The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology: With Some Attempt to Apply Them to the Interpretation of National Life and CharacterMcDougall, William
Science
The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology: With Some Attempt to Apply Them to the Interpretation of National Life and Character
McDougall, William
Ethnopsychology; National characteristics; Social psychology
There can, I think, be no reasonable doubt that there are great
differences between races, and that these may be, and in many cases have
been, persistent through thousands of generations.
The recognition that the mind of the human infant is not a _tabula
rasa_, but that its innate constitution comprises a number of instincts,
specifically directed tendencies to thought, feeling, and action,
prepares us to accept this view and gives us some basis for the
definition of these differences. Whether all differences can be defined
in such terms is a further problem. That they cannot be wholly defined
in this way seems to be obvious, when we consider how quite specialised
idiosyncrasies are transmitted in families through several generations,
often with a leap across one generation, peculiarities of taste and
feeling, of aesthetic endowment and temperament, abilities such as the
musical, mathematical and artistic.
When we compare widely different peoples such as the Negro, the White,
and the Yellow, the fact of profound differences cannot be overlooked.
These differences cannot be ascribed to the action of environment upon
each generation. Perhaps the only differences of this kind which at
present are accurately measurable are those of the size and form of the
brain. The negro brain is decidedly smaller than that of the white and
yellow races. And there are small but distinct differences of sensory
endowment which are highly significant. For, if there are racial
differences in these most fundamental and racially oldest endowments, we
may expect still greater differences in the later evolved powers of the
mind; although these are much more difficult to detect and define.
Still, the negro race wherever found does present certain specific
mental peculiarities roughly definable, especially the happy-go-lucky
disposition, the unrestrained emotional violence and responsiveness,
whether its representatives are found in tropic Africa, in the jungles
of Papua, or in the highly civilised conditions of American cities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account