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INSTINCTS OF THE HERD IN
PEACE AND WAR
INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
IN PEACE AND WAR

BY

V/. TROTTER

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE
First piihlished in igi6
Second Impression igij
Third Impression . igiy

U M
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(All rights reserved}

 PREFACE

The first two essays in this book v/ere 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 prin-
ciples 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 PREFACE

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 some-
times 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 under-
standing 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
 PREFACE 7

a high courage and resolution through the ups and

downs of warfare. In a nation whose actual inde-
pendence 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 v/orking, 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
m.eans 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 v/holly absent. This constant and
admittedly significant factor in all acts of govern-
8 PREFACE

ment 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 niatters outside my
province.
November 1915.
 CONTENTS
PAGE

Preface ....... 5

HERD INSTINCT AND ITS BEARING ON THE

PSYCHOLOGY OF CIVILIZED MAN

INTRODUCTION . . . . . .II

PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPIXTS OF INSTINCT . . .IS

EIOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF GRECARIOUSNESS . l8

MENTAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE GREGARIOUS

ANIMAL ...... 23

SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE PSY-

CHOLOGY OF HERD INSTINCT

GRECARIOUSNESS AND THE FUTUKE OF MAN . . 6o

SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUP^AN 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

9
lo CONTENTS
PAGE
THE BIOLOGY OF GREGARIOUSNESS . . . lOI

CHARACTERS OF THE GREGARIOUS ANIMAL DISPLAYED

BY MAN .... 112

SOME PECULIARITIES OF THE SOCIAL HABIT IN MAN I20

IMPERFECTIONS OF THE SOCIAL HAEIT IN MAN . I32

GREGARIOUS SPECIES AT WAR . . . •139

ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY— GERMANY . . 156

ENGLAND AGAINST GERMANY — ENGLAND . . 20I

 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 appli-
cations, 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 or 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
difTering from ordinary psychology in being con-
12 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

cerned 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 psy-
chology, dealing as it does essentially with the in-
dividual, isnot 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 re-
sponsible 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 character-
istic 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, imsimpliiied
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 viev/ is to render very obvious the
difficulty and imm.ensity of the task of sociology ;
indeed, the possibility of such a science is some-
times denied. For example, at an early meeting of
the Sociological Society, Professor Karl Pearson ex-
pressed 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.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 13

Such scepticism appears in general to be based

upon the idea that a practical psycliology in the
sense already defined is impossible. According to
some this is because the human will introduces
into conduct an element necessarily incommensur-
able, which will always render the behaviour of
man subject to the occurrence of true variety and
therefore beyond the reach of scientific generaliza-
tion ;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 viev/s 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 con-
stantly 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, de-
rived from our own feelings, of hov/ it seems tch
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 ex-
planations, 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 un-
14 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

imaginable complexity and variability of human

affairs is derived less than is generally supposed
from direct observation and more from this second
factor of introspsctual 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,
Uexkiill and Nuel. It is contended that it is this
anthropomorphism in the general attitude of psy-
chologists 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 difiicult 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 sub-
stitute 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 signifi-
cance of previously accumulated facts has been mis-
interpreted, 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 measure-
ment. This essay, then, will be a.n attempt to obtain
by a deductive consideration of conduct . some
guidance for the application of those methods of
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 reg"ion 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.'
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
» 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 selbstversldudlich, 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, tliat beautiful
soul clad in that perfect form, so palpably and flagrantly made from
all eternity to be loved'' (W. James, " .^"^ujciples of Psychologj"
vol. ii. p. 386).
 i6 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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 in-
trospectual characters is so vast that any answer but
a negative one would seem totally incompatible with
current conceptions of the nature of human thought."
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 general-
ized 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,"
• This Jntrospectual quality of the " a priori S3'nthesis 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 with-
out 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 assump-
tions having all the characters described by James as belonging to the
impulses of instinct.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 un-
recognizable as such. A mechanism such as this
very evidently would produce a series of actions
in which uniformity might be very difhcult to recog-
nize 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 anoma-
lies, 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,
la INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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 Gregarious-

NESS.

The animal kingdom presents two relatively

sudden and very striking advances in complexity
and in the size of the unit upon which natural selec-
tion acts unmodified. These advances consist in the
aggregation of units which were previously inde-
pendent 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 v/hole. It would seem, there-
fore, 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 selec-
tipn, which for the unicellular organism had na^rowed^
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 ad-
vantageous elaboration to occur was by the enlarge-
ment of the competing unit. Various species of
multicellular organisms might in time be supposed
in turn to reach the limit of their powers. Compe-
tition 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 deserv-
ing, 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. '
To whatever it may be due, this method of regard-
ing the social habit is, in the opinion of the present
writer, not justified by the facts, and prevents the
attainment of conclusions of considerable fruitful -
ness.
A study of bees and ants shows at once how
' Among gregarious insects there are of course physical changes
arising out of and closely dependent on the social organization.
 20 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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 re-
actions 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 gre-
gariousness 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 adapta-
tion with that of the higher vertebrates.
If it be granted that gregariousness is a phenome-
non 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
poteW 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
 IN PEACE AND WAR 21

primitive categories of instinct, and remain stumblmg-

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 sociolo-
gists, 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 ev<jn
yet fully understood, to show that the popular con-
ception 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 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
horse, or the dog, it is quite plain that if the gre-
gariousness 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 rtiind.
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 recog-
nizable 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 develop-
ment of man seems to present many features incom-
patible with its having proceeded amongst isolated
individuals exposed to the unmodified action of
natural selection. Changes so serious as the assump-
tion 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 exist-
ence 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 sup-
 IN PEACE AND WAR f*3

posing that the double variations of diminishing

physical and increasing mental capacity always
occurred pari passu. The case for the primitive-
ness of the social habit would seem to be still
further strengthened by a consideration of such
widely aberrant developments as speech and the
aesthetic activities, but a discussion of them here
would involve an unnecessary indulgence of bio-
logical 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 com-
plete 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 profit-
able enterprise, as the great bulk of writers have
not seen in the idea anything to justify a funda-
mental 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.'
' 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 "Socialisra
and Natural Selection " deals most fully with the subject,
24 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

He called attention to the enlargement of the

selective unit effected by the appearance of gre-
gariousness, and to the fact that therefore within
the group the action of natural selection becomes
modified. This conception had, as is v/ell 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. ^ For example
may be mentioned the famous antithesis of the
" cosmical " and the " ethical " processes expounded
in Huxley's Romanes Lecture. It was quite defi-
nitely indicated by Pearson that tlie 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 exam-
ination 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." 2
' " Socialism and Natural Selection " in " The Chances of Death."
» 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
Iresb and ingenious speculation and his obviously wide knowledge of
gpciological literature.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 25

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 subse-
quently 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." '
That gregariousness has to be considered amongst
' " Pure Sociology," p. 134. Italics not in oris^inal. Passages of
a similar tendency will be found on pp. 200 and 556.
26 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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 las a quality perceptible only in
the characteristics of actual crowds — that is to say,
assemblies of persons being and acting in associa-
tion. This conception has served to evoke a certain
amount of valuable work in the observation of the
behaviour of crowds.'
Owing, however, to the failure to investigate as
the more essential question the effects of gregari-
ousness in the mind of the normal individual man,
the theoretical side of crowd psychology has re-
mained 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 " 2 he has described cer-
tain 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 sub-
conscious 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. 3 This person-
ality 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.

' For example, the little book of Gustave Le Bon — " Psychologfe
des Foules," Paris : Felix Alcan-«^»n which are formulated many
generalizations.
" " The Psychology of Suggestion : a Research into the Subconscious
Nature of Man and Society," by Boris Sidis, with an Introduction by
Prof. Wtri. James. New York. 1903.
3 " Psychology of Suggestion," p. 295.
 IN PEACE AND WAR ''^
Of the two personalities — the subconscious and
the normal — the former alone is suggestible ; the
successful operation of suggestion implies the recur-
rence, 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 atten-
tion 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.' The essential difference, however,
which Sidis's views present from those to be
developed below, lies in his regarding suggesti-
bility as being something which is liable to intrude
upon the normal mind as the result of a disaggrega-
tion 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
' In this connexion the "Symposium on the Subconscious " in the
Journal oj Abnonnal Pbycholoiiy, vol. ii. Nos. i and 2, is of much
interest. The discussion is contributed to by Mlinstcrbcrg, Ribot
Jastrow, Pierre Janet,' and Morton Prince
28 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

disreputable and disastrous legacy of the brute and

the savage, undesirable in civilized life, opposed
to the satisfactory development of the normal indi-
viduality, and certainly in no way associated at its
origin with a quality so valuable as altruism. More-
over, one gets the impression that he regards
suggestibility as being manifested chiefly, if not
solely, in crowds, in panics, revivals, and in con-
ditions generally in which the element of close
association is well marked.

{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 character-
istics of the social animal, and the special char-
acteristics 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.

I . 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 tem-
porarily 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
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 ta 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,' and in protec-
tive sociahsm the sensitiveness of the new unit to
alarms is greatly in excess of that of the individual
member of the flock.
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 indi-
vidual 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 resistive-
ness to the voice of the herd, will be suppressed
■ 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 lo-duy.
Sq, INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
by natural selection ; the wolf which does not
foUow 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 v/eight. 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 thes?
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 " fl 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 "fl priori synthesis'' ; so that we shall
^jcpect 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
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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, insurmount-
able 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
feehngs 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 harm-
fulness of cold ; yet to the psychologist such a
doubt is immediately obvious.'
SHghtly more complex manifestations of the same
tendency to homogeneity are seen in the desire for
identification with the herd in matters of opinion.
' 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 wl)ic;h would be impossible to the dog.
32 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

Here we find the biological explanation of the in-

eradicable 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.
Manifestations relatively more simple are shown
in the dislike of being conspicuous, in shyness and
in stage fright. It is, however, sensitiveness to the
behaviour of the herd which has the most important
effects upon the structure of the mind of the gre-
garious animal. This sensitiveness is closely
associated with the suggestibility of the gregarious
animal, and therefore with that of man. The effect
of it will clearly be to make acceptable those sugges-
tions which come from the herd, and those only.
It is of especial importance to note that this suggesti-
bility is not general, and that it is only herd sugges-
tions which are rendered acceptable by the action
of instinct. Man is, for example, notoriously
insensitive to the suggestions of experience. The
history of what is rather grandiosely called human
progress everywhere illustrates this. If we look
back upon the development of some such thing as
the steam-engine, we cannot fail to be struck by
the extreme obviousness of each advance, and how
 IN PEACE AND WAR 33

obstinately it was refused assimilation until the

machine almost invented itself.
Again, of two suggestions, that which the more
perfectly embodies the voice of the herd is the
more acceptable. The chances an affirmation has of
being accepted could therefore be most satisfactorily
expressed in terms of the bulk of the herd by which
it is backed.
It follows from the foregoing that anything which
dissociates a suggestion from the herd will tend to
ensure such a suggestion being rejected. For
example, an imperious command from an individual
known to be without authority is necessarily disre-
garded, whereas the same person making the same
suggestion in an indirect way so as to link it up
with the voice of the herd will meet with success.
It is unfortunate that in discussing these facts it
has been necessary to use the word " suggestibility,"
which has so thorough an implication of the
abnormal. If the biological explanation of suggesti-
bility here set forth be accepted, the latter must
necessarily be a normal quality of the human mind.
To believe must be an ineradicable natural bias
of man, or in other words an affirmation, positive
or negative, is more readily accepted than rejected,
unless its source is definitely dissociated from the
herd. Man is not, therefore, suggestible by fits
and starts, not merely in panics and in mobs, under
hypnosis, and so forth, but always, everywhere, and
under any circumstances. The capricious way in
which man reacts to different suggestions has been
attributed to variations in his suggestibility. This
in the opinion of the present writer is an incorrect
interpretation of the facts which are more satis-
factorily explained by regarding the variations as
due to the differing extent to which suggestions
are identified with the voice of the herd.
Man's resistiveness to certain suggestions, and
3
34 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

especially to experience, as is seen so well in his

attitude to the new, becomes therefore but another
evidence of his suggestibility, since the new has
always to encounter the opposition of herd tradition.
The apparent diminution in direct suggestibility
with advancing years, such as was demonstrated
in children by Binet, is in the case of the adult
familiar to all, and is there usually regarded as
evidence of a gradually advancing organic change
in the brain. It can be regarded, at least plausibly,
as being due to the fact that increase of years
must bring an increase in the accumulations of herd
suggestion, and so tend progressively to fix opinion.
In the early days of the human race, the appear-
ance of the faculty of speech must have led to an
immediate increase in the extent to which the decrees
of the herd could be promulgated, and the field
to which they applied. Now the desire for certitude
is one of profound depth in the human mind, and
possibly a necessary property of any mind, and it
is very plausible to suppose that it led in these early
days to the whole field of life being covered by
pronouncements backed by the instinctive sanction
of the herd. The life of the individual would be
completely surrounded by sanctions of the most
tremendous kind. He would know what he might
and might not do, and what would happen if he
disobeyed. It would be immaterial if experience
confirmed these beliefs or not, because it would
have incomparably less weight than the voice of
the herd. Such a period is the only trace perceptible
by the biologist of the Golden Age fabled by the
poet, when things happened as they ought, and
hard facts had not begun to vex the soul of man.
In some such condition we still find the Central
Australian native. His whole life, to its minutest
detail, is ordained for him by the voice of the
herd, and he must not, under the most dreadful
 IN PEACE AND WAR 35

sanctions, step outside its elaborate order. It does

not matter to him that an infringement of the code
under his very eyes is not followed by judgment,
for with tribal suggestion so compactly organized,
such cases are in fact no difficulty, and do not
trouble his belief, just as in more civilized countries
apparent instances of malignity in the reigning deity
are not found to be inconsistent with his benevo-
lence.
Such must everywhere have been primitive human
conditions, and upon them reason intrudes as an
alien and hostile power, disturbing the perfection
of life, and causing an unending series of conflicts.
Experience, as is shown by the whole history of
man, is imet by resistance because it invariably en-
counters decisions based upon instinctive belief, and
nowhere is this fact more dearly to be seen than
in the way in which the progress of science has
been made.
In matters that really interest him, man cannot
support the suspense of judgment which science so
often has to enjoin. He is too anxious to feel
certain to have time to know. So that we see of
the sciences, mathematics appearing first, then astro-
nomy, then physics, then chemistry, then biology,
then psychology, then sociology — but always the new
field was grudged to the new method, and we still
have the denial to sociology of the name of science.
Nowadays, matters of national defence, of politics,
of religion, are still too important for knowledge,
and remain subjects for certitude ; that is to say, in
them we still prefer the comfort of instinctive belief,
because we have not learnt adequately to value the
capacity to foretell.
Direct observation of man reveals at once the
fact that a very considerable proportion of his beliefs
are non-rational to a degree which is immediately
obvious without any special examination, and with
36 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

no special resources other than common knowledge.

If we examine the mental furniture of the average
man, we shall find it made up of a vast number of
judgments of a very precise kind upon subjects of
very great variety, complexity, and difficulty. He
will have fairly settled views upon the origin and
nature of the universe, and upon what he will prob-
ably call its meaning ; he will have conclusions
as to what is to happen to him at death and after,
as to what is and what should be the basis of
conduct. He will know how the country should
be governed, and why it is going to the dogs, why
this piece of legislation is good and that bad.
He will have strong views upon military and naval
strategy, the principles of taxation, the use of alcohol
and vaccination, the treatment of influenza, the pre-
vention of hydrophobia, upon municipal trading, the
teaching of Greek, upon what is permissible in art,
satisfactory in literature, and hopeful in science.
The bulk of such opinions must necessarily be
without rational basis, since many of them are con-
cerned with problems admitted by the expert to be
still unsolved, while as to the rest it is clear that
the training and experience of no average man can
qualify him to have any opinion upon them at all.
The rational method adequately used would have told
him that on the great majority of these questions
there could be for him but one attitude — that of
suspended judgment.
In view of the considerations that have been dis-
cussed above, this wholesale acceptance of non-
rational belief must be looked upon as normal. The
mechanism by which it is effected demands some
examination, since it cannot be denied that the facts
conflict noticeably with popularly current views as to
the part taken by reason in the formation of opinion.
It is clear at the outset that these beliefs are
invariably regarded by the holder as rational, and
 IN PEACE AND WAR 37
defended as such, while the position of one who
holds contrary views is held to be obviously un-
reasonable. The religious man accuses the atheist
of being shallow and irrational, and is met by a
similar reply ; to the Conservative, the amazing thing
about the Liberal is his incapacity to see reason and
accept the only possible solution of public problems.
Examination reveals the fact that the differences are
not due to the commission of the mere mechanical
I fallacies of logic, since these are easily avoided, even
by the politician, and since there is no reason tq
suppose that one party in such controversies is less
logical than the other. The difference is due rather
to the fundamental assumptions of the antagonists
being hostile, and these assumptions are derived
from herd suggestion ; to the Liberal, certain basal
conceptions have acquired the quality of instinctive
truth, have become " a priori syntheses," because
of the accumulated suggestions to which he has
been exposed, and a similar explanation applies to
the atheist, the Christian, and the Conservative.
Each, it is important to remember, finds in con-
sequence the rationality of his position flawless, and
is quite incapable of detecting in it the fallacies
which are obvious to his opponent, to whom that
particular series of assumptions has not been
rendered acceptable by herd suggestion.
To continue further the analysis of non-rational
opinion, it should be observed that the mind rarely
leaves uncriticized the assumptions which are forced
on it by herd suggestion, the tendency being for it
to find more or less elaborately rationalized justifica-
tions of them. This is in accordance with the
enormously exaggerated weight which is always
ascribed to reason in the formation of opinion and
conduct, as is very well seen, for example, in the
explanation of the existence of altruism as being
due to man seeing that it " pays."
38 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

It is of cardinal importance to recognize that in

this process of the rationalization of instinctive belief,
it is the belief which is the primary thing, while
the explanation, although masquerading as the cause
of the belief, as the chain of rational evidence
on which the belief is founded, is entirely secondary,
and but for the belief would never have been thought
of. Such rationalizations are often, in the case of
intelligent people, of extreme ingenuity, and may be
very misleading unless the true instinctive basis of
the given opinion or action is thoroughly imderstood.
This mechanism enables the English lady, who, to
escape the stigma of having normal feet, subjects
them to a formidable degree of lateral compression,
to be aware of no logical inconsequence when she
subscribes to missions to teach the Chinese lady how
absurd it is to compress her feet longitudinally ;
it enables the European lady who wears rings in her
ears to smile at the barbarism of the coloured lady
who wears her rings in her nose ; it enables the
Englishman who is amused by the African chieftain's
regard for the top hat as an essential piece of the
furniture of state to ignore the identity of his own
behaviour when he goes to church beneath the same
tremendous ensign.
The objectivist finds himself compelled to regard
these and similar correspondences between the be-
haviour of civilized and barbarous man as no mere
interesting coincidences, but as phenomena actually
and in the grossest way identical, but such an
attitude is possible only when the mechanism is
understood by which rationalization of these customs
is effected.
The process of rationalization which has just been,
illustrated by some of its simpler varieties is best
seen on the largest scale, and in the most elaborate
form, in the pseudosciences of political economy and
ethics. Both of these are occupied in deriving
 IN PEACE AND WAR 39
from eternal principles justifications for masses pf
non-rational belief which are assumed to be per-
manent merely because they exist. Hence the
notorious acrobatic feats of both in the face of any
considerable variation in herd belief.
It would seem that the obstacles to rational thought
which have been pointed out in the foregoing discus-
sion have received much less attention than should
have been directed towards them. To maintain an
attitude of mind which could be called scientific in
any complete sense, it is of cardinal importance to
recognize that belief of affirmations sanctioned by
the herd is a normal mechanism of the human
mind, and goes on however much such afifirmations
may be opposed by evidence, that reason cannot
enforce behef against herd suggestion, and finally
that totally false opinions may appear to the holder
of them to possess all the characters of rationally
verifiable truth, and may be justified by secondary
processes of rationalization which it may be impos-
sible directly to combat by argument.
It should be noticed, however, that verifiable
truths may acquire the potency of herd suggestion,
so that the suggestibility of man does not neces-
sarily or always act against the advancement |0f
knowledge. For example, to the student of biology
the principles of Darwinism may acquire the force
of herd suggestion through being held by the
class which he most respects, is most in contact
with and the class which has therefore acquired
suggestionizing power with him. Propositions con-
sistent with these principles will now necessarily
be more acceptable to him, whatever the evidence
by which they are supported, than they would be
to one who had not been exposed to the same
influences. The opinion, in fact, may be hazarded
that the acceptance of any proposition is invariably
^hc resultant of suggestive influences, whether the
40 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
proposition be true or false, and that the balance
of suggestion is usually on the side of the false,
because, education being what it is, the scientific
method — the method, that is to say, of experience
— has so little chance of acquiring suggestionizing
force.
Thus far sensitiveness to the herd has been
discussed in relation to its effect upon intellectual
processes. Equally important effects are traceable
in feeling.
It is obvious that when free communication is
possible by speech, the expressed approval or dis-
approval of the herd will acquire the qualities of
identity or dissociation from the herd respectively.
To know that he is doing what would arouse the
disapproval of the herd will bring to the individual
the same profound sense of discomfort which would
accompany actual physical separation, while to know
that he is doin^ what the herd would approve will
give him the sense of rightness, of gusto, and of
stimulus which would accompany physical presence
in the herd and response to its mandates. In both
cases it is clear that no actual expression by the herd
is necessary to arouse the appropriate feehngs,
which would come from within and have, in fact,
the qualities which are recognized in the dictates
of conscience. Conscience, then, and the feehngs of
guilf and of duty are the peculiar possessions of
the gregarious animal. A dog and a cat caught in
the commission of an offence will both recognize
that punishment is coming ; but the dog, moreover,
knows that he has done wrong, and he will come
to be punished, unwillingly it is true, and as if
dragged along by some power putside him, while the
cat's sole impulse is to escape. The rational recog-
nition of the sequence of act and punishment is
equally clear to the gregarious and to the solitary
animal, but it is the former only who understands
 IN PEACE AND WAR

that he has committed a crime, who has, in fact, the

sense of sin. That this is the origin of what we
call conscience is confirmed by the characteristics
of the latter which are accessible to observation.
Any detailed examination of the phenomena of
conscience would lead too far to be admissible here.
Two facts, however, should be noticed. First, the
judgments of conscience vary in different circles, 41
and are dependent on local environments ; secondly,
they are not advantageous to the species to the
slightest degree beyond the dicta of the morals
current in the circle in which they originate. These
facts — stated here in an extremely summary way —
demonstrate that conscience is an indirect result
of the gregarious instinct, and is in no sense derived
from a special instinct forcing men to consider
the good of the race rather than individual desires.
1908
 SOCIOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS OF THE
PSYCHOLOGY OF HERD INSTINCT

It was shown in the previous essay that the

gregarious mental character is evident in man's
behaviour, not only in crowds and other circum-
stances of actual association, but also in his behaviour
as an individual, however isolated. The conclusions
were arrived at that man's suggestibility is not
the abnormal casual phenomenon it is often supposed
to be, but a normal instinct present in every indi-
vidual, and that the apparent inconstancy of its
action is due to the common failure to recognize
the extent of the field over which suggestion acts ;
that the only medium in which man's mind can
function satisfactorily is the herd, which therefore
is not only the source of his opinions, his credu-
lities, his disbeliefs, and his weaknesses, but of
his altruism, his charity, his enthusiasms, and his
power.
The subject of the psychological effects of herd
instinct is so wide that the discussion of it in the
former essay covered only a comparatively small
part of the field, and that in a very cursory way.
Such as it was, however, it cannot be further
amplified here, where an attempt will rather be
made to sketch some of the practical corollaries of
such generalizations as were laid down there.
In the first place, it must be stated with emphasis
that deductive speculation of this sort finds its
principal value in opening up new possibilities for
 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD 43

the application of a more exact method. Science is

measurement, but the deductive method may indicate
those things which can be most profitably measured.
When the overwhelming importance of the sug-
gestibility ofman is recognized our first effort should
be to obtain exact numerical expressions of it. This
is not the place to attempt any exposition of the
directions in which experiment should proceed ; but
it may be stated that what we want to know is,
how much suggestion can do in the way of inducing
belief, and it may be guessed that we shall ultimately
be able to express the force of suggestion in terms
of the number of undifferentiated units of the herd
it represents. In the work that has already been
done, chiefly by Binet and by Sidis, the suggestive
force experimented with was relatively feeble, and
the effects consequently were rendered liable to
great disturbance from the spontaneous action of
other forces of suggestion already in the mind.
Sidis, for example, found that his subjects often
yielded to his suggestions out of " politeness " ;
this source of difficulty was obviously due to his
use of pure individual suggestion, a variety which
theory shows to be weak or even directly resisted.
The next feature of practical interest is connected
with the hypothesis, which we attempted in the
former article to demonstrate, that irrational belief
forms a large bulk of the furniture of the mind,
and is indistinguishable by the subject front rational
verifiable knowledge. It is obviously of cardinal
importance to be able to effect this distinction, for
it is the failure to do so which, while it is not
the cause of the slowness of advance in knowledge,
is the mechanism by which this delay is brought
about. Is there, then, we may ask, any discover-
able touchstone by which non-rational opinion may
be distinguished from rational ? Non-rational judg-
ments, being the product of suggestion, will have
44 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

the quality of instinctive opinion, or, as we nlay

call it, of belief in the strict sense. The essence
of this quality is obviousness ; the truth held in
this way is one of James's " a priori syntheses of
the most perfect sort " ; to question it is to the
believer to carry scepticism to an insane degree,
and will be met by contempt, disapproval, or con-
demnation, according to the nature of the belief in
question. When, therefore, we find ourselves enter-
taining an opinion about the basis of which there
is a quality of feeling which tells us that to inquire
into it would be absurd, obviously unnecessary, un-
profitable, undesirable, bad form, or wicked, we may
know that that opinion is a non-rational one, and
probably, therefore, founded upon inadequate evi-
dence.
Opinions, on the other hand, which are acquired
as the result of experience alone do not possess this
quality of primary certitude. They are true in
the sense of being verifiable, but they are unac-
companied by that profound feeling of truth which
belief possesses, and, therefore, we have no sense
of reluctance in admitting inquiry into them. That
heavy bodies tend to fall to the earth and that fire
burns fingers are truths verifiable and verified every
day, but we do not hold them with impassioned
certitude, and we do not resent or resist inquiry
into their basis ; whereas in such a question as that
of the survival of death by human personality we
hold the favourable or the adverse view with a
quality of feeling entirely different, and of such
a kind that inquiry into the matter is looked upon
as disreputable by orthodox science and as wicked
by orthodox religion. In relation to this subject, it
may be remarked, we often see it very interestingly
shown that the holders of two diametrically opposed
opinions, one of which is certainly right, may both
show by their attitude that the belief is held
 IN PEACE AND WAR 45

mstinctively and non -rationally, as, for example,

when an atheist and a Christian unite in repudiating
inquiry into the existence of the soul,
A third practical corollary of a recognition of
the true gregariousncss of man is the very obvious
one that it is not by any means necessary that
suggestion should always act on the side of unreason.
The despair of the reformer has always been the
irrationality of man, and latterly some have come
to regard the future as hopeless until we can breed
a rational species. Now, the trouble is not irration-
ality, not a definite preference for unreason, but
suggestibility — that is, a capacity for accepting reason
or unreason if it comes from the proper source.
This quality we have seen to be a direct conse-
quence of the social habit, of a single definite
instinct, that of gregariousncss, the same instinct
which makes social life at all possible and altruism
a reality.
It does not seem to have been fully understood
that if you attack suggestibility by selection — and
that is what you do if you breed for rationality — you
are attacking gregariousncss, for there is at present
no adequate evidence that the gregarious instinct
is other than a simple character and one which
cannot be split up by the breeder. If, then, such
an effort in breeding were successful, we should
exchange the manageable unreason of man for the
inhuman rationality of the tiger.
The solution would seem rather to lie in seeing to
it that suggestion always acts on the side of reason ;
if rationality were once to become really respectable,
if we feared the entertaining of an unverifiable
opinion with the warmth with which we fear using
the wrong implement at the dinner table, if the
thought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as
does a foul disease, then the dangers of man's
suggestibility would be turned into advantages. We
46 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

have seen that suggestion already has begun to

act on the side of reason in some small part of the
life of the student of science, and it is possible that
a highly sanguine prophetic imagination might detect
here a germ of future changes.
Again, a fourth corollary of gregariousness in man
is the fact expounded many years ago by Pearson
that human Altruism is a natural instinctive product.
The obvious dependence of the evolution of altruism
upon increase in knowledge and inter -communica-
tion has led to its being regarded as a late and a
conscious development — as something in the nature
of a judgment by the individual that it pays him
to be 'unselfish. This is an interesting rationalization
of the facts because in the sense in which " pay "
is meant it is so obviously false. Altruism does
not at present, and cannot, pay the individual in
anything but feeling, as theory declares it must.
It is clear, of course, that as long as altruism is
regarded as in the nature of a judgment, the fact
is overlooked that necessarily its only reward can
be in feeling. Man is altruistic because he must
be, not because reason recommends it, for herd
suggestion opposes any advance in altruism, and
when it can the herd executes the altruist, not of
course as such but as an innovator. This is a
remarkable instance of the protean character of the
gregarious instinct and the complexity it introduces
into human affairs, for we see one instinct producing
manifestations directly hostile to each other —
prompting to ever advancing developments of
altruism, while it necessarily leads to any new pro-
duct of advance being attacked. It shows, more-
over, as will be pointed out again later, that a
gregarious species rapidly developing a complex
society can be saved from inextricable confusion
only by the appearance of reason and the application
of it to life.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 47
When we remember the fearful repressing force
which society has always exercised on new forms
of altruism and how constantly the dungeon, the
scaffold, and the cross have been the reward of
the altruist, we are able to get some conception
of the force of the instinctive impulse which has
triumphantly defied these terrors, and to appreciate
in some slight degree how irresistible an en-
thusiasm itmight become if it were encouraged by
the unanimous voice of the herd.
In conclusion we have to deal with one more con-
sequence of the social habit in man, a consequence
the discussion of which involves some speculation of
a necessarily quite tentative kind.
If we look in a broad, general way at the four
instincts which bulk largely in man's life, namely,
those of self-preservation, nutrition, sex, and the
herd, we shall see at once that there is a striking
difference between the mode of action of the first
three and that of the last. The first three, which
we may, for convenience and without prejudice, call
the primitive instincts, have in common the charac-
teristic of attaining their maximal activities only
over short periods and in special sets of circum-
stances, and of being fundamentally pleasant to yield
to. They do not remain in action concurrently, but
when the circumstances are appropriate for the yield-
ing to one, the others automatically fall into the
background, and the governing impulse is absolute
master. Thus these instincts cannot be supposed
at all frequently to conflict amongst themselves, and
the animal possessing them alone, however highly
developed his consciousness might be, would lead
a life emotionally quite simple, for at any given
moment he would necessarily be doing what he
most wanted to do. We may, therefore, imagine
him to be endowed with the feelings of free-will
and reality to a superb degree, wholly unpcrplcxed
by doubt and wholly secure in his unity of purpose.
48 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD j

The appearance of the fourth instinct, however, j

introduces a profound change, for this instinct has '
the characteristic that it exercises a controlling j
power upon the individual from without. In the i
case of the solitary animal yielding to instinct the '
act itself is pleasant, and the whole creature, as it ;
were body and soul, pours itself out in one smooth j
concurrence of reaction. With the social animal !
controlled by herd instinct it is not the actual deed !
which is instinctively done, but the order to do it :
which is instinctively obeyed. The deed, being |
ordained from without, may actually be unpleasant, ;
and so be resisted from the individual side and \
yet be forced instinctively into execution. The j
instinctive act seems to have been too much |
associated in current thought Xvith the idea of |
yielding to an impulse irresistibly pleasant to the i
body, yet it is very obvious that herd instinct at ]
once introduces a mechanism by which the sanctions j
of instinct are conferred upon a,cts by no means ,
necessarily acceptable to the body or mind. This, j
of course, involves an enormous increase of the 1
range through which instinct can be made use of. !
Its appearance marks the beginning of the multi- |
farious activities of man and of his stupendous :
success as a species ; but a spectator watching the
process at its outset, had he been interested in the '
destiny of the race, might have felt a pang of I
apprehension when he realized how momentous was j
the divorce which had been accomplished between j
instinct and individual desire. Instinctive acts are j
still done because they are based on " « priori
syntheses of the most perfect sort," but they are
no longer necessarily pleasant. Duty has first ap-
peared in the world, and with it the age-long con- i
flict which is described in the memorable words '
of Paul : " I delight in the law of God after the !
inward man ; but I see another law in my members !
 IN PEACE AND WAR

