The peculiarities of simple crowds tend to appear in all group life; but they are modified in proportion as the group is removed in character from a simple crowd, a fortuitous congregation of men of more or less similar tendencies and sentiments. Many crowds are not fortuitous gatherings, but are brought together by the common interest of their members in some object or topic. These may differ from the simple fortuitous crowd only in being more homogeneous as regards the sentiments and interests of their members; their greater homogeneity does not in itself raise them above the mental level of the fortuitous crowd; it merely intensifies the peculiarities of group life, especially as regards the intensity of the collective emotion.
There is, however, one condition that may raise the behaviour of a temporary and unorganised crowd to a higher plane, namely the presence of a clearly defined common purpose in the minds of all its members. Such a crowd, for example a crowd of white men in one of the Southern States of North America setting out to lynch a negro who is supposed to have committed some flagrant crime, will display most of the characteristics of the common crowd, the violence and brutality of emotion and impulse, the lack of restraint, the diminished sense of responsibility, the increased suggestibility and incapacity for arriving at correct conclusions by deliberation and the weighing of evidence. But it will not exhibit the fickleness of a common crowd, the easy yielding to distracting impressions and to suggestions that are opposed to the common purpose. Such a crowd may seize and execute its victim with inflexible determination, perhaps with a brutality and a ruthless disregard of all deterrent considerations of which no one of its members would be individually capable; and may then at once break up, each man returning quietly and seriously to his home, in a way which has often been described by witnesses astonished at the contrast between the behaviour of the crowd and that of the individuals into which it suddenly resolves itself.
The behaviour of a crowd of this kind raises the problem of the general or collective will. It was said in the foregoing chapter that the actions of a common crowd cannot properly be regarded as volitional, because they are the immediate outcome of the primary impulses. Yet the actions of a crowd of the kind we are now considering are the issue of true resolutions formed by each member of the crowd, and are, therefore, truly volitional. Nevertheless, they are the expression not of a general or collective will, but merely of the wills of all the individuals; and, even if there arise differences between the members and a conflict of wills as to the mode of achieving the common end, and if the issue be determined simply by the stronger party overbearing the weaker and securing their co-operation, that still does not constitute the expression of a general will. For a collective or general will only exists where some idea of the whole group and some sentiment for it as such exists in the minds of the persons composing it. But we may with advantage examine the nature of collective volition on a later page, in relation to the life of a highly organised group, such as an army.
There are five conditions of principal importance in raising collective mental life to a higher level than the unorganised crowd can reach, no matter how homogeneous the crowd may be in ideas and sentiments nor how convergent the desires and volitions of its members. These are the principal conditions which favour and render possible the formation of a group mind, in addition to those more fundamental conditions of collective life which we have noted in the foregoing chapter.
The first of these conditions, which is the basis of all the rest, is some degree of continuity of existence of the group. The continuity may be predominantly material or formal; that is to say, it may consist either in the persistence of the same individuals as an intercommunicating group, or in the persistence of the system of generally recognised positions each of which is occupied by a succession of individuals. Most permanent groups exhibit both forms of continuity in a certain degree; for, the material continuity of a group being given, some degree of formal continuity will commonly be established within it. The most highly organised groups, such as well-developed nations, exhibit both forms in the highest degree.
A second very important condition, essential to any highly developed form of collective life, is that in the minds of the mass of the members of the group there shall be formed some adequate idea of the group, of its nature, composition, functions, and capacities, and of the relations of the individuals to the group. The diffusion of this idea among the members of the group, which constitutes the self-consciousness of the group mind, would be of little effect or importance, if it were not that, as with the idea of the individual self, a sentiment of some kind almost inevitably becomes organised about this idea and is the main condition of its growth in richness of meaning; a sentiment for the group which becomes the source of emotions and of impulses to action having for their objects the group and its relations to other groups.
A third condition very favourable to the development of the collective mind of a group, though not perhaps absolutely essential, is the interaction (especially in the form of conflict and rivalry) of the group with other similar groups animated by different ideals and purposes, and swayed by different traditions and customs. The importance of such interaction of groups lies chiefly in the fact that it greatly promotes the self-knowledge and self-sentiment of each group.
Fourthly, the existence of a body of traditions and customs and habits in the minds of the members of the group determining their relations to one another and to the group as a whole.
Lastly, organisation of the group, consisting in the differentiation and specialisation of the functions of its constituents—the individuals and classes or groups of individuals within the group. This organisation may rest wholly or in part upon the conditions of the fourth class, traditions, customs, and habits. But it may be in part imposed on the group and maintained by the authority of some external power.
The capacity for collective life of an organised group whose organisation is imposed upon it and wholly maintained by an external authority is but little superior to that of a simple crowd. Such a group will differ from the simple crowd chiefly in exhibiting greater control of its impulses and a greater continuity of direction of its activities; but these qualities are due to the external compelling power and are not truly the expression of its collective mental life. An army of slaves or, in a less complete degree, an army of mercenaries is the type of this kind of organised group; and a people ruled by a strong despot relying on a mercenary or foreign army approximates to it. The first aim of the power that would maintain such an organisation must always be to prevent and suppress collective life, by forbidding gatherings and public discussions, by rendering communications between the parts difficult, and by enforcing a rigid discipline. For such an organisation is essentially unstable.
We may illustrate the influence of these five conditions by considering how in a group of relatively simple kind, in which they are all present, they favour collective life and raise it to a higher level of efficiency. Such a group is a patriot army fighting in a cause that elicits the enthusiasm of its members; such were the armies of Japan in the late Russo-Japanese war; they exhibited in a high degree and in relative simplicity the operation of all the conditions we have enumerated.
Such an army exhibits the exaltation of emotion common to all psychological crowds. This intensification of emotion enables men to face danger and certain death with enthusiasm, and on other occasions may, even in the armies of undoubtedly courageous and warlike nations, result in panic and a rout. But in all other respects the characteristics of the simple crowd are profoundly modified. The formal continuity of the existence of the army and of its several units secures for it, even though its personnel be changed at a rapid rate, a past and therefore a tradition, a self-consciousness and a self-regarding sentiment, a pride in its past and a tradition of high conduct and achievement; for past failures are discreetly forgotten and only its past successes and glories are kept in memory. The traditional group consciousness and sentiment are fostered by every wise commander, both in the army as a whole and in each separate department and regiment. Is not the superiority in battle of such bodies as the famous Tenth Legion due as much to such self-conscious tradition and sentiment as to the presence of veterans in its ranks? And is not the same true of such regiments as the Black Watch, the Gordons, the Grenadier Guards, and the other famous regiments of the British army?
