CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Gift in memory of MARY STEPHENS SHERMAN, '13 from JOHN H. SHERMAN, '11 HM251 .P7r" ""'"""•^ ^"^^iiOiuill&ay 0* social „,,„ 3 1924 030 2. DATE DUE DcP**! ■TSUI*' 1 1 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE A MATERIALISTIC STUDY WITH AN IDEALISTIC CONCLUSION BY CHARLES XLATT B.S., Ph.D.. M-D-.-FrCS., Lond. Honorary Vice-President of the National Probation Association, Author of The Psychology of Thought and Feeling, etc. NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY -^ , ' '■'''■ : ( \\\JA\ \^ GOPTBIQHT, 1922 By DODD, mead AUTD COMPANY, INO. /7/^7/^^ PEEFAOE The purpose of this book is to present some picture of society in its relations to the individ- ual. I feel most earnestly that a diffusion of psychological knowledge is a necessary prelude to an intelligent social progress, and I believe such diffusion to be possible. Psychology is founded on common sense and has, therefore, a universal appeal; that it is useful need deter no one, for it is also entertaining— not "dry." No one volume can, more than touch upon the great mass of material which presents, but, following the excellent example of milord of Montaigne, what I can not here find room for, "the same I point at with my finger." My hope is, as in a former volume, to set thought going and thereby to arouse interest in this which has seemed to many the most important of all human studies. Hillbro(yk, C. P. Ardmore, Pa. 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/cu31924030249928 CONTENTS PAOS Pkbeace T PART I THE FACTS IN THE CASE CHAFTEB I Intboductobt 3i II The Geegamous TENDEarcr 21 III Sex, Feab and Wiae 38 IV Habit, Imitation and Custom 59 V Convention and Tradition 77 VI Fashion 105 JVII Sympathy and Suggestion 123 "«yill Mass Action and Hysteria 141 ■^X Superstition and Error 161 PART II THEORIES AND CONCLUSIONS >|x A Psychological Theory of Society . . . 182 XI Socialism and Democracy 206 XII Socialism and Democracy, Continued . . 225 \ XIII Old Truths — Psychology's Ansiwer . . . 242 Index 279 PAET I THE FACTS IN THE CASE The Psychology of Social Life CHAPTER I INTBODTTCTOET Man's attitude toward society, as toward most things in Kf e, has varied with his tempera- ment, his knowledge and his condition. Some have regarded society as an accomplished fact, a finished product. They have recognized that there has been a past and a growth, but the present has been for them the flowering period for which the past was preparing. Others, with a different vision, have regarded it as but some monstrous error calling loudly for cor- rection; while to others, again, the masses, it has held until recently no interest at all. These last have accepted society as they do grass, or the creation — there has seemed no problem in it. Thinking efforts aimed at the altering of society are comparatively recent. Efforts toward change have come, commonly, from those who knew least, from those who were anti-social, not social, in their tendencies. These being, for reasons well known to science 3 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE but not to themselves, at the foot of the social ladder, have proposed to joggle this a bit, just to see what would happen. Ignorance and in- efficiency are ever sublimely unconscious of any limitation — ^they are always unlucky, never unable. From the thinkers and writers of the past have come explanations and descriptions rather than suggestions. Many, from Plato down, have played with Utopias, but it has been only play; and it was not until Eousseau gave a new twist to the old ideas that there arose a constructive criticism. Then followed social- ism and Marx. StiU, however, the old reac- tionary attitude, the contented acceptance of society, prevailed. Society was a fait accompli, and a glorious one ; the anti-social convulsions were disturbing and unpleasant but not at aU dangerous, and socialism, like prohibition, was a joke. And then came 1914. AU at once the beauti- ful social structure, so fondly admired, was started into ruin, or was, at least, so shaken as to make visible to aU many formerly unsus- pected imperfections. At first, naturally, it was the war that was blamed; but a survey made later, after the excitement had subsided, re- vealed the fact that the cracks and imperfeo- 4 INTRODUCTORY tions were old ones. The war had precipi- tated, it had not produced, the catastrophe. But the war, too, did other things — ^for in- stance, it reoriented all thought. The situa- tion is unique in the world's history. The war has crystallized into being a something which has been a century or more .in developing. The internationalism of commerce and science and art, and the development of the avenues of com- munication have been preparing the way for a new social consciousness, the consciousness of the essential unity of peoples. It is now at last recognized that no matter what man's dis- guise, he has, everywhere, the same psychic roots ; and it has been further realized that his experiments and errors, no matter where con- ducted, have an importance for all. It is no longer possible to be apathetic to society — there are few indeed now who are not inter- ested. Nor is the situation an academic one. In the new thought lies a direct call to action. No intelligent man can now feel himself at lib- erty to sit idly by while things work themselves out — too many not intelligent are already busy. These present times are placing a mandate on the world's best, and the best have no right to ignore it. "What follows! If there is something to be 5 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE done, ajid if this something is to be well done, it will be granted, I suppose, that it ought to be founded on truth. Man and society need help — let us then know something of man's needs and of society's manner of development. New adjustments are now to be made — ^let us make them, if we can, in accordance with the eternal verities. "Laws" we have made in the past and are now still making, hand over hand, but this is another matter, there is no diflSculty in this. The hard thing to do is to make a law that is worth something, or rather, I might say, to discover such a law, for laws are not made — At least, not by man. Man's true problem is to discover the essential truths, and to formulate these — if he can accomplish this, he is for- tunate. No majority in the world can make an untruth true. "Had the united posterity of Adam voted, and since the Creation done noth- ing but vote, that three and three were seven . . . [this would not] have altered the laws of arithmetic. "1 No, we wiU say not, but it has been tried often enough. Let us now try something more sensible. You may make "laws" for man, and write formulas for his guidance, but these will never hold unless they happen to be true psychologically. You can 1 Carlyle : Parliaments. 6 INTRODUCTORY not ignore man's psychological nature, nor can you for long that of society. Society and man both run true to their natural propensities, and you must accept this fact. That these propensities, however, being iknown, can be used, is also true, as we shall discover later. That they must be used, if society is to be bet- tered, is psychology's contention. Social psychology is unfortunately by no means an exact science, but there is little doubt that social errors are, in the maiu, psycholog- ical errors, and with the knowledge of prin- ciples even now possessed, might have been avoided. Failing experiments are dangerous. It is not only that they, by the resulting lost motion, delay the world's progress, they also endanger it. They may lead to retrogressions and diversions which shall turn the evolutionary movement into new and impossible channels. They may lead not only into blind alleys — "no thoroughfares" — ^but also over cliffs. Social- ism, a beautiful ideal and a present absurdity, has been tried in Russia — ^with a result that is known. Marx to Lenin, Rousseau to Robes- pierre, and so it has repeatedly been — a philos- opher, a formula, a revolution, and then some "sea-green incorruptible" who, seizing the re- laxed reins of power, shall take to driving his 7 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE brotliers. Eussia has not .even taught us any- thing of socialism, at least nothing new. It has taught only the horrors of socialism as inter- preted by the ignorant. That it was psycholog- ically impossible we already knew. I am not ignorant of the value of formulas, though I shall seem to depreciate them in this writing. My intention is to concentrate else- where ; upon that, to me, more essential duty of making m^an more fit for society. Formulas are necessary to-day if never before, we have so evidently outgrown our old ones. Invention and population have both increased to a point which has rendered our old schemes of life pe- culiarly inadequate. Our social institutions are growths from our needs, but those we now have were bom in the past,, and man's needs are now quite different. Institutions grow so slowly, and man's needs change, nowadays, so rapidly ! It would seem now, in the crisis of the present awakening, that new institutions, new formulas, must indeed be made even though they be made unnaturally. This is probably a necessary task, but it is also a for- midable one, and dubious. We propose to ig- nore it. We propose to present but one side of the question, and that the psychological; and we do this, too, with the feeling that this is not 8 INTRODUCTORY -only the more important, but also the more promising. Whatever the government formula adopted, whatever social institution be de- veloped, the successful operation of the same must depend upon man's attitude toward it. It must fail if it be not true to man's nature. Right we can not always be, the problems are too complex for positive solution, but right principles we believe we can have. Psychol- ogy may be wrong in many things — ^it probably is — ^but here, fortunately, we need to be right in but one. If psychology be right in its explain- ing of society as a derivative from man's psychic need, if it be right in but this, then we may cherish all hope for the future — if it be wrong, then God help us! It is the purpose of this book to prove, if pos- sible, psychology's position, and it is hoped, too, in so doing, to indicate something of man's duty. We learn that man can not be known un- less we know the society in which he lives. We learn, also, that society can not be known, nor in any way explained, and certainly not con- trolled, unless we know the man that made it. My whole thesis is based upon what psychology regards as a fact — ^that society and the individ- ual present but two sides of the same problem. Much has been written of the "soul of the 9 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE group," of the "group mind," of the "spirit of the nation." The effort has been made to raise up a group something which shall tran- scend the individual man and lead its own life independently. I believe this to be a danger- ous proceeding. Its tendency will be to relieve man of individual responsibility. In placing power and soul in the group it must place there, also, duty, and this will be fatal to prac- tical reform. Man is only too eager to pass on responsibility — to let the group do it. A group mind, a group soul even, there may be, but this .need not be emphasized except for the group's larger movements. For society's reform let us seize upon something more tangible. And this something, as I conceive it, is man. Educa- tion, it will be granted, is an individual affair ; but social reform is nothing else than education. You can not educate in mass, jrou must reach down to each unit or your education will fail — and so with reform. "To reform a world, to reform a nation no wise man will undertake; and all but foolish men know, that the only solid . . . reformation is what each begins and per- fects in himself. "2 Let us then, following this thesis, first look over our material, and then, having discovered 2 Carlyle : Signs of the Times. 