The life of the savage, then, is in general dominated by that of the group; and this domination is not effected by physical force or compulsion (save in exceptional instances) but by the group spirit which is inevitably developed in the mind of the savage child by the material circumstances of his life and by the traditions, especially the superstitious and religious traditions, of his community. Such group self-consciousness is the principal moralising influence, and to this influence is due in the main the fact that savages conform so strictly to their accepted moral codes.
Group self-consciousness in savage communities brings then, I suggest, two great advantages which account for the spontaneous development and persistence among so many savage peoples of what, from a narrowly utilitarian point of view, might seem to be an excess of group organisation, such as the totemic systems of the Australians and of the American Indians;—namely, firstly, the moralising influences of the group spirit; secondly, the satisfactions or enjoyments immediately accruing to every participant in active group life.
And these two advantages, being in some degree appreciated, lead to a deliberate cultivation of group life for the securing of them in higher measure. The cultivation of group life shows itself in the many varieties of grouping on a purely artificial basis and in the practice of rites and ceremonies, especially dances, often accompanied by song and other music. There is nothing that so intensifies group consciousness, at the cost of consciousness of individuality, as ceremonial dancing and singing; especially when the dance consists of a series of extravagant bizarre movements, executed by every member of the group in unison, the series of movements being at the same time peculiar to the particular group that practises them and symbolical of the peculiar functions or properties claimed by the group. Many savage dances have these characters in perfection; as, for example, those of the Murray islanders of Torres Straits, where, as I have witnessed, the several totemic groups—the dog-men, the pigeon-men, the shark-men, and other such groups—continue, in spite of the partial destruction by missionaries of their totemistic beliefs, to revel in night-long gatherings, at which each group in turn mimics, in fantastic dances and with solemn delight, the movements of its totem animal.
The importance of group consciousness in savage life has been recently much insisted on by some anthropologists, and indeed, in my view, overstated. Cornford[35] writes “When the totem-clan meets to hold its peculiar dance, to work itself up till it feels the pulsing of its common life through all its members, such nascent sense of individuality as a savage may have—it is always very faint—is merged and lost; his consciousness is filled with a sense of sympathetic activity. The group is now feeling and acting as one soul, with a total force much greater than any of its members could exercise in isolation. The individual is lost, ‘beside himself,’ in one of those states of contagious enthusiasm in which it is well known that men become capable of feats which far outrange their normal powers.” And again “Over and above their individual experience, all the members of the group alike partake of what has been called the collective consciousness of the group as a whole. Unlike their private experience, this pervading consciousness is the same in all, consisting in those epidemic or infectious states of feeling above described, which, at times when the common functions are being exercised, invade the whole field of mentality, and submerge the individual areas. To this group-consciousness belong also, from the first moment of their appearance all representations which are collective, a class in which all religious representations are included. These likewise are diffused over the whole mentality of the group, and identical in all its members.... The collective consciousness is thus super-individual. It resides, of course, in the individuals composing the group. There is nowhere else for it to exist, but it resides in all of them together and not completely in any one of them. It is both in myself and yet not myself. It occupies a certain part of my mind and yet it stretches beyond and outside me to the limits of my group. And since I am only a small part of my group, there is much more of it outside me than inside. Its force therefore is much greater than my individual force, and the more primitive I am the greater this preponderance will be. Here, then, there exists in the world a power which is much greater than any individual’s—super-individual, that is to say superhuman.”
“Because this force is continuous with my own consciousness, it is, as it were, a reservoir to which I have access, and from which I can absorb superhuman power to reinforce and enhance my own. This is its positive aspect—in so far as this power is not myself and greater than myself, it is a moral and restraining force, which can and does impose upon the individual the necessity of observing the uniform behaviour of the group.” This writer makes group consciousness the source of both morality and religion. “The collective consciousness is also immanent in the individual himself, forming within him that unreasoning impulse called conscience, which like a traitor within the gates, acknowledges from within the obligation to obey that other and much larger part of the collective consciousness which lies outside. Small wonder that obedience is absolute in primitive man, whose individuality is still restricted to a comparatively small field, while all the higher levels of mentality are occupied by this overpowering force[36].” The first religious idea is that of “this collective consciousness, the only moral power which can come to be felt as imposed from without.” And Cornford goes yet further and makes of the group self-consciousness the source of magic as well as of religion and morality. This primary reservoir of super-individual power splits, he says, into two pools, human and non-human; the former is magic power, the latter is divine power.
On this I would comment as follows. Although Cornford is right in insisting upon the large influence of group consciousness, he is wrong, I think, in underestimating individuality. He does not go so far as some writers who suggest that group self-consciousness actually precedes individual self-consciousness, but he says of individual self-consciousness that it is but very faint in savages. I am more inclined to agree with Lotze, who in a famous passage asserted that even the crushed worm is in an obscure way aware of itself and its pain as set over against the world. Many facts of savage behaviour forbid us to accept the extreme view that denies them individual self-consciousness—individual names, secret names, private property, private rites, religious and magical, individual revenge, jealousy, running amok, leadership, self-assertion, pride, vanity, competition in games of skill and in technical and artistic achievement. The flourishing of these and many other such things in primitive communities reveals clearly enough to the unbiassed observer in the field the effective presence of individual self-consciousness in the savage mind. In this connexion I may refer to two pieces of evidence bearing very directly on the question reported by Dr C. Hose and myself. Among the Sea-Dayaks or Ibans of Borneo we discovered the prevalence of the belief in the ‘nyarong’ or private ‘spirit helper,’ some spiritual or animated individual power which a fortunate individual here and there finds reason to believe is attached to him personally for his guidance and help in all difficult situations. His belief in this personal helper and the rites by aid of which he communicates with it are kept secret from his fellows; so that it was only after long and intimate acquaintance with these people that Dr Hose began to suspect the existence of this peculiarly individualistic belief[37]. In the same volumes we have described the Punans of Borneo, a people whose mode of life is in every respect extremely primitive. In this respect they are perhaps unequalled by any other existing people. Yet no one who is acquainted with these amiable folk could doubt that, although their group consciousness is highly developed, they enjoy also a well developed individual self-consciousness. How otherwise can we interpret the fact that a Punan who suffers malicious injury from a member of another tribe will nurse his vengeful feeling for an indefinite period and, after the lapse of years, will find an opportunity to bring down his enemy secretly with blow-pipe and poisoned dart?
