Instincts of the Herd in Peace and WarTrotter, W. (Wilfred)
Science
Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War
Trotter, W. (Wilfred)
Collective behavior; Crowds; Social psychology; World War, 1914-1918 -- Psychological aspects
When we come to consider animals in which the anatomist can recognize
a brain and the psychologist an individual mind, the types of
gregariousness we meet with are found to have lost the magnificent
intensity of the bee. This decline in intensity seems to be due to
the greatly increased variety of reaction of which the individual
is capable. The gregarious mammalia are most of them relatively
intelligent, they are capable of assimilating experience to a certain
extent and have a definite capacity for individual existence. In them
the social habit shows comparatively little tendency to a gradual
intensification, but is a more static condition. Doubtless, there are
other conditions {108} which also limit it. For example, the slowness
of multiplication and fixity of structure in the mammalia obviously
deprive them of the possibility of undergoing a continuous social
integration as the insects have. Be this as it may, we find in them
the social habit but little or scarcely at all expressed in physical
specialization but shown as a deeply ingrained mental character which
profoundly influences their habits and their modes of reaction to
bodily and external impressions. Among the mammalia other than man
and possibly apes and monkeys, gregariousness is found in two broadly
distinguishable types according to the function it subserves. It may
be either protective as in the sheep, the deer, the ox, and the horse,
or aggressive as in the wolf and allied animals. In both forms it will
involve certain common types of capacity, while the distinguishing
characteristic of each will be a special kind of reaction to certain
stimuli. It is important to understand that these peculiarities are
possessed by each individual of the larger unit, and will be displayed
by him in a characteristic way whether he is in the company of his
fellows or not. It is not necessary to repeat here in any detail the
characters of the gregarious mammal. They have been dealt with in an
earlier essay, but it is desirable to emphasize here certain features
of exceptional importance and some which were but little discussed
before.
The quite fundamental characteristic of the social mammal, as of the
bee, is sensitiveness to the voice of his fellows. He must have the
capacity to react fatally and without hesitation to an impression
coming to him from the herd, and he must react in a totally different
way to impressions coming to him from without. In the presence of
danger his first motion must be, not to fly or to attack as the case
may be, but to notify the herd. This characteristic is beautifully
demonstrated in the low {109} growl a dog will give at the approach of
a stranger. This is obviously in no way part of the dog’s programme of
attack upon his enemy—when his object is intimidation he bursts into
barking—but his first duty is to put the pack on its guard. Similarly
the start of the sheep is a notification and precedes any motion of
flight.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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