10 INTRODUCTORY something of man as he is, draw such deducr tions as may seem to us logical. Society has been defined as a group of indi- viduals carrying on a common life by mental interaction(Ellwood). It may be conceived of as a product of the innate tendencies of the in- dividuals composing it ; as a composite, or group of composites, but with this addition that by the mere fact of social gathering, by the inter- actions which occur between members of the group, new factors come into play. The mass does not act quite as would any of its parts left alone, and it has, moreover, such an influence on these parts that even when these are alone some a,t least of this influence persists. The individual composes and maikes society, but so- ciety, too, colours all that the individual does. We have thus three phases of behaviour — one hypothetical and theoretical, that possible ac- tion of aji absolutely isolated man — ^Adam, for instance, on that Friday morning before Eve was made — the other two both practical and real, the action of social man when alone, and his action as part of a group. With the first of these we are not concerned — Adam's ex- perience as a bachelor was too brief to be im- portant. The second is properly the subject of individual psychology, and it is the third only 11 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE which is now to be considered — ^though with necessary, frequent reference to the second. "What are some of the individual tendencies underlying society's forms, and how are they developed and transformed as they pass into the group? But first of all, what are individ- ual tendencies? What is their physical basis? We have within the body two sets, or sys- tems, as they are called, of nerves, the cerebro- spinal and the sjrmpathetic. The cerebro-spi- nal includes the brain and spinal cord and the principal nerves connected therewith — the afferent nerves, the nerves of sensation, which carry messages from the body to the spinal nerve centres and brain; and the efferent nerves, the motor nerves, which carry out im- pulses resulting in movement. The sympa- thetic system consists of a fine net-work of nerve fibrils reaching most parts of the body, and having to do, chiefly, with the organic proc- esses of life itself, the involuntary movements of the body viscera, the processes of secretion, etc. These two systems of nerves are not inde- pendent. The sympathetic is connected with the cerebro-spinal through filaments given off from ganglia, groups of nerve cells situated near the spinal cord, and the two systems are 12 INTRODUCTOET intimately related in most of their actions. It is conceived that when a stimulus, something capable of affecting a receiving nerve cell, awakens a nerve impulse, this impulse passes from the periphery of the body to the nerve centre over a prepared pathway. Having reached this nerve centre, in the brain or cord, it there gives rise to a new impulse which then travels out over its own prepared pathway un- til it reaches the muscle or organ for which it was destined. The result, in the case of a mo- tor nerve going to a muscle, is movement ; while in the case of that part of the outgoing current which has passed to the sympathetic system, the result is an increase in or an inhibition of some organic action, some glandular, or cir- culatory, or digestive action. The hand is placed upon a hot plate— ruerves of sensation carry in the message, and an appropriate motor order is sent out, the hand is withdrawn. One sees an approaching danger — the optic nerves carry in lan impulse derived from the impres- sion on the retina, the impulse is interpreted and orders sent out. Some of these orders go to the muscles, but others, passing to the sym- pathetic, reach certain glands which they throw into action. The glandular action being in turn telegraphed to the brain, and there 13 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE sensed, we experience what we call an emo- tion. The cerebro-spinal nerves are thus com- monly associated with voluntary, purposive acts, while the sympathetic are associated with the unconscious acts and with the emo- tional interpretation of our problems. The sympathetic is the older, biologically speaking, of the two nervous systems, and, hence, the emotional reactions of man are also counted as the older and more primitive. Man'is intel- lectual interpretations and voluntary move- ments are derived from his later biological ac- quirements. Now the point I have been leading up to is this — ^in all this flow of nerve force, going and coming in the body, whether it be over the cerebro-spinal nerves or over the sympathetic, or in the brain itself, where the various lobes are connected by association fibres, in all this flow certain pathways become gradually estab- lished as pathways of choice. A path once traversed is more easily followed a second time, land each time the nei^e current flows it cuts, as it were, a deeper channel. Here is the ori- gin of habit, and here, also, is the origin of both the similarities and dissimilarities of man. Nature, in its long evolutionary development 14 INTRODUCTORY of our bodies, has determined that the general direction of the nerve flow shall be the same with all, but there are myraids of nerve cells and nerves, and, while the nerve current may still always follow this general direction, there are thousands of minor variations possible. It is these minor variations in the path of the nerve current that produce our personal char- acteristics of action and reaction, that produce our personality. It is these same that ex- plain the differences due to sex and to race. Racial groups develop within them a certain similarity in the choice of nerve paths, and a certain similarity, therefore, in reaction; and the sexes do the same, with the addition here, too, of an emphasis obtained through their glandular differences. One point more. Unless we are prepared to deny all the evidence of common experience, and, also, as it seems to the author, to give up all hope for the future, we must acknowledge that these acquired nerve pathways, Hke those of the deep-lying instincts, are in a degree in- heritable. It is not that there passes to the off- spring a definite, preformed, compelhng nerve- path, but there does pass a tendency to such path. Of all the multitude of possible path- ways offered, there wiU be some with a certain 15 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE preference over the others, a preference that ■will have been determined in the child by in- heritance. The persistence of a path, or of a habit, will naturally depend largely upon when in the his- tory of the race it was first laid down. Long formed pathways, those going back to the early life of the race, are wonderfully stable; while the more recently acquired pathways are cor- respondingly easily altered. It is for this reason that man is continually fluctuating with fashion and condition, and yet ever holds true to all of his deep-set, primitive tendencies. Now the past of man is incredibly long, and the most of this past, all but the last few minutes of his day on earth, ha? been lived under condi- tions very unlike those of the present. And so it is, when we come to examine man's tenden- cies, we find that the strong ones, the deep-ly- ing, most firmly fixed ones, are those of the dim- distant forest life. This is man's and society's greatest difficulty — man's strongest tendencies antedate civilization. Man is now being com- pelled to play a part in a life to which he is by no means completely adapted. He still retains too many of his infant racial reactions to enter successfully on the intellectual struggle of the modem social adulthood. When difficulties 16 INTRODUCTORY come his true tendencies are revealed. Then it is that he impatiently casts off his garments of civilization and emerges a naked man-animal — and is happy in this elemental reversion. It iS, when difficulties come, I say, that man so aban- dons his social ideas — ^bear this in mind when interpreting criminals. We have been describing here, in their sim- plest form, what are known as nerve and brain patterns. These patterns do not long remain simple. As .already hinted, when a stimulus is received this sets going a force which perme- ates, more or less consciously, the whole of the organism. Simple sensation, with its corre- sponding reflex response, is possible, as a rule, only to the lowest of animals or to the youngest of infants. Experience and memory soon en- rich and modify all man's perceptions. The seeing of its mother, or, in these days, of a bottle, will soon suggest dinner to a baby. And so it is through life — ^we go on accumulat- ing elaborations to our patterns until they be- come most wonderfully complex. The picture patterns of memory will often include sensa- tions of sight, hearing, touch and odour, and also emotion. The complete picture may in- clude all of these, and it is interesting to note that this picture may be recalled through any 17 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE of its parts. An odour may be sufficient, even thougli this may have been an insignificant and even unconscious part of the whole — 'and so with any of the others. But this is a matter for individual psychology. The important thing about these patterns, both to the individual and to society, is that they are the determinants of all that we think and do. The old ones, the racial patterns, are powerful forces guiding our every action and directing our responses to every problem that presents; while the more recent ones, though less actually compelling, add conscious motive, colour and interest. Furthermore, while these patterns control man, they also, through man, control society. And if by their conflict they bring trouble to man, they bring to society even more. Normal man takes his impulses seria- tim ; society, as it were, receives them en masse. The situation is not, however, hopeless, difficult as it may be. Even the oldest of patterns, those that are socially most undesirable of all, are still capable, as we shall find, of being so guided as to gain social values. The emotions, even, are modifiable. From vanity and ego- tism, for