With Mr Cornford’s view of the part played by the group spirit in moralising conduct I agree. I agree also that it is the collective life or mind that develops religion and in part magic; but in my view Cornford attributes to the savage far too much reflective theorising; he represents him as formulating a theory of the collective consciousness which is really almost identical with the interesting speculation of M. Lévy Bruhl presently to be noticed, and he regards his conduct, his religious and magical practices, as guided by these theories. But that is to reverse the true order of things—to make theory precede practice; whereas in reality, especially in religion and magic, practice has everywhere preceded theory, often, as in this case, by thousands of generations[38].
It is true that the savage often behaves as though he held this theory of the collective consciousness as a field of force in which he participates; that his conduct seems to require such a theory for its rational justification. But it by no means follows that he has formulated any theory at all. What the savage is conscious of is, not a collective consciousness as a mysterious superhuman power, but the group itself, the group of concrete embodied fellow men. He behaves and feels as he does, because participation in the life of the group directly modifies his individual tendencies and directly evokes these feelings and actions; he does not discover, or seek, any theory by which to explain them. Still less is it true that he performs these actions because he has formulated a theory of a collective consciousness.
Mr Cornford regards the savage idea of a collective consciousness as the germ of the idea of divine power or of God. Now this is connected with the question of animism, preanimism, and dynanimism. It may be true that the notion of mana is the common prime source of religious and magical ideas, but it does not follow that the idea of God is arrived at by way of a notion of collective mana. No doubt that would be the probable course of events, if the savage had so little sense of his individuality as Cornford supposes; but it seems to me rather that the savage’s strong sense of individuality has led at an early stage to the personalisation, the individuation, of mana, the vaguely conceived spiritual power and influence, and that it was only by a long course of religious and philosophical speculation that men reached the conception of the Absolute or of God as a universal power of which each personal consciousness is a partial manifestation.
It is interesting to note that, if we could accept Cornford’s views, we could now claim to witness the completion of one full cycle of the wheel of speculation, the last step having been made in an article in a recent number of the Hibbert Journal[39]; for it is there suggested that the only God or super-individual power we ought to recognise and revere is, not a collective consciousness conceived as a supra-individual unity of consciousness, but the collective mind of humanity in the sense in which I am using the term, a system of mental forces that slowly progresses towards greater harmony and integration.
M. Lévy Bruhl has written an interesting, though highly speculative, account of savage mental life which he represents as differing profoundly from our own, chiefly in that it is dominated by ‘collective representations[40].’ His view is not unlike that put forward by Cornford.
Collective representations or ideas are rightly said to be the product of the group mind rather than of any individual mind; that is to say, they have been gradually evolved by collective mental life; and they are said to differ from our ideas in being “states more complex in which the emotional and motor elements are integral parts of the ideas.” Thinking by aid of these collective representations is said to have its own laws quite distinct from the laws of logic.
These statements are no doubt correct; but both Lévy Bruhl and Cornford commit the great error of assuming that the mental life of civilised man is conducted by each individual in a purely rational and logical manner; they overlook the fact that we also are largely dominated by collective representations; for these collective representations are nothing but ideas of objects to which traditional sentiments, sentiments of awe, of fear, of respect, of love, of reverence, are attached. Almost the whole of the religion and morality of the average civilised man is based on his acquisition of such collective representations, traditional sentiments grown up about ideas of objects, ideas which he receives ready made and sentiments which are impressed upon him by the community that has evolved them.
It is no doubt true that in the main the field of objects to which collective representations apply is larger in savage life; and these ideas are more uniform and more powerful and unquestioned, because the group is more homogeneous in its sentiments. But it is, fortunately, only a rare individual here and there among us who in considerable degree emancipates himself from the influence of such representations and becomes capable of confronting all objects about him in a perfectly cool, critical, logical attitude—who can “peep and botanise upon his mother’s grave.” Only by strict intellectual discipline do we progress towards strictly logical operations in relation to real life, towards pure judgments of fact as opposed to judgments of value. For our judgments of value are rooted in our sentiments; and whatever is for us an object of a sentiment of love or hate, of attachment or aversion, can only with the greatest difficulty, if at all, be made an object of a pure judgment of fact.
