The Group Mind Part 2

This doctrine of the 'collective consciousness' of societies may seem bizarre to those to whom it is altogether novel; but it is one that cannot be lightly put aside; it demands serious consideration from any one who seeks the general principles of Collective Psychology. We have no certain knowledge from which its impossibility can be deduced; and the new light thrown upon individuality by modern studies in psycho-pathology shows us that the indivisibility and strictly bounded unity of the individual human soul is a postulate that we must not continue to accept without critical examination. Nor is the conception one that figures only in the writings of philosophers and therefore to be regarded with contemptuous indulgence by men of affairs as but one of the strange harmless foibles of such persons. It has a certain vogue in more popular writings; thus Renan wrote-"It has been remarked that in face of a peril a nation or a city shows, like a living creature, a divination of the common danger, a secret sentiment of its own being and the need of its conservation. Such is the obscure impulsion which provokes from time to time the displacement of a whole people or the emigration of ma.s.ses, the crusades, the religious, political, or social revolutions." Phrases such as the soul of a people, the genius of a people, have long been current, and in almost every newspaper one may find important events and tendencies ascribed to the instinct of a people. It is probable that these phrases are written in many instances without any explicit intention to imply a 'collective national consciousness,' but merely as well-sounding words that cloak our ignorance and give a vague appearance of understanding. Nevertheless, from its application to the life of nations, the doctrine of a collective consciousness mainly derives its importance. It is seriously used by a number of vigorous contemporary writers, of whom Schaeffle[25]

is perhaps the most notable, to carry to its extreme the doctrine of Comte and Spencer that Society is an organism. Spencer specifically refused to complete his a.n.a.logy between society and an animal organism by the acceptance of the hypothesis of a collective consciousness; and he insisted strongly on the importance, for legislation and social effort of every kind, of holding fast to the consciousness of individual men as the final court of appeal, by reference to which the value of every inst.i.tution and every form of social activity must be judged, the importance of regarding the welfare and happiness of individual men as the supreme end, in relation to which the welfare of the State is but a means. But those who, like Schaeffle, complete the a.n.a.logy by acceptance of this hypothesis, regard a nation as an organism in the fullest sense of the word, as an organism that has its own pleasure and pain and its own conscious ends and purposes and strivings; as in fact a great individual which is conscious and may be more or less perfectly self-conscious, conscious of itself, its past, its future, its purposes, its joys and its sorrows. And they do not scruple to draw the logical conclusion that the welfare of the individual should be completely subjected to that of the State; just as the welfare of an organ or cell of the human body is rightly held to be of infinitesimal value in comparison with that of the whole individual and to derive its importance only from its share in the const.i.tution of the whole. This conception of the 'collective consciousness' has thus been used as one of the supports of 'Prussianism' and has played its part in bringing about the Great War with all its immense ma.s.s of individual anguish.

We must, then, examine the arguments upon which the doctrine is based, and ask-Do they suffice to render it probable, or to compel our acceptance of it, and to justify the complete subjection of the individual to the State?

We have seen that a strong case is made out for the view that the consciousness of a complex organism is the 'collective consciousness' of all its cells, or of the cells of its nervous system; and it must be admitted that, if this view could be definitely established, it would go far to justify the doctrine of the collective consciousness of societies. Yet the view is by no means established; there are great difficulties in the way of its acceptance. There is the difficulty which meets a doctrine of 'collective consciousness' in all its forms from that of Haeckel to that of Hegel,-the difficulty that the consciousness of the units is used twice over, once as the individual consciousness, once as an element entering into the collective consciousness; and no one has been able to suggest how this difficulty can be surmounted. It has been argued also, most forcibly perhaps by Lotze[26], that what we know of the structure and functions of the brain compels us to adopt a very different interpretation of the facts. It is said that, since we cannot find any evidence of a unitary brain-process that might be regarded as the immediate physical correlate of the unitary stream of consciousness of the individual, but find rather that the physical correlate of the individual's consciousness at any moment is a number of discrete processes taking place simultaneously in anatomical elements widely scattered in different parts of the brain, we are compelled to a.s.sume that each of these acts upon some unitary substance, some immaterial ent.i.ty (which may be called the soul) producing a partial affection of its state. According to this view, then, the consciousness of any moment is the unitary resultant of all these influences simultaneously exerted on the soul, the unitary reaction of the soul upon these many influences[27].

