The Cambridge Psychological Library THE GROUP MIND CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS C. F. CLAY, Manager LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.G. 4 - MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. BOMBAY \ CALCUTTA MADRAS TORONTO : THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA COPYRIGHTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 2, 4, AND 6, WEST 45TH STREET, NEW YORK CITY ALL RIGHTS RESERVED THE GROUP MIND A SKETCH OF THE PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY WITH SOME ATTEMPT TO APPLY THEM TO THE INTERPRETATION OF NATIONAL LIFE AND CHARACTER BY WILLIAM M^DOUGALL, F.R.S. LATE FELLOW OF ST JOHN's COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, FELLOW OF CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE AND WILDE READER IN MENTAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD " Une nation est une ame, un principe spirituel. Deux choses qui, a vrai dire, n'en font qu'une constituent cette ame, ce principe spirituel. L'une est dans le pass6, I'autre dans le present. L'une est la possession en commun d'un riche legs de souvenirs; I'autre est le consentement actuel, le d^sir de vivre ensemble, la volont^ de continuer i faire valoir I'h^ritage qu'on a re9u indivis." Ernest Renan. CAMBRIDGE AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 1920 tu.j LIBRARY ^ TO Professor L. T. HOBHOUSE in admiration of his work in philosophy, psychology, and sociology, and in the hope that he may discern in this book some traces of the spirit by which his own writings have been inspired. 425i)bo PREFACE In this book I have sketched the principles of the mental life of groups and have made a rough attempt to apply these principles to the understanding of the hfe of nations. I have had the substance of the book in the form of lecture notes for some years, but have long hesitated to pubUsh it. I have been held back, partly by my sense of the magnitude and difficulty of the subject and the in- adequacy of my own preparation for deahng with it, partly because I wished to build upon a firm foundation of generally accepted principles of human nature. Some fifteen years ago I projected a complete treatise on Social Psychology which would have comprised the substance of the present volume. I was prevented from carrying out the ambitious scheme, partly by the difficulty of finding a pubhsher, partly by my increasing sense of the lack of any generally accepted or acceptable account of the constitution of human nature. I found it necessary to attempt to provide such a foundation, and in 1908 pubUshed my Introduction to Social Psychology. That book has enjoyed a certain popular success. But it was more novel, more revolutionary, than I had supposed when writing it; and my hope that it would rapidly be accepted by my colleagues as in the main a true account of the fundamentals of human nature has not been reahsed. All this part of psychology labours under the great difficulty that the worker in it cannot, like other men of science, pubhsh his con- clusions as discoveries which will necessarily be accepted by any persons competent to judge. He can only state his conclusions and his reasonings and hope that they may gradually gain the general approval of his colleagues. For to the obscure questions of fact with which he deals it is in the nature of things impossible to return answers supported by indisputable experimental proofs. In this field the evidence of an author's approximation towards truth can consist only in his success in gradually persuading competent opinion of the value of his views. My sketch of the fundamentals of himian nature can hardly claim even that degree of success which would be constituted by an active criticism and discussion of it in competent quarters. Yet there are not wanting indications that opinion is viii PREFACE turning slowly towards the acceptance of some such doctrine as I then outlined. Especially the development of psycho-pathology, stimulated so greatly by the esoteric dogmas of the Freudian school, points in this direction. The only test and verification to which any scheme of human nature can be submitted is the application of it to practice in the elucidation of the concrete phenomena of human life and in the control and direction of conduct, especially in the two great fields of medicine and education. And I have been much encouraged by finding that some workers in both of these fields have found my scheme of use in their practice and have even, in some few cases, given it a cordial general approval. But group psychology is itself one of the fields in which such testing and verification must be sought. And I have decided to delay no longer in attempting to bring my scheme to this test. I am also impelled to venture on what may appear to be premature publication by the fact that five of the best years of my Hfe have been wholly given up to military service and the practical problems of psycho-therapy, and by the reflection that the years of a man's Hfe are numbered and that, even though I should delay yet another fifteen years, I might find that I had made but little progress towards securing the firm foundation I desired. It may seem to some minds astonishing that I should now admit that the substance of this book was committed to writing before the Great War; for that war is supposed by some to have revolu- tionised all our ideas of hmnan nature and of national hfe. But the war has given me httle reason to add to or to change what I had written. This may be either because I am too old to learn, or because what I had written was in the main true; and I am naturally disposed to accept the second explanation, I wish to make it clear to any would-be reader of this volume that it is a sequel to my Introduction to Social Psychology, that it builds upon that book and assumes that the reader is acquainted with it. That former volume has been criticised as an attempted outhne of Social Psychology. One critic remarks that it may be good psychology, but it is very httle social; another wittily says "Mr McDougall, while giving a full account of the genesis of instincts that act in society, hardly shows how they issue into society. He seems to do a great deal of packing in preparation for a journey on which he never starts." The last sentence exactly describes the book. I found myself, hke so many of my predecessors and con- temporaries, about to start on a voyage of exploration of societies PREFACE ix with an empty trunk, or at least with one very inadequately suppUed with the things essential for successful traveUing. I decided to avoid the usual practice of starting without impedimenta and of picking up or inventing bits of make-shift equipment as each emergency arose; I would pack my trunk carefully before starting. And now, although my feUow travellers have not entirely approved my outfit, I have launched out to put it to the test; and I cannot hope that my readers will follow me if they have not at their command a similar outfit — namely, a similar view of the constitution of human nature. I would gratefully confess that the resolve to go forward without a further long period of preparation has been made possible for me largely by the encouragement I have had from the recently pubhshed work of Dr James Drever, Instinct in Man. For the author of that work has carefiilly studied the most fundamental part of my Social Psychology, in the light of his wide knowledge of the cognate litera- ture, and has found it to be in the main acceptable. The title and much of the substance of the present volume might lead a hasty reader to suppose that I am influenced by, or even in sympathy with, the poHtical philosophy associated with German 'idealism.' I would, therefore, take this opportunity both to prevent any such erroneous inference and to indicate my attitude towards that system of thought in plainer language than it seemed possible to use before the war. I have argued that we may properly speak of a group mind, and that each of the most developed nations of the present time may be regarded as in process of developing a group mind. This must lay me open to the suspicion of favouring the pohtical philosophy which makes of the state a super-individual and semi-divine person before whom all men must bow down, renouncing their claims to freedom of judgment and action; the pohtical philo- sophy in short of German 'idealism,' which derives in the main from Hegel, which has been so ably represented in this country by Dr Bosanquet, which has exerted so great an influence at Oxford, and which in my opinion is as detrimental to honest and clear thinking as it has proved to be destructive of political morahty in its native country. I am relieved of the necessity of attempting to justify these severe strictures by the recent pubhcation of The Metaphysical Theory of the State by Prof. L. T. Hobhouse. In that volume Prof. Hobhouse has subjected the pohtical philosophy of German 'ideaUsm,' and especially Dr Bosanquet's presentation of it, to a criticism which, as it seems to me, should suffice to expose the X PREFACE hollowness of its claims to all men for all time ; and I cannot better define my own attitude towards it than by expressing the complete- ness of my sympathy with the searching criticism of Mr Hobhouse's essay. In my youth I was misled into supposing that the Germans were the possessors of a peculiar wisdom ; and I have spent a large part of my life in discovering, in one field of science after another, that I was mistaken. I can always read the works of some German philosophers, especially those of Hermann Lotze, with admiration and profit ; but I have no longer any desire to contend with the great systems of 'idealism,' and I think it a cruel waste that the best years of the lives of many young men should be spent strugghngi with the obscure phrases in which Kant sought to express his pro-j found and subtle thought. My first scientific effort was to find evidence in support of a new hypothesis of muscular contraction; and, in working through the various German theories, I was dis- mayed by their lack of clear mechanical conceptions. My next venture was in the physiology of vision, a branch of science which had become almost exclusively German, Starting with a prepos- session in favour of one of the dominant German theories, I soon reached the conclusion that the two German leaders in this field, Helmholtz and Hering, with their hosts of disciples, had, in spite of much admirable detailed work, added little of value and much confusion to the theory of vision left us by a great Englishman, — namely, Thomas Young; and in a long series of papers I endeavoured to restate and supplement Young's theory. Advancing into the field of physiological psychology, I attacked the ponderous volumes of Wundt with enthusiasm; only to find that his physiology of the nervous system was a tissue of unacceptable hypotheses and that he failed to connect it in any profitable manner with his question- able psychology. And, finding even less satisfaction in such works as Ziehen's Physiologische Psychologic, with its crude materialism and associationism, or in the dogmatic speculations of Verwom, I pubhshed my own small attempt to bring psychology into fruitful relations with the physiology of the nervous system. This brought me up against the great problem of the relations between mind and body ; and, having found that, in this sphere, German ' idealism ' was pragmatically indistinguishable from thorough-going materiaUsm, and that those Germans who claimed to reconcile the two did not really rise much above the level of Ernst Haeckel's wild flounderings, I published my History and Defense of Animism. And in this field, though I found much to admire in the writings of Lotze, I derived PREFACE xi most encouragement and stimulus from Prof. Bergson. In working at the foundations of human nature, I found httle help in German psychology, and more in French books, especially in those of Prof. Ribot. In psycho-pathology I seemed to find that the claims of the German and Austrian schools were far outweighed by those of the French writers, especially of Prof. Janet. So now, in attacking the problems of the mental life of societies, I have found little help from German psychology or sociology, from the elaborations of Wundt's Volkerpsychologie or the ponderosities of Schaffle, and still less from the 'idealist' philosophy of poHtics. In this field also it is French authors from whom I have learnt most and with whom I find myself most in sympathy, especially MM. Fouillee, Boutmy, Tarde, and Demolins; though I would not be thought to hold in low esteem the works of many EngHsh and American authors, notably those of Buckle, Bagehot, Maine, Lecky, Lowell, and of many others, to some of which I have made reference in the chapters of this book. I have striven to make this a strictly scientific work, rather than a philosophical one ; that is to say, I have tried to ascertain and state the facts and principles of social life as it is and has been, without expressing my opinion as to what it should be. But, in order further to guard myself against the imphcations attached by German 'idealism' to the notion of a collective mind, I wish to state that politically my sympathies are with individualism and internationalism, although I have, I think, fully recognised the great and necessary part played in human life by the Group Spirit and by that special form of it which we now call 'Nationahsm. ' I know well that those of my readers whose S3mipathies are with Collectivism, SyndicaUsm, or Socialism in any of its various forms will detect in this book the cloven foot of individualism and leanings towards the aristocratic principle. I know also that many others will reproach me with giving countenance to communistic and ultra-democratic tendencies. I would, therefore, point out explicitly at the outset that, if this book affords justification for any normative doctrine or ideal, it is for one which would aim at a syn- thesis of the principles of individuaUsm and communism, of aris- tocracy and democracy, of self-reaHzation and of service to the community. I can best express this ideal in the wise words of Mr F. H. Bradley, which I extract from his famous essay on 'My Station and its Duties.' "The individual's consciousness of himself is inseparable from the knowing himself as an organ of the whole; xii PREFACE . . .for his nature now is not distinct from his 'artificial self.' He is related to the living moral system not as to a foreign body; his relation to it is 'too inward even for faith/ since faith imphes a certain separation. It is no other-world that he can not see but must trust to; he feels himself in it, and it in him;. . .the belief in) this real moral organism is the one solution of ethical problems. It I breaks down the antithesis of despotism and individuahsm ; it denies them, while it preserves the truth of both. The truth of individuahsm is saved, because, unless we have intense life and self-consciousness in the members of the state, the whole state is ossified. The truth of despotism is saved, because, unless the member realizes the whole by and in himself, he fails to reach his own individuahty. Con- sidered in the main, the best communities are those which have the best men for their members, and the best men are the members of the best communities The two problems of the best man and best state are two sides, two distinguishable aspects of the one problem, how to realize in human nature the perfect unity of homo- geneity and specification; and when we see that each of these without the other is unreal, then we see that (speaking in general) the welfare of the state and the welfare of its individuals are questions which it is mistaken and ruinous to separate. Personal morahty and poHtical and social institutions can not exist apart, and (in general) the better the one the better the other. The community is moral, because it realizes personal morality; personal morality is moral, because and in so far as it reaUzes the moral whole." Since correcting the proofs of this volume I have become ac- quainted with two recent books whose teaching is so closely in harmony with my own that I wish to direct my readers' attention to them. One is Sir Martin Conway's The Crowd in Peace and War, which contains many valuable illustrations of group hfe. The other is Miss M. P. FoUett's The New State; Group Organization the Solution of Popular Government, which expounds the principles and advan- tages of collective dehberation with vigour and insight. I am under much obligation to the general editor of this series. Prof. G. Dawes Hicks. He has read the proofs of my book, and has helped me greatly with many suggestions ; but he has, of course, no responsibility for the views expressed in it. W. M^D. Oxford, March 1920. CONTENTS Preface PART I. GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY PAGES Chapter I. Introduction. The Province of Collective Psychology The need for a more concrete psychology — the conception of the group mind — objections to the conception examined — the conception not a new one but famihar in poUtical philosophy and law — the essential problem 1-20 Chapter II. The Mental Life of the Crowd The crowd presents the phenomena of collective Ufa in crude ,^^^ and simple forms — the formation of the psychological crowd — its pecuharities — spread and intensification of emotions — how that takes place — the notion of 'collective consciousness' provisionally rejected — the submergence of personaUty in the crowd — the low intelligence of crowds — suggestibiUty — lack of individual responsibihty 21-47 Chapter III. The Highly Organised Group The principal conditions of organisation — the army as the type — how its organisation raises the soldier to a higher plane of collective Ufe — the nature of collective will illustrated — / influence of leaders r/ 48-61 Chapter IV. The Group Spirit The self-consciousness of the group — the^^oup idea and the group sentiment — the group consciousness in primitive life — views of Comford and Levy Bruhl examined — ' collective representations ' — the peculiar merit of the group spirit — mul- tiple group consciousness — the hierarchy of groups — inter- action of groups 62-87 Chapter V. Peculiarities of Groups of various Types Rudimentary groups — natural and artificial groups — purposive, traditional and mixed groups 88-95 xiv CONTENTS PART II. THE NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER Chapter VI. What is a Nation? Difficulty of defining nationhood — Prof. Ramsay Muir's definition not adequate — mental organisation, resting on ~^ tradition, the most essential condition — lack of clear con- ceptions has given currency to many obscure notions — the study of nationhood essentially the work of group psychology . . 96-105 Chapter VII. The Mind of a Nation National character defined — conditions essential to its forma- tion — homogeneity a prime condition — the influence of racial qualities on national character — the durability of racial quahties — acquired mental homogeneity as illustrated by the American nation — the influence upon it of geographical con- ditions 106-130 Chapter VIII. Freedom of communication as a Condition OF National Life Large nations impossible in the ancient world — the tendency of nations to grow larger with increase of means of communi- cation 131-134 Chapter IX. The Part of Leaders in National Life Nations owe their existence to influence of leaders — men of genius — men of talent — their rdle in national life . . . 135-141 Chapter X. Other Conditions of National Life A common purpose — ^war the unifier — national responsi- bilities — continuity of national life — organisation of the national mind analogous to that of the individual mind — national self-consciousness — types of organisation , . . 142-154 Chapter XL The Will of the Nation 1 Rousseau's doctrine of the general will — Prof. Bosanquet's view inadequate — the national mind has both organic unity and the unity of self-consciousness — increase of national self- consciousness the leading fact of recent world history — self- consciousness of nations developed by rivalry and intercourse between them 155-168 CONTENTS XV Chapter XII. Ideas in National Life The idea of the nation is constitutive — ideas work as forces in national Ufe only in virtue of sentiments grown up about their objects — the notions of society as an organism and as founded on contract synthesised in the conception of the nation as a contractual organism — the value of nationality examined — ideas of conquest — of ancestor worship — of liberty and equaUty — of progress — of solidarity 169-186 Chapter XIII. Nations of the Higher Type National deliberation — the influence on it of organisation and of traditions — certain advantages of the representative system — public opinion arises from an informal organisation — the problem of the high level of public opinion — its solution to be found in the influence of leaders 187-199 PART III. THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER Chapter XIV. Factors of National Development Civilisation does not imply improvement of racial qualities — it abolishes selection by the physical environment — it consists in improved intellectual and moral traditions and is dependent on favourable social organisation 200-207 Chapter XV. The Race-making Period Differentiation of races from a common stock — human evolu- tion differs from that of the animals in becoming group evolution — physical environment supplanted by social en- vironment and organisation — the direct effects of cUmate on the body — on the mind 208—219 Chapter XVI. The Race-making Period (continued) Physical environment determines racial adaptation directly by selection — indirectly by determining occupations and social organisation — the protective spirit in France — the spirit of independence in England — attempts of Buckle, Boutmy and Sir H. Maine to account for these not successful . 220-232 Chapter XVII. The Race-making Period (continued) The influence of occupations — the leading principle of the school of Le Play — the development of the spirit of protection in the people of Gaul — the development of the spirit of inde- pendence in the ancestors of the English — the crossing of races — its bad and its good results 233-245 xvi CONTENTS PAGES Chapter XVIII. Racial Changes during the Historic Period Race substitution — the population of Greece — internal selec- tion — its effects in Spain — various forms of social selection — mostly negative or injurious to national stock — economic selec- tion and the social ladder — the innate moral disposition — the question of its improvement 246-269 Chapter XIX. The Progress of Nations in their Youth The rarity of progress — the conditions enabling progress — group selection — ^in what has progress consisted ? — views of Buckle and Kidd — conquest and domination an early con- dition of progress — variability of crossed races — influence of physical environment — western civihsation and social organisation 270-286 Chapter XX. The Progress of Nations in their Maturity Liberty and social organisation — caste makes for rigidity — the growth of toleration — imaginative sympathy increases with increasing freedom of intercourse, bringing strife and understanding — the group spirit as the main agent of further progress 287-301 Index 302-304 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The province of Collective Psychology To define exactly the relations of the several special sciences is a task which can never be completely achieved so long as these sciences continue to grow and change. It is a pecuharly difficult task in respect of the biological sciences, because we have not yet reached general agreement as to the fundamental conceptions which these sciences should employ. To illustrate this difficulty I need only refer to a recent symposium of the Aristotelian Society in which a number of distinguished philosophers and biologists discussed the question "Are physical, biological and psychological categories irre- ducible? " The discussion revealed extreme differences of opinion, and failed to bring the disputants nearer to a common view. The difficulty is still greater in respect of the human sciences— anthro- pology, psychology, ethics, politics, economics, sociology, and the rest ; and it is not to be hoped that any general agreement on this difficult question will be reached in the near future. Yet it seems worth while that each writer who aspires to break new ground in any part of this field of inquiry should endeavour to make clear to himself and others his conception of the relations of that part to the rest of the field. It is, then, in no dogmatic spirit, or with any belief in the finahty of the position assigned to my topic, that I venture the following definition of the province of psychology with which this book is concerned. I have chosen the title, "The Group Mind," after some hesitation in favour of the alternative, " Collective Psychology." The latter has the advantage that it has already been used by several continental authors, more especially French and ItaHan psychologists. But the title I have chosen is, I think, more distinctively Enghsh in quality and denotes more clearly the topic that I desire to discuss. An alternative and not inappropriate title would have been "An OutUne of Social Psychology"; but two reasons prevented the adoption of this. First, my Introduction to Social Psychology has become generally known by the abbreviated title Social Psychology. 2 ,■;:■■';,'••; C' '::.. : X^.TJRODUCTION [ch. This was an unforeseen result and unfortunate designation ; for, as I have explained in the Preface to the present volume, that other work was designed merely as a propaedeutic ; it aimed merely at clearing the ground and laying the foundations for Social Psychology, while leaving the topic itself for subsequent treatment. Secondly/ I con- ceive Group Psychology to be a part only, though a very large part, of the total field of Sgciai Psychology ; for, while the former has to deal only with the life of groups, the latter has also to describe and account for the influence of the group on the growth and activities of the individuaQ This is the most concrete part of psychology and naturally comes last in the order of development of the science; for, like other sciences, psychology began with the most abstract notions, the forms of activity of mind in general, and, by the aid of the abstract conceptions achieved by the earlier workers, progresses to the consideration of more concrete problems, the problems pre- sented by actual living persons in all their inexhaustible richness and complexity. Until the later decades of the nineteenth century, psychology continued to concern itself almost exclusively with the mind of man conceived in an abstract fashion, not as the mind of any particular individual, but as the mind of a representative individual considered in abstraction from his social settings as something given to our contemplation fully formed and complete. ..^j-^Two important changes of modern thought have shown the neces- \/ sity of a more concrete treatment of psychological problems. The first has been the coming into prominence of the problems of genesis which,although not originated by Darwin, received so great an impetus i from his work. The second has been the increasing realisation of the need for a more synthetic treatment of all fields of science, the realisa- tion that analysis alone carries us ever farther away from concrete problems and leads only to a system of abstract conceptions which are very remote from reahty, however useful they may prove in the physical sciencesy^The biological and the human sciences especially have been profoundly affected by these two changes of modern thought. As Theodore Merz has so well shown in the fourth volume of his monumental work^, the need has been increasingly felt of the vue d' ensemble, of the synthetic mode of regarding organisms, men, and institutions, not as single things, self-contained and complete in themselves, but as merely nodes or meeting points of all the forces of the world acting and reacting in unlimited time and space. 1 History of European Thought in the igth Century. I] INTRODUCTION 3 Psychology was, then, until recent years the science of the abstract individual mind. Each worker aimed at rendering by the aid of introspection an analytic description of the stream of his own consciousness, a consistent classification of the elements or features that he seemed to discover therein, and some general laws or rules of the order of succession and conjunction of these features; postu- lating in addition some one or more explanatory principles or active agencies such as 'the will' or the desire of pleasure, the aversion from pain, or 'the association of ideas,' to enable him to account for the flow of the distinguishable elements of consciousness. The psychology achieved by these studies, necessary and valuable as they were, was of little help to men who were struggling with the concrete problems of human life and was therefore largely ignored by them. But, as I have pointed out in the Introduction to my Social Psychology, those who approached these problems were generally stimulated to do so by their interest in questions of right and wrong, in questions of norms and standards of conduct, the urgency of which demanded immediate answers for the practical guidance of human hfe in all its spheres of activity, for the shaping of laws, institutions, governments, and associations of every kind ; or, as frequently perhaps, for the justification and defence of stand- ards of conduct, modes of belief, and forms of institution, which men had learnt to esteem as supremely good. Thus the political science of Hobbes was the expression of his attempt to justify the monarchy estabhshed by the Tudors and en- dangered by the failings of the Stuart kings; while that of Locke was equally the outcome of his desire to justify the revolution of 1668.'; Hobbes felt it worth while to preface his magnum opus on political philosophy with a fanciful sketch of human nature and of primitive society; yet, as Mr Gooch remarks, "neither Hobbes nor his contemporaries knew anything of the actual life of primitive communities^." And it may be added that they knew as little of the foundations of human nature. Again, the social doctrines of Rousseau, with all their false psychology, were formulated in order to stir men to revolt against the conditions of social life then pre- valent in Europe. In a similar way, in the development of all that body of social doctrine that went under the name of Utihtarianism and which culminated in the political science and economy of the Manchester School, every step was prompted by the desire to find 1 Political Thought in England from Bacon to Halifax, Home University Library, p. 49. ij 4 INTRODUCTION [ch. theoretical guidance or justification for rules governing human activity. And, if we go back to the Politics of Aristotle, we find the normative or regulative aim still more prominent. Thus, in all the human sciences, we see that the search for what is has been inextricably confused with and hampered by the effort to show what ought to be; and the further back we go in their history, the more does the normative point of view predominate. They all begin in the effort to describe what ought to be; and incidentally give some more or less fallacious or fantastic account of what is, merely in order to support the normative doctrines. And, as we trace their history forward towards the present time, we find the positive element coming more and more to the front, until it tends to preponderate over and even completely to supplant the normative aim. Thus even in Ethics there is now perceptible in some quarters a tendency to repudiate the normative standpoint. All the social sciences have, then, begun their work at what, from the strictly logical point of view, was the wrong end ; instead of first securing a basis of positive science and then building up the norma- tive doctrines upon that basis, they have advanced by repeatedly going backwards towards what should have been their foundations. Now the most important part of the positive basis of the social 'sciences is psychology; we find accordingly the social sciences at first ignoring psychology and then gradually working back to it ; they became gradually more psychological and, in proportion as they did so, they became more valuable. Modem writers on these topics fall into two classes ; those who have attempted to work upon a psychological foundation, and those who have ignored or denied the need of any such basis. The earlier efforts of the former kind, among which we may reckon those of Adam Smith, Bentham, and the Mills, although they greatly influenced legislation and practice in general, have nevertheless brought the psychological method into some disrepute, because they reasoned from psychological principles which were unduly simplified and in fact misleading, notably the famous principle of psychological hedonism on which they so greatly rehed. Their psychology was, in brief, too abstract; it h ad^ not ^chieved_die njscfissaiy COT which only the introduction of the genetic standpoint and the vue d' ensemble could give it. Other writers on the social sciences were content to ignore the achievements of psychology; but, since they dealt with the activities of human beings and the products of those activities, such as laws, institutions and customs, they could hardly avoid all reference to the human I] INTRODUCTION 5 mind and its processes; they then rehed upon the crude unanalysed psychological conceptions of popular speech ; often they went further and, aspiring to explain the phenomena they described, made vast assumptions about the constitution and working of the human mind. Thus, for example, Renan, when he sought to explain some feature of the history of a nation or society, was in the habit, hke many others, of ascribing it to some peculiar instinct which he postulated for this particular purpose, such as a political or a religious instinct or an instinct of subordination or of organisation. Comte made egoism and altruism the two master forces of the mind. Sir Henry Maine asserted that "satisfaction and impatience are the two great sources of pohtical conduct," and, after asserting that "no force acting on mankind has been less carefully examined than Party, and yet none better deserves examination," he was content to conclude that "Party is probably nothing more than a survival and a conse- quence of the primitive combativeness of mankind^." More recently Prof. Giddings has discovered the principal force underlying all human associations in Consciousness of Kind. Butler and the intuitive morahsts postulated 'conscience' or moral sense as something innately present in the souls of men ; while the creators of the classical school of pohtical economy were for the most part content to assume that man is a purely rational being who always inteUigently pursues his own best interest, a false premise from which they deduced some conclusions that have not withstood the test of time. Similar vague assumptions may be found in almost every work on the social sciences, — all illustrating the need for a psychology more concrete than the older individual psychology, as a basis for these sciences, a positive science, not of some hypo- thetical Robinson Crusoe, but of the mental life of men as itij^*'^ actually unfolds itself in the famiUes, tribes, nations, societies of all sorts, that make up the human world. The general growth of interest in genetic problems, stimulated so greatly by the work of Darwin, turned the attention of psycho- logists to the problem of the genesis of the developed human mind, — the problem of its evolution in the race and its development in the individual. Then it at once became apparent that both these pro- cesses are essentially social; that they involve, and at every step are determined by, interactions between the individual and his social environment; that, while the growth of the individual mind is 1 Essay on "The Nature of Democracy" in Popular Government, London, 1885. 6 INTRODUCTION [ch. moulded by the mental forces of the society in which it grows up, \ those forces are in turn the products of the interplay of the minds |composing the society; that, therefore, we can only understand the •s^^life of individuals and the life of societies, if we consider them always in relation to one another. It was realised that each man is an individual only in an incomplete sense; that he is but a unit in ja vast system of vital and spiritual forces which, expressing them- selves in the form of human societies, are working towards ends which no man can foresee; a unit whose chief function it is to transmit these forces unimpaired, which can change or add to them only in infinitesimal degree, and which, therefore, has but little significance and cannot be accounted for when considered in abstraction from that system. It became clear that the play of this system of forces at any moment of history is predominantly determined by conditions which are themselves the products of an immensely long course of evolution, conditions which have been produced by the mental activities of countless generations and which are but very little modified by the members of society living at any one time; so that, as has been said, society consists of the dead as well as of the living, and the part of the living in determining its life is but insignificant as compared with the part of the dead. Any psychology that recognises these facts and attempts to display the reciprocal influences of the individual and the society in which he plays his part may be called Social Psychology. "Collective or Group Psychology is, then, a part of this larger field. It has to study the mental life of societies of all kinds ; and such understanding » of the group life as it can achieve has then to be used by Social Psychology in rendering more concrete and complete our under- standing of the individual life. l^'- [[^Group Psychology itself consists properly of two parts, that / which is concerned to discover the most general principles of group •* life, and that which appHes these principles to the study of particular kinds and examples of group Ufel The former is logically prior to the second ; though in practice if is hardly possible to keep them wholly apart. The present volume is concerned chiefly with the former branch. Only when the general principles of group life have been applied to the understanding of particular societies, of ^ nations and the manifold system of groups within the nation, will it be possible for Social Psychology to return upon the individual life and give of it an adequate account in all its concrete fulness. The nature of Group Psychology may be illustrated by reference I] INTRODUCTION 7 to Herbert Spencer's conception of sociology. Spencer pointed out that, if you set out to build a stable pile of solid bodies of a certain shape, the kind of structure resulting is determined by the shapes and properties of these units, that for example, if the units are spheres, there are only very few stable forms which the pile can assume. The same is true, he said, of such physical processes as crystallisation; the form and properties of the whole or aggregate are determined by the properties of the units. He maintained with less plausibiUty that the same holds good of animal and vegetable forms and of the elements of which they are composed. And he went on to argue that, in like manner, the structure and properties of )^' a society are determined by the properties of the units, the individual human beings, of which it is composed. This last proposition is true in a very partial sense only. For the aggregate which is a society has, in virtue of its past history, positive qualities which it does not derive from the units which compose it at any one time; and in virtue of these qualities it acts upon its units in a manner very different from that in which the units as such interact with one another. Further, each unit, when it x" becomes a member of a group, displays properties or modes of reaction which it does not display, which remain latent or potential only, so long as it remains outside that group. It is possible, therefore, to discover these potentialities af the units only by studying them as elements in the life of the whole. That is to say, the aggregate which is a society has a certain individuality, ^- is a true whole which in great measure determines the nature and - the modes of activity of its parts; it is an organic whole. The society has a mental life which is not the mere sum of the mental lives of its units existing as independent units; and a complete knowledge of the units, if and in so far as they could be known as isolated units, would not enable us to deduce the nature of the life of the whole, in the way that is implied by Spencer's analogies. Since, then, the social aggregate has a collective mental hfe, ^ which is not merely the sum of the mental lives of its units, it may be contended that a society not only enjoys a collective mental life but also has a collective mind or, as some prefer to say, a collective soul. The tasks of Group Psychology are, then, to examine the con- ception of the collective or group mind, in order to determine whether and in what sense this is a valid conception; to display the general principles of collective mental life which are incapable of being 8 INTRODUCTION [ch. deduced from the laws of the mental life of isolated individuals; to distinguish the principal types of collective mental life or group mind; to describe the pecuHarities of those types and as far as possible to account for them. More shortly, Group Psychology has, ! first, to establish the general principles of group life (this is general collective psychology) ; secondly, it has to apply these principles in the endeavour to understand particular examples of group life. Group Psychology, thus conceived, meets at the outset a difficulty which stands in the way of every attempt of psychology to leave the narrow field of highly abstract individual psychology. It finds the ground already staked out and occupied by the repre- sentatives of another science, who are inclined to resent its intrusion as an encroachment on their rights. The science which claims to have occupied the field of Group Psychology is Sociology; and it is of some importance that the claims of these sciences should be reconciled, so that they may live and work harmoniously together. I have no desire to claim for Group Psychology the whole province of Sociology. As I conceive it, that province is much wider than that of Group Psychology. Sociology is essentially a science which has to take a comprehensive and synthetic view of the life of man- kind, and has to accept and make use of the conclusions of many other more special sciences, of which psychology, and especially Group Psychology, is for it perhaps the most important. But other special sciences have very important if less intimate contributions to make to it. Thus, if it be true that great civilisations have decayed owing to changes of climate of their habitats, or owing to the intro- duction of such diseases as malaria into them, then Climatology and Epidemiology have their contributions to make to Sociology. If peculiarities of diet or the crossing of racial stocks may profoundly affect the vigour of peoples. Physiology must have its say. General biology and the science of Genetics are bringing to light much that must be incorporated in Sociology. Economics, although needing to be treated far more psychologically than it commonly has been, has its special contribution to make. These are only a few illustra- tions of the fact that the field of Sociology is very much wider and more general than that of Group Psychology, however important to it the conclusions of the narrower science may be. In this book it will be maintained that the conception of a group mind is useful and therefore valid ; and, since this notion has already excited some opposition and criticism and is one that requires very careful definition, some attempt to define and justify it may usefully I INTRODUCTION 9 be made at the outset; though the completer justification is the substance of the whole book. Some writers have assumed the reaUty of what is called the ' collective consciousness ' of a society, meaning thereby a unitary consciousness of the society over and above that of the individuals comprised within it. This conception is examined in Chapter II and provisionally rejected. But it is maintained that a society, when it enjoys a long life and becomes highly organised, acquires a structure and qualities which are largely independent of the qualities of the individuals who enter into its composition and take part for a brief time in its life. It becomes an organised system of forces which has a life of its own, tendencies of its own, a power of moulding cdl its component individuals, and a power of per- petuating itself as a self-identical system, subject only to slow and graducd change. In an earlier work, in which I have sketched in outUne the pro- gram of psychology^, I wrote: "When the student of behaviour has learnt from the various departments of psychology. . . all that they can teach him of the structure, genesis, and modes of operation of the individual mind, a large field still awaits his exploration. If we put aside as unproven such speculations as that touched on at the end of the foregoing chapter (the view of James that the human mind can enter into an actuaj union or communion with the divine mind) and refuse to admit any modes of communication or influence , between minds other than through the normal channels of sense- perception and bodily movement, we must nevertheles'Sj recognise the existence in a certain sense of over-individual or collective minds. /We may fairly define a mind as an organised system of mental or purposive forces ; and, in the sense so defined, every highly organised human society may properly be said to possess a collective mind. For the collective actions which constitute the history of any such society are conditioned by an organisation which can only be described in terms of mind, and which yet is not comprised within the mind of any individual ; the society is rather constituted by the system of relations obtaining between the individual minds which are its units of composition. Under any given circumstances the actions of the society are, or may be, very different from the mere sum of the actions with which its several members would react to the situation in the absence of the system of relations which render them a society; or, in other words, the thinking and acting ^ Psychology, the Study of Behaviour, Home University Library, London, 1912. 10 INTRODUCTION [ch. of each man, in so far as he thinks and acts as a member of a society, are very different from his thinking and acting as an isolated individual." This passage has been cited by the author of a notable work on Sociology^, and made by him the text of a polemic against the con- ception of the group mind. He writes: "This passage contains two arguments in favour of the hypothesis of super-individual ' collective ' minds, neither of which can stand examination. The ' definition ' of a mind as 'an organised system of mental or purposive forces' is totally inadequate. When we speak of the mind of an individual we mean something more than this. The mind of each of us has a unity other than that of such a system." But I doubt whether Mr Maciver could explain exactly what kind of unity it is that he postulates. Is it the unity of soul substance? I have myself contended at some length that this is a necessary postulate or hypothesis^, but I do not suppose that Maciver accepts or intends to refer to this conception. Is it the unity of consciousness or of self-consciousness? Then the answer is that this unity is by no means a general and established function of the individual mind ; modern studies of the disintegration of personality have shown this to be a questionable assumption, undermined by the many facts of normal and abnormal psychology best resumed under Dr Morton Prince's term 'co-consciousness.' The individual mind is a system of purposive forces, but the system is by no means always a harmonious system; it is but too apt to be the scene of fierce conflicts which sometimes (in the graver psychoneuroses) result in the rupture and disintegration of the \ /system. I do not know how otherwise we are to describe the indi- , vidual mind than as a system of mental forces ; and, until Maciver succeeds in showing in what other sense he conceives it to have "a unity other than that of such a system," his objection cannot be seriously entertained. He asks, of the alleged collective mind: "Does the system so created think and will and feel and act^?" My answer, as set out in the following pages, is that it does all of these things. He asks further: "If a number of minds construct by their interactivity an organisation 'which can only be described in terms of mind,' must we ascribe to the construction the very nature of the forces which constructed it?" To this I reply— my point is that the individual minds which enter into the structure of the group ^1 mind at any moment of its life do not construct it ; rather, as they I ^ Community, by R. M. Maciver, London, 191 7. '^ In Body and Mind, London, 191 1. * Op. cit. p. 76. I] . INTRODUCTION ii come to reflective self-consciousness, they find themselves alreadyy members of the system, moulded by it, sharing in its activities, influenced by it at every moment in every thought and feeling and action in ways which they can neither fuUy understand nor escape from, struggle as they may to free themselves from its infinitely subtle and multitudinous forces. And this system, as Maciver himself forcibly insists in another connection, does not consist of relations that exist external to and independently of the things related, namely the minds of individuals; it consists of the same stuff as the individual minds, its threads and parts lie within these minds; but the parts in the several individual minds reciprocally imply and complement one another and together make up the system which consists wholly of them; and therefore, as I wrote, they can "only be described in terms of mind." Any society is literally a more or less organised mental system; the stuff of which it consists is mental stuff; the forces that operate within it are mental forces. Maciver argues further: "Social organisations occur of every kind and every degree of universality. If England has a collective mind, why not Birmingham and why not each of its wards? If a nation has a collective mind, so also have a church and a trade union. And we shall have collective minds that are parts of greater collective minds, and collective minds that intersect other collective minds." By this my withers are quite unwrung. What degree of organisation is necessary before a society can properly be said to enjoy collective mental life or have a group mind is a question of degree; and the exponent of the group mind is under no obligation to return a precise answer to this question. My contention is that the most highly organised groups display collective mental life in a way which justifies the conception of the group mind, and that we shall be helped to understand collective life in these most complex and difficult forms by studying it in the simpler less elaborated groups where the con- ception of a group mind is less clearly applicable. As regards the overlapping and intersection of groups and the consequent difficulty of assigning the limits of groups whose unity is implied by the term group mind, I would point out that this difficulty arises only in connexion with the lower forms of group life and that a parallel difficulty is presented by the lower forms of animal life. Is Maciver acquainted with the organisation of a sponge, or of the so-called coral 'insect,' or with that of the Portuguese man-o'-war? Would he deny the unity of a human being, or refuse to acknowledge his possession of a mind, because in these lower organisms the limits of \l 12 INTRODUCTION [ch. the unit are hard or impossible to assign? Maciver goes on: "The second argument is an obvious fallacy. If each man thinks and acts differently as a member of a crowd or association and as an individual standing out of any such immediate relation to his fellows, it is still each who thinks and acts ; the new determinations are determinations still of individual minds as they are influenced by aggregation .... But this is merely an extreme instance of the obvious fact that every mind is influenced by every kind of environment. To posit a super- individual mind because individual minds are altered by their relations to one another (as indeed they are altered by their relations to physical conditions) is surely gratuitous^." To this I reply — the environment which influences the individual in his Ufe as a member of an organised group is neither the sum of his feUow members as individuals, nor is it something that has other than a mental existence. It is the organised group as such, which exists only or chiefly in the persons of those composing it, but which does not exist in the mind of any one of them, and which operates upon each so powerfully just because it is something indefinitely greater, more powerful, more comprehensive than the mere sum of those individuals. Maciver feels that "it is important to clear out of the way this misleading doctrine of super-individual minds corresponding to social or communal organisations and activities," and therefore goes on to say that "there is no more a great 'collective' mind beyond the individual minds in society than there is a great 'col- lective ' tree beyond all the individual trees in nature. A collection of trees is a wood, and that we can study as a unity; so an aggregation of men is a society, a much more determinate unity ; but a collection of trees is not a collective tree, and neither is a collection of persons or minds a collective person or mind. We can speak of qualities of tree in abstraction from any particular tree, and we can speak of quaUties of mind as such, or of some particular kind of mind in relation to some type of situation. Yet in so doing we are simply considering the characteristic of like elements of individual minds, as we might consider the characteristic or like elements discoverable in individual trees and kinds of trees. To conceive because of these identities, a ' collective ' mind as existing beside those of individuals or a collective tree beside the variant examples is to run against the wall of the Idea theory." Now, I am not proposing to commit myself to this last-named theory. It is not because minds have much in common with one another that I speak of the collective ^ Op. cit. p. 77. I] INTRODUCTION 13 mind, but because the group as such is more than the sum of the individuals, has its own life proceeding according to laws of group life, which are not the laws of individual life, and because its peculiar group life reacts upon and profoundly modifies the lives of the individuals. I would not call a forest a collective tree; but I would maintain that in certain respects a forest, a wood, or a copse, has in a rudimentary way a collective life. Thus the forest remains the same forest though, after a hundred or a thousand years, all its constituent trees may be different individuals; and again the forest as a whole may and does modify the life of each tree, as by attracting moisture, protecting from violent and cold winds, harbouring various plants and animals which affect the trees, and so on. But I will cite an eloquent passage from a recent work on sociology in support of my view. "The bonds of society are in the members of society, and not outside them. It is the memories, traditions, and beliefs of each which make up the social memories, traditions and beliefs. Society hke the kingdom of God is within us. Within us, within each of us, and yet greater than the thoughts and under- standings of any of us. For the social thoughts and feehngs and willings of each, the socialised mind of each, with the complex scheme of his relation to the social world, is no mere reproduction of the social thoughts and feehngs and willings of the rest. Unity and difference here too weave their eternal web, the greater social scheme which none of us who are part of it can ever see in its entirety, but whose infinite subtlety and harmony we may more and more com- prehend and admire. As a community grows in civilisation and culture, its traditions are no longer clear and definite ways of thinking, its usages are no longer uniform, its spirit is no longer to be summed up in a few phrases. But the spirit and tradition of a people become no less real in becoming more complex. Each member no longer embodies the whole tradition, but it is because each embodies some part of a greater tradition to which the freely-working individuality of each contributes. In this sense the spirit of a people, though existing only in the individual members, more and more surpasses the measure of any individual mind. Again, the social tradition is expressed through institutions and records more permanent than the short-hved members of community. These institutions and records are as it were stored social values (just as, in particular, books may be called stored social knowledge), in themselves nothing, no part of the social mind, but the instruments of the communication of tradi- tions from member to member, as also from the dead past to the 14 INTRODUCTION [ch. living present. In this way too, with the increase of these stored values, of which members realise parts but none the whole, the spirit of a people more and more surpasses the measure of any individual mind. It is these social forces within and without, working in the minds of individuals whose own social inheritance is an essential part of their individuality, stored in the institutions which they maintain from the past or establish in the present, that mould the communal spirit of the successive generations. In this sense too a community may be called greater than its members who exist at any one time, since the community itself marches out of the past into the present, and its members at any time are part of a great succession, themselves first moulded by communal forces before they become, so moulded, the active determinants of its future moulding." An admirable statement! "The greater social scheme which none of us can see in its entirety" — "the spirit of a people" which "more and more surpasses the measure of any indi\idual mind" — "the communal spirit of the successive generations " — " the community " which is "greater than its members who exist at any one time"; all these are alternative designations of that organised system of mental forces which exists over and above, though not independently of, the individuals in each of whom some fragment of it is embodied and which is the group mind. And the writer of this statement is Mr R. M. Maciver; the passage occurs in the section of his book designed to "clear out of the way this misleading doctrine of super- indi\ddual minds." In the same section he goes on to say that "every association, every organised group, may and does have rights and obligations which are not the rights and obligations of any or all of its members taken distributively but only of the association acting as an organised unity .... As a unity the association may become a 'juristic person,' a ' corporation,' and from the legal stand- point the character of unity so conceived is ver^' important .... The 'juristic person' is a real unity, and therefore more than a persona ficta, but the reahty it possesses is of a totally different order of being from that of the persons who establish it." But, perversely as it seems to me, Maciver adds "the unit}' of which we are thinking is not mechanic or organic or even psychic." I cannot but think that, in thus denying the organic and psychic nature of this unity, Maciver is under the influence of that unfortunate and still prevalent way of thinking of the psychic as identical with the conscious which has given endless trouble in psychology; because it has prompted the hopeless attempt, constantly renewed, to describe the structure I] INTRODUCTION 15 and organisation of the mind in terms of conscious stuff, ignoring the all-important distinction between mental activity, which is sometimes, though perhaps not always, consciousness, and mental structure which is not. The structure and organisation of the spirit of the community is in every respect as purely mental or psychic as is the structure and organisation of the individual mind. Maciver very properly goes on to bring his conclusions to the pragmatic test, the test of practical results. He writes: "These false analogies . . . are the sources of that most misleading antithesis which we draw between the individual and society, as though society were somehow other than its individuals .... Analyse these misleading analogies, and in the revelation of their falsity there is revealed also the falsity of this essential opposition of individual and society. Properly understood, the interests of ' the individual ' are the interests of society 1." But is it true that the interests of the individual are identical with the interests of society? Obviously not. We have only to think of the condemned criminal ; of the mentally defective to whom every enlightened society should deny the right of pro- creation ; of the young soldier who sacrifices his health, his Umbs, his eyesight, or his life, and perhaps the welfare of his loved ones, in serving his country. It is true that the progress of society is essentially an approximation towards an ideal state in which this identification would be completed ; but that is an ideal which can never be abso- lutely realised. Nor is it even true that the interests of society are identical with the interests of the majority of its members existing at any one time. It is, I think, highly probable that, if any great modern nation should unanimously and wholeheartedly embark upon a thorough-going scheme of state-socialism, the interests of the vast majority of individuals would be greatly promoted; they would be enabled to live more prosperously and comfortably with greater leisure and opportunity for the higher forms of activity. It is, how- ever, equally probable that the higher interests of the nation would be gravely endangered, that it would enter upon a period of increasing stagnation and diminishing vitality and, after a few generations had passed away, would have slipped far down the slope which has led aU great societies of the past to destruction. The question may be considered in relation to the German nation. As will be pointed out in a later chapter, the structure of that nation was, before the Great War, a menace to European civihsation. If the Germans had succeeded in their aims and had conquered Europe ^ Op. cit. p. 90. i6 INTRODUCTION [ch. or the world, their individual interests would have been vastly pro- moted; they would have enjoyed immense material prosperity and a proud consciousness of having been chosen by God to rule the rest of mankind for their good. And this would have confirmed the nation in all its vices and would have finally crushed out of it all its poten- tialities for developing into a weU-organised nation of the higher type, fitted to play an honourable part in the future evolution of mankind. The same truth appears if we consider the problem of the responsibility of the German nation for the War. So long as that people might retain its former organisation, which, I repeat, rendered it a menace to the civilisation and culture of the whole world, its antagonists could only treat it as a criminal and an outlaw to be repressed at all costs and punished and kept down with the utmost severity. But, if it should achieve a new organisation, one which wiU give preponderance to the better and saner elements and tradi- tions still preserved within it, then, although it will consist of the same individuals in the main, it will have become a new or at least a transformed nation, one with which the other nations could enter into normal relations of amity or at least of mutual toleration, one which could be admitted to a place in the greater society which the League of Nations is to become. In other words, the same population would in virtue of a changed organisation, have become a different nation. Although Maciver, in making his attack upon the conception of the group mind, has done me the honour to choose me as its exponent, I do not stand alone in maintaining it. I am a little shy of citing in its support the philosophers of the school of German 'ideaUsm,' because, as I have indicated in the Preface, I have little sympathy with that school. Yet, though one may disapprove of the methods and of most of the conclusions of a school of thought, one may stiU adduce in support of one's opinion such of its principles as seem to be well founded. I may, then, remind the reader that the conception of the State as a super-individual, a superhuman quasi-divine per- sonality, is the central conception of the political philosophy of German 'idealism.' That conception has, no doubt, played a considerable part in bringing upon Europe its present disaster. It was an instance of one of those philosophical ideas which claim to be the product of pure reason, yet in reality are adopted for the purpose of justifjdng and furthering some already existing interest or institution. In this case the institution in question was the Prussian state and those, Hegel and the rest, who set up I] INTRODUCTION 17 this doctrine were servants of that state. They made of their doctrine an instrument for the suppression of indi viduahty which greatly aided in producing the servile condition of the German people. Yet the distortions and exaggerations of the political philosophy of German 'ideahsm' should not prejudice us against the germ of truth which it contains ; and the more enlightened British disciples of this school, from T. H. Green onwards, have sought with much success to winnow the grain from the chaff of the doctrine ; and I cannot adduce better support for the conception of the group mind than the sentences in which a recent Enghsh writer, a sympathetic student of German 'ideahsm,' sums up the results of this winnowing process^. Dis- cussing the deficiencies of the individualist philosophy of the Enghsh utihtarian school, he writes: "Not a modification of the old Ben- thamite premises, but a new philosophy was needed; and that philosophy was provided by the ideahst school, of which Green is the greatest representative. That school drew its inspiration im- mediately from Kant and Hegel, and ultimately from the old Greek philosophy of the city-state. The vital relation between the hfe of the individual and the life of the community, which alone gives the individual worth and significance, because it alone gives him the power of full moral development ; the dependence of the individual, for aU his rights and for all his liberty, on his membership of the community; the correlative duty of the community to guarantee to the individual all his rights (in other words, all the conditions necessary for his, and therefore for its own, full moral development) — these were the premisses of the new philosophy. That philosophy could satisfy the new needs of social progress, because it refused to worship a supposed individual liberty which was proving destructive of the real hberty of the vast majority, and preferred to emphasise the moral well-being and betterment of the whole community, and to conceive of each of its members as attaining his own well-being and betterment in and through the community. Herein lay, or seemed to lie, a revolution of ideas. Instead of starting from a central individual, to whom the social system is supposed to be adjusted, the ideahst starts from a central social system, in which the individual must find his appointed orbit of duty. But after aU the revolution is only a restoration; and what is restored is simply the Republic of Plato^." The same writer reminds us that "both ^ E. Barker, Political Thought in England from Herbert Spencer to the present day. Home University Library, London, 191 5. * Op. cit. p. II. M. G. M. 2 i8 INTRODUCTION [ch. Plato and Hegel thus imply the idea of a moral organism"; and he adds, "It is this conception of a moral organism which Bradley urges. It is implied in daily experience, and it is the only explanation of that experience. ' In fact, what we call an individual man is what he is because of and by virtue of community, and communities are not mere names, but something real.' Already at birth the child is what he is in virtue of communities : he has something of the family character, something of the national character, something of the civilised character which comes from human society. As he grows, the community in which he lives pours itself into his being in the language he learns and the social atmosphere he breathes, so that the content of his being implies in its every fibre relations of com- munity. He is what he is by including in his essence the relations of the social State And regarding the State as a system, in which many spheres (the family, for instance) are subordinated to one sphere, and all the particular actions of individuals are subordinated to their various spheres, we may call it a moral organism, a syste- matic whole informed by a common purpose or function. As such it has an outer side — a body of institutions; it has an inner side — a soul or spirit which sustains that body. And since it is a moral organism — since, that is to say, its parts are themselves conscious moral agents — that spirit resides in those parts and lives in their consciousness. In such an organism — and this is where it differs, from an animal organism, and why we have to use the word moral — the parts are conscious: they know themselves in their position as parts of the whole, and they therefore know the whole of which they are parts. So far as they have such knowledge, and a will based upon it, so far is the moral organism self-conscious and self- willing. . . .Thus, on the one hand, we must recognise that the State lives; that there is a nation's soul, self-conscious in its citizens; and that to each citizen this living soul assigns his field of accomplishment^." On a later page of the same book we read — "All the institutions of a country, so far as they are effective, are not only products of thought and creations of mind: they are thought, and they are mind. Otherwise we have a building without a tenant, and a body without a mind. An Oxford college is not a group of buildings, though common speech gives that name to such a group: it is a group of men. But it is not a group of men in the sense of a group of bodies in propinquity : it is a group of men in the sense of a group of minds. That group of minds, in virtue of the common substance of an ^ Op. cit. pp. 62 — 64. I] INTRODUCTION 19 uniting idea, is itself a group-mind. There is no group-mind existing apart from the minds of the members of the group; the group-mind only exists in the minds of its members. But nevertheless it exists. There is a college mind, just as there is a Trade Union mind, or even a 'public mind' of the whole community; and we are all conscious of such a mind as something that exists in and along with the separate minds of the members, and over and above any sum of those minds created by mere addition^." The political philosophers of the ideahst school have not stood alone in recognising the reality of the group mind. Some of the lawyers, notably Maitland, have arrived at a very similar doctrine; and I cannot better summarise their conclusions than Barker has done in the following passage in the book from which I have already cited so freely. "The new doctrine," he writes, "runs somewhat as foUows. No permanent group, permanently organised for a durable object, can be regarded as a mere sum of persons, whose union, to have any rights or duties, must receive a legal confirmation. Per- manent groups are themselves persons, group-persons, with a group- will of their own and a permanent character of their own; and they have become group-persons of themselves, without any creative act of the State. In a word, group-persons are real persons ; and just because they are so, and possess such attributes of persons as win and character, they cannot have been made by the State^." I am not alone, then, in postulating the reality of the group mind. And I am glad to be able to cite evidence of this, because I know well that very many readers may at first find themselves repelled by this notion of a group mind, and that some of them will inchne to regard it as the fantastic fad of an academic crank. I would say at once that the crucial point of difference between my own view of the group mind and that of the German ' ideahst ' school (at least in its more extreme representatives) is that I repudiate, provisionally at least, as an unverifiable hypothesis the conception of a collective or super-individual consciousness, somehow comprising the consciousness of the individuals composing the group. I have examined this conception in the following chapter and have ^ Op. cit p. 74. I consider Mr Barker's brief statement of the nature of the group mind entirely acceptable, and it has given me great pleasure to find myself in such close harmony with it. It will perhaps give further weight to the fact of our agreement, if I add that the whole of this book, including the rest of this introductory chapter, was written before I took up Mr Barker's brilliant little volume. * Op. cit. p. 175. 20 INTRODUCTION [ch. i stated my grounds for rejecting it. The difference of practical con- clusions arising from this difference of theory must obviously be very great. Several books dealing with collective psychology have been pub- lished in recent years. Of these perhaps the most notable are G. le Bon's Psychology of the Crowd, his Evolution psychologique des peuples; Sighele's La foule criminelle; the Psychologic collective of Dr A. A. Marie; and Alfred Fouillee's La Science sociale con- temporaine. It is noteworthy that, with the exception of the last, all these books deal only with crowds or groups of low organisation ; and their authors, like almost all others who have touched on this subject, are concerned chiefly to point out how participation in the group life degrades the individual, how the group feels and thinks and acts on a much lower plane than the average plane of the individuals who compose it. On the other hand, many writers have insisted on the fact that it is only by participation in the hfe of society that any man can reahse his higher potentialities ; that society has ideals and aims and traditions loftier than any principles of conduct the individual can form for himself unaided ; and that only by the further evolution of organised society can mankind be raised to higher levels; just as in the past it has been only through the development of organised society that the Hfe of man has ceased to deserve the epithets ' nasty, brutish and short ' which Hobbes appUed to it. We seem then to stand before a paradox. ^.Participation in group life degrades the individual, assimilating his mental processes to those of the crowd, whose brutahty, inconstancy, and unreasoning impulsiveness have been the theme of many writers; yet only by participation in group life does man become fully man, only so does he rise above the level of the savage. 1 The resolution of this paradox is the essential theme of this book. It examines and fully recognises the mental and moral defects of the crowd and its degrading effects upon all those who are caught up in it and carried away by the contagion of its reckless spirit. It then goes on to show how organisation of the group may, and generally does in large measure, counteract these degrading ten- dencies; and how the better kinds of organisation render group life the great ennobling influence by aid of which alone man rises a little above the animals and may even aspire to fellowship with the angels. PART I GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER II THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD It is a notorious fact that, when a number of men think and feel and act together, the mental operations and the actions of each member of the group are apt to be very different from those he would achieve if he faced the situation as an isolated individual. Hence, though we may know each member of a group so intimately that we can, with some confidence, foretell his actions under given circumstances, we cannot foretell the behaviour of the group from our knowledge of the individuals alone. If we would understand and be able to predict the behaviour of the group, we must study the way in which the mental processes of its members are modified in virtue of their membership. That is to say, we must study the interactions between the members of the group and also those between the group as a whole and each member. We must examine also the forms of group organisation and their influence upon the Hfe of the group. Groups differ greatly from one another in respect of the kind and degree of organisation they possess. In the simplest case the group has no organisation. In some cases the relations of the constituent individuals to one another and to the whole group are not in any way determined or fixed by previous events; such a group constitutes merely a mob. In other groups the individuals have certain deter- minate relations to one another which have arisen in one or more of three ways : (i) Certain relations may have been established between the individuals, before they came together to form a group; for example, a parish council or a pohtical meeting may be formed by persons belonging to various definitely recognised classes, and their previously recognised relations will continue to play a part in 22 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i determining the collective deliberations and actions of the group; they wiU constitute an incipient organisation. {2) If any group enjoys continuity of existence, certain more or less constant relations, of subordination, deference, leadership and so forth, will inevitably become established between the individuals of which it is composed; and, of course, such relations will usually be deliberately estabUshed and maintained by any group that is united by a common purpose, in order that its efficiency may be promoted. (3) The group may have a continued existence and a more or less elaborate and definite organisation independently of the indi- viduals of which it is composed; in such a case the individuals may change while the formal organisation of the group persists; each person who enters it being received into some more or less well- defined and generally recognised position within the group, which formal position determines in great measure the nature of his rela- tions to other members of the group and to the group as a whole. We can hardly imagine any concourse of human beings, however fortuitous it may be, utterly devoid of the rudiments of organisation of one or other of these three kinds; nevertheless, in many a for- tuitous concourse the influence of such rudimentary organisation is so slight as to be negUgible. Such a group is an unorganised crowd or mob. The unorganised crowd presents many of the funda- mental phenomena of collective psychology in relative simplicity; whereas the higher the degree of organisation of a group, the more comphcated is its psychology. We shall, therefore, study first the mental peculiarities of the unorganised crowd, and shall then go on to consider the modifications resulting from a simple and definite type of organisation. Not every mass of human beings gathered together in one place within sight and sound of one another constitutes a crowd in the psychological sense of the word. There is a dense gathering of several hundred individuals at the Mansion House Crossing at noon of every week-day; but ordinarily each of them is bent upon his own task, pursues his own ends, paying httle or no regard to those about him. But let a fire-engine come galloping through the throng of traffic, or the Lord Mayor's state coach arrive, and instantly the concourse assumes in some degree the character of a psychological crowd .QAII eyes are turned upon the fire-engine or coach; the attention of all is directed to the same object; all experience in some degree the same emotion, and the state of mind of each person is in some degree CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 23 affected by the mental processes of all those about him. Those are the fundamental conditions of collective mental life. In its more developed forms, an awareness of the crowd or group as such in the mind of each member plays an important part; but this is not an essential condition of its simpler manifestations. The essential con- ditions of collective mental action are, then, a common object of mental activity, a common mode of feeling in regard to it, and some degree of reciprocal influence between the members of the group. It follows that not every aggregation of individuals is capable of becoming a psychological crowd and of enjoying a collective hfe. For the individuals must be capable of being interested in the same objects and of being affected in a similar way by them; there must be a certain degree of similarity of mental constitution among the individuals, a certain mental homogeneity of the group. Let a man stand on a tub in the midst of a gathering of a hundred Enghshmen and proceed to denounce and abuse England; those individuals at once become a crowd. Whereas, if the hundred men were of as many races and nations, their attention would hardly be attracted by the orator; for they would have no common interest in the topic of his discourse. Or let the man on the tub denounce the estabhsh- ment of the Church of England, and the hundred Englishmen do not become a crowd; for, although all may be interested and atten- tive, the words of the orator evoke in them very diverse feeUngs and emotions, the sentiments they entertain for the Church of England being diverse in character. ^There must, then, be some degree of similarity of mental con- stitution, of interest and sentiment, among the persons who form a crowd, a certain degree of mental homogeneity of the group. And the higher the degree of this mental homogeneity of any gathering of men, the more readily do they form a psychological crowd and the more striking and intense are the manifestations of collective hfe.!3All gatherings of men that are not purely fortuitous are apt to have a considerable degree of mental homogeneity ; thus the members of a poHtical meeting are drawn together by common pohtical opinions and sentiments; the audience in a concert room shares a common love of music or a common admiration for the composer, conductor, or great executant; and a still higher degree of homo- geneity prevails when a number of persons of the same religious persuasion are gathered together at a great revival meeting. Consider how under such circumstances a very ordinary joke or point made by a pohtical orator provokes a huge delight; how, at a concert. 