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
In order that the individual shall be sensitive in a special degree
to the voice of the herd, he must have developed in him an infallible
capacity for recognizing his fellow-members. In the lower mammalia
this seems almost exclusively a function of the sense of smell, as is
natural enough since that sense is as a general rule highly developed
in them. The domestic dog shows admirably the importance of the
function of recognition in his species. Comparatively few recognize
even their masters at any distance by sight or sound, while obviously
with their fellows they are practically dependent on smell. The extent
to which the ceremonial of recognition has developed in the dog is, of
course, very familiar to every one. It shows unmistakable evidence of
the rudiments of social organization, and is not the less illuminating
to the student of human society for having a bodily orientation and
technique which at first sight obscures its resemblance to similar, and
it is supposed more dignified, mechanisms in man.
Specialization fitting the animal for social life is obviously in
certain directions restrictive; that is, it denies him certain
capacities and immunities which the solitary animal possesses;
equally obviously is it in certain directions expansive and does it
confer qualities on the social which the solitary does not possess.
Among qualities of restrictive specialization are inability to live
satisfactorily apart from the herd or some substitute for it, the
liability to loneliness, a dependence on leadership, custom, and
tradition, a {110} credulity towards the dogmas of the herd and an
unbelief towards external experience, a standard of conduct no longer
determined by personal needs but influenced by a power outside the
ego—a conscience, in fact, and a sense of sin—a weakness of personal
initiative and a distrust of its promptings. Expansive specialization,
on the other hand, gives the gregarious animal the sense of power and
security in the herd, the capacity to respond to the call of the herd
with a maximum output of energy and endurance, a deep-seated mental
satisfaction in unity with the herd, and a solution in it of personal
doubts and fears.
All these characters can be traced in an animal such as the dog. The
mere statement of them, necessarily in mental terms, involves the
liability to a certain inexactitude if it is not recognized that no
hypothesis as to the consciousness of the dog is assumed but that the
description in mental terms is given because of its convenient brevity.
An objective description of the actual conduct on which such summarized
statements are founded would be impossibly voluminous.
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Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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