INSTINCTS OF THE HERD IN PEACE AND WAR
BY
W. TROTTER
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First Published_ _February, 1916_
_Second Impression_ _March, 1917_
_Third Impression_ _July, 1917_
_Second Edition_ _November, 1919_
_Fifth Impression_ _March, 1920_
_Sixth Impression_ _February, 1921_
(_All rights reserved_)
{5} PREFACE
The first two essays in this book were written some ten years ago
and published in the _Sociological Review_ in 1908 and 1909. They
had formed a single paper, but it was found necessary to publish in
two instalments at an interval of six months, and to cut down to a
considerable extent the total bulk.
It was lately suggested to me that as the numbers of the review in
which the two essays appeared were out of print, the fact that the
subject concerned was not without some current interest might justify a
republication. It was not possible to do this without trying to embody
such fruits as there might be of ten years’ further speculation and
some attempt to apply to present affairs the principles which had been
sketched out.
The new comment very soon surpassed by far in bulk the original text,
and constitutes, in fact, all but a comparatively few pages of this
book. This rather minute record is made here not because it has any
interest of its own, but especially to point out that I have been
engaged in trying to apply to the affairs of to-day principles which
had taken shape ten years ago. I point this out not in order {6} to
claim any gift of foresight in having suggested so long ago reasons
for regarding the stability of civilization as unsuspectedly slight,
but because it is notorious that the atmosphere of a great war is
unfavourable to free speculation. If the principles upon which my
argument is based had been evolved during the present times, the reader
would have had special reason to suspect their validity, however
plausible they might seem in the refracting air of national emergency.
The general purpose of this book is to suggest that the science of
psychology is not the mass of dreary and indefinite generalities of
which it sometimes perhaps seems to be made up; to suggest that,
especially when studied in relation to other branches of biology, it is
capable of becoming a guide in the actual affairs of life and of giving
an understanding of the human mind such as may enable us in a practical
and useful way to foretell some of the course of human behaviour.
The present state of public affairs gives an excellent chance for
testing the truth of this suggestion, and adds to the interest of the
experiment the strong incentive of an urgent national peril.
If this war is becoming, as it obviously is, daily more and more
completely a contest of moral forces, some really deep understanding of
the nature and sources of national morale must be at least as important
a source of strength as the technical knowledge of the military
engineer and the maker of cannon. One is apt to suppose that the chief
function of a sound morale is the maintenance of {7} a high courage
and resolution through the ups and downs of warfare. In a nation
whose actual independence and existence are threatened from without
such qualities may be taken for granted and may be present when the
general moral forces are seriously disordered. A satisfactory morale
gives something much more difficult to attain. It gives smoothness
of working, energy and enterprise to the whole national machine,
while from the individual it ensures the maximal outflow of effort
with a minimal interference from such egoistic passions as anxiety,
impatience, and discontent. A practical psychology would define these
functions and indicate means by which they are to be called into
activity.
The more we consider the conduct of government in warfare the clearer
does it become that every act of authority produces effects in two
distinct fields—that of its primary function as directed more or
less immediately against the enemy, and that of its secondary action
upon the morale of the nation. The first of these two constituents
possesses the uncertainty of all military enterprises, and its success
or failure cannot be foretold; the influence of the second constituent
is susceptible of definition and foresight and need never be wholly
ambiguous to any but the ignorant or the indifferent.
The relative importance of the military and the moral factors in any
act or enterprise varies much, but it may be asserted that while the
moral factor may sometimes be enormously the more important, it is
never wholly absent. This constant and admittedly significant factor
in all acts of {8} government is usually awarded an attention so
thoroughly inexpert and perfunctory, as to justify the feeling that
the customary belief in its importance is no more than a conventional
expression.
The method I have used is frankly speculative, and I make no apology
for it because the facts are open to the observation of all and
available for confirmation or disproof. I have tried to point out a
way; I have tried not to exhort or persuade to the use of it—these are
matters outside my province.
_November, 1915._
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
A few errors in the text of the First Edition have been corrected, and
a sentence which had caused misunderstanding has been omitted. No other
change has been made. A Postscript has been added in order to point out
some of the directions in which the psychological inquiry made during
the war gave a practical foresight that was confirmed by the course
of events, and in order to examine the remarkable situation in which
society now finds itself.
In the Preface to the First Edition I ventured to suggest that some
effective knowledge of the mind might be of value to a nation at war;
I take this opportunity of suggesting that such knowledge might be
not less useful to a tired nation seeking peace. At the same time
it should perhaps be added that this book is concerned wholly with
the examination of principles, is professedly speculative in methods
and conclusions, and is quite without pretensions to advise upon the
conduct of affairs.