24 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i the admiration of the applauding audience swells to a pitch of frantic enthusiasm ; how, at the skilfully conducted and successful revival meeting, the fervour of emotion is apt to rise, until it exceeds all normal modes of expression and men and women give way to loud weeping or even hysterical convulsions. fSuch exaltation or intensification of emotion is the most striking result of the formation of a crowd )and is one of the principal sources of the attractiveness of the crowd. By participation in the mental life of a crowd, one's emotions are stirred to a pitch that they seldom or never attain under other conditions. This is for most men an intensely pleasurable experience; they are, as they say, carried out of themselves, they feel themselves caught up in a great wave of emotion, and cease to be aware of their individuality and all its limitations; that isolation of the individual, which oppresses every one of us, though it may not be explicitly formulated in his conscious- ness, is for the time being abolished. The repeated enjoyment of effects of this kind tends to generate a craving for them, and also a facility in the spread and intensification of emotion in this way; this is probably the principal cause of the greater excitability of urban populations as compared with dwellers in the country, and of the well-known violence and fickleness of the mobs of great cities. There is one kind of object in the presence of which no man remains indifferent and which evokes in almost all men the same emotion, namely impending danger ; hence the sudden appearance of imminent danger may instantaneously convert any concourse of people into a crowd and produce the characteristic and terrible phenomena of a panic. In each man the instinct of fear is intensely excited; he experiences that horrible emotion in full force and is irresistibly impelled to save himself by flight. The terrible driving power of this impulse, excited to its highest pitch under the favouring con- ditions, suppresses all other impulses and tendencies, all habits of self-restraint, of courtesy and consideration for others; and we see men, whom we might have supposed incapable of cruel or cowardly behaviour, trampling upon women and children, in their wild efforts to escape from the burning theatre, the sinking ship, or other place of danger. The panic is the crudest and simplest example of collective mental life. Groups of gregarious animals are liable to panic; and the panic of a crowd of human beings seems to be generated by the same simple instinctive reactions as the panic, of animals. The CH. 11] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 25 essence of the panic is the collective intensification of the instinctive excitement, with its emotion of fear and its impulse to flight. The principle of primitive sympathy ^ seems to afford a full and adequate explanation of such collective intensification of instinctive excite- ment. The principle is that, in man and in the gregarious animals generally, each instinct, with its characteristic primary emotion and specific impulse, is capable of being excited in one individual by the expressions of the same emotion in another, in virtue of a special congenital adaptation of the instinct on its cognitive or perceptual side. In the crowd, then, the expressions of fear of each individual are perceived by his neighbours; and this perception intensifies the fear directly excited in them by the threatening danger. Each man perceives on every hand the symptoms of fear, the blanched distorted faces, the dilated pupils, the high-pitched trembling voices, and the screams of terror of his fellows; and with each such perception his own impulse and his own emotion rise to a higher pitch of intensity, and their expressions become correspondingly accentuated and more difficult to control. So the expressions of each member of the crowd work upon all other members within sight and hearing of him to intensify their excitement; and the accentuated expressions of the emotion, so intensified, react upon him to raise his own excitement to a still higher pitch ; until in all individuals the instinct is excited in the highest possible degree. This principle of direct induction of emotion by way of the primitive sympathetic response enables us to understand the fact that a concourse of people (or animals) may be quickly turned into a panic-stricken crowd by some threatening object which is perceptible by only a few of the individuals present. A few persons near the stage of a theatre see flames dart out among the wings ; then, though the flames may be invisible to the rest of the house, the expressions of the startled few induce fear in their neighbours, and the excite- ment sweeps over the whole concourse like fire blown across the prairie. The same principle enables us to understand how a few fearless individuals may arrest the spread of a panic. If they experience no fear, or can completely arrest its expressions, and can in any way make themselves prominent, can draw and hold the attention of their fellows to themselves, then these others, instead of perceiving on every hand only the expressions of fear, perceive these few calm ^ This principle of primitive sympathy or simple direct induction or con- tagion of emotion was formulated in Chapter IV of my Social Psychology. 26 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i and resolute individuals; the process of reciprocal intensification of the excitement is checked and, if the danger is not too imminent and obvious, the panic may die away, leaving men ashamed and astonished at the intensity of their emotion and the violent irrational character of their behaviour. Other of the cruder primary emotions may spread through a crowd in very similar fashion, though the process is rarely so rapid and intense as in the case of fear^. And in every case the principal cause of the intensification of the emotion is the reciprocal action between the members of the crowd, according to the principle of sympathetic induction of emotion in one individual by its expressions in others. In panic, the dominance of the one emotion and its impulse is so complete as to allow no scope for any of the subtler modes of collec- tive mental operation. But in other cases other conditions cooperate to determine the character of the emotional response of the crowd. Of these the most important are the awareness of the crowd as a whole in the mind of each member of it and his consciousness of his membership in the whole. When a common emotion pervades the crowd, each member becomes more or less distinctly aware of the fact ; and this gives him a sense of sharing in a mighty and irresistible power which renders him reckless of consequences and encourages him to give himself up to the prevailing emotion without restraint. Thus, in the case of an audience swept by an emotion of admiration for a brilliant singer, the thunder of applause, which shows each ^ It was my good fortune to witness the almost instantaneous spread of anger through a crowd of five thousand warhke savages in the heart of Borneo. Repre- sentatives of all the tribes of a large district of Sarawak had been brought together by the resident magistrate for the purpose of strengthening friendly relations and cementing peace between the various tribes. All went smoothly, and the chiefs surrounded by their followers were gathered together in a large hall, rudely constructed of timber, to make public protestations of friendship. An air of peace and goodwill pervaded the assembly, until a small piece of wood fell from the roof upon the head of one of the leading chiefs, making a slight wound from which the blood trickled. Only the immediate neighbours of this chief observed the accident or could perceive its effect; nevertheless in the space of a few seconds a wave of angry emotion swept over the whole assembly, and a general and bloody fight would have at once commenced, but that the Resident had insisted upon all weapons being left in the boats on the river 200 yards away. The great majority of the crowd rushed headlong to fetch their weapons from their boats, while the few who remained on the ground danced in fury or rushed to and fro gesticulating wildly. Happily the boats were widely scattered along the banks of the river, so that it was possible for the Resident, by means of persuasion, threats, and a show of armed force, to prevent the hostile parties coming together again with their weapons in hand. en. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 27 individual that his emotion is shared by all the rest, intensifies his own emotion, not only by way of sympathetic induction, but also because it frees him from that restraint of emotion which is habitual with most of us in the presence of any critical or adversely disposed spectators, and which the mere thought of such spectators tends to maintain and strengthen. Again, the oratory of a demagogue, if addressed to a large crowd, will raise angry emotion to a pitch of intensity far higher than any it will attain if he is heard by a few persons only; and this is due not only to accentuation of the emotion by sympathetic induction, but also to the fact that, as the symptoms of the emotion begin to be manifested on all sides, each man becomes aware that it pervades the crowd, that the crowd as a whole is swayed by the same emotion and the same impulse as he himself feels, that none remains to criticise the violence of his expressions. To which it must be added that the consciousness of the harmony of one's feelings with those of a mass of one's fellows, and the consequent sense of freedom from all restraint, are highly pleasurable to most men; they find a pleasure in letting themselves go, in being swept away in the torrent of collective emotion. This is one of the secrets of the fascination which draws many thousands of spectators to a football match, and brings together the multitudes of base-ball ' fans ' bubbhng over with eager anticipation of an emotional orgy. The fact that the emotions of crowds are apt to be very violent has long been recognised, and the popular mind, in seeking to account for it, has commonly postulated very special and even supernatural causes. The negro author of a most interesting book^ has given the following description of the religious frenzy of a crowd of Christian negroes: "An air of intense excitement possessed the mass of black folk. A suppressed terror hung in the air and seemed to seize us, — a pythian madness, a demoniac possession, that lent terrible reality to song and word. The massive form of the preacher swayed and quivered as the words crowded to his Hps. The people moaned and fluttered and then a gaunt brown woman suddenly leaped into the air and shrieked like a lost soul, while round about came wail and groan and outcry, a scene of human passion such as I had never even imagined." The author goes on to say that this frenzy is attri- buted by the black folk to the direct influence of the Spirit of the Lord, making mad the worshippers with supernatural joy, and that this belief is one of the leading features of their religion. Similar ^ The Souls of Black Folk, by W. E. B. Du Bois, London, 1905. 28 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i practices, depending upon the tendency of collective emotion to rise to an extreme intensity,, have been common to the peoples of many lands in all ages; and similar supernatural explanations have been commonly devised and accepted. I need only remind the reader of the Dionysiac orgies of ancient Greece. The facts are so striking that for the popular mind they remain unaccountable, and not to be mentioned without some vague reference to magnetism, electricity, hypnotism, or some mysterious contagion ; and even modern scientific writers have been led to adopt somewhat extravagant hypotheses to account for them. Thus Dr Le Bon^ speaks of "the magnetic influence given out by the crowd" and says that, owing to this influence, "or from some other cause of which we are ignorant, an individual immerged for some length of time in a crowd in action soon finds himself in a special state, which much resembles the state of fascination in which the hypnotised individual finds himself in the hands of the hypnotiser." He goes on to say that in the hypnotised subject the conscious personality disappears and that his actions are the outcome of the unconscious activities of the spinal cord. Now, crowds undoubtedly display great suggestibility, but great suggestibility does not neces- sarily imply hypnosis ; and there is no ground for supposing that the members of a crowd are thrown into any such condition, save possibly in very rare instances. There are however two hypotheses, sometimes invoked for the explanation of the pecuharities of collective mental life, which demand serious consideration and which we may with advantage consider at this point. One is the hypothesis of telepathy. A considerable amount of respectable evidence has been brought forward in recent years to prove that one mind may directly influence another by some ob- scure mode of action that does not involve the known organs of expression and of perception; and much of this evidence seems to show that one mind may directly induce in another a state of consciousness similar to its own. If, then, such direct interac- tion between two minds can take place in an easily appreciable degree in certain instances, it would seem not improbable that a similar direct interaction, producing a lesser, and therefore less easily appreciable, degree of assimilation of the states of consciousness of the minds concerned, may be constantly and normally at work. If this were the case, such telepathic interaction might well play a very ^ The Crowd, p. ii. CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 29 important part in collective mental life, and, where a large number of persons is congregated, it might tend to produce that intensifica- tion of emotion which is so characteristic of crowds. In fact, if direct telepathic communication of emotion in however slight a degree is possible and normal, and especially if the influence is one that diminishes with distance, it may be expected to produce its most striking results among the members of a crowd; for the emotion of each member might be expected to be intensified by the telepathic influence radiating from every other member. Some shght pre- sumption in favour of such a mode of explanation is afforded by the fact that the popular use of the word contagion in the present con- nexion seems to imply, however vaguely, some such direct communi- cation of emotion. But telepathic communication has not hitherto been indisputably established; and the observations that afford so strong a presumption in its favour indicate that, if and in so far as it occurs, it does so sporadicaUy and only between individuals specially attuned to one another or in some abnormal mental state that renders them specially sensitive to the influence^. And, while the acceptance of the principle of sympathetic induction of an emotion, as an instinctive perceptual response to the expressions of that emotion, renders unnecessary any further principle of explana- tion, the consideration of the conditions of the spread of emotion through crowds affords evidence that this mode of interaction of the individuals is all-important and that telepathic communication, if it occurs, is of secondary importance. For the spreading and the great intensification of emotion seem to depend upon its being given expressions that are perceptible by the senses. So long as its ex- pressions are suppressed, the emotion of an assembly does not become excessive. It is only by eliciting and encouraging the ex- pressions of emotions that the revivaUst, the political orator, or the comic man on the music-hall stage, achieves his successes. That the expressions of an emotion are far more effective in this way than the emotion itself is recognised by the practice of the claqueurs. When an audience has once been induced to give expression to a common emotion, its members are, as it were, set in tune with one another; each man is aware that he is in harmony with all the rest as regards his feehngs and emotions, and, even in the periods during which all expressions are suppressed by the audience, this awareness serves 1 In a recent work [What is Instinct? by Bingham Newland) the author, who shows an intimate knowledge of the Ufe of wild animals, seems to postulate some such direct telepathic rapport between animals of the same species. 30 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i to sustain the mood and to prepare for fresh outbursts. The mere silence of an audience, the absence of coughs, shufflings, and uneasy movements, suffices to make each member aware that all his fellows are attentive and are responding with the appropriate emotion; but it is not until the applause, the indignation, or the laughter, breaks out in free expression that the emotion reaches its highest pitch. And a skilful orator or entertainer, recognising these facts, takes care to afford frequent opportunities for the collective displays of emotion. We must recognise, then, that, even if telepathic communication be proved to be possible in certain cases, there is not sufficient evidence of its operation in the spread of emotion through crowds, and that the facts are sufficiently explained by another principle of general and indisputable validity, the principle of primitive sympathy. The second hypothesis to be considered in this connexion is that of the 'collective consciousness.' The conception of a collective consciousness has been reached by a large number of authors along several hues of observation and reasoning and is seriously defended at the present time, more especially by several French and German writers. They maintain that, in some sense and manner, the con- sciousnesses of individuals are not wholly shut off from one another, but may cooperate in the genesis of, or share in the being of, a more comprehensive consciousness that exists beside and in addition to them. The conception varies according to the route by which it is reached and the use that is made of it; but in aU its varieties the conception remains extremely obscure; no one has succeeded in making clear how the relation of the individual consciousness to the collective consciousness is to be conceived. In the writings of many metaphysicians, of whom Hegel is the most prominent, ' the Absolute' seems to imply such a collective consciousness, an all- inclusive world-consciousness of which the individual consciousness of each man is somehow but a constituent element or fragmentary manifestation. But it would be unprofitable to attempt any dis- cussion of the conception. We are concerned only with the empirical conception of a collective consciousness based on observation and induction. Such a conception finds its strongest support in the analogy afforded by a widely current view of the nature and conditions of the psychical individuality of men and animals; the view, namely, that the individual consciousness of any man or animal is the col- lective consciousness of the cells of which his body, or his nervous CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 31 system, is composed. We know that the nervous system is made up of cells each of which is a vital unit, capable of Uving, of achieving its essential vital processes, independently of other cells ; and we see free living ceUs that in many respects are comparable with these and to which we seem compelled, according to the principle of continuity, to attribute some germ of psychical life howeter rudimentary. What is known of the phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of the multicellular animal seems to justify us in regarding it as essentially an aggregate of such independent vital units, which, being formed by repeated fission from a single cell, adhere together and undergo differentiation and specialisation of functions. If then the parent cell, the germ ceU, has a rudimentary psychical life, it is difficult to deny it altogether to the cells formed from it by fission; and it is argued that all these cells continue to enjoy a psychical life and that the consciousness of the individual man or animal is the collective consciousness of some or all of these cells. Now we know that the consciousness of any one of the higher animals has for its physical correlate at any moment processes going on simultaneously in many different parts and elements of the brain. It is argued, then, that w6 must suppose each ceU of the brain to enjoy, whenever it is active, its own psychical hfe, and at the same time to contribute something towards the unitary ' collective consciousness ' of the whole organism, which thus exists beside, but not independently of, these rudimentary consciousnesses of the cells. If the view be accepted, it affords a close analogy with the supposed ' collective consciousness ' of a group of men or a society. This conception of the collective nature of the consciousness of complex organisms finds strong support in two classes of facts. First, it finds support in the fact that, if individuals of many of the animal species of an intermediate grade of complexity, such as some of the worms and some of the radiate animals, be cut into two or more parts, each part may continue to hve and may become a complete organism by reconstitution of the lost parts. Since, then, we can hardly deny some integrated psychical life to such organisms, some rudimentary consciousness, we seem compelled to beheve that this consciousness may be divided into two or more consciousnesses, each of them being associated with the vital activities of one of the parts into which the organism is divided by the knife. Division of the organism into two parts is also the normal mode of reproduction in the animal world. Even the coming into existence of every human being seems to be bound up with the separation of a cell from the parent organism ; 32 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i and his existence as a separate psychical individual seems to result from the same process of physical division. And if one cell, when thus separated from the parent organism, can thus prove its possession of a psychical life by developing into a fully conscious organism, it is difficult to deny that all other cells have also their own psy- chical Hves, even though they may be incapable of making it manifest to us by growing up into complex organisms when separated. The second class of facts that seem to justify this conception of the consciousness of complex organisms are facts which have been studied and discussed widely in recent years under the head of mental dissociation or disintegration of personahties. Such dis- integration seems to occur spontaneously as the essential feature of severe hysteria, and to be producible artificially and temporarily in some subjects, when they are thrown into deep hypnosis. In certain of these cases the behaviour of the human being seems to imply that it is the expression of two separate psychical individuals, formed by the sphtting of the stream of consciousness and of mental activity of the individual into two streams. The two streams may be of co-ordinate complexity; but more frequently one of them seems to be a mere trickle diverted from the main stream of personal con- sciousness. Since it is, from the nature of the case, always impossible to obtain any direct and certain proof that any behaviour other than one's own is the expression of conscious mental processes, it is not possible to prove that such division or disintegration of the personal consciousness actually takes place. But the facts appear to many of the psychologists who have studied them most carefully^ to demand this interpretation; and this psychical disintegration seems to be accompanied by a functional dissociation of the nervous system into two or more systems each of which functions inde- pendently of the others, — that is to say, a division of the nervous system comparable with the division of the nervous system of the worm by the stroke of the knife which seems to split the psychical individual into two. The facts of both these orders would appear, then, to indicate that the physical organisation of the ceUs of a complex organism is accom- panied by an organisation of their psychical lives to form a ' collective consciousness,' which in the human being becomes a personal self- * See The Dissociation of a Personality, by Dr Morton Prince; Double Personality, by A. Binet; The Psychology of Suggestion, by Boris Sidis; L' automatism psychologique, by Pierre Janet; and the descriptions and dis- cussions of William James in his Principles of Psychology. CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 33 consciousness ; and they would seem to show that the unity of personal consciousness has for its main condition the functional continuity of the protoplasm of the cells of the nervous system. Even before the facts of disintegration of personalities were known, several authors, notably von Hartmann^ and G. T. Fechner^, did not hesitate to make this last assumption; and to assert that, if the brain of a man could be divided by a knife into two parts each of which continued to function, his consciousness would thus be divided into two consciousnesses; and conversely, that, if a functional bridge of nervous matter could be established between the brains of two men, their consciousnesses would fuse to a single consciousness. The discovery of these facts has greatly strengthened the case for this view; and it has been accepted by so sound a psychologist and sober a philosopher as Fouillee^. It may be claimed that the consideration of the nature and behaviour of animal societies points to a similar conclusion, and supplements in an important manner the argument founded on the divisibility of individual organisms. Such a line of reasoning has been most thoroughly pursued by Espinas in his very interesting book on animal societies*. He begins by considering the lower polycellular forms of animal life. Among them, especially among the hydrozoa or polypes, we find compound or colonial animals ; such an animal is a single living mass of which all the parts are in substantial and vital connexion with one another, but is yet made up of a number of parts each of which is morphologically a complete or almost complete creature; and these parts, though specialised for the per- formance of certain functions subserving the economy of the whole animal or coherent group of animals, are yet capable, if separated from the mass (as they sometimes are by a natural process), of continuing to live, of growing, and of multiplying. There are found among such creatures very various degrees of specialisation of parts and of interdependence of parts; and in those cases in which the specialisation and interdependence of parts is great, the whole com- pound animal exhibits in its reactions so high a degree of integration that we seem justified in supposing that a common or 'collective consciousness ' is the psychical correlate of these integrated actions of the separable parts. Why then, it is asked, should this ' collective consciousness' cease to be, when the substantial continuity of the parts is interrupted? 1 Philosophy of the Unconscious. ' Die Psychophysik. * Psychologic des idees forces. * Les SociSUs animales, Paris, 1877. 34 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i Espinas then goes on to describe animal societies of many types, and shows how, as we follow up the evolutionary scale, association and intimate interdependence and cooperation of their members tend to replace more and more completely the individualistic antagonism and unmitigated competition of the lowest free-hving organisms. He considers first the type of animal society which is essentially a family, a society of individuals all of which are derived from the same parent by fission or by budding. He argues that each such society of blood-relatives is a harmonious whole only because it enjoys a 'collective consciousness' over and above the consciousnesses of its constituent members; that, for example, a swarm of bees, which exhibits so great a uniformity of feeling and action and of which all the members come from the body of one parent, is in reality the material basis of a 'collective consciousness,' which presides over and is expressed by their collective actions; that the ants of one household have such a collective consciousness, that they "are, in truth, a single thought in action, like the various cellules and fibres of the brain of a mammal." For, as he maintains, " the consciousness of animals is not an absolute, indivisible thing. It is on the contrary a reaUty capable of being divided and diffused . . . thought in general and the impulses illuminated by it, are, hke the forces of nature, susceptible of diffusion, of transmission, of being shared, and can like these lie dormant where they are thinly diffused, or become vivid and intensified by concentration. The beings that have these attributes are no doubt monads; but these monads are open to and communicate with one another." Espinas extends the view to other animal societies of which the members are not all derived from one parent, including human societies; and concludes that, except in the case of the Infusoria at the bottom of the scale and of the highly organised societies at the top of it, every individual consciousness is a part of a superior more comprehensive consciousness of an individual of a higher order. He illustrates at length the fact with the consideration and explana- tion of which this chapter is concerned, the fact namely that, in aU social groups, emotions and impulses are communicated and in- tensified from one individual to another; and he asks — "If the essential elements of consciousness add themselves together and accumulate from one consciousness to another, how should the consciousness itself of the whole not be participated in by each? " He argues that to be real is not to be known to some other conscious- ness, but is to exist for oneself, to be conscious of oneself; that, in CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 35 this sense, the ' collective consciousness ' of a society is the most real of all things ; that every society is therefore a living individual ; and that, if we deny self-conscious individuality to a society, we must deny it equally to the mass of cells that make up an animal body ; that, in short, we can find unity and individuality nowhere. This doctrine of the 'collective consciousness' of societies may seem bizarre to those to whom it is altogether novel; but it is one that cannot be lightly put aside; it demands serious consideration from any one who seeks the general principles of Collective Psy- chology. We have no certain knowledge from which its impossibihty can be deduced; and the new light thrown upon individuality by modern studies in psycho-pathology shows us that the indivisibihty and strictly bounded unity of the individual human soul is a postulate that we must not continue to accept without critical examination. Nor is the conception one that figures only in the writings of philo- sophers and therefore to be regarded with contemptuous indulgence by men of affairs as but one of the strange harmless foibles of such persons. It has a certain vogue in more popular writings; thus Renan wrote — " It has been remarked that in face of a peril a nation or a city shows, like a living creature, a divination of the common danger, a secret sentiment of its own being and the need of its conservation. Such is the obscure impulsion which provokes from time to time the displacement of a whole people or the emigration of masses, the crusades, the religious, political, or social revolutions." Phrases such as the soul of a people, the genius of a people, have long been current, and in almost every newspaper one may find important events and tendencies ascribed to the instinct of a people. It is probable that these phrases are written in many instances without any explicit intention to imply a 'collective national con- sciousness,' but merely as well-sounding words that cloak our ignorance and give a vague appearance of understanding. Never- theless, from its application to the life of nations, the doctrine of a collective consciousness mainly derives its importance. It is seriously used by a number of vigorous contemporary writers, of whom Schaeffle^ is perhaps the most notable, to carry to its extreme the doctrine of Comte and Spencer that Society is an organism. Spencer specifically refused to complete his analogy between society and an animal organism by the acceptance of the hypothesis of a collective consciousness ; and he insisted strongly on the importance, for legislation and social effort of every kind, of holding fast to. the ^ Bau und Leben des Socialen Korpers. 3-^ 36 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i consciousness of individual men as the final court of appeal, by reference to which the value of every institution and every form of social activity must be judged, the importance of regarding the welfare and happiness of individual men as the supreme end, in relation to which the welfare of the State is but a means. But those who, like Schaeffle, complete the analogy by acceptance of this hypothesis, regard a nation as an organism in the fullest sense of the word, as an organism that has its own pleasure and pain and its own conscious ends and purposes and strivings; as in fact a great individual which is conscious and may be more or less perfectly self-conscious, conscious of itself, its past, its future, its purposes, its joys and its sorrows. And they do not scruple to draw the logical conclusion that the welfare of the individual should be completely subjected to that of the State; just as the welfare of an organ or cell of the human body is rightly held to be of infinitesimal value in comparison with that of the whole individual and to derive its importance only from its share in the constitution of the whole. This conception of the ' collective consciousness ' has thus been used as one of the supports of ' Prussianism ' and has played its part in bringing about the Great War with all its immense mass of individual anguish. We must, then, examine the arguments upon which the doctrine is based, and ask — Do they suffice to render it probable, or to compel our acceptance of it, and to justify the complete subjection of the individual to the State? We have seen that a strong case is made out for the view that the /'i consciousness of a complex organism is the ' collective consciousness ' of all its cells, or of the cells of its nervous system; and it must be admitted that, if this view could be definitely established, it would go far to justify the doctrine of the collective consciousness of so- cieties. Yet the view is by no means established; there are great difficulties in the way of its acceptance. There is the difficulty which meets a doctrine of ' collective consciousness ' in all its forms from that of Haeckel to that of Hegel, — the difficulty that the consciousness of the units is used twice over, once as the individual consciousness, once as an element entering into the collective consciousness; and no one has been able to suggest how this difficulty can be sur- mounted. It has been argued also, most forcibly perhaps by Lotze^, that what we know of the structure and functions of the brain compels us to adopt a very different interpretation of the facts. It ^ Medicinische Psychologie. 1 CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 37 is said that, since we cannot find any evidence of a unitary brain- process that might be regarded as the immediate physical correlate of the unitary stream of consciousness of the individual, but find rather that the physical correlate of the individual's consciousness at any moment is a number of discrete processes taking place simul- taneously in anatomical elements widely scattered in different parts of the brain, we are compelled to assume that each of these acts upon some unitary substance, some immaterial entity (which may be called the soul) producing a partial affection of its state. Ac- cording to this view, then, the consciousness of any moment is the unitary resultant of all these influences simultaneously exerted on the soul, the unitary reaction of the soul upon these many influences^. But, even if we could accept the view that the consciousness of the complex organism is the ' collective consciousness ' of its cells, the analogy between an organism and a society, which constitutes the argument for the 'collective consciousness' of a society, would remain defective in one very important respect. If we accept that view, we must beheve that the essential condition of the fusion of the consciousnesses of the cells is their spatial continuity, no matter how utterly unintelligible this condition may seem ; for the apparent disruption of consciousness on the solution of material continuity between the ceUs is the principal ground on which this view is founded. Now, no such continuity of substance exists between the members of any human group or society, and its absence constitutes a fatal flaw in the analogical argument. If we pass by these serious difficulties, others arise as soon as we inquire what kinds of human groups have such ' collective conscious- ness.' Does the simple fortuitously gathered crowd possess it? Or is it confined to highly organised groups such as the leading modern nations? If every psychological crowd possesses it and owes its peculiarities of behaviour to it, does it come into being at the moment the individuals have their attention attracted to a common object and begin to be stirred by a common emotion? And does it ^ I have argued that the great increase of knowledge of the functions and structure of the nervous system attained by recent research does but provide for the argument a surer basis of empirical data; and I have contended that some at least of the cases of disintegration of personality are more easily reconcileable with this view, than with the contrary doctrine which regards the individual consciousness as the collective consciousness of the brain-cells. See my Body and Mind, a book I found myself compelled to write in order to arrive at a reasoned judgment on this difficult problem, which obtrudes itself at the outset of the study of group life. 38 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i cease to be as soon as the crowd is resolved into its elements? Or, if it is confined to nations or other highly organised groups, at what stage of their development does it come into being, and what are the limits of the groups of which it is the ' collective consciousness ' ? Do the Poles share in the ' collective consciousness ' of the German nation, or the Bavarians in that of Prussia? Or do the Irish or the Welsh contribute their share to that of the Enghsh nation? Coming now to close quarters with the doctrine, we may ask those who, like Schaeffle and Espinas, regard the 'collective con- sciousness' as a bond which unites the members of a society and makes of them one living individual, — Is this ' collective conscious- ness' merely epiphenomenal in character? Or are we to regard it as reacting upon the consciousnesses or minds of the individuals of the group, and, through such reaction, playing a part in determining the behaviour of the group, or rather of the individuals of which the group is composed? For the actions of the group are merely the sum of the actions of its individuals. If the former alternative be adopted, then we may confidently say that the existence of a 'collective consciousness' must from the nature of the case remain a mere speculation, incapable of verification; and that, if it does exist, since it cannot make any difference, cannot in any way affect human hfe and conduct, it is for us unreal, no matter how real it may be for itself, as Espinas maintains; and we certainly are not called upon to have any regard for it or its happiness, nor can we invoke its aid in attempting to explain the course of history and the phenomena of social life. If, on the other hand, the ' collective consciousness' of groups and societies and peoples reacts upon individual minds and so plays a part in shaping the conduct of men and societies, then the conception is a hypothesis which can only be justified by showing that it affords explanations of social pheno- mena which in its absence remain inexplicable. If it were found that social aggregates of any kind really do exhibit, as has often been maintained, great mass-movements, emigrations, religious or political uprisings, and so forth, for which no adequate explanations can be found in the mental processes of individuals and the mental inter- actions of individuals by the ordinary means of expression and perception, a resort to some such hypothesis would be permissible; but it is an offence against the principles of scientific method to invoke its aid, before we have exhausted the possibilities of explana- tion offered by well-known existents and forces. That certainly has not yet been done, and the upholders of the doctrine have hardly CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 39 made any attempt to justify it in this the only possible manner in which it could be justified. The only evidence of this sort adduced by Espinas is the rapid spread of a common emotion and impulse throughout the members of animal and human groups; and of such phenomenon we have already found a sufficient explanation in those special adaptations of the instincts of all gregarious creatures which are unmistakeably implied by the way in which the ex- pression of an emotion directly evokes a display of the same emotion in any onlooking member of the species. We may, then, set aside the conception of a ' collective conscious- ness ' as a hypothesis to be held in reserve until the study of group life reveal phenomena that cannot be explained without its aid. For it may be confidently asserted that up to the present time no such evidence of a ' collective consciousness ' has been brought forward, and that there is no possibility of any such evidence being obtained before the principles of social psychology have been applied far more thoroughly than has yet been done to the explana- tion of the course of history. In adopting a so far unsympathetic attitude towards this doctrine, we ought to admit that, if there be any truth in it, the ' collective consciousness ' of even the most highly organised society may be stiU in a rudimentary stage, and that it may continue to gain in effectiveness and organisation with the further evolution of the society in question. After this digression we may return to the consideration of the emotional characteristics of simple crowds. We have to notice not only that the emotions of crowds are apt to be excessively strong, but also that certain types of emotion are more apt than others to spread through a crowd, namely the coarser simpler emotions and those which do not imply the existence of developed and refined sentiments. For many of the individuals of most crowds will be incapable of the more subtle complex emotions and will be devoid of the more refined sentiments; while such sentiments as the indi- viduals possess will be in the main more diverse in proportion to their refinement and special character; hence the chances of any crowd being homogeneous as regards these emotions and sentiments is small. Whereas the primary emotions and the coarser sentiments may be common to all the members of a crowd ; any crowd is likely to be homogeneous in respect to them. On the other hand, a crowd is more apt to be swayed by the more generous of the coarser emotions, impulses, and sentiments than by those of a meaner universally reprobated kind. For each member of 40 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i the crowd acts in full publicity; and his knowledge of, and regard for, public opinion will to some extent incline him to suppress the manifestation of feelings which he might indulge in private but would be ashamed of in public. HenceLa crowd is more readily carried away by admiration for a noble deed, or by moral indignation against an act of cruelty, than by self-pity or jealousy or envy or a meanly vengeful emotion?] At the same time, a crowd is apt to express feelings which imply less consideration and regard for others than the individual, repre- senting the average morality and refinement of its members, would display when not under the influence of the crowd. Thus men, when members of a crowd, will witness with enjoyment scenes of brutality and suffering which, under other circumstances, they would turn away from, or would seek to terminate. To see a man thrown heavily to the ground is not pleasing to most individuals; yet the spectacle provokes roars of dehght from the crowd at a football match. How many of the spectators, who, as members of a crowd, hugely enjoy looking ou'at a prize-fight or a bull-fight, would shrink from witnessing it as isolated individuals ! How many boys wiU join with a crowd of others in cruelly teasing another boy, an animal, an old woman, or a drunken man, who individually are incapable of such ' thoughtless ' conduct ! It may be doubted whether even the depraved population of Imperial Rome could have individually witnessed without aversion the destruction of Christians in the Coliseum. [ Jhis character of crowds seems to be due to two peculiarities of the collective mental state. In the first place, the individual, in becoming one of a crowd, loses in some degree his self-consciousness, his awareness of himself as a distinct personality, and with it goes also something of his consciousness of his specifically personal rela- tions; he becomes to a certain extent depersonalised. In the second place, and intimately connected with this last change, is a diminution of the sense of personal responsibihty : the individual feels himself enveloped and overshadowed and carried away by forces which he is powerless to control; he therefore does not feel called upon to maintain the attitude of self-criticism and self-restraint which under ordinary circumstances are habitual to him, his more refined ideals of behaviour fail to assert themselves against the overwhelming forces that envelope him." CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 41 The Intellectual Processes of Simple Crowds No fact has been more strongly insisted upon by writers on the psychology of crowds than the low degree of inteUigence implied by their collective actions. Not only mobs or simple crowds, but such bodies as juries, committees, corporations of all sorts, which are partially organised groups, are notoriously liable to pass judgments, to form decisions, to enact rules or laws, so obviously erroneous, unwise, or defective that anyone, even the least intelligent member of the group concerned, might have been expected to produce a better result. The principal ground of the low order of intelligence displayed by simple crowds is that the ideas and reasonings which can be collectively understood and accepted must be such as can be appre- ciated by the lower order of minds among the crowd. These least intelHgent minds bring down the intelligence of the whole to their own level. This is true in some degree even of crowds composed of highly educated persons; for, as in the case of the emotions and sentiments, the higher faculties are always more or less specialised and differentiated in various ways through differences of nurture and training; whereas the simpler intellectual faculties and ten- dencies are common to all men. A second condition, which cooperates with the foregoing to keep the intellectual processes of crowds at a low level, is the increased suggestibility of its members. Here is one of the most striking facts of collective mental Hfe. A crowd impresses each of its members with a sense of its power, its unknown capacities, its unlimited and mysterious possibihties ; and these, as I have shown in Chapter III of my Social Psychology, are the attributes that excite in us the instinct of subjection and so throw us into the receptive suggestible attitude towards the object that displays them. Mere numbers are capable of exerting this effect upon most of us; but the effect of numbers is greatly increased if all display a common emotion and speak with one voice; the crowd has then, if we are in its presence, a well nigh irresistible prestige./' Hence even the highly inteUigent and self-reUant member of a crowd is apt to find his critical reserve broken down; and, when an orator makes some proposition which the mass of the crowd applauds but which each more intelligent member would as an individual reject with scorn, it is apt to be uncritically accepted by all ahke; because it comes to each, not as the proposition of the orator alone, but as a proposition which voices 42 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i the mind of the crowd, which comes from the mass of men he sees around him and so comes with the power of a mass-suggestion. •*! A further ground of the suggestibility of the crowd is that pre- valence of emotional excitement which was discussed in the fore- going pages. It is well recognised that almost any emotional excite- ment increases the suggestibihty of the individual, though the explanation of the fact remains obscure. I have suggested that the explanation is to be found in the principle of the vicarious usage of nervous energy, the principle that nervous energy, hberated in any one part of the nervous system, may overflow the channels of the system in which it is hberated and re-enforce processes initiated in other systems. If this be true, we can see how any condition of excitement will favour suggestibility; for it will re-enforce whatever idea or impulse may have been awakened and made dominant by ' suggestion.' The principle requires perhaps the following limitation. Emotion which is finding outlet in well-directed action is probably unfavourable to all such ' suggestions ' as are not congruent with its tendencies. It is vague emotion, or such as finds no appropriate expression in action, that favours suggestibility. The most striking illustrations of the greatly increased suggestibihty of crowds are afforded by well-authenticated instances of collective hallucination, instances which, so long as we fail to take into account the abnormal suggestibility of the members of crowds, seem utterly mysterious, incredible, and super-normal. Again, the capacity of crowds to arrive at correct conclusions by any process of reasoning is apt to be diminished in another way by the exaltation of emotion to which, as we have seen, they are pecuHarly liable. It is a famiUar fact that correct observation and reasoning are hampered by emotion ; for all ideas congruent with the prevaihng emotion come far more readily to consciousness and persist more stably than ideas incongruent with it, and conclusions con- gruent with the prevaihng emotion and desire are accepted readily and uncritically; whereas those opposed to them can hardly find acceptance in the minds of most men, no matter how simple and convincing be the reasoning that leads to them. The diminution or abohtion of the sense of personal responsibility, which results from membership in a crowd and which, as we have seen, favours the display of its emotions, tends also to lower the level of its intellectual processes. Wherever men have to come to a collective decision or to undertake collective action of any sort, this effect plays an important part. The weight of responsibihty that CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 43 would be felt by any one man, deciding or acting alone, is apt to be divided among all the members of the group; so that for each man it is diminished in proportion to the number of persons taking part in the affair. Hence the attention and care devoted by each man to the task of deliberation, observation, or execution, are less keen and continuously sustained, and a judgment or decision is more lightly and easily arrived at, grounds which the individual, de- liberating alone, would reject or weigh again and again serving to determine an immediate judgment. The principle is well recognised in practical life. We do not set ten men to keep the look-out on ship-board, but only one ; though the safety of the ship and of all that it carries depends upon his unremitting alertness. We see the principle recognised in the institution of the jury. But for the weakening of the individual sense of responsibility, juries would seldom be found capable of finding a prisoner guilty of murder and so condemning him to death; while, by the restriction of the jury to a comparatively small number, the worst features of collective mental hfe are avoided. We see the working of the principle not only in simple crowds, but also in groups of very considerable degrees of organisation. We see it in the way in which many a man, who would shrink from the responsibiHty of directing a great and complicated commercial under- taking, will cheerfully join a board of directors each of whom is perhaps no better qualified than himself to conduct the business of the concern. We may recognise its effects also in the cheerful levity, not to say hilarity, that frequently pervades our House of Commons ; for most of its well-meaning members would be utterly crushed under the weight of their legislative responsibility, were it not divided in small fractions among them. But the low sense of responsibility of the crowd is not due to the division of responsibility alone. In the case of the simple crowd, it is due also in large part to the fact that such a crowd has but a very low grade of self-consciousness and no self -regarding sentiment ; that is to say, the members of the crowd have but a dim consciousness of the crowd as a whole, but very httle knowledge of its tendencies and capacities, and no sentiment of love, respect, or regard of any kind for it and its reputation in the eyes of men. Hence, since the responsibility falls on the whole crowd, and any loss or gain of reputation affects the crowd and hardly at all the individuals who are merged in it, they are not stimulated to exert care and self- restraint and critical deliberation in forming their judgments, in 44 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i arriving at decisions, or in executing any task collectively under- taken. The results of these two conditions of collective mental life are well summed up in the popular dictum that a corporation has no conscience. Since all these factors cooperate to keep the intellectual activity of the simple crowd on a low level, it follows that very simple intellectual processes must be relied on by the orator who would sway a crowd; he must rely on abuse and ridicule of opponents, or unmeasured praise of friends; on flattery; on the argumentum ad hominem; on induction by simple enumeration of a few striking instances; on obvious and superficial analogies; on the evocation of vivid representative imagery rather than of abstract ideas; and, above aU, on confident assertion and reiteration, and on a display of the coarser emotions. Since the individuals comprised in a crowd are apt to be in- 'fluenced in all these ways by the mass of their fellows, it follows that the mental processes, the thoughts and feehngs and actions, of each one will be as a rule very different from what they would be if he faced a similar situation as an isolated individual; the mental pro- cesses of each one are profoundly modified by his mental interactions with all the other members of the crowd. Therefore the collective actions of a crowd are not simply the resultants of all the tendencies to thought and action of the individuals, as such, but may be very different from any such resultant. And they are not merely the expression of the individual tendencies of the average member, nor yet of the mass of least intelligent and refined members; they may be, and often are, such as no one of the members acting alone would ever display or attempt. It must be added that all the peculiarities of collective mental process mentioned above express themselves very readily in the actions of simple crowds, because such a crowd is incapable of resolution and volition in the true sense of the words. I have shown^ that individual resolution and volition are only rendered possible by the possession of a well-developed self-consciousness and self-regarding sentiment. But a simple crowd has at the most only a rudimentary self-consciousness and has no self-regarding sentiment. Hence its actions are the direct issue of the various impulses that are collectively evoked ; and, though it may be collectively conscious of the end towards which it is impelled, and though all the individueds may desire to effect or realise this end, and to that extent may be ^ Social Psychology, Chapter IX. CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 45 said to be capable of purpose; yet such an impulse or desire cannot be steadied, strengthened, renewed, or supported and maintained, in opposition to any other impulse that may come into play, by an impulse springing from the self-regarding sentiment in the way which constitutes resolution and volition. Just so far as the self- regarding sentiment of individuals comes into play and they exert their individual volitions, they cease to act as members of a crowd. The actions of the simple crowd are thus not the outcome of a general will, nor are they the resultant of the wills of all its members; they are simply not volitional in the true sense, but rather impulsive. They are comparable with the actions of an animal rather than with those of a man. It is the lack of the conditions necessary to collective resolution and voHtion that renders a crowd so fickle and incon- sistent ; so capable of passing from one extreme of action to another, of hurrying to death the man whom it glorified at an earlier moment, or of turning from savage butchery to tender and tearful solicitude. Such incapacity of the crowd for resolution and vohtion, together with the increased suggestibiUty of its members, accounts for the fact that a crowd may be easUy induced to follow as a leader any one who, by means of the elementary reasoning processes suited to its intellectual capacity, can succeed in suggesting to it the de- sirability of any course of action. We may sum up the psychological characters of the unorganised or simple crowd by saying that it is excessively emotional, impulsive, violent, fickle, inconsistent, irresolute and extreme in action, dis- , playing only the coarser emotions and the less refined sentiments; \ extremely suggestible, careless in deliberation, hasty in judgment, ) incapable of any but the simpler and imperfect forms of reasoning; easily swayed and led, lacking in self-consciousness, devoid of self- respect and of sense of responsibility, and apt to be carried away by the consciousness of its own force, so that it tends to produce aU the manifestations we have learnt to expect of any irresponsible and absolute power. Hence its behaviour is like that of an unruly chUd or an untutored passionate savage in a strange situation, rather than hke that of its average member; and in the worst cases it is like that of a wild beast, rather than hke that of human beings. All these characteristics of the crowd were exemphfied on a great scale in Paris at the time of the great revolution, when masses of men that were little more than unorganised crowds escaped from all control and exerted supreme power; and writers on the topic have 46 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i drawn many striking illustrations from the history of the days of the Terror^. The understanding of these more elementary facts and principles of group psychology will prevent us falling into such an error as was committed by our greatest pohtical philosopher, Edmund Burke, when he condemned the French people in the most violent terms on account of the terrible events of the Revolution ; for he attributed to the inhabitants of France in general, as individuals, the capacities for violence and brutality and the gross defects of intelli- gence and self-restraint that were displayed by the Parisian crowds of the time ; whereas the study of collective psychology has led us to see that the actions of a crowd afford no measure of the moral and intellectual status of the individuals of which it is composed. So, when we hear of minor outrages committed by a crowd of under- graduates or suffragettes, a knowledge of group psychology will save us from the error of attributing to the individuals concerned the low grade of inteUigence and decency that might seem to be implied by the deeds performed by them collectively. The same understanding will also resolve for us some seeming paradoxes; for example, the paradox that, while in the year 1906 the newspapers contained many reports of almost incredible brutalities committed by the peasants in many different parts of Russia, an able correspondent, who was studying the peasants at that very time, ascribed to them, as the most striking quality of their characters, an exceptional humaneness and kindliness 2. It will be maintained on a later page that we may properly speak not only of a collective will, but also of the collective mind of an organised group, for example, of the mind and will of a nation. We must, then, ask at this stage — Can we properly speak of the collective mind of an unorganised crowd? The question is merely one as to the proper use of words and therefore not of the first importance. If we had found reason to accept the hypothesis of a 'collective consciousness' of a group, and to beUeve that the pecuHarities of behaviour of a crowd are due to a 'collective consciousness,' then we should certainly have to admit the propriety of regarding the crowd as having a collective mind. But we have provisionally rejected that hypothesis, and have maintained that the only consciousness of a crowd or other group is the consciousnesses of its constituent 1 See especially A. Stoll's Suggestion und Hypnotismus in der Volker- psychologie, where the events of the French revolution have been treated in some detail from this point of view. - Hon. Maurice Baring in an article in the Morning Post of April 21, 1906. CH. II] THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE CROWD 47 individuals. In the absence of any ' collective consciousness ' we may still speak of collective minds; for we have defined a mind as an organised system of interacting mental or psychical forces. This definition, while allowing us to speak of the collective mind of such a group as a well-developed nation, hardly allows us to attribute such a mind to a simple crowd: for the interplay of its mental forces is not determined by the existence of an organised system of relations between the elements in which the forces are generated; and such determination is an essential feature of whatever can be called a mind. CHAPTER III THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP The peculiarities of simple crowds tend to appear in aU group life; but they are modified in proportion as the group is removed in character from a simple crowd, a fortuitous congregation of men of more or less simOar tendencies and sentiments. Many crowds are not fortuitous gatherings, but are brought together by the common interest of their members in some object or topic. These may differ from the simple fortuitous crowd only in being more homogeneous as regards the sentiments and interests of their members; their greater homogeneity does not in itself raise them above the mental level of the fortuitous crowd; it merely intensifies the pecuHarities of group life, especially as regards the intensity of the collective emotion. There is, however, one condition that may raise the behaviour of a temporary and unorganised crowd to a higher plane, namely the presence of a clearly defined common purpose in the minds of all its members. Such a crowd, for example a crowd of white men in one of the Southern States of North America setting out to lynch a negro who is supposed to have committed some flagrant crime, will display most of the characteristics of the common crowd, the violence and brutality of emotion and impulse, the lack of restraint, the diminished sense of responsibihty, the increased suggestibility and incapacity for arriving at correct conclusions by deliberation and the weighing of evidence. But it will not exhibit the fickleness of a common crowd, the easy yielding to distracting impressions and to suggestions that are opposed to the common purpose. Such a crowd may seize and execute its victim with inflexible determination, perhaps with a brutahty and a ruthless disregard of all deterrent considerations of which no one of its members would be individually capable; and may then at once break up, each man returning quietly and seriously to his home, in a way which has often been described by witnesses astonished at the contrast between the beha^iour of the crowd and that of the individuals into which it suddenly resolves itself. The behaviour of a crowd of this kind raises the problem of the general or collective will. It was said in the foregoing chapter that PT. I, CH. Ill] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 49 the actions of a common crowd cannot properly be regarded as volitional, because they are the immediate outcome of the primary impulses. Yet the actions of a crowd of the kind we are now con- sidering are the issue of true resolutions formed by each member of the crowd, and are, therefore, truly volitional. Nevertheless, they are the expression not of a general or collective will, but merely of the wiUs of all the individuals; and, even if there arise differences between the members and a conflict of wills as to the mode of achieving the common end, and if the issue be determined simply by the stronger party overbearing the weaker and securing their co-operation, that still does not constitute the expression of a general will. For a collective or general will only exists where some idea of the whole group and some sentiment for it as such exists in the minds of the persons composing it. But we may with advantage examine the nature of collective volition on a later page, in relation to the life of a highly organised group, such as an army. There are five conditions of principal importance in raising collective mental life to a higher level than the unorganised crowd can reach, no matter how homogeneous the crowd maybe in ideas and sentiments nor how convergent the desires and volitions of its members. These are the principal conditions which favour and render possible the formation of a group mind, in addition to those more fundamental conditions of collective life which we have noted in the foregoing chapter. The first of these conditions, which is the basis of all the rest, is some degree of continuity of existence of the group. The continuity may be predominantly material or formal; that is to say, it may consist either in the persistence of the same individuals as an inter- communicating group, or in the persistence of the system of generally recognised positions each of which is occupied by a succession of individuals. Most permanent groups exhibit both forms of continuity in a certain degree; for, the material continuity of a group being given, some degree of formal continuity will commonly be estabhshed within it. The most highly organised groups, such as well-developed nations, exhibit both forms in the highest degree. A second very important condition, essential to any highly developed form of collective life, is that in the minds of the mass of the members of the group there shall be formed some adequate idea of the group, of its nature, composition, functions, and capacities, and of the relations of the individuals to the group. The diffusion of this idea among the members of the group, which constitutes the 50 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i self-consciousness of the group mind, would be of little effect or importance, if it were not that, as with the idea of the individual self, a sentiment of some kind almost inevitably becomes organised about this idea and is the main condition of its growth in richness of meaning ; a sentiment for the group which becomes the source of emotions and of impulses to action having for their objects the group and its relations to other groups. A third condition very favourable to the development of the collective mind of a group, though not perhaps absolutely essential, is the interaction (especially in the form of conflict and rivalry) of the group with other similar groups animated by different ideals and purposes, and swayed b}^ different traditions and customs. The importance of such interaction of groups lies chiefly in the fact that it greatly promotes the self-knowledge and self-sentiment of each group. Fourthl}^ the existence of a body_ of traditions and customs and habits in the minds of the members of the group determining their relations to one another and to the group as a whole. Lastly, organisation of the group, consisting in the differentiation and speciaUsation of the functions of its constituents — the indivi- duals and classes or groups of individuals within the group. This organisation may rest wholly or in part upon the conditions of the fourth class, traditions, customs, and habits. But it may be in part imposed on the group and maintained by the authority of some external power. The capacity for collective life of an organised group whose organisation is imposed upon it and wholly maintained by an external authority is but little superior to that of a simple crowd. Such a group will differ from the simple crowd chiefly in exhibiting greater control of its impulses and a greater continuity of direction of its activities; but these qualities are due to the external compeUing power and are not truly the expression of its collective mental Ufe. An army of slaves or, in a less complete degree, an army of mer- cenaries is the type of this kind of organised group; and a people ruled by a strong despot relying on a mercenary or foreign army approximates to it. The first aim of the power that would maintain such an organisation must always be to prevent and suppress collective hfe, by forbidding gatherings and public discussions, by rendering communications between the parts difficult, and by enforcing a rigid discipline. For such an organisation is essentially unstable. We may illustrate the influence of these five conditions by con- sidering how in a group of relatively simple kind, in which they are CH. Ill] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 51 all present, they favour collective life and raise it to a higher level of efficiency. Such a group is a patriot army fighting in a cause that elicits the enthusiasm of its members; such were the armies of Japan in the late Russo-Japanese war; they exhibited in a high degree and in relative simplicity the operation of all the conditions we have enumerated. Such an army exhibits the exaltation of emotion common to all psychological crowds. This intensification of emotion enables men to face danger and certain death with enthusiasm, and on other occasions may, even in the armies of undoubtedly courageous and warlike nations, result in panic and a rout. But in all other respects the characteristics of the simple crowd are profoundly modified. The formal continuity of the existence of the army and of its several units secures for it, even though its personnel be changed at a rapid rate, a past and therefore a tradition, a self-consciousness and a self -regarding sentiment, a pride in its past and a tradition of high conduct and achievement; for past failures are discreetly forgotten and only its past successes and glories are kept in memory. The traditional group consciousness and sentiment are fostered by every wise commander, both in the army as a whole and in each separate department and regiment. Is not the superiority in battle of such bodies as the famous Tenth Legion due as much to such self-conscious tradition and sentiment as to the presence of veterans in its ranks? And is not the same true of such regiments as the Black Watch, the Gordons, the Grenadier Guards, and the other famous regiments of the British army? The third of the conditions mentioned above is also very obviously present in the case of an army in the field — namely, interaction with a similar group having different purposes, traditions, and sentiments. And in this case the interaction, being of the nature of direct competition and conflict, is of the kind most favourable to the development of the collective mind. It accentuates the self- consciousness of the whole; that is to say, it defines more clearly in the mind of each individual the whole of which he is a part, his position in, his organic connexion with, and his dependence upon, the whole; with each succeeding stage of the confhct he conceives the whole more clearly, obtains a fuUer knowledge of the capacities and weaknesses of the whole and its parts. Each soldier learns, too, something of the character of the opposing army; and, in the light of this knowledge, his conception of his own army becomes better defined and richer in meaning. In short, through interaction with the 4—2 52 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i opposing army, the army as a whole becomes more clearly reflected in the mind of each of its members, its self-consciousness is clarified and enriched. In a similar way, intercourse and rivalry between the various regiments greatly promotes the growth of the self-knowledge and self-sentiment of each of these lesser groups. A standing army inevitably possesses a wealth of traditions, habits and customs, over and above its formal organisation, and these play an important part in promoting the smooth working of the whole organism; the lack of these is one of the chief difficulties in the way of the creation of a new army, as was vividly illustrated in the making of the ' Kitchener army ' during the Great War. The customs of the various officers' messes were but a small part of this mass of custom which does so much to bind the whole army together. An army obviously possesses organisation, generally in a very high degree. The formal continuity of its existence enables the organisation impressed upon it by external authority to acquire all the strength that custom alone can give ; while its material continuity enables its organisation to generate, in the individual soldiers, habits through which the inferior members are raised, as regards the moral qualities required for efficiency in the field, towards the level of the best. The organisation of the whole army has two aspects and two main functions; the one is executive, the securing of the co-ordination of action of the parts in the carrying out of the common plan; the other is recipient and deliberative, the co-ordination of the data supplied by the parts through deliberation upon which the choice of means is arrived at. Deliberation and choice of means are carried out by the commander-in-chief and his staff, the persons who have shown themselves best able to execute this part of the army's task. It is important to note that, in the case of such an army as we are considering, the private soldier in the ranks remains a free agent performing truly voUtional actions; that he in no sense becomes a mechanical agent or one acting through enforced or habitual obedience merely. He wills the common end; and, believing that the choice of means to that end is best effected by the appropriate part of the whole organisation, he accepts the means chosen, makes of them his proximate end, and wills them. This is the essential character of the effective organisation of any human group; it secures that while the common end of collective action is willed by all, the choice of means is left to those best quaUfied and in the best position for deliberation and choice ; and it CH. Ill] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 53 secures that co-ordination of the voluntary actions of the parts which brings about the common end by the means so chosen. In this way the collective actions of the well-organised group, instead of being, like those of the simple crowd, merely impulsive or instinctive actions, implying a degree of intelligence and of morality far inferior to that of the average individual of the crowd, become truly voUtional actions expressive of a degree of intelUgence and morality much higher than that of the average member of the group: i.e. the whole is raised above the level of its average member; and even, by reason of exaltation of emotion and organised co-operation in de- liberation, above that of its highest members. Here we must consider a little more fully the nature of the collective or general will, a subject that has figured largely in the discussions of political philosophers on the nature of the State. Rousseau wrote — "There is often a great difference between the wiU of all and the general will; the latter looks only to the common interest; the former looks to private interest, and is nothing but a series of individual wills; but take away from these same wills the plus and minus that cancel one another and there remains, as the sum of the differences, the general will." "Sovereignty is only the exercise of the general will." By this he seems to mean that a certain number of men will the general good, while many will only their private goods; and that while the latter neutralise one another, as regards their effects on the general interest, the former co-operate and so form an effective force to promote the general good. This doctrine was an approximation towards the truth, though like all Rousseau's social speculations, his handling of it was vitiated by his false psychology, which set out from the fiction of man as an independent purely self-contained and self-determining absolute individual. Later writers do not seem to have improved upon Rousseau's doctrine of the general will to any great extent. The problem of the general will, like all problems of collective psychology, becomes extremely complex when we consider the life of nations; and it is, therefore, important to make ourselves clear as to the nature of collective volition by consideration of the relatively simple case of a patriot army. It is of course impossible to arrive at a clear notion of collective voHtion, until individual volition has been clearly defined and the nature of the distinction between it, on the one hand, and mere impulsive action, desire, and simple conflict of desires, on the other hand, has been made clear. The lack of such clear notions and adequate definitions has rendered much of the 54 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i discussion of this topic by political philosophers sterile and obscure. In the light of the conclusions reached in my chapter on individual volition 1, the question of the nature of collective voUtion presents little difficulty. It was found that voUtion may be defined and adequately marked off from the simpler modes of conation by saying that it is the reinforcement of any impulse or conation by one excited within the system of the self- regarding sentiment. And in an earlier chapter^ it was shewn how the self-regarding sentiment may become extended to other objects than the individual self, to all objects with which the self identifies itself, which are regarded as belonging to the self or as part of the wider self. This extension depends largely on the fact that others identify us with such an object, so that we feel ourselves to be an object of all the regards and attitudes and actions of others directed towards that object, and are emotionally affected by them in the same ways that we are affected by similar regards, attitudes, and actions directed towards us individually. It was shewn also that such a sentiment may become wider and emotionally richer than the purely self-regarding sentiment, through fusing with a sentiment of love for the object that has grown up independently. These facts were illustrated by consideration of the parental sentiment for the child, which, it was said, has commonly this twofold character and source, being formed by the compounding of the self-regarding sentiment with the sentiment of love of which the dominant disposition is that of the tender or protective instinct. In a similar way a similarly complex sentiment may become organised about the idea of one's family, or of any stiU larger group having continuity of existence of which one becomes a member. In the case of the patriot's sentiment for his country or nation, the self-regarding sentiment and the sentiment of love may be from the first combined in the patriotic sentiment ; since he knows himself to be a part of the whole from the time that an idea of the whole first takes shape in his mind. In this respect the case of the soldier in a patriot army is relatively simple. As a boy he may have acquired a sentiment of loving admiration for the army; and, when he becomes a member of it, the dispositions that enter into the constitution of his self- regarding sentiment become incorporated with this previously existing sentiment, so that the reputation of the army becomes as important to him as his own; praise and approval of it become for him objects of desire and sources of elation; disapproval and blame ^ Social Psychology, Chapter IX. 2 gp. cit. Chapter VII. CH. Ill] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 55 of it, or the prospect of them, affect him as painfully as if directed to himself indi\ddually, fill him with shame and mortification. A similar complex sentiment, the sentiment of patriotism, be- x comes organised about the idea of his country as a whole ; and, when ! war breaks out and the army is pitted against that of another nation, 1 while the eyes of the whole world are turned upon it, it becomes the representative of the nation and the special object of the patriotic sentiment, which thus adds its strength to that of the more special sentiment of the soldier for the army^. When, then, the patriot army takes the field, it is capable of collective volition in virtue of the existence of this sentiment in the minds of all its members. The soldiers of a purely mercenary army are moved by the desire of individual glory, of increased pay, of loot, by the habit of obedience and collective movement acquired by prolonged drilling, by the pugnacious impulse, by the desire of self-preservation; and they may be led on to greater exertions by the influence of an admired captain. But such an army is incapable of collective volition, because no sentiment for the army as a whole is common to all its members. The soldiers of the patriot army on the other hand may act from ail the individual motives enumerated above; but all aHke are capable also of being stirred by a common motive, a desire excited within the collective self-regarding sentiment, the common sentiment for the army ; and this, adding itself to whatever individual motives are operative, converts their desires into collective resolutions and renders their actions the expressions of a collective volition. Each soldier of the mercenary army may desire that his side shaU win the battle and may resolve that he Avill do his best to bring victory to his side, and he may perform many truly volitional actions ; and, in so far as the actions of the army express these individual volitions towards a common result, they are the expressions of the 'will of all,' but not of the collective will; because these volitions, though they are directed to the one common end, spring from diverse motives and are individual voUtions. The essence of collective volition is, then, not merely the direction of the wills of all to the same end, but the motivation of the wills of all members of a group by impulses awakened within the common ^ One great difference between the professional army, such as that of England, and the citizen armies of Europe, consists in the fact that the special sentiment for the army is stronger in the former; the more general patriotic sentiment, in the rank and file of the latter ; though in the regular ofhcers of the continental army the sentiment for the army itself is no doubt usually the stronger. 