bee is replaced in man by a segregation into classes which tends always
to obscure the unity of the nation and often is directly antagonistic
to it. The readiness with which such segregation occurs seems to be due
to the invincible strength of the gregarious impulse in the individual
man and to the immense size and strength of the modern major unit of
the species. It would appear that in order that a given unit should
develop the highest degree of homogeneity within itself it must be
subject to direct pressure from without. A great abundance of food
supply and consequent relaxed external pressure may in the bee lead
to indiscriminate swarming, while in man the size and security of the
modern State lead to a relaxation of the closer grades of national
unity—in the absence of deliberate encouragement of it or of the
stimulus of war. The need of the individual for homogeneity is none the
less present, and the result is segregation into classes which form, as
it were, minor herds in which homogeneity is maintained by the external
pressure of competition, of political or religious differences and so
forth. Naturally enough such segregations have come to correspond in
a rough way with the various types of imperfect specialization which
exist. This tendency is clearly of unfavourable effect on national
unity, since it tends to obscure the national value of specialization
and to give it a merely local and class significance. Segregation in
itself is always dangerous in that it provides the individual with a
substitute for the true major unit—the nation—and in times when there
is an urgent need for national homogeneity may prove to be a hostile
force.
It has been characteristic of the governing classes to acquiesce in
the fullest developments of segregation and even to defend them by
force and to fail to realize in times of emergency that national {138}
homogeneity must always be a partial and weakly passion as long as
segregation actively persists.
* * * * *
Class segregation has thus come to be regarded as a necessary and
inevitable part of the structure of society. Telling as it does much
more in the favour of certain classes than others, it has come to be
defended by a whole series of legal and moral principles invented
for the purpose, and by arguments that to objective examination are
no more than rationalized prejudice. The maintenance of the social
system—that is, of the segregation of power and prestige, of ease and
leisure, and the corresponding segregations of labour, privation, and
poverty—depends upon an enormously elaborate system of rationalization,
tradition, and morals, and upon almost innumerable indirect mechanisms
ranging from the drugging of society with alcohol to the distortion of
religious principle in the interests of the established order. To the
biologist the whole immensely intricate system is a means for combating
the slow, almost imperceptible, pressure of Nature in the direction
of a true national homogeneity. That this must be attained if human
progress is to continue is, and has long been, obvious. The further
fact that it can be attained only by a radical change in the whole
human attitude towards society is but barely emerging from obscurity.
The fact that even the immense external stimulus of a great war now
fails to overcome the embattled forces of social segregation, and
can bring about only a very partial kind of national homogeneity in
a society where segregation is deeply ingrained, seems to show that
simple gregariousness has run its course in man and has been defeated
of its full maturity by the disruptive power of man’s capacity for
varied reaction. No state of equilibrium can be reached in a gregarious
society short of complete {139} homogeneity, so that, failing the
emergence of some new resource of Nature, it might be suspected that
man, as a species, has already begun to decline from his meridian.
Such a new principle is the conscious direction of society by man,
the refusal by him to submit indefinitely to the dissipation of his
energies and the disappointment of his ideals in inco-ordination and
confusion. Thus would appear a function for that individual mental
capacity of man which has so far, when limited to local and personal
ends, tended but to increase the social confusion.
A step of evolution such as this would have consequences as momentous
as the first appearance of the multicellular or of the gregarious
animal. Man, conscious as a species of his true status and destiny,
realizing the direction of the path to which he is irrevocably
committed by Nature, with a moral code based on the unshakable natural
foundation of altruism, could begin to draw on those stores of power
which will be opened to him by a true combination, and the rendering
available in co-ordinated action of the maximal energy of each
individual.
GREGARIOUS SPECIES AT WAR.
