all outlets for fresh aggression are closed,
+she will become aware of how far she has staked
+her moral resources on continuous success, and will
+not be able for long to conceal her knowledge
+from the world.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p188">{188}</span></p>
+
+<p>That she herself has always been dimly aware
+of the nature of her strength—though not perhaps
+of her potential weakness—is shown by her steady
+insistence upon the necessity of aggression, upon
+maintaining the attack at whatever cost of life. This
+is a principle she has steadily acted upon throughout
+the war. It is exemplified by the whole series
+of terrible lunges at her enemies she has made. The
+strategic significance of these has, perhaps, become
+less as the moral necessity for them has become
+greater. France, Flanders, Russia, and the Balkans
+have in turn had to supply the moral food of victory
+and attack without which she would soon have
+starved. There is a quality at which the imagination
+cannot but be appalled in this fate of a great and
+wonderful nation, however much her alienation of
+herself from the instincts of mankind may have
+frozen the natural currents of pity. Panting with
+the exhaustion of her frightful blow at Russia, she
+must yet turn with who knows what weariness to
+yet another enterprise, in which to find the moral
+necessities which the Russian campaign was already
+ceasing to supply. It is to a similar mechanism that
+we must look to trace the ultimate source of the
+submarine and aircraft campaigns against England.
+Strategically, these proceedings may or may not
+have been regarded hopefully; possibly they were
+based on a definite military plan, though they do
+not to us have that appearance. Very probably
+they were expected to disorganize English morale.
+Behind them both, however, whether consciously or
+not, was the moral necessity to do something against
+England. This is indicated by the circumstances
+and the periods of the war at which they were
+seriously taken up. As both the submarine and
+the Zeppelin campaigns involve no great expenditure
+or dissipation of power, the fact that their
+value is moral rather than military, and concerned
+<span class="xxpn" id="p189">{189}</span>
+with the morale of their inventors rather than that
+of their victims, is chiefly of academic interest as
+throwing further light on the nature of Germany’s
+strength and weakness.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Its attitude towards discipline displays the German
+mind in a relation sufficiently instructive to merit
+some comment here. When Germany has been
+reproached with being contented to remain in what
+is, by comparison with other peoples, a condition
+of political infantilism, with allowing the personal
+liberty of her citizens to be restricted on all hands,
+and their political responsibility to be kept within
+the narrowest limits, the answer of the political
+theorists has generally contained two distinct and
+contradictory apologetic theses. It has been said
+that the German, recognizing the value of State
+organization, and that strict discipline is a necessary
+preliminary to it, consciously resigns the illusory
+privileges of the democrat in order to gain power,
+and submits to a kind of social contract which is
+unquestionably advantageous in the long run. The
+mere statement of such a proposition is enough to
+refute it, and we need give no further attention
+to an intellectualist fallacy so venerable and so
+completely inconsistent with experience. It is also
+said, however, that the German has a natural aptitude
+for discipline amounting to genius. In a sense
+a little less flattering than it is intended to have,
+this proposition is as true as that of the social contract
+is false. The aggressive social type lends
+itself naturally to discipline, and shows it in its
+grossest forms. The socialized type is, of course,
+capable of discipline, otherwise a State would be
+impossible, but the discipline that prevails in it is
+apt to become indirect, less harshly compulsory and
+more dependent on goodwill.</p>
+
+<p>It is perhaps natural that units within which
+<span class="xxpn" id="p190">{190}</span>
+ferocity and hardness are tolerated and encouraged
+should depend on a correspondingly savage method
+of enforcing their will. The flock of sheep has its
+shepherd, but the pack of hounds has its <i>Whips</i>.
+In human societies of the same type we should
+expect to find, therefore, a general acquiescence in
+the value of discipline, and a toleration of its enforcement,
+because, rather than in spite of, its being
+harsh. This seems to be the mechanism which
+underlies what is to the Englishman the mystery
+of German submission to direction and discipline.
+That an able-bodied soldier should submit to being
+lashed across the face by his officer for some trivial
+breach of etiquette—a type of incident common and
+well witnessed to—is evidence of a state of mind
+in <i>both</i> parties utterly incomprehensible to our feelings.
+The hypothesis I am suggesting would explain
+it by comparison with the only available similar
+phenomenon—the submission of a dog to a thrashing
+administered by his master. The dog illustrates
+very well that in a predaceous social animal
+the enforcement of a harsh and even brutal discipline
+is not only a possible but also a perfectly satisfactory
+procedure in the psychological sense. That
+other common victim of man’s brutality—the horse—provides
+an interesting complement to the proposition
+by showing that in a protectively social animal
+a savage enforcement of discipline is psychologically
+unsatisfactory. It seems justifiable, therefore, to
+conclude that the aggressive gregariousness of the
+Germans is the instinctive source of the marvellous
+discipline of their soldiers, and the contribution it
+makes to their amazing bravery. It must not be
+taken as any disrespect for that wonderful quality,
+but as a desire to penetrate as far as possible into
+its meaning, that compels one to point out that
+the theoretical considerations I have advanced are
+confirmed by the generally admitted dependence of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p191">{191}</span>
+the German soldier on his officers and the at least
+respectably attested liability he shows to the indulgence
+of an inhuman savagery towards any one who
+is not his master by suggestion or by force of arms.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">In the attempt I have made to get some insight
+into the German mind, and to define the meaning
+of its ideals, and needs, and impulses in biological
+terms, I have had to contend with the constant bias
+one has naturally been influenced by in discussing
+a people not only intensely hostile, but also animated
+by what I have tried to show is an alien type of
+the social habit. Nevertheless, there seem to be
+certain broad conclusions which may be usefully
+recalled in summary here as constituting reasonable
+probabilities. My purpose will have been
+effected if these are sufficiently consistent to afford
+a point of view slightly different from the customary
+one, and yielding some practical insight into the
+facts.</p>
+
+<p>Germany presents to the biological psychologist
+the remarkable paradox of being in the first place
+a State consciously directed towards a definite series
+of ideals and ambitions, and deliberately organized
+to obtain them, and in the second place a State in
+which prevails a primitive type of the gregarious
+instinct—the aggressive—a type which shows the
+closest resemblance in its needs, its ideals, and its
+reactions to the society of the wolf pack. Thus
+she displays, in one respect, what I have shown
+to be the summit of gregarious evolution, and in
+another its very antithesis—a type of society which
+has always been transient, and has failed to satisfy
+the needs of modern civilized man.</p>
+
+<p>When I compare German society with the wolf
+pack, and the feelings, desires, and impulses of the
+individual German with those of the wolf or dog,
+I am not intending to use a vague analogy, but
+<span class="xxpn" id="p192">{192}</span>
+to call attention to a real and gross identity. The
+aggressive social animal has a complete and consistent
+series of psychical reactions, which will necessarily
+be traceable in his feelings and his behaviour,
+whether he is a biped or a quadruped, a man or
+an insect. The psychical necessity that makes the
+wolf brave in a massed attack is the same as that
+which makes the German brave in a massed attack;
+the psychical necessity which makes the dog submit
+to the whip of his master and profit by it makes
+the German soldier submit to the lash of his officer
+and profit by it. The instinctive process which
+makes the dog among his fellows irritable, suspicious,
+ceremonious, sensitive about his honour, and
+immediately ready to fight for it is identical in
+the German and produces identical effects.</p>
+
+<p>The number and minuteness of the coincidences
+of behaviour between the German and other aggressive
+social species, the number and precision of
+the differences between the German and the other
+types of social animals make up together a body
+of evidence which is difficult to ignore.</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, we see Germany compelled to submit
+to disadvantages, consequent upon her social type,
+which, we may suppose, she would have avoided
+had they not been too deeply ingrained for even
+her thoroughness to remove. Thus she is unable
+to make or keep friends amongst nations of the
+socialized type; her instinctive valuation of fear
+as a compelling influence has allowed her to indulge
+the threatenings and warlike gestures which have
+alienated all the strong nations, and intimidated
+successfully only the weak—England, for example,
+is an enemy entirely of her own making; she
+has been forced to conduct the war on a plan
+of ceaseless and frightfully costly aggression,
+because her morale could have survived no other
+method.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p193">{193}</span></p>
+
+<p>The ultimate object of science is foresight. It
+may fairly be asked, therefore, supposing these
+speculations to have any scientific justification, what
+light do they throw on the future? It would be
+foolish to suppose that speculations so general can
+yield, in forecasting the future, a precision which
+they do not pretend to possess. Keeping, however,
+to the level of very general inference, two
+observations may be hazarded.</p>
+
+<p>First, the ultimate destiny of Germany cannot
+be regarded as very much in doubt. If we are
+content to look beyond this war, however it may
+issue, and take in a longer stretch of time, we can
+say with quite a reasonable degree of assurance
+that Germanic power, of the type we know and fear
+to-day, is impermanent. Germany has left the path
+of natural evolution, or rather, perhaps, has never
+found it. Unless, therefore, her civilization undergoes
+a radical change, and comes to be founded on
+a different series of instinctive impulses, it will
+disappear from the earth. All the advantages she
+has derived from conscious direction and organization
+will not avail to change her fate, because
+conscious direction is potent only when it works
+hand in hand with Nature, and its first task—which
+the directors of Germany have neglected—is to find
+out the path which man must follow.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, a word may be ventured about the
+war in so far as the consideration of Germany alone
+can guide us. As I have tried to show, her morale
+is more rigidly conditioned than that of her
+opponents. They have merely to maintain their
+resistance, to do which they have certain psychological
+advantages, and they must win. She must
+continue aggressive efforts, and if these can be held
+by her enemies—not more—she must go on galvanizing
+her weary nerves until they fail to respond. I
+am not for a moment venturing to suppose myself
+<span class="xxpn" id="p194">{194}</span>
+competent to give the slightest hint upon the conduct
+of the war; I am merely pointing out what I regard
+as a psychological fact. Whether it has any
+practical military value is not in my province to
+decide.</p>
+
+<p>If one claimed the liberty of all free men, to have
+over and above considered judgment a real guess,
+one would be inclined to venture the opinion
+that, however well things go with the enemies of
+Germany, there will not be much fighting on
+German soil.</p>
+
+<p>The proposition that the strength and weakness
+of Germany are rigidly conditioned by definite and
+ascertainable psychological necessities is, if it is
+valid, chiefly of interest to the strategist and those
+who are responsible for the general lines of the
+campaign against her. We may well, however, ask
+whether psychological principle yields any hint of
+guidance in the solution of the further and equally
+important problem of how her enemies are to secure
+and render permanent the fruits of the victory upon
+which they are resolved.</p>
+
+<p>This problem has already been the subject of a
+good deal of controversy, which is likely to increase
+as the matter comes more and more into the field of
+practical affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Two types of solution have been expounded which,
+apart from what inessential agreement they may
+show in demanding the resurrection of such small
+nations as Germany has been able to assassinate,
+differ profoundly in the treatment they propose for
+the actual enemy herself. Both profess to be based
+upon the desire for a really permanent peace, and the
+establishment of a truly stable equilibrium between
+the antagonists. It is upon the means by which this
+result is to be secured that differences arise.</p>
+
+<p>The official solution, and that almost universally
+accepted by the bulk of the people, insists that the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p195">{195}</span>
+“military domination of Prussia,” “German militarism,”
+or the “German military system” as it is
+variously phrased, must be wholly and finally
+destroyed. This doctrine has received many interpretations.
+In spite, however, of criticism by moderates
+on the one hand and by unpractically ferocious
+root-and-branch men on the other, it seems to
+remain—significantly enough—an expression of
+policy which the common man feels for the time to
+be adequate.</p>
+
+<p>The most considerable criticism has come from
+the small class of accomplished and intellectual
+writers who from their pacifist and “international”
+tendencies have to some extent been accused, no
+doubt falsely, of being pro-German in the sense
+of anti-English. The complaint of this school
+against the official declaration of policy is, that it
+does not disclose a sufficiently definite object or the
+means by which this object is to be attained. We
+are told that as a nation we do not know what we
+are fighting for, and, what amounts to the same
+thing, that we cannot attain the object we profess
+to pursue by the exercise of military force however
+drastically it may be applied. We are warned
+that we should seek a “reasonable” peace and
+one which by its moderation would have an
+educative effect upon the German people, that to
+crush and especially in any way to dismember the
+German Empire would confirm its people in their
+belief that this war is a war of aggression by
+envious neighbours, and make revenge a national
+aspiration.</p>
+
+<p>Such criticism has not always been very effectually
+answered, and the generally current feeling has
+proved disconcertingly inarticulate in the presence
+of its agile and well-equipped opponents. Indeed,
+upon the ordinary assumptions of political debate,
+it is doubtful whether any quite satisfactory answer
+<span class="xxpn" id="p196">{196}</span>
+can be produced. It is just, however, these very
+assumptions which must be abandoned and replaced
+by more appropriate psychological principles when
+we are trying to obtain light upon the relations of
+two peoples of profoundly different social type and
+instinctive reaction. The common man seems to
+be dimly aware of this difference though he cannot
+define it; the intellectual of what, for want of a
+better term, I may call the pacifist type in all its
+various grades, proceeds upon the assumption that
+no such difference exists. Much as one must respect
+the courage and capacity of many of these latter,
+one cannot but recognize that their conceptions,
+however logical and however ingenious, lack the
+invigorating contact with reality which the instinctive
+feelings of the common man have not altogether
+failed to attain.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now consider what guidance in the solution
+of the problem can be got from a consideration
+of the peculiarities of the social type which the
+Germans of the present day so characteristically
+present.</p>
+
+<p>Regarded from this point of view, the war is seen
+to be directed against a social type which, when
+endowed with the technical resources of modern
+civilization, is, and must continue to be, a dangerous
+anachronism. A people of the aggressive social
+habit can never be in a state of stable equilibrium
+with its neighbours. The constitution of its society
+presents a rigid barrier to smooth and continuous
+internal integration; its energy, therefore, must be
+occupied upon essentially, though not always superficially,
+external objects, and its history will necessarily
+be made up of alternating periods of
+aggression and periods of preparation. Such a
+people has no conception of the benign use of power.
+It must regard war as an end in itself, as the summit
+of its national activities, as the recurring apogee
+<span class="xxpn" id="p197">{197}</span>
+of its secular orbit; it must regard peace as a
+necessary and somewhat irksome preparation for war
+in which it may savour reminiscently the joys of
+conquest by dragooning its new territories and
+drastically imposing upon them its national type.
+This instinctive insistence upon uniformity makes
+every conquest by such a people an impoverishment
+of the human race, and makes the resistance of
+such aggression an elementary human duty.</p>
+
+<p>In every particular Germany has proved true to
+her social type, and every detail of her history for
+the last fifty years betrays the lupine quality of
+her ideals and her morals.</p>
+
+<p>We have seen that in all gregarious animals
+the social instinct must follow one of three principal
+types, each of which will produce a herd having
+special activities and reactions. The major units
+of the human species appear limited to a similar
+number of categories, but it is probable that
+the perpetuation of a given type in a given herd
+is not chiefly a matter of heredity in the individual.
