Let us turn, then, to the analogy between the organisation of the national collective mind and that of the individual mind, which, I say, is so much closer and more illuminating than that between a society and a bodily organisation.
The actions of the individual organism are the expression of its mental constitution or organisation; in some creatures this organisation is almost wholly innate—the organisation consists of a number of reflex and instinctive dispositions each specialised for bringing about a special kind of behaviour under certain circumstances. Such old established racial dispositions with their special tendencies have their place in more complexly developed minds; but in these their operations are complicated and modified by the life of ideas, and by a variety of habits developed under the guidance of ideas and in the light of individual experience.
The enduring reflex and instinctive dispositions of the individual mind we may liken to the established institutions of a nation, such as the army and navy, the post office, the judicial and the administrative systems of officials. These, like the instincts, are specialised executive organisations working in relative independence of one another, each discharging some specialised function adapted to satisfy some constantly recurring need of the whole organism. In both cases such semi-independent organisations, the instincts or the institutions, are relatively fixed and stable, and they work, if left to themselves, quasi-mechanically along old established lines, without intelligent adaptation to new circumstances; and they are incapable of self-adaptation. In both cases, the mental organisation is in part materialised, the instinct in the form of specialised nervous structure, the institution in the form of the material organisation essential to its efficient action, the buildings, the printed codes, the whole material apparatus of complex national administration. In both cases, the actions in which they play their part are not purely mechanical but to some extent truly psychical—though of a low order.
If we accept the view, which is held by many, that instincts and reflexes are the semi-mechanised results of successive mental adaptations effected by the mental efforts of successive generations, then the analogy is still closer; for the permanent national institutions are also the accumulated semi-mechanised products of the efforts at adaptation of many generations.
The organisation of some nations resembles that of the minds of those animals whose behaviour is purely instinctive. Such is a nation whose organisation takes the form of a rigid caste system. Each caste performs its special functions in the prescribed manner in relative independence of all the others. And, in both cases, the organisation of the mind includes no means of bringing the different fixed tendencies or dispositions into harmonious co-operation in the face of unusual circumstances. The whole system lacks plasticity and adaptability; for it is relatively mechanical and of a low degree of integration. Any true adaptation of the whole organism by mental effort is impossible in both cases.
The higher type of individual mind is characterised by the development of the intellectual organisation by means of which the activities of the various instincts, the executive organisations, may be brought into co-operation with, or duly subordinated to, one another; and the activities of each such individual may be further adapted to meet novel combinations of circumstances not provided for in the innate organisation; hence, the activities of the whole organism, instead of being a succession of quasi-mechanical actions, and of crude conflicts between the impulses or tendencies of the different instincts, reveal a higher degree of harmony of the parts, a greater integration of the whole system, and a much greater adaptability to novel circumstances; while, at the same time, the behaviour of the whole, in face of any one of the situations provided for by innate organisation or instinct, is liable to be less sure and perfect than in the case of the less complex, less highly evolved type of mind.
Exactly the same is true of the more highly evolved type of national mind. Like the lower type, it has its executive institutions and hierarchies of officials, organised for the carrying out of specialised tasks subserving the economy of the whole. But, in addition, it has a deliberative organisation which renders possible a play of ideas; and, through this, the operations of the institutions are modified and controlled in detail and are harmonised in a way which constitutes a higher integration of the whole.
In both cases ideas and judgments reached by the deliberative processes can only become effective in the world of things and conduct by setting to work, or calling into play, one or more of the executive dispositions or institutions.
In both cases, ideas and the deliberative processes, which to some extent control the operations of the innate or traditional dispositions, produce, in so doing, some permanent modification of them in the direction of adaptation to deal with novel circumstances; so that the dispositions or institutions grow and change under the guidance of the deliberative processes, slowly becoming better adapted for the expression of the ruling ideas; they become better instruments, and more completely at the service of ideas and of the will.
Just as the animal, on the instinctive plane of mental life, displays a very efficient activity in the special situation which brings some one instinct into play, so any one caste of a caste-nation may perform its function under normal circumstances with great efficiency, the priestly caste its priestly function, the warrior caste, or the caste of sweepers, its function; and, in both cases, the development of the deliberative organisation is apt to interfere to some extent with the perfect execution of these specialised functions.