One more point comes properly under the definition of the group mind—the wide-spread conception of a general will, or more precisely a common will. According to the viewpoint of this study, the general will is no mystical entity, overpowering the wills of the individuals; nor is it an arithmetical average, in which personal opinions cancel each other out. Neither of these theories covers a willing mind. The group will is a resultant, not an average; one element in it is tradition, another is leadership, a third is the interaction of the various sub-groups. In the final result, the negative element is often actually erased, the wavering members accept the winning opinion as a whole, and the consequent group action is a unity, almost a unanimity of response. After war is declared the peace party practically disappears. In less clear-cut issues, we see the workings of compromise, which again appears in the behavior of the group as a whole. Group consciousness exists when the individuals identify themselves with the group, not merely accepting its purpose but losing their own purposes in it. Consciousness implies also intelligence, as it does in the individual; it may co-exist with a high emotional tone but must have a rational element as well. MacDougall utters a view in consonance with that held here when he says: [27]It is the extension of the self-regarding sentiment of each member to the group as a whole that binds the group together and renders it a collective individual capable of collective volition. But when he holds [28]that groups are self-conscious according to the degree that the idea of them is present in the minds of the individuals composing them, then we must agree with Dennes that: [29]to say that a group mind possesses self-consciousness in the sense that its nature is consciously apprehended, by individual minds distinct from it, is the utterance of a contradiction.