The third of the conditions mentioned above is also very obviously present in the case of an army in the field—namely, interaction with a similar group having different purposes, traditions, and sentiments. And in this case the interaction, being of the nature of direct competition and conflict, is of the kind most favourable to the development of the collective mind. It accentuates the self-consciousness of the whole; that is to say, it defines more clearly in the mind of each individual the whole of which he is a part, his position in, his organic connexion with, and his dependence upon, the whole; with each succeeding stage of the conflict he conceives the whole more clearly, obtains a fuller knowledge of the capacities and weaknesses of the whole and its parts. Each soldier learns, too, something of the character of the opposing army; and, in the light of this knowledge, his conception of his own army becomes better defined and richer in meaning. In short, through interaction with the opposing army, the army as a whole becomes more clearly reflected in the mind of each of its members, its self-consciousness is clarified and enriched. In a similar way, intercourse and rivalry between the various regiments greatly promotes the growth of the self-knowledge and self-sentiment of each of these lesser groups. A standing army inevitably possesses a wealth of traditions, habits and customs, over and above its formal organisation, and these play an important part in promoting the smooth working of the whole organism; the lack of these is one of the chief difficulties in the way of the creation of a new army, as was vividly illustrated in the making of the ‘Kitchener army’ during the Great War. The customs of the various officers’ messes were but a small part of this mass of custom which does so much to bind the whole army together.
An army obviously possesses organisation, generally in a very high degree. The formal continuity of its existence enables the organisation impressed upon it by external authority to acquire all the strength that custom alone can give; while its material continuity enables its organisation to generate, in the individual soldiers, habits through which the inferior members are raised, as regards the moral qualities required for efficiency in the field, towards the level of the best.
The organisation of the whole army has two aspects and two main functions; the one is executive, the securing of the co-ordination of action of the parts in the carrying out of the common plan; the other is recipient and deliberative, the co-ordination of the data supplied by the parts through deliberation upon which the choice of means is arrived at. Deliberation and choice of means are carried out by the commander-in-chief and his staff, the persons who have shown themselves best able to execute this part of the army’s task. It is important to note that, in the case of such an army as we are considering, the private soldier in the ranks remains a free agent performing truly volitional actions; that he in no sense becomes a mechanical agent or one acting through enforced or habitual obedience merely. He wills the common end; and, believing that the choice of means to that end is best effected by the appropriate part of the whole organisation, he accepts the means chosen, makes of them his proximate end, and wills them.
This is the essential character of the effective organisation of any human group; it secures that while the common end of collective action is willed by all, the choice of means is left to those best qualified and in the best position for deliberation and choice; and it secures that co-ordination of the voluntary actions of the parts which brings about the common end by the means so chosen. In this way the collective actions of the well-organised group, instead of being, like those of the simple crowd, merely impulsive or instinctive actions, implying a degree of intelligence and of morality far inferior to that of the average individual of the crowd, become truly volitional actions expressive of a degree of intelligence and morality much higher than that of the average member of the group: i.e. the whole is raised above the level of its average member; and even, by reason of exaltation of emotion and organised co-operation in deliberation, above that of its highest members.
Here we must consider a little more fully the nature of the collective or general will, a subject that has figured largely in the discussions of political philosophers on the nature of the State. Rousseau wrote—“There is often a great difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter looks only to the common interest; the former looks to private interest, and is nothing but a series of individual wills; but take away from these same wills the plus and minus that cancel one another and there remains, as the sum of the differences, the general will.” “Sovereignty is only the exercise of the general will.” By this he seems to mean that a certain number of men will the general good, while many will only their private goods; and that while the latter neutralise one another, as regards their effects on the general interest, the former co-operate and so form an effective force to promote the general good. This doctrine was an approximation towards the truth, though like all Rousseau’s social speculations, his handling of it was vitiated by his false psychology, which set out from the fiction of man as an independent purely self-contained and self-determining absolute individual. Later writers do not seem to have improved upon Rousseau’s doctrine of the general will to any great extent.
The problem of the general will, like all problems of collective psychology, becomes extremely complex when we consider the life of nations; and it is, therefore, important to make ourselves clear as to the nature of collective volition by consideration of the relatively simple case of a patriot army. It is of course impossible to arrive at a clear notion of collective volition, until individual volition has been clearly defined and the nature of the distinction between it, on the one hand, and mere impulsive action, desire, and simple conflict of desires, on the other hand, has been made clear. The lack of such clear notions and adequate definitions has rendered much of the discussion of this topic by political philosophers sterile and obscure. In the light of the conclusions reached in my chapter on individual volition[31], the question of the nature of collective volition presents little difficulty. It was found that volition may be defined and adequately marked off from the simpler modes of conation by saying that it is the reinforcement of any impulse or conation by one excited within the system of the self-regarding sentiment. And in an earlier chapter[32] it was shewn how the self-regarding sentiment may become extended to other objects than the individual self, to all objects with which the self identifies itself, which are regarded as belonging to the self or as part of the wider self. This extension depends largely on the fact that others identify us with such an object, so that we feel ourselves to be an object of all the regards and attitudes and actions of others directed towards that object, and are emotionally affected by them in the same ways that we are affected by similar regards, attitudes, and actions directed towards us individually. It was shewn also that such a sentiment may become wider and emotionally richer than the purely self-regarding sentiment, through fusing with a sentiment of love for the object that has grown up independently. These facts were illustrated by consideration of the parental sentiment for the child, which, it was said, has commonly this twofold character and source, being formed by the compounding of the self-regarding sentiment with the sentiment of love of which the dominant disposition is that of the tender or protective instinct.
In a similar way a similarly complex sentiment may become organised about the idea of one’s family, or of any still larger group having continuity of existence of which one becomes a member. In the case of the patriot’s sentiment for his country or nation, the self-regarding sentiment and the sentiment of love may be from the first combined in the patriotic sentiment; since he knows himself to be a part of the whole from the time that an idea of the whole first takes shape in his mind.
In this respect the case of the soldier in a patriot army is relatively simple. As a boy he may have acquired a sentiment of loving admiration for the army; and, when he becomes a member of it, the dispositions that enter into the constitution of his self-regarding sentiment, become incorporated with this previously existing sentiment, so that the reputation of the army becomes as important to him as his own; praise and approval of it become for him objects of desire and sources of elation; disapproval and blame of it, or the prospect of them, affect him as painfully as if directed to himself individually, fill him with shame and mortification.
