groups from a herd instinct ('gregariousness'), which is innate in human
beings just as in other species of animals. Biologically this
gregariousness is an analogy to multicellularity and as it were a
continuation of it. From the standpoint of the libido theory it is a
further manifestation of the inclination, which proceeds from the
libido, and which is felt by all living beings of the same kind, to
combine in more and more comprehensive units.[51] The individual feels
'incomplete' if he is alone. The dread shown by small children would
seem already to be an expression of this herd instinct. Opposition to
the herd is as good as separation from it, and is therefore anxiously
avoided. But the herd turns away from anything that is new or unusual.
The herd instinct would appear to be something primary, something
'which cannot be split up'.
Trotter gives as the list of instincts which he considers as primary
those of self-preservation, of nutrition, of sex, and of the herd. The
last often comes into opposition with the others. The feelings of guilt
and of duty are the peculiar possessions of a gregarious animal. Trotter
also derives from the herd instinct the repressive forces which
psycho-analysis has shown to exist in the ego, and from the same source
accordingly the resistances which the physician comes up against in
psycho-analytic treatment. Speech owes its importance to its aptitude
for mutual understanding in the herd, and upon it the identification of
the individuals with one another largely rests.
While Le Bon is principally concerned with typical transient group
formations, and McDougall with stable associations, Trotter has chosen
as the centre of his interest the most generalised form of assemblage in
which man, that Ϛὡον πολιτικὁν, passes his life, and he gives
us its psychological basis. But Trotter is under no necessity of tracing
back the herd instinct, for he characterizes it as primary and not
further reducible. Boris Sidis's attempt, to which he refers, at tracing
the herd instinct back to suggestibility is fortunately superfluous as
far as he is concerned; it is an explanation of a familiar and
unsatisfactory type, and the converse proposition--that suggestibility
is a derivative of the herd instinct--would seem to me to throw far more
light on the subject.
But Trotter's exposition, with even more justice than the others', is
open to the objection that it takes too little account of the leader's
part in a group, while we incline rather to the opposite judgement, that
it is impossible to grasp the nature of a group if the leader is
disregarded. The herd instinct leaves no room at all for the leader; he
is merely thrown in along with the herd, almost by chance; it follows,
too, that no path leads from this instinct to the need for a God; the
herd is without a herdsman. But besides this Trotter's exposition can be
undermined psychologically; that is to say, it can be made at all events
probable that the herd instinct is not irreducible, that it is not
primary in the same sense as the instinct of self-preservation and the
sexual instinct.
It is naturally no easy matter to trace the ontogenesis of the herd
instinct. The dread which is shown by small children when they are left
alone, and which Trotter claims as being already a manifestation of the
instinct, nevertheless suggests more readily another interpretation. The
dread relates to the child's mother, and later to other familiar
persons, and it is the expression of an unfulfilled desire, which the
child does not yet know how to deal with in any way except by turning
it into dread.[52] Nor is the child's dread when it is alone pacified by
the sight of any haphazard 'member of the herd', but on the contrary it
is only brought into existence by the approach of a 'stranger' of this
sort. Then for a long time nothing in the nature of herd instinct or
group feeling is to be observed in children. Something like it grows up
first of all, in a nursery containing many children, out of the
children's relation to their parents, and it does so as a reaction to
the initial envy with which the elder child receives the younger one.
The elder child would certainly like to put its successor jealously
aside, to keep it away from the parents, and to rob it of all its
privileges; but in face of the fact that this child (like all that come
later) is loved by the parents in just the same way, and in consequence
of the impossibility of maintaining its hostile attitude without
damaging itself, it is forced into identifying itself with the other
children. So there grows up in the troop of children a communal or group
feeling, which is then further developed at school. The first demand
made by this reaction-formation is for justice, for equal treatment for
all. We all know how loudly and implacably this claim is put forward at
school. If one cannot be the favourite oneself, at all events nobody
else shall be the favourite. This transformation--the replacing of
jealousy by a group feeling in the nursery and classroom--might be
considered improbable, if the same process could not later on be
observed again in other circumstances. We have only to think of the
troop of women and girls, all of them in love in an enthusiastically
sentimental way, who crowd round a singer or pianist after his
performance. It would certainly be easy for each of them to be jealous
of the rest; but, in face of their numbers and the consequent
impossibility of their reaching the aim of their love, they renounce it,
and, instead of pulling out one another's hair, they act as a united
group, do homage to the hero of the occasion with their common actions,
and would probably be glad to have a share of his flowing locks.