And Cornford and Lévy Bruhl make the same mistake in regard to ‘collective representations’ as in regard to the group self-consciousness—namely, they credit the savage with theories for the explanation of the beliefs implicitly involved in the ‘collective representations,’ for example, the theory of mystic participation, which is said to replace for the savage the civilised man’s theory of mechanical causation. But, when we regard any material object as holy, or sacred, or as of peculiar value, because it was given us by a departed friend, or belonged to and perhaps was once worn by a beloved person, our behaviour towards it is not determined by any theory of participation; if, for example, we touch it tenderly and with reverent care, that is the direct expression of our feeling. We even behave as if we held the theory of participation, to the extent of believing that the dead or distant person will suffer pain if we ill-use or neglect the object which is associated with him in our minds, but without actually holding that belief; and still more without elaborating a theory of the nature of the process by which our action will produce such an effect. It is only a late and highly sophisticated reflection upon behaviour of this kind which leads to theories for the justification of such behaviour. It is not true, then, that we are logical individuals, while savages are wholly prelogical in virtue of the dominance among them of the collective mental life. The truth rather is that, wherever emotion qualifies our intellectual operations, it renders them other than purely and strictly logical; and the savage or the civilised man departs more widely from the strictly logical conduct of his intellect, in proportion as his conceptions of things are absorbed without critical reflection and analysis and are coloured with the traditional sentiments of his community. The average savage, being more deeply immersed in his group, suffers these effects more strongly than the average civilised man. Yet the interval in this respect between the modern man of scientific culture and the average citizen of our modern states is far greater than that between the latter and the savage.
If one had to name the principal difference between the conditions of life of the typical savage and those of the average civilised man, one would, I think, have to point to the lack in civilised life of those conditions which so inevitably develop the group consciousness of the savage. The family circle supplies to the young child something of these conditions, but in a very imperfect degree only. At an early age this influence is much weakened by general intercourse. As the individual approaches maturity, he finds himself at liberty to cut himself off completely from all his natural setting, to transplant himself to any part of the world, and to share in the life of any civilised community. He can earn his livelihood anywhere, and he knows nothing of communal responsibility.
Progressive weakening of the conditions that force the development of group self-consciousness has characterised the whole course of the development of civilisation, and has reached its climax in the conditions of life in our large cities.
In primitive communities the conditions of group self-consciousness are, as we have seen, fourfold; namely kinship, territorial, traditional and occupational association. All these are present in the highest degree in the nomadic group under the typical patriarchal system.
When kinship groups take to agriculture and become permanently settled on one spot, the kinship factor tends to be weakened, through the inclusion of alien elements; and the territorial factor becomes the most important condition. Throughout European history the territorial factor, expressing itself in the form of the village-community, remained of universal importance in this respect; the Roman Empire and the Roman Church weakened it greatly; but everywhere outside those spheres it continued to be of dominant importance until the great social revolution of the modern industrial period.
The village community maintained much of the tradition and custom that tend to develop group self-consciousness with its moralising influence. But at the present time almost the only condition of wide and general influence that continues in times of peace to foster group self-consciousness is occupational association. And so we find men tending more and more to be grouped for all serious collective activities according to their occupations. From the earliest development of European industry this tendency has been strong; it produced the trading and craft guilds which played so great a part in medieval Europe; and, though the monarchical and capitalistic regimes of modern times have done all they can to repress and break up these occupational groups, and have greatly restricted their influence, they have failed to suppress them entirely. The climax of this tendency for the occupational to replace and overshadow all other forms of self-conscious grouping is present-day Syndicalism.
The natural conditions of group self-consciousness, which in primitive societies rendered its development inevitable and spontaneous in every man, have then been in the main destroyed. But man cannot stand alone; men cannot live happily as mere individuals; they desire and crave and seek membership in a group, in whose collective opinions and emotions and self-consciousness and activities they may share, with which they may identify themselves, thereby lessening the burden of individual responsibility, judgment, decision and effort.
Hence in this age the natural groupings and the involuntary developments of group consciousness are largely replaced by an enormous development of artificial voluntary groupings, over and above the natural groupings that are still only in very imperfect measure determined by the weakened force of the natural conditions, namely kinship, neighbourhood and occupation.
In part these artificial groupings are designed to reinforce the natural conditions, as, for example, village festivals. The whole population of a country such as our own is permeated by a vast and complexly interwoven, or rather tangled, skein of the bonds of voluntary associations. Many of these are, of course, formed to undertake some definite work, to achieve some end which can only be achieved by co-operative effort. But in the majority of such cases the satisfactions yielded by group life play a very great part in leading to the formation of and in maintaining the groups, for example, groups of philanthropic workers, the makers of charity bazaars, the salvation army, the churches, the chapels, the sects. Most of such associations that have any success and continuity of existence contain a nucleus of persons who identify themselves in the fullest possible manner with the group, make its interest their leading concern, the desire of its welfare their dominant motive, and find in its service their principal satisfaction and happiness.
And in very many voluntary associations the group-motives, the desire for the satisfactions to be found in group life, are of prime importance, predominating vastly over the desire to achieve any particular end by co-operative action. Such are our countless clubs and societies formed frankly for recreation, or for mutual improvement, and for all kinds of ostensible purposes which serve merely as excuses or reasons for the existence of the club. In the majority of instances these declared purposes really serve merely or chiefly to exert a certain natural selection of persons, to bring together persons of similar tastes as voluntary associates, to enable, in short, birds of a feather to flock together. Even some of our enduring historical institutions owe their continuance chiefly to the advantages and satisfactions that proceed from group consciousness, for example, colleges, school-houses, and political parties, especially perhaps in America. Party feeling, as Sir H. Maine rightly said, is frequently a remedy for the inertia of democracy.