The occurrence of war between nations renders obvious certain
manifestations of the social instinct which are apt to escape notice
at other times. So marked is this that a certain faint interest in the
biology of gregariousness has been aroused during the present war, and
has led to some speculation but no very radical examination of the
facts or explanation of their meaning. Expression, of course, has been
found for the usual view that primitive instincts normally vestigial
or dormant are aroused into activity by the stress of war, and that
there is a process of rejuvenation of “lower” instincts at the expense
of “higher.” All such views, apart {140} from their theoretical
unsoundness, are uninteresting because they are of no practical value.
It will be convenient to mention some of the more obvious psychological
phenomena of a state of war before dealing with the underlying
instinctive processes which produce them.
The war that began in August 1914 was of a kind peculiarly suitable
to produce the most marked and typical psychological effects. It had
long been foreseen as no more than a mere possibility of immense
disaster—of disaster so outrageous that by that very fact it had come
to be regarded with a passionate incredulity. It had loomed before the
people, at any rate of England, as an event almost equivalent to the
ultimate overthrow of all things. It had been led up to by years of
doubt and anxiety, sometimes rising to apprehension, sometimes lapsing
into unbelief, and culminating in an agonized period of suspense,
while the avalanche tottered and muttered on its base before the final
and still incredible catastrophe. Such were the circumstances which
no doubt led to the actual outbreak producing a remarkable series of
typical psychological reactions.
* * * * *
The first feeling of the ordinary citizen was fear—an immense, vague,
aching anxiety, perhaps typically vague and unfocused, but naturally
tending soon to localize itself in channels customary to the individual
and leading to fears for his future, his food supply, his family, his
trade, and so forth. Side by side with fear there was a heightening
of the normal intolerance of isolation. Loneliness became an urgently
unpleasant feeling, and the individual experienced an intense and
active desire for the company and even physical contact of his fellows.
In such company he was aware of a great accession of confidence,
courage, and moral power. It was possible for an observant person
to trace the actual {141} influence of his circumstances upon his
judgment, and to notice that isolation tended to depress his confidence
while company fortified it. The necessity for companionship was
strong enough to break down the distinctions of class, and dissipate
the reserve between strangers which is to some extent a concomitant
mechanism. The change in the customary frigid atmosphere of the railway
train, the omnibus, and all such meeting-places was a most interesting
experience to the psychologist, and he could scarcely fail to be struck
by its obvious biological meaning. Perhaps the most striking of all
these early phenomena was the strength and vitality of rumour, probably
because it afforded by far the most startling evidence that some other
and stronger force than reason was at work in the formation of opinion.
It was, of course, in no sense an unusual fact that non-rational
opinion should be so widespread; the new feature was that such opinion
should be able to spread so rapidly and become established so firmly
altogether regardless of the limits within which a given opinion tends
to remain localized in times of peace. Non-rational opinion under
normal conditions is as a rule limited in its extent by a very strict
kind of segregation; the successful rumours of the early periods of the
war invaded all classes and showed a capacity to overcome prejudice,
education, or scepticism. The observer, clearly conscious as he might
be of the mechanisms at work, found himself irresistibly drawn to the
acceptance of the more popular beliefs; and even the most convinced
believer in the normal prevalence of non-rational belief could scarcely
have exaggerated the actual state of affairs. Closely allied with this
accessibility to rumour was the readiness with which suspicions of
treachery and active hostility grew and flourished about any one of
even foreign appearance or origin. It is not intended to {142} attempt
to discuss the origin and meaning of the various types of fable which
have been epidemic in opinion; the fact we are concerned with here is
their immense vitality and power of growth.
We may now turn to some consideration of the psychological significance
of these phenomena of a state of war.
