If we pass by these serious difficulties, others arise as soon as we inquire what kinds of human groups have such ‘collective consciousness.’ Does the simple fortuitously gathered crowd possess it? Or is it confined to highly organised groups such as the leading modern nations? If every psychological crowd possesses it and owes its peculiarities of behaviour to it, does it come into being at the moment the individuals have their attention attracted to a common object and begin to be stirred by a common emotion? And does it cease to be as soon as the crowd is resolved into its elements? Or, if it is confined to nations or other highly organised groups, at what stage of their development does it come into being, and what are the limits of the groups of which it is the ‘collective consciousness’? Do the Poles share in the ‘collective consciousness’ of the German nation, or the Bavarians in that of Prussia? Or do the Irish or the Welsh contribute their share to that of the English nation?
Coming now to close quarters with the doctrine, we may ask those who, like Schaeffle and Espinas, regard the ‘collective consciousness’ as a bond which unites the members of a society and makes of them one living individual,—Is this ‘collective consciousness’ merely epiphenomenal in character? Or are we to regard it as reacting upon the consciousnesses or minds of the individuals of the group, and, through such reaction, playing a part in determining the behaviour of the group, or rather of the individuals of which the group is composed? For the actions of the group are merely the sum of the actions of its individuals. If the former alternative be adopted, then we may confidently say that the existence of a ‘collective consciousness’ must from the nature of the case remain a mere speculation, incapable of verification; and that, if it does exist, since it cannot make any difference, cannot in any way affect human life and conduct, it is for us unreal, no matter how real it may be for itself, as Espinas maintains; and we certainly are not called upon to have any regard for it or its happiness, nor can we invoke its aid in attempting to explain the course of history and the phenomena of social life. If, on the other hand, the ‘collective consciousness’ of groups and societies and peoples reacts upon individual minds and so plays a part in shaping the conduct of men and societies, then the conception is a hypothesis which can only be justified by showing that it affords explanations of social phenomena which in its absence remain inexplicable. If it were found that social aggregates of any kind really do exhibit, as has often been maintained, great mass-movements, emigrations, religious or political uprisings, and so forth, for which no adequate explanations can be found in the mental processes of individuals and the mental interactions of individuals by the ordinary means of expression and perception, a resort to some such hypothesis would be permissible; but it is an offence against the principles of scientific method to invoke its aid, before we have exhausted the possibilities of explanation offered by well-known existents and forces. That certainly has not yet been done, and the upholders of the doctrine have hardly made any attempt to justify it in this the only possible manner in which it could be justified. The only evidence of this sort adduced by Espinas is the rapid spread of a common emotion and impulse throughout the members of animal and human groups; and of such phenomenon we have already found a sufficient explanation in those special adaptations of the instincts of all gregarious creatures which are unmistakably implied by the way in which the expression of an emotion directly evokes a display of the same emotion in any onlooking member of the species.
We may, then, set aside the conception of a ‘collective consciousness’ as a hypothesis to be held in reserve until the study of group life reveal phenomena that cannot be explained without its aid. For it may be confidently asserted that up to the present time no such evidence of a ‘collective consciousness’ has been brought forward, and that there is no possibility of any such evidence being obtained before the principles of social psychology have been applied far more thoroughly than has yet been done to the explanation of the course of history. In adopting a so far unsympathetic attitude towards this doctrine, we ought to admit that, if there be any truth in it, the ‘collective consciousness’ of even the most highly organised society may be still in a rudimentary stage, and that it may continue to gain in effectiveness and organisation with the further evolution of the society in question.
After this digression we may return to the consideration of the emotional characteristics of simple crowds. We have to notice not only that the emotions of crowds are apt to be excessively strong, but also that certain types of emotion are more apt than others to spread through a crowd, namely the coarser simpler emotions and those which do not imply the existence of developed and refined sentiments. For many of the individuals of most crowds will be incapable of the more subtle complex emotions and will be devoid of the more refined sentiments; while such sentiments as the individuals possess will be in the main more diverse in proportion to their refinement and special character; hence the chances of any crowd being homogeneous as regards these emotions and sentiments is small. Whereas the primary emotions and the coarser sentiments may be common to all the members of a crowd; any crowd is likely to be homogeneous in respect to them.
On the other hand, a crowd is more apt to be swayed by the more generous of the coarser emotions, impulses, and sentiments than by those of a meaner universally reprobated kind. For each member of the crowd acts in full publicity; and his knowledge of, and regard for, public opinion will to some extent incline him to suppress the manifestation of feelings which he might indulge in private but would be ashamed of in public. Hence a crowd is more readily carried away by admiration for a noble deed, or by moral indignation against an act of cruelty, than by self-pity or jealousy or envy or a meanly vengeful emotion.
At the same time, a crowd is apt to express feelings which imply less consideration and regard for others than the individual, representing the average morality and refinement of its members, would display when not under the influence of the crowd. Thus men, when members of a crowd, will witness with enjoyment scenes of brutality and suffering which, under other circumstances, they would turn away from, or would seek to terminate. To see a man thrown heavily to the ground is not pleasing to most individuals; yet the spectacle provokes roars of delight from the crowd at a football match. How many of the spectators, who, as members of a crowd, hugely enjoy looking on at a prize-fight or a bull-fight, would shrink from witnessing it as isolated individuals! How many boys will join with a crowd of others in cruelly teasing another boy, an animal, an old woman, or a drunken man, who individually are incapable of such ‘thoughtless’ conduct! It may be doubted whether even the depraved population of Imperial Rome could have individually witnessed without aversion the destruction of Christians in the Coliseum.
This character of crowds seems to be due to two peculiarities of the collective mental state. In the first place, the individual, in becoming one of a crowd, loses in some degree his self-consciousness, his awareness of himself as a distinct personality, and with it goes also something of his consciousness of his specifically personal relations; he becomes to a certain extent depersonalised. In the second place, and intimately connected with this last change, is a diminution of the sense of personal responsibility: the individual feels himself enveloped and overshadowed and carried away by forces which he is powerless to control; he therefore does not feel called upon to maintain the attitude of self-criticism and self-restraint which under ordinary circumstances are habitual to him, his more refined ideals of behaviour fail to assert themselves against the overwhelming forces that envelope him.
The Intellectual Processes of Simple Crowds
No fact has been more strongly insisted upon by writers on the psychology of crowds than the low degree of intelligence implied by their collective actions. Not only mobs or simple crowds, but such bodies as juries, committees, corporations of all sorts, which are partially organised groups, are notoriously liable to pass judgments, to form decisions, to enact rules or laws, so obviously erroneous, unwise, or defective that anyone, even the least intelligent member of the group concerned, might have been expected to produce a better result.