The savage, when he maintains associations other than those determined by natural conditions, intensifies his group consciousness by wearing badges and totem marks, by tatooing and scarring, and by indulging in various rites and ceremonies, about which a certain secrecy and mystery is maintained. And civilised men exhibit just the same tendency and take very similar measures to intensify group consciousness. We have our club colours and ribbons and blazers, our college gowns and colours, our Oxford accent, our badges of membership, and so on. Freemasonry, with its lodges and badges and mysterious rites, seems to be the purest example on a large scale. And, when the group consciousness and the group sentiment have been acquired, we continue to cultivate it purely for its own sake, by holding annual dinners and reunions of old boys, and so forth.
It is of the greatest importance that this tendency to seek and maintain a share in group consciousness, which, as we have seen, manifests itself everywhere even under the most adverse conditions, not merely yields comfort and satisfaction to individuals, but brings about results which are in almost every way extremely advantageous for the higher development of human life in general.
We have seen that, in the well-organised group, collective deliberation, judgment, and action are raised to a higher plane of effectiveness than is possible to the average member of the group. But apart from that, the group spirit continues with us, as with the savage (though in a less effective degree) to be the great socialising agency. In the majority of cases it is the principal, if not the sole, factor which raises a man’s conduct above the plane of pure egoism, leads him to think and care and work for others as well as for himself. Try to imagine any man wholly deprived of his group consciousness and set over against all his fellowmen as an individual unit, and you will see that you could expect but little from him in the way of self-sacrifice or public service—at most a care for his wife and children and sporadic acts of kindliness when direct appeals are made to his pity; but none of that energetic and devoted public service and faithful self-sacrificing co-operation without which the continued welfare of any human society is impossible.
The group spirit destroys the opposition and the conflict between the crudely individualistic and the primitive altruistic tendencies of our nature.
This is the peculiar merit and efficiency of the complex motives that arise from the group spirit; they bring the egoistic self-seeking impulses into the service of society and harmonise them with the altruistic tendencies. The group spirit secures that the egoistic and the altruistic tendencies of each man’s nature, instead of being in perpetual conflict, as they must be in its absence, shall harmoniously co-operate and re-enforce one another throughout a large part of the total field of human activity.
For it is of the essence of the group spirit that the individual identifies himself, as we say, with the group more or less; that is to say, in technical language, his self-regarding sentiment becomes extended to the group more or less completely, so that he is moved to desire and to work for its welfare, its success, its honour and glory, by the same motives which prompt him to desire and to work for his own welfare and success and honour; as in the case of the student working for a scholarship or university prize, or the member of an exploring expedition or fighting group. Further, the motives supplied by the group spirit may be stronger than, and may overpower, the purely individualistic egoistic motives, just because they harmonise with, and are supported by, any altruistic tendency or tendencies comprised in the make up of the individual; which altruistic tendencies will, where the group spirit is lacking, oppose and weaken the effects of purely egoistic motives. To illustrate this principle, let us imagine an Englishman who, in a Congo forest, finds a white man sick or in difficulties. To succour the sick man may be to incur grave risks, and he is tempted to pass on; but the thought comes to him that in so doing he will lower the prestige of the white man in the eyes of the natives; and this idea, evoking the motives of the group spirit which unites all white men in such a land, brings victory to his sense of pity in its struggle with selfish fear.
In this way, that is by extension to the group, the egoistic impulses are transmuted, sublimated, and deprived of their individualistic selfish character and effects and are turned to public service. Hence it is that it is generally so difficult or impossible to analyse the motives of any public service or social activity and to display them as either purely egoistic or altruistic; for they are, as Herbert Spencer called them, ego-altruistic. And hence it comes about that both the cynic and the idealist can make out plausible cases, when they seek to show that either egoism or altruism predominates in human life. Both are right in a partial sense.
Another noteworthy feature of the group spirit renders it extremely effective in promoting social life; namely the fact that, although the group sentiment is apt to determine an attitude of rivalry, competition, and antagonism towards similarly constituted groups, yet a man may share in the self-consciousness of more groups than one, so long as their natures and aims do not necessarily bring them into rivalry. And in our complex modern societies this principle of multiple group consciousness in each man is of extreme importance; for without it, and in the absence or comparative lack of the natural conditions of grouping other than the occupational, the whole population would become divided into occupational groups, each fighting collectively against every other for the largest possible share of the good things of life. A tendency towards this state of things is very perceptible, in spite of the correcting cross-connexions of kinship, of church and political party, and of territorial association.
But another principle of multiple group consciousness is, perhaps, of still greater importance, namely that it allows the formation of a hierarchy of group sentiments for a system of groups in which each larger group includes the lesser; each group being made the object of the extended self-regarding sentiment in a way which includes the sentiment for the lesser group in the sentiment for the larger group in which it is comprised. Thus the family, the village, the county, the country as a whole, form for the normal man the objects of a harmonious hierarchy of sentiments of this sort, each of which strengthens rather than weakens the others, and yields motives for action which on the whole co-operate and harmonise rather than conflict.
Such a hierarchy is seen in savage life. It often happens that a man is called on to join in the defence of some village of the tribe other than his own. In such cases he is moved not only by his tribal sentiment, but also by his sentiments for his village and family. The sentiment for the part supports the sentiment for the whole.
