Jteto gorfe fctate College of Agriculture at Cornell UntoeriSttp 3tbus. H. 9. Hi&rarp Cornell University Library BF 778.L5 Prestige. A psychological study of social 3 1924 014 092 526 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924014092526 PRESTIGE A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OP SOCIAL ESTIMATES PRESTIGE A PSYCHOLOGICAL STUDY OF SOCIAL ESTIMATES LEWIS LEOPOLD T. FISHER UNWIN LONDON : ADELPHI TERRACE LEIPSIC: INSELSTRASSE 20 First Publtilied in 1913 (All rights reserved) " Then there arose a reasoning among them, which of them should be greatest. And Jesus perceiving the thought of their hearts took a child, and set him by Him." — St. Luke ix. 46, 47. CONTENTS BOOK I PABT I. Intboductoby II. Prestige and Conception III. Prestige and Pbejudice IV. Outlines PAGE 11 25 33 44 V. Kacial and Individual Characters op Eecipients 47 BOOK II I. The Possessors of Prestige II. Values in Prestige III. The Predominance of Psychological and the Feeling of Insecurity IV. Psychological Description of Prestige V The Means of Prestige VI. Objections .... VII. The Utility of Prestige VIII. Prestige and Demagogy Values 83 91 100 105 130 177 182 190 CONTENTS BOOK III FART I. Prestige and Love . II. Prestige in Economic Life III. Prestige and Religion IV. Political Prestige . V. Prestige and Brute Force VI. The Prestige op Intellect VII. Prestige and Abnormality . PAGE 203 221 261 282 312 322 339 Index 351 BOOK I "Est aut plane praestigii genus, ut id, quod sit, non videas ; turn quod non est te videre putes." — Joannes Wieri, De praesUgiis daemonvm (Basileae, 1566), p. 127. " Prestige ist etwas furchtbar lastiges. Etwas, an dem man schwer zu tragen hat und das man leicht satt wird." — Bismarck. PRESTIGE Pabt I INTRODUCTORY § 1. In this book the author's desire is to call the attention of thinking persons to the fact that prestige is not a logical, or moral, or aesthetic phenomenon, but a psychological, or — to be more precise — a socio-psychological one, which may be connected with the logical, the moral, the aesthetic, and the useful, just as it may with the reverse of the same. The author is of opinion that to derive it from mystical causes is to fail to get a correct conception of this peculi ar, socio-psychological influence, and that this power of in- fluencing, which reminds us of the dramatic rot.se en scene, is incidental or producible, not individual or the result of predestination. It is in its logical, moral, aesthetic, and utilitarian neutrality and its democratical conditionality that is to be found the universal social importance of prestige. The former gives it its quality and peculiarity, the latter its quantity, permanency, and general character. Its neu- trality, on the one hand, fits prestige for the work of spreading and maintaining true values, which, in the absence of prestige, would probably be unable to make any headway socially — just as it would be difficult to imagine, 12 PRESTIGE in default of prestige, the popularity of innumerable moral prohibitions, logical exertions, and aesthetic criteria, and the absence of the corresponding contradictions. On the other hand, however, the logical, moral, aesthetic, and economic indifference oji prestige involves a danger of the absence of prestige thwarting the influence of men who are of value logically, morally, aesthetically, and economi- cally, and the possibility of confounding what is of value with what is worthless. The conclusion drawn by the author from this two-edged character of prestige is, that the decay of prestige in certain cases involves the setting free of values, in others results in the appearance of conditions less favourable to our values, and that, in face of this danger which menaces from two directions, the attention of people of value should b e co ^enfaatgd_on^jiS_Jar-a&,possihlg., preventog_pre§iig e becoming.. an_ jnjJLin jtgslf . and _on restricting it to an instrument in the service of higher aims." § 2. Socio-psychological self-assertion. — Many people are of opinion that the desire of men to rule can assert itself in the so-called " classes " only. Yet those very people are themselves compelled to speak of men of distinction, families enjoying universal respect, and of the exceptional treatment of clubs, races, occupations, countries, magicians, chieftains, virtuosos, etc. There is no revolutionary group (as proved in a series of articles by Professor Michels referring to the Socialist party) — in fact, there is no de- spised family or race, no eyot of the theory of equality, whether a monastery, a factory, or a convict prison, where we cannot find some traces of latent aristocratic tendencies, where the several individuals composing the respective society have nothing to lose psychologically, and where the words and actions of the various individuals, though identical in substance, produce an identical effect psychologically too. , INTRODUCTORY 13 The foundations upon which the institution of Fratres Mi/norum was laid by St. Francis of Assisi were an ideal of perfect equality. In 1210 the noviciate was unknown; St. Francis, too, appointed a warden to rule over him, that no injury might befall this voluntary democracy and that there should be some one whom he too had to obey; at Whitsuntide and on Michaelmas Day the brothers met in the chapel at Portiuncula, near their dilapidated hovels, to exchange experiences and offer one another encourage- ment. But seven years later an aristocratic fermentation set in, and the democratic character began to fade away : no sooner had the first signs of the permanency and numerical strength of the order begun to appear than provinces were established, at the head of each of which a provincial was placed. The moment Francis left Italy, his~deputies, Matthias of Narin and Gregory of Naples, relaxed the severity of the clauses relating to poverty, but increased the rigour of observance ; Brother Philip intruded himself on the Clarissa nunneries as their patron; while Brother John endeavoured to establish a new order of Lepers. Hastening back to Italy, Francis organized a Vicariate General, and, as a check to the disorder that had arisen, asked the Pope for a patron in the person of Cardinal Hugolin— psychological in addition to moral force. \ When, in the autumn of 1226, lying on the bare ground, covered with ashes, "he was welcoming Death with singing," a world of a radically different character was engaged in repeating the warnings of his last will. Four years after Francis's death, over the holy bones there arose a strife between generals and anti-generals, forming as it were a dramatic elaboration of the triumph of appearances over moral force. But the case of the Fratres Mvnorwm offers evidence of a still more deeply instructive character. 