Originally rivals, they have succeeded in identifying themselves with
one another by means of a similar love for the same object. When, as is
usual, a situation in the field of the instincts is capable of various
outcomes, we need not be surprised if the actual outcome is one which
involves the possibility of a certain amount of satisfaction, while
another, even though in itself more obvious, is passed over because the
circumstances of life prevent its attaining this aim.
What appears later on in society in the shape of _Gemeingeist_, _esprit
de corps_, 'group spirit', etc., does not belie its derivation from what
was originally envy. No one must want to put himself forward, every one
must be the same and have the same. Social justice means that we deny
ourselves many things so that others may have to do without them as
well, or, what is the same thing, may not be able to ask for them. This
demand for equality is the root of social conscience and the sense of
duty. It reveals itself unexpectedly in the syphilitic's dread of
infecting other people, which psycho-analysis has taught us to
understand. The dread exhibited by these poor wretches corresponds to
their violent struggles against the unconscious wish to spread their
infection on to other people; for why should they alone be infected and
cut off from so much? why not other people as well? And the same germ is
to be found in the pretty anecdote of the judgement of Solomon. If one
woman's child is dead, the other shall not have a live one either. The
bereaved woman is recognized by this wish.
Thus social feeling is based upon the reversal of what was first a
hostile feeling into a positively-toned tie of the nature of an
identification. So far as we have hitherto been able to follow the
course of events, this reversal appears to be effected under the
influence of a common tender tie with a person outside the group. We do
not ourselves regard our analysis of identification as exhaustive, but
it is enough for our present purpose that we should revert to this one
feature--its demand that equalization shall be consistently carried
through. We have already heard in the discussion of the two artificial
groups, church and army, that their preliminary condition is that all
their members should be loved in the same way by one person, the leader.
Do not let us forget, however, that the demand for equality in a group
applies only to its members and not to the leader. All the members must
be equal to one another, but they all want to be ruled by one person.
Many equals, who can identify themselves with one another, and a single
person superior to them all--that is the situation that we find realised
in groups which are capable of subsisting. Let us venture, then, to
correct Trotter's pronouncement that man is a herd animal and assert
that he is rather a horde animal, an individual creature in a horde led
by a chief.
X
THE GROUP AND THE PRIMAL HORDE
In 1912 I took up a conjecture of Darwin's to the effect that the
primitive form of human society was that of a horde ruled over
despotically by a powerful male. I attempted to show that the fortunes
of this horde have left indestructible traces upon the history of human
descent; and, especially, that the development of totemism, which
comprises in itself the beginnings of religion, morality, and social
organisation, is connected with the killing of the chief by violence and
the transformation of the paternal horde into a community of
brothers.[53] To be sure, this is only a hypothesis, like so many others
with which archaeologists endeavour to lighten the darkness of
prehistoric times--a 'Just-So Story', as it was amusingly called by a
not unkind critic (Kroeger); but I think it is creditable to such a
hypothesis if it proves able to bring coherence and understanding into
more and more new regions.
Human groups exhibit once again the familiar picture of an individual of
superior strength among a troop of similar companions, a picture which
is also contained in our idea of the primal horde. The psychology of
such a group, as we know it from the descriptions to which we have so
often referred--the dwindling of the conscious individual personality,
the focussing of thoughts and feelings into a common direction, the
predominance of the emotions and of the unconscious mental life, the
tendency to the immediate carrying out of intentions as they emerge--all
this corresponds to a state of regression to a primitive mental
activity, of just such a sort as we should be inclined to ascribe to the
primal horde.[54]
Thus the group appears to us as a revival of the primal horde. Just as
primitive man virtually survives in every individual, so the primal
horde may arise once more out of any random crowd; in so far as men are
habitually under the sway of group formation we recognise in it the
survival of the primal horde. We must conclude that the psychology of
the group is the oldest human psychology; what we have isolated as
individual psychology, by neglecting all traces of the group, has only
since come into prominence out of the old group psychology, by a gradual
process which may still, perhaps, be described as incomplete. We shall
later venture upon an attempt at specifying the point of departure of
this development.
Further reflection will show us in what respect this statement requires
correction. Individual psychology must, on the contrary, be just as old
as group psychology, for from the first there were two kinds of
psychologies, that of the individual members of the group and that of
the father, chief, or leader. The members of the group were subject to
ties just as we see them to-day, but the father of the primal horde was
free. His intellectual acts were strong and independent even in
isolation, and his will needed no reinforcement from others. Consistency
leads us to assume that his ego had few libidinal ties; he loved no one
but himself, or other people only in so far as they served his needs. To
objects his ego gave away no more than was barely necessary.
