[20]Society is the form of natural organization which ethical personalities come into in their growth. Ethical personality is the form of natural development which individuals grow into who live in social relationships. The true analogy, then, is not that which likens it to a physiological organism, but rather that which likens it to a psychological organization.
And so, if this were primarily a historical study, I might go over many similar and differing theories, which consider the group as a unity on the mental plane, that is, in one sense or another, as a group mind.
The material is still being collected for this study, the essential points of view still being defined, and such important factors as instinct and intelligence are still being redefined with the rapid progress of science today. As several of the terms cited above suggest, the difference between the individual as a mind and the group of individuals as a mind is always given and must always be given in terms of structure. In the words of Lindeman:
[21]The individual may be viewed as an integration of functioning organs, and the group merely an integration of functions.... There can be nothing organic about society or a group; there can be only a series of relations, the results of specific responses to specific situations.
Not to cite more opinions on a point on which there seems general agreement, we may take it for granted that the chief, perhaps the only difference historically pointed out between the mind of one man and of a group of men is that the man has a brain and a nervous system, while the group has neither, but operates apparently through the brains and nervous systems of its members. But in their functioning, in their activities, the mind of the man and of the nation or other group are so similar as to be almost indistinguishable.
Of course, this distinction depends, finally, on the definition of mind which we are prepared to accept. Dennes gives an adequate summary and criticism of Durkheim, for instance, who considered collective mind to consist of the collective ideas or representations of a society; and of Wundt, who considered mind an integration of processes, not of ideas, and therefore sought for the group mind in the collective results of group mental process, in speech, religion and custom. But Dennes himself seems confused by the need of defining mind without regard to bodily structure. He says: [22]“Individual minds or persons have or produce bodies as well as objective mental products. But social groups are not minds and have no bodies. They are associations of minds.” MacDougall defines mind as [23]“An organized system of mental or purposive forces,” and continues, “In the sense so defined, every highly organized human society may be properly said to possess a group mind.” While MacDougall’s definition seems circular in nature, it still recognizes that a functional definition of mind can make no distinction of structure, whether any particular mind is associated with one or many bodies. Lindeman calls mind [24]“the total equipment with which man responds to his environment”, which seems more than one can accept, for “total equipment” would include hands and feet, as well as mind. A more precise statement of the same general tenor appears in Dr. Singer’s Mind as Behavior:
[25]Consciousness is not something inferred from behavior; it is behavior. Or, more accurately, our belief in consciousness is an expectation of probable behavior based on an observation of actual behavior, a belief to be confirmed or refuted by more observation, as any other belief in a fact is to be tried out.
Thus, any functional definition of mind that has no reference to brain or nervous system, must apply and does apply in the group of persons in exactly the same sense as to the single individual. If there is “unified behavior,” if there is “organized system of purposes,” if there is “response to environment,” then we have mind, whether the behavior, response, or purpose dwell in one or two or many bodies.
One question remains, and a most perplexing one. How can one distinguish between a group mind and a group purpose, or the accidental coincidence of many minds and many purposes? A flock of migrating birds has no group mind—each bird would travel south at the same time and the same rate of speed, were there no flock at all. Or still lower forms, such as unicellular organisms, may move simultaneously to warmer waters. On the other extreme, the hordes of Huns led by Attila had a group purpose in their migration; the leader gave the word, and the followers leaped together to their horses’ backs to ride from Asia into Europe. But when a half million negroes migrate from the southern to the northern states in a few years, coming family by family, as the opportunity affords, yet with a steady tendency of drift, is that a group mind or the accidental agreement of many individuals? Is it mind or minds? And the same problem is present in a declaration of war, or the victory of a foot-ball team, or the adoption of a new fashion of clothes. When does the group act and when the individual members? When do we have the mind of all, when the mind of each?
To this crucial problem I must present one qualification and one answer. The qualification is: the group never acts except through its constituent individuals, any more than the mind acts without its brain cells and bodily organs. The difference between the act of all and the act of each is not a complete disjunction but a difference of emphasis, of interpretation, of purpose. When the army marches, every soldier goes ahead; when the nation elects its president, the millions of voters cast their ballots; when the church adopts a creed or reforms its ritual, the many believers experience a change in their faith and their hope. Not that group opinion need be unanimous; it is rather a mode of general consent by which unified action can arise out of conflicting opinions, by which many individuals are absorbed into a group mind. Thus in many, perhaps in most cases we cannot say definitely: this is group mind, not personal preference, or this is individual action, and the group has nothing to do with it. The problem is much like that which faced Kant in defining moral action, when the demands of the universal law may often coincide with personal preference, perhaps even with the greatest and most appealing happiness.