14 PRESTIGE It was not merely the fighting generals and vicars — the egoists who placed themselves above the teaching of the Gospel — who needed outward self-assertion ; the Saint himself required such: Francis, the spirit and essence of the institution, was unable to maintain it by democracy /'seriously taken ; the neglect of the hedonic valuation of ! man did not prove successful. The noble charmr" of Francis's individuality, which even to-day, after a lapse of seven centuries, draws foreigners to Assisi; the sim- plicity of his life, which stood in such touching contrast to the suzerainty of his intellect ; his poetical and rhe- torical fire : Francis of Assisi, that quintessence of autho- rity, was unable to settle the discords of those who stood nearest to him without the assistance of a cardinal summoned to his aid as patron ! Even in the simplest of microcosms — reduced to sim- plicity by the most artistic means — the moment the duties imposed by permanency and universality asserted them- selves, the logical centre of that microcosm asked the Pope to send him a cardinal to act as a psychological element, an aristocratic active principle personifying the influence of distance. / This potence is manifestly not identical with the logical, nor is it necessarily opposed to it. It is neither moral nor anti-moral. It is neither aesthetic nor unaesthetic. It is something without which neither truth nor untruth, neither the good nor the bad, neither the beautiful nor the ugly, neither the holy ascetic nor the pushing worldly vicar, can succeed permanently and in the face of large numbers. § 3. Prestige. — What we call prestige to-day is to be met with in every grade of permanent settlements of large numbers of people — from the Melanesian federa- tions to the British Parliament, in connection with the pearls of a barbarian barter, and on the New York INTRODUCTORY 15 Exchange. It propounds problems for leading articles and dramas, for budgets and wills. Often a miser is unable to amass it ; a punctual man cannot keep it in order ; and a spendthrift is unable to spend it. The most accurate book-keepers are incapable of showing the items of prestige in their yearly balance-sheets. Yet people are always alluding to it; it is feared and jealously guarded; sacrifices are made for it ; it enables successes to be won, and serves as a cloak for weaknesses. Machiavelli com- manded its entrance into princely courts; Eetz and Richelieu drove the people away from it; Bagehot introduced it into the London Exchange, and, with a sar- castic smile, Schopenhauer recommended it to civil clerks as a supplement to their salaries. The want of prestige ■ bars the way both of genius and of pushing intruders, of wise men and of parvenus ; the book of a genius, if devoid of the help of prestige, is liable to moulder in the cellars of its publisher, even if it does not remain unwritten, for a genius without prestige often doubts his own strength and is himself under the unreasonable spell of those who impress by distance. And, though perhaps unable to harm an invention that is evident (because it has become a universal necessity), the want of prestige throws a thousand obstacles in the way of initiation, of the work of pioneering and experimenting; a professor of moderate capacity, who has no practical success to boast of as yet, has far less difficulty in finding a capitalist to finance his invention than ' a clever, ingenious mechanic in a blue overall, with his humble way of putting his case : most invalids would much / rather trust their lives to a pompous professor practising j in the capital than to the cleverest country practitioner: an artist without prestige has a veritable Calvary to go through before he can realize his compositions, his pictures, his carvings, or his skill with the violin ; a commonplace 16 PRESTIGE furnished with prestige reaps far more tumultuous applause than an idea which possesses a logical value only but has no prestige : a man possessed of prestige is spared by the biting wit of the critic, the vindictiveness of his opponent, the sarcasm of the crowd, and the suspicion of the magis- trate, while the Aphrodite of Whitechapel, having no prestige, is driven to the brothel. Luckily, however, prestige aids not only what is wrong, bad, and ugly, but what is true, good, and beautiful too. Prestige does not necessarily involve the fall of truth, goodness, beauty; it merely means iihat they have a dangerously common denominator, and may be confounded with untruth, badness, ugliness. Prestige may be a plant of protection for truth, goodness, and beauty, in the stiff, frozen world of a-logic, ah-ethics, and an-aestheticism, allow- ing the value of nobility, too, an associative protection and a possibility of subsistence in permanency and mass. § 4. The derivation of the word "prestige." — Originally prestige — here, too, etymology proves to be an enfant terrible — means delusion. It is derived from the Latin praestigiae (-arum) — though it is found in the forms praestigia (-ae) and praestigium (-ii) too : the juggler him- self (dice-player, rope-walker, " strong man," etc.) was called praestigiator (-oris). Latin authors and mediaeval writers of glossaries took the word to mean "deceptive juggling tricks," and, as far as we know, did not use it in its present signification. The praestigiator threw dice or put coins on a table, then passed them into a small vessel or box, moved the latter about quickly and adroitly, till finally, when you thought they were in a certain place, thb coins turned up somewhere else : " the looker-on is deceived by such innocent tricks, being often inclined to pre- sume the sleight of hand to be nothing more or less than magic art." At other times the conjurer grasped red-hot INTRODUCTORY 17 iron in his hand, without injuring it, or, pretending to be angry, accompanied his words of wrath with a " spouting " of sulphurous flames, as if shrouding his utterances in divine fire. We have the analogy of this among the ancients, when they speak of an empty " flood of words," the delusive spell of words (praestigiae verborum), the "pres- tige" of the eyes, of the " philosophari se dicentium" and the " sinmlati nuwwrtis," etc. For a long time opinions differed as to the compo- sition of the word praestigiae. A knowledge of the older orthography (prestrigiae, prestrigiator) pointed to a pro- bability of its derivation