It is of considerable importance also that in general the development of a sentiment of attachment to one group not only does not prevent, but rather facilitates, the development of similar sentiments for other groups. And this is especially true when the groups concerned are related to one another as parts and wholes, that is, when they form a hierarchy of successively more widely inclusive groups. The sentiment for the smaller group (e.g. the family) naturally develops first in the child’s mind; if only for the reason that this is the group of which he can first form a definite idea, and with the whole of which he is in immediate relations. The strong development of this first group sentiment prepares the child’s mind for the development of other and wider group sentiments. For it increases his power of grasping intellectually the group of persons as a complex whole; and it strengthens by exercise those impulses or primary tendencies which must enter into the constitution of any group sentiment; and, thirdly, it prevents the excessive development of the purely individualistic attitude, of the habit of looking at every situation and weighing all values from the strictly individualistic and egoistic standpoint; which attitude, if once it becomes habitual, must form a powerful hindrance to the development of the wider group sentiments, when the child arrives at an age to grasp the idea of the larger group.
The organisation of an army again illustrates these principles in relatively clear and simple fashion. In our own army the regiment is the traditional self-conscious unit about which traditional sentiment and ritual have been carefully fostered, in part through realisation of their practical importance, in part because this unit is of such a size and nature as to be well suited to call out strongly the natural group tendencies of its component individuals. On the whole the military authorities, and especially Lord Haldane in the formation of the territorial army, seem to have wisely recognised the importance of the group spirit of the regiment; although during the Great War it was, under the pressure of other considerations, apparently lost sight of at certain times and places, with, I believe, deplorable consequences.
In modern warfare, and especially in the Great War, the Division has tended to become of predominant importance as the unit of organisation; and accordingly, without destroying or superseding regimental group consciousness, the sentiment for the Division has been in many instances a very strong factor in promoting the spiritual cohesion and efficiency of the army. Certain Divisions, such as the 10th and the 29th, have covered themselves with glory, so that the soldiers have learnt to feel a great pride in and a devotion to the Division.
This larger group, although of comparatively ephemeral existence and therefore devoid of long traditions coming down from the past, is in perfect and obvious harmony, in purpose and spirit and material organisation, with the battalions and other units of which it is composed; and, accordingly, the sentiment for the larger group does not enter into rivalry with that for the battalion, the battery, or other smaller unit; rather it comprises this within its own organisation and derives energy and stability from it.
These psychological principles of group consciousness are, I think, well borne out inductively, by any comparative survey; that is to say, we find that, where family sentiment and the sentiment for the local group are strong, there also the wider group sentiments are strong, and good citizenship, patriotism, and ready devotion to public services of all kinds are the rule. The strongest most stable States have always been those in which family sentiment has been strong, especially those in which it has been strengthened and supported by the custom of ancestor worship, as in Rome, Japan and China. Scotchmen again (Highlanders especially) are noted for clannishness, and Scotch cousins have become a bye-word; a fact which implies the great strength of the family sentiment. The clan sentiment, which is clearly only an extension of the family sentiment, is also notoriously strong. The sentiment for Scotland as a whole is no less strong in the hearts of all her sons. But, and this is the important point, these strong group sentiments are perfectly compatible with and probably conducive to a sentiment for the still wider group, Great Britain or the British Empire; and the public services rendered to these larger groups by men of Scottish birth are equally notorious.
In these considerations we may see, I think, a principal ground of the importance of the institution of the family for the welfare of the state. The importance has often been insisted upon; but too much stress is usually laid upon the material aspects, and not enough upon the mental effects, of family life.
It has been a grave mistake on the part of many collectivists, from Plato onwards, that they have sought to destroy the family and to bring up all children as the children of the state only, in some kind of barrack system. It is not too much to say that, if they could succeed in this (and in this country great strides in this direction are being rapidly made), they would destroy the mental foundations of all possibility of collective life of the higher type.
We touch here upon a question of policy of the highest importance. There are, it seems to me, three distinct policies which may be deliberately pursued, for the securing of the predominance of public or social motives over egoistic motives. First, we may aim at building up group life on the foundation of a system of discipline which will result in more or less complete suppression of the egoistic tendencies of individuals, the building up in them of habits of unquestioning obedience to authority. I imagine that the Jesuit system of education might fairly be taken as the most successful and thorough-going application of this principle. The organisation of an army of unwilling conscripts to fight for a foreign power must rest on the same basis. Some group spirit no doubt will generally grow up. But, though wonderful results have been obtained in this way, the system has two great weaknesses. First, it seeks to repress and destroy more than half of the powerful forces that move men to action—namely, the egoistic motives in general—instead of making use of them, directing them to social ends. Secondly, it necessarily crushes individuality and therefore all capacity of progress and further development in various directions; it results in a rigidly conservative system without possibility of spontaneous development.
The second system is that which aims at developing in all members of the state or inclusive group a sentiment of devotion to the whole, while suppressing the growth of sentiments for any minor groups within the whole. This was the system of Plato’s Republic and is essentially the collectivist ideal. It is the policy of those who would suppress all sentimental groupings, all local loyalties and patriotisms, in favour of the ideal of the brotherhood of man, the cosmopolitan ideal. I have already pointed out one great weakness of this plan,—namely, that this sentiment for the all-inclusive group cannot be effectively developed save by way of development of the minor group sentiments. And, though it may succeed with some persons, there will always be many who cannot grasp the idea of the larger whole sufficiently firmly and intelligently to make it the object of any strong and enlightened sentiment of attachment; such persons will be left on the purely egoistic level, whereas their energies might have been effectively socialised by the development of some less inclusive group consciousness.
