SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 
THE BASES OF BEHAVIOR CALLED 
SOCIAL 
BY 
ROBERT H. GAULT, Ph.D. 
PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN 
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY 
Editor of the Journal of Criminal 
Law and Criminology. 
NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
1923 Copyright, 1923 
BY 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 
January, 1923 
PRINTED IN THE 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA SDeiicateU 
TO 
ANNE LEE GAULT PREFACE 
In relation to questions of social psychology, it is 
of utmost importance that readers develop the open, 
interrogative mind. The scope of the whole subject 
is so magnificent and the phenomena so many angled 
that it is particularly difficult to set them in proper 
array. It is in no spirit of cocksureness that these 
pages are written. 
There are certain fairly well-established facts con- 
cerning the original nature of lower animals and men 
that are shaking our faith in those chapters on the 
instincts of human kind that found a place in our 
psychological texts of yesterday. Human nature is 
seen, not as something eternally fixed and unchange- 
able, but as altering slowly in response to multiform 
environing conditions. Instincts have been overdone; 
undifferentiated instinct is taking their place, and it 
is of interest to the student mainly because it is seen 
as a cornerstone of an infinitely complex web of habits. 
It is not possible to build a social psychology upon 
so-called unalterable instincts alone as a foundation, 
nor yet upon instinct apart from the habits that are 
woven with it; and these habits are our sense of social 
unity; our conventions and customs, the great mass 
of which are informally passed from person to person 
and less frequently are crystallized into laws and 
institutions. 
This proposition makes mutual acquaintanceship 
and understanding the great thing in social psy-  PREFACE 
chology. I believe that, rightly deve/oped, the position 
will ultimately have contributed greatly toward the 
development of an outlook upon human inter-relations 
that will meet the needs of peoples whose interests and 
ambitions clash, but who must work together. These 
needs will be met and satisfied, not because the peoples 
will have become mutually tolerant of one another, but 
because they will have grown to appreciate each the 
other. And mutual appreciation will undoubtedly be 
interpreted as the outstanding need of students and 
of the general public in our generation. 
It is hoped that the book may be useful to teachers 
and students and to the general reader as well. Prob- 
lems for discussion are appended here and there. They 
will be suggestive of others and better ones, that will 
arise from the experience of those who may make use 
of the volume. 
Acknowledgment is due to many writers. Refer- 
ences to their work are collected in Appendix I by 
chapters and those that have been drawn upon most 
heavily are mentioned in the text. 
In particular, I have great pleasure in this expres- 
sion of heavy obligation to my colleague, Professor 
Delton Thomas Howard, who has read both copy and 
proof and has made useful suggestions for improve- 
ment,— suggestions that I have, in the main, adopted 
and embodied in the text. 
I am indebted also to Dr. William Healy, Dr. Robert 
M. Yerkes and others for tables and charts. Their 
source, in each instance, is named in the title. 
Robert H. Gault 
Evanston, Illinois 
January, 1923 CONTENTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
PREFACE v 
I. DEFINITION AND SCOPE 3 
II. THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 13 
Social Continuity 22 
Social Unity not Intellectualistic .... 23 
An Individualistic Conception 24 
“ Social Mind ” an Unnecessary Concept 25 
III. SOCIAL MOTIVES 27 
The Question of Instincts and their Role 
in Social Life 36 
Modifiability of Instinctive Behavior 43 
Functions of Instinctive Equipment ... 46 
Analogy with the Complex 53 
Genesis of Motives 60 
Remorse — Self-Approbation — Con- 
science 62 
IV. INTELLECTUAL LEVELS AND PSY- 
CHIC STABILITY OF THE POP- 
ULATION 65 
Proportion of Feeble-Mindedness in the 
General Population 65 CONTENTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
. Psychic Defects Other than Feeble- 
Mindedness 78 
The Question of Acquisition of Mental 
Defects 82 
V. THE RACIAL FACTOR 88 
Intellectual Qualities of the Negro .... 90 
Psychologic Traits of Other Racial 
Groups 101 
The Scientific Attitude 110 
Conclusion 119 
VI. SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTI- 
BILITY 122 
Definitions 122 
Suggestibility as Dissociation 127 
Suggestibility Due to Superstitious 
Nature 128 
Disposition to Agree with the Strong 130 
Race and Sex Factors in Suggestibility 134 
Suspicion and Suggestibility 136 
Acquired Disposition and Suggestibility 138 
Mass Effects 142 
VII. THE CROWD AND ALLIED PHE- 
NOMENA 155 
Nature of the Crowd 155 
The Mob 160 
Motives of the Mob 165 
The Political Campaign 170 
Fashion 171 CONTENTS 
IX 
CHAPTER PAGE 
The Audience 174 
Discussion 175 
Public Opinion . 176 
VIII. CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MOR- 
ALE 179 
Distinctions 179 
Spirit of the Age 185 
Nationalism 187 
Morale in War 192 
Morale in Peace 199 
IX. SOCIAL PROGRESS 202 
Distinctions 202 
Executive Leaders 211 
. “ True Wit and Madness ” 213 
Intellectual Leaders 220 
Statistical Studies of Men of Science 221 
Superior Children 227 
X. SOCIAL ADJUSTMENT AND MAL- 
ADJUSTMENTS IN RELATION 
TO MENTAL QUALITY 233 
Intelligence and Occupation 235 
Intelligence and Elimination from 
School 241 
Psychic Instability and Social Mai-Ad- 
justment Evidenced in Mental Disease 243 
Psychic Instability and Unrest 255 
Criminal Behavior 269 CONTENTS 
CHAPTER PAGE 
XI. POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOP- 
MENT OF CIVILIZATION 280 
Questions of Decadence vs. Improvement 280 
Factors Affecting Development 286 
APPENDIX I. THE ALPHA AND BETA 
TESTS 304. 
APPENDIX II. REFERENCES AND EX- 
ERCISES 312 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY CHAPTER I 
DEFINITION AND SCOPE 
Social Psychology in its widest sense applies to a 
study of interactions among animals. More specifi- 
cally, and as the term is usually employed, it applies 
to the reactions of members of the human race one to 
another. This is social behavior and the term “ be- 
havior ” is used here in the sense in which it is employed 
in the literature of general psychology, to point to an 
adjustment on the part of an organism to its whole 
environment, psychic and physical. It may be con- 
scious or unconscious. Not all such adjustments 
are social, but only those that imply inter- 
actions among men, women and children toward one 
another. They may or may not be accompanied by a 
consciousness of the social relation. 
Non-social behavior is illustrated in the acts of one 
who has just now suffered a bruised finger from a fall- 
ing window: he cries aloud, waves his arms in the air; 
stamps his feet upon the floor and his whole body is 
thrown into contortion. So soon, however, as he begins 
to receive encouragement in such behavior from the 
realization that he is gaining the sympathy of by- 
standers or from the purpose to gain their sympathy, 
his behavior becomes social. Likewise it takes on a 
social character when he realizes that he is making 
a ridiculous spectacle of himself in the eyes of by- 4 
DEFINITION AND SCOPE 
standers, real or imagined, and begins to take himself 
in hand, to repress himself stoically in order that 
onlookers may at least not think him a weakling. The 
same transformation in the psychologic character of 
his behavior occurs when he realizes that he is, by his 
undignified resentment of the falling window, traversing 
his ideal of strong manhood that can “ grin and bear 
it,” and accordingly suppresses his external activity 
at least. We are doing something toward developing 
social behavior in this respect when we appeal to a 
suffering and grieving youngster to “ brace up now, 
and be a man.” It will, therefore, very often be the 
developmental history of a given form of behavior that 
determines whether it is social or not. 
It is assumed that the interactions in question were 
conscious, at least in their origins, excepting in cases 
in which they may have arisen by accident and have 
been discovered and made use of consciously at a later 
time; as for example, when one discovers that one has 
already unwittingly adopted a mode of speech which 
elicits favorable response from a neighbor, and there- 
fore deliberately continues to exercise this manner of 
address until it once more becomes unconscious. A 
“ purely instinctive ” form of behavior, from this view- 
point, could not be social. 
This account of social relations from the psycho- 
logical angle is a chapter in empirical science. As 
such, it attempts to derive its data from observation 
of particular phenomena and to analyze and compare 
them as to their essential components. 
One of the first, if not the very first phenomenon 
in this connection that comes to the eye of the psychol- IMAGERY OF OTHERS 
5 
ogist is consciousness itself of the reactions of men, 
one to another. And his next discovery is an anticipa- 
tory image of reactions in others, that are seen as in- 
evitable sequences of one’s own behavior. These phe- 
nomena may be passed over or slightly stressed as the 
ultra-behaviorist would do. But in doing so the stu- 
dent becomes liable to the charge of arriving at con- 
clusions based upon incomplete induction; for it is a 
fair hypothesis that forms of consciousness — instable, 
filmy, and unreliable psychological data though they 
may be in the eye of the behaviorist — are neverthe- 
less the most patent signs that wre have of some inner 
struggles for adjustment. Besides, as is maintained 
in this book, by paying no heed whatever to certain 
forms of conscious life — imagery of others, and an- 
ticipatory images of others’ reactions — the social 
psychologist blocks himself at the point of discussing 
how the individual becomes socialized, and sacrifices 
the criteria by which he may determine the difference 
between behavior that is social and behavior that is 
not social. The observation of one’s consciousness 
at certain angles, we shall see, makes an important 
contribution to the psychology of social relations. 
But the social behavior includes automatic or un- 
conscious adjustments among men — social habits we 
may call them — and this branch of psychology claims, 
as one of its functions, the task of accounting for the 
development of these social automatisms. 
So far as social psychology accepts conscious be- 
havior as its object of study it implies those aspects 
of human consciousness in which one recognizes one’s 
relations to others and vice versa: in which one volun- 6 
DEFINITION AND SCOPE 
tarily seeks to control another’s reactions; in which 
one anticipates one’s reaction to the behavior that 
may possibly be expressed in the life of another at 
some future time, or the reactions that may occur in 
the reverse direction; in which one consciously makes 
adjustments to an ideal that has been developed and 
expressed by whatever means. Finally, social psy- 
chology implies responding to what is “ in the air ” 
because “ everybody else is doing it ” even while, as 
far as our definite awareness is concerned, we are out 
of relation to any particular person or persons who 
are “ doing it.” 