example, we may attain, by a sort of sublimation, to honour and patriotism. And 18 INTRODUCTOET these "sublimed" emotions, moreover, will in- herit much of the strength of their origin. They 'have sprung from the strong underlying primitive tendencies, and some of the force of these latter will have passed over into their derivatives. Pope has the idea. The new forces are strong because of the vitality of the old stocks upon which they are grafted. "As fruits, imgrateful to the planter's care, On savage stocks inserted, learn to bear ; The rarest virtues thus from passions shoot, "Wild nature's vigour working at the root. "What crops of wit and honesty appear From spleen, from obstinacy, hate or fear ! See anger, zeal and fortitude supply ; Ev'n av'rice, prudence; sloth, philosophy; Lust, thro' some certain strainers well refined, Is gentle love, and charms all womankind; Envy, to which th' ignoble mind's a slave. Is emulation in the learn 'd or brave; Nor virtue, male or female, can we name. But what will grow on pride, or grow on shame." Patterns, the^, determine our actions, but are themselves modifiable. Here lies educa- tion's purpose, and here the interest of psy- chology. "We are not to consider man as an automaton, as the result of his patterns, but as 19 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE a real and workable, though difficult, problem. What are some of man's strongest patterns, and what happens to them, and to him, in a social way? 20 CHAPTEE II THE GREGABIOTJS TENDENCY There is in all men a tendency toward their kind, arising either instinctively, or from the brain patterns which have been laid down in the long experience of the race. ^ As with health, it comes into consciousness only when obstructed. It is a hunger which disappears when satisfied; but which when unsatisfied be- comes evident, first as an uneasiness, and then as a pain. AH of the higher animals possess it, and it is strong in some, operating always to maintain the herd and to strengthen it. With these, as with man, its emotional content is aroused only by negation. The sheep, having regained its flock, having pushed its way, prob- ably, to the very centre, at once falls indif-, f erently to grazing. With man the gregarious tendency varies greatly in strength in different individuals, but all, if normal, possess it in some considerable 1 1 hold that an instinctive tendency is one that is inde- pendent of all mental quality. It is one that is fxmdamen- tally determined by the organic life urge itself. See. Piatt: Psychology of Thought and Feelmg. 21 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE degree. It is a principal determinant in all man's fore-gathering, whether for social satis- faction or otherwise, and it is also a chief fac- tor in the growth of our cities. The same mo- tive which originally, possibly, brought animals together for safety is now a part of, though not identical with, that which in man we call sociability. "Gregariousness," says Jastrow, "as a feeling of adjustment, leads to sociabil- ity as a trait." It is a complex thing, this gregariousness. It has elements of habit, of dependency, of fear and desire for protection, and it has, too, ele- ments of sex. But above all it has sympathy. Sympathy is at the root of all group conscious- ness, even though it may be sometimes obscure. We ride with others for a few miles in some public conveyance — and then some new pas- sengers enter. Immediately we eye them askance. They are interlopers ; they are aliens, entering our group — and they themselves know it, see how conscious they are. How shall we receive them?' A moment before, we were all, seemingly, but detached strangers — our uncon- scious selves, however, had been quietly busy, establishing sympathetic relations, and the en- trance of the outsiders crystallized these into being. 22 THE GREGARIOUS TENDENCY The herd instinct depends upon a similarity of biologically developed patterns, and this is a sympathy in itself, but there is a higher sym- pathy determined by a resemblance in the men- tal and moral patterns. It is this last which is of major importance to us in our human rela- tions. To be alone physically is painful, but to be alone psychologically is as bad or worse. To live alone in a society to which one is psy- chologically or mentally an alien is to know true loneliness. It is the same whether one be witless in a society of wits, or stand alone be- cause of excelling — though maybe the latter is the harder, for in all social gathering the level of communication is commonly set by the capac- ity of the least. Politeness will see to it that a fool gets proper entertainment, but he who stands apart through excelling will be an object of suspicion and dislike — a realization of infe- riority arousing a defence reaction against Mm. Even where one is not in actual discord with the surroundings, where one, for instance, is in a mixed society containing all that is desired, if one be debarred from this by lack of ac- quaintance, or for "social" reasons, then this one, too, is alone, and suffers as does the most gregarious of lost sheep. There is no place like a city for down-right loneliness — and why? 23 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE Simply because there is often there lacking the abiUty to satisfy the sympathetic craving. Herein lies one of the greatest dangers of city life to the yonng stranger. The sympathetic element of gregariousness is not there easily satisfied, people do not "look up" strangers, and one does not easily get with "one's own." But the herd tendency still remains, and this can be satisfied. Excluded from the company that is sympathetically craved, the lonesome sheep is only too apt to seek such company as is actually available. He is only too apt to bleat his lonely way into the company of wolves — ^who will welcome him gladly, and with the usual result. Men seek each other, they even seek crowds. A parade attracts quite as much by the ex- pected throng of spectators as it does by its own promised display. Places are popular be- cause they are crowded. A well-filled theatre adds to the enjoyment of each of the audience — '■ but here comes in sympathy again. Men and women form clubs, and cliques within clubs. Like-minded people, people of like sympathies, tend always to get together and to organize, and here it is that institutions are formed, so- cial, political and religious groups — clubs,, -par- ties and churches. The gregarious tendency 24 THE GREGARIOUS TENDENCY with its sympathetic element underlies all. It is the like-minded, the sympathetic, who tend to unite. The practical importance of this is great. Out of the confused medley of diverse human interests, by this process of union into secon- dary groups, a workable number of crystal- lized ideas is finally obtained. The myriads of mankind are thereby reduced to a thinkable Slumber of composite individuals, and it is largely with these that society in its more for- mal aspects has actually to deal. These sec- ondary groups, these institutions, these groups of like-minded, make a society of what other- wise would be but a mob. When, therefore, through revolution or otherwise, institutions are destroyed, a mob is the inevitable result. Institutions are the product of certain needs of the individual. Let this fact be ever kept in mind — it is a valuable fact and most illuminat- ing. One thing it leads to is this, it leads to an opening of the mind ; it leads to a better under- standing of others, and, be it noted, where there is understanding there is charity. To under- stand all is to forgive all, say the French, and it is a very good saying. I am not referring here to toleration — ^that is a very different matter, not nearly so pleasant as the open mind. Tol- 25 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE eration implies a cock-sureness as regards one's own position, and an indifference to the position of others. Toleration is purely egois- tic, while the open mind is anything but that. To the latter, the other man's attitude is not a matter of indifference ; it is recognized as a re- sponse to that man's needs as determined for him either by his inheritance or his condition. We not only respect his position, but we kaow that were we in his plaice we would do and think exactly as he does. This is the road to charity. The open mind is not a vacant mind, it does not conceive of all opinions as right ; it does not hold that all should be accepted, that there is no .such thing as truth in this world. By no means ! We each of us have limitations, both of capacity and of experience, and these must be taken well into account. A child may hold and advance a judgment that is absurd; it is right for the child, true to his experience and knowledge, but we know it to be absolutely wrong. And so with all of us — ^judgments must be weighed, they must be measured in the terms of experience. What the open mind really does is to enable us to weigh and measure these judg- ments in charity. The open mind does not teach us that all judgments are true, hut merely that all are natural. They may well enough be 26 THE GREGARIOUS TENDENCY true to the experience and knowledge of some individual, and yet false to the experience and knowledge of the world. No fool-action of man or of peoples but started with the idea of some good and the belief that the way was seen clearly to it. Incidentally, the futility of or- dinary argument is here, partially at least, re- vealed. Of course prejudice is a large factor in all of our decisions, but, apart from this, the fact that our decisions are true and natural for us and seem good to us, renders them pecul- iarly invulnerable to the mere words of another. Whenever we find an institution, then, no matter how grotesque and absurd it may appear, we may feel sure that it has been pro- duced in response to some human need. We know, in short, that such institution is because a certain group of like-minded people have wanted it. Why are some of us Protestants and others Roman Catholics'? Well, of course, the pri- mary reason now is that we were bom- into one or the other of these churches. But in the beginning what caused the split in the then, so far as Western Europe was concerned, one only Christian church? The answer would indeed be a complicated one were we to attempt to make it complete, but let us consider briefly 27 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE just one of the factors. The original religious incentive, Hke all primitive life, was largely emotional. "Religion is not an emotion, but is founded on very deep emotions," The intel- lectual growth of man, however, gradually set new tendencies a-going, and there came a time wheur these became imperative and demanded expression. Man, as the phrase goes, came to crave for intellectual freedom. He wanted to think and to decide for himself. He wanted to rationalize what he felt, even his emotions, and he resented being "handed" his beliefs. In the end he rebelled, he protested, he became, in short, a Protestant. It was indeed a Reforma- tion. The Church was purged of its contrary- minded, and