from prae + stringo : the verbs stringo and praesiringo were used also to mean " affect," "overshadow," "dazzle." Consequently, mediaeval Latin writers generally used the words praestigiae and praesti- ' gium to signify delusive trickery or incomprehensible/ devilry, or an inaccessible spell. " The tutor," says J6kai\ in one of his novels written with a quaint archaism, "seemed to be greatly influenced by Miss Susan; on the other hand, Miss Susan seemed to be under the prae- stigivm of the negro grafted on to a Frenchman " — whereby J6kai was evidently endeavouring to express the exotic character of the spell. The practice of French writers in the oldest times was, so far as we have been able to discover, to use the word prestige at first in the signification above assigned to the Latin " praestigiae " (prestige, prestigiateur, -trice, pres- tigieux). The use of the word was not restricted to the prestige of prophets, conjurers, demons, but was trans- ferred by analogy to delusions the cause of which is not regarded any longer as supernatural. We hear of the prestige of illusions and fancy (les prestiges du mirage et de la famtasmagorie) ; the_jegord is usecLoj illusions generally, and Diderot actually makes mention of the 2 18 PRESTIGE prestige of harmony. The word "prestige" became transfigured, ennobled, and writers and orators refined it so as to make it applicable to analogies of the re- motest character. Bousseau refers to the prestige of our passions, which dazzles the intellect and deceives wisdom. Prestige is the name continually given to every kind of spell, the effect of which reminds us of " prestige " (" cet homme exerce une influence que ras- semble a une prestige " — Littre), and to all magic charms and attractive power which is capable of dulling the intel- lect while it enhances sensation. We may read of the pres- tige of fame, of the power which^ in default of prestige, is brute force, of -the prestige of literature and the theatre ; in one place Tarde speaks of the prestige of the latest news, of up-to-dateness ; prestige opens the way to a career even on posters : in 1869 numberless placards pro- claimed through the length and breadth of Paris that Bourbeau, Minister of Public Instruction, though re- puted to be a splendid lawyer, "lacked prestige" — "Bourbeau manque de prestige." The English and Ger- man languages make use of the word in the latter meaning, as opposed to the imaginary virtue of the con- jurer ; the same signification is applied, generally speaking, to the Italian and Spanish prestigio, only that the Italian prestigido and the Spanish prestigiador, just like the French prestigiateur, have, as opposed to the more recent meaning, kept the older significance; neither of them means anything more or less than conjurer or juggler. So we see that originally prestige was a deceptive jugglery, called ars sordida by those who themselves lived by it day after day in the forum. " Prestige " was at this time still a feared or despised action— " hocus pocus" or devilry — the object of caution on the part of the prudent and of terror on that of the foolish. The market clown, INTRODUCTORY 19 the rope-walker, the sword-swallower, the reciter of long poems, the clever manipulator who defies imitation — all possess prestige : but on the other hand, prestige sur- rounds demoniacal spells, wizardry, and all effectiveness not comprehensible by logic. The actions branded as im- moral or regarded as awe-inspiring do not as yet show forth the genuine mechanical value, which means a morally neutral phenomenon of the psychical intercourse of man- kind, the art of emphasizing and generalizing certain things and of hiding and dissociating others without any consideration for the moral worth of such things. When the supernatural power of influencing is more and more differentiated from what is human, the word " prestige " loses its magical, demoniacal cachet, and comes to mean only a juggling ability : these juggling prestigiateurs prac- tised their psychological experiments in effect in the coarsest manner possible, with cheap and primitive in- struments, " by way of show." selfishly, the craft for the craft's sake. It was the spirit of the age which inspired Machia- velli, Retz, and Richelieu, that paved the way for the predominance of the new significance of the word " pres- tige " : the refined and etiquette-ridden Court of the " Sun King," the organization of appearances all over Europe, the sophistry of pedants and encyclopedists de- prived the word of its former meaning ; the thirst for power, which had already existed, though unconsciously only and empirically, grew self-conscious and artistic in the epithet once applied to charlatans. Over the books of Machiavelli, Retz, and Richelieu there hangs the emblem — " prestige " : it is of prestige that they write their profoundest thoughts, as do the men of the Re- formation, Luther and Melancthon ; as does Montesquieu, who considered luxury contemptible in a republic, but 20 PRESTIGE necessary in a monarchy ; as Pascal, who is of opinion that the people need not feel the reality of the usurpation of rights ; and as do many of the primitive sages of the great barbarian States, who for thousands of years sought to find the secrets of the influence of politics, manners, science, and love. The moment Louis XV declared the State to be an instrument of his own person, the royal example was followed by a personal emphasis and con- sciousness of even the minutest organs of power ; the new use of the word was already in the air. Yet, by a general acceptance of this interpretation of the word "prestige," the public consciousness looks upon it as a plastic truth that the manifold and varying groups of phenomena have a common seed, that even the powerful, the useful, the moral, the beautiful, and the true is enhanced in effect if it appears in accordance with certain psychological stand- points, that there are different rules for force, economy, morals, and truth, and different ones for the psychology of social importance and effect, and that these various rules do not necessarily act disturbingly on one another. The great majority of men desire to assert themselves, to exercise influence, not merely individually, racially, but socially too ; and the limits to individual and racial sub- sistence are set by society. Consequently prestige is latent — though perhaps tacitly — among the^jabjects of almost every man; and though the word does not usually occur in connection with most individuals and with the greater part of our actions, it is present constantly, in a