49
warring against the law of my mind and bringing
me into captivity to the law of sin which is in
my members."
Into the features and consequences of this con-
flict it is now necessary "for us to probe a little
farther.
The element of conflict in the normal life of all
inhabitants of a civilized state is so famihar that no
formal demonstration of its existence is necessary.
In childhood the process has begun. The child
receives from the herd the doctrines, let us say,
that truthfulness is the most valuable of all the
virtues, that honesty is the best pohcy, that to the
religious man death has no terrors, and that there
is in store a future life of perfect happiness and
delight. And yet experience tells him with per-
sistence that truthfulness 'as often as not brings him
punishment, that his dishonest playfellow has as
good if not a better time than he, that the religious
man shrinks from death with as great a terror as
the unbeliever, is as broken-hearted by bereave-
ment, and as determined to continue his hold upon
this imperfect life rather than trust himself to what
he declares to be the certainty of future bliss. To
the child, of course, experience has but little sugges-
tive force, and he is easily consoled by the perfunc-
tory rationalizations offered him as explanations by
his elders. Yet who of us is there who cannot
remember the vague feeling of dissatisfaction, the
obscure and elusive sense of something being wrong,
which is left by these and similar conflicts ?
When the world begins to open out before us
and experience to flow in with rapidly increasing
volume, the state of affairs necessarily becomes more
obvious. The mental unrest which we, with a certain
cynicism, regard as normal to adolescence is evidence
of the heavy handicap wc lay upon the developing
mind in forcing it to attempt to assimilate with
4
50 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

•experience the dicta of herd suggestion. Moreover,

let us remember, to the adolescent experience is
no longer the shadowy and easily manipulable series
of dreams which it usually is to the child. It has
become touched with the warmth and reality of
instinctive feeling. The primitive instincts are now
fully developed and finding themselves balked at
every turn by herd suggestion ; indeed, even pro-
ducts of the latter are in conflict among them.selves.
Not only sex, self-preservation, and nutrition are at
war with the pronouncements of the herd, but
altruism, the ideal of rationality, the desire for
power, the yearning for protection, and other feelings
which have acquired instinctive force from group
suggestion.
The sufferings entailed by this condition are
commonplace knowledge, and there is scarcely a
novelist who has not dealt with them. It is around
matters of sex and of rehgion that the conflict is
most severe, and while it is no part of pur purpose
to make any detailed survey of the condition, it
may be of interest to point out some of the more
obvious significances of this localization.
Rehgion has always been to man an intensely
serious matter, and when we realize its biological
significance we can see that this is due to a deeply
ingrained need of his mind. The individual of
a gregarious species can never be truly independent
and self-sufficient. Natural selection has ensured
that as an individual he must have an abiding sense
of incompleteness, which, as thought develops in
complexity, will come to be more and more
abstractly expressed. This is the psychological germ
which expresses itself in the religious feelings, in
the desire for completion, for mystical union, for
incorporation with the infinite, which are all provided
for in Christianity and in all the successful sub-
varieties of Christianity which modern times have
 IN PEACE AND WAR 51

seen develop. This need seems with the increasing

complexity of society to become more and more
imperious, or rather to be satisfiable only by
more and more elaborately rationalized expressions.
The following is a representative passage from a
recent very popular book of mystical religion :
" The great central fact in human life, in your life
and in mine, is the coming into a conscious vital
realization of our oneness with the Infinite Life and
the opening of ourselves fully to this divine inflow."
It is very interestingly shown here to what lengths
of rationalization may be forced the consequences
of that yearning in us which is identical with the
mechanism that binds the woK to the pack, the sheep
to the flock, and to the dog makes the company
of his master like walking with God in the cool of
the evening.
Did an opportunity offer, it would be interesting
to inquire into the relation of the same instinctive
impulse to the genesis of philosophy. Such an
attempt would, however, involve too great a
digression from the argument of this essay.
That sex should be a chief field for the conflicts
we are discussing is comprehensible not only from
the immense strength of the impulse and the fact
that it is a mode of man's activity which herd
suggestion has always tried to regulate, but also
because there is reason to believe that the sex
impulse becomes secondarily associated with another
instinctive feeling , of great strength, namely,
altruism. We have seen already that altruism is
largely antagonized by herd tradition, and it is
plausible to suppose that the overwhelming rush
of this feeling which is usually associated with sex
feelings is not altogether sexual in quality, but
secondarily associated therewith as being the only
outlet through which it is allowed by the herd to
indulge manifestations of really passionate intensity.
52 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

If this were so it would clearly be of great practical

importance should the rational method ever come
to be applied to the solution of the problems for
the sociologist and statesman which surround the
relations of the sexes.
The conflicts which we are discussing are of
course by no means limited to the periods of child-
hood and adolescence, but are frequently carried
over into adult life. To understand how the
apparent calm of normal adult life is attained, it is
necessary to consider the effects upon the mind of
these processes of contention.
Let us consider the case of a person caught in one
of those dilemmas which society presents so
abundantly to its members — a man seized with a
passion for some individual forbidden to him by
the herd, or a man whose eyes have been opened to
the vision of the cruelty which everywhere lies close
below the surface of life, and yet has deeply
ingrained in him the doctrine of the herd that things,
on the whole, are fundamentally right, that the
universe is congruous with his moral feelings, that
the seeming cruelty is mercy and the apparent in-
difference long-suffering. Now, what are the
possible developments in such a tormented soul ?
The conflict may end through the subsidence
of either antagonist. Years^ other instincts, or
grosser passions may moderate the intensity of
ungratificd love or take away the sharpness from
the sight of incomprehensible pain. •
Again, scepticism may detect the nature of the
herd suggestion and deprive it of its compelling
force.
Thirdly, the problem may be shirked by the easy
mechanism of rationalization. The man may take
his forbidden pleasure and endow a chapel, per-
suading himself that his is a special case, that at
any rate he is not as bad as X, or Y, or Z, who
 IN PEACE AND WAR 53
committed such and such enormities, that after all
there is Divine mercy, and he never beat his wife,
and was always regular with his subscriptions to
missions and the hospitals. Or, if his difficulty
is the ethical one, he will come to see how right
the herd view really is ; that it is a very narrow
mind which cannot see the intrinsic excellence of
suffering ; that the sheep and cattle we breed for
eating, the calf we bleed to death that its meat may;
be white, the one baby out of four we kill in the
first year of life, that cancer, consumption, and
insanity and the growmg river of blood which bathes
the feet of advancing mankind, all have their part
in the Increasing Purpose which is leading the race
ever upwards and onwards to a Divine consumma-
tion of joy. Thus the conflict ceases, and the
man is content to watch the blood and the Purpose
go on increasing together and to put on flesh unper-
plexed by the shallow and querulous scruples of
his youth .
Of these three solutions that of scepticism is
unquestionably the least common, though the im-
pression that this is not the case is created by the
frequency of apparent scepticism, which, in fact,
merely masks the continuation of conflict in the
deeper strata of the mind. A man the subject of
such submerged conflict, though he may appear to
others, and, of course, to himself, to have reached
a secure and uncontested basis of stability, may,
after a period of apparently frictionless mental life,
betray by unmistakable evidence the fact that con-
flict has continued disastrously below the surface.
The solutions by indifference and by rationaliza-
tion or by a mixture of these two processes are
characteristic of the great class of normal, sensible,
reliable middle age, with its definite views, its
resiliency to the depressing influence of facts, and
its gift for forminf^ tlic ])arl:1)f)n'' of tlio State. In
54 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

them herd sugg-estion shows its capacity to triumph'

over experience, to delay the evolution of altruism,
and to obscure the existence and falsify the results of
the contest between personal and social desires.
That it is able to do so has the advantage of
establishing existing society with great firmness, but
it has also the consequence of entrusting the conduct
of the State and the attitude of it towards life to a
class which their very stability shows to possess
a certain relative incapacity to take experience
seriously, a certain relative insensibility to the value
of feeling and to suffering, and a decided preference
for herd tradition over all other sources of conduct.
Early in history the bulk of mankind must have
been of this type, because experience, being still
relatively simple, would have but little suggestive
force, and would therefore readily be suppressed by
herd suggestion. There would be little or no mental
conflict, and such as there was would be readily
stilled by comparatively simple rationalizations. The
average man would then be happy, active, and
possessed of an inexhaustible fund of motive and
energy, capable of intense patriotism and even of
self-immolation for the herd. The nation con-
sequently, in an appropriate environment, would be
an expanding one and rendered ruthless and formid-
able by an intense, unshakable conviction of its
divine (mission. Its blindness towards the new in
experience would keep its patriots narrow and fierce,
its priests bigoted and bloodthirsty, its rulers
arrogant, reactionary, and over-confident. Should
chance ordain that there arose no great environ-
mental change rendering necessary great modifica-
tions, such a nation would have a brilliant career of
conquest as has been so often demonstrated by
history.
Amongst the first-class Powers to-day the mentally
stable are still the directing class, and their char-
 IN PEACE AND WAR 55
acteristic tone is discernible in national attitudes
towards experience, in national ideals and religions,
and in national morality. It is this possession of
the power of directing national opinion by a class
which is in essence relatively insensitive towards
new combinations of experience ; this persistence
of a mental type which may have been adequate
in the simpler past, into a world where environments
are daily becoming more complex — it is this survival,
so to say, of the waggoner upon the footplate of
the express engine, which has made the modern
history of nations a series of such breathless ad-
ventures and hairbreadth escapes. To those who
are able to view national affairs from an objective
standpoint, it is obvious t"hat each of these escapes
might very easily have been a disaster, and that
sooner or later one of them must be such.
Thus far we have seen that the conflict between
herd suggestion and experience is associated with
the appearance of the great mental type which is
commonly called normal. Whether or not it is in
fact to be regarded as such is comparatively un-
important and obviously a question of statistics ;
what is, however, of an importance impossible to
exaggerate is the fact that in this type of mind
personal satisfactoriness or adequacy, or, as we may
call it, mental comfort, is attained at the cost of an
attitude towards experience which greatly affects the
value to the species of the activities of minds of
this type. This mental stability, then, is to be re-
garded as, in certain important directions, a loss ;
and the nature of the loss resides in a limitation of
outlook, a relative intolerance of the new in thought,
and a consequent narrowing of the range of facts
over which satisfactory intellectual activity is
possible. We may, therefore, for convenience, refer
to this type as the resistive, a name which serves as
a reminder of the exceedingly important fact that.
56 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

however " normal " the type may be, it is one which
falls far short of the possibilities of the human
mind .
If we now turn to a consideration of the mental
characteristics of the constituents of society other
than those of the resistive type, we shall find a
common quality traceable, and another great type
capable of broad definition. We must at once,
however, guard ourselves against being misled by the
name " normal " as applied to the resistant into the
supposition that this type is in a numerical majority
in society. Intellectually unquestionably of inferior
value, there is good reason to suppose that in mere
numbers it has already passed its zenith, as may be
gathered from the note of panic which what is
called the increase of degeneracy is beginning to
excite.
Outside the comfortable and possibly diminishing
ranks of the " normal," society is everywhere
penetrated by a steadily increasing degree of what
we may call in the broadest possible way mental
instability. All observers of society, even the most
optimistic, are agreed that the prevalence of this
mental quality is increasing, while those who are
competent to trace its less obtrusive manifesta-
tions find it to be very widespread.
When the twenty years just past come to be
looked back upon from the distant future, it is
probable that their chief claim to interest will be
that they saw the birth of the science of abnormal
psychology. That science, inconspicuous as has
been its development, has already given us a few
generalizations of the first importance. Amongst
such, perhaps the most valuable is that which has
taught us that certain mental and physical mani-
festations which have usually been regarded as
disease in the ordinary sense are due to the effects
upon the mind of the failure to assimilate the
 IN PEACE AND WAR 57

experience presented to it into a harmonious unitary

personality. We have seen that the stable-minded
deal with an unsatisfactory piece of experience by
rejecting its significance. In certain minds such
successful exclusion does not occur, and the un-
welcome experience persists as an irritant, so to
say, capable neither of assimilation nor rejection.
Abnormal psychology discloses the fact that such
minds are apt to develop the supposed diseases we
have just referred to, and the fact that these and
other manifestations of what we have called mental
instability are the consequences of mental conflict.
Now, we have already seen that a gregarious
animal, unless his society is perfectly organized,
must be subject to lasting and fierce conflict between
experience and herd suggestion.' It is natural,
therefore, to assume that the manifestations of
mental instability are not diseases of the individual
in the ordinary sense at all, but inevitable con-
sequences of man's biological history and exact
measures of the stage now reached of his assimila-
tion into the gregarious life. The manifestations of
mental instability and disintegration were at first
supposed to be of comparatively rare occurrence
and limited to certain well-known " diseases," but
they are coming to be recognized over a larger and
larger field, and in a great variety of phenomena.
Conditions which at first sight give rise to no
suspicion of being acquired injuries to the mind,
when they are looked at in the light of the facts we
have been considering, reveal themselves as being
scars inflicted by conflict as certainly as are some

' The word " experience " is used here in a special sense that
perhiips renders necessary a word or two of definition. The experi-
ence meant is everything that comes to the individual, not only his
experience of events in the externnl world, but also his experience
of the instinctive and often egoistic iiii[iulses at work witliin his own
persuiiality. 1915.
S8 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

forms of insanity. Characteristics which pass as

vices, eccentricities, defects of temper, peculiarities
of disposition, come when critically exammed to be
explicable as minor grades of defective mental
stability, although, on account of their great fre-
quency, they have been looked Upon as normal, or at
any rate in the natural order of things.
Few examples could be found to illustrate better
such conditions than alcoholism. Almost universally
regarded as either, on the one hand, a sin or vice,
or on the other hand, as a disease, there can be
little doubt that in fact it is essentially a response
to a psychological necessity. In the tragic conflict
between what he has been taught to desire and
what he is allowed to get, man has found in alcohol,
as he has found in certain other drugs, a sinister
but effective peacemaker, a means of securing, for
however short a time, some way out of the prison
house of reality back to the Golden Age. There
can be equally little doubt that it is but a compara-
tively small proportion of the victims of conflict
who find a solace in alcohol, and the prevalence of
alcoholism and the punishments entailed by the use
of that dreadful remedy cannot fail to impress upon
us how great must be the number of those whose
need was just as great, but who were too ignorant,
too cowardly, or perhaps too brave to find a release
there.
We have seen that mental instability must be
regarded as a condition extremely common, and pro-
duced by the mental conflict forced upon man by
his sensitiveness to herd suggestion on the one hand
and to experience on the other. It remains for us
to estimate in some rough way the characteristics
of the unstable, in order that we may be able to
judge of their value or otherwise to the State and
the species. Such an estimate must necessarily be
exaggerated, over -sharp in its outlines, omitting
 IN PEACE AND WAR 59
much, and therefore in many respects false. The
most prominent characteristic in which the mentally
unstable contrast with the " normal " is what we
may vaguely call motive. They tend to be weak
in energy, and especially in persistence of energy.
Such weakness may translate itself into a vague
scepticism as to the value of things in general,
or into a definite defect of what is popularly called
I will power, or into many other forms, but it is
always of the same fundamental significance, for
it is always the result of the thwarting of the
primary impulses to action resident in herd sugges-
tion by the influence of an experience which cannot
be disregarded. Such minds cannot be stimulated
for long by objects adequate to normal ambition ;
they are apt to be sceptical in such matters as
patriotism, reHgion, politics, social success, but the
scepticism is incomplete, so that they are readily
won to new causes, new religions, new quacks, and
as readily fall away therefrom.
We saw that the resistive gain in motive what
they lose in adaptability ; we may add that in a
sense the unstable gain in adaptability what they
lose in motive. Thus we see society cleft by the
instinctive qualities of its members into two great
classes, each to a great extent possessing what the
other lacks, and each falling below the possibilities
of human personality. The effect of the gradual
increase of the unstable in society can be seen to
a certain extent in history. We can watch it through
the careers of the Jews and of the Romans. At
first, when the bulk of the citizens were of the
stable type, the nation was enterprising, energetic,
indomitable, but hard, inelastic, and fanatically con-
vinced of its Divine mission. The inevitable effect
of the expansion of experience which followed success
was that development of the unstable and sceptical
which ultimately allowed the nation, no longer
6o INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

believing in itself or its gods, to become the almost

passive prey of more stable peoples.
In regard to the question of the fundamental
significance of the two great mental types found
in society, a tempting field for speculation at once
opens up, and many questions immediately arise
for discussion. Is, for example, the stable normal
type naturally in some special degree insensitive
to experience, and if so, is such a quality inborn or
acquired? Again, may the characteristics of the
members of this class be the result of an experi-
ence relatively easily dealt with by rationalization
and exclusion? Then again, are the unstable natu-
rally hypersensitive to experience, or have they met
with an experience relatively difficult to assimilate ?
Into the discussion of such questions we shall here
make no attempt to enter, but shall limit ourselves
to reiterating that these two types divide society
between them, that they both must be regarded as
seriously defective and as evidence that civilization
has not yet provided a medium in which the average
human mind can grow undeformed and to its full
stature.

Gregariousness and the Future of Man.

Thus far we have attempted to apply biological
conceptions to man and society as they actually exist
at present. We may now, very shortly, inquire
whether or not the same method can yield some
hint as to the course which human development
will take in the future.
As we have already seen reason to believe, in
the course of organic development when the limits
of size and efficiency in the unicellular organism
were reached, the only possible access of advantage
to the competing organism was gained by the appear-
ance of combination. In the scale of the metazoa
 IN PEACE AND WAR 6i

\vc see the advantages of combination and division

of labour being more and more made use of, until
the individual cells lose completely the power of
separate existence, and their functions come to be
useful only in the most indirect way and through the
organisms of which the cells are constituents. This
complete submergence of the cell in the organism
indicates the attainment of the maximum advan-
tages to be obtained from this particular access in
complexity, and it indicates to us the direction in
which development must proceed within the limits
which are produced by that other access of com-
plexity— gregariousness .
The success and extent of such development clearly
depend on the relation of two series of activities in
the individual which may in the most general way
be described as the capacity for varied reaction
and the capacity for communication. The process
going on in the satisfactorily developing gregarious
animal is the moulding of the varied reactions of
the individual into functions beneficial to him only
indirectly through the welfare of the new unit —
the herd. This moulding process is a consequence
of the power of intercommunication amongst the
individual constituents of the new unit. Intercom-
munication isthus seen to be of cardinal importance
to the gregarious, just as was the nervous system:
to the multicellular.
Moreover, in a given gregarious species the exist-
ence of a highly developed power of reaction in
the individual with a proportionately less developed
capacity for communication will mean that the
species is not deriving the advantages it might
from the possession of gregariousness, while the full
advantages of the type will be attained only when
the two sets of activities are correspondingly strong.
Here we may sec perhaps the explanation of the
astounding success and completeness of gregarious-
62 INSTINCTS OF THE Hl:!.RD |

ness in bees and ants. Their cycle of develop- i

ment was early complete because the possibilities |
of reaction of the individual were so small, and i
consequently the capacity for mtercommumcation i
of the individual was relatively soon able to attain ;
a corresponding grade. The individual has become j
as completely merged in the hive as the single
cell in the multicellular animal, and consequently
the whole of her activities is available for the uses
01 *he State. It is interesting to notice that, con-
sidered from this aspect, the wonderful society of
the bee, with its perfect organization and its won-
derful adaptability and elasticity, owes its early
attainment of success to the smallness of tlie brain
power of the individual.
For the mammals with their greater powers of
varied reaction the path to the consummation of
their possibilities must be longer, more painful, and
more dangerous, and this applies in an altogether;
special degree to man.
The enormous power of varied reaction possessed
by man must render necessary for his attain-
ment of the full advantages of the gregarious
habit a power of intercommunication of absolutely
[unprecedented fineness. It is clear that scarcely a
hint of such power has yet appeared, and it is
equally obvious that it is this defect which gives
to society the characteristics which are the con-
tempt of the man of science and the disgust of
the humanitarian.
We are now in a position to understand how
momentous is the question as to what society does
with the raw material of its minde to encourage
in them the potential capacity for intercommunica-
tion which they undoubtedly by nature possess. To
that question there is but one answer. By providing
its members with a herd tradition which is con-
stantly, at war with feeling and with experience,
 IN PEACE AND WAR 63

society drives them inevitably into resistivcness on

the one hand, or into mental instability on the
other, conditions which have this in common, that
they tend to exaggerate that isolation of the indi-
vidual which is shown us by the intellect to be
unnatural and by the heart to be cruel.
Another urgent question for the future is pro-
vided by the steady increase, relative and absolute,
of the mentally unstable. The danger to the State
constituted by a large unstable class is already
generally recognized, but unfortunately realization
has so far only instigated a yet heavier blow at
the species. It is assumed that instability is a
primary quality, and therefore only to be dealt with
by breeding it out. With that indifference to the
mental side of life which is characteristic of the
mentally resistant class, the question as to the real
meaning of instability has been begged by the
invention of the disastrous word " degenerate." The
simplicity of the idea has charmed modern specu-
lation, and the only difficulty in the whole problem'
has come to be the decision as to the most expe-
ditious way of getting rid of this troublesome flaw
in an otherwise satisfactory world.
The conception that the natural environment of
man must be modified if the body is to survive
has long been recognized, but the fact that the mind
is incomparably more delicate than the body has
scarcely been noticed at all. We assum'e that the
disorderly environment with which we surround the
mind has no effect, and are ingenuously surprised
when mental instability arises apparently from no-
where ;but although we know nothing of its origin
our temerity in applying the cure is in no sense
daunted.
It has already been pointed out how dangerous
it would be to breed man for reason — that is, against
suggestibility. The idea is a fit companion for the
64 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ;

device of breeding against " degeneracy." The |

" degenerate " — that is, the mentally unstable — have \
demonstrated by the mere fact of instability that \
they possess the quality of sensitiveness to feeling \
and to experience, for it is this which has prevented ;
them from applying the remedy of rationalization or ;
exclusion vi^hen they have met with experience con- I
fiicting with herd suggestion. There can be no j
doubt as to the value to the State of such sensi- !
tiveness were it developed in a congtuous environ- j
ment. The " degeneracy," therefore, which we see |
developed as a secondary quality in these sensitive |
minds is no evidence against the degenerate, but ;
an indictment of the disorderly environment which '
has ruined them,, just as the catchword associating j
insanity and genius tells us nothing about genius i
but a great deal about the situation into which it i
has had the misfortune to be born. \
Sensitiveness to feeling and experience is un- '
doubtedly the necessary antecedent of any high \
grade of that power of intercommunication v/hich I
we have seen to be necessary to the satisfactory I
development of man. Such sensitiveness, however, ,
in society as it now is, inevitably leads merely to i
mental instability. That such sensitiveness increases I
with civilization is shown by the close association i
between civihzation and mental instability. There j
is no lack, therefore, of the mental quality of all j
others most necessary to the gregarious animal. ,
The pressing problem which in fact faces man in i
the immediate future is how to readjust the mental \
environment in such a way that sensitiveness may I
develop and confer on man the enormous advan- •
tages which it holds for him, without being trans- ■
formed from a blessing- into the curse and menace ;
of instabihty. To the biologist it is quite clear ]
that this can be effected only by an extension of \
the rational method to the whole field of experience, a
 IN PEACE AND WAR 65

process of the greatest difficulty, but one which must

be the next great variation in man's development if
that development is to continue to be an evolution.
Outside this possibility the imagination can see
nothing but grounds for pessimism. It needs but
little efiort of foresight to realize that without some
totally revolutionary change in man's attitude to-
wards the mind, even his very tenure of the earth
may come to be threatened. Recent developments
in the study of disease have shown us how blind and
fumbling have been our efforts against the attacks
of our immemorial enemies the unicellular organisms .
iWhen we remember their capacities for variation
and our fixity, we can see that for the race effectually
and permanently to guard itself against even this
one danger are necessary that fineness and com-
plexity of organization, that rendering available of
the utmost capacity of its members, against which
the face of society seems at present to be so steadily
set. We see man to-day, instead of the frank and
courageous recognition of his status, the docile atten-
tion to his biological history, the determination to
let nothing stand in the way of the security and
permanence of his future, which alone can establish
the safety and happiness of the race, substituting
blind confidence in his destiny, unclouded faith in
the essentially respectful attitude of the universe
towards his moral code, and a belief no less firm
that his traditions and laws and institutions neces-
sarily contain permanent qualities of reality. Living
as he does in a world where outside his race no
allowances are made for infirmity, and where
figments however beautiful never become facts, it
needs but little imagination to see how great arc
the probabilities that after all man will prove but
one more of Nature's failures, ignominiously to be
swept from her work-table to make way for another
venture of her tireless curiosity and patience.
1909.
 SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUMAN
MIND IN 1915

Man's place in Nature and Nature's place

IN Man

As the nineteenth century draws away into the past

and it is possible to get a comprehensive view of
the intellectual legacies it has left to its successor,
certain of its ideas stand out from the general mass
by reason of the greatness of their scale and scope.
Ideas of the first order of magnitude are from
their very greatness capable of full appreciation
only in a comparatively distant view. However
much they have been admired and studied by con-
temporary thought, it is with the passage of time
only that all their proportions come gradually into
focus. The readjustments of thought as to what
used to be called aman's
so characteristic work place in nature,
of the whichof were
latter half the
nineteenth century, embodied an idea of this imperial
type which, fruitful as it has proved, has even now
yielded far less than its full harvest of truth.
The conception of man as an animal, at first enter-
tained only in a narrow zoolog'lcal sense, has gradu-
ally extended in significance, and is now beginning
to be understood as a guiding principle in the study
of all the activities of the individual and the species.
In the early days such a conception was regarded
by non -scientific thought as degrading to man, and
as denying to him the possibility 66
of moral progress
 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD 67

and the reality of his higher aesthetic and emotional

capabihties ; at the same time_, men of science found
themselves compelled, however unwillingly, to deny
that the moral activities of man could be made
consistent with his status as an animal. It may
still be remembered how even the evolutionary en-
thusiasm of Huxley was baffled by the incompati-
bility he found to subsist between what he called
the ethical and the cosmical processes, and how
he stood bewildered by the sight of moral beauty
blossoming incorrigibly amidst the cruelty, lust,
and bloodshed of the world.
The passage of time has tended more and more
to clear up these lingering confusions of an a;nthropo-
centric biology, and thought is gradually gaining
courage to explore, not merely the body of man
but his mind and his moral capacities, in the know-
ledge that these are not meaningless intrusions into
an otherwise orderly world, but are partakers in him
and his history just as are his vermiform appendix
and his stomach, and are elements in the complex
\structure of the universe as respectably established
there, and as racy of that soil as the oldest saurian
or the newest gas.
Man is thus not merely, as it were, rescued from
the inhuman loneliness which he had been taught
was his destiny and persuaded was his pride, but
he is relieved from perplexities and temptations which
had so long proved obstacles to his finding himself
and setting out valiantly on an upward path. Cut
off from his history and regarded as an exile into
a lower world, he can scarcely fail to be appalled
and crushed by the discrepancy between his lofty
pretensions and his lowly acts. If he but recognize
that he himself and his virtues and aspirations are
integral strands in the fabric of life, he will learn
that the great tissue of reality loses none of its
splendour by the fact that near by where the pattern
68 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

glows with his courage and his pride it bums with

the radiance of the tiger, and over against his
intellect and his genius it mocks in the grotesques
of the ape.
The development of an objective attitude towards
the status of man has had, perhaps, its most signifi-
cant effect in the influence it has exercised upon the
study of the human mind.
The desire to understand the modes of action of
the mind, and to formulate about them generalizations
which shall be of practical value, has led to inquiries
being pursued along three distinct paths. These
several methods may be conveniently distinguished
as the primitive, the human, and the comparative.
What I have called the primitive method of
psychological inquiry is also the obvious and natural
one. It takes man as it finds him, accepts his
mind for what it professes to be, and examines into
its processes by introspection of a direct and simple
kind. It is necessarily subject to the conditions
that the object of study is also the medium through
which the observations are made, and that there
is no objective standard by which the accuracy of
transmission through this medium can be estimated
and corrected. In the result the materials collected
are subjected to a very special and very stringent
kind of censorship. If an observation is acceptable
and satisfactory to the mind itself, it is reported as
true ; if it contains material which is unwelcome
to the mind, it is reported as false ; and in both
cases the failure is in no sense due to any conscious
dishonesty in the observing mind, but is a fallacy
necessarily inherent in the method. A fairly charac-
teristic product of inquiries of this type is the con-
ception, which seems so obvious to common sense,
that introspection does give access to all mental
processes, so that a conscious motive must be dis-
coverable for all the acts of the subject. Experience
 IN PEACE AND WAR 69

with more objective methods has shown that when

no motive is found for a given act or no motive
consistent with the mind's pretensions as to itself,
there will always be a risk of a presentable one
being extemporized.
Psychology of this primitive type — the naive psy-
chology of common sense — is always necessarily
tainted with what may be called in a special sense
anthropomorphism ; it tells us, that is to say, not
what man is but what he thinks and feels himself
to be. Judged by its fruits in enabling us to fore-
tell or to influence conduct, it is worthless. It has
been studied for thousands of years and infinite
ingenuities have been expended on it, and yet at
its best it can only tell us how the average man
thinks his mind works — a body of information not
sensibly superior in reality to the instructions of
a constitutiopal monarch addressed to an unruly
parliament. It has distracted thought with innumer-
able falsifications, but in all its secular cultivation
has produced no body of generalizations of value in
the practical conduct of life.