The characteristic feature of a really dangerous national struggle for
existence is the intensity of the stimulus it applies to the social
instinct. It is not that it arouses “dormant” or decayed instincts, but
simply that it applies maximal stimulation to instinctive mechanisms
which are more or less constantly in action in normal times. In most
of his reactions as a gregarious animal in times of peace, man is
acting as a member of one or another class upon which the stimulus
acts. War acts upon him as a member of the greater herd, the nation,
or, in other words, the true major unit. As I have repeatedly pointed
out, the cardinal mental characteristic of the gregarious animal is
his sensitiveness to his fellow-members of the herd. Without them his
personality is, so to say, incomplete; only in relation to them can
he attain satisfaction and personal stability. Corresponding with
his dependence on them is his openness towards them, his specific
accessibility to stimuli coming from the herd.
A threat directed towards the whole herd is the intensest stimulus
to these potentialities, and the individual reacts towards it in the
most vigorous way.[O] The first response is a thrill of alarm which
{143} passes through the herd from one member to another with magic
rapidity. It puts him on the alert, sets him looking for guidance,
prepares him to receive commands, but above all draws him to the herd
in the first instinctive concentration against the enemy. In the
presence of this stimulus even such partial and temporary isolation as
was possible without it becomes intolerable. The physical presence of
the herd, the actual contact and recognition of its members, becomes
indispensable. This is no mere functionless desire, for re-embodiment
in the herd at once fortifies courage and fills the individual with
moral power, enthusiasm, and fortitude. The meaning that mere physical
contact with his fellows still has for man is conclusively shown in
the use that has been made of attacks in close formation in the German
armies. It is perfectly clear that a densely crowded formation has
psychological advantages in the face of danger, which enable quite
ordinary beings to perform what are in fact prodigies of valour.
Even undisciplined civil mobs have, on occasion, proved wonderfully
valorous, though their absence of unity often causes their enterprise
to alternate with panic. A disciplined mob—if one may use that word
merely as a physical expression, without any derogatory meaning—has
been shown in this war on innumerable occasions to be capable of facing
dangers the facing of which by isolated individuals would be feats of
fabulous bravery. {144}
[O] War in itself is by no means necessarily a maximal stimulus
to herd instinct if it does not involve a definite threat to the
whole herd. This fact is well shown in the course of the South
African War of 1899–1901. This war was not and was not regarded
as capable of becoming a direct threat to the life of the nation.
There was consequently no marked moral concentration of the
people, no massive energizing of the Government by a homogeneous
nation, and therefore the conduct of the war was in general
languid, timid, and pessimistic. The morale of the people was as
a whole bad; there was an exaggerated hunger for good news, and
an excessive satisfaction in it; an exaggerated pessimism was
excited by bad news, and public fortitude was shaken by casualties
which we should now regard as insignificant. Correspondingly the
activity and vitality of rumour were enormously less than they
have been in the present war. The weaker stimulus is betrayed
throughout the whole series of events by the weakness of all the
characteristic gregarious responses.
The psychological significance of the enormous activity of rumour in
this war is fairly plain. That rumours spread readily and are tenacious
of life is evidence of the sensitiveness to herd opinion which is so
characteristic of the social instinct. The gravity of a threat to the
herd is shown by nothing better than by the activity of rumour. The
strong stimulus to herd instinct produces the characteristic response
in the individual of a maximal sensitiveness to his fellows—to their
presence or absence, their alarms and braveries, and in no less degree
to their opinions. With the establishment of this state of mind the
spread and survival of rumours become inevitable, and will vary
directly with the seriousness of the external danger. Into the actual
genesis of the individual rumours and the meaning of their tendency to
take a stereotyped form we cannot enter here.
The potency of rumour in bearing down rational scepticism displays
unmistakably the importance of the instinctive processes on which it
rests. It is also one of the many evidences that homogeneity within
the herd is a deeply rooted necessity for gregarious animals and is
elaborately provided for by characteristics of the gregarious mind.
The establishment of homogeneity in the herd is the basis of morale.