_August, 1919._
{9} CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 8
HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
CIVILIZED MAN
INTRODUCTION 11
PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF INSTINCT 15
BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GREGARIOUSNESS 18
MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL 23
SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HERD
INSTINCT
GREGARIOUSNESS AND THE FUTURE OF MAN 60
SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915
MAN’S PLACE IN NATURE AND NATURE’S PLACE IN MAN 66
COMMENTS ON AN OBJECTIVE SYSTEM OF HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY 69
SOME PRINCIPLES OF A BIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY 91
THE BIOLOGY OF GREGARIOUSNESS 101
CHARACTERS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL DISPLAYED BY
MAN 112
SOME PECULIARITIES OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN 120
IMPERFECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN 132
GREGARIOUS SPECIES AT WAR 139
ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY—GERMANY 156
ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY—ENGLAND 201
POSTSCRIPT OF 1919
PREJUDICE IN TIME OF WAR 214
PSYCHOLOGICAL ANTICIPATIONS 224
AFTER THE WAR 235
THE INSTABILITY OF CIVILIZATION 241
SOME CHARACTERS OF A RATIONAL STATECRAFT 251
INDEX 261
{11} INSTINCTS OF THE HERD IN PEACE AND WAR
HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CIVILIZED MAN
I. INTRODUCTION
Few subjects have led to discussion so animated and prolonged as has
the definition of the science of sociology. It is therefore necessary,
as it is hoped that this essay may be capable of sociological
applications, that the writer should define the sense in which he uses
the term. By calling it a science is, of course, denoted the view
that sociology is a body of knowledge derived from experience of its
material and co-ordinated so that it shall be useful in forecasting
and, if possible, directing the future behaviour of that material. This
material is man in society of associated man.
Sociology, therefore, is obviously but another name for psychology, in
the widest sense, for, that is to say, a psychology which can include
all the phenomena of the mind without the exception even of the most
complex, and is essentially practical in a fuller sense than any
orthodox psychology which has yet appeared.
Sociology has, of course, often been described as social psychology
and has been regarded as differing from ordinary psychology in being
{12} concerned with those forms of mental activity which man displays
in his social relations, the assumption being made that society brings
to light a special series of mental aptitudes with which ordinary
psychology, dealing as it does essentially with the individual, is
not mainly concerned. It may be stated at once that it is a principal
thesis of this essay that this attitude is a fallacious one, and has
been responsible for the comparative sterility of the psychological
method in sociology. The two fields—the social and the individual—are
regarded here as absolutely continuous; all human psychology, it is
contended, must be the psychology of associated man, since man as a
solitary animal is unknown to us, and every individual must present the
characteristic reactions of the social animal if such exist. The only
difference between the two branches of the science lies in the fact
that ordinary psychology makes no claim to be practical in the sense
of conferring useful foresight; whereas sociology does profess to deal
with the complex, unsimplified problems of ordinary life, ordinary life
being, by a biological necessity, social life. If, therefore, sociology
is to be defined as psychology, it would be better to call it practical
or applied psychology than social psychology.
The first effect of the complete acceptance of this point of view is
to render very obvious the difficulty and immensity of the task of
sociology; indeed, the possibility of such a science is sometimes
denied. For example, at an early meeting of the Sociological Society,
Professor Karl Pearson expressed the opinion that the birth of the
science of sociology must await the obstetrical genius of some one man
of the calibre of Darwin or Pasteur. At a later meeting Mr. H. G. Wells
went farther, and maintained that as a science sociology not only does
not but cannot exist. {13}
Such scepticism appears in general to be based upon the idea that
a practical psychology in the sense already defined is impossible.
According to some this is because the human will introduces into
conduct an element necessarily incommensurable, which will always
render the behaviour of man subject to the occurrence of true variety
and therefore beyond the reach of scientific generalization; according
to another and a more deterministic school, human conduct, while not
theoretically liable to true variety in the philosophic sense or to
the intrusion of the will as a first cause, is in fact so complex that
no reduction of it to a complete system of generalizations will be
possible until science in general has made very great progress beyond
its present position. Both views lead in practice to attitudes of equal
pessimism towards sociology.
The observable complexity of human conduct is, undoubtedly, very
great and discouraging. The problem of generalizing from it presents,
however, one important peculiarity, which is not very evident at first
sight. It is that as observers we are constantly pursued by man’s
own account of his behaviour; that of a given act our observation
is always more or less mixed with a knowledge, derived from our own
feelings, of how it seems to the author of the act, and it is much
more difficult than is often supposed to disentangle and allow for the
influence of this factor. Each of us has the strongest conviction that
his conduct and beliefs are fundamentally individual and reasonable
and in essence independent of external causation, and each is ready to
furnish a series of explanations of his conduct consistent with these
principles. These explanations, moreover, are the ones which will occur
spontaneously to the observer watching the conduct of his fellows.