hidden form and anonymously, in the motives of our social con- duct. The importance of prestige is not nly if we look upon the inaccessibility as absolute. for every hori y who na,nnnt .he. associated with th©~ sai so completely from authority. At an enquete dealing with Hungarian ocean-navigation held in March, 1911, the members spoke almost as much about prestige as about tariffs, and far more than about Marconi-stations; the representative of the most important sea navigation com- pany during the discussion specially emphasized the fact that his company maintained their passenger services in the Adriatic merely for the sake of the prestige of Hungarian navigation. Had any one during a discussion of this kind justified the maintenance, not of sea, but of inland passenger services, from the point of view of prestige, people would have been justified in smiling him to scorn. There are in truth two " expansions " of social dis- tinction of influential men or groups — vertical and hori- zontal, authority and prestige. In many cases a particular individual or group has a share in both, but then both have a different conditionally {a + x) — the coincidence does not only not involve identity, but is not even necessary. In every British Cabinet, whether composed of Conservatives or Liberals, we can pick out the representatives of authority and those of prestige — the leaders and the " exclusives." Can we wonder that even Spinoza wished to choose the diplomats to be sent to foreign courts from among the 32 PRESTIGE nobility only? Prestige is often in truth the tragedy of authority, the " curse of greatness " ; and not seldom one of the most burdensome crosses of genius. Snobs and half -educated enthusiasts are found engrossing even the real values of genius; we have only to think of the Cinque- cento open-mouthed devourers of Baedeker, of the imi- tators of Verlaine and Wilde, etc. And do not those who understand and appreciate represent merely the minority of the calm spectators of a Shakespearean play or of the tearful-eyed audience at a Beethoven concert, while the majority are merely there to admire? Yet authority and prestige are but — stepbrothers ! An Authority is a man of comprehension, who sees just a little more clearly than we do on some points — a will jnst a little less exhausted than ours; authority can teach, raise to its own level : prestige, however, carefully warns its " linen-garmented " priests, " when they go forth into the utter court, even into the utter court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments ; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments " (Ezek. xliv. 19). The permanent masses and the more and more complex division of labour cast an enormous variety of persons before the eyes of every man. Interesting persons, groups, circles, etc., are incomparably more numerous and intricate than the conceptions we dispose of. If the interest keeps awake in spite of this logical bankruptcy, then it will be driven to a more and more associative production of opinions. The ancient engine is working again, only henceforward without engine-driver. Paet III FRESTIGE AND PEEJUDICE § 12. Prejudice of race. — What is the relation between \ prestige and prejudice? When what is unintelligible, or mysterious is at one time received with enthusiasm, at another with indignation, what renders necessary these two extreme sentiments of appreciation which, though ap- pearing under apparently identical circumstances, are diametrically opposed to one another? The most general form of social prejudice is that of race. A foreigner is received with prejudice, conception, or prestige. If we put "conception" aside, we find preju-' dice and prestige facing one another. We see this split most clearly demonstrated if we observe the differences of conduct in the reception of strangers by primitive peoples. In Yrjo Hirn's Origins of Art we are told that those travellers who have learned the tongues of savages have often observed that their persons were made the subjects of extemporized poems by the respective savages. Some- times these verses are of a derisive character; at other times they glorify the white man. When do they deride, when glorify? What characterizes the Other received with bread and salt, with a triumphal procession of grovelling savages — or that Other greeted with a pack of snarling dogs and a shower of arrows? What is it that 3 33 34 PRESTIGE enforces the appreciation symbolized by a castle and a Ghetto? I (a) Contempt.— The contempt and abuse of strangers is particularly emphasized by "W. J. McGee in his work on the Seri Indians : he affirms its existence in general in the pase of every tribe of low grade. Primitive peoples are fethno-centric; they refer everything to the tribe, and '/glorify everything connected with the same, whereas they ;use defamatory epithets of strangers. The Seri Indians are a geographically isolated tribe, of a characteristically low grade, whose feelings are typical of that inferior grade of a people hardly yet developed into a tribe, which is still very little subject to the influence of permanency and settlement in masses. According to McGee, the Seri Indian is quite as incapable of suppressing an in- voluntary growl, on the approach of a stranger, as is a hound when it sees or scents a wolf. Westermarck tells us of the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands that, when . they hear of any stupid action, they say " as stupid as a white man," " as clumsy as an Englishman " ; in the ; language of the Illinois Indians, the word illinois means " man " — as if to say that all other Indians are animals : professions of this kind contained in a name recur constantly in the case of other primitive peoples too; the ancient Egyptians looked upon themselves only as romet, real men ; the exclusiveness of the Assyrians, Persians, Chinese, Jews, \etc, is well known; every non-Greek was a barbarian, jand the Latin word hostis at first meant both stranger and foe. " It is very difficult," says Herbert Spencer, " for a member of Western civilization to understand that the | Orientals regard us with a contempt in comparison with '. which our contempt for them is feeble." These examples, which can be added to by any one ad libitum, offer merely a cursory insight into the history of the prejudice PRESTIGE AND PREJUDICE 35 accompanying the reception of strangers, which is still " all the rage " ; the derisive scorn for " the man from afar," for certain unfamiliar, novel characteristics, habits, and customs, the, protracted legal disability of foreigners, all