He, at the very beginning of the history of mankind, was the _Superman_
whom Nietzsche only expected from the future. Even to-day the members of
a group stand in need of the illusion that they are equally and justly
loved by their leader; but the leader himself need love no one else, he
may be of a masterly nature, absolutely narcissistic, but self-confident
and independent. We know that love puts a check upon narcissism, and it
would be possible to show how, by operating in this way, it became a
factor of civilisation.
The primal father of the horde was not yet immortal, as he later became
by deification. If he died, he had to be replaced; his place was
probably taken by a youngest son, who had up to then been a member of
the group like any other. There must therefore be a possibility of
transforming group psychology into individual psychology; a condition
must be discovered under which such a transformation is easily
accomplished, just as it is possible for bees in case of necessity to
turn a larva into a queen instead of into a worker. One can imagine only
one possibility: the primal father had prevented his sons from
satisfying their directly sexual tendencies; he forced them into
abstinence and consequently into the emotional ties with him and with
one another which could arise out of those of their tendencies that were
inhibited in their sexual aim. He forced them, so to speak, into group
psychology. His sexual jealousy and intolerance became in the last
resort the causes of group psychology.[55]
Whoever became his successor was also given the possibility of sexual
satisfaction, and was by that means offered a way out of the conditions
of group psychology. The fixation of the libido to woman and the
possibility of satisfaction without any need for delay or accumulation
made and end of the importance of those of his sexual tendencies that
were inhibited in their aim, and allowed his narcissism always to rise
to its full height. We shall return in a postscript to this connection
between love and character formation.
We may further emphasize, as being specially instructive, the relation
that holds between the contrivance by means of which an artificial group
is held together and the constitution of the primal horde. We have seen
that with an army and a church this contrivance is the illusion that
the leader loves all of the individuals equally and justly. But this is
simply an idealistic remodelling of the state of affairs in the primal
horde, where all of the sons knew that they were equally persecuted by
the primal father, and feared him equally. This same recasting upon
which all social duties are built up is already presupposed by the next
form of human society, the totemistic clan. The indestructible strength
of the family as a natural group formation rests upon the fact that this
necessary presupposition of the father's equal love can have a real
application in the family.
But we expect even more of this derivation of the group from the primal
horde. It ought also to help us to understand what is still
incomprehensible and mysterious in group formations--all that lies
hidden behind the enigmatic words hypnosis and suggestion. And I think
it can succeed in this too. Let us recall that hypnosis has something
positively uncanny about it; but the characteristic of uncanniness
suggests something old and familiar that has undergone repression.[56]
Let us consider how hypnosis is induced. The hypnotist asserts that he
is in possession of a mysterious power which robs the subject of his own
will, or, which is the same thing, the subject believes it of him. This
mysterious power (which is even now often described popularly as animal
magnetism) must be the same that is looked upon by primitive people as
the source of taboo, the same that emanates from kings and chieftains
and makes it dangerous to approach them (_mana_). The hypnotist, then,
is supposed to be in possession of this power; and how does he manifest
it? By telling the subject to look him in the eyes; his most typical
method of hypnotising is by his look. But it is precisely the sight of
the chieftain that is dangerous and unbearable for primitive people,
just as later that of the Godhead is for mortals. Even Moses had to act
as an intermediary between his people and Jehovah, since the people
could not support the sight of God; and when he returned from the
presence of God his face shone--some of the _mana_ had been transferred
on to him, just as happens with the intermediary among primitive
people.[57]
It is true that hypnosis can also be evoked in other ways, for instance
by fixing the eyes upon a bright object or by listening to a monotonous
sound. This is misleading and has given occasion to inadequate
physiological theories. As a matter of fact these procedures merely
serve to divert conscious attention and to hold it riveted. The
situation is the same as if the hypnotist had said to the subject: 'Now
concern yourself exclusively with my person; the rest of the world is
quite uninteresting.' It would of course be technically inexpedient for
a hypnotist to make such a speech; it would tear the subject away from
his unconscious attitude and stimulate him to conscious opposition. The
hypnotist avoids directing the subject's conscious thoughts towards his
own intentions, and makes the person upon whom he is experimenting sink
into an activity in which the world is bound to seem uninteresting to
him; but at the same time the subject is in reality unconsciously
concentrating his whole attention upon the hypnotist, and is getting
into an attitude of _rapport_, of transference on to him. Thus the
indirect methods of hypnotising, like many of the technical procedures
used in making jokes, have the effect of checking certain distributions
of mental energy which would interfere with the course of events in the
unconscious, and they lead eventually to the same result as the direct
methods of influence by means of staring or stroking.[58]
Ferenczi has made the true discovery that when a hypnotist gives the
command to sleep, which is often done at the beginning of hypnosis, he
is putting himself in the place of the subject's parents. He thinks that
two sorts of hypnosis are to be distinguished: one coaxing and soothing,
which he considers is modelled upon the mother, and another threatening,
which is derived from the father.[59] Now the command to sleep in
hypnosis means nothing more nor less than an order to withdraw all
interest from the world and to concentrate it upon the person of the
hypnotist. And it is so understood by the subject; for in this
withdrawal of interest from the outer world lies the psychological
characteristic of sleep, and the kinship between sleep and the state of
hypnosis is based upon it.