56 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i sentiment for the whole of which they are the parts. It is the extension of the self-regarding sentiment of each member of the group to the group as a whole that binds the group together and renders it a collective individual capable of collective volition. The facts may be illustrated more concretely by taking a still simpler example of collective volition. Consider the case of a regi- ment in battle commanded to occupy a certain hill-top in face of fierce opposition. If the regiment is one to which the self-regarding sentiment of each member has become extended, the soldiers may be animated individually by the pugnacious impulse and by the desire of individual glory, but they are moved also by the common desire to show what the regiment can do, to sustain its glorious reputation; they resolve that we, the regiment, will accomplish this feat. As they charge up the hill, the hail of bullets decimates their ranks and they waver, the impulse of fear checking their onward rush; if then their officer appeals to the common sentiment, each man feels the answering impulse ; and this is strengthened by the cheer which shows him that the same impulse rises in all his comrades; and so this impulse, awakened within the collective self- regarding sentiment and strengthened by sympathetic induction from all to each, comes to the support of the pugnacious impulse or whatever other motives sustain each man, enables these to triumph over the impulse to flight, and sweeps them all on to gain their object by truly collective volitional effort. If, on the other hand, the men of the regiment have no such common sentiment, then, when the advancing line wavers, the onward impulsion checked by the impulse of retreat, there is no possibility of arousing a collective volition ; the regiment, which from the first was a crowd organised only by external authority and the habits created by it, acts as a crowd and 5nelds to the rising impulse of the emotion of fear, which, becoming intensified by in- duction from man to man, rises to a panic; and the regiment is routed. We may distinguish, then, live modes of conation which will carry all the members of a group towards a common object, five levels of collective action. Let the group be a body of men on a road leading across a wilderness to a certain walled city. A sudden threat of danger from a band of robbers or from wild beasts may send them all flying in panic towards the city gate. That is a purely impulsive collective action. It is not merely a sum of individual actions, because the fear and, therefore, the impulse to flight of eachman is intensified by the influence of his fellows. CH. Ill] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 57 Secondly, let them be a band of pilgrims, fortuitously con- gregated, each of whom has resolved to reach the city for his own private purposes. The whole body moves on steadily, each perhaps aided in maintaining his resolution in face of difficulties by the presence of the rest and the spectacle of their resolute efforts. Here there is a certain collectivity of action, the individual wills are strengthened by the community of purpose. But the arrival of the band is not due to collective volition; nor can it properly be said to be due to the will of all ; for each member cares nothing for the arrival of the band as a whole; he desires and wills only his own arrival. Thirdly, let each member of the band be aware that, at any point of the road, robbers may oppose the passage of any individual or of any company not sufficiently strong to force its way through. Each member will then desire that the whole band shall cohere and shall reach the city, and the actions of the group will display a higher degree of co-operation and collective efficiency than in the former cases ; but the successful passage of the band will be desired by each member simply in order that his own safe arrival may be secured. There is direction of all wills towards the production of the one result, the success of the whole band ; but this is not truly collective volition because the motives are private and individual and diverse. Fourthly, let the band be an army of crusaders, a motley throng of heterogeneous elements of various nationalities, united by one common purpose, the capture of the city, but having no sentiment for the army. In this case all members not only will the same collective action and desire the same end of that action, but they have similar motives arising from their sentiment for the city or that which it contains. Still their combined actions are not the issue of a collective volition in the full and proper sense of the words, but of a coincidental conjunction of individual vohtions. They might perhaps be said to be the expression of the general will; and by giving that meaning to the term 'general will,' while reserving the expression collective will or volition for the type of case illustrated by our next instance, we may usefully differentiate the two ex- pressions. Lastly, let the band approaching the city be an army of crusaders of one nationahty, and let us suppose that this army has enjoyed a considerable continuity of existence and that in the mind of each member the self-regarding sentiment has become extended to the army as a whole, so that, as we say, each one identifies himself with it and prizes its reputation and desires its success as an end in itself. 58 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i Such a sentiment would be greatly developed and strengthened by rivalry in deeds of arms with a second crusading army. Each member of this army would have the same motives for capturing the city as those of the army of our last instance; but, in addition to these motives, there would be awakened within the extended self-regarding sentiment of each man an impulse to assert the power, to sustain the glory of the army; and this, adding its force to those other motives, would enable them to triumph over all conflicting tendencies and render the resolution of the army to capture the city a true collective voHtion ; so that the army might properlj^ be said to possess and to exercise a general or collective will. This distinction between the will of all and the collective will, which we have considered at some length, may seem to be of slight importance in the instances chosen. But it becomes of the greatest importance when we have to consider the life of a nation or other enduring community. The power of truly collective volition is no small advantage to any body of fighting men and receives practical recognition from experienced captains. The importance of these different types of volition was abun- dantly illustrated by the incidents of the Boer war and of the Russo- Japanese war. That the success of its undertaking shall be strongly willed by all is perhaps the most important factor contributing to the success of an army ; and if also the army exercises a true collective voHtion, in the sense defined above, it becomes irresistible. Though it is questionable whether the Boer armies can be said to have exercised a collective volition, it is at least certain that individually the Boers strongly willed their common end, the defeat of the British. On the other hand, the British armies were defective in these respects. The motives of those who fought in the British armies against the Boers were very diverse. The pay of the regulars, the five shillings a day of the volunteers, the desire to live for a time an adventurous exciting life, the desire to get home again on the sick-list as soon as possible, the desire for personal dis- tinction ; all these and other motives were in many minds mixed in various proportions with the desire to assert the supremacy of the British rule and support the honour of the flag. This difference between the Boer and British armies was undoubtedly a main cause of many of the surprising successes of the former. In the Russo- Japanese war the opposed armies probably differed even more widely in this respect. The Japanese soldiers not only willed intensely the common end, but their armies would appear to have exercised truly CH. Ill] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 59 collective volition. Many of the several regiments also, being re- cruited on the territorial system, were animated by collective senti- ments rooted in local patriotism. The Russian armies on the other hand were largely composed of peasants drawn from widely separated regions of the Russian empire, knowing little or nothing of the grounds of quarrel or of the ends to be achieved by their efforts, caring nothing individually for those ends, and having but little patriotic sentiment and still less sentiment for the army. It would, then, be a grave mistake to infer from the course of events in these two wars that the British soldier was individually inferior to the Boer, or the Russian to the Japanese; in both cases the principal psychological condition of successful collective action — namely, a common end intensely desired and strongly willed, indi- vidually or collectively — was present in high degree on the one side, because the preservation of the national existence was the end in view; while it was lacking or comparatively deficient on the other side. As Sir Ian Hamilton, a close observer of both these wars, has said — " the army that will not surrender under any circumstances will always vanquish the army whose units are prepared to do so under sufficient pressure." The same considerations afford an explanation of a peculiarity of Russian armies which has often been noted in previous wars, and which was very conspicuous in the late wars ; namely, their weakness in attack and their great strength when on the defensive. For, in attacking, a Russian army is in the main merely obeying the will of the commander-in-chief in virtue of custom, habit, and a form of strong collective suggestion; but in retreat and on the defensive, each man's action becomes truly volitional, all are animated by a common purpose, and all will the same end, the safety of the whole with which that of each member is bound up. The psychology of a patriot army is peculiarly simplified, as com- pared with that of most other large human groups, by two conditions; on the one hand, the restriction of the intellectual processes, by which the large means for the pursuit of the common end are chosen, to one or a few minds only; on the othex-hand, the definiteness and singleness of its purpose and the presence of this clear and strong purpose in the minds of all. Other groups that enjoy in some degree the latter condition of simplicity of collective mental life are associations voluntarily formed and organised for the attainment of some single well-defined end. In them the former condition is generally completely lacking and > 6o PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [ft. i the deliberative processes, by which their means are chosen, are apt to be very complex and ineffective, owing to lack of customary organisation. Such associations illustrate more clearly than any other groups the part played by the idea of the whole in the minds of the individuals in constituting and maintaining the whole. A desire or purpose being present in many minds, the idea of the association arises in some one or more of them, and, being com- municated to others, becomes the immediate instrument through which the association is called into being; and only so long as this idea of the whole as an instrument for attaining the common end persists in the minds of the individuals does the association continue to exist. In this respect such an association is at the opposite end of the scale from the fortuitous crowd, which owes its existence to the accidents of time and place merely. Human groups of other kinds owe their existence in various proportions to these two conditions ; such groups, for example, as are constituted by the members of a church, of a university or a school, of a profession or a township. Others, such as nations, owe their inception to the accidents of time and place, to physical boundaries and climatic conditions; and, in the course of their evolution, become more and more dependent for their existence on the idea of the whole and the sentiment organised about it in the minds of their members; and they may, like the Jewish people, arrive in the course of time at complete dependence on the latter condition. The life of an army illustrates better than that of any other group the influence of leadership. That great strategists and skilful tacticians perform intellectual services of immeasurable importance for the common end of the army goes without sa5dng. But the moral influence of leadership is more subtle in its workings, and is perhaps less generally recognised in all its complexity and scope. It is well known that such commanders as Napoleon inspired unlimited con- fidence and enthusiasm in the veteran armies that had made many campaigns under their leadership. Yet in the Great War, in which the British armies were, in its later stages, composed so largely of new recruits, the same influence was perceptible. Both the British and the French armies were very fortunate in having in supreme command men in whom the common soldier felt confidence. The solidity, the justice, the calm resolution of Marshal Joffre were felt throughout the French army in the early days of the war to be the one certain and fixed point in a crumbling universe. "II est solid, le Pere Joffre" was repeated by thousands who, remembering the CH. in] THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP 6i disaster of 1870, were inclined to suspect treachery and weakness on every hand. And the genius of Marshal Foch and of other brilliant generals was a main source of the astonishing dogged resolution with which the French armies, in spite of their terrible losses, sustained the prolonged agony. The British army also was fortunate in having in Field-Marshal Haig a man at its head who was felt to be above all things resolute and calm and just; and, when the British armies in France were placed under the supreme control of Foch, it was generally felt throughout the ranks that this would not only give unity of control and purpose, but also supply that touch of genius which perhaps had been lacking in British strategy. But it was not only the supreme command that exercised this influence over the minds of all ranks. At every level confidence in the leadership was of supreme importance. The character and talents of each general and colonel, of each captain, heutenant, sergeant and corporal, made themselves felt by all under their control ; felt not only individually but corporately and collectively. The whole area under the command of any particular general might be seen to reflect and to express in some degree his attributes. The reputations of the higher officers filtered down through the ranks in an astonishingly rapid and accurate manner; perhaps owing largely to the fact that these armies, in a degree unknown before, were composed of men accus- tomed to read and to think and to discuss and criticise the conduct of affairs. If the German higher command had been exercised from the first by a man who inspired the just confidence that was felt in the old Field-Marshal v. Moltke by the Prussian armies of 1870, it is probable that the issue of the Great War would have been fatally different. The moral effects of good leadership are, perhaps, of more importance to an army than its intellectual qualities, especially in a prolonged struggle; and these work throughout the mass of men by subtle processes of suggestion and emotional contagion rather than by any process of purely intellectual appreciation. And the whole organisation of any wisely directed army is designed to render as effective as possible these processes by which the influence of leaders is diffused through the whole. CHAPTER IV THE GROUP SPIRIT In considering the mental life of a patriot army, as the type of a highly organised group, we saw that group self-consciousness is a factor of very great importance — that it is a principal condition of the elevation of its collective mental hfe and behaviour above the level of the merely impulsive violence and unreasoning fickleness of the mob. This self-consciousness of the group is the essential condition of all higher group life; we must therefore study it more nearly as it is manifested in groups of various types. It is unfortunate that our language has no word that accurately translates the French ex- pression 'esprit de corps'; for this conveys exactly the conception that we are examining. I propose to use the term group spirit as the equivalent of the French expression, the frequent use of which in English speech and writing sufficiently justifies the attempt to specialise this compound word for psychological purposes. We have seen that, in virtue of the sentiment developed about the idea of the army, all its members exhibit group loyalty ; it is only as the sentiment develops about the idea that this idea of the whole, present to the mind of each member, becomes a power which can hold the whole group together, in spite of all physical and moral difficulties. We see this if we reflect how armies of mercenaries, in which this collective sentiment is lacking or rudimentary only, are apt to dissolve and fade away by desertion as soon as serious difficulties are encountered. The importance of the collective idea and sentiment appears still more clearly, when we reflect on the type of army which has generally proved the most efficient of all — namely, an army of volunteers banded together to achieve some particular end. Such an army (for example the army of Garibaldi) owes its existence to the operation of this idea in the minds of all. The idea of the army is formed in the mind perhaps of one only (Garibaldi) ; he communicates it to others, who accept it as a means to the end desired by all of them individually. The idea of the whole thus operates to create the group, to bring it into existence; and then, as the idea is reaUsed, it becomes more PT. I. CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 63 definite, of richer and more exact meaning ; the collective sentiment grows up about it, and habit and formal organisation begin to aid in holding the group together ; yet still the idea of the whole remains constitutive of the whole. Any group that owes its creation and its continued existence to ) the collective idea may be regarded from the psychological stand-/ point as of the highest type; while a fortuitously gathered crowd that owes its existence to accidents of time and place and has the ^ barest minimum of group self-consciousness is of the lowest type. Every other form of association or of human group may be regarded as occup5nng a position in a scale between these extreme types; according to the relative predominance of the mental or the physical conditions of its origin and continuance, that is to say, according to the degree in which its existence is teleologically or mechanically determined. The group spirit, the idea of the group with the sentiment of devotion to the group developed in the minds of all its members, not only serves as a bond that holds the group together or even creates it, but, as we saw in the case of the patriot army, it renders possible truly collective voHtion; this in turn renders the actions of the group much more resolute and effective than they could be, so long as its actions proceed merely from the presence of an impulse common to all members, or from the strictly individual voUtions of all, even though these be directed to one common end. Again, the group spirit plays an important part in raising the intellectual level of the group; for it leads each member deliberately to subordinate his own judgment and opinion to that of the whole; and, in any properly organised group, this collective opinion will be superior to that of the average individual, because in its formation the best minds, acting upon the fullest knowledge to the gathering of which all may contribute, wiU be of predominant influence. Each member, then, willing the common end, accepts the means chosen by the organised collective dehberation, and, in executing the actions prescribed for him, makes them his own immediate ends and truly wills them for the sake of the whole, not executing them in the spirit of merely mechanical unintelligent obedience or even of reluctance. In a similar way the group spirit aids in raising the moral level of an army. The organised whole embodies certain traditional senti- ments, especially sentiments of admiration for certain moral quahties, courage, endurance, trustworthiness, and cheerful obedience; and these sentiments, permeating the whole, are impressed upon every 64 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i member, especially new members, by way of mass suggestion and sympathetic contagion; every new recruit finds that his comrades accept without question these traditional moral sentiments and confidently express moral judgments upon conduct and character in accordance with them, and that they also display the corre- sponding emotional reactions towards acts; that is to say, they express in verbal judgments and in emotional reactions their scorn for treachery or cowardice, their admiration for courageous self-sacrifice and devotion to duty. The recruit quickly shares by contagion these moral emotions and soon finds his judgment determined to share these opinions by the weight of mass suggestion; for these moral propositions come to him with all the irresistible force of opinion held by the group and expressed by its unanimous voice; and this force is not merely the force derived from numbers, but is also the force of the prestige accumulated by the whole group, the prestige of old and weU-tried tradition, the prestige of age; and the more fully the consciousness of the whole group is present to the mind of each member, the more effectively will the whole impress its moral pre- cepts upon each. And the organisation of the army renders it possible for the leaders to influence and to mould the form of these moral opinions and sentiments. Thus Lord Kitchener, by issuing his exhortation to the British Army on its departure to France, did undoubtedly exert a considerable influence towards raising the moral level of the whole force, because he strengthened the influence of those who were already of his way of thinking against the influence of those whose sentiments and habits and opinions made in the opposite direction. His great prestige, which was of a double kind, both personal and due to his high office, enabled him to do this. In the same way, every officer in a less degree can do something to raise the moral level of the men under his command. Thus, then, the organisation of the whole group, with its hierarchy of offices which confer prestige, gives those who hold these higher offices the opportunity to raise the moral level of all members. Of course, if those who occupy these positions of prestige feel no responsibihty of this sort and make no effort to exert such influence, but rather aim at striking terror in the foe at all costs, if they countenance acts of savagery such as the destruction of cities, looting, and rapine, if they pubhcly instruct their soldiers to behave as Huns or savages ; then the organisation of the army works in the opposite way — namely, to degrade all members below their normal CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 65 individual level, rather than to raise them above it; and then we hear of acts of brutality on the part of the rank and file which are almost incredible. But the main point to be insisted on here is that the raising of the moral level is not effected only by example, suggestion, and emotional contagion, spreading from those in the positions of prestige ; that, where the group spirit exists, those enjoying prestige can, if they wish, greatly promote the end of raising the moral tone of the whole by appealing to that group spirit; as when Lord Kitchener asked the men to obey his injunctions for the sake of the honour of the British Army. And the group spirit not only 5delds this direct response to moral exhortation ; it operates in another no less important manner. Each member of a group pervaded by the collective sentiment, such as a well-organised army of high traditions, becomes in a special sense his brother's keeper. Each feels an interest in the conduct of every other member, because the conduct of each affects the reputation of the whole; each man, therefore, punishes bad conduct of any fellow soldier by scorn and by withdrawal of sympathy and companionship; and each one rewards with praise and admiration the conduct that conforms to the standards demanded and admired. And so each member acts always under the jealous eyes of all his fellows, under the threat of general disapprobation, contempt, and moral isolation for bad conduct ; under the promise of general approval and admira- tion for any act of special excellence. The development of the group spirit, with the appropriate senti- ment of attachment or devotion to the whole and therefore also to its parts, is the essence of the higher form of military disciphne. There is a lower form of disciphne which aims only at rendering each man perfectly subservient to his officers and trained to respond promptly and invariably, in precise, semi-mechanical, habitual fashion, to every word of command. But even the drill and the system of penalties and minute supervision, which are the means chosen to bring about this result, cannot fail to achieve certain effects on a higher moral and intellectual level than the mere forma- tion of bodily habits of response. By rendering each soldier apt and exact in his response to commands, they enable each one to foresee the actions of his feUows in all ordinary circumstances, and therefore to rely upon that co-operation towards the common end, be it merely a turning movement on the drill ground or the winning of a battle, which is the essential aim and justification of all group life. 66 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i The group spirit, involving knowledge of the group as such, some idea of the group, and some sentiment of devotion or attachment to the group, is then the essential condition of all developed collective life, and of all effective collective action; but it is by no means confined to highly developed human associations of a voluntary kind. Whether the group spirit is possessed in any degree by animal societies is a very difficult question. We certainly do not need to postulate it in order to account for the existence of more or less enduring associations of animals; just as we do not need to postulate it to account for the coming together of any fortuitous human mob. Even in such animal societies as those of the ants and bees, its presence, though often asserted, seems to be highly questionable. \Vhen we observe the division of labour that characterises the hive, how some bees ventilate, some build the comb, some feed the larva and so on; and especially when we hear that the departure of a swarm from the hive is preceded by the explorations of a small number which seek a suitable place for the new home of the swarm and then guide it to the chosen spot, it seems difficult to deny that some idea of the community and its needs is present to the minds of its members. But we know so little as yet of the limits of purely instinctive behaviour (and by that I mean immediate reactions upon sense-perceptions determined by the innate consti- tution) that it would be rash to make any such inference. The same may be said of associations of birds or mammals, in which division of labour is frequently displayed; when, for example, it is found that one or more sentinels constantly keep watch while a flock or herd feeds or rests, as is reported of many gregarious species. But, however it may be with animal societies, we may confidently assert that the group spirit has played an important part in the lives of aU enduring human groups, from the most primitive ages onwards. It has even been maintained with some plausibihty that group self-consciousness preceded individual self-consciousness in the course of the evolution of the human mind. That again is, it seems to me, a proposition which cannot be substantiated. But it is, I think, true to say that the two kinds of self-consciousness must have been achieved by parallel processes, which constantly reacted upon one another in reciprocal promotion. In the lives of the humblest savages the group spirit plays an immensely important part. It is the rule that a savage is born into CH. ivj THE GROUP SPIRIT 67 a smaU closed community. Such a community generally has its own locahty within which it remains, even if nomadic ; and, if settled, it whoUy lives in a village, widely separated in space from all others. In this small community the child grows up, becoming more or less intimately acquainted with every member of it, and having practi- cally no intercourse with any other persons. Throughout his child- hood he learns its laws and traditions, becomes acutely aware of its pubhc opinion, and finds his welfare absolutely bound up with that of the village community. He cannot leave it if he would ; the only alternative open to him is to become an outcast, as which he would very soon succumb in the struggle for Ufe. There is nothing com- parable with this in our complex civilised societies. The nearest parallel to it is the case of the young child growing up in a peculiarly secluded family isolated in the depths of the country. This restriction of the intercourse of the young savage to the members of his own smaU society and his absolute dependence upon it for aU that makes his survival possible would in themselves suffice to develop his group consciousness in a high degree. But two other conditions, well-nigh universal in savage Hfe, tend strongly towards the same result. When the young savage begins to come into contact with persons other than those of his own group, he learns to know them, not as individuals, John Smith or Tom Brown, but as men of such or such a group; and he himself is known to them as a man of his group, as representing his group, his village community, tribe, or what not ; and he displays usually some mark or marks of his group, either in dress or ornament or speech. The other great condition of the development of the group spirit in primitive societies is the general recognition of communal responsi- bihty. This no doubt is largely the result of the two conditions previously mentioned, especially of the recognition of an indi^■idual by members of other groups as merely a representative of his group, rather than as an individual, and of the fact that his deeds, or those of any one of his feUows, determine the attitudes of other groups towards his group as a whole. But the influence of the principle of communal responsibihty, thus established, becomes immensely strengthened by its recognition in a number of superstitious and religious observances. The savage lives, generally speaking, bound hand and foot by tabus and precise prescriptions of behaviour for all ordinary situations; and the breach of any one of these by any member of the community is held to bring down misfortune or 5—2 68 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i punishment on the whole group; so far is this principle carried, that the breach of custom by some individual is confidently inferred from the incidence of any communal misfortune^. The recognition of communal responsibility is the great con- servator of savage society and customary law, the very root and stem of all savage morality ; it is the effective moral sanction without which the superstitious and religious sanctions would be of little effect. By its means, the idea of the community is constantly obtruded on the consciousness of the individual. Through it he is constantly led, or forced, to control his individualistic impulses and to undertake action with regard to the welfare of the group rather than to his own private interest. Through it the tendency of each to identify himself and each of his fellows with the whole group is constantly fostered; because it identifies their interests. We may then say that, just as the direct induction of emotion and impulse by sense-perception of their bodily expressions is the cement of animal societies, so group self-consciousness is the cement and harmonising principle of primitive human societies. And the group spirit is not only highly effective in promoting the life and welfare of the group; it is also the source of peculiar satisfactions. The individual revels in his group-consciousness; hence the principle is apt to run riot in savage societies, and we find that in very many parts of the world a great variety of complex forms of association is maintained, beside the primary and funda- mental form of association of the village community or nomadic band (the kinship or subsistence group), apparently for no other reason than the attainment and intensification of the satisfactions of the group spirit. Hence, among peoples so low in the scale of savagery as the Australians, we find a most complex system of group- ing cutting across the subsistence grouping ; hence totem clans and phratries, exogamous groups, secret societies, initiation ceremonies. I lay stress on the satisfaction which group self-consciousness brings as a condition or cause of these complexities of savage society, because, I think, it has been unduly neglected as a socialising factor and a determinant of the forms of association. If we ask — What are the sources of this satisfaction? — we may find two answers. First, the consciousness of the group and of oneself as a member of it brings a sense of power and security, an assurance of sympathy and co-operation, a moral and physical support without which man ^ Cp. The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, by Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, London, 1912. CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 69 can hardly face the world. In a thousand situations it is a source of settled opinions and of definite guidance of conduct which obviates the most uncomfortable and difficult necessity of exerting inde- pendent judgment and making up one's own mind. And in many such situations, not only does the savage find a definite code pre- scribed for his guidance, but he shares the collective emotion and feels the collective impulse that carries him on to action without hesitation or timidity. Secondly, we may, I think, go back to a very fundamental principle of instinctive Ufe, the principle, namely, that, in gregarious animals, the satisfaction of the gregarious impulse is greater or more complete the more nearly alike are the individuals congregated together. This seems to be true of the animals, but it is true in a higher degree of man ; and, in proportion as his mind becomes more specialised and refined, the more exacting is he in this respect. To the uncultivated any society is better than none; but in the culti- vated classes we become extraordinarily exacting; we find the gregarious satisfaction in our own pecuHar set only — a process carried furthest, perhaps, in university circles. In savage life this shows itself in practices which accentuate the hkeness of members of a group and mark it off more distinctly from other groups — for example, totems, peculiarities of dress, ornaments and ceremonies; things which are closely paralleled by the clubs, blazers, colours, cries, and so forth of our undergraduate communities. The life of the savage, then, is in general dominated by that of the group; and this domination is not effected by physical force or compulsion (save in exceptional instances) but by the group spirit which is inevitably developed in the mind of the savage child by the material circumstances of his life and by the traditions, especially the superstitious and religious traditions, of his community. Such group self-consciousness is the principal moralising influence, and to this influence is due in the main the fact that savages conform so strictly to their accepted moral codes. Group self-consciousness in savage communities brings then, I suggest, two great advantages which account for the spontaneous development and persistence among so many savage peoples of what, from a narrowly utilitarian point of view, might seem to be an excess of group organisation, such as the totemic systems of the Australians and of the American Indians; — namely, firstly, the moraUsing influ- ences of the group spirit; secondly, the satisfactions or enjo3'Tnents immediately accruing to every participant in active group life. 70 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i And these two advantages, being in some degree appreciated, lead to a deliberate cultivation of group life for the securing of them in higher measure. The cultivation of group life shows itself in the many varieties of grouping on a purely artificial basis and in the practice of rites and ceremonies, especially dances, often accompanied by song and other music. There is nothing that so intensifies group consciousness, at the cost of consciousness of individuality, as cere- monial dancing and singing; especially when the dance consists of a series of extravagant bizarre movements, executed by every member of the group in unison, the series of movements being at the same time peculiar to the particular group that practises them and symbolical of the peculiar functions or properties claimed by the group. Many savage dances have these characters in perfection ; as, for example, those of the Murray islanders of Torres Straits, where, as I have witnessed, the several totemic groups — the dog-men, the pigeon-men, the shark-men, and other such groups — continue, in spite of the partial destruction by missionaries of their totemistic beliefs, to revel in night-long gatherings, at which each group in turn mimics, in fantastic dances and with solemn delight, the move- ments of its totem animal. The importance of group consciousness in savage life has been recently much insisted on by some anthropologists, and indeed, in my view, overstated. Cornford^ writes "When the totem-clan meets to hold its peculiar dance, to work itself up till it feels the pulsing of its common life through aU its members, such nascent sense of individuahty as a savage may have — it is always very faint — is merged and lost; his consciousness is filled with a sense of sympa- thetic activity. The group is now feeling and acting as one soul, with a total force much greater than any of its members could exercise in isolation. The individual is lost, 'beside himself,' in one of those states of contagious enthusiasm in which it is well known that men become capable of feats which far outrange their normal powers." And again "Over and above their individual experience, all the members of the group alike partake of what has been called the collective consciousness of the group as a whole. Unlike their private experience, this pervading consciousness is the same in all, consisting in those epidemic or infectious states of feeling above described, which, at times when the common functions are being exercised, invade the whole field of mentality, and submerge the individual areas. To this group-consciousness belong also, from the ^ From Religion to Philosophy, p. 77. CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 71 first moment of their appearance all representations which are collective, a class in which all religious representations are included. These Hkewise are diffused over the whole mentality of the group, and identical in all its members.. . .The collective consciousness is thus superin dividual. It resides, of course, in the individuals com- posing the group. There is nowhere else for it to exist, but it resides in all of them together and not completely in any one of them. It is both in myself and yet not myself. It occupies a certain part of my mind and yet it stretches beyond and outside me to the limits of my group. And since I am only a small part of my group, there is much more of it outside me than inside. Its force therefore is much greater than my individual force, and the more primitive I am the greater this preponderance will be. Here, then, there exists in the world a power which is much greater than any individual's — superindividual, that is to say superhuman." "Because this force is continuous with my own consciousness, it is, as it were, a reservoir to which I have access, and from which I can absorb superhuman power to reinforce and enhance my own. This is its positive aspect — in so far as this power is not myself and greater than myself, it is a moral and restraining force, which can and does impose upon the individual the necessity of observing the uniform behaviour of the group." This writer makes group con- sciousness the source of both morality and religion. "The collective consciousness is also immanent in the individual himself, forming within him that unreasoning impulse called conscience, which like a traitor within the gates, acknowledges from within the obligation to obey that other and much larger part of the collective conscious- ness which Ues outside. Small wonder that obedience is absolute in primitive man, whose individuaHty is still restricted to a com.para- tively small field, while all the higher levels of mentahty are occupied by this overpowering force^." The first reUgious idea is that of " this collective consciousness, the only moral power which can come to be felt as imposed from without." And Cornford goes yet further and makes of the group self-consciousness the source of magic as well as of rehgion and morality. This primary reservoir of superindividual power spHts, he says, into two pools, human and non-human ; the former is magic power, the latter is divine power. On this I would comment as follows. Although Comford is right in insisting upon the large influence of group consciousness, he is wrong, I think, in underestimating individuality. He does not go so 1 Op. cit. p. 82. 72 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i far as some writers who suggest that group self-consciousness actucdly precedes individual self-consciousness, but he says of individual self- consciousness that it is but very faint in savages. I am more inclined to agree with Lotze, who in a famous passage asserted that even the crushed worm is in an obscure way aware of itself and its pain as set over against the world. Many facts of savage behaviour forbid us to accept the extreme view that denies them individual self- consciousness — individual names, secret names, private property, private rites, religious and magical, individual revenge, jealousy, running amok, leadership, self-assertion, pride, vanity, competition in games of skill and in technical and artistic achievement. The flourishing of these and many other such things in primitive com- munities reveals clearly enough to the unbiassed observer in the field the effective presence of individual self-consciousness in the savage mind. In this connexion I may refer to two pieces of evidence bearing very directly on the question reported by Dr C. Hose and myself. Among the Sea-Dayaks or Ibans of Borneo we discovered the prevalence of the belief in the ' nyarong ' or private ' spirit helper,' some spiritual or animated individual power which a fortunate individual here and there finds reason to believe is attached to him personally for his guidance and help in all difficult situations. His behef in this personal helper and the rites by aid of which he communicates with it are kept secret from his fellows ; so that it was only after long and intimate acquaintance with these people that Dr Hose began to suspect the existence of this pecuharly individuaHstic belief^. In the same volumes we have described the Punans of Borneo, a people whose mode of life is in every respect extremely primitive. In this respect they are perhaps unequalled by any other existing people. Yet no one who is acquainted with these amiable folk could doubt that, although their group consciousness is highly developed, they enjoy also a well developed individual self -consciousness. How other- wise can we interpret the fact that a Punan who suffers malicious injury from a member of another tribe will nurse his vengeful feeling for an indefinite period and, after the lapse of years, will find an opportunity to bring down his enemy secretly with blow-pipe and poisoned dart ? With Mr Cornford's view of the part played by the group spirit in moralising conduct I agree. I agree also that it is the collective life or mind that develops religion and in part magic ; but in my view 1 Cf. The Pagan Tribes of Borneo, by Ch. Hose and W. McDougall, London, 1912 CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 73 Cornf ord attributes to the savage far too much reflective theorising ; he represents him as formulating a theory of the collective con- sciousness which is really almost identical with the interesting speculation of M. Levy Bruhl presently to be noticed, and he regards his conduct, his religious and magical practices, as guided by these theories. But that is to reverse the true order of things — to make theory precede practice; whereas in reality, especially in religion and magic, practice has everywhere preceded theory, often, as in this case, by thousands of generations^. It is true that the savage often behaves as though he held this theory of the collective consciousness as a field of force in which he participates; that his conduct seems to require such a theory for its rational justification. But it by no means follows that he has formulated any theory at all. What the savage is conscious of is, not a collective consciousness as a mysterious superhuman power, but the group itself, the group of concrete embodied fellow men. He behaves and feels as he does, because participation in the hfe of the group directly modifies his individual tendencies and directly evokes these feehngs and actions; he does not discover, or seek, any theory by which to explain them. Still less is it true that he performs these actions because he has formulated a theory of a collective consciousness. Mr Cornford regards the savage idea of a collective conscious- ness as the germ of the idea of divine power or of God. Now this is connected with the question of animism, preanimism, and dyn- animism. It may be true that the notion of mana is the common prime source of rehgious and magical ideas, but it does not follow that the idea of God is arrived at by way of a notion of collective mana. No doubt that would be the probable course of events, if the savage had so little sense of his individuality as Cornford supposes; but it seems to me rather that the savage's strong sense of individuality has led at an early stage to the personaUsation, the individuation, of mana, the vaguely conceived spiritual power and influence, and that it was only by a long course of rehgious and philosophical speculation that men reached the conception of the Absolute or of God as a universal power of which each personal consciousness is a partial manifestation. It is interesting to note that, if we could accept Cornford's views, we could now claim to witness the completion of one full ^ Mr Cornford's book might in fact be entitled with greater propriety From Philosophy to Religion, 74 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i cycle of the wheel of speculation, the last step having been made in an article in a recent number of the Hibhert Journal^; for it is there suggested that the only God or super-individual power we ought to recognise and revere is, not a collective consciousness conceived as a supra-individual unity of consciousness, but the collective mind of humanity in the sense in which I am using the term, a system of mental forces that slowly progresses towards greater harmony and integration. M. Levy Bruhl has written an interesting, though highly specu- lative, account of savage mental life which he represents as differ- ing profoundly from our own, chiefly in that it is dominated by ' collective representations 2.' His view is not unlike that put forward by Cornford. Collective representations or ideas are rightly said to be the product of the group mind rather than of any individual mind; that is to say, they have been gradually evolved by collective mental life; and they are said to differ from our ideas in being "states more complex in which the emotional and motor elements are integral parts of the ideas." Thinking by aid of these collective representa- tions is said to have its own laws quite distinct from the laws of logic. These statements are no doubt correct; but both Levy Bruhl and Cornford commit the great error of assuming that the mental life of civilised man is conducted by each individual in a purely rational and logical manner; they overlook the fact that we also are largely dominated by collective representations; for these col- lective representations are nothing but ideas of objects to which traditional sentiments, sentiments of awe, of fear, of respect, of love, of reverence, are attached. Almost the whole of the religion and morality of the average civilised man is based on his acquisition of such collective representations, traditional sentiments grown up about ideas of objects, ideas which he receives ready made and sentiments which are impressed upon him by the community that has evolved them. It is no doubt true that in the main the field of objects to which collective representations apply is larger in savage life; and these ideas are more uniform and more powerful and unquestioned, because the group is more homogeneous in its sentiments. But it is, fortunately, only a rare individual here and there among us who in 1 Oct. 1914. 2 Les Fonctions mentales dans les Societes infSrieures, Alcan, Paris, 1910. CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 75 considerable degree emancipates himself from the influence of such representations and becomes capable of confronting all objects about him in a perfectly cool, critical, logical attitude — who can " peep and botanise upon his mother's grave." Only by strict intellectual disciphne do we progress towards strictly logical operations in rela- tion to real life, towards pure judgments of fact as opposed to judgments of value. For our judgments of value are rooted in our sentiments; and whatever is for us an object of a sentiment of love or hate, of attachment or aversion, can only with the greatest difficulty, if at all, be made an object of a pure judgment of fact. And Comford and Levy Bruhl make the same mistake in regard to 'collective representations' as in regard to the group self- consciousness — namely, they credit the savage with theories for the explanation of the beliefs imphcitly involved in the ' collective repre- sentations,' for example, the theory of mystic participation, which is said to replace for the savage the civilised man's theory of me- chanical causation. But, when we regard any material object as holy, or sacred, or as of peculiar value, because it was given us by a departed friend, or belonged to and perhaps was once worn by a beloved person, our behaviour towards it is not determined by any theory of participation ; if, for example, we touch it tenderly and with reverent care, that is the direct expression of our feeUng. We even behave as if we held the theory of participation, to the extent of believing that the dead or distant person wiU suffer pain if we ill- use or neglect the object which is associated with him in our minds, but without actually holding that behef ; and still more without elaborating a theory of the nature of the process by which our action will produce such an effect. It is only a late and highly sophisticated reflection upon behaviour of this kind which leads to theories for the justification of such behaviour. It is not true, then, that we are logical individuals, while savages are wholly prelogical in virtue of the dominance among them of the collective mental life. The truth rather is that, wherever emotion qualifies our intellectual operations, it renders them other than purely and strictly logical ; and the savage or the civilised man departs more widely from the strictly logicsd conduct of his intellect, in proportion as his conceptions of things are absorbed without critical reflection and analysis and are coloured with the traditional sentiments of his community. The average savage, being more deeply immersed in his group, suffers these effects more strongly than the average civilised man. Yet the interval in this respect between the modern man of scientific culture and the 76 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i average citizen of our modern states is far greater than that between the latter and the savage. If one had to name the principal difference between the conditions of hfe of the typical savage and those of the average civilised man, one would, I think, have to point to the lack in civilised hfe of those conditions which so inevitably develop the group consciousness of the savage. The family circle supplies to the young child something of these conditions, but in a very imperfect degree only. At an early age this influence is much weakened by general intercourse. As the individual approaches maturity, he finds himself at Hberty to cut himself off completely from all his natural setting, to trans- plant himself to any part of the world, and to share in the hfe of any civihsed community. He can earn his livelihood anywhere, and he knows nothing of communal responsibility. Progressive weakening of the conditions that force the develop- ment of group self-consciousness has characterised the whole course of the development of civihsation, and has reached its climax in the conditions of life in our large cities. In primitive communities the conditions of group self-conscious- ness are, as we have seen, fourfold; namely kinship, territorial, traditional and occupational association. AU these are present in the highest degree in the nomadic group under the typical patriarchal system. When kinship groups take to agriculture and become permanently settled on one spot, the kinship factor tends to be weakened,through the inclusion of ahen elements; and the territorial factor becomes the most important condition. Throughout European history the territorial factor, expressing itself in the form of the village-com- munity, remained of universal importance in this respect; the Roman Empire and the Roman Church weakened it greatly ; but everywhere outside those spheres it continued to be of dominant importance until the great social revolution of the modern industrial period. The village community maintained much of the tradition and custom that tend to develop group self-consciousness with its morahsing influence. But at the present time almost the only con- dition of wide and general influence that continues in times of peace to foster group self-consciousness is occupational association. And so we find men tending more and more to be grouped for aU serious collective activities according to their occupations. From the earliest development of European industry this tendency has been strong; it produced the trading and craft guilds which played so great a CH. ivj THE GROUP SPIRIT 77 part in medieval Europe; and, though the monarchical and capitalistic regimes of modern times have done all they can to repress and break up these occupational groups, and have greatly restricted their influence, they have failed to suppress them entirely. The climax of this tendency for the occupational to replace and over- shadow all other fonns of self-conscious grouping is present-day Syndicalism. The natural conditions of group self-consciousness, which in primitive societies rendered its development inevitable and spon- taneous in every man, have then been in the main destroyed. But man cannot stand alone ; men cannot live happily as mere individuals ; they desire and crave and seek membership in a group, in whose collective opinions and emotions and self -consciousness and activities they may share, with which they may identify themselves, thereby lessening the burden of individual responsibility, judgment, decision and effort. Hence in this age the natural groupings and the involuntary developments of group consciousness are largely replaced by an enormous development of artificial voluntary groupings, over and above the natural groupings that are still only in very imperfect measure determined by the weakened force of the natural conditions, namely kinship, neighbourhood and occupation. In part these artificial groupings are designed to reinforce the natural conditions, as, for example, village festivals. The whole population of a country such as our own is permeated by a vast and complexly interwoven, or rather tangled, skein of the bonds of voluntary associations. Many of these are, of course, formed to undertake some definite work, to achieve some end which can only be achieved by co-operative effort. But in the majority of such cases the satisfactions 5delded by group hfe play a very great part in leading to the formation of and in maintaining the groups, for example, groups of philanthropic workers, the makers of charity bazaars, the salvation army, the churches, the chapels, the sects. Most of such associations that have any success and continuity of existence contain a nucleus of persons who identify themselves in the fuUest possible manner with the group, make its interest their leading concern, the desire of its welfare their dominant motive, and find in its service their principal satisfaction and happiness. And in very many voluntary associations the group-motives, the desire for the satisfactions to be found in group hfe, are of prime importance, predominating vastly over the desire to achieve any y% PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i particular end by co-operative action. Such are our countless clubs and societies formed frankly for recreation, or for mutual improve- ment, and for all kinds of ostensible purposes which serve merely as excuses or reasons for the existence of the club. In the majority of instances these declared purposes really serve merely or chiefly to exert a certain natural selection of persons, to bring together persons of similar tastes as voluntary associates, to enable, in short, birds of a feather to flock together. Even some of our enduring historical institutions owe their continuance chiefly to the advantages and satisfactions that proceed from group consciousness, for example, colleges, school-houses, and political parties, especially perhaps in America. Party feeling, as Sir H. Maine rightly said, is frequently a remedy for the inertia of democracy. The savage, when he maintains associations other than those determined by natural conditions, intensifies his group consciousness by wearing badges and totem marks, by tatooing and scarring, and by indulging in various rites and ceremonies, about which a certain secrecy and mystery is maintained. And civilised men exhibit just the same tendency and take very similar measures to intensify group consciousness. We have our club colours and ribbons and blazers, our coUege gowns and colours, our Oxford accent, our badges of membership, and so on. Freemasonry, with its lodges and badges and mysterious rites, seems to be the purest example on a large scale. And, when the group consciousness and the group sentiment have been acquired, we continue to cultivate it purely for its own sake, by holding annual dinners and reunions of old boys, and so forth. It is of the greatest importance that this tendency to seek and maintain a share in group consciousness, which, as we have seen, manifests itself everywhere even under the most adverse conditions, not merely yields comfort and satisfaction to individucds, but brings about results which are in almost every way extremely advantageous for the higher development of human life in general. We have seen that, in the well-organised group, collective de- liberation, judgment, and action are raised to a higher plane of effectiveness than is possible to the average member of the group. But apart from that, the group spirit continues with us, as with the savage (though in a less effective degree) to be the great sociaUsing agency. In the majority of cases it is the principal, if not the sole, factor which raises a man's conduct above the plane of pure egoism, leads him to think and care and work for others as well as for himself. Try to imagine any man wholly deprived of his group CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 79 consciousness and set over against all his fellowmen as an individual unit, and you will see that you could expect but little from him in the way of self-sacrifice or public service — at most a care for his wife and children and sporadic acts of kindliness when direct appeals are made to his pity; but none of that energetic and devoted public service and faithful self-sacrificing co-operation without which the continued welfare of any human society is impossible. The group spirit destroys the opposition and the conflict between the crudely individualistic and the primitive altruistic tendencies of our nature. This is the peculiar merit and efficiency of the complex motives that arise from the group spirit ; they bring the egoistic self-seeking impulses into the service of society and harmonise them with the altruistic tendencies. The group spirit secures that the egoistic and the altruistic tendencies of each man's nature, instead of being in perpetual conflict, as they must be in its absence, shall harmoniously co-operate and re-enforce one another throughout a large part of the total field of human activity. For it is of the essence of the group spirit that the individual identifies himself, as we say, with the group more or less ; that is to say, in technical language, his self-regarding sentiment becomes extended to the group more or less completely, so that he is moved to desire and to work for its welfare, its success, its honour and glory, by the same motives which prompt him to desire and to work for his own welfare and success and honour; as in the case of the student working for a scholarship or university prize, or the member of an exploring expedition or fighting group. Further, the motives sup- pUed by the group spirit may be stronger than, and may overpower, the purely individualistic egoistic motives, just because they har- monise with, and are supported by, any altruistic tendency or tendencies comprised in the make up of the individual ; which altru- istic tendencies wiU, where the group spirit is lacking, oppose and weaken the effects of purely egoistic motives. To illustrate this principle, let us imagine an Englishman who, in a Congo forest, finds a white man sick or in difficulties. To succour the sick man may be to incur grave risks, and he is tempted to pass on ; but the thought comes to him that in so doing he will lower the prestige of the white man in the eyes of the natives; and this idea, evoking the motives of the group spirit which unites all white men in such a land, brings victory to his sense of pity in its struggle with selfish fear. In this way, that is by extension to the group, the egoistic 8o PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i impulses are transmuted, sublimated, and deprived of their indi- vidualistic selfish character and effects and are turned to pubhc service. Hence it is that it is generally so difficult or impossible to analyse the motives of anj' public service or social activity and to display them as either purely egoistic or altruistic; for they are, as Herbert Spencer called them, ego-altruistic. And hence it comes about that both the cynic and the ideahst can make out plausible cases, when they seek to show that either egoism or altruism pre- dominates in human life. Both are right in a partial sense. Another noteworthy feature of the group spirit renders it extremely effective in promoting social fife; namely the fact that, al- though the group sentiment is apt to determine an attitude of rivalry, competition, and antagonism towards similarly constituted groups, yet a man may share in the self-consciousness of more groups than one, so long as their natures and aims do not necessarily bring them into rivalry. And in our complex modern societies this principle of multiple group consciousness in each man is of extreme importance ; for without it, and in the absence or comparative lack of the natural conditions of grouping other than the occupational, the whole popu- lation would become divided into occupational groups, each fighting collectively against every other for the largest possible share of the good things of life. A tendency towards this state of things is verj^ perceptible, in spite of the correcting cross-connexions of kinship, of church and political party, and of territorial association. But another principle of multiple group consciousness is, perhaps, of still greater importance, namely that it allows the formation of a hierarchy of group sentiments for a system of groups in which each larger group includes the lesser; each group being made the object of the extended self -regarding sentiment in a way which in- cludes the sentiment for the lesser group in the sentiment for the larger group in which it is comprised. Thus the family, the village, the county, the country as a whole, form for the normal man the objects of a harmonious hierarchy of sentiments of this sort, each of which strengthens rather than weakens the others, and yields motives for action which on the whole co-operate and harmonise rather than conflict. Such a hierarchy is seen in savage hfe. It often happens that a man is called on to join in the defence of some village of the tribe other than his own. In such cases he is moved not only by his tribal sentiment, but also by his sentiments for his village and family. The sentiment for the part supports the sentiment for the whole. CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 8i It is of considerable importance also that_*in general the develop- ment of a sentiment of attachment to one group not only does not prevent, but rather facilitates, the development of similar sentiments for other groups. And this is especially true when the groups concerned are related to one another as parts and wholes, that is, when they form a hierarchy of successively more widely inclusive groups. The sentiment for the smaller group (e.g. the family) naturally develops first in the child's mind ; if only for the reason that this is the group of which he can first form a definite idea, and with the whole of which he is in immediate relations. The strong development of this first group sentiment prepares the child's mind for the development of other and wider group sentiments. For it increases his power of grasping intellectually the group of persons as a complex whole ; and it strengthens by exercise those impulses or primary tendencies which must enter into the constitution of any group sentiment ; and, thirdly, it prevents the excessive development of the purely indi- viduaUstic attitude, of the habit of looking at every situation and weighing all values from the strictly individualistic and egoistic standpoint; which attitude, if once it becomes habitual, must form a powerful hindrance to the development of the wider group senti- ments, when the child arrives at an age to grasp the idea of the larger group. The organisation of an army again illustrates these principles in relatively clear and simple fashion. In our own army the regiment is the traditional self-conscious unit about which traditional senti- ment and ritual have been carefully fostered, in part through realisation of their practical importance, in part because this unit is of such a size and nature as to be well suited to call out strongly the natural group tendencies of its component individuals. On the whole the miUtary authorities, and especially Lord Haldane in the formation of the territorial army, seem to have wisely recognised the importance of the group spirit of the regiment ; although during the Great War it was, under the pressure of other considerations, apparently lost sight of at certain times and places, with, I beUeve, deplorable consequences. In modern warfare, and especially in the Great War, the Division has tended to become of predominant importance as the unit of organisation; and accordingly, without destroying or superseding regimental group consciousness, the sentiment for the Division has been in many instances a very strong factor in promoting the spiritual cohesion and efficiency of the army. Certain Divisions, such 82 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i as the loth and the 29th, have covered themselves with glory, so that the soldiers have learnt to feel a great pride in and a devotion to the Division. This larger group, although of comparatively ephemeral existence and therefore devoid of long traditions coming down from the past, is in perfect and obvious harmony, in purpose and spirit and material organisation, with the battaUons and other units of which it is composed ; and, accordingly, the sentiment for the larger group does not enter into rivalry with that for the battalion, the battery, or other smaller unit ; rather it comprises this within its own organisa- tion and derives energy and stability from it. These psychological principles of group consciousness are, I think, well borne out inductively, by any comparative survey; that is to say, we find that, where family sentiment and the sentiment for the local group are strong, there also the wider group sentiments are strong, and good citizenship, patriotism, and ready devotion to public services of all kinds are the rule. The strongest most stable States have always been those in which family sentiment has been strong, especially those in which it has been strengthened and supported by the custom of ancestor worship, as in Rome, Japan and China, Scotchmen again (Highlanders especially) are noted for clannishness, and Scotch cousins have become a bye-word; a fact which implies the great strength of the family sentiment. The clan sentiment, which is clearly only an extension of the family sentiment, is also notoriously strong. The sentiment for Scotland as a whole is no less strong in the hearts of all her sons. But, and this is the important point, these strong group sentiments are perfectly compatible with and probably conducive to a sentiment for the still wider group. Great Britain or the British Empire; and the public services rendered to these larger groups by men of Scottish birth are equally notorious. In these considerations we may see, I think, a principal ground of the importance of the institution of the family for the welfare of the state. The importance has often been insisted upon; but too much stress is usually laid upon the material aspects, and not enough upon the mental effects, of family life. It has been a grave mistake on the part of many collectivists, from Plato onwards, that they have sought to destroy the family and to bring up all children as the children of the state only, in some kind of barrack system. It is not too much to say that, if they could succeed in this (and in this country great strides in this direction CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 83 are being rapidly made) , they would destroy the mental foundations of all possibihty of collective life of the higher type. We touch here upon a question of policy of the highest im- portance. There are, it seems to me, three distinct policies which may be deliberately pursued, for the securing of the predominance of pubhc or