A similar complex sentiment, the sentiment of patriotism, becomes organised about the idea of his country as a whole; and, when war breaks out and the army is pitted against that of another nation, while the eyes of the whole world are turned upon it, it becomes the representative of the nation and the special object of the patriotic sentiment, which thus adds its strength to that of the more special sentiment of the soldier for the army[33]. When, then, the patriot army takes the field, it is capable of collective volition in virtue of the existence of this sentiment in the minds of all its members. The soldiers of a purely mercenary army are moved by the desire of individual glory, of increased pay, of loot, by the habit of obedience and collective movement acquired by prolonged drilling, by the pugnacious impulse, by the desire of self-preservation; and they may be led on to greater exertions by the influence of an admired captain. But such an army is incapable of collective volition, because no sentiment for the army as a whole is common to all its members. The soldiers of the patriot army on the other hand may act from all the individual motives enumerated above; but all alike are capable also of being stirred by a common motive, a desire excited within the collective self-regarding sentiment, the common sentiment for the army; and this, adding itself to whatever individual motives are operative, converts their desires into collective resolutions and renders their actions the expressions of a collective volition.
Each soldier of the mercenary army may desire that his side shall win the battle and may resolve that he will do his best to bring victory to his side, and he may perform many truly volitional actions; and, in so far as the actions of the army express these individual volitions towards a common result, they are the expressions of the ‘will of all,’ but not of the collective will; because these volitions, though they are directed to the one common end, spring from diverse motives and are individual volitions.
The essence of collective volition is, then, not merely the direction of the wills of all to the same end, but the motivation of the wills of all members of a group by impulses awakened within the common sentiment for the whole of which they are the parts. It is the extension of the self-regarding sentiment of each member of the group to the group as a whole that binds the group together and renders it a collective individual capable of collective volition.
The facts may be illustrated more concretely by taking a still simpler example of collective volition. Consider the case of a regiment in battle commanded to occupy a certain hill-top in face of fierce opposition. If the regiment is one to which the self-regarding sentiment of each member has become extended, the soldiers may be animated individually by the pugnacious impulse and by the desire of individual glory, but they are moved also by the common desire to show what the regiment can do, to sustain its glorious reputation; they resolve that we, the regiment, will accomplish this feat. As they charge up the hill, the hail of bullets decimates their ranks and they waver, the impulse of fear checking their onward rush; if then their officer appeals to the common sentiment, each man feels the answering impulse; and this is strengthened by the cheer which shows him that the same impulse rises in all his comrades; and so this impulse, awakened within the collective self-regarding sentiment and strengthened by sympathetic induction from all to each, comes to the support of the pugnacious impulse or whatever other motives sustain each man, enables these to triumph over the impulse to flight, and sweeps them all on to gain their object by truly collective volitional effort. If, on the other hand, the men of the regiment have no such common sentiment, then, when the advancing line wavers, the onward impulsion checked by the impulse of retreat, there is no possibility of arousing a collective volition; the regiment, which from the first was a crowd organised only by external authority and the habits created by it, acts as a crowd and yields to the rising impulse of the emotion of fear, which, becoming intensified by induction from man to man, rises to a panic; and the regiment is routed.
We may distinguish, then, five modes of conation which will carry all the members of a group towards a common object, five levels of collective action.
Let the group be a body of men on a road leading across a wilderness to a certain walled city. A sudden threat of danger from a band of robbers or from wild beasts may send them all flying in panic towards the city gate. That is a purely impulsive collective action. It is not merely a sum of individual actions, because the fear and, therefore, the impulse to flight of each man is intensified by the influence of his fellows.
Secondly, let them be a band of pilgrims, fortuitously congregated, each of whom has resolved to reach the city for his own private purposes. The whole body moves on steadily, each perhaps aided in maintaining his resolution in face of difficulties by the presence of the rest and the spectacle of their resolute efforts. Here there is a certain collectivity of action, the individual wills are strengthened by the community of purpose. But the arrival of the band is not due to collective volition; nor can it properly be said to be due to the will of all; for each member cares nothing for the arrival of the band as a whole; he desires and wills only his own arrival.
Thirdly, let each member of the band be aware that, at any point of the road, robbers may oppose the passage of any individual or of any company not sufficiently strong to force its way through. Each member will then desire that the whole band shall cohere and shall reach the city, and the actions of the group will display a higher degree of co-operation and collective efficiency than in the former cases; but the successful passage of the band will be desired by each member simply in order that his own safe arrival may be secured. There is direction of all wills towards the production of the one result, the success of the whole band; but this is not truly collective volition because the motives are private and individual and diverse.
Fourthly, let the band be an army of crusaders, a motley throng of heterogeneous elements of various nationalities, united by one common purpose, the capture of the city, but having no sentiment for the army. In this case all members not only will the same collective action and desire the same end of that action, but they have similar motives arising from their sentiment for the city or that which it contains. Still their combined actions are not the issue of a collective volition in the full and proper sense of the words, but of a coincidental conjunction of individual volitions. They might perhaps be said to be the expression of the general will; and by giving that meaning to the term ‘general will,’ while reserving the expression collective will or volition for the type of case illustrated by our next instance, we may usefully differentiate the two expressions.
Lastly, let the band approaching the city be an army of crusaders of one nationality, and let us suppose that this army has enjoyed a considerable continuity of existence and that in the mind of each member the self-regarding sentiment has become extended to the army as a whole, so that, as we say, each one identifies himself with it and prizes its reputation and desires its success as an end in itself. Such a sentiment would be greatly developed and strengthened by rivalry in deeds of arms with a second crusading army. Each member of this army would have the same motives for capturing the city as those of the army of our last instance; but, in addition to these motives, there would be awakened within the extended self-regarding sentiment of each man an impulse to assert the power, to sustain the glory of the army; and this, adding its force to those other motives, would enable them to triumph over all conflicting tendencies and render the resolution of the army to capture the city a true collective volition; so that the army might properly be said to possess and to exercise a general or collective will.
This distinction between the will of all and the collective will, which we have considered at some length, may seem to be of slight importance in the instances chosen. But it becomes of the greatest importance when we have to consider the life of a nation or other enduring community. The power of truly collective volition is no small advantage to any body of fighting men and receives practical recognition from experienced captains.