Comments on an Objective System oe

Human Psychology
I

Until comparatively recent years the fact that what

was called psychology did not even pretend to be
of any practical value in affairs was tolerated by
its professors and regarded as more or less in the
nature of things. The science, therefore, outside a
small class of specialists was in very dismal reputa-
tion. It had come to comprise two divergent
schools, one which busied itself with the apparatus
of the experimental physiologist and frankly studied
the physiology of the nervous system, the other
70 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
which occupied itself with the faded abstractions of
logic and metaphysics, while both agreed in ignoring
the study of the mind. This comparative sterility
may in a broad way be traced back to the one
fundamental defect from which the science suffered
— the absence of an objective standard by which
the value of mental observations could be esti-
mated. Failing such a standard, any given mental
phenomenon might be as much a product of the
observing mind as of the mind observed, or the
varying degrees in which both of these factors con-
tributed might be inextricably mixed. Of late years
the much-needed objective standard has been sought
and to some extent found in two directions. What
I have called " human " psychology has found it
in the study of diseases of the mind. In states of
disease mental processes and mechanisms which had
eluded observation in the normal appear in an
exaggerated form which renders recognition less
difficult. The enlightenment coming from the
understanding of such pathological material has
made it possible to argue back to the less obtrusive
or more effectively concealed phenomena of the
normal and more or less to exclude the fallacies of
the observing mind, and, at any rate in part, to
dissipate the obscurity which for so long had suc-
cessfully hidden the actual mental phenomena
themselves.
The most remarkable attack upon the problems
of psychology which has been made from the purely
human standpoint is that in which the rich genius
of Sigmund Freud was and still is the pioneer.
The school which his v/ork has founded was concerned
at first wholly with the study of abnormal mental
states, and came into notice as a branch of medicine
finding the verification of its principles in the success
it laid claim to in the treatment of certain mental
diseases. It now regards itself as possessing a body
 IN PEACE AND WAR 71

of doctrine of general applicability to mental

phenomena, normal or abnormal. These principles
are the product of laborious and minute inquiries
into the working of the mind, rendered possible by
the use of a 'characteristic method known as psycho-
analysis. This method, which constitutes a definite
and elaborate technique of investigation, is looked
upon by those who practise it as the sole means
by which access can be obtained to the veritable
phenomena of the mind, and as rendering possible a
truly objective view of the facts. It is no part of
my purpose to examine the validity of psycho-analysis
as a scientific method. It is enough to notice that
the exponents of it completely repudiate the teach-
ings of what I have called " common-sense "
psychology, that they maintain that objectivity in
the collection and collation of psychical facts is
in no way to be obtained by the light of nature but
demands very special methods and precautions, and
that their clfsims to the possession of a truly objective
method appear to be open to verification or dis-
proof by actual experiment in the treatment of
disease. Whatever value, then, psycho-analysis may
ultimately prove to possess in solving the peculiar
difficulties of psychological research, the evolution
of it marks' a very definite advance in principle and
shows that it is the product of a mind determined
by whatever effort to get to close quarters with
the facts.
The body of doctrine enunciated by Freud con-
cerns us more directly than the peculiarities of his
method. Some very general and summary account
may therefore be attempted as illustrating the char-
acteristics ofthis vigorous, aggressive, and essentially
" human " school of research.
The Freudian psychology regards the mind of
the adult as the outcome of a process of develop-
ment the stages of which are within limits, orderly
^2 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

and inevitable. The trend of this development in

each individual is determined by forces which are
capable of precise definition, and the final product
of it is capable of yielding to expert examination
clear evidence of the particular way in which these
forces have acted and interacted during the develop-
mental process. The mind of the adult, then, is
like the body in bearing traces which betray to
the skilled observer the events of its developmental
history. Inconspicuous and apparently insignificant
structures and peculiarities in the one no less than
in the other prove to have had a meaning and a
function in the past, however little significance their
final form may seem to possess, and thus the psy-
chologist isable to reconstruct the history of a given
subject's mind, although the most important stages
of its development are hidden from direct observa-
tion as effectively as is the prenatal growth of the
body.
It seems to be a fundamental conception of the
Freudian system that the development of the mind
is accompanied and conditioned by mental conflict.
The infant is regarded as being impelled by in-
stinctive impulses which at first are solely egoistic.
From the earliest moments of its contact with the
world resistance to the full indulgence of these
impulses is encountered. With the growth and
intensification of such impulses, the resistance from
external interference — the beginnings of social
pressure — becomes more formidable, until at a quite
unexpectedly early age a veritable condition of
mental conflict is established — egoistic impulses
fatally pressing for indulgence regardless of their
acceptability to the environment, while environ-
mental influences bear equally heavily against any
indulgence unwelcome to surrounding standards of
discipline, taste, or morality.
Pf the two parties in this conflict — the instinctive
 IN PEACE AND WAR 73

impulse and the repressive force — the first, accord-

ing- to Freud, is wholly the product of the sex
instinct. This instinct is conceived of as being"
much more active and potent in the infant and
child than had been suspected by any previous in-
vestigator. The normal sexual interest and activity
as manifested in the adult are developed out of the
sexual impulse of the child by a regular series
of modifications, which appear to be regarded as
due partly to a process of natural development and
partly to the influence of external repressive forces.
In the infant the instinct is egocentric and the object
of its interest is the individual's own body ; with
the increase of the mental field consequent on
enlarging experience the instinctive activity is ex-
ternalized, and its object of interest changes so that
the child acquires a specific inclination towards other
individuals without distinction of sex ; finally, as
a last stage of development the instinctive inclina-
tion is localized to members of the opposite sex.
This series of transformations is regarded as normal
by Freud, and as essential to the appearance of the
" normal " adult type. The evolution of this series
is sensitive to interference by outside influences,
and any disturbance of it either by way of antici-
p:><;ion or delay will have profound efl'ects upon
the ultimate character and temperament of the sub-
ject. The psychical energy of an instinct so
important as that of sex is very great, and is not
dissipated by the forces of repression brought to
bear upon it, but transformed into activities ostensibly
quite different and directed into channels having
no obvious connection with their source. It is a
fundamental characteristic of the mind to be able
to accept these substitutes for the actual indulgence
of the instinct, and to enjoy a symbolical gratification
in manifestations which have no overt sexual signifi-
cance. When development proceeds normally the
74 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ;
I

surplus energy of ,the sex instinct finds an outlet i

in activities of social value — esthetic, poetic, altru- I
istic ; when development is interfered with the ;
outflow of energy is apt to result in definite disease ;
of the mind or in pecuharities of character scarcely j
to be distinguished therefrom. I
Thus the mind of the adult, according to Freud, i
in addition to activities which are conscious and j
fully accessible to the subject, carries on activities ;
and holds memories which are unconscious and i
totally inaccessible to the subject by any ordinary .
method of introspection. Between these two fields i
there is a barrier sedulously guarded by certain :
repressive forces. The unconscious is the realm '
of all the experiences, memories, impulses, and '
inclinations which during the subject's life have '
been condemned by the standards of the conscious, \
have proved incompatible with it and have therefore J
been outlawed from it. This banishment in no way |
deprives these excluded mental processes of their 1
energy, and they constantly influence the feelings '
and beliaviour of the subject. So strict, however,
is the guard between them and the conscious that i
they are never allowed to pass the barrier between !
one sphere and the other except in disguised and i
fantastically distorted forms by which their true I
meaning is closely concealed. It has been perhaps j
Freud's most remarkable thesis that dreams are \
manifestations of this emergence of desires and ;
memories from the unconscious into the conscious \
field. During sleep the repressing force which j
guards the frontier between conscious and uncon- ;
scious is weakened. Even then, however, such ideas ■
as emerge into the conscious can do so only in a j
worked up and distorted form, so that their sig- j
nificance can be disengaged from the grotesque j
jumble of the actual dream only by a minute inquiry, '
according to a difficult and highly technical method, j
 IN PEACE AND WAR 75

By this method, however, is to be obtained a deep

insight into the otherwise irrecoverable emotional
history of the individual, the structure of his tem-
perament, and, if he is mentally abnormal, the
meaning 6i his symptoms.

II
The foregoing enumeration of the chief doctrines
of the' Freudian psychology is intended to be no
more than a mere outline to serve as a basis
for certain comments which seem to be relevant
to the general argument of this essay. The point
of view from which this slight sketch is made, that
of an interested but detached observer, is naturally
somewhat different from that of the actual authorities
themselves. Here it is desired to get the broadest
possible view in the most general terms, and as
we have no concern with immediate problems of
practical therapeutics — which remain at least the
chief preoccupation of writers of the psycho-analytic
school — an effort has been made to avoid the use of
the rich and rather forbidding technical vocabu-
lary in which the writings of the school abound.
It may well be that this generalized method of
description has yielded an ill -proportioned or dis-
torted picture. The subject has proved to be so
much at the mercy of prejudice that the least impas-
sioned spectator, however completely he may believe
himself to be free from advocacy or detraction, is
far from being able to claim immunity from these
influences.
Keeping constantly in mind this general caution,
which is at least as necessary in the field of criticism
as in that of mere description, we may pass on
to make certain comments on the psychology of
Freud which are relevant to the general argument
being followed out here.
76 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
A discussion in any way detailed of this immense
subject is very obviously impossible here, but it is
desirable to say a few words as to the general
validity of Freud's chief thesis. However much one
may be impressed by his power as a psychologist and
his almost fierce resolution to get at the actual
facts of mental processes, one can scarcely fail to
experience in reading Freud's works that there is a
certain harshness in his grasp of facts and even
a trace of narrowness in his outlook which tend
to repel the least resistant mind and make one
feel that his guidance in many matters — perhaps
chiefly of detail — is open to suspicion. He seems to
have an inclination for the enumeration of absolute
rules, a confidence in his hypotheses which might
be called superb if that were not in science a term
of reproach, and a tendency to state his least accept-
able propositions with the heaviest emphasis as if
to force belief upon an unwilling' and shrinking mind
were an especial gratification. All these traits of
manner — at the worst mere foibles of a distinguished
and successful investigator — appear to exercise some
considerable effect on the acceptance his writings
meet with, and are perhaps indications in which
direction, if he is open to fallacy, such might be
looked for.
Nevertheless with regard to the main propositions
of his system there can be little doubt that their
general validity will be increasingly accepted.
Among such propositions must be put the conception
of the significance of mental conflict, the importance
of the emotional experiences of infancy and child-
hood in the determination of character and the
causing of mental disease, and his conception of
the general structure of the mind as comprising
conscious and unconscious fields.
The comments which I shall venture to make
upon the work of Freud will be such as are suggested
 IN PEACE AND WAR 77

by the biolog^ical point of view of which this essay

is intended to be an exposition. The standard of
interest upon which they ajre based will therefore
necessarily differ to some extent from that which
is usually adopted in writings of the psycho-analytic
school.
To the biologist perhaps the most striking
characteristic of the work of this school is its
complete acceptance of what one may call the human
point of view. It seems to be satisfied that no
useful contribution to psychology is to be obtained
outside the limits of human feeling and behaviour,
and to feel no impatience to expand its inquiries
into a still larger field. It is not that the school
has failed to show an extremely vigorous move-
ment of expansion. Beginning as a mere province
of medicine, and while its foothold there was still
far from general recognition, it inwaded the regions
of general psychology, of aesthetics, ethnology, the
study of folklore and myth, and indeed of all matters
in which it could find its essential material — the
records of human feeling and conduct. Beyond
the human species it has shown remarkably little of
this aggressive spirit, and it seems to feel no need
of bringing its principles into relation with what
little is known of the mental activities of the non-
human animals.
The absence of any strong pressure in the
direction of establishing a correlation of all mental
phenomena, whether human or not, is not a matter
of merely theoretical interest. The actual practical
success to be obtained to-day in such an attempt
might possibly be insignificant and yet of great
value in moulding the whole attitude of mind of
the investigator towards matters lying wholly within
the sphere of human psychology. However much
one may be impressed by the greatness of the edifice
which Freud has built up and by the soundness of
78 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD |
his architecture, one can scarcely fail, on coming ;
into it from the bracing atmosphere of the biological
sciences, to be oppressed by the odour of humanity i
with which it is pervaded. One finds everywhe«-e j
a tendency to the acceptance of human standards i
and even sometimes of human pretensions which {
cannot fail to produce a certain uneasiness as to !
the validity, if not of his doctrines^ at any rate of i
the forms in which they are expounded. The |
quality I am trying to describe is extremely difficult
to express in concrete terms without exaggeration or i
distortion. To those who have approached Freud's
work solely by the path of medicine the idea that ,
it can give any one the feeling of a certam con-
ventionality ofstandard and outlook and of a certain
over -estimation of the objectivity of man's moral {
values will seem perhaps merely absurd. That this ;
is an impression which I have not been able alto- i
gether to escape I record with a good deal of I
hesitation and diffidence and without any wish to !
lay stress upon it. I
Psycho -analytic psychology has grown up under i
conditions which may very well have encouraged i
the persistence of the human point of view. Origin- •
ally its whole activity was concentrated upon the \
investigation and treatment of disease. Many of ;
its early disciples were those who had received i
proof of its value in their own persons, those, that |
is to say, who had been sufferers from their very i
susceptibility to the influence of human standards. ,
The objective standard of validity by which the !
system was judged was necessarily that of the
physician, namely the capacity to restore the ^
abnormal mind to the " normal." Normal in this
sense is of course no more than a statistical expres- ;
sion implying the condition of the average man.
It could scarcely fail, however, to acquire the ;
significance of '- healthy." If once the statistically \
 IN PEACE AND WAR 79

normal mind is accepted as being synonymous with

the psychologically healthy mind (that is, the mind
in which the full capacities are available for use),
a standard is set up which has a most fallacious
appearance of objectivity. The statistically normal
mind can be regarded only as a mind which has
responded in the usual way to the moulding and
deforming influence of its environment — that is, to
human standards of discipline, taste, and morality.
If it is to be looked upon as typically healthy also,
the current human standards of whose influence it is
a product must necessarily be accepted as qualified
to call forth the best in the developing mind they
mould. Writers of the psycho -analytic school seem
in general to make some such assumption as this.

Ill

The conception of mental conflict is the central

feature of the Freudian system. Of its importance
and validity there can be no doubt. In a general
way the idea is familiar and even commonplace,
but Freud had developed it and shown how deeply
the principle penetrates the structure and develop-
ment of the mind from the earliest period and to
an extent quite unsuspected by earlier psychologists.
From an early period of life the cliild finds the
gratification of its instinctive impulses checked or
even prevented by the pressure of its environment.
Conflict is thus set up between the two forces of
I instinctive pressure within and social pressure from
without. Instinctive impulses which thus come into
conflict with the repressing force are not destroyed
but are deflected from their natural outlet, are
repressed within the mind and ultimately prevented
from rising into the conscious field at all except
in disguised or symbolic forms. To the adult his
childhood seems to have been altogether free from

I
8o INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ■.

any kind of sexual activity or interest, not "because,

as is generally supposed, such has never existed, but
because it proved incapable of persisting in the :
conscious field and was suppressed into the uncon- I
scious with the increase of the social repressing j
forces. Similarly impulses experienced in adult life j
which are for the same reason incompatible with' j
conscious recognition do not become conscious^ but
live their life in the unconscious, though they may ;
exercise the profoundest influence on the happiness :
and health of the subject. j
The work of Freud has been concentrated chiefly ■
upon the one party in these conflicts — the instinctive j
impulse of which the only considerable one accord- ;
ing to him is the sexual. To the other party — the j
repressing forces — he has given very much less j
attention, and in them has found apparently much i
less interest. By most writers of his school also j
they seem to be taken very much as a matter pf \
course. |
When we consider, however, what they can ;
accomplish — how they can take the immensely |
powerful instinct of sex and mould and deform its ;
prodigious mental energy — it is clear that the re- \
pressing forces are no less important than the i
antagonist with which they contend. i
It is desirable, perhaps, to discuss a little more i
closely the nature of mental conflict, and especially !
first to define the precise meaning of the conception. :
It may readily be granted that the young child's ^
mind is wholly egocentric, though the proposition |
is not without a certain element of assumption which !
it is not wise altogether to ignore. He experiences i
certain desires and impulses which he assumes with |
the blandest unconsciousness of any other desires :
but his own are there to be gratified. The failure :
to gratify such an impulse may come about in several :
ways, not all of which are equally significant in i
 IN PEACE AND WAR 8i

establishing mental conflict. The gratification may

be physically impossible. Here there is no basis for
internal conflict. The resistance is wholly external';
the whole child still desires its pleasure and its whole
resources, mental and physical, are directed to gain
the object. Mere failure may be painful and may
lead to an outburst of rage which possibly even
discharges some of the mental energy of the wish,
but the situation psychically is simple and the in-
cident tends of itself to go no farther.
The gratification may prove to be physically
painful in itself. This seems to promise certain
elements of mental conflict in balancing the pleasure
of the gratification against the remembered pain
it involves. We are assuming that the pain is the
immediate consequence of the act, as when, for
example, a child makes the immemorial scientific
discovery that fire burns fingers. Such a direct
experience without the interposition of a second
person or the pointing of a moral does not in fact
involve any real mental conflict. The source of the
pain is external, its only emotional quality is that of
its simple unpleasantness, and this cannot, as it were,
enter
itself. into the child's mind and divide it against
True conflict, the conflict which moulds and
deforms, must be actually within the mind — must
be cndopsychic to use a term invented by Freud,
though not used by him in this exact application.
In order that a desire may set up conflict it must be
thwarted, not by a plain impossibility or by a mere
physical pain, but by another impulse within the
mind antagonizing it. It seems clear that the
counter-impulse to be strong enough to contend
with an impulse having in it the energy of the sex
instinct must itself derive its force from some potent
instinctive mechanism. We cannot suppose that
the immense power of the sex impulse can be
82 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ]

controlled, moulded, and directed by any influ- ;

ence except such as have access to the stores of i
psychical energy which the instinctive activities j
alone possess. '
We are thus led to the proposition that the essence ,
of mental conflict is the antagonism of two impulses \
which both have instinct behind them, and are both, ;
as it were, intimate constituents in the personality of j
the subject. Thus only can the mind become, in j
the worn but still infinitely appropriate metaphor, a !
house divided against itself. The counter-impulses j
to the developing sexual interest and activity of the I
child are, as we have seen, the result of social '
pressure — that is to say, the result of the influence of i
the human environment. This influence is mani- j
fested, not merely in direct precept, in warning, in \
punishment, in expressions of disapproval or disgust, |
but in the whole system of secrecy, of significant i
silences, of suppressions, of nods and winks and ]
surreptitious signallings, of sudden causeless snubs !
and patently lame explanations amid which such j
sexual interest as the child possesses has to find a !
modus Vivendi and an intelligible meaning. ]
Whence does this environmental pressure obtain j
the power which enables it to exercise in the child's i
mind the regal functions of instinct ? Clearly it can j
do so only if the mind possesses a specific sensitive- i
ness to external opinion and the capacity to confer i
on its precepts the sanction of instinctive force. ^
In the two earlier essays of this book I attempted j
to show that the essential specific characteristic of :
the mind of the gregarious animal is this very
capacity to confer upon herd opinion the psychical |
energy of instinct. It is this sensitiveness, then, \
which
ence of lays
his the child's mind
environment open to forthehiminflu-
and endows the \j
mental attitude of that environment with all the \
sanction of instinct. Thus do the repressing forces i
 IN PEACE AND WAR 83

become actually constituent in the child's personality,

and as much a part of his being as the ;egoistic
desires with which they are now able to contend on
equal terms.
The specific sensitiveness of the gregarious mind
seems, then, to be a necessary condition for the
establishment of true 'mental conflict, and a character
which must be taken into account if we are to
develop a complete theory of the evolution of the
individual mind.
Assuming the validity of the proposition that
there are two primary factors in the development of
the mind in each individual — the egoistic impulses
of the child and his specific sensitiveness to en-
vironing influences — it may well be asked why it is
that the product, the " normal " adult mind, is so
uniform in its characters. It is true that this uni-
formity may very easily be exaggerated, for in a
very considerable number of cases gross " abnor-
malities "are the result of the process of develop-
ment, but, as I pointed out in an earlier essay, the
result on the whole is to produce two broadly
distinguishable types of mind — the unstable and the
stable — the latter on account of its numerical
superiority being also dignified as normal A con-
siderable uniformity in the final products must
therefore be accepted. If, however, environmental
influences are an essential factor in the production
of this result, there seems no little difficulty in
accounting for the uniformity seeing that environ-
ments vary so much from class to class, nation to
nation, and race to race. Where, we may ask, is the
constant in the environmental factors which ihc
uniformity of the outcome leads us to expect ?
Assuming with Freud that of the egoistic impulses
of the child, the sexual alone seriously counts in the
formation of character, can it be shown that the
influences which surround the child arc uniform
84 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

in their general direction against this ? At first

sight it would seem certainly not. Even in the same
country the variations in taste, reticence, modesty,
and morality towards matters of sex interest vary
greatly from class to class, and presumably are
accompanied by corresponding variations in the type
of influence exercised by the environment of the
child.
Adequately to deal with this difficulty would in-
volve examining in detail the actual mental attitude
of the adult towards the young, especially in regard
to matters directly or indirectly touching upon
interests of sex. The subject is a difficult one, and if
we limit ourselves to the purely human standpoint,
ugly and depressing. The biologist, however, need
not confine himself to so cramped an outlook, and
by means of collecting his observations over a much
larger field is able to some extent to escape the
distorting effects of natural human prejudice,
•i^iewed in a broad way, it is neither surprising nor
portentous that there should naturally exist a strong
and persistent jealousy between the adult and the
young. Indeed, many of the superficial con-
sequences of this fact are mere commonplaces.
Throughout most of the lower animals the relation
is obvious and frankly manifested. Indeed, it may
be regarded as a more or less inevitable consequence
of any form of social life among animals. As such,
therefore, it may be expected to appear in some form
or other in the human mind. The manifestations of
it, however, will by no means necessarily take easily
teciognizable forms. The social pressure to which
the mind is subject will tend to exclude such a
feeling from at any rate full consciousness, and such
manifestations as are allowed it will be in disguised
and distorted forms.
It seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that
some dim and unrealized offshoot of such a jealousy
 IN PEACE AND WAR «5

between adult and young is responsible for the

unanimity with which man combines to suppress
and delay the development of aiiy evidence of sexual
interest by the young. The intensity of the dislike
which is felt for admitting the young to share any
part of the knowledge of the adult about the
physiology of sex is well illustrated by the diffi-
culty parents feel in communicating to their children
some of the elementary facts which they may feel
very strongly it is their duty to impart. A parent
may find himself under these circumstances trying
to quiet his conscience with all sorts of excuses and
subterfuges while he postpones making the explana-
tions which duty and affection urge upon him as
necessary for the health and happiness of his child.
An unwillingness so strong and irrational as this
must have its root in subconscious processes charged
with strong feeling.
The tendency to guard children from sexual know-
ledge and experience seems to be truly universal
in civilized man and to surpass all differences of
morals, discipline, or taste. Amongst primitive
savages the principle has not acquired the altruistic
signification which civilized man has given it, but
operates as a definite exclusion to be overcome only
by solemn ceremonies of initiation and at the price
of submission to painful and sometimes mutilating
rites .
The constancy of attitude of the adult towards
the young, which is thus seen to be so general,
evidently gives to the environmental influences which
surround the child a fundamental uniformity, and
as we have seen, the theory of the development of
the individual mind demands that such a uniformity
of environmental influence sliould be shown to be
in action.
This is no place to follow out the practical conse-
quences of the fact that every adult necessarily
86 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

possesses a primary bias in his attitude towards

the young, and a bias which is connected with
instinctive impulses of great mental energy. How-
ever much this tendency is overlaid by moral
principles, by altruism, by natural affection, as long
as its true nature is unrecognized and excluded from
fuU consciousness its influence upon conduct must
be excessive and full of dangerous possibilities. To
it must ultimately be traced the scarcely veiled
distrust and dislike with which comparative youth is
always apt to be met where matters lof importance are
concerned. The attitude of the adult and elderly
towards the enthusiasms of youth is stereotyped in
a way which can scarcely faU to strike the psycholo-
gist as remarkable and illuminating in its common-
placeness. The youthful revolutionary, who after
all is no more essentially absurd than the elderly
conservative, is commonly told by the latter that he
too at the same age felt the same aspirations, burnt
with the same zeal, and yearned with the same hope
until he learnt wisdom with experience — " as you
will have, my boy, by the time you are my age."
To the psychologist the kindly contempt of such
pronouncements cannot conceal the pathetic jealousy
of declining power. Herd instinct, inevitably siding
with the majority and the ruling powers, has always
added its influence to the side of age and given a
very distinctly perceptible bias to history, proverbial
wisdpm, and folklore against youth and confidence
and enterprise and in favour of age and caution,
the immemorial wisdom of the past, and even
the toothless mumblings of senile decay.
Any comprehensive survey of modern civilized
life cannot faU to yield abundant instances of the
disproportionate influence in the conduct of affairs
which has been acquired by mere age. When we
remember how little in actual practice man proves
himself capable of the use of reason, how very Jiittle
 IN PEACE AND WAR 87

he actually does profit by experience though the

phrase is always in his mouth, it must be obvious
that there is some strong psychological reason for
the predominance of age, something which must be
determinative in its favour quite apart from its merits
and capacity when competing with youth. The
" monstrous regiment " of old men — and to the
biologist it is almost as " monstrous " as the
regiment of Mary Stuart was to poor indignant
Knox — extends into every branch of man's activity.
We prefer old judges, old lawyers, old politicians,
old doctors, old generals, and when their functions
involve any immediacy of cause and effect and are
not merely concerned with abstractions, we content-
edly pay the price which the inelasticity of these
ripe minds is sometimes apt to incur.

IV

If the propositions already laid down prove to be

sound, we must regard the personaHty of the adult
as the resultant of three groups of forces to which
the mind from infancy onwards is subject ; first
the egoistic instincts of the individual pressing for
gratification and possessing the intense mental
energy characteristic of instinctive processes,
secondly the specific sensitiveness to environmental
influences which the mind as that of a gregarious
animal necessarily possesses, a quality capable of
endowing outside influences with the energy of
instinct and, thirdly the environmental influences
which act upon the growing mind and are also
essentially determined in their intensity and uni-
formity by instinctive mechanisms.
The work of Freud has been directed mainly
to the elucidation of the processes included in the
first group — that is to say, to the study of the
primarily egoistic impulses and the modifications
88 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

they develop under restraint. He has worked out,

in fact, a veritable embryolo'g'y of the mind.
The embryology of the body is to those who have
had no biological training far from being a
g'ratifying subject of contemplation. The stages
through which the body passes before reaching its
famiUar form have a superficial aspect of ugly and
repulsive caricature with which only a knowledge
of the great compressed pageant of nature they
represent can reconcile the mind. The stages
through which, according to the doctrines of Freud,
the developing mind passes are not less repulsive
when judged from the purely human point of view
than are the phases of the body which betray
its cousinship with the fish and the frog", the lemur
and the ape. The works of Nature give no support
to the social convention that to be truly respectable
one must always have been respectable. All her
most elaborate creations have " risen in the world "
and are descended in the direct hne from creatures of
the mud and dust . It is characteristic of her method
to work with the humblest materials and to patch
and compromise at every step. Any given structure
of her making is thus not by any means necessarily
the best that could conceivably be contrived, but
a workable modification of something else, always
more or less conditioned in its functioning by the
Mmitations of the thing from which it was made.
To the biologist, therefore, the fact that Freud's
investigations of the development of the mind have
shown it passing through stages anything but grati-
fying to self-esteem will not be either surprising
or a ground for disbelief. That Freud's conclusions
are decidedly unpalatable when judged by a narrowly
human standard is very obvious to any one who is
at all familiar with the kind of criticism they have
received. It must be acknowledged, moreover, that
his methods of exposition have not always tended
 IN PEACE AND WAR 89

to disguise the nauseousness of the dose he attempts

to administer. Such matters, however, He aUogether
apart from the question whether his conclusions are
or are not just, though it is perhaps justifiable to
say that had these conclusions been immediately
acceptable, the fact would be presumptive evidence
that they were either not new or were false.
The work of Freud embodies the most determined,
thorough, and scientific attempt which has been made
to penetrate the mysteries of the mind by the direct
human method of approach, making use of intro-
spection— ^guided and guarded, it is true, by an
elaborate technique — as its essential instrument. To
have shaped so awkward and fallacious an instrument
into an apparatus for which accuracy and fruitfulness
can be claimed is in itself a notable triumph of
psychological skill.
The doctrines of Freud seem to be regarded by
his school as covering all the activities of the mind
and making a complete, though of course not neces-
sarily exhaustive, survey of the whole field. I have
already pointed out directions in which it appears
to me that inquiries by other methods than those
of the psycho -analytic school can be pursued with
success. Regarded in a broad way, the Freudian
body of doctrine which I have already ventured
to describe as essentially an embryology of the
mind gives one the impression of being mainly
descriptive and systematic rather than dynamic, if
one may with due caution use such words. It is
able to tell us how such and such a state of affairs
has arisen, what is its true significance, and to
describe in minute detail the factors into which it
can be analysed. When the question of acting upon
the mind is raised its resources seem less striking.
In this direction its chief activities have been in
the treatment of abnormal mental states, and tlu^se
are dealt with by a laborious process of analysis
90 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

in which the subject's whole mental development is

retraced, and the numerous significant experiences
which have become excluded from the conscious
field are brought back into it.
When the unconscious processes which underlie
the symptoms have been assimilated to the conscious
life of the patient, the symptoms necessarily dis-
appear, and the patient's mind gains or regains
the " normal " condition. However precious such
a cure may be to the patient, and however interest-
ing to the physician, its value to the species has to be
judged in relation to the value of the " normal "
to which the patient has been restored — that is, in
relation to the question as to whether any move,
however small, in the direction of an enlargement
of the human mind has been made. Until some
clearer evidence has been furnished of a capacity
for development in this direction the Freudian system
should, perhaps, be regarded as more notably a
psychology of knowledge than a psychology of
power.
It is interesting to notice that in discussing the
mechanism of psycho-analysis in liberating the
" abnormal " patient from his symptoms, Freud
repeatedly lays stress on the fact that the efficient
factor in the process is not the actual introduction
of the suppressed experiences into the conscious field,
but the overcoming of the resistances to such an
endeavour. I have attempted to show that these
resistances or counter -impulses are of environmental
origin, and owe their strength to the specific sensi-
tiveness of the gregarious mind. Resistances of
similar type and identical origin are responsible for
the formation of the so-called normal type of mind.
It is a principal thesis of an earlier essay in this
book that this normal type is far from being psycho-
logically healthy, is far from rendering available
the full capacity of the mind for foresight and
 IN PEACE AND WAR 91

progress, and being in exclusive command of direct-

ing power in the world, is a danger to civilization.
An investigation of the resistant forces that are
encountered by the developing mind is clearly, then,
a matter of the utmost importance. They are now
allowed to come into being haphazard, and while
they undoubtedly contain elements of social value
and necessary restraints, they are the products, not
of a courageous recognition of facts but of fears,
prejudices, and repressed instinctive impulses, and
are consolidated by ignorance, indolence, and tribal
custom.
The interest of the psycho -analytic school has been
turne^^i remarkably little into this field. The specu-
lation may be hazarded that in this direction it might
find the sources of a directer power over the human
mind, and at least some attenuation of that atmo-
sphere of the consulting-room and the mad-house
which does so much to detract from its pretensions
to be a psychological system of universal validity.

Some Principles of a Biological Psychology.

The third method by which it has been attempted
to attack the problems of psychology is that which
I have called the comparative. Its characteristic note
is a distrust of that attitude towards phenomena
which I have called the human point of view.
Man's description and interpretation of his own
mental experience being so liable to distortion by
prejudice, by self-esteem, by his views as to his
own nature and powers, as well as so incomplete by
reason of his incapacity to reach by ordinary intro-
spection the deeper strata of his mind, it becomes
necessary to make action as far as possible the
subject of observation rather than speech, and to
regard it as a touchstone of motive more impor-
tant than the actor's own views. The principle
92 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

may be exemplified in a simple and concrete form.