point to the manifold and constantly recurring martyrdom of the Other. All this seems quite natural on the part \ of primitive peoples, who are still guided by animal instincts : the only surprising thing is, that we have just , as inexhaustible store of examples for proving the opposite extreme ! \ (b) Admiration. — According to Vierkandt, the Indians of North America greeted the Spaniards, on their first appearance, as legendary heroes ; some of the nativeB of Australia believe that after their death they are changed into white men ; before the days of Mackenzie, the Eskimos described the English as winged giants, able to kill by a mere glance and to sWallow a whole beaver at once. Dalton tells us that, though acquainted with the English for not much more than fifty years, some primitive peoples assigned them a very respectable place among their ances- tors. Of savage peoples of more recent times Lubbock tells us that they have regarded watches and white men as veritable gods — "for the latter supposition," he says, " there was some reason, for they may very easily have taken the crack of rifles for thunder and lightning." In Fiji the printing press recently set up there was at once declared to be a god. When the sea is stormy, the negroes of Tanganyika beg the white passengers to lie on the bottom of the boat, for the sea cannot bear the sight of them. According to Parkyns Mansfield, the inhabitants of the interior of Abyssinia were convinced that in the course of a few days the German missionaries cut a road more than 150 miles long from Adowah to Massowah, along the banks of the Red Sea, for the conveyance of 36 PRESTIGE large supplies of munition. Those rules of hospitality, which we meet with consistently, returning even in the lowest grade of civilization, though partly due to a rational appreciation of the usefulness of strangers, are carried to such excesses as are scarcely conceivable. We need only refer to the material and moral sacrifices made in the interests of hospitality! Speaking of the hospitality of the Indians, Morgan emphasizes the fact that, though they often appeared by hundreds in the Indian villages and consumed twice as much a head as the natives, the Spaniards were at all times accorded a most hospitable welcome. The virtue of hospitality assumes the dignity of a religious function in the sacred books of the Hindoos and in Zeus Xenios : speaking of the ancient Germans, Tacitus says that "there is no people which exercises hospitality and entertainment to a greater extent than they do ; . . . whether familiar to them or not, every guest enjoys the same rights"; it is as if under all this generosity there were latent the naive profession of the Ainos : " Treat no stranger with contempt, for thou knowest not who thy guest is." In Morocco, says Westermarck, the Shereef would not for the world permit a stranger to kiss his hand, for he is afraid he would deprive him of his holi- ness. The spell of what is strange and distant is still felt to-day : Englishmen do not know much German, and their "horizon" rarely extends beyond the British Empire ; for this reason, whereas in former days they looked with prejudiced eyes on the German Empire, and smiled at and despised the Prussian type, to-day the German possesses a certain prestige in his eyes, and we are once more faced with the two irrational extremes that made the French the wonder of the world before Sedan and after. On the other hand, in Germany and all over Europe an Anglomania of historical importance PRESTIGE AND PREJUDICE 37 has prevailed, and still prevails — no less remarkable and universal than the Normanomania of the ancient Slavs, the Hellenism of the Romans, the Romanism of the Middle Ages, or the Gallomania of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The authority of the English race, too, may be traced to numerous sources. Their imperialistic suc- pesses, their decisiveness, disciplined character, industry, and wealth surely deserve the recognition of even the most ipircumspect minds. Yet it is not this authority that has produced the fanatical enthusiasm and servile imitation of the intellectual rabble of Europe and Ameripa, of the snob- bery of great cities that, while it has broken away from the habit of circumspection, has not yet advanced to the form- ing of conceptions. Professor Ferrero actually generalizes^ the power of strangeness to secure authority : in his opinion practically every politician possesses an intellectual and moral character of an exceptional kind — i.e., of a kind op- posed to that of the people governed by him — and all his successes are due to these differences, for "with qualities which the rest lack, and without the faults which are universal with the others, (these politicians) are able to create mighty works and, as exceptional men, may excite admiration and win followers." To prove this pro- position contained in his Europa Giovane, he refers to Caesare Borgia, "the merciless but brainy adventurer of the sixteenth century, the only one to whom it had oc- curred to create a strong State in Italy," who was a Spaniard, just as Cardinal Mazarin was an Italian, Buonaparte a Corsican, though "the Corsicans, ethno- graphically and psychically, are as little like the French as the French are like the Germans." Parnell was not a Celt, but a pure Anglo-Saxon ; Bismarck was a Pomeranian with a sprinkling of Slav blood in his veins. Others point out that it was a non-English conqueror 38 PRESTIGE who united England; that a non-English politician laid the foundations of the House of Commons, the Bank of England, and the library of the British Museum; that non-English statesmen consolidated British rule in Egypt and South Africa. " Outside the sphere of European civili- zation/' remarks Professor Batzel, " almost all States are ruled by intruding conquerors; that is, by foreigners." Others again will point to the cases of Hunyadi, Kossuth, Petofi, etc. The problem has been propounded, roughly enough, but in a fascinating manner. But a proclamation of such rules is merely a coup d'Stat in the world of ideas ; it is neither justified nor justifiable : the one-sided array of highly-coloured data loses its power of conviction the moment we succeed in arraying an army of data on the other side. s (c) The problem of the stranger. — According to De Varigny, the same natives who spoke with such contempt of the English and murdered Captain Cook, sang hymns of fanatical praise of Captain Cook's ships ; the ships them- selves were celebrated as islands, the masts as primitive trees; the sailors were