It is suggested here that the sense of the {14} unimaginable
complexity and variability of human affairs is derived less than is
generally supposed from direct observation and more from this second
factor of introspectual interpretation which may be called a kind of
anthropomorphism. A reaction against this in human psychology is no
less necessary therefore than was in comparative psychology the similar
movements the extremer developments of which are associated with the
names of Bethe, Beer, Uexküll and Nuel. It is contended that it is this
anthropomorphism in the general attitude of psychologists which, by
disguising the observable uniformities of human conduct, has rendered
so slow the establishment of a really practical psychology. Little as
the subject has been studied from the point of view of a thorough-going
objectivism, yet even now certain generalizations summarising some of
the ranges of human belief and conduct might already be formulated.
Such an inquiry, however, is not the purpose of this essay, and these
considerations have been advanced, in the first place, to suggest that
theory indicates that the problem of sociology is not so hopelessly
difficult as it at first appears, and secondly, as a justification for
an examination of certain aspects of human conduct by the deductive
method. The writer would contend that while that method is admittedly
dangerous when used as a substitute for a kind of investigation
in which deductive processes are reduced to a minimum, yet it has
its special field of usefulness in cases where the significance of
previously accumulated facts has been misinterpreted, or where the
exacter methods have proved unavailing through the investigator having
been without indications of precisely what facts were likely to be
the most fruitful subject for measurement. This essay, then, will be
an attempt to obtain by a deductive consideration of conduct some
guidance for the application of those methods of {15} measurement and
co-ordination of facts upon which all true science is based.
A very little consideration of the problem of conduct makes it plain
that it is in the region of feeling, using the term in its broadest
sense, that the key is to be sought. Feeling has relations to instinct
as obvious and fundamental as are the analogies between intellectual
processes and reflex action; it is with the consideration of instinct,
therefore, that this paper must now be occupied.
II. PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF INSTINCT.
Many years ago, in a famous chapter of his Text Book of Psychology,
William James analysed and established with a quite final delicacy and
precision the way in which instinct appears to introspection. He showed
that the impulse of an instinct reveals itself as an axiomatically
obvious proposition, as something which is so clearly “sense” that any
idea of discussing its basis is foolish or wicked.[A]
[A] Not one man in a billion, when taking his dinner, ever thinks
of utility. He eats because the food tastes good and makes him
want more. If you ask him why he should want to eat more of what
tastes like that, instead of revering you as a philosopher he
will probably laugh at you for a fool. The connexion between the
savoury sensation and the act it awakens is for him absolute
and _selbstverständlich_, an “_a priori_ synthesis” of the most
perfect sort needing no proof but its own evidence. . . . To the
metaphysician alone can such questions occur as: Why do we smile,
when pleased, and not scowl? Why are we unable to talk to a crowd
as to a single friend? Why does a particular maiden turn our wits
so upside down? The common man can only say, “_Of course_ we
smile, _of course_ our heart palpitates at the sight of the crowd,
_of course_ we love the maiden, that beautiful soul clad in that
perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made from all eternity to
be loved” (W. James, “Principles of Psychology” vol. ii. p. 386).
When we recognize that decisions due to instinct come into the mind in
a form so characteristic and easily identifiable we are encouraged at
once to ask {16} whether all decisions having this form must be looked
upon as essentially of instinctive origin. Inquiry, however, reveals
the fact that the bulk of opinion based upon assumptions having these
introspectual characters is so vast that any answer but a negative one
would seem totally incompatible with current conceptions of the nature
of human thought.[B]
[B] This introspectual quality of the “_a priori_ synthesis of
the most perfect sort” is found, for example, in the assumptions
upon which is based the bulk of opinion in matters of Church and
State, the family, justice, probity, honour, purity, crime, and so
forth. Yet clearly we cannot say that there is a specific instinct
concerned with each of these subjects, for that, to say the least,
would be to postulate an unimaginable multiplicity of instincts,
for the most part wholly without any conceivable biological
usefulness. For example, there are considerable difficulties
in imagining an instinct for making people Wesleyans or Roman
Catholics, or an instinct for making people regard British family
life as the highest product of civilization, yet there can be no
question that these positions are based upon assumptions having
all the characters described by James as belonging to the impulses
of instinct.