But, even if we could accept the view that the consciousness of the complex organism is the 'collective consciousness' of its cells, the a.n.a.logy between an organism and a society, which const.i.tutes the argument for the 'collective consciousness' of a society, would remain defective in one very important respect. If we accept that view, we must believe that the essential condition of the fusion of the consciousnesses of the cells is their spatial continuity, no matter how utterly unintelligible this condition may seem; for the apparent disruption of consciousness on the solution of material continuity between the cells is the princ.i.p.al ground on which this view is founded.

Now, no such continuity of substance exists between the members of any human group or society, and its absence const.i.tutes a fatal flaw in the a.n.a.logical argument.

If we pa.s.s by these serious difficulties, others arise as soon as we inquire what kinds of human groups have such 'collective consciousness.'

Does the simple fortuitously gathered crowd possess it? Or is it confined to highly organised groups such as the leading modern nations?

If every psychological crowd possesses it and owes its peculiarities of behaviour to it, does it come into being at the moment the individuals have their attention attracted to a common object and begin to be stirred by a common emotion? And does it cease to be as soon as the crowd is resolved into its elements? Or, if it is confined to nations or other highly organised groups, at what stage of their development does it come into being, and what are the limits of the groups of which it is the 'collective consciousness'? Do the Poles share in the 'collective consciousness' of the German nation, or the Bavarians in that of Prussia? Or do the Irish or the Welsh contribute their share to that of the English nation?

Coming now to close quarters with the doctrine, we may ask those who, like Schaeffle and Espinas, regard the 'collective consciousness' as a bond which unites the members of a society and makes of them one living individual,-Is this 'collective consciousness' merely epiphenomenal in character? Or are we to regard it as reacting upon the consciousnesses or minds of the individuals of the group, and, through such reaction, playing a part in determining the behaviour of the group, or rather of the individuals of which the group is composed? For the actions of the group are merely the sum of the actions of its individuals. If the former alternative be adopted, then we may confidently say that the existence of a 'collective consciousness' must from the nature of the case remain a mere speculation, incapable of verification; and that, if it does exist, since it cannot make any difference, cannot in any way affect human life and conduct, it is for us unreal, no matter how real it may be for itself, as Espinas maintains; and we certainly are not called upon to have any regard for it or its happiness, nor can we invoke its aid in attempting to explain the course of history and the phenomena of social life. If, on the other hand, the 'collective consciousness' of groups and societies and peoples reacts upon individual minds and so plays a part in shaping the conduct of men and societies, then the conception is a hypothesis which can only be justified by showing that it affords explanations of social phenomena which in its absence remain inexplicable. If it were found that social aggregates of any kind really do exhibit, as has often been maintained, great ma.s.s-movements, emigrations, religious or political uprisings, and so forth, for which no adequate explanations can be found in the mental processes of individuals and the mental interactions of individuals by the ordinary means of expression and perception, a resort to some such hypothesis would be permissible; but it is an offence against the principles of scientific method to invoke its aid, before we have exhausted the possibilities of explanation offered by well-known existents and forces. That certainly has not yet been done, and the upholders of the doctrine have hardly made any attempt to justify it in this the only possible manner in which it could be justified. The only evidence of this sort adduced by Espinas is the rapid spread of a common emotion and impulse throughout the members of animal and human groups; and of such phenomenon we have already found a sufficient explanation in those special adaptations of the instincts of all gregarious creatures which are unmistakably implied by the way in which the expression of an emotion directly evokes a display of the same emotion in any onlooking member of the species.