became, thereby, a more uniform group — a new group had been formed to which the contrary-minded might turn. But the old Church remained ; it was still far truer than was the new protestantism tp the actual needs of the great mass of mankind. It was and still is truly catholic in its emotional appeal. We cannot have such a housecleaning every year, and even if we could it would never be complete. Even at the time of the great Ref- ormation, politics and environment interfered largely with the individual preferences. Many must now, in consequence, find themselves tem- 28 THE GREGAEIOUS TENDENCY peramentally and psychologically in the wrong pew. What usually happens, in such cases, is that family conventions and habit continue the nominal adherence, which, however, ever grows weaker. Those, on the other hand, who find their way to some more acceptable fold are likely to become enthusiastic in their content- ment — ^as is the way with all true converts. Not only was the survival of the Eeforma- tion by the Catholic Church natural, the fact is, probably, that were there to be today a new shuffle, were all religious habits and conven- tions and prejudices to be together wiped out, it is the Catholic Church which would be the gainer. Protestantism has not the catholic appeal. Every evangelical revival owes its success to the thousands of unsatisfied secta- rians. Reason may be a good thing but it does not afford that comfortable feeling which may be obtained through yielding to the emotional appeal — and how great is this appeal when it comes with the authority, the beauty, the dig- nity and the mysticism of a great world-wide church. Attempts to solve individually the in- tricacies of the heavenward path are fatiguing — how much simpler to just cHmb on board this elegant chariot which, it is promised, will take us to our desired destination rejoicing. The 29 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE only trouble is that some of us cannot. We would rather die struggling on the road. And there you are! It is all a matter of the pat- terns we carry, and of our sympathies. Let no man sneer at his neighbour's choice. Let each "hold his own umbrella over his head, and call it the sky, " if it pleases him — ^it is he who must be satisfied, not we. So with political parties, at least as they once were — ^these, too, were groups of like-minded. In the early days of constitutional government each individual found himself naturally either a liberal or a conservative. The division was psychologically determined. That things are different today is an interesting commentary on political and economic development. The two parties of the past have largely dis- appeared, and what we now find is an alignment quite other than psychological. Party lines are now drawn by political and economic under- tetanding — they are intellectually founded. Whether one shall be a Republican or a Demo- crat is still important enough, but it is, too, a matter of psychological indifference. Family and habit will still be the main determinants of position, but so far as actual choice is con- cerned this will come from the mind, and not from any psychological compulsion. It is an 30 THE GEEGARIOUS TENDENOYi important change and a threatening one, for parties are essential to all normal government. It is absolutely necessary that the multitude of individual ideas shall be correlated, formulated, and organized into "platforms" if they are to be ever practically realized. Apparently di- verse and more or less vague individual aims through organization become reconciled and strengthened into attainable goals, and effec- tive policies then become possible. The party is but an organized effort to which the individ- ual adds his quota of support, instead of dissi- pating this indiscriminately and without profit. A thousand men may have a thousand ideas on a subject, but these, on examination, may com- monly be resolved into two — the details are found to be secondary, it is the principle that counts — are we for it or agailist it? No constitutional government, then, can pos- sibly operate healthfully unless there be two fairly balanced opposing parties — and yet the new economic divisions are not proAring suffi- ciently vital to preserve party feeling. The extension of the suffrage has added to the diffi- culty. The new woman vote is essentially a no- party vote. The woman is not yet interested in economic problems and principles; she is ever concrete, personal and moral. She is, 31 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE morever, in her new freedom, resenting all lim- iting suggestions, and it is in this light she regards any declaration of party allegiance. But parties, as I have said, are essential. From their dissolution can come only chaos. Majorities even now disappear over night, so slight are their foundations, and elections de- termine not the will of the people but only their transient and locally influenced guess. The old parties had strength because psy- chologically founded. One did not, in the old days, change readily — one could not. Nor could one ignore party lines. It is the same with our preferences in governmental forms — ■ these too are psychological. Some of us are trained to and carry patterns of aristocracy, and others of us look forward to a democratic ideal. Once kings ruled by "divine sanc- tion"; democracy, today, does the same. It is supposed to be God's will that aU shall be dem- ocrats, and we are ready to "beat up" any who happen to think otherwise. Breaking bones only, however, will not accomplish the end — • we shall have to break up contrary brain pat- terns, something far more resistant. The forms of government, like parties and like churches, are products of evolution and can be altered only when they are no longer 32 THE GREGAEIOUS TENDENCY true to the psychological demands of the people. When a government has been long in existence it has formed for itself patterns in the minds of its subjects, or citizens, which can by no means be easily eradicated. No government can, therefore, be happily changed by violence ; rev- olution must bring chaos, and, also, generally, at least a temporary reversion to some exagger- ated phase of the old. If however the govern- ment has indeed become antiquated through changing needs, then the final effect of revolu- tion may be good. It will certainly have has- tened the new order. The old will have had its prestige destroyed; new ideas will at the same time have been implanted, and, the soil being favourable, these will grow. Counter revolu- tions may take place, but the final adjustment will be true to the psychological needs of the masses. France reached absolute monarchy with Eichelieu, Mazarin, and the Bourbons. Then came revolution, a republic, and Napo- leon; then the Bourbons once more, a revolu- tion, and a Bourbons-Orleans; a revolution, a republiq, a coup d'etat, and another Napoleon; then war, a commune, and a third republic. Here we have the struggle of an idea which once implanted never let go until it became at last established. There is no royal road to the 33 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE breaMng up of old patterns. The impetuosity and haste of man seems always to demand that there shall be, shedding of blood, but patterns, even then, die hard, and when true psycholog- ically they die not at aU. Revolution in this last case spells disaster only; there is no sub- sequent alleviation to excuse the original mis- ery, and it is the nation that dies, not the pat- tern. So it is that looking backward over the his- tory of governmental changes we can deter- mine the fitness or unfitness of the people for the changes attempted. Would that our fore- sight were equally clear ! A brief struggle fol- lowed by peace indicates naturally a psycholog- ical preparation — ^witness the formation of the United States of America. Where the strug- gle is longer, with many reactions and counter efforts — ^witness France — ^we know that the people were not prepared. I trust that it is unnecessary for me to add that of course revolution is never warranted under constitutional governments operating legitimately. Here the people hold in their own hands the ability to effect such changes as become necessary, and to introduce here the horrors of revolution is the basest of crimes. No stretch of the imagination can ever excuse 34 THE GEEGAEIOUS TENDENCY revolution other than against a despotic rule, where the people, having no voice, may indeed be driven to action. The important thing to realize in all this is that man's patterns, not his wilfulness, are the determining cause of most of his actions. Let it once be grasped that man's institutions are in accordance with the patterns he possesses, and these institutions will less often be at- tacked with the sword. Education will attain ,the same end, for if the ideas be true education will effect them, and if they be not true then education and the sword must equally fail. Institutions are born of man's necessities, and that these are not the same with all is a matter of good fortune rather than otherwise. It is in opposition of forces that mental stimulus comes; a uniformity that is absolute nega- tives all progress. Radicals and conservatives are alike essential. It is the radical that makes things go, who works for progress ; and it is the conservative that makes the work of the radical safe. The radical is the moving part of the world's machinery; the conservative, the frame which controls and directs the movement. A world of radicals would be like a machine of all moving parts; it could do no work, it would tear itself quickly to pieces. A world of con- 35 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE servatives would be like a model of a machine, a non-working, non-workable representation of a machine — such a world would be dead. What a pity radicals and conservatives can not adjust and consciously utilize each other's qualities? Unconsciously they do this, more or less — ^why can they not do it with open un- derstanding, instead of wasting so much blood and time in contest! Kipling's story of "The Ship that Found Itself," should be read and explained, at least once a year, to every child in the land. To sum up. The gregarious tendency brings people together, and sympathy groups them. Certain economic groups and governmental forms may indeed be the result of man's intel- lectual interpretation of past experience, or of his guess as to the future; but basicly and generally, man's institutions — social, political 'and religious — are born of his sympathies and needs. They exist because they are, at least temporarily, both useful and satisfying. Let us not then make ourselves ridiculous by as- suming for our own group an absolute perfec- tion. Let us recognize that the otherwise- minded have the same reason for their attitude as we have for ours. If ours happens to be the 36 THE GREGARIOUS TENDENCY better founded, so much the luckier for us ; but as regards origins it should be recognized that both arise from psychological foundations, and can not be other than they are. 37 CHAPTER III SEX, FEAR