+The individual is gregarious by inheritance;
+the type according to which his gregarious
+reactions are manifested is not inherited, but will
+depend upon the form current in the herd to which
+he belongs, and handed down in it from generation
+to generation. Thus it has happened that nations
+have been able in the course of their history to pass
+from the aggressive to the socialized type. The
+change has perhaps been rendered possible by the
+existence of class segregation of a not too rigid
+kind, and has doubtless depended upon a progressive
+intercommunication and the consequently
+developing altruism. The extremely rigid Prussian
+social system seems clearly to be associated with the
+persistence of the aggressive form of society.</p>
+
+<p>In considering the permanent deliverance of
+Europe from the elements in Germany for which
+<span class="xxpn" id="p198">{198}</span>
+there can be no possible toleration, we therefore
+have not to deal with characters which must be
+regarded as inherited in the biological sense. We
+have to deal rather with a group of reactions which,
+while owing their unity, coherence, and power to
+the inherited qualities of the gregarious mind, owe
+their perpetuation to organized State suggestion, to
+tradition, and to their past success as a national
+method.</p>
+
+<p>There can be no doubt that the success of the
+German Empire has consolidated the hold of the
+aggressive social type upon its people, and has
+guarded it from the eroding effects of increasing
+communication with other peoples and knowledge
+of the world. As I have already tried to show,
+the moral power of such peoples is intimately
+associated with the continuance of aggression and
+of success. The German Empire has had no experience
+of failure, and for this reason has been able
+to maintain its ideals and aspirations untouched by
+modern influences. It needs no psychological insight
+to foretell that if the result of this war can be in
+any way regarded as a success for Germany, she
+will be thereby confirmed in her present ideals,
+however great her sufferings may have been, and
+however complete her exhaustion. It must be remembered
+that this type of people is capable of
+interpreting facts in accordance with its prejudices
+to an almost incredible extent, as we have seen
+time and again in the course of the war. The
+proof that the aggressive national type is intolerable
+in modern Europe, if it can be afforded by
+force of arms, must therefore be made very plain,
+or it will have no value as a lesson. Proof of failure
+adequate to convince a people of the socialized type
+might be quite inadequate to convince a people
+of the lupine type in whom, from the nature of the
+case, mental resistiveness is so much more
+<span class="xxpn" id="p199">{199}</span>
+impenetrable. This is the psychological fact of which
+the statesmen of Europe will have to be, above
+all things, aware when questions of peace come
+seriously to be discussed, for otherwise they will
+risk the loss of all the blood and treasure which
+have been expended without any corresponding gain
+for civilization.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">We have
+been warned that to “humiliate” Germany
+will merely be to set her upon the preparation
+of vengeance, and to confirm her belief in the
+supreme value of military strength. This opinion
+affects to be based on a knowledge of human nature,
+but its pretensions are not very well founded. The
+passion of revenge is habitually over-estimated as
+a motive—possibly through the influence of the
+novelists and playwrights to whom it is so useful.
+When we examine man’s behaviour objectively we
+find that revenge, however deathless a passion it
+is vowed to be at emotional moments, is in actual
+life constantly having to give way to more urgent
+and more recent needs and feelings. Between
+nations there is no reason to suppose that it has
+any more reality as a motive of policy, though it
+perhaps has slightly more value as a consolatory
+pose.</p>
+
+<p>It is curious that the naïve over-estimation of
+the revenge ideal should have been uninfluenced by
+so obvious an example as the relations of France
+and Germany. In 1870 the former was “humiliated”
+with brutal completeness and every element
+of insult. She talked of revenge, as she could
+scarcely fail to do, but she soon showed that her
+grasp on reality was too firm to allow her policy
+to be moved by that childish passion. Characteristically,
+it was the victorious aggressor who believed
+in her longing for revenge, and who at length
+attacked her again.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p200">{200}</span></p>
+
+<p>A psychological hint of great value may be obtained
+from our knowledge of those animals whose
+gregariousness, like that of the Germans, is of the
+aggressive type. When it is thought necessary to
+correct a dog by corporal measures, it is found
+that the best effect is got by what is rather callously
+called a “sound” thrashing. The animal must
+be left in no doubt as to who is the master, and
+his punishment must not be diluted by hesitation,
+nervousness, or compunction on the part of the
+punisher. The experience then becomes one from
+which the dog is capable of learning, and if the
+sense of mastery conveyed to him is unmistakable,
+he can assimilate the lesson without reservation or
+the desire for revenge. However repulsive the idea
+may be to creatures of the socialized type, no sentimentalism
+and no pacifist theorizing can conceal
+the fact that the respect of a dog can be won by
+violence. If there is any truth in the view I have
+expressed that the moral reactions of Germany follow
+the gregarious type which is illustrated by the wolf
+and the dog, it follows that her respect is to be
+won by a thorough and drastic beating, and it is
+just that elementary respect for other nations, of
+which she is now entirely free, which it is the duty
+of Europe to teach her. If she is allowed to escape
+under conditions which in any way can be sophisticated
+into a victory, or, at any rate, not a defeat,
+she will continue to hate us as she continued to hate
+her victim France.</p>
+
+<p>To the politician, devoted as he necessarily is to
+the exclusively human point of view, it may seem
+fantastic and scandalous to look for help in international
+policy to the conduct of dogs. The gulf
+between the two fields is not perhaps so impassably
+profound as he would like to think, but, however
+that may be, the analogy I have drawn is not unsupported
+by evidence of a more respectable kind.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p201">{201}</span>
+The susceptibility of the individual German to a
+harsh and even brutally enforced discipline is well
+known. The common soldier submits to be beaten
+by his sergeant, and is the better soldier for it;
+both submit to the bullying of their officer
+apparently also with profit; the common student
+is scarcely less completely subject to his professor,
+and becomes thereby a model of scientific excellence;
+the common citizen submits to the commands
+of his superiors, however unreasonably
+conceived and insultingly conveyed, and becomes
+a model of disciplined behaviour; finally the head
+of the State, combining the most drastic methods
+of the sergeant, the professor, and the official, wins
+not merely a slavish respect, but a veritable apotheosis.</p>
+
+<p>Germany has shown unmistakably the way to her
+heart; it is for Europe to take it.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">E<b>NGLAND</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">AGAINST</span>
+ <span class="smcap">G<b>ERMANY—</b>E<b>NGLAND.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is one of the most impressive facts about the
+war, that while Germany is the very type of a
+perfected aggressive herd, England is perhaps the
+most complete example of a socialized herd.
+Corresponding with this biological difference is the
+striking difference in their history. Germany has
+modelled her soul upon the wolf’s, and has rushed
+through the possibilities of her archetype in fifty
+feverish years of development; already she is a
+finished product, her moral ideal is fulfilled and
+leaves her nothing to strive for except the imposition
+of it upon the world. England has taken as her
+model the bee, and still lags infinitely far behind
+the fulfilment of her ideal. In the unbroken security
+of her land, for near a thousand years, she has
+leisurely, perhaps lazily, and with infinite slowness,
+pursued her path towards a social integration of an
+<span class="xxpn" id="p202">{202}</span>
+ever closer and deeper kind. She has stolidly,
+even stupidly, and always in a grossly practical
+spirit, held herself to the task of shaping a society
+in which free men could live and yet be citizens.
+She has had no theory of herself, no consciousness of
+her destiny, no will to power. She has had almost
+no national heroes, and has always been constitutionally
+frigid to her great men, grudging them
+the material for their experimentations on her people,
+indifferent to their expositions of her duty and her
+imperial destiny, granting them a chance to die for
+her with no more encouragement than an impatient
+sigh. She has allowed an empire to be won for
+her by her restless younger sons, has shown no
+gratification in their conquests, and so far from
+thrilling with the exultation of the conqueror, has
+always at the earliest moment set her new dominions
+at work upon the problem in which her wholly
+unromantic absorption has never relaxed. And after
+a thousand years she seems as far as ever from
+her goal. Her society is irregular, disorganized,
+inco-ordinate, split into classes at war with one
+another, weighted at one end with poverty, squalor,
+ignorance, and disease, weighted at the other end
+by ignorance, prejudice, and corpulent self-satisfaction.
+Nevertheless, her patience is no more
+shaken by what she is lectured upon as failure
+than was her composure by what she was assured
+was imperial success. She is no less bound by
+her fate than is Germany, and must continue her
+path until she reaches its infinitely remoter goal.
+Nations may model themselves on her expedients,
+and found the architecture of their liberty on the
+tabernacles she has set up by the wayside to rest in
+for a night—she will continue on her road unconscious
+of herself or her greatness, absent-mindedly
+polite to genius, pleasantly tickled by prophets with
+very loud voices, but apt to go to sleep under
+<span class="xxpn" id="p203">{203}</span>
+sermons, too awkward to boast or bluster, too
+composed to seem strong, too dull to be flattered,
+too patient to be flurried, and withal inflexibly
+practical and indifferent to dreams.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">No more perfect illustration of the characteristics
+of the two nations could be found than their attitude
+before the war. England the empiric, dimly conscious
+of trouble, was puzzled, restless, and uneasy
+in the face of a problem she was threatened with
+some day having to study; Germany, the theorist,
+cool, “objective,” conscious of herself, was convinced
+there was no problem at all.</p>
+
+<p>In studying the mind of England in the spirit of
+the biological psychologist, it is necessary to keep
+in mind the society of the bee, just as in studying
+the German mind it was necessary to keep in mind
+the society of the wolf.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most striking phenomena which
+observers of the bee have noticed is the absence of
+any obvious means of direction or government in
+the hive. The queen seems to be valued merely
+for her functions, which are in no way directive.
+Decisions of policy of the greatest moment appear,
+as far as we can detect, to arise spontaneously among
+the workers, and whether the future is to prove
+them right or wrong, are carried out without protest
+or disagreement. This capacity for unanimous
+decisions is obviously connected with the limited
+mental development of the individual, as is shown
+by the fact that in man it is very much more feeble.
+In spite of this, the unanimity of the hive is wonderfully
+effective and surprisingly successful. Speculators
+upon the physiology and psychology of bees
+have been forced—very tentatively of course—to
+imagine that creatures living in such intensely close
+communion are able to communicate to one another,
+and, as it were, to a common stock, such extremely
+<span class="xxpn" id="p204">{204}</span>
+simple conceptions as they can be supposed to
+entertain, and produce, so to say, a communal mind
+which comes to have, at any rate in times of crisis,
+a quasi-independent existence. The conception is
+difficult to express in concrete terms, and even to
+grasp in more than an occasional intuitive flash.
+Whether we are to entertain such a conception or
+are to reject it, the fact remains that societies of
+a very closely communal habit are apt to give the
+appearance of being ruled by a kind of common
+mind—a veritable spirit of the hive—although no
+trace of any directive apparatus can be detected.</p>
+
+<p>A close study of England gives the impression of
+some agency comparable with a “spirit of the hive”
+being at work within it. The impression is not
+perhaps to be taken as altogether fantastic, when we
+remember how her insular station and her long
+history have forced upon her a physical seclusion
+and unity resembling, though of course far less
+complete than, that of the hive. I am of course not
+unaware that disquisitions upon the national spirit
+are very familiar to us. These, however, are so
+loosely conceived, so much concerned with purely
+conventional personifications of quite imaginary
+qualities, that I cannot regard them as referring
+to the phenomenon I am trying to describe.</p>
+
+<p>The conception in my mind is that of an old and
+isolated people, developing, by the slow mingling
+and attrition of their ideas, and needs, and impulses,
+a certain deeply lying unity which becomes a kind
+of “instinct” for national life, and gives to national
+policy, without the conscious knowledge of any
+individual citizen, without the direction of statesmen,
+and perhaps in spite of them all, a continuity of
+trend, and even an intelligence, by which events may
+be influenced in a profoundly important way.</p>
+
+<p>The making of some such assumption, helped as
+it is by the analogy of the bee, seems to be
+<span class="xxpn" id="p205">{205}</span>
+necessary when we consider at all objectively the history
+of England and her Empire. She has done so
+much without any leading, so much in spite of her
+ostensible leaders, so often a great policy or a
+successful stroke has been apparently accidental.
+So much of her work that seemed, while it was
+doing, to be local and narrow in conception and
+motive displays at a distance evidences of design on
+the great scale. Her contests with Philip of Spain,
+with Louis XIV, with Napoleon, and the foundation
+of her Colonial Empire, would seem to be the
+grandiose conceptions of some supreme genius did
+we not know how they were undertaken and in
+what spirit pursued.</p>
+
+<p>It appears, then, that England has something
+with which to retort upon the conscious direction
+to which Germany owes so much of her strength.
+Among the number of embattled principles and
+counter principles which this war has brought into
+the field, we must include as not the least interesting
+the duel between conscious national direction on the
+one side and unconscious national will and knowledge
+on the other.</p>
+
+<p>It is quite outside my province to touch upon
+the diplomatic events which led up to the war. They
+seem to me to be irrelevant to the biological type
+of analysis we are trying to pursue. There can be
+no doubt at all that the ordinary consciousness of
+the vast majority of citizens of this country was
+intensely averse from the idea of war. Those
+who were in general bellicose were for the
+moment decidedly out of influence. Can we
+suppose, however, that the deep, still spirit of
+the hive that whispers unrecognized in us all had
+failed to note that strange, gesticulating object across
+the North Sea? In its vast, simple memory would
+come up other objects that had gone on like that.
+It would remember a mailed fist that had been
+<span class="xxpn" id="p206">{206}</span>
+flourished across the Bay of Biscay three hundred
+years ago, a little man in shining armour who had
+strutted threateningly on the other shore of the
+Channel, and the other little man who had stood
+there among his armies, and rattled his sabre in
+the scabbard. It had marked them all down in their
+time, and it remembered the old vocabulary. It
+would turn wearily and a little impatiently to this
+new portent over the North Sea. .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. Wise with
+the experience of a thousand years, it would know
+when to strike.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Such deeply buried combined national impulses
+as we are here glancing at are far removed from
+the influence of pacifist or jingo. Any attempt to
+define them must be a matter of guesswork and
+groping, in which the element of speculation is
+far in excess of the element of ascertained fact. It
+seems, however, that, as in the case of the bee,
+they concern chiefly actual decisions of crucial
+matters of policy. To put this suggestion in another
+form, we might say the spirit of the people makes the
+great wars, but it leaves the statesman to conduct
+them. It may make, therefore, a decision of incredible
+profundity, launch the people on the necessary
+course at the necessary moment, and then leave
+them to flounder through the difficulties of their
+journey as best they can. Herein is the contrast
+it presents with the German resource of conscious
+direction—superficial, apt to blunder in all the larger,
+deeper matters of human nature, but constant, alert,
+and ingenious in making immediate use of every
+available means and penetrating every department
+of activity.</p>
+
+<p>During the conduct of war it is only in the
+simplest, broadest matters that the spirit of the people
+can bring its wisdom to bear. One of the most
+striking manifestations of it has, for example, been
+<span class="xxpn" id="p207">{207}</span>
+the way in which it has shown a knowledge that the
+war would be long and hard. The bad news has been,
+in general, received without complaint, reproach, or
+agitation, the good news, such as it has been, with
+a resolute determination not to exult or rejoice.
+That so many months of a deadly war have produced
+no <i>popular</i> expression of exultation or dismay
+is a substantial evidence of moral power, and not
+the less impressive for being so plainly the work
+of the common man himself.</p>
+
+<p>Such manifestations of the spirit of the people
+are rare, and meet with very little encouragement
+from those who have access to the public. It is
+astonishing how absent the gift of interpretation
+seems to be. A few, a very few, stand
+out as being able to catch those whispers of immemorial
+wisdom; many seem to be occupied in
+confusing them with a harsh and discordant
+clamour of speech.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">If we are correct in our analogy of the bee and
+the wolf, England has one great moral advantage
+over Germany, namely, that there is in the structure
+of her society no inherent obstacle to perfect unity
+among her people. The utmost unity Germany can
+compass is that of the aggressive type, which brings
+with it a harsh, non-altruistic relation among individuals,
+and can yield its full moral value only
+during the maintenance of successful attack. England,
+on the other hand, having followed the
+socialized type of gregariousness, is free to integrate
+her society to an indefinite extent. The
+development of the altruistic relation among her
+individuals lies in her natural path. Her system of
+social segregation is not necessarily a rigid one,
+and if she can bring about an adequate acceleration
+of the perfectly natural consolidation towards
+which she is, and has slowly been, tending, she will
+<span class="xxpn" id="p208">{208}</span>
+attain access to a store of moral power literally
+inexhaustible, and will reach a moral cohesion which
+no hardship can shake, and an endurance which
+no power on earth can overcome.</p>
+
+<p>These are no figures of speech, but plain biological
+fact, capable of immediate practical application
+and yielding an immediate result. It must
+be admitted that she has made little progress towards
+this consummation since the beginning of the
+war. Leaders, including not only governing politicians
+but also those who in any way have
+access to public notice, tend to enjoin a
+merely conventional unity, which is almost functionless
+in the promotion of moral strength. It is
+not much more than an agreement to say we are
+united; it produces no true unity of spirit and no
+power in the individual to deny himself the indulgence
+of his egoistic impulses in action and in
+speech, and is therefore as irritating as it is useless.
+It is unfortunate that the education and circumstances
+of many public men deny them any opportunity of
+learning the very elementary principles which are
+necessary for the development of a nation’s moral
+resources. Occasionally one or another catches
+an intuitive glimpse of some fragment of the
+required knowledge, but never enough to enable
+him to develop any effective influence. For the
+most part their impulses are as likely to be destructive
+of the desired effect as favourable to it.