The importance of these different types of volition was abundantly illustrated by the incidents of the Boer war and of the Russo-Japanese war. That the success of its undertaking shall be strongly willed by all is perhaps the most important factor contributing to the success of an army; and if also the army exercises a true collective volition, in the sense defined above, it becomes irresistible. Though it is questionable whether the Boer armies can be said to have exercised a collective volition, it is at least certain that individually the Boers strongly willed their common end, the defeat of the British. On the other hand, the British armies were defective in these respects. The motives of those who fought in the British armies against the Boers were very diverse. The pay of the regulars, the five shillings a day of the volunteers, the desire to live for a time an adventurous exciting life, the desire to get home again on the sick-list as soon as possible, the desire for personal distinction; all these and other motives were in many minds mixed in various proportions with the desire to assert the supremacy of the British rule and support the honour of the flag. This difference between the Boer and British armies was undoubtedly a main cause of many of the surprising successes of the former. In the Russo-Japanese war the opposed armies probably differed even more widely in this respect. The Japanese soldiers not only willed intensely the common end, but their armies would appear to have exercised truly collective volition. Many of the several regiments also, being recruited on the territorial system, were animated by collective sentiments rooted in local patriotism. The Russian armies on the other hand were largely composed of peasants drawn from widely separated regions of the Russian empire, knowing little or nothing of the grounds of quarrel or of the ends to be achieved by their efforts, caring nothing individually for those ends, and having but little patriotic sentiment and still less sentiment for the army.
It would, then, be a grave mistake to infer from the course of events in these two wars that the British soldier was individually inferior to the Boer, or the Russian to the Japanese; in both cases the principal psychological condition of successful collective action—namely, a common end intensely desired and strongly willed, individually or collectively—was present in high degree on the one side, because the preservation of the national existence was the end in view; while it was lacking or comparatively deficient on the other side. As Sir Ian Hamilton, a close observer of both these wars, has said—“the army that will not surrender under any circumstances will always vanquish the army whose units are prepared to do so under sufficient pressure.”
The same considerations afford an explanation of a peculiarity of Russian armies which has often been noted in previous wars, and which was very conspicuous in the late wars; namely, their weakness in attack and their great strength when on the defensive. For, in attacking, a Russian army is in the main merely obeying the will of the commander-in-chief in virtue of custom, habit, and a form of strong collective suggestion; but in retreat and on the defensive, each man’s action becomes truly volitional, all are animated by a common purpose, and all will the same end, the safety of the whole with which that of each member is bound up.
The psychology of a patriot army is peculiarly simplified, as compared with that of most other large human groups, by two conditions; on the one hand, the restriction of the intellectual processes, by which the large means for the pursuit of the common end are chosen, to one or a few minds only; on the other hand, the definiteness and singleness of its purpose and the presence of this clear and strong purpose in the minds of all.
Other groups that enjoy in some degree the latter condition of simplicity of collective mental life are associations voluntarily formed and organised for the attainment of some single well-defined end. In them the former condition is generally completely lacking and the deliberative processes, by which their means are chosen, are apt to be very complex and ineffective, owing to lack of customary organisation. Such associations illustrate more clearly than any other groups the part played by the idea of the whole in the minds of the individuals in constituting and maintaining the whole. A desire or purpose being present in many minds, the idea of the association arises in some one or more of them, and, being communicated to others, becomes the immediate instrument through which the association is called into being; and only so long as this idea of the whole as an instrument for attaining the common end persists in the minds of the individuals does the association continue to exist. In this respect such an association is at the opposite end of the scale from the fortuitous crowd, which owes its existence to the accidents of time and place merely. Human groups of other kinds owe their existence in various proportions to these two conditions; such groups, for example, as are constituted by the members of a church, of a university or a school, of a profession or a township. Others, such as nations, owe their inception to the accidents of time and place, to physical boundaries and climatic conditions; and, in the course of their evolution, become more and more dependent for their existence on the idea of the whole and the sentiment organised about it in the minds of their members; and they may, like the Jewish people, arrive in the course of time at complete dependence on the latter condition.
The life of an army illustrates better than that of any other group the influence of leadership. That great strategists and skilful tacticians perform intellectual services of immeasurable importance for the common end of the army goes without saying. But the moral influence of leadership is more subtle in its workings, and is perhaps less generally recognised in all its complexity and scope. It is well known that such commanders as Napoleon inspired unlimited confidence and enthusiasm in the veteran armies that had made many campaigns under their leadership. Yet in the Great War, in which the British armies were, in its later stages, composed so largely of new recruits, the same influence was perceptible. Both the British and the French armies were very fortunate in having in supreme command men in whom the common soldier felt confidence. The solidity, the justice, the calm resolution of Marshal Joffre were felt throughout the French army in the early days of the war to be the one certain and fixed point in a crumbling universe. “Il est solid, le Père Joffre” was repeated by thousands who, remembering the disaster of 1870, were inclined to suspect treachery and weakness on every hand. And the genius of Marshal Foch and of other brilliant generals was a main source of the astonishing dogged resolution with which the French armies, in spite of their terrible losses, sustained the prolonged agony. The British army also was fortunate in having in Field-Marshal Haig a man at its head who was felt to be above all things resolute and calm and just; and, when the British armies in France were placed under the supreme control of Foch, it was generally felt throughout the ranks that this would not only give unity of control and purpose, but also supply that touch of genius which perhaps had been lacking in British strategy.
But it was not only the supreme command that exercised this influence over the minds of all ranks. At every level confidence in the leadership was of supreme importance. The character and talents of each general and colonel, of each captain, lieutenant, sergeant and corporal, made themselves felt by all under their control; felt not only individually but corporately and collectively. The whole area under the command of any particular general might be seen to reflect and to express in some degree his attributes. The reputations of the higher officers filtered down through the ranks in an astonishingly rapid and accurate manner; perhaps owing largely to the fact that these armies, in a degree unknown before, were composed of men accustomed to read and to think and to discuss and criticise the conduct of affairs. If the German higher command had been exercised from the first by a man who inspired the just confidence that was felt in the old Field-Marshal v. Moltke by the Prussian armies of 1870, it is probable that the issue of the Great War would have been fatally different.
The moral effects of good leadership are, perhaps, of more importance to an army than its intellectual qualities, especially in a prolonged struggle; and these work throughout the mass of men by subtle processes of suggestion and emotional contagion rather than by any process of purely intellectual appreciation. And the whole organisation of any wisely directed army is designed to render as effective as possible these processes by which the influence of leaders is diffused through the whole.
In considering the mental life of a patriot army, as the type of a highly organised group, we saw that group self-consciousness is a factor of very great importance—that it is a principal condition of the elevation of its collective mental life and behaviour above the level of the merely impulsive violence and unreasoning fickleness of the mob.