We may, then, set aside the conception of a 'collective consciousness'

as a hypothesis to be held in reserve until the study of group life reveal phenomena that cannot be explained without its aid. For it may be confidently a.s.serted that up to the present time no such evidence of a 'collective consciousness' has been brought forward, and that there is no possibility of any such evidence being obtained before the principles of social psychology have been applied far more thoroughly than has yet been done to the explanation of the course of history. In adopting a so far unsympathetic att.i.tude towards this doctrine, we ought to admit that, if there be any truth in it, the 'collective consciousness' of even the most highly organised society may be still in a rudimentary stage, and that it may continue to gain in effectiveness and organisation with the further evolution of the society in question.

After this digression we may return to the consideration of the emotional characteristics of simple crowds. We have to notice not only that the emotions of crowds are apt to be excessively strong, but also that certain types of emotion are more apt than others to spread through a crowd, namely the coa.r.s.er simpler emotions and those which do not imply the existence of developed and refined sentiments. For many of the individuals of most crowds will be incapable of the more subtle complex emotions and will be devoid of the more refined sentiments; while such sentiments as the individuals possess will be in the main more diverse in proportion to their refinement and special character; hence the chances of any crowd being h.o.m.ogeneous as regards these emotions and sentiments is small. Whereas the primary emotions and the coa.r.s.er sentiments may be common to all the members of a crowd; any crowd is likely to be h.o.m.ogeneous in respect to them.

On the other hand, a crowd is more apt to be swayed by the more generous of the coa.r.s.er emotions, impulses, and sentiments than by those of a meaner universally reprobated kind. For each member of the crowd acts in full publicity; and his knowledge of, and regard for, public opinion will to some extent incline him to suppress the manifestation of feelings which he might indulge in private but would be ashamed of in public. Hence a crowd is more readily carried away by admiration for a n.o.ble deed, or by moral indignation against an act of cruelty, than by self-pity or jealousy or envy or a meanly vengeful emotion.

At the same time, a crowd is apt to express feelings which imply less consideration and regard for others than the individual, representing the average morality and refinement of its members, would display when not under the influence of the crowd. Thus men, when members of a crowd, will witness with enjoyment scenes of brutality and suffering which, under other circ.u.mstances, they would turn away from, or would seek to terminate. To see a man thrown heavily to the ground is not pleasing to most individuals; yet the spectacle provokes roars of delight from the crowd at a football match. How many of the spectators, who, as members of a crowd, hugely enjoy looking on at a prize-fight or a bull-fight, would shrink from witnessing it as isolated individuals! How many boys will join with a crowd of others in cruelly teasing another boy, an animal, an old woman, or a drunken man, who individually are incapable of such 'thoughtless' conduct! It may be doubted whether even the depraved population of Imperial Rome could have individually witnessed without aversion the destruction of Christians in the Coliseum.

This character of crowds seems to be due to two peculiarities of the collective mental state. In the first place, the individual, in becoming one of a crowd, loses in some degree his self-consciousness, his awareness of himself as a distinct personality, and with it goes also something of his consciousness of his specifically personal relations; he becomes to a certain extent depersonalised. In the second place, and intimately connected with this last change, is a diminution of the sense of personal responsibility: the individual feels himself enveloped and overshadowed and carried away by forces which he is powerless to control; he therefore does not feel called upon to maintain the att.i.tude of self-criticism and self-restraint which under ordinary circ.u.mstances are habitual to him, his more refined ideals of behaviour fail to a.s.sert themselves against the overwhelming forces that envelope him.

THE INTELLECTUAL PROCESSES OF SIMPLE CROWDS

No fact has been more strongly insisted upon by writers on the psychology of crowds than the low degree of intelligence implied by their collective actions. Not only mobs or simple crowds, but such bodies as juries, committees, corporations of all sorts, which are partially organised groups, are notoriously liable to pa.s.s judgments, to form decisions, to enact rules or laws, so obviously erroneous, unwise, or defective that anyone, even the least intelligent member of the group concerned, might have been expected to produce a better result.

The princ.i.p.al ground of the low order of intelligence displayed by simple crowds is that the ideas and reasonings which can be collectively understood and accepted must be such as can be appreciated by the lower order of minds among the crowd. These least intelligent minds bring down the intelligence of the whole to their own level. This is true in some degree even of crowds composed of highly educated persons; for, as in the case of the emotions and sentiments, the higher faculties are always more or less specialised and differentiated in various ways through differences of nurture and training; whereas the simpler intellectual faculties and tendencies are common to all men.