Our consciousness is social when we stop to con- 
sider the possible effect of our actions upon others, or 
when we recognize that effect as having already 
taken place. The student is socially conscious 
when he, preparing for an intercollegiate debate, 
works in the quiet of his study week in and week out, 
arranging and rearranging his material with a view 
to getting it into such shape that it will elicit signs 
of approval from the audience and obtain the decision 
of the judges in response to his effort. The chess 
player is socially conscious when he anticipates his 
next move in case his opponent should make a given 
play, or contrariwise; the statesman, when he antici- 
pates the needs of the nation and provides for them, 
as well as when he realizes his error and makes cor- 
rection. We are conscious in the social sense, further- 
more, when we feel constrained to adjust ourselves to 
an ideal. Whether we associate it with a particular 
person or not, the ideal is personified, and in adjust- 
ing to it, or in responding in any way to its appeal, IMAGERY OF OTHERS 
7 
we are indirectly reacting to its author. Thus when 
we are reading a book or looking at a picture we may 
be socially conscious. Indeed, we are so if the book 
or the picture stimulates the vague or distinct imagery 
of a recognized ideal. Thus a Millet speaks to us 
indirectly of the nobility of common labor; a Gilbert 
Stuart through the face of a Washington, speaks of 
steadfast patriotism. When we recognize the sym- 
bolic language of the artist the predominant aspect of 
our consciousness is social. Finally, the youths of 
1861 and 1917 were socially conscious when they were 
entertaining a mental imagery of tens of thousands 
of other youths like themselves all marching eagerly 
behind the fife and drum, as they were doing on thou-f 
sands of village greens, and feeling their own patriotic 
impulses swell in response. Such youths are socially 
conscious when they realize that they are out because 
their neighbors are out also. We entertain in our 
mind’s eye either anticipatory or retrospective im- 
agery of responses to behavior, imaged or actual, and 
this imagery seems to be aimed at the control of our 
behavior when we are in the social sense conscious. 
It will be understood that imagery is not necessarily 
visual; it may be of any other sensory quality, as 
auditory or motor or what not. Furthermore, it must 
not be understood as implied in these pages that 
imagery must be clear cut as it is in the mind’s eye 
of most of us whilst we, in our imagination, are going 
about through the house in which we visited a week 
ago or in which we are about to visit. Indeed, imagery, 
to be effective in the connections in which we are think- 
ing of it here may be vague and undefined to the last 8 
DEFINITION AND SCOPE 
degree as when we image the population of a state. 
But not only are such phenomena as the foregoing 
meat for the student of social psychology. Such 
forms of human interaction as great movements of 
population; the relations of audience and speaker; 
the formation of a public opinion; the growth of 
customs, conventionalities and law; invention, progress 
and social disintegration — all these phenomena and 
their kind are in the same category. In the last 
analysis these are reactions of individuals (8), one to 
another or all to the same situation, but always of 
individuals who are more or less clearly aware that 
other elements in the population are moving toward 
the same ends as they themselves are trying to reach; 
that other members of the audience are attending to 
the speaker; that others have joined with them in a 
public opinion; that their neighbors share the same 
customs and conventions wdth themselves and that the 
invention they are perfecting is needed and is being 
awaited by many others of their sort. 
The social psychologist tries to describe all these 
reactions from his own angle. He looks into the 
psychic nature of individuals for the root of all social 
phenomena. He recognizes this psychic nature as 
the thing that initiates forms of human interaction 
and co-operation, and that lays out the course over 
which they shall run. By psychic nature we mean to 
suggest not only the conscious aspect of human life 
but also the unconscious instinct and complexes that 
form the background of human personality. This 
nature is conceived as responsible even for those forms 
of interaction that are characteristic of highly organ- PSYCHIC NATURE 
9 
ized and of unorganized human relations alike, and 
for differences among organizations themselves. In- 
deed it is conceived of as accounting for the existence 
of the organization itself. 
Preliminary analysis of this psychic nature brings 
us first to a study of human instinct or inherited dis- 
position which is the native, not acquired, source of 
impulses toward loosely defined types of behavior. 
Through the same analysis of human nature we come 
also upon the natural or inherited capacities of human 
kind which certainly vary more or less among individ- 
uals of the same group and probably among peoples 
as well. There are also the temperaments of individ- 
uals and of groups which are the natural matrix for 
liability to the emotional reactions that are in vary- 
ing degree characteristic of individuals and of peoples, 
and in their way contribute much to the manner in 
which human interaction will go forward. 
Analysis further reveals, whenever it has been pro- 
jected in any community, a considerable number of 
defective folk of various sorts — feeble-minded, victims 
of psychopathic constitution, etc. — each of which 
implies a stunted or warped basis of instinct or dis- 
positions or capacities, and hence of impulses and 
motives. As a consequence, there follow anomalies in 
behavior, failure in social assimilation and interaction, 
of which the student of social psychology must take 
notice because all such differences amongst people as 
those of intelligence level and also of racial character, 
not to speak of many other factors, such as affiliation 
with occupational and professional groups and with 
sectarian orders and castes, affect the unity of a 10 
DEFINITION AND SCOPE 
people and their capacity for co-operative activity. 
In considerable measure human nature is built up 
of many acquired traits. The occupation or pro- 
fession that one follows; the climate and geographic 
features with which one is surrounded* all these pre- 
sent so many stimuli in a multitude of forms to which 
the individual every hour of his life is fitting himself. 
Tlius, in response to these situations, dispositions are 
being formed and deeply rooted in the men and women 
of successive generations. In important particulars 
groups of people are, therefore, becoming alike. A 
tendency toward community customs and convention- 
alities arises, or a liability to similar responses to 
similar stimuli. By all these tokens — native and 
acquired uniformities among groups — mutual under- 
standing within the groups is enhanced and the 
broader effects of behavior upon one’s contemporaries 
may be perceived in advance. This provides the key 
to the sense of social unity or of belonging together, 
or of social solidarity in the community. 
This “ sense of unity ” among a people is in this 
volume regarded as identical with the main current 
of social consciousness. It is a part of the conscious- 
ness of the individual alone. It is really one’s owrn 
sense of belonging with a large or small group, which 
has developed (1) out of one’s right or wrong interpre- 
tation of many signs as indicating that all are think- 
ing or feeling alike: and (2) out of behavior of 
others that is recognized or foreseen as a more or less 
inevitable sequence of one’s own action and vice versa. 
However far we may wander and whatever we may be 
doing, we never quite shake off a feeling of peculiar SENSE OF UNITY 
11 
intimacy and unity with the family in which we have 
grown up from our infancy; and the sense of wide 
embracing social unity, that is such a desideratum in 
the eyes of the social psychologist, is of precisely the 
same stuff. It is more than the mere consciousness 
of kind and more than the imitation consciousness. 
This sense of unity and social consciousness in general 
is intensified by the appropriate physical reaction. 
That is, it is intensified in the boy of ’61 when he 
marches with the rest. This is the case, at any rate, 
until the process of automatization is well on its way. 
The “ sense of unity ” is not understood in this volume 
as implying the existence of a “group mind” (5), 
and “over soul” (9), or of a “super-consciousness” 
in the sense of something distinct from the personal 
consciousness. We believe it is made clear in subse- 
quent chapters that an account of no group of phe- 
nomena of social psychology requires such an assump- 
tion to be made. 
All the backgrounds and reactions that have been 
suggested above tend toward the establishment of fixed 
relations among people. They do not point the way 
by which such changes in social relations as may 
properly be described by the term “ progressive ” may 
be brought about. But this, too, is a problem for the 
student of social psychology and consideration of it 
must take us into a study of great leaders who are 
given credit for having brought to pass changes 
described as progressive. 
Finally, we shall be interested in the reverse of social 
progress, or in disintegration as it is illustrated in the 
behavior of criminals and others who destroy without 12 
DEFINITION AND SCOPE 
supplementing their destruction by constructive 
activity. 
The means by which investigations in social psy- 
chology are made must necessarily be of varied charac- 
ter. Obviously, laboratory experimentation, supple- 
mented by more casual observation of people and their 
arts, is the method by which most reliable information 
may be secured relating to native dispositions or in- 
stinct and capacities that in considerable measure are 
the sources of impulses (or motives according to good 
usage) toward human interaction. It is appropriate, 
too, that the experimental method as applied either 
to lower animals or to men be invoked for contribution 
to the purpose of the social psychologist. If we agree 
to the assertion of continuity of lower and higher life 
then the most fundamental characteristics of the lower 
forms must persist in the higher. Not only so, but 
since the acquired dispositions are on their part also 
sources of motive power, similar in this respect to 
natural dispositions, we should be justified in turning 
to experimentation as applied to the learning process 
for additional data in this branch of inquiry. But 
more important, even if much less satisfactory from 
the view-point of the student whose ideal of worth 
finds expression only in what he can say in mathe- 
matical formulae, are the interpretations of biography, 
of statistics, and of affairs; of the symbolism in myths 
and in art and in many of the case studies of the 
student of abnormal psychology and the practitioner 
in the field of mental disease. These studies often lay 
bare the motives of human social behavior. CHAPTER II 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
The phrase that is used in the title of this chapter 
will in some minds suggest “ social solidarity,” which 
very frequently carries the meaning of immobility as 
applied to a stationary portion of the population. 
Again it may mean that a group of people are on 
practically the same level as measured by intellectual 
or other capacities or attainments. It is sometimes 
used in the sense of a group of animals that behave 
in a uniform manner instinctively: biological solidarity. 
The solidarity of convention and custom in the human 
family is an aspect of this and is treated in another 
chapter. Once more, the term is used in the sense 
of a community of interests, ideas, etc., among the 
members of the group, and this may be the resultant 
of uniform stimulation of all the members of the group, 
as all individuals in a class in mathematics acquire a 
knowledge of a certain set of formulae because they 
are set forward by the teacher; a solidarity of train- 
ing- 
No one of these applications is of the greatest sig- 
nificance to the student of social psychology. It is 
conceivable that a population could be the least 
mobile: that its members could stand upon a given 
level of attainment and capacity, and that there could 
be in it a perfect community of ideas and interest 14 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
(they might cherish the same thoughts and ambitions) 
without there being at the same time any feeling 
or sense of belonging together and any enthusiasm for 
working together arising therefrom (solidarity in a 
psychological sense). The individuals composing the 
population are in such cases in the same relation to 
one another as the trees of a forest: a relation of 
juxtaposition and no more, save as one interferes with 
another’s movements and food supply, and incidentally 
affords protection to others, as one tree incidentally 
protects another in case of storm. 
The solidarity that is of greatest interest in our 
connection is that sense of unity or feeling of belong- 
ing-together that makes every member of a group seem 
to himself to be kin to every other member: to be 
moving in co-operation with every other member toward 
the same goal: a sense that all are animated by the 
same purposes: that all stand for the same ideals; 
that somehow all together are making progress, and 
a sense of confidence in every member of the group 
that his behavior will bring to pass reactions on the 
part of others, the general character of which can be 
foreseen. 
