Under pressure of scientific analysis the old distinction between the individual and society bids fair to break down, or to maintain itself as no more than a convenience of classification. It is now being recognised that a society is something more than a mere aggregate of self-contained units, and that the individual is quite inexplicable apart from the social group. It is the latter which gives the former his individuality. His earliest impressions are derived from the life of the group, and as he grows so he comes more and more under the influence of social forces. The consequence is that the key to a very large part of the phenomena of human nature is to be found in a study of group life. We may abstract the individual for purposes of examination, much as a physiologist may study the heart or the liver apart from the body from which it has been taken. But ultimately it is in relation to the whole that the true significance and value of the part is to be discerned.
In this corporate life imitation and suggestion play a powerful part. With children, by far the larger part of their education consists of sheer imitation, nor do adults ever develop beyond its influence. Suggestion is a factor that is more operative in youth and maturity than in early childhood, and is exhibited in a thousand and one subtle and unexpected ways. Both these forces are essential to an orderly, and to a progressive, social life; but they may just as easily become the cause of movements that are retrogressive, and even anti-social in character. An epidemic of suicide or of murder is as easily initiated as an epidemic of philanthropy. Let a person commit suicide in a striking
and unusual manner, and there will soon be others following his example. Given a favourable environment, there is no idea, however unreal, that will not find advocates; no example, however strange or disgusting, that will not find imitators. The more uniform the society, the more powerful the suggestion, the easier the imitation. That is why a crowd, acting as a crowd, is nearly always made up of people drawn from the same social stratum, each unit already familiar with certain ideals and belief. Under such conditions a crowd will assume all the characteristics of a psychological entity. As Gustave Le Bon has pointed out, a crowd will do collectively what none of its constituent units would ever dream of doing singly.[164] It becomes capable of deeds of heroism or of savage cruelty. It will sacrifice itself or others with indifference. Above all, the mere fact of moving in a mass gives the individual a sense of power, a certainty of being in the right that he can—save under exceptional circumstances—never acquire while alone. The intellect is subdued, inhibition is inoperative, the instincts are given free play, and their movement is determined in turn by suggestions not unlike those with which a trained hypnotist influences his subject.
In the phenomena of contagion words and symbols play a powerful part. They are both a rallying-point and an outlet for the emotions of a crowd. These words or symbols may be wholly incongruous with the real needs of a people, but provided they are sufficiently familiar they will serve their purpose. And the more primitive the type of mind represented by the mass of the people the more powerfully these symbols
operate. Shakespeare's portrayal of the crowd in Julius Cæsar remains eternally true. The skilled orator, playing on old feelings, using familiar terms, and invoking familiar ideas, finds a crowd quite plastic to his hands. It is for these reasons that there is so keen a struggle with political and social parties for a monopoly of good rallying cries, and a readiness to fix objectionable titles on their opponents. Patriotism, Little Englander, Jingo, The Church in Danger, Godless Education, etc. etc. Causes are materially helped or injured by these means. There is little or no consideration given to their justice or reasonableness; it is the image aroused that does the work.
Psychological epidemics may in some cases be justly called normal in character. That is, they depend upon factors that are always in operation and which form a part of every social structure. A war fever or a commercial panic falls under this head. In other instances they depend upon abnormal conditions, upon the workings, perhaps, of some obscure nervous disease, and are of a pathological description. In yet other cases they represent a mixture of both. In such cases, for example, as that of the Medieval Flagellants or of the Dancing Mania, the presence of pathological elements is unmistakable. But neither of these epidemics could have occurred without a certain social preparation, and unless they had called into operation those principles of crowd psychology to which science has within recent years turned its attention, and which are normal factors in every society. These three classes of epidemics may be found in connection with subjects other than religious, but I am at present concerned with them only in that relation, and to point out that,
in spite of their undesirable or admittedly pathologic character, they have yet served to keep supernaturalism alive and active.
During the Christian period of European history by far the most important of all epidemics, as it was indeed the earliest, was monasticism. This takes front rank because of its extent, the degree to which it prepared the ground for subsequent outbreaks, and because of its indirect, and, I think, too little noticed, social consequences. It may safely be said that no other movement has so powerfully affected European society as has the monasticism of the early Christian centuries. It cannot, of course, be urged that Christianity originated monasticism. India and Egypt had its ascetic practices and celibate priesthood long before the birth of Christianity, and indeed gave Christianity the pattern from which to work. But the main stream of social life remained unaffected to any considerable extent by this asceticism. The social and domestic virtues received full recognition from the upholders of the monastic life, and there is no evidence that asceticism ever assumed an epidemic form. It has often been the lot of the Christian Church to give a more intense expression to religious tendencies already existing, and this was so in the case before us. At any rate, it was left for the Christian Church to give to monasticism the character of an epidemic, to treat the purely social and domestic virtues as a positive hindrance to the religious life, seriously to disturb national well-being, and to come perilously near destroying civilisation.
The origin of ascetic practices has already been indicated in a previous chapter. It has there been
pointed out that the deliberate torture of mind and body arose from the belief that the induced states brought man into direct communion with supernatural powers, and that this element has continued in almost every religion in the world. Says Baring-Gould:—