+In the past England’s wars have always been conducted
+in an atmosphere of disunion, of acrimony,
+and of criticism designed to embarrass the Government
+rather than, as it professes, to strengthen the
+country. It is a testimony to the moral sturdiness
+of the people, and to the power and subtlety of the
+spirit of the hive, that success has been possible
+in such conditions. When one remembers how
+England has flourished on domestic discord in
+<span class="xxpn" id="p209">{209}</span>
+critical times, one is tempted to believe that she derives
+some mysterious power from such a state, and that
+the abolition of discord might not be for her the
+advantageous change it appears so evidently to be.
+Consideration, however, must show that this hypothesis
+is inadmissible, and that England has won
+through on these occasions in spite of the handicap
+discord has put upon her. In the present war,
+tough and hard as is her moral fibre, she will need
+every element of her power to avoid the weariness
+and enfeeblement that will otherwise come upon
+her before her task is done.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the months of warfare that have
+already passed no evidence has become public of
+any recognition that the moral power of a nation
+depends upon causes which can be identified, formulated,
+and controlled. It seems to be unknown
+that that domination of egoistic impulses by social
+impulses which we call a satisfactory morale is
+capable of direct cultivation as such, that by it the
+resources of the nation are made completely available
+to the nation’s leaders, that without it every
+demand upon the citizen is liable to be grudgingly
+met or altogether repudiated.</p>
+
+<p>We are told by physicians that uninstructed
+patients are apt to insist upon the relief of their
+symptoms, and to care nothing for the cure of
+their diseases, that a man will demand a bottle of
+medicine to stop the pain of an ulcer in his stomach,
+but will refuse to allow the examination that would
+establish the nature of his disease. The statesman
+embarrassed by the manifestations of an imperfect
+morale seems to incline to a similar method. When
+he finds he cannot get soldiers at the necessary rate,
+he would invent a remedy for that particular
+symptom. When he has difficulties in getting one
+or another industrial class to suspend its charters
+in the interests of the State, he must have a new
+<span class="xxpn" id="p210">{210}</span>
+and special nostrum for that. When he would relax
+the caution of the capitalist or restrain the wastefulness
+of the self-indulgent, again other remedies must
+be found. And so he passes from crisis to crisis,
+never knowing from moment to moment what trouble
+will break out next, harassed, it is to be supposed,
+by the doubt whether his stock of potions and pills
+will hold out, and how long their very moderate
+efficiency will continue.</p>
+
+<p>None of these troubles is a disease in itself; all
+are evidences of an imperfect national morale, and
+any attempt to deal with them that does not reach
+their common cause will necessarily therefore be
+unsatisfactory and impermanent.</p>
+
+<p>The sole basis of a satisfactory morale in a people
+of the social type that obtains in England is a true
+national unity, which is therefore the singular and
+complete remedy for all the civil difficulties incident
+upon a great and dangerous war.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">It is
+impossible to form any guess whether England
+will keep to her traditional methods or will
+depart so far from them as to take a bold and
+comprehensive view of her present and her growing
+moral needs. A carefully conceived and daringly
+carried out organization of a real national unity would
+have no great difficulty in a country so rich in
+practical genius; it would make an end once for
+all of every internal difficulty of the State, and
+would convert the nation into an engine of war
+which nothing could resist.</p>
+
+<p>The more probable and the characteristic event
+will be a mere continuation in the old way. It will
+exemplify our usual and often admirable enough
+contempt for theoretical considerations and dreams,
+our want of interest in knowledge and foresight,
+our willingness to take any risk rather than endure
+the horrid pains of thought.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p211">{211}</span></p>
+
+<p>When we remember how costly is our traditional
+method, how long and painful it makes the way,
+how doubtful it even makes the goal, it is impossible
+for the most philosophic to restrain a sigh for the
+needless suffering it entails, and a thrill of alarm
+for the dangers it gives our path, the darkness around
+us and ahead, the unimaginable end.</p>
+
+<hr class="hr34" />
+
+<p>To the student, the end of the chapter is a chance
+to turn from the study of detail and allow his mind
+to range through a larger atmosphere and over
+a longer sequence. Closing our small chapter, we
+also may look at large over the great expanse of the
+biological series in whose illimitable panorama the
+war that covers our nearer skies with its blood-red
+cloud is no bigger than a pin point. As we
+contemplate in imagination the first minute spot
+of living jelly that crept and hungered in the mud,
+we can see the interplay of its necessities and its
+powers already pushing it along the path at the end
+of which we stand. Inherent in the dot of magic
+substance that was no longer mere carbon, hydrogen,
+oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and a little phosphorus,
+was the capacity to combine with its fellows and to
+profit by the fellowship, however loose. In the
+slow process of time combination brought freedom
+which, just like ours, was freedom to vary and,
+varying, to specialize. So in time great States of
+cells grew up, their individual citizen cells specialized
+to the finest pitch, perfect in communion with one
+another, co-ordinate in all their activities, incorporated
+with the State.</p>
+
+<p>These new and splendid organizations, by the
+very fact of giving freedom to the individual cells,
+had lost it themselves. Still, they retained their
+capacity for combination, and where the need of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p212">{212}</span>
+freedom was greatest they found it again in a new
+combination on a bigger scale. Thus again was
+obtained freedom to vary, to specialize, to react.
+Over the world fellowships of all grades and almost
+all types of creatures sprang up. Specialization,
+communion, co-ordination again appeared on the new
+plane. It was as if Nature, to protect her children
+against herself, was trying to crowd as much living
+matter into one unit as she could. She had failed
+with her giant lizards, with the mammoth and the
+mastodon. She would try a new method which
+should dispense with gross physical aggregations,
+but should minister to the same needs and afford the
+same powers. The body should be left free, the
+mind alone should be incorporated in the new unit.
+The non-material nexus proved as efficient as the
+physical one had been. The flock, the herd, the
+pack, the swarm, new creatures all, flourished and
+ranged the world. Their power depended on the
+capacity for intercommunication amongst their
+members and expanded until the limits of this were
+reached. As long as intercommunication was limited
+the full possibilities of the new experiment were
+concealed, but at length appeared a creature in
+whom this capacity could develop indefinitely. At
+once a power of a new magnitude was manifest.
+Puny as were his individuals, man’s capacity for
+communication soon made him master of the world.
+The very quality, however, which gave him success
+introduced a new complication of his fate. His
+brain power allowed him to speak and understand
+and so to communicate and combine more effectively
+than any other animal; his brain power gave him
+individuality and egoism, and the possibility of
+varied reaction which enabled him to obey the voice
+of instinct after the fashion of his own heart. All
+combination therefore was irregular, inco-ordinate,
+and only very slowly progressive. He has even at
+<span class="xxpn" id="p213">{213}</span>
+times wandered into blind paths where the possibility
+of progressive combination is lost.</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the needs and capacities that were
+at work in the primeval amœba are at work in him.
+In his very flesh and bones is the impulse towards
+closer and closer union in larger and larger fellowships.
+To-day he is fighting his way towards that
+goal, fighting for the perfect unit which Nature has
+so long foreshadowed, in which there shall be a
+complete communion of its members, unobstructed
+by egoism or hatred, by harshness or arrogance or
+the wolfish lust for blood. That perfect unit will
+be a new creature, recognizable as a single entity;
+to its million-minded power and knowledge no
+barrier will be insurmountable, no gulf impassable,
+no task too great.</p>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p214">POSTSCRIPT OF 1919</h2>
+
+<h3><span class="smcap">P<b>REJUDICE</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">IN</span>
+ <span class="smcap">T<b>IME</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smcap">W<b>AR.</b></span></h3></div>
+
+<p class="pfirst">With the exception of the two preliminary essays,
+the foregoing chapters were written in the autumn
+of 1915. As the chief purpose of the book was to
+expound the conception that psychology is a science
+practically useful in actual affairs, it was inevitable
+that a great deal of the exemplary matter by
+which it was attempted to illustrate the theoretical
+discussion should be related to the war of 1914–1918.
+Rich, however, as this subject was in
+material with which to illustrate a psychological
+inquiry, it presented also the great difficulty of
+being surrounded and permeated by prejudices of
+the most deeply impassioned kind, prejudices, moreover,
+in one direction or another from which no
+inhabitant of one of the belligerent countries could
+have the least expectation of being free. To yield
+to the temptation offered by the psychological richness
+of war themes might thus be to sacrifice the
+detachment of mind and coolness of judgment without
+which scientific investigation is impossible. It
+had to be admitted, in fact, that there were strong
+grounds for such epistemological pessimism, and
+it will perhaps be useful in a broad way to define
+some of these here.</p>
+
+<p>In normal times a modern nation is made up of
+a society in which no regard is paid to moral
+unity, and in which therefore common feeling is to
+<span class="xxpn" id="p215">{215}</span>
+a great extent unorganized and inco-ordinate. In
+such a society the individual citizen cannot derive
+from the nation as a whole the full satisfaction
+of the needs special to him as a gregarious animal.
+The national feeling he experiences when at home
+among his fellows is too vague and remote to
+call forth the sense of moral vigour and security
+that his nature demands. As has already been
+pointed
+out&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc19" href="#fn19">19</a> the necessary consequence is the
+segregation of society into innumerable minor
+groups, each constituting in itself a small herd,
+and dispensing to its members the moral energy
+that in a fully organized society would come from
+the nation as a whole. Of such minor herds some
+are much more distinct from the common body than
+others. Some engage a part only of the life of
+their members, so that the individual citizen may
+belong to a number of groups and derive such
+moral energy as he possesses from a variety of
+sources. Thus in a fully segregated society in
+time of peace the moral support of the citizen
+comes from his social class and his immediate circle,
+his professional associations, his church, his chapel,
+his trade union and his clubs, rather than directly
+from the nation in which he is a unit. Indeed,
+so far from looking to the nation at large for the
+fulfilment of its natural function of providing “all
+hope, all sustainment, all reward,” he is apt to regard
+it as embodied by the tax-gatherer, the policeman,
+and the bureaucrat, at its best remote and indifferent,
+at its worst hostile and oppressive.</p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn19" href="#afnanc19">19</a>
+Pp. <a href="#p137">137</a>,
+<a href="#p138">138</a> <i>supra</i>.</p></div>
+
+<p>The more distinct of these intra-national groups
+may not only be very fully isolated from the common
+body, but may be the seat of an actual corporate
+hostility to it, or rather to the aggregated minor
+groups which have come officially to represent it.
+When war breaks upon a society thus constituted
+<span class="xxpn" id="p216">{216}</span>
+the intense stimulation of herd instinct that results
+tends to break down the moral restrictions set up
+by segregation, to throw back the individual citizen
+on to the nation at large for the satisfaction of
+his moral needs, and to replace class feeling by
+national feeling. The apprehended danger of the
+given war is the measure of the completeness with
+which occurs such a solution of minor groups into
+the national body. The extent of such solution
+and the consequently increased homogeneity it
+effects in the nation will determine the extent to
+which national feeling develops, the degree to which
+it approaches unanimity, and consequently the vigour
+with which the war is defended and conducted.
+If a minor group has already developed a certain
+hostility to the common body and resists the solvent
+effect of the outbreak of war, it becomes a potential
+source of anti-national feeling and of opposition to the
+national policy. Surrounded as it necessarily will be
+by an atmosphere of hostility, its character as a herd
+becomes hardened and invigorated, and it can endow
+its members with all the gifts of moral vigour and
+resistiveness a herd can give. Thus we may say,
+that in a country at war <i>every</i> citizen is exposed
+to the extremely powerful stimulation of herd instinct
+characteristic of that state. In the individual who
+follows in feeling the general body of his fellows,
+and in him who belongs to a dissentient minority,
+the reactions peculiar to the gregarious animal will
+be energetically manifested. Of such reactions, that
+which interests us particularly at the moment is
+the moulding of opinion in accordance with instinctive
+pressure, and we arrive at the conclusion that
+our citizen of the majority is no more—if no less—liable
+to the distortion of opinion than our citizen
+of the minority. Whence we conclude that in a
+country at war <i>all</i> opinion is necessarily more or
+less subject to prejudice, and that this liability to
+<span class="xxpn" id="p217">{217}</span>
+bias is a herd mechanism, and owes its vigour to
+that potent instinct.</p>
+
+<p>It is undoubtedly depressing to have to recognize
+this universality of prejudice and to have to abandon
+the opinion sometimes held that the characteristics
+of herd belief are limited to the judgments of the
+vulgar. The selectness of a minority in no way
+guarantees it against the fallacies of the mob. A
+minority sufficiently unpopular is, in a sense, a mob
+in which smallness is compensated for by density.
+The moral vigour and fortitude which unpopular
+minorities enjoy are evidences of herd instinct in
+vigorous action; the less admirable liability to
+prejudice being a part of the same instinctive
+process is a necessary accompaniment. We may
+lay it down, then, as fundamental that all opinion
+among the members of a nation at war is liable
+to prejudice, and when we remember with what
+vehemence such opinion is pronounced and with
+what fortitude it is defended we may regard as
+at least highly probable that such opinion always
+actually is prejudiced—rests, that is to say, on
+instinct rather than reason. Now, it is common
+knowledge that in the present state of society
+opinion in a given country is always divided as to
+the justice of an actual war. All of it sharing the
+common characteristic of war opinion in being
+prejudiced, some will pronounce more or less clearly
+that the war is just and necessary, some will
+pronounce more or less clearly against that view;
+there will be a division into what we may call
+pro-national and anti-national currents of opinion,
+each accompanied respectively by its counterpart
+of what we may call anti-hostile and pro-hostile
+opinion. It is a significant fact that the relative
+development of pro-national and anti-national
+feeling varies according to the degree in which
+the given war is apprehended as dangerous. A
+<span class="xxpn" id="p218">{218}</span>
+war apprehended as dangerous produces a more
+complete solution of the minor herds of society
+into the common body than does a war not so
+regarded; in consequence there is a nearer
+approach to homogeneity, and pro-national opinion
+is far in excess of anti-national opinion, which, if
+recognizable, is confined to insignificant minorities.
+A war regarded as not dangerous produces a less
+complete solution in the common body, a less degree
+of homogeneity, and allows anti-national opinion,
+that is, doubt of the justice of the war and opposition
+to the national policy, to develop on a large
+scale. These phenomena have been clearly visible
+in the history of recent wars. The South African
+War of 1899–1902 was not apprehended as
+dangerous in this country, and in consequence,
+though pro-national opinion prevailed among the
+majority, anti-national opinion was current in a
+large and respectable minority. The war of 1914–1918,
+regarded from the first as of the greatest
+gravity, gave to pro-national opinion an enormous
+preponderance, and restricted anti-national opinion
+within very narrow limits. The Russo-Japanese
+War provided an excellent double illustration of
+these mechanisms. On the Russian side regarded as
+not dangerous, it left national opinion greatly
+divided, and made the conduct of the war confused
+and languid; on the Japanese side apprehended
+as highly dangerous, it produced an enormous preponderance
+of pro-national opinion, and made the
+conduct of the war correspondingly vigorous. In
+the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 a further
+point is illustrated. The essential factor in the
+stimulation of herd instinct by war is not the actual
+danger of a given war, but the apprehended danger
+of it. The Prussians were dangerous enough to
+France, but were not generally regarded as such
+by the French, and in consequence national
+<span class="xxpn" id="p219">{219}</span>
+homogeneity did not develop as it did on a later occasion
+in face of the same menace.</p>
+
+<p>If pro-national and anti-national opinion, if belief
+and doubt in the justice of a given war, vary in
+relation to a single predominantly important psychological
+factor—the apprehended danger to the nation
+of the war in question—it is obvious that the
+ostensible and proclaimed grounds upon which such
+opinion is founded are less decisive than is
+commonly supposed. Finding, as we do, that
+the way in which a people responds to the outbreak
+of war depends certainly in the main and
+probably altogether on a condition not necessarily
+dependent on the causes of the war, it is obvious
+that the moral justifications which are usually
+regarded as so important in determining the people’s
+response are in fact comparatively insignificant.