From homogeneity proceed moral power, enthusiasm, courage, endurance,
enterprise, and all the virtues of the warrior. The peace of mind,
happiness, and energy of the soldier come from his feeling himself to
be a member in a body solidly united for a single purpose. The impulse
towards unity that was so pronounced and universal at the beginning of
the war was, then, a true and sound instinctive movement of defence. It
was prepared to sacrifice all social distinctions and local prejudices
if it could liberate by doing so Nature’s inexhaustible stores of
moral power for the defence {145} of the herd. Naturally enough its
significance was misunderstood, and a great deal of its beneficent
magic was wasted by the good intentions which man is so touchingly
ready to accept as a substitute for knowledge. Even the functional
value of unity was, and still is, for the most part ignored. We are
told to weariness that the great objection to disunion is that it
encourages the enemy. According to this view, apparent disunion is as
serious as real; whereas it must be perfectly obvious that anything
which leads our enemy to under-estimate our strength, as does the
belief that we are disunited when we are not, is of much more service
to us than is neutralized by any more or less visionary disservice we
do ourselves by fortifying his morale. The morale of a nation at war
proceeds from within itself, and the mere pharisaism and conceit that
come from the contemplation of another’s misfortunes are of no moral
value. Modern civilians in general are much too self-conscious to
conduct the grave tragedy of war with the high, preoccupied composure
it demands. They are apt to think too much of what sort of a figure
they are making before the world, to waste energy in superfluous
explanations of themselves, in flustered and voluble attempts to make
friends with bystanders, in posing to the enemy, and imagining they
can seriously influence him by grimaces and gesticulations. As a
matter of fact, it must be confessed that if such manœuvres could be
conducted with a deliberate and purposeful levity which few would now
have the fortitude to employ, there would be a certain satisfaction to
be obtained in this particular war by the knowledge of our adversary
conscientiously, perhaps a little heavily, and with immense resources
of learning “investigating our psychology” upon materials of a wholly
fantastic kind. Such a design, however, is very far from being the
intention of {146} our interpreters to the world, and as long as they
cannot keep the earnest and hysterical note out of their exposition it
were much better for us that they were totally dumb.
To the psychologist it is plain that the seriousness of disunion is the
discouragement to ourselves it necessarily involves. In this lies its
single and its immense importance. Every note of disunion is a loss of
moral power of incalculable influence; every evidence of union is an
equally incalculable gain of moral power. Both halves of this statement
deserve consideration, but the latter is incomparably the more
important. If disunion were the more potent influence, a great deal
might be done for national morale by the forcible control of opinion
and expression. That, however, could yield nothing positive, and we
must rely upon voluntary unity as the only source of all the higher
developments of moral power.
It was towards this object that we dimly groped when we felt in the
early weeks of the war the impulses of friendliness, tolerance, and
goodwill towards our fellow-citizens, and the readiness to sacrifice
what privileges the social system had endowed us with in order to enjoy
the power which a perfect homogeneity of the herd would have given us.
A very small amount of conscious, authoritative direction at that time,
a very little actual sacrifice of privilege at that psychological
moment, a series of small, carefully selected concessions none of which
need have been actually subversive of prescriptive right, a slight
relaxation in the vast inhumanity of the social machine would have
given the needed readjustment out of which a true national homogeneity
would necessarily have grown.
The psychological moment was allowed to pass, and the country was
spared the shock of seeing its {147} moral strength, which should of
course be left to luck, fortified by the hand of science. The history
of England during the first fourteen months of the war was thus left
to pursue its characteristically English course. The social system
of class segregation soon repented of its momentary softness and
resumed its customary rigidity. More than that, it decided that, far
from the war being a special occasion which should penetrate with a
transforming influence the whole of society from top to bottom, as
the common people were at first inclined to think, the proper pose
before the enemy was to be that it made no difference at all. We were
to continue imperturbably with the conduct of our business, and to awe
the Continent with a supreme exhibition of British phlegm. The national
consciousness of the working-man was to be stimulated by his continuing
to supply us with our dividends, and ours by continuing to receive
them. It is not necessary to pursue the history of this new substitute
for unity. It is open to doubt whether our enemies were greatly
appalled by the spectacle, or more so than our friends; it is certain
that the stimulant supplied to the working-man proved to be inadequate
and had to be supplemented by others. . . .
