Moreover, in a given gregarious species the existence of a highly developed power of reaction in the individual with a proportionately less developed capacity for communication will mean that the species is not deriving the advantages it might from the possession of gregariousness, while the full advantages of the type will be attained only when the two sets of activities are correspondingly strong.
Here we may see perhaps the explanation of the astounding success and completeness of {62} gregariousness in bees and ants. Their cycle of development was early complete because the possibilities of reaction of the individual were so small, and consequently the capacity for intercommunication of the individual was relatively soon able to attain a corresponding grade. The individual has become as completely merged in the hive as the single cell in the multicellular animal, and consequently the whole of her activities is available for the uses of the State. It is interesting to notice that, considered from this aspect, the wonderful society of the bee, with its perfect organization and its wonderful adaptability and elasticity, owes its early attainment of success to the smallness of the brain power of the individual.
For the mammals with their greater powers of varied reaction the path to the consummation of their possibilities must be longer, more painful, and more dangerous, and this applies in an altogether special degree to man.
The enormous power of varied reaction possessed by man must render necessary for his attainment of the full advantages of the gregarious habit a power of intercommunication of absolutely unprecedented fineness. It is clear that scarcely a hint of such power has yet appeared, and it is equally obvious that it is this defect which gives to society the characteristics which are the contempt of the man of science and the disgust of the humanitarian.
We are now in a position to understand how momentous is the question as to what society does with the raw material of its minds to encourage in them the potential capacity for intercommunication which they undoubtedly by nature possess. To that question there is but one answer. By providing its members with a herd tradition which is constantly at war with feeling and with experience, {63} society, drives them inevitably into resistiveness on the one hand, or into mental instability on the other, conditions which have this in common, that they tend to exaggerate that isolation of the individual which is shown us by the intellect to be unnatural and by the heart to be cruel.
Another urgent question for the future is provided by the steady increase, relative and absolute, of the mentally unstable. The danger to the State constituted by a large unstable class is already generally recognized, but unfortunately realization has so far only instigated a yet heavier blow at the species. It is assumed that instability is a primary quality, and therefore only to be dealt with by breeding it out. With that indifference to the mental side of life which is characteristic of the mentally resistant class, the question as to the real meaning of instability has been begged by the invention of the disastrous word “degenerate.” The simplicity of the idea has charmed modern speculation, and the only difficulty in the whole problem has come to be the decision as to the most expeditious way of getting rid of this troublesome flaw in an otherwise satisfactory world.
The conception that the natural environment of man must be modified if the body is to survive has long been recognized, but the fact that the mind is incomparably more delicate than the body has scarcely been noticed at all. We assume that the disorderly environment with which we surround the mind has no effect, and are ingenuously surprised when mental instability arises apparently from nowhere; but although we know nothing of its origin our temerity in applying the cure is in no sense daunted.
It has already been pointed out how dangerous it would be to breed man for reason—that is, against suggestibility. The idea is a fit companion for the {64} device of breeding against “degeneracy.” The “degenerate”—that is, the mentally unstable—have demonstrated by the mere fact of instability that they possess the quality of sensitiveness to feeling and to experience, for it is this which has prevented them from applying the remedy of rationalization or exclusion when they have met with experience conflicting with herd suggestion. There can be no doubt as to the value to the State of such sensitiveness were it developed in a congruous environment. The “degeneracy,” therefore, which we see developed as a secondary quality in these sensitive minds is no evidence against the degenerate, but an indictment of the disorderly environment which has ruined them, just as the catchword associating insanity and genius tells us nothing about genius but a great deal about the situation into which it has had the misfortune to be born.
Sensitiveness to feeling and experience is undoubtedly the necessary antecedent of any high grade of that power of intercommunication which we have seen to be necessary to the satisfactory development of man. Such sensitiveness, however, in society as it now is, inevitably leads merely to mental instability. That such sensitiveness increases with civilization is shown by the close association between civilization and mental instability. There is no lack, therefore, of the mental quality of all others most necessary to the gregarious animal. The pressing problem which in fact faces man in the immediate future is how to readjust the mental environment in such a way that sensitiveness may develop and confer on man the enormous advantages which it holds for him, without being transformed from a blessing into the curse and menace of instability. To the biologist it is quite clear that this can be effected only by an extension of the rational method to the whole field of experience, a {65} process of the greatest difficulty, but one which must be the next great variation in man’s development if that development is to continue to be an evolution.
Outside this possibility the imagination can see nothing but grounds for pessimism. It needs but little effort of foresight to realize that without some totally revolutionary change in man’s attitude towards the mind, even his very tenure of the earth may come to be threatened. Recent developments in the study of disease have shown us how blind and fumbling have been our efforts against the attacks of our immemorial enemies the unicellular organisms. When we remember their capacities for variation and our fixity, we can see that for the race effectually and permanently to guard itself against even this one danger are necessary that fineness and complexity of organization, that rendering available of the utmost capacity of its members, against which the face of society seems at present to be so steadily set. We see man to-day, instead of the frank and courageous recognition of his status, the docile attention to his biological history, the determination to let nothing stand in the way of the security and permanence of his future, which alone can establish the safety and happiness of the race, substituting blind confidence in his destiny, unclouded faith in the essentially respectful attitude of the universe towards his moral code, and a belief no less firm that his traditions and laws and institutions necessarily contain permanent qualities of reality. Living as he does in a world where outside his race no allowances are made for infirmity, and where figments however beautiful never become facts, it needs but little imagination to see how great are the probabilities that after all man will prove but one more of Nature’s failures, ignominously to be swept from her work-table to make way for another venture of her tireless curiosity and patience. 1909.