Imitation[53] is another disposition of human nature that is close to that of suggestibility. There is contra-imitation as well as contra-suggestion, and besides imitation there is also invention. But it is a powerful social force. For the interdependence of man makes for imitation as well as suggestibility. And society really owes a great deal to it. An invention in social living cannot hope to survive unless it is freely adopted by masses who have no thought of stopping to reason out its utility. And the effect of imitation is that it causes an immense impetus towards uniformity and solidarity within the group. “... Men and other animals imitate what they see others, _especially they of their own species_, do.”[54] And imitation of one’s own group tends to assimilate him to it, to habituate him in its ways, and secure his loyalty to it and its ideals, which is to say, that imitation is a factor in the making of patriotism. The fact that suggestion and imitation exercise their greatest force within the group makes it pertinent to recognize the part that _the group_ plays in the process of habituation in patriotism. The fact is that because of the individual’s membership in a group, the suggestions that come to him impinge upon his consciousness with a good deal of force. They strike him from all directions at almost the same time, and have a multiple dynamic behind them. Now the nation is a group. The space-annihilating devices of the present day in conjunction with the photographs and vivid descriptive reporting of the newspapers have extended and intensified the connections between the individual and his national group. The crowd for the individual may now well be, and in time of national crisis is, the people of his country. This, however, is especially true of city populations, a fact which must have allowance made for it in the gauging of public opinion. It is the voice of the city-population that has too often been taken as the expression of public opinion. “The voice of ‘the people’ is very often nowadays only the voice of the city crowd, faintly re-echoed, if echoed at all, in the smaller towns. Sometimes also the noise is that of a few editors of newspapers.”[55] Another fact which ought to be noted is that there are prestige-groups within society. Examples of such are an old-fashioned aristocracy, the governing class, and in a democracy, the majority. Such groups often exercise compelling coercive power.