AND WAE Man makes his institutions, and he does this, largely, by passing over into the social body his inherited tendencies. These there may be- come modified almost beyond recognition, but they persist; they pass into the group, colour all of its actions, and become, after change, group attributes. Especially is this true of our strong, underlying, biological inheritances, those which have been with us so long that no amount of civilizing has been able materially to lessen their force. Let us consider some of the strongest of these. The Sex Instinct and Altruism The sex instinct is, we take it, the chief of all instincts. Not only does this pass over into and influence the whole life of the group, but it is basic in character, operating along with the gregarious tendency, or as a part of it, in form- ing society. Through this instinct man and woman were brought together, through it the 38 SEX, FEAE AND WAR child came, and through it, therefore, we at- tained to the family group. But the family group is the epitome of all society. With it begins the social idea, the plan of division of labour; and with it, too, comes in the begin- ning of social altruism, the recognition of the fact that often the self must be sacrificed for the sake of others. Long centuries were required to develop these ideas. They were not accomplished through the first marriage, but only after long evolution. The altruistic sense was doubtless weak in the beginning; the early man grabbed ,and devoured his children's food, and, if he was big enough, his wife's. But then, pretty soon, the children died and his wife ran away, or maybe he, in a fit of petulance killed her, and his group got reduced to but one. Now a "group" of one is not a strong group, and here it is that natural selection came into play. Those who happened to have some sense of co-operation and of altruism left healthy children to pass on these qualities — those who had not, were elim- inated. Then, naturally, as the non-altruistic disappear, and as the tradition and experience .of altruism grows, it enlarges, enriches, and becomes more real. Natural selection is as im- portant in society as it is to the individual; 39 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE good ideas, good workable traditions, tend al- ways to persist, just as do desirable pbysical attributes. It is the child that is here of prime impor- tance — the fact of the child, and especially the fact of the child's long period of dependence. The period of childhood is one of instruction, not necessarily conscious instruction, but of instruction just the same. During this period the child becomes infused with the traditions, attitudes, beliefs and ideals of its parents. Sympathy and imitation operate daily and hourly, at close range, year after year, until the child becomes as nearly as may be a replica of its father and mother, "favouring" one or the other but containing elements of each. What does this mean? It means that through the child the past is saved and held for the future. Books may indeed, nowadays, in civ- ilized communities, serve as repositories of at- tainments, but even now it is still the child that hands on living traditions, especially those we call moral. These must be acquired in child- hood if they are to become real facts of person- ality, real working facts. We can not wait for the child to learn to read books before laying down its character. By that time all that will be possible in the formation of such patterns 40 SEX, FEAE AND WAR will be a sort of intellectual imitation of the same — ^at the best a very poor substitute for those deep emotional attitudes obtainable dur- ing the earlier, impressionable period. As a matter of fact, books have not operated to the maintenance of traditions — they have done the reverse. When the young New Englander reads Voltaire, or even iSir Walter Scott, or anything else written by one who is not like- minded with those of his own group, the teach- ings of this group are inevitably weakened. The world gets smaller with reading, and one's mental circle larger. It is with the isolated and with the bookless that traditional attitudes and beliefs become fixed. Tradition is far stronger in Borneo than in New York. It is through the child only that the past is saved, and when you remember that progress is possible only when we have a past to build upon, the importance of the childhood instruc- tion becomes evident. To start at the begin- ning with each successive generation would, of course, mean no progress at all, but the long immaturity of the child amply secures the pres- ervation of the accumulated tradition. The sex instinct, then, itself so egoistic, and still existing in its early simple form, as lust, has nevertheless, operated both in the found- 41 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE ing of society, through its formation of the 'family -group, and, also, in its development and continuance. Though selfish itself, being but the gratification of desire, it has helped to teach the world co-operation, and has opened the way to altruism. Furthermore, associated with it, and part of it, is that great gentle in- stinct of mother love, the tender emotion, na- ture 's provision for the care of the young, that instinct which has prepared the hearts and minds of the race for pity, charity and gentle- ness. It may seem forced to some, thus to derive so many social virtues from the sex call, but I have a notion that were babies to be obtained only from the stork, were the stork only re- sponsible for them, there would be no "closed season" for storks, they would be shot on sight. It has required something more than having babies "wished on us" to make them accept- able to the race, and this something is the pa- rental relation. But there are two kinds of parental relation. With the woman, with the mother, there is no egoism, there is nothing but glad sacrifice ; she slaves and gives of herself from the moment of her child's conception. She asks but little in return, and, during her lifetime, generally gets 42 SEX, FEAR AND WAB it. It is different -witli the man — nature makes it so. His functions are different — He must fight and provide, and for this he needs egoism. So it is that egoism comes also to colour his love. He wants something to be proud of, and if his child is "nothing to be proud of," and if he can not delude himself into thinking it other than it is, then he commonly has small use for the child. It is the mother who silently exhibits the tender emotion to perfection, main- taining that real fire that keeps the life in human souls, and, too, often without so much as a "spark floating through her humble chim- ney" to reveal to the world her service.^ Men, too, share in the tender emotion — ^but differently. With the woman the instinct often remains a gift for the child or for anything that may in its weakness and helplessness re- semble the child, while with the man it is apt to be generalized and extended into his world of more external affairs. Women tend ever to the home — if normal and able — while men go abroad, both physically and mentally. There is no comparison here of values — such a com- parison can not be made; as well try, in the body, to weigh the circulation against assimila- tion. The biological unit of life is a man- 1 0. W. Holmes : The Professor at the Breakfast Table. 43 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE woman. Nature has merely, for the purpose of a greater efficiency, separated this unit into two parts.^ The "new woman" is making a sad mistake here. It would seem that she, viewing man's sphere from the distance, and observing that man kept religiously within it, has come to the conclusion that it must be a good sphere. She has felt that she was being excluded from something, and so she deter- mined to get in. Alas, so far as she is normal, the "new woman" has many disappointments ahead. She will learn, among other things., that man's sphere is no better than is hers, and that the only reason he has kept to it is that he could do no otherwise, that it, only, was true to his pat- terns. But it is not true to her patterns, and it does seena a pity that she has to make this ex- periment. Men and women in their own spheres are ever equal — ^when they enter each other's, their equality must vanish. It is through both the male and the female elements, through these different but related in- terpretations of the tender emotion, that there has come into the world its altruism. In the 2 Earl Barnes: "Woman in Modem Society, and also "Aristophanes" in Plato's Banquet — ithougli the latter does say that God effected the cleavage because the original unit was getting too strong! 44 SEX, FEAR AND WAB tendencies here rooted have originated home, asylum, and hospital, and, indeed, we may say more generally, all charity, sacrifice, and love. It is here, too, above all, that we find the psy- chological strength of Christianity. It was a loving Father that Christ preached to the world. His whole religion is developed within this heart-stirring emotion, and the addition by the Church of the mother idea — the adoration of Mary, the Mother of God — ^was but a natural and instinctive completion of the same. Un- fortunately there are other elements in most religions, even in much soi-disant Christian- ity. Love is not sufficient ; we must have, also, a hell. Fear and Eeligion Fear is one of man's most primitive emo- tions. It is, or was, his normal reaction to a superior and menacing power, and once took care of him by effecting his removal from dan- ger. Things are different now. Man now has a better reliance on his wits, and the old emo- tional reaction has become, especially in its conflict with reason, a menace in itself, not a safe-guard. The safe man now is one who "keeps his head." It is the man with con- trolled emotion that quells the panic, and to 45 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE whom the weaker turn in their emergencies. An appreciation of danger, be it noted, is not fear ; fear is simply the old primitive emotion. The victory over fear is in its intellectual con- trol. But primitive instincts do not die because they are no longer useful. They persist to annoy and to complicate Ufe, or else they be- come modified and adjusted. With fear, as with sex, both of these phases are familiar. Elemental fear is the curse of many today^ while with others elemental fear has been so modernized that we can discover it only as caution and foresight. Socially, fear has played a large part, and nowhere greater than in the developing of man's religion. I have written of this else- where * but let me sustain this statement here with a brief explanation. It was man's difficulties that first suggested to him an external power — ^not his well-being. When things went well, he knew why — ^he had arranged them so — ^but when, in spite of his care, they went wrong, then he naturally judged that there must be some outside mali- cious interference. There was plenty to ter- rify! 3 Piatt: Psychology of Thought and Feeling. 