By the measures that he takes, then, the hypnotist awakens in the
subject a portion of his archaic inheritance which had also made him
compliant towards his parents and which had experienced an individual
re-animation in his relation to his father; what is thus awakened is the
idea of a paramount and dangerous personality, towards whom only a
passive-masochistic attitude is possible, to whom one's will has to be
surrendered,--while to be alone with him, 'to look him in the face',
appears a hazardous enterprise. It is only in some such way as this that
we can picture the relation of the individual member of the primal horde
to the primal father. As we know from other reactions, individuals have
preserved a variable degree of personal aptitude for reviving old
situations of this kind. Some knowledge that in spite of everything
hypnosis is only a game, a deceptive renewal of these old impressions,
may however remain behind and take care that there is a resistance
against any too serious consequences of the suspension of the will in
hypnosis.
The uncanny and coercive characteristics of group formations, which are
shown in their suggestion phenomena, may therefore with justice be
traced back to the fact of their origin from the primal horde. The
leader of the group is still the dreaded primal father; the group still
wishes to be governed by unrestricted force; it has an extreme passion
for authority; in Le Bon's phrase, it has a thirst for obedience. The
primal father is the group ideal, which governs the ego in the place of
the ego ideal. Hypnosis has a good claim to being described as a group
of two; there remains as a definition for suggestion--a conviction which
is not based upon perception and reasoning but upon an erotic tie.[60]
XI
A DIFFERENTIATING GRADE IN THE EGO
If we survey the life of an individual man of to-day, bearing in mind
the mutually complementary accounts of group psychology given by the
authorities, we may lose the courage, in face of the complications that
are revealed, to attempt a comprehensive exposition. Each individual is
a component part of numerous groups, he is bound by ties of
identification in many directions, and he has built up his ego ideal
upon the most various models. Each individual therefore has a share in
numerous group minds--those of his race, of his class, of his creed, of
his nationality, etc.--and he can also raise himself above them to the
extent of having a scrap of independence and originality. Such stable
and lasting group formations, with their uniform and constant effects,
are less striking to an observer than the rapidly formed and transient
groups from which Le Bon has made his brilliant psychological character
sketch of the group mind. And it is just in these noisy ephemeral
groups, which are as it were superimposed upon the others, that we are
met by the prodigy of the complete, even though only temporary,
disappearance of exactly what we have recognized as individual
acquirements.
We have interpreted this prodigy as meaning that the individual gives up
his ego ideal and substitutes for it the group ideal as embodied in the
leader. And we must add by way of correction that the prodigy is not
equally great in every case. In many individuals the separation between
the ego and the ego ideal is not very far advanced; the two still
coincide readily; the ego has often preserved its earlier
self-complacency. The selection of the leader is very much facilitated
by this circumstance. He need only possess the typical qualities of the
individuals concerned in a particularly clearly marked and pure form,
and need only give an impression of greater force and of more freedom of
libido; and in that case the need for a strong chief will often meet him
half-way and invest him with a predominance to which he would otherwise
perhaps have had no claim. The other members of the group, whose ego
ideal would not, apart from this, have become embodied in his person
without some correction, are then carried away with the rest by
'suggestion', that is to say, by means of identification.
We are aware that what we have been able to contribute towards the
explanation of the libidinal structure of groups leads back to the
distinction between the ego and the ego ideal and to the double kind of
tie which this makes possible--identification, and substitution of the
object for the ego ideal. The assumption of this kind of differentiating
grade [_Stufe_] in the ego as a first step in an analysis of the ego
must gradually establish its justification in the most various regions
of psychology. In my paper 'Zur Einführung des Narzissmus' I have put
together all the pathological material that could at the moment be used
in support of this separation. But it may be expected that when we
penetrate deeper into the psychology of the psychoses its significance
will be discovered to be far greater. Let us reflect that the ego now
appears in the relation of an object to the ego ideal which has been
developed out of it, and that all the interplay between an outer object
and the ego as a whole, with which our study of the neuroses has made us
acquainted, may possibly be repeated upon this new scene of action
inside the ego.