This self-consciousness of the group is the essential condition of all higher group life; we must therefore study it more nearly as it is manifested in groups of various types. It is unfortunate that our language has no word that accurately translates the French expression ‘esprit de corps’; for this conveys exactly the conception that we are examining. I propose to use the term group spirit as the equivalent of the French expression, the frequent use of which in English speech and writing sufficiently justifies the attempt to specialise this compound word for psychological purposes.
We have seen that, in virtue of the sentiment developed about the idea of the army, all its members exhibit group loyalty; it is only as the sentiment develops about the idea that this idea of the whole, present to the mind of each member, becomes a power which can hold the whole group together, in spite of all physical and moral difficulties. We see this if we reflect how armies of mercenaries, in which this collective sentiment is lacking or rudimentary only, are apt to dissolve and fade away by desertion as soon as serious difficulties are encountered.
The importance of the collective idea and sentiment appears still more clearly, when we reflect on the type of army which has generally proved the most efficient of all—namely, an army of volunteers banded together to achieve some particular end. Such an army (for example the army of Garibaldi) owes its existence to the operation of this idea in the minds of all. The idea of the army is formed in the mind perhaps of one only (Garibaldi); he communicates it to others, who accept it as a means to the end desired by all of them individually. The idea of the whole thus operates to create the group, to bring it into existence; and then, as the idea is realised, it becomes more definite, of richer and more exact meaning; the collective sentiment grows up about it, and habit and formal organisation begin to aid in holding the group together; yet still the idea of the whole remains constitutive of the whole.
Any group that owes its creation and its continued existence to the collective idea may be regarded from the psychological standpoint as of the highest type; while a fortuitously gathered crowd that owes its existence to accidents of time and place and has the barest minimum of group self-consciousness is of the lowest type. Every other form of association or of human group may be regarded as occupying a position in a scale between these extreme types; according to the relative predominance of the mental or the physical conditions of its origin and continuance, that is to say, according to the degree in which its existence is teleologically or mechanically determined.
The group spirit, the idea of the group with the sentiment of devotion to the group developed in the minds of all its members, not only serves as a bond that holds the group together or even creates it, but, as we saw in the case of the patriot army, it renders possible truly collective volition; this in turn renders the actions of the group much more resolute and effective than they could be, so long as its actions proceed merely from the presence of an impulse common to all members, or from the strictly individual volitions of all, even though these be directed to one common end.
Again, the group spirit plays an important part in raising the intellectual level of the group; for it leads each member deliberately to subordinate his own judgment and opinion to that of the whole; and, in any properly organised group, this collective opinion will be superior to that of the average individual, because in its formation the best minds, acting upon the fullest knowledge to the gathering of which all may contribute, will be of predominant influence. Each member, then, willing the common end, accepts the means chosen by the organised collective deliberation, and, in executing the actions prescribed for him, makes them his own immediate ends and truly wills them for the sake of the whole, not executing them in the spirit of merely mechanical unintelligent obedience or even of reluctance.
In a similar way the group spirit aids in raising the moral level of an army. The organised whole embodies certain traditional sentiments, especially sentiments of admiration for certain moral qualities, courage, endurance, trustworthiness, and cheerful obedience; and these sentiments, permeating the whole, are impressed upon every member, especially new members, by way of mass suggestion and sympathetic contagion; every new recruit finds that his comrades accept without question these traditional moral sentiments and confidently express moral judgments upon conduct and character in accordance with them, and that they also display the corresponding emotional reactions towards acts; that is to say, they express in verbal judgments and in emotional reactions their scorn for treachery or cowardice, their admiration for courageous self-sacrifice and devotion to duty. The recruit quickly shares by contagion these moral emotions and soon finds his judgment determined to share these opinions by the weight of mass suggestion; for these moral propositions come to him with all the irresistible force of opinion held by the group and expressed by its unanimous voice; and this force is not merely the force derived from numbers, but is also the force of the prestige accumulated by the whole group, the prestige of old and well-tried tradition, the prestige of age; and the more fully the consciousness of the whole group is present to the mind of each member, the more effectively will the whole impress its moral precepts upon each.
And the organisation of the army renders it possible for the leaders to influence and to mould the form of these moral opinions and sentiments. Thus Lord Kitchener, by issuing his exhortation to the British Army on its departure to France, did undoubtedly exert a considerable influence towards raising the moral level of the whole force, because he strengthened the influence of those who were already of his way of thinking against the influence of those whose sentiments and habits and opinions made in the opposite direction. His great prestige, which was of a double kind, both personal and due to his high office, enabled him to do this. In the same way, every officer in a less degree can do something to raise the moral level of the men under his command. Thus, then, the organisation of the whole group, with its hierarchy of offices which confer prestige, gives those who hold these higher offices the opportunity to raise the moral level of all members.
Of course, if those who occupy these positions of prestige feel no responsibility of this sort and make no effort to exert such influence, but rather aim at striking terror in the foe at all costs, if they countenance acts of savagery such as the destruction of cities, looting, and rapine, if they publicly instruct their soldiers to behave as Huns or savages; then the organisation of the army works in the opposite way—namely, to degrade all members below their normal individual level, rather than to raise them above it; and then we hear of acts of brutality on the part of the rank and file which are almost incredible.
But the main point to be insisted on here is that the raising of the moral level is not effected only by example, suggestion, and emotional contagion, spreading from those in the positions of prestige; that, where the group spirit exists, those enjoying prestige can, if they wish, greatly promote the end of raising the moral tone of the whole by appealing to that group spirit; as when Lord Kitchener asked the men to obey his injunctions for the sake of the honour of the British Army.
And the group spirit not only yields this direct response to moral exhortation; it operates in another no less important manner. Each member of a group pervaded by the collective sentiment, such as a well-organised army of high traditions, becomes in a special sense his brother’s keeper. Each feels an interest in the conduct of every other member, because the conduct of each affects the reputation of the whole; each man, therefore, punishes bad conduct of any fellow soldier by scorn and by withdrawal of sympathy and companionship; and each one rewards with praise and admiration the conduct that conforms to the standards demanded and admired. And so each member acts always under the jealous eyes of all his fellows, under the threat of general disapprobation, contempt, and moral isolation for bad conduct; under the promise of general approval and admiration for any act of special excellence.
The development of the group spirit, with the appropriate sentiment of attachment or devotion to the whole and therefore also to its parts, is the essence of the higher form of military discipline. There is a lower form of discipline which aims only at rendering each man perfectly subservient to his officers and trained to respond promptly and invariably, in precise, semi-mechanical, habitual fashion, to every word of command. But even the drill and the system of penalties and minute supervision, which are the means chosen to bring about this result, cannot fail to achieve certain effects on a higher moral and intellectual level than the mere formation of bodily habits of response. By rendering each soldier apt and exact in his response to commands, they enable each one to foresee the actions of his fellows in all ordinary circumstances, and therefore to rely upon that co-operation towards the common end, be it merely a turning movement on the drill ground or the winning of a battle, which is the essential aim and justification of all group life.