The members of the same family, club, profession, 
city, state, or nation experience a sense of standing 
together in a peculiar relationship: they feel that they 
belong together: that they are in reality one body. 
So vivid is this experience on the part of the member 
of many a family, club, or profession that he cannot 
contemplate his actual or projected behavior at any 
critical juncture of his affairs without taking very 
earnestly into consideration the attitude or possible SOCIAL AND NON-SOCIAL 
15 
attitude of his confreres in reaction to his behavior. 
Inevitably, he, at such junctures, has a very intense 
realization of the strength of the bonds by which he 
is bound to others. At times when a wave of public 
feeling spreads over the land, too, this same experi- 
ence comes to the foreground vividly. In the ordinary 
course of events it is in the margin; but I believe it is 
a correct statement that within no given period do we 
have a sense of aloofness from others in all our rela- 
tions. There is, of course, a host of stimulus-response 
relations which are wholly outside the scope of our 
subject. The sun shines upon me through my window 
and I draw toward it with satisfaction; the horse’s 
hoofs clatter loudly upon the brick pavement and I 
resent the disturbance; the clock strikes eleven and I 
determine to hasten my writing so that I may be able 
to complete my task tomorrow. Such psycho-physical 
processes as these crowd every minute of our lives. 
They are not social experiences. They have nothing 
to do in the matter of determining a sense of social 
unity though they may indirectly suggest it. Thus 
the clattering hoofs may at once bring into my mind’s 
view my newly arrived neighbor to whom I once 
described this as a quiet street. I am immediately 
brought to realize my responsibility for his discom- 
fiture. In other words I realize that he and I stand 
in a peculiar relation to each other; between us is a 
social unity or solidarity, as it is sometimes called, 
and it is a unity in the psychological sense. Illustra- 
tions of a similar felt relationship through a large 
group could be multiplied. 
What, for instance, is a nation? It is not a form 16 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
of government nor officials nor provinces nor states 
centrally controlled excepting in local affairs; it is 
not battlements nor constitutions and codes of law; 
neither is it men and women. It is not all of these 
together. It is, however, a group of people amongst 
whom the feeling of nationalism holds sway and who, 
because they cherish this feeling, have built up a 
government and a code of law, etc., and who recognize 
some of their number as intrusted with the responsi- 
bility of administration. 
“ But, in the last analysis, nationalism is something 
over and above all its constituent elements, which it 
works into a new and higher synthesis. There is 
really nothing recondite or mysterious about national- 
ism, despite all the arguments that have raged con- 
cerning its exact meaning. As a matter of fact, 
nationalism is a state of mind. Nationalism is a 
belief, held by a fairly large number of individuals, 
that they constitute a ‘Nationality’; it is a sense 
of belonging together as a ‘ Nation.’ The Nation, as 
visualized in the minds of its believers, is a people or 
community associated together and organized under 
one government, and dwelling together in a distinct 
territory. When the nationalist ideal is realized we 
have what is known as a body politic or ‘ state.’ But 
we must not forget that this ‘ state ’ is the material 
manifestation of an ideal, which may have pre-existed 
for generations as a mere pious aspiration with no 
tangible attributes like state sovereignty or physical 
frontiers. Conversely, we must remember that a state 
need not be a nation. Witness the defunct Hapsburg 
Empire of Austria-Hungary — an assemblage of dis- cordant nationalities that flew to pieces under the 
shock of war” (7). 
The question we are approaching here is: Whence 
comes this sense of social unity; what composes it; 
how is it developed? 
In the first place it does not emanate from a social 
mind (6, 9) nor a group mind in the sense of one 
distinct from that of each individual in the group 
but similar to it, which is alleged to have synthesized 
the individuals of a group into a social organism as 
my mind seems to have effected a synthesis which I 
call myself. In the second place this unity is not 
summed up in the possession by the group of a com- 
mon language, common customs, common laws, art, 
literature, mental outlook, systems of political and 
religious thought, etc. These surely are signs that 
there is a social unity, and once they have been 
developed they facilitate the further evolution of that 
sense. But without at least a rudimentary conscious- 
ness of solidarity to begin with, it is doubtful whether 
a common language, etc., could ever develop. Nor, 
thirdly, is the principle of social unity to be found in 
the co-ordination of individuals in the activities of the 
work-a-day world (2). These co-ordinations, just as 
language, art, law, custom, etc., are objective products 
of a psychological unity that antedates them. Once 
we have found the psychological core of the phenom- 
enon we are investigating, we can, I believe, account 
for the objective appearance. As we have already 
said of language, art, etc., so here we can assert a 
reciprocal influence between our co-ordination in 
everyday affairs on the one hand and our sense of 
ORIGINS OF SOCIAL UNITY 
17 18 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
belonging together on the other; but the co-ordina- 
tions are not primary. We must make our appeal to 
psychological analysis. 
What then does analysis of the experience we have 
under discussion reveal? Let each one take an illustra- 
tion from his own experience as a member of a closely 
knit club, society, or family. I have again and again 
observed my fellow members in their reactions to a 
great variety of situations and their reactions are 
like or unlike my own in similar circumstances. Hence 
they are like me or they differ from me. Today, even 
though far separated from them, when this feeling 
of belonging to them arises, I have in my mind’s eye 
an image of their behavior as it occurs in response to 
a situation with which I am confronted, or which I am 
creating; or I have an anticipatory image of their 
behavior as it will occur later in response to the 
situation that confronts me or to wdiat I am at this 
moment thinking, saying or doing. Their imaged be- 
havior I may approve or disapprove. It may be like 
or unlike my own in similar circumstances. More 
important than this, however, is my anticipatory 
image of what I deem their more or less inevitable 
response to my reactions and vice versa. We do not 
mean that this imagery need exist in great vividness 
nor detail, as we have said in the preceding chapter; 
it may be wholly marginal and in course of time as 
the group interrelations become more and more highly 
mechanized, the imagery may almost wholly fade 
away. But all the while it seems to be an essential 
feature of my sense of social unity or solidarity with 
the group. A second element that analysis reveals is THE BOY OF ’61 
19 
a purpose or ideal, or a set of purposes and ideals 
and felt needs that I cherish, and evidence of which 
I observe in the behavior of other members respectively 
of the group to which I belong. An individual may 
consequently belong to several unities at one and the 
same time: one that implies adherence to political 
formulae; another, to a professional code of ethics; 
another to a religious ideal, and the like. The third 
and final essential element is affective or emotional. 
At those moments when my sense of belonging to others 
is most in evidence, there is a feeling of satisfaction, 
or enthusiasm, courage and irresistibility that arises. 
These elements are all illustrated in the experience 
of the boy of ’61 and the boy of 1917 as he trained 
in camp and upon the village green. In his imagina- 
tion he could see hundreds of thousands of other 
youths like himself at military drill from ocean to 
ocean (imagery of others’ reactions) ; he realized that 
all were doing so in order that they might the more 
effectively obey the summons from Washington (pur- 
pose), and with it all arose the great swell of enthusi- 
asm within him (emotional factor). He felt that he 
was a part of a great closely interlocked and co-ordi- 
nated group. Without that imagery of others and 
that realization of common purpose, there could have 
been no enthusiasm in his make-up; no patriotism, no 
loyalty. He would have been merely an isolated 
drudge. This enthusiasm in each individual expresses 
itself in easily recognized, easily imitated, and hence 
easily imagined signs. Consequently the emotional 
factor is an important contributor to the development 
of a sense of social unity. Indeed without at least a 20 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
moderate emotional intensity, it is doubtful whether 
such a sense could persist at all. 
From the foregoing, it is justifiable to draw an 
analogy. There is primitive man surrounded on all 
sides by evidence of natural forces, no one of which he 
understands in the sense in which we say it is com- 
prehended by the more enlightened age in which we 
live. To that extent, in primitive man, the anthropo- 
morphic disposition is unbridled. He stands in awe 
before the wind, the river, disease, life and death. He 
reads his own dispositions, greatly magnified, into 
these evidences of unknown forces. He observes that 
his neighbors are doing likewise — a sign that they 
too are moved as he is. By this token a psychological 
kinship or unity is established as a matter of course. 
Once a considerable group is included in this unity, 
it is but a short natural step to co-ordination in in- 
stitutions for worship, for punishment, etc. This 
follows upon the realization of a common purpose or 
a common need. We do not mean to imply that this 
felt and observed reaction to the mysterious is the 
only psychological root of primitive social unity, but 
that among other roots this one looms large. It does 
so, no doubt, because of the prominence of the emo- 
tional element that is associated with it. This ele- 
ment makes the reaction especially observable and 
contagious. It contributes therefore to the individ- 
ual’s readiness in imagery of others’ reactions, as 
described above, and therefore to the felt unity of 
the group. The mere perception of a similarity in 
bodily form and color, too, contributes to the same 
end. CONSCIOUSNESS OF KIND 
21 
Thus far the discussion suggests the “ conscious- 
ness of kind ” which Giddings calls the primary ele- 
ment that makes for social solidarity (4). Indeed, 
in the main, that is just what we are discussing. The 
consciousness of kind is a consciousness of likeness of 
form, appearance, purposes, needs, behavior, etc., and 
as such it is a primary factor in the sense of social 
unity. It antedates the organization of groups and 
therefore it precedes conflict among groups which some 
describe as the elementary social phenomenon. But 
ere long, as organizations become more and more com- 
plex, conflicts become more varied and intense and 
then the consciousness of difference as well as of kind 
becomes an element in our sense of social unity. This 
comes about as a consequence of numbers of experi- 
ences in which we have failed to satisfy our needs or 
attain our purposes; attainments which we have seen 
made successfully even by others whom we recognize 
as, at least in a psychological sense, very different 
from ourselves. From that moment we recognize the 
need for such persons and they, in our imagery, enter 
in with others, to the group of components of our sense 
of unity. In our mind’s eye we see them, either as 
contemporaries or as belonging to a future generation, 
reacting to situations that we confront, in ways that 
we could not; responding to our behavior; coming to 
our aid and so contributing to the realization of our 
purposes and the satisfaction of our needs. Thus the 
imagery of others' reactions includes the consciousness 
of kind, antedates co-operation, organization and con- 
flict, and later enters into reciprocal relations with 
all of these. 22 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
As the race has progressively gained control over 
the forces of nature, and specialization has followed 
upon specialization, social unities have multiplied 
within the group and we have the class consciousness 
of the commercial, the professional, and laboring sec- 
tions, etc., and happily it may be, a larger unity 
including all of these and superimposed upon them. 