46 SEX, PEAE AND WAR Many and marvellous the things of fear Earth's breast doth bear, And the sea's lap with many monsters teems, And windy leven-bolts and meteor gleams Breed many deadly things — Unknown and flying forms, with fear upon their wings. And in their tread is death; And rushing whirl-winds, of whose blasting breath Men's tongue can tell.* It is not the direct menace that arouses fear most keenly, but ever the menace that is guessed at, that which is, in a manner, un- known. We get "goose flesh" from the hear- ing of a creaking floor-board at night, and a horse shies at a newspaper — .though this last may be but an example of the much praised "horse sense." It is the intangible, unknown, guessed-at menace that especially arouses fear. So man early erected for himself a world of mysterious forces, and it was in his difi&culties they were bom, not in his happy experiences. The storm and the flood, the lightning and death, these were but the open proofs of malig- nant spirits, and man worshipped in fear. Or, rather, first he endeavoured to propitiate and, * Aeschylus : The Libation Bearers, translation of E. D. A. Morshead. 47 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE later, to flatter — ^it was in the flattery that the worship began — and then, becoming bolder, he added petition. Today not many have passed this point — propitiation has been dropped as inconvenient and costly, but flattery and the asking of favours still make up the bulk of most prayer. Your minister will explain that I am ignorantly substituting base motives for things that are truly noble, that I am degrading sacri- fice, and praise, and humble aspiration, but I do not feel so. I feel that these things the minis- ter speaks of so glibly are something very dif- ferent, a very beautiful and desirable, but very rare, something attained to as yet by only the few. When the sense of good gods came in, man still retained his belief in the bad, and his reli- gion then became dualistic. The bad Ahriman struggled with Mazda, the God of Light. In India we find Vishnu and Siva, and in Egypt, Osiris and Setos ; Keturah offsets Moloch, and God stands off the Devil. The Devil, slightly shorn of 'his powers, still lives — ^witness his apotheosis in Milton, the story of him who, "fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King." So long as the gods were conceived of as con- cerned only with tribal affairs, as was the case 48 SEX, FEAR AND WAR in the beginning, it was easy to explain catas- trophe through the actions of some tribal scape- goat; but when the gods' care became personal, then arose all manner of difficult theological questions, that of Job being always the most baffling. To answer this, Hell was invented. Contrasting the old ideas with the new, the change amounts to this — ^in the olden time man practised religion with the hope of escaping evil in this present world; now he practises it with the hope of escaping evil in the next. Christianity, of course, has nothing to do with the fear element, but then Christianity is just beginning to be generally recognized; it is stiU purely nominal in many of our churches. "Christianity is the flag under which we sail, but not our rudder." ^ It is the fear element today which still plays a large part in all actual religious incentive. As Caesar Cregeen says, in "The Manxman," "to take away Hell is to drop out the tail-board from a man's religion." The taking away of Hell has certainly helped largely to develop our Sunday country club life, Christianity is founded, as we have said, on a very different emotional tendency, a far gen- tler one, that of love and the parental relation, the well-named "tender emotion." B 0. W. Holmes. 49 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE War, Bitsiness and Play The fight tendency in man, like all of his orig- inal tendencies essentially egoistic, also carries over into the group, where it continues to exist in both an original and a modified form. There is fundamentally no difference between the con- duct and the emotion of a war, and the conduct and emotion of two fighting boys, and this re- mains true whether the fight be in the present or back in the Stone Age. There is and always has been the same sequence — a real or a fancied invasion of rights, or a determination to gain something, a pretext, a protest, a threat, and then assault, conflict, rage, and a general loss of reason. Men and nations alike revert to the purest egoistic reactions — the opponent is all that is vile and there is just one thing good, and that is self, either individual or national. And yet, even this terrible expression of the primi- tive urge has had its social value. Let us for- get, for a moment, our hatred of it. Union for defence is at the base of most un- ions. As Professor Boss has put it, "danger tightens, and security relaxes all bonds." The necessity of defence has been the incentive for many a group formation, and a uniting for ag- gression the origin of others. Man learned early to hunt in packs, and, then, as he found 50 SEX, FEAR AND WAR often that what he wanted was in the possession of others, the hunt became a raid. Natural se- lection develops quickly in such cases. Non- fighting individuals and non-fighting groups were ever exposed to elimination, and their pacifist children with them. It was the fight- ing group that survived and passed on its fight- ing traditions. So Europe was made^and the process has not been altogether a bad one, for ■ not only did the fight tend to strengthen the group consciousness, but it also developed other ^social values. It developed, above all, co-op- eration in endeavor, team play, and an appre- ciation of leadership. Groups that could not attain to these great social virtues, no matter how willing otherwise to fight, were eliminated by their failure, just as were the non-fighting groups. Natural selection operated here too, and the fighting groups became, in consequence, ever more and more socially able. Individual idealism and pacifism meant a short life in the old days — ^it is only now that others have made society strong that these things have become possible. The above is the historical presentation. What about war now? The fact is that while war has most certainly been a valuable agent in the past, it is, today, von Bernhardi notwith- 51 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE standing, a calamity. Conditions have changed and social culture has advanced to a point where physical strife with its reversions to the primitive can no longer be considered desirable. Co-operation and leadership have now been learned and we need no longer war's terrible in- struction. War now leads not only to economic ruin, but, more importantly, also, to a loss in conventional morality and to a lowering of the whole standard of life. "No kit-bag ever was large enough to hold the ten commandments." It will not do now to emphasize its good points. "A man who sharpens a spear-head," says Xenophon, "sharpens his spirit as well" — ^yes, but, nowadays, at too great a price. War does still develop heroisms and love of country, and it does still remove many minor conflicts — Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Socialists and Labor Unions forget their grievances and unite in the support of the nation — but only tempo- rarily. The war being over, there is a slump in ideals and the minor group quarrels are re- newed with intensified bitterness. Groups there are, too, that are destroyed by war. There are international groups in science and art, there are groups of those who stand for common ideals — the basis for the only truly possible internationalism — and these, war de- 52 SEX, FEAR AND WAR stroys. The British and French drop the Ger- man foreign members from the roles of their societies, and the German Christian pastors call loudly in hate for the destruction of their con- freres in England. The spirit aroused in war is not always elevating, and it is certainly not always beautiful. Dr. Joseph Fort Newton has described it « as a "blend of alarm, anger, hate, knight-errantry, hysteria, idealism, cyni- cism, moralistic fervor and plain bafflement." This would seem to about cover it. But is war necessary? Here is a strong nat- ural tendency, one of the strongest, our whole western civilization is based upon it; and we have not only inherited its patterns, we have also cultivated them. We have ever apotheo- sized the military hero. We give our children soldiers to play with, we make cocked hats and wooden swords for them to parade with, and we take them to see our great military monuments "erected by the grateful nation." The old in- stinct really needs no such cultivation, but we give it, and so successful are we in our instruc- tion that we manage to get up a war for each generation. Once is generally enough — ^we emerge sadder and wiser, and there is com- monly no more war until our children of the « Atlantic Monthly, August, 1921. 53 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE cocked hats and wooden swords grow up. ' ' But wars are not made by peoples," some say. "Well, wars are not — they are made by politicians who imagine that they see some advantage to be gained — ^but the people are not difficult to per- suade. "It is enough to beat a drum and wave a flag," says Anatole France, and the people enthusiastically gather. The truth is, there is a real joy in a fight. "War may be terrible but let's enjoy it" is the attitude of many — ^in the beginning. And after all, what is the underlying impulse? Is it not but one of competition? It is at least here that the psychologist would place it, and it is here, too, that he looks for its solution. This great force, this primitive reaction, must be directed into other channels ; the desire for competitive striving must be otherwise satisfied, if war is to end. Incidentally, too, we must stop training our children for war; we must make men of them in some other way. Treaties will not end war; treaties will be scrapped by amy nation when they come to obstruct its determination. iWe must dig deeper than treaties ; these lie but on the intellectual surface. The problem is, I take it, to satisfy man's de- sire for competition — and also, to teach eco- nomics to statesmen. The easier of these steps 54 SEX, FEAR AND WAR is already being essayed. Society has long un- consciously been developing substitutes for war, in business and play, and the fight instinct in many has already been thus satisfied. It is now proposed to further this movement con- sciously. Commercial rivalry has its own cam- paigns, its leaders, its sense of co-operation and its antagonisms, its contests and its victo- ries. Business is now using up much of the primitive egoistic craving. The parallel with war is close in all directions — starting with de- fence, going on to aggression, and ending with simple joy in the process itself. Politics offers a similar field. In fact, whether it be the effort to produce a Prussian hegemony in Europe, a corner in wheat, a control of the city council, or to beat up the school leader, the psychology of the attempt is the same. The social modification of the fight tendency is thus already a part of our social