Again, the smaller group is apt to call out a man’s energies more effectively, because he can see and foresee more clearly the effects of his own actions on its behalf. Whereas the larger the group, the more are the efforts of individuals and their effects obscured and lost to view in vast movements of the collective life. That is to say, the smaller groups harmonise more effectively than the larger groups the purely egoistic and the altruistic motives (except of course in the case of those few persons who can play leading parts in the life of the larger group). For, though a man may be moved by his devotion to the group to work for its welfare, he will work still more energetically if, at the same time, he is able to achieve personal distinction and acknowledgment, if the purely egoistic motives can also find satisfaction in his activities. Hence this second policy also, no matter how successful, fails to make the most of men, fails to bring to the fullest exercise all their powers in a manner that will promote the welfare of the whole. Thirdly, this system loses the advantages of the healthy rivalry between groups within the whole; which rivalry is a means to a great liberation of human energies. These are the weaknesses of the over-centralised state, such as modern France or the Roman Empire.
Only the third policy can liberate and harmonise the energies of men to the fullest extent; namely, that which aims at developing in each individual a hierarchy of group sentiments in accordance with the natural course of development.
One other virtue of the group spirit must be mentioned. Although it tends to bring similar groups into keen rivalry and even into violent conflict, the antagonism between men who are moved to conflict by the group spirit is less bitter than that between individuals who are brought into conflict by personal motives; for the members of each group or party, though they may wish to frustrate or even to destroy the other party as such, may remain benevolent towards its members individually. And this is rendered easier by the fact that the members of each group, recognising that their antagonists are also moved by the group spirit, by loyalty and devotion to the group, will sympathise with and respect their motives far more readily and fully than they would, if they ascribed to their opponents purely egoistic motives. This recognition, even though it be not clearly formulated, softens the conflict and moderates the hostile feelings that opposition inevitably arouses in men keenly pursuing any end, especially one which they hold to be a public good; in this way it renders possible that continuance of friendly relations between members of bitterly opposed parties which has happily been the rule and at the same time the seeming anomaly of English public life.
In our older educational system, and especially in the ‘public schools’ and older universities, the advantages and the importance of developing the group spirit have long been practically recognised—‘esprit de corps’ has been cultivated by the party system, by rivalry of groups within the group; by forms, school-houses, colleges, clubs, teams, games, and by keeping the honour and glory of the school, college, or other unit, prominently before the minds of the scholars in many effective ways. It is, I think, one of the gravest defects of our primary system of education that it makes so little provision for development of this kind; that, while it weakens the family sentiment, it provides no effective substitute for it. Something has been done in recent years to remedy this defect, notably the fostering of the boy-scout movement; but every opportunity of supplying this need should be seized by those who are responsible for the direction of educational policy.
The importance of the group spirit may be illustrated by pointing to those individuals and classes which are denied its benefits. The tramp, the cosmopolitan globe-trotter, the outcast in general, whether the detachment from group life be due to the disposition or choice of the individual or to unfortunate circumstances, is apt to show, only too clearly, how little man is able, standing alone, to maintain a decent level of conduct and character. On a large scale this is illustrated by the casteless classes in caste communities, and especially by Eurasians of India and by other persons and classes of mixed descent, who fail to identify themselves wholly with either of the groups from which they derive their blood. The moral defects of persons of these classes have often been deplored, and they have usually been attributed to the mixture of widely different hereditary strains. There is probably some truth in the view; but in general the moral shortcomings of persons of these classes are chiefly due to the fact that they do not fully share in the life of any group having old established moral traditions and sentiments.
Summary of Principal Conditions of the Development Of the Group Spirit
We have seen that the group spirit plays a vastly important part in raising men above the purely animal level of conduct, in extending each man’s interests beyond the narrow circle of his own home and family, in inspiring him to efforts for the common good, in stimulating him to postpone his private to public ends, in enabling the common man to rise at times, as shown by a multitude of instances during the Great War, to lofty heights of devotion and self-sacrifice.
The development of the group spirit consists in two essential processes, namely, the acquisition of knowledge of the group and the formation of some sentiment of attachment to the group as such. It is essential that the group shall be apprehended or conceived as such by its members. Therefore the group spirit is favoured by whatever tends to define the group, to mark it off distinctly from other groups; by geographical boundaries; by peculiarities of skin-colour or of physical type, of language, or accent, of dress, custom, or habit, common to the members of the group; that is to say, by homogeneity and distinctiveness of type within the group.
And, though definition of the group as such within the minds of its members is the prime condition of the growth of the group spirit, that spirit will be the more effective the fuller and truer is the knowledge of the group in the minds of its members. Just as individual self-knowledge favours self-direction and wisdom of choice, so group self-knowledge must, if it is to be fully effective, comprise not only the conception of the group as a whole but also the fullest possible knowledge of the component parts and individuals and an understanding of their relations to one another. In this respect smallness and homogeneity of the group are obviously favourable. But knowledge of the group, however exact and widely diffused, is of itself of no effect, if there be not also widely diffused in the members some sentiment of attachment to the group. The prevailing group sentiment is almost inevitably one of attachment. There are exceptional instances in which men are compelled to act as members of a group which they hate or despise, notably in some cases of compulsory military service and in convict gangs; but it must be rare that, even under such conditions, some sense of common interest, some fellow feeling for other members in like distressing circumstances, does not lead to the growth of some group spirit, provided only that the group has some continuity and some homogeneity in essentials.