But in every instance it is a unity that is made possible 
only by reason of such mutual familiarity or under- 
standing on the part of the members of the group or 
sub-group that each one can, and even does, represent 
to himself the reactions by which others of his class 
would respond, or are responding, both to the observer 
himself and to other situations. Obedient to the 
general law of automatization, the whole process, in 
course of time, becomes so highly mechanized that 
even the vaguest imagery suffices for the sense of unity 
which we have under discussion. 
Social Continuity. — In all the foregoing we have 
had in mind a unity among contemporaries. Obvi- 
ously, if our analysis is correct thus far, our principle 
applies as wrell to social continuity or unity between 
or among successive ages. As we peruse the history, 
literature and other products of the civilization of a 
bygone generation, we become acquainted 'with the 
makers of that civilization; we know their natural 
dispositions, and other motives; their modes of 
thought, etc. Again and again we discover particu- 
lars in which they react as we do to similar situations. 
Our capacity for imaging them in one or other set of 
terms develops until we can put ourselves in their 
place and them in our place, so that our conscious- NOT INTELLECTUALISTIC 
23 
ness of unity with them is made up of precisely the 
same sort of components as those that enter into our 
sense of unity with our contemporaries. The per- 
sistence of laws and courts and other institutions or 
the modeling of institutions upon old copies is not in 
itself social continuity: it is an expression or sign of 
a psychological continuity. That we do not feel a 
strong sense of unity with the Fijians of our time, 
nor a sense of continuity with the ancient Egyptians, 
would seem to be a corollary to the foregoing. 
Social Unity Not Intellectualistic. — All this 
may appeal to many as over-intellectualistic. We do 
not believe it is so. Surely we could hardly describe by 
that term the unity among members of a profession. 
There is an of-courseness about it that is not intellec- 
tualistic at all excepting that it rests in a vague 
shadowy lot of images of others with whom we are 
co-ordinated and so, as far as this is concerned, it is 
in the same category as each one’s consciousness of 
one’s self. It is no attempt to describe an aspect of 
mind in terms of conscious stuff, exclusively. Indeed, 
it is recognized here that automatic adjustments and 
states, driven on by the great pushes of human nature 
— an attitude of of-courseness — pre-eminently come 
into consideration in this connection and that in 
closely knit groups and societies the situation as far 
as unity and co-operation are concerned is analogous 
to that in the case of a family, or of husband and 
wife, who have become one through years of associa- 
tion and co-operation. The intellectualistic aspect of 
their unity and co-operation has been reduced almost, 
if not quite, to the vanishing point. 24 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
An Individualistic Conception. — This is an in- 
dividualistic psychological conception, but at the same 
time it is social. In fact, no line can be drawn to 
distinguish sharply the individual from the social. 
It does not at all imply the direct transference of a 
psychic influence from one mind to another which 
Ellwood seems to fear the psychologist is approach- 
ing in a discussion of our subject (2), but only the 
recognition of many signs as indicating that you and 
others are in agreement. Neither does it imply the 
mind of a social organism, nor anything of the sort, 
which is by some assumed to co-ordinate and combine 
the individuals. They co-ordinate because they are 
receiving essentially the same set of stimuli, because 
of an inter-stimulation among members of the group, 
and because of a sense of belonging together. Each 
and every member of the closely knit society to which 
I belong would be completely isolated mentally; there 
would be no unity among us were it not for the fact 
that we are all responding to similar situations so that 
in course of time each is able to represent the others 
and each knows approximately what to expect of the 
others. 
What a student of psychology, in the light of the 
foregoing, will have to say concerning the biological 
or race factor and the institution, organization or 
co-operation factor, to which Ellwood refers (2), as 
determinative of a social unity or solidarity, is now 
apparent. In as far as we are of the same race, we 
can imagine one another with the greater facility; in 
as far as we co-operate in the same organization or 
institution our opportunities for observing one and AN UNNECESSARY CONCEPT 
25 
another in action and for comparing reactions are 
enhanced. By reason of these associations, therefore, 
our anticipatory and other imagery of interactions 
among our confreres become more rich and complete 
and the emotional or affective components of the sense 
of unity grow apace. In short, then, the factors 
named merely furnish an opportunity for the develop- 
ment of the elements that make the sense of social 
unity. These are a consequence of a felt unity 
that antedates them, and with which, from the 
moment of their inception, they are in reciprocal 
relation. 
“Social Mind” an Unnecessary Concept. — As 
we have said above, this is a strictly individualistic 
position. If this point of view can be taken and main- 
tained, it is unnecessary ever to use the phrase “ social 
mind ” or “ group mind.” The individual mind alone 
accomplishes everything that the “ social mind ” is 
assumed to bring to pass. The whole course of tran- 
sition from the individual to the social is within the 
individual himself. The student of the philosophy of 
law may at first glance find nothing in this to support 
more than individual or private interest. But “ public 
interest ” is only a phrase. What he means by 
“ public interest ” is a series, so to speak, of widely 
overlapping private interests, or interests held largely 
in common, in the same outstanding objects, such 
as the right to life, health, property, freedom of 
speech, or in occasional subjects of political dis- 
cussion, etc. 
Because each one of us, judging by indubitable signs, 
realizes, or judges after immediate inference, that the 26 
THE SENSE OF SOCIAL UNITY 
people around him severally in the neighborhood or 
in the state at large cherish the same main interests 
that he cherishes, we have a public interest — of the 
only sort that we need. The way is then open for the 
pursuit of these interests in co-operation. CHAPTER III 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
Psychology as an account of behavior assumes 
that there is invariably a connection between mental 
processes and states, on the one hand, and certain 
implicit and explicit reactions on the other, by which 
the organism as a whole completes its adjustment to 
its environment. There is an elaborate group of such 
processes and states, each one of which, in a popular 
use of the word, is now and again called a motive. 
Thus perceptions, ideas, emotions, trains of thought, 
hopes, desires, ambitions, generosity, fears, and ill- 
defined feelings of tendency or disposition fall into 
the category of motives when they appear to occasion 
the final overt reaction on the part of the whole 
organism by means of which an adaptation or adjust- 
ment is completed. For example, the perception of 
a tennis racquet is a motive when it seems to occasion 
taking up the racquet and engaging in a game of 
tennis; a train of thought — particularly if it leads 
to a conviction such as that government bonds are 
the safest and best investment at hand — is a motive 
when it appears to occasion the behavior of purchas- 
ing them; the ill-defined feeling of tendency, likewise, 
is a motive when it appears to tie one up to con- 
servative methods and purposes when the community 
is seething with revolt. 28 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
But the train of thought, ambition, or fear, etc., 
we conceive here as an intermediate link in a whole 
complex process of adjustment which is itself depend- 
ent upon a more remote motive; one that rarely or 
never, in ordinary circumstances, comes into the field 
of consciousness. At any rate this is undoubtedly 
true in so many instances that the conception deserves 
more emphasis than it has received hitherto. There 
may be motives of motives, therefore; motives of 
thought, emotion, etc.; or better, motives in various 
phases or aspects or levels, from unconscious mechan- 
ism to conscious process, or vice versa, and effective in 
all of them. Thus, for example, our impulsion toward 
feeding is effective upon the level of reflexes, and at the 
same time it gives direction to some acts of planning 
and thinking. 
Those motives that lead up to a social conscious- 
ness and to social adaptation on the whole are what 
we call social motives. That is, whatever colors my 
thoughts, perceptions, ambitions, hopes and other 
forms of behavior, whatsoever they may be, with a 
consciousness dim or clear that I am a unit with a 
group whose members are responsive to my thoughts, 
behavior, ambitions, etc., or effective upon them, or 
both responsive to these modes by which I express 
myself and effective upon them in turn; whatever im- 
pels me, even blindly, to get upon a common footing 
with others, or to bring them to my footing; these are 
my social motives. The boy of ’61 was acting under 
a social motive because he was responding to his imme- 
diate perception of others’ behavior; or to his distinct 
or ill-defined idea or image of thousands of other MAY BE UNCONSCIOUS 
29 
boys, recognized as like himself., all over the land who 
were doing likewise; because he desired to induce 
others, then inactive, to do as he was doing, or to 
think, feel, etc., as he was thinking and feeling; or 
because he was acting in response to a tendency or a 
push from within resulting from long and interested 
indulgence in such activities, a tendency that leads 
him irresistibly to seek to occupy common ground 
with others in this particular respect. The reformer 
is acting under a social motive because he works for 
the adoption of his plans under stimulation, all the 
while, of the consciousness that future generations will 
react favorably to his work, even though the present 
may not do so, or by a sense of the distinctly or dimly 
expressed voice of human need. 
The term “ social motive ” in psychological litera- 
ture has often not been made to appear more general 
nor less transitory than the particular forms of be- 
havior that it is invoked to explain, excepting in the 
case of such generalized motives as ambition, gener- 
osity, acquired tendencies, etc. The term is as ambig- 
uous as “ cause.” Each term has been conceived now 
as mechanical and again as “ final.” It is ambiguous, 
too, in respect to consciousness. It may, or may not 
be conscious. The motive is a distinct, conscious, 
deliberate purpose in which case the resulting phase of 
behavior is intended; or the element of conscious pur- 
pose is quite lacking, and in this case the consequent 
behavior is not intended. It is only when we get away 
from the attempt to find a motive that has its own 
characteristics distinct from those of other functions; 
when we come to think of any process as a motive 30 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
provided only it is found in apparent causal connec- 
tion with behavior; when, moreover, we take the genetic 
point of view and seek the developmental course of 
the motive — and only then — we escape the difficul- 
ties of certain writers in the field of ethics (9, 11), by 
whom the motive is described as the purpose of an act; 
again as the thought of a desirable end; the idea of 
an end which a self-conscious subject presents to itself 
and strives and tends to realize; the feeling excited by 
the idea of the end; and still further, as “ that charac- 
teristic tendency or disposition of a man in virtue of 
which a given act possesses an attraction for him ” 
(20). 
Excepting the last instance, motive is hardly more 
nor less than the intention of an act; yet much of our 
normal and abnormal social behavior is not intended 
at all. The last characterization of motives above 
is a recognition of the unconscious factor which un- 
doubtedly plays a large part, often apparently the 
whole part, in determining the course of human action, 
and which gives the motive a certain stability and 
breadth greater than that afforded by the conscious 
factor alone. Even ambition implies particular pur- 
poses and is subject to limitations when compared 
with human disposition, and unless it is anchored in a 
well-fixed disposition its social value is uncertain. In 
the light of this unconscious tendency or disposition, 
the motive is conceived as more general than the par- 
ticular act or thought that it is invoked to explain. 