+This conclusion agrees with the observed fact that
+no nation at war ever lacks the conviction that its
+cause is just. In the war of 1914–1918 each of
+the belligerents was animated by a passion of
+certainty that its participation was unavoidable and
+its purpose good and noble; each side defended
+its cause with arguments perfectly convincing and
+unanswerable to itself and wholly without effect on
+the enemy. Such passion, such certitude, such
+impenetrability were obviously products of something
+other than reason, and do not in themselves
+and directly give us any information as to the
+objective realities of the distribution of justice
+between the two sides. The sense of rectitude is
+in fact and manifestly a product of mere belligerency,
+and one which a nation at war may confidently
+expect to possess, no matter how nefarious its
+objects may ultimately appear to be in the eyes
+of general justice. The fact that such a sense of
+rectitude is a universal and inevitable accompaniment
+of war, and as strong in a predatory and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p220">{220}</span>
+criminal belligerent as in a generally pacific one,
+gives us a convenient measure of the extent to
+which prejudice must prevail in
+warfare.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc20" href="#fn20">20</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn20" href="#afnanc20">20</a>
+It is important that it should be quite clear that we have
+been speaking here of the reaction of the general body of a nation to
+the occurrence of war, and not of the reasons for which a given war was
+undertaken. In England and in Germany the feeling of the people that
+the late war was just and necessary was equally intense and equally a
+direct consequence of the danger to the herd it represented. It was
+therefore a non-rational instinctive response without reference to
+objective justice in either case. Had the threat to the herd on either
+side seemed less grave, opinion as to the justice of the war would in
+that country have been correspondingly more divided. By her calculated
+truculence in the years before the war Germany—intending doubtless to
+intimidate a decaying people—had made it certain that when the threat
+to this country did come it should be apprehended at once as dangerous
+to the last degree, and had thus herself organized the practical
+unanimity of her chief enemy. All such reactions upon the outbreak of
+war are instinctively determined. It is the burden of the statesman
+that his decision in a crisis in favour of war <i>automatically</i> renders
+impossible <i>rational</i> confirmation by the people.</p></div>
+
+<p>We thus arrive at the discouraging conclusion
+that in a belligerent country all opinion in any
+way connected with the war is subject to prejudice,
+either pro-national or anti-national, and is very
+likely in consequence to be of impaired validity.
+Must we then conclude further that speculation upon
+war themes is so liable to distortion that reasoned
+judgments of any practical value are impossible?
+Now, it is guidance in just such a difficulty as
+this that a psychology having any pretensions to
+be called practical may fairly be expected to yield,
+and psychology does in fact provide certain broad
+precautionary principles, which, although by no
+means infallible guides, do profess to be able to
+keep within bounds the disturbing effects of
+prejudice on judgment and so render possible the
+not wholly unprofitable discussion even of matters
+the most deeply implicated by war-time passion.</p>
+
+<p>First among such principles is the recognition of
+the fact that prejudice does not display itself as
+such to direct introspection. One who is being
+<span class="xxpn" id="p221">{221}</span>
+influenced by prejudice will never be able to detect
+his biassed judgments by an apparent defect in
+their plausibility or by any characteristic logical
+weakness. Agreement or disagreement with common
+opinion will as such be no help, since prejudice
+infests minorities no less than majorities. To
+suppose that when one has admitted the liability
+to prejudice one can free oneself from it by a
+direct voluntary effort is a common belief and an
+entirely fallacious one. Such a task is far beyond
+the powers of the most fully instructed mind, and
+is not likely to be undertaken except by those who
+have least chance of success. Prejudice, in fact,
+is for the individual like the ether of the physicist,
+infinitely pervasive and potent, but insusceptible of
+direct detection; its presence is to be assumed as
+general, but it escapes before immediate search by
+introspection as the ether eludes the balance and the
+test-tube.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, it is possible for the investigator,
+having admitted the existence of prejudice as a
+condition of thought, to recognize the general direction
+of its action in his own mind, to recognize,
+that is to say, whether the tone of it is pro-national
+or anti-national, and thus to obtain a certain orientation
+for his efforts to neutralize it. Having frankly
+recognized this general tendency in his thinking,
+he will be able to do something towards correcting
+it by making allowance for it in his conclusion
+as a whole. If his tendency of feeling is pro-national,
+he will say to himself of any judgment
+favourable to his country, “This is a conclusion
+likely to have been influenced by prejudice, therefore
+for all the precautions I may have taken in
+forming it, and whatever scientific care and caution
+I may have used, in spite even of its agreeable
+appearance of self-evident truth, I must regard its
+validity as subject to some subtraction before it
+<span class="xxpn" id="p222">{222}</span>
+can safely be made the basis for further speculation.”
+If his tendency of feeling is anti-national,
+he will have a similar task of attenuation to carry
+out upon the conclusions unfavourable to his country
+that he may reach, and will be prudent to make
+very drastic deductions in view of the supposed
+immunity to prejudice with which minorities are
+rather apt to assume the absence of vulgar approval
+endows
+them.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc21" href="#fn21">21</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn21" href="#afnanc21">21</a>
+It is perhaps of interest to note in passing that war-time opinion
+and prejudice are characteristically pro-national and anti-national,
+rather than anti-hostile and pro-hostile respectively. The impulse that
+might have led an isolated German to defend the English at the
+expense of his countrymen, or an isolated Englishman to defend the
+Germans at the expense of his countrymen, was in its psychological
+essence anti-national and animated by no love of the enemy; it was
+an instinctive revolt against his country, or rather the groups which
+in the process of social segregation had come to represent it. Such
+terms, therefore, as pro-German, and in another association pro-Boer,
+though doubtless convenient implements of abuse, were inexactly
+descriptive psychologically. “Anti-English” would have been more
+just, but immensely less effective, as vituperation, for the prejudice it
+was desired to decry was for the most part a hostility not to the nation,
+but to its official embodiment. Probably, however, it was the very
+element of injustice in the term pro-German that made it so
+satisfactory a vehicle for exasperated feeling.</p></div>
+
+<p>Finally, one who attempts to deal usefully with
+matters in which strong feeling is inevitable will
+do well, however thoroughly he may try to guard
+himself from the effects of prejudice, to bring his
+speculative conclusions into such form that they
+are automatically tested by the progress of events.
+Symmetry and internal consistency are unfortunately
+but too often accepted as evidences of objective
+validity. That the items of a series of conclusions
+fit into one another neatly and compose a system
+logically sound and attractive to the intellect gives
+us practically no information of their truth. For
+this a frequently repeated contact with external
+reality is necessary, and of such contacts the most
+thoroughly satisfactory one is the power to foretell
+the course of events. Foresight is the supreme
+<span class="xxpn" id="p223">{223}</span>
+test of scientific validity, and the more a line of
+argument is liable to deflection by non-rational
+processes the more urgent is the need for it constantly
+to be put into forms which will allow its
+capacity for foresight to be tested. This was the
+one great advantage amongst heavy handicaps
+enjoyed by those who ventured into speculation
+upon the international situation during the late war.
+Events were moving so quickly from crisis to crisis
+that it was possible for the psychologist to see
+his judgments confirmed or corrected almost from
+day to day, to see in the authentic fabric of reality
+as it left the loom where he had had any kind
+of foreknowledge, where he had been altogether
+unprepared, and where he had failed in foresight
+of some development that should have been within
+his powers.</p>
+
+<p>These three principles were those in accordance
+with which it was attempted to conduct the discussion
+in this book of topics connected with the
+war. The writer was aware that neither was he
+by nature or art immune to prejudice nor able
+by some miracle of will power to lay down passion
+when he took up the pen, and he admitted to
+himself with what frankness he could command
+the liability under which his conclusions would lie
+of having been arrived at under the influence of
+pro-national prejudice. He hoped, however, that
+a liberal allowance for the direction of his instinctive
+bias and a grateful use of the diurnal corrective
+of events might enable him to reach at any rate
+some conclusions not altogether without a useful
+tincture of validity.</p>
+
+<p>It was possible, moreover, to put certain conclusions
+in a form which the development of the
+war must confirm or disprove, and it may be interesting
+as a test of what was put forward as an
+essay in an essentially practical psychology briefly
+<span class="xxpn" id="p224">{224}</span>
+to review these theoretical anticipations in the light
+of what actually has happened.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGICAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">A<b>NTICIPATIONS</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>The hypothesis was put forward that in the
+German people the reactions in which the herd
+instinct was manifesting itself were in accordance
+with the type to be seen in the predaceous social
+animals rather than the type which seems to be
+characteristic of modern Western civilizations. The
+next step was naturally to inquire whether the known
+characters of what we called aggressive gregariousness
+were able to account for the observed German
+peculiarities in reaction, and then to indicate what
+special features we might expect to appear in
+Germany under the developing stress of war if
+our hypothesis was sound.</p>
+
+<p>Under the guidance of the hypothesis we found
+reason to believe that the morale of the German
+people was of a special kind, and essentially dependent
+for the remarkable vigour it then showed upon
+the possibility of continued successful aggression.
+This suggestion was borne out by the long series
+of offensive movements, increasing in weight and
+culminating in the spring of 1918, in the great
+attacks on which Germany broke herself. From
+the way in which these movements were announced
+and expected it became evident that during an
+enforced defensive the morale of Germany declined
+more rapidly than did that of her opponents. This
+was the essential confirmation of the psychological
+view we had put forward. Apart from all question
+of the strategic and merely military advantages of
+the offensive it was plain that Germany’s moral need
+for the posture of attack was peculiarly and characteristically
+great. That she continually and convincedly—though
+perhaps injudiciously—declared the
+war to be one of defence only, that she had
+<span class="xxpn" id="p225">{225}</span>
+everything to hope from disunion among her enemies
+and little to fear from disunion among her friends,
+that she was in assured possession of the most
+important industrial districts of France, that she
+had successfully brought into something like
+equilibrium the resistance to the effects of the
+blockade, and had proved like her animal prototypes
+only to be more fierce and eager when she
+was hungry—all of these strong objective reasons
+for fighting a defensive delaying war were over-whelmed
+by the crucially important requirement of
+keeping the aggressive spirit strung up to the highest
+pitch. The fighting spirit must be that of attack
+and conquest, or it would break altogether. Our
+hypothesis, therefore, enabled us to foresee that she
+would have to go on torturing her declining frame
+with one great effort after another until she had
+fought herself to a standstill, and then, if her enemies
+but just succeeded in holding her, her morale would
+begin to decline, and to decline with terrible abruptness.
+We were even able to regard it as probable
+that for all the talk of the war on the German
+side being defensive only, for all the passionate
+devotion to the Fatherland and the profound belief
+in the sanctity of its frontiers, as a matter of cold
+and dry reality, if it came to invasion, Germany
+would not be defended by its inhabitants.</p>
+
+<p>Another subject upon which the psychological
+method of inquiry professed to yield some degree
+of foresight was that—at that time—fruitful cause
+of discussion, the objects for which the enemies
+of Germany were fighting. Opinion at that time
+was much ruled by the conception of a Germany
+gradually forced back upon and beyond her
+frontiers, grim, implacable, irreconcilable, her
+national spirit energized and made resilient by
+humiliation, and clinging unconquerably to the
+thought of a resurrection of her glory through the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p226">{226}</span>
+faith of her sons. Under the influence of ideas of
+this romantic type, it was not always possible for
+opinion to be very precise upon what was to be
+made the object of the war in order to secure from
+Germany the safety of the civilizations opposed to
+hers. Psychologically, however, the moral condition
+of a beaten Germany seemed relatively easy
+to foretell. If the behaviour of other predaceous
+types was of any value as a guide, it was plain
+that a sound beating alone and in itself would
+produce all the effect that was needful. There
+could be no fear of the national morale being
+invigorated by defeat, but an enemy successfully
+invading Germany would necessarily find the one
+essential condition on which any subsequent security
+must be set up—the replacement of the aggressive
+and predaceous morale by complete moral
+collapse. These were the considerations that
+enabled one to say that considered psychologically
+the mere beating of Germany was the single object
+of the war. The completeness of the moral
+collapse which accompanied her beating seems to
+have been found remarkable and astonishing by
+very many, but can have been so only to those who
+had not interested themselves in the psychological
+aspects of the problem.</p>
+
+<p>In stating, in 1915, these conclusions as to the
+social type and moral structure of Germany and
+in formulating the indications they seemed to give
+of the course of future events, it was necessary to
+make considerable deductions from the precision
+and detail with which one made one’s small efforts
+at foresight in order to allow for the effects one’s
+pro-national bias may have had in deflecting judgment.
+Enough, however, was stated definitely to
+enable the progress of events very clearly to confirm
+or disprove the conclusions arrived at. The
+not inconsiderable correspondences between the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p227">{227}</span>
+theoretical considerations and the actual development
+of events is perhaps enough to suggest that the
+method of speculation used has a certain validity.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">In considering the psychological case of England
+we came to the conclusion that her morale depended
+on mechanisms different from those which were
+in action in Germany, and indicating that social
+development had in her followed a different type.
+We saw reason to suppose that this social type
+would be very much more resistant to discouragement
+and disaster than the aggressive type embodied
+in Germany, and that if England won the war it
+would be by virtue of the toughness of her nerve.
+The form of social organization represented by
+England was seen to contain a germ of strength
+not possessed by her enemy, an intensely resistant
+nucleus of moral power that underlay the immeasurable
+waste and the inextricable confusion of her
+methods. If the moral structure of Germany was
+of its kind fully developed, it was also primitive;
+if the moral structure of England was embryonic,
+it was also integrative and still capable of growth.
+If it was very obvious at that time how immensely
+responsive to intelligent and conscious direction the
+moral powers of England would have been, if it
+was obvious how largely such direction would have
+diminished the total cost of the war in time and
+suffering, if it was obvious that such direction would
+not, and almost certainly could not, be forthcoming,
+it was equally clear that the muddle, the mediocrity,
+the vociferation with which the war was being conducted
+were phenomena within the normal of the
+type and evolutionary stage of our society, and were
+not much more than froth on the surface of an
+invisible and unsounded stream.</p>
+
+<p>If one had been content to estimate the moral
+condition of England at that time by the utterance of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p228">{228}</span>
+all ordinary organs of expression—public speeches,
+leading articles and so forth—one could scarcely
+have failed to reach the gloomiest conclusions. So
+common were ill-will, acrimony, suspicion and
+intrigue, so often was apparent self-possession mere
+languor, and apparent energy mere querulousness,
+so strong, in fact, were all the ordinary evidences
+of moral disintegration that an actual collapse might
+have seemed almost within sight. As a matter
+of fact, from the very necessities of her social type,
+in England the organs of public expression were
+characteristically not representative of the national
+mood; probably far less than were those of Germany
+representative of the German mood. Thus it came
+about that the actual driving force—the will of
+the common man, as inflexible as it was inarticulate—remained
+intact behind all the ambiguous manifestations
+which went forth as the voice of England.
+This is the psychological secret of the socialized
+type of gregarious animal. As evolved in England
+to-day, this type cannot attain to the conscious
+direction of its destiny, and cannot submit to the
+fertilizing discipline of science; it cannot select its
+agents or justly estimate their capacity, but it
+possesses the power of evolving under pressure a
+common purpose of great stability. Such a common
+purpose is necessarily simple, direct, and barely
+conscious; high-flown imperialism and elaborate
+policies are altogether beyond its range, and it can
+scarcely accomplish an intellectual process more
+complex than the recognition of an enemy. The
+conviction that the hostility between England and
+Germany was absolute and irreconcilable, and the
+war a matter of national life and death, was just
+such a primitive judgment as could be arrived at,
+and it gave rise to a common purpose as stable
+as it was
+simple.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc22" href="#fn22">22</a>
+<span class="xxpn" id="p229">{229}</span></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn22" href="#afnanc22">22</a>
+There can be little doubt that national consciousness with
+regard to the war was very much less developed in this country than
+in Germany. The theory of his country’s purpose in the war was
+far less a matter of interest and speculation to the average Englishman
+than it was to the average German. The German was far more fully aware
+of the relation the situation bore to general politics and to history,
+and was much more preoccupied with the defence of his country’s case
+by rational methods and accepted principles, and he displayed from
+the first great faith in the value of a propaganda which should
+appeal to reason. Clumsy and futile as so much of this intellectual
+effort was ultimately seen to be, it did show that the interest in
+national affairs was more conscious and elaborate, and stood from the
+intellectual point of view at a higher level than it did in England.</p></div>
+
+<p>The relatively complex national consciousness that
+is necessary to evolve a positive movement of
+national expansion or a definite policy of colonization
+and aggrandisement seems to be hostile to
+the development of a common purpose of the most
+powerful kind. Thus we find moral vigour and
+stability attaining their greatest strength in a nation
+that has no definite theory of its destiny, and that
+is content to allow confusion of thought and vagueness
+of aim to be common and even characteristic
+in its public life. In such a people national consciousness
+is of the most elementary kind, and
+only the simplest conceptions can be effectively
+apprehended by it. Negative judgments are in
+general simpler than positive ones, and the simplest
+of all, perhaps, is the identification of an enemy.