In all natural and spontaneously formed groups, the extension of the self-regarding sentiment to the group is a normal and inevitable process; and, like the self-regarding sentiment, the sentiment so formed may range from an insane and incorrigible pride (as often in the case of the family sentiment) to a decent self-respect that is perfectly compatible with a modest attitude and with reasonable claims upon and regard for the interests of other groups.
The main difference between the self-regarding sentiment and the developed group sentiment is that the latter commonly involves an element of devotion to the group for its own sake and the sake of one’s fellow members. That is to say, the group sentiment is a synthesis of the self-regarding and the altruistic tendencies in which they are harmonised to mutual support and re-enforcement: the powerful egoistic impulses being sublimated to higher ends than the promotion of the self’s welfare[41].
Further, the group has, or may have, a greater continuity of existence than the individual, both in the past and in the future; and for this reason, and because also it includes the purely altruistic tendency, the group sentiment is capable of idealisation in a high degree and of yielding satisfactions far more enduring and profound than the most refined self-sentiment.
Both knowledge of the group and the growth of the group sentiment are greatly promoted by two processes, in the absence of which the group spirit can attain only a very modest development. These are free intercourse within the group and free intercourse between the group and other groups. We shall have occasion to discuss and illustrate them in later chapters.
CHAPTER V
PECULIARITIES OF GROUPS OF VARIOUS TYPES
We have discussed the psychology of the simple crowd or unorganised group; and taking an army as an extreme and relatively simple type of the highly organised group, we have used it to illustrate the principal ways in which organisation of the group modifies its collective life, raising it in many respects high above that of the crowd.
I propose now to discuss very briefly the peculiarities of groups of several types. Some classification of groups seems desirable as an aid to the discovery of the general principles of collective life and their application to the understanding of social life in general. It seems impossible to discover any single principle of classification. Almost every group that enjoys a greater continuity of existence than the simple crowd partakes in some degree of qualities common to all. But we may distinguish the most important qualities and roughly classify groups according to the degrees in which they exhibit them.
Apart from crowds, which, as we have seen, may be either fortuitously gathered or brought together by some common purpose, there are many simple groups which, though accidental in origin (i.e. not brought together by common purpose or interest) and remaining unorganised, yet present in simple and rudimentary form some of the features of group life.
The persons seated in one compartment of a railway train during a long journey may be entirely strangers to one another at the outset; yet, even in the absence of conversation, they in the course of some hours will begin to manifest some of the peculiarities of the psychological group. To some extent they will have come to a mutual understanding and adjustment; and, when a stranger adds himself to their company, his entrance is felt to some extent as an intrusion which at the least demands readjustments; he is regarded with curious and to some extent hostile glances. If an outsider threatens to encroach on the rights of one of the company, the others will readily combine in defence of their member; and any little incident affecting their one common interest (namely, punctual arrival of the train at its destination) quickly reveals, and in doing so strengthens, the bond of common feeling.
On a sea voyage the group spirit of the passenger ship attains a greater development, by reason of the longer continuance of the group, its more complete detachment and definition, the sense of greater hazard affecting all alike, the sense of dependence on mutual courtesy and good-will and sympathy for the comfort and enjoyment of all. Very soon the experienced traveller, contrasting and comparing this present company with those of previous voyages, sums up its qualities and defects and lays his plans accordingly. And by the time that an intermediate port is reached, where perhaps the most ‘grumpy’ and least entertaining member of the company disembarks, even his departure is felt by the rest as a loss that leaves a gap in the structure of the group.
Such fortuitous and ephemeral groups apart, all others may be classed in the two great divisions of natural and artificial groups.
The natural groups again fall into two main classes which partly coincide,—namely, those rooted in kinship and those determined by geographical conditions. The family is the pure example of the former; the population of a small island, the type of the latter kind. The main difference is that the bonds of the kinship group are purely or predominantly mental and therefore can, and commonly do, remain effective in spite of all spatial separation and of all lack of common purpose or of material benefits accruing from membership in the group.
The artificial groups may be divided into three great classes, the purposive, the customary or traditional, and the mixed; those of the last kind combining the purposive and the traditional characters in various proportions.
The purposive group is brought together and maintained by the existence of a common purpose in the minds of all its members. It is, in respect of efficiency, the highest type; for it is essentially self-conscious, aware of its ends and of its own nature, and it deliberately adopts an organisation suited to the attainment of those ends. The simplest and purest type is the social club, a body of people who meet together to satisfy the promptings of the gregarious instinct and to enjoy the pleasures of group life. In the great majority of instances, the social club adopts some form of recreation—debating, music, chess, whist, football, tennis, cycling—the practice of which gives point and definition to the activities of members and secures secondary advantages. It is noteworthy that on this purely recreational plane, clubs and societies of all sorts seek in almost all cases to enhance the group consciousness and hence the satisfactions of group life by entering into relations, generally relations of friendly rivalry, but sometimes merely of affiliation and formal intercourse, with other like groups. For not only is the group consciousness enriched and strengthened by such intercourse; but, when the rival or communicating groups, becoming aware of one another, become informally or, more generally, formally allied to constitute a larger whole, the consciousness of participation in this larger whole gratifies more fully the gregarious impulse and enhances the sense of power and confidence in each member of each constituent group. This seems to be the main ground of that universal tendency to the formation of ever more inclusive associations of clubs and societies, which, overleaping even national boundaries and geographical and racial divisions, has produced numerous world-wide associations.