gods who drank blood (i.e., red wine), etc. In fact, according to Lubbock, after killing him and cutting his body to pieces, the inhabitants of Owhyhee were perfectly convinced that he would one day appear among them, and kept asking him " how he would treat them after his return." On the wings of their imagination, adds Lubbock, savages are only able to soar to a conception of beings a few degrees more perfect than themselves; and Captain Cook was much more powerful, wiser, and, we may add, more virtuous than f any of their gods. Even the antagonism to strangers * often arises from an over-estimation of their strength. The Australian who attributes the death of his relation to the enchantments of some other tribe, will kill any PRESTIGE AND PREJUDICE 39 member of this tribe. Even cannibalism is excused by the aid of prestige ; often, we are told, savages eat their enemy because they believe they will thus inherit his courage ; later on, it is with the same object that they devour their enemy's eyes or heart. All these capricious changes may be explained with a fair approach to pro- bability as far as savages are concerned. The prejudices of savages do not appear continuously as equally in place : abrupt changes of mood and feelings are so completely characteristic of them, that they render every phase of their conduct incalculable. "We are told by Burton, a writer thoroughly familiar with the natives of East Africa, that at the same moment they are good- humoured and hard-hearted, warlike and cautious ; at one moment extremely amiable, and the next minute blood- thirsty, merciless, and brutal, sociable and stiff, superstitious and insolent, brave and desponding, servile and oppressive ; now obstinate, the next moment wavering and the play- things of caprice ; one moment they worship life, the next they are inclined to commit suicide ; now miserly and close- fisted, and then living only for the moment. Savages further possess remarkably few conceptions to aid their reflection; the conceptions they possess are, so to say, warm, highly coloured; that is why their associations of fancies are so wildly extravagant, such as are but rarely met with in our faded existence. If a stranger happens to cross the instinct of a people of low grade at its full force, or if he falls foul of the rigorous connections of their judgments and superstitions, he excites the racial feeling to indignation, or disturbs their religious sentiments and customs. If, however, this primitive society happens to be apathetic, tired, and the stranger trespasses on judg- ments and superstitions, their racial instinct and moral sentiments are not disturbed, the differentiation inspired 40 PRESTIGE by that instinct is for the moment not in play. The spell of distance, of something that is Other, is able to assert \ itself unimpeded, r/ , The question becomes more difficult when the features of permanency and settlement in masses are found existing side by side with barbarian societies. In expansive, deeply rooted societies of this kind, racial differentiation is attended by a catastrophe if the stranger, who was formerly kept strictly at a distance physically, treated as a mortal foe and condemned to death, is allowed to live ; the moment a stranger is taken prisoner in war, a permanent society formed of large masses is compelled, despite dislike, not merely to allow the slave to survive, but to suffer his presence in its , midst as a slave. This is the first great compromise of pre- \ judice — an enemy received into the society in place of Y an enemy devoured or tortured to death. Herewith the | guiding power of instinct loses , considerably in effective- ness, for the society of oppressors becomes more and more accustomed to the sight, colour, features, movements, smell, and accent of the stranger ; on the other hand the permanency and grouping produces a type of inner, homo- geneous slavery; the sight of the native stranger vies in sadness with that of the imported stranger ; the tremendous process of the blending of races is started ; it creates forms and a jus gentium of its own ; and the severe racial nega- tion of the Seri Indians is thrown into the background. Less account is taken of the primitive views of racial intuition ; there is already a distinction between hostis and peregrinus; the rights of guests and strangers steal into the maxims of the sacred books; contempt is no longer universal or frank enough to keep the slave at a distance. We have now three variations of the fate of strangers : (a) they are despised and rejected, because they are ob- PRESTIGE AND PREJUDICE 41 served to be strangers; (6) no one remarks that they are; strangers, and (c) they are admired and acknowledged as leaders, because they are strangers. Even a statesman individually so important and acknowledged rationally as an Englishman like Disraeli, was compelled to wage a war of associations both as a novelist and in society that is nearly akin to caricature, to prevent his foreign extraction affording a bitter seasoning for any recogni- tion he obtained ; Buonaparte was forced to Frenchify his name to "Bonaparte," though his Corsican birth was made the subject of biting criticism ' even when his fortunes were at their zenith. Yet both rose to a great (height; in a moment they overleaped the narrow circle of prejudice. Where strong prejudice values are present, as in the case of negroes, every conception of equality and nationalism incorporated in the statute-book is per- verted. All that appears permanently divergent is made \ the subject of damnatory prejudice ; and the more I apparent and seeming, the 'more primitive the impression/ that restrains, the more general the prejudice; smell affects more keenly than form, and form more than mode of thought. Prejudice, having come into conflict with conception, has been worn down and paralysed by the struggle for existence, which has made it petty like every- thing that grows old ; to-day prejudice means fewer sword- thrusts, but more pin-pricks than of yore. If a member of a nation is not t ypic al, but exerciseaanexclusive, personal impression on jis,Jie possesses ^rjgsjaga,; . JO&JUBUfcjzgical, he is indifferent-ta. us, m we ..look down upon him and consider him jcomical. The weighty words of Emerson may, perhaps be able to make us comprehend the prestige of English mdwiduality : " each inhabitant of this island is an island in himself." No small part of the successes of the English nation is due to its geographical isolation, 42 PRESTIGE and to that reserve (probably partly due to the above) which individualizes