+The history of England seems to show with remarkable
+constancy that the national consciousness has
+been in its most effective action limited to those
+elementary conceptions which have been simple and
+broad enough to manifest themselves in a common
+purpose of great strength and tenacity. England
+has, in fact, been made by her enemies. Rightly or
+wrongly, Philip of Spain, Louis XIV, Napoleon,
+Germany, impressed themselves on the elementary
+consciousness of England as enemies, and excited
+in response a unity of purpose that was characteristically
+as immune from the effects of discouragement,
+disaster and fatigue as it was independent of
+reasoned political theory.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p230">{230}</span></p>
+
+<p>Each of these enemies, in contrast with England,
+had the definite consciousness of a more or less
+elaborate political aim, and some of them embodied
+principles or methods in advance of those which
+obtained in England in corresponding fields.
+Whatever loftiness of aim they had availed them
+no more than their respect for principle and the
+intellect, and they all came to regret the mostly
+inadvertent effect of their pretensions in exciting
+the hostility of a people capable of an essential
+moral cohesion. The power of England would
+seem to have resided almost exclusively in this
+capacity for developing under pressure a common
+purpose. The immense moral energy she has been
+able to put forth in a crisis has enabled her to
+inspire such leaders as she has needed for the
+moment, but she has been characteristically infertile
+in the production of true leaders who could impose
+themselves upon her efficiently. Thus among her
+great men, for one true leader, such as Oliver
+Cromwell, who failed, there have been a score
+of successful mouthpieces and instruments of her
+purpose, such as Pitt and Wellington. The vigour
+of her great moments has always been the product of
+moral unity induced by the pressure of a supposed
+enemy, and therefore it has always tended to die
+down when the danger has passed. As the greatness
+of her leaders has been less a product of
+their own genius than that of the moral stimulus
+which has reached them from the nation at large,
+when the stimulus has been withdrawn with the
+cessation of danger, these men have almost invariably
+come to appear in times of peace of a less
+dominating capacity than their performance during
+the stress of war might have indicated. The great
+wars of England have usually, then, been the affair of
+the common man; he has supplied the impulse that
+has made and the moral vigour that has conducted
+<span class="xxpn" id="p231">{231}</span>
+them, he has created and inspired his leaders and
+has endowed his representatives in the field and
+on the sea with their stern and enduring pugnacity.</p>
+
+<p>These conclusions have been confirmed by the
+way in which the war progressed and came to
+an end. The war became more and more fully a
+contest of moral forces until it ended in the unique
+event of a surrender practically unconditional that
+was not preceded by a total physical defeat.
+German morale proved throughout extremely sensitive
+to any suspension of the aggressive posture,
+and showed the unsuitability of its type in modern
+conditions by undergoing at the mere threat of
+disaster a disintegration so absolute that it must
+remain a classical and perfect example in the records
+of psychology. There can be no doubt that had
+there been among her enemies the least understanding
+of her moral type and state, her collapse
+could have been brought about with comparative
+ease at a much earlier date. English morale, on
+the other hand, seemed actually to be invigorated
+by defeat, and even remained untouched by the
+more serious trials of uninspired and mediocre
+direction, of ill-will, petty tyranny, and confusion.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">The confrontation in war of two types of social
+structure differing so radically and by such clearly
+defined characters as did Germany and England
+was, as has been already suggested, a remarkable
+instance of statecraft being forced into a region of
+very much greater reality than that in which it
+usually operates. The historical scale of events,
+with its narrow range, its reckoning by dynasties and
+parliaments, its judgments in terms of tribal censure
+and approbation, was found momentarily to march
+with the biological scale where events are measured
+by the survival or extinction of species, where time
+acquires a new meaning, and the individual man,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p232">{232}</span>
+however conspicuous historically, takes on the insect-like
+sameness of his fellows. Here was an experiment
+set out in Nature’s laboratory, and for the
+first time the issues were so narrowly focussed as
+to be within the apprehension of the very subjects
+of the research. The matter to be tested concerned
+the whole validity of gregariousness. Two types
+were confronted. In one the social habit had taken
+a form that limited the participation of the individual
+in the social unit; a rigid segregation of the
+society made it impossible to admit the moral equality
+of its members, and resulted in the activities of
+the social instinct being available solely through
+leadership; it was a led society where internal
+cohesion and integration were replaced by what
+we may call external cohesion—a migratory society
+developing its highest manifestations of the herd when
+it was being successfully led. In the other type the
+social habit had tended, however slowly and incompletely,
+towards the unlimited participation of the
+individual in the social unit. The tendency of the
+society was towards integration and internal cohesion;
+it was therefore unaggressive, refractory to leadership,
+and apt to develop its highest herd manifestations
+when threatened and attacked. The former
+enjoyed all the advantages of a led society. It
+was tractable, and its leaders could impose upon it
+a relative uniformity of outlook and a high standard
+of general training. The latter had no advantage
+save the potentiality—and it was little more—of
+unlimited internal cohesion. It was intractable to
+leadership, and in consequence knowledge and
+training were limited and extremely localized within
+it; it had no approach to unity of outlook, and
+its interests were necessarily concentrated on its
+internal rather than its external relations.</p>
+
+<p>If the former type proved the stronger, any progressive
+evolution of society in a direction that
+<span class="xxpn" id="p233">{233}</span>
+promised the largest extension of human powers
+would become very, improbable; the internal
+cohesion of social units would have appeared to
+be subject to limits, and the most hopeful prospective
+solution of human difficulties would have
+vanished. Conceivably accidental factors might
+have decided the issue of the experiment and left
+the principle still in doubt. As it happened, every
+element of chance that intruded went against the
+type that ultimately proved the stronger, and in
+the final decision the moral element was so conspicuously
+more significant than the physical that
+the experiment has yielded a result which seems
+to be singularly conclusive and
+unexceptionable.&#xfeff;<a class="afnanc" id="afnanc23" href="#fn23">23</a></p>
+
+<div class="dfootnote">
+
+<p class="pfirst"><a class="afnlbl" id="fn23" href="#afnanc23">23</a>
+Anxiety has frequently been expressed since the armistice
+of November, 1918, as to whether Germany has properly assimilated the
+lesson of her defeat, and undergone the desired change of heart. In
+the face of such doubts it is well to remember that there is another
+conclusion about the assimilation of which there need be no anxiety.
+It is at any rate clearly proved that Germany’s enemies were able to
+beat her in spite of all the disadvantages of exterior lines, divided
+counsels, divergent points of view and inadequate preparation. The
+prestige of invulnerability need never be allowed again to accumulate
+about a social group of the aggressive migratory type, and to sit like
+an incubus upon a terrorized world.</p></div>
+
+<p>The result of the experiment has been decisive,
+and it is still a possibility that the progressive
+integration of society will ultimately yield a medium
+in which the utmost needs of the individual and of
+the race will be reconciled and satisfied. Had the
+more primitive social type—the migratory, aggressive
+society of leadership and the pack—had this proved
+still the master of the less primitive socialized and
+integrative type, the ultimate outlook for the race
+would have indeed been black. This is by no
+means to deny that German civilization had a vigour,
+a respect for knowledge, and even a benignity within
+which comfortable life was possible. But it is to
+assert that it was a regression, a choice of the
+easy path, a surrender to the tamer platitudes of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p234">{234}</span>
+the spirit that no aggressive vigour could altogether
+mask. To live dangerously was supposed to be
+its ideal, but dread was the very atmosphere it
+breathed. Its armies could be thrown into hysterical
+convulsions by the thought of the <i>franc-tireur</i>, and
+the flesh of its leaders made to creep by such
+naïve and transpontine machinations as its enemies
+ambitiously called propaganda. The minds that
+could make bugbears out of such material were
+little likely to attempt or permit the life of arduous
+and desperate spiritual adventure that was in the
+mind of the philosopher when he called on his
+disciples to live dangerously.</p>
+
+<p>This great experiment was conducted under the
+very eyes of humanity, and the conditions were
+unique in this that they would have permitted the
+effective intervention of the conscious human will.
+As it happened the evolution of society had not
+reached a stage at which an informed and scientific
+statecraft was possible. The experiment, therefore,
+went through without any general view of the whole
+situation being attained. Had such been possible,
+there can be no doubt at all that the war could
+have been shortened enough to keep the world
+back from the neighbourhood of spiritual and even
+material bankruptcy in which it finds itself to-day.
+The armed confrontation of the two types, while
+it has yielded a result that may well fill us with
+hope, took place at a moment of human evolution
+when it was bound to be immensely expensive.
+Material development had far exceeded social
+development, mankind, so to say, had become clever
+without becoming wise, and the war had to be
+fought as a purely destructive effort. Had it come
+at a later stage of evolution, so great a mobilization
+of social power as the war caused might have been
+taken advantage of to unify the nation to a completely
+coherent structure which the cessation of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p235">{235}</span>
+the external stimulating pressure would have left
+firmly and nobly established.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">A<b>FTER</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">THE</span>
+ <span class="smcap">W<b>AR.</b></span></h3>
+
+<p>The psychological situation left by the conclusion
+of the war is likely to attract an increasing amount
+of attention as time passes, and it may be of interest
+to examine it in the light of the principles that
+we have been making use of in dealing with the
+war.</p></div>
+
+<p>It is a fact fundamental in psychology that the
+state of war furnishes the most powerful of all
+stimuli to the social instinct. It sets in motion a tide
+of common feeling by the power of which union
+and energy of purpose and self-sacrifice for the
+good of the social unit become possible to a degree
+unknown under any other circumstances. The war
+furnished many instances of the almost miraculous
+efficacy of this stimulus. Perhaps the most effective
+example of all, even by the side of the steely
+fortitude of France and the adventurous desperation
+of England, was the fact that the dying Austrian
+Empire could be galvanized for four years into
+aggressive gestures lifelike beyond simulation.</p>
+
+<p>The effect of this great liberation of feeling was
+to supersede the precarious equilibrium of society
+by a state very much more stable. Before the war
+moral power had come to the individual chiefly
+from the lesser herds in which he took part, and
+but little from the nation as a whole. Society had
+the appearance of stability because the forces at
+work were relatively small in proportion to the
+inertia of the whole fabric. But the actual firmness
+of the structure was small, and the individual led
+a life emotionally thin and tame because the social
+feelings were localized and faint. With the outbreak
+of war the national unit became the source
+of moral power, social feeling became wide in its
+<span class="xxpn" id="p236">{236}</span>
+basis and strong in intensity. To the individual
+life became more intense and more significant, and
+in essence, in spite of horror and pain, better worth
+living; the social fabric, moreover, displayed a
+new stability and a capacity for resisting disturbances
+that would have effectually upset its
+equilibrium in time of peace. The art of government,
+in fact, became actually easier to practise, though
+it had a superficial appearance of being more
+difficult from the comparative rapidity with which
+the progress of events unmasked the quack.
+Successful practitioners were, it will be remembered,
+always ready to call attention to the unprecedented
+difficulty of their labours, while shrewdly
+enough profiting by the fact that in the actual
+tasks of government—the creation of interest, the
+development of unity and the nourishing of impulse—their
+difficulties had wholly disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>With the cessation of war this great stream of
+moral power began rapidly to dry up at its source.
+Thinly continuing to trickle for a time as it were
+from habit, it is already almost dry. There is
+doubtless a tendency among responsible personages
+to persuade themselves that it still flows with all
+the power that made the war a veritable golden
+age of government. Such a persuasion is natural
+and fully to be expected. It would be difficult
+for those who have directed with whatever want of
+skill a power so great to avoid coming in time
+to be a little confused between the direction of
+power and the production of it, and to think that
+they still command the moral resources which war
+gave so abundantly. Such a mistake is likely to
+prove one of the elements of danger, though
+perhaps only a minor one, in the present situation.</p>
+
+<p>Western society, with perhaps even Western civilization,
+is in a situation of great interest to the
+sociologist, and probably also of some considerable
+<span class="xxpn" id="p237">{237}</span>
+danger. There are certain chief elements of
+danger which we may attempt to define.</p>
+
+<p>First, with the end of the war the mental orientation
+of the individual has undergone a great
+change. National feeling is no longer able to supply
+him with moral vigour and interest. He must
+turn once more to his class for what the nation
+as a whole has been so much more efficiently supplying.
+Life has regained for him much of its old
+tameness, the nation in which he has lived vividly
+during the war is resuming its vagueness and
+becoming once more merely the state, remote and
+quasi-hostile. But the war has shown him what
+interest and moral vigour are in life, and he will
+not easily accept the absence of these; he has
+acquired the appetite for them, he has, so to speak,
+tasted blood. The tasteless social dietary of pre-war
+England is not likely to satisfy his invigorated
+palate.</p>
+
+<p>Secondly, the transition from war to peace is in
+an imperfectly organized society a process necessarily
+dangerous because it involves the change from
+a condition of relative moral stability to one of
+relative moral instability. To get back to the
+precise state of delicately balanced but essentially
+insecure equilibrium of society before the war
+would seem, in fact, already shown to be impossible.
+The war ran its course without any attempt being
+made to replace the system of class segregation,
+through which the social instinct works in our
+society, by any more satisfactory mechanism.
+Before the war class segregation had reached a condition
+in which the individual had ceased to be
+conscious of the national unit as possessing any
+practical significance for himself while his class
+was the largest unit he was capable of recognizing
+as a source of moral power and an object
+of effort. There was no class which as such and
+<span class="xxpn" id="p238">{238}</span>
+in relation to other classes was capable of submitting
+to any restraint or self-sacrifice in the
+interests of the nation as a whole. Of course,
+in each case it was possible for a class by a
+very easy process of rationalization to show that its
+interests were those of the nation at large, but
+this was merely the effect of the moral blindness
+to which class segregation inevitably leads. Since
+every one of us is classified somehow, it is not
+easy to grasp how completely class segregation
+obtains throughout our society, and how fully in
+times of peace it replaces national unity. Those
+occupying the lower social strata may be very fully
+aware of the intensity of class feeling and how
+complete a substitute for national feeling it affords
+at the upper end of the social scale, just as those
+in the upper strata may be very much alive to
+the class bitterness of their inferiors; but it is difficult
+for both to believe how complete are segregation
+and its consequences throughout the whole
+social gamut.</p>
+
+<p>It is to this state of society that the return from
+the relative unity of war must be. The few conventional
+restraints upon the extremity of class
+feeling that were in any kind of activity before
+the war have been very greatly weakened. Change
+has become familiar, violence has been glorified
+in theory and shown to be effective in practice,
+the prestige of age has been undermined, and the
+sanctity of established things defied.</p>
+
+<p>It would, indeed, seem that to re-establish a society
+based solely on class segregation, and relying upon
+the maintenance by it of a state of equilibrium, will
+be a matter of some difficulty, and it will probably
+be a mistake to depend altogether on fatigue, on
+the relaxation of feeling, and on the celebration of
+victory as stabilizing forces.</p>
+
+<p>Thirdly, there is no reason to suppose that the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p239">{239}</span>
+tendencies of society which made possible so huge
+a disaster as the war have been in any way corrected
+by it. Great efforts are being made at present to
+establish conditions which will prevent future wars.
+Such efforts are entirely admirable, but it must
+be remembered that after all war is no more than
+a symptom of social defects. If, therefore, war as
+a symptom is merely suppressed, valuable as that
+will be in controlling the waste and destruction of
+life and effort, indeed indispensable to any kind
+of vigorous mental life, it may leave untouched
+potentialities of disaster comparable even with war
+itself.</p>
+
+<p>It was pointed out many years ago in the essays
+incorporated in this book that human society tends
+to restrict influence and leadership to minds of a
+certain type, and that these minds tend to have
+special and characteristic defects. Thus human
+affairs are in general under the direction of a
+class of thought that is not merely not the best
+of which the mind is capable, but tends to certain
+characteristic fallacies and to certain characteristic
+kinds of blindness and incapacity. The class of
+mind to which power in society gravitates I have
+ventured to describe as the stable type. Its characteristic
+virtues and deficiencies have been described
+more than once in this book, and we need do no
+more here than recall its vigour and resistiveness, its
+accessibility to the voice of the herd and its resistiveness
+to and even horror of the new in feeling
+and experience. The predominance of this type
+has been rigorously maintained throughout the war.