The group spirit, involving knowledge of the group as such, some idea of the group, and some sentiment of devotion or attachment to the group, is then the essential condition of all developed collective life, and of all effective collective action; but it is by no means confined to highly developed human associations of a voluntary kind.
Whether the group spirit is possessed in any degree by animal societies is a very difficult question. We certainly do not need to postulate it in order to account for the existence of more or less enduring associations of animals; just as we do not need to postulate it to account for the coming together of any fortuitous human mob. Even in such animal societies as those of the ants and bees, its presence, though often asserted, seems to be highly questionable. When we observe the division of labour that characterises the hive, how some bees ventilate, some build the comb, some feed the larvae and so on; and especially when we hear that the departure of a swarm from the hive is preceded by the explorations of a small number which seek a suitable place for the new home of the swarm and then guide it to the chosen spot, it seems difficult to deny that some idea of the community and its needs is present to the minds of its members. But we know so little as yet of the limits of purely instinctive behaviour (and by that I mean immediate reactions upon sense-perceptions determined by the innate constitution) that it would be rash to make any such inference. The same may be said of associations of birds or mammals, in which division of labour is frequently displayed; when, for example, it is found that one or more sentinels constantly keep watch while a flock or herd feeds or rests, as is reported of many gregarious species.
But, however it may be with animal societies, we may confidently assert that the group spirit has played an important part in the lives of all enduring human groups, from the most primitive ages onwards.
It has even been maintained with some plausibility that group self-consciousness preceded individual self-consciousness in the course of the evolution of the human mind. That again is, it seems to me, a proposition which cannot be substantiated. But it is, I think, true to say that the two kinds of self-consciousness must have been achieved by parallel processes, which constantly reacted upon one another in reciprocal promotion.
In the lives of the humblest savages the group spirit plays an immensely important part. It is the rule that a savage is born into a small closed community. Such a community generally has its own locality within which it remains, even if nomadic; and, if settled, it wholly lives in a village, widely separated in space from all others. In this small community the child grows up, becoming more or less intimately acquainted with every member of it, and having practically no intercourse with any other persons. Throughout his childhood he learns its laws and traditions, becomes acutely aware of its public opinion, and finds his welfare absolutely bound up with that of the village community. He cannot leave it if he would; the only alternative open to him is to become an outcast, as which he would very soon succumb in the struggle for life. There is nothing comparable with this in our complex civilised societies. The nearest parallel to it is the case of the young child growing up in a peculiarly secluded family isolated in the depths of the country.
This restriction of the intercourse of the young savage to the members of his own small society and his absolute dependence upon it for all that makes his survival possible would in themselves suffice to develop his group consciousness in a high degree. But two other conditions, well-nigh universal in savage life, tend strongly towards the same result.
When the young savage begins to come into contact with persons other than those of his own group, he learns to know them, not as individuals, John Smith or Tom Brown, but as men of such or such a group; and he himself is known to them as a man of his group, as representing his group, his village community, tribe, or what not; and he displays usually some mark or marks of his group, either in dress or ornament or speech.
The other great condition of the development of the group spirit in primitive societies is the general recognition of communal responsibility. This no doubt is largely the result of the two conditions previously mentioned, especially of the recognition of an individual by members of other groups as merely a representative of his group, rather than as an individual, and of the fact that his deeds, or those of any one of his fellows, determine the attitudes of other groups towards his group as a whole. But the influence of the principle of communal responsibility, thus established, becomes immensely strengthened by its recognition in a number of superstitious and religious observances. The savage lives, generally speaking, bound hand and foot by tabus and precise prescriptions of behaviour for all ordinary situations; and the breach of any one of these by any member of the community is held to bring down misfortune or punishment on the whole group; so far is this principle carried, that the breach of custom by some individual is confidently inferred from the incidence of any communal misfortune[34].
The recognition of communal responsibility is the great conservator of savage society and customary law, the very root and stem of all savage morality; it is the effective moral sanction without which the superstitious and religious sanctions would be of little effect. By its means, the idea of the community is constantly obtruded on the consciousness of the individual. Through it he is constantly led, or forced, to control his individualistic impulses and to undertake action with regard to the welfare of the group rather than to his own private interest. Through it the tendency of each to identify himself and each of his fellows with the whole group is constantly fostered; because it identifies their interests.
We may then say that, just as the direct induction of emotion and impulse by sense-perception of their bodily expressions is the cement of animal societies, so group self-consciousness is the cement and harmonising principle of primitive human societies.
And the group spirit is not only highly effective in promoting the life and welfare of the group; it is also the source of peculiar satisfactions. The individual revels in his group-consciousness; hence the principle is apt to run riot in savage societies, and we find that in very many parts of the world a great variety of complex forms of association is maintained, beside the primary and fundamental form of association of the village community or nomadic band (the kinship or subsistence group), apparently for no other reason than the attainment and intensification of the satisfactions of the group spirit. Hence, among peoples so low in the scale of savagery as the Australians, we find a most complex system of grouping cutting across the subsistence grouping; hence totem clans and phratries, exogamous groups, secret societies, initiation ceremonies.
I lay stress on the satisfaction which group self-consciousness brings as a condition or cause of these complexities of savage society, because, I think, it has been unduly neglected as a socialising factor and a determinant of the forms of association. If we ask—What are the sources of this satisfaction?—we may find two answers. First, the consciousness of the group and of oneself as a member of it brings a sense of power and security, an assurance of sympathy and co-operation, a moral and physical support without which man can hardly face the world. In a thousand situations it is a source of settled opinions and of definite guidance of conduct which obviates the most uncomfortable and difficult necessity of exerting independent judgment and making up one’s own mind. And in many such situations, not only does the savage find a definite code prescribed for his guidance, but he shares the collective emotion and feels the collective impulse that carries him on to action without hesitation or timidity.