If a given piece of human behaviour bears the
closest resemblance to behaviour which is charac-
teristic of the ape, the sheep, or the wolf, the
biologist in attempting to arrive at the actual cause
will ascribe an importance to this resemblance at
least no less than that he will give to any explana-
tion of the action as rational and deliberate which
may be furnished by the actor or by his own
intelligence.
A second principle of the method will be by a
study of the whole range of animal life, and especi-
ally of (forms whose conduct presents obvious
resemblances to that of man, to discover what
instinctive impulses may be expected to operate in
him.
A third principle will be to search for criteria,
whereby instinctive impulses or their derivatives
arising in the mind can be distinguished from
rational motives, or at any rate motives in which
the instinctive factor is minimal. Thus will be
furnished for the method the objective standard for
the judgment of mental observations which is the
one indispensable requirement in all psychological
inquiries.
When it is known what types of instinctive
mechanisms are to be expected, and under whi>^
aspects they will appear in the mind, it is possible
to press inquiry into many of the obscurer regions
of human behaviour and thought, and to arrive
at conclusions which, while they are in harmony
with the general body of biological science, have
the additional value of being immediately useful
in the conduct of affairs.
At the very outset of such" researches we are
met by an objection which illustrates how different
the biological conception of the mind is from that
current amongst those whose training has been lite-
 IN PEACE AND WAR 93
rary and philosophic. The objection I am thinking
of is that of the ordinary intellcctualist view of
man. According to this we must regard him as
essentially a rational creature, subject, it is true,
to certain feeble relics of instinctive impulsion, but
able to control such without any great expense of
will power, irrational at times in an amiable and
rather " nice " way, but fundamentally always inde-
pendent, responsible, and captain of his soul. Most
holders of this opinion will of course admit that
in a distant and vague enough past man must have
been much more definitely an instinctive being, but
they regard attempts to trace in modern man any
considerable residue of instinctive activities as a
tissue of fallacious and superficial analogies, based
upon a shallow materialism and an ignorance of
the great principles of philosophy or a crudeness
which cannot assimilate ihem.
This objection is an expression of the very
characteristic way in which mankind over-estimates
the practical functioning of reason in his mind and
the influence of civilization on his development. In
an earlier essay I have tried to show to how great
an extent the average educated man is willing to
pronounce decided judgments, all of which he be-
lieves himself to have arrived at by the exercise
of pure reason, upon the innumerable complex
questions of the day. Almost all of them concern
highly technical matters upon none of which has
he the slightest qualification to pronounce. This
characteristic, always obvious enough, has naturally,
during the war shown the exaggeration so apt to
occur in all non -rational processes at a time of
general stress. It is not necessary to catalogue
the various public functions in regard to which
the common citizen finds himself in these days moved
to advise and exhort. They are numerous, and
for the most part highly technical. Generally the
94 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

more technical a given matter is, the more vehement

and dogmatic is the counsel of the utterly unin-
structed counsellor. Even M^hen the questions in-
volved are not especially such as can be dealt v^^ith
only by the expert, the fact that the essential data
are withheld from the public by the authorities
renders all this amateur statecraft and generalship
more than usually ridiculous. Nevertheless, those
who find the materials insufficient for dogmatism
and feel compelled to a suspense of judgment are
apt to fall under suspicion of the crime of failing
to " realize " the seriousness of the war. When it
is remembered that the duty of the civilian is in
no way concerned with these matters of high tech-
nique, while he has very important functions to carry
out in maintaining the nation's strength if he could
be brought to take an interest in them, it seems
scarcely possible to argue that such conduct is that
of a very highly rational being. In reality the
objective examination
tion is directed to theof facts
man'sand
behaviour, if atten-
not to what the
actors think of them, yields at once in every field
example after example of similar irrational features.
When the influence of civilization is looked upon
as having rendered man's instincts of altogether
secondary importance in modern life, it is plain
that such a conclusion involves a misconception of
the nature of instinct. This well-worn term has
come to have so vague a connotation that some
definition
is of it
used here to isdenote
necessary. The modes
inherited word "of instinct
reaction"
to bodily need or external stimulus. It is difficult
to draw a sharp distinction between instinct and
mere reflex action, and an attempt to do so with
exact precision is of no particular value. In general
we may say that the reactions which should be
classed under the head of instinct are delayed (that
is, not necessarily carried out with fatal promptitude
 IN PEACE AND WAR 95

immediately upon the stimulus), complex (that is,

consist of acts rather than mere movements), and
may be accompanied by quite elaborate mental pro-
cesses. In a broad way also it may be said that
the mental accompaniments of an instinctive process
are for the most part matters of feeling. During
the growth of the need or stimulus there will be
a desire or inclination which may be quite intense,
and yet not definitely focused on any object that
is consciously realized ; the act itself will be dis-
tinguished to the actor by its Tightness, obvious-
ness, necessity, or inevitableness, and the sequel
of the act will be satisfaction. This mere hint
of the psychical manifestations of instinctive activity
leaves quite out of account the complex effects which
may ensue when two instinctive impulses that have
come to be antagonistic reach the mind at the same
time. The actual amount of mental activity which
accompanies an instinctive process is very variable ;
it may be quite small, and then the subject of it
is reduced to a mere automaton, possessed, as we
say, by an ungovernable passion such as panic, lust,
or rage ; it may be quite large, and sometimes
the subject, deceived by his own rationalizations and
suppressions, may suppose himself to be a fully
rational being in undisputed possession of free will
and the mastery of his fate at the very moment
when he is showing himself to be a mere puppet
dancing to the strings which Nature, unimpressed
by his valiant airs, relentlessly and impassively pulls.
The extent of the psychical accompaniments of
instinctive activity in civilized man should not, there-
fore, be allowed to obscure the fact that the
instincts are tendencies deeply ingrained in the very
structure of his being. They are as necessarily
inherited, as much a part of himself, and as
essential a condition for the survival of himself
and his race, as are the vital organs of his body.
96 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

Their persistence in him is established and enforced

by the effects of millions of years of selection, so
that it can scarcely be supposed that a few thousand
years of civilized life which have been accompanied
by no steady selection against any single instinct can
have had any effect whatever in weakening them.
The common expression that such an effect has been
produced is doubtless due to the great development
in civilized man of the mental accompaniments of
instinctive processes. These mental phenomena sur-
round the naked reality of the impulse with a
cloud of rationalized comment and illusory explana-
tion. The capacity which man possesses for free
and rational thought in matters untainted by in-
stinctive inclination is of course indubitable, but he
has not realized that there is no obvious m,ental
character attached to propositions having an
instinctive basis which should expose them to
suspicion. As a matter of fact, it is just those
fundamental propositions which owe their origin to
instinct which appear to the subject the most obvious,
the most axiomatic, and the least liable to doubt
by any one but an eccentric or a madman.
It has been customary with certain authors —
perhaps especially such as have interested them-
selves in sociological subjects — to ascribe quite a
large number of man's activities to separate instincts.
Very little consideration of most of these propo-
sitions shows that they are based upon too lax
a definition or a want of analysis, for most of the
activities referred to special instincts prove to be
derivatives of the great primal instincts which are
common to or very widely distributed over the
animal kingdom. Man and a very large number
of all animals inherit the capacity to respond to
physical need or emergency according to the
demands which we classify as the three primary
instincts of self-preservation, nutrition, and repro-
 IN PEACE AND WAR 97
duction. If a series of animals of increasing brain
power be examined, it will be found that a growth
of intelligence, while it does nothing to enfeeble
the instinctive impulse, modifies the appearances of
it by increasing the number of modes of reaction it
may use. Intelligence, that is to say, leaves its
possessor no less impelled by instinct than his
simpler ancestor, but endows him with the capacity
to respond in a larger variety of ways. The response
is now no longer directly and narrowly confined to
a single path, but may follow a number of indirect
and intricate ways ; there is no reason, however, to
suppose that the impulse is any the weaker for that.
To mistake indirectness of response for enfeeblement
of impulse is a fundamental error to which all inquiry
into the psychology of instinct is liable.
To man his big brain has given a maximal
power of various response which enables him to
indulge his instinctive impulses in indirect and
symbolic activities to a greater extent than any other
animal. It is for this reason that the instincts of
man are not always obvious in his conduct and
have come to be regarded by some as practically
no more than vestigial. Indirect modes of response
may indeed become so involved as to assume the
appearance of the negation of the very instincts
of which they are the expression. Thus it comes
to be no paradox to say that monks and nuns,
ascetics and martyrs, prove the strength of the great
primary instincts their existence seems to deny.
Man and a certain number of other species widely
distributed throughout the animal kingdom show,
in addition to the instincts of self-preservation,
nutrition, and sex, specialized inherited modes of
response to the needs, not directly of the individual
but of the herd to which he belongs. These
responses, which are perfectly well marked and
characteristic, are those of the herd instinct. It is
7
98 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

important to grasp clearly the relation of this instinct

to the individual. It must be understood that each
separate member of a gregarious species inherits
characters deeply rooted in his being which effect-
ually differentiate him from any non-gregarious
animal. These characters are such that in presence
of certain stimuli they will ensure his responding
in a specialized way which will be quite different
from the response of a solitary animal. The
response when examined will be found not neces-
sarily to favour the survival of the individual as
such, but to favour his survival as a member of
a herd. A very simple example will make this
plain. The dog and the cat are our two most
familiar examples of the social and the solitary
animal respectively. Their different attitudes to-
wards feeding must have been observed by all.
The cat takes her food leisurely, without great
appearance of appetite and in small amounts at a
time ; the dog is voracious and will eat hurriedly
as much as he can get, growling anxiously if he
is approached. In doing so he is expressing a deeply
ingrained characteristic. His attitude towards food
was built up when he hunted in packs and to get a
share of the common kill had to snatch what came in
his way and gulp it down before it could be taken
from him. In slang which has a sound biological
basis we say he " wolfs " his food. When in
domestication his food supply is no longer limited
in the primitive way, his instinctive tendency persists ;
he is typically greedy and will kill himself by over-
eating if he is allowed to. Here we have a perfect
instance oT an instinctive response being disad-
vantageous to the survival of the individual as such,
and favouring his survival only as a member of a
herd. This example, trivial as it may seem, is
worthy of close study. It shows that the' individual
of the gregarious species, ^s an individual and in
 IN PEACE AND WAR 99

fsolation, possesses indelible marks of character

which effectually distinguish him from all solitary
animals.
The same principle applies with equal force to
man. Whether he is alone or in company, a hermit
philosopher or a mere unit of a mob, his responses
will bear the same stamp of being regulated by the
existence and influence of his fellows.
The foregoing considerations, elementary and
incomplete as they are, suggest that there is a
strong prima facie case for rejecting the common
conceptions that man is among animals the least
endowed with an inheritance of instinct, and that
civilization has produced in him profound modifica-
tions in his primitive instinctive impulses. If the
conception which I have put forward be correct,
namely, that man is not at all less subject to
instinctive impulsions than any other animal but
disguises the fact from the observer and from
himself by the multiplicity of the lines of response
his mental capacity enables him to take, it should
follow that his conduct is much less truly variable
and much more open to generalization than has
generally been supposed. Should this be possible,
it would enable the biologist to study the actual
affairs of mankind in a really practical way, to
analyse the tendencies of social development, to
discover how deeply or superficially they were based
in the necessity of things, and above all, to foretell
their course. Thus might be founded a true science
of politics which would be of direct service to the
statesman.
Many attempts have been made to apply bio-
logical principles to the interpretation of history
and the guidance of statecraft, especially since the
poi)ularization of the principles associated with the
name of Darwin. Such attempts have generally
been undertaken less in the spirit of the scientific
100 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

investigator than in that of the politician ; the

point of departure has been a political conviction
and not a biological truth ; and as might be expected,
when there has been any conflict between political
conviction and biological truth it is the latter that
has had to give way. Work of this kind has brought
the method into deserved contempt by its crudity,
its obvious subservience to prejudice, and its pre-
tentious gestures of the doctrinaire. England has
not been without her examples of these scientific
politicians and historians, but they cannot be said
to have flourished here as they have in the more
scTiolastic air of Germany. The names of several
such are now notorious in this country and their
works are sufficiently familiar for it to be obvious
that their claims to scientific value do not admit of
discussion. It is not necessary to consider their
conclusions, they are condemned by their manner ;
and however interesting their political vociferation
may be to fellow-patriots, it plainly has no meaning
whatsoever as science. In face of the spectacle
presented by these leather-lunged doctrinaires, it
needs some little hardihood to maintain that it is
possible profitably to apply biological principle to
the consideration of human affairs ; nevertheless, that
is ail essential thesis of this essay.
In attempting to illuminate the records of history
by the principles of biology, an essential difficulty is
the difference of scale in time upon which these
two departments of knowledge work. Historical
events are confined within a few thousands of years,
the biological record covers many millions ; it is
scarcely to be expected, therefore, that even a gross
movement on the cramped historical scale will be
capable of detection in the vast gulf of time the
biological series represents. A minor difficulty is
the fact that the data of history come to us through
a dense and reduplicated veil of human interpre-
 IN PEACE AND WAR loi

tation, whereas the biological facts are comparatively,

free from this kind of obscuration. The former
obstacle is undoubtedly serious. It is to be
remarked, however, that there is strong reason to
suppose that the process of organic evolution has not
been and is not always infinitely slow and gradual.
It is more than suspected that, perhaps as the result
of slowly accumulated tendency or perhaps as the
result of a sudden variation of structure or capacity,
there have been periods of rapid change which
might have been perceptible to direct observation.
The infinitely long road still tending upwards comes
to where it branches and meets another path, tending
perhaps downwards or even upwards at a different
slope. May not the meeting or branching form,
as it were, a node in the infinite line, a resting:
place for the eye, a point in the vast extension:
capable of recognition by a finite mind and of
expression in terms of human affairs ? It is the
belief of the writer that the human race stands
at such a nodal point to-day.

The Biology of Gregariousness.

In order to set forth the evidence on which is
based the conclusion that the present juncture of
affairs is not merely, as it very obviously is, a
meeting-place of epochs in the historical scries, but
also marks a stage in the biological scries which
will prove to have been a moment of destiny in the
evolution of the human species, it will be necessary
to inquire somewhat closely into the biological
meaning of the social habit in animals.^ In an earlier
essay certain speculaiions in the same subject were
indulged, and a certain amount of repetition will
be necessary. The point of view then taken up,
however, was different from that from which I shall
now attempt to review the facts. Then the main
102 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

interest lay in an examination of the meaning of

gregariousness for the individual mind, and although
reasons enough were found for uneasiness at the
course of events, and at the instability of civiliza-
tion which any radical examination displayed, the
inquiry was not pursued under any immediate im-
minence of disaster to the social fabric as it mus't
be now. Naturally, therefore, at the present time
certain aspects of the subject which before were
of no special relevance become of great importance
and demand close examination.
In a general view of the social habit in animals
certain outstanding facts are readily to be observed.
It is of wide distribution and sporadic occurrence, it
varies much in the completeness of its development,
and there seems to be an inverse relation between
its completeness and the brain power of the animal
concerned.
From the wideness of its distribution the social
habit may be supposed to represent a forward step
in complexity which comes about readily. It has
the appearance of being upon a path which species
have a natural tendency to follow, a line of evolution
which is perhaps rendered possible by constantly
occurring small variations common to all animals and
taken advantage of only under certain circumstances
of pressure or increase. It seems not to depend on
any sudden large variation of type, and such is not
necessary to account for it. It differs from many
other modifications which we know animal life to
have undergone in being immediately useful to the
species from its very beginning and in its least
perfect forms. Once started, however imperfectly,
the new habit will have a natural tendency to
progress towards fuller forms of sociality by reason
of special selective forces which it inevitably sets
going. The fact that it is valuable to the species
in which it develops even in its most larval forms,
 IN PEACE AND WAR 103

combined with its tendency to progress, no doubt

accounts for the wonderful series of all degrees
of gregariousness which the field of natural history
presents .
I have pointed out elsewhere that the fundamental
biological meaning of gregariousness is that it allows
of an indefinite enlargement of the unit upon which
the undifferentiated influence of natural selection is
allowed to act, so that the individual merged in the
larger unit is shielded from the immediate effects
of natural selection and is exposed directly only to
the special form of selection which obtains within
the new unit.
There seems little doubt that this sheltering of
the individual allows him to vary and to undergo
modifications with a freedom which would have
been dangerous to him as an isolated being, but is
safe under the new conditions and valuable to the
new unit of which he now is a part.
In essence the significance of the passage from
the solitary to the gregarious seems to be closely
similar to that of the passage from the unicellular
to the multicellular organism — an enlargement of
the unit exposed to natural selection, a shielding of
the individual cell from that pressure, an endowment
of it with freedom to vary and specialize in safety.
Nature has thus made two great experiments of
the same type, and if one be reasonably careful to
avoid arguing from analogy, it is possible to use
one case to illuminate the other by furnishing hints
as to what mechanisms may be looked for and in
what directions inquiry may profitably be pursued.
The sporadic occurrence of gregariousness at
widely separated points of the animal field — in man
and sheep, in ant and elephant — inclines one to
suppose that multiccllularity must have arisen also at
multiple points, and that the metazoa did not arise
from the protozoa by a single line of descent. It
104 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

suggests also that there is some inherent property,

in mobile living organisms that makes combination
of individuals into larger units a more or less in-
evitable course of development under certain cir-
cumstances and without any gross variation being
necessary to initiate it. The complex evolution
which multicellularity made possible, and perhaps
enforced, can scarcely fail to make one wonder
whether the gregarious animal has not entered upon
a path which must of necessity lead to increasing
complexity and co-ordination, to a more and more
stringent intensity of integration or to extinction.
The varying degrees to which the social habit
has developed among different animals provide a
very interesting branch of study. The class of
insects is remarkable in furnishing an almost in-
exhaustible variety of stages to which the instinct
is developed. Of these that reached by the humble
bee, with its small, weak families, is a familiar
example of a low grade ; that of the wasp, with its
colonies large and strong, but unable to survive the
winter, is another of more developed type ; while that
of the honey bee represents a very high grade of
development in which the instinct seems to have
completed its cycle and yielded to the hive the
maximum advantages of which it is capable. In
the honey bee, then, the social instinct may be said
to be complete.
It is necessary to examine somewhat closely into
what is denoted by the completeness or otherwise
of the social habit in a given species.
To return for a moment to the case of the
change from the unicellular to the multicellular, it
is obvious that in the new unit, to get the full
advantage of the change there must be specialization
involving both loss and gain to the individual cell?;
one loses power of digestion and gains a special
sensitiveness to stimulation, another loses locomotion
 IN PEACE AND WAR 105

to gain digestion, and so forth in innumerable series

as the new unit becomes more complex. Inherent,
however, in the new mechanism is the need for
co-ordination if the advantages of specialization are
to be obtained. The necessity of a nervous system —
if progress is to be maintained — early becomes
obvious, and it is equally clear that the primary
function of the nervous system is to facilitate co-
ordination. Thus it would seem that the individual
cell incorporated in a larger unit must possess a
capacity for specialization, the ability to originate
new methods of activity, and a capacity for response
— that is, the ability to limit itself to action
co-ordinated suitably to the interests Of the new
unit rather than to those that would have been its
own if it had been a free unit in itself. Specializa-
tion and co-ordination will be the two necessary
conditions for success of the larger unit, and advance
in complexity will be possible as long only as these
two are unexhausted. Neither, of course, will be of
avail without the other. The richest specialization
will be of no good if it cannot be controlled to the
uses of the whole organism, and the most perfect
control of the individual cells will be incapable
of ensuring progress if it has no material of original
variation to work on.
The analogy is helpful in the consideration of
the mechanisms brought into play by the social
habit. The community of the honey bee bears
a close resemblance to the body of a complex animal .
The capacity for actual structural specialization of
the individuals in the interests of the hive has
been remarkable and has gone far, while at the
same time co-ordination has been stringently en-
forced, so that each individual is actually absorbed
into the community, expends all its activities therein,
and when excluded from it isi almost as helpless
as a part of the naked flesh of an animal
io6 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

detached from its body. The hive may, in fact,

without any very undue stretch of fantasy, be
described as an animal of which all the individual
cells have retained the power of locomotion. When
one watches the flight of a swarm of bees its
unanimity and directness very easily produce the
illusion that one is witnessing the migration pf
a single animal usually sedentary but at times
capable of undertaking journeys with a formidable
and successful energy. This new animal differs
from the other animals of the metazoa which it
has outdistanced in the race of evolution, not merely
in its immense power, energy, and flexibility, but
also in the almost startling fact that it has
recovered the gift of immortality which seemed to
have been lost with its protozoal ancestors.
The extent to which the hive makes use of the
powers! of its individuals is the measure of the
completeness with which the social habit is developed
in it. The worker bee has' practically no activities
which are not directly devoted to the hive, and yet
she goes about her ceaseless tasks in a way that
never fails to impress the observer with its exuberant
energy and even its appearance of joyfulness. It
is thought that the average worker bee works herself
to death in about two months. That is a fact
which can scarcely fail to arouse, even in the least
imaginative, at any rate a moment of profound
contemplation.
If we could suppose her to be conscious in the
human sense, we must imagine the bee to be
possessed by an enthusiasm for the hive more intense
than a mother's devotion to her son, without personal
ambitions, or doubts or fears, and if we are to
judge by the imperfect experience man has yet
had of the same lofty passion, we must think of her
consciousness, insignificant spark as it is, as a little
fire ablaze with altruistic feeling. Doubtless, such
 IN PEACE AND WAR 107

an attribution of emotion to the bee is' ai quite

unjustified fallacy of anthropomorphism. Neverthe-
less, it is not ahogether valueless as a hint of what
social unity might effect in an animal of larger
mental life. There can be little doubt that the
perfection to which the communal life of the bee
has attained is dependent on the very smallness of
the mental development of which the individuals'
are capable. Their capacity to assimilate experience
is necessarily from their structure, and is known
by experience to be, small and their path is marked
out so plainly by actual physical modifications that
the almost miraculous absorption of the worker in
the hive is after all perhaps natural enoug'li. If she
were able to assimilate general experience on a larger
scale, to react freely and appropriately to stimuli
external to the hive, there can be little doubt that
the community would show a less concentrated
efficiency than it does to-day. The standing miracle
of the bee — her sensitiveness to the voice of the
hive and her capacity to communicate with her
fellows — would undoubtedly be less marvellously
perfect if she were not at the same time deaf to all
other voices.
When we come to consider animals in which
the anatomist can recognize a brain and the
psychologist an individual mind, the types of gre-
gariousness we meet with are found to have lost
the magnificent intensity of the bee. This decline
in intensity seems to be due to the greatly ^increased
variety of reaction of which the individual is capable.
The gregarious mammaUa are most of them
relatively intelligent, they are capable of assimi-
lating experience to a certain extent and have a
definite capacity for individual existence. In them
the social habit shows comparatively little tendency
to a gradual intensification, but is a more static
condition. Doubtless, there are other conditions
io8 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

which also limit it. For example, the slowness

of multiplication and fixity of structure in the
mammaha obviously deprive them of the possibility
of undergoing a continuous social integration as the
insects have. Be this as it may, we find in them the
social habit but little or scarcely at all expressed
in physical specialization but shown as a deeply
ingrained mental character which profoundly in-
fluences their habits and their modes of reaction
to bodily and external impressions. Among the
mammaha other than man and possibly apes and
monkeys, gregariousness is found in two broadly
distinguishable types according to the function it sub-
serves. It may be either protective as in the sheep,
the deer, the ox, and the horse, or aggressive as in
the wolf and allied animals. In both forms it will
involve certain common types of capacity, while the
distinguishing characteristic of each will be a special
kind of reaction to certain stimuli. It is important
to understand that these peculiarities are possessed
by each individual of the larger unit, and will be
displayed by him in a characteristic way whether
he is in the company of his fellows or not. It is not
necessary to repeat here in any detail the characters
of the gregarious mammal. They have been dealt
with in an earlier essay, but it is desirable to empha-
size here certain features of exceptional importance
and some which were but little discussed before.
The quite fundamental characteristic of the social
mammal, as of the bee, is sensitiveness to the voice
of his fellows. He must have the capacity to react
fatally and without hesitation to an impression
coming to him from the herd, and he must react
in a totally different way to impressions coming to
him from without. In the presence of danger
his first motion must be, not to fly or to attack as
the case may be, but to notify the herd. This
characteristic is beautifully demonstrated in the low;
 IN PEACE AND WAR 109

growl a dog will give at the approach of 3, stranger.

This is obviously in no way part of the dog's
programme of attack upon his enemy — when his
object is intimidation he bursts into barking— but
his first duty is to put the pack on its guard.
Si'mUarly the start of the sheep is a notification
and precedes any motion of flight.
In order that the individual shall be sensitive
in a special degree to the voice of the herd, he must
have developed in him an infallible capacity for
recognizing his fellow-members. In the lower
mammaUa this seems almost exclusively a function
of the sense of smell, as is natural enough since
that sense is as a general rule highly developed jn
them. The domestic dog shows admirably the
importance of the function of recognition in his
species. Comparatively few recognize even their
masters at any distance by sight or sound, while
obviously with their fellows they are practically
dependent on smeU. The extent to which the cere-
monial of recognition has developed in the dog is,
of course, very famihar to every one. It shows
unmistakable evidence of the rudiments of social
organization, and is not the less illuminating' to the
student of human society for having a bodily orien-
tation and technique which at first sight obscures
its resemblance to similar, and it is supposed more
dignified, mechanisms in man.
Specialization fitting the animal for social life
is obviously in certain directions restrictive ; that is,
it denies him certain capacities and immunities which
the solitary animal possesses ; equally obviously is it
in certain directions expansive and does it confer,
qualities on the social which the solitary does not
possess. Among cjualitics of restrictive specialization
are inability to live satisfactorily apart from the herd
or some substitute for it, the liability to loneliness,
a dependence on leadership, custom, and tradition, a
no INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

credulity towards the dogmas of the herd and an

unbelief towards external experience, a standard of
conduct no longer determined by personal needs
but influenced by a power outside the ego — a. con-
science, in fact, and a sense of sin — a weakness of
personal initiative and a distrust of its promptings.
Expansive specialization, on the other hand, gives the
gregarious animal the sense of power and security
in the herd, the capacity to respond to the call lOf
the herd with a maximum output of energy and
endurance, a deep-seated mental satisfaction in unity
with the herd, and a solution in it of personal doubts
and fears.
All these characters can be traced in an animal
such as the dog. The mere statement of them,
necessarily in mental terms, involves the liability
to a certain inexactitude if it is not recognized that
no hypothesis as to the consciousness of the dog is
assumed but that the description in mental terms is
given because of its convenient brevity. An
objective description of the actual conduct on which
such summarized statements are founded would be
impossibly voluminous.

The advantage the new unit obtains by aggres-

sive gregariousness is cTiiefly its immense accession
of strength as a hunting and fighting organism.
Protective gregariousness confers on the flock or
herd advantages perhaps less obvious but certainly
not less important. A very valuable gain is the
increased efficiency of vigilance which is possible.
Such efficiency depends on the available number
of actual watchers and the exquisite sensitiveness
of the herd and all its members to the signals of
such sentries. No one can have watched a herd
of sheep for long without being impressed with
the delicacy with which a supposed danger is
detected, transmitted throughout the herd, and met
 IN PEACE AND WAR iii

by an appropriate movement. Another advantage

enjoyed by the new unit is a practical solution of
the difficulties incident upon the emotion of fear.
Fear is essentially an enfeebling passion, yet in the
sheep and such animals it is necessarily developed
to a high degree in the interests of safety. The
danger of this specialization is neutralized by the
implication of so large a part of the individual's
personality in the herd and outside of himself.
Alarm becomes a passion, as it were, of the herd
rather than of the individual, and the appropriate
response by the individual is to an impulse received
from the herd and not directly from the actual
object of alarm. It seems to be in this way that the
paralysing emotion of fear is held back from the
individual, while its effect can reach him only as the
active and formidable passion of panic. The
gregarious herbivora are in fact timid but not fearful
animals. All the various mechanisms in which the
social habit shows itself apparently have as their
general function a maximal sensitiveness to danger
of the herd as a whole, combined with maintaining
with as little interruption as possible an atmosphere
of calm within the herd, so that the individual
members can occupy themselves in the serious
business of grazing. It must be doubted whether
a truly herbivorous animal of a solitary habit could
ever flourish when we remember how incessant must
be his industry in feeding if he is to be properly
nourished, and how much such an occupation will
be interfered with by the constant alarms he must be
subject to if he is to escape the attacks of carnivorous
enemies. The evidence suggests that protective gre-
gariousness is a more elaborate manifestation of
the social habit than the aggressive form. It is
clear that the security of the higher herbivora, such
as the ox and especially the horse and their allies, is
considerable in relation to the carnivora. One may
112 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

permissibly perhaps indulge the speculation that in

the absence of man the horse possibly might have
developed a greater complexity of organization than
it has actually been able to attain ; that the facts
should seem to contain this hint is a curious
testimony to the wonderful constructive imagination
of Swift.
Setting aside such guesses and confining ourselves
to the facts, we may say in summary that we find the
infrahuman mammalia to present two distinctly
separable strains of the social habit. Both are of
great value to the species in which they appear, and
both are associated with certain fundamentally
similar types of reactive capacity which give a
general resemblance of character to all gregarious
animals. Of the two forms the protective is perhaps
capable of absorbing more fully the personality of
the individual than is the aggressive, but both seem
to have reached the limit of their intensification at a
grade far lower than that which has been attained
in the insects.

Characters of the Gregarious Animal

displayed by man.
When we come to consider man we find ourselves
faced at once by some of the most interesting
problems in the biology of the social habit. It is
probably not necessary now to labour the proof of
the fact that man is a gregarious animal in literal
fact, that he is as essentially gregarious as the
bee and the ant, the sheep, the ox, and the horse.
The tissue of characteristically gregarious reactions
which his conduct presents furnishes incontestable
proof of this thesis, which is thus an indispensable
clue to an inquiry into the intricate problems of
human society.
It is desirable perhaps to enumerate in a summary
 IN PEACE AND WAR 113

way the more obvious gregarious characters which

man displays.
I . He is intolerant and fearful of solitude, physical
or mental. This intolerance is the cause of the
mental fixity and intellectual incuriousness which,
to a remarkable degree for an animal with so
capacious a brain, he constantly displays. As is
well known, the resistance to a new idea is always
primarily a matter of prejudice, the development
•of intellectual objections, just or otherwise, being
a secondary process in spite of the common delusion
to the contrary. This intimate dependence on the
herd is traceable not merely in matters physical
and intellectual, but also betrays itself in the deepest
recesses of personality as a sense of incompleteness
which compels the individual to reach out towards
some larger existence than his own, some encom-
passing being in whom his perplexities may find
a solution and his longings peace. Physical lone-
liness and intellectual isolation are effectually solaced
by the nearness and agreement of the herd. The
deeper personal necessities cannot be met — at any
rate, in such society as has so far been evolved — by
so superficial a union ; the capacity for intercom-
munication is still too feebly developed to bring
the individual into complete and soul-satisfying
harmony with his fellows, to convey from one to
another

Thoughts hardly to be packed

Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke through language and escaped.