The problem of the function of the common citizen in war was of course
left unsolved. It was accepted that if a man were unfit for service
and not a skilled worker, he himself was a mere dead weight, and
his intense longing for direct service, of however humble a kind, a
by-product of which the State could make no use.
That the working classes have to a certain extent failed to develop a
complete sense of national unity is obvious enough. It is contended
here that what would have been easy in the early days of the war and
actually inexpensive to prescriptive right, has steadily become more
and more costly to effect {148} and less and less efficiently done.
We are already faced with the possibility of having to make profound
changes in the social system to convince the working-man effectually
that his interests and ours in this war are one.
That a very large class of common citizens, incapable of direct
military work, has been left morally derelict during all these
agonizing months of war has probably not been any less serious a fact,
although the recognition of it has not been forced unavoidably on
public notice. It must surely be clear that in a nation engaged in an
urgent struggle for existence, the presence of a large class who are
as sensitive as any to the call of the herd, and yet cannot respond in
any active way, contains very grave possibilities. The only response to
that relentless calling that can give peace is in service; if that be
denied, restlessness, uneasiness, and anxiety must necessarily follow.
To such a mental state are very easily added impatience, discontent,
exaggerated fears, pessimism, and irritability. It must be remembered
that large numbers of such individuals were persons of importance in
peace time and retain a great deal of their prestige under the social
system we have decided to maintain, although in war time they are
obviously without function. This group of idle and flustered parasites
has formed a nucleus from which have proceeded some of the many
outbursts of disunion which have done so much to prevent this country
from developing her resources with smoothness and continuity. It is not
suggested that these eruptions of discontent are due to any kind of
disloyalty; they are the result of defective morale, and bear all the
evidences of coming from persons whose instinctive response to the call
of the herd has been frustrated and who, therefore, lack the strength
and composure of those whose souls are uplifted by a satisfactory
{149} instinctive activity. Moral instability has been characteristic
of all the phenomena of disunion we are now considering, such as
recrudescences of political animus, attacks on individual members
of the Government, outbursts of spy mania, campaigns of incitement
against aliens and of blustering about reprisals. Similar though less
conspicuous manifestations are the delighted circulation of rumours,
the wild scandalmongering, the eager dissemination of pessimistic
inventions which are the pleasure of the smaller amongst these moral
waifs. Of all the evidences of defective morale, however, undoubtedly
the most general has yet to be mentioned, and that is the proffering
of technical advice and exhortation. If we are to judge by what we
read, there are few more urgent temptations than this, and yet it is
easy to see that there are few enterprises which demand a more complete
abrogation of reason. It is almost always the case that the subject
of advice is one upon which all detailed knowledge is withheld by the
authorities. This restriction of materials, however, seems generally
to be regarded by the volunteer critic as giving him greater scope and
freedom rather than as a reason for silence or even modesty.
It is interesting to notice in this connection what those who have the
ear of the public have conceived to be their duty towards the nation
and to try to estimate its value from the point of view of morale. It
is clear that they have in general very rightly understood that one
of their prime functions should be to keep the Government working in
the interests of the nation to the fullest stretch of its energy and
resources. Criticism is another function, and advice and instruction a
third which have also been regarded as important.
The third of these activities is, no doubt, that which has been most
abused and is least important. {150} It tends on the one hand to get
involved in technical military matters and consequent absurdity, and on
the other hand, in civil matters, to fall back into the bad old ways of
politics. Criticism is obviously a perfectly legitimate function, and
one of value as long as it keeps to the field of civil questions, and
can free itself of the moral failure of being acrimonious in tone. In a
government machine engaged upon the largest of tasks there will always
be enough injustice and inhumanity, fraud and foolishness to keep
temperate critics beneficially employed.