Another very numerous class of strictly purposive groups is to be found in the commercial companies. In these the group spirit commonly remains at the lowest level; for the dominant motive is individual financial gain, and the only common bond among the shareholders is their interest in the management of the company so far as it affects the private and individual end of each one. Group self-knowledge, organisation, tradition, and group sentiment are all at a minimum; accordingly the group remains incapable of effective deliberation or action. It operates through its board of directors and officers and, owing to its incapacity for group action, has to rely upon the provisions of the Company Laws for the control of their actions.
A third large class of purposive groups are the associations formed for the furthering of some public end. Many such groups are purely altruistic or philanthropic; but in the majority the members hope to share in some degree in the public benefits for the attainment of which the group is formed. In many such associations, group life hardly rises above the low level of the commercial company; the main difference being that, in virtue of the ‘disinterested’ or public-spirited nature of the dominant purpose, the members regard one another and their executive officers with greater confidence and sympathy; even though remaining personally unacquainted. Notable instances of such associations, achieving great public ends, are ‘The National Trust for the Preservation of Places of Natural Beauty or Historic Interest,’ and ‘The Public Footpaths Association.’ Other associations of this kind have something of the nature of a commercial company: e.g. ‘The First Garden City Company,’ and ‘The Trust Houses Company.’ The peculiarity of these is that the motive of financial gain is subordinated to, while co-operating with, the desire for achievement of a public good, a benefit to the whole community in which the members of the group share in an almost inappreciable degree only. Such associations are very characteristic of the life of this country; and it may be hoped that their multiplication and development will prove to be one of the ameliorating factors of the future, softening the asperities of commercial life, correcting to some degree that narrowing of the sympathies, and preventing that tendency to class antagonisms, which purely commercial associations inevitably produce. The great co-operative societies seem to have something of this character; for, although the dominant motive of membership is probably in most cases private advantage, yet membership brings with it some sense of participation in a great movement for better social organisation, some sense of loyalty to the group, some rudimentary group knowledge and group spirit, some interest in and satisfaction in the prosperity of the group for its own sake, over and above the strictly private interest of each member. The introduction of various forms of profit sharing will give something of this character to commercial companies.
The recent investments in government loans by millions of individuals, acting in part from patriotic motives, must have a similar tendency; and a similar effect on a large scale must be produced by any nationalisation of industries, a fact which is one of the weightiest grounds for desiring such nationalisation; though it remains uncertain whether, when the scale of the association becomes so large as to include the whole nation, the bulk of the citizens will be able effectively to discern the identity of their public and private interests, and whether, therefore, such nationalisation will greatly promote that fusion or co-operation of public and private motives which is the essential function and merit of the group spirit.
The most characteristic British group of the purposive type is the association formed for some public or quasi-public end and operating through a democratically elected committee or committees and sub-committees. Such groups are the cradle of the representative principle and the training ground of the democratic spirit, especially of its deliberative and executive faculties. In them each member, taking part in the election of the committee, delegates to them his share of authority, but continues to exert control over them by his vote upon reports of the committee and in the periodic re-election of its members. On this ground the citizens are trained to understand the working of the representative principle; to yield to the opinion of the majority on the choice of means, without ceasing loyally to co-operate towards the common end; to observe the necessary rules of procedure; to abide by group decisions; to influence group opinion in debate, and in turn to be influenced by it and respect it; to differ without enmity; to keep the common end in view, in spite of the inevitable working of private and personal motives; to understand the necessity for delegation, and to respect the organisation through which alone the group raises itself above the level of the crowd.
Traditional groups of pure or nearly pure character are relatively infrequent. Perhaps the castes of the Hindu world are, of all large groups, those which most nearly approach the pure type. Traditional grouping is characteristic of stagnant old established populations, of which it is the basis of organisation and principal cement. No doubt in almost every case the formation of the traditional group was in some degree purposive; but the original purpose has generally been lost sight of; myths and legends have grown up to explain the origin of and give a fictitious purpose or ‘raison d’être’ to the group. In the absence of any definite practical purpose animating the group and holding it together, its stability is secured and its tradition is re-enforced and given a visible presentation by the development of ritual. Of all the great groups among us the Free Masons perhaps afford the best illustration of this type.
Far more important in the British world are the groups of the mixed type, partly traditional and partly purposive, groups having a long history and origins shrouded in the mists of antiquity, but having some strong and more or less definite common purpose. Of such groups the Christian Church is the greatest example. In the Roman Church, whose history has been so little interrupted, tradition attains its fullest power, and the regard for the past is strengthened and supplemented by the prospect of an indefinitely prolonged future directed towards the same ends. Its organisation has grown gradually under the one continued overshadowing purpose, every addition becoming embodied and established in the great tradition, the strength of which is perpetually maintained by ritual. And this traditional organisation is not only borne in the minds of each generation of members of the Church, but, in an ever increasing degree, has embodied itself in a material system of stone and glass and metal and printed words; these constitute a visible and enduring presentment which, though entirely disconnected and heterogeneous in a merely material sense, yet provides fixed points in the whole organisation, contributing immensely to its stability, and aiding greatly in bringing home to the minds of its members the unity of the whole group in the past, the present, and the future. Many groups or sects having the same essential purpose as the Roman Church have aimed to establish a tradition without the aid of such material embodiments: but their ephemeral histories illustrate the wisdom of the mother Church which, in building up her vast organisation, has recognised the limitations and the frailties of the human mind and has not scorned to adapt herself to them in order to overcome them.