social motives over egoistic motives. First, we may aim at building up group life on the foundation of a system of discipline which will result in more or less complete suppression of the egoistic tendencies of individuals, the building up in them of habits of un- questioning obedience to authority. I imagine that the Jesuit system of education might fairly be taken as the most successful and thorough-going application of this principle. The organisation of an army of unwilling conscripts to fight for a foreign power must rest on the same basis. Some group spirit no doubt will generally grow up. But, though wonderful results have been obtained in this way, the system has two great weaknesses. First, it seeks to repress and destroy more than half of the powerful forces that move men to action — namely, the egoistic motives in general — instead of making use of them, directing them to social ends. Secondly, it necessarily crushes individuaUty and therefore all capacity of progress and further development in various directions ; it results in a rigidly conservative system without possibihty of spontaneous development. The second system is that which aims at developing in all members of the state or inclusive group a sentiment of devotion to the whole, while suppressing the growth of sentiments for any minor groups within the whole. This was the system of Plato's Republic and is essentially the collectivist ideal. It is the pohcy of those who would suppress all sentimental groupings, all local loyalties and patriotisms, in favour of the ideal of the brotherhood of man, the cosmopolitan ideal. I have already pointed out one great weakness of this plan, — namely, that this sentiment for the all-inclusive group cannot be effectively developed save by way of development of the minor group sentiments. And, though it may succeed with some persons, there wiU always be many who cannot grasp the idea of the larger whole sufficiently firmly and intelligently to make it the object of any strong and enlightened sentiment of attachment; such persons wiU be left on the purely egoistic level, whereas their energies might have been effectively socialised by the development of some less inclusive group consciousness. Again, the smaller group is apt to call out a man's energies more 6—2 84 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i effectively, because he can see and foresee more clearly the effects of his own actions on its behalf. Whereas the larger the group, the more are the efforts of individuals and their effects obscured and lost to view in vast movements of the collective Ufe. That is to say, the smaller groups harmonise more effectively than the larger groups the purely egoistic and the altruistic motives (except of course in the case of those few persons who can play leading parts in the Ufe of the larger group). For, though a man may be moved by his devo- tion to the group to work for its welfare, he will work still more energetically if, at the same time, he is able to achieve personal distinction and acknowledgment, if the purely egoistic motives can also find satisfaction in his activities. Hence this second policy also, no matter how successful, fails to make the most of men, fails to bring to the fullest exercise all their powers in a manner that will promote the welfare of the whole. Thirdly, this system loses the advantages of the healthy rivalry between groups within the whole ; which rivalry is a means to a great liberation of human energies. These are the weaknesses of the over-centraJised state, such as modern France or the Roman Empire. Only the third poHcy can Uberate and harmonise the energies of men to the fullest extent; namely, that which aims at developing in each individual a hierarchy of group sentiments in accordance with the natural course of development. One other virtue of the group spirit must be mentioned. Although it tends to bring similar groups into keen rivalry and even into violent conflict, the antagonism between men who are moved to conflict by the group spirit is less bitter than that between individuals who are brought into conflict by personal motives; for the members of each group or party, though the3'' may wish to frustrate or even to destroy the other party as such, maj^ remain benevolent towards its members individually. And this is rendered easier by the fact that the members of each group, recognising that their antagonists are also moved by the group spirit, by loyalty and devotion to the group, will sympathise with and respect their motives far more readily and fully than they would, if they ascribed to their opponents purely egoistic motives. This recognition, even though it be not clearly formulated, softens the conflict and moderates the hostile feelings that opposition inevitably arouses in men keenly pursuing any end, especially one which they hold to be a public good; in this way it renders possible that continuance of friendly relations between members of bitterly opposed parties which has CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 85 happily been the rule and at the same time the seeming anomaly of Enghsh public life. In our older educational system, and especially in the 'public schools' and older universities, the advantages and the importance of developing the group spirit have long been practically recognised — 'esprit de corps' has been cultivated by the party system, by rivalry of groups within the group; by forms, school-houses, colleges, clubs, teams, games, and by keeping the honour and glory of the school, college, or other unit, prominently before the minds of the scholars in many effective ways. It is, I think, one of the gravest defects of our primary system of education that it makes so httle provision for development of this kind; that, while it weakens the family sentiment, it provides no effective substitute for it. Something has been done in recent years to remedy this defect, notably the fostering of the boy-scout movement; but every opportunity of suppljdng this need should be seized by those who are responsible for the direction of educational policy. The importance of the group spirit may be illustrated by pointing to those individuals and classes which are denied its benefits. The tramp, the cosmopohtan globe-trotter, the outcast in general, whether the detachment from group life be due to the disposition or choice of the individual or to unfortunate circumstances, is apt to show, only too clearly, how httle man is able, standing alone, to maintain a decent level of conduct and character. On a large scale this is illustrated by the casteless classes in caste communities, and especially by Eurasians of India and by other persons and classes of mixed descent, who fail to identify themselves wholly with either of the groups from which they derive their blood. The moral defects of persons of these classes have often been deplored, and they have usually been attributed to the mixture of widely different hereditary strains. There is probably some truth in the view; but in general the moral shortcomings of persons of these classes are chiefly due to the fact that they do not fully share in the Ufe of any group having old established moral traditions and sentiments. Summary of Principal Conditions of the Development OF THE Group Spirit IWe have seen that the group spirit plays a vastly important part in raising men above the purely animal level of conduct, in extending each man's interests beyond the narrow circle of his own home and 86 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i family, in inspiring him to efforts for the common good, in stimulating him to postpone his private to public ends, in enabling the common man to rise at times, as shown by a multitude of instances during the Great War, to lofty heights of devotion and self-sacrifice. _; CThe development of the group spirit consists in two essential processes, namely, the acquisition of knowledge of the group and the formation of some sentiment of attachment to the group as such. It is essential that the group shall be apprehended or conceived as such by its members. Therefore the group spirit is favoured by what- ever tends to define the group, to mark it off distinctly from other groups ; by geographical boundaries ; by peculiarities of skin-colour or of physical type, of language, or accent, of dress, custom, or habit, common to the members of the group; that is to say, by homo- geneity and distinctiveness of type within the group. ";. And, though definition of the group as such within the minds of its members is the prime condition of the growth of the group spirit, that spirit will be the more effective the fuller and truer is the knowledge of the group in the minds of its members. Just as individual self-knowledge favours self-direction and wisdom of choice, so group self-knowledge must, if it is to be fully effective, comprise not only the conception of the group as a whole but also the fullest possible knowledge of the component parts and individuals and an understanding of their relations to one another. In this respect smallness and homogeneity of the group are obviously favourable. But knowledge of the group, however exact and widely diffused, is of itself of no effect, if there be not also widely diffused in the members some sentiment of attachment to the group. The prevaiHng group sentiment is almost inevitably one of attachment. There are exceptional instances in which men are compelled to act as members of a group which they hate or despise, notably in some cases of compulsory military service and in convict gangs ; but it must be rare that, even under such conditions, some sense of common interest, some fellow feeling for other members in like distressing circumstances, does not lead to the growth of some group spirit, provided only that the group has some continuity and some homogeneity in essentials. In all natural and spontaneously formed groups, the extension of the self-regarding sentiment to the group is a normal and inevitable process; and, like the self-regarding sentiment, the sentiment so formed may range from an insane and incorrigible pride (as often in the case of the family sentiment) to a decent self-respect that is CH. IV] THE GROUP SPIRIT 87 perfectly compatible with a modest attitude and with reasonable claims upon and regard for the interests of other groups. The main difference between the self-regarding sentiment and the developed group sentiment is that the latter commonly involves an element of devotion to the group for its own sake and the sake of one's fellow members. That is to say, the group sentiment is a synthesis of the self-regarding and the altruistic tendencies in which they are harmonised to mutual support and re-enforcement: the powerful egoistic impulses being sublimated to higher ends than the promotion of the self's welfare^. Further, the group has, or may have, a greater continuity of existence than the individual, both in the past and in the future; and for this reason, and because also it includes the purely altruistic tendency, the group sentiment is capable of idealisation in a high degree and of yielding satisfactions far more enduring and profound than the most refined self -sentiment. Both knowledge of the group and the growth of the group senti- ment are greatly promoted by two processes, in the absence of which the group spirit can attain only a very modest development. These are free intercourse within the group and free intercourse between the group and other groups. We shall have occasion to discuss and illustrate them in later chapters. ^ At this point I would refer the reader to the discussion of the self-regarding sentiment (Chapter VII) in my Social Psychology. CHAPTER V PECULIARITIES OF GROUPS OF VARIOUS TYPES We have discussed the psychology of the simple crowd or un- organised group; and taking an army as an extreme and relatively simple type of the highly organised group, we have used it to illustrate the principal ways in which organisation of the group modifies its collective life, raising it in many respects high above that of the crowd. I propose now to discuss very briefly the peculiarities of groups of several types. Some classification of groups seems desirable as an aid to the discovery of the general principles of collective Ufe and their application to the understanding of social Ufe in general. It seems impossible to discover any single principle of classification. Almost every group that enjoys a greater continuity of existence than the simple crowd partakes in some degree of qualities common to all. But we may distinguish the most important qualities and roughly classify groups according to the degrees in which they exhibit them. Apart from crowds, which, as we have seen, may be either fortuitously gathered or brought together by some common purpose, there are many simple groups which, though accidental in origin (i.e. not brought together by common purpose or interest) and remaining unorganised, yet present in simple and rudimentary form some of the features of group life. The persons seated in one compartment of a railway train during a long journey may be entirely strangers to one another at the outset ; yet, even in the absence of conversation, they in the course of some hours will begin to manifest some of the peculiarities of the psychological group. To some extent they will have come to a mutual understanding and adjustment; and, when a stranger adds himself to their company, his entrance is felt to some extent as an intrusion which at the least demands readjustments; he is regarded with curious and to some extent hostile glances. If an outsider threatens to encroach on the rights of one of the company, the others will readily combine in defence of their member; and any Httle incident affecting their one common interest (namely, punctual arrival of the PT. I, CH. V] PECULIARITIES OF GROUPS 89 train at its destination) quickly reveals, and in doing so strengthens, the bond of common feehng. On a sea voyage the group spirit of the passenger ship attains a greater development, by reason of the longer continuance of the group, its more complete detachment and definition, the sense of greater hazard affecting all alike, the sense of dependence on mutual courtesy and good-will and sympathy for the comfort and enjoy- ment of all. Very soon the experienced traveller, contrasting and comparing this present company with those of previous voyages, sums up its quahties and defects and lays his plans accordingly. And by the time that an intermediate port is reached, where perhaps the most ' grumpy ' and least entertaining member of the company disembarks, even his departure is felt by the rest as a loss that leaves a gap in the structure of the group. Such fortuitous and ephemeral groups apart, all others may be classed in the two great divisions of natural and artificial groups. The natural groups again fall into two main classes which partly coincide, — namely, those rooted in kinship and those determined by geographical conditions. The family is the pure example of the former; the population of a small island, the type of the latter kind. The main difference is that the bonds of the kinship group are purely or predominantly mental and therefore can, and commonly do, remain effective in spite of all spatial separation and of all lack of common purpose or of matericd benefits accruing from membership in the group. The artificial groups may be divided into three great classes, the purposive, the customary or traditional, and the mixed; those of the last kind combining the purposive and the traditional characters in various proportions. The purposive group is brought together and maintained by the existence of a common purpose in the minds of all its members. It is, in respect of efficiency, the highest type ; for it is essentially self- conscious, aware of its ends and of its own nature, and it deUberately adopts an organisation suited to the attainment of those ends. The simplest and purest type is the social club, a body of people who meet together to satisfy the promptings of the gregarious instinct and to enjoy the pleasures of group hfe. In the great majority of instances, the social club adopts some form of recreation — debating, music, chess, whist, football, tennis, cycling — the practice of which gives point and definition to the activities of members and secures secondary advantages. It is noteworthy that on this purely recreational 90 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i plane, clubs and societies of all sorts seek in almost all cases to enhance the group consciousness and hence the satisfactions of group life by entering into relations, generally relations of friendly rivalry, but sometimes merely of affiliation and formal intercourse, with other hke groups. For not only is the group consciousness enriched and strengthened by such intercourse; but, when the rival or com- municating groups, becoming aware of one another, become inform- ally or, more generally, formally alHed to constitute a larger whole, the consciousness of participation in this larger whole gratifies more fully the gregarious impulse and enhances the sense of power and confidence in each member of each constituent group. This seems to be the main ground of that universal tendency to the formation of ever more inclusive associations of clubs and societies, which, overleaping even national boundaries and geographical and racial divisions, has produced numerous world-wide associations. Another very numerous class of strictly purposive groups is to be found in the commercial companies. In these the group spirit commonly remains at the lowest level; for the dominant motive is individual financial gain, and the only common bond among the shareholders is their interest in the management of the company so far as it affects the private and individual end of each one. Group self-knowledge, organisation, tradition, and group sentiment are all at a minimum ; accordingly the group remains incapable of effective deliberation or action. It operates through its board of directors and officers and, owing to its incapacity for group action, has to rely upon the provisions of the Company Laws for the control of their actions. A third large class of purposive groups are the associations formed for the furthering of some public end. Many such groups are purely altruistic or philanthropic; but in the majority the members hope to share in some degree in the public benefits for the attainment of which the group is formed. In many such associations, group Mfe hardly rises above the low level of the commercial company ; the main difference being that, in virtue of the 'disinterested' or pubHc-spirited nature of the dominant purpose, the members regard one another and their executive officers with greater confidence and sympathy ; even though remaining personally unacquainted. Notable instances of such associations, achieving great pubUc ends, are ' The National Trust for the Preservation of Places of Natural Beauty or Historic Interest,' and 'The Public Footpaths Association.' Other associations of this kind have something of the nature of a commercial CH. V] PECULIARITIES OF GROUPS 91 company: e.g. 'The First Garden City Company,' and 'The Trust Houses Company.' The pecuharity of these is that the motive of financial gain is subordinated to, while co-operating with, the desire for achievement of a pubhc good, a benefit to the whole community in which the members of the group share in an almost inappreciable degree only. Such associations are very characteristic of the life of this country; and it may be hoped that their multiplication and development wiU prove to be one of the amehorating factors of the future, softening the asperities of commercial hfe, correcting to some degree that narrowing of the sympathies, and preventing that tendency to class antagonisms, which purely commercial asso- ciations inevitably produce. The great co-operative societies seem to have something of this character; for, although the dominant motive of membership is probably in most cases private advantage, yet membership brings with it some sense of participation in a great movement for better social organisation, some sense of loyalty to the group, some rudimentary group knowledge and group spirit, some interest in and satisfaction in the prosperity of the group for its own sake, over and above the strictly private interest of each member. The introduction of various forms of profit sharing will give some- thing of this character to commercial companies. The recent investments in government loans by millions of indi- viduals, acting in part from patriotic motives, must have a similar tendency; and a similar effect on a large scale must be produced by any nationalisation of industries, a fact which is one of the weightiest grounds for desiring such nationahsation ; though it remains un- certain whether, when the scale of the association becomes so large as to include the whole nation, the bulk of the citizens will be able effectively to discern the identity of their public and private interests, and whether, therefore, such nationahsation will greatly promote that fusion or co-operation of public and private motives which is the essential function and merit of the group spirit. The most characteristic British group of the purposive type is the association formed for some public or quasi-public end and operating through a democratically elected committee or committees and sub-committees. Such groups are the cradle of the representative principle and the training ground of the democratic spirit, especially of its dehberative and executive faculties. In them each member, taking part in the election of the committee, delegates to them his share of authority, but continues to exert control over them by his vote upon reports of the committee and in the periodic re-election 92 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i of its members. On this ground the citizens are trained to understand the working of the representative principle; to yield to the opinion of the majority on the choice of means, without ceasing loyally to co-operate towards the common end ; to observe the necessary rules of procedure; to abide by group decisions; to influence group opinion in debate, and in turn to be influenced by it and respect it ; to differ without enmity; to keep the common end in view, in spite of the inevitable working of private and personal motives; to understand the necessity for delegation, and to respect the organisation through which alone the group raises itself above the level of the crowd. Traditional groups of pure or nearly pure character are relatively infrequent. Perhaps the castes of the Hindu world are, of all large groups, those which most nearly approach the pure type. Traditional grouping is characteristic of stagnant old estabUshed populations, of which it is the basis of organisation and principal cement. No doubt in almost every case the formation of the traditional group was in some degree purposive ; but the original purpose has generally been lost sight of; myths and legends have grown up to explain the origin of and give a fictitious purpose or ' raison d'etre ' to the group. In the absence of any definite practical purpose animating the group and holding it together, its stability is secured and its tradition is re- enforced and given a visible presentation by the development of ritual. Of all the great groups among us the Free Masons perhaps afford the best illustration of this type. Far more important in the British world are the groups of the mixed type, partly traditional and partly purposive, groups having a long history and origins shrouded in the mists of antiquity, but having some strong and more or less definite common purpose. Of such groups the Christian Church is the greatest example. In the Roman Church, whose history has been so little interrupted, tradition attains its fullest power, and the regard for the past is strengthened and supplemented by the prospect of an indefinitely prolonged future directed towards the same ends. Its organisation has grown gradually under the one continued overshadowing purpose, every addition becoming emScjdied and estabhshed in the great tradition, the strength of which is perpetually maintained by ritual. And this traditional organisation is not only borne in the minds of each generation of members of the Church, but, in an ever increasing degree, has embodied itself in a material system of stone and glass and metal and printed words ; these constitute a visible and enduring presentment which, though entirely disconnected and heterogeneous CH. V] PECULIARITIES OF GROUPS 93 in a merely material sense, yet provides fixed points in the whole organisation, contributing immensely to its stabihty, and aiding greatly in bringing home to the minds of its members the unity of the whole group in the past, the present, and the future. Many groups or sects having the same essential purpose cis the Roman Church have aimed to estabhsh a tradition without the aid of such material embodiments : but their ephemeral histories illustrate the wisdom of the mother Church which, in building up her vast organi- sation, has recognised the hmitations and the frailties of the human mind and has not scorned to adapt herself to them in order to over- come them. On a smaller scale our ancient universities and their colleges illustrate the same great type of the partly traditional partly pur- posive group, and the same great principles of collective life, — namely, the stabihty derived from the continuity of tradition, from its careful culture, and its partial embodiment in ritual and material structure. An essential weakness of all such groups in a progressive com- munity is that tradition tends to overshadow purpose ; hence every such group tends towards the rigidity and relative futihty of the purely traditional group. Its organisation tends to set so rigidly that it is incapable of adapting itself to the changing needs of the present and the future ; the maintenance of tradition, which is but a means towards the acknowledged end, becomes an end in itself to which the primary purpose of the whole is in danger of being subordinated. The churches and the universities alike illustrate vividly the principles of a group within a group. Each of the older univer- sities is a microcosm, a small model of the national Hfe, and largely to this fact is due its educational value as a place of residence. Each college evokes a strong group spirit in all its members; and this sentiment for the college, though it may and does in some minor matters conflict with the sentiment for the university, is in the main synthesised within this, and indeed is the chief factor in the strength of that sentiment. The group spirit of each college owes much of its strength to the carefully fostered, but perfectly friendly, rivalry between the several colleges in sports and studies and other activities. The close com- panionship and emulation between a number of small communities of similar constitution and purpose, each having a long and distinct tradition as well as a clearly defined material habitat which embodies and symbohses its traditions in a thousand different ways, has raised the self-knowledge and sentiment of the groups to a high level. It 94 PRINCIPLES OF COLLECTIVE PSYCHOLOGY [pt. i is well known that the few years spent in one of the colleges develops in every member (with few exceptions) a sentiment of attachment that persists through life and extends itself in some degree to every other member, past, present and future; so that, in whatever part of the world and under whatever circumstances two such men may meet, the discovery of their common membership of the college at once throws them into a friendly attitude towards each other and prepares each to make disinterested efforts on behalf of the other. The same is true in a less degree of the universities themselves. Oxford and Cambridge have, partly in consequence of their proximity and close intercourse, developed on closely parallel lines. They are therefore so similar in constitution and aims as to be keen though friendly rivals. This has been of great benefit to both, the self- knowledge and group sentiment of each having been greatly pro- moted by this close intercourse, rivalry, and reciprocal criticism. And this rivalry has not prevented the growth of some sentiment for the larger group constituted by the members of both universities, each of whom is always ready to defend the common interests of the larger group against the rest of the world. Again, within each college there are numerous smaller groups, each with its traditions and group spirit ; and, so long as these groups do not become too exclusive, do not absorb all the devotion of their members, but leave each one free to join in the hfe of other minor groups, their influence is good, the group spirit of each such minor group contributing to the strength of the larger group sentiment and enriching the spiritual hfe of the whole. In the middle ages occupational groups were of great im- portance and influence. They were of the mixed type, for most of them, though essentially purposive, developed strong traditions; and in their remote origins many of them were perhaps rather natural than artificial formations. The violent changes of industrial life, the development of the capitalist system and modern industrialism, dislocated and largely destroyed these occupational groups to the great detriment of social well-being. At the present time we see a strong tendency to the growth of occupational groups of the purely purposive type, which, lacking the guidance and conservative power of old traditions, and depending for their strength largely upon the identification of the material interests of each member with those of the group, show a narrowness of outlook, a lack of stability and internal cohesion, and a tendency to ignore the place and function of the group in the whole community. They show, in short, a lack CH. V] PECULIARITIES OF GROUPS 95 of the enlightened group spirit which only time, with increasing experience and understanding of the nature and functions of group life, can remedy. It may be hoped that with improved internal organisation, with the growth of more insight into the mutual de- pendence of the various groups on one another and on the whole community, these groups, which at present seem to some observers to threaten to destroy our society and to replace the rivalry of nations by an even more dangerous rivalry of vast occupational groups, may become organised within the structure of the whole and play a part of the greatest value in the national life. PART II THE NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER CHAPTER VI INTRODUCTORY What is a Nation? Having studied the most general principles of the collective mental life, as exemplified in the two extreme forms of the unorganised crowd and the highly organised army, having briefly noted the principal classes of groups that enjoy a collective mental Hfe, and having examined the nature and function of the group spirit in the organisation of the group mind, we may now take up the study of the most interesting, most complex and most important kind of group mind, namely the mind of a nation-state^. Many attempts have been made to define more exactly the popular notion of a nation. The word has sometimes been apphed to large groups of primitive folk that show evidence of close racial affinity and similarity of customs, such as the Iroquois tribes of North America, or the Hun invaders of medieval Europe. In popular usage the word is more commonly restricted to the great nation- states of modern times. It must be recognised that, since human societies of present and past times present every conceivable variety of composition and structure, it is impracticable to lay down any strict definition and to classify populations as falling definitely within or outside the class. But, though we may not hope to lay down a definition which shall clearly mark off the nation from all other human groups, we may usefully define the nation -state or nation in the most highly developed form that it has yet attained, and recognise that various 1 For a brief history of the nation-state the reader may be referred to Prof. Ramsay Muir's Nationalism and Internationalism, London, 1917. He rightly describes ' nationaUsm ' as one of the most powerful factors in modern history. It is, I think, obviously true that we may go further and say that it is the most powerful factor in modern history. CH. VI] WHAT IS A NATION ? 97 peoples partake of the nature of, or approach the type of, the nation in so far as they exhibit something of its essential character. It is perhaps hardly necessary to point out that it is only in the nation-state, or nation in the fullest sense of the word, that the state becomes identical with the nation, and that this identification has only been achieved in modern history by the growth among a few peoples of representative institutions and the democratic spirit. In the work mentioned above Prof. Ramsay Muir writes — "What do we mean by a Nation? It is obviously not the same thing as a race, and not the same thing as a state. It may be provisionally defined as a body of people who feel themselves to be naturally linked together by certain affinities which are so strong and real for them that they can live happily together, are dissatisfied when disunited, and cannot tolerate subjection to peoples who do not share these ties^." The provisional definition has the merit of recognising that nationhood is essentially a mental condition and must be defined in psychological terms. The author goes on to inquire — "What are the ties of affinity which are necessary to constitute a nation?" He then considers the following conditions: (i) "occupation of a defined geographical area," (2) "unity of race," (3) "unity of language," (4) "unity of religion," (5) "common sub- jection, during a long stretch of time, to a firm and systematic government," (6) "community of economic interest, with the simi- larity of occupations and outlook which it brings," (7) " the possession of a common tradition, a memory of sufferings endured and victories won in common, expressed in song and legend, in the dear names of great personaHties that seem to embody in themselves the character and ideals of the nation, in the names also of sacred places wherein the national memory is enshrined." Of the last he says that it is "the most potent of all nation-moulding factors, the one indispensable factor"; thus showing his sense of the essentially psychological nature of nationhood. But of all the other six ' factors ' enumerated, he shows that they are unessential. After reaching this negative conclusion, that nationhood cannot be defined by any one of these marks or factors, he writes : "Nationality, then, is an elusive idea, difficult to define. It cannot be tested or analysed by formulse, such as German professors love. Least of aH must it be interpreted by the brutal and childish doctrine of raciahsm. Its essence is a sentiment, and in the last resort we can only say that a nation is 1 Op. cit. p. 38. M. G. M. J 98 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii a nation because its members passionately and unanimously believe it to be so. But they can only believe it to be so if there exist among them real and strong affinities ; if they are not divided by any arti- ficially maintained separation between the mixed races from which they are sprung ; if they share a common basis of fundamental moral ideas, such as are most easily implanted by common religious beliefs ; if they can glory in a common inheritance of tradition; and their nationality will be all the stronger if to these sources of unity they add a common language and literature and a common body of law. If these ties, or the majority of them, are lacking, the assertion of nationahty cannot be made good. For, even if it be for the moment shared by the whole people, as soon as they begin to try to enjoy the freedom and unity which they claim in the name of nationality, they wiU fall asunder, and their freedom will be their ruin." In the last sentence the author clearly shows that the conclusion at which he seemed to have arrived, namely that "a nation is a nation because its members passionately and unanimously beheve it to be so," is untenable. At the present time there are populations claiming the rights of nationahty just upon this fallacious ground; a fact which illustrates the importance of achieving some satis- factory definition of nationhood. Indeed at the present moment, when Europe is being remoulded by the Paris Conference, the need for clear notions and some working definition of nationhood has acquired a most urgent importance. For, as our author re- marks, "we say, loosely, that every nation has a right to freedom and unity," and the principle of "self-determination of nations" has become almost universally accepted as a kind of moral axiom of political justice; and this axiom is being applied to determine the political boundaries of the world now and for all time. Yet how can we hope to make a proper use of this principle, if we cannot define a nation, if a modern historian, who has devoted himself to the study of nationality, finds himself compelled in the year 1917 to give up the attempt to define the meaning of the term I nation? For that is the issue of Prof. Ramsay Muir's interesting I ' discussion. ' ' We have not attained, ' ' he confesses, ' ' in this discussion any very clear definition of nationahty, or any very satisfactory test of the validity of the claims put forward for national freedom. We are not to base the doctrine of nationality upon abstract rights. We must recognise that there is no single infaUible test of what constitutes a nation, unless it be the peoples' own conviction of their nationhood, and even this may be mistaken or based upon inade- CH. VI] WHAT IS A NATION? 99 quale grounds^." And the dire consequences of this failure are made clear on the following page — "There seems no escape from the con- clusion that nationhood must mainly determine itself by conflict. That conclusion appears to be the moral of the history of the national idea in Europe." Which is as much as to say that, when any population declares itself to be a nation and claims the rights of nationhood, the Statesmen of the Paris Conference are to reply — "We do not know whether your claim is well-founded; for the historians and poHtical philosophers cannot tell us the meaning of the word 'nation.' Go to and fight, and, if you survive, we shall recognise the 'fait accompli' and hail you a Nation." I have dwelt at some length on this perplexity of the historian, grappUng with the task of defining nationhood, because it illustrates so weU a fact on which I wish to insist — namely, that it is not sufficient for the historian and the political philosopher to be willing to recognise the mental factors in the phenomena with which he deals. It is necessary to recognise that these factors are of overwhelming importance, and that they cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by aid of the obscure and confused psychological concepts of popular thought and speech. We must recognise these political problems for what they truly are — namely, psychological through and through, and only to be attacked with some hope of success if we call to our aid all that psychological science can give us. This conclusion cannot fail to be unpalatable to very many workers in this field; for it implies that equipment for such work demands some additional years of preparatory study. But, it may fairly be asked, if the medical man must devote six years to the intensive study of the human body, before he is permitted to practise upon it, and even then without any scientific knowledge of the human mind, should not he who would practise upon the body politic, in which not merely the bodies but the minds of men interact in the most subtle and complex fashion, prepare himself for his exalted task by an even more extended course of study? Prof. Ramsay Muir has the merit of recognising the essentially psychological nature of his problem; for his provisional definition (cited above) is wholly psychological, and he tells us that the essence of nationality is a sentiment; but he reveals the inadequacy of his psychological equipment by telHng us in the same paragraph that its essence is a behef , the belief that they are a nation, passionately and unanimously held by the members of some group. If we look ^ Op. cit. p. 54. 7—2 100 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii again at the list of seven proposed marks of nationhood, we shall see that they are rather of the nature of conditions favourable to the growth of nationhood; and, as we shall find, this list may be considerably enlarged. He comes nearest to the truth perhaps when he says "its essence is a sentiment." But he does not attempt to tell us what is the nature of this sentiment, nor even what is its object. We may imagine a group of people of considerable magnitude, say the Mormons, or the Doukhobors, the Swedenborgians, or the Christian Scientists, withdrawing themselves to some defined terri- tory, in order to form themselves into a nation; then, although each of the seven conditions enumerated by Prof. Ramsay Muir might be realised, and even though the community possessed the two conditions described by him as the essence of nationality — namely, a strong sentiment (presumably one of loyalty to the group) and a passionate belief in its nationality — it would, in the absence of other essential conditions, lamentably fall short of being a nation and would suffer the fate indicated; namely "as soon as they begin to try to enjoy the freedom and unity which they claim in the name of nationality, they will fall asunder, and their freedom will be their ruin^." What, then, is the essential condition for lack of which any such people would fall short of nationhood ? What is the factor which has escaped the analysis of Prof. Ramsay Muir? The answer must be — organisation; not material organisation, but such mental organi- \\ sation as will render the group capable of effective group life, of collective dehberation and collective voHtion. The answer to the riddle of the definition of nationhood is to be found in the conception of the group mind, f A nation, we must say, is a people or popula- tion enjoying some degree of poHtical independence and possessed \ of a national mind and character, and therefore capable of national ; j dehberation and national volition^] In this and the succeeding chapters we have to examine the nature of such national mind and character, to give fuller meaning to these vague popular terms, and to study the way in which various conditions of national life contribute to their development. Nationhood is, then, essentially a psychological conception. To investigate the nature of national mind and character and to examine the conditions that render possible the formation of the national mind and tend to consolidate national character, these are the crowning tasks of psychology. ^ op. cii. p. 51. CH. VI] WHAT IS A NATION :> loi Let me remind the reader at this point of the general sense of the words mind and character. The two words really cover the same content; when we speak of the individual mind or character, we mean the organised system of mental or psychical forces which expresses itself in the behaviour and the consciousness of the indi- vidual man. Any such organised system has two aspects or sides which, though intimately related, maybe considered abstractly as dis- tinct — namely, the intellectual or cognitive aspect and the volitional, conative, or affective aspect. When we use the word 'mind' in speaking of any such system, we give prominence to its intellectual side; when we say 'character' we draw attention to its conative or affective side. The group mind of a nation is a mind in the sense that, like the mind of the individual, it is an organised system of mental or psychical forces; and, like the individual mind, it also has its intellectual and its affective sides or aspects. And this remains tnie whether or no there be any truth in that notion of the ' collective consciousness ' as a synthesis of minor consciousnesses which we have provisionally rejected^; that is to say, we accept unreservedly the notion of the collective mind, while suspending judgment upon the notion of 'collective consciousness,' until we shall find that this hypothesis is, or is not, required for the interpretation of the facts. It will be observed that we are getting far away from the old- fashioned conception of psychology which Limited its province to the introspective description of the contents of the individual's con- sciousness. The wider conception of the science gives it new tasks and new branches, of which the study of the national mind is one. Like the main trunk of psychology and most of its branches, this branch has to become an empirical science which shall take the place of what has long been regarded as a branch of speculative philosophy and pursued by the deductive a priori methods of philosophy. In this case the branch of philosophy in question has generally been called the Philosophy of History. [^It has been well said by Fouillee that the Philosophy of History of the past is related to the psycho- logical social science, that is now beginning to take shape, as alchemy was related to chemistry, or astrology to astronomy. That is to say, it was a realm of obscure and fanciful ideas, of sweeping and ill- based assumptions and slipshod reasoning. It was an elaborate attempt "to lay the intellect to rest on a pillow of obscure ideas. '^ ^ Chapter II. On the question of the definition of the terms 'mind' and 'character' I would refer the reader to my Psychology , The Study of Behaviour, Home University Library. 10? . , . . ; NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii The task of scientific analysis and research was avoided by bringing in, as the main explanatory principles or causal agencies, vaguely conceived entities regarded as presiding over the development of peoples — such entities as Providence, or the Destiny of nations, the Genius of a people, or the Instinct of a nation, the Unconscious Soul of a people, or the Spirit of the Age; and, when the problem was to account for some great secular change, for example, some change of national character, nothing was commoner than to appeal to Time itself, and thus to make of this most empty of all abstractions a directive agency and an all powerful cause of change. The strictly national gods of various nations were popular conceptions of this order; the gods who directly intervened in battles and enabled their chosen peoples to smite their enemies hip and thigh so that not one was left alive. Of this class the "good old German god" of the late German emperor was, it may be hoped, the last example. In a less crude form similar hypotheses of direct supernatural intervention have been seriously maintained in modern times. Thus the poet Schiller argued as follows — "The individuals of whom a nation is composed are dominated by egoism, each seeking only his own good, yet their actions somehow secure the good of the whole; hence we must believe that the history of a people unrolls itself beneath the glance of a wisdom that looks on from afar, that knows how to control the ill-regulated caprices of Hberty by the laws of a directing necessity and to make the particular ends pursued by individuals subservient to the unconscious realisation of a general plan." In estimating the claims to consideration of a doctrine of this sort, we must put aside its deleterious moral effects, the fact that its acceptance would necessarily tend to weaken our sense of re- sponsibility, to paralyse altruistic effort, and to justify purely egoistic conduct, We have to consider only its truth or probability in the light of history. "When we do that, it appears merely as a fictitious solution of the larger problems of social science, a solution which may reHeve us of the necessity of intellectual effort, but which brings no enlightenment and is supported by no serious argument. The one argument advanced is a hbel on human nature ; for it denies the reality and efficacy of the disinterested social efforts of the leaders of humanity, to which its progress has been in the main due; and it ignores the great mass of human activity due to the group spirit with its fusion of egoistic and altruistic motives. Further, it ignores the fact that the history of the world is not merely the CH. VI] WHAT IS A NATION? 103 history of the rise of nations, but rather of the perpetual rise and fall of nations. When we are told that a power of this sort has constantly intervened in the course of history, and that the rise of peoples has been due to its guidance, we may fairly ask — Why has it repeatedly withdrawn its support, just when civilisation has achieved such a degree of development as might have rendered possible the flowering of all the finer capacities of human nature and the alleviation of the hard lot of the great mass of men? If the contemplation of the course of history compelled us to believe that such a power intervenes, we should certainly have to regard it as a malign power that delights in mocking human efforts by first encouraging and then bringing them to naught. Very similar is the role in history assigned by von Hartmann to his 'Unconscious.' " It carries away the peoples that it dominates," says von Hartmann, "with a demoniac power towards unknown ends; it teaches them the way that they must take; though they often beUeve themselves to be marching towards a goal very different from that to which they are being conducted." Others maintain that the great men of a nation, who are the principal agents in moulding its destiny, are in some mystical sense the products and expressions of the ' unconscious soul' of the people, that they are the means by which its ideas are reahsed, through which they become effective; and they usuaUy make the assertion, altogether unwarranted by history, that the moment of great need in the life of a people always produces a great man or hero to lead the people through the crisis. That is, or may appear to be, true of those peoples that have survived to pass into history. But what of those peoples that have gone down, leaving no trace of all their strivings, beyond some mounds of rubble, some few material monu- ments, or some strange marks on brick or stone or rock? All such assumptions are the very negation of science. We have no right to appeal to such obscure and mystical powers, until by prolonged effort we shall have exhausted the possibilities of under- standing and explanation in terms of known forces and conditions^. On the other hand, a number of writers have sought to interpret the course of history and the rise and fall of nations in a more scientific manner; but most of these have studied some one aspect of national life, and have professed to find in that one aspect the ^ Prof. Hans Driesch's conception of 'super-individual entelechy' seems to be of this order, arrived at by the same line of reasoning. See Science and Philosophy of the Organism, Gifford Lectures, 1907. 104 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii key which shall unlock all doors and solve all problems. Thus some, adopting the notion of a variety of human races, each endowed with a certain peculiar and unalterable combination of qualities, seek to explain all history by the aid of biological laws, especially the Darwinian principles, as a struggle for survival between individuals and between races. Others, like Karl Marx and Guizot, see in economic conditions and the struggles between the social classes within each nation, the all important factors. Others again, like Montesquieu and to some extent Buckle and more recently Matteuzzi, have seen in the influences of physical environment the key to the understanding of differences of national character and history ; while others profess to have found it in differences of religious system, or of the forms of government and systems of laws. Others again, like le Bon ^, in a few dominant ideas which, they say, being possessed by any nation (or possessing a nation) determine its character and civihsation. All these are exaggerations of partial truths; and in opposition to all of them it must be laid down that the understanding of the mind of a nation is an indispensable foundation for the interpretation of its history. Just as there are two kinds of psychology of individuals, so there are two kinds of psychology of peoples. There is the individual psychology which is primarily descriptive, which is the biography of persons, and whose aim is to impart an accurate conception of the general tendencies of a person and of the course of his develop- ment. And there is the psychology whose aim is to explain in general terms the conduct of individual men in general by the aid of con- ceptions and laws of general validity. The former, of course, was developed much earlier than the latter, which is in the main of quite modern growth. As this explanatory psychology develops, its principles begin to find application in the sphere of biographical or individual psychology, raising it also to the explanatory plane. Just sojjihere are two parallel kinds of psychology of peoples. There is the descriptive psychology of the tendencies of particular peoples, the biography of nations and peoples, which is what com- monly is meant by ' history ' ; and there is the psychology which seeks to explain in general terms how these tendencies arise, which seeks the general laws of which these diverse national tendencies are the outcome. This last is the modem science which is beginning to take shape and to undertake the task so inadequately dealt with by the so-called ^ Psychological Laws of the Evolution of Peoples. CH. VI] WHAT IS A NATION? 105 Philosophy of History. It is essentially a branch, and by far the most important part, of Group Psychology ^_{Now individual psychology tends more and more to be a genetic psychology ; because we do not feel that we really understand the individual mind, until we know how it has come to be what it is, until we know something of its development and racial evolution. Just so the explanatory psy- chology of peoples must be a genetic psychology. Here it differs from individual psychology in that the distinction between indi- vidual development and racial evolution disappears. For the national mind is a continuous growth; it is not embodied in a temporal succession of individuals, but in a single continuously evolving organism.^ Nevertheless, we may with advantage consider separately (i) the nature of the general conditions necessary to the existence and operation of a national mind ; (2) the processes of evolution by which such minds are formed and their peculiarities acquired. I propose +0 take up the former problem in the following chapter. 1 As examples of the best work as yet accomplished in this immense and fascinating field, I would refer the reader to the books of M. Alfred Fouillee one of the most clear-sighted, judicious, and readable of modern philo- sophers, especially his Psychologic des peuples europ6ens, his Psychologie du peuple frangais, and his Science Sociale Contemporaine. CHAPTER VII THE MIND OF A NATION We have prepared ourselves for the study of the national mind by our preliminary examination of the two extreme types of collective mental Hfe, that of the quite unorganised group, the simple crowd, on the one hand, that of a very highly organised group, the army, on the other hand. We have seen that in the former type the collective actions imply a collective mental hfe much inferior, both intel- lectually and morally, to that of the average component individuals ; and that in the other type they imply a collective mental hfe and capacities much superior to those of the average individual. The mind of any nation occupies some intermediate position in the scale of which these are the extreme types; and it differs from both in being immensely more complex, and also in that the influence of the past dominates and determines to a much greater extent the mental life of the present. The study we have already made of collective mental life will enable us to understand what we mean, or ought to mean, when we speak of national character. There are two senses in which this phrase is used, and they are often confused. On the one hand, the phrase may be used to denote the character of individuals who are taken to be typical representatives or average specimens of their nations. On the other hand, it may be taken to mean the character of the nation as a collective whole or mind. These two things are by no means the same ; they are rather very different. We saw that this was true in the case of the crowd and also of the army; and it is true in a still higher degree of the nation than of any other social aggregate, just because the influence of its past over its present is greater than in any of the others. It is in the second and prefer- able sense that Fouillee uses this expression. He writes — "The national character is not the simple sum of the individual characters. \ In the bosom of a strongly organised nation, there are necessarily produced reciprocal actions between the individuals which issue in a general manner of feeling, thinking and willing very different from that of the individuals existing in isolation, or even from the sum or resultant of all the mental actions of isolated individuals. The PT. II, CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 107 national character is not simply the average type which one would obtain if one could imitate for minds the procedure adopted by Galton in the case of faces and so obtain a collective or generic image. The face which the process of compound photography produces exerts no action and is not a cause; while the national spirit does exert an effect which is different from all effects of individual minds; it is capable of exerting a sort of pressure and a constraint upon the individuals themselves; it is not only an effect, but is also in turn a cause; it is not only fashioned by indi\'iduals, it fashions them in turn. The average type of the Frenchman existing to-day, for example, does not adequately represent the French national char- acter, because each people has a history, and ancient traditions, and is composed, as it is said, of the dead even more than of the living. The French national character resumes the physical and social actions that have been taking place through centuries, inde- pendently of the present generation, and imposes itself upon this generation through all the national ideas, the national sentiments and national institutions. It is the weight of the entire histor}' to which the individual is subjected in his relations with his fellow citizens. Just, then, as the nation, as a certain social group, has an existence different from (though not separable from) the existence of the individuals, so the national character impHes that particular combination of mental forces of which the national Hfe is the external manifestation^." That is a precise and admirable statement of what we are to understand by national mind and character. We must now consider in turn the principal conditions of the existence of highly developed national mind and character, and first those which, as we have seen, are essential to all collective mental life. A certain degree of mental homogeneity of the group, some similarity of mental constitution of the individuals composing it, is the prime condition. The homogeneity essential to a nation may be one of two kinds, native or acquired; both of these are usually combined, but one of them predominates in some nations, the other in others. In considering racial or native homogeneity, we touch upon one aspect of a much disputed question, the influence of race on national character and history, in regard to which the greatest diversity of opinion has prevailed and still prevails. A correct estimate of this influence is of fundamental importance. I have stated elsewhere ^ Psychologic du peuple frangais, p. 4. Paris 1903. io8 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii the view I take^, but we must consider the question more fully here. On the one hand are those who would explain all differences of national character and action, all success and failure of nations, as arising from racial composition. This view is the basis of much of the ill-founded national pessimism which, before the Great War, was widely prevalent among the peoples who speak the Romance or Latin languages and who are falsely called by these pessimists the Latin races. It was also the foundation of that overweening national pride which has corrupted the German people and led them to disgrace and disaster; for, following Gobineau^ and a host of his disciples, among whom H. S. Chamberlain is perhaps the most notorious, they had come to believe, against the most obvious and abundant evidence, that they were the purest representatives of a race from whose blood all great men and all good things have come, a race fitted by native superiority to rule all the peoples of the earth^. On the other hand, popular humanitarianism would regard all men and all races as alike and equal in respect of native endowment ; and we have seen so distinguished a sociologist as Durkheim denying any importance or influence to racial composition of a people. Many others put aside all explanations based on racial differences as cheap and meretricious means of avoiding difficulties. J. S. Mill, for example, wrote " Of all vulgar modes of escaping from the considera- tion of the effect of social and moral influences on the human mind, the most vulgar is that of attributing the diversities of conduct and character to inherent natural differences"; and Buckle, in his great work on the History of Civilisation, quoted this remark with cordial approval*. Both these extreme views are false; the truth lies somewhere in the midst between them. At the time when MiU and Buckle wrote, biology and anthropology had not shown, as now they have, the enormous power of heredity in determining individual character and the great persistence of innate qualities through numberless genera- tions. Buckle especially overrated the power of physical environment, and Mill the power of education and of social environment, to change the innate qualities of a people ; and it was this over-estimation that ^ Social Psychology, p. 330. 2 Les inegalites des races humaines. 3 This fantastic doctrine has found its fullest expression in Chamberlain's work The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century. * Other prominent exponents of this view are Mr J. M. Robertson in his book The Germans and in his Introduction to English Politics, and M. J. Finot in his Race Prejudice. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 109 led them, and leads others still, to underestimate the importance of racial composition. There are involved in this dispute two theses which are often confused together. When people speak of the influence of ' race ' on national character and institutions, they may, and sometimes do, mean by 'race' the sum of innate inborn qualities or tendencies of the people at any given point of history. On the other hand, by influence of race they may mean the influence of the prehistoric races which have entered into the social composition of the nation — that is, those races from which its population is de- scended. Some authors mean to deny importance to race in both these senses; Buckle and Mill and Durkheim meant, I think, to deny it in both, because they believed that human nature is very plastic and easily moulded as regards its innate qualities by its environment ; they beheved that, if only a system of institutions, especially educa- tional institutions, adapted to promote the intellectual and moral development of each generation of a people, can be estabHshed among it, then the influence of such institutions will so vastly predominate over that of innate quaUties that these become a negligible quantity. From this it would follow that we should expect to see any two or more populations endowed with similar institu- tions form nations of similar character which will continue to develop along similar lines, except in so far as minor unessential differences of physical environment produce differences of modes of occupation, dress, food and so forth. J This view of the insignificance of innate qualities was in har- mony with, and was determined by, the dominant psychological doctrine of the time; the view which came down from Locke, ac- cording to which the mind of the new-born individual is a tabula rasa, entirely similar in all men, without specific tendencies and peculiarities of any importance, on which individual experience impresses itself, moulding aU its development according to the principle of the association of ideas. This doctrine, explicitly or implicitly adopted, has played a great part in determining British policy in its relations with British dependencies and their populations, notably India.- It is a striking example of the way in which theory affects practice, and of the danger of our profound indifference to theory; we are influenced by it though we pretend to ignore it. It is well to make ourselves clear as to what theories we hold, even if we do not allow our practice to be governed by them exclusively. There are commonly confused together, under the head of the no NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii influence of race on national character, three problems which must be disentangled. (i) Are there differences of innate mental constitution between the various branches of mankind? (2) If there are such differences, are these important for national life? Do they in any considerable degree determine national char- acter? Or are they capable of being swamped and submerged and altogether over-ridden by the moulding influences brought to bear by environment on each generation? (3) If such innate differences exist, what degree of permanence do they possess? Do they persist through thousands of years, in spite of vast changes of physical or cultural conditions? Or may they undergo considerable modification or complete transformation in the course of a few generations? These are questions of fundamental importance. And they admit of no positive clean-cut answers at the present time. They offer vast fields for research, and only when prolonged research shall have been directed to them shaU we be able to answer them positively. In the past, since their importance could not be altogether over- looked, it has been usual to dispose of them by dogmatically asserting one extreme view and pouring scornful epithets upon the other extreme view. A principal task for science in its present stage is to define the questions clearly. It is not possible, perhaps, to keep them quite separate; for, if there are considerable differences of innate mental constitution, then their importance for national character must depend greatly upon their degree of permanence; and, again, there is the great difficulty of distinguishing between innate and acquired mental quahties in any individual and still more in groups. Nevertheless, we may safely say that both extreme views in regard to race, the positive and the negative, are gross exaggerations, plausible only while we ignore one part of the evidence; the truth lies in between somewhere. There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that there are great differences between races, and that these may be, and in many cases have been, persistent through thousands of generations. The recognition that the mind of the human infant is not a tabula rasa, but that its innate constitution comprises a number of instincts, specifically directed tendencies to thought, feehng, and action, prepares us to accept this view and gives us some basis for the definition of these differences. Whether all differences can be defined in such terms is a further problem. That they cannot be CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION m wholly defined in this way seems to be obvious, when we consider how quite speciaHsed idiosyncrasies are transmitted in famihes through several generations, often with a leap across one generation, pecuharities of taste and feeling, of aesthetic endowment and tempera- ment, abilities such as the musical, mathematical and artistic. When we compare widely different peoples such as the Negro, the White, and the Yellow, the fact of profound differences cannot be overlooked. These differences cannot be ascribed to the action of environment upon each generation. Perhaps the only differences of this kind which at present are accurately measurable are those of the size and form of the brain. The negro brain is decidedly smaller than that of the white and yellow races. And there are small but distinct differences of sensory endowment which are highly significant. For, if there are racial differences in these most funda- mental and racially oldest endowments, we may expect still greater differences in the later evolved powers of the mind; although these are much more difficult to detect and define. Still, the negro race wherever found does present certain specific mental pecuharities roughly definable, especially the happy-go-lucky disposition, the unrestrained emotional violence and responsiveness, whether its representatives are found in tropic Africa, in the jungles of Papua, or in the highly civilised conditions of American cities. The Semitic stock again is one which, though widely scattered, seems to present certain constant peculiarities. And among closely aUied branches of the white race of similar culture, we can hardly refuse to recognise innate differences. Differences of temperament are, perhaps, the clearest and the most generally recognised, even between peoples of allied stock and similar civilisation. Who can question that Irishmen in general are very different from Englishmen in temperament, that they are less phlegmatic, more easily moved to joy, or sorrow, or enthusiasm, more easily touched by poetry, have a more varied and lively emotional experience ? That this is an innate racial difference seems clear; for it can be accounted for in no other way, and it obtains in some degree between all com- munities of similar racial stocks, in spite of similarities or differences of history and of present conditions. For example, similar differences, roughly definable as the difference between the so-called Celtic temperament and the Anglo-Saxon, seem evidently to obtain be- tween the Breton and the Norman, who represent in the main the same two stocks. And, even in intellectual quality, there appear to be not only 112 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii differences of degree, but also differences of kind, inexplicable save as racial differences. The logical deductive tendencies of the French intellect and the empirical inductive tendency of the English, seem to be rooted in race; though here of course tradi- tion accumulates and accentuates such differences from generation to generation. But the best evidence of persistent innate differences is afforded by differences and similarities expressed in national life which cannot be accounted for in any other way. The innate differences and peculiarities of individuals are largely obscured by these national characteristics. And the more highly organised the collective Hfe of any people, the more clearly will it express their racial qualities. The social environment in a developed nation is in harmony with the individual innate tendencies, because in the main it is the natural outcome and expression of those tendencies. For, throughout the history of such a nation, the elements of its social environment — its customs, behefs, institutions, language, its culture in general — have been slowly evolved under the steady pressure of the individual innate tendencies, which in each succeeding generation are the same. A part of this culture is of native origin ; a part, in every European nation probably by far the larger part, is of foreign origin, and has been acquired by the acceptance of ideas and beliefs from without its borders, by the copying of institutions, customs, arts, from foreign models. In both cases the idea or custom or other cultural element only becomes embodied in the national culture through widespread or general imitation^. In the case of elements of native origin, it is by imitation of the individuals of original powers of thought or feeling that the element becomes embodied in the national culture; in the case of foreign elements, by imitation of foreign models, acceptance of foreign ideas, through literature and personal contacts. In both cases, such general imitation will only take place when the culture-element in question is more or less congenial to the innate qualities of the bulk of individuals. All other novel elements will be ignored, or will fail to propagate themselves successfully; if they obtain a first footing, they will fail to pass beyond the stage of fashion into that of custom. And, when once accepted, the cultural element will usually undergo modification in the direction of more complete ^ I here use this word in the large, loose and convenient sense in which it is used by M. Tarde in his Lois de I'imitation. I have examined the nature of imitative processes more closely in my Social Psychology. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 113 harmony with the innate tendencies; its less congenial features will be allowed to die out, its more congenial will be accentuated from generation to generation. The social environment of any civilised people is, then, very largely the result of a long continued process of selection, comparable with the natural selection by which, according to the Darwinian theory, animal species are evolved; a constant favouring of certain elements, a constant rejection of others. We maj' in fact regard each distinctive type of civilisation as a species, evolved largely by selection; and the selective agency, which corresponds to and plays a part analogous to the part of the physical environment of an animal species, is the innate mental constitution of the people. The sum of innate qualities is the environment of the culture-species, and it effects a selection among aU culture variations, determining the survival and further evolution of some, the extermination of others. And, just as animal species (especially men) modify their physical environment in course of time, and also devise means of sheltering themselves from its selective influence, so each national life, each species of civilisation, modifies very gradually the innate qualities of the people and builds up institutions which, the more firmly they are established and the more fuUy they are elaborated, override and prevent the more completely the direct influence of innate qualities on national life. These principles are illustrated, perhaps, most clearly by the spread and modification of religious systems among peoples of different races. Take the case of the Moslem rehgion, which has gained acceptance among one-sixth of the population of the world in historic and in fact recent times, and is still spreading. The leading feature of this system is its acceptance of all that is and happens as being the wiU of God, the act of an entirely arbitrary, inscrutable, and absolutely powerful individual, before which men must simply bow without question or criticism; it is characterised by its sim- plicity and its fatalism. There seems good reason to believe that the tendency to unquestioning obedience to authority is a strong innate tendency of most Asiatics (except perhaps the Chinese and their relatives), far stronger than in most individuals of European peoples; for we see it expressed in many ways in their institutions and history, both of those who are and those who are not Moslems^; and Asiatic fatalism has, in fact, become proverbial. With the causes ^ Meredith Townsend regards this as one of the leading quahties of the peoples of India. See Europe and Asia, LonJon, 1901. M. G. M. 8 114 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii or origin of this innate quality we are not now concerned; but, accepting it as a fact, we may note that it is among Asiatics that Mohammedanism has secured the great mass of its converts ; and that in India, in spite of many minor features that are opposed to the spirit of Hindooism, it continues to spread largely; while Christianity makes but little progress. Buddhism on the other hand has almost faded away, after an initial success in the country of its origin, but has continued to gain adherents and has become the dominant religion among the yellow peoples further east, in Burma, China, Thibet, Japan. The Moslem reUgion, having been thus accepted in virtue of the fact that its dominant tendency is in harmony with the strong innate tendency to unquestioning submission to a supreme will, then accentuates this tendency in all its converts, moulding their political relations to the same type, so that all recognise one earthly regent of God; and it has led to the almost complete sup- pression of any spark of the spirit of inquiry and scepticism that might otherwise display itself among these peoples. Another good illustration of the fact is afforded by the distribution of the two great divisions of the Christian religion in Western Europe. Among all the disputes and uncertainties of the ethnographers about the races of Europe, one fact stands out clearly — namely, that we can distinguish a race of northerly distribution and origin, characterised physically by fair colour of hair and skin and eyes, by tall stature and dolichocephaly (i.e. long shape of head) and mentally by great independence of character, individual initiative, and tenacity of will. Many names have been used to denote this type, but the usefulness of most of them has been spoilt through their application to denote linguistic groups (e.g. Indo-Germanic, Aryan), and by the false assumption that linguistic groups are racial groups. Hence recently the term Homo Europaeus, first applied by Linnaeus to this type, has come into favour; and perhaps it is the best term to use, since this type seems to be exclusively European. It is also called the Nordic type. The rest of the population of Europe, with the exception of some peoples in the extreme north and east of partly mongoloid or yellow racial origin, seems to be chiefly derived from two stocks. Of these, the one type, which occupies chiefly the central regions, is most commonly denoted by the name Homo Aipinus; the other, chiefly in the south, by the name Homo Mediterraneus. Both are of dark or brunette complexion and the principal physical difference between them is that the former, H. Aipinus, has a short broad head (i.e. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 115 is brachycephalic) and also is of short stature; while the latter, H. Meditenaneus, is long-headed like the northern type and is perhaps taller than H. Alpinus. Mentally both these differ from the northern or European type in having less independence and initiative, a greater tendency to rely upon and seek guidance from authority^. Now we find that the distribution of the Protestant variety of Christianity coincides very nearly with the regions in which the fair type predominates; while in all other regions the Roman CathoHc or Greek orthodox churches hold undisputed sway. North and South Germany illustrate the point. And Motley's account of the Nether- lands shows how closely the Hne between Protestant Holland and Roman Catholic Belgium coincides with the line of racial division. We may note also that ' Celts ' of Ireland and Scotland early proved the superior strength of their rehgious tendencies by sending mission- aries to England. It would be absurd to hold that this coincidence is fortuitous. It is clearly due to the assimilation of the form of the rehgious and ecclesiastical system to the innate tendencies of the people. The northern peoples have given the system a turn compatible with the independence of spirit which is their leading racial quahty; and among ourselves the tendency is apt to be pushed to an anarchical extreme in the rise of numerous small pecuhar sects; this we must connect with the fact that the English represent in greatest purity the most independent branch of the Northern race. The peoples among whom the other racial elements predominate have developed and maintained a religion of authority. And it is clear how, this differentiation having been achieved, either form of religion favours and accentuates in the peoples among whom it has become established the innate tendencies that have shaped it. The reUgion of authority tends, both by its general teachings and by the deliberate efforts of its official representatives, to suppress the spirit of independent thought and inquiry and action; the Protestant reHgion, relatively at least, favours the development of the inde- pendent tendencies of individuals. This is not to say that any individual is a Mohammedan or a Protestant, because he belongs to this or that race; that would be a parody of my statement. The form of each man's rehgious belief is, in the vast majority of cases, determined for him by the fact of his growing up within a community in which that form of belief prevails. My thesis ^ Cp. Ripley's Races of Europe and Prof. H. J. Fleure's Human Geography in Western Europe, London, 1919. S— 2 Ii6 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii is that in the main the racial quaUties of each community have played a great part in determining which form of belief it shall accept. If the reader will reflect how, at the time of the Reformation, various communities hung for a time in the balance, he will see that the innate differences we have noted may well have played the detemining r61e. The same facts are illustrated by the political life of the European peoples. Only those among whom the northern race is predominant have developed individualistic forms of political and social organisa tion. Among the rest there appears clearly the tendency to rely upon the supreme authority of the state and to look to it for all initiative and guidance, a tendency to centralised and paternal administration ; and this is the same, whether the external form of the political organisation be a monarchy or a republic. Thus France, in becoming a republic, did not overthrow the centralised system perfected by Henry IV, Louis XIV, Richelieu and Napoleon; for that system was congenial to the innate qualities of the mass of the people. It is clear that the centralised and therefore rigid system of government tends to accentuate, among the people subjected to it, their tendency to rely on authority and to repress individual initiative ; while the other form, such as obtains in this country and still more in the United States of America, tends to the development of the initiative and independence of individuals, giving them free scope and throwing them upon their own resources. Among any people, an institution or other cultural element that has had a history of this kind will, then, cause a great development in the mass of individuals of just those innate or racial tendencies of which it is itself the slowly accumulated result or product. If a nation is composed from stocks not too diverse, or if the original stocks have fused by intercrossing and have produced a fairly homogeneous people; and if this nation has enjoyed a long period of natural evolution undisturbed by violent influences from outside, conquests or invasions or immigrations on a great scale; then the social environment will have been brought in the main into harmony with the innate qualities of the people, and it will mould the individuals of each generation very strongly, accentuating and confirming those innate tendencies. This for two reasons. First, the social environment will be strongly organised and homogeneous; that is to say, the various elements, the beliefs, customs, institutions, and arts that go to compose it, will be in harmony with one another and of strongly marked character; and they will be almost universally CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 117 accepted by that people as above criticism. Secondly, the institu- tions and customs have not to fight against the innate tendencies of the people in the formation of the adult minds, but co-operate harmoniously with them. Now, when authors dispute over the question of the influence of race in determining the nation, they usually fail to distinguish clearly between the direct effects and the indirect effects of racial quahties. Those who, like Mill, attribute to the social environment un- limited power of moulding individuals and who regard the influence of race as insignificant, are misled by the contemplation of such nations as we have been considering, the class of which our own is the most notable example, nations in which a strongly organised social environment makes in the direction of the innate tendencies. They overlook the fact that in any such nation the social environ- ment, the body of institutions and traditions, is in the main the outcome and expression of these innate tendencies; they fail to see that the racial tendencies exert their strongest influence on national thought and action by means of the institutions, customs, and traditions on the growth of which they have exerted a constant directive pressure throughout many generations. In order to realise fully the influence of race, we must consider peoples whose culture and much else that enters into their social environment has been impressed upon them from without. We then see how little the social environment can accomplish in the moulding of a people, when it is not congenial to and in harmony with the racial tendencies. The modern world contains certain instructive instances, of which Hayti is perhaps the most striking. There a circumscribed population of negro race has had a poUtical and social and religious organisation and the elements of higher culture impressed upon it by Europeans, in the belief that it would be possible to construct a social environment which would mould the people. France, at a time of revolutionary enthusiasm for liberty, equality, and fraternity, withdrew from the island and granted the people self-government. The consequence has been a rapid relapse into barbarism and savagery of the worst kinds ^. It was the ignoring of the importance of race and the over- estimation of the moulding influence of culture and institutions, ^ Cf. The Black Republic, by Sir Spencer St John and Where Black rules White, by H. Hesketh Prichard. ii8 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii eloquently voiced by Lord Macaulay, that led England eighty years ago to set out on the task of endowing the millions of India with British culture and institutions. The task has been pursued in a half-hearted manner only ; but already we see some of the incongruity of the results of these efforts; and the best observers assure us that, were the task accomplished and the reins of a representative govern- ment left in native hands, it would be but a few years before the whole country would be reduced to a chaotic anarchic condition no better than that in which we found it. Others go further and assert with some plausibility that Western culture is positively injurious to the intellect and moral nature of Indians^. In the Philippines the Americans seem to have applied similar mistaken ideas in a reckless fashion in the first years of their admi- nistration; with the result that, according to some accounts, they were in a fair way to plunge those islands into poverty and debt and chronic rebellion, while faihng to secure affection, trust, or respect for themselves. rWe must conclude, then, that innate mental constitution, and therefore race, is of fundamental importance in determining national character, not so much directly as indirectly; for it gives a constant bias to the evolution of the social environment, and, through it, moulds the individuals of each generation. 3 It will help to make clear the influence of innate qualities, if, by an effort of imagina- tion, we suppose every English child to have been exchanged at birth for an infant of some other nation (say the French) during some fifty years. At the end of that period the English nation would be composed of individuals of purely French origin or blood; it would have the innate qualities of the present French nation; and the French nation would be, in the same sense, English. What would be the effect? Presumably things would go on much as before for a time. There would be no sudden transformation of our language, our laws, our religious or political institutions; and those who make little of the influence of race might point to this result as a convincing demonstration of the truth of their view. But gradually, we must suppose, certain changes would appear; in the course of perhaps a century there would be an appreciable assimilation of English institutions to those of France at the present day, for example, the Roman CathoHc religion would gain in strength at the cost of the Protestant. ^ M. le Bon and more than one Indian civil servant in conversation. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION . 119 This view has been challenged and described as an extreme view^ But it is not. Both extreme opposite views continue to be main- tained just because the importance of the indirect cumulative effect of innate qualities on culture is ignored. The innate qualities are of great importance, but only in the course of centuries can they exert their full effect on culture. If then innate qualities have this importance, in what degree are they permanent? Here again two extreme views remain opposed to one another. Even as regards physical qualities this is still the case; and the problem is much more difficult and at the same time infinitely more important as regards mental qualities. One reason for the belittling of innate qualities by Mill and Buckle, and for their overweening confidence in the power of institutions and environment, was the opinion generally prevailing in their time that, in so far as racial peculiarities exist, they can be modified and trans- formed in a few generations by physical and social environment. But, when, under the influence of Weissman's theories, the majority of biologists came to the conclusion that acquired quaUties are not transmitted, the position of the 'race theorisers' was im- mensely strengthened. For selection, natural or social or artificial, remained as the only recognised cause of change of racial qualities ; and, since it is clear that the development of civilisation tends to bring to an end the operation of natural selection, owing to the more efficient shielding of the weaker by the stronger members of societies, and since no other form of selection seems to have operated forcibly to change race qualities, it was inferred that race qualities endure throughout long ages with very little change. Another revolution of opinion has had a similar effect. One of the old assumptions which seemed to justify the belief in rapid modifiability of race qualities was that the difference of culture between ourselves and our savage ancestors corresponds to, and is the expression of, an almost equally great difference of innate capacities, intellectual and moral. But this was in the main a misunder- standing. One well established fact suffices to show its improba- biUty — namely, the larger size of the brains of Palaeolithic men as compared with our own. Our superiority of civilisation is due to slow accumulation, each generation adding comparatively httle to the mass of intellectual and moral tradition which it inherits and passes on to later coming generations. In so far as differences of cultural level are associated with differences of level of innate ^ By G. Lowes Dickinson, Hibbert Journal, Jan. 1911. 120 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii intellectual and moral qualities, cultural superiority must be regarded as the effect, rather than the cause, of innate mental superiority. There are strong grounds for holding that, in so far as Europeans are innately superior to negroes, that superiority was achieved not by means of, and in the process of, the development of, civilisation; but rather before civilisation began; and that the principal mental differences of the various human stocks were, like their principal physical differences, produced in the course of the immensely long ages of human Uf e that preceded the dawn of civili- sation, or at any rate of history, ages compared with which the historic period is but a very brief span. This view — namely, that there has been no great change, and certainly no great increase, of the mental powers of men during the historic period — was forcibly maintained by Dr A. R. Wallace^. Wallace pointed to the pyramids of Egypt and other great achievements of earlier civilisations, such as writing, as evidence of the highly developed intellectual powers of men thousands of years before the Christian era. He concluded that the men of the early stone age were probably our equals, intellectually and morally, in respect to innate qualities. If, then, so httle change of man's mental constitution has been produced in the course of many thousand years, even though the growth of civilisation has so profoundly modified his mode of life and the nature of his pursuits, that is good evidence of the great persistency of racial mental qualities. But we have more direct evidence of their persistence. As Wallace points out, the negro and the yeUow races are scattered over many parts of the earth, and, though these regions present great diversities of physical environ- ment, men of either of the two races everywhere present the same mental peculiarities or strong similarities, for example, the Papuan and African and American negroes. And the characteristic differ- ences between the two races are not diminished even where, as in the islands of the far East, they have been subjected to the same physical environment and modes of life for long periods of time. In the eastern Archipelago, Papuans and Malayans occupying the same or adjoining islands are cited by Wallace as illustrating the persistence of racial mental differences; and I can bear out his remarks from my own observations in that region. But we must beware of excess in the direction of the unalterability ^ In the Fortnightly Review, Jan. 1910, and in his Social Environment and Moral Progress, London, 1913. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 121 of race. The dogma of the non-transmissibiUty of acquired quahties is by no means estabHshed; it seems not improbable that mental acquisitions are so transmitted in some degree, though with only very slight effect in each generation. Even now, when the difficulties of the principle of transmission of acquired qualities are generally understood, almost all those who deal with the problem of the genesis of mental and physical peculiarities of races find themselves driven to postulate the principle in order to explain the facts. And this in itself constitutes evidence of a certain value in support of the validity of the principle. Again, we must beware of assuming that there are no selective processes operating among us. Although natural selection may be almost inoperative, there may well be at work other forms of selec- tion, social selections; and these are specially powerful amongst populations of blended stocks. [^ Summing up on the durability of racial peculiarities, we may say that racial qualities are extremely persistent ; but that, nevertheless, they are subject to slow modifications when the conditions of life are greatly changed, as by emigration, or by changes of climate, or by social revolutions, and especially among populations of mixed origin.'"^ To return now to the question of mental homogeneity of a popula- tion as a condition of national character and collective mental life. Purity of race is the most obvious condition of such homogeneity; but few, if any, nations that have attained any high level of civilisa- tion have been racially homogeneous ; probably for the simple reason that the civilisation of such a nation would crystallise at an early stage into rigid forms which would render further progress impossible. This has been the fate of most civilisations of the past; as Walter Bagehot put it, their cake of custom has so hardened as to become brittle, incapable of partial modification and growth, so that, Uke a crystal, it must either resist completely every modifying influence or be shattered irretrievably^. Certainly none of the European nations are racially homogeneous. Nevertheless, some of them approach homogeneity of innate quali- ties, or, rather, the degree of heterogeneity is much less in some than in others. Consider the case of England. Before the Anglo-Saxon invasion the population consisted in all probability of a mixture of the northern fair race with a darker race, probably that of H. Medi- terraneus, in some proportion that we cannot determine, with small islands of H. Alpinus or of stocks formed by an earlier blending ^ Physics and Politics. 122 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii of this with the Nordic race. The Anglo-Saxon invasion brought great numbers of the pure representatives of the Northern race of closely allied stocks; and these did not confine themselves to any one region, but, entering at many points of the south and east coasts, diffused themselves throughout almost all England, imposing themselves as masters upon those Britons whom they did not drive out. Ever since that time a crossing of the stocks has been going on freely, little hindered by differences of area, language, law, or custom. And, with the exception of small numbers of the Northern stock, Danes and Normans, the population has not received any considerable additions since the Saxon invasion. Now it has been shown by a simple calculation that, given three generations to the century, each one of us might claim ten million ancestors in the year looo a.d. ; while in the fifth century, when this process of intermarriage began, the number would be enormous, some thousands of millions; that is, if consanguine marriages had never taken place. These figures make it clear that, in any mixed population in which intermarriage takes place freely, the two or more stocks must, after a comparatively brief period of time, become thoroughly blended, on one condition — namely, that the cross be- tween the pure stocks is a stable stock, fertile inter se and with both the parent stocks. There seems to be no doubt that this was the case with the British and the Anglo-Saxon stocks, and that the English form now a stable new subrace, or secondary race, in which the qualities of the northern race predominate. The subrace may be regarded as innately homogeneous in fairly high degree; not so homogeneous as a people of unmixed racial origin, or one formed by a blending of more remote date, but more so than most of the European nations. This is the sense in which we must understand the word race, in discussing the influence of race upon national character. In most of the European countries the original mixture of races has been greater and the degree of blending less intimate. Thus France has the three stocks, /f. Europaeus, Alpinus, Mediterraneus , all largely represented; but they have remained in some degree geographically separated in three belts running east and west^. Hence there are greater innate mental differences between Frenchmen than between Englishmen. Nevertheless the strength of the Roman civilisation of Gaul sufficed to abolish differences of language and institutions and to assimilate the later coming Northmen, Franks ^ Cp. Ripley, op. cit. and Fleure, op. cit. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 123 and Normans ; while the centraUsed system of administration, estab Hshed in accordance with the innate tendencies of the major part of the population, has completed the work of a long series of national wars, and has produced a firmly united nation, bound by common traditions and moulded by common institutions. The greater centralisation of France seems to have compensated for the less degree of innate uniformity, so that the French people is hardly, if at all, less truly a nation than our own. In our own nation one racial cleft still remains. The Irish have never undergone that intimate mixture and blending with the Anglo-Saxon stock which has produced the EngUsh subrace; and so they remain an element which seriously disturbs the harmony of the national mind. And the same is perhaps true in a less degree of the Welsh people. On the other hand, the Scottish people, although they enjoyed their independent system of government for much longer periods than the Irish and Welsh and have a system of laws and customs differing in many respects from the English, and indeed may be said to have achieved a considerable degree of independent nationhood, have nevertheless become thoroughly incorporated in the British nation; for in the main mass of the Scotch the same Northern race is the greatly predominant element. But it is not till we consider such a country as Austria-Hungary that we see the full importance of homogeneity of a people for the development of a national mind. There several races and subraces, one at least with a strong yellow strain, are grouped together under one flag; but they remain separated by language and by distribution and by tradition, and, therefore, are but httle mixed and still less blended. Under such conditions a national mind cannot be formed. The elements of different racial stock threaten to faU apart at any moment^. Going further afield, contrast India with China, two regions geographically comparable in area and in density of population and in other ways. The population of China is the most racially homo- geneous of all large populations in the world. Hence an extreme uniformity of culture and social environment, which still further accentuates the uniformity of mental type. Hence, in spite of the imperfection of means of communication, we find great pohtical stabihty and a considerable degree of national feeling, hkely to be followed before long by harmonious national thought and action on ^ This was written in 1910, and now in 1919 the dissolution which was so obviously impending is an accompUshed fact. 124 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii the part of this vast nation. The one great distracting and disturbing factor in the hfe of China has been the intrusion of the Manchus, a people of somewhat different race and traditions. On the other hand, India is peopled by many different stocks, and, although these are geographically much mixed, they are but very little blended, owing to the prevalence from early times of the caste system. The light coloured intellectual Brahman lives side by side with small black folk, as different physically and mentally as the Englishman and the Hottentot ; and there are also large numbers of other widely differing racial stocks, including some of yellow race. Hence an extreme diversity of social environment, save in the case of the Moslem converts, who, however, being scattered among the rest, do but increase the endless variety of custom, creed, and social environment. Hence the people of India have never been bound together in the slightest degree, save purely externally by the power of foreign conquerors, the Moguls and the British; and hence, even though nations have begun at various times to take form in various areas, as e.g. the Sikh nation, they have never achieved any high degree of permanence and stabiHty and are restricted in area and numbers. Now let us consider for a moment an apparent exception from the conclusion to which the foregoing argument seems to point — namely, that homogeneity of innate qualities is the prime condition of a developed and harmonious national life. The most striking exception is afforded by the people of the United States of America, or the American nation. There we see a great area populated by immigrants from every part and race of Europe in times so recent that, although they are pretty well mixed, they are but little blended by crossing; a considerable part of the population still consisting of actual immigrants and their children. Here, then, there can be no question of any homogeneity as regards innate mental qualities. Nevertheless, the people is truly a nation and, perhaps, further advanced in the evolution of national conscious- ness, thought, and action than many other of the civilised peoples. This we must attribute to homogeneity of mental qualities which is in the main not innate but acquired, a uniformity of acquired qualities, especially of all those that are most important for national hfe. Following Miinsterberg's recent account of The Psychology of the American People we may recognise as individual character- istics, almost universally diffused, a spirit of self-direction and self- CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 125 confidence, of independence and initiative of a degree unknown elsewhere, a marvellous optimism or hopefulness both in private and pubhc affairs, a great seriousness tinged with reUgion, a humourousness, an interest in the welfare of society, a high degree of self-respect, and a pride and confidence in the present and still more in the future of the nation; an intense activity and a great desire for self -improvement ; a truly democratic spirit which regards all men (or rather all white men) as essentially or potentially equal, and a complete intolerance of caste. Such high degree of acquired homogeneity of individual qualities . seems to be due in about equal parts to uniformity of social and of physical environment, both of which make strongly in the same direction. The physical environment consists in a great and rich territory, stiU only partially developed, a fairly uniform climate, and a uniformity of the physical products of human labour resulting from the immense development of the means of communication. The importance of the physical uniformity we may reahze on reflecting that the one great divergence of physical conditions, the sub-tropical climate of the southern States, gave rise to the one great and dangerous division of the people which for a time threatened the har- monious development of the national life ; that is to say, the civil war was due to the divergence of the social system and economic interests of the southern States resulting from their sub-tropical cHmate. The uniformity of social environment we must ascribe, firstly and chiefly, to the fortunate circumstance that the first immigrants were men of one well marked and highly superior type, men who possessed in the fullest measure the independence of character and the initiative of the fair northern race, and who firmly established the superior social environment of individuaHstic type that had been gradually evolved in England. Secondly, to the fact that the peopling of the whole country has taken place by diffusion from this strongly organised initial society; its institutions and ideas, especially its language, its pohtical freedom, its social seriousness, being carried everywhere. Thirdly, to the fact that the country was just such as to give the greatest scope to, and so to develop, these innate tendencies of the earUest settlers and their successors. Fourthly, to the fact that the great diffusion of the population of mixed origin has only taken place since the means of communication have become very highly developed. Consider, as one example of the effects of the ease of communication between all parts, the influence of the American Sunday newspapers. These papers are read on an enormous scale 126 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii all over the continent ; and the bulk of the contents of those pubhshed in different places is identical, being prepared and printed in New York, or other great city, and then sent out to be blended with a little local matter in each centre of pubHcation ; thus every Sunday morning vast numbers are reading the same stuff. Lastly, it must be added, it is largely due to the fact that in the main the popula- tion has been recruited by those elements of different European peoples who shared in some degree the leading tendencies of the American character, independence, initiative, energy and hopefulness ; for it is only such people who will tear themselves from their places in an old civihsation and face the unknown possibihties of a distant continent. In spite of an increasing proportion of emigrants of a rather unlike type from south-eastern Europe, there seems good ground for hope that these factors will continue to secure a sufficient uniformity of acquired qualities, until the diverse elements shall have been fused by intermarriage to a new and stable subrace, innately homogeneous. The Americans are, then, no exception to the rule that the evolution of a national mind presupposes a certain considerable degree of homogeneity of mental quahties among the individuals of which the nation is composed. They merely show that, under pecuUarly favourable physical and social conditions, a sufficient degree of such homogeneity may perhaps be secured in spite of con- siderable racial heterogeneity. But the favourable issue of the vast experiment is not yet completely assured. There remains in the American people one great section of the population, namely the negroes and the men of partly negro descent, whose innate quahties, mental and physical, are so different from those of the rest of the population, that it seems to be incapable of absorp- tion into the nation. This section remains within the nation as a foreign body which it can neither absorb nor extrude and which is a perpetual disturber and menace to the national hfe. The only hope of solving this difficult problem seems to lie in the possibility of territorial segregation of the coloured population in an area in which it might, with assistance from the American people, form an inde- pendent nation. At present it illustrates in the most forcible manner the thesis of this chapter. The geographical peculiarities of the country inhabited by a nation may greatly favour, or may make against, homogeneity, in so far as this depends on acquired interests and sentiments. The division of the territory occupied by a nation by any physical CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 127 barrier makes against homogeneity and therefore against national unity; whereas absence of internal barriers and the presence of well marked natural boundaries afford conditions the most favourable to homogeneity. Almost all the great and stable nations have occupied well- '^ defined natural territories. In Great Britain and Japan the national spirit is perhaps more developed than elsewhere. How much does Great Britain or Japan owe this to the insular character of its terri- tory, which from early days has sharply marked off the people from all others, making of them a well-defined and closed group, within which free intermarriage has given homogeneity of innate quahties, and within which a national culture has grown up undisturbed; so that by mental and physical type, and by language, religion, tradition and sentiment, the people are sharply marked off from all others, and assimilated to one another ! . A unitary well-defined territory of well marked and fairly uniform character tends to national unity, not only through making the community a relatively closed one, but also by aiding the imagination to grasp the idea of the nation and offering a common object to the affections and sentiments of the people. Contrast in this respect the physical characters of England and Germany. The boundaries of the latter are almost everywhere artificial and arbitrary and have fluctuated greatly. It would be impossible for a poet to write of Germany as Shakespeare wrote of England : — This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war ; This happy breed of men, this little world. This precious stone set in the silver sea, and all the rest of that splendid passage. France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Denmark, Scandinavia, are all more fortunate than Germany or Austria in this respect; and the lack of such natural boundaries has been in the past, and threatens to be in the future, a source of weakness to the German nation. We may, I think, not improbably attribute, in part at least, to this circumstance a peculiarity often noticed in German emigrants — namely, that they rapidly become denationahsed and assimilated by the peoples among whom they settle, and that an Americanised German, for example, has often less sympathetic feehng for Germany than a foreigner. For, owing largely to the lack of natural boundaries and the consequent fluctuations that have occurred, and the mingling and blending with 128 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii other peoples, Germany is a less clear-cut conception than Great Britain or France; to be a German is something much less definite than to be an Englishman or a Japanese, or even a Frenchman or a Spaniard^. And the presence or lack of definite natural territorial boundaries operates in a similar way through many centuries, deter- mining on the one hand historical continuity to a people as a whole, or on the other hand breaches of historical continuity. The United States of America afford a fine example of the binding influence of a well-defined territory; for here the effect is clearly isolated from racial factors and from slowly accumulated tradition. The Monroe doctrine is the outward official expression of this effect. The private individual effect is a sense of part ownership of a splendid territory with a great future before it. And we are told, I believe truly, that this sense is very strong and very generally diffused even among immigrants ; that it inspires an unselfish enthusiasm for the work of developing the immense resources of the country; that this is the idealistic motive of much of the intense activity which we are apt to ascribe to the love of the ' almighty dollar ' ; and that it is one of the main causes of the rapid assimilation of immigrants to the national type of mind. The Chinese nation, again, owes its existence and its homogeneity of mental and physical type to geographical unity. Roughly, China consists of the basins of two immense rivers, not separated from one another by any great physical barrier, but forming a compact territory well marked off save in the north. It comprises no such partially separate areas as in Europe are constituted by Spain, or Italy, or Greece, or Scandinavia, or even France; almost all parts are well adapted for agriculture. Hence, largely, the national unity and the national sentiment which have long existed, and possibly a latent capacity for national thought and action. Perhaps the most striking instance of all is ancient Egypt. There, in the long strip of land rendered fertile by the waters of the Nile, a people of mixed origin was long shut up and isolated; there aU men felt their immediate dependence on the same great powers, the great river which once a year overflows its banks, and the scorching sun which passes every day across a cloudless sky. There all men ^ The great myth of the racial unity and superiority of the German people, which we have noticed above, has been cultivated and propagated, with elaborate disregard for fact by the German State and its henchmen in the universities and elsewhere, in a deliberate effort to remedy by art the lack of natural boundaries and of true national homogeneity. CH. VII] THE MIND OF A NATION 129 looked out on the same unvarying and unvaried landscape, hoped and feared for the same causes, suffered the same pains, prayed for the same goods. There was formed one of the most stable and enduring of nations, whose uniform culture certainly bears the impress of the uniform monotonous physical environment ^. The other way in which physical environment affects homo- geneity is by determining similarity or difference of occupations and, through them, similarities or differences of practical interests and of acquired qualities. So long as such differences are determined in many small areas, the result is merely a greater differentiation of the parts, without danger to the unity of the whole nation. But, when the physical differences divide a whole people into two or more locally separate groups differing in occupation and interests and habits, they endanger the unity of the whole. There are to-day many countries in which the distribution of mineral wealth is exerting an influence of this sort, giving rise to the differentiation of an industrial area from agricultural areas and a consequent divergence of interests and of mental habits; notably South Africa, Spain, and Italy. Great Britain is fortunate in this respect also. Its geological formation presents on a small scale all the prihcipal strata from the oldest to the most recent, a fact which secures great diversity within a compact area, an area too compact to allow of divergences of population being produced by differences of geological formation; so that it enjoys the advantages of diversity without its drawbacks. Although a certain degree of differentiation between north and south may be noted, it is not sharp or great enough to be dangerous. But let us imagine that coal and iron had been confined to Scotland. Would there be now the same harmony between the two countries as actually obtains? The United States of America afford a good illustration of this principle, as I have already pointed out; the subtropical cHmate of the southern states gave rise to a differentia- tion of occupation, and consequently of ideas and interests and sentiments, which was almost fatal to the unity of the nation. A similar differentiation between the agricultural west and the industrial and commercial east seems to be the greatest danger to the future unity of the nation ; and the same may be said of the Canadian people. Ireland illustrates well the effects of both kinds of physical influence. The Irish Channel has perpetuated that difference of race ^ In his Works of Man Mr March Philips shews clearly the influence of the Egyptian landscape upon the arts of sculpture and architecture. 130 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii, ch. vii and consequent difference of religion, which, but for it, would probably have been wiped out by free intermarriage; while the lack of coal and iron in the greater part of the country has prevented the spread of industrialism, and has thus accentuated the difference between the Irish people and the English. And it is obvious that among the Protestants of Ulster the accessibility of coal and iron, main- taining a divergence of occupations and of interests which prevents racial and cultural blending, perpetuates the racial and traditional differences between them and the rest of the population. CHAPTER VIII FREEDOM OF COMMUNICATION AS A CONDITION OF NATIONAL LIFE Let us consider now very briefly in relation to the life of a nation "Tt a second essential condition of all collective mental life — namely, that the individuals shall be in free communication with one another. This is obviously necessary to the formation of national mind and character. It is only through an immense development of the means of communication, especially the printing press, the railway and the telegraph, that the modern Nation-State has become possible, ' and has become the dominant type of poUtical organism. So familiar are we with this type, that we are apt to identify the Nation and the State and to regard the large Nation-State as the normal type of State and of Nation, forgetting that its evolution was not possible before the modern period. In the ancient world the City-State was the dominant type of political organism ; and to Plato and Aristotle any other type seemed undesirable, if not impossible. For they recognised that collective dehberation and vohtion are essential to the true State. Aristotle, trjdng to imagine a vast city, remarks — "But a city, having such vast circuit, would contain a nation rather than a state, like Babylon." The translator there uses the word 'nation,' not in the modem sense, but rather as we use ' people ' to denote a population of common stock not organised to form a nation. The limits of the political organism capable of a collective mental Hfe were rightly held to be set by the number of citizens who could live so close together as to meet in one place to discuss all public affairs by word of mouth. The great empires of antiquity were not nations; they had no collective mental life. Although the Roman Empire, in the course of its long and marvellous history, did succeed in generating in almost all its subject peoples a certain sentiment of pride in and attachment to the Empire, it cannot be said to have welded them into one nation ; for, in spite of the splendid system of roads and of posting, com- munication between the parts was too difficult and slow to permit the reciprocal influences essential to collective hfe. As in all the 132 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii ancient empires, the parts were held together only by a centralised despotic executive organisation ; there was no possibility of collective deliberation and volition^. All through history there has obviously been some correlation between the size of political organisms and the degree of develop- ment of means of communication. At the present time those means have become so highly developed that the widest spaces of land and sea no longer present any insuperable hmits to the size of nations ; and the natural tendency for the growth of the larger states at the expense of the smaDer, by the absorption of the latter, seems to be increasingly strong. It seems not unlikely that almost the whole population of the world will shortly be included in five immense States — the Russian or Slav, the Central European, the Britis^^^e American, and the Yellow or East Asiatic State. The freedom of communication between the countries of Europe is now certainly sufficient to allow of their forming a single nation, if other conditions, such as diversities of racial type and of historical sentiments, would permit it. Although, then, the platform and the orator and the assembly remain important influences in modern times, it is primarily the telegraph, wireless telegraphy, the printing press, and the steam engine, that have rendered possible the large modem nations; for these have facihtated the dissemination of news and the expression of feeUng and opinion on a large scale, and the free circulation of persons 2. Without this freedom of communication the various parts of the nation cannot become adequately conscious of one another ; and the idea of the whole must remain very rudimentary in the minds of individuals; each part of the whole remains ignorant of many other parts, and there can be no vivid consciousness of a common welfare and a common purpose. But, more important still, there can be none of that massive influence of the whole upon each of the units which is of the essence of collective mental life. Of these means of reciprocal influence the press is the most important ; though, of course, its great influence is only rendered possible by the railway and the telegraph. Hence we find that it is as regards the press that Great Britain ^ Cf. Sir S. Dill's The Roman Empire from Nero to Augustus, London, 1905. 2 Since these lines were written a new mode of rapid locomotion, namely the aerial, which has resulted from the invention and rapid development of the internal combustion engine, threatens to echpse all others in its efiects upon the organisation of the world. CH. VIII] FREEDOM OF COMMUNICATION 133 and America differ most markedly from such states as Germany, and still more Russia. To an Englishman or American the meagre news-sheets which in Germany take the place of our daily and weekly press bring a shock of astonishment when he first discovers them; and that astonishment is not diminished when he finds that the best people hardly trouble to look at them occasionally^. It is interesting to note how the general election of January, 1910 illustrated the importance of improved means of communication. It was found that the number of citizens voting at the polls was a far larger proportion of those on the register than at any previous election ; and, in this respect, the election was a more complete ex- pression of the will of the people than any preceding one. This seems to have been due to the use of the motor-car, at that time the latest great addition to our means of communication. The modern improvements of means of communication tend strongly to diminish the importance of the geographical factors we considered in the foregoing chapter; for they practically abohsh what in earher ages were physical barriers to intercourse ; they render capital and labour more mobile; and they make many forms of industry less dependent upon local physical conditions and, there- fore, less strictly confined by geographical factors. As instances of important developments of this order in the recent past or near future, the reader may be reminded of the railway over the Andes between Chile and Argentina, the tunnels through the Alps, the Channel tunnel, the Siberian railway, the Suez and Panama canals, the Cape to Cairo railway, and, above all, aerial transport. All these make for free intercourse between peoples. Easy means of communication promote development in the direction of the organic unity of a nation in another way — namely, they promote speciahsation of the functions of different regions ; they thus render local groups incapable of living as relatively independent closed communities ; for they make each local group more dependent upon others, each upon all and the whole upon each; hence they develop the common interest of each part in the good of the whole. This influence already extends beyond national groups and it had been hoped that its further growth was about to render war between nations impossible^. To-day England is contemplating a ^ This state of affairs has no doubt been considerably altered during the great war; the political education of Germany, a painful but salutary process, is progressing rapidly. - Cf. N. Angell, The Great Illusion. 134 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [ft. u, ch. viii task never before attempted, the fusing into one nation of the peoples of the mother-country and her distant colonies. Whether or no she will succeed depends upon whether the enormously increased facilities of communication can overcome the principal effects of physical barriers that we have noted — namely, lack of intermarriage and divergence of occupations, with the consequent divergence of mental type and interests. The task is infinitely more difficult than the establishment of such an Empire as the Roman; not because the distances are greater, but because the union must take the form of nationhood, because it must take the form of a collective mind and not that of a merely executive organisation. But, in the considera- tions which have shown us that membership in and devotion to a smaller group is by no means adverse to membership in and devotion to a larger group, we have ground for believing that the task is not impossible of achievement. The slow rate of progress towards nationhood of such peoples as the Russian and the Chinese has been largely due to lack of means of free communication between the parts of these countries. On the introduction of improved communications, we may expect to see rapid progress of this kind; for many of the other essential conditions are already present in both countries. The fact that in the Nation-State the communications between , individuals and between the parts of the whole are in the main /.-■' indirect, mediated by the press, the telegraph, and the printed word in general, rather than by voice and gesture and the other direct bodily expressions of thought and emotion, modifies the primary manifestations of group hfe in important ways which we must notice in a later chapter. CHAPTER IX THE PART OF LEADERS IN NATIONAL LIFE We turn now to a third very important condition of the growth of the national mind, one which also has its analogue in both the crowd and the army. A crowd always tends to foUow some leader in thought, feeling, and action; and its actions are effective in pro- portion as it does so. To follow and obey a leader is the simplest, most rudimentary fashion in which the crowd's action may become more effective, consistent, intelligent, controlled. Not any one can be such a leader; exceptional quaHties are necessary. In every army the importance of leadership is fully recognised. A hierarchy of leaders is the essence of its organisation. In the dehberately organised army, the appointment of leaders is the principal and almost the sole direct means taken by the State to organise the army. Every- thing is done to give to the leaders of each grade the greatest possible prestige, especially by multiplying and accentuating the distinctions between the grades. Though much can be accomplished in this way, unless the men chosen as leaders have in some degree the superior quahties required by their position in the hierarchy, the whole organisation wiU be of little value. The same is true in much higher degree of nations. If a people is to become a nation, it must be capable of producing personalities of exceptional powers, who will play the part of leaders; and the special endowments of the national leader require to be more pro- nounced and exceptional, of a higher order, than those required for the exercise of leadership over a fortuitous crowd. Such personalities, more effectively perhaps than any other factors, engender national unity and bring it to a high pitch. There are regions in which the other main conditions of national unity have long obtained, but which have failed to become the seat of any enduring nation. Although the greater part of Africa, perhaps the richest continent of the globe, has been in the possession of the negro races during all the ages in which the European, Asiatic, and American civilisations were being developed, those races have never founded a nation. Nevertheless many, perhaps most, negroes are capable of acquiring European culture and of turning it to 136 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii good account. And, when brought under the influence of Arabs or men of other races, they have formed rudimentary nations^. The incapacity to form a nation must be connected with the fact that the race has never produced any individuals of really high mental and moral endowments, even when brought under foreign influences; and it would seem that it is incapable of producing such individuals ; the few distinguished negroes, so called, of America — such as Douglas, Booker Washington, Du Bois — have been, I believe, in all cases mulattoes or had some proportion of white blood. We may fairty ascribe the incapacity of the negro race to form a nation to the lack of men endowed with the qualities of great leaders, even more than to the lower level of average capacity. On the other hand, there is at least one people which, in the absence of every other condition, has continued to retain something of the character of a nation for many generations — namely, the Jews. The Jews are not even racially homogeneous, and they are scattered through all the world under the most varied physical conditions ; yet the influence of a succession of men of exceptional power, Moses and his successors the prophets, all devoted to the same end — namely, the establishment of the Jewish nation and reUgion — has lived on through many generations and still holds this people together, marking it off from all others. This is an extreme instance. But another almost equally striking case is that of the Arab nation, which has owed its existence to one man. The Arab nation was made by the genius of Mahomet, who welded together, by the force of his personality and the originality and intensity of his religious conviction, the warring idolatrous clans of Arabia. Until his advent these had been a scattered multitude, in spite of racial and geographical uniformity, geographical isolation, and fairly free intercommunication. We have here one of the purest, clearest instances of the effect of great personalities in furthering nationhood; for there seems to be no reason to believe that, if Mahomet had not lived, any such development of the Arabian people would have taken place. M. le Bon has produced a curious piece of evidence bearing on this question. He has measured the cranial capacity of a great number of skulls of different races, and has shown that any large collection of skulls from one of the peoples who have formed a progressive nation invariably contains a certain small number of skulls of markedly superior capacity, implying exceptionally large brains; 1 Incipient nations have appeared where the Bantu stock has produced occasionally great warrior chiefs such as Chaka and Cetewayo. CH. IX] THE PART OF LEADERS IN NATIONAL LIFE 137 while any similar collection of skulls from one of the unprogressive peoples, like the negro, differs, not so much in the smaller average size of the brain, as in the greater uniformity of size, that is to say, the absence of individuals of exceptionally large brains^. He, rightly, I think, sees in the absence of such individuals a main condition of the unprogressive character of these races ; and, in the exceptionally large brains produced among the other peoples, a main condition of their progress. These indications are borne out by a review of the history of any nation that has achieved a considerable development. Every such people has its national heroes whom it rightly glorifies or | worships; for to them it owes in chief part its existence. To them also it owes in large measure the forms of its institutions, its religion, its dominant ideas and ideals, its morals, its art and literature, all that of which it is most proud, all its victories of peace as well as of war, the memory of which and the common pride in f which is the strongest of all national bonds 2. Who can estimate the enormous influence of Confucius and Laotse in moulding and rendering uniform the culture of China? The influence of single individuals has undoubtedly been greater in the early than in the later stages of civihsation; for there was then a more open field, a virgin soil, as it were, for the reception of their influence. In the developed nation the mass of accumulated know- ledge and tradition is so much greater, that the modifications and additions made by any one man necessarily are relatively small. The leading modern nations owe their position to their having . produced great men in considerable numbers; for that reason also \ no one man stands out so prominently as Mahomet or Confucius or Moses. Nevertheless their existence can in many cases be traced to some few great men. Would Germany now be a nation, but for Frederick the Great and Bismarck? Would America, but for Washington, Hamilton, and Lincoln? Would Italy, but for Garibaldi and Mazzini and Cavour? How greatly is the unity of national spirit and tradition among Englishmen due to the great writers who have produced the national literature, and to the great statesmen and soldiers and sailors who have given her a proud position in the ^ Psychological Laws of the Evolution of Peoples. ^ I do not propose to examine in this book the much discussed question — Are the leaders of a nation to be regarded as produced by the nation according to the general laws of biology and psychology, or as given to them by some supernatural process ? This question belongs to a branch of Social Psychology which is not included in the volume. 138 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii world! What would England be now if Shakespeare, Newton and Darwin, Cromwell and Chatham, Marlborough and Nelson and Wellington had never been born? And it is not only the men of great genius who are essential to the modern nation, but also men of more than average powers, though not of the very highest. Let us try to imagine the fifty leading minds in each great department of activity suddenly removed from among us. That will help us to realise the extent to which the mental life of the nation is dependent on them. Clearly, we should be reduced to intellectual, moral, and aesthetic chaos and nullity in a very short time. If a similar state of affairs should continue for some few generations, Britain would very soon cease to be of any importance in the world. The force of national traditions might keep up a certain unity; but we should be a people, or a crowd, living in the past, without energy, without pride in the present or hope in the future, having perhaps a little melancholy national sentiment, but incapable of national thought or action. The continuance of the power and prosperity and unity of \\ national life, the continued existence of the national mind and \ ' character, depends, then, upon the continued production of numbers of such men of more than average capacity. It is these men who keep alive from generation to generation, and spread among the masses and so render effective, the ideas and the moral influence of the men of supremely great powers. These men exert a guidance and a selection over the cultural elements which the mass of men . absorb. They praise what they believe to be good, and decry what they believe to be bad; and, in virtue of the prestige which their exceptional powers have brought them, their verdict is accepted and moulds popular opinion and sentiment. Consider how great in this way has been the influence of men like Carlyle, Matthew Arnold, and Ruskin. The tone and standard of taste, thought, and sentiment are set and maintained by such men. It is in their minds chiefly that the system of ideals and sentiments, which are the guiding principles and moving forces of the national mind, is perpetuated. They are truly ' the salt of the earth ' ; without them the nation would soon fall into fragments, or become an inert and powerless mass of but low degree of organisation and unity. It is because the national ideals and sentiments are formed by these leading spirits, and are perpetuated and developed by them, and by them impressed in some degree upon the mass of the people, CH. IX] THE PART OF LEADERS IN NATIONAL LIFE 139 and because in all national movements their influence predominates, that the judgments and actions, the character and the sentiments, of a nation may be different from, and in the higher nations are superior to, those of the average men of the nation. As^Fouillee said — "The national character is not always best expressed by the mass, by the vulgar, nor even by the actual majority. There exists a natural elite which, better than all the rest, represents the soul of the entire people, its radical ideas and its most essential tendencies. This is what the politicians too often forget vf' That is to say, it is what they forget when, as is too often the case in this country, they consider that no movement must be undertaken till the mass of the people demands it. They ignore the fact that leadership is essential to the maintenance of national life at a high level, and, instead of exercising initiative, they wait for it to come from below — wait for a mandate, as they say. The late President Rooseveldt was a fine example of the contrary type of statesmanship. The character of the talents displayed by these exceptionally gifted individuals deter- mines largely the form of the civiHsation and, through shaping the social environment, tends to bring the minds of the mass of indi- viduals more or less into harmony with it, giving them something of the same tendencies. The men of genius of certain peoples, more especially peoples of relative racial purity, have excelled in some one direction. Thus the Semites have produced great religious teachers and little else, and have given to the world its three great monotheistic religions. The Tartar race has produced from time to time great soldiers and little else. It has made immense conquests and established dynasties ruling over other peoples. But, as in the case of the Turks, who owe their national existence to a line of great despots of the house of Othman, they make Httle progress in civihsation and they do not unify the peoples they rule; for they produce ability of no other kind. We see in most of the leading European nations the predominance of certain forms of genius. Modern Italy boasts chiefly men great in religion and art, perhaps owing to the predominance of Homo Mediterraneus; Spain in pictorial art and military conquest; England in poetry and administration and science; Germany in music and philosophy. Nevertheless, each of these peoples has pro- duced men of the greatest power in all or several kinds; and this we may connect with the fact that they are aU of very mixed racial ' Psychologic du peuple franfats, p. 13. 140 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii composition. And we may add that France, the most composite or mixed racially, has produced the greatest variety of genius. The production of the largest numbers of eminent men by peoples of mixed and blended racial elements, not too widely different, is what biological knowledge would lead us to expect. For, if a subrace is produced by crossing of varieties, it will be one of much greater variability than a pure race ; as we see in the cases of the domesticated horse and dog and pigeon, of which the modern varieties are only kept pure by continual rejection of the departures from the standards, and of which the great variability renders possible the production, by selection of very marked new features in a brief period of time. The many elements which go to form the mental constitution of an individual become, in a mixed race, variously combined. If the crossed races are very widely different, the results seem to be in nearly all cases bad. The character of the cross-bred is made up of divergent inharmonious tendencies, which give rise to internal conflict, just as the physical features appear in bizarre combination; what examples we have — the Spanish Americans, the Eurasians, the Mulattoes, the half-breeds of Java and Canada — seem to show that a people so composed will produce few great men and will not become a great nation. But, when the crossed races are less widely divergent, the elements of which the mental constitution is composed (and which direct observation and analogy with physical heredity show to be transmitted more or less independently of one another from parent to offspring) have opportunities to come together in new combinations, which result in mental constitutions unlike those of either parent (that is to say, the cross-breds are variable) ; and among these new combinations, while some will form minds below the average, others will form minds above the average in various degrees ; and these, so long as the constitution is not too much weakened by radical lack of harmony of its elements, will be the effective great men. Incidentally, these considerations perhaps throw light on a fact much discussed— namety, that exceptional powers, especially when of highly specialised nature, are often exhibited by persons of un- stable mental constitution; whence arises the popular belief that genius is allied to, or is a form of, insanity. These considerations also raise a presumption that peoples derived by the blending of several stocks may be expected to have progressed further in civilisation and in national growth than those CH. IX] THE PART OF LEADERS IN NATIONAL LIFE 141 of purer stock ; and that, while the racial purity of a people may give stability, such a people will be liable to arrest and crystallisation of civihsation at an early stage, before culture is sufficiently advanced to render possible a highly developed national life. These indications are well borne out by a survey of the peoples of the world. We may see here, in all probability, one of the main causes of the early crystallisation of Chinese civilisation. Homogeneity and racial purity have produced extreme stability, but at the cost of the variability which produces great and original minds and, therefore, at the cost of capacity for national progress beyond an early stage. CHAPTER X OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE In the two foregoing chapters, we have considered in relation to the Hfe of nations three principal conditions essential to all collective mental hfe and action, even that of the unorganised crowd — namely, homogeneity, free communications and leadership. We have now to consider other conditions which may render the collective mental processes of nations very different from, and superior to, those of a mere crowd. In considering a patriot army as exemplifying collective life of a relatively high level, we distinguished five principal conditions that raise it above the level of the mental life of the crowd, in addition to one which is present in some crowds. This last was a common well-defined purpose present to, and dominant in, the minds of all individuals. It is this condition mainly that renders the collective mental life of such an army so simple, so relatively easy to under- stand, and so extremely effective. This condition — a clearly defined common purpose dominant in I the minds of the great mass of the constituent units — is for the most part lacking in the life of nations; its absence is one of the principal reasons for the ineffectiveness and bewildering complexity of their mental life. It is, however, occasionally reahsed in national life, and then we see how immense is its influence. Such an occasion is a war for national existence. Consider how, when the excesses of the French Revolution excited all the monarchies of Europe to attack France, the French nation, becoming animated with the one strong purpose of asserting its right to exist and to choose its own form of government, successfully drove back all its enemies and rose to a height of power and glory greater than at any other period ; and how, at the same time, its parts were welded more firmly together, so that it displayed a high degree of unity as well as of efficiency. Having achieved this high degree of unity and efficiency, the French nation, led on by the ambitions of Napoleon, became aggressive. And we are told by the historians that the attacks of Napoleon upon the various European peoples, which threatened to destroy whatever degree of national life those peoples had attained, were like the blows of a smith's hammer and resulted in welding together and hardening into PT. II, CH. X] OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE 143 nations the loosely aggregated races ruled over by the various monarchs ; and that in this way these attacks initiated the modern period of Nation-States^. \i War for national existence unifies nations. So long as the nation . is not utterly shattered and crushed, such war greatly develops the ^ national mind; because it makes one common purpose dominate the minds of all the citizens, j We are told that it is a practical maxim of cynical rulers to plunge their people into war when they are faced by dangerous internal discontents; and the reason usually given is that war diverts the attention of the people from their domestic grievances. But if it is a national war, a war in which the national existence isi at stake, it does far more than merely divert attention ; it binds the nation into a harmonious efficient whole by creating a common purpose ; whereas, if the war is not of this order and is waged in some distant country and merely for some territorial aggrandisement, it has little or no such effect. Thus the recent Russo-Japanese war did little or nothing at the time to raise the Russian people in the scale of nation- hood; it was followed by a period of national weakness; the national existence was not endangered, the objects of the war were too remote from the interests of the mass of the people to appeal to them strongly. Whereas the same war and the years of preparation for it, following upon the previous Chino- Japanese war, have made the Japanese one of the most efficient and harmonious nations of the world. Another striking example of the same principle was the formation of modem Bulgaria as a strong Nation-State out of a population of quiet peasant proprietors united only by spatial proximity and by their racial distinctness from the surrounding populations. This creation of a strong nation out of a mere population of peasants was in the main the work of the war of 1885, by which the unprovoked attack of Servia was triumphantly repelled 2. The unity and nationhood of modern Germany is largely due to similar causes; and the war of 1871 may fairly be said to have led to a further integration of the national life of the French people, in spite of their defeat. America owes something of the same kind to the Spanish war; and the entry of that nation into the Great War, long delayed as it was, wiU probably be found to have had a similar effect. The French and Italian nations have undoubtedly been 1 Ramsay Muir, op. cit. and J. Holland Rose, The Development of the European Nations. London, 1905. * J. Holland Rose, op. cit. 144 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii welded more firmly by the Great War; while England and her sister and daughter nations (with the one sad exception of the Irish) have been united, by their co-operation in the one great purpose, to a degree which no other conceivable event could have achieved and which many generations of peaceful industry and enUghtened political efforts might have failed to approach. History offers no parallel to these effects of war ; and it is difficult or impossible to imagine any other common purpose which could exert this binding influence in a similar degree. But it is worth while ,^'"' to notice that other and minor forms of international rivalry have 6- corresponding effects. The international rivalry in aeronautics affords a contemporary illustration. Perhaps every one in this country has felt some degree of interest and satisfaction in the achievements of the adventurous spirits of our nation who have traversed the Atlantic by air. And it is probably largely owing to the prevalence of this national pride and purpose that, at a time demanding strict national economy, no voice has been raised against the enormous current expenditure of the government upon aeronautics. Another and more important effect of the same kind is produced }by the assumption of great national responsibilities in the way of administration in respect of backward peoples and undeveloped territories. The greatest example in history is the responsibility of Great Britain for the administration of India, gradually and only half-consciously assumed, but now keenly felt as at once a legitimate ground of national pride and a moral responsibility that cannot be laid aside. It is like the responsibility of the father of a family in its semi-instinctive origin and in its effects in steadying and strengthening character, for it imposes a responsibility which the nation, like the individual, cannot discharge indifferently without seriously damaging its reputation and prestige in the eyes of the world. Holland owes some of the strength of her nationhood to such influences; and the assumption by the American nation of responsibihty for the peoples of Cuba and of the Phillipine islands cannot fail to bring them in some degree similar moral benefits^. Of the five other conditions of the higher development of a coUective mind, let us notice, first and very briefly, continuity of existence, material and formal. Of course every nation has this in some degree, but some have it in much higher degree than others. The Enghsh nation is fortunate in this respect also. It has preserved I suggest that international emulation in this sphere may prove to be an effective, probably the only effective, substitute for war. CH. X] OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE 145 both its formal and its material continuity in very high degree throughout many centuries, in fact ever since the Norman Conquest. No European nation can compare with it in this respect; it is only surpassed by China and perhaps Japan. The French nation has preserved its material continuity, its population and territory'', in high degree. But the Great Revolution cut across and destroyed to a great extent its formal continuit}^ so that, as is sometimes said, the French nation has cut itself off from its past and made a new start ; although, in doing so, it did not get rid of its highly centrahsed system of administration. The modern Italian and German nations are quite recent growths, their formal continuity having been subject to many interruptions. Spain, with her almost insular position, might have had continuity; but it was greatly disturbed by the imperial ambitions of her rulers in the sixteenth century and by the expulsion of the Moors. Greece is a striking example of loss of both material and formal continuity. The population of ancient Greece, which put her in the van of civilisation, has been largely aboHshed and supplanted by a different race; and her formal con- tinuity also has suffered a number of complete ruptures. Now material and formal continuity is, as we said, the essential presupposition of all the other main conditions of development of the collective mind. On it depends the strength of custom and tradition and, to a very great extent, the strength of national sentiment. It is, therefore, a principal condition of national stabihty ; from it arise aU the great conservative tendencies of the nation, aU the forces that resist change; accordingly, the more complete and long enduring such continuity hcis been in the past, the greater is the prospect of its prolongation in the future. It is owing to the unbroken continuity of the English nation through so long a period that its organisation is so stable, its unwritten constitution so effec- tive, at once stable and plastic, its national sentiment so strong, its complex uncoded system of judge-made law so nearly in harmony with popular feeling and therefore so respected. National organisa- tion resting upon this basis of custom and traditional sentiment is . the only kind that is really stable, that is not hable to be suddenly i i \ overthrown by internal upheavals or impacts from without. For it alone is rooted in the minds of aU citizens in the forms of habit and sentiment. All other organisation is imposed by authority. In this respect modem England and Germany offer a striking contrast that forces itself upon the most casual observation. As regards the mass of the people, the position of each individual in M. G. M. 10 M 146 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii the organism of the German nation is officially determined by the written and codified law of the State ; all personal status and relations are formally determined by official positions in this recently created system. Almost every individual carries about some badge or uniform indicating his position within the system. In England, the status and relations of individuals are determined by factors a thousand times more subtle and complex, involving many vaguely conceived and undefined traditions and sentiments. In Germany, it is almost true to say, if a man has no official position he has no position at all. In England, the comparatively few persons who have official positions have also their social positions by which their private relations are determined. They are officials only in their offices ; whereas the German official is an official everywhere. Other important topics we have to consider are (i) the organi- I sation of the national mind; (2) the national self-consciousness; I (3) the interaction of the nation as a whole with other nations. All I these we may advantageously consider in the light of an analogy, the analogy between the individual mind and the collective mind of the nation. This is a much closer and more illuminating analogy than that between the nation, or society, and the material organism. The latter analogy has been developed in detail by H. Spencer, Schaffle^ and others ; it has now fallen into some disrepute. It has no doubt a certain value, but it is popularly used in a way that leads to quite unjustifiable conclusions. Of these fallacies by far the most commonly accepted is that which asserts that, just as every animal organism inevitably grows old and dies, so too must nations. This is one of the most popular dogmas of amateur philosophers, and so distinguished a statesman as the late Lord Salisbury gave it countenance; while Mr A. J. Balfour in his recent Sidgwick Memorial Lecture 2 courageously breaks away and proposes to substitute for senility as the cause of decay the word decadence — a proposal which merely implies that he trusts less to the analogical argument from the material organism and more to empirical induction, to the observation of the fact that so many nations have decayed. All this serves to illustrate the dangers of analogy. We need no special cause to account for the fall and the decay of nations, no obscure principle of senility or decadence; the wonderful thing is that they exist at all; and what needs explanation is not so much the decay of some, but rather the long persistence of others. ^ Bau und Leben des socialen Korpers. 