A second condition, which co-operates with the foregoing to keep the intellectual processes of crowds at a low level, is the increased suggestibility of its members. Here is one of the most striking facts of collective mental life. A crowd impresses each of its members with a sense of its power, its unknown capacities, its unlimited and mysterious possibilities; and these, as I have shown in Chapter III of my _Social Psychology_, are the attributes that excite in us the instinct of subjection and so throw us into the receptive suggestible att.i.tude towards the object that displays them. Mere numbers are capable of exerting this effect upon most of us; but the effect of numbers is greatly increased if all display a common emotion and speak with one voice; the crowd has then, if we are in its presence, a well nigh irresistible prestige. Hence even the highly intelligent and self-reliant member of a crowd is apt to find his critical reserve broken down; and, when an orator makes some proposition which the ma.s.s of the crowd applauds but which each more intelligent member would as an individual reject with scorn, it is apt to be uncritically accepted by all alike; because it comes to each, not as the proposition of the orator alone, but as a proposition which voices the mind of the crowd, which comes from the ma.s.s of men he sees around him and so comes with the power of a ma.s.s-suggestion.

A further ground of the suggestibility of the crowd is that prevalence of emotional excitement which was discussed in the foregoing pages. It is well recognised that almost any emotional excitement increases the suggestibility of the individual, though the explanation of the fact remains obscure. I have suggested that the explanation is to be found in the principle of the vicarious usage of nervous energy, the principle that nervous energy, liberated in any one part of the nervous system, may overflow the channels of the system in which it is liberated and re-enforce processes initiated in other systems. If this be true, we can see how any condition of excitement will favour suggestibility; for it will re-enforce whatever idea or impulse may have been awakened and made dominant by 'suggestion.' The principle requires perhaps the following limitation. Emotion which is finding outlet in well-directed action is probably unfavourable to all such 'suggestions' as are not congruent with its tendencies. It is vague emotion, or such as finds no appropriate expression in action, that favours suggestibility. The most striking ill.u.s.trations of the greatly increased suggestibility of crowds are afforded by well-authenticated instances of collective hallucination, instances which, so long as we fail to take into account the abnormal suggestibility of the members of crowds, seem utterly mysterious, incredible, and super-normal.

Again, the capacity of crowds to arrive at correct conclusions by any process of reasoning is apt to be diminished in another way by the exaltation of emotion to which, as we have seen, they are peculiarly liable. It is a familiar fact that correct observation and reasoning are hampered by emotion; for all ideas congruent with the prevailing emotion come far more readily to consciousness and persist more stably than ideas incongruent with it, and conclusions congruent with the prevailing emotion and desire are accepted readily and uncritically; whereas those opposed to them can hardly find acceptance in the minds of most men, no matter how simple and convincing be the reasoning that leads to them.

The diminution or abolition of the sense of personal responsibility, which results from members.h.i.+p in a crowd and which, as we have seen, favours the display of its emotions, tends also to lower the level of its intellectual processes. Wherever men have to come to a collective decision or to undertake collective action of any sort, this effect plays an important part. The weight of responsibility that would be felt by any one man, deciding or acting alone, is apt to be divided among all the members of the group; so that for each man it is diminished in proportion to the number of persons taking part in the affair. Hence the attention and care devoted by each man to the task of deliberation, observation, or execution, are less keen and continuously sustained, and a judgment or decision is more lightly and easily arrived at, grounds which the individual, deliberating alone, would reject or weigh again and again serving to determine an immediate judgment. The principle is well recognised in practical life. We do not set ten men to keep the look-out on s.h.i.+p-board, but only one; though the safety of the s.h.i.+p and of all that it carries depends upon his unremitting alertness.

We see the principle recognised in the inst.i.tution of the jury. But for the weakening of the individual sense of responsibility, juries would seldom be found capable of finding a prisoner guilty of murder and so condemning him to death; while, by the restriction of the jury to a comparatively small number, the worst features of collective mental life are avoided.