Religious feeling is therefore a character inherent

in the very structure of the human mind, and is the
expression of a need which must be recognized
by the biologist as neither superficial nor transitory.
It must be admitted that some philosophers and
8
114 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
men of science have at times denied to the religious
impulses of man their true dignity and importance.
Impelled perhaps by a desire to close the circle
of a materialistic conception of the universe, they
have tended to belittle the significance of such
phenomena as they were unable to reconcile with
their principles and bring within the iron circle of
their doctrine. To deal with religion in this way
has not only been an outrage upon true scientific
method, but has always led to a strong reaction in
general opinion against any radical inquiry by
science into the deeper problems of man's nature
and status. A large and energetic reaction of this
kind prevails to-day. There can be little doubt
that it was precipitated, if not provoked, by attempts
to force a harsh and dogmatic materialism into the
status of a general philosophy. As long as such a
system is compelled to ignore, to depreciate, or
to deny the reality of such manifestly important
phenomena as the altruistic emotions, the religious
needs and feelings, the experiences of awe and
wonder and beauty, the illumination of the mystic,
the rapture of the prophet, the unconquerable en-
durance of the martyr, so long must it fail in its
claims to universality. It is therefore necessary to
lay down with the strongest emphasis the proposi-
tion that the religious needs and feelings of man
are a direct and necessary manifestation of the
inheritance of instinct with which he is born, and
therefore deserve consideration as respectful and
observation as minute as any other biological
phenomenon.
2. He is more sensitive to the voice of the herd
than to any other influence. It can inhibit or
stimulate his thought and conduct. It is the source
of his moral codes, of the sanctions of his ethics and
philosophy. It can endow him with energy, courage,
and endurance, and can as easily take these away.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 115

It can make him acquiesc in his own punishment

and embrace his executioner, submit to poverty,
bow to tyranny, and sink without complaint under
starvation. Not merely can it make him accept
hardship and suffering unresistingly, but it can make
him accept as truth the explanation that his perfectly
preventable afflictions are sublimely just and gentle.
It is in this acme of the power of herd suggestion
that is perhaps the most absolutely incontestable
proof of the profoundly gregarious nature of man.
That a creature of strong appetites and luxurious
desires should come to tolerate uncomplainingly his
empty belly, his chattering teeth, his naked limbs,
and his hard bed is miracle enough. What are we
to say of a force which, when he is told by the full-
fed and well-warmed that his state is the more
blessed can make him answer, " How beautiful !
How true ! " In the face of so effectual a negation,
not merely of experience and common sense but also
of actual hunger and privation, it is not possible to
set any limits to the power of the herd over the
individual.
3. He is subject to the passions of the pack in
his mob violence and the passions of the herd in
his panics. These activities are by no means limited
to the outbursts of actual crowds, but are to be
seen equally clearly in the hue and cry of news-
papers and public after some notorious criminal or
scapegoat, and in the success of scaremongering by
the same agencies.
4. He is remarkably susceptible to leadership.
This quality in man may very naturally be thought
to have a basis essentially rational rather than in-
stinctive ifits manifestations are not regarded with
a special effort to attain an objective attitude. How
thoroughly reasonable it appears that a body of men
seeking a common object should put themselves
under the guidance of some strong and expert
n6 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

personality who can point out the path most profit-

ably to be pursued, who can hearten his followers
and bring all their various powers into a harmonious
pursuit of the common object. The rational basis
of the relation is, however, seen to be at any rate
open to discussion when we consider the qualities
in a leader upon which his authority so often rests,
for there can he little doubt that their appeal is
more generally to instinct than to reason. In ordi-
nary politics it must be admitted that the gift of
public speaking is of more decisive value than any-
thing else. If a tnan is fluent, dextrous, and ready
on the platform, he possesses the one indispensable
requisite for statesmanship ; if in addition he has
the gift of moving deeply the emotions of his hearers,
his capacity for guiding the infinite complexities
of national life becomes undeniable. Experience
has shown that no exceptional degree of any other
capacity is necessary to make a successful leader.
There need be no specially arduous training, no great
weight of knowledge either of affairs or the human
heart, no receptiveness to new ideas, no outlook
into reality. Indeed, the mere absence of such seems
to be an advantage ; for originality is apt to appear
to the people as flightiness, scepticism as feeble-
ness, caution as doubt of the great political principles
that may happen at the moment to be immutable.
The successful shepherd thinks like his sheep, and
can lead his flock only if he keeps no more than the
shortest distance in advance. He must remain, in
fact, recognizable as one of the flock, magnified
no doubt, louder, coarser, above all with more urgent
wants and ways of expression than the common
sheep, but in essence to their feeling of the same
flesh with them. In the human herd the necessity
of the leader bearing unmistakable marks of identifi-
cation is equally essential. Variations from the
normal standard in intellectual matters are tolerated
 IN PEACE AND WAR 117

if they are not very conspicuous, for man has never

yet taken reason very seriously, and can still look
upon intellectuality as not more than a peccadillo
if it is not paraded conspicuously ; variations from
the moral standard are, however, of a much greater
significance as marks of identification, and when
they become obvious, can at once change a great
and successful leader into a stranger and an out-
cast, however little they may seem to be relevant
to the adequate execution of his public work. If
a leader's marks of identity with the herd are of
the right kind, the more they are paraded the better.
We like to see photographs of him nursing his
little grand -daughter, we like to know that he plays
golf badly, and rides the bicycle like our common
selves, we enjoy hearing of " pretty incidents " in
which he has given the blind crossing-sweeper a
penny or begged a glass of water at a wayside
cottage — and there are excellent biological reasons
for our gratification.
In times of war leadership is not less obviously
based on instinct, though naturally, since the herd
is exposed to a special series of stresses, manifesta-
tions of it are also somewhat special. A people
at war feels the need of direction much more in-
tensely than a people at peace, and as always they
want some one who appeals to their instinctive feeling
of being directed, comparatively regardless of whether
he is able in fact to direct. This instinctive feeling
inclines them to the choice of a man who presents
at any rate the appearance and manners of authority,
and power rather than to one who possesses the
substance of capacity but is denied the shadow.
They have their conventional pictures of the desired
type — the strong, silent, relentless, the bold, out-
spoken, hard, and energetic — but at all costs he
must be a " man," a " leader who can lead," a
shepherd, in fact, who, Ijy his gesticulations and
ii8 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

his shouts, leaves his flock in no doubt as to his

presence and his activity. It is touching- to remember
how often a people in pursuit of this ideal has ob-
tained and accepted in response to its prayers nothing
but melodramatic bombast, impatience, rashness, and
foolish, boasting truculence ; and to remember how
often a great statesman in his country's need has
had to contend not merely with her foreign enemies^
but with those at home whose vociferous malignity
has declared his magnanimous composure to be
■sluggishness, his cautious scepticism to be feeble-
ness, and his unostentatious resolution to be stui^Mity.
5. His relations with his fellows are dependent
upon the recognition of him as a member of the
herd. It is important to the success of a gregarious
■species that individuals should be able to move
freely within the large unit while strangers are ex-
cluded. Mechanisms to secure such personal recog-
nition are therefore a characteristic feature of the
social habit. The primitive olfactory greeting
common to so many of the lower animals was doubt-
less rendered impossible for man by his comparative
loss of the sense of smell long before it ceased to
accord with his pretensions, yet in a thriving active
species the function of recognition was as neces-
sary as ever. Recognition by vision could be of
only limited value, and it seems probable that speech
very early became the accepted medium. Possibly
the necessity to distinguish friend from foe was
one of the conditions which favoured the develop-
ment of articulate speech. Be this as it may, speech
at the present time retains strong evidence of the
survival in it of the function of herd recognition.
As is usual with instinctive activities in man, the
actual state of affairs is concealed by a deposit
of rationahzed explanation which is apt to discourage
merely superficial inquiry. The function of con-
versation is,it is to be supposed, ordinarily regarded
 IN PEACE AND WAR 119

as being the exchange of ideas and information.

Doubtless it has come to have such a function, but
an objective examination of ordinary conversation
shows that the actual conveyance of ideas takes
a very small part in it. As a rule the exchange
seems to consist of ideas which are necessarily
common to the two speakers, and are known to
be so by each. The process, however, is none
the less satisfactory for this ; indeed, it seems even
to derive its satisfactoriness therefrom. The inter-
change of the conventional lead and return is
obviously very far from being tedious or meaning-
less to the interlocutors. They can, however, have
derived nothing" from it but the confirmation to one
another of their sympathy and of the class or classes
to which they belong.
Conversations of greeting are naturally particu-
larly rich in the exchange of purely ceremonial
remarks, ostensibly based on some subject like the
weather, in which there must necess:inly be an
absolute community of knowledge. It is possible,
however, for a long conversation to be made up
entirely of similar elements, and to contain no trace
of any conveyance of new ideas ; such intercourse
is probably that which on the whole is most satis-
factory to the " normal " man and leaves him more
comfortably stimulated than would originality or
brilliance, or any other manifestation of the strange
and therefore of the disreputable.
Conversation between persons unknown to one
another is also— when satisfactory — apt to be rich
in the ritual of recognition. When one hears or
takes part in these elaborate evolutions, gingerly
proffering one after another of one's marks of
identity, one's views on the weather, on fresh air
and draughts, on the Government and on uric acid,
watching intently for the first low hint of a growl,
which will show one belongs to the wrong pack
120 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

and must withdraw, it is impossible not to be

reminded of the similar manosuvres of the dog, and
to be thankful that Nature has provided us with a
less direct, though perhaps a more tedious, code.

It may appear that we have been dealing here

with a far-fetched and laboured analogy, and making
much of a comparison of trivialities merely for the
sake of compromising, if that could be done, human
pretensions to reason. To show that the marvel
of human communion began, perhaps, as a very
humble function, and yet retains traces of its origin,
is in no way to minimize the value or dignity of
the more fully developed power. The capacity for
free intercommunication between individuals of the
species has meant so much in the evolution of man,
and will certainly come in the future to mean so
incalculably more, that it cannot be regarded as
anything less than a master element in the shaping
of his destiny.

Some Peculiarities of the Social Habit

IN Man.
It is apparent after very little consideration that
the extent of man's individual mental development
is a factor which has produced many novel char-
acters in his manifestations of the social habit, and
has even concealed to a great extent the profound
influence this instinct has in regulating his conduct,
his thought, and his society.
Large mental capacity in the individual, as we
have already seen, has the effect of providing a
wide freedorh of response to instinctive impulses,
so that, while the individual is no less impelled by
instinct than a more primitive type, the manifesta-
tions of these impulses in his conduct are very
varied, and his conduct loses the appearance of a
 IN PEACE AND WAR T2I

narrow concentration on its instinctive object. It

needs only to pursue this reasoning to a further stage
to reach the conclusion that mental capacity,
while in no way limiting the impulsive power of
instinct, may, by providing an infinite number of
channels into which the impulse is free to flow,
actually prevent the impulse from attaining the goal
of its normal object. In the ascetic the sex instinct
is defeated, in the martyr that of self-preservation,
not because these instincts have been abolished,
but because the activity of the mind has found new
channels for them to flow in. As might be expected,
the much more labile herd instinct has been still
more subject to this deflection and dissipation with-
out its potential impulsive strength being in any
way impaired. It is this process which has enabled
primitive psychology so largely to ignore the fact
that man still is, as much as ever^ endowed with
a heritage of instinct and incessantly subject to
its influence. Man's mental capacity, again, has
enabled him as a species to flourish enormously, and
thereby to increase to a prodigious extent the size
of the unit in which the individual is nterged.
The nation, if the term be used to describe every
organization under a completely independent,
supreme government, must be regarded as the
smallest unit on which natural selection now unre-
strictedly acts. Between such units there is free
competition, and the ultimate regulator of these
relations is physical force. This statement needs
the qualification that the delimitation between two
given units may be much sharper than that between
two others, so that in the first case the resort to
force is likely to occur readily, while in the second
case it will be brought about only by the very
ultimate necessity. The tendency to the enlargement
of the social unit has been going on with certain
temporary relapses throughout human history.
1^2 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

Though repeatedly checked by the instability of

the larger units, it has always resumed its activity,
so that it should probably be regarded as a funda-
mental biological drift the existence of which is a
factor which must always be taken into account in
dealing with the structure of human society.
The gregarious mind shows certain characteristics
which throw some light on this phenomenon of the
progressively enlarging unit. The gregarious animal
is different from the solitary in the capacity to
become conscious in a special way of the existence
of other creatures. This specific consciousness of
his fellows carries with it a characteristic element
of communion with them. The individual knows
another individual of the same herd as a partaker
in an entity of which he himself is a part, so that
the second individual is in some way and to a certain
extent identical with himself and part of his own
personality. He is able to feel with the other and
share
an his pleasures
attenuated form ofandhis sufferings as "ifexperiences.
own personal they were
The degree to which this assimilation of the interests
of another person is carried depends, in a general
way, on the extent of the intercommunication be-
tween the two. In human society a man's interest
in his fellows is distributed about him concentrically
according to a compound of various relations they
bear to him which we may call in a broad way their
nearness. The centrifugal fading of interest is seen
when we compare the man's feeling towards one
near to him with his feeling towards one farther off.
He will be disposed, other things being equal, to
sympathize with a relative as against a fellow -towns-
man, with a fellow-townsman as against a mere
inhabitant of the same county, with the latter as
against the rest of the country, with an Englishman
as against a European, with a European as against
an Asiatic, and so on until a limit is reached beyond
 IN PEACE AND WAR 123
which all human interest is lost. The distribution
of interest is of course never purely geographical,
but is modified by, for example, trade and pro-
fessional sympathy, and by special cases of inter-
communication which bring topographically distant
individuals into a closer grade of feeling than their
mere situation would demand. The essential prin-
ciple, however, is that the degree of sympathy with
a given individual varies directly with the amount
of intercommunication with him. The capacity to
assimilate the interests of another individual with
one's own, to allow him, as it were, to partake in
one's own personality, is what is called altruism, and
might equally well perhaps be called expansive
egoism. It is a characteristic of the gregarious
animal, and is a perfectly normal and necessary
development in him of his instinctive inheritance.
Altruism is a quality the understanding of which
has been much obscured by its being regarded from
the purely human point of view. Judged from this
standpoint, it has been apt to appear as a breach
in the supposedly " immutable " laws of " Nature
red in tooth and claw," as a virtue breathed into
man from some extra -human source, or as a weak-
ness which must be stamped out of any race which
is to be strong, expanding, and masterful. To the
biologist these views are equally false, superfluous,
and romantic. He is aware that altruism occurs only
in a medium specifically protected from the unquali-
fied influence of natural selection, that it is the
direct outcome of instinct, and that it is a source of
strength because it is a source of union.
In recent times, freedom of travel, and the
development of the resources rendered available by
education, have increased the general mass of inter-
communication to an enormous extent. Side by
side with this, altruism has come more and more into
recognition as a supreme moral law. There is
124 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

already a strong tendency to accept selfishness as

a test of sin, and consideration for others as a
test of virtue, and this has influenced even those who
by public profession are compelled to maintain that
right and wrong are to be defined only in terms of
an arbitrary extra -natural code.
Throughout the incalculable ages of man's exist-
ence as a social animal, Nature has been hinting
to him in less and less ambiguous terms that altruism
must become the ultimate sanction of his moral
code. Her whispers have never gained more than
grudging and reluctant notice from the common
man, and from those intensified forms of the
common man, his pastors and masters. Only to the
alert senses of moral genius has the message been
at all intelligible, and when it has been interpreted
to the people it has always been received with
obloquy and derision, with persecution and martyr-
dom. Thus, as so often happens in human society,
has one manifestation of herd instinct been met
and opposed by another.
As intercommunication tends constantly to widen
the field of action of altruism, a point is reached
when the individual becomes capable of some kind
of sympathy, however attenuated, with beings out-
side the limits of the biological unit within which
the primitive function of altruism lies. This exten-
sion is perhaps possible only in man. In a creature
like the bee the rigidly limited mental capacity of
the individual and the closely organized society of
the hive combine to make the boundary of the hive
correspond closely with the uttermost limit of the
field over which altruism is active. The bee, capable
of great sympathy and understanding in regard to
her fellow -members of the hive, is utterly callous
and without understanding in regard to any creature
of external origin and existence. Man, however,
with his infinitely greater capacity for assimilating
 IN PEACE AND WAR 125

experience, has not been able to maintain the rigid

limitation of sympathy to the unit, the boundaries
of which tend to acquire a certain indefinite -
ness not seen in any of the lower gregarious
types.
Hence tends to appear a sense of international
justice, a vague feeling of being responsibly con-
cerned in all human affairs and by a natural conse-
quence the ideas and impulses denoted under the
term " pacifism."
One of the most natural and obvious consequences
of war is a hardening of the boundaries of the
social unit and a retraction of the vague feelings
towards international sympathy which are a char-
acteristic product of peace and intercommunication.
Thus it comes about that pacifism and inter-
nationalism are in great disgrace at the present
time ; they are regarded as the vapourings of cranky
windbags who have inevitably been punctured at
the first touch of the sword ; they are, our political
philosophers tell us, but products of the miasm
of sentimental fallacy which tends to be bred in the
relaxing atmosphere of peace. Perhaps no general
expressions have been more common since the
beginning of the war, in the mouths of those who
have undertaken our instruction in the meaning of
events, than the propositions that pacifism is now
finally exploded and shown always to have been
nonsense, that war is and always will be an inevitable
necessity in human affairs as man is what is called
a fighting animal, and that not only is the abolition
of war an impossibility, but should the abolition
of it unhappily prove to be possible after all and
be accomplished, the result could only be degener-
ation and disaster.
Biological considerations would seem to suggest
that these generalizations contain a large element
of inexactitude. The doctrine of pacifism is
126 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ;

a perfectly natural development, and ultimately •

inevitable in an animal having an unlimited appetite !
for experience and an indestructible inheritance of |
social instinct. Like all moral discoveries made j
in the haphazard, one-sided way which the lack of !
co-ordination in human society forces upon its moral |
pioneers, it has necessarily an appearance of cranki- ;
ness, of sentimentality, of an inaptitude for the grasp ;
of reality. This is normal and does not in the least j
affect the value of the truth it contains. Legal '
and religious torture were doubtless first attacked :
by cranks ; slavery was abolished by them. Advo- '
cacy by such types does not therefore constitute ;
an argument of any weight against their doctrines, 1
which can adequately be judged only by some purely I
objective standard. Judged by such a standard, I
pacifism, as we have seen, appears to be a natural ]
development, and is directed towards a goal which ,
unless man's nature undergoes a radical change will |
probably be attained. That its attainment has so '
far been foreseen only by a class of men possess- i
ing more than the usual impracticability of the i
minor prophet and conspicuously less than the :
martyr's zeal is hardly to be considered a relevant '
fact . '
1

It is impossible to leave this subject without some i

comment on the famous doctrine that war is a !
biological necessity. Even if one knew nothing \
of those who have enunciated this proposition, its j
character would enable one to suspect it of being |
the utterance of a soldier rather than a biologist. \
There is about it a confidence that the vital effects !
of war are simple and easy to define and a cheerful |
contempt for the considerable biological difficulties !
of the subject that remind one of the bracing Imilitary :
atmosphere, in which a word of command is the I
supreme fact, rather than that of the laboratory, |
 IN PEACE AND WAR 127

where facts are the masters of all. It may be

supposed that even in the country of its birth the
doctrine seemed more transcendently true in times
of peace amid a proud and brilliant regime
than it does now after more than twelve months of
war. The whole conception is of a type to arouse
interest in its psychological origin rather than in a
serious discussion of its merits. It arose in a
military State abounding in prosperity and progress
of very recent growth, and based upon three short
wars which had come closely one after another and
formed an ascending series of brilliant success. In
such circumstances even grosser assumptions might
very well flourish and some such doctrine was a
perfectly natural product. The situation of the
warrior-biologist was in some way that of the
orthodox expounder of ethics or political economy
— his conclusions were ready-made for him ; all he
had to do was to find the "reasons" for them.
,War and war only had produced the best and
greatest and strongest State — indeed, the only State
worthy of the name ; therefore war is the great
creative and sustaining force of States, or the
universe is a mere meaningless jumble of accidents.
If only wars would always conform to the original
Prussian pattern, as they did in the golden age
from 1864 to 1870 — the unready adversary, the
few pleasantly strenuous weeks or months, the
thumping indemnity I That is the sort of biolog-
ical necessity one can understand. But twelve
months of agonizing, indecisive effort in Poland and
Russia and France, might have made the syllogism
a little less perfect, the new law of Nature not quite
so absolute.
These matters, however, are quite apart from the
practical question whclhcr war is a necessity to main-
tain the efficiency and energy of nations and to
prevent them sinking into sloth and degeneracy. The
128 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

problem may be stated in another form. When we

take a comprehensive survey of the natural history
of man — using that term to include the whole of his
capacities, activities, and needs, physical, intellectual,
moral — do we find that war is the indispensable
instrument whereby his survival and progress as
a species are maintained ? We are assuming in this
statement that progress or increased elaboration is
to continue to be a necessary tendency in his course
by which his fate, through the action of inherited
needs, powers, and weaknesses, and of external
pressure is irrevocably conditioned. The assump-
tion, though commonly made, is by no means
obviously true. Some of the evidence justifying
it will be dealt with later ; it will not be . necessary
here to do more than note that we are for the
moment treating the doctrine of human progress
as a postulate.
Man is unique among' gregarious animals in the
size of the major unit upon which natural selection
and its supposedly chief instrument, war, is open to
act unchecked. There is no other animal in
which the size of the unit, however laxly held
together, has reached anything even remotely
approaching the inclusion of one-fifth or one-
quarter of the whole species. It is plain that a
mortal contest between two units of such a monstrous
size introduces an altogether new mechanism into
the hypothetical " struggle for existence " on which
the conception of the biological necessity of war
is founded. .1 It is clear that that doctrine, if it is
to claim validity, must contemplate at any rate the
possibility of a war of extremity, even of something
like extermination, which shall implicate perhaps a
third of the whole human race. There is no parallel
in biology for progress being accomplished as the
result of a racial impoverishment so extreme,
even if it were accompanied by a closely specific
 IN PEACE AND WAR 129

selection instead of a mere indiscriminate destruc-

tion. Progress is undoubtedly dependent mainly
on the material tliat is available for selection being
rich and varied. Any great reduction in the amount
p.nd variety of what is to be regarded as the raw-
material of elaboration necessarily must have as
an infallible effect, the arrest of progress. It may be
objected, however, that anything approaching exter-
mination could obviously not be possible in a war
between such immense units as those of modern iman.
Nevertheless, the object of each of the two adver-
saries would be to impose its will on the other, and to
destroy in it all that was especially individual, all
the types of activity and capacity which were the
most characteristic in its civilization and therefore
the cause of hostility. The effect of success in such
an endeavour would be an enormous impoverishment
of the variety of the race and' a corresponding effect
on progress.
To this hne of speculation it may perhaps further
be objected that the question is not of the necessity
of war to the race as a whole, but to the individual
nation or major unit. The argument has been used
that when a nation is obviously the repository of
all the highest gifts and tendencies of civilization,
the race must in the end benefit, if this nation, by
force if necessary, imposes its will and its principles
on as much of the world as it can. To the biologist
the weakness of this proposition — apart from the
plain impossibility of a nation attaining an objective
estimate of the value of its own civilization — is that
it embodies a course of action which tends to the
spread of uniformity and to limit that variety of
material which is the fundamental quality essential
for progress. In certain cases of very gross dis-
crepancy between the value of two civilizations, it
is quite possible that the destruction of the simpler
by the more elaborate does not result in any great
9
130 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

loss to the race through the suppression of valu-

able varieties. Even this admission is, however,
open to debate, and it may well be doubted whether
in some ways the wholesale extermination of "in-
ferior " races has not denied to the species the
perpetuation of lines of variation which might have
been of great value.
It seems remarkable that among gregarious
animals other than man direct conflict between major
units such as can lead to the suppression of the less
powerful is an inconspicuous phenomenon. They
are, it may be supposed, too busily engaged in main-
taining themselves against external enemies to have
any opportunities for fighting within the species.
Man's complete conquest of the grosser enemies of
his race has allowed him leisure for turning his
restless pugnacity — a quality no longer fully occu-
pied upon his non -human environment — against his
own species. When the major units of humanity
were small the results of such conflict were not
perhaps very serious to the race as a whole, except
in prolonging the twilight stages of civilization. It
can scarcely be questioned that the organization
of a people for war tends to encourage unduly a
type of individual who is abnormally insensitive to
doubt, to curiosity, and to the development of original
thought. .With the enlargement of the unit and the
accompanying increase in knowledge and resources,
war becomes much more seriously expensive to the
race. In the present war the immense size of the
units engaged and their comparative equality in
power have furnished a complete reductio ad ab-
surdum of the proposition that war in itself is
a good thing even for the individual nation. It
would seem, then, that in the original proposition
the word " war " must be qualified to mean a war
against a smaller and notably weaker adversary.
The German Empire was founded on such wars..
 IN PEACE AND WAR 13!

The conception of the biological necessity of war

may fairly be expected to demonstrate its validity
in the fate of that Empire if such a demonstration.
is ever to be possible. Every condition for a crucial
experiment was present : a brilliant inauguration in
the very atmosphere of military triumph, a conscious
realization of the value of the martial spirit, a de-
termination tokeep the warrior ideal conspicuously
foremost with a people singularly able and willing
to accept it. If this is the way in which an ulti-
mate world-power is to be founded and maintained,
no single necessary factor is lacking. And yet
after a few years, in what should be the very first
youth of an Empire, we find it engaged against
a combination of Powers of fabulous strength, which,
by a miracle of diplomacy no one else could have
accomplished, it has united against itself. It is
an irrelevance to assert that this combination is the
result of malice, envy, treachery, barbarism ; such
terms are by hypothesis not admissible. If the
system of Empire -building is not proof against those
very elementary enemies, any further examination
of it is of course purely academic. To withstand
those is just what the Empire is there for ; if it
falls a victim to them, it fails in its first and simplest
function and displays a radical defect in its structure.
To the objectivist practice is the only test in human
affairs, and he will not allow his attention to be
distracted from what did happen by the most per-
fectly logical demonstration of what ought to have
happened. It is the business of an Empire not to
encounter overwhelming enemies. ^ Declaring itself
to be the most perfect example of its kind and
the foreordained heir of the world will remain noi
more than a pleasant— and dangerous — indulgence,
and will not prevent it showing by its fate that
the fruits of perfection and the promise of per-
manence are not demonstrated in the wholesale
132 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
manufacture of enemies and in the combination of
them into an alliance of unparalleled strength.

The doctrine of the biological necessity of war

may, then^ be regarded as open to strong suspicion
on theoretical grounds of being contrary to the
evolutionary tendency already plainly marked out
for the human species. The fact that the nation
in which its truth was most generally accepted has
been led — and undoubtedly to some extent by it
— into a war which can scarcely fail to prove dis-
astrous suggests that in the practical field it is
equally fallacious. It may well, therefore, be
removed to the lumber-room of speculation and
stored among the other pseudo-scientific dogmas
of political " biologists " — the facile doctrines of
degeneracy, the pragmatic lecturings on national
characteristics, on Teutons and Celts, on Latins and
Slavs, on pure races and mixed races, and all the
other ethnological conceits with which the ignorant
have gulled the innocent so long.
(
Imperfections of the Social Habit in Man.
The study of man as a gregarious animal has
not been pursued with the thoroughness and objec-
tivity it deserves and must receive if it is to yield
its full value in illuminating his status and in the
management of society. The explanation of this
comparative neglect is to be found in the complex
irregularity which obscures the social habit as mani-
fested by man. Thus it comes to be believed that
gregariousness is no longer a fully functional and
indispensable inheritance, but survives at the present
day merely in a vestigial form as an interesting
but quite unimportant relic of primitive activities.
iWe have already shown that man is ruled by in-
stinctive impulses just as imperative and just as
 IN PEACE AND WAR 133

characteristically social as those of any other gre-

garious animal. A further argument that he is
to-day as actively and essentially a social animal
as ever is furnished by the fact that he suffers
from the disadvantages of such an animal to a
more marked degree perhaps than any other. In
physical matters he owes to his gregariousness and
its uncontrolled tendency to the formation of crowded
communities with enclosed dwellings, the serious-
ness of many of his worst diseases, such as tuber-
culosis, typhus, and plague ; there is no evidence
that these diseases effect anything but an absolutely
indiscriminate destruction, killing the strong and
the weakly, the socially useful and the socially use-
less, with equal readiness, so that they cannot be
regarded as even of the least selective value to
man. The ,only other animal which is well known
to suffer seriously from disease as a direct con-
sequence of its social habit is the honey bee — as
has been demonstrated by recent epidemics of
exterminating severity.
In mental affairs, as I have tried to show, man
ov/es to the social habit his inveterate resistiveness
to new ideas, his submission to tradition and pre-
cedent, and the very serious fact that governing
power in his communities tends to pass into the hands
of what I have called the stable -minded — a class
the members ,of which are characteristically in-
sensitive to experience, closed to the entry of new
ideas, and obsessed with the satisfactoriness of things
as they are. At the time when this corollary of
gregariousness was first pointed out — some ten years
ago — it was noted as a serious flaw in the stability
of civilization. The suggestion was made that as
long as the great expert tasks of government neces-
sarily gravitated into the hands of a class which
characteristically lacked the greater developments of
tncntal capacity and efficiency, the course of civiliza-
134 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
tion must continue to be at the mercy of accident
and disaster. The present European war — doubt-
less in the actual state of affairs a remedy no less
necessary because of its dreadfulness — is an example
on the greatest possible scale of the kind of price
the race has to pay for the way in which minds
and temperaments are selected by its society.
When we see the great and serious drawbacks
which gregariousness has entailed on man, it cannot
but be supposed that that course of evolution has
been imposed upon him by a real and deep-seated
peculiarity of his nature — a fatal inheritance which
it is impossible for him to repudiate.

When we inquire why it is that the manifesta-

tions of gregariousness in man are so ambiguous
that their biological significance has been to a great
extent overlooked, the answer seems to be furnished
by that capacity for various reaction which is the
result of his general mental development, and which
has tended almost equally to obscure his other in-
stinctive activities. It may be repeated once more
that in a creature such as the bee the narrow mental
capacity of the individual limits reaction to a few
and relatively simple courses, so that the dominance
of instinct in the species can to the attentive observer
never be long in doubt. In man the equal domi-
nance of instinct is obscured by the kaleidoscopic
variety of the reactions by, which it is more or
less effectually satisfied.
While to a superficial examination of society the
evidences of man's gregarious inheritance are
ambiguous and trivial, to the closer scrutiny of the
biologist it soon becomes obvious that in society
as constituted to-day the advantageous mechanisms
rendered available by that inheritance are not being
made use of to anything approaching their full
possibilities. To such an extent is this the case
 IN PEACE AND WAR 135

that the situation of man as a species even is prob-

ably a good deal more precarious than has usually-
been supposed by those who have come to be in charge
of its destinies. The species is irrevocably com-
mitted to a certain evolutionary path by the inherit-
ance of instinct it possesses. This course brings with
it inevitable and serious disadvantages as well as
enormously greater potential advantages. As long
as the spirit of the race is content to be submissive
to the former and indifferent to the discovery and
development of the latter, it can scarcely have a
bare certainty of survival and much less of progres-
sive enlargement of its powers.