+This is why the war has been fought with a mere
+modicum of help from the human intellect, and why
+the result must be regarded as a triumph for the
+common man rather than for the ruling classes.
+The war was won by the inflexible resolution of
+the common citizen and the common soldier. No
+<span class="xxpn" id="p240">{240}</span>
+country has shown itself to be directed by the higher
+powers of the intellect, and nowhere has the continued
+action of clear, temperate, vigorous, and comprehensive
+thought made itself manifest, because
+even the utmost urgency of warfare failed to
+dislodge the stable-minded type from its monopoly
+of prestige and power. What the necessities of
+war could not do there is certainly no magic in
+peace to bring about. Society, therefore, is setting
+out upon what is generally regarded as a new era
+of hope without the defect that made the war
+possible having in any degree been corrected.
+Certain supposedly immutable principles such as
+democracy and national self-determination are
+regarded by some as being mankind’s guarantees
+against disaster. To the psychologist such principles
+represent mere vague and fluctuating drifts
+of feeling, arising out of deep instinctive needs, but
+not fully and powerfully embodying such; as
+automatic safeguards of society their claims are
+altogether bogus, and cannot be ranked as
+perceptibly higher than those of the ordinary run
+of political nostrums and doctrinaire specifics.
+Society can never be safe until the direction of
+it is entrusted only to those who possess high
+capacity rigorously trained and acute sensitiveness
+to experience and to feeling.</p>
+
+<p>Statecraft, after all, is a difficult art, and it seems
+unreasonable to leave the choice of those who
+practise it to accident, to heredity, or to the
+possession of the wholly irrelevant gifts that take
+the fancy of the crowd. The result of such methods
+of selection is not even a mere random choice from
+the whole population, but shows a steady drift
+towards the establishment in power of a type in
+certain ways almost characteristically unfitted for
+the tasks of government. The fact that man has
+always shirked the heavy intellectual and moral
+<span class="xxpn" id="p241">{241}</span>
+labour of founding a scientific and truly expert
+statecraft may contain a germ of hope for the
+future, in that it shows where effort may be usefully
+expended. But it cannot but justify uneasiness as
+to the immediate future of society. The essential
+factor in society is the subordination of the
+individual will to social needs. Our statecraft is
+still ignorant of how this can be made a fair and
+honest bargain to the individual and to the state,
+and recent events have convinced a very large proportion
+of mankind that accepted methods of
+establishing this social cohesion have proved to them
+at any rate the worst of bargains.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">T<b>HE</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">I<b>NSTABILITY</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smcap">C<b>IVILIZATION.</b></span></h3>
+</div>
+<p>The foregoing considerations are enough, perhaps,
+to make one wonder whether, after all, Western
+civilization may not be about to follow its unnumbered
+predecessors into decay and dissolution.
+There can be no doubt that such a suspicion is
+oppressing many thoughtful minds at the present
+time. It is not likely to be dispelled by the contemplation
+of history or by the nature of recent events.
+Indeed, the view can be maintained very plausibly
+that all civilizations must tend ultimately to break
+down, that they reach sooner or later a period when
+their original vigour is worn out, and then collapse
+through internal disruption or outside pressure. It
+is even believed by some that Western civilization
+already shows the evidences of decline which in
+its predecessors have been the forerunners of destruction.
+When we remember that our very short
+period of recorded history includes the dissolution of
+civilizations so elaborate as those of the Chaldeans,
+the Assyrians, the Egyptians, and of the Incas, that
+a social structure so complex as that but lately
+disclosed in Crete could leave no trace in human
+<span class="xxpn" id="p242">{242}</span>
+memory but a faint and dubious whisper of tradition,
+and that the dawn of history finds civilization
+already old, we can scarcely resist the conclusion that
+social life has, more often than one can bear to
+contemplate, swung laboriously up to a meaningless
+apogee and then lapsed again into darkness. We
+know enough of man to be aware that each of
+these unnumbered upward movements must have
+been infinitely painful, must have been at least as
+fruitful of torture, oppression, and anguish as the
+ones of which we know the history, and yet each
+was no more than the swing of a pendulum and a
+mere fruitless oscillation landing man once more
+at his starting point, impoverished and broken, with
+perhaps more often than not no transmissible vestige
+of his greatness.</p>
+
+<p>If we limit our view to the historical scale of
+time and the exclusively human outlook, we seem
+almost forced to accept the dreadful hypothesis that
+in the very structure and substance of all human
+constructive social efforts there is embodied a principle
+of death, that there is no progressive impulse
+but must become fatigued, that the intellect can
+provide no permanent defence against a vigorous
+barbarism, that social complexity is necessarily
+weaker than social simplicity, and that fineness of
+moral fibre must in the long run succumb to the
+primitive and coarse.</p>
+
+<p>Let us consider, however, what comments may
+be made on this hypothesis in view of the biological
+conceptions of man which have been put forward
+in this book. At the same time an opportunity
+is afforded to put in a more continuous form the
+view of society that has necessarily been touched
+on so far in an interrupted and incidental way.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be one’s view as to the larger
+pretensions that are put forward as to the significance
+and destiny of man, there can be no doubt
+<span class="xxpn" id="p243">{243}</span>
+that it is indispensable to recognize the full implications
+of his status as an animal completely
+indigenous in the zoological series. The whole of
+his physical and mental structure is congruous with
+that of other living beings, and is constantly giving
+evidence of the complicated network of relationships
+by which he is bound to them.</p>
+
+<p>The accumulation of knowledge is steadily amplifying
+the range over which this congruity with the
+natural order can be demonstrated, and is showing
+more and more fully that practical understanding
+and foresight of man’s behaviour are attained in
+proportion as this hypothesis of the complete
+“naturalness” of man is adhered to.</p>
+
+<p>The endowment of instinct that man possesses
+is in every detail cognate with that of other animals,
+provides no element that is not fully represented
+elsewhere, and above all—however little the individual
+man may be inclined to admit it—is in no
+degree less vigorous and intense or less important
+in relation to feeling and activity than it is in related
+animals. This supremely important side of mental
+life, then, will be capable of continuous illustration
+and illumination by biological methods. It is on
+the intellectual side of mental life that man’s congruity
+with other animals is least obvious at first
+sight. The departure from type, however, is
+probably a matter of degree only, and not of quality.
+Put in the most general terms, the work of the intellect
+is to cause delay between stimulus and response,
+and under circumstances to modify the direction
+of the latter. We may suppose all stimulation
+to necessitate response, and that such response must
+ultimately occur with undiminished total energy.
+The intellect, however, is capable of delaying such
+response, and within limits of directing its path
+so that it may superficially show no relation to the
+stimulus of which it is the discharge. If we extend
+<span class="xxpn" id="p244">{244}</span>
+the word stimulation to include the impulses arising
+from instinct, and grant that the delaying and
+deflecting influence of the intellect may be indefinitely
+enlarged, we have an animal in which instinct
+is as vigorous as in any of its primitive ancestors,
+but which is superficially scarcely an instinctive
+animal at all. Such is the case of man. His instinctive
+impulses are so greatly masked by the variety
+of response that his intellect opens to him that he
+has been commonly regarded until quite recent
+times as a practically non-instinctive creature,
+capable of determining by reason his conduct and
+even his desires. Such a conception made it almost
+impossible to gain any help in human psychology
+from the study of other animals, and scarcely less
+difficult to evolve a psychology which would be
+of the least use in foreseeing and controlling the
+behaviour of man.</p>
+
+<p>No understanding of the causes of stability and
+instability in human society is possible until the
+undiminished vigour of instinct in man is fully
+recognized.</p>
+
+<p>The significance of this rich instinctive endowment
+lies in the fact that mental health depends
+upon instinct finding a balanced but vigorous expression
+in functional activity. The response to instinct
+may be infinitely varied, and may even, under
+certain circumstances, be not more than symbolic
+without harm to the individual as a social unit, but
+there are limits beyond which the restriction of
+it to indirect and symbolic modes of expression
+cannot be carried without serious effects on
+personality. The individual in whom direct instinctive
+expression is unduly limited acquires a spiritual
+meagreness which makes him the worst possible
+social material.</p>
+
+<p>All recorded history shows that society developing
+under the conditions that have obtained up
+<span class="xxpn" id="p245">{245}</span>
+to the present time—developing, that is to say,
+spontaneously under the random influences of an
+uncontrolled environment of the individual—does not
+permit to the average man that balanced instinctive
+expression which is indispensable for the formation
+of a rich, vigorous, and functionally active personality.
+It has been one of my chief efforts in this
+book to show that the social instinct, while in itself
+the very foundation of society, takes, when its action
+is undirected and uncontrolled, a principal part in
+restricting the completeness and efficacy of the social
+impulse. This instinct is doubly responsible for
+the defects which have always inhered in society
+through the personal impoverishment of its individual
+constituents. In the first place, it is the
+great agent by which the egoistic instincts are
+driven into dwarfed, distorted, and symbolic modes
+of expression without any regard for the objective
+social necessity of such oppressive regulation. In
+the second place, it is an instinct which, while it
+embodies one of the deepest and potentially most
+invigorating passions of the soul, tends automatically
+to fall out of vigorous and constant activity with
+the expansion of societies. It is the common
+character of large societies to suffer heavily from
+the restrictive effect on personality of the social
+instinct, and at the same time to suffer in the highest
+degree from the debilitation of the common social
+impulse. Only in the smallest groups, such as
+perhaps was early republican Rome, can the common
+impulse inform and invigorate the whole society.
+As the group expands and ceases to feel the constant
+pressure of an environment it no longer has to
+fear, the common impulse droops, and the society
+becomes segregated into classes, each of which
+a lesser herd within the main body and under the
+reciprocated pressure of its fellows, now yields to
+its members the social feeling which the main body
+<span class="xxpn" id="p246">{246}</span>
+can no longer provide. The passage of the small,
+vigorous, homogeneous and fiercely patriotic group
+into the large, lax, segregated and ultimately
+decadent group is a commonplace of history. In
+highly segregated peoples the restrictive effect of
+the social instinct upon personality has usually been
+to some extent relaxed, and a relatively rich personal
+development has been possible. Such an amplification
+has always, however, been limited to
+privileged classes, has always been accompanied by
+a weakening of the national bond, and a tendency
+of the privileged class to the sincere conviction
+that its interests are identical with those of the
+nation. No nation has ever succeeded in liberating
+the personality of its citizens from the restrictive
+action of the social instinct and at the same time
+in maintaining national homogeneity and common
+impulse. In a small community intercommunication
+among its individual members is free enough to
+keep common feeling intense and vigorous. As
+the community increases in size the general intercommunication
+becomes attenuated, and with this
+common feeling is correspondingly weakened. If
+there were no other mechanism capable of inducing
+common action than the faint social stimulus coming
+from the nation at large, a segregated society would
+be incapable of national enterprise. There is, however,
+another mechanism which we may call
+leadership, using the word in a certain special
+sense. All social groups are more or less capable
+of being led, and it is manifest that the leadership
+of individuals, or perhaps more usually of classes,
+has been a dominant influence in the expansion and
+enterprise of all civilizations of which we have any
+knowledge. It is only in the small communities
+that we can detect evidence of a true common
+impulse shared alike by all the members acting as
+the cause of expansion. In larger groups,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p247">{247}</span>
+autocracies and dynasties, Pharaohs and Nebuchadnezzars
+have imposed the impulse of expansion upon
+the people, and by virtue of human susceptibility
+to leadership have secured a virtual, though only a
+secondary, common purpose.</p>
+
+<p>Now leadership, potent as it undoubtedly is in
+calling forth the energy of the social instinct, is
+essentially a limited and therefore an exhaustible
+force. It depends for continued vigour upon
+successful enterprise. While it is succeeding there
+are only wide limits to the moral power it can
+set free and command, but in the face of misfortune
+and disaster its limitations become obvious, and its
+power inevitably declines. On the other hand, the
+moral power yielded by a true community of
+feeling, and not imposed by leadership, is enormously
+more resistant and even indestructible by failure
+and defeat. History gives many examples of the
+encounters of communities of these two types—the
+led society and the homogeneous society—and in
+spite of the invariably greater size and physical
+power of the former, frequently records the astoundingly
+successful resistance its greater moral vigour
+has given to the latter. This is perhaps why
+Carthage beat in vain against little Rome, and
+certainly why Austria failed to subdue Switzerland.</p>
+
+<p>All large societies that have had their day and
+have fallen from their zenith by internal dissolution
+or outward attack have been given their impulse
+to expansion by leadership and have depended on
+it for their moral power. If society is to continue
+to depend for its enterprise and expansion upon
+leadership, and can find no more satisfactory source
+of moral power, it is, to say the least, highly
+probable that civilizations will continue to rise and
+fall in a dreadful sameness of alternating aspiration
+and despair until perhaps some lucky accident of
+<span class="xxpn" id="p248">{248}</span>
+confusion finds for humanity in extinction the rest
+it could never win for itself in life.</p>
+
+<p>There is, however, reason to suppose that susceptibility
+to leadership is a characteristic of relatively
+primitive social types, and tends to diminish with
+increasing social complexity. I have already called
+attention to and attempted to define the apparently
+specific psychological differences between Germany
+and England before and during the war. These
+differences I attributed to variations in the type of
+reaction to herd instinct shown by the two peoples.
+The aggressive social type represented by Germany
+and analogous with that characteristic of the predaceous
+social animals I regarded as being relatively
+primitive and simple. The socialized type represented
+by England and presenting analogies with
+that characteristic of many social insects I regarded
+as being, though imperfect as are all the human
+examples available for study up to the present time,
+more complex and less primitive, and representing
+at any rate a tendency towards a satisfactory solution
+of the problems with which man as a gregarious
+animal is surrounded. Now, it is a very obvious
+fact that the susceptibility to leadership shown by
+Germany and by England before the war was
+remarkably different. The common citizen of
+Germany was strikingly open to and dependent upon
+discipline and leadership, and seemed to have a
+positive satisfaction in leaving to his masters the
+management of his social problems and accepting
+with alacrity the solutions that were imposed upon
+him. The nation consequently presented a close
+knit uniformity of purpose, a singleness of national
+consciousness and effort that gave it an aspect of
+moral power of the most formidable kind. In
+England a very different state of affairs prevailed.
+The common citizen was apt to meet with indifference
+or resentment all efforts to change the social
+<span class="xxpn" id="p249">{249}</span>
+structure, and it had long been a political axiom
+that “reform” should always await an irresistible
+demand for it. Instances will be within every one’s
+memory of politicians who met with crushing rebuffs
+through regarding the supposed desirability of a
+reform as a justification for imposing it. This
+almost sullen indifference to great projects and
+ideals, this unwillingness to take thought in the
+interests of the nation and the empire in spite of
+the apostolic zeal of the most eloquent political
+prophets, was generally regarded as evidence of
+a weakness and slackness in the body politic that
+could not but threaten disaster. And yet in the
+trials of the war the moral stability of England
+showed itself to be superior to that of Germany,
+which, in those rough waters, it jostled as mercilessly
+and as effectually as did the brass pot the earthen
+crock in the fable.</p>
+
+<p>During the war itself the submission to leadership
+that England showed was characteristic of the
+socialized type. It was to a great extent spontaneous,
+voluntary, and undisciplined, and gave
+repeated evidence that the passage of inspiration
+was essentially from the common people to its
+leaders rather than from the leaders to the common
+people. When the current of inspiration sets persistently
+in this direction, as it unquestionably did in
+England, it is very plain that the primitive type
+of leadership that has led so many civilizations
+to disaster is no longer in unmodified action.</p>
+
+<p>Germany has provided the most complete example
+of a culture of leadership that has ever been
+recorded, and has gone through the phases of her
+evolution with a precision which should make her
+case an illustration classical for all history. With
+a people showing strongly the characteristics of the
+aggressive social type, and a social structure deeply
+and rigidly segregated, the nation was ideally
+<span class="xxpn" id="p250">{250}</span>
+susceptible to discipline and leadership, and a
+leading class was available which possessed an
+almost superhuman prestige. The opportunity given
+to leadership was exploited with great energy and
+thoroughness and with an intelligence that by its
+intensity almost made up for being nowhere really
+profound. With all these advantages and the full
+uses of the huge resources science has made available
+to intelligently concerted effort, an extremely
+formidable power was created. The peoples of
+the socialized type towards whom from the first its
+hostility was scarcely veiled were under obvious
+disadvantages in rivalry with it. Their social type
+made it impossible for them to combine and organize
+themselves against what was to them no more than
+a vaguely hypothetical danger. Against peaceful
+conquest by Germany in the industrial sphere
+England was therefore practically helpless, and to
+it would probably in time have succumbed.