We see the working of the principle not only in simple crowds, but also in groups of very considerable degrees of organisation. We see it in the way in which many a man, who would shrink from the responsibility of directing a great and complicated commercial undertaking, will cheerfully join a board of directors each of whom is perhaps no better qualified than himself to conduct the business of the concern. We may recognise its effects also in the cheerful levity, not to say hilarity, that frequently pervades our House of Commons; for most of its well-meaning members would be utterly crushed under the weight of their legislative responsibility, were it not divided in small fractions among them.

But the low sense of responsibility of the crowd is not due to the division of responsibility alone. In the case of the simple crowd, it is due also in large part to the fact that such a crowd has but a very low grade of self-consciousness and no self-regarding sentiment; that is to say, the members of the crowd have but a dim consciousness of the crowd as a whole, but very little knowledge of its tendencies and capacities, and no sentiment of love, respect, or regard of any kind for it and its reputation in the eyes of men. Hence, since the responsibility falls on the whole crowd, and any loss or gain of reputation affects the crowd and hardly at all the individuals who are merged in it, they are not stimulated to exert care and self-restraint and critical deliberation in forming their judgments, in arriving at decisions, or in executing any task collectively undertaken. The results of these two conditions of collective mental life are well summed up in the popular dictum that a corporation has no conscience.

Since all these factors co-operate to keep the intellectual activity of the simple crowd on a low level, it follows that very simple intellectual processes must be relied on by the orator who would sway a crowd; he must rely on abuse and ridicule of opponents, or unmeasured praise of friends; on flattery; on the _argumentum ad hominem_; on induction by simple enumeration of a few striking instances; on obvious and superficial a.n.a.logies; on the evocation of vivid representative imagery rather than of abstract ideas; and, above all, on confident a.s.sertion and reiteration, and on a display of the coa.r.s.er emotions.

Since the individuals comprised in a crowd are apt to be influenced in all these ways by the ma.s.s of their fellows, it follows that the mental processes, the thoughts and feelings and actions, of each one will be as a rule very different from what they would be if he faced a similar situation as an isolated individual; the mental processes of each one are profoundly modified by his mental interactions with all the other members of the crowd. Therefore the collective actions of a crowd are not simply the resultants of all the tendencies to thought and action of the individuals, as such, but may be very different from any such resultant. And they are not merely the expression of the individual tendencies of the average member, nor yet of the ma.s.s of least intelligent and refined members; they may be, and often are, such as no one of the members acting alone would ever display or attempt.

It must be added that all the peculiarities of collective mental process mentioned above express themselves very readily in the actions of simple crowds, because such a crowd is incapable of resolution and volition in the true sense of the words. I have shown[28] that individual resolution and volition are only rendered possible by the possession of a well-developed self-consciousness and self-regarding sentiment. But a simple crowd has at the most only a rudimentary self-consciousness and has no self-regarding sentiment. Hence its actions are the direct issue of the various impulses that are collectively evoked; and, though it may be collectively conscious of the end towards which it is impelled, and though all the individuals may desire to effect or realise this end, and to that extent may be said to be capable of purpose; yet such an impulse or desire cannot be steadied, strengthened, renewed, or supported and maintained, in opposition to any other impulse that may come into play, by an impulse springing from the self-regarding sentiment in the way which const.i.tutes resolution and volition. Just so far as the self-regarding sentiment of individuals comes into play and they exert their individual volitions, they cease to act as members of a crowd. The actions of the simple crowd are thus not the outcome of a general will, nor are they the resultant of the wills of all its members; they are simply not volitional in the true sense, but rather impulsive. They are comparable with the actions of an animal rather than with those of a man. It is the lack of the conditions necessary to collective resolution and volition that renders a crowd so fickle and inconsistent; so capable of pa.s.sing from one extreme of action to another, of hurrying to death the man whom it glorified at an earlier moment, or of turning from savage butchery to tender and tearful solicitude. Such incapacity of the crowd for resolution and volition, together with the increased suggestibility of its members, accounts for the fact that a crowd may be easily induced to follow as a leader any one who, by means of the elementary reasoning processes suited to its intellectual capacity, can succeed in suggesting to it the desirability of any course of action.