Many attempts have been made to explain the behaviour of man as
dictated by instinct. He is, in fact, moved by the promptings of such
obvious instincts as self-preservation, nutrition, and sex enough
to render the enterprise hopeful and its early spoils enticing. So
much can so easily be generalized under these three impulses that
the temptation to declare that all human behaviour could be resumed
under them was irresistible. These early triumphs of materialism soon,
however, began to be troubled by doubt. Man, in spite of his obvious
duty to the contrary, would continue so often not to preserve himself,
not to nourish himself and to prove resistant to the blandishments
of sex, that the attempt to squeeze his behaviour into these three
categories began to involve an increasingly obvious and finally
intolerable amount of pushing and pulling, as well as so much pretence
that he was altogether “in,” {17} when, quite plainly, so large a part
of him remained “out,” that the enterprise had to be given up, and it
was once more discovered that man escaped and must always escape any
complete generalization by science.
A more obvious inference would have been that there was some other
instinct which had not been taken into account, some impulse, perhaps,
which would have no very evident object as regarded the individual,
but would chiefly appear as modifying the other instincts and leading
to new combinations in which the primitive instinctive impulse was
unrecognizable as such. A mechanism such as this very evidently would
produce a series of actions in which uniformity might be very difficult
to recognize by direct observation, but in which it would be very
obvious if the characters of this unknown “x” were available.
Now, it is a striking fact that amongst animals there are some
whose conduct can be generalized very readily in the categories of
self-preservation, nutrition, and sex, while there are others whose
conduct cannot be thus summarized. The behaviour of the tiger and the
cat is simple, and easily comprehensible, presenting no unassimilable
anomalies, whereas that of the dog, with his conscience, his humour,
his terror of loneliness, his capacity for devotion to a brutal
master, or that of the bee, with her selfless devotion to the hive,
furnishes phenomena which no sophistry can assimilate without the
aid of a fourth instinct. But little examination will show that the
animals whose conduct it is difficult to generalize under the three
primitive instinctive categories are gregarious. If then it can be
shown that gregariousness is of a biological significance approaching
in importance that of the other instincts, we may expect to find in it
the source of these anomalies of conduct, and if we can also show {18}
that man is gregarious, we may look to it for the definition of the
unknown “x” which might account for the complexity of human behaviour.
III. BIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GREGARIOUSNESS.
The animal kingdom presents two relatively sudden and very striking
advances in complexity and in the size of the unit upon which natural
selection acts unmodified. These advances consist in the aggregation of
units which were previously independent and exposed to the full normal
action of natural selection, and the two instances are, of course,
the passage from the unicellular to the multicellular, and from the
solitary to the social.
It is obvious that in the multicellular organism individual cells
lose some of the capacities of the unicellular—reproductive capacity
is regulated and limited, nutrition is no longer possible in the old
simple way and response to stimuli comes only in certain channels. In
return for these sacrifices we may say, metaphorically, that the action
of natural selection is withdrawn from within the commune. Unfitness
of a given cell or group of cells can be eliminated only through its
effect upon the whole organism. The latter is less sensitive to the
vagaries of a single cell than is the organism of which the single
cell is the whole. It would seem, therefore, that there is now allowed
a greater range of variability for the individual cells, and perhaps,
therefore, an increased richness of the material to be selected from.
Variations, moreover, which were not immediately favourable would now
have a chance of surviving.
Looked at in this way, multicellularity presents itself as an escape
from the rigour of natural selection, which for the unicellular
organism had narrowed {19} competition to so desperate a struggle
that any variation outside the straitest limits was fatal, for even
though it might be favourable in one respect, it would, in so small
a kingdom, involve a loss in another. The only way, therefore, for
further advantageous elaboration to occur was by the enlargement of
the competing unit. Various species of multicellular organisms might
in time be supposed in turn to reach the limit of their powers.
Competition would be at its maximum, smaller and smaller variations
would be capable of producing serious results. In the species where
these conditions prevail an enlargement of the unit is imminent if
progress is to occur. It is no longer possible by increases of physical
complexity and the apparently inevitable sequence is the appearance
of gregariousness. The necessity and inevitableness of the change are
shown by its scattered development in very widely separated regions
(for example, in insects and in mammals) just as, we may suspect,
multicellularity appeared.
Gregariousness seems frequently to be regarded as a somewhat
superficial character, scarcely deserving, as it were, the name of an
instinct, advantageous it is true, but not of fundamental importance
or likely to be deeply ingrained in the inheritance of the species.
This attitude may be due to the fact that among mammals at any rate the
appearance of gregariousness has not been accompanied by any very gross
physical changes which are obviously associated with it.[C]
[C] Among gregarious insects there are of course physical changes
arising out of and closely dependent on the social organization.
To whatever it may be due, this method of regarding the social habit
is, in the opinion of the present writer, not justified by the facts,
and prevents the attainment of conclusions of considerable fruitfulness.