In the society of the bee two leading character-

istics are evident — an elaborate and exact speciali-
zation of the individual, and a perfect absorption
of the interests of the individual in those of the hive ;
these qualities seem to be the source of the unique
energy and power of the whole unit and of the
remarkable superiority of intelligence it possesses
over the individual member. It is a commonplace
of human affairs that combined action is almost
invariably less intelligent than individual action, a
fact which shows how very little the members of
the species are yet capable of combination and
co-ordination and how far inferior — on account, no
doubt, of his greater mental capacity — man is in this
respect to the bee.
This combination of specialization and moral
homogeneity should be evident in human society
if it is taking advantage of its biological resources.
Both are, in fact, rather conspicuously absent.
There is abundant specialization of a sort ,• but
it is inexact, lax, wasteful of energy, and often quite
useless through being on the one hand superfluous
or on the other incomplete. We have large
numbers of experts in the various branches of science
136 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
and the arts, but we insist upon their adding to
the practice of their speciahsms the difficult task
of earning their living in an open competitive
market. The result is that we tend to get at the
summit of our professions only those rare geniuses
who combine real specialist capacity with the arts
of the bagman. An enormous proportion of our
experts have to earn their living by teaching'i — an
exhausting and exacting art for which they are not
at all necessarily qualified, and one which demands
a great amount of time for the earning of a very
exiguous pittance.
The teaching of our best schools, a task so
important that it should be entrusted to none but
those highly qualified by nature and instruction in
the lart, is almost entirely in the hands of athletes and
grammarians of dead languages. We choose as
our governors amateurs of whom we demand fluency,
invincible prejudice, and a resolute bhndness to dis-
sentient opinion. In commerce we allow ourselves
to be overrun by a multitude of small and mostly
inefficient traders struggling to make a living by
the supply of goods from the narrow and ageing
stocks which are all they can afford to keep. We
allow the supply of our foodstuffs to be largely
in the hands of those who cannot afford to be clean,
and submit out of mere indifference to being fed
on meat, bread, vegetables which have been for an
indefinite period at the mercy of dirty middlemen,
the dust and mud and flies of the street, and the
light-hearted thumbing errand-boy. We allow a
large proportion of our skilled workers to waste
skill and energy on the manufacture of things which
are neither useful nor beautiful, on elaborate
specialist valeting, cooking, gardening for those
who are their inferiors in social activity and
value .
The moral homogeneity so plainly visible in the.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 137

society of th'e bee is replaced in man by a segre-

gation 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 withouTTj A great
abundance of food supply and consequent relaxed
external pressure may in the bee lead to indis-
criminate 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 homo-
geneity 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 segre-
gation and even to defend them by force and to
fail to realize in times of emergency that national
 138 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

homogeneity must always be a partial and wealcly,

passion as long as segregation actively persists.

i 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 argu-
ments 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
I fact that it can be attained only by a radical change
I in the whole human attitude towards society is but
barely emerging from obscurity,
(p,^^ The fact that even the immense external stimulus
of a great war now fails to overcome the embattled
forces of social segregation, and can bring about
only a very partial kind of national homogeneity in
a society where segregation is deeply ingrained,
seems to show that simple gregariousness has run its
course in man and has been defeated of its full
maturity by the disruptive power of man's capacity
for varied reaction. No state of equilibrium can be
reached in a gregarious society short of complete
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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-ordina-
tion 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 con-
sequences 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 com-
bination, 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
I40 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

iCrom 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 deaHng with the underlying instinctive pro-
cesses which produce them.
The war that began in August 1 9 1 4 was of a kind
peculiarly suitable to produce the most marked and
typical psychological effects. It had long been fore-
seen 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
increduhty. 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 un-
beUef, 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 feeUng 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
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 custom-
ary 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
all these early meaning. " Perhapswas
phenomena the the
moststrength
strikingand
of
vitahty 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 forma-
tion 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 estab-
lislicd so firmly altogether regardless of the limits
within which a given opinion tends to remain local-
ized 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 exag-
gerated 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 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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 vitahty and power of growth,
iWe 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 character-
istic 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 rela-
tion 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.' The first response is a thrill of alarm which

' 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 con-
sequently no marked moral concentration of the people, no massive
energizing of the Government by a homogeneous nation, and therefore
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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. I'he
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 forma-
tion 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 .
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.
 144 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ]
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 j
produces the characteristic response in the individual i
of a maximal sensitiveness to his fellows — to their j
presence or absence, their alarms and braveries, I
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 i
danger. Into the actual genesis of the individual i
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 homog'eneity
within the herd is a deeply rooted necessity for i
gregarious animals and is elaborately provided for !
by characteristics of the gregarious mind. j
The establishment of homogeneity in the herd is |
the basis of morale. "^ From homogeneity proceed I
moral power, enthusiasm, courage, endurance, enter- I
prise, and all the virtues of the warrior. The peace j
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 l
at the beginning of the war was, tlien, a true and |
sound instinctive movement of defence. It was ■;i] '.ij
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
 IN PEACE AND WAR i4S

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. Wei
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 witKin
itself, and the mere pharisaism and conceit that
come from fortunes are the
of nocontemplation
moral value.ofModern
another's mis-
civilians
in general are much too self-conscious to conduct
the grave tragedy of war with the high, preoccupied
composure it demands. They arc apt to think too
much of what sort of a figiure 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
manoeuvres could be conducted with a deliberate and
purposeful levity which few would now have the
fortitude to employ, there would be a certain satis-
faction 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
10
146 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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 state-
ment deserve consideration, but the latter is in-
comparably 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 develop-
ments 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 homo-
geneity would necessarily have grown.
The psychological moment was allowed to pass,
and the country was spared the shock of seeing its
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 segre-
gation 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 con-
tinue 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 sup-
plied to the working-man proved to be inadequate
and had to be supplemented by others. . . .
The probleni 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 worTcing 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 INSTINCTS Ox^ THE HERD
and less and less efficiently done. We are already,
faced with the possibility of having to make pro-
found changes in the social system to convince 1
the working-man effectually that his interests and '
ours in this war are one. j
That a very large class of common citizens," !
incapable of direct military work, has been left |
morally derelict during all these agonizing months of i
war has probably not been any less serious a fact, j
although the recognition of it has not been forced i
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, i
and yet cannot respond in any active way, contains
very grave possibilities. The only response to that j
relentless calling that can give peace is in service ; i
if that be denied, restlessness, uneasiness, and anxiety
must necessarily follow. To such a mental state are
very easily added impatience, discontent, exag- \
gerated fears, pessimism, and irritability. It must be i
remembered that large numbers of such individuals i
were persons of importance in peace time and retain !
a great deal of their prestige under the social j
system we have decided to maintain, although in i
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 i
are due
result to any kind
of defective of and
morale, disloyalty ; the
bear all theyevidences
are the j'
of coming from persons whose instinctive response j
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
 IN PEACE AND WAR 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 tempta-
tions 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 gener-
ally 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 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

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.
It is in the matter of stimulating the energy
and resolution of the Government that the psycholo-
gist might perhaps differ to some extent from the
popular guides of opinion. In getting work out
of a living organism it is necessary to determine
what is the most efficient stimulus. One can make
a man's muscles contract by stimulating them with
an electric battery, but one can never get so
energetic a contraction with however strong a
current as can be got by the natural stimulus sent
out from the man's brain. Rising to a more complex
level, we find that a man does not do work by
order so well or so thoroughly as he does work
that he desires to do voluntarily. The best way
to get our work done is to get the worker to want
to do it. The most urgent and potent of all stimuH,
then, are those that come from within the man's
soul. It is plain, therefore, that the best way to
extract the maximum amount of work from members
of a Government — and it is to yield this, at what-
ever cost to themselves, that they are there — is
not by the use of threats and objurgations, by talk
of impeachment or dismissal, or by hints of a day
of reckoning after the war, but by keeping their
souls full of a burning passion of service. Such
a supply of mental energy, can issue only from a
 IN PEACE AND WAR 151

truly homogeneous herd, and it is therefore to the

production of such a homogeneity of feehng that
we come once more as the one unmistakable
responsibility of the civilian.
We have seen reason to believe that there was
a comparatively favourable opportunity of establish-
ing such a national unity in the early phases of
the war, and that the attainment of the same result
at this late period is likely to be less easy and more
costly of disturbance to the social structure.
T^~ The__simplest basis of unity is equality^ and this
Hias been an importanj^actor in the unity vvhich in
tKe^past has produced the classically successful mani-
festations of moral and military power, as for example
irTlhe cases of Puritan England and Revolutionary
France. Such equality a^Iobta^^^ in these cases
was~doubtless^ chiefly moral rathej^ than jiiaterial,
an^^iPc^fi^^arcelybe^ questioned thaPequality of
cohsTderation and of fundajn'ehtal moral estimation
is" a; far~rnore^efficrent factor than would be equality
of material possessions. The fact that it is difficult
to
he persuade "a man towith
has as much losethirty
by shillings
the loss aofweek that
national
independence as a man with thirty thousand a year,
is merely evidence that the imagination of the former
is somewhat restricted by his type of education,
an^ that we habitually attach an absurd moral sig-
'mficance to material advantages. It_ seems certain
That it would still be possible to attain a very fair
^Approximation to a real moral equality without any
necessary disturbance of the extreme degree of
material inequality which our elaborate class segre-
g^ioiT has" Imposed upon us.
A serious and practical attempt to secure a true
moral unity of the nation would render necessary,
a general understanding that the state to be striven
for was something different, not only in degree
but also in quality, from anything which has yet
152 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

been regarded as satisfactory. A mere intellectual

unanimity in the need for prosecuting the war with
all vigour, we may be said actually to possess, but
its moral value is not very great. A state of mind
directed more to the nation and less immediately
to the war is what is needed ; the good soldier
absorbed in his regiment has little inclination to
concern himself with the way the war is going,
and the civilian should be similarly absorbed in
the nation. To attain this he must feel that he
belongs to the country and to his fellow-citizens,
and that it and they also belong to him. Thfe
established social systgrn^ sets itself steadily to ^eny
these propositions, and not so much by its abound-
ing material Jnequalities as by the moral inequalities
thal^ correspond with them. The hierarchies of rank,
prestige, and consideration, at all times showing
serious inconsistencies with functional value, and in
war doing so more than ever, are denials of the
essential propositions of perfect citizenship, not,
curiously enough, through their arbitrary distribu-
tion of wealth, comfort, and leisure, but through
their persistent, assured, and even unconscious
assumption that there (exists a graduation of moral
values equally real and, to men of inferior station,
equally arbitrary. To a gregarious species at war
the only tolerable claim to any kind of superiority
must be based on leadership. Any other affecta-
tion of superiority, whether it be based on pre-
scriptive right, on tradition, on custom, on wealth,
on birth, or on inere age, arrogance, or fussiness,
and not on real functional value to the State, is,
however much a matter of course it may seem,
however blandly it may be asserted or picturesquely
displayed, an obstacle to true national unity.
Psychological considerations thus appear to indi-
cate a very plain duty for a large class of civilians
who have complained of and suffered patriotically
 IN PEACE AND WAR 153

from the fact that the Government has found nothing

for them to do. Let all those of superior and
assured station make it a point of honour and du^v
to abrogate the privileges of consideration anr'
prestige v/ith which they are arbitrarily endowed
Let them persuade the common man that they alsc^
are, in the face of national necessity, common men.
The__searching test of war has shown that_a,_ pro-
portion of the population, serious enough in mere
numbers^ but doubly serious in view of its power
and influence, has led an existence which may fairly
be described as in some degree parasitic. That
is^ to say, what they have drawn from the common
stock inthan
larger wealth~ahd
what Jheyprestige has been immensely
have contributed of useful
activity in return. _Now, in time of^war, they have
still less to give proportloiially to what They have
received. Their deplorably good bargain was in
no way of their making j no one has the slightest
right to~ attack thei7~honour or good faith ; they
arenas patriotically minded as any class^'and have
contributed their fighting men to the Army as gener-
ously as the day labourer and the tradesman. It
is therefore not altogether impossible that they might
come to understand the immense opportunity that
]s^
and given them potent
irresistibly by fatenational
to promote
unity. a true, deep,

A further contribution to the establishment of

a national unity of this truly Utopian degree might
come from a changed attitude of mind towards his
fellows in the individual. There would have to
be an increased kindliness, generosity, patience, and
tolerance in all his relations with others, a de-
liberate attempt to conquer prejudice, irritability,
impatience, and sclf-assertiveness, a deliberate en-
couragement of cheerTulncss, composure, and forti-
tude. All these would be tasks for the individual
154 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
to carry out for himself alone ; there would be no
campaign -making, no direct exhortation, no appeals.
Towards the Army and the Navy the central fact
of each man's attitude would be the question, " Am
I worth dying for? " and his strongest effort would
be the attempt to make himself so.
That question may perhaps make one wonder
why it has not been heard more often during the
war as a text of the Church. There is httle doubt
that very many men whose feeling towards the
Church is in no way disrespectful or hostile are
conscious of a certain uneasiness in hearing her
vigorously defending the prosecution of the war
and demonstrating its righteousness. They feel, in
spite of however conclusive demonstrations to the
contrary, that there is a deep-seated inconsistency
between war for whatever object and the Sermon
on the Mount, and they cannot but remember, when
they are told that this is a holy war, that that also
the Germans say. They perhaps feel that the justi-
fication ofthe war is, after all, a matter for poHticians
and statesmen, and that the Church would be more
appropriately employed in making it as far as she
'can a vehicle of good, rather than trying to justify
superfluously its existence. A people already awed
by the self-sacrifice of its armies may be supposed
,to be capable of profiting by the exhortations of
a Church whose cardinal doctrine is concerned with
the responsibility that attaches to those for whose
sake life has voluntarily been given up. One cannot
imagine an institution more perfectly qualified by
its faith and its power to bring home to this people
the solemnity of the sanction under which they lie
to make themselves worthy of the price that is
still being unreservedly paid. If it were consciously
the determination of every citizen to make himself
worth dying for, who can doubt that a national
unity of the sublimest kind would be within reach ?
 IN PEACE AND WAR 155
Of all the influences which tend to rob the citizen
of the sense of his birthright, perhaps one of the
strongest, and yet the most subtle, is that of
officialism. It seems inevitable that the enormously-
complex public services which are necessary in the
modern State should set up a barrier between the
private citizen and the official, whereby the true
relation between them is obscured. .The official
loses his grasp of^ the fact that Jhe^mechanism of
the State is established in the interests of the citizen ;
the citizen comes to regard the State as a hostile
institutKHiT^against
although it was madewhich he has
for his to defend
defence. It is himself,
a crime
for him t^ cheat the State in the matter of tax-
paying,^^ is~no charges.
him in excessive crime forConsidered
the State into the
defraud
light
of the fundamental relation of citizen and State, it
s£ems incredible that in a democratic country it is
possible for flourishing establishments to exist the
sole business of which is to save the private
individual from being defrauded by the tax -gather-
ing bureaucracy.^ Till?. ^^ ^^^ '^ single and rather
'^xtLeiIie__example _of theTTar -stretching segregation
effected by the official machine. The slighter kinds
of~aIoqfness^
senseless of inhuman
dignity, etiquette,to ofthelegalism
of indifference and
individual,
of devotion to formulas and routine are no less
powerful agents in depriving the common man of
the sjense of intimate reality in his citizenship which
might be so valuable a source of national unity.
iFllTi officiaTmachine through its utmost parts were
ani^mated by an even moderately human spirit and
used as a means of binding together the people,
instead^ of as^h engine of rnoral disruption, it might
be ~oF~mc alculable valu^_jLn__th§_strengthening of
morale.
156 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

England against Germany— Germany.

j
In an earlier part of this book the statement was
made that the present juncture in human affairs •
probably forms one of those rare nodes of circum- \
stance in which the making of an epoch in history ]
corresponds with a perceptible change in the secular |
progress of biological evolution. It remains to |
attempt some justification of this opinion.
England and Germany face one another as perhaps i
the two most typical antagonists of the war. It may 1
seem but a partial way of examining events if we I
limit our consideration to them. Nevertheless, it is
in this duel that the material we are concerned
with is chiefly to be found, and it may be added ;
Germany herself has abundantly distinguished this i
country as her typical foe — an instinctive judgment ;
not without value.
By the end of September 1 9 1 4 it had become [
reasonably clear that the war would be one of J
endurance, and the comparatively equal though )
fluctuating strength of the two groups of adversaries 1
has since shown that in such endurance the main
factor will be the moral factor rather than the I
material. An examination of the moral strength ■
of the two arch-enemies will therefore have the j
interest of life and death behind it, as well as such '
as may belong to the thesis which stands at the head i
of this chapter.
Germany affords, a profoundly interesting study i
for the biological psychologist, and it is very, \
important that we should not allow what clearness j
of representation we can get into our picture of her I
mind to be clouded by the heated atmosphere of ;
national feeling in which our work must be done, j
As I have said elsewhere, Jt is merely Jo encourage |
Jallacy_to^Lll^w^riese]^^ one is without ,
prejudices. The most one can do~Ts to recognize ^
 IN PEACE AND WAR 157

what prejudices are likely^ tp._ exist and liberally

to allovy for^tKem.
If I were to say that at the present moment I can
induce myself to believe that it will ever be possible
for Europe to contain a strong Germany of the
current type and remain habitable by free peoples,
the apparent absence of national bias in the state-
ment would be a mere affectation, and by no means
an evidence of freedom from prejudice. I am
much more likely to get into reasonable relations
with the truth if I admit to myself, quite frankly,
my innermost conviction that the destruction of the
German Empire is an indispensable preliminary to
the making of a civilization tolerable by rational
beings. Having recognized the existence of that
belief as a necessary obstacle to complete freedom
of thought, it may be possible to allow for it and to
counteract what aberrations of judgment it may be
likely to produce.

In making an attempt to estimate the relative

moral resources of England and Germany at the
present time it is necessary to consider them as
biological entities or major units of the human
species in the sense of that term we have already
repeatedly used. We shall have to examine the
evolutionary tendencies which each of these units
has shown, and if possible to decide how far they
have followed the lines of development which
psychological theory indicates to be those of healthy
and progressive development for a gregarious
animal.
I have already tried to show that the acquirement
of the social habit by man — though in fact there is
reason to believe that the social habit preceded
and made possible his distinctively human characters
— has committed him to an evolutionary process
which is far from being completed yet, but which
 158 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
nevertheless must be carried out to its consummation
if he is to escape increasingly severe disadvantages \
inherent in that biological type. In other words, the '
gregarious habit in an animal of large individual i
mental capacity is capable of becoming, and indeed '
must become a handicap rather than a bounty unless ]
the society of the species undergoes a continuously j
progressive co-ordination which will enable it to |
attract and absorb the energy and activities of its j
individual members. We have seen that in a species ;
such as man, owing to the freedom from the direct <
action of natural selection within the major unit, the \
individual's capacity for varied reaction to his en- ;
vironment has undergone an enormous development, [
while at the same time the capacity for intercom- J
munication — upon which the co-ordination of the j
major unit into a potent and frictiopless mechanism >
depends — has lagged far behind. L5^he term " inter- ?
communication " is here used in the very widest ]
sense to indicate the ties that bind the individual ;
to his fellows and them to him. It is not a very. \
satisfactory word ; but as might be expected in ^
attempting to express a series of functions so |
complex and so unfamiliar to generalization, it is not |
easy to find an exact expression ready made. ]
■^Another phrase applicable to a slightly different i
aspect of the same function is " herd accessibility," i
which has the advantage of suggesting by its first ■
constituent the limitation, primitively at any rate, an j
essential part of the capacities it is desired to denote. |
"The conception of herd accessibihty includes the ]
specific sensitiveness of the individual to the j
existence, presence, thought, and feelings of his \
fellow-members of the major unit ; the power he j
possesses of reacting in an altruistic and social mode \
to stimuli which would necessarily evoke a merely \
egoistic response from a non-social animal — that is |
to say, the power to deflect and modify egoistic \
 IN PEACE AND WAR 159

impulses into a social form without emotional loss or

dissatisfaction ; the capacity to derive from the im-
pulses of the herd a moral power in excess of any
similar energy he may be able to develop from /
purely egoistic sources. --— '
Intercommunication, the development of which
of course depends upon herd-accessibility, enables
the herd to act as a single creature whose power
is greatly in excess of the sum of the powers of its
individual members.
Intercommunication in the biological sense has,
however, never been systematically cultivated by
man, but has been allowed to develop haphazard
and subject to all the^iostile influences which must
ififesr~a society in which unregulated competition
and ^election are allowed to prevail. The extrava-
gance of human life and labour, the indifference to
sufierijig, the harshness and the infinite class segre-
gation of human society are the result . The use of
what 1 have called conscious direction is apparently
the only means whereby this chaps can be converted
into organized structure.
Uutside tfie gregarious unit, the forms of organic
life at any given time seem to be to some consider-
able extent determined by the fact that the pressure
of environmental conditions and of competition tends
to eliminate selectively the types which are com-
paratively unsuited to the conditions in which they
find themselves. However much or little this process
of natural selection has decided the course which the
general evolutionary process has taken, there can
be no doubt that it is a condition of animal life, and
has an active influence. The suggestion may be
hazarded that under circumstances natural selection
tends rather to restrict variation instead of en-
couraging itas it has sometimes been supposed to
do. When the external pressure is very severe it
might be supposed that anything like free variation
 i6o INSTINCTS OF THE HERD ]

would be a serious disadvantage to a species, and j

if it persisted it might result in actual extermination. \
It is conceivable, therefore, that natural selection is ;
capable of favouring stable and non-progressive ]
types at the expense of the variable and possibly \
" progressive," if such a term can be applied to I
species advancing towards extinction. /"Sucli a 1
possible fixative action of natural selection is sug- ;
gested by the fact that the appearance of mechanisms ,
whereby the individual is protected from the direct ,
action of natural selection seems to have led to an ;
outburst of variation. In the multicellular animal i
the individual cells passing from under the direct |
pressure of natural selection become variable, and j
so capable of a very great specialization. In the '
gregarious unit the same thing happens, the in- >
dividual member gaining freedom to vary and to '
become specialized without the risk that would have j
accompanied such an endowment in the solitary state, i
Within the gregarious unit, then, natural selection '
in the strict sense is in abeyance, and the consequent !
freedom has allowed of a rich variety among the i
individual members. This variety provides the j
material from which an elaborate and satisfactory I
society might be constructed if there were any con- :
stant and discriminating influence acting upon it. j
Unfortunately, the forces at work in human society I
to-day are not of this kind, but are irregular in •
direction and fluctuating in strength, so that the !
material richness which would have been so valu- !
/ Va able, had it been subject to a systematic and co- \
w ordinate selection, has merely contributed to the ,
I confusion of the product. The actual mechanism ;
by which society, while it has grown in strength }
and complexity, has also grown in confusion and j
disorder, is that peculiarity of the gregarious mind j
which automatically brings into the monopoly of •
power the mental type which I have called the i

I
 IN PEACE AND WAR i6i

stable and common opinion calls normal. This

type supplies our most trusted politicians and officials,
our bishops and headmasters, our successful lawyers
and doctors, and all their trusty deputies, assistants,
retainers, and faithful servants. Mental stability is
their leading characteristic, they *' know where they
stand " as we say, they have a confidence in the
reality of their aims and their position, an inaccessi-
bility to new and strange phenomena, a belief in
the established and customary, a capacity for ignor-
ing what they regard as the unpleasant, the un-
desirable, and the improper, and a conviction that
on the whole a sound moral order is perceptible
in the universe and manifested in the progress of
civilization. Such characteristics are not in the least
inconsistent with the highest intellectual capacity,
great energy and perseverance as well as kindliness,
generosity, and patience, but they are in no way.
redeemed in social value by them.
In the year 1 9 1 5 it is, unfortunately, in no way
necessary to enumerate evidences of the confusion,
the cruelty, the waste^ and the weaknesses with
which human society, under the guidance of minds
of this type, has been brought to abound. Civi-
lization through all its secular development under
their rule has never acquired an organic unity of
structure ; its defects have received no rational treat-
ment, but have been concealed, ignored, and denied ;
instead of being drastically rebuilt, it has been kept
presentable by patches and buttresses, by paint, and
putty, and whitewash. The building was already
insecure, and now the storm has burst upon it,
threatens incontinently to collapse.
Th^ factthat European civilization, approaching
what appeared to be the very meridian of its strength,
could culminate in a disaster so frightful as the
present war is proof that its development was radi-
cally unsound. This^s_by no means to say that
II
i62 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD !

the war could have been avoided by those immedi- ;

ately concerned. That is .almost, „certainly not the :
case. The war was the consequence, of inherent :
defects in the evolutioirjof_civilized life ; it was 1
the consequence of human progress being left to '
chance, and "to tlie interaction of the heterogeneous j
influences which necessarily arise within a gregarious ;
unit whose individual members have a large power j
of varied reaction. In such an atmosphere minds I
essentially resistive alone can flourish and attain i
to~power7
capable of and they are
grasping the bynecessities
their veryof_ggyernment
qualities in- <!
oFjrajTslarting TheTh^^ . ■
The method of leaving the development of society |
to the confused welter of forces which prevail within j
it is now at last reduced to absurdity by the unmis- :
takable teaching of events, and the conscious j
direction of man's destiny is plainly indicated by j
Nature as the only mechanism by which the social '
life of so complex an animal can be guaranteed
against disaster and brought to yield its full possi-
biltes.
A gregarious unit informed by conscious direction
represents a biological mechanism of a wholly new
type, a stage of advance in the evolutionary pro- j
cess capable of consolidating the suiDremacy of man '
and carrying to its full extent the development of j
his social instincts. j
Such a directing intelligence or group of in- ;
telligences would take into account before all things j
the biological character of man, would understand |
that his condition is necessarily progressive along -
the lines of his natural endowments or downward I
to destruction. It would abandon the static view j
of society as something merely to be maintained, i
and adopt a more dynamic conception of statesman- \
ship as something active, progressive, and experi- l
mental, reaching out towards new powers for human i
 IN PEACE AND WAR 163

activity and new conquests for the human will.

It would discover what natural inclinations in man
must be indulged, and would make them respect-
able, what inclinations in him must be controlled
for the advantage of the species, and make them
insignificant. It would cultivate intercommunica-
tion and altruism on the one hand, and bravery,
boldness, pride, and enterprise on the other. It
would develop national unity to a communion of
interest and sympathy far closer than anything yet
dreamed of as possible, and by doing so would
endow the national unit with a self-control, fortitude,
and moral power which would make it so obviously
unconquerable that war would cease to be a possi-
biUty. To a people magnanimous, self-possessed,
and open-eyed, unanimous in sentiment and aware
of its strength, the conquest of fellow-nations would
present its full futility. They would need for the
acceptable exercise of their powers some more diffi-
cult, more daring, and newer task, something that
stretches the human will and the human intellect
to the limit of their capacity ; the mere occupation
and re -occupation of the stale and blood-drenched
earth would be to them barbarians' work ; time
and space would be their quarry, destiny and the
human soul the lands they would invade ; they
would sail their ships into the gulfs of the ether
and lay tribute upon the sun and stars.
It is one of the features of the present crisis
that gives to it its biological significance, that one
of the antagonists — Germany — has discovered the
necessity and value of conscious direction of the
social unit. This is in itself an epoch-making event.
Like many other human discoveries of similar im-
portance, it has been incomplete, and it has not
been accompanied by the corresponding knowledge
of man and his natural history which alone could
have given it full fertility and permanent value.
i64 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

It seems to have been in no way a revelation of

genius, and, indeed, the absence of any great pro-
fundity and scope of speculation is rather remark-
able in the minds of the numerous German political
philosophers. The idea would appear rather to have
been developed out of the circumstances of the
country, and to have been almost a habit before
it became a conception. At any rate, its appearance
was greatly favoured by the political conditions and
history of the region in which it arose. If this
had not been the case, it is scarcely conceivable
that the principle could have been accepted so readily
by the people, and in a form which was not without
its asperities and its hardships for them, or that
it could have been discovered without the necessary
biological corollaries which are indispensable to the
successful application of it.
Germany in some ways resembles a son who has
been educated at home, and has taken up the
responsibihties of the adult, and become bound by
them without ever tasting the free intercourse of
the school and university. She has never tasted
the heady liquor of political liberty, she has had no
revolution, and the blood of no political martyrs
calls to her disturbingly from the ground. To
such innocent and premature gravity the reasonable
claims of what, after all, had to her the appearance
of no more than an anxiously paternal Government
could not fail to appeal.
Explain it how we may, there can be no doubt
that to the German peoples the theoretical aspects
of life have long had a very special appeal. Generali-
zations about national characteristics are notoriously
fallacious, but it seems that with a certain reserve
one may fairly say that there is a definite contrast
in this particular between the Germans and, let
us say, the English.
To minds of a theoretical bias the appeal of a

I
 IN PEACE AND WAR 165

closely regulative type of Government, with all the

advantages of organization which it possesses, must
be very strong, and there is reason to. believe that
this fact has had influence in reconciling the people
to the imposition upon it of the wiU of the Govern-
ment.
Between a docile and intelligent people and a
strong, autocratic, and intelligent Government the
possibilities of conscious national direction could
scarcely fail to become increasingly obvious and
to be increasingly developed. A further and
enormously potent factor in the progress of the
idea was an immense accession of national feeling,
derived from three almost bewilderingly success-
ful wars, accomplished at surprisingly small cost,
and culminating in a grandiose and no less success-
ful scheme of unification. Before rulers and people
an imperial destiny of unlimited scope, and allow-
ing of unbounded dreams, now inevitably opened
itself up. Alone, amongst the peoples of Europe,
Germany saw herself a nation with a career. No
longer disunited and denationalized, she had come
into her inheritance. The circumstances of her
rebirth were so splendid, the moral exaltation of
her new unity was so great that she could scarcely
but suppose that her state was the beginning of
a career of further and unimagined glories and
triumphs. There were not lacking enthusiastic and
.prophetic voices to tell her she was right.
The decade that followed the foundation of the
Empire was, perhaps, more pregnant with destiny
than that which preceded it, for it saw the final
determination of the path which Germany was to
follow. She had made the immense stride in the
biological scale of submitting herself to conscious
direction ; would she also follow the path which
alone leads to a perfect concentration of national
life and a permanent moral stability ?
i66 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

To a nation with a purpose and a consciously

realized destiny some principle of national unity
is indispensable. Some strand of feeling which all
can share, and in sharing which all can come into
communion with one another, will be the frame-
work on which is built up the structure of national
energy and effort.
The reactions in which the social instinct manifests
itself are not all equally developed in the different
social species. It is true that there is a certain group
of characteristics common to all social animals ; but
it is also found that in one example there is a special
development of one aspect of the instinct, while
another example will show a characteristic develop-
ment of a different aspect. Taking a broad survey
of all gregarious types, we are able to distinguish
three fairly distinct trends of evolution. We have
the aggressive gregariousness of the wolf and dog,
the protective gregariousness of the sheep and the
'OX, and, differing from both these, we have the more
complex social structure of the bee and the ant,
which we may call socialized gregariousness. The
last-named is characterized by the complete absorp-
tion of the individual in the major unit, and the
fact that the function of the social habit seems no
longer to be the simple one of mere attack or
defence, but rather the establishment of a State
which shall be, as a matter of course, strong in
defence and attack, but a great deal more than
this as well. The hive is no mere herd or pack,
but an elaborate mechanism for making use by
co-ordinate and unified action of the utmost powers
of the individual members. It is something which
appears to be a complete substitute for individual
existence, and as we have already said, seems like
a new creature rather than a congeries united for
some comparatively few and simple purposes. The
hive and the ant's nest stand to the flock and the
 IN PEAC^. AND WAR 167
pack as the fully organized multicellular animal
stands to the primitive zoogloea which is its fore-
runner. The wolf is united for attack, the sheep
is united for defence, but the bee is united for all
the activities and feelings of its life.
Sociahzed grcgariousness is the goal of man's
development. A transcendental union with his
fellows is the destiny of the human individual,
and it is the attainment of this towards which the
constantly growing altruism of man is directed.
Poets and prophets have, at times, dimly seen this
inevitable trend of Nature, biology detects unmistak-
able evidence of it, and explains the slowness of
advance, which has been the despair of those others,
by the variety and power of man's mind, and
consoles us for the delay these qualities still cause
by the knowledge that they are guarantees of the
exactitude and completeness that the ultimate union
will attain.
When a nation takes to itself the idea of conscious
direction, as by a fortunate combination of circum-
stances Germany has been induced to do, it is
plain that some choice of a principle of national
unity will be its first and most important task. It
is plain, also, from the considerations we have just
laid down, that such a principle of national unity
must necessarily be a manifestation of the social
instinct, and that the choice is necessarily limited
to one of three types of social habit which
alone Nature has fitted gregarious animals to follow.
No nation has ever made a conscious choice amongst
these three types, but circumstances have led to
the adoption of one or another of them often enough
for history to furnish many suggestive instances.
The more or less purely aggressive or protec-
tive form has been adopted for the most part by
primitive peoples. The history of the natives of
North America and AustraUa furnishes examples of
i68 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

almost pure types of both. The aggressive type was

illustrated very fully by the peoples who profited
by the disintegration of the Roman Empire. These
northern barbarians showed in the most perfect form
the lupine type of society in action. The ideals
and feelings exemplified by their sagas are compre-
hensible only when one understands the biological
significance of them. It was a society of wolves
marvellously indomitable in ag'gression but fitted for
no other activity in any corresponding degree, and
always liable to absorption by the peoples they
had conquered. They were physically brave beyond
belief, and made a religion of violence and brutality.
To fight was for them man's supreme activity. They
were restless travellers and explorers, less out of
curiosity than in search of prey, and they irresistibly
overran Europe in the missionary zeal of the sword
and torch, each man asking nothing of Fate but,
after a career of unlimited outrage and destruction,
to die gloriously fighting. It is impossible not
to recognize the psychological identity of these
ideals with those which we might suppose a highly
developed breed of wolves to entertain.
■With all its startling energy, and all its magnifi-
cent enterprise, the lupine type of society has not
proved capable of prolonged survival. Probably
its inherent weakness is the very limited scope
of interest it provides for active and progressive
minds, and the fact that it tends to engender a
steadily accumulating hostility in weaker but more
mentally progressive peoples to which it has no
correspondingly steady resistiveness to oppose.
The history of the world has shown a gradual
elimination of the lupine type. It has recurred
sporadically at intervals, but has always been
suppressed. Modern civilization has shown a
constantly increasing manifestation of the socialized
type of gregariousness in spite of the complexities
 IN PEACE AND WAR 169

and disorders which the slowness of its development

towards completeness has involved. It may be
regarded now as the standard type which has been
established by countless experiments, as that which
alone can satisfy and absorb the moral as well as
the intellectual desires of modern man.
From the point of view of the statesman desiring
to enforce an immediate and energetic national unity,
combined with an ideal of the State as destined
to expand into a larger and larger sphere, the
socialized type of gregarious evolution is extremely
unsatisfactory. Its course towards the prod'uction
of a truly organized State is slow, and perplexed
by a multitudinous confusion of voices and ideals ;
its necessary development of altruism gives the
society it produces an aspect of sentimentality and
flabbiness ; its tendency slowly to evolve towards
the moral equality of its members gives the State
an appearance of structural insecurity.