+Paradox as it may seem, there can be no doubt
+that it was in war only that England could contend
+with Germany on equal terms. Paradoxically again,
+it was war for which England was reluctant and
+Germany was eager.</p>
+
+<p>War brought Germany into contact with the, to
+her, inexplicable ferocity of peoples of the socialized
+type under attack, and it was by this disappointment
+that the first blow to her morale was struck.
+The wastage of modern warfare must very soon
+have begun to impair the isolation and prestige of
+the officer class through increasingly free importation
+from without the pale. With this necessarily
+began to be sapped the absolute and rigid segregation
+on which leadership of the type we are considering
+so largely depends. At the same time,
+the general tendency of the increasing pressure of
+war is to wear down class segregation over the
+whole social field. This tendency which intensified
+<span class="xxpn" id="p251">{251}</span>
+and invigorated the morale of her enemies would
+work steadily against the leadership morale of
+Germany. These factors must no doubt be added
+to the moral need for aggression, the exhaustion
+consequent upon forced offensives, and the specific
+intolerance of failure and retreat that combined to
+bring down the strongest example of the predaceous
+led society that history records.</p>
+
+<div class="section">
+<h3><span class="smcap">S<b>OME</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERS</b></span>
+ <span class="smmaj">OF</span>
+ <span class="smmaj">A</span>
+ <span class="smcap">R<b>ATIONAL</b></span>
+ <span class="smcap">S<b>TATECRAFT.</b></span></h3></div>
+
+<p>If the foregoing discussion has been sound, we may
+attribute the impermanence of all civilizations of
+which we have knowledge to the failure of society
+to preserve with increasing magnitude of its communities
+a true homogeneity and a progressive
+integration of its elements. We have seen that
+there is a type of society—distinguished here as
+the socialized type—in which a trace of this integrative
+tendency can be detected at work. Under the
+threat of war this tendency is accelerated in its action,
+and can attain a moderate, though very far indeed
+from a complete, degree of development. In the
+absence of such a powerful stimulus to homogeneity,
+however, segregation reasserts itself, and the society,
+necessarily deprived by its type of the advantages
+of leadership, becomes confused, disunited, and
+threatened with disruption. It seems probable,
+indeed, that the integrative tendency unaided and
+uncontrolled is too weak to surmount the obstacles
+with which it has to contend, and to anticipate disruption
+by welding the elements of society into
+a common life and common purpose. It has already
+been repeatedly suggested that these difficulties, due
+as they are to the human power of various reaction,
+can be met only by the interposition of the intellect
+as an active factor in the problem of the direction
+of society. In other words, the progressive evolution
+of society has reached a point where the
+<span class="xxpn" id="p252">{252}</span>
+construction and use of a scientific statecraft will
+become an indispensable factor in further development
+and the only means of arresting the dreary
+oscillations between progress and relapse which have
+been so ominous a feature in human history. We
+are perhaps in a position to-day to suggest tentatively
+some of the principles on which such a
+statecraft might be built.</p>
+
+<p>It would have to be based on a full recognition
+of the biological status of man, and to work out
+the tendencies which as an animal he is pursuing
+and must pursue. If we have evidence of the only
+course evolution can follow satisfactorily, then it is
+clear that any social and legislative effort not in
+line with that course must be entirely wasted. Moreover,
+since we are proceeding on the hypothesis
+that direct conscious effort is now a necessary factor
+in the process, we must clear our minds of the
+optimistic determinism which regards man as a
+special pet of nature and the pessimistic determinism
+which would reduce him to a mere spectator of his
+destiny. The trained and conscious mind must come
+to be regarded as a definite factor in man’s environment,
+capable of occupying there a larger and
+larger area.</p>
+
+<p>Such a statecraft would recognize how fully man
+is an instinctive being and how his mental vigour
+and stability depend entirely upon instinctive expression
+being adequate. The tyrannous power of the
+social instinct in repressing and distorting instinctive
+expression would have to be controlled and
+directed with the purpose of enlarging the personal
+and social effectiveness of the individual to the
+maximum extent; the social instinct would no
+longer be left to operate on the individual under
+the random direction of custom and habit, of fashion
+and social whim, or for the satisfaction of the
+jealousy of age.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p253">{253}</span></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps most important of all, a scientific statecraft
+would understand that the social instinct itself
+is as deep and powerful as any, and hungrily demands
+intense and positive gratification and expression.
+The social instinct drives the individual to seek
+union with some community of his fellows. The
+whole national body is in the present state of society
+the smallest unit in which the individual can find
+complete and permanent satisfaction. As long as
+the average man’s sense of possession in the state is
+kept so low as it is at present, as long as the sense
+of moral inequality between himself and his fellows
+is so vigorously maintained, so long will he continue
+to make his class rather than his nation the object
+of social passion, and so long will society continue
+to breed within itself a principle of death.</p>
+
+<p>The exploration of the psychology of man’s social
+relations has been left almost exclusively to the
+operation of what we may call the method of
+prophetic intuition, and there is no branch of knowledge
+where the fumbling methods of unclarified
+intuition have introduced more confusion. Intuitions
+in the sphere of feeling—moral intuitions—have
+more than the usual tendency of intuitions to
+appear as half-truths surrounded and corrupted by
+fantasies of the seer and isolated from correlation
+with the rest of knowledge. Let us consider, for
+example, the intuitional doctrine of philosophic
+anarchism. The nucleus of truth in this is the
+series of perfectly sound psychological conceptions
+that all social discipline should be, as experienced
+by the individual, spontaneous and voluntary, that
+man possesses the instinctive endowment which
+renders possible a voluntary organization of society,
+and that in such a society order would be
+more effectively maintained than under our present
+partially compulsory system. This nucleus, which
+of course is not understood or expressed in these
+<span class="xxpn" id="p254">{254}</span>
+definite psychological terms by the anarchist, is apt
+to be associated with dogmas which altogether
+obscure its strictly unassailable truth. Communism,
+again, is another doctrine which contains its core of
+psychological truth, namely, that individual property
+is an economic convention rather than a psychological
+necessity, and that social inequality is an
+infirmity of the state rather than its foundation stone.
+As it is exemplified in practice, however, communism
+is so deeply tainted by the belief in an inverted
+class segregation of its own, and by a horror of
+knowledge, that its elements of reality are wholly
+obscured and rendered useless.</p>
+
+<p>Every doctrine that makes disciples freely must
+contain in it some embodiment of psychological
+reality, however exiguous; but where it has been
+arrived at by the methods of the prophet, there
+is no reason to expect that stress will be laid on
+the true more than on the false elements of the
+doctrinal scheme, and experience shows that the
+inessential falsity has for the expositor as many,
+if not more, attractions than the essential truth. An
+expert statecraft would be able to identify the real
+elements of discovery that were present in any fresh
+prophetic appeal to public belief, and would be able
+at any rate to save the state from the condition of
+petrified embarrassment into which it now falls when
+faced by social dogmas and experiments which win
+attention and adhesion while at the same time they
+outrage convention and common sense.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">The examination of the functional satisfactoriness
+of society, which has been a chief object of this
+book, has yielded a certain general body of conclusions.
+An attempt will now be made to
+summarize these in a compact and even dogmatic
+form, and to add what further element of definition
+seems indispensable for clearness.
+<span class="xxpn" id="p255">{255}</span></p>
+
+<p>1. All societies of which we have any knowledge
+have shown two general defects—they have proved
+unable to develop and direct more than a small
+fraction of the resources they theoretically possess,
+and they have been impermanent, so that time after
+time laborious accumulations of constructive effort
+have been wasted. According to our analysis these
+defects are due to the drift of power into the hands
+of the stable-minded class, and to the derivation of
+moral power and enterprise from the mechanisms
+of leadership and class segregation.</p>
+
+<p>2. A society, in order to have stability and full
+functional effectiveness, must be capable of a continually
+progressive absorption of its individual
+members into the general body—an uninterrupted
+movement towards a complete moral homogeneity.</p>
+
+<p>3. A tendency towards a progressive integration
+of this kind can be detected in society to-day
+by direct observation. It is weak and its effects
+are fluctuating, so that there is doubt whether it
+can, unless directly encouraged by human effort,
+counteract the forces which up till now have always
+limited social evolution to movements of oscillation
+rather than of true progress.</p>
+
+<p>4. The only way in which society can be made
+safe from disruption or decay is by the intervention
+of the conscious and instructed intellect as a factor
+among the forces ruling its development.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">This last doctrine has been repeatedly stated, but
+we have perhaps scarcely defined it precisely enough
+to avoid misunderstanding. Some such definition
+is our concluding task. Of all the elements we
+find in a general examination of the whole biological
+series the human intellect is the one that most clearly
+gives the impression of a new and intrusive factor.
+The instinctive side of man, with its derivatives,
+such as his morals, his altruism, and his aspirations,
+<span class="xxpn" id="p256">{256}</span>
+falls very easily into line with the rest of the natural
+order, and is seen to be at work in modes which
+nowhere show any essential new departure. The
+intellect, however, brings with it a capacity for
+purpose as distinct from and additional to desire,
+and this does apparently introduce a factor virtually
+new to the biological series. The part that the
+purposive foresight of the intellect has been allowed
+to take in human affairs has always been limited
+by instinctive inhibitions. This limitation has effectually
+prevented man from defining his situation in
+the world, and he remains a captive in the house
+of circumstance, restrained as effectually by the mere
+painted canvas of habit, convention, and fear as by
+the solid masonry of essential instinctive needs.
+Being denied the freedom, which is its indispensable
+source of vigour, the intellect has necessarily failed
+to get a clear, comprehensive, and temperate view
+of man’s status and prospects, and has, of course,
+shrunk from the yet more exacting task of making
+itself responsible for his destiny. Nowhere has
+been and is the domination of the herd more absolute
+than in the field of speculation concerning man’s
+general position and fate, and in consequence
+prodigies of genius have been expended in obscuring
+the simple truth that there is no responsibility for
+man’s destiny anywhere at all outside his own
+responsibility, and that there is no remedy for his
+ills outside his own efforts. Western civilization
+has recently lost ten millions of its best lives as a
+result of the exclusion of the intellect from the
+general direction of society. So terrific an object
+lesson has made it plain enough how easy it is for
+man, all undirected and unwarned as he is, to sink to
+the irresponsible destructiveness of the monkey.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Such ostensible direction as societies obtain
+derives its sanction from one or more of three
+<span class="xxpn" id="p257">{257}</span>
+sources—the hereditary, the representative, and the
+official. No direction can be effective in the way
+needed for the preservation of society unless it
+comes from minds broad in outlook, deep in
+sympathy, sensitive to the new and strange in experience,
+capable of resisting habit, convention, and the
+other sterilizing influences of the herd, deeply
+learned in the human mind and vividly aware of
+the world. Plainly enough, neither of the classes
+enumerated above is any more likely to possess
+these characteristics than any one else. To the
+representative and official classes there even attaches,
+at any rate theoretically, the suspicion that the
+methods by which they are chosen and promoted,
+while they obviously in no way favour fitness, may
+actually tend to favour unfitness. Of the hereditary
+class it may at any rate be said that while it does
+not in any special degree include the fit, its composition
+is random and in no way tainted by popular
+standards of suitability or by the prejudices and
+conventions of the examination room. It would
+seem, then, that none of the methods by which society
+appoints its directors shows any promise of working
+towards the effective intervention of the intellect in
+social affairs. In reaching this conclusion we have
+perhaps passed too lightly over the claims of the
+trained official as a possible nucleus of an ultimate
+scientific statecraft. The present-day controversies
+as to the nationalization of various industries give
+an especial interest to this very problem, and illustrate
+how unpromising a source of knowledge is
+political discussion. One group of advocates points
+to the obvious economies of conducting industry
+on the great scale and without the destructive effects
+of competition; the other group points to the
+infirmities which always have infected officially conducted
+enterprises. Both sides would seem to be
+perfectly right so far and both to be wrong when
+<span class="xxpn" id="p258">{258}</span>
+the first goes on to affirm that governments as they
+now are can and do conduct industrial affairs quite
+satisfactorily, and the second goes on to affirm that
+the only mechanism by which society can get its
+work effectively done is commercial competition, and
+that the only adequate motive is greed. It seems
+to have escaped the notice of both parties to the
+controversy that no civilized country has evolved,
+or begun to evolve, or thought of evolving a method
+of selecting and training its public servants that
+bears any rational relation to their fitness for the
+art of government. It is not here denied that selection
+and training are both of them severe in many
+countries. Mere severity, however, as long as it
+is quite without relevance, is manifestly worthless.