2 Decadence. CH. X] OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE 147 Let us turn, then, to the analogy between the organisation of the national collective mind and that of the individual mind, which, I say, is so much closer and more illuminating than that between a society and a bodily organisation. The actions of the individual organism are the expression of its mental constitution or organisation ; in some creatures this organisa- tion is almost wholly innate — the organisation consists of a number of reflex and instinctive dispositions each specialised for bringing about a special kind of behaviour under certain circumstances. Such old established racial dispositions with their special tendencies have their place in more complexly developed minds ; but in these their operations are complicated and modified by the hfe of ideas, and by a variety of habits developed under the guidance of ideas and in the light of individual experience. The enduring reflex and instinctive dispositions of the individual mind we may liken to the estabUshed institutions of a nation, such as the army and navy, the post office, the judicial and the adminis- trative systems of officials. These, like the instincts, are specialised executive organisations working in relative independence of one another, each discharging some specialised function adapted to satisfy some constantly recurring need of the whole organism. In both cases such semi-independent organisations, the instincts or the institutions, are relatively fixed and stable, and they work, if left to themselves, quasi-mechanicaUy along old estabhshed lines, without intelligent adaptation to new circumstances; and they are incapable of self-adaptation. In both cases, the mental organisation is in part materialised, the instinct in the form of specialised nervous structure, the institution in the form of the material organisation essential to its efficient action, the buildings, the printed codes, the whole material apparatus of complex national administration. In both cases, the actions in which they play their part are not purely mechanical but to some extent truly psychical — though of a low order. If we accept the view, which is held by many, that instincts and reflexes are the semi-mechanised results of successive mental adapta- tions effected by the mental efforts of successive generations, then the analogy is still closer; for the permanent national institutions are also the accumulated semi-mechanised products of the efforts at adaptation of many generations. The organisation of some nations resembles that of the minds of those animals whose behaviour is purely instinctive. Such is a 148 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii nation whose organisation takes the form of a rigid caste system. Each caste performs its special functions in the prescribed manner in relative independence of all the others. And, in both cases, the organisation of the mind includes no means of bringing the different fixed tendencies or dispositions into harmonious co-operation in the face of unusual circumstances. The whole system lacks plasticity and adaptability ; for it is relatively mechanical and of a low degree of integration. Any true adaptation of the whole organism by mental effort is impossible in both cases. The higher type of individual mind is characterised by the development of the intellectual organisation by means of which the activities of the various instincts, the executive organisations, may be brought into co-operation with, or duly subordinated to, one another; and the activities of each such individual may be further adapted to meet novel combinations of circumstances not provided for in the innate organisation; hence, the activities of the whole organism, instead of being a succession of quasi-mechanical actions, and of crude conflicts between the impulses or tendencies of the different instincts, reveal a higher degree of harmony of the parts, a greater integration of the whole system, and a much greater adapta- bility to novel circumstances ; while, at the same time, the behaviour of the whole, in face of any one of the situations provided for by innate organisation or instinct, is liable to be less sure and perfect than in the case of the less complex, less highly evolved type of mind. Exactly the same is true of the more highly evolved type of national mind. Like the lower type, it has its executive institutions and hierarchies of officials, organised for the carrying out of specialised tasks subserving the economy of the whole. But, in addition, it has a deliberative organisation which renders possible a play of ideas; and, through this, the operations of the institutions are modified and controlled in detail and are harmonised -in a way which constitutes a higher integration of the whole. In both cases ideas and judgments reached by the deliberative processes can only become effective in the world of things and conduct by setting to work, or calUng into play, one or more of the executive dispositions or institutions. In both cases, ideas and the deliberative processes, which to some extent control the operations of the innate or traditional dispositions, produce, in so doing, some permanent modification of them in the direction of adaptation to deal with novel circumstances; so that the dispositions or institutions grow and change under the CH. X] OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE 149 guidance of the deliberative processes, slowly becoming better adapted for the expression of the ruling ideas; they become better instruments, and more completely at the service of ideas and of the will. Just as the animal, on the instinctive plane of mental life, displays a very efficient activity in the special situation which brings some one instinct into play, so any one caste of a caste-nation may perform its function under normal circumstances with great efficiency, the priestly caste its priestly function, the warrior caste, or the caste of sweepers, its function; and, in both cases, the development of the deliberative organisation is apt to interfere to some extent with the perfect execution of these specialised functions. Again, in the individual mind, adaptation of conduct to novel circumstances, or to secure improved action in famihar circumstances, requires the direction of the attention, that is the concentration of the whole energy of the mind, upon the task; whereas, when the new mode of behaviour is often repeated, it becomes more and more automatic ; for, owing to the formation of new nervous organisation, the attention is set free for other tasks of adaptation. Just in the same way new modes of national behaviour are only effected when the attention of the nation's mind is turned upon the situation; whereas, with recurrence of the need for any such novel mode of action, there is formed some special executive organisation, say a Colonial Office, or an Unemployed Central Committee, or an Imperial Conference, which deals with it in a more or less routine fashion, and which, as it becomes perfected, needs less and less to be controlled and guided by national attention and therefore operates in the margin of the field of consciousness of the national mind, while public attention is set free to turn itself to other tasks of national adaptation. We may also regard the customs of a nation as analogous with the habits of the individual, if (for the sake of the analogy) we accept the view that instincts are habits that have become hereditary; for custom is an informal mode in which routine behaviour is deter- mined, and it tends to lead on to, and to become embodied in, formal institutions ; it is hke habit, a transition stage between new adapta- tion and perfected organisation. Individual adaptation, habit and instinct are parallel to national adaptation, custom and legal institu- tion. At the risk of wearying the reader, I will refer to one last point of the analogy. Individual minds become more completely inte- 150 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii grated in proportion as they achieve a full self-consciousness, in proportion as the idea of the self becomes rich in content and the nucleus of a strong sentiment generating impulses that control and override impulses of all other sources. In a similar way, the national mind becomes more completely integrated in proportion as it achieves full self-consciousness, that is, in proportion as the idea of the nation becomes widely diffused among the individual minds, becomes rich in content and the nucleus of a strong sentiment that supplies motives capable of overriding and controlling all other motives. Consider now in the light of this analogy the principal types of national organisation. The organisation of some peoples is wholly the product of the conflicts of blind impulses and purely individual volitions working through long ages. This is true of many peoples that have not arrived at a national self-consciousness or, as the French say, a social consciousness, and are not held in servitude by a despotic power. It is a natural stage of evolution which corresponds to the stage of the higher mammals in the scale of evolution of the individual mind. A nation of this sort has no capacity for collective deliberation and volitional action. What collective mental life it has is on the plane of impulse and unregulated desire. Such ideas as are widely accepted may determine collective action; but such action is not the result of the weighing of ideas in the light of self-consciousness ; hence they are little adapted to promote the welfare of the nation, and, because there is no organisation adapted for their expression, they can be but imperfectly realised. We may perhaps take China (as she was until recently) as the highest type of a nation of this sort. Hers was a complex and vast organisation consisting of very ancient institutions and customs, slowly evolved by the conflict of impulses and in part imposed by despotic power and individual wills; not formed by a national will under the guidance of national self-consciousness^. Hence China was incapable of vigorous national thought or volition, and its nearest approach to collective action was expressed in such blind impulsive actions as the Taeping Rebellion or the Boxer Rising. This last seems to have been prompted by a dawning national self- consciousness which had not, however, so moulded the national organisation as to make it an efficient instrument of its will. Of other nations the organisation is, in part only, a natural growth, 1 Cf. A. Smith's Village Life in China. The author insists on the lack of public spirit, of the idea of action pro bono publico. CH. X] OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE 151 having been, in large part, impressed upon it by an external power. Such is the case in all those many instances in which a foreign power of higher social organisation has conquered and successfully governed for a long period a people of lower civilisation. We may see a parallel to this type in the mind of an individual whose behaviour is in the main the expression of a number of habits engendered by a severe discipline which has continued from his earliest years, and which has never permitted the free development of his natural tendencies and character. Such was England under the feudal system imposed upon her by her Norman conquerors. Such also France under Louis XIV. Such was Russia when the Varegs, the conquering Northmen, imposed on the almost unorganised mass of Slavs their rule and a national organisation; and such it remained up to the outbreak of the Great War, a mass of men in whom the national consciousness was only just beginning to glimmer here and there, crudely organised by the bureaucratic power of a few. Even in the minds of these few the national consciousness and purpose was but little developed. Individual purposes and individual self-conscious- ness predominated. Hence Russia had no capacity for national thought and action ; and when, as recently, ideas stirred the masses to action, their actions were those of unorganised crowds, impulsive and in- effective ; the ends were but vaguely conceived, the means were not deliberately chosen, or, if so chosen, found no executive organisation for the effective expression of the collective purpose. In such nations the organisation, which has been in the main created by a small governing class, is adapted only for the execution of its purposes, and not at all for the formation of a national mind and the expression of the collective will. The organisation consists primarily in a system for the collecting of taxes and the compulsory service of a large army. The revenue is raised for two primary purposes — the support of the governing class or caste in luxury and the support of the army; and the end for which the army is main- tained is primarily the gathering of the taxes, and the further extension of the tax-collecting system over larger areas and popula- tions — a vicious circle. On the other hand, the conditions which tend to the formation of national mind and character (which would have quite other ends than these) are naturally suppressed as com- pletely as possible by the governing few. Russian history in modern times exemplifies these principles in the clearest and most complete manner. The effects of this sort of organisation were very clearly illustrated by Count Tolstoi's articles 152 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii in the Fortnightly Review'^, in which he expressed as his social creed and ideal a complete anarchy to be achieved by passive resistance ; denied that nations have or can have any existence; and asserted that the idea of a nation is as fictitious as it is pernicious. He had in mind only this type of organisation of a people, which hardly entitles it to be called a nation. And the same considerations explain the wide prevalence of philosophic anarchy in Russia. Another type of national organisation results when the natural evolution of the national mind and character has been artificially and unhealthily forced by the pressure of the external environment of a people, when the need of national self-preservation and self- assertion compels the mass of the people to submit to an organisation which is neither the product of a natural evolution through the conflict of individual wills, nor the expression of the general mind and will, nor is altogether imposed upon it for the individual purposes of the few, but is a system planned by the few for the good of the whole, and by them imposed upon the whole. This is the kind of organisation of which a modern army stands as the extreme type and which is best represented among modern nations by Germany as she was before the War. Under such a system there appears inevitably a tendency rigorously to subordinate the welfare of individuals to that of the nation as a whole. And that was just the state of affairs in Germany. German pohtical philosophy showed the opposite extreme from Tolstoi's ; the individual existed for the nation only. Hence we find this condition of affairs justified by such writers as Bliintschli^, Treitschke and Bemhardi, who represent the State as having an existence and a system of rights superior to that of all individuals ; and we see attempts to justify the subordination of individual interests by means of the doctrine of the 'collective consciousness^.' In such States as that of the foregoing type the one kind of organisation is alone highly developed, namely the executive organi- sation; while the dehberative organisation is very imperfect and is repressed and discouraged by the governing power. Such a State is likely to appear very strong in all its relations with other States, and its material organisation may be developed in an effective and rapid way, as we have seen in pre-war Germany. But its actions are not the expression of the national will and are not the outcome of the general mind. They are designed by the minds of the few for ^ 1906. 2 In iiis Theory of the State. * By Schaffle, op. cit., and all the school of German 'idealism.' CH. X] OTHER CONDITIONS OF NATIONAL LIFE 153 the good not of all, but of the whole, the good, that is, not of indi- viduals but of the State. Organisation of this type is not of high stability, in spite of its appearance of strength and its efficiency for certain limited purposes, such as industrial organisation and the promotion and diffusion of material well-being. In a State so organised there inevitably grows up an antagonism between individual rights and interests and the rights and interests of the State. It is psychologically unsound. This fact was revealed in Germany by the tremendous growth of social democracy, which was the protest against the subordination of individual welfare to that of the State. The defect of such organi- sation was illustrated by the fact that Germany, though its well- governed population increased rapidly, for many years continued to lose great numbers of its population to other countries. For the mass of the people felt itself to be not so much of the State as under it. And it is, I think, obvious that the advent of a bad and stupid monarch might easily have brought on a revolution at any time. The inherent weakness of the system induced the governing power to all sorts of extreme measures directed to maintain its equilibrium and cohesion. Among such State actions the gravest were perhaps the deUberate falsification of history by the servile historians and the suppression and distortion of news by the press at the command and desire of the State. The expropriation of the Polish landowners and the treatment of Alsace-Lorraine were other striking manifesta- tions of the imperfect development of the national mind and of the corresponding practice and philosophy of the State-craft which the world has learnt to describe as Prussian. The organisation of pre-war Germany was, then, very similar to that of an army and was efficient in a similar way, that is to say for the attainment of particular immediate ends. In a wider view, such national organisation is of a lower nature than that of England or France or America; for the ends or purposes of a nation are remote, they transcend the vision of the present and cannot be defined in terms of material prosperity or mihtary power; and only ! the development of the national mind, as a natural and spontaneous growth, can give a prospect of continued progress towards those indefinable ends. Germany was organised from above for the attain- ment of a particular end, namely material prosperity and power among the peoples of the world; and, as the bulk of her population had been led to accept this narrow national purpose, the organisation 154 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii. ch. x of the nation, like that of an army, was extremely effective for the purpose. It gave her a great advantage as against the other nations, among whom the lack of any such clear cut purpose in the minds of all was a principal difficulty in the way of effective national thought and action. For a hke reason the existence of a nation organised in this way is a constant threat to the nations of higher type; and, as we have seen, it may compel them at anytime to revert to or adopt, temporarily at least and so far as they are able, an organisation of the lower and more immediately effective kind. And this threat was the justification of the nations of the Entente, when they demanded a radical change in this political organisation of Germany. In a similar way, in the past, the Huns, the Turks, and the Arabs, peoples organised primarily for war and conquest, had to be destroyed as nations if the evolution of nations of higher type was to go forward. CHAPTER XI THE WILL OF THE NATION^ Rousseau, in his famous treatise, Le Contrat Social, wrote "There is often a great difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter looks only to the common interest; the former looks to private interest, and is nothing but a sum of individual wills; but take away from these same wills the plus and minus that cancel one another and there remains, as the sum of the differences, the general will." "Sovereignty is only the exercise of the general will." That is to say, a certain number of men will the general good, while most men will only their private good; the latter neutralise one another, while the former co-operate to form an effective force. Dr Bosanquet^, criticising Rousseau's doctrine, says that the general will is expressed by the working of the institutions of the community which embody its dominant ideas; that no one man really grasps the nature and relations of the whole society and its tendencies; that the general will is thus unconscious (by which he seems to mean that the nation is unconscious of itself and of its ends or purposes) ; and he goes on to say that the general will is the product of practical activities making for nearer smaller ends, and that its harmony depends on the fact that the activities of each individual are parts of a systematic whole. Bosanquet's theory amounts to a justification of the old indi- vidualist laissez faire doctrine — the doctrine that the good of the whole is best achieved by giving freest possible scope to the play and conflict of individual purposes and strivings — the philosophic radicahsm of Bentham and Mill, which teaches that, if each man honestly and efficiently pursues his private ends, the welfare of the State somehow results. How this systematic whole which is the State arises he does not explain ; and it seems to me that Bosanquet leaves unsolved that difficulty which, as we saw, led Schiller and others to postulate an external power guiding each people — the ^ The substance of this chapter was contained in a paper entitled 'The Will of the People,' read before the Sociological Society and published in the Sociological Review, 191 2. ^ Philosophical Theory of the State and Article in International Journal of Ethics, 1907. 156 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii difficulty, if we assume that individual wills strive only after private egoistic ends, of explaining how the good of the whole is nevertheless achieved. In all societies many general changes result, and in some nations no doubt the good of the whole is achieved in a measure by fortunate accident, in the way Bosanquet describes — namely, by the interplay of individual wills working for near individual ends. But, I think, it is improper to say that in such a case any general will exists. Such a nation, if it displays any collective activity, only does so in an impulsive blind way which is not true volition, but is > comparable rather with instinctive action; for, as we have seen, self - (consciousness is essential to volition; a truly voUtional action is one which issues from the contemplation of some end represented in relation to the idea of the self and found to be desirable. And the changes of a society which result in the way Bosanquet claims as the expression of the general will are unforeseen and unwilled; they are no more the expression and effects of a general will than are the movements of a billiard ball struck simultaneously by two or more men each of whom aims at a different position. Bosanquet maintains that the national will is unconscious of its ends; but that the life of a nation does express a general will, in virtue of the fact that the individuals, who will private and less general ends than the ends of the nation, hve in a system of relations that constitutes them an organism; and that it is in virtue of this organic system of relations that the individual voHtions work out to an unforeseen unpurposed resultant, which he calls the end willed by the general will. He makes of this organic unity the essential difference between a mere crowd and a society or nation — defining an organism or organic unity as a system of parts the capacities and functions of each of which are determined by the general nattire^and principle of the whole group. That is an excellent definition of an organism; and we have recognised fully the importance of organisation in national life, consisting in specialisation of the parts such that each part is adapted to perform some one function that subserves the life of the whole, while itself dependent upon the proper functioning of all other parts. We may admit too that, in proportion as this specialisation of functions is carried further, organic unity is promoted because the Ufe of the whole becomes more intimately dependent on the life of each part, and each part more intimately and completely dependent on the life of the whole. CH. XI] THE WILL OF THE NATION 157 But unity of this sort is characteristic of all animal bodies ; and, though the mind has this kind of organic unity, it acquires, in pro- portion as self-consciousness develops, over and above this kind of unity, a unity of an altogether new and unique kind ; a unity which consists in the whole (or the self) being present to consciousness, whether clearly or obscurely, during almost every moment of thought, and pervading and playing some part in the determination of the course of thought and action. Now, the national mind also has both the lower and the higher kinds of unity. In both cases — that is, in the development both of the individual and of the national mind — a certain degree of organic unity must be achieved, before self-consciousness can develop and^ begin to play its part; but in both cases, when once it has begun; to operate, self-consciousness goes on greatly to increase the organic unity, to increase the specialisation of functions and the systematic interdependence of the parts. Consider a single illustration of this parallelism of the individual with the national mind. Take the aesthetic faculty. In the individual mind there develops a certain capacity for finding pleasure in certain objects and impressions, such as young children and even the animals have; and then, with the growth of self-consciousness, the individual sets himself deUberately to cultivate this faculty, to speciaHse it along particular lines and to exercise it as something apart from his other mental functions; while, nevertheless, it becomes for him, in proportion as it is developed and speciahsed, more and more an essential part of his total experience. Just so there spontaneously develop in a people some rudimentary aesthetic practices and tradi- tions and some class of persons, say the bards, who are more skilled than other men in ministering to the aesthetic demands of their fellows. Then, as national self-consciousness develops, the place and value of these functions in the system of national hfe becomes explicitly recognised, and they are deliberately fostered by the establishment of national institutions, schools of art, academies of letters and music, the award of public titles and honours and so forth; whereby the specialisation of these national functions is increased, their dependence on the life of the whole rendered more intimate, and, at the same time, the life of the whole rendered more dependent upon the life of these parts, because the richer aesthetic development of the parts reacts upon the whole, diffusing itself through and elevating the life of the whole. Bosanquet recognises in national life only the lower kind of unity 158 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii and not the unity of self -consciousness. He seems to reject the notion of national self-consciousness, on the ground that the life of a nation is so complex that it cannot be fully and adequately reflected in the consciousness of any individual; yet in this respect \ the difference between the national mind and the individual mind lis one of degree only and not of kind. In the individual mind also, even the most highly developed and self-conscious, the capacities and dispositions and tendencies that make up the whole mind are never fully and adequately present to consciousness; the individual never knows himself exhaustively, though he may continually pro- gress towards a more nearly complete self-knowledge. Just so the national mind may progress towards a more complete self-knowledge, and, though at the present time no nation has attained more than a very imperfect self-knowledge, yet the process is accelerating rapidly among the more advanced nations; and such increasing self-knowledge promises to become the dominating factor in the hfe of nations, as it is in the lives of all men, save the most primitive. Suppose that all those conditions making for national unity which we have considered in the foregoing chapters were realised, but that nevertheless all men continued to be moved only by self- regarding motives, or by those which have reference to the welfare of themselves and their family circle or to any ends less compre- hensive than the welfare of the whole nation. We could not then properly speak of the tendencies resulting from the interplay and the conflict of all these individual wills as expressions of the general will, as Bosanquet and others have done, even though the organic unity of the whole secured a harmonious resultant national activity, if such a thing were possible. But there is no reason to suppose that such a thing is possible. I think we may say that it is only in so far as the idea of the ! people or nation as a whole is present to the consciousness of indi- viduals and determines their actions that a nation in the proper „ sense of the word can exist or ever has existed. Without this factor "^any population inhabiting a given territory remains either a mere horde or a population of slaves under a despotism. Neither can be called a nation; wherever a nation has appeared in the history of the world, the consciousness of itself as a nation has been an essential condition of its existence and still more of its progress. We may see this, even more clearly, in the case of the smaller CH. XI] THE WILL OF THE NATION 159 aggregations of men, the smaller social units, the family, the clan, the tribe. The family is a family only so long as it is conscious of itself as a family, and only in virtue of that self-consciousness and of the part which this idea and the sentiments gathered about it play in determining the actions of each member. How carefully such family consciousness is sometimes fostered and how great a part it plays in social life is common knowledge. In the early stages of Greek and Roman history, the family consciousness was the dominant social force which long succeeded in overriding and preventing the development of any larger social consciousness. Just as the gens played this part in early Rome, so the clan has played a similar part elsewhere, for example in the highlands of Scotland. Such peoples form the strongest nations. Just so with the tribe. It exists as a tribe only because, and in so far as, it is conscious of itself, and in so far as the idea of the tribe and devotion to its service determines the actions of individuals. The mere fact of the possession of a tribal name suffices to prove the existence of this self-consciousness. And, as a matter of fact, tribal self-consciousness is in many cases extremely strongly de- veloped; the idea of the tribe, of its rights and powers, of its past and its future plays a great part among warlike savages; and an injury done to the tribe, or an insult offered to it, will often be kept in mind for many years, even for generations, and will be avenged when an opportunity occurs, even in spite of the certainty of death to many individuals and the risk of extermination of the whole tribe. The federation of Iroquois tribes to form a rudimentary nation seems to have been due to a self-conscious collective purpose. And, when other tribes become fused to form nations, the same holds true. Consider the Hebrew nation, one of the earliest historical examples of a number of allied tribes becoming fused to a nation. Surely the idea of the nation as the chosen people of Jehovah played a vital part in its consolidation, implanted and fostered as it was by a succession of great teachers, the prophets. Their work was to implant this idea and this sentiment strongly in the minds of the people, to create and foster this traditional sentiment by the aid of supernatural sanctions. The national self-consciousness thus formed has continued to be not only one factor, but almost the only factor or condition, of the continued existence of the Jewish people as a people, or at any rate the one fundamental condition on which all the others are founded — their exclusive reUgion, their objection to i6o NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii intermarriage with outsiders, their hope of a future restoration of the fortunes of the nation, and so forth. And the same is true of every real nation; its existence and its power are grounded in its consciousness of itself, the idea of the nation as a dominant factor in the minds of the individuals. The dominant sentiment which centres about that idea is very different in the various nations. It may be chiefly pride in the nation's past history, as in Spain ; or hope for its future, as in Japan ; or the need of self-assertion in the present, as in pre-war Germany. The political history of Europe in the nineteenth century is chiefly the history of the national actions that have sprung from increase of national self-consciousness resulting from the spread of education, from the improvement of means of communication within each people and from increase of intercourse between nations. The opening pages were the wars in which the French people, suddenly aroused to an intense national consciousness, successfiiUy resisted and drove back all the other European powers. Of other leading events the formation of modem Italy and of modern Germany, of Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, were results of the awakening of national self -consciousness ^. The resistance of the Japanese to the Russians and their victory over them were in the fuUest sense the immediate outcome of the idea of the Japanese nation in the minds of all its people, leading to a strong collective volition for the greater power, glory, and advancement of the nation. The recent unrest in China is recognised on all hands to be the expression of a dawning national self-conscious- ness. In Europe, Poland, Finland, Hungary, and Ireland exemplify its workings very clearly in recent years. The Magyars were not oppressed by the Austrians. They, economically and individually, had nothing material to gain by a separation from Austria; and in separating themselves they would have risked much, their Uves, and their material welfare; yet the idea of the Magyar nation impelled them to it. The Poles of Germany were not rebellious because they were ill-treated and their affairs maladministered. If they could and would have cast out from their minds the idea of the Polish nation, they might have comfortably shared in the marvellously advancing material prosperity of Germany. Butt hey were severely treatedby the Germans, because they were moved by this idea and this sentiment ; and the bad treatment it brought upon them did but render the 1 Cf. H. Rose, The Development of the European Nations and Ramsay Muir, Nationalism and Internationalism. CH. XI] THE WILL OF THE NATION i6i idea more vividly, more universally, present to the consciousness of all, even of the Httle children at school, and, by inflaming the passions which have their root in the national sentiment, strengthened that sentiment. But for the idea of the Boer nation and the dawning national sentiment, the late Boer war would never have occurred; and that sentiment was, as in the case of the Japanese in their late war, the principal source of the great energy displayed by the Boers and of such success as they achieved. Even in India, the proposal to divide Bengal has suddenly dis- covered among the Bengalese, the most submissive part of the population, the part which has seemed most devoid of national spirit, the existence and the importance as a political factor of the idea of the Bengalese as a people and of sentiments centred upon that idea. The rapid increase of national self-consciousness among the t- peoples of the world and the increasing part everywhere played by . the sentiment for national existence are in short the dominant facts \\\ in the present period of world history ; their influence overshadows all others. Since, then, any nation exists only in virtue of the existence of the idea of the nation in the minds of the individuals of whom it ( "x"^ is composed, and in virtue of the influence of this idea upon their actions, and since this idea plays so great a part in shaping the history of the world, it is absurd to maintain that the general wiU is but the bUnd resultant of the conflict of individual wills striving after private ends and unconscious of the ends or purposes of the nation. In opposition to such a view, we must maintain that a population seeking only indi\ddual ends cannot form or continue to be a nation, though aU the other conditions we have noticed be present ; that a nation is real and vigorous in proportion as its con- sciousness of its self is fuU and clear. In fact national progress and power and success depend in chief part upon the fulness and the extension, the depth and width of this self-consciousness — the accu- racy and fulness with which each individual mind reflects the whole ; and upon the strength of the sentiments which are centred upon it and which lead men to act for the good of the whole, to postpone private to pubhc ends. And the same holds good of all the many forms of corporate life within the nation. Each individual's sense of duty, in so far as it is a true sense of duty, and not a fictitious sense due merely to superstitious fear or to habit formed by suggestion i62 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii and compulsion, is chiefly founded upon the consciousness of the society of which he forms a part, upon the group spirit that binds him to his fellows and makes him one with them. And the nations in which this national self-consciousness is strongest and most widely diffused will be the successful nations. Reflect a little on these facts vouched for by General Sir Ian Hamilton. No soldier of the Japanese army, none even of the coolies, would accept anything in the shape of a tip even for honest services rendered, lest the purity of his motives should be suUied; and each man always went into action not merely prepared to die if necessary, but actually prepared and expecting to conquer and to die for the good and glory of his nation. He writes "Japanese officers have constantly to explain to their men that they must not consider the main object of the battle is to get killed^." And he goes on to show that they are not fanatics, are not inspired by any idea of the super- natural or by any hope of rewards after death, as is usually the case of the Moslem soldier who displays an equal recklessness of life. ; Surely, if in any nation the national consciousness could inspire and I maintain all classes of its people in all relations of life to this high level of strenuous self-sacrifice for the welfare of the nation, that nation would soon predominate over all others, and be impregnably strong, no matter what defects of individual and national character it might display. The idea of the nation is, then, a bond between its members \ over and above all those bonds of custom, of habit, of economic Vinterdependence, of law and of self-interest, of sympathy, of imita- pon, of collective emotion and thought, which inevitably arise among a homogeneous people occupying any defined area; and it is the most powerful and essential of them all. As Fouillee put it, the essential characteristic of human society is that "it is an organism which realises itself in conceiving and in willing its own existence. Any collection of men becomes a society in the only true sense of the word, when all the men conceive more or less clearly the type of organic whole which they can form by uniting themselves and when they effectively unite themselves under the determining in- fluence of this conception. Society is then an organism which exists because it has been thought and willed, it is an organism born of *\ an idea ^." In this sense Society has never yet been perfectly realized, but it is the ideal towards which social evolution tends. ^ The Russo-Japanese War, Vol. ii, p. 25. ^ La Science Sociale contemporatne, p. 115. CH. xij THE WILL OF THE NATION 163 National group self-consciousness plays, then, an all-important part in the life of nations, is in fact the actual, the most essential constitutive factor of every nation ; and nationhood or the principal of nationality is the dominant note of world history in the present epoch ; that is to say, the desire and aspiration to achieve nationhood, or to strengthen and advance the life of the nation, is the most powerful motive underlying the collective actions of almost all civilised and even of semi-civilised mankind; and the consequent rivalry between nations overshadows every other feature of modern world history, and is convulsing and threatening to destroy the whole of modem civilisation. It is surely well worthy of serious study. Yet, owing to the backward and neglected state of psychology, not only is this study neglected, but, as we have seen, some of our leading political philosophers have not yet even realized the essential nature of the problem; and many of the historians, economists and poUtical writers are even further from a grasp of its nature. They have been forced by the prominence and urgency of the facts to recognise what they call the principle of nationality; and even now the majority of them are demanding that, in the European settlement and in the affairs of the world in general, the principle of nationahty shaU be given the leading place and the decisive voice. But they do not recognise that the understanding of this principle, this all-powerful poHtical factor, is primarily and purely a psychological problem. We find them, in discussing the nature of nations and the condi- tions of nationality, perhaps mentioning the psychological view of nations as a curious aberration of a few academic cranks, from which they turn to discover the true secret of nationahty in such con- siderations as geographical boundaries, race, language, history, and above aU economic factors; they do not see that each and all of these conditions, real and important though they are and have been in shaping the history and determining the existence of nations, only play their parts indirectly by affecting men's minds, their behefs, opinions, and sentiments, especially by favouring or re- pressing the development in each people of the idea of the nation. The aU-dominant influence of the idea of the nation, I insist, is not a theory or a speculative suggestion, it is a literal and obvious fact. Let every other one of the favouring conditions of nationality, the geographical, historical, economic be reaUsed by a population; yet, if that population has no collective self-consciousness, is not j strongly actuated to collective vohtion by the group spirit, it will/ remain not a nation, but a mere aggregate of individuals, havmg' i64 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii more or less organic unity due to the differentiation and inter- dependence of its parts, but lacking that higher bond of unity which alone can ensure its stabihty and continuity, and which, especially, can alone enable it to withstand and survive the peaceful pressure or the warlike impact of true nations. I am not at present defending nationality; I shall come back to the question of its value. I am now only concerned with the psycho- logical problem of the nature and conditions of the development of national self-consciousness. I have been using the latter phrase and the phrase ' the idea of the nation ' as a shorthand expression ; but I must remind the reader that we have to beware of the intellectualist error of regarding ideas as moving powers ; ideas as merely intellectual /representations or conceptions have no motive power, they are in [themselves indifferent. It is only in so far as the object conceived becomes the object of some sentiment that the conception of it \ pioves us strongly to feeling and action. I must refer, therefore, to what I have written on the sentiments and the self-regarding senti- ment^. Here I would insist on the strictness in this point of our analogy between the individual and the national mind. I have pointed out that the individual's idea of himself only develops beyond a rudimentary stage in virtue of and in so far as this idea becomes the nucleus of a strong self-regarding sentiment which gives him an interest in himself, directs his attention upon his own per- sonalitj' and its relations, and impels him to strive to know himself. • So that a developed individual self -consciousness never is and never can be a purely intellectual growth, but always involves a strong sentiment, a centering of emotional conative tendencies upon this object, the self. Exactly the same is true of nations. Hence national self-consciousness can never develop except in the form of an idea of strong affective tone, that is to say a senti- l ment. Hence, whenever we speak of national self-consciousness or I the idea of the nation as a powerful factor in its life, the sentiment t is implied, and I have implied it when using these expressions hitherto. This national sentiment, which, if we use the word in its widest sense, may be called patriotism, is, like all the other group ^ Social Psychology, Chapters V — IX. Dr Bosanquet's failure (as it seems to me) to achieve a satisfactory account of the social will is the inevitable consequence of the inadequacy of his conception of individual volition. This is set out in his Psychology of the Moral Self, where he shews himself to be an uncompromising adherent of the intellectualist tradition. He totally ignores the existence and organisation of the conative side of the mind. His notion of volition is based upon the now discredited theory of ideo-motor action. CH. XI] THE WILL OF THE NATION 165 sentiments, developed by way of extension of the self-regarding sentiment of the individual to the group, and may be further complicated and strengthened by the inclusion of other tendencies. A point of especial importance is that this great group sentiment can hardly be developed otherwise than by way of extension of sentiments for smaller included groups, the family especially. For the idea of the nation is too difficult for the grasp of the child's mind, and cannot, therefore, become the object of a sentiment until the intellec- tual powers are considerably developed. Hence the development of a family sentiment, or of one for some other small easily conceived group, is essential for the development in the child of those modes of mental action which are involved in all group feeling and action. For this reason the family is the surest, perhaps essential, founda- tion of national life; and national self-consciousness is strongest, where family life is strongest. The development of the group spirit in general and of national self-consciousness in particular is favoured by, and indeed dependent upon, conditions similar to those which develop the self-consciousness of individuals. Here is another striking point of the analogy between the individual and the national mind. Passing over other conditions, let us notice one, the most important of all. The individual's consciousness of self is developed chiefly by intercourse with other individuals — by imitation, by conflict, by compulsion, and by co-operation. Without such intercourse it must remain rudimentary. The individual's conception of himself is perpetually extended by his increasing knowledge of other selves; and his knowledge of those other selves grows in the light of his knowledge of himself. There is perpetual reciprocal action. The same is true of peoples. A popu- lation Uving shut off, isolated from the rest of the world, within which no distinctions of tribe and race existed, would never become conscious of itself as one people and, therefore, would not become a nation. Some such conditions obtained for long ages among the pastoral hordes of the central Eurasian Steppes, which, so long as they remained there, have never formed a nation ; and the same was true of the tribes of Arabia, until Mahomet impelled them by his religion of the sword to hurl themselves upon neighbouring peoples. Of civilised peoples, China has had least intercourse with the outer world. The Chinese knew too little of other races to imitate them ; they did not come into conflict or co-operation with others, save in a very partial manner at long intervals of time, or only with their Mongol conquerors, whom they despised as inferior to them in i66 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii everything but warfare, and whom they abhorred. Hence, in spite of the homogeneity of the people, of the common culture, and of the vast influence of great teachers, national consciousness and the group spirit in all its forms remained at a low level. Hence, a great de- ficiency in those virtues which have their root in the social con- sciousness; a low standard of public duty, a lack of the sense of obligation to society. Hence, the corruptness and hollowness of all official transactions and political life. Want of honesty in public affairs is not the expression of an inherent defect of the Chinese character; for in commercial relations with Europeans the Chinaman has proved himself extremely trustworthy, much superior indeed in this respect to some other peoples. It is probable that, if China, like Europe, had long ago been divided into a number of nations, each of them, through action and reaction upon the rest, would have developed a much fuller national con- sciousness than exists at present and some considerable degree of public spirit and would consequently have advanced very much farther in the scale of social evolution, instead of standing still as the whole people has done for so long. Everywhere we can see the illustrations of this law. Of all forms of intercourse, conflict and competition are the most effective in de- veloping national consciousness and character, because they bring a common purpose to the minds of all individuals; and that is the condition of the highest degree and effectiveness of collective mental action and volition. It is under these conditions that the idea of the nation and the wiU to protect it and to forward its interests become predominant in the minds of individuals; and the more so the greater the public danger, the greater and the more obvious the need for the postponement of private ends to the general end. Already there is beginning to develop a European self-conscious- ness and a European purpose, provoked by the demonstration of the hitherto latent power of Asia; and, if a federation of European peoples is ever to be realised, it will be the result of their further development through opposition to a great and threatening Asiatic power, a revived Moslem empire, or possibly a threatened American domination^. Although war has hitherto been the most important condition of the development of national consciousness, it is not the only one; , and it remains to be seen whether industrial or other forms of rivalry ' can play a similar part. Probably, industrial rivalry cannot ; the ^ This was written before the war with Germany. 1 CH. XI] THE WILL OF THE NATION 167 accumulation of wealth is too largely dependent upon the accidents of material conditions to become a legitimate source of national satisfaction ; for, unlike the satisfaction arising from successful exer- tion of military power, it does not imply intrinsic superiorities. If the natural conditions of material prosperity could be equaUsed for aU nations, then the acquisition of superior wealth, implying as it would superior capacities, might become a sufficiently satisfying end of national action; just as the equahsation of conditions among individuals in America has for the present rendered the accumulation of wealth a sufficient end, because such accumulation imphes superior powers and is the mark of personal superiority. Other forms of rivalry — rivalry in art, science, letters, in efficiency of social and poUtical organisation, even in games and sports, all play some part; and it is possible that together they might suffice to constitute sufficient stimulus, even though the possibility of war should be for ever removed^. But national self -consciousness is not developed by conflict and rivalry only. It is refined and enriched by aU other forms of in- tercourse. In studying other peoples, their organisation and their history, we become more clearly aware of the defects and the qualities and potentialities of our own nation. And in this way, refinement of national consciousness is now going on rapidly in the European peoples. The latest considerable advance is due tc the observation of Japan; for this has clearly demonstrated the imperfection of many conceptions that were current among us and has brought a certain abatement of national complacency and a greater earnestness of national self-criticism, which is highly favour- able to increase of national self-knowledge 2. We might place nations in a scale of nationhood. The scale would correspond roughly to one in which they were arranged ac- cording to the degree to which the pubUc good is the end, and the desire of it the motive, of men's actions; this in turn would corre- spond to a scale in which they were arranged according to the degree of development and diffusion of the national consciousness, of the idea of the nation or society as a whole; and this again to one in which they were arranged according to the degree of inter- course they have had with other nations. At the bottom of the scale would stand the people of Thibet, the most isolated people of the world; near them the Chinese, who also have until recently * Emulation in the administration of backward peoples offers perhaps the greatest possibihties as 'a moral equivalent for war.' 2 Cp. Principal L. P. Jacks on the Japanese in his Alchemy of Thought. i68 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii, ch. xi been almost entirely excluded from international intercourse. Such peoples have a national consciousness and sentiment which is extremely vague and imperfect. They do not realise their weak- ness, their strength or their potentialities, but have an unenlight- ened pride without aspiration for a higher form of national life. A Httle above them would stand Russia, which has remained for so long outside the area of European international life. While at the top of the scale would be those nations which have borne their part in all the strain and stress and friction of European rivalry and intercourse. These degrees of international intercourse have been very largely determined by geographical conditions; isolation, and consequent backwardness in national evolution, being in nearly every case due to remoteness of position. The most important factor of modern times making for more rapid social evolution is probably the practical destruction or overcoming of the barriers between peoples ; for thus all peoples are brought into the international arena, and their national spirit is developed through international intercourse and rivalry. It is this increasing contact and intercourse of peoples, brought about by the increased facilities of communication, which has quickened the growth of national self-consciousness throughout all the world and has made the principle of nationaUty or, more pro- perly, the desire for nationhood and for national existence and de- velopment, for self-assertion and for international recognition, the all-important feature of modern times, overshadowing every other phenomenon that historians have to notice, or statesmen to reckon with. The American nation is interesting in this connexion. If we ask — Why is their public life on a relatively low level, in spite of so many favouring conditions, including a healthy and strong public opinion ? — the answer is that they have been until recently too much shut off from collective intercourse with other nations, tec far removed from the region of conflict and rivalry. And judicious well-wishers of the American nation rejoice that it has recently entered more fully into the international arena, and has not continued to pursue the policy of isolation, which was long in favour; because, as is already manifest, this fuller intercourse and intenser rivalry with other nations must render fuller and more effective their national spirit, develop the national will and raise the national life to a higher plane, giving to individuals higher ends and motives than the mere accumulation of wealth, and removing that self-complacency as regards their national existence which hitherto has characterised them in common with the peoples of Thibet and China. CHAPTER XII IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE We have seen that the idea of the nation can and does, in virtue of the formation of the sentiment of devotion to it, lead men to choose and decide and act for the sake of the nation ; they desire the welfare and the good of the nation as a whole, they value its material prosperity and its reputation in the eyes of other nations; and, in so far as the decisions and actions of a nation proceed from this motive, co-operating with and controUing other motives in the minds of its members, such decision and action are the expressions of true collective vohtion. It is truly vohtion because it conforms to the true type of vohtion. Individual volition can only be marked off from every impulsive action and every lower form of effort, by the fact that in true vohtion, among all the impulses or motives that may impel a man to action or decision, the dominant role is played by a motive that springs from his self- regarding sentiment. This motive is a desire to achieve a particular end, which, viewed as the achievement of the self, brings him satisfaction, because the thought of himself achieving this end is in harmony with the ideal of the self which he has gradually built up and has learnt to desire to realize under the influence of his social setting. The same is true of national vohtion. And it is collective vohtion in so far as the deUberations by which the decision of the nation has been reached have been effected through those formally and informally organised relations and channels of communication and by means of all the various modes of interaction of persons by which public opinion is formed and in which it is guided and controlled by the hving traditions of the nation. That this is the true nature of national volition may be more clearly reahzed on considering some instances of national action which could not properly be caUed the expression of the will of the Nation. A tariff might be adopted because a large number of men desired it, each in order that he himself might get rich more quickly ; and, even thougha large majority, or even all men, desired it, eachfor his private 170 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii end, it would not be the expression of the national will, it would not be due to collective volition; it would be the expression of the will of all. Nor would it be an expression of the national will, even if each believed that, not only he, but also all his fellows would be enriched, and if he desired it for that reason also ; that would be an expression of the will of all for the good of all. Only if and in so far as the decision was reached through the influence of those who desired it, because it seemed to them to be for the good of the whole nation, would it be the expression of the will of the nation. And the difference would be not merely a difference of motive ; the difference might be very important in respect both of the deUberative processes by which the decision was reached and also in respect of its ultimate consequences. For the will of all for the good of all would have reference only to the immediate future; whereas the truly national will would be influenced not only by consideration of the good of all existing citizens, but, in an even greater degree, by the thought of the continued welfare of the whole nation, in the remote future. Again, suppose that, on the occasion of an insult or injury to the nation (I remind the reader of the incident in the North Sea when the Russian fleet fired on our fishing boats), a wave of anger against the offending nation sweeps over the whole country and that this outburst of popular fury plunges the nation into war. That would be collective mental process, but not vohtion; it would be action on the plane of impulse or desire, unregulated by reflection upon the end proposed in relation to the welfare of the nation and by the motives to action that are stirred by such reflection. Again, suppose a nation of which every member was patriotic, and suppose that some proposed national action were pondered upon by each man apart in his own chamber, without consultation and discussion with his feUows in public and private. Then, though the decision would be true vohtion, in so far as it was determined by each man's desire for the national welfare, it yet would not be collective or national volition; because not reached by collective deliberation. We have seen that the idea of the nation, present to the minds of the mass of its members, is an essential condition of the nation's existence in any true sense of the word nation; that the idea alone as an inteflectual apprehension cannot exert any large influence; that it determines judgment and action only in virtue of the senti- ment which grows up about this object — a sentiment which is transmitted and fostered from generation to generation, just because CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 171 it renders the nation an object of value. The consideration should be obvious enough; but it has commonly been ignored by philosophers of the intellectualist school. They treat the individual mind as a system of ideas; they ignore the fact that it has a conative side which has its own organisation, partially distinct from, though not independent of, the intellectual side ; and consequently they ignore equally the fact that the national mind has its conative organisation. Imagine a people in whom anti-nationalism (in the form of cosmopolitanism, syndicalism or philosophic anarchism) had spread, until this attitude towards the nation-state as such had become adopted by half its members, while the other half remained patriotic. Then there would be acute conflict and discussion, and the idea of the nation would be vividly present to aU minds; but the nature of the sentiment attached to it would be different and opposite in the two halves ; one of attachment and devotion in the one half ; of dislike, aversion, or at least indifference (i.e. lack of sentiment) in the other half. And the efforts of the one half to maintain the nation as a unit would be antagonised and perhaps rendered nugatory by the indifference or opposition of the other half, who would always seek to break down national boundaries and would refuse co-operation in any national action, and who would league themselves with bodies of similar interests and anti-national tendencies in other countries. Then, even though all might be well-meaning people desiring the good of mankind, the nation would be very greatly weakened and probably would soon cease to exist as such. The illustration shews the importance of the distinction which' Rousseau did not draw in his discussion of the general will — namely, ' the distinction between the good of all and the good of the whole, i.e. of the nation as such. It might be argued that the distinction is purely verbal ; it might be said that, if you secure the good of all, you thereby ipso facto secure the good of the whole, because the whole consists of the sum of existing individuals; and that this is obvious, because, if you take them away, no whole remains. But to argue thus is to ignore the fact on which we have already in- | sisted — namely, that the whole is much more than the sum of the ! existing units, because it has an indefinitely long future before it ' and a part to play, through indefinitely long periods of time, as a factor in the general welfare and progress of mankind. So much greater is the whole than the sum of its existing parts, that it might well seem right to sacrifice the welfare and happiness of one or two or more generations, and even the lives of the majority 172 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii of the citizens, if that were necessary to the preservation and future welfare of the whole nation as such. This is no merely theoretical distinction, it is one of the highest practical importance, which we may illustrate in two ways. A whole nation may be confronted with the alternative, may be forced to choose between the good of all and the good of the whole. Such a choice was, it may be said without exaggeration, suddenly presented to the Belgian people, and only less acutely to ourselves and to Italy, by the recent European conflagration; and in each case the good of the whole has been preferred. Is it not probable and obvious that, if each or all of these peoples had con- sented to the domination of Germany, the material welfare of all their existing citizens might well have been increased, rather than diminished, and that their choice has involved not only the loss of life of large numbers of their citizens and great sufferings for nearly all the others, but also enormous sacrifice of material prosperity, in order that the whole may survive and eventually prosper as a nation working out its national destiny free from external domination? There are, or were, those who say that they would just as soon live under German rule, because they would be governed at least as well and perhaps better than by their own government hitherto; and there is perhaps nothing intrinsically bad or wrong in this attitude ; the question of its rightness or wrongness turns whoUy on the valua- tion of nationality. It is easier to appreciate this plea on behalf of another people than our own. One may hear it said even now that, after all, it would have been better for Belgium that she should have entered into the group of Germanic powers in some sort of federal system or Customs union; that, in general, it is ridiculous that the small states should claim sovereign powers and pretend to have their own foreign pohcy and so forth; that they are struggling against the inevitable, against a universal and necessary tendency for the absorption of the smaller states by the larger. We may illustrate the difference between regard for the good of all members of the nation and of the nation itself in another way — namely, by reference to socialism, the principle which would abolish inequalities of wealth and opportunity, as far as possible, by abolishing or greatly restricting the rights of private property and capital, especially the right of inheritance. There can, I think, be little doubt that the adoption of socialism in this sense by almost any modern nation would increase the well being and happiness of its members very decidedly on the whole for the CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 173 present generation and possibly for some generations to come. It is in respect of the continued welfare of the whole and of its per- petuation as an evolving and progressing organism that the effects seem likely to be decidedly bad. The sociahsts are in the main those who fix their desire and attention on the good of all; hence they are for the most part inclined to set a low value on nationality, even while they demand a vast extension of the functions of the State, conceived as an organised system of administration. Those, on the other hand, who repudiate socialism, not merely because they belong to the class of 'Haves,' must seek their justification in the consideration of the probable effects of such a change on the welfare of the nation conceived as an organism whose value far transcends the lives of the present generation. When, then, we attribute to the idea of the nation or to the national consciousness this all-important creative, constitutive, and conservative function, we must be clear that the idea is not an intellectual conception merely, but implies an enduring emotional conative attitude which is the sentiment of devotion to the nation ; and, further, we must remember that the nation means not simply all existing individuals, the mere momentary embodiment of the nation, but something that is far greater, because it includes aU the poten- tialities embodied in the existing persons and organisation. It is the presence and operation in the national mind of the idea of the nation in the extended sense [just indicated that gives to national decisions and actions the character of truly collective voli- tions; they approach this type more nearly, the more the idea is rich in meaning and adequate or true, and the more widely it is spread, and the more powerful and widely spread is the sentiment which attaches value to the nation and sways men to decision and action for the sake of the whole, determining the issue among all other conflicting motives. And it is the working of the national spirit and the acceptance of and devotion to the national organisation which render the submission of the minority to the means chosen by the majority a voluntary submission; for it is of the essence of that organisation that, while all accept and will the same most general end, namely the welfare of the whole, the choice of means must be determined by the judgment of the majority, formed and expressed as a collec- tive judgment and opinion by way of all the many channels of reciprocal influence that the national organisation, both formal and informal, provides. In so far as each man holds this attitude, 174 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii esteeming the nation and accepting loyally its constitution or organisation, the decision determined by even a bare majority vote of parhament becomes the expression of the national will; and the co-operation in carrying it out of those who did not judge the method to be wise, and who therefore voted against it, yet becomes a truly voluntary co-operation, in so far as they accept the established organisation. The point may be illustrated by the instance of a nation going to war. A large minority may be against war, for reasons which to them may seem to be of the highest kind; it may be that they judge the nation to be morally in the wrong in the matter in dispute, or very questionably in the right, as many Englishmen did during the Boer War; and yet, if, by the accepted organised channels of national dehberation and decision, war has been declared, then, although it was their duty to do what they could to make their opinion prevail before the decision was reached, there is no moral inconsistency in their supporting the war measures with all their strength. It is in fact implied in their loyalty, if they are loyal and patriotic, that they shall yield their individual opinion to the expression of the national will and shall accept the means chosen to the common end. That is the truth implied in the phrase — My country right or wrong. Of course, this phrase may be taken in a reprehensible sense, as meaning that any opportunity of forwarding the immediate interests of one's country must be taken, regardless of the interests of other communities and of theobhgationsof common honesty and humanity upon which all human welfare depends. In the same way, a man might disapprove of a particular tax, say on liquor, or of obligatory military service; and yet he may accept the national will and serve faithfully as a soldier, without inconsistency, and without ceasing to be a free agent truly willing the acts imposed by his position in the whole organisation; just as during the late war many priests served as soldiers in the French army. Or, to take an extreme instance, a man who has broken the law and even incurred the death penalty may be truly said to undergo his punishment of imprisonment or death as a morally free agent, if he is loyal to his country and its institutions, accepting the penalty, while yet believing his action to be right. Such perfect loyalty to the nation is of course rare; and in all actual nations men have progressed towards it in very different degrees. Most existing nations have emerged from preceding despotisms by the repeated widening of the sphere of freedom, as the growth of loyalty in strength and CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 175 extension rendered such freedom consistent with the survival of the State and its administrative functions. Thus a people progresses from the status of an organism, in which the parts are subordinated to the whole without choice or free voUtion on their part, or even against their wills, towards the ideal of a Nation-state, an organic whole which is founded wholly upon voluntary contract between each member and the whole, and in which the distinction between the State and the nation becomes gradually overcome and replaced by identity. For, as national self- consciousness develops and each man conceives more fully and clearly the whole nation and his place and function in it, and grows in loyalty to the nation, he ceases to obey the laws merely because he is constrained by the authority and force of the State. An increasing proportion of citizens obey the law and render due services voluntarily, because they perceive that, in so doing, they are con- tributing towards the good of the whole which they value highly; in so far as they act in this spirit, the actions and restraints prescribed by law become their voluntary actions and restraints. Thus the theory that society is founded upon a Social Contract, which, if taken as a description of the historical process of genesis, is false, is true, if accepted as the constitutive principle of the ideal State towards which progressive nations are tending. And, as the organisation of a nation becomes less dependent upon outer authority and upon mere custom and the unreasoning acceptance of tradition, and more and more upon free consent and voluntary contract, the nation does not cease to be an organism; it retains that formal and informal organisation which has developed in large part without the deliberate guidance of the collective will and which is essential to its collective hf e ; the national mind, as it grows in force and extension and understanding of its own organisation, accepts those features which it finds good, and gradually modifies those which appear less good in the hght of its increasing self knowledge; and so it tends more and more to become a contractual organism, which, as Fouillee has insisted, is the highest type of society. It should be noticed that this ideal of the contractual organism synthesises the two great doctrines or theories of society which have generally been regarded as irreconcilable alternatives: the doctrine of society as an organism, and that of society as founded upon reason and free wiU. They have been treated as opposed and irreconcilable doctrines, because those who regarded society as an organism, taking 176 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii the standpoint of natural science, have laid stress upon its evolution by biological accidents and by the interaction and conflict of many blind impulses and purely individual volitions, in which collective volition, governed by an ideal of the form to be achieved, had no part. While, on the other hand, the idealist philosophers, describing society or the nation as whoUy the work of reason and free will, have been guilty of the intellectualist fallacy of regarding man as a purely rational being; they have ignored the fact that all men, even the most intellectual, are largely swayed and moulded by processes of suggestion, imitation, sympathy, and instinctive impulse, in quite non-rational ways ; and they have ignored still more com- pletely the fact that the operation of these non-rational processes continues to be not only of immense influence but also inevitable and necessary to the maintenance of that organic unity of society upon which as a basis the contract-unity is superimposed as a bond of a higher, more rational and more spiritual quality. The former doctrine logically tends to the paralysis of social effort and to the adoption of extreme individuahsm, to the doctrine of each man for himself, and of laissez faire, doctrines such as those of Herbert Spencer. The other, the ideahst theory of the state as being founded and formed by reason, tends equally logically towards extreme State sociahsm; because its overweening belief in reason leads it to ignore the large and necessary basis of subrational organi- sation and operation. Only a synthesis of the two in the doctrine of the contractual organism can reconcile them and give us the ideal of a nation in which the maximum and perfection of organisation shall be combined with the maximum of Hberty, because in it each individual will be aware of the whole and his place and functions in it, and will volun- tarily accept that place and perform those functions. The highest, most perfectly organised and effective nation is, then, not that in which the individuals aie disposed of, their actions completely controlled, and their wiUs suppressed by the power of the State. It is, rather, one in which the self-consciousness and initiative andvohtion of individuals, personaHty in short, is developed to the highest degree, and in which the minds and wUls of the I members work harmoniously together under the guidance and pressure of the idea of the nation, rendered in the highest degree explicit and full and accurate. CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 177 The Value of Nationality At the present time, while the mass of men continue to accept the duty of patriotism unquestioningly, and historians for the most part are content to describe with some astonishment the immense development of nationalism in the past century, many voices are loudly raised for and against nationality. The great mass of men no doubt are swept away in the flood of patriotic feeling. But the war has also intensified the antipathy, and given increased force to the arguments, of those who decry nationality and deprecate patriotism — for these are but two different modes of expressing the same attitude. There are two principal classes of the anti-nationahsts. First, the philosophic anarchists, who would abolish all states and govern- ments, as unnecessary evils, men like Kropotkin and Tolstoi. Se- condly, the cosmopolitans, who, while believing in the necessity of government and even demanding more centralised administration, would yet abolish all national boundaries as far as possible, boundaries of geography, of language, race and sentiment, and all national governments, and would aim at the establishment of one great world state. Though the aims of these two parties are so widely different, they use much the same arguments against nationalism. According to the anti-nationalist view, nationalism and the patriotism in which it is founded are a kind of disease of human nature, which, owing to the unfortunate fact that mankind has retained the gregarious instinct of his animal ancestors, inevitably breaks out as soon as any com- munity begins to come into free contact and rivalry with other communities, and which tends to grow in force in a purely instinctive and irrational manner the more these contacts and rivalries increase. The liability to patriotism is thus regarded as closely comparable with mankind's unfortunate liability to drunkenness, to feel the fasci- nation of strong liquor — as merely a natural and inevitable result or by-product of an unfortunate flaw in human nature — a tendency which will have to be sternly repressed and, if possible, eradicated, before men can hope to live in peace and tolerable security and to develop their higher capacities. The fact that patriotism of some degree and form is uni- versally displayed, and that it breaks out everywhere into heat and flame when certain conditions are realized, does not for them in any degree justify it; and it should not, they hold, reconcile us to 178 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii its continued existence; they draw an indictment not merely against a whole people, but against the whole human race. They attack nationalism, firstly, by describing what in their opinion patriotism is and whence it comes ; secondly, by describing what they beUeve to be the natural consequences and effects of nationalism. The most common mode of attack is to identify patriotism with jingoism; they speak of 'jelly-bellied flag-flappers ' of flag-wagging and mafficking; they assert that the essence of patriotism is hatred and all uncharitableness towards other countries and their citizens*. Less virulent is the criticism of those who, looking coldly upon patriotism, describe it as the mere blind expression of the working of the gregarious instinct among us, and as something therefore quite irrational, which must and will tend to disappear, as men become more enlightened and are guidedmore byreason and less byinstinct^. Again, it is said that patriotism is a form of selfishness and there- fore bad; that it is a limitation of our sympathies, a principle of injustice; that it stands in the way of the realisation of universal justice, of the universal brotherhood of man, which is the ideal we obviously must accept and aim at. Or in other words, and this is the main indictment, it is alleged that patriotism and nationalism inevitably tend to produce war, that they keep the rival nations perpetually arming for possible wars and actually in commercial and economic war, if not at real war. And of course the evils of warfare and of such perpetual preparation for war are great and obvious enough in modern Europe. In support of this in- dictment, they point to the golden age of the Roman Empire, when the inhabitants of all its parts were content to sink their differences of race and country and were proud to proclaim themselves citizens of the Roman Empire; and they say that in consequence the civilised world attained then a pitch of prosperity and contentment never known before or since over any large area of the earth. This is a formidable indictment, to which the exponents and advocates of patriotism have for the most part been content to reply by renewed exhortations to patriotism, by emotional appeals, by rhetoric, by the quotation of patriotic verses, the citation of the 1 W. L. George, English Review, May, 1915, 'The Price of Nationality.' "Anger, indeed, is the soul of what is called the national will. To call it a will is perhaps too much, it is an instinct and mainly an instinct to hate. . . . Love of country is mainly hatred of other countries." 