A study of bees and ants shows at once how {20} fundamental the
importance of gregariousness may become. The individual in such
communities is completely incapable, often physically, of existing
apart from the community, and this fact at once gives rise to the
suspicion that even in communities less closely knit than those of
the ant and the bee, the individual may in fact be more dependent on
communal life than appears at first sight.
Another very striking piece of general evidence of the significance
of gregariousness as no mere late acquirement is the remarkable
coincidence of its occurrence with that of exceptional grades
of intelligence or the possibility of very complex reactions to
environment. It can scarcely be regarded as an unmeaning accident
that the dog, the horse, the ape, the elephant, and man are all
social animals. The instances of the bee and the ant are perhaps the
most amazing. Here the advantages of gregariousness seem actually to
outweigh the most prodigious differences of structure, and we find
a condition which is often thought of as a mere habit, capable of
enabling the insect nervous system to compete in the complexity of its
power of adaptation with that of the higher vertebrates.
If it be granted that gregariousness is a phenomenon of profound
biological significance and one likely therefore to be responsible
for an important group of instinctive impulses, the next step in our
argument is the discussion of the question as to whether man is to
be regarded as gregarious in the full sense of the word, whether,
that is to say, the social habit may be expected to furnish him with
a mass of instinctive impulse as mysteriously potent as the impulses
of self-preservation, nutrition, and sex. Can we look to the social
instinct for an explanation of some of the “_a priori_ syntheses of the
most perfect sort needing no proof but their own evidence,” which are
not explained by the three {21} primitive categories of instinct, and
remain stumbling-blocks in the way of generalizing the conduct of man?
The conception of man as a gregarious animal is, of course, extremely
familiar; one frequently meets with it in the writings of psychologists
and sociologists, and it has obtained a respectable currency with the
lay public. It has, indeed, become so hackneyed that it is the first
duty of a writer who maintains the thesis that its significance is
not even yet fully understood, to show that the popular conception
of it has been far from exhaustive. As used hitherto the idea seems
to have had a certain vagueness which greatly impaired its practical
value. It furnished an interesting analogy for some of the behaviour
of man, or was enunciated as a half serious illustration by a writer
who felt himself to be in an exceptionally sardonic vein, but it was
not at all widely looked upon as a definite fact of biology which
must have consequences as precise and a significance as ascertainable
as the secretion of the gastric juice or the refracting apparatus of
the eye. One of the most familiar attitudes was that which regarded
the social instinct as a late development. The family was looked
upon as the primitive unit; from it developed the tribe, and by the
spread of family feeling to the tribe the social instinct arose. It is
interesting that the psychological attack upon this position has been
anticipated by sociologists and anthropologists, and that it is already
being recognized that an undifferentiated horde rather than the family
must be regarded as the primitive basis of human society.
The most important consequence of this vague way of regarding the
social habit of man has been that no exhaustive investigation of
its psychological corollaries has been carried out. When we see the
enormous effect in determining conduct that the gregarious inheritance
has in the bee, the ant, the {22} horse, or the dog, it is quite
plain that if the gregariousness of man had been seriously regarded
as a definite fact a great amount of work would have been done in
determining precisely what reactive tendencies it had marked out in
man’s mind. Unfortunately, the amount of precise work of this kind has
been very small.
From the biological standpoint the probability of gregariousness being
a primitive and fundamental quality in man seems to be considerable. As
already pointed out, like the other great enlargement of the biological
unit, but in a much more easily recognizable degree, it would appear to
have the effect of enlarging the advantages of variation. Varieties not
immediately favourable, varieties departing widely from the standard,
varieties even unfavourable to the individual may be supposed to be
given by it a chance of survival. Now the course of the development
of man seems to present many features incompatible with its having
proceeded amongst isolated individuals exposed to the unmodified
action of natural selection. Changes so serious as the assumption of
the upright posture, the reduction in the jaw and its musculature, the
reduction in the acuity of smell and hearing, demand, if the species
is to survive, either a delicacy of adjustment with the compensatingly
developing intelligence so minute as to be almost inconceivable, or
the existence of some kind of protective enclosure, however imperfect,
in which the varying individuals were sheltered from the direct
influence of natural selection. The existence of such a mechanism would
compensate losses of physical strength in the individual by the greatly
increased strength of the larger unit, of the unit, that is to say,
upon which natural selection still acts unmodified.
A realization, therefore, of this function of gregariousness relieves
us from the necessity of {23} supposing that the double variations of
diminishing physical and increasing mental capacity always occurred
_pari passu_. The case for the primitiveness of the social habit would
seem to be still further strengthened by a consideration of such widely
aberrant developments as speech and the æsthetic activities, but a
discussion of them here would involve an unnecessary indulgence of
biological speculation.