From this point of view the purpose, desired end, 
idea, or thought or ambition, which are sometimes 
described as motives themselves, are only symptoms THE DELINQUENT CASHIER 
31 
of motives (15). They serve only to complete and 
illuminate the account of an act. They indicate the 
individual’s intention at the time at which a piece of 
behavior is projected and carried to completion, but 
this intention may have been stimulated by peculiar 
momentary or accidental circumstances, on the one 
hand, over which the subject had no control, and on 
the other hand, by a submerged disposition or complex 
that may never have worked itself out until now in 
any concrete, overt form of action. 
Take, for instance, the case of a cashier, who mis- 
appropriates funds to pay a gambling debt. The 
purpose or plan to pay the debt is from one angle — 
the one most frequently accepted in legal procedure, 
for instance — the motive of the breach of trust. 
But there are many people who entertain the purpose 
to pay their debts whether they were incurred at 
gambling or otherwise. Such a purpose is honorable. 
It does not usually lead even to the temptation to com- 
mit a crime or misdemeanor as a means of accom- 
plishing the purpose, but rather to a vigorous pursuit 
of what we describe as honest means. If, therefore, 
in a particular instance the purpose is followed by a 
criminal act the performance of which fulfills the pur- 
pose, it is obvious that it is at most only an aspect of 
the motive and that an analysis must be made to dis- 
cover other motives; that is, the foundation upon 
which the purpose rests or the roots from which it 
grows. No sooner do we begin such an analysis than 
we find that the cashier, like most other gamblers, in 
all sincerity regards a gambling debt as one of honor. 
The ability to pay such a debt has precisely the same 32 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
positive emotional appeal for him as has the ability to 
pay for a purchased house to one of the rest of us. 
It is undoubtedly a habitual attitude, that is, a dis- 
position that the individual has acquired, it may be, 
through years of social contact; it has arisen from 
mutual action and reaction amongst people who en- 
gage in commercial transactions and people who 
gamble respectively. It is probable that if we had 
always lived remote from any semblance of commercial 
transactions the paying of debts against purchased 
property would make no emotional appeal whatever — 
excepting the negative one of aversion. Men who 
practice gambling for money can doubtless describe 
many a greenhorn who, outside the gambling art, 
pays all his obligations with a relish, but who sticks 
at a gambling debt. 
When, therefore, the emotional appeal that is car- 
ried by ability to pay a debt has been described we 
are not at the bottom of the cashier’s motive, for this 
appeal is common to both gambling and honest com- 
mercial debtors alike. 
Precisely the same argument should be applied to 
the proposition that it is the emotion of fear at the 
prospect of losing caste with his associates or fear of 
ruin or dishonor that led the gambling cashier to abuse 
his trust. The honest purchaser fears losing caste 
and other advantages when he is confronted with the 
prospect of failure to make his payments when they 
are due. 
The trail of the cashier’s motive leads to funda- 
mental character traits: possibly an ego-centric dis- 
position, more or less latent since childhood, against THE ROBBER’S MOTIVE 
33 
which early training in school and home had erected 
insufficient bulwarks of acquired habits: possibly an 
inborn instability of impulses due to a lack of early 
training in persistence or in patient pursuit, against 
difficulties, of objects that have been made to appear 
desirable; perhaps the trail leads to a temporary 
unbalance arising from conditions of health or what 
not; again the quest may lead to dispositions that 
have been slowly built up by idle, and finally by more 
or less serious reflection upon ways and means of 
appropriating to his own uses the money that belongs 
to others, without his entertaining at any time the in- 
tention of misappropriation. At any rate a complete 
answer to the question of motives in this case calls for 
a thorough survey of a personality; it is not even 
suggested in the true statement that the cashier’s 
purpose or intention was to find the wherewithal to 
pay his gaming debts. 
The act of robbery involving murder is not ex- 
plained as to its motive by the statement that the 
robber intended to obtain money to buy clothes and 
that he intended to escape arrest. Everybody intends 
to make such purchases and to avoid humiliation, dis- 
grace and restriction of freedom, but few rob and 
murder to gain these ends. The distinctive and funda- 
mental motives that actuate the robber-murderer may 
be found only by an analysis of his complex person- 
ality ; which analysis will almost certainly reveal 
motives that do not, as such, come to the foreground 
of the criminal’s consciousness at the time of the deed. 
To take a more familiar illustration: when you fall 
into a discussion with A, whom you have met for the 34 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
first time, and find yourself in violent opposition to 
him, your feelings are aroused; you raise your voice, 
gesticulate vigorously and leave your companion alone 
on the street where you found him. An observer 
might say that the opposed opinions in this case were 
the motive of your behavior. When you reflect upon 
the circumstances, however, it occurs to you that the 
same opposition of opinion that developed in this case 
exists also between you and B but that you and he can 
discuss the matter without a hostile demonstration. 
You account for the difference on the ground, not of 
opinion but upon the fact, as you express it, that there 
are some people with whom it is impossible to agree 
and that A is one of them. But why is it impossible? 
You, yourself, in nine cases out of ten, are at a loss 
to account for your behavior in definite language that 
other people can understand. If you could go into 
the matter sufficiently you might find that Mr. A 
speaks with a nasal twang like that which character- 
izes Mr. C, who beat you meanly in a bargain a year 
ago; that the wart upon his face suggests a neighbor 
of yours who persistently argues to win, rightly or 
wrongly. In each of these cases the motive is an affec- 
tion ; or it may be that an analysis would carry you 
back to your college days when the judges of a debate, 
as you for a long time bitterly interpreted it, robbed 
you of a favorable decision which you had fully won 
from an antagonist who bore the same name as your 
opponent today. In this case your motive is a revived 
complex representing the serious considerations and 
emotions that were associated with your earlier debat- 
ing experience. Or possibly your analysis will bring FINAL MOTIVES 
35 
you to an unreasoned convention or prejudice relating 
to the subject of your discussion — one that you have 
never been able to defend successfully. If it has re- 
peatedly brought you to confusion, you attribute to 
A the qualities that arouse your disagreeable emotion. 
On the other hand, no such revivals as these occur 
when you are confronted by B and you get on with 
him satisfactorily. 
Here you are appealing to that great unconscious, 
or almost unconscious background of your daily ex- 
perience for an explanation of your behavior — in 
other words, its motive. You have invoked your pre- 
disposition or your prejudice as the final motive in 
this case.* 
More or less unwittingly we repeatedly take advan- 
tage of such analyses as are suggested here when we 
forecast the probable social activity of an individual 
on the basis of an inquiry into his predispositions or 
prejudices — when we do not make our estimate merely 
upon the observation of particular instances of pre- 
vious behavior. They are final motives. 
The motives that the student of psychology dis- 
covers at the bottom of social phenomena are often 
described as of two groups, innate and acquired, by 
writers of psychological literature. So far as they 
relate to structure and function, at least, they are of 
the same nature; and to make a clear-cut distinction 
* It is not intended here or elsewhere to emphasize the term 
“ final ” as many writers in the field of ethics do. It is not 
urged that here is the ne plus ultra among motives, but that, 
the unconscious or marginal factor in the determination of 
human behavior must be brought forward more definitely than 
it has been hitherto in discussions of motives. 36 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
between the two, from the observer’s viewpoint is often 
quite impossible. 
The Question of Instincts and Their Role in 
Social Life. — Instincts are conceived as inborn 
mechanisms or dispositions that work together with 
other factors to determine the form and direction of 
our interactions in social life. It must be remembered 
that their existence is purely hypothetical. But, 
assuming their actuality for the present, they appear 
to be sources of impulses toward certain forms of be- 
havior. Because it seems to be in virtue of them that 
certain forms of action have an attraction for us, we 
may call them motives and those instincts that per- 
form this function in any degree in relation to our 
interactions among men will be classed among our 
social motives. More or less confusion has arisen in 
the use of the term “ instinct.” It sometimes refers 
to a form of behavior, simply, that has not been 
learned, and that is initiated without deliberation in 
each particular instance of its occurrence, as in the 
case of the dog that immediately starts in chase, even 
from a state approximating complete relaxation, upon 
sighting a rabbit; or as in the case of the man who 
immediately crouches and runs upon perceiving that 
bricks are beginning to tumble from a wall. In all 
such cases as these there is confusion with the reflex. 
Again the term is sometimes employed to refer to the 
natural disposition or persisting tendency that prompts 
the behavior we call instinctive and at least gives 
direction to other forms of action. Chicks following 
the mother hen, — and very often other moving ob- 
jects for that matter; the hen sitting on eggs; the MEANING OF INSTINCT 
37 
beaver co-operating with others to build a dam; bees 
working together to make and store honey; men in 
primitive society working together at hunting and 
fishing and engaging together in other activities that 
are more or less supplementary thereto and controlled 
or directed by the hunting and fishing situation, such 
as building their villages upon their best hunting and 
fishing grounds or closely adjacent to them, and 
defending them in prolonged bitter warfare; all these 
and the like are often described as “ instincts ” or as 
“ instinctive.” Clearly in such cases there is con- 
fusion both with the reflex and with the acquired habit. 
Once more: we sometimes use such forms of expression 
as this: “ When I was driving yesterday my horse 
frightened and I instinctively drew up the reins.” 
Here is certainly a confusion with habit that has been 
acquired, it may be, through years of training. The 
only truly instinctive element in the performance is 
doubtless the disposition to grasp something substan- 
tial, such as the arms of a seat, as a protection against 
being thrown. But in the experience with the fright- 
ened horse there was not even the beginning of a move- 
ment in the direction of the seat arms or the dash 
board. Instead the grasp at once was fixed upon 
pliable reins: a habit that has grown up imperceptibly 
in the course of a long experience at driving horses. 
The term, instinct, we use to refer not to any form 
of action but to an unlearned disposition that is part 
of the natural equipment of animal nature. What is 
properly called “ instinctive behavior ” is, strictly 
speaking, a sign of instinct or of instincts. 
The literature on the subject presents a formidable 38 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
list of so-called instincts. Each of the following is 
described as such here and there, and each one is 
expected to be interpreted as a sign of an instinct in 
the sense of an innate disposition which finds its out- 
ward expression in the form of activity named: suck- 
ing, biting, clasping, crying, grouping, standing, loco- 
motion, vocalization, imitation, emulation, pugnacity, 
sympathy, hunting, fear, acquisitiveness, constructive- 
ness, play, curiosity, sociability, secretiveness, clean- 
liness, modesty, love, jealousy. Even this list does 
not include all of those reactions that are sometimes 
described as instincts; and very often what are, in 
fact, highly mechanized habits are erroneously de- 
scribed by the same term. Indeed, as we shall see, such 
habits are perhaps invariably so tied up with the 
natural matrix of our personality that it is impossible 
to draw a line of division between the learned and the 
unlearned. 