2 Cf. Gilbert Murray, Collection of Addresses on The War given at Bedford College, 1915. CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 179 glorious deeds of our armies and soldiers now and in past times, by all the arts of persuasion and suggestion. As a fine example of this method one may cite Mr Stratford Wingfield's History of British Patriotism, in which he not only confines himself to these methods, but shows a positive dislike and contempt for all attempts to apply reason and scientific method to the study of human affairs^. In maintaining this attitude, the advocates of patriotism give some colour to the claim of their opponents that patriotism or nationalism is essentially irrational, in the sense that it is incapable of justification by reason. The politicians and historians, on the other hand, who are so generally demanding that the European settlement after the war must accept nationality as its fundamental principle, are commonly content to note the strength and the wide distribution of the patriotic sentiment, without enquiring into its origin, nature, or value. Let us examine the arguments against patriotism and then see what reason can advance in its defence. For, though a rational defence of patriotism will have little direct effect in making patriots, we may be sure that, if such defence cannot be maintained, patriotism will have to fight a losing battle. In disparaging patriotism by describing it as the work of an instinct, the gregarious or the pugnacious or other instinct, or of several instincts, its critics are guilty of two psychological errors and a popular fallacy. The last is the fallacy that the worth of any thing is to be judged by the source from which it springs. Even if patriotism were nothing more than the direct expression of the gregarious instinct which we possess in common with many of the higher animals, that would not in itself condemn it. But this description of it, as a product of instinct as opposed to the principles we attain by reason, involves that false disjunction and opposition of reason to instinct which is traditional and which the intellectualist philosophers commonly adopt, when they con- descend to recognise in any way the presence of instinctive tendencies in human nature. 1 Incidentally he holds up my Social Psychology as a dreadful example of such an attempt and a woeful evidence of the parlous state of present day culture in England. Such dislike of any attempt to understand that which we hold sacred is intelligible enough in the vulgar, for whom all analysis is destructive of the values they unreasoningly cherish. But it may be hoped that men of letters who set out to defend patriotism will learn to rise above this attitude, just as the more enlightened leaders of religion are learning to welcome psychological inquiry in their domain. i8o NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [?t. ii The other psychological error is the failure to recognize that patriotism although, like all other great mental forces, it is rooted in instinct, is not itself an instinct or the direct expression of anj^ instinct or group of instincts, but is rather an extremely complicated sentiment, which has a long and complex historj^ in each individual mind in which it manifests itself; that it is, therefore, capable of infinite variety and of an indefinite degree of intellectualisation and refinement; that the cult of patriotism is, therefore, a field for educational effort of the highest order, and that in this field moral and intellectual education may achieve their noblest and most far- reaching effects. The psychological justification of patriotism has already been indicated, but may be concisely stated here. The moral value of the group spirit was considered in an earlier chapter; we saw how it, \ and it alone, raises the conduct of the mass of men above the plane of simple egoism or family selfishness. The sentiment of devotion or loyalty to any group has this virtue in some degree; but loyalty to the nation is capable of exalting character and conduct in a higher degree than any other form of the group spirit. For the nation alone has continuity of existence in the highest degree; a long past which gives a large perspective of past history, involving the history of long series of self-sacrificing efforts and many heroic actions ; and the prospect of an indefinitely prolonged future, with the possibility of con- tinued progress and development of every kind, and therefore some security for the perpetuation of the results achieved by individual efforts^. Further, the nation alone, is a self-contained and complete organism; other groups within it do but minister to the life of the whole; their value is relative to that of the whole; the con- tinuance of results achieved on their behalf is dependent upon the continued welfare of the whole (for example, the welfare of any class or profession — a fact too easily overlooked by those in whom class spirit grows strong). Hence, the nation, as an object of sentiment, includes all smaller groups within it ; and, when the nation is regarded from an enlightened point of view, the sentiment for it naturally comes to include in one great system aU minor group sentiments and to be strengthened by their incorporation. It is important to notice also that, just as the minor group sentiments are not incompatible with, but rather may strengthen, 1 In these respects the Church alone can enter into serious rivalry as an object of loyalty. CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE i8i the national sentiment, when subordinated to and incorporated in it, so the national sentiment is not incompatible with still more widely inclusive group sentiments — for example, that for a European system of nations, for the ' League of Nations ' or for Western Civili- sation in general. And, while loyalty to humanity as a whole is a noble ideal, it is one which can only be realized through a further step of that process of extension of the object of the group sentiment, of which extension patriotism itself is the culmination at present for the great mass of civilised mankind. The attempt to achieve it by any other road is bound to fail because psychologically unsound^. Let us note in passing that neglect of this truth gives rise to two of the extreme forms of pohtical doctrine or ideal, current at the present day; first, the ideal of the brotherhood of man in a nationless world; secondly, the extreme form of democratic individualism which assumes that the good of society is best promoted by the freest possible pursuit by individuals of their private ends, which beUeves that each man must have an equal voice in the government of his country, because that is the only way in which his interests and those of his class can be protected and forwarded; a doctrine which regards public life as a mere strife of private and class interests. Both ideals fly in the face of psychological facts ; and, though they are in appear- ance extreme opposites, they are apt to be found associated in the same minds. At the other end of the scale, we have the philosophical con- servatism of such a thinker as Edmund Burke, which is keenly aware of the organic unity of society and looks constantly to the good of the whole, deriving from that consideration its leading motives and principles, and which trusts principally to the growth of the group spirit for the holding of the balance between conflicting interests and for the promotion of the public welfare. Having seen the importance for national life of the idea of the nation, the diffusion of which through the minds of the people con- stitutes national self-consciousness, let us glance for a moment at the way other ideas may play leading roles in national life. Such are ideas which became national ideals, that is to say, ideas of some end to be realised by the nation which became widely entertained and the objects of strong sentiments and of collective emotion and desire and which, therefore, determine collective action. I shall not attempt to deal separately with various classes of ^ As Dean Inge has remarked — " If they love not those whom they have seen, how shall they love those whom they have not seen? " i82 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii such ideas, or ideals — the political, the religious, the economic ; but shall only note the fact that they have played and may yet play great parts in the history of the world. Men are not swayed exclusively by considerations of material self- interest, as the older school of economists generally assumed; nor even by spiritual self-interest, as too much of the religious teaching of the past has assumed ; nor even by consideration of the welfare of the social groups of which they are members. Many of the great events of history have been determined by ideas that have had no relation to individual welfare, but have inspired a collective enthusiasm for collective action, for national effort, of a disinterested kind; and the lives of some nations have been dominated by some one or two such ideas. These ideas are first conceived and taught by some great man, or by a few men who have acquired prestige and influence; they then become generally accepted by suggestion and imitation, accepted more or less un- critically and established beyond the reach of argument and reasoning. No matter what the character of the idea, its collective acceptance by a people enhances for the time the homogeneity of mind among them, renders the people more intimately a unity, and serves also to mark it off more sharply from other peoples among whom other ideas prevail. But, besides thus binding together at any period of its history the people that entertains it the generally accepted idea, if it endures, may produce further effects by becoming incorporated in the national organisation; in so far as it determines the form of activity of the people, it moulds their institutions and customs into harmony with itself, until they become in some measure its embodiment and ex- pression; and in any vigorous nation there are usually one or two dominant ideas at work in this way. It is a favourite dogma with some writers (for example M. le Bon) that ideas, before they can exert great effects in the life of a nation, must first become unconscious ideas, incorporated as they say in the unconscious soul of a people. This is an obscure confused doctrine, which, if it is meant to be taken literally, we can only reject. If it is to have any real meaning, it must be taken in the sense that the long prevalence of the ideal moulds the institu- tions and customs and the executive organisation of a people, so that national action towards the ideal end becomes more or less automatic or routine. CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 183 If the ideal so accepted and incorporated in the organised structure of the national mind, is one that makes for strength and at the same time permits of progress, it lives on; in other cases it may destroy the nation, or petrify it, arresting all progress. Consider one or two examples of ideas that have played dominant roles in the lives of nations. They are mostly political, or rehgious, or, most powerful of all, politico-religious. The idea of world-conquest has dominated and has destroyed several great nations, of which the latest example is the German Empire. The idea of conversion by the sword, accepted with enthusiasm by the Arab nation, gave it for a time tremendous energy, but contained no potency of permanent power or of progress. The idea of immortality, or desire of continued existence after death, seems to have dominated the minds of the ancient Egyptian people; the idea of escape from the evils of this world, those who have fully accepted Buddhism, like the Burmans^. The idea of caste as an eternal and impassable barrier has largely determined the history of India. All these are ideas which have proved ineffective to sustain national vigour or to promote social evolution. It would not be strictly true to say that the fall, or the unprogressive condition, of the peoples that have entertained these ideas is the result of those ideas; because the general acceptance of them proves that they were in harmony with the type of mind of the people. Yet the formulation of the ideas by the leading minds who impressed them on the peoples must have accentuated those tendencies with which they harmonised; and in each case, if the idea had never been formulated, or if others had been effectively impressed on the mind of the people, the course of its history would have been changed. Of ideas less adverse to national life take the idea of ancestor worship, and the idea of personal loyalty to the ruler, ideas which commonly go together and have played an immense part in the life of some peoples, notably in Japan; they have served as effective national bonds in periods of transition through which despotically ruled populations have progressed to true nationhood. The idea of the divine right of kings played for a time a similar role in Europe. A good example of the operation of an ideal in a modern nation is that of the ideal of a great colonial empire in the French nation. No doubt, hopes of economic advantages may have played some part in this case; but the growth of the immense oversea empire ^ Cp. Fielding Hall, The Soul of a People. i84 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii of modern France, as well as of the great extra-European con- quests which France has made in the past but has ceased to control, seems to have been due in the main to the operation of this ideal in the national mind. France has no surplus population, and no Frenchman desires to leave his beautiful France; everyone re- gards himself as cruelly exiled if compelled to live for a time in any of the oversea possessions; and most of these, notably the Indo-Chinese Empire are very expensive, costing the nation far more in administrative expenses than any profits derived from them, and involving constant risks of international complications and war, as in Morocco in recent years. Nevertheless, the ideal still holds sway and, under its driving power, the oversea territories of France, especially in Africa, have grown enormously. And this ideal has inevitably incorporated itself in the organisation of the nation, in a colonial office and a foreign legion, and all the administrative machinery necessarily set up for securing the ends prescribed by the ideal. In modern times the most striking illustration of the power of ideas on national life is afforded by the influence of the ideals of liberty and equality. It was the effective teaching of these ideals of liberty and equality, primarily by Rousseau, to a people prepared by circumstances to receive them, which produced the French Revolu- tion; and all through the nineteenth century they have continued to determine great changes of political and social organisation in many countries of Europe and in America. In England the idea of liberty has long been current and long ago had become incorporated and expressed in the national organisa- tion; but its application received a vast extension when in 1834 England insisted on the liberation of all British-owned slaves and paid twenty milhon sterling in compensation. That the idea still lives on among us, with this extended apphcation, seems to have been proved by the results of recent elections which were influenced largely by the force of the no-slavery cry in relation to coloured labour. It is an excellent example of an established collective ideal against which reason is of no avail. The ideal of liberty never entered the minds of the most advanced peoples of antiquity ; their most enlightened poHtical thinkers could not imagine a State which was not founded upon slavery. Yet it has become collectively accepted by all the leading nations, and the ordinary man has so entirely accepted it that he cannot be brought to reason about it. Facts and arguments tending to show that the CH. XII] IDEAS IN NATIONAL LIFE 185 greater part of the population of the world might be happier without liberty and under some form of slavery cannot touch or enter his mind at all. The ideal of political equality is of still later growth, and is in a sense derivative from that of liberty ; it was in the main accepted as a means to liberty, but has become an end in itself. It is moulding national organisation everywhere; through its influence parliamentary government and universal suffrage are becoming the almost universal rule, and, through leading to their adoption, this ideal is in a fair way to wreck certain of the less firmly organised nations, and possibly our own also. But the ideal which, beyond all others, characterises the present age of almost all the nations of the world is the ideal of progress. Hardly anyone has any clear notion what he means by progress, or could explicate the idea; but the sentiment is very strong, though the idea is very vague. This idea also was unknown to the leading thinkers of antiquity and is of recent growth; yet it is so almost universally accepted, and it so permeates the mental atmosphere in every direction, that it is hard for us to realise how new a thing in the history of the world is the existence, and still more the effective dominance, of the idea. It is perhaps in America that its rule is most absolute; there the severest condemnation that can be passed by the average man upon any people or institution is to say that it is fifty years behind the time. The popular enthusiasm for flying- machines, which threatens to make life almost unlivable, is one of the striking illustrations of the force of this ideal. More recent still, and perhaps equally important, is the idea of the solidarity of the human race and of the responsibility of each nation towards the rest, especially towards the weaker and more backward peoples. We no longer cheerfully and openly exterminate an inferior people ; and, when we do so, it is with some expressions of regret and even of indignation. But this moral idea is still in process of finding acceptance and illustrates well that process. It has been taught by a few superior minds and none dares openly repudiate it; hence, it gains ground and is now commonly accepted, verbally at least, and is just be- ginning to affect national action. The four ideas, liberty, equality, progress, and human solidarity or universal responsibility, seem to be the leading ideas of the present era, the ideas which, in conjunction with national sentiments, are ' more than any other, fashioning the future of the world. i86 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii, ch. xii The last two illustrate exceptionally well the capacity of nations to be moved by abstract ideas not directly related to the welfare of the individuals whose actions they determine; they show once more how false is the doctrine that national life is but the conflict of individual wills striving after individual goods. They show that, through his life in and mental interaction with organised society, man is raised morally and intellectually high above the level he could individually achieve. CHAPTER XIII NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE Let us consider now the type of nation which from our present point of view is the most interesting, the type which approximates most nearly to a solution of the problem of civlHsation, to the reconciliation of individuality with collectivity, to the synthesis of individuahst and collectivist ideals ; that in which the rights and wills of individuals are not forcibly subordinated to those of the State by the power of a governing class, and in which the deliberative side of the national mind is well developed and effective. Such are in a certain degree the French, but still more the British and the American nations. In the two latter countries the rights of the individual are made supreme over all other considerations, the welfare of the whole is only to be advanced by measures which do not override individual wills and rights ; or, at least, the only power which is admitted to have the right in any degree to override indi- vidual wiUs is the will of the majority. In such a nation the greatest efforts are concentrated on the perfection of the deliberative organi- sation, by means of which the general mind may arrive at collective judgment and choice of means and may express itswiU. Avast amount of time and energy is devoted to this deUberative work; while the executive organisation, by which its decisions have to be carried into effect, is apt to be comparatively neglected and hence imperfect. These two complementary features of such states we see well exemplified here and in America^; where the amount of time, money, and effort spent upon the deliberative processes and the elaboration of the organisation through which they are effected is enormously greater than in other nations. And, in spite of the energy expended on deliberative processes and on the elaboration of their organisation, the interests of the nation as a whole are not at present forwarded in a manner at all comparable with those of such a State as Germany. Nevertheless, such national actions as we do achieve are far more truly the expression of the national will; and, if the national mind ^ This, as President Lowell clearly shows in his Public Opinion and Popular Government, is carried to an extreme in America and lies at the root of many administrative evils. i88 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii is to be developed to a high level, this vast expenditure of energy, which to some impatient spirits seems wasteful and useless, must go on. As was said in a former chapter, such collective deliberation of modern nations is only rendered possible by the great facilities of communication we enjoy; telegraph, post, and railway, and especially the press. The ancients saw truly enough that, with their limited means of communication, the higher form of state-organisation must be restricted to a small population of some thousands only — the City-State. It is important to note that not only do modem facilities of communication render possible a truly collective mental life for the large Nation-States of the present age; but that these modem con- ditions actually carry with them certain great advantages, which tend to raise the collective mental life of modern nations to a higher level than was possible for the ancient City-State, even though its members were of high average capacity and many of them of very great mental power, as in Athens. The assembly of citizens in one place for national deliberation rendered them much more susceptible to those less desirable peculi- arities of collective mental life which characterise simple crowds; particularly, the excess of emotional excitement, increased suggesti- bility, and, hence, the ease with which the whole mass could be swayed unduly by the skilful orator. In the modern nation, on the other hand, the transmission of news by the press secures a certain delay, and a lack of synchronism, in its reception by different groups and individuals; and it secures also a certain delay in the action and reaction of mind on mind, which gives opportunity for individual deliberation. Also the sympathetic action of the mass mind on the individual mind is in large part indirect, rather than direct, repre- sentative rather than perceptual, and therefore less overwhelming in its effects. These conditions greatly temper the violence of the emotional reactions and permit of a diversity of feeling and opinion; an opposed minority has time to form itself and to express an opinion, and so may temper the hasty and emotional reaction of the majority in a way that is impossible in a general assembly. A further advantage of the large size of nations may arise from the fact that actual decision as to choice of means for effecting national action has to be achieved b}'^ means of representatives who come together in one place. Representative government is not CH. XIII] NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE 189 merely an inferior substitute for government by general assembly; it is superior in many respects. If each representative were a mere delegate, an average specimen of the group he represents, chosen by lot and merely charged to express their will, this feature would modify the crude collective mental processes in one important respect only; namely, it would counteract to some extent that weakening of individual responsibility which is characteristic of collective mental action. But, in addition to this, internal organisa- tion, in the form of tradition and custom, comes in to modify very greatly the collective process. We see such modifying influence very clearly in the election of the Enghsh House of Commons and in the methods of its operations. Owing partly to a natural tendency, partly to a fortunate tradition, the people do not elect just any one of themselves to serve as a delegate or average sample of the mass; but as a rule they choose, or try to choose, some man who displays special capacity and special qualifications for taking part in the national deliberations. In so far as they are successful in this, their representatives are able men and men to whose minds the social consciousness, the consciousness of the whole people, of its needs and tendencies and aspirations, is more fully and clearly present than to the average mind. They are also in the main men of more than average public spirit. Hence it is not unknown that a purely working class constituency, being offered liberal, conservative, and labour candidates, instead of choosing the labour man, one of themselves, gives him only a smaU fraction of the total votes. Then, within the body of representatives, this process, by which greater influence is given to the abler men, to those whose minds reflect most fuUy the whole people, is carried further still. A small group of these men exerts a predominant influence in all deliberations; and not only are they in the main the best qualified (for they only attain their leading positions by success in an intense and long continued competition) but they are put in a position in which they can hardly fail to feel a great responsibility resting upon them; and in which they feel the full force of political traditions. The deliberative organisation of the American nation illustrates, when compared with our own, the importance of these traditions ; for its lesser efficiency is largely due to the absence of such traditions, and to the fact that their system banishes from the House of Representatives its natural leaders and those on whom responsibility falls most heavily. Lastly, the existence of two traditionally opposed parties ensures igo NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii that every important step shall be fully discussed. The traditional division into two parties, which from one point of view seems so irrational, nevertheless exerts very important and valuable influences, of which the chief is that it prevents the assembly of legislators becoming a mere psychological crowd easily swayed to a decision by collective emotion and skilful suggestion; for each suggestion coming from the one party acts by contra-suggestion upon the other and provokes an opposition that necessitates discussion^. In these two ways, then; — first, through the culmination of national deliberation among a selected group of representatives, among whom again custom and tradition accord precedence and prestige to the natural leaders, the most able and those in whose consciousness the nation, in the past, present and future is most adequately reflected; secondly, by means of the party system, which ensures vigorous criticism and full discussion of all proposals, under a system of traditional conventions evolved for the regulation of such discussions ; — in these two ways the principal vices of collective deliberation are corrected, and the formal deliberations and decisions of the nation are raised to a higher plane than the collective deliberations of any assembly of men lacking such traditional organi- sation could possibly attain. The part played by unwritten tradition in the working of the British constitution is of course immense, as for example, the existence and enormous prestige of the cabinet, and the tradition that a party coming into power must respect the legislation of the party previously in power. Without this last, representative government, or at any rate the party system, would be impossible. The smooth working of the system depends entirely upon the influence of these and similar traditions which exist only in the minds of men. Or, take as another example, the tradition of absolute impartiality on the part of the Speaker and of loyal accept- ance of his rulings by every member of the House ; or the tradition which distinguishes sharply between political and private relations, in virtue of which the parties to a most bitter political strife may and very generally do remain in perfectly friendly private relations. These and other such traditions, which secure the efficient working of the organisation for national deliberation, all rest in turn upon a traditional and tacit assumption — namely, the assumption that both 1 President Lowell [op. cil.) has clearly shown other benefits resulting from the party system ; he shows especially how the party is needed to prepare a program and select candidates, if the popular vote is to give expression to the dominant opinion of the people. CH. XIII] NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE 191 parties are working for the good of the nation as they conceive and understand it, that both parties have this common end and differ only in their judgment as to the means by which it can best be achieved. They rest also on the traditional and tacit admission that one's own judgment, and that of one's party, may be mistaken, and that in the long run the legislation which any party can effect is an expression of the organised national mind and is therefore to be respected. It is this acquiescence in accomplished legislation in virtue of this tacit assumption which gives to the decisions of Parhament the status, not merely of the expression of the will of a bare majority, but of the expression of the will of practically the whole nation. Underlying the stability of the whole system, again, is the tradition, sedulously fostered and observed by the best and leading minds, that the raison d'etre and purpose of the representative parhament is to organise, and to give the most complete possible expression to, the national mind and will ; and that no constitutional change or change of procedure is justifiable unless it tends to the more complete realisation of these objects. In virtue of these traditions our Parliament and Press constitute undoubtedly the best means for effecting organisation of the national mind in its deUberative aspect that has yet been evolved; and we should remember this when we feel inclined to gird at the 'great talking shop,' at the slowness of its procedure and at the logical absurdities of the two-party system; and, above all, we should reahze how valuable and worthy of conservation are these scarcely formu- lated traditions, for they are absolutely essential to its efficiency. It is just because the efficiency of the dehberative organisation of a nation depends upon the force of such traditions, that, though it is possible to take the system of parliamentary representation and estabUsh it by decree or plebiscite in a nation which has hitherto had no such deliberative organisation, it is not possible to make it work smoothly and efficiently amongst such a people. Hence, although almost every civilised nation has done its best to imitate the British system of parhamentary government, hardly any one has made a success of it ; and, in nearly all, it is in constant danger of being superseded by some more primitive form of government — one need only mention Mexico, Portugal, Russia, France, Austria-Hungary. In all these countries, and even in America, there seems to be already a not very remote possibility of the supersession of parlia- mentary government by a dictatorship — a process which has actually occurred in many of the municipal governments of America, and the 192 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii fear of which has constantly checked the smooth working of the parhamentary system in France. As a single illustration of the way in which the conditions we have been considering affect the collective acts of the nation, con- sider what happened at the time of the Russian outrage in the North Sea during the Russo-Japanese war. When a Russian fleet fired upon our fishing boats doing considerable damage to them, the means of communication were sufficiently developed among us to allow of the action and reaction of all on each which produces the characteristic results of collective mental action, the exaltation of emotion, the suggestibility, the sense of irresponsible power; and, in the absence of the dehberative organisation which, by concentrating influence and responsibihty in the hands of a few of the best men, controlled and modified this collective action, we should have rushed upon the Russian fleet and probably have brought on a general European war. The control and counteraction of this kind of outburst of col- lective emotion and impulsive action is one of the heaviest responsi- bilities of those to whom predominant influence is accorded. It is only in virtue of the strong organisation of the national mind resting upon these long traditions of parliamentary government, that at such a time control of the popular emotion and impulse is possible. And the weaker and less efficient is such traditional organisation, the more does any such incident tend to provoke a collective manifestation which approximates in its uncontrollable violence and unconsidered impulsiveness to the behaviour of an unorganised crowd. Hence governments, where the democratic principle is acknowledged but the traditional organisation is less strong, are constantly in danger of having their hands forced by some outburst of popular passion — as in France. It is worth noting that, when Aristotle inveighed against democracy as an evil form of government, the only form of democratic govern- ment he had in mind was government by the voices of a mob gathered together in one place and lacking all the safeguards which, as we have seen, render our British national dehberations so much superior to those of a mere crowd of persons of equally good average capacity and character. But it is not only in the formal deliberations of the nation that internal organisation, resting on tradition, secures the predominance of the influence of the best and ablest minds. The same is true of all national thought and feeling. There exists in every great nation the vague influence we call public opinion, which is the great up- CH. XIII] NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE 193 holder of right and justice, which rewards virtue and condemns vice and selfishness. Pubhc opinion exists only in the minds of individuals (for we have rejected, provisionally at least, the con- ception of a collective consciousness); yet it is a product not of individual, but of collective, mental hfe. And it has in any healthy nation far higher standards of right and justice and tolerance than the majority of individuals could form or maintain; that is to say, it is in these respects far superior to an opinion which would be the mere resultant or algebraic sum of the opinions of all the living individuals. In reference to any particular matter its judgment is far superior to that of the average of individuals, and superior probably in many cases to that which even the best individuals could form for themselves. How does pubhc opinion come to be superior to individual and to average opinion? There seems to be something paradoxical in the statement. The fact is of the utmost importance; for pubhc opinion is I the ultimate source of sanctions of aU pubhc acts, the highest court of appeal before which every executive act performed in the name of the nation must justify itself. If pubhc opinion were merely the immediate expression of the collective feehngs and judgments of an unorganised mass of men, its verdicts would be (as we have seen) inferior to those of the average individuals, whereas, as a matter of fact, its expressions are much superior to those of the average individuals. The influence of pubhc opinion is especially clear and interesting in its relations to law. In this country it is not made by law, but makes law. Where law is imposed and long maintained by the authority of despotic power, it wiU of course mould public opinion ; but, in any progressive highly organised nation, law and the lawyers are always one or two or more generations behind public opinion. The most progressive body of law formally embodies the pubhc opinion of past generations rather than of the generation hving at the time. The fact of the superiority of pubhc opinion is generally ad- mitted and various explanations are current, for the most part very vague and ijicomplete. There is the mystical explanation embodied in the dictum that the voice of the people is the voice of God. A rather less vague explanation is that adopted by Mr Beattie Crozier^ (among others). It is said that the average man carries 1 Cp. his Civilisation and Progress. M. G. U. 13 194 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii within him a germ of an ideal of justice and right, and that he apphes this to the criticism or approval of the actions of other men ; though he often fails to apply it to his own actions, because, where his own interests are concerned, he is apt to be the sport of purely egoistic impulses. But this explanation is only partially true. It represents the average man as more hypocritical than he reaUy is, and as falling farther below the standards he acknowledges than he actually does faU. It leaves unexplained the fact that he has this sentiment for an ideal of justice and right; and it proceeds on a false assumption as to the nature of the problem, in assuming that men judge the actions of other men by higher standards than those which they apply to their own conduct; whereas this is by no means generally true. Is it, then, that superior abilities, which enable a man to gain prestige and to impress his ideas and sentiments upon his fellow men and so to influence public opinion, are commonly combined with a natural superiority of moral sentiment, with a love of right and a hatred of injustice ? There may be some degree of such natural correlation of superior abilities with superior moral qualities, but the supposition seems very doubtful; and certainly, if it exists, it is not sufficient to account for the elevation of public opinion. We frequently see consummate ability combined with most question- able moral sentiments, as in Napoleon and many other historic personages. The true explanation is, I submit, to be found in the basal fact that the moral sentiments are essentially altruistic, while the im- moral and non-moral sentiments are in the main self-regarding^. Hence, the person who has great abilities but is lacking in moral sentiments and altruism applies his abilities to secure his personal satisfactions and aggrandisement; and, in so far as he aims at affecting the minds of others, he tries only to secure their obedience to his commands and suggestions, to inspire them with deference, ad- miration, fear and awe, and to evoke an outward display of these feelings. But, as to the ideas and sentiments of the people in general, save in so far as they affect his own gratification, he cares nothing. Accordingly we never find great abilities deliberately, consistently and directly applied to the degradation of public opinion and morals, save occasionally in relation to some particular end. And we find 1 On the nature and development of the moral sentiments in the individual mind, see my Social Psychology, Chapter VIII. CH. XIII] NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE 195 few or no great works of literature and art deliberately aiming ai such degradation. But with those persons in whom great abilities are naturally combined with moral disposition the case is very different. The moral disposition is essentially altruistic; it is concerned for the welfare of others, of men in general. Hence such a man deliber- ately applies his abiUties to influence the minds of others. The exertion of such influence is for him an end in itself. He seeks and finds his chief satisfaction in exerting an influence, as wide and deep as possible, over the minds of men; not merely in evoking fear or admiration of himself, but in inspiring in them the same elevated sentiments and sympathies which he finds within himself. For this reason such men as G. F. Watts, Carlyle and Ruskin exert a much greater and more widespread and lasting influence over the minds of men than do equally able men who are devoid of moral disposition; for the former make the exertion of this influence their chief end, while the others care not at all about the state of public opinion and the minds of the mass. Still less does the non-moral man of great abihty strive with all his powers to make others act upon base motives like his own and to degrade their sentiments; rather, he sees that he can better accomphsh his selfish ends if other men are unlike himself and are governed by altruistic sentiments; and he sees also that he can better attain his ends if he does hp- service to altruistic ideals ; and he is, therefore, apt to exert whatever direct influence he has over the sentiments of men in the same direction as the moral leaders, praising the same actions, upholding in words the same ideals. In this way the men of great abihties, but of immoral or non-moral character, actually aid the moral leaders to some extent in their work; whereas imder no conditions is the relation reversed; the moral leaders never praise or acquiesce in bad actions, but always denounce them and use their influence against them. It foUows that, in a well organised nation, pubhc opinion, which is formed and maintained so largely by the influence of leading personahties, will usually be more in conformity with the sentiments of the best men than of the average man, will be above rather than below private opinion. For, if the bad and the good men of excep- tional powers were equal in numbers and capacity, the sum of their influences tending directly to exalt public opinion would be enor- mously greater than the sum of their influences tending to degrade it; and, as a matter of fact, the influence for good of a few 13—2 196 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii altruistic leaders is able to outweigh the degrading influences of a much larger number of purely selfish men of equally great capacities, and is able to maintain a high standard of public opinion. We have distinguished a formal and an informal organisation of the national deUberative processes, the latter expressing itself as public opinion. These two organisations co-exist and are, of course, not altogether independent of one another; yet they may be to a considerable extent independent; though the more intimate the functional relations and the greater the harmony between them, the healthier will be the national life. We may note in passing an interesting difference in respect to organisation of the national mind between the English and the American peoples, a difference which illustrates this relative inde- pendence of the formal and informal organisations. In England both the formal and informal organisations have achieved a pretty good level; in both cases the best minds are enabled to exert and have long exerted a dominant influence; and the interaction between the two organisations is very intimate. But in America, while the informal organisation expressed in public opinion seems to be very highly developed, the formal organisation is much inferior; it has not yet such traditions as give the greatest influence to the best minds and embody the effects of their influence. And the better Americans tend to value lightly the formal organisa- tion, to take no part in the working of it, deliberately to ignore it, and to rely rather upon public opinion to repress any evils when they are in danger of reaching an intolerable development. Both in the formal organisation of the national mind, which is the parUamentary or other national assembly, and in the informal organisation which is pubhc opinion, we see, then, that (in the nation of higher civiUsation at least) organisation results in a raising of the collective mental process above the level of the average minds, because it gives a predominant influence to the best minds who form and maintain the traditions, especially the moral traditions ; and these press upon the minds of all members of the community from their earhest years, moulding them more or less into conformity with them- selves, fostering the better, repressing the purely egoistic, tendencies. And the ideal organisation after which we ought to strive, is that which would give the greatest possible influence of this sort to the best minds, an influence which consists not in merely organising and directing the energies of the people in the manner most effective for material or even scientific progress, as in modern Germany; but CH. XIII] NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE 197 one which, by moulding the sentiments and guiding the reasoning of the people in all matters, public and private alike, secures their consent and agreement and the co-operation of their wills in all affairs of national importance. When such organisation is in any degree attained and a more or less consistent system of national traditions is embodied in the political, religious, literary, and scientific culture, which moulds in some degree the minds of all men, the national mind clearly becomes, as we said in an earlier chapter, a system of interacting mental forces which are not merely tendencies of the Hving members of the nation, but are also, in an even greater degree, the ideas and tendencies of the dead; and we see also that in such a people the national con- sciousness is most truly embodied, not in the minds of the average men, but in the minds of the best men of the time. The term ' public opinion ' is sometimes, perhaps generally, used in a looser and wider sense than the meaning imphed in the foregoing pages. It is used in the looser sense by President Lowell in his Public Opinion and Popular Government. By 'public opinion' he seems to mean simply the algebraic sum or balance of individual opinions; he writes "the opinion of the whole people is only the collected opinions of all the persons therein^." In accordance with this view, he regards representative institutions as merely one means by which this sum of opinions may be collected and recorded. And he seems to be prepared to regard the ' referendum ' or the ' initiative ' in any of their forms, or other methods of direct legislation, as equally good methods, if only all individuals would take the trouble to register their votes upon every question proposed to them. He is aware, of course, that this can hardly be expected of persons who have other interests and occupations than the purely poUtical, and that the direct methods are therefore impracticable as general methods of legislation. If it were true that representative institutions do and should merely coUect and record the individual opinions of all members of the pubMc, then it is obvious that each representative should be merely a delegate sent to record the votes of the majority of his constituents. Whereas, if representative institutions should, and in various degrees do, constitute the formal deliberative organi- sation of the national mind, through which national deUberation and judgment are raised to a higher plane than that of a mere crowd, it follows that the representative shoiild exert his own powers of reasoning and judgment, aided by his special knowledge and ^ Op. cit. p. 210. 198 NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER [pt. ii equipment, by the special sources of information that he enjoys, in the Hght of the discussions in which he takes part, and influenced by all those political traditions whose force he experiences in excep- tional fulness by reason of his priviledged position. President Lowell, in discussing the functions of the representative, does not decide in favour of the former view, as consistency should perhaps lead him to do; thereby showing that he is not wholly committed to the individualist view. He discusses the question whether the member of Parliament or Congress should regard himself as representing the interests of his constituents alone, or as concerned primarily and chiefly with the interests of the whole people; and he rightly inchnes to the latter view. This is not quite the same distinction as that which is insisted upon in these pages. Even if each representative were concerned only for the welfare of the nation as a whole, yet so long as he regarded it as his sole function to vote as he believes the majority of the citizens would vote in any process of direct legislation, he would fall short of the highest duty which is laid upon him by his position — namely, not merely that of recording the opinion of the majority, but that of taking part in the organised deliberative activities of the national mind by which it arrives at judgments and decisions of a higher order than any purely individual, or algebraic sum of individual, judgments and decisions^. Pubhc opinion, in the sense in which I have used the words in this chapter (which seems to me the only proper use of them) is, then, not a mere sum of individual opinions upon any particular question ; it is rather the expression of that tone or attitude of mind which prevails throughout the nation and owes its quality far more to the influence of the dead than of the living, being the expression of the moral sentiments that are firmly and traditionally established in the mind of the people, and established more effectively and in more refined forms in the minds of the leaders of public opinion than in the average citizen. This tone of the national mind enables it to arrive at just judgments on questions of right and wrong, of duty and honour and pubHc desert; though it may have little bearing upon such practical questions as bimetallism, tariff reform, or railway legislation. The current use of the term, in this country at least, does, I think, recognise that pubhc opinion properly apphes only to the sphere of moral judgments and can and should have no bearing upon ^ In this connexion I would refer the reader to The New State by M. P. FoUett (London, 1918), an interesting book in which the true nature and function of collective deliberation is forcibly expounded. CH. XIII] NATIONS OF THE HIGHER TYPE 199 the practical details of legislation. Public opinion is, both in its development and in its operations, essentially collective; it is essentially the work of the group mind. Its accepted standards of value are slowly built up under the influence of the moral leaders of past ages ; and, in the appHcation of those standards to any par- ticular question, the influence of the moral leaders of the time makes itself felt. I have kept in mind in the foregoing pages the public opinion of the nation; but every community, every association, every enduring group has its own public opinion, which, though it is influenced by, and indeed is, as it were, a branch of, the main stem of national pubhc opinion and is therefore of the same fibre and texture, has nevertheless its own peculiar tone and quality, especially in regard to the moral questions with which each group is specially concerned. PART III THE DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL MIND AND CHARACTER CHAPTER XIV INTRODUCTORY In the first Part of this book we have reviewed the most general principles of collective mental life, beginning with the unorganised crowd as affording the simplest example, considering then an army as the simplest example of the profound modifications of collective mental life effected by organisation of the group. In the second Part we passed on to apply these principles to the understanding of the mind of the nation as the most important, complex, and inter- esting of all types of the group mind. In the third Part I take up the consideration in a general way of the processes by which national mind and character are gradually built up and shaped in the long course of ages. For, just as we cannot understand individual minds, their pecuHarities and differences, without stud3dng their development, so we cannot hope to understand national mind and character and the peculiarities and differences of nations, without studying the slow processes through which they have been built up in the course of centuries. In an earlier chapter, in connexion with the question of the importance of homogeneity of mental qualities as a condition of the existence of the national mind, I argued that race has really consider- able influence in moulding the type of national mind. I recognized that differences of innate qualities between races, at any rate be- tween allied subraces, are not great, and that they can be, and generally are, almost completely over-ridden and obscured in each individual by the moulding power of the social environment in which he grows up; but I urged that these racial qualities are very persistent, and that they exert a slight but constant pressure or bias upon the development of all that constitutes social environment, upon the CH. XIV] FACTORS OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 2or forms of institutions, customs, traditions, and beliefs of every kind, so that the effect of such slight but constant bias accumulates from generation to generation, and in the long run exerts an immense influence. One way of treating the part played by the racial mental qualities in the development of the national mind would be to attempt to define the racial or innate peculiarities of the peoples existing at the present time, and to assume that these peculiarities were pro- duced in the remote past, before the formation of nations began, and that they have persisted unchanged throughout the period of the development of nations. Something of this sort was proposed by Walter Bagehot in his Physics and Politics. He distinguished in the development of peoples two great periods — on the one hand the race-making period, which roughly corresponds to the whole pre- historic period, and on the other hand the nation-making period, which roughly corresponds to the historic period. This distinction has undoubtedly a certain vahdity. It seems probable that man was evolved from his prehuman ancestry as a single stock, probably a stock somewhat widely dis- tributed in the heart of the Eurasian continent, or possibly in Africa according to the recent view of some authors, or in the area which is now the Indian Ocean. If this be true, it follows that the differentiation of the mental and physical qualities of the principal human races, the differentiation of the white and black and yellow and brown races, as well as of the chief subraces, such as the Semitic, the races of Europe — the Homo Europaeus, Alpinus and Mediterraneus — was the work of the immensely prolonged prehistoric period. For these races and subraces, as we now know them, seem to have been in existence and to have had recognisably and sub- stantially the same leading qualities, both mental and physical, that they now have, before the beginning of the historic period. The racial differentiation during the prehistoric period must have been much greater than during the historic period; and this was not only because the former period was immensely longer, but also because, in all probability, the rate of racial change has been on the whole slower in the historic period. The differentiation of racial types in the prehistoric period must have been in the main the work of differences of physical environ- ment, operating directly by way of selection, by way of the adaptation of each race to its environment through the extermination of the strains least suited to exist under those physical conditions. But 202 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi this process, this direct moulding of racial types by physical environ- ment, must have been well nigh arrested as soon as nations began Y to form. For the formation of nations implies the beginning of 'civilisation; and civilisation very largely consists in the capacity of a people to subdue their physical environment, or at least to adapt the physical environment to men's needs to a degree that renders them far less the sport of it than was primitive man; it consists, in short, in replacing man's natural environment by an artificial environment largely of his own choice and creation. In a second and perhaps even more important way, the formation of nations with the development of civilisation modified and weak- ened the moulding influence of the physical environment ; namely, it introduced social co-operation in an ever increasing degree, so that the perpetual struggle of individuals and of small family groups with one another and with nature was replaced by a co-opera- tive struggle of large communities against the physical environ- ment and with one another. And in this process those members of each community who, by reason of weakness, general incapacity, or other peculiarity, would have been liable to be ehminated under primitive conditions became shielded in an ever increasing degree by the powers of the stronger and more capable against the selective power of nature and against individual human forces. And, although within the community the rivalry of individuals and families still went on, it was no longer so much a direct struggle for existence, but rather became more and more a struggle for position in the social scale ; and failure in the struggle no longer necessarily meant death, or even incapacity to leave an average number of descendants. That is to say, primitive man's struggle for existence against the forces of nature and against his fellow men, which made for racial evolution and differentiation through survival of those fittest to cope with various environments, tended to be replaced by a struggle which no longer made for racial evolution towards a higher type, and which may even have made for race-deterioration, at the same time that civilisation and national organisation continued to progress. We may, then, recognise a certain truth in Bagehot's distinction of two great periods, the race-making and the nation-making periods. Nevertheless, it would not be satisfactory to follow the course sug- gested above and simply assume certain racial characters as given fixed data without further consideration. For, firstly, it is interesting and perhaps not altogether unprofitable to indulge in speculations on the race-making processes of the pre-histojic period. Secondly, CH. XIV] FACTORS OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 203 although it seems Hkely that racial changes have been in the main slower and on the whole relatively slight in the historic period, yet they have not been altogether lacking ; and, in proportion to their magnitude, such changes as have occurred have been of great importance for national hfe; and changes of this kind are still playing their part in shaping the destinies of nations. Possible racial changes of mental quahties must therefore be considered, when we seek to give a general account of the conditions of the development of nations. On the other hand, we must reject root and branch the crude idea, which has a certain popular currency, that the development of civiUsation and of nations imphes a parallel evolution of individual minds. That idea we have already touched upon and rejected in a previous chapter, where we arrived at the conclusion that there is no reason to suppose the present civilised peoples to be on the whole innately superior to their barbaric ancestors. If we use the word 'tradition' in the widest possible sense to denote all the intellectual and moral gains of past generations, in so far as they are not innate but are handed on from one generation to another by the personal intercourse of the younger with the older generation, and if we aUow the notion of tradition to include all the institutions and customs that are passed on from generation to generation, then we may class all the changes of a people that constitute the evolution of a national character under the two heads: evolution of innate qualities and evolution of traditions. Using the word ' tradition ' in the wide sense just now indicated, the traditions of a people may be said to include the recognised social organisation of the whole people into classes, castes, clans, phratries, or groups of any kind, whose relations to one another and whose place in the national system are determined by law, custom and conventions of various kinds. This part of the total tradition is relatively independent of the rest, and we may usefully distinguish the development of such social organisation as social evolution — giving to the term this re- stricted and definite meaning — and we may set it alongside the other two conceptions as of co-ordinate value. If we thus set apart for consideration under a distinct head the evolution of social organisation, the rest of the body of national traditions may be said to constitute the civihsation of a people. For the civihsation of a people at any time is essentially the sum of the moral and intellectual traditions that are living and operative among them at that particular time. We are apt in a loose way 204 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi to consider the civilisation of a people to consist in its material evidences; but it is only in so far as these material evidences, the buildings, industries, arts, products, machinery, and so forth, are the expression and outcome of its mental state that they are in any degree a measure of its civilisation. We may realize this most clearly by considering the case of a people on which the material products of civilisation have been impressed from without. Thus the peasants of India Uve amongst, and make use of, and benefit materially by, the railways and irrigation works created by their British rulers, and are protected from invasion and from internal anarchy by the British miUtary organisation and equipment; and they play a subordinate though essential part in the creation and maintenance of all these material evidences of civihsation. But these material evidences are not the expression of the mental state of the peoples of India, and form no true part of their civilisation; and, in fact, they affect their civilisation astonishingly little ; although if these products of a higher civilisation should be maintained for a long period of time they would, no doubt, produce changes of their civihsation, probably tending in some degree to assimilate their mental state to that of Western Europe. We may, then, with advantage distinguish between the social organisation and the civilisation of a people. In doing so we are of course making an effort of abstraction, which, though it results in an artificial separation of things intimately related, is nevertheless useful and therefore justifiable. In a similar way the progress of civili- sation may be distinguished from social evolution. Social evolution is profoundly affected by the progress of civilisation, and in turn reacts powerfully upon it; for any given social organisation may greatly favour or obstruct the further progress of civihsation. There could have been no considerable advance of civihsation without the evolution of some social organisation; but that the two things are distinct is clear, when we reflect that there may be a very complex social organisation, implying a long course of social evolution, among a people that has hardly the rudiments of civihsation. Extreme instances of social organisation in the absence of civihsation are afforded by some animal societies — for example, societies of ants, bees, and wasps. Among peoples, the native tribes of Austraha illus- trate the fact most forcibly. They are at the very bottom of the scale of civilisation; yet it has been discovered that they have a complex and well-defined social organisation, which can only have been achieved by a long course of social evolution. These CH. XIV] FACTORS OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 205 people are divided into totem clans, which clans are grouped in phratries, each individual being born, according to well recognised rules, into a clan of which he remains a life-long member; and his membership in the clan and phratry involves certain well-defined rights and obligations, and well-defined relations to other persons, especially as regards marriage; and these rights, obligations and relations are recognised and rigidly maintained throughout immense areas. On the other hand, although no people has attained any con- siderable degree of civilisation without considerable social organisa- tion, nevertheless we can at least imagine a people continuing to enjoy a high civilisation, practising and enjoying much of the arts, sciences, philosophy, and literature, which we regard as the essentials of civiUsation, yet retaining a bare minimum of social organisation. And this state of affairs is not only conceivable, but is held up as a practicable ideal by philosophical anarchists such as Tolstoi and Kropotkin; and it is, I think, true to say that the American nation presents an approximation to this condition. Again, a very high state of civiUsation may co-exist with a relatively primitive social organisation. Thus the civiHsation of Athens in the classical age was equal to, or even superior to, our own in many respects; yet the social organisation was very much less highly evolved. It had hardly emerged from the barbaric patriarchal condition, and had at its foundation a cruel system of slavery^; and it had also another great point of inferiority — namely, the very restricted number of persons included in the social system. These deficiencies, this rudimentary character, of its social organisation was the principal cause of the instability and brief endurance of that briUiant civilisation. We have so far distinguished three principal factors or groups of factors in the evolution of national mind and character : (i) Evo lution of innate or racial qualities : (2) Development of civiHsation (3) Social evolution, or the development of social organisation. Now the first two of these we may with advantage divide under two parallel heads, the heads of intellectual and moral development. No doubt, the intellectual and the moral endowment of a people continually react on each other; and many of the manifestations of the national mind are jointly determined by the intelligence and the morality of a people; especially perhaps is this true of their religion ]i and their art. Nevertheless, it is clear that we can distinguish pretty * Cf. W. R. Patterson, The Nemesis of Nations, London, igo6. I i/' 206 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi sharply between the intellectual and the moral traditions of a people ; and that these may vary independently of one another to a great extent. A rich and full intellectual tradition may go with a moral tradition of very low level, as in the Italian civiUsation of the renascence ; and a very high moral tradition with a relative poverty of the intellectual, as in the early days of the puritan settlements of New England. The same distinction between the intellectual and the moral level is harder to draw in the case of the racial qualities of a people, but it undoubtedly exists and is vahd in principle, no matter how difficult in practice to deal with. We have, then, to distinguish five classes of factors, five heads under which all the factors which determine the evolution of national character may be distributed. They are (i) Innate moral disposition ] . . ... (2) Innate intellectual capacities ) (3) Moral tradition ) ,. , . .,. ,. ,'-.,„ , , , ,.,. y national civihsation. (4) Intellectual tradition ) (5) Social organisation. Every nation that has advanced from a low level to a higher level of national life has done so in virtue of development or progress in one or more of these respects. And a principal part of our task, in considering the evolution of national mind and character, is to assign to each of these its due importance and its proper place in the whole complex development. The distinction between the racial and the traditional level of a people is too often ignored; chiefly, perhaps, for the reason that it has usually been assumed that whatever is traditional becomes innate and racial through use. Since in recent years it has been shown that this assumption is very questionable, a number of authors have recognised the importance of the distinction as regards the intellectual quahties of a people; but, as regards the moral qualities, the distinction is still very generally overlooked. The neglect of these distinctions between the innate and the traditional has in great measure vitiated much of the keen dispute that has been waged over the question whether the progress of civilisation depends primarily on intellectual or on moral advance. For example, T. H. Buckle and Benjamin Kidd agreed in recognising clearly the distinction between the innate and the traditional intel- lectual status of a people; and they agreed in maintaining that we CH. XIV] FACTORS OF NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 207 have no reason to believe that in the historic period any people has made any considerable advance in innate intellectual capacity; and that any such advance, if there has been any, has not been a principal factor in the progress of civilisation. But they differed extremely in that Buckle maintained that the primary cause of all progress of national life is the improvement of its intellectual tradition, that is, increase in the quantity and the worth of its stock of knowledge and accepted beliefs, and improvements in methods of intellectual operation ; and he held that improvements of morals and of social organisation have been secondary results of these intellectual gains. Kidd, on the other hand^, maintained that the progress of European civihsation has been primarily due to an improvement of the morality of peoples ; that this has led to improvement of social organisation; and that this in turn has been the essential condition of the progress of the intellectual tradition, because it has secured a stable social environment, a security of life, a free field for the exercise of intellectual powers; in the absence of which conditions the intellectual powers of a nation cannot effectively organise themselves and apply themselves to the understanding of man and nature, or to securing the traditional perpetuation of the gains which they may sporadically achieve. We have to examine these views and try to determine what truth they contain, and to show that they are not wholly opposed but can in some measure be combined. I propose to make first a very brief critical survey of some of the most notable attempts that have been made to account for racial qualities, and I shall try to supplement and harmonise these as far as possible. We may with advantage consider at the outset the race- making period, and afterwards go on to consider changes of racial quahties in the historic period. This Part of the book is necessarily somewhat speculative, but its interest and importance for our main topic may justify its inclusion. ^ Social Evolution, Principle of Western Civilisation, and The Science of Power. CHAPTER XV THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD Let us now see what can be said about the process of racial differen- tiation which, as we saw in the foregoing chapter, was in its main features accompHshed in the prehistoric or race-making period. We cannot hope to reach many positive conclusions, but rather merely to discuss certain possibiHties and probabilities in regard to the main factors of the differentiation of racial mental types. I would point out at once that the answer to be given to the question — Are acquired qualities transmitted ? Are the effects of use inherited? is all important for our topic. I do not propose to discuss that difficult question now. I will merely say that the present state of biological science makes it seem doubtful whether such inheritance takes place, and that, although the question remains open, we are not justified in assuming an affirmative answer; that, therefore, we must not be satisfied with any explanation of racial and national characteristics based upon this assumption ; and in the following discussion I shall provisionally assume the truth of the Neo-Darwinian principle that acquired modifications are not trans- mitted. Assuming, as we must, that all peoples are descended from some one original stock, the problem is — Can anything be said of the conditions which have determined the differentiation of races of different mental constitutions, of the development of racial quahties which, having become relatively fixed, have led to the evolution of different types of national organisation and culture? And especially we have to consider the conditions which have produced, and may stiU produce in the future, the quahties that make for the progress of nations. We must suppose a certain social organisation to have obtained among that primitive human stock from which all races have been evolved, probably an organisation in small groups based on the family under the rule and leadership of a patriarch. It is possible that considerable divergences of social organisa- tion may have taken place, without any advance towards civilisa- tion; such divergences of social organisation must have tended to PT. Ill, CH. XV] THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD 209 divert the course of mental evolution along various lines; but they must tliemselves have had their causes; they cannot in themselves be the ultimate causes of divergence of racial mental types. Such ultimate causes of the differentiation of mental qualities must have been of two orders only, so far as I can see: (i) differences of physical environment; (2) spontaneous variations in different directions of the innate mental quahties of individuals, especially of the more gifted and energetic individuals of each people. In the mental evolution of animals these two factors are not distinguishable. We may say that the main and perhaps the sole condition of their evolution is the selection by the physical environ- ment of spontaneous favourable variations and mutations of innate mental qualities; if we include under the term physical environ- ment of the species all the other animal and vegetable species of its habitat. For it is only by its selective influence upon individual variations that physical environment can determine differentiation of races. But with man the case is different; spontaneous variation not only provides the new qualities which, by determining the survival of the individual in his struggle for existence with the physical environment^ secure their own perpetuation by transmission to the after coming generations. The new qualities determine mental evolu- tion in another manner, by a mode of operation which is almost compIetely^Ssent in animal evolution; namely, the spontaneous variations create a social environment which profoundly modifies the influence of the physical ^environment, and itself becomes a principal factor in the determination of the trend of racial evolution. Man is distinguished from the animals above all things by his power of learning. Whereas the behaviour of animals, even of the higher ones, consists almost entirely of purely instinctive actions, innat^ modes of response to a limited, nurnber of situations; man has an indefinitely great capacity for acquiring new modes of response, and so of adapting himself in new and more complex ways to an almost indefinite variety of situations. And his new mental acquisitions are not made only by tHe slow process of adaptation in the light of his own individual experience oTlHe consequences of behaviour of this and that Mhd; as are most of the Tew_acquisitions of the animals. By far the greater part of thejnental stock-in-trade by which his behaviour is guided is acquired from his fellow men; it represents the accumulated experience of cdl the foregoing generations of his race and nation. Man's life in society, together M. G. M. 14 210 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi I with the great plasticity of his mind, its great capacity for new [adaptations, secures him this enormous advantage; the two things are necessarily correlated. Without the plasticity of mind, his life in society would benefit him relatively little. Many animals that lead a social life in large herds or flocks are not superior, but rather inferior, in mental power to animals that lead a more solitary life; and indeed this seems to be generally true, as we see on comparing generally the herbivorous gregarious animals with the soUtary carnivores that prey upon them. The social life of such animals, rendering individual intelligence less necessary for protection and escape from danger, tends actually against mental development. On the other hand, man's great plastic brain would be of compara- tively little use to him if he lived a solitary unsocial Ufe. His great brain is there to enable him to assimilate and make use of the accumulated experience, the sum of knowledge and morality, which is traditional in the society into which he is born a member ; that is to say, the development of social life, which depended so much upon language and for the forwarding of which language came into existence, must have gone hand in hand with the development of the great brain, which enables full advantage to be secured from social co-operation and which, especially, renders possible the accumulation of knowledge, belief, and traditional sentiment. Now this traditional stock of knowledge and morality has been very slowly accumulated, bit by bit; and every bit, every least new addition to it, has been a difi&cult acquisition, due in the first instance to some spontaneous variation of some individual's mental structure from the ancestral type of mental structure. That is to say, throughout the evolution of civilisation, progress of every kind, increase of knowledge or improvement of morality, has been due to the birth of more or less exceptional individuals, individuals var5dng ever so slightly from the ancestral type and capable, owing to this variation, of making some new and original adaptation of action, or of perceiving some previously undiscovered relation between things. These new acquisitions, first made by individuals, are, if true or useful, sooner or later imitated or accepted by the society of which the original-minded individual is a member, and then, becoming incorporated in the traditional stock of knowledge and morality, are thereby placed at the service of all members of that society. Thus favourable spontaneous variations do not, as with the animals, render possible mental evolution merely by conducing to CH. XV] THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD 211 the survival of, and the perpetuation of the quahties of, those individuals in whom the variations occur. They may do this, or they may not; but, in addition and more importantly, they con- tribute to the stock of traditional knowledge and morality, and so raise the social group as a whole in the scale of civilisation; they render it more capable of successfully contending against other groups and against the adverse influence of the physical environ- ment; and they promote the solidarity of the group by adding to its stock of cormnon tradition ; thus the acquisitions of each member benefit the group as a whole and all its members, quite apart from any philanthropic purpose or intention of producing such a result. The achievement of this unconscious undesigned soHdarity of himian societies is one of two great steps in the evolution of the human race by which the process is rendered very different from, and is raised to a higher plane than, the mental evolution of the animal world. The second and stiU more important step is one which is only just beginning to be achieved in the present age; I shall have to touch on it in a later chapter. ^The original or primary divergence of mental type between any two peoples must, then, have been due to these fundamental causes — namely, differences of physical environment and spontaneous varia- tions of mental structure, the latter adding to the traditional stock of knowledge and behef, of moral precepts and sentiments. ^ Intellectual or moral divergence produced by these two primary causes would tend to determine the course of social evolution along different hues and so to produce different types of social organisation. And different social organisations thus produced would then react upon the moral and intellectual hfe of the people to produce further divergence; for example, one type of social organisation determined by physical environment, say a weU developed patriarchal system, may have made for progress of intellect and morals; another, say a matriarchal organisation, or one based on communal marriage, may have tended to produce stagnation. As social evolution proceeded and brought about more extensive and more complex forms of social organisation, which included, within any one society or group, larger numbers of individuals in more effective forms of association, social organisation must have assumed a constantly increasing importance as a condition of mental evolution relatively to all other factors, especially as compared with the influence of physical environment; until, in the complex societies of the present time, it has an altogether predominant importance. 