These dominant ideas form the national ideals, after which the individual lines are consciously patterned, and by the practical application thus given, add to the cohesion of the group through the unification of its members. Acting under natural laws, common to organic forms as well as to societies, these ideas are the chief agents in social selection, and thus control almost absolutely the traits and destinies of nations, as has been traced in a masterly manner by Vacher de Lapouge.
Such ideas are easily recognised in a community. A slight acquaintance with history and literature teaches us that the early Romans were exclusively possessed by the military ideal, the lust of conquest; that the ideal of the Israelites has always been the thirst for commercial gain; and that art was the ruling aim in the palmy days of Greece.
But the finest example that occurs to me of many different peoples being dominated by a fixed idea is seen in the votaries of the Mohammedan religion. They are bound together by one sacred language, in which one book, the Koran, lays down all law, civil, criminal, and ecclesiastical, and the expressed dicta of which set them in sharpest opposition to all who do not accept it. The religious idea, thus stimulated out of all proportion to others, has developed in them a fanatical force which at one time almost enabled them to conquer the known world, and which has since resulted in the inevitable decay of their greatest states, their literature and arts.
II. Psychopathic Conditions in the Emotional Life.—Apart from the perversions of intelligence which cloud the reasoning faculties of nations, they are subject to widespread and persistent disturbances of their emotional lives, which frequently react disastrously on the common weal.
Following the division adopted by some competent alienists in individual cases, I may with propriety classify these into two divisions, as they represent, on the one hand, excessive, misdirected, and morbid activity, or, on the other, unhealthy depression and apathy.
1. Conditions of Hypersthenia.—It is a popular error in scientific circles that diseases of the nervous system increase with civilisation. The opposite is true. The lowest stages of culture are far more pathological than the higher, in this, as well as in most respects. True that certain neuroses belong to cultured peoples; but morbid emotional states are especially prevalent in lower conditions.
(a) Hysteria.—This is well illustrated in the history of epidemic hysteria. It may occasionally be seen among ourselves in a hospital ward or at a camp-meeting; but such outbreaks are sporadic. They belong in the ethnic temperament of many tribes of the Malayan and native American races.
The Jesuit fathers described in vivid colours such outbreaks among the Hurons of Canada, attacking whole villages and frequently leading to their destruction. Father de Quen was quite right when he wrote: “The old saying alleges that every man has a grain of madness in his composition; but this is a tribe where each has half an ounce.” He correctly regarded them as in a permanently pathological state.
Quite similar recitals are preserved of such outbreaks among the Guaranis of Paraguay, and other primitive stocks, notably the Malay peoples.
From the accounts of travellers it would seem, contrary to what we might suppose, that such excessive nervous sensibility is peculiarly present in extreme northern latitudes, while tropical tribes are much more liable to conditions of depression. Castren, who lived long among the northern Sibiric tribes, dwells with astonishment on their nervous sensitiveness. A sudden blow on the outside of the skin yurt will throw its occupants into spasms.