scheme, but, unfortunately it does not yet, except with some, entirely satisfy. How could it? It is too new. It is dependent upon patterns too recently ac- quired, upon patterns not to be compared in compelling force with those old ones which date back to the beginning of things. As with all new patterns, we get tired of them, and tend ever, for relaxation, to revert to the old. Na- 55 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE tions like individuals every now and again come to resent the constricting clothing of civilization. They suddenly become conscious of the call of the wild, and go out to the woods for a vacation. Business helps, then, but is not entirely suf- ficient. It is even claimed that business brings ,on war, that we fight to secure a commercial supremacy. It is said by some that we go to war to gain business ; that we go to war to se- cure the success of war's social substitute! But this is not quite true. Economic interests may be in the background, of many a fight, but they are the economic interests as interpreted by statesmen, not by business men — and it is for this reason, I say, that economics should be taught to our leaders. Business men would never bring on a war; they know better. What remains to be done is this. It is recog- nized that the emotion is with us to stay; let us strive to divert it into channels where it can no longer be destructive. The natural social evo- lution has developed only unconsciously its sub- stitutes for war, let these be now cultivated con- sciously. "We have already done, maybe, all that we can do with business, let us now join with the sociologists and see what we can do with play. There is in the present world-wide play movement great hope for the future — 56 SEX, FEAB AND WAR would that Middle Europe had undertaken it sooner ! The more a nation plays, the less will it fight. Play, healthful play, is the best of all reversions to the primitive, and if a man can but get enough of it he will need no other. We of the United States did not want to get into the last fight — wlajf Because we have learned to play and did not need the relaxation. It has been said of us that we are "a. picnici, not a na- tion," but being a "picnic" has its advantages. Base-ball and foot-ball, tennis, rowing, golf, himting, fishing and dancing have managed to satisfy most of our primitive propensities. Even our business and politics we approach in the play spirit; they are for us games rather than labour. We have, in other words, distrib- uted the force of the wild stream of instinct into a multitude of channels. We have con- verted a torrent into an irrigating benefit. It is something like this that the world at large must do if it is ever to cease having wars. There is no danger in the proposition. It does not unman a nation ; such nations can still fight if needs be, but they will not fight at every drop of the hat. Play means just good fellowship and good nature. It is the happiest of outlets for man's egoistic tendencies, and it leads, moreover, to much the same social virtues as 57 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE does war. It leads to team work and to the appreciation of leadership ; it leads to a uniting of the group — and it reaches these things with- out passing through tears. 58. CHAPTER rV HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM The formation of habit is a purely individual phenomenon, and a biological one,, being de- pendent upon certain organic properties of nerve tissue. As we have already found, a nerve current flowing over a certain path, through certain nerve cells and nerves, so al- ters these cells and nerves as to render more easy a second passage of the current. A path once traversed is, therefore, subsequently, a pathway of choice. Furthermore, each time the nerve current flows it confirms this choice, un- til, ultimately, it becomes almost compelling. This nerve pattern, as we have called it, now re- mains, the organic basis of a habit — a nerve path over which a current will flow without ef- fort whenever the proper stimulus is received. Habits are broken with difficulty, and the effort to break them is painful, the easy flow of a nerve current being that alone which is pleas- ant. Here, then, is an organic attribute of man, ,59 THE PSYCHjOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE and one which is, therefore, purely individual, and yet which, because it is also universal, passes over into the group and there exhibits itself as a group attribute. In the individual it makes for conservatism; in the group it does the same. It preserves the old ways of doing ; it resists innovations, and it thereby secures time for a normal development. It gives time for normal evolutionary processes, and it blocks revolution. Imitation is that attribute of man which leads him to reproduce the acts of another. Unlike habit it is socially determined — one can not im- itate unless there be some one to imitate. It is imitation that unifies the group and makes it more social. It has been described^ as "the prime condition of all collective mental life," and, though I do not agree with this, placing sympathy as more universally fundamental, it is certainly of great social importance. Its ' operation begins with the infant's first con- scious effort, and even before, and it may be continued to the last hour of life. It is a large and probably the principal part of all educa- tion, that of the schools, the home and the streets. It determines speech in the child and the choice of a profession ; it teaches us to write, 1 McDougall. 60 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM and,, because they excite emulation, it makes heroes useful. Imitation operates both consciously and un- consciously. It may follow an appreciation of the imitated act, and be an intellectual expres- sion of admiration and approval, or it may be but an unconscious following due to some in- herent physical sympathy. We may share in the physical stimulation of a foot-ball game, and gain a better circulation by merely look- ing on, or we may arrive at our imitation, after viewing and. admiring, by deliberately attempt- ing to reproduce what has pleased us. As imitation is a major part of the individ- ual's education, so it is of the nation ^s. Back- ward nations learn from the more progressive, and, again, as with the individual, both con- sciously and unconsciously. The barbarians unconsciously imitated the Romans whom they conquered, and Japan has consciously imitated Europe. I have spoken above of the unifying and con- solidating value of imitation. It is through it we arrive at that like-mindedness necessary for sympathetic co-operation. No society too het- erogeneous in its make-up can long survive. There must be a certain similarity in its mem- bers if unity of purpose and action is ever to be 61 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE achieved — ^but this, imitation can secure if the group can be maintained, however artificially, for a sufficiently long period. A man and woman long married will adjust and imitate until they reach a certain mental resemblance ; and so with societies. There is, for example, an American type — ^but of what heterogeneous elements is it composed! It is imitation that has accomplished the fusion and made possi- ble our continued existence as a nation. The importance of the Americanization movement is evident — this is but a helping of nature. The more like-mindedness, especially in ideals, the less the friction and lost motion. Like-mind- edness means "a strong pull and a pull all together"; it is a promise that things will get done. Of course, theoretically, there is an- other side ; if all were exactly alike, life would stagnate — ^but there is no possibility of this ; in- heritance and circumstance will always secure abundance of contrary opinions, and the most that imitation can ever do will be but ta pro- vide a much-to-be-wished-for sympathetic un- derstanding. In both conscious and unconscious imitation, sympathy and, with it, suggestion, play a large part. It is indeed difficult to separate these psychological forces, and it may well be that 62 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM sympathy underlies all. Sympathy is emo- tional and physical ; it may be described as the tendency, under certain conditions, to feel with another. The contemplation of the activity of certain nerve patterns in others may be suffi- cient to set going similar nerve patterns within ourselves. Naturally, then, the more nearly our patterns resemble the other's the more likely they will be to be set in action, or, as we ex- press it, the stronger will be our sympathies. Here is the origin of race sympathies, the choice of one's own race over others. Here is also the origin of the "set", and, above all, of the strong family bond. Within each of these groups the brain and nerve patterns will have naturally a greater resemblance than with those of Others outside of the group, and the group sympathies must, therefore, be the stronger. Imitation follows as a normal re- sult. On the other hand, where the patterns are different and sympathy corr6spondingly weak, imitation generally will fail. The step-parent remains an outsider to the family circle. The school-boy does not often imitate his school- teacher; his model is, naturally and more hap- pily, his father. The American Indians have not largely imitated their despoilers, the 63 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE whites, nor have the East Indians theirs. Orientals in general have made only conscious imitjations of Westerners, and then only critically, in a Hmited field, and to gain some coveted end. Sympathy, then, is a matter of group resemblance, of family, of set, of nation, and of race; but, in this age of relativity, we must recognize, too, that these sympathies are relative. We have a neighbour whom at home we do not speak to, but we meet him in China and fall into his arms. As regards suggestion, the other force linked so closely with imitation and sympathy, this belongs to the subconscious. It is the operation of the subtilely introduced idea which, taken into our minds, sets in motion there an undercurrent of reaction which may or may not later lead to expression. Sugges- tion operates even when sympathy is slight, and it is through its action, probably, that we get those slow imitations often observable in the face of contrary patterns. Orientals and Occidentals differ profoundly, and yet there is evident a gradually developing mutual influ- ence. In philosophy, for example, the basic materialism of western thought is already showing the softening influence of oriental mysticism. Our western religion itself is A 64 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM fusion of the oriental inifinite with, the man-god of the Greeks. It is evident that imitation is exceedingly complex in its action, but let us forget this com- plexity for the present. Sympathy and sug- gestion will be discussed in a later chapter, let us now consider imitation simply as a psycho- logical attribute interwoven with habit. Imitation and habit