every Englishman — taciturnity is an identity of character which is not productive of a type; the English language is easy and clear, but its pronuncia- tion is difficult for all who are noit Englishmen — and this, involves distance. Englishmen are reserved in their deal- ings with strangers, they do not speak much, they show but little sentiment, outwardly they are stiff and inacces- sible, keeping intruders just as far off as critics. In contrast to this English individual with ( his reserve born of intellectual judgment, we have the typical globe- trotter, mechanical alike in clothes, movements, and mode of life, who is generally not recruited from the best elements of English society; himself an Anglomaniac, he is the snob of his own nation, the parvenu of the English world, who does not show much of the personal " overweight " behind the typical — an Englishman as an eccentric, not as an individual; in dealing with this divergent commonplace, English and foreign taste assumes an attitude of rejection, smiles at him and makes fun of him. To sum up : the stranger whom we feel to be divergent as compared with ourselves, is indifferent or the object of preju- dice : the stranger whom we feel ourselves unable to measure by our own standard, whose measure — not his qualities— we feel to be different, we receive with prestige. We look with prejudice on the stranger whom we dissociate, and receive with prestige the stranger who is dissociated. We become more often and more keenly conscious of the want of type in the case of strangers who are less known, less com- prehensible, to whom we are less accustomed; for this reason their prospects of prestige are a shade better, just as their prospects of prejudice are too. Antipathy becomes prejudice only when it grows strong enough " to interrupt the due sequences of thought." Like- PRESTIGE AND PREJUDICE 43 wise sympathy also becomes bias only when it grows strong enough to have the supremacy over judging all contradictory causalities rigidly excluded. "A sound judgment," says Professor Sully, " implies a considerable development of the power of resisting the forces of bias." We will not understand some one, though we possibly, could understand him. We only take interest in somebody >, to the extent permitted by our prepossession. Subjectively \ this suzerainty of the restraint appears in the mind's feeling of security. This intentional choice of the Ego among the different categories of judging and the accom- panying sentiment of security distinguish prejudice or bias from prestige. In the case of prestige we will under- stand some one but we cannot ; and this produces the feeling of insecurity of • the mind. We no more select, we are being selected by psychological laws. We gaze at men with anxious wonder, as a child would gaze at the city where it has gone astray. Between the fdelings of security and insecurity of mind there is a large zone of neutral sentiment, in which case the feeling of security is out of the question, though it is latently present im the background of mind. Psychological values do not appear in this indifferent state of the mind with exclusive aggressiveness in front of intuition and logic. Part IV OUTLINES § 13. The justification of the word.- — Is it possible at all to snatch a word at random out of popular usage and set it in the setting of a system of thought? When faced by this question, it is comforting to think that all systems of ideas have started from the assimilation of conceptions already existing in public consciousness. "Heat and light," says Wundt, " are conceptions taken from the sphere of outer experience, which were called into existence direct from the feelings of sense. But the object could not have been attained, unless the conceptions of public consciousness had for the moment been accepted, and an examination of the same had served as a starting-point." The word " prestige" too — it is true — is used by many people, and is latent in the consciousness of still more, enlivening the otherwise individual hues of thought with the variations of the most divergent languages, races, and histories of Europe, lit is probable that in saying the word "prestige," the idiplomat and the provincial journalist do not think of precisely the same thing, and that there is a difference in conception between the use of the word in the French Academy and in the Servian Parliament. Prestige is mentioned and heard of by men of the most varying inclina- tions, dispositions, and education ; and the use of the word is uniform at most as concerns the essence of the con- 44 OUTLINES 45 ception. However, we believe with Durkheim, that the object before us is not the examination of the manifold modes according to which people conceive the word — in this case the word " prestige." Our task is not to explain words, but we shall denote a series of phenomena more intelligibly discussible in connection, for the sake of rendering matters easier, by a word which in public consciousness practically echoes that series of phenomena. And as, in the course of our reflections, we have at all times striven to accommodate ourselves to the everyday thoughts connected with the word "prestige," we may perhaps with some justice assert that we have not lost sight of the constantly recurring, essential element of the everyday meaning. We are thus able, in a way, to form a more accurate idea of the message implied by the word as exempted from trivial disturbing elements. As evidence of enormous series of phenomena forgotten, unobserved, or which no one will admit— like a petrified organization — we have the word, so long avoided, so unsuspectingly used, but no longer deniable. The memorials of the mental conditions called prestige may be traced back to time immemorial ; only the word is new; the phenomena understood thereby are thousands of years old, as old as society itself — as a permanent settlement in large masses, in which men are no longer familiar to one another. However, without word and conception, it was difficult to grasp these mental con- ditions—though all the easier to confuse, deny, or pervert them. Until the word came, until the tension of nerves and the excitement of brain cells were compressed into that word — consonance in variety, permanency in ephemer- ality— the conception and logical arrangement of these phenomena was out of the question. When people began to use the word "prestige" in its present meaning, the 46 PRESTIGE 'consciousness of the mental condition made its appearance ; the ice was broken : human reflection made a confession, the retraction