IV. MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL.
(_a_) Current Views in Sociology and Psychology.
If we now assume that gregariousness may be regarded as a fundamental
quality of man, it remains to discuss the effects we may expect it
to have produced upon the structure of his mind. It would be well,
however, first, to attempt to form some idea of how far investigation
has already gone in this direction. It is of course clear that no
complete review of all that has been said concerning a conception so
familiar can be attempted here, and, even if it were possible, it would
not be a profitable enterprise, as the great bulk of writers have
not seen in the idea anything to justify a fundamental examination
of it. What will be done here, therefore, will be to mention a few
representative writers who have dealt with the subject, and to give in
a summary way the characteristic features of their exposition.
As far as I am aware, the first person to point out any of the less
obvious biological significance of gregariousness was Professor Karl
Pearson.[D] {24}
[D] Many references to the subject will be found in his published
works, for example in “The Grammar of Science,” in “National Life
from the Standpoint of Science,” and in “The Chances of Death.” In
the collection of Essays last named the essay entitled “Socialism
and Natural Selection” deals most fully with the subject.
He called attention to the enlargement of the selective unit effected
by the appearance of gregariousness, and to the fact that therefore
within the group the action of natural selection becomes modified.
This conception had, as is well known, escaped the insight of Haeckel,
of Spencer, and of Huxley, and Pearson showed into what confusions in
their treatment of the problems of society these three had been led by
the oversight.[E] For example may be mentioned the famous antithesis
of the “cosmical” and the “ethical” processes expounded in Huxley’s
Romanes Lecture. It was quite definitely indicated by Pearson that the
so-called ethical process, the appearance, that is to say, of altruism,
is to be regarded as a directly instinctive product of gregariousness,
and as natural, therefore, as any other instinct.
These very clear and valuable conceptions do not seem, however, to have
received from biologists the attention they deserved, and as far as I
am aware their author has not continued further the examination of the
structure of the gregarious mind, which would undoubtedly have yielded
in his hands further conclusions of equal value.
We may next examine the attitude of a modern sociologist. I have chosen
for this purpose the work of an American sociologist, Lester Ward, and
propose briefly to indicate his position as it may be gathered from his
book entitled “Pure Sociology.”[F] {25}
[E] “Socialism and Natural Selection” in “The Chances of Death.”
[F] Lester F. Ward, “Pure Sociology: a Treatise on the Origin and
Spontaneous Development of Society.” New York: The Macmillan Co.
1903. I do not venture to decide whether this work may be regarded
as representative of orthodox sociology, if there be such a thing;
I have made the choice because of the author’s capacity for fresh
and ingenious speculation and his obviously wide knowledge of
sociological literature.
The task of summarizing the views of any sociologist seems to me to be
rendered difficult by a certain vagueness in outline of the positions
laid down, a certain tendency for a description of fact to run into
an analogy, and an analogy to fade into an illustration. It would
be discourteous to doubt that these tendencies are necessary to the
fruitful treatment of the material of sociology, but, as they are very
prominent in connection with the subject of gregariousness, it is
necessary to say that one is fully conscious of the difficulties they
give rise to, and feels that they may have led one into unintentional
misrepresentation.
With this proviso it may be stated that the writings of Ward produce
the feeling that he regards gregariousness as furnishing but few
precise and primitive characteristics of the human mind. The mechanisms
through which group “instinct” acts would seem to be to him largely
rational processes, and group instinct itself is regarded as a
relatively late development more or less closely associated with a
rational knowledge that it “pays.” For example, he says: “For want of
a better name, I have characterized this social instinct, or instinct
of race safety, as religion, but not without clearly perceiving that
it constitutes the primordial undifferentiated plasm out of which have
subsequently developed all the more important human institutions. This
. . . if it be not an instinct, is at least the human homologue of
animal instinct, and served the same purpose _after the instincts had
chiefly disappeared_, and when the egotistic reason would otherwise
have rapidly carried the race to destruction in its mad pursuit of
pleasure for its own sake.”[G]
[G] “Pure Sociology,” p. 134. Italics not in original. Passages
of a similar tendency will be found on pp. 200 and 556.
That gregariousness has to be considered amongst {26} the factors
shaping the tendencies of the human mind has long been recognized by
the more empirical psychologists. In the main, however, it has been
regarded as a quality perceptible only in the characteristics of actual
crowds—that is to say, assemblies of persons being and acting in
association. This conception has served to evoke a certain amount of
valuable work in the observation of the behaviour of crowds.[H]
Owing, however, to the failure to investigate as the more essential
question the effects of gregariousness in the mind of the normal
individual man, the theoretical side of crowd psychology has remained
incomplete and relatively sterile.