Students of behavior have described an instinct as 
a series of congenital or unlearned responses to the 
external conditions with which one is surrounded and 
to the metabolic changes, also, that are going on in 
one’s organism. It differs from the reflex, as far as 
its outward manifestations go, in point of complexity, 
and in this respect too: that whereas the reflex is a 
momentary response to a momentary stimulus after 
which the whole process is at an end, the instinct, on 
the other hand, is a persisting tendency that, once 
aroused by an appropriate stimulus, results in a con- 
tinuing state of activity, until the whole course has 
been run and final adjustment completed. No hard 
and fast line, for all of that, can be drawn between NO SHARP DISTINCTIONS 
39 
the reflex on one side and the instinct on the other. 
Some reflexes, the knee jerk, for instance, when often 
repeated, appear to result in a persisting tendency 
so that, once started by a single stimulus, it continues 
repeating itself for a period. It should follow from 
all this that instincts are no less modifiable than the 
reflex. The reflex eye-wink, as Swift has shown, may 
undergo modifications when external stimuli are placed 
under proper experimental control. Yerkes has 
shown that the reflex movement of the leg of a frog 
induced by an electric shock can be increased by 
applying an auditory stimulus at the same time with 
the electrical. Similar phenomena are well known in 
the case of the knee jerk. If the elementary reflex is 
modifiable to any degree, the more complex instinctive 
act should be expected to be even more modifiable, and 
less predictable. Similarly when one is emphasizing 
the background, the neurone pattern of the instinct 
and of the reflex respectively, the former may be con- 
ceived as the more complex and hence as the more 
liable to break down. 
The foregoing sets out no clear-cut distinction be- 
tween the reflex and the instinctive form of behavior. 
Furthermore, differences between forms of instinctive 
behavior themselves are much less clear than is popu- 
larly supposed (1, 4, 5). No particular set of re- 
actions or part reactions constituting a pattern is 
confined to any one so-called instinctive act. Some 
reactions are common to the behavior that accom- 
panies fear and that tbaTt goes along with anger. 
Fear sometimes appears as self-abasement, — looking 
at it from the explicit behavior side. For example, 40 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
the timidity, bashfulness or self-abasement of many a 
youth and adult may properly be interpreted as a fear 
reaction. His quavering knees, his stammering and 
pallor upon the stage before an audience, or in the 
parlor amongst strangers, his restraint of speech in 
the deliberative assembly and the like are all of them 
fear reactions and would be so recognized unquestion- 
ably if the individual were making a display of them, 
as he would, in the face of danger to life and limb. 
In the behavior of fighting, that is invariably described 
as instinctive, the emotion of elation that follows upon 
the discharge of a successful blow may alternate with 
that of self-abasement when one’s antagonist for a 
moment or more gets the upper hand or when there 
flashes over one a realization of the undignified quality 
of the business in hand. Introspective analysis will 
bring other similar facts to light. It is clearly impos- 
sible to distinguish instincts by means of the accom- 
panying emotions. 
Moreover, as to explicit behavior, there is no hard 
and fast line to be drawn between the so-called in- 
stincts of hunting and curiosity. The bodily attitudes 
of searching and of expectation are characteristic of 
each, and a general muscular tension prevails; a ten- 
sion, that, whether in hunting or in the state of 
curiosity, now and then breaks out into a definite form 
of activity. Who has not seen, for example, a child 
consumed by curiosity when packages from the mar- 
ket are being opened, standing tensed and with bated 
breath, but finally climbing a chair, whence a clearer 
view may be had? This is precisely characteristic 
of the act of hunting as well. Not only so but sub- NO SHARP DISTINCTIONS 
41 
jectively there are no sharp differences here. There 
is suppressed excitement, — it may be pleasurable or 
unpleasurable, or both alternately; and in each, 
likewise, there are more or less fleeting images of what 
may be the outcome of this hunting or of this state of 
curiosity. Acquisitiveness both in its outward expres- 
sion and in its subjective aspect, has so many points 
of similarity with hunting and with curiosity that it 
cannot be put into a pigeonhole of its own. On an- 
other side acquisitiveness and pugnacity use the same 
arm in the same way. Constructiveness, also, cer- 
tainly in its subjective aspect, is, very often at least, 
like acquisitiveness, and the two appear to merge in 
many a case in which a child brings together curiously 
shaped and colored pebbles for building a wall. 
These considerations and the like have thus far 
proved insuperable difficulties in the way of a classi- 
fication of so-called instincts by any more fundamental 
differentiae. The apparent purposes of behavior called 
instinctive, — but not of the thought-out variety, 
— seem to be the outstanding differentiae in such 
instances as the above; but purposes are so numerous 
as to discourage enumeration and they differ as day 
and night. One may fight to kill, to hurt, to demon- 
strate strength, to gratify envy, to humiliate one's 
adversary or for many another purpose. There is 
ground for the conclusion, therefore, that we should 
not attempt to base a system upon instincts, and even 
for the hypothesis that, in the plural, they do not 
exist. 
This, however, does not run to the question of the 
existence of instinct in the sense of a generalized, 42 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
unlearned tendency or disposition toward activity: 
such activity as will employ the natural structures and 
capacities of the organism. How this tendency shall 
work itself out; what natural structures and capaci- 
ties shall be most employed, we may conceive as deter- 
mined by the individual’s desires and purposes. This 
determination may be immediate or remote; that is, 
the purpose of the youth of forty years ago to employ 
his capacity for hard work and logical analysis in 
competing (fighting) with his fellows for honors in the 
law school may have brought it to pass that today he 
is a formidable antagonist, throwing all his resources 
into the lists for no honor or prize, but as a matter 
of course. Historically, it was the purpose of forty 
years ago that opened up the ways through which in- 
stinct worked itself out. The outcome, we say, is a 
habit or a complex set of professional habits. 
Without further elaboration at this point it will be 
sufficient to draw attention once more to the diffi- 
culty of drawing hard and fast lines — this time be- 
tween the instinctive act and habit. 
We have been using the terms instinct, instincts and 
instinctive acts. There are important distinctions 
here that will be apparent as we proceed. Instinct 
connotes a native undifferentiated structural or dis- 
positional background, the source of undifferentiated 
drive toward activity: analogous to a dammed-up body 
of water that may be used to turn any one or all of 
hundreds of wheels. Instinctive act connotes a specific 
form of behavior that is assumed to have a tap root 
in the reservoir, and the term instincts is applied in 
the literature to particular inborn mechanisms or MODIFIABILITY OF INSTINCT 
43 
dispositions supporting specific forms of behavior. 
Clearly there may be instinct and instinctive behavior, 
but not instincts. 
Modifiability of Instinctive Behavior. — This 
brings us to the point that instinctive behavior admits 
of progressive modification within the lifetime of the 
individual, so that what we in many cases describe as 
instinctive is in reality a product of individual experi- 
ence knitted into a broad but little differentiated 
instinctive basis. This amounts practically to modi- 
fication of instinct. One of the best illustrations of 
this that is available in the literature of experimental 
psychology relates to the control of the so-called sing- 
ing instinct in birds. The bobolink, oriole, and robin, 
when reared in the fields, develop songs that are 
characteristic of the species. In other circumstances, 
however, it appears that no characteristic song would 
develop. W. E. D. Scott (17, 18, 19, 20) segregated 
orioles before they had heard the songs of their species, 
and kept them in isolation for several years. They 
became good singers, and their earlier vocal utter- 
ances were similar to those of the free birds of their 
kind. During certain seasons they sang almost in- 
cessantly. “ It was now a loud, clear series of notes 
of great brilliancy, poured forth in such rapid succes- 
sion as to be like that of the house wren in the inter- 
vals, and lasting about as long as the warble of the 
wren. Except for the rattle, which was now and then 
a part of the repertoire, this song had nothing in it 
that reminded one of the song of the Baltimore oriole 
as heard in New York, Massachusetts, or at any other 
point where the birds occur. When orioles six days 44 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
of age were shut up with adults that had been brought 
up in isolation they began at the proper age to sing 
the songs of their companions. When birds belonging 
to fifteen or sixteen other species were brought to- 
gether and reared within hearing of one another’s 
voices, more or less modification of songs occurred. 
Some birds resisted these social influences more than 
others. The robin and the wood-thrush each de- 
veloped a song that was not original. A red-winged 
blackbird crowed constantly during two months in 
the year in imitation of a bantam rooster.” 
A second experiment of similar import was made by 
Conradi (2) upon a group of young English sparrows. 
Canaries with their song were an important element 
in the experimental situation. The sparrows were 
reared from incubation in the same room with the 
canaries and were isolated from others of their kind. 
The regular sparrow chirp developed at the proper 
time but the birds soon lost this form of expression 
and assumed the peep that is characteristic of the 
young canary. At the age of three and a half months 
one of the sparrows “ constantly chimed in with the 
canaries in his own fashion, giving a low note followed 
by a few high ones, with now and then some slurring 
from a high to a low note similar to those that the 
canaries have in their overtures. He joined the 
canaries freely for a few days, when he became ill and 
was silent for a week.” A fortnight later he resumed 
the foreign language. In general the song in the 
mouth of the sparrow resembled the confusion of notes 
that filled the room when the three canaries were sing- 
ing together at their best. Other sparrows observed MODIFIABILITY OF INSTINCT 
45 
under similar conditions much more closely approxi- 
mated the vocalization of the canaries. When these 
sparrows were returned to their own kindred they soon 
assumed the ways of the English sparrow, but they 
still retained traces of their earlier training which 
Conradi was able to observe after a few months when 
the birds were recaptured. Their voices were still 
more musical than those of untrained sparrows and 
when they were returned again to the canary environ- 
ment they soon regained what they had lost. 
Outside of the laboratory illustrations of the modi- 
fiability of what have been hitherto described as spe- 
cific forms of instinctive behavior abound. The fear 
reaction has all but disappeared from domesticated 
cattle, horses, and sheep; so much so that these ani- 
mals,— many of them, — far from running away at 
the sight of a human being will follow him quietly 
across the pasture. 
The foregoing phenomena might quite well have 
been described later under the subject “ acquired 
motives.” They are serviceable here, however, because 
of the rather emphatic demonstration that they afford 
of the undefined or non-specific character of instinct. 
What appear to be specializations of instinct are 
probably habits resting upon an instinctive basis: 
habits developed by repeated responses to the varied 
angles of the day’s work. In the cases cited above we 
have the instinct for vocal expression in song; more 
likely only for vocal expression alone. It is assumed 
to depend upon a certain physiological mechanism 
which is heritable. What this mechanism will do — 
what notes will be sung — depends upon the influences 46 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
that play upon it. But we will think of this further in 
connection with our discussion of the development 
of motives. 