We may sum up the psychological characters of the unorganised or simple crowd by saying that it is excessively emotional, impulsive, violent, fickle, inconsistent, irresolute and extreme in action, displaying only the coa.r.s.er emotions and the less refined sentiments; extremely suggestible, careless in deliberation, hasty in judgment, incapable of any but the simpler and imperfect forms of reasoning; easily swayed and led, lacking in self-consciousness, devoid of self-respect and of sense of responsibility, and apt to be carried away by the consciousness of its own force, so that it tends to produce all the manifestations we have learnt to expect of any irresponsible and absolute power. Hence its behaviour is like that of an unruly child or an untutored pa.s.sionate savage in a strange situation, rather than like that of its average member; and in the worst cases it is like that of a wild beast, rather than like that of human beings.

All these characteristics of the crowd were exemplified on a great scale in Paris at the time of the great revolution, when ma.s.ses of men that were little more than unorganised crowds escaped from all control and exerted supreme power; and writers on the topic have drawn many striking ill.u.s.trations from the history of the days of the Terror[29].

The understanding of these more elementary facts and principles of group psychology will prevent us falling into such an error as was committed by our greatest political philosopher, Edmund Burke, when he condemned the French people in the most violent terms on account of the terrible events of the Revolution; for he attributed to the inhabitants of France in general, as individuals, the capacities for violence and brutality and the gross defects of intelligence and self-restraint that were displayed by the Parisian crowds of the time; whereas the study of collective psychology has led us to see that the actions of a crowd afford no measure of the moral and intellectual status of the individuals of which it is composed. So, when we hear of minor outrages committed by a crowd of undergraduates or suffragettes, a knowledge of group psychology will save us from the error of attributing to the individuals concerned the low grade of intelligence and decency that might seem to be implied by the deeds performed by them collectively.

The same understanding will also resolve for us some seeming paradoxes; for example, the paradox that, while in the year 1906 the newspapers contained many reports of almost incredible brutalities committed by the peasants in many different parts of Russia, an able correspondent, who was studying the peasants at that very time, ascribed to them, as the most striking quality of their characters, an exceptional humaneness and kindliness[30].

It will be maintained on a later page that we may properly speak not only of a collective will, but also of the collective mind of an organised group, for example, of the mind and will of a nation. We must, then, ask at this stage-Can we properly speak of the collective mind of an unorganised crowd? The question is merely one as to the proper use of words and therefore not of the first importance. If we had found reason to accept the hypothesis of a 'collective consciousness' of a group, and to believe that the peculiarities of behaviour of a crowd are due to a 'collective consciousness,' then we should certainly have to admit the propriety of regarding the crowd as having a collective mind. But we have provisionally rejected that hypothesis, and have maintained that the only consciousness of a crowd or other group is the consciousnesses of its const.i.tuent individuals. In the absence of any 'collective consciousness' we may still speak of collective minds; for we have defined a mind as an organised system of interacting mental or psychical forces. This definition, while allowing us to speak of the collective mind of such a group as a well-developed nation, hardly allows us to attribute such a mind to a simple crowd: for the interplay of its mental forces is not determined by the existence of an organised system of relations between the elements in which the forces are generated; and such determination is an essential feature of whatever can be called a mind.

CHAPTER III

THE HIGHLY ORGANISED GROUP

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 h.o.m.ogeneous as regards the sentiments and interests of their members; their greater h.o.m.ogeneity 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 const.i.tute 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 princ.i.p.al importance in raising collective mental life to a higher level than the unorganised crowd can reach, no matter how h.o.m.ogeneous the crowd may be in ideas and sentiments nor how convergent the desires and volitions of its members. These are the princ.i.p.al 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 ma.s.s 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 const.i.tutes 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 const.i.tuents-the individuals and cla.s.ses or groups of individuals within the group. This organisation may rest wholly or in part upon the conditions of the fourth cla.s.s, 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 ill.u.s.trate 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 j.a.pan in the late Russo-j.a.panese 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 compet.i.tion 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 ma.s.s 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.