There is, however, one exception, in the case of the work of Boris
Sidis. In a book entitled “The Psychology of Suggestion”[I] he has
described certain psychical qualities as necessarily associated with
the social habit in the individual as in the crowd. His position,
therefore, demands some discussion. The fundamental element in it is
the conception of the normal existence in the mind of a subconscious
self. This subconscious or subwaking self is regarded as embodying the
“lower” and more obviously brutal qualities of man. It is irrational,
imitative, credulous, cowardly, cruel, and lacks all individuality,
will, and self-control.[J] This personality takes the place of the
normal personality during hypnosis and when the individual is one of an
active crowd, as, for example, in riots, panics, lynchings, revivals,
and so forth. {27}
[H] For example, the little book of Gustave Le Bon—“Psychologie
des Foules,” Paris: Felix Alcan—in which are formulated many
generalizations.
[I] “The Psychology of Suggestion: a Research into the
Subconscious Nature of Man and Society,” by Boris Sidis, with an
Introduction by Prof. Wm. James. New York. 1903.
[J] “Psychology of Suggestion,” p. 295.
Of the two personalities—the subconscious and the normal—the former
alone is suggestible; the successful operation of suggestion implies
the recurrence, however transient, of a disaggregation of personality,
and the emergence of the subwaking self as the controlling mind (pp.
89 and 90). It is this suggestibility of the subwaking self which
enables man to be a social animal. “Suggestibility is the cement of
the herd, the very soul of the primitive social group. . . . Man is a
social animal, no doubt, but he is social because he is suggestible.
Suggestibility, however, requires disaggregation of consciousness,
hence society presupposes a cleavage of the mind. Society and mental
epidemics are intimately related; for the social gregarious self is the
suggestible subconscious self” (p. 310).
Judged from our present standpoint, the most valuable feature of
Sidis’s book is that it calls attention to the undoubtedly intimate
relation between gregariousness and suggestibility. The mechanism,
however, by which he supposes suggestibility to come into action is
more open to criticism. The conception of a permanent subconscious self
is one to which it is doubtful whether the evidence compels assent.[K]
The essential difference, however, which Sidis’s views present from
those to be developed below, lies in his regarding suggestibility as
being something which is liable to intrude upon the normal mind as the
result of a disaggregation of consciousness, instead of as a necessary
quality of every normal mind, continually present, and an inalienable
accompaniment of human thought. A careful reading of his book gives
a very clear impression that he looks upon suggestibility as a {28}
disreputable and disastrous legacy of the brute and the savage,
undesirable in civilized life, opposed to the satisfactory development
of the normal individuality, and certainly in no way associated at its
origin with a quality so valuable as altruism. Moreover, one gets the
impression that he regards suggestibility as being manifested chiefly,
if not solely, in crowds, in panics, revivals, and in conditions
generally in which the element of close association is well marked.
[K] In this connexion the “Symposium on the Subconscious” in the
_Journal of Abnormal Psychology_, vol. ii. Nos. 1 and 2, is of
much interest. The discussion is contributed to by Münsterberg,
Ribot Jastrow, Pierre Janet, and Morton Prince.
(_b_) Deductive Considerations
The functions of the gregarious habit in a species may broadly be
defined as offensive or defensive, or both. Whichever of these modes it
has assumed in the animal under consideration, it will be correlated
with effects which will be divisible into two classes—the general
characteristics of the social animal, and the special characteristics
of the form of social habit possessed by the given animal. The dog and
the sheep illustrate well the characteristics of the two simple forms
of gregariousness—offensive and defensive.
1. _Special Characteristics of the Gregarious Animal._
These need not be dealt with here, as they are the qualities which
for the most part have been treated of by psychologists in such work
as has been done on the corollaries of gregariousness in man. This is
because they are qualities which are most evident in man’s behaviour
when he acts in crowds, and are then evident as something temporarily
superadded to the possibilities of the isolated individual. Hence
it has come about that they have been taken for the most part as
constituting the whole of man’s gregarious inheritance, while the
possibility that that inheritance might have {29} equally important
consequences for the individual has been relatively neglected.
2. _General Characteristics of the Gregarious Animal._
The cardinal quality of the herd is homogeneity. It is clear that
the great advantage of the social habit is to enable large numbers
to act as one, whereby in the case of the hunting gregarious animal
strength in pursuit and attack is at once increased to beyond that
of the creatures preyed upon,[L] and in protective socialism the
sensitiveness of the new unit to alarms is greatly in excess of that of
the individual member of the flock.