Functions of Instinctive Equipment. — In the 
introductory chapter it was pointed out that the 
student of social psychology is chiefly interested in the 
analysis of psychologic conditions that make for the 
development of interactions among human beings and 
for the growth of a sense of unity among those who live 
together in the same neighborhood, state, nation, etc. 
The customary mode of discussing the development 
of such interactions in the course of a chapter on 
instinct is to attempt to show how each one of a group 
of so-called instincts contributes its share. To begin 
with, there is the universal instinct of activity: an 
undifferentiated disposition toward activity, physi- 
cal or mental or both. What forms the activit}7 may 
assume, wTill be determined by the nature of the stimuli 
as in the case of the birds observed by Conradi and 
Scott cited above. It is impossible to conceive of a 
sense of unity among people grown up without a lib- 
eral degree of activity among them. It is only 
through the action of people and their interaction 
among themselves that their characteristics are 
brought to the attention of one another, and hence it 
is only through this means that we become acquainted 
with our fellows. 
In the second place there is the disposition among 
individuals of a kind to group together: the instinct 
of gregariousness it is called, or the impulsive or motor 
aspect of the “ consciousness of kind.” There is 
ground for doubt whether there is a specific instinct FUNCTIONS OF INSTINCT 
of the sort excepting in so far as animals behave as 
if they prefer companionship to isolation. The attach- 
ment of the dog to his master and his master’s family; 
the fact that isolated sheep in the field have been 
observed to become so attached to cattle and to horses 
— provided that association began in infancy — that 
they will not only follow them throughout the day 
but even stay with them when at last they have oppor- 
tunity to associate with animals of their own sort; 
that similar behavior has been observable with respect 
to hogs, ducklings and the like; all this lends some 
color to the hypothesis that what appears to be a 
gregarious instinct is really a complex of habits: a 
series of acquisitions as truly as is the dog’s behavior 
in lifting the latch of a door. But whether it is in- 
stinct or acquisition it is of social significance in so 
far as it implies, in the first place, a “ consciousness 
of kind,” or in the second place, a readiness on the 
part of an individual to react preferably to the stimuli 
presented by his own kind, or by others with which 
bonds of association have been created. Indirectly 
the gregarious tendency, whatever its nature, is of 
tremendous social value. In as far as its expression 
is a coming together of a group of individuals it pre- 
sents opportunities for reciprocal stimulus and re- 
sponse; for observation of one another within the 
group and consequently for mutual acquaintanceship, 
for the development of an anticipatory imagery of 
others’ responses which is the key to that sense of 
unity among the members of a group that makes the 
whole body seem kin. 
The group reaction tendency, too, gives oppor- 48 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
tunity for the development of various pattern-like 
forms of behavior commonly called the instincts of 
acquisitiveness and constructiveness; and of what is 
sometimes called the adaptive instinct of play, which, 
as it develops with the maturing of the individual con- 
tributes to the sense of social unity among the mem- 
bers of the group. 
For example, acquisitiveness: the primitive form 
of this may be the hoarding of food among barbarians 
and lower animals. It is expressed among children in 
collecting all sorts of odds and ends: roots, leaves, 
pebbles, birds’ eggs, etc. In the adult savant it is 
suggested in the mineralogical cabinet, the ornitho- 
logical museum, the library of rare books; in the artist 
the same tendency is displayed in the collection of 
book-bindings, china, and what-not. In the miser’s 
hoard we have, at any rate from the esthetic and 
moral point of view, a perversion. The whole insti- 
tution of private property may be an outgrowth of 
this same acquisitive tendency, together with that of 
competition. Granting that this is the case, we are 
prepared to see how it contributes indirectly to the 
development of a sense of unity among, at any rate, 
large groups of our population. By the very fact 
that wealth has been accumulated by considerable 
groups of our people they understand one another; 
therefore they foresee one another’s reactions to given 
situations; insensibly there develops among them a 
“ consciousness of kind ” and a class has so far been 
formed. In such a way, too, development of a sense 
of unity comes about in the academic group, the pro- 
fessional group, etc. The mere fact of the possession FUNCTIONS OF INSTINCT 
49 
of certain goods, whatsoever the goods may be, ma- 
terial, intellectual, or what-not, contributes to this 
sense. 
Closely allied to this is another form of the indi- 
vidualistic tendency — competition: a primitive form 
of which may have been the struggle for food and for 
mates. In its crudest form it is expressed in unmit- 
igated hostility between individuals and between 
groups. As the social consciousness develops, however, 
i.e., as men develop the capacity to control their be- 
havior in the light of the imaged reactions of others, 
or by the functioning of an all but unconscious 
background of their organizations, such as are the 
residue of countless experiences in which they have 
been controlled by imagination of the reactions of 
others; that is, by dint of the disposition that in time 
grows out of behavior so controlled: when all this 
transformation shall have occurred, the reaction is 
no longer unmitigated hostility, but manifold forms 
of competition in commercial, professional, and other 
activities. It is now a complicated disposition that 
controls. If the root of it is in instinct it is covered 
over and all but hidden by many acquisitions. These 
dispositions are supported by laws of the state and 
rules of procedure. Indeed, the criminal law, or the 
rule, with the penalty provided in case of its infraction, 
and the concrete presence of the officer of the law, 
are, properly considered, stimuli provided to occasion 
those reactions that will ultimately yield their fruit in 
a refinement of unmitigated hostility; in such a modi- 
fication of crude pugnacity as will amount practically 
to its substitution by a disposition to compete as a 50 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
matter of course according to the rules of the game. 
Mutual acquaintanceship and the sense of social 
unity that grows out of it; the ability to foresee 
others’ reactions and to adapt ourselves to them un- 
consciously or as a matter of course, favor competition 
instead of crude fighting. This same competition re- 
acts in turn and contributes to acquaintanceship and 
hence to social unity. Perhaps it is the active compe- 
tition to which they are accustomed that is princi- 
pally responsible for the sense of unity or clan feeling 
that is alleged to exist among commercial men. 
A corollary to all this is that the development of 
means of communication between portions of the state 
and between nations, and the removal of unnatural and 
artificial barriers by enlarging the scope of the ex- 
pression of tendencies to competition, facilitate state- 
wide and international acquaintanceship respectively, 
and therefore national and international unity. 
In such connections as this some students of psy- 
chology would speak of what they call the instinct to 
imitate, and would elaborately describe the part it 
plays in the social life. The weight of authority, 
however, inclines to the view that we have here no 
instinct but that the term imitation refers to any 
one of a number of methods by which the original 
tendency toward activity is expressed. Students of 
animal behavior have failed to demonstrate that ani- 
mals learn by imitation. The cases of the sparrows 
and the canaries described earlier in this chapter need 
not be interpreted as illustrations of an imitation in- 
stinct specifically. The particular notes and com- 
binations of notes that are sung are responses to par- FUNCTIONS OF INSTINCT 
51 
ticular stimuli, which responses arrive in the course 
of time to the status of thoroughly rooted habits. 
Close observation of the sparrows might have revealed 
that they struck the canary’s note immediately upon 
catching the stimulus of the canary’s voice. At any 
rate the cat that has repeatedly seen its cooped-up 
neighbor open the door of the box and make an exit 
to a plate of food, has not obtained profit thereby if 
one is to judge by his behavior when he himself is 
placed within the box behind the closed door. 
Without committing ourselves to the view that imi- 
tation is instinct, we may, nevertheless, briefly discuss 
the part that responses called imitative play in social 
psychology. In the first place there is the uncon- 
scious slipping into another’s mental attitude or way 
of doing things: the root of conventionality and of 
custom — the subjects of a separate chapter. In the 
second place there is imitation in which the imitator 
is conscious of what he is doing but in which, never- 
theless, he is serving no purpose beyond possibly the 
gratification of an immediate pleasure. In the third 
place, there is reasoned imitation in which the imita- 
tor copies another consciously and for the purpose 
of gaining an ulterior end, as when one business man 
imitates another’s organization in order that he may 
diminish running expenses. Though this is designated 
in some texts as a type of imitation, it is doubtful 
whether it should be described in a way that connotes 
more than a broad, undifferentiated instinctive activ- 
ity basis. Even this factor is undoubtedly very slight 
when compared with those of logical analysis and 
comparison. At any rate, in every form of imitation 52 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
we have one more avenue through which an individual 
gains knowledge of other folk. He learns how it feels 
to do thus and so; consequently he is the better able 
to sympathize with others and to interpret their be- 
havior ; he arrives at a completer understanding of 
the motives both of himself and of others. In short, 
through the different forms of imitation, one becomes 
acquainted, in a deep sense, with other people, the 
number of whom is limited only by the breadth of 
one’s sphere of activity, and therefore imitation has 
a tendency to contribute toward a sense of social unity, 
and by the same token to the capacity for effective 
co-operation. 
Once a series of acts has got started the capacity 
for action in itself seems to supply additional motive. 
In fact it must do so, else the actor will succumb to 
the deadly routine of the performance. The young 
man practicing at football is driven to the training 
ground times almost without number, and always with 
a great deal of zest, because of his pleasure in the 
action itself; because he has discovered some capaci- 
ties for physical prowess and he finds satisfaction in 
exercising them. In the course of time the push for 
satisfaction so obtained is the only motive that acti- 
vates him. The unfolding of any other capacity such 
as for memorizing: for manipulating the abstractions 
of mathematics or of philosophy: for dealing with 
the practical situations incident to administration or 
what-not, may furnish an analogous drive in its own 
sphere — in fact, must do so if things are to be done 
effectively. This is a reminder, by the way, of the 
much-abused doctrine of interest in education, and it THE COMPLEX 
53 
carries its implications into industrial problems. High 
wages and the prospect for promotion and participa- 
tion in profits alone are of large usefulness only as 
far as they stimulate the motive that is suggested by 
the phrase “ a feeling for the work itself.” 
To repeat: the discussion thus far points only to 
an undifferentiated native tendency toward activity, 
whether physical or mental, which may be termed in- 
stinct. Instincts are doubtful. No doubt many forms 
of action may be called instinctive for convenience, 
but this should imply only that a primary root of 
these actions is in an unlearned tendency toward 
reaction. 
Analogy with the Complex. — Examination of 
motives, whether they are what have been called in- 
stincts or habits, suggests that they are not essen- 
tially different from the “ complex ” of the psycho- 
analytic school. In the sphere of abnormal psycho- 
logical phenomena, the psycho-analysts seek to 
explain many forms of abnormal behavior on the 
ground of a suppressed complex, that in normal life 
is effective, if at all, unobtrusively. This term will 
be employed so frequently in this text, and the con- 
ception is deemed so important in connection with 
human behavior that an explanation is required. 
