Class segregation has thus come to be regarded as a necessary and inevitable part of the structure of society. Telling as it does much more in the favour of certain classes than others, it has come to be defended by a whole series of legal and moral principles invented for the purpose, and by arguments that to objective examination are no more than rationalized prejudice. The maintenance of the social system—that is, of the segregation of power and prestige, of ease and leisure, and the corresponding segregations of labour, privation, and poverty—depends upon an enormously elaborate system of rationalization, tradition, and morals, and upon almost innumerable indirect mechanisms ranging from the drugging of society with alcohol to the distortion of religious principle in the interests of the established order. To the biologist the whole immensely intricate system is a means for combating the slow, almost imperceptible, pressure of Nature in the direction of a true national homogeneity. That this must be attained if human progress is to continue is, and has long been, obvious. The further fact that it can be attained only by a radical change in the whole human attitude towards society is but barely emerging from obscurity.
The fact that even the immense external stimulus of a great war now fails to overcome the embattled forces of social segregation, and can bring about only a very partial kind of national homogeneity in a society where segregation is deeply ingrained, seems to show that simple gregariousness has run its course in man and has been defeated of its full maturity by the disruptive power of man’s capacity for varied reaction. No state of equilibrium can be reached in a gregarious society short of complete {139} homogeneity, so that, failing the emergence of some new resource of Nature, it might be suspected that man, as a species, has already begun to decline from his meridian. Such a new principle is the conscious direction of society by man, the refusal by him to submit indefinitely to the dissipation of his energies and the disappointment of his ideals in inco-ordination and confusion. Thus would appear a function for that individual mental capacity of man which has so far, when limited to local and personal ends, tended but to increase the social confusion.
A step of evolution such as this would have consequences as momentous as the first appearance of the multicellular or of the gregarious animal. Man, conscious as a species of his true status and destiny, realizing the direction of the path to which he is irrevocably committed by Nature, with a moral code based on the unshakable natural foundation of altruism, could begin to draw on those stores of power which will be opened to him by a true combination, and the rendering available in co-ordinated action of the maximal energy of each individual.
GREGARIOUS SPECIES AT WAR.
The occurrence of war between nations renders obvious certain manifestations of the social instinct which are apt to escape notice at other times. So marked is this that a certain faint interest in the biology of gregariousness has been aroused during the present war, and has led to some speculation but no very radical examination of the facts or explanation of their meaning. Expression, of course, has been found for the usual view that primitive instincts normally vestigial or dormant are aroused into activity by the stress of war, and that there is a process of rejuvenation of “lower” instincts at the expense of “higher.” All such views, apart {140} from their theoretical unsoundness, are uninteresting because they are of no practical value.
It will be convenient to mention some of the more obvious psychological phenomena of a state of war before dealing with the underlying instinctive processes which produce them.
The war that began in August 1914 was of a kind peculiarly suitable to produce the most marked and typical psychological effects. It had long been foreseen as no more than a mere possibility of immense disaster—of disaster so outrageous that by that very fact it had come to be regarded with a passionate incredulity. It had loomed before the people, at any rate of England, as an event almost equivalent to the ultimate overthrow of all things. It had been led up to by years of doubt and anxiety, sometimes rising to apprehension, sometimes lapsing into unbelief, and culminating in an agonized period of suspense, while the avalanche tottered and muttered on its base before the final and still incredible catastrophe. Such were the circumstances which no doubt led to the actual outbreak producing a remarkable series of typical psychological reactions.
The first feeling of the ordinary citizen was fear—an immense, vague, aching anxiety, perhaps typically vague and unfocused, but naturally tending soon to localize itself in channels customary to the individual and leading to fears for his future, his food supply, his family, his trade, and so forth. Side by side with fear there was a heightening of the normal intolerance of isolation. Loneliness became an urgently unpleasant feeling, and the individual experienced an intense and active desire for the company and even physical contact of his fellows. In such company he was aware of a great accession of confidence, courage, and moral power. It was possible for an observant person to trace the actual {141} influence of his circumstances upon his judgment, and to notice that isolation tended to depress his confidence while company fortified it. The necessity for companionship was strong enough to break down the distinctions of class, and dissipate the reserve between strangers which is to some extent a concomitant mechanism. The change in the customary frigid atmosphere of the railway train, the omnibus, and all such meeting-places was a most interesting experience to the psychologist, and he could scarcely fail to be struck by its obvious biological meaning. Perhaps the most striking of all these early phenomena was the strength and vitality of rumour, probably because it afforded by far the most startling evidence that some other and stronger force than reason was at work in the formation of opinion. It was, of course, in no sense an unusual fact that non-rational opinion should be so widespread; the new feature was that such opinion should be able to spread so rapidly and become established so firmly altogether regardless of the limits within which a given opinion tends to remain localized in times of peace. Non-rational opinion under normal conditions is as a rule limited in its extent by a very strict kind of segregation; the successful rumours of the early periods of the war invaded all classes and showed a capacity to overcome prejudice, education, or scepticism. The observer, clearly conscious as he might be of the mechanisms at work, found himself irresistibly drawn to the acceptance of the more popular beliefs; and even the most convinced believer in the normal prevalence of non-rational belief could scarcely have exaggerated the actual state of affairs. Closely allied with this accessibility to rumour was the readiness with which suspicions of treachery and active hostility grew and flourished about any one of even foreign appearance or origin. It is not intended to {142} attempt to discuss the origin and meaning of the various types of fable which have been epidemic in opinion; the fact we are concerned with here is their immense vitality and power of growth.
We may now turn to some consideration of the psychological significance of these phenomena of a state of war.
The characteristic feature of a really dangerous national struggle for existence is the intensity of the stimulus it applies to the social instinct. It is not that it arouses “dormant” or decayed instincts, but simply that it applies maximal stimulation to instinctive mechanisms which are more or less constantly in action in normal times. In most of his reactions as a gregarious animal in times of peace, man is acting as a member of one or another class upon which the stimulus acts. War acts upon him as a member of the greater herd, the nation, or, in other words, the true major unit. As I have repeatedly pointed out, the cardinal mental characteristic of the gregarious animal is his sensitiveness to his fellow-members of the herd. Without them his personality is, so to say, incomplete; only in relation to them can he attain satisfaction and personal stability. Corresponding with his dependence on them is his openness towards them, his specific accessibility to stimuli coming from the herd.