+We are forced to the conclusion, therefore, that to
+expect an effective statecraft to be evolved from
+the official, whether of the Chinese, the Prussian,
+or any other type, is a mere dream. To encourage
+such a hope would be to strengthen the grip of
+the unsatisfactory stable-minded class upon the gullet
+of society. The evidence then shows that among
+the mechanisms whereby the directors of society
+are chosen there is none that favours that intervention
+of the conscious and instructed intellect that we
+have suggested is necessary to the effective evolution
+of civilization. Nowhere in the structure of
+society is there a class tending to develop towards
+this goal. Since from the point of view of social
+effectiveness segregation into classes has been
+entirely random, the appearance of such a
+class would have been indeed an extraordinary
+accident. Good as are the grounds for hoping that
+human society may ultimately mature into a coherent
+structure possessed of comprehensive and intelligent
+direction, it would be no more than idle optimism
+to suppose that there is any institution or class now
+existing which promises to inspire a fundamental
+<span class="xxpn" id="p259">{259}</span>
+reconstruction. If the effective intrusion of the
+intellect into social affairs does happily occur, it
+will come from no organ of society now recognizable,
+but through a slow elevation of the general standard
+of consciousness up to the level at which will be
+possible a kind of freemasonry and syndicalism of
+the intellect. Under such circumstances free communication
+through class barriers would be possible,
+and an orientation of feeling quite independent of
+the current social segregation would become
+manifest.</p>
+
+<p class="padtopb">Throughout
+the enormously long period during
+which modern man has been established on the
+earth human society has been left to the uncontrolled
+contention of constructive and destructive
+forces, and in the long run the destructive have
+always proved the stronger. Whether the general
+level of consciousness will reach the height necessary
+to give a decisive predominance to constructive
+tendencies, and whether such a development will
+occur in time to save Western civilization from the
+fate of its predecessors, are open questions. The
+small segment of the social process of which we
+have direct knowledge in the events of the day
+has no very encouraging appearance. Segregation
+has reasserted itself effectively; the dominion of
+the stable and resistive mind is as firmly established
+as ever, and no less dull and dangerous; while it
+is plain how far, in the atmosphere of relaxation
+and fatigue, the social inspiration of the common
+man has sunk from the high constancy of spirit by
+which throughout the long pilgrimage of war so
+many weary feet have been upborne, so many dry
+lips refreshed.</p>
+
+<div class="dindex section">
+<ul class="fsz6"><li class="ltrspca">
+<h2 class="h2nobreak" id="p261">INDEX</h2>
+<ul>
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>FFIRMATIONS</b></span> of the herd, belief in normal, <a href="#p039">39</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>GE</b></span> and the herd instinct, <a href="#p086">86</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, the predominance of, <a href="#p087">87</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>GE</b></span> <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smcap">Y<b>OUTH</b></span>, jealousy between, <a href="#p086">86</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, reactions of, in relation to sex, <a href="#p084">84</a>, <a href="#p085">85</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>LCOHOLISM</b></span>, psychological meaning of, <a href="#p058">58</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>LTRUISM</b></span>, instinctive meaning of, <a href="#p122">122</a>–<a href="#p124">124</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, a natural instinctive product, <a href="#p046">46</a></li>
+<li>――, not a judgment, <a href="#p046">46</a></li>
+<li>――, energy of, <a href="#p047">47</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>NARCHISM</b></span>, psychological basis of, <a href="#p253">253</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">A<b>NTHROPOMORPHISM</b></span> in psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">B<b>EER</b></span>, and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">B<b>ELIEF</b></span>, non-rational and rational, distinction of, <a href="#p043">43</a>, <a href="#p044">44</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, characters of, <a href="#p044">44</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">B<b>ETHE</b></span>, and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">B<b>INET</b></span>, <a href="#p034">34</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">B<b>REEDING</b></span> against degeneracy, objections to, <a href="#p064">64</a>
+<ul>
+<li>―― for rationality, objections to, <a href="#p045">45</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>AT</b></span> <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smcap">D<b>OG</b></span>, instinctive differences in feeling, <a href="#p098">98</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ERTITUDE</b></span> and knowledge, <a href="#p035">35</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>HURCH</b></span>, the, in wartime, <a href="#p154">154</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>IVILIZATION</b></span>, its influence on instinct in man, <a href="#p093">93</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>IVILIZATIONS</b></span>, the decline of, <a href="#p241">241</a>, <a href="#p242">242</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>OMMUNISM</b></span>, psychological basis of, <a href="#p254">254</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ONFLICT</b></span> in the adult, superficial aspects of, <a href="#p052">52</a>, <a href="#p053">53</a>
+<ul>
+<li>―― in childhood and adolescence, <a href="#p049">49</a></li>
+<li>―― in civilized man, <a href="#p049">49</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ONSCIENCE</b></span>, peculiar to
+ gregarious animals, <a href="#p040">40</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">C<b>ONVERSATION</b></span> as a mode of recognition, <a href="#p119">119</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">D<b>ARWINISM</b></span> as a herd affirmation, <a href="#p039">39</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">D<b>EDUCTIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">M<b>ETHOD</b></span> in psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">D<b>UTY</b></span>, <a href="#p048">48</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">E<b>NGLAND</b></span>, social type, <a href="#p201">201</a>, <a href="#p202">202</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, morale of, <a href="#p207">207</a>–<a href="#p209">209</a></li>
+<li>――, and the spirit of the hive, <a href="#p203">203</a>–<a href="#p206">206</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">E<b>NVIRONMENT</b></span> <span class="smmaj">OF</span> <span class="smmaj">THE</span> <span class="smcap">M<b>IND</b></span>, importance of, <a href="#p063">63</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, need for rational adjustment of, <a href="#p064">64</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">F<b>REUD’S</b></span> <span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span>, general discussion of, <a href="#p076">76</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, as an embryology of the mind, <a href="#p088">88</a></li>
+<li>――, biological criticism of, <a href="#p077">77</a>, <a href="#p078">78</a></li>
+<li>――, evolution of the “normal” mind, <a href="#p073">73</a></li>
+<li>――, hypothesis of mental development, <a href="#p072">72</a></li>
+<li>――, importance of conflict, <a href="#p072">72</a></li>
+<li>――, nature of mental conflict, <a href="#p073">73</a></li>
+<li>――, suggested deficiencies of, <a href="#p088">88</a>, <a href="#p089">89</a></li>
+<li>――, the unconscious, <a href="#p074">74</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">G<b>ERMANY</b></span>, features of government, <a href="#p163">163</a>–<a href="#p165">165</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, aggressive social type, <a href="#p167">167</a>, <a href="#p168">168</a></li>
+<li>――, social structure, <a href="#p169">169</a>, <a href="#p170">170</a></li>
+<li>――, observed mental characters, <a href="#p173">173</a> <i>et seq.</i></li>
+<li>――, conscious direction of the State, <a href="#p163">163</a>, <a href="#p169">169</a>, <a href="#p191">191</a></li>
+<li>――, in relation to other nations, <a href="#p179">179</a>–<a href="#p182">182</a></li>
+<li>――, morale of, <a href="#p182">182</a>–<a href="#p188">188</a></li>
+<li>――, discipline, <a href="#p189">189</a>–<a href="#p191">191</a></li>
+<li>――, conditions of morale in, <a href="#p193">193</a>, <a href="#p194">194</a></li>
+<li>――, objects of war with, <a href="#p194">194</a>–<a href="#p201">201</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">G<b>OVERNMENT</b></span>, Sources of, <a href="#p257">257</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUSNESS</b></span>, not a superficial character, <a href="#p019">19</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, widespread occurrence in nature, <a href="#p020">20</a></li>
+<li>―― in man, probably primitive, <a href="#p022">22</a></li>
+<li>――, mental equivalents of, <a href="#p031">31</a>–<a href="#p033">33</a></li>
+<li>――, biological meaning of, <a href="#p101">101</a>, <a href="#p102">102</a></li>
+<li>――, analogy to multicellular structure, <a href="#p103">103</a></li>
+<li>――, meaning of wide distribution of, <a href="#p103">103</a>, <a href="#p104">104</a></li>
+<li>――, specialization and co-ordination, <a href="#p105">105</a>, <a href="#p106">106</a></li>
+<li>――, varieties of, <a href="#p107">107</a>, <a href="#p108">108</a></li>
+<li>――, in insects, <a href="#p105">105</a>–<a href="#p107">107</a></li>
+<li>――, in mammals, <a href="#p107">107</a>, <a href="#p108">108</a></li>
+<li>――, protective and aggressive, <a href="#p110">110</a>, <a href="#p111">111</a></li>
+<li>―― in man, disadvantages of:
+ <ul class="ulina">
+ <li>disease, <a href="#p133">133</a>;</li>
+ <li>resistiveness, <a href="#p133">133</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>―― in man, defects
+ <ul class="ulina">
+ <li>of specialization, <a href="#p135">135</a>;</li>
+ <li>of homogeneity, <a href="#p137">137</a></li></ul></li>
+<li>――, aggressive, protective, socialized, <a href="#p166">166</a>, <a href="#p167">167</a></li>
+</ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span> <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMAL</b></span>, special characteristics of, <a href="#p028">28</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, general characteristics of, <a href="#p029">29</a></li>
+<li>――, characters of, <a href="#p108">108</a>, <a href="#p109">109</a></li>
+<li>――, fear in, <a href="#p111">111</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>HARACTERS</b></span> <span class="smmaj">IN</span> <span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span>:
+<ul class="ulina">
+<li>intolerance of solitude, <a href="#p113">113</a>;</li>
+<li>religion, <a href="#p113">113</a>;</li>
+<li>sensitiveness to the herd, <a href="#p114">114</a>;</li>
+<li>mob violence and panic, <a href="#p115">115</a>;</li>
+<li>susceptibility to leadership, <a href="#p115">115</a>;</li>
+<li>recognition by the herd, <a href="#p118">118</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">H<b>AECKEL</b></span>, <a href="#p024">24</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">H<b>ERD</b></span> <span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCT</b></span>, contrasted with other instincts, <a href="#p047">47</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, mode of action of, <a href="#p048">48</a></li>
+<li>―― in the individual, special character of, <a href="#p098">98</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">H<b>ISTORY</b></span>, biological interpretation of, <a href="#p099">99</a>, <a href="#p100">100</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">H<b>UMAN</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>ONDUCT</b></span>, apparent complexity of, <a href="#p013">13</a>, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">H<b>UXLEY</b></span>, antithesis of cosmical and ethical processes, <a href="#p024">24</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCT</b></span>, definition of, <a href="#p094">94</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, mental manifestations of, <a href="#p095">95</a></li>
+<li>――, disguised but not diminished in man, <a href="#p099">99</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCTIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">A<b>CTIVITIES</b></span>, obscured in proportion to brain-power, <a href="#p097">97</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NSTINCTIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">E<b>XPRESSION</b></span>, essential to mental health, <a href="#p244">244</a>, <a href="#p245">245</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">I<b>NTELLECT</b></span>, the, essential function of, <a href="#p243">243</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, biological aspect of, <a href="#p255">255</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">J<b>AMES,</b></span> <span class="smcap">W<b>ILLIAM</b></span>, introspective aspect of instinct, <a href="#p015">15</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">L<b>EADERSHIP</b></span>, <a href="#p116">116</a>, <a href="#p117">117</a>
+<ul>
+<li>―― in society, <a href="#p246">246</a></li>
+<li>―― a substitute for common impulse, <a href="#p247">247</a></li>
+<li>――, defects of, <a href="#p247">247</a></li>
+<li>―― in Germany and in England, <a href="#p248">248</a>–<a href="#p250">250</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">L<b>E</b></span> <span class="smcap">B<b>ON,</b></span> <span class="smcap">G<b>USTAVE</b></span>, <a href="#p026">26</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span> as an animal, a fundamental conception, <a href="#p066">66</a>, <a href="#p067">67</a>, <a href="#p243">243</a>
+<ul>
+<li>―― as a gregarious animal, vagueness of earlier conceptions, <a href="#p021">21</a></li>
+<li>―― as an instinctive animal, current view of, <a href="#p093">93</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>APACITY</b></span> and instinctive expression, <a href="#p121">121</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>ONFLICT,</b></span> discussed in relation to Freud’s doctrines, <a href="#p079">79</a>–<a href="#p081">81</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, the antagonism to instinctive impulses, <a href="#p082">82</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">C<b>ONFLICT</b></span>, source of the repressive impulse in, <a href="#p082">82</a>, <a href="#p083">83</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ENTAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">I<b>NSTABILITY</b></span>, and conflict, <a href="#p057">57</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, in modern society, <a href="#p056">56</a>, <a href="#p057">57</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>INORITIES</b></span> and prejudice, <a href="#p216">216</a>, <a href="#p217">217</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ORALE</b></span>, in England, <a href="#p207">207</a>–<a href="#p209">209</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, in Germany, <a href="#p182">182</a>–<a href="#p188">188</a></li>
+<li>――, maintenance of, <a href="#p147">147</a>–<a href="#p155">155</a></li>
+<li>――, relation of homogeneity to, <a href="#p144">144</a>–<a href="#p147">147</a></li>
+<li>―― and officialism, <a href="#p155">155</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ULTICELLULARITY</b></span> and natural selection, <a href="#p018">18</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">M<b>ULTICELLULAR</b></span> <span class="smcap">O<b>RGANISMS</b></span>, the, <a href="#p018">18</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> consciousness, <a href="#p228">228</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, simplicity of, in England, <a href="#p228">228</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> feeling in war, <a href="#p216">216</a>–<a href="#p218">218</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, growth and common impulse, <a href="#p245">245</a>, <a href="#p246">246</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> industry and private enterprise, <a href="#p257">257</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ATIONAL</b></span> types contrasted, <a href="#p232">232</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">N<b>ON-RATIONAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">O<b>PINION</b></span>, frequency of, <a href="#p035">35</a>, <a href="#p036">36</a>, <a href="#p093">93</a>, <a href="#p094">94</a></li>
+
+<li>“<span class="smcap">N<b>ORMAL</b></span>” type of mind, <a href="#p053">53</a>, <a href="#p054">54</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">N<b>UEL</b></span> and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>ACIFISM</b></span>, <a href="#p125">125</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>EARSON,</b></span> <span class="smcap">K<b>ARL</b></span>, biological significance of
+ gregariousness, <a href="#p023">23</a>, <a href="#p024">24</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, possibility of sociology as a science, <a href="#p012">12</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>ERSONALITY</b></span>, elements in the evolution of, <a href="#p087">87</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>REJUDICE</b></span>, precautions against, <a href="#p220">220</a>–<a href="#p222">222</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>RIMITIVE</b></span> <span class="smcap">M<b>AN</b></span>, rigidity of mental life, <a href="#p034">34</a></li>
+
+<li id="p264"><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHO-ANALYSIS</b></span>,
+ characteristics of, <a href="#p070">70</a>,
+ <a href="#p071">71</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGICAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">E<b>NQUIRY</b></span>, biological method, <a href="#p091">91</a>, <a href="#p092">92</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, primitive introspective method, <a href="#p068">68</a>, <a href="#p069">69</a></li>
+<li>――, objective introspective method of Freud, <a href="#p070">70</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span> of instinctive man, failure of earlier speculations, <a href="#p016">16</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ATIONALIZATION</b></span>, <a href="#p038">38</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ATIONAL</b></span> statecraft, need of, <a href="#p241">241</a>, <a href="#p251">251</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, basis of, <a href="#p252">252</a>, <a href="#p253">253</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ECOGNITION</b></span>, <a href="#p118">118</a>, <a href="#p119">119</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">R<b>ELIGION</b></span> and the social animal, <a href="#p050">50</a>, <a href="#p051">51</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>EGREGATION</b></span> of society, effects of, <a href="#p215">215</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>ENSITIVENESS</b></span> to feeling, importance and danger of, <a href="#p064">64</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>IDIS,</b></span> <span class="smcap">B<b>ORIS</b></span>, and the social instinct in man, <a href="#p026">26</a>, <a href="#p027">27</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">E<b>VOLUTION</b></span>, in insects, relation to brain-power, <a href="#p062">62</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, in man, delayed by capacity for reaction, <a href="#p062">62</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> <span class="smcap">P<b>SYCHOLOGY</b></span>, continuous with individual psychology, <a href="#p012">12</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> stability, an effect of war, <a href="#p235">235</a>, <a href="#p236">236</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIAL</b></span> instability, a sequel of war, <a href="#p236">236</a>, <a href="#p237">237</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OCIOLOGY</b></span>, definition of, <a href="#p011">11</a>
+<ul>
+<li>――, psychological principles of, <a href="#p255">255</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OLITARY</b></span> <span class="smmaj">AND</span> <span class="smcap">G<b>REGARIOUS</b></span> <span class="smcap">A<b>NIMALS</b></span>, elementary differences, <a href="#p017">17</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>OMBART,</b></span> <span class="smcap">W<b>ERNER</b></span>, Germans the representatives of God, <a href="#p177">177</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>PEECH</b></span> in man, and gregariousness, <a href="#p034">34</a>, <a href="#p040">40</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>PENCER</b></span>, <a href="#p024">24</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>TABLE-MINDED</b></span> type, <a href="#p054">54</a>, <a href="#p055">55</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">S<b>UGGESTION</b></span> and reason not necessarily opposed, <a href="#p045">45</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">U<b>EXKÜLL</b></span> and comparative psychology, <a href="#p014">14</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">U<b>NSTABLE-MINDED</b></span> type, <a href="#p058">58</a>, <a href="#p059">59</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">V<b>ARIED</b></span> <span class="smcap">R<b>EACTION</b></span> and capacity for communication,
+importance to the herd of, <a href="#p061">61</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">W<b>AR</b></span>, instinctive reactions to, <a href="#p140">140</a>–<a href="#p143">143</a>
+<ul>
+<li>―― and rumour, <a href="#p144">144</a></li>
+<li>―― as a biological necessity, <a href="#p126">126</a>–<a href="#p132">132</a></li></ul></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">W<b>ARD,</b></span> <span class="smcap">L<b>ESTER</b></span>, views on gregariousness in man, <a href="#p024">24</a>, <a href="#p025">25</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">W<b>ELLS,</b></span> H. G., impossibility of sociology as a science, <a href="#p012">12</a></li>
+
+<li><span class="smcap">W<b>OLF</b></span> <span class="smcap">P<b>ACK</b></span>, the, as an organism, <a href="#p029">29</a></li>
+</ul></li></ul>
+
+<div class="fsz8 padtopa"><i>Printed in Great Britain by</i></div>
+
+<div class="fsz8">UNWIN BROTHERS,
+ LIMITED, THE GRESHAM PRESS, WOKING AND LONDON</div>
+</div><!--dindex-->
+
+<div class="section transnote">TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
+
+<ul>
+<li>Original spelling and grammar have been generally retained, with
+some exceptions noted below. Original printed page numbers are shown
+like this: {52}. Footnotes have been relabeled 1–23, and moved from
+within paragraphs to nearby locations between paragraphs. A few full
+stops and commas were added where they were required but were not
+clearly visible in the original print. The transcriber produced the
+cover image and hereby assigns it to the public domain. Original
+page images are available from archive.org&#x2014;search for
+"instinctsofherdi00trot".
+</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#p239">239</a>. The phrase “but it is must
+be remembered” was changed to “but it must
+be remembered”.</li>
+
+<li>Page <a href="#p264">264</a>. Index entry “<span class="smcap">U<b>EXKULL</b></span>” was changed
+to “<span class="smcap">U<b>EXKÜLL</b></span>” to agree
+with the text on page <a href="#p014">14</a>.</li></ul>
+
+</div><!--transnote-->
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 53453 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-06 16:46:45 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-02-06 16:46:45 -0800
commit	e8b1c07ef2e082dfb67904c115bb77d26eb9a180 (patch)
tree	90d3593e9e226e083b3dcb5f1718384e677e6283 /53453-h
parent	cad7c0de77a75d061644cdc6435b29c9026d5ad4 (diff)