14 — 2 212 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi This truth is concisely stated in the old dictum that "in the infancy of nations men shape the State; in their maturity the State shapes the ^en." Accordingly, in considering the mental evolution of peoples f we must never lose sight of the influence of social organisation. It follows that the conditions of the mental evolution of man are im- mensely more complex than those of the mental evolution of animals. We must recognise not only the selection, through survival in the struggle for existence, of new mental quahties arising as spon- taneous variations of individual mental structure. This, which is the only, or almost the only, process at work in the mental evolution of animals, is immensely comphcated and overshadowed in im- portance by two processes. The first is the accumulation of knowledge V and morality in traditional forms. The traditional accumulation, which so far outweighs the mental equipment possible to any indi- vidual isolated from an old society, not only constitutes in itself a most important evolutionary product, but it modifies profoundly the conditions of evolution of the individual innate quahties of mind ; for example, the greater and more valuable the stock of traditional knowledge and morahty becomes, the more does fitness to survive consist in the capacity to assimilate this knowledge and to conform to these higher moral precepts, the less does it consist in the purely individualistic qualities, such as quickness of eye and ear, flleetness of foot, or strength and skiU of hand. Secondly, the processes of natural selection are complicated by the social evolution, which tends progressively to abolish the struggle for existence between individuals, and to replace it by a struggle between groups ; in which struggle success is determined not only by the qualities of individuals, but also very largely by the social organisation and by the traditional knowledge and morahty of the groups. i Each variety of the human species, each race considered as a succession of individuals having certain innate mental quahties, has been evolved, then, not merely under the influence of the physical environment, Hke the aniinal species, but also and to an ever in- creasing extent under the influence of the social environment. The social environment we regard as consisting of two parts; namely, the social organisation and the body of social tradition; for these, though interdependent and constantly interacting, may yet with advantage be kept apart in thought. We must, then, bear con- stantly in mind the fact that man creates for himself an environment \ which becomes ever more complex and influential, overshadowing more and more in importance the physical environment. CH. XV] THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD ( 213 Here I would revert to some points of the analogy, drawn in Chapter X, between the mind of a nation and that of an individual. The mind of an individual human being develops by accumulating the results of his experience; and so does that of a people. In this respect the analogy holds good. But the development possible to an individual is strictly limited in two ways. First, by the short duration of the material basis of his mental life; secondly by the extent of his innate capacities. Neither of these limitations applies to the national mind. Its material basis is in principle immortal, because its individual components may be incessantly renewed ; and its development has no hmit set to it by its innate capacities, because these may be indefinitely extended and improved. In these respects the national mind resembles the species rather than the individual. The development of the national mind, and of the minds of those who share in the mental life of the nation, thus combines the methods and advantages of the development of individuals and of species, methods which are essentially different. The result is that the mental development of man, since his social life began, has been radically different from that of the animals ; it has been a social pro- cess; it has been the evolution of peoples rather than of individuals. The evolution of man as an individual has been wholly subordinated to that of peoples ; and it is incapable of being understood or profit- ably considered apart from the development of the group mind. Assuming, as we must, that all the races of men are derived from a common stock, it is obvious, I think, that the first differentiation of racial types was determined almost exclusively by differences of physical environment, and that the other conditions only very slowly developed and did not assume their predominant importance until the time which may be roughly defined as the beginning of the historic or nation-making period. (^ Physical environment affects the mental qualities of a people in three ways: firstly, it directly influences the min ds_Qf_ each generation; sec ondly, it mo ulds the mental constituti on by natur al sel ection , adapti ng the race to fts elf ; thirdlyTit exerts indirect influ ence by determin in g the oc cuBatipns and modes of hfe^ and, throug h these, the social org anisaiiQii,of,a pgople. We may consider these three modes of influence in turn.- There has been much speculation on the direct influence of the physical environment in moulding the mental type of a people, but httle or nothing can be said to be estabhshed. There is a fair concensus of opinion to the effect that what we 214 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi may call climate exerts an important influence. In climate the two factors recognised as of chief importance are temperature and moisture. High temperature combined with moisture certainly tends to depress the vital activity of Europeans and to render them indolent, indisposed to exertion of any kind. On the other hand, high temperature combined with dryness of the atmosphere seems to have the effect of rendering men but Httle disposed to continuous activity, and yet capable of great efforts; it tends to produce a violent spasmodic activity. A cold climate seems to dispose towards sustained activity and, when combined with much moisture, to a certain slowness. These effects, which we ourselves experience and which we see produced upon other individuals on passing from one climate to another, we seem to see impressed upon many of the races which have long been subjected to these climates; for example, the slow and lazy Malays have long occupied the hottest moistest region of the earth. The Arabs and the fiery Sikhs may be held to illustrate the effect of dry heat. The Englishman and the Dutchman seem to show the effects of a moist cool climate, a certain sluggishness embodied with great energy and perseverance. In these and other cases, in which the innate temperament of a people corresponds to the effects directly induced by their climate, it seems natural to suppose that the innate temperament has been produced by the transmission and accumulation from generation to generation of the direct effects of the cUmate. The assumption is so natural that it has been made by almost every writer who has dealt with the question. And these instances of conformity of the temperament of peoples to the direct effects of climate are sometimes offered as being among the most striking evidences of the reality of hereditary transmission of acquired qualities; and the argument is reinforced by instances of what seem to be similar results pro- duced by climate on physical types. Thus, it is said that in North America a race characterised by a new specific combination of mental and physical qualities is being rapidly formed; and it seems to be well estabhshed that long slender hands are among these features; for in Paris a specially long slender glove is made every year in large quantities for the American market. Again, we see apparently a change of physical type in the white inhabitants of Australia. They seem to be becoming taller and more slender 'cornstalks'; and this is commonly regarded as the direct effect of climate. j. CH. XV] THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD 215 Now, that a new race or subrace with a specific combination of quahties should be forming in America is certainly to be expected from the fact that the intimate blending of a number of European stocks has been going on for some generations. But what gives special support to the assumption that these new qualities are the direct effects of climate is that these qualities, the physical at least, seem to be approximations to the type of the Red Indians, the aboriginal inhabitants. And, it is said, this approximation of type can only be due to hereditary accumulation of the direct effects of the climate on individuals. Another way in which climate has been held to modify racial mental qualities by direct action is through the senses, especially the eye. M. Boutmy, in his book on the English people makes great play with this principle^. He points out that the thick hazy state of the air, so common in our islands, renders vague and dull all outlines and colours, so that the eye does not receive that wealth of well-defined hues and forms which give so great a charm to some more sunny lands, such as the Mediterranean coast lands. Hence, he says, the senses become or remain relatively dull, and the sense- perceptions slow and relatively indiscriminating. Such relative de- ficiency of aesthetic variety and richness in the appearance of the outer world produces secondarily a further and deeper modification of mental type. In the lands where nature surrounds man with an endless variety of rich and pleasing scenes, he can find sufficient satisfaction in mere contemplation of the outer world ; and, when he takes to art production, he tends merely to reproduce in more or less ideahsed forms the objects and scenes he finds around him; his art tends to be essentially objective. On the other hand, in the dull northern climes, man has not ever at hand these sources of satis- faction in the mere contemplation of the outer world ; consequently he is driven back upon his own nature, to find his satisfactions in a ceaseless activity of mind and body, but chiefly of the latter. Hence, races so situated are characterised by great bodily activity and their art and literature are essentially subjective. The thick air, the monotony of vague form and colour, drive the mind to reflection upon itself; and in art the objects of nature serve merely as symbols by aid of which the mind seeks to express its own broodings. "The painter paints with the intentions of the poet, the poet describes or sings with the motives of the psychologist or moralist. All the literature of imagination of the English shows us the internal reacting ^ Essai d'une Psychologic politique du Petiple Anglais, Paris, 1903. 2i6 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi incessantly upon the external with a singular power of transfiguration and interpretation^." Hence also poetry is the privilege of a few rare spirits and is for them the product of deep reflection, not a simple lyrical expression in which all can equally share. It is certainly true that climate tends to produce these effects by its direct action on individuals. Anyone who has lived for a time in the southern climes must have noted these effects upon himself. But we have no proof that the effects of climate are directly inherited. It suffices to suppose that the direct effects are imposed afresh by the climate on the minds of each generation. This view is borne out by the fact that two races may live for many generations in the same climate and yet remain very different in temperament in these respects; for example the Irish climate is very similar to the English, perhaps even more misty and damp ; yet the Irish have much more wit and liveliness than the English. And in every case in which adaptation to physical environment has clearly become innate or racial, an explanation can be suggested in terms of selection of spontaneous variations, or of crossing of races. Thus, the approxi- mation of the American people to the type of the aboriginals, if it is actual, and some observers deny it, may well be due to the small infusion of the native blood which has admittedly taken place. It may well be that certain qualities of the Red Indian, for example, the straight dark hair and prominent cheek bones, are what the biologists call 'dominant characters' when the Indian is crossed with the European; that is, qualities which always assert themselves in the offspring, to the exclusion of the corresponding quality of the other race involved in the cross. If that is so, a very small proportion of Indian blood would suffice to make these features very common throughout the population of America. As an exception to the sup- posed law of direct hereditary adaptation to climate take the colour of the skin. The black negroes Uve in the hot moist regions of Africa, and it has been said that pigmentation is the hereditary effect of a hot moist climate. But there are men of a different race who have long lived in an equally hot and moist climate, but who do not show this effect — namely, tribes in the heart of Borneo, right under the equator, whose skins are hardly darker than the average English skins and less dark than the Southern Europeans'. Take again the indolence of the peoples of warm hot climates and the energy of peoples of colder climates. These certainly seem to be racial quali- ties; but their distribution is adequately explained by the indirect ^ Op. cit. p. 20. CH. XV] THE RACE-MAKING PERIOD 217 effect of physical environment exerted by way of natural selection ; and these differences of energy afford the best illustration of such indirect action of physical environment in determining racial mental quaUties. Before considering the question further, let us note yet another way in which the physical environment affects men's minds and has been supposed directly to induce certain racial quaUties. Buckle pointed out with great force the influence on the mind of what he called the external aspects of nature. He showed that where, as in India and the greater part of Asia, the physical features of a country are planned upon a very large scale; where the mountains are huge, where rivers are of immense length and volume, where plains are of boundless extent, and the sun very hot, there the forces of nature are exerted with an intensity that renders futile the best efforts of man, at any rate of man in a state of low civihsation, to cope with them. In such countries men are exposed to calamities on an enormous scale, great floods, violent storms and deluges of rain, earthquakes, excessive droughts resulting in famine and plague ; and they are exposed to the attacks of many dangerous animal species, which are bred by the great heat in the dense and unconquerable forests. These disasters have repeatedly occurred on a scale such that in comparison with them the recent earthquake in Cahfornia appears a mere trifle. Millions have been destroyed in a few hours in some of the floods of the Yellow River of China. The magnitude of these objects and the appaUing and irresistible character of such devastating forces produce, said Buckle, two principal and closely aUied effects upon the mind; they stimulate the imagination to run riot in extravagant and grotesque fancies; at the same time, they discourage any attempt to cope with these great forces and to understand their laws, and thus keep men per- petually in fearful uncertainty as to their fate ; for they cannot hope to control it by their own unaided efforts. Hence, the encouragement of superstition; hence, the dominance of a degrading rehgion of fear throughout the greater part of such regions ; hence, the supremacy of priests and religious orders and the discouragement of scientific reasoning. Hence, in the arts, the hterature, and the rehgion of India, we see a dominant tendency to the grotesque, the enormous, the fearful; we see gods portrayed with many arms, with three eyes and terrible visages. The legends of their heroes contain monstrous details, as that they lived for many thousands or millions of years. "All this," says Buckle, "is but a part of that love of the remote, that straining after the infinite, 2i8 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi and that indifference to the present, which characterises every branch of Indian intellect. Not only in literature, but also in rehgion and in art, this tendency is supreme. To subdue the understanding, and indulge the imagination, is the universal principle. In the principles of their theology, in the character of their gods, and even in the form of their temples, we see how the sublime and threatening aspects of the external world have filled the mind of the people with those images of the grand and the terrible, which they strive to reproduce in a visible form, and to which they owe the leading pecuharities of their national culture."^ That these peculiarities of the mental Hfe of such peoples are causally related with those terrible aspects of nature is, I think, sufficiently established by Buckle. But if we admit this, there remain two questions: (i) Have these tendencies become innate racial qualities? (2) If so, how have they been rendered innate? Buckle did not raise these questions and offered no opinion in regard to them. But he seems to have assumed that these tendencies have become innate; and there is much to be said for that \'iew. Yet, if that could be shown conclusively, it stiU would not prove inheritance of these acquired qualities. It may have resulted in some such way as this: the physical environment stimulates the imagination, and it represses the tendency to control imagination and superstition by reason and calm inquiry after causes; acting thus upon successive generations of men, it determines the peculiarities of the rehgious system and of the art and Uterature of the people. Individucds in whom the same tendencies are innately strong will then flourish under such a system; whereas those whose innate tendencies are in the direction of reason and scepticism wiU find the S5^stem uncon- genial, unfavourable for the exercise of their best powers; they will fail to make their mark; they may, as in many instances of European inquirers, actually have lost their Uves or their hberty through the rehgious zeal of those who maintain the traditional system. Thus the social environment, working through long ages, may have constantly determined a certain degree of selection of the innate tendencies congenial to it, and a weeding out of the opposed ten- group had the opportunity of selecting and imitatively adopting whatever seemed to them best among the ideas, the arts and inven- tions of the neighbouring peoples. It is generally admitted that this was one of the main conditions of the rapid development of the culture of the ancient Greeks, situated as they were within easy reach of several of the oldest civilisations, those of Egypt and of South -Eastern Asia ; they were also within reach of a number of less civilised peoples, and therefore enjoyed opportunities for trade of a kind which, being pecuharly lucrative, has in all ages hastened the acquisition of wealth and capital and stimulated the development of commerce. All the most progressive European peoples have enjoyed similar advantages; and it has been maintained with some plausibihty that the principal cause of the shifting of the centre of progressive civilisation from the Eastern Mediterranean to the west of Europe has been the improve- ment of the art of navigation and the discovery of the New World and of the sea route to Asia and the East Indies; for these gave the western countries the most advantageous positions for the conduct of a world wide commerce. No doubt the factor mentioned has been important in producing this change. 284 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi But, when we consider the ancient European civilisations and compare them with our own, we reahze that, in spite of all the cir- cumstances which we have enumerated and briefly considered as factors stimulating the spirit of inquiry and making for progress of their intellectual tradition, and in spite of their briUiant and in some respects unapproachable achievements, they were nevertheless radically incapable of continued progress. Greek civiHsation certainly progressed at a marvellous rate for some centuries; yet there is every reason to believe that it bore within itself the inevitable causes of its ultimate decay or stagnation. And, when we consider Roman civilisation, we see that, through all the long centuries of the greatness of Rome, it was essentially unprogressive. There was no continued evolution of the national mind and character. Save in respect to the single province of law, Roman civiUsation, when it entered upon the period of its decay, had not appreciably progressed in any essential respects beyond the stage reached more than a thousand years earlier. Rome was in fact less truly a nation in its later than in its earlier age. It had superficially imitated rather more of Greek culture and it had incorporated a number of bizarre elements from the many peoples which had been brought under the sway of the Roman sceptre; but neither in religion, nor in philosophy, nor art, nor science, nor in any of the practical modes of controlling the forces of nature, had it made any substantial gains; and its social organisation tended more and more to the type of a centralised irresponsible bureaucracy^. ^ Otto Seeck (op. cit. vol. i. p. 270) writes — "The equipment of the legion- aries remained unchanged from Augustus to Diocletian : no improvements of tactics, no new munitions of war were brought into use during more than three hundred years. The Roman saw his enemies becoming ever more terrible, his own army ever less efficient; for now this, now that, Province was laid waste and all were threatened. It was, therefore, to the most urgent interest of every citizen that this state of affairs should be remedied ; the most cultured circles were familiar with the needs of the army, for all the higher officers came from the class of Senators and nobles. Nevertheless, there appeared not a single in- vention, which might have assured to the Roman soldiers their erstwhile superiority ! Books indeed were written upon tactics, strategy and fortification, but their authors almost without exception were content to expound in a formal manner what their more capable forefathers had taught ; in this litera- ture the expression of any new idea was carefully avoided As in the military sphere, so also was it in all others. Neither in agriculture, nor in handicrafts, nor in the practice of statecraft, did a new idea of any importance appear since the first century after Christ. Literature and art also moved only in sterile imitation, which became always more poverty-stricken and techni- cally feebler." CH. XIX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR YOUTH 285 On the other hand, it cannot be denied that in the last thousand years the nations of Western Europe have made immense progress; nor that this progress has been accelerating from century to century in a way which seemed to reach a climax in the wonderful century just closed; though there appears good prospect of continued progress and perhaps of continued acceleration throughout the century to come and perhaps for many more. What then is the cause of this great difference between the civihsation of Western Europe and all preceding civilisations? The difference is, I think, essentially due to difference of social organisation. As argued in a previous chapter, social organisation was of less influence in the earlier ages, but has assumed a constantly increasing importance throughout the evolution of civili- sation; and it is now predominant over all other conditions. We must, then, first define this difference of social organisation; secondly, we must show how it makes for progress; and thirdly, conjecture how the social organisation of Western Europe, so favour- able to the continued development of nations, has been brought about. The great difference which divides the social organisation of the modem progressive peoples from that of all the ancient European civilisations is that, under it, the individual enjoys greater liberty and more securely founded rights as against the community, and as against all other individuals. This change is summed up in Sir H. Maine's dictum that "the movement of progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from status to contract." All the ancient civilised societies, Greece and Rome no less than all the others, rested upon the fundamental assumption of the absolute supremacy of the State, the assumption that the individual existed only for the State and that the welfare of the State was the supreme end to which all individual rights and liberties must be subordinated absolutely, was the end to the securing of which all custom, and all law, all social and family relations and institutions and reUgion itself were but the means. And the State was a pohtico- rehgious organisation, membership of which imphed the blood- relationship of its citizens and a common participation in the state-reUgion ; while the State gods were conceived as being them- selves ancestors, or in some other way kinsmen, of the citizens^. This bond of blood or kinship between the members of the State and its gods went back to the earhest times. It is the rule of ^ Cf. La Cite Antique of F. de Coulanges. 286 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi almost all savage peoples; and the religious rites of many include some rite symbolising or renewing this blood bond, such as smearing the blood of the kinsmen on the altars of the gods, or drinking the blood of some animal which is held to be the symbolic representa- tive of the god. And the supreme end of the State itself was the increase of its own power and stabihty, through the exercise of mihtary power and through military conquest. All human beings outside the State, outside this moral-pohtico- reUgious-bond, were regarded as prima facie enemies of the State, without rights of any sort, without even the shghtest claim to humane treatment. Hence, in war the slaughter of the conquered was the rule; and the practice of making slaves of prisoners of war and of conquered peoples only arose through its profitableness, and was regarded as a great concession to the victims, whose natural fate was sudden death. Under this system, which inevitably became to some extent a caste system, with a caste of freemen or citizens ruling over slaves, each individual was born to a certain status as a member of a particular family. His position and duties and rights in the family were rigidly prescribed by custom, and the law took account only of the relations of the family to the State. CHAPTER XX THE PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY In the foregoing chapter we have noted the great fact that the leading modern nations of Western Europe have shown a much greater capacity for progress than all the earlier civihsed peoples, not excepting those of ancient Greece and Rome. I urged that this difference between the ancient and the modern European civihsa- tions seemed to be chiefly due to a difference of social organisation. I pointed out how the older nations were essentially caste nations, resting on a basis of slavery, and how all individual rights were entirely subordinated to the welfare of the State, a politico- reUgious organisation held together by the bond of kinship; how, within that organisation, the rights of each person were strictly defined throughout his life by the status to which he was bom; and how all persons outside this organisation were regarded as natural enemies, towards whom no obligations of any kind were felt. We have now to notice that the form of social organisation towards which aU the leading modern nations have been tending, and which some of them have now pretty well achieved, is one in which the last vestiges of the caste system and the rigid bonds of customary status are rapidly being abolished. In this new organisa- tion social classes persist, but they are no longer castes; all members of the nation are regarded as being by nature free and equal; a career is open to every talent, and any man may rise to any position by the exertion of his abihties. His position is one of extreme liberty as compared with that of any member of the ancient nations. He has definite rights as against the State. The State claims only a minimum of rights over him, the right to prevent him interfering with the rights of his fellow-citizens, the right to make him pay for his share of the privileges conveyed by its activities. And these rights it claims in virtue of contract between each citizen and all the rest. For each citizen is free to throw off his allegiance to the State and to leave it at will, and his continuance as a citizen of the State implies his acceptance of the contract. Even in rehgion, personal Uberty has at last been achieved; 288 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. in religion is no longer a State-religion, the gods are no longer the national gods, and each man may accept any rehgion or none. This is the most striking instance of the immense distance, as regards the liberty of the individual, that divides the modern from the ancient nations. For with the latter, the function of rehgion was to preserve the security of the State; and to question it in any way was to threaten the State, a principle fully acted upon by Athens in the time of her highest enhghtenment and glory. The change is very striking also as regards the attitude of the citizens of one State towards those of any other and towards even the members of savage and barbarous communities. We no longer regard ourselves as devoid of all obHgation towards such persons. Rather we tend to treat them as having equal rights with ourselves, the few specifically national rights excepted, and as having equal claims with our fellow citizens upon our considerate feeling and conduct towards them. The relations of individuals are, then, tending to be regulated, on the one hand, by contractual justice; on the other hand, by the moral obhgation felt by each individual, an obligation not enforced by any exercise of the power of the State, but supported only by pubhc opinion. The end we set before ourselves is no longer the welfare of the State, to be attained at any cost to individual liberty; it is rather an ideal of justice for every person, to which the welfare of the State must be, if necessary, subordinated. In short, instead of maintaining universal intolerance, we have made great strides towards universal tolerance. AU this represents a profound change of social organisation, a great advance in social evolution. That it is intimately bound up with the progressiveness of a people is shown by the fact that the degree to which the change has proceeded among the various nations runs parallel with their progress in all the essentials of civihsation. The change seems, indeed, to be one of the principal conditions of the progress of the nations of Western Europe and, we may add, of the American nation, by which it has been carried further than by any other. How, then, does it make for progress? We may answer this question by considering how the social system which has given place to this new kind of social organisation — namely, the caste system — renders progress difficult or impossible. Where the caste system is highly developed and rigidly main- tained, as among the Hindus of India, its conservative unprogressive tendency is obvious enough. Each man is born a member of someone CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 289 of many castes, and he can never hope to pass from one caste to another and higher caste. That fact alone removes at once the two greatest spurs to effort, the two most powerful motives that urge on the members of our modem societies to the fullest development and exercise of all their faculties ; namely, the desire to rise in the social scale and to place one's children at a more advantageous starting point in the battle of Hfe, and the fear of faUing back in the social scale, of sinking to a lower level, with the consequent sacrifice of all the social consideration and other advantages which one's position at any given social level brings with it. Under the Hindu caste system, the poor Brahmin who has no possessions, perhaps not even a rag to cover his nakedness, is sure of the social consideration which his birth gives him, both for himself and his children. He can look disdainfully upon the rich man and the prince of lower caste; and public opinion approves and supports him. This perhaps is the most important way in which the caste system prevents progress. But there are others almost equally serious. The occupations open to the members of each caste are rigidly hmited. The members of one caste must be priests only, of another soldiers only, of another scavengers, of another potters, and so on. Now, if it were true that, when dexterities or mental powers generally are specially developed by use, the improvements of faculty resulting from this long practice and use were transmitted in any degree from generation to generation, we should expect the caste system to result, after many generations, in so many distinct breeds of men of highly speciahsed and perfected powers of the kinds used in the pursuit of each of the Cciste occupations. And this might make for progress. Each man would be employed in the occupation for which he was best suited. But, as we have seen, it is probable that use- inheritance does not occur; and there seems to be no evidence that differentiation and hereditary speciahsation of faculties of this sort result from the caste system^. In each caste men continue to be born of the most diverse powers suited for the most diverse occupations ; and one effect of the caste system is that the best powers of any man will in the great majority of cases be prevented from finding their most effective outlet. That involves a great Wciste of faculty, which makes strongly for stagnation. We shall realize the importance of this influence, if we reflect on the great achievements, in the most diverse fields, of men who under our modern system have risen from ^ A fact which provides another argument against use-inheritance. M. G. M. 19 290 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi some humble station and occupation, to which under the caste system they would have been rigidly confined. Again, within each caste custom rules the Hves of the members with much greater force than it can exert in a large and complex society in the absence of the caste system. For each caste has its own tradition and customary code, which is necessarily narrow because of the uniformity of the conditions of life of those who obey it ; hence tradition and custom have a narrow and well-defined field of operation ; and the narrower the field of its appUcation, the more rigidly will custom control action. The caste system is thus one which permits of great differentiation and specialisation of pursuits, without any weakening of the con- servative forces of society. It is for that reason presumably that the social organisation of aU early civilisations tended to this form. It was the most easily attained form which combined diversity with stability sufficiently to permit of the formation of a large society or nation; and it was one which made for mihtary efficiency. It formed, therefore, a natural stage of social evolution. In so far as the caste system still survives, it owes its survival to the continuance of the need of the State for miUtary efficiency. And we see how its maintenance is still only rendered possible by its alhance with a State religion and its system of rehgious sanctions. In Russia, for example, the caste system was thus maintained by the alliance of the miUtary power with the rehgious system. While we see how in modern Germany the attempt to maintain the caste system and the supremacy of the State over the rights and hberties of individuals is breaking down, as the religious sanctions are losing their hold upon the people. Social democracy, secularism, and the demand for hberty go hand in hand^. It is clear, then, that the caste system tends to produce a stable society and to prevent progress; and that, in proportion as it gives way to liberty and equahty of all men, both legal and customary, and to the recognition of the rights of individuals as against the State, progress must be favoured. In yet another way (perhaps more important than any other) the aboUtion of caste may favour development. In an earlier chapter I pointed out how every step in the development of the intellectual or the moral tradition of a people is initiated by some person of exceptional intellectual or moral power. I pointed out also how the existence of a hierarchy of social classes which are ^ This was written before the Great War but needs, I think, no modification. CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 291 not exclusive castes, together with the operation of the social ladder by means of which individuals and famihes are enabled to cHmb up and down the social scale, tend to the segregation of abihty in the classes of the upper part of the scale. They tend, in short, to produce classes capable of producing in each generation a relatively large number of persons of more than average capacities. Or, in other words, they lead to the concentration and mutual enrichment of the strains of exceptional capacity; they concentrate the best capacities of the people in a relatively small number of individuals of the favoured classes And abihties so concentrated and raised in a certain proportion of individuals to a higher power will be more favourable in every way to the growth of the national mind than the same sum of abiUties more evenly diffused throughout the population. At present it is impossible to say how far this segregation of abihties has gone, and what part it has played in forwarding the mental development of any nation. But that it has played some part, perhaps a very important one in some instances, can hardly be doubted^. In Europe the feudal system served to tide over the period of transition from the ancient social organisation founded on caste and the supremacy of the pohtico-religious State to the modern system, the transition from the system founded on status and regulated by custom to the system founded upon equahty and Hberty and regu- lated by contract. For the feudal system, although still more or less a caste system, was nevertheless founded to some extent on contract. The tenure of land involved a contract to perform services in return ; and such contract was the essence of the feudal system. But it was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the feudal system was finally broken up and the Reformation initiated the age of rehgious tolerance, that the modem system substantially replaced the ancient system, and the age of rapid progress set in. In proportion as the change was achieved, the powers of all men were set free in an unfettered competition such as had never before been possible. Independence of thought and action, free discussion of aU principles, and the recognition of the relativity of all truths, succeeded to unquestioning subservience to ancient ^ Francis Galton and his disciples have produced much evidence to show- that the educated class of Englishmen includes a very much larger proportion of strains of high ability than the rest of the people, it having been formed by the long continued operation of the social ladder. There is no reason to doubt the truth of this conclusion. 19 — 2 292 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi formulas and customs. Each man became comparatively free to follow his natural bent, to develop his best powers to the utmost, and to secure by the exercise of those powers the maximum of social consideration and of well-being, unfettered by arbitrary restrictions, civil or ecclesiastical. I think we may fairly say that the modern pragmatic or humanistic movement in philosophy, in the midst of which we are living, represents the final stage of this eman- cipation of man from the bonds which he has created for himself. We have seen, then, that the modern system of social organisation does not make for the racial progress of a whole people, but probably, up to the present time, for race-deterioration; nevertheless, it cer- tainly makes for progress of the intellectual and moral traditions of peoples; and we can now see in what way it makes for progress. The improvement of racial quaUties by natural selection of the innately superior individuals has been brought to an end; the mortal conflict of societies has also practically been abolished as a factor of race progress, as also of collective or social progress. These have been replaced by a new form of struggle for existence and of selection — namely, the rivalry and competition of ideas and of the institutions in which ideas become embodied, and the selection for survival of those ideas and institutions which are found, under the tests of practice and experience, most accordant with the truth and, therefore, best adapted to promote the welfare of societies and of their members^. And this process of survival of the fittest and elimination of the unfit among ideas and institutions takes place not only within nations, but has also international scope. The members of each nation no longer, as of old, regard all foreigners as their natural enemies, no longer despise their institutions and reject their ideas with scorn. They are ready to learn from others, to let the ideas current among other peoples enter into competition with native-born ideas; and so the number and variety of competing elements increases and the intensity of the competition waxes ever keener. Every idea that constitutes an important advance in our intellectual outlook or in our practical command over nature rapidly finds acceptance throughout the civiHsed world and displaces some less true idea, some less appro- priate institution, some less effective mode of action. Two great conditions, making for continued improvement of the moral and intellectual traditions, characterise, then. Western 1 Prof. S. Alexander, in his Moral Order and Progress, was perhaps the first to draw attention to this form of the struggle for existence. CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 293 civilisation. First, within each nation there is going on the process of emancipation of all human faculties, so that they enter into the freest possible competition with one another on a footing of equality ; this process, although now far advanced in all the leading nations, is still being carried further, and the whole trend of modern legislation is to confirm the change and hasten it to its completion^. Secondly, there is a circle of peoples whose ideas are thrown into the arena of rivalry, to suffer extinction or to gain universal acceptance. This circle also is constantly widening by the inclusion of peoples hitherto outside it; and each new admission, as of Japan in recent years, is a new stimulus to the further evolution of the collective mind of each nation concerned. Both these conditions depend upon improved social organisation. How then has this great change of social organisation been effected? To put this question is to approach an immense subject, the history of hberty and toleration. I can only make one or two brief remarks. It has been suggested by many authors, notably by Kidd in his volume on Western Civilisation, that we owe this great change to the Christian rehgion. It is pointed out that the Christian rehgion, unhke most earher religions, was from the first not a national or State rehgion but a universal rehgion, and that its adoption has weakened the tyranny of the State by breaking up its alliance with rehgion. Further, it is a religion which, by its doctrine of the immortality of the souls of aU men, has tended to give dignity and value to each individucil hfe, quite independently of personal status. Again, by its teaching of universal charity, it has to some extent softened and moralised the relations of men and of societies. But, that the replacement of a national rehgion by a universal rehgion which teaches the equality of all believers does not sufi&ce to secure continued collective evolution is shown by the instances of Bhuddism and Mohammedanism. Both of these are of this character, yet both have failed to render continuously pro- gressive the societies that have accepted them. That the spread of the Christian rehgion does not in itself sufi&ce to account for the evolution from the ancient to the modem type of social organisation is shown also by the fact that it had held un- disputed sway among the peoples of Western Europe for more than a thousand years before social evolution made any considerable advance. Throughout that period, religion constantly called in the ^ This last sentence perhaps is only partially true. A rigid system of State Socialism would involve a retrogression in this respect. 294 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi civil and military power of the State to enforce the acceptance of its dogmas. And that its teachings did not suffice to produce religious or civil tolerance is shown by the fierce and incessant persecu- tions of heretics and the many religious wars that fill the history of medieval Europe. The religious tolerance and liberty of the modern era are rather features of a wider phenomenon, the general increase of tolerance and liberty, and they must be ascribed to the same causes as this wider fact. They imply a great evolution of the moral tradition, the most important and striking feature of which is the expansion of the sphere in which the sympathetic feelings find application. There is no reason to suppose that the feelings and emotions underlying the sympathetic and considerate treatment of others have changed in character in the historic period. For long ages men have felt such sympathy and given considerate and just treatment to those who have been nearest to them; at first to the members of their own immediate family; later to the fellow-members of their own small society; and then, as societies expanded into complex caste societies, to the members of their own caste ; later, as castes were broken down, to all their fellow citizens; and still later in some degree to all men. It is this progressive extension of the sphere of imaginative sympathy which, more than anything else, has broken down all the social barriers that confined the energies of men and has set free their various faculties in that competition of ever increasing severity which is the principal cause underlying the modern progress of peoples. It is this which has destroyed nearly all the old bonds that fettered and limited men's activities in religion, in science, in politics, in art, in commerce, in manufacture, and has brought men in all these spheres into that intense, because free and equal, competition, which produces an ever accelerating progress. It is this which has produced the almost universal acceptance of the entirely and most characteristically modern principle of 'one man one vote,' a principle so hard to justify on any ground of expediency, from any considera- tions of the stability and welfare of the State. It is this also which has led to so greatly increased intercourse between peoples. It is sometimes contended that the realisation of the principles ef equality and justice for all men has been secured only by the strife of the social classes, by the success of the lower classes in forcing a series of concessions from the ruling classes. This is a very imperfect and partial view of the process. If the ruling classes had consistently CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 295 sought to maintain their power and exclusive privileges, and to maintain all the rest of society in a state of servitude or serfdom, there is little doubt that they could have done so. But their position has been weakened from within by the extension of their sympathies. Consider the great series of legislative changes which, during the nineteenth century, transformed the social organisation of this country, especially the factory laws, the franchise extension laws, and the laws for the abohtion of slavery. These were for the most part of the nature of a voluntary abdication of power on the part of the classes in possession. Consider the topics which chiefly engross the attention of our legislators and are the centre of pohtical and social discussion. They are the providing of a better and freer educa- tion for the children of the working classes, who of themselves would probably never have thought of such a thing ; the providing of free meals for school children; the providing of work and food for the unemployed; temperance laws, land settlement, and emigration, the eight-hours day, housing of the working classes, free trade and cheap food, old age pensions ; all measures for raising the standard of life of the labouring classes and securing them against the tyranny of capital. In respect of our relations to the lower peoples the same proposi- tion holds good. It would be easy for the European nations to exterminate the black people of Africa, and to possess themselves of all their lands^. But public opinion will not now allow this; it insists upon our moral obhgation towards such peoples, that we are bound to try to help them to survive and to raise themselves to our level of culture. The extension of the sphere of appUcation of imaginative sym- pathy has then been a factor of prime importance in producing the social evolution which underHes modem progress. The factors that have brought about this extension have been many and complex, and it is perhaps a hopeless task to attempt to enumerate them and to apportion to each its share of influence. Undoubtedly, it has been produced largely by the influence of a relatively small number of enhghtened leaders of opinion, such men as Wilberforce, Stuart Mill, Shaftesbury, John Locke, Rousseau, and Voltaire — men whose original intellectual powers enabled them to criticise and reject the settled principles of their time. It was a work of liberation from custom and traditional prejudice effected by the spirit of inquiry, which questioned the validity of the old ^ As the Spaniards wellnigh exterminated in the name of the Church the civihsation and the nations of Mexico and Peru. 296 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi narrow conceptions of the relations of men and peoples, the old narrow prejudices of caste and nation, and discovered their fallacies to the world; discovered, for example, that men of a religious per- suasion slightly different from one's own are not necessarily wicked, nor those of a different nationality necessarily despicable and pos- sessed of no ideas worthy of admiration and adoption. But the ground was prepared for the reception of the teachings of such men by the conflicts of men who desired nothing of tolerance and equality and liberty. This is best illustrated by the history of religious toleration. As I said before, religion is essentially con- servative and intolerant of heresies. The first effect on religion of that revival and liberation of the spirit of inquiry which we call the Renascence, was to produce not religious toleration, but rather a bitter conflict of mutually intolerant sects. And religious toleration was eventually achieved largely by the realisation of the necessity of compromise among these warring and constantly multiplying sects; it was found impossible to weed out heresy by persecution. Yet who can doubt that the Church, if it believed that it saw its way to secure the universal acceptance of its doctrines by means of persecution, would long hesitate to return to its ancient practices ? The coming of religious toleration was due to the application of the spirit of inquiry to religious systems ; these inquiries produced irreconcilable sects, whose strife prepared the way for compromise and toleration. The strife of parties and sects was itself part of a still wider process; and this process must be recognised as the most important single condition of that widening of the sphere of imaginative /'sympathy which has been the root cause of the improvement of social organisation, of the general increase of liberty, and thus of the progress of the modern nations. This wider process is the general increase of human intercourse, both within nations and between them. Only so long as men know little of one another, can they continue to regard one another with entire hostility or cold in- difference. The knowledge and understanding brought by personal intercourse is necessary to sympathy; but as soon as, and in pro- portion as, such knowledge is acquired, the innate social tendencies common to all men are brought into play. As soon as man under- stands that his fellow man suffers the same pains and joys as himself, longs for the same goods, fears the same evils, throbs with the same emotions and desires, then he shares with him in some degree these feelings, in virtue of that fundamental law of all social beings, the CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 297 law of primitive sympathy; then also pity and sympathetic sorrow and tender regard are awakened in his breast ; then his fellow man is no longer the object of his cold or hostile glances, as a certain rival and probable enemy, but is seen to be a fellow toiler and sufferer whom he is willing to succour, a fellow creature whose joys and sorrows alike he cannot but share in some degree. Increasing freedom of intercourse throughout the civilised world, and beyond its boundaries also, has been the most characteristic feature of the age of progress, and in it we may recognise the most fundamental condition of that progress. Science and mechanical invention have been the means by which this greater freedom of intercourse has been brought about. First and most important perhaps was the invention of printing, the consequent spread of the habit of reading, and the wide diffusion of the written word. Second only to this was the improvement of the art of navigation, which brought the remotest peoples of the world within the ken of Europe and greatly promoted the intercourse of the European peoples, as well as the circulation of persons and news within each nation; for the development of commerce over seas imphes a corresponding development of commerce within the national boundaries. Then came the use of steam in locomotion on sea and land, the press and the telegraph; and, with the advent of these, intercourse within and without became really free and abundant; mutual knowledge and understanding between men and nations grew rapidly, and the age of progress was assured. The progressive character of the modern nations has been due, then, to the actions and reactions between the spirit of inquiry and the improvement of forms of social organisation; each step in the one respect has reacted upon the other, stimulating further change in the same direction. And the medium through which they have chiefly thus worked upon one another has been the increase of intercourse between men and nations. The spirit of inquiry has urged men on to explore their fellow men and to study foreign nations, and it has provided the means for so doing; the greater mutual knowledge and sympathy thus brought into being have in turn brought greater liberty to the spirit of inquiry, freeing it from the rigid bonds of custom and conservative tradition and enabling it to render human intercourse yet more free and abundant. In this way we reconcile and synthesize the rival theories of the causes of progress, the view that sees in the spirit of inquiry the sole agent of progress and that which attributes it wholly to the 298 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi improvement of morals and of social organisation. The great com- mandment, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," pointed the way of all progress; but great and beautiful as it was, it could not immediately avail to break the bonds of the human spirit, the bonds of ignorance and fear ; only gradually through increase of knowledge could man learn that all men are his neighbours, and that not only the foreigner just beyond the frontier, but also the naked savage, chipping his stone axe or weaving his rude basket for the reception of his neighbour's head, is a man of like passions with himself, with equal claims upon justice and freedom and all that makes the humanity of man. It only remains to point out the part in human life of a new factor of progress which promises to eclipse all others in importance. The main theme of my earHer work^ was that only through increase of knowledge of others is each man's knowledge of himself slowly built up and enriched, until it renders him capable of enlightened self- , direction. So the main theme of this book is the development of the [group mind, the increase of its self-knowledge and of its power of self- direction through increase of knowledge of other human societies. The age of progress through which the world has recently passed was an age of progress due to increase of human intercourse and consequent increasing understanding by each nation of other nations and peoples. This better knowledge of other peoples is now reacting upon the self-knowledge of each nation, rapidly enriching it. Each of the great nations is beginning to understand itself, and to take thought for the morrow in the light of this self-knowledge ; and this increase of national self-knowledge, this enrichment of national self-consciousness, is the great new factor which alone can secure the further progress of mankind. We saw in an earlier chapter that a nation is essentially the realization of an idea, the idea of a nation, that only in so far as the idea of the nation exists and operates in the minds of the members of the nation, controlling their conduct Jand directing it to actions having reference to the nation as a whole, does a nation come into and continue in existence. The self-con- sciousness of nations is therefore not a new factor in their life. But their self-consciousness is now becoming reflective and immensely richer in content; so much so that it promises to operate virtually as a new factor of tremendous efficiency. We may illustrate the influence of this new factor by reverting again to the analogy between the mind of the individual and the ^ Introduction to Social Psychology. CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 299 mind of the nation which we developed at some length in an earUer chapter. In the developing individual, as in the evolving animal series, the development of self-consciousness is the condition of the development of true volition. Before self-consciousness and a self- regarding sentiment are developed, conduct is determined by feelings and impulses or by ideas and the desires they arouse, either some one desire rising alone to consciousness and issuing at once in action, or through a conflict of impulses and desires, some one of which eventually predominates over the others and determines action; but action issuing from such a conflict of impulses and desires is not true volition. Action is truly volitional only when the ideal of the self in relation to the idea of the end to be achieved by each of the conflicting tendencies determines the issue of the conflict. In the mental life of nations, all those conflicts of ideas, of parties, of principles and of systems, in which each strives to pre- dominate over and displace others, and by natural selection of which (the death of the many less fit, the survival of the few better or more fit) the progress of recent centuries has been chiefly due; all these conflicts have been more or less bHnd conflicts, in which the idea of the whole nation, in relation to the end to be achieved by each of the conflicting tendencies, has generally played but a small part and a part that often has not made strongly for progress. National actions were in the main impulsive and instinctive actions, like those of young children or the higher animals. And for this reason — that nations had too Uttle true self-knowledge, and had not developed a true and rich ideal of national life — the self-consciousness of nations was too poor in content to serve as the guide of actions making for progress. In the individual man, it is the growing richness and accuracy of self-knowledge which alone enables him to direct his actions effectively to secure his own welfare and to improve his char- acter and powers. Just so in nations the rapid growth of their self- knowledge and the enrichment of their ideals of national life which characterise the present time must render their self-consciousness a far more efficient guide of all national dehberation and action. The self-knowledge of the individual grows chiefly, as we have seen, through intercourse with his fellows; his idea of himself de- velops in fulness and accuracy in the light of his knowledge of other selves, and this knowledge in turn develops in the light of his in- creasing knowledge of himself. Just so the self-knowledge of nations is now growing rapidly through the intercourse of each nation with 300 DEVELOPMENT OF NATIONAL CHARACTER [pt. hi others, an intercourse far freer, more multiplex, than ever before in the history of the world ; a result largely of the improved means of communication which we owe to science and the spirit of inquiry. Perhaps the most striking illustration of the operation of this new factor is the rapid spread in recent years of parliamentary institutions. The parliamentary system of national organisation was worked out in these islands by long centuries of more or less bhnd conflict of ideas and parties and institutions ; and now other nations in rapid succession have observed and admired the system and have deliberately and self-consciously adopted it; and still the process goes on, as recently in Russia. Japan offers a striking illustration of the way in which the new factor operates. An intelligent people in which the national sentiment was strong, but in which national self-knowledge was rudimentary because of the isolation of the nation, was suddenly brought into contact with other peoples; through observation of them, it learnt its own deficiencies and set about deliberately to remedy them in the light of its new knowledge ; and in doing so has reorganised itself from top to bottom. In England also national self-knowledge is beginning rapidly to increase in accuracy and extent. We have begun to compare our- selves at all points with other nations, and are no longer content with the good old creed, that everything British is best. We are learning in this way our weaknesses ; and the knowledge is becoming a main cause of accelerated progress. The best illustration is, perhaps, the present stir over educational questions, which is directly due to the increase of national self-knowledge resulting from the observa- tion of other nations. But in the future our national self-consciousness will be enriched and fitted for the guidance of the national will in a still more effective manner than by the knowledge of our weaknesses being forced upon us by the nations who are our rivals in the world. In many directions — by the historians, the biologists, the anthropologists, the statisticians — data are being gathered for a science of society whose sure indications will enable us deUberately to guide the further evolution of the nation towards the highest ideal of a nation that we can conceive. In this way, it may be hoped, the modern nations will be able to avoid that danger which has destroyed the great nations of the past, and which has been the dark cloud shadowing the brilliance of the age of progress that resulted from increasing human intercourse and mutual understanding. In this way the free play of the spirit CH. XX] PROGRESS OF NATIONS IN THEIR MATURITY 301 of inquiry, which in all earlier ages has been highly dangerous to the stabiUty of nations and which, while it was the sole cause of progress, nevertheless destroyed many of the nations whom it im- pelled upon that path, will make for a greatly accelerated progress ; and, at the same time, it will enable us to secure, by deliberate voluntary control, the bases of society, which in all previous ages have rested solely upon custom, instinct, and the religious sanctions. Not by any voluntary surrender of the reason, not by any subjugation of the intellect to the dominion of obscure transcendental ideas, such as is preached by Benjamin Kidd, Chatterton-HilU and others who have realized the disintegrating effects of intellect on earlier societies, but by a more strenuous use of our intellectual faculties, and by a growth of knowledge, especially a knowledge of the laws of human societies, will the stability and further evolution of nations be maintained. The nations whose progress will rest upon this basis will be in a position very different from that of the older societies to which the emancipation of the intellect was fatal. They fell for lack of knowledge of natural laws, as soon as the progress of intellectual inquiry had weakened their instinctive and customary bases. The modern nations may reasonably hope, that they are within sight of knowledge which will enable them to avoid these dangers and to continue their progress during an indefinitely long period. They may even hope to progress, not only in respect of the intellectual and moral tradition, but also in respect of racial qualities; for a better knowledge of the factors at work and of the laws of heredity will enable them to put an end to the influences now making for race deterioration and to replace them by others of the opposite tendency. Such national progress will be truly teleological ; it will be a progress whose direction will be determined by the desire of an ideal end present to the consciousness of all and striven after by the collective deliberation and volition of the nation. Thus the group spirit, rising above the level of a narrow patriotism that regards with hostility all its rivals, recognising that only through the further development of the collective life of nations can man rise to higher levels than he has yet known, becomes the supreme agent of human progress. 1 Heredity and Selection in Sociology, London, 1907: an interesting work similar in tendency to Kidd's Social Evolution. INDEX Abdication of classes, 295 Abstract psychology, 2 Adam Smith, 4 Aesthetic faculty, 157 Africa and lack of leaders, 136 American homogeneity, 124 Ammon, O., 252 Analogy of national with individual mind, 147 Ancestor worship, 183 Ancient States, 285 Angell, N., 133 Anglo-Saxon origins, 238 Animal societies, 33, 66 Arab nation and Mahomet, 136 Aristotle, 3, 192, 248 Army, as organised group, 51; or- ganisation, 81 Asiatics and authority, 114 Athens depleted, 248 Bagehot, W., 201 Balfour, A. J., on decadence, 146 Baring, M., on Russians, 46 Barker, E., 16, 18 Bateson, W., 262 Beattie Crozier, 193 Bengal, 161 Bentham, 4 BiNET, 32 Bingham Newland, 29 Birthrate, 253 Blending of races, 241, 278 Boer armies, 58 BosANQUET, on general will, 155 BouTMY, 215, 221, 228 Brains, size of, 137 Buckle, 206, 217, 227, 255, 282 Bulgaria and war, 143 Burke, Ed., 181 Butler, 5 Caste, 183, 271, 288 Celts, 235 Chamberlain, H. S., 108, 244 Chinese stabihty, 141 Christianity and morals, 267; and progress, 274 Church, as a group, 95 Civilisation, and natural selection, 261 ; defined, 204 Clans, 159 Claqueurs, 29 Classification of groups, 89 Climate and race qualities, 214 Collective consciousness, 31 etseq., 71 ; mind, 12; psychology, 21; will, 48, 53. 173 Communications, freedom of, 132 COMTE, 5 Concreteness in psychology, 2 Conflict and progress, 296 Conquest and progress, 276 Contact of cultures, 283 Contagion of emotion, 27 Continuity, national, 145 CoRNFORD, 70 Crowd, anger in Borneo, 26; emo- tions, 39; intelligence, 40; suggesti- bility, 40 Crowds, 22 et seq. Darwin, 5 De Lapouge, 241, 252, 253, 261 DeUberative organisation, 187, 191 Demolins, Ed., 226, 233 Dickinson, G. L., 119 Differentiation of races, 201, 208 Dill, Sir S., 132 Dissociation of personality, 32 Driesch, H., 103 Du Bois, 27 DuRKHEiM, on race, 109 Edict of Nantes, 252 Egyptian culture and nature, 128 Energy and climate, 221; of races, 272 England and Germany contrasted, 146 Ephemeral groups, 88 Equality, ideal of, 184 Espinas, 33 Eurasians, 83 European progress, 287; races, 114 Evolution of man, 209 Factors of national development, 206 Family as essential group, 82, 165; consciousness, 159 Fear in India, 218 Fechner, 32 Feudal system, 291 Fleure, J. H., 115 Fouillt5;e, 19, loi, 105, 139, 162, 255 French conquests, 184; sociability, 223 INDEX 303 Fusions of civilisation, 276; by con- quest, 277 Galton, F., 255, 291 Gauls, 231 General will, 53 Genetic view in psychology, 4 Genius and national life, 137 Geography and progress, 283 George, W. L., 178 German ideaUsm, 15; responsibility, 15; organisation, 152 GiDDINGS, 5 GOBINEAU, 108 Gods, national, 102 GoocH, 3 Good of whole and of all, 172 Greek people substituted, 247 Green, T. H., 15 Group action, types of, 57 Group mind, conditions of, 48 ; defined, 9. 18 Group psychology, the task of, 7 Group spirit, 62 et seq., 302 ; its merits, 79 GuizoT, 223 Hamilton, Sir I., on Japanese, 162 Hartmann, v., 33, 103 Hayti, 117 Hebrew nation, 159 Hegel, 16 Heron, D., 258 Hierarchy of groups, 80; of senti- ments, 81 Hill, Chatterton, 301 Historians and psychology, 99 HOBBES, 3 Holland Rose, 143 Homogeneity of group, 23 ; of nations, 121 Hose, Ch., 72 House of Commons, 189 Idea of nation, 162, 173 Ideals, national, 183 Imaginative sympathy, 295 Impulse, national, 192 Independence, English, 224 India, and China contrasted, 124, 244 ; and Western culture, 118 Individual, and group psychology, 6; and social interests, 15, 152 IndividuaUstic family, 237 Induction of emotion, 25 Infertility of peoples, 251 Inge, Dean, 262 Innate qualities, no; and culture, 112 Inquiry, spirit of, 275, 391 Intellect, disruptive effects of, 275 Intense emotion of crowds, 24, 29 Intercourse of peoples, 167 International rivalry, 144, 167 Irish qualities, 236 Isolation of China, 165 Jacks, L. P., 167 Jacobi, 258 James, Wm., 32 Janet, P., 32 Japanese patriotism, 162 Jesuit system of education, 83 Justice, contractual, 288 KiDD, B., 206, 267; on Galton, 268 Kitchener, Lord, 64 Leaders and national life, 135 Leadership in armies, 60 Le Bon, 20, 28, 136 Le Play, school of, 231 Levy Bruhl, 74 Liberty, and progress, 287; ideal of, 184 Limits of State, 188 Locke, 3 Locomotion, modes of, 132 LOTZE, 36 Lowell, President, 187, 197 Lynching, 47 Maciver, R. M., 9 et seq. Maine, Sir H., 5, 229, 270 Maitland, 18 Marie, 20 Marx, K., 104 Matteuzzi, 104 Merz, Th., 2 Mill, J. S., on race, 108 Modem and primitive man, 120 Mongrel races, 140, 243, 279 Montesquieu, 104 Moral tradition changing, 246 Morality, traditional, 264; primitive, 264 MuiR, Ramsey, 96 MuNSTERBERG, ou Americans, 124 Murray, G., 178 My country, right or wrong, 174 Nation, definition of, gj et seq. National action, types of, 1 70 ; genius. Nationalism, 94, 164 Nationality a psychological problem, 143 Natural boundaries, 127 Negro race and leaders, 136 Negroes and American nation, 126 Neighbour, who is our? 298 Newspapers in national life, 133 Normans, 238 North Sea outrage, 192 Northmen, 238 304 INDEX Olivier, Sir S., 244 Organic and higher unity, 157 Organisation, types of, 150; from above, 153; informal and formal, 197 Organism, contractual, 173 Outcastes, 85 Paine, 25 Paradox of group life, 20 Parliamentary traditions, 191 Patriarchal system, 234 Patriotism, 54, 164, 177; disparaged, 181 Pearson, C. H., 257 Pearson, Karl, 258 Pelasgians, 247 Petrie, Flinders, 244, 260 Philippines, Americans in, 118 Philosophy of history, 105 Physical environment and race quali- ties, 202, 213 Plato, 17, 83 PoUtical philosophy, German, 152 Populations, increase of, 250 Practical interests and psychology, 3 Prestige, 64 Price, Collier, 260 Prichard, H. H., 117 Primitive Societies, 64; sympathy, 25 Prince, Morton, 10, 32 Progress, ideal of, 185; of nations, 2 73 Protestanism, distribution of, 115 Public opinion, 192, 197 Punans of Borneo, 72 Race qualities shape institutions, 116; endurance of, 121; crossing, 241 Racial dififerences, iii Reid, Archdall, 252 Relations of sciences, i Religion and Reason, 259 Religious excitement, 27 Renan, 4 Representative institutions, 198 Responsibility, communal, 68; na- tional, 144 Ripley, 115 Ritual, 92 Rivalry, national, 167 Roman Church and celibacy, 254; civilization, 284 Rousseau, 3, 53, 155 Russian armies, 59 Satisfactions of group life, 78 Scandinavian conditions, 237 Schaeffle, 35 Seeck, O., 250, 270 Selection by environment, 209; by towns, 253; reversed, 257; sexual, 260; group, 264, 272 Self-consciousness in crowds, 44; of nations, 158, 160, 299 Sentiment, national, 164 SiDis, 32 Sighele, 20 Social evolution, 211, 288; organisa- tion, 204, 211 Social Psychology, 1, 3 Sociology and psychology. 8 Solidarity of human race, 185 Spain depleted, 254 Sparta depleted, 248 Spencer, H., 7 State and nation, 175 States, limits of size, 131 Status to contract, 285 St John, Sir S., 117 Stoll, 46 Subraces, 120 Suggestibility and emotion, 41 Superiority, intellectual, 263; of public opinion, 194; racial and cultural, 120 Sympathetic action, national, 188 Tancred de Hauteville, 239 Telepathy, 28 Tolerance, 294 Tolstoi and anarchism, 152 tourville, h. de, 23 1, 233 Townsend, Meredith, 221 Tradition in political life, 191 Tribal conflict, 245 ; consciousness, 159 Two party system, 190 Unity of nation, 157 Utilitarianism, 3 Value of nationality, 177 Variability of blended races, 140; and progress, 280 Variation, spontaneous, 209 VoLNEY on colonists, 226 Voluntary groups, 77 Vue d' ensemble in psychology, 2 Wallace, A. R., on our ancestors, 120 War and national unity, 142 Webb, Sidney, 258 Welldon, Bishop, on sons of clergy, 255 Whetham, 262 Will of the people, 156 WiNGFiELD, Stratford, 179 Womb of peoples, 238 World communications, 133 Written Codes, influence of, 271 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS THE CAMBRIDGE PSYCHOLOGICAL LIBRARY GENERAL EDITOR G. DAWES HICKS, M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D. PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON The progress of Psychology during the last half century has been both rapid and extensive. Along the lines of theoretical inquiry significant and far-reaching results have been attained ; the methods of experimental research have been successfully applied to a wide range of mental phenomena ; and it is now generally recognised that in connexion with the subject-matter of many branches of scientific pursuit psychological problems of fundamental importance present themselves for solution. The object of the Cambridge Psychological Library is to furnish a series of books, written by men actually engaged in the work of research, dealing with the various subjects that come within the field of Psychology. The extent of this field may be gauged from the titles of the volumes given below, some of which have already appeared, the others being in preparation. For the reasons indicated, the Cambridge Psychological Library will appeal not only to Psychologists but also to students of many other departments of scientific thought and investigation, such as Philosophy, Sociology, Art, Comparative Religion, Anthropology, Physiology, Zoology, Medicine, Education and Industrial Efficiency. [p. T. o. The following volumes have been arranged : Psychological Principles. By Prof. James Ward, Sc.D., F.B.A. Royal 8vo. 2nd edition. 24s. net. [Now ready An Introduction to the Study of Colour Vision. By J. Herbert Parsons, D.Sc, F.R.C.S. Royal 8vo. Frontispiece and 75 text-figures. 12s bd net. [Now ready The Group Mind. By W. McDougall, F.R.S. Royal 8vo. [Now ready Prolegomena to Psychology. By Prof G. Dawes Hicks, M.A., Ph.D., Litt.D. Psychology in Relation to Theory of Knowledge. By Prof G. F. STOUT, M.A., LL.D., F.B.A. The Nervous System. By Prof C. S. Sherrington, M.D., F.R.S. The Structure of the Nervous System and the Sense Organs. By Prof G. ELLIOT Smith, M.D., F.R.S. Mental Measurement. By W. Brown, D.Sc. and G. H. Thomson, D.Sc, Ph.D. [In the Press The Psychology of Mental Differences. By C. Burt, M.A. The Psychology of Personality and Suggestion. By T. W. Mitchell, M.D. The Psychology of Dreams. By Prof T. H. Pear, M.A. Comparative Psychology. By Prof Carveth Read, M.A. The Process of Conventionalisation. By F. C. 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