or unmaking of which is out of the question. We shall endeavour to "take" this splendid confession " at its word." We look upon it as if the word were right — as if its definitive element of conception were not confoundable with anything else. The word calls our attention to a special group of phenomena, and defends its right to a separate existence against all attacks from without : perhaps words after all are not so " fleeting " as the proverb would have it. We must presume that unless it were profoundly peculiar and possessed of vital energy, it would not be used so consistently and decisively by all the languages of Europe. The word is here and is compelled to confess. Why did it arise ? What does it mean ? Why — and in what — does it differ from all its fellow- words ? Like dactyloscopy, it is bound to make a confession. § 14. We shall endeavour to prove the recipient of prestige, then its possessor, and finally we shall strive, in the psychological situation of both, to find that peculiar, constantly recurring essential point which — setting aside all coincidences — characterizes prestige. Paet V EACIAL AND INDIVIDUAL CHAEACTEES OF EBCIPIENTS OF PEESTIGE § 15. The possessor of prestige and its recipient. — If we investigate somebody's prestige in point of a given quantity of consciousness, we shall find that this consciousness, which can be latent somewhere in the background, always points tor at least one other person. For prestige to arise, one person is not enough ; at least two individuals are requisite. There is, indeed, such a thing as self-prestige, too, especiallyJnTrle case of lunatics : but both in these irregularities and in the case of self-admiration arising from a conscious possession of prestige, we can recognize a fractional reaction of the conduct of others. The " living wage " of prestige is two persons. But this minimum is rarely found. The. jbtmo-^ sphere of prestige is permanency^ large njamberSj„_exag : gerated distances "between Then, and the receptivity of thd masses. Iii the presence of a single man any other single man can appear absolutely inaccessible and generalizably intact only in a case of an exceptionally favourable psychical situation. Even in the case of Eobinson Crusoe, who had brought with him so many dissociative elements for Friday to reflect on, we find "my man" under the influence of an authority that gained in importance step by step, advancing with each fresh proof of Crusoe's skill, rather than of an irrational spell. Prestige possesses a kind of democratic 47 48 PRESTIGE conditionality ; it shines forth in large numbers, in general and in extenso ; consequently its foundations are secure by their very extent ; its permanency and universality is practically a foregone conclusion ; thus it is more probable that it remains uncriticized and unanalysable ; and there is a kind of insurance in the suggestive number of recipients. A solitary individual is usually lacking even in the self-neglecting requisite to confess the prestige of some- body in word or deed, as needs be, he does not trust his own eyes : a solitary individual is generally composed of nothing but judgments and prejudices; if he does not analyse, he is circumspect. That anybody should come under the prestige of somebody else as a result of Ms own special feelings, is improbable, for two reasons. Either because the minimum of numbers is involuntarily more pronounced and compels narrower observation, or because the immense mass of unknown opinions acts confusingly and disquiet- ingly. In the track of a limited prestige of this kind there is always lurking the possibility of the spell being broken — for " familiarityjbreeda contempt." With respect to the j possession of prestige, just the contrary is the case; the jmore individual and exclusive the appearance of a person, I the better his chance of securing prestige : prestige j possessed in numbers becomes commonplace — a mere habit or conception — an indifferent or abstract common- placeness, not possessed of any sentimental warmth. If, however, we find that people in general have more confi- dence in the prestige of their race, their society, their class, or their party, than in their own, this circumstance is merely the assertion of the law of least resistance in addition to the habitual value of numbers: to acquire something is easier than to create it, to slink in is easier than to conquer. But, under, equal conditions, individual prestige is at all times more intensive and stronger than KACIAL AND INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS 49 that due to numbers ; and, even though facts gainsay this statement in one or two points, this is only attributable to the larger quantity of means, generally of historical value, at the disposal of the prestige due to numbers.-. In general we may say that the intensity of prestige grows in proportion to the number of recipients, and decreases in proportion to that of its possessors. Here we must take care not to confound this relation of numbers with the function of the value of rarity. The person possessed of prestige is not the object of volition, and cannot be measured. The fact that the persons possessed of prestige are either single exceptions or but few in number, affects, not with the tensional force of rarity, Jaut_by the spell of -psychical inaccessibility, and- a -more __pronounced emphasis of personality. Both the Kohinoor diamond and ) the Siamese - twins possess a value due to rarity ; but neither ''■ of them has any prestige, and the prestige of a large \ number of inaccessible persons is always more important ( than that of a small number of accessible persons. Here the number is of importance only from the point of view of a greater psychical impediment. Btowever large the number of those concerned in .the„.play. of .prestige* the main principle is at all times the intellectual inaccessi- bility of the possessor. The situation of the two parties concerned is disparate,. They are not mutual or destined to exist side by side : their relation is characterized by an incomparable diver- gency. Here there is no question of the barter of psychical life, rather merely of patriarchal presentation and accept- ance. Objectively the possessor of prestige is not necessarily ' of a higher order (either by habit, prejudice, or conception) ; taking his qualities and his average conduct as Bi and those of the recipient as B 2 , and the logical, ethical, and aesthetic values as a, b, and c, it is not absolutely 4 50 PRESTIGE certain that Bi(a+6 + c)>B 2 (a+6 + c), but it may be that Bi(a + i+c)