Secondly, we may, I think, go back to a very fundamental principle of instinctive life, the principle, namely, that, in gregarious animals, the satisfaction of the gregarious impulse is greater or more complete the more nearly alike are the individuals congregated together. This seems to be true of the animals, but it is true in a higher degree of man; and, in proportion as his mind becomes more specialised and refined, the more exacting is he in this respect. To the uncultivated any society is better than none; but in the cultivated classes we become extraordinarily exacting; we find the gregarious satisfaction in our own peculiar set only—a process carried furthest, perhaps, in university circles. In savage life this shows itself in practices which accentuate the likeness of members of a group and mark it off more distinctly from other groups—for example, totems, peculiarities of dress, ornaments and ceremonies; things which are closely paralleled by the clubs, blazers, colours, cries, and so forth of our undergraduate communities.
The life of the savage, then, is in general dominated by that of the group; and this domination is not effected by physical force or compulsion (save in exceptional instances) but by the group spirit which is inevitably developed in the mind of the savage child by the material circumstances of his life and by the traditions, especially the superstitious and religious traditions, of his community. Such group self-consciousness is the principal moralising influence, and to this influence is due in the main the fact that savages conform so strictly to their accepted moral codes.
Group self-consciousness in savage communities brings then, I suggest, two great advantages which account for the spontaneous development and persistence among so many savage peoples of what, from a narrowly utilitarian point of view, might seem to be an excess of group organisation, such as the totemic systems of the Australians and of the American Indians;—namely, firstly, the moralising influences of the group spirit; secondly, the satisfactions or enjoyments immediately accruing to every participant in active group life.
And these two advantages, being in some degree appreciated, lead to a deliberate cultivation of group life for the securing of them in higher measure. The cultivation of group life shows itself in the many varieties of grouping on a purely artificial basis and in the practice of rites and ceremonies, especially dances, often accompanied by song and other music. There is nothing that so intensifies group consciousness, at the cost of consciousness of individuality, as ceremonial dancing and singing; especially when the dance consists of a series of extravagant bizarre movements, executed by every member of the group in unison, the series of movements being at the same time peculiar to the particular group that practises them and symbolical of the peculiar functions or properties claimed by the group. Many savage dances have these characters in perfection; as, for example, those of the Murray islanders of Torres Straits, where, as I have witnessed, the several totemic groups—the dog-men, the pigeon-men, the shark-men, and other such groups—continue, in spite of the partial destruction by missionaries of their totemistic beliefs, to revel in night-long gatherings, at which each group in turn mimics, in fantastic dances and with solemn delight, the movements of its totem animal.
The importance of group consciousness in savage life has been recently much insisted on by some anthropologists, and indeed, in my view, overstated. Cornford[35] writes “When the totem-clan meets to hold its peculiar dance, to work itself up till it feels the pulsing of its common life through all its members, such nascent sense of individuality as a savage may have—it is always very faint—is merged and lost; his consciousness is filled with a sense of sympathetic activity. The group is now feeling and acting as one soul, with a total force much greater than any of its members could exercise in isolation. The individual is lost, ‘beside himself,’ in one of those states of contagious enthusiasm in which it is well known that men become capable of feats which far outrange their normal powers.” And again “Over and above their individual experience, all the members of the group alike partake of what has been called the collective consciousness of the group as a whole. Unlike their private experience, this pervading consciousness is the same in all, consisting in those epidemic or infectious states of feeling above described, which, at times when the common functions are being exercised, invade the whole field of mentality, and submerge the individual areas. To this group-consciousness belong also, from the first moment of their appearance all representations which are collective, a class in which all religious representations are included. These likewise are diffused over the whole mentality of the group, and identical in all its members.... The collective consciousness is thus super-individual. It resides, of course, in the individuals composing the group. There is nowhere else for it to exist, but it resides in all of them together and not completely in any one of them. It is both in myself and yet not myself. It occupies a certain part of my mind and yet it stretches beyond and outside me to the limits of my group. And since I am only a small part of my group, there is much more of it outside me than inside. Its force therefore is much greater than my individual force, and the more primitive I am the greater this preponderance will be. Here, then, there exists in the world a power which is much greater than any individual’s—super-individual, that is to say superhuman.”
“Because this force is continuous with my own consciousness, it is, as it were, a reservoir to which I have access, and from which I can absorb superhuman power to reinforce and enhance my own. This is its positive aspect—in so far as this power is not myself and greater than myself, it is a moral and restraining force, which can and does impose upon the individual the necessity of observing the uniform behaviour of the group.” This writer makes group consciousness the source of both morality and religion. “The collective consciousness is also immanent in the individual himself, forming within him that unreasoning impulse called conscience, which like a traitor within the gates, acknowledges from within the obligation to obey that other and much larger part of the collective consciousness which lies outside. Small wonder that obedience is absolute in primitive man, whose individuality is still restricted to a comparatively small field, while all the higher levels of mentality are occupied by this overpowering force[36].” The first religious idea is that of “this collective consciousness, the only moral power which can come to be felt as imposed from without.” And Cornford goes yet further and makes of the group self-consciousness the source of magic as well as of religion and morality. This primary reservoir of super-individual power splits, he says, into two pools, human and non-human; the former is magic power, the latter is divine power.
On this I would comment as follows. Although Cornford is right in insisting upon the large influence of group consciousness, he is wrong, I think, in underestimating individuality. He does not go so far as some writers who suggest that group self-consciousness actually precedes individual self-consciousness, but he says of individual self-consciousness that it is but very faint in savages. I am more inclined to agree with Lotze, who in a famous passage asserted that even the crushed worm is in an obscure way aware of itself and its pain as set over against the world. Many facts of savage behaviour forbid us to accept the extreme view that denies them individual self-consciousness—individual names, secret names, private property, private rites, religious and magical, individual revenge, jealousy, running amok, leadership, self-assertion, pride, vanity, competition in games of skill and in technical and artistic achievement. The flourishing of these and many other such things in primitive communities reveals clearly enough to the unbiassed observer in the field the effective presence of individual self-consciousness in the savage mind. In this connexion I may refer to two pieces of evidence bearing very directly on the question reported by Dr C. Hose and myself. Among the Sea-Dayaks or Ibans of Borneo we discovered the prevalence of the belief in the ‘nyarong’ or private ‘spirit helper,’ some spiritual or animated individual power which a fortunate individual here and there finds reason to believe is attached to him personally for his guidance and help in all difficult situations. His belief in this personal helper and the rites by aid of which he communicates with it are kept secret from his fellows; so that it was only after long and intimate acquaintance with these people that Dr Hose began to suspect the existence of this peculiarly individualistic belief[37]. In the same volumes we have described the Punans of Borneo, a people whose mode of life is in every respect extremely primitive. In this respect they are perhaps unequalled by any other existing people. Yet no one who is acquainted with these amiable folk could doubt that, although their group consciousness is highly developed, they enjoy also a well developed individual self-consciousness. How otherwise can we interpret the fact that a Punan who suffers malicious injury from a member of another tribe will nurse his vengeful feeling for an indefinite period and, after the lapse of years, will find an opportunity to bring down his enemy secretly with blow-pipe and poisoned dart?