If Germany was to be capable of a consistent

aggressive external policy as a primary aim, the
pecuHarity of her circumstances rendered her unable
to seek national inspiration by any development
of the socialized type of instinctive response, because
that method can produce the necessary moral power
only through a true unity of its members, such as
implies a moral, if not a material, unity among
them. That the type is capable of yielding a
passion of aggressive nationalism is shown by the
early enterprise and conquests of the first P>ench
Republic. But that outburst of power was attained
only because it was based on a true, though doubt-
less imperfect, moral equality. Such a method was
necessarily forbidden to the German Empire by the
intense rigidity of its social segregation, with its
absolute differentiation between the aristocracy and
the common people. In such a society there could
I70 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

be no thought of permitting the faintest hint of

even moral equality.
This is the reason, therefore, why the rulers of
Germany, of course in complete ignorance of how-
significant was their choice, were compelled to
abandon the ideals of standard civilization, to relapse
upon the ideals of a more primitive type of
gregariousness, and to throw back their people into
the anachronism of a lupine society. In this connec-
tion it is interesting to notice how persistently
the political philosophers of Germany have sought
their chief inspiration in the remote past, and in
times when the wolf society and the wolf ideals
were widespread and successful.
It is not intended to imply that there was here
any conscious choice. It is remarkable enough that
the rulers of Germany recognized the need for
conscious direction of all the activities of a nation
which proposes for itself a career ; it would have
been a miracle if they had understood the biological
significance of the differentiation of themselves from
other European peoples that they were to bring
about. To them it doubtless appeared merely that
they were discarding the effete and enfeebling
ideals which made other nations the fit victims of
their conquests. They may be supposed to have
determined to eradicate such germs of degeneracy
from themselves, to have seen that an ambitious
people must be strong and proud and hard, enter-
prising, relentless, brave, and fierce, prepared to
believe in the glory of combat and conquest, in
the supreme moral greatness of the warrior, in force
as the touchstone of right, honour, justice, and truth.
Such changes in moral orientation seem harmless
enough, and it can scarcely be suspected that their
significance was patent to those who adopted them.
They were impressed upon the nation with all the
immense power of suggestion at the disposal of
 IN PEACE AND WAR 171

an orgfanized State, The readiness with which they

were received and assimilated was more than could
be accounted for by even the power of the immense
machine of officials, historians, theologians, pro-
fessors, teachers, and newspapers by which they
were, in season and out of season, enforced. The
immense success that was attained owed much to
the fact that suggestion was following a natural,
instinctive path. The wolf in man, against which
civilization has been fighting for so long, is still
within call and ready to respond to incantations
much feebler than those the German State could
employ. The people were intoxicated with the glory
of their conquests and their imposing new con-
federation ;if we are to trust the reputation the
Prussian soldier has had for a hundred years, they
were perhaps already less advanced in humanity
than the other European peoples. The fact is un-
questionable that they followed their teachers with
enthusiasm.
It may be well for us, before proceeding farther,
to define precisely the psychological hypothesis we
are advancing in explanation of the peculiarities of
the German national character as now manifested.
Herd instinct is manifested in three distinct types,
the aggressive, the protective, and the socialized,
which are exemplified in Nature by the wolf, the
sheep, and the bee respectively. Either type can
confer the advantages of the social habit, but the
socialized is that upon which modern civilized man
has developed. It is maintained here that the
ambitious career consciously planned for Germany
by those who had taken command of her destinies,
and the maintenance at the same time of her social
system, were inconsistent with the further develop-
ment of gregariousncss of the socialized type. New
ideals, new motives, and new sources of moral power
had therefore to be sought. They were found in a
 172 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

recrudescence of the aggressive type of gregarious -

ness — in a reappearance of the society of the wolf.
I It is conceivable that those who provided Germany
with her new ideals thought themselves to be
exercising a free choice. The choice, however,
was forced upon them by Nature. They wanted
some of the^ characters of the wolf ; they got them
all . One__may imagine that those who have so
industriously inculcated the national g'ospel have
Wondere'd at times That whLfe~rr has been easy to
impTant certain of JtHe^desifed ideals, it has not been
possible to prevent the appearance of others which,
"thaugh]ljjot__&o~gesiFaT51e^^^^^^ to'^the same legacy
and must be taken up with it.
Before examining the actual mental features of
Germany to-day, it may be desirable to consider a
priori what would be the mental characteristics of
an aggressive gregarious animal were he to be self-
conscious in the sense that man is.
The functional value of herd instinct in the wolf
is to make the pack irresistible in attacking and
perpetually aggressive in spirit. The individual
must, therefore, be especially sensitive to the leader-
ship of the herd. The herd must be to him, not
merely as it is to the protectively gregarious animal,
a source of comfort, and stimulus, and general
guidance, but must be able to make him do things
however difficult, however dangerous, even however
senseless, and must make him yield an absolute,
immediate, aiM slavish obedience. The ^^arrying
aut_iif_the CQmmands of the herd mu,st be in itself
an absolute satisfaction in which there can be no
consideration of self. Towards anything outside
the herd he^wiTriie cess aril y be arrogant, confident,
an^d inac^ssibIe~To "the" appeals of reason or feeling.
This tense bond of instinct, constantly^keyed up to
the pilch "of action, will give him ^ certain
■ simplicity of character anjd even ingenuousness, a
 IN PEACE AND WAR 173

coarseness and brutality in his dealing's with others,

and a complete failure to understand any motive
unsanctioned by the pack. _He will believe the
pack to be impregnable and irresistible, just and
g!ood, and will readily ascribe to it any other attribute
which may take his fancy however ludicrously inap-
propriate.
The strength of the wolf pack as a gregarious
unit is undoubtedly, in suitable circumstances,
enormous. This strength would seem to depend on
a continuous possibility of attack and action. How
far it can be maintained in inactivity and mere
defence is another matter. . . .

Since the beginning of this war attracted a

really concentrated attention to the psychology of
the German people, it has been very obvious that
one of the most striking feelings amongst English-
men has been bewilderment. They have found an
indescribable strangeness in the utterances of almost
all German personages and newspapers, in their
diplomacy, in their friendliness to such as they wished
to propitiate, in their enmity to those they wished
to alarm and intimidate. This strange quality is
very difficult to define or even to attempt to describe,
and has very evidently perplexed almost all writers
on the war. The only thing one can be sure
of is that it is there. It shows itself at times as a
simplicity or even childishness, as a boorish cunning,
as an incredible ant -like activity, as a sudden blast
of maniacal boasting, a reckless savagery of
gloating in blood, a simple-minded sentimentality,
as outbursts of idolatry^ not of the pallid, meta-
phorical, modern type, but the full-blooded African
kind, with all the apparatus of idcjl and fetish and
tom-tom, and with it all a steady confidence that
these are the principles of civilization, of truth, of
justice, and of Christ. --
174 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

I have tried to put down at random some of the

factors in this curious impression as they occur
to the memory, but the mere enumeration of them
is not possible without risking the objective com-
posure of one's attitude — an excellent incidental
evidence that the strangeness is a reality.
The incomjDrehensibility to the English of the
whole trend of German feeling and expression sug-
gests that there is some deeply rooted instinctive
conflict of attitude between them. One may risk
the speculation that this conflict is between socialized
gregariousness and aggressive gregariousness. As
the result of the inculcation of national arrogance
and aggression, Germany has lapsed into a special
type of social instinct which has opened a gulf of
separation in feeling between her and other civilized
peoples. Such an effect is natural enough. Nothing
produces the sense of strangeness so much as
differences of instinctive reaction. A similar though
wider gap in instinctive reaction gives to us the
appearance of strangeness and queemess in the
behaviour of the cat as contrasted with the dog,
which is so much more nearly allied in feeling to
ourselves .
If, then, we desire to get any insight into the
mind and moral power of Germany, we must begin
with the realization that the two peoples are separated
by a profound difference in instinctive feeling.
Nature has provided but few roads for gregarious
species to follow. Between the path England finds
herself in and that which Germany has chosen there
is a divergence which almost amounts to a specific
difference in the biological scale. In this, perhaps,
lies the cause of the desperate and unparalleled
ferocity of this war. It is a war not so much of
contending nations as of contending species. We
are not taking part in a mere war, but in one of )>jj

Nature's august experiments. It is as if she had

 IN PEACE AND WAR 175
set herself to try out in her workshop the strength
of the sociaHzed and the aggressive types. To
the sociaHzed peoples she has entrusted the task
of proving that her old faith in cruelty and blood
is at last an anachronism. To try them, she has
given substance to the creation of a nightmare, and
they must destroy this werewolf or die.'
In attempting to estimate the actual phenomena
of the German mind at the present time, we must
remember that our sources of knowledge are subject
to a rigid selection. Those of us who are unable to
give time to the regular reading of German publica-
tions must depend on extracts which owe their
appearance in our papers to some striking char-
acteristic which may be supposed to be pleasing
to the prejudices or hopes of the English reader.
The main facts, however, are clear enough to yield

' It may be noted that the members of the small group of so-called
" pro-German " writers and propagandists for the most part make
it a fundamental doctrine, either explicit or implicit, that there is no
psychological difference between the English and the Germans.
They seem to maintain that the latter are moved and are to be
influenced by exactly the same series of feelings and ideals as the
former, and show in reality no observable " strangeness " in their
expressions and emotions. By arguments based on this assumption
very striking conclusions are reached. All moral advancement has
been the work of unpopular minorities, the members of which have
been branded as cranks or criminals until time has justified their
doctrine. Even the greatest of such pioneers have not, however, been
invariably right. Their genius has usually been shown most clearly in
matters with which they have been most familiar, while in matters
less intimately part of their experience their judgments have often not
stood the test of time any better than those of smaller men. If there-
fore our " pro-Germans " include amongst them men of moral genius,
we may expect that such of their psychological intuitions as deal with
England are more likely to prove true than those that deal witii
Germany. The importance of this reservation lies in the probability
that the chief psychological problems connected with the origin and
prosecution of this war relate to the Germans rather tlian to llie
English.
176 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD 1
valuable conclusions, if such are made on broad i
lines without undue insistence on minor points. \
An intense but often ingenuous and even childish :
national arrogance is a character that strikes one :
at once. It seems to be a serious and often a isolemn \
emotion impregnably armoured against the comic '
sense, and expressed with a childlike confidence in j
its justness. It is usually associated with a language !
of metaphor, which is almost always florid and j
banal, and usually grandiose and strident. This i
fondness for metaphor and inability to refer to :
common things by plain names affects all classes,
from Emperor to journalist, and gives an impression i
of peculiar childishness. It reminds one of the !
primitive belief in the transcendental reality and '
value of names. j
The national arrogance of the German is at the ]
same time peculiarly sensitive and peculiarly obtuse. \
It is readily moved by praise or blame, though that i
be the most perfunctory and this the most mild, but ,
it has no sense of a public opinion outside the pack, i
It is easily aroused to rage by external criticism, I
and when it finds its paroxysms make it ridiculous j
to the spectator it cannot profit by the information j
but becomes, if possible, more angry. It is quite I
unable to understand that to be moved to rage by, i
an enemy is as much a proof of slavish automatism i
as to be moved to fear by him. The really extra- j
ordinary hatred for England is, quite apart from ;
the obvious association of its emotional basis with ;
fear, a most interesting phenomenon. The fact that j
it was possible to organize so unanimous a howl .j
shows very clearly how fully the psychological ,
mechanisms of the wolf were in action. It is most <
instructive to find eminent men of science and \
philosophers
the rest, and bristling
would be and baring
another theirif teeth
proof, with \'
such were
needed, of the infinite insecurity of the hold of |
 IN PEACE AND WAR 177
reason in the most carefully cultivated minds wlien
it is opposed by strong herd feeling.'
It is important, however, not to judge the
functional value of these phenomena of herd arro-
gance and herd irritability and convulsive rage from
the point of view of nations of the socialized
gregarious type such as ourselves. To us they would
be disturbants of judgment, and have no corres-
ponding emotional recompense. In the wolf pack,
however, they are indigenous, and represent a normal
mechanism for inciting national enthusiasm and
unity. The wolf, whose existence depends on the
daily exercise of pursuit and slaughter, cannot afford

» I have not included in these pages actual quotations from German

authors illustrative of the national characteristics they so richly dis-
play. Such material may be found in abundance in the many books
upon Germany which have appeared since the beginning of the war.
The inclusion of it here would therefore have been superfluous, and
would have tended perhaps to distract attention from the more general
aspects of the subject which are the main objects of this study.
During the process of final revision I am, however, tempted to add
a single illustration which happens just to have caught my eye as
being a representative and not at all an extreme example of the
national arrogance I refer to above.
In an article on "The German Mind" by Mr. John Buchan I find
the following quotations from a Professor Werner Sombart, of Berlin :—
" When the German stands leaning on his mighty sword, clad in steel
from his sole to his head, whatsoever will may, down below, dance
around his feet, and the intellectuals and the learned men of England,
France, Russia, and Italy may rail at him and throw mud. But
in his lofty repose he will not allow himself to be disturbed, and
he will reflect in the sense of his old ancestors in Europe : Odcrint
diim mctuant."
" We must purge from our soul the last fragments of the old
ideal of a progressive development of humanity. . . . The ideal of
humanity can only be understood in its highest sense when it attains
its highest and richest development in particular noble nations.
These for the time being are the representatives of God's thought
on earth. Such were the Jews. Such were the Greeks. And the
chosen people of these centuries is the German people. . . . Now we
understand why other peoples pursue us with their hatred. They do
12
 178 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
to be open to external appeals and criticisms, must
be supremely convinced of his superiority and that
whoever dies he must live, and must be easily stim-
ulated to the murderous rages by which he wins
his food.
Another difficulty in the understanding of the
German mind is its behaviour with regard to in-
fluencing non-German opinion. There can be no
doubt that it desires intensely to create impressions
not understand us, but they are sensible of our enormous spiritual
superiority. So the Jews iwere hated in antiquity because they were
the repi-esentatives of God on earth " (" The German Mind," Land and
Water, November 6, 1915).
These passages are almost too good to be true, and give one some
of the pleasure of the collector who finds a perfect specimen. Here
we have the gusto in childish and banal metaphor, the conception
of the brutal conqueror's state as permanently blissful — the colonizing
principle of Prussia — the naive generalizations from history, the
confident assumption of any characteristic which appears desirable
in morals or religion, the impenetrable self-esteem, and I think we
should add the intense and honest conviction.
If we judge from the standpoint of our own feelings and ideals such
utterances as these, we cannot ignore the maniacal note in them, and
we seem forced to assume some actually lunatic condition in the
German people. Indeed, this is a conclusion which Mr. Buchan in
the article from which I quote does not hesitate definitely and
persuasively to draw.
When we remember, however, that the definition of insanity is
necessarily a statistical one, that in the last analysis we can but say
that a madman is a man who behaves differently from the great bulk
of his neighbours, we find that to describe a nation as mad — true as it
may be in a certain sense — leaves us without much addition to our
knowledge. In so far, however, as it impresses upon us the fact that
some of that nation's mental processes are fundamentally different
from our own it is a useful conception. The statesman will do well
to carry the analysis a stage farther. The ravings of a maniac do not
help us much in forecasting his behaviour, the bowlings of a pack
of wolves, equally irrational, equally harsh, even, in the original sense,
equally lunatic, betray to us with whom we have to deal, betray their
indispensable needs, their uncontrollable passions, the narrow path of
instinct n which they are held, enable us to foresee, and, foreseeing,
to lay our plans.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 179

favourable to itself, not merely for the sake of

practical advantages in conducting the war, but also
because of the desire for sympathy. In con-
the latternotmotive it is important that one's
attention sidering
should be too much attracted by the
comic aspects of the searchings of heart, publicly
indulged by Germans, as to why they are not
regarded with a more general and sincere affection,
and of the answers which they themselves have
furnished to this portentous problem. That, they
are too modest, too true, too self-obliterating, too
noble, too brave, and too kind are answers the
psychological significance of which should not be
altogether lost in laughter. That they are honest
expressions of belief cannot be doubted ; indeed,
there is strong theoretical reason to accept them
as such, when we remember the fabulous ' impene-
trability of lupine herd suggestion. In default of
such an explanation they seem to be utterly incom-
prehensible.
In her negotiations with other peoples, and her
estimates of national character, Germany shows the
characteristic features of her psychological type in
a remarkable way. It appears to be a principal
thesis of hers that altruism is, for the purposes of
the statesman, non-existent, or if it exists is an
evidence of degeneracy and a source of weakness.
The motives upon which a nation acts are, according
to her, self-interest and fear, and in no particular
has her " strangeness " been more fully shown than
in the frank way in which she appeals to both,
cither alternately or together.
This disbelief in altruism, and over -valuation of
fear and self-interest, seem to "be regarded by her
' The use of this adjective may perhaps call to mind how often tlie
wolf has appeared in fable in just this mood. Usually, however, the
fabuHst— being of the unsympathetic socialized type — has ascribed the
poor creature's yearnings to hypocrisy.
i8o INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

as evidence of a fearless and thorough grasp of

biological truth, and are often fondly referred to
as " true German objectivity " or the German " sense
for reality." How grossly, in fact, they conflict with
the biological theory of gregariousness is clear
enough. It is interesting that the German negoti-
ators have been almost uniformly unsuccessful in
imposing their wishes on States in which the
socialized type of gregariousness is highly developed
— Italy, the United States — and have succeeded with
barbarous peoples of the lupine type, with the Turk,
whose " objectivity " and appetite for mlassacre
remain ever fresh, patriarch among wolves as he is,
with Bulgaria, the wolf of the second Balkan War.
' There is strong reason to believe that defective
insight into the minds of others is one of the chief
disadvantages of the aggressive as compared with
the socialized type of gregariousness. This disad-
vantage is so great, and yet so deeply inherent,
as to justify the belief that the type is the most
primitive of those now surviving, and thar its
present resuscitation in man is a phenomenon which
will prove to be no more than transient.
It would be of little value to enumerate the well-
known instances in which failure of insight, and
ignorance of the psychology of the herd, has been
misleading or disadvantr^eous to Germany. It is
relevant, however, to note the superb illustration
of psychological principle which is afforded by the
relations of Germany to England during the last
fifteen years. That England was the great obistacle
to indefinite expansion was clearly understood by
those whom the conception of a consciously directed
and overwhelmingly powerful German Empire had
inspired. I have tried to show how great a con-
ception this was, how truly in the line of natural
evolution, how it marks an epoch even on the bio-
logical scale. Unfortunately for Germany, her social
 IN PEACE AND WAR i8i

type was already fixed, with such advantages and

defects as it possessed, and amongst them the
immense defect of the lupine attitude towards an
enemy — the over-mastering temptation to intimidate
him rather than to understand, and to accept the easy
and dangerous suggestions of hostility in estimating
his strength.
There is in the whole of human history perhaps
no more impressive example of the omnipotence
of instinct than that which is afforded by the
reactions of Germany towards England. An intel-
ligent, educated, organized people, directed con-
sciously towards a definite ambition, finds its path
blocked by an enemy in chief. Surely there are
two principles of action which should at once be
adopted : first, to estimate with complete objectivity
the true strength of the enemy, and to allow no
national prejudice, no liking for pleasant prophesy-
ing to distort the truth, and secondly, to guard
against exasperating the enemy, lest the inevitable
conflict should ultimately be precipitated by her
at her moment.
Both these principles the instinctive impulsions
to which Germany was liable compelled her to
violate. She allowed herself to accept opinions
of England's strength, moral and physical, which
were pleasant rather than true. She listened eagerly
to political philosophers and historians — the most
celebrated of whom was, by an ominous coincidence,
deaf — who told her that the Empire of England
was founded in fraud and perpetuated in feebleness,
that it consisted of a mere loose congeries of disloyal
peoples who would fly asunder at the first touch of
" reality," that it was rotten with insurgency, senile
decay and satiety, and would not and could not
fight. Even if these things had been a full state-
ment of the case, they must have been dangerous
doctrines. They were dcfertive because the
i82 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

observers were unaware that they were studying'

different instinctive reactions from their own, and
were, therefore, deaf to the notes which might have
put them on their guard.
At the same time, Germany allowed herself to
indulge the equally pleasant expression of her
hostility with a freedom apparently unrestrained by,
any knowledge that such indulgences cannot be
enjoyed for nothing-. She produced in this country
a great deal of alarm, and a great deal of irritation,
an effect she no doubt regarded as gratifying, but
which made it quite certain that sooner or later
England would recognize her implacable enemy,
though, inarticulate as usual, she might not say
much about it. . . .

Another feature of Germany's social type, which

has an important bearing on her moral strength,
is the relation of the individual citizens to one
another. The individual of the wolf pack is of
necessity fierce, aggressive, and irritable, otherwise
he cannot adequately fulfil his part in the major
unit. Apparently it is beyond the power of Nature
to confine the ferocity of the wolf solely to the
external activities of the pack, as would obviously be
in many ways advantageous, and to a certain extent
therefore it affects the relations of members of
the pack to one another. This is seen very well
even in the habits of domesticated dogs, who are
apt to show more or less suppressed suspicion and
irritability towards one another even when well
acquainted, an irritability moreover which is apt
to blaze out into hostility on very slight provo-
cation.
Most external commentators on modem German
life have called attention to the harshness which is
apt to pervade social relations. They tell us of an
atmosphere of fierce competition, of ruthless scandal-
 IN PEACE AND WAR 183

mongering and espionage, of insistence upon minute

distinctions of rank and title, of a rigid ceremonious
politeness which obviously has little relation to
courtesy, of a deliberate cultivation by superiors
of a domineering harshness towards tlieir inferiors,
of habitual cruelty to animals, and indeed of the
conscious, deliberate encouragement of harshness
and hardness of manner and feeling as laudable
evidences of virility. The statistics of crime, the
manners of officials, the tone of newspapers, the
ferocious discipline of the Army, and the general
belief that personal honour is stained by endurance
and purified by brutality are similar phenomena.
Nothing in this category, however, is more
illuminating than the treatment by Germany of
colonies and conquered territories. To the English
the normal method of treating a conquered country
is to obliterate, as soon as possible, every trace
of conquest, and to assimilate the inhabitants to
the other citizens of the empire by every possible
indulgence of liberty and self-government. It is,
therefore, difficult for him to believe that the German
actually likes to be reminded that a given province
has been conquered, and is not unwilling that a
certain amount of discontent and restiveness in the
inhabitants should give him opportunities of forcibly
exercising his dominion and resuscitating the glories
of conquest. Although this fact has no doubt been
demonstrated countless times, it was first displayed
unmistakably to the world in the famous Zabern
incident. Those who have studied the store of
psychological material furnished by that affair, the
trial and judgments which followed it, and the
ultimate verdict of the people thereon, cannot fail
to have reached the conclusion that here is exposed
in a crucial experiment a people which is either
totally incomprehensible, or is responding to the
calls of herd instinct by a series of reactions almost
i84 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
totally different from those we regard as normal.
When the biological key to the situation is dis-
covered the series of events otherwise bizarre to
the pitch of incredibility becomes not only intellig-
ible and consistent, but also inevitable.
The differences in instinctive social type between
Germany and England are betrayed in many minor
peculiarities of behaviour that cannot be examined
or even enumerated here. Some of them are of
little importance in themselves, though all of them
are significant when the whole bulk of evidence
to which they contribute a share is considered.
Indeed, some of the less obviously important char-
acteristics, bythe very nicety v>'ith which they fulfil
the conditions demanded by the biological necessities
of the case, have a very special value as evidence
in favour of the generalizations which I have
suggested. I permit myself an illustration of this
point. The use of war cries and shibboleths doubt-
less seems in itself an insignificant subject enough,
yet I think an examination of it can be shown to
lead directly to the very central facts of the
international situation.
Few phenomena have been more striking through-
out the war than the way in which the German
people have been able to take up certain cries —
directed mostly against 'England — and bring them
into hourly familiar and unanimous use. The phrase
" God pvmish England ! " seems actually to have
attained a real and genuine currency, and to have
been used by all classes and all ages as a greeting
with a solemnity and gusto which are in no way the
less genuine for being, to our unsympathetic eyes, so
ludicrous. The famous " Hymn of Hate " had, no
doubt, a popularity equally wide, and was used with
a fervour which showed the same evidence of a
mystic satisfaction.
Attempts have been made to impose upon England
 IN PEACE AND WAR 185

similar watchwords with the object of keeping some

of the direst events of the war before our eyes, and
fortifying the intensity and scope of our horror.
We have been adjured to " remember " Belgium,
Louvain, the Liisitania, and latterly the name of
an heroic and savagely murdered nurse. Horrible
as has been the crime to which we have been
recalled by each of these phrases, there has never
been the slightest sign that the memory of it could
acquire a general currency of quotation, and by that
mechanism become a stronger factor in unity
determination or endurance.
An allied phenomenon which may perhaps be men-
tioned here is the difference in attitude of the
German and the English soldier towards war songs.
To the German the war song is a serious matter ; it
is for the most part a grave composition, exalted
in feeling, and thrilling with the love of country ;
he is taught to sing it, and he sings it well, with
obvious and touching sincerity and with equally
obvious advantage to his morale.
The attempt to introduce similar songs and a
similar attitude tov/ards them to the use of the
English soldier has often been made, and exactly
as often lamentably failed. On the whole it has
been, perhaps, the most purely comic effort of the
impulse to mimic Germany which has been in favour
until of late with certain people of excellent aims
but inadequate biological knowledge. The English
soldier, consistently preferring the voice of Nature
to that of the most eminent doctrinaire, has, to the
scandal of his lyrical enemies, steadily drawn his
inspiration from the music-hall and the gutter, or
from his own rich store of flippant and ironic
realism.
The biological meaning of these peculiarities
renders them intelligible and consistent with one
another. The predaceous social aniujiils in attack
i86 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

or pursuit are particularly sensitive to the encourage-

ment afforded by one another's voices. The pack
gives tongue because of the functional value of the
exercise, which is clearly of importance in keeping
individuals in contact with one another, and in
stimulating in each the due degree of aggressive
rage. That serious and narrow passion tends
naturally to concentrate itself upon some external
object or quarry, which becomes by the very fact an
object of hate to the exclusion of any other feeling,
whether of sympathy, self-possession, or a sense of
the ludicrous. The curious spectacle of Germans
greeting one another with *' God punish England ! "
and the appropriate response is therefore no acci-
dental or meaningless phenomenon, but a manifesta-
tion of an instinctive necessity ; and this explanation
is confirmed by the immensely wide currency of the
performance, and the almost simian gravity with
which it could be carried out. It succeeded because
it had a functional value, just as similar movements
in England have failed because they have had no
functional value, and could have none in a people of
the socialized type, with whom unity depends on a
different kind of bond.
The wolf, then, is the father of the war song,
and it is among peoples of the lupine type alone that
the war song is used with real seriousness. Animals
of the socialized type are not dependent for their
morale upon the narrow intensities of aggressive
rage. Towards such manifestations of it as con-
certed cries and war songs they feel no strong
instinctive impulsion, and are therefore able to
preserve a relatively objective attitude. Such
cryings of the pack, seeming thus to be mere
functionless automatisms, naturally enough come to
be regarded as patently absurd.
Examples of behaviour illustrating these deep
differences of reaction are often to be me|t with in the
 IN PEACE AND WAR 187
stories of those who have described incidents of
the war. It is recorded that German soldiers in
trenches within hearing of the Enghsh, seeking to
exasperate and appal the latter, have sung in an
English version their fondly valued " Hymn of
Hate." Whereupon the English, eagerly listening
and learning the words of the dreadful challenge,
have petrified their enemies by repeating it with
equal energy and gusto, dwelling no doubt with
the appreciation of experts upon the curses of their
native land.
It would scarcely be possible to imagine a
more significant demonstration of the psychological
differences of the two social types.
The peculiarities of a state of the wolfish type
are admirably suited to conditions of aggression and
conquest, and readily yield for those purposes a
maximal output of moral strength. As long as such
a nation is active and victorious in war, its moral
resources cannot fail, and it will be capable of
an indefinite amount of self-sacrifice, courage, and
energy. Take away from it, however, the oppor-
tunities of continued aggression, interrupt the
succession of victories by a few heavy defeats, and
it must inevitably lose the perfection of its working
as an engine of moral power. The ultimate and
singular source of inexhaustible moral power in a
gregarious unit is the perfection of communion
amongst its individual members. As we have seen,
this source is undeveloped in units of the aggressive
type, and has been deliberately ignored by Germany.
As soon, if ever, as she has to submit to a few unmis-
takable defeats in the field, as soon as, if it should
happen, all outlets for fresh aggression are closed,
she will become aware of how far she has staked
her moral resources on continuous success, and will
not be able for long to conceal her knowledge
froni the world.
i88 INSTINCTS OF THE' HERD
That she herself has always been dimly aware :
of the nature of her strength — though not perhaps j
of her potential weakness — is shown by her steady '
insistence upon the necessity of aggression, upon j
maintaining the attack at whatever cost of life. This ]
is a principle she has steadily acted upon through- i
out the war. It is exemplified by the whole series i
of terrible lunges at her enemies she has made. The •
strategic significance of these has, perhaps, become .
less as the moral necessity for them has become |
greater. France, Flanders, Russia, and the Balkans ;
have in turn had to supply the moral food of victory 1
and attack without which she would soon have ;
starved. There is a quality at which the imagination ,
cannot but be appalled in this fate of a great and \
wonderful nation, however much her alienation of i
herself from the instincts of mankind may have i
frozen the natural currents of pity. Panting with ;
the exhaustion of her frightful blow at Russia, she i
must yet turn with who know^s what weariness to ;
yet another enterprise, in which to find the moral j
necessities which the Russian campaign was already j
ceasing to supply. It is to a similar mechanism that ;
we must look to trace the ultimate source of the j
submarine and aircraft campaigns against England..
Strategically, these proceedings may or may not j
have been regarded hopefully ; possibly they were ;
based on a definite mihtary plan, though they do |
not to us have that appearance. Very probably!
they were expected to disorganiz e Enghsh morale.,;
Behind them both, however, whether consciously or ;
not, was the moral necessity to do something against |
England. This is indicated by the circumstances;
and the periods of the war at which they werei
seriously taken up. As both the submarine andj
the Zeppelin campaigns involve no great expendi-j
ture or dissipation of power, the fact that their!
value is moral rather than military, and concerned:
 IN PEACE AND VvAK 189
with the morale of their inventors rather than that
of their victims, is chiefly of academic interest as
throwing further hght on the nature of Germany's
strength and weakness.

Its attitude towards discipline displays the German

mind in a relation sufficiently instructive to merit
some comment here. When Germany has been
reproached with being contented to remain in what
is, by comparison with other peoples, a condition
of political infantilism, with allowing the personal
liberty of her citizens to be restricted on all hands,
and their political responsibility to be kept within
the narrowest limits, the answer of the political
theorists has generally contained two distinct and
contradictory apologetic theses. It has been said
that the German, recognizing the value of State
organization, and that strict discipline is a necessary
preliminary to it, consciously resigns the illusory
privileges of the democrat in order to gain power,
and submits to a kind of social contract which is
unquestionably advantageous in the long run. The
mere statement of such a proposition is enough to
refute it, and we need give no further attention
to an intellectualist fallacy so venerable and so
completely inconsistent with experience. It is also
said, however, that the German has a natural apti-
tude for discipline amounting to genius. In a sense
a little less flattering than it is intended to have,
this proposition is as true as that of the social con-
tract is false. The aggressive social type lends
itself naturally to discipline, and shows it in its
grossest forms. The socialized type is, of course,
capable of discipline, otherwise a State would be
impossible, but the discipline that prevails in it is
apt to become indirect, less harshly compulsory and
more dependent on goodwill.
It is perhaps natural that units within which
iQO INSTINCTS OF THE HERD |
ferocity and hardness are tolerated and encouraged
should depend on a correspondingly savage method |
of enforcing their will. The flock of sheep has its I
shepherd, but the pack of hounds has its Whips. \
In human societies of the same type we should \
expect to find, therefore, a general acquiescence in •
the value of discipline, and a toleration of its en- |
forcement, because, rather than in spite of, its being
harsh. This seems to be the mechanism which \
underlies what is to the Englishman the mystery j
of German submission to direction and discipline. ;
That an able-bodied soldier should submit to being j
lashed across the face by his officer for some trivial )
breach of etiquette — a type of incident common and !
well witnessed to — is evidence of a state of mind ;
in both parties utterly incomprehensible to our feel- ]
ings. The hypothesis I am suggesting would explain j
it by comparison with the only available similar '
phenomenon — the submission of a dog to a thrash- j
ing administered by his master. The dog illus- j
trates very well that in a predaceous social animal 1
the enforcement of a harsh and even brutal discipline |
is not only a possible but also a perfectly satis- ;
factory procedure in the psychological sense. That \
other common victim of man's brutality — the horse ,
— provides an interesting complement to the propo- |
sition by showing that in a protectively social animal j
a savage enforcement of discipline is psychologically >
unsatisfactory. It seems justifiable, therefore, to i
conclude that the aggressive gregariousness of the \
Germans is the instinctive source of the marvellous |
discipline of their soldiers, and the contribution it I
makes to their amazing bravery. It must not be )
taken as any disrespect for that wonderful quality, i
but as a desire to penetrate as far as possible into \
its meaning, that compels one to point out that |
the theoretical considerations I have advanced are |
confirmed by the generally admitted dependence of i
 IN PEACE AND WAR 191
the German soldier on his officers and the at least
respectably attested liability he shows to the indul-
gence of an inhuman savagery towards any one who
is not his master by suggestion or by force of arms.