[L] The wolf pack forms an organism, it is interesting to note,
stronger than the lion or the tiger; capable of compensating for
the loss of members; inexhaustible in pursuit, and therefore
capable by sheer strength of hunting down without wile or artifice
the fleetest animals; capable finally of consuming all the food it
kills, and thus possessing another considerable advantage over the
large solitary carnivora in not tending uselessly to exhaust its
food supply. The advantages of the social habit in carnivora is
well shown by the survival of wolves in civilized countries even
to-day.
To secure these advantages of homogeneity, it is evident that the
members of the herd must possess sensitiveness to the behaviour of
their fellows. The individual isolated will be of no meaning, the
individual as part of the herd will be capable of transmitting the
most potent impulses. Each member of the flock tending to follow its
neighbour and in turn to be followed, each is in some sense capable
of leadership; but no lead will be followed that departs widely from
normal behaviour. A lead will be followed only from its resemblance to
the normal. If the leader go so far ahead as definitely to cease to be
in the herd, he will necessarily be ignored.
The original in conduct, that is to say resistiveness to the voice of
the herd, will be suppressed {30} by natural selection; the wolf which
does not follow the impulses of the herd will be starved; the sheep
which does not respond to the flock will be eaten.
Again, not only will the individual be responsive to impulses coming
from the herd, but he will treat the herd as his normal environment.
The impulse to be in and always to remain with the herd will have the
strongest instinctive weight. Anything which tends to separate him
from his fellows, as soon as it becomes perceptible as such, will be
strongly resisted.
So far, we have regarded the gregarious animal objectively. We have
seen that he behaves as if the herd were the only environment in which
he can live, that he is especially sensitive to impulses coming from
the herd, and quite differently affected by the behaviour of animals
not in the herd. Let us now try to estimate the mental aspects of these
impulses. Suppose a species in possession of precisely the instinctive
endowments which we have been considering, to be also self-conscious,
and let us ask what will be the forms under which these phenomena
will present themselves in its mind. In the first place, it is quite
evident that impulses derived from herd feeling will enter the mind
with the value of instincts—they will present themselves as “_a
priori_ syntheses of the most perfect sort needing no proof but their
own evidence.” They will not, however, it is important to remember,
necessarily always give this quality to the same specific acts, but
will show this great distinguishing characteristic that they may
give to _any opinion whatever_ the characters of instinctive belief,
making it into an “_a priori synthesis_”; so that we shall expect to
find acts which it would be absurd to look upon as the results of
specific instincts carried out with all the enthusiasm of instinct, and
displaying {31} all the marks of instinctive behaviour. The failure
to recognize this appearance of herd impulse as a tendency, as a power
which can confer instinctive sanctions on any part of the field of
belief or action, has prevented the social habit of man from attracting
as much of the attention of psychologists as it might profitably have
done.
In interpreting into mental terms the consequences of gregariousness,
we may conveniently begin with the simplest. The conscious individual
will feel an unanalysable primary sense of comfort in the actual
presence of his fellows, and a similar sense of discomfort in their
absence. It will be obvious truth to him that it is not good for the
man to be alone. Loneliness will be a real terror, insurmountable by
reason.
Again, certain conditions will become secondarily associated with
presence with, or absence from, the herd. For example, take the
sensations of heat and cold. The latter is prevented in gregarious
animals by close crowding, and experienced in the reverse condition;
hence it comes to be connected in the mind with separation, and
so acquires altogether unreasonable associations of harmfulness.
Similarly, the sensation of warmth is associated with feelings of
the secure and salutary. It has taken medicine many thousands of
years to begin to doubt the validity of the popular conception of
the harmfulness of cold; yet to the psychologist such a doubt is
immediately obvious.[M]
[M] Any one who has watched the behaviour of the dog and the cat
towards warmth and cold cannot have failed to notice the effect of
the gregarious habit on the former. The cat displays a moderate
liking for warmth, but also a decided indifference to cold, and
will quietly sit in the snow in a way which would be impossible to
the dog.
Slightly more complex manifestations of the same tendency to
homogeneity are seen in the desire for identification with the herd
in matters of opinion. {32} Here we find the biological explanation
of the ineradicable impulse mankind has always displayed towards
segregation into classes. Each one of us in his opinions and his
conduct, in matters of dress, amusement, religion, and politics, is
compelled to obtain the support of a class, of a herd within the herd.
The most eccentric in opinion or conduct is, we may be sure, supported
by the agreement of a class, the smallness of which accounts for his
apparent eccentricity, and the preciousness of which accounts for his
fortitude in defying general opinion. Again, anything which tends to
emphasize difference from the herd is unpleasant. In the individual
mind there will be an unanalysable dislike of the novel in action or
thought. It will be “wrong,” “wicked,” “foolish,” “undesirable,” or
as we say “bad form,” according to varying circumstances which we can
already to some extent define.