together provide society with the great social forces of custom, conven- tion, and tradition. The first of these has ref- erence especially to the imitation of our prede- cessors in ways of doing; tradition continues old ways of thiniking; and convention covers both doing and thinking as determined for us by our contemporaries. Conventions are com- monly limited to comparatively small groups and are more or less transient. Should they, however, containing some element of truth, happen to persist, then the convention of doing bcomes a custom, and the convention of think- ing becomes a tradition. All three together determine the actions, attitudes and ideals of the race, or, in other words, what are known as its mores. These forces are pre-eminently the stabilizers of society. They can never be easily altered; they are subject only to a slow, almost imperceptible, evolution. They can and 65 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE do become changed, but their changes are al- ways reluctant, even when consciously made and desirable. I speak of three forces, but it should be noted that it is not always easy to distinguish between them. There are many things in our lives that would be difficult to classify accu- rately. I do not know whether Boston's baked beans and brown bread are a custom or a con- vention, or merely a pleasing alliteration — ^nor does it greatly signify, and we may, if we please, avoid these meticulous distinctions al- together by using the inclusive term mores. But the distinctions,, again, are soipe times both obvious and useful. Let us, therefore, make a tentative separation of the three, but with a due acknowledgment in advance that our clas- sification may be wrong. Custom, while not always fundamentally wise, depends upon man's tendency to repeat acts which once have been found to work sat- isfactorily. His unsuccessful attempts are abandoned. Habit secures the continuance of the act, and imitation its diffusion in the group, and then, through the bridge of the child, it is continued into the next generation, and so down through the ages. In many cases the origin of the custom will be trivial. Primitive 66 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM man makes his deductions as does a child, his logic may be good but his knowledge is defi- cient. Things happening in sequence are sup- posed to be necessarily related. An expedi- tion is to be undertaken against a neighbouring tribe. Just as the party starts off the chief's wife, or one of them, presents him with a baby — and the expedition fails. Henceforth, no expedition will ever be undertaken at a similar critical period. ' Every act of the tribe, and every personal act even, thus comes gradually to get tied up to a custom, and contrary acts are forbidden. Ways of doing become set and unchangeable, and ways contrary become taboo. Time hal- lows these customs; they obtain moral values, and to go contrary to them is to deliberately expose the tribe to the wrath of the gods. Fur- thermore, it is important to note that with all simple people their customs and taboos are not only true moral guides but they are the only ones possible. It is through them that obedi- ence and duty and social responsibility are taught. The subtilties of academic theology are to their untrained minds quite incomprehen- sible, and when these subtilties are offered as guides in the place of the old customs, the poor heathen is generally left with no guide at all. 67 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE It is for this reason that primitive people gen- erally degenerate through contact with civiliza- tion. They lose their taboos and with them their religion, and, since they cannot appreciate the substitute offered, they then find themselves free to follow their natural animal instincts. But if customs are compelling with primitive peoples, they are only slightly less so with the most civilized. Morals and mores are as close in fact as they are etymologically, and they de- termine our standards whether we be savages or dwellers in cities. "The mores can make things seem right and good to one group or one age which to another seem antagonistic to every instinct of human nature."^ False- hood, theft, murder, the eating of human flesh, and head hunting have been, and still are, with some, highly moral acts. The church has tor- tured and poisoned and massacred wholesale; slavery was once universal. But to eat in public is, today, with some, counted sinful. To have ten husbands, or ten wives, or only one of each — ^it is all but a matter of custom, and of custom only. What becomes of our morals ? What is modesty but a living according to mode? Nakedness, of the body with some is proper enough though the uncovering of the 2 W. G. Sumner : Folkways. 68 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM face is immoral. Clothing has nothing to do with modesty — ^it was the much clothed Per- sians who introduced immodesty to the naked Greeks. It is all custom, but it is, in its way, as compelling now as with our primitive ances- tors. To live outside of the mores of one's group is to become an alien to it. One who does this simply invites trouble; he becomes a subject of disapproving criticism and may likely enough spend much of his time in jail. I have spoken of fear as being the psycho- logical impulse toward religion. In custom we find the origin of ceremony and ritual. Cus- toms having become right and important to the welfare of the tribe, certain men learned in customs were set aside to see that all were properly observed. These men formed the priesthood. They guarded, elaborated and transmitted — every movement became signifi- cant and important — ^and ritualism became supreme. But here as with other customs, as time goes on, the original significance of the act may be forgotten and yet its performance con- tinue. This is the tendency in all ritualism, even in the ritualistic churches of today. It is the act itself which finally comes to be held sacred. So, too, in the courts, and in ceremony gen- 69 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE erally. Eoss ^ tells of the clerks in a Calcutta government office, who were found on their knees worshipping the instruments of their trade — their ink, and pens, and red-tape — and adds that co-worshippers of red-tape are to be found in all government offices today. Lan- guage, ceremony, ritual, law — ^these are what Eoss calls the "fossil bearing strata" of so- ciety. All look backward, all foUow prece- dents, and aU tend, therefore, to become purely formal. How many today can follow a ritual- istic service and give the original significance of its forms? Certainly very few, even of the clergy. We hear much of the symbolism of acts. All the peculiarities of church ceremonial are given deep spiritual meaning, but almost in- variably, on investigatiop, we discover that these meanings have been only lately read into the acts. We do what we do, we know not why ; but, if any one asks us why, we try to find a reason, we try to rationalize our behaviour. The early symbolism is soon outgrown but the customs continue; later generations explain as they may and, of course, in terms acceptable to themselves. Much of the ritual and sym- bolism of the Christian church goes back to 3 Social Psychology. 70 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM pagan times, and much of it relates to an ex- tremely elemental conception of life, but it is explained today on a different basis. Easter is the festival of the pagan goddess Ostara, or Eastre, the goddess of Spring, one of the forms of Freyja, the Persephone of the North, who wanders in the nether-world during the winter months, and then comes back to earth in the Spring. Easter has with all peoples been the season of new birth. Our Teutonic ancestors had baptismal rites at that time — they even had Easter eggs, coloured red and yellow, in symbolism of the beginning of life, and of the sun. The May-pole, with its shocking bit of symbolism, formed part of the same celebration. The Chaldeans celebrated to Ishtar or Astarte, Queen of Heaven, and the dyed eggs came in here too, as did the progen- itor of the "hot cross bun."* JeremiaJi waxes indignant at this offering of cakes to Ishtar. "The children gather wood, the fa- thers kindle the fire, and the women knead the dough to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven. " ® Some of the curious shapes given these Chal- dean buns were still imitated, in certain local- ities of Europe, as late as 1825. *Iiiman: Ancient Faiths. Jeremiah, VII, 18. See, also, J. XLIV, 19. 71 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF SOCIAL LIFE The fact is, the Church to get its festivals accepted was ohliged to hold them on the days which custom had already fixed as sacred to the older gods. Herein is evident the wisdom of Eome — the Quakers could never have made this concession. Christmas Day is regarded by most as the actual birthday of Christ, but Christ's birthday has been celebrated in Jan.- uary, March, April and May. It was Pope Julian I who finally selected the December date. It was the time of the Saturnalia in Rome, and the holly and laurel, and the candles were all part of the old decorations. This same Yule Tide was, too, sacred to Odhinn, as was the Christmas tree and its ornaments, even to the angel on top. The mistletoe comes from the Druids. But all customs the meaning. of which has been lost, do not, of course, go back to these pagan times. We "touch wood" to avoid bad luck — the "wood" being, originally, the wood of the Cross. The small boy crosses his fin- gers with the same intent, and his "cross" has been used for a thousand years, especially to ward off "the evil eye." The mid-day angelus of the CathoHo Church was first rung to avert the combined menace of a comet and of the ad- vancing Turks— this was back in 1456, but the 72 HABIT, IMITATION AND CUSTOM beUs are still rung. We may add that bells in general were first used on churches to frighten away demons^ and, incidentally, to ward off storms — in those days, even though they had no clocks, people went to church unsummoned. The church steeple carries back, step by step, to the temples in the valley of the Euphrates and Tigris, 3000 b. c.® "When the Sumerians came down to the plain, they brought with them their god En-lil, but he, their "Lord Demon," was accustomed to mountains, he was domiciled always at the mountain peak ; so the Sumerians built a mountain for him, or at least a substitute for a mountain — a tower. Alongside each temple a high tower was con- structed, as En-liPs shrine,'' and this still stands guard over our churches. "Whether a custom shall be advantageous or not, will depend, naturally, not upon its origin, but upon its relation to existing conditions and upon the meaning we now read into it. It may have been founded on some primitive mis- conception, and this may have been either an unfortunate error or just a trivial one. Or it ej. H. Breasted. 1 The highest of these towers was the Tower of Babel, the ruins of which were used during the last war as a wireless station. Morris Jastrow: The W