In the attempt I have made to get some insight

into the German mind, and to define the meaning
of its ideals, and needs, and impulses in biological
terms, I have had to contend with the constant bias
one has naturally been influenced by in discussing
a people not only intensely hostile, but also animated
by what I have tried to show is an alien type of
the social habit. Nevertheless, there seem to be
certain broad conclusions which may be usefully
recalled in summary here as constituting reason-
able probabilities. My purpose will have been
effected if these are sufficiently consistent to afford
a point of view slightly different from the customary
one, and yielding some practical insight into the
facts ,
Germany presents to the biological psychologist
the remarkable paradox of being in the first place
a State consciously directed towards a definite series
of ideals and ambitions, and deliberately organized
to obtain them, and in the second place a State in
which prevails a primitive type of the gregarious
instinct — the aggressive — a type which shows the
closest resemblance in its needs, its ideals, and its
reactions to the society of the wolf pack. Thus
she displays, in one respect, what I have shown
to be the summit of gregarious evolution, and in
another its very antithesis — a type of society which
has always been transient, and has failed to satisfy
the needs of modern civilized man.
When I compare German society with the wolf
pack, and the fechngs, desires, and impulses of the
individual German with those of the wolf or dog,
I am not intending to use a vague analogy, but
192 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

to call attention to a real and gross identity. The

aggressive social animal has a complete and con-
sistent series of psychical reactions, which will neces-
sarily be traceable in his feelings and his behaviour,
whether he is a biped or a quadruped, a man or
an insect. The psychical necessity that makes the
wolf brave in a massed attack is the same as that
which makes the German brave in a massed attack ;
the psychical necessity which tnakes the dog submit
to the v/hip of his master and profit by it makes
the German soldier submit to the lash of his ofifiicer
and profit by it. The instinctive process which
makes the dog among his fellows irritable, sus-
picious, ceremonious, sensitive about his honour, and
immediately ready to fight for it is identical in
the German and produces identical effects.
The number and minuteness of the coincidences
of behaviour between the German and other aggres-
sive social species, the number and precision of
the differences between the German and the other
types of social animals make up together a body
of evidence which is difficult to ignore.
Moreover, we see Germany compelled to submit
to disadvantages, consequent upon her social type,
which, we may suppose, she would have avoided
had they not been too deeply ingrained for even
her thoroughness to remove. Thus she is unable
to make or keep friends amongst nations of the
socialized type ; her instinctive valuation of fear
as a compelling influence has allowed her to indulge
the threatenings and warlike gestures which have
alienated all the strong nations, and intimidated
successfully only the weak — England, for example,
is an enemy entirely of her own making ; she
has been forced to conduct the war on a plan
of ceaseless and frightfully costly aggression,
because her morale could have survived no other
method.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 193

The ultimate object of science is foresight. It

may fairly be asked, therefore, supposing these
speculations to have any scientific justification, what
light do they throw on the future ? It would be
foolish to suppose that speculations so general can
yield, in forecasting the future, a precision which
they do not pretend to possess. Keeping, how-
ever, to the level of very general inference, two
observations may be hazarded.
First, the ultimate destiny of Germany cannot
be regarded as very much in doubt. If we are
content to look beyond this war, however it may
issue, and take in a longer stretch of time, we can
say with quite a reasonable degree of assurance
that Germanic power, of the type we know and fear
to-day, is impermanent. Germany has left the path
of natural evolution, or rather, perhaps, has never
found it. Unless, therefore, her civilization under-
goes a radical change, and comes to be founded on
a different series of instinctive impulses, it will
disappear from the earth. All the advantages she
has derived from conscious direction and organiza-
tion will not avail to change her fate, because
conscious direction is potent only when it works
hand in hand with Nature, and its first task — which
the directors of Germany have neglected — is to find
out the path which man must follow.
Secondly, a word may be ventured about the
war in so far as the consideration of Germany alone
can guide us. As I have tried to show, her morale
is more rigidly conditioned than that of her
opponents. They have merely to maintain their
resistance, to do which they have certain psycholog-
ical advantages, and they must win. She must
continue aggressive efforts, 1and 3 if these can be held
by her enemies — not more — she must go on galvan-
izing her weary nerves until they fail to respond. I
am not for a moment venturing to supj)f)se myself
194 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD
competent to give the slightest hint upon the conduct
of the war ; I am merely pointing out what I regard
as a psychological fact. Whether it has any
practical military value is not in my province to
decide .
If one claimed the liberty of all free men, to have
over and above considered judgment a real guess,
one would be inclined to venture the opinion
that, however well things go with the enemies of
Germany, there will not be much fighting on
German soil ,
The proposition that the strength and weakness
of Germany are rigidly conditioned by definite and
ascertainable psychological necessities is, if it is
valid, chiefly of interest to the strategist and those
who are responsible for the general lines of the
camj)aign against her. We may well, however, ask
whether psychological principle yields any hint of
guidance in the solution of the further and equally
important problem of how her enemies are to secure
and render permanent the fruits of the victory upon
which they are resolved.
This problem has already been the subject of a
good deal of controversy, which is likely to increase
as the matter comes more and more into the field of
practical aflairs.
Two types of solution have been expounded which,
apart from what inessential agreement they may
show in demanding the resurrection of such small
nations as Germany has been able to assassinate,
differ profoundly in the treatment they propose for
the actual enemy herself. Both profess to be based
upon the desire for a really perrnanent peace, and the
establishment of a truly stable equilibrium between
the antagonists. It is upon the means by which this
result is to be secured that differences arise.
The ofificial solution, and that almost universally
accepted by the bulk of the people, insists that the
 IN PEACE AND WAR 195

'-military domination of Prussia,'* -' German militar-

ism," or the " German military system " as it is
variously phrased, must be wholly and finally
destroyed. This doctrine has received many inter-
pretations. Inspite, however, of criticism by moder-
ates on the one hand and by unpractically ferocious
root-and-branch men on the other, it seems to
remain — significantly enough — an expression of
policy which the common man feels for the time to
be adequate.
The most considerable criticism has come from
the small class of accomplished and intellectual
writers who from their pacifist and " international "
tendencies have to some extent been accused, no
doubt falsely, of being pro -German in the sense
of anti-English. The complaint of this school
against the official declaration of policy is, that it
does not disclose a sufficiently definite object or the
means by which this object is to be attained. We
are told that as a nation we do not know what we
are fighting for, and, what amounts to the same
thing, that we cannotr attain the object we profess
to pursue by the exercise of military force how-
ever drastically it may be applied. We are warned
that we should seek a " reasonable " peace and
one which by its moderation would have an
educative effect upon the German people, that to
crush and especially in any way to dismember the
German Empire would confirm its people in their
belief that this war is a war of aggression by
envious neighbours, and make revenge a national
aspiration.
Such criticism has not always been very effectually
answered, and the generally current feeling has
proved disconcertingly inarticulate in the presence
of its agile and well -equipped opponents. Indeed,
upon the ordinary assumptions of political debate,
it is doubtful whether any quite satisfactory answer
196 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD -^
can be produced. It is just, however, these very j
assumptions which must be abandoned and replaced i
by are
we more trying
appropriate psychological
to obtain light upon principles when
the relations of ',
two peoples of profoundly different social type and |
instinctive reaction. The common man seems to ,
be dimly aware of this difference though he cannot ;
define it ; the intellectual of what, for want of a 1
better term, I may call the pacifist type in all its i
various grades, proceeds upon the assumption that |
no such difference exists. Much as one must respect j
the courage and capacity of many of these latter, j
one cannot but recognize that their conceptions,
however logical and however ingenious, lack the !
invigorating contact with reality which the instinctive j
feelings of the common man have not altogether |
failed to attain. :
Let us now consider what guidance in the solution i
of the problem can be got from a consideration !
of the peculiarities of the social type which the \
Germans of the present day so characteristically \
present. - i
Regarded from this point of view, the war is seen
to be directed against a social type which, when '
endowed with the technical resources of modern
civilization, is, and must continue to be, a dangerous \
anachronism. A people of the aggressive social !
habit can never be in a state of stable equilibrium :
with its neighbours. The constitution of its society ;
presents a rigid barrier to smooth and continuous \
internal integration ; its energy, therefore, must be j
occupied upon essentially, though not always super- j
ficially, external objects, and its history will neces- j
sarily be made up of alternating periods of :
aggression and periods of preparation. Such a ;
people has no conception of the benign use of power. J
It must regard war as an end in itself, as the summit \
of its national activities, as the recurring" apogee ,
 IN PEACE AND WAR 197

of its secular orbit ; it must regard peace as a

necessary and somewhat irksome preparation for war
in which it may savour rerrnniscently the joys of
conquest by dragooning its new territories and
drastically imposing upon them its national type.
This instinctive insistence upon uniformity makes
every conquest by such a people an impoverishment
of the human race, and makes the resistance of
such aggression an elementary human duty.
In every particular Germany has proved true to
her social type, and every detail of her history for
the last fifty years betrays the lupine quality of
her ideals and her morals.
We have seen that in all gregarious animals
the social instinct must follow one of three principal
types, each of which will produce a herd having
special activities and reactions. The major units
of the human species appear limited to a similar
number of categories, but it is probable that
the perpetuation of a given type in a given herd
is not chiefly a matter of heredity in the indi-
vidual. The individual is gregarious by inherit-
ance ; the type according to which his gregarious
reactions are manifested is not inherited, but will
depend upon the form current in the herd to which
he belongs, and handed down in it from generation
to generation. Thus it has happened that nations
have been able in the course of their history to pass
from the aggressive to the socialized type. The
change has perhaps been rendered possible by the
existence of class segregation of a not too rigid
kind, and has doubtless depended upon a progres-
sive intercommunication and the consequently
developing altruism. The extremely rigid Prussian
social system seems clearly to be associated with the
persistence of the aggressive form of society.
In considering the permanent deliverance of
Europe from the elements in Germany for which
198 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD j
there can be no possible toleration, we therefore 1
have not to deal with characters which must be
regarded as inherited in the biological sense. We ;
have to deal rather with a group of reactions which, i
while owing their unity, coherence, and power to '
the inherited qualities of the gregarious mind, owe \
their perpetuation to organized State suggestion, to {
tradition, and to their past success as a national
method.
There can be no doubt that the success of the
German Empire has consolidated the hold of the ;
aggressive social type upon its people, and has 1
guarded it from the eroding effects of increasing |
communication with other peoples and knowledge i
of the world. As I have already tried to show, •
the moral power of such peoples is intimately j
associated with the continuance of aggression and ;
of success. The German Empire has had no ex- |
perience of failure, and for this reason has been able ,
to maintain its ideals and aspirations untouched by I
modern influences. It needs no psychological insight j
to foretell that if the result of this war can be in j
any way regarded as a success for Germany, she j
will be thereby confirmed in her present ideals, '
however great her sufferings may have been, and j
however complete her exhaustion. It must be re- i
membered that this type of people is capable of 1
interpreting facts in accordance with its prejudices |
to an almost incredible extent, as we have seen \
time and again in the course of the war. The i
proof that the aggressive national type is intoler- !
able in modem Europe, if it can be afforded by j
force of arms, must therefore be made very plain, \
or it will have no value as a lesson. Proof of failure ;
adequate to convince a people of the socialized type j
might be quite inadequate to convince a people \
of the lupine type in whom, from the nature of the S
case, mental resistiveness is so much more impenc- i
 IN PEACE AND WAR 199

trable. This is the psychological fact of which

the statesmen of Europe will have to be, above
all things, aware when questions of peace come
seriously to be discussed, for otherwise they will
risk the loss of all the blood and treasure which
have been expended without any corresponding gain
for civilization.

We have been warned that to " humiliate " Ger-

many will merely be to set her upon the preparation
of vengeance, and to confirm her belief in the
supreme value of military strength. This opinion
affects to be based on a knowledge of human nature,
but its pretensions are not very well founded. The
passion of revenge is habitually over-estimated as
a motive — possibly through the influence of the
novelists and playwrights to whom it is so useful.
When we examine man's behaviour objectively we
find that revenge, however deathless a passion it
is vowed to be at emotional moments, is in actual
life constantly having to give way to more urgent
and more recent needs and feelings. Between
nations there is no reason to suppose that it has
any more reality as a motive of policy, though it
perhaps has slightly more value as a consolatory
pose.
It is curious that the naive over -estimation of
the revenge ideal should have been uninfluenced by
so obvious an example as the relations of France
and Germany. In 1870 the former was " humih-
ated " with biutal completeness and every element
of insult. She talked of revenge, as she could
scarcely fail to do, but she soon showed that her
grasp on reality was too firm to allow her policy
to be moved by that childish passion. Characteristi-
cally, it was the victorious aggressor who believed
in her longing for revenge, and who at length
attacked her again.
200 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

A psychological hint of great value may be ob-

tained from our knowledge of those animals whose
gregariousness, like that of the Germans, is of the
aggressive type. When it is thought necessary to
correct a dog by corporal measures, it is found
that the best effect is got by what is rather callously
called a " sound " thrashing. The animal must
be left in no doubt as to who is the master, and
his punishment must not be diluted by hesitation,
nervousness, or compunction on the part of the
punisher. The experience then becomes one from
which the dog is capable of learning, and if the
sense of mastery conveyed to him is unmistakable,
he can assimilate the lesson without reservation or
the desire for revenge. However repulsive the idea
may be to creatures of the socialized type, no senti-
mentalism and no pacifist theorizing can conceal
the fact that the respect of a dog can be won by
violence. If there is any truth in the view I have
expressed that the moral reactions of Germany follow
the gregarious type which is illustrated by the wolf
and the dog, it follows that her respect is to be
won by a thorough and drastic beating, and it is
just that elementary respect for other nations, of
which she is now entirely free, which it is the duty
of Europe to teach her. If she is allowed to escape
under conditions which in any way can be sophisti-
cated into a victory, or, at any rate, not a defeat,
she will continue to hate us as she continued to hate
her victim France.
To the politician, devoted as he necessarily is to
the exclusively human point of view, it may seem
fantastic and scandalous to look for help in inter-
national policy to the conduct of dogs. The gulf
between the two fields is not perhaps so impassably
profound as he would like to think, but, however
that may be, the analogy I have drawn is not un-
supported by evidence of a more respectable kind.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 2Ui

The susceptibility of the individual German to a

harsh and even brutally enforced discipline is vi^ell
known. The common soldier submits to be beaten
by his .sergeant, and is the better soldier for it ;
both submit to the bullying of their officer
apparently also with profit ; the common student
is scarcely less completely subject to his professor,
and becomes thereby a model of scientific excel-
lence ; the common citizen submits to the com-
mands of his superiors, however unreasonably
conceived and insultingly conveyed, and becomes
a model ,of disciplined behaviour ; finally the head
of the .State, combining the most drastic methods
of the sergeant, the professor, and the official, wins
not merely a slavish respect, but a veritable apothe-
osis.
Germany has shown unmistakably the way to her
heart ; it is for Europe to take it.

England against Germany— England.

It is one of the most impressive facts about the
war, that while Germany is the very type of a
perfected aggressive herd, England is perhaps the
most complete example of a socialized herd.
Corresponding with this biological difference is the
striking difference in their history. Germany has
modelled her soul upon the wolf's, and has rushed
through the possibilities of her archetype in fifty
feverish years of development ; already she is a
finished product, her moral ideal is fulfilled and
leaves her nothing to strive for except the imposition
of it upon the world. England has taken as her
model the bee, and still lags infinitely far behind
the fulfilment of her ideal. In the unbroken security
of her land, for near a thousand years, she has
leisurely, perhaps lazily, and with infinite slowness,
pursued her path towards a social integration of an
202 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

ever closer and deeper kind. She has stolidly,

even stupidly, and always in a grossly practical
spirit, held herself to the task of shaping a society
in which free men could live and yet be citizens.
She has had no theory of herself, no consciousness of
her destiny, no will to power. She has had almost
no national heroes, and has always been consti-
tutionally frigid to her great men, grudging them
the material for their experimentations on her people,
indifferent to their expositions of her duty and her
imperial destiny, granting them a chance to die for
her with no more encouragement than an impatient
sigh. She has allowed an empire to be won for
her by her restless younger sons, has shown no
gratification in their conquests, and so far from
thrilling with the exultation of the conqueror, has
always at the earliest moment set her new dominions
at work upon the problem in which her wholly
unromantic absorption has never relaxed. And after
a thousand years she seems as far as ever from
her goal. Her society is irregular, disorganized,
inco-ordinate, split into classes at war with one
another, weighted at one end with poverty, squalor,
ignorance, and disease, weighted at the other end
by ignorance, prejudice, and corpulent self-satis-
faction. Nevertheless, her patience is no more
shaken by what she is lectured upon as failure
than was her composure by what she was assured
was imperial success. She is no less bound by
her fate than is Germany, and must continue her
path until she reaches its infinitely remoter goal.
Nations may model themselves on her expedients,
and found the architecture of their liberty on the
tabernacles she has set up by the wayside to rest in
for a night— she will continue on her road uncon-
scious of herself or her greatness, absent-mindedly
polite to genius, pleasantly tickled by prophets with
very loud voices, but apt to go to sleep ,under
 IN PEACE AND WAR 303

sermons, too awkward to boast or bluster, too

composed to seem strong, too dull to be flattered,
too patient to be flurried, and withal inflexibly
practical and indifferent to dreams.

No more perfect illustration of the characteristics

of the two nations could be found than their attitude
before the war. England the empiric, dimly con-
scious of trouble, was puzzled, restless, and uneasy
in the face of a problem she was threatened with
some day having to study ; Germany the theorist,
cool, " objective," conscious of herself, was con-
vinced there was no problem at all.
In studying the mind of England in the spirit of
the biological psychologist, it is necessary to keep
in mind the society of the bee, just as in studying
the German mind it was necessary to keep in mind
the society of the wolf.
One of the most striking phenomena which
observers of the bee have noticed is the absence of
any obvious means of direction or government in
the hive. The queen seems to be valued merely
for her functions, which are in no way directive.
Decisions of policy of the greatest moment appear,
as far as we can detect, to arise spontaneously among
the workers, and whether the future is to prove
them right or wrong, are carried out without protest
or disagreement. This capacity for unanimous
decisions is obviously connected with the limited
mental development of the individual, as is shown
by the fact that in man it is very much more feeble.
In spite of this, the unanimity of the hive is wonder-
fully effective and surprisingly successful. Specu-
lators upon the physiology and psychology of bees
have been forced — very tentatively of course — to
imagine that creatures living in such intensely close
communion are able to communicate to one another,
and, as it were, to a common stock, such extremely
204 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

simple conceptions as they can be supposed to

entertain, and produce, so to say, a communal mind
which comes to have, at any rate in times of crisis,
a quasi -independent existence. The conception is
difficult to express in concrete terms, and even to
grasp in more than an occasional intuitive flash.
Whether we are to entertain such a conception or
are to reject it, the fact remains that societies of
a very closely communal habit are apt to give the
appearance of being ruled by a kind of common
mind — a veritable spirit of the hive — although no
trace of any directive apparatus can be detected.
A close study of England gives the impression of
some agency comparable with a " spirit of the hive "
being at work within it. The impression is not
perhaps to be taken as altogether fantastic, when we
remember how her insular station and her long
history have forced upon her a physical seclusion
and unity resembling, though of course far less
complete than, that of the hive. I am of course not
unaware that disquisitions upon the national spirit
are very familiar to us. These, however, are so
loosely conceived, so much concerned with purely
conventional personifications of quite imaginary
qualities, that I cannot regard them as referring
to the phenomenon I am trying to describe.
The conception in my mind is that of an old and
isolated people, developing, by the slow mingling
and attrition of their ideas, and needs, and impulses,
a certain deeply lying unity which becomes a kind
of " instinct " for national life, and gives to national
policy, without the conscious knowledge of any
individual citizen, without the direction of statesmen,
and perhaps in spite of them all, a continuity of
trend, and even an intelligence, by which events may
be influenced in a profoundly important way.
The making of some such assumption, helped as
it is by the analog^y of the bee, seems to be neces-
 IN PEACE AND WAR 205

sary when we consider at all objectively the history

of England and her Empire. She has done so
much without any leading, so much in spite of her
ostensible leaders, so often a great policy or a
successful stroke has been apparently accidental.
So much of her work that seemed, while it was
doing, to be local and narrow in conception and
motive displays at a distance evidences of design on
the great scale. Her contests with Philip of Spain,
with Louis XIV, with Napoleon, and the foundation
of her Colonial Empire, would seem to be the
grandiose conceptions of some supreme genius did
we not know how they were undertaken and in
Vv'hat spirit pursued.
It appears, then, that England has something
with which to retort upon the conscious direction
to which Germany owes so much of her strength.
Among the number of embattled principles and
counter principles which this war has brought into
the field, we must include as not the least interesting
the duel between conscious national direction on the
one side and unconscious national will and know-
ledge on the other.
It is quite outside my province to touch upon
the diplomatic events which led up to the war. They
seem to me to be irrelevant to the biological type
of analysis we are trying to pursue. There can be
no doubt at all that the ordinary consciousness of
the vast majority of citizens of this country was
intensely ..averse from the idea of war. Those
who were in general bellicose were for the
moment decidedly out of influence. Can we
suppose, however, that the deep, still spirit of
the hive that whispers unrecognizdd in us all had
failed to note that strange, gesticulating object across
the North Sea? In its vast, simple memory would
come up other objects that had gone on like that.
It would remember a mailed fist that had been
2o6 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

flourished across the Bay of Biscay three hundred

years ago, a little man in shining armour who had
strutted threateningly on the other shore of the
Channel, and the other little man who had stood
there among his armies, and rattled his sabre in
the scabbard. It had marked them all down in their
time, and it remembered the old vocabulary. It
would turn wearily and a little impatiently to this
new portent over the North Sea. . . . Wise with
the experience of a thousand years, it would know-
when to strike.

Such deeply buried combined national jimpulses

as we are here glancing at are far removed from
the influence of pacifist or jingo. Any attempt to
define them must be a matter of guesswork and
groping, in which the element of speculation is
far in excess of the element of ascertained fact. It
seems, however, that, as in the case of the bee,
they concern chiefly actual decisions of crucial
matters of policy. To put this suggestion in another
form, we might say the spirit of the people makes the
great wars, but it leaves the statesman to conduct
them. It may make, therefore, a decision of incred-
ible profundity, launch the people on the necessary
course at the necessary moment, and then leave
therri to flounder through the difficulties of their
journey as best they can. Herein is the contrast
it presents with the German resource of conscious
direction — superficial, apt to blunder in all the larger,
deeper matters of human nature, but constant, alert,
and ingenious in making immediate use of every
available means and penetrating every department
of activity.
During the conduct of war it is only in the
simplest, broadest matters that the spirit of the people
can bring its wisdom to bear. One of the most
striking manifestations of it has, for example, been
 IN PEACE AND WAR 207

the way in which it has shown a knowledge that the

war would be long and hard . The bad news has been,
in general, received without complaint, reproach, or
agitation, the good news, such as it has been, with
a resolute determination not to exult or rejoice.
That so many months of a deadly war have pro-
duced no popular expression of exultation or dismay
is a substantial evidence of moral power, and not
the less impressive for being so plainly the work
of the common man himself.
Such manifestations of the spirit of the people
are rare, and meet with very little encouragement
from those who have access to the public. It is
astonishing how absent the gift of interpreta-
tion seems to be. A few, a very few, stand
out as being able to catch those whispers of imme-
morial wisdom ; many seem to be occupied in
confusing them with a harsh and discordant
clamour of speech.

If we are correct in our analogy of the bee and

the wolf, England has one great moral advantage
over Germany, namely, that there is in the structure
of her society no inherent obstacle to perfect unity
among her people. The utmost unity Germany can
compass is that of the aggressive type, which brings
with it a harsh, non -altruistic relation among indi-
viduals, and can yield its full moral value only
during the maintenance of successful attack. Eng-
land, on the other hand, liaving followed the
socialized type of gregariousness, is free to in-
tegrate her society to an indefinite extent. The
development of the altruistic relation among her
individuals lies in her natural path. Pier system of
social segregation is not necessarily a rigid one,
and if she can bring about an adequate accelera-
tion of the perfectly natural consolidation towards
which she is, and has slowly been, tending, she ^ill
2o8 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

attain access to a store of moral power literally

inexhaustible, and will reach a tnoral cohesion which
no hardship can shake, and an endurance which
no power on earth can overcome.
These are no figures of speech, but plain bio-
logical fact, capable of immediate practical appli-
cation and yielding an immediate result. It must
be admitted that she has made little progress towards
this consummation since the beginning of the
war. Leaders, including not only governing poli-
ticians but also those who in any way have
access to public notice, tend to enjoin a
merely conventional unity, which is almost function -
less in the promotion of moral strength. It is
not much more than an agreement to say we are
united ; it produces no true unity of spirit and no
power in the individual to deny himself the in-
dulgence of his egoistic impulses in action and in
speech, and is therefore as irritating as it is useless.
It is unfortunate that the education and circumstances
of many public men deny them any opportunity of
learning the very elementary principles which are
necessary for the development of a nation's moral
resources. Occasionally one or another catches
an intuitive glimpse of some fragment of the |
required knowledge, but never enough to erlable i
him to develop any effective influence. For the ;
most part their impulses are as likely to be des- ;
tractive of the desired effect as favourable to it. I
In the past England's wars have always been con- j
ducted in an atmosphere of disunion, of acrimony, I
and of criticism designed to embarrass the Govern- I
ment rather than, as it professes, to strengthen the :
country. It is a testimony to the moral sturdiness '
of the people, and to the pov/er and subtlety of the ,
spirit of the hive, that success has been possible j
in such conditions. When one remembers how '
England has flourished on domestic discord in criti- :
 IN PEACE AND WAR 209

cal times, one is tempted to believe that she derives

some mysterious power from such a state, and that
the abolition of discord might not be for her the
advantageous change it appears so evidently to be.
Consideration, however, must show that this hypo-
thesis is inadmissible, and that England has won
through on these occasions in spite of the handicap
discord has put upon her. In the present war,
tough and hard as is her moral fibre, she will need
every clement of her power to avoid the weariness
and enfecblemcnt that will otherwise come upon
her before her task is done.
Throughout the m.onths of warfare that have
already passed no evidence has become public of
any recognition that the moral power of a nation
depends upon causes which can be identified, formu-
lated, and controlled. It seems to be unknown
that that domination of egoistic impulses by social
impulses which we call a satisfactory morale is
capable of direct cultivation as such, that by it the
resources of the nation are made completely avail-
able to the nation's leaders, that without it every
demand upon the citizen is liable to be grudgingly
met or altogether repudiated.
We are told by physicians that uninstructed
patients are apt to insist upon the relief of their
symptoms, and to care nothing for the cure of
then' diseases, that a man will demand a bottle of
medicine to stop the pain of an ulcer in his stomach,
but will refuse to allow the examination that would
establish the nature of his disease. The statesman
embarrassed by the manifestations of an imi)erfcct
morale seems to incline to a similar method. iWhen
he finds he cannot get soldiers at the necessary rate,
he would invent a remedy for that particular
symptom. When he has diniculties in getting one
cr another industrial class to suspend its charters
in the interests of the State, he must have a new
210 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

and special nostrum for that. When he would relax

the caution of the capitalist or restrain the wasteful-
ness of the self-indulgent, again other remedies must
be found. And so he passes from crisis to crisis,
never knowing from moment to moment what trouble
will break out next, harassed, it is to be supposed,
by the doubt whether his stock of potions and pills
will hold out, and how long their very, moderate
efficiency will continue.
None of these troubles is a disease in itself ; all
are evidences of an imperfect national morale, and
any attempt to deal with them that does not reach
their common cause will necessarily therefore be
unsatisfactory and impermanent.
The sole basis of a satisfactory morale in a people
of the social type that obtains in England is a true
national unity, which is therefore the singular and
complete remedy for all the civil difficulties incident
upon a great and dangerous war.

It is impossible to form any guess whether Eng-

land will keep to her traditional methods or will
depart so far from them as to take a bold and
comprehensive viev/ of her present and her growing
moral needs. A carefully conceived and daringly
carried out organization of a real national unity would
have no great difficulty in a country so rich in
practical genius ; it would make an end once for
all of every internal difficulty of the State, and
would convert the nation into an engine of war
which nothing could resist.
The more probable and the characteristic event
will be a mere continuation in the old way. It will
exemplify our usual and often admirable enough
contempt for theoretical considerations and dreams,
our want of interest in knowledge and foresight,
our willingness to take any risk rather than endure
the horrid pains of thought.
 IN PEACE AND WAR 211

When we remember how costly is our traditional

method, how long and painful it makes the way,
how doubtful it even makes the goal, it is impossible
for the most philosophic to restrain a sigh for the
needless suffering it entails, and a thrill of alarm
for the dangers it gives our path, the darkness around
us and ahead, the unimaginable end.

To the student, the end of the chapter is a chance

to turn from the study of detail and allow his mind
to range through a larger atmosphere and over
a longer sequence. Closing our small chapter, we
also may look at large over the great expanse of the
biological series in whose illimitable panorama the
war that covers our nearer skies with its blood-
red cloud is no bigger than a pin point. As we
contemplate in imagination the first minute spot
of living jelly that crept and hungered in the mud,
we can see the interplay of its necessities and its
powers already pushing it along the path at the end
of which we stand. Inherent in the dot of magic
substance that was no longer mere carbon, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and a little phosphorus,
was the capacity to combine with its fellows and to
profit by the fellowship, however loose. In the
slow process of time combination brought freedom
which, just like ours, was freedom to vary and,
varying, to specialize. So in ::ime great States of
cells grew up, their individual citi;:en cells specialized
to the finest i)itch, perfect in communion with one
another, co-ordinate in all their activities, incor-
porated with the State.
These new and splendid organizations, by the
very fact of giving freedom to the individual cells,
had lost it themselves. Still, they retained their
capacity for combination, and where the need of
212 INSTINCTS OF THE HERD

freedom was greatest they found it again in a new

combination on a bigger scale. Thus again was
obtained freedom to vary, to specialize, to react.
Over the world fellowships of all grades and almost
all types of creatures sprang up. Specialization,
communion, co-ordination again appeared on the new
plane. It was as if Nature, to protect her children
against herself, was trying to crowd as much living
matter into one unit as she could. She had failed
with her giant lizards, with the mammoth and the
mastodon. She would try a new method which
should dispense with gross physical aggregations,
but should minister to the same needs and afford the
same powers. The body should be left free, the
mind alone should be incorporated in the new unit.
The non-material nexus proved as efficient as the
physical one had been. The flock, the herd, the
pack, the swarm, new creatures all, flourished and
ranged the world. Their power depended on the
capacity for intercommunication amongst their
members and expanded until the limits of this v/ere
reached. As lonsr as intercommunication was limited
the full possibilities of the new experiment were
concealed, but at length appeared a creature in
whom this capacity could develop indefinitely. At
once a power of a new magnitude was manifest.
I uny as were soon
communication his individuals, man's ofcapacity
made him master for
the world.
The very quality, however, which gave him success
introduced a new complication of his fate. His
brain power allowed him to speak and understand
and so to communicate and combine more effectively
than any other animal ; his brain power gave him
individuality and egoism, and the possibility of
varied reaction which enabled him to obey the voice
of instinct after the fashion of his own heart. All
combination therefore was irregular, inco-ordinate,
and only very slowly progressive, fie has even at
 IN PEACE AND WAR 213

times wandered into blind paths where the possi-

bility of progressive combination is lost.
Nevertheless the needs and capacities that were
at work in the primeval amoeba are at work in him.
In his very flesh and bones is the impulse towards
closer and closer union in larger and larger fellow-
ships. To-day he is fighting his way towards that
goal, fighting for the perfect unit which Nature has
so long foreshadowed, in which there shall be a
complete communion of its members, unobstructed
by egoism or hatred, by harshness or arrogance or
the wolfish lust for blood. That perfect unit will
be a new creature, recognizable as a single entity ;
to its million-minded power and knowledge no
barrier will be insur.mountable, no gulf impassable,
no task too great.
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281 Instincts of the herd in
T6 peace and war
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