With Mr Cornford’s view of the part played by the group spirit in moralising conduct I agree. I agree also that it is the collective life or mind that develops religion and in part magic; but in my view Cornford attributes to the savage far too much reflective theorising; he represents him as formulating a theory of the collective consciousness which is really almost identical with the interesting speculation of M. Lévy Bruhl presently to be noticed, and he regards his conduct, his religious and magical practices, as guided by these theories. But that is to reverse the true order of things—to make theory precede practice; whereas in reality, especially in religion and magic, practice has everywhere preceded theory, often, as in this case, by thousands of generations[38].
It is true that the savage often behaves as though he held this theory of the collective consciousness as a field of force in which he participates; that his conduct seems to require such a theory for its rational justification. But it by no means follows that he has formulated any theory at all. What the savage is conscious of is, not a collective consciousness as a mysterious superhuman power, but the group itself, the group of concrete embodied fellow men. He behaves and feels as he does, because participation in the life of the group directly modifies his individual tendencies and directly evokes these feelings and actions; he does not discover, or seek, any theory by which to explain them. Still less is it true that he performs these actions because he has formulated a theory of a collective consciousness.
Mr Cornford regards the savage idea of a collective consciousness as the germ of the idea of divine power or of God. Now this is connected with the question of animism, preanimism, and dynanimism. It may be true that the notion of mana is the common prime source of religious and magical ideas, but it does not follow that the idea of God is arrived at by way of a notion of collective mana. No doubt that would be the probable course of events, if the savage had so little sense of his individuality as Cornford supposes; but it seems to me rather that the savage’s strong sense of individuality has led at an early stage to the personalisation, the individuation, of mana, the vaguely conceived spiritual power and influence, and that it was only by a long course of religious and philosophical speculation that men reached the conception of the Absolute or of God as a universal power of which each personal consciousness is a partial manifestation.
It is interesting to note that, if we could accept Cornford’s views, we could now claim to witness the completion of one full cycle of the wheel of speculation, the last step having been made in an article in a recent number of the Hibbert Journal[39]; for it is there suggested that the only God or super-individual power we ought to recognise and revere is, not a collective consciousness conceived as a supra-individual unity of consciousness, but the collective mind of humanity in the sense in which I am using the term, a system of mental forces that slowly progresses towards greater harmony and integration.
M. Lévy Bruhl has written an interesting, though highly speculative, account of savage mental life which he represents as differing profoundly from our own, chiefly in that it is dominated by ‘collective representations[40].’ His view is not unlike that put forward by Cornford.
Collective representations or ideas are rightly said to be the product of the group mind rather than of any individual mind; that is to say, they have been gradually evolved by collective mental life; and they are said to differ from our ideas in being “states more complex in which the emotional and motor elements are integral parts of the ideas.” Thinking by aid of these collective representations is said to have its own laws quite distinct from the laws of logic.
These statements are no doubt correct; but both Lévy Bruhl and Cornford commit the great error of assuming that the mental life of civilised man is conducted by each individual in a purely rational and logical manner; they overlook the fact that we also are largely dominated by collective representations; for these collective representations are nothing but ideas of objects to which traditional sentiments, sentiments of awe, of fear, of respect, of love, of reverence, are attached. Almost the whole of the religion and morality of the average civilised man is based on his acquisition of such collective representations, traditional sentiments grown up about ideas of objects, ideas which he receives ready made and sentiments which are impressed upon him by the community that has evolved them.
It is no doubt true that in the main the field of objects to which collective representations apply is larger in savage life; and these ideas are more uniform and more powerful and unquestioned, because the group is more homogeneous in its sentiments. But it is, fortunately, only a rare individual here and there among us who in considerable degree emancipates himself from the influence of such representations and becomes capable of confronting all objects about him in a perfectly cool, critical, logical attitude—who can “peep and botanise upon his mother’s grave.” Only by strict intellectual discipline do we progress towards strictly logical operations in relation to real life, towards pure judgments of fact as opposed to judgments of value. For our judgments of value are rooted in our sentiments; and whatever is for us an object of a sentiment of love or hate, of attachment or aversion, can only with the greatest difficulty, if at all, be made an object of a pure judgment of fact.
And Cornford and Lévy Bruhl make the same mistake in regard to ‘collective representations’ as in regard to the group self-consciousness—namely, they credit the savage with theories for the explanation of the beliefs implicitly involved in the ‘collective representations,’ for example, the theory of mystic participation, which is said to replace for the savage the civilised man’s theory of mechanical causation. But, when we regard any material object as holy, or sacred, or as of peculiar value, because it was given us by a departed friend, or belonged to and perhaps was once worn by a beloved person, our behaviour towards it is not determined by any theory of participation; if, for example, we touch it tenderly and with reverent care, that is the direct expression of our feeling. We even behave as if we held the theory of participation, to the extent of believing that the dead or distant person will suffer pain if we ill-use or neglect the object which is associated with him in our minds, but without actually holding that belief; and still more without elaborating a theory of the nature of the process by which our action will produce such an effect. It is only a late and highly sophisticated reflection upon behaviour of this kind which leads to theories for the justification of such behaviour. It is not true, then, that we are logical individuals, while savages are wholly prelogical in virtue of the dominance among them of the collective mental life. The truth rather is that, wherever emotion qualifies our intellectual operations, it renders them other than purely and strictly logical; and the savage or the civilised man departs more widely from the strictly logical conduct of his intellect, in proportion as his conceptions of things are absorbed without critical reflection and analysis and are coloured with the traditional sentiments of his community. The average savage, being more deeply immersed in his group, suffers these effects more strongly than the average civilised man. Yet the interval in this respect between the modern man of scientific culture and the average citizen of our modern states is far greater than that between the latter and the savage.
If one had to name the principal difference between the conditions of life of the typical savage and those of the average civilised man, one would, I think, have to point to the lack in civilised life of those conditions which so inevitably develop the group consciousness of the savage. The family circle supplies to the young child something of these conditions, but in a very imperfect degree only. At an early age this influence is much weakened by general intercourse. As the individual approaches maturity, he finds himself at liberty to cut himself off completely from all his natural setting, to transplant himself to any part of the world, and to share in the life of any civilised community. He can earn his livelihood anywhere, and he knows nothing of communal responsibility.