We are accustomed to thinking of every impression 
upon the organism and of every reaction whether it 
be overt in the sense of muscular activity that is ap- 
parent to the on-looker, or as subjective in the sense 
of thinking or remembering as leaving a trace there- 
upon that is never entirely lost. Our personality is 
altered somewhat by each successive stimulation and SOCIAL MOTIVES 
reaction. This is, by no means, a new conception. 
It is only in recent years that it has received strong 
support of an objective nature. The analysis of the 
phenomena of automatic writing, of the imagery in 
dreams, and in the wild fancies of the fever-ridden 
patient and of the maniac and the objects of our 
phobias afford striking evidence for the hypothesis 
that while we forget much in the sense of becoming 
unable to recall voluntarily, we nevertheless utterly 
lose out of our personality much less than appears to 
be the case. 
Dr. Morton Prince’s patient (13), B, C, A, is a case 
in point. She suffered from an abnormal fear of 
white cats and she could not voluntarily bring to mind 
any memory images that could account for it, but 
she unconsciously or automatically wrote, under ex- 
perimental conditions, a story of an experience of her 
childhood, thirty-five years earlier, in which she had 
been frightened by a white cat with which she had 
been playing. This, she said, in her automatic-writing 
state, she believed was the root of her present unnat- 
ural fear. In connection with her relation of the inci- 
dent she described in great detail the furnishings of 
the room in which she was playing at the time, the 
designs in the floor and wall coverings, the window 
draperies, etc. She had never before related the cir- 
cumstances, she said. In its essential respects, at any 
rate, the story was verified by members of the patient’s 
family. The phenomena of dreams and of other hallu- 
cinatory experiences, of hypnosis, etc., afford other 
illustrations of what appears to be the actuality of 
the retention of the residua of many experiences which THE COMPLEX 
55 
cannot be voluntarily recalled. Furthermore, many of 
us who are not professional mathematicians are today 
totally unable to recall at will many of the formulae 
that we learned and used freely in our youth. We 
no longer know the formulae. Yet with very slight 
expenditure of time and effort, as compared with what 
was originally required, we can regain complete con- 
trol of all that has been thus temporarily lost. This 
statement and others of the kind that might be made 
about analogous situations are no doubt supported by 
the experience of every student and general reader. 
Such situations as have been described or implied 
above obviously indicate that in some form or other 
the residua of certain experiences, — those with math- 
ematical formulae, e.g. — have remained over in the 
background of the personality, in such form, to be 
sure, that they cannot be made use of on demand, but 
so that they give the individual a distinct advantage 
once he again attempts to work the field from which 
the earlier experiences were gained; that is, once we 
begin again to work in the department of mathematics 
we are at an advantage notwithstanding that we have 
completely forgotten, as we say, what we had well 
learned in that branch of science a score of years 
ago. 
This something that remains over, this residuum of 
earlier experiences and adjustments, is a complex. It 
is essentially no different from a habit; or, more accu- 
rately, no different from the foundation of what we 
call the -habit in every-day language; that is, an overt 
motor adjustment of a specific sort that next to un- 
erringly occurs in a given situation; the man of the 56 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
house, for example, inevitably reaches for his cigar 
after dinner as soon as he finds himself in his great 
armchair. In fact, a habit is a complex. But the 
former term has come to be used so exclusively to 
relate to overt reactions that the other should be a 
welcome addition to our vocabulary. It connotes the 
foundation of our acquired likes and dislikes, our re- 
ligious, political, and other social prejudices, our pro- 
fessional dispositions, our morals, and the like. So far 
as its nature is concerned, as we conceive it, the com- 
plex is of the same nature as has been conceived to 
belong to the instinct excepting that as we use the 
term in this book, it is an acquired disposition rather 
than an inborn one. 
Whether the residua that compose our complexes 
are physical in the sense of neurone arrangements or 
patterns that have acquired specialized functions; 
whether they are psychic or chemical, are queries that 
will be answered precisely as we reply to the same 
questions when they are related to our habits of overt 
reaction. Indeed, there is at present no ground of 
unquestioned fact upon which to fasten answers to 
these questions. It is sufficient that the phenomena 
of human behavior afford evidence to justify the hy- 
pothesis that at the foundations of our personality 
there are such arrangements as we conceive and to 
which we give the name “ complexes.” These are 
interwoven in infinite complexity with one another and 
with inborn structures. 
Furthermore, the existence of a complex implies a 
corresponding “ drive.” Once it has been aroused to 
activity by an external stimulus or situation it ex- THE CONFLICT 
57 
pends its drive in bringing specific acts of behavior to 
pass or it imparts it to other complexes and to the 
whole network of arrangements within the organism 
so that each complex may be reinforced by others 
in respect to control over behavior. Thus the pro- 
fessional complexes of the lawyer make it inevitable 
that he will practice law or seek to do so. The sport- 
ing complexes of the man in the street impel him 
toward the bleachers even on a blustery afternoon to 
sit in the snow that he may see the game — or at least 
they father an interest in such behavior and a longing 
to escape to the athletic field. Similarly our town 
neighbor is impelled to ally himself with the prevailing 
political and religious life about him as a matter of 
course, or to set himself up against it. In short, we 
conceive of every commanding and persisting interest 
in our lives as resting upon an established complex in 
our nature which is normally interwoven with many 
others and with original nature. 
It was pointed out above that the drive arising from 
a complex may be reinforced by that of others. But 
it may be opposed also and in such a case we are 
confronted by the “ conflict ” which figures prominently 
in psycho-analytic literature. Every normal process 
of decision is one of conflict which comes to an issue 
in satisfactory adjustment or at least in adjustment 
with contentment. But it is a conflict that comes into 
the clear light of consciousness of what one is about; 
not wholly into consciousness, indeed, for one who has 
just now reached a decision is often unable to relate 
even to himself clearly, all the devious paths he fol- 
lowed toward the settlement of the conflict. In a 58 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
measure the process is underground and unconscious. 
It goes on unconsciously amongst the complexes of the 
personality. Sometimes, indeed, the entire conflict 
appears to be resolved beneath the surface as when 
one falls asleep before an unsolved problem and awakes 
to find the solution or the decision immediately at 
hand. 
But in many an instance insuperable barriers pre- 
vent the solution of a conflict. It therefore becomes a 
habitual state and reacts upon behavior producing the 
chronic grouch or the unrestful personality and the 
like; and in extreme cases, a complete dissociation 
amongst conflicting complexes occurs so that one or 
a group of them independently control the behavior. 
Normally this kind of thing occurs in states of rapt 
attention and in fits of absent-mindedness, in which 
case behavior may be even unconscious, that is, un- 
controlled by the unitary personality. In the abnor- 
mal sphere persistent thoughts of a loathsome disease 
from which one is suffering, or the haunting images 
of objects of filth may be driven into the background 
or margin of consciousness where they persist as com- 
plexes, — perhaps as neural patterns, — in conflict 
with others that correspond to an interest in being 
healthy and uncontaminated. The result is a dread of 
contact and even an actual inhibition of touching cer- 
tain objects. The memory of a humiliating failure, 
driven from clear consciousness, may persist as a com- 
plex and occasion a distressing shrinking from public 
appearance. 
In like manner the positive advances of the abnormal 
individual, his so-called insane, or anti-social acts, are A SOURCE OF DRIVE 
59 
occasioned, according to the psycho-analytic hypothe- 
sis, by the influence of suppressed complexes in more 
or less dissociation from others that make up the total 
personality. 
On a broad scale it is this dissociation or partial 
dissociation that has come to pass in the mob, in the 
war-fevered multitude and in the heated political cam- 
paign. 
In every instance the particular act or thought 
or purpose or ambition is but a clue that must be 
followed up to find the final motive. When these 
complexes are once discovered, as sometimes they may 
be by means of psycho-analysis, and banished by 
suggestion or otherwise, the abnormality of behavior 
is corrected. As long as they exist we must think 
of them as predispositions or motives, which, given 
a particular sort of constitution, develop and are 
capable of being broken up again according to the 
laws of the development of habits, concepts, and of 
automatization in general. 
Our thought is that the complex is a source of 
motive or of drive impelling the individual toward 
behavior, whether subjective, as feelings of prefer- 
ence or of unrest, or objective, as professional or 
occupational activity; and further that these com- 
plexes are capable of dissociation and of furnishing 
impulsions or drives more or less independently of 
the rest of the organism. So each of us has his 
political complex; his civic complex; his philan- 
thropic, his religious, his moral, his educational, his 
occupational complex, and corresponding to each in 
turn, his antagonistic complex. These are again 60 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
among what we may call final motives in our social 
life. They are not mutually exclusive. 
Any more detailed classification of social motives 
would accomplish no more than to suggest those 
objects that have a peculiar attraction for us in 
virtue of one or another of our final motives. Thus 
we speak of generosity in those situations in which 
relief is extended to an indigent caller in whom we 
could not be interested but for our general philan- 
thropic nature. It is by virtue of our educational 
complex, once more, that we are controlled by the 
motive of generosity in another sense; the sense of 
being open-mindedly interested in the opinions of 
others. Sympathy for others in distress is an expres- 
sion of the philanthropic motive and is often aroused 
when it is impossible for us to do anything more prac- 
tical than to approximate to the mental attitude of 
those to whom sympathy is extended. In another 
sense there is an expression of our educational complex 
when we adopt the same intellectual attitude as our 
contemporaries toward a given problem. 
Genesis of Motives. — The genesis of the motive 
in the sense of predisposition, prejudice, or “ com- 
plex ” as described above, may be compared with the 
development of a specialist in mathematics, for 
example. In the first years of his course the student 
elects mathematics because it is his purpose to become 
a civil engineer. The purpose of his activity at this 
stage is his motive. It represents a preliminary 
guiding of a generalized push from within. He becomes 
fond of his instructor and this fondness is another 
motive — in this case a feeling — that co-operates in GENESIS OF MOTIVES 
61 
the control of his behavior. These are conscious 
motives. They may have arisen accidentally. The 
story of a group of engineers surveying a line over 
the mountains for a proposed railway, and camping 
by the way, may have awakened the purpose or inten- 
tion to become an engineer. The mere observation 
of such a motive, however, gives no assurance of its 
social value. It might be entirely possible at this 
stage to divert this prospective civil engineer from his 
purpose and to make a bricklayer of him. Let us 
suppose, however, that he persists in holding these 
motives vivid in consciousness, even while difficulties 
accumulate and the tedium of his work increases, by 
the aid of whatever other supplementary conscious 
motives may be presented, such as the purpose of com- 
peting for a prize at the end of the term. Ulti- 
mately he reaches the point at which he no longer 
requires such motives as these to hold him to his 
course. Gradually there has developed a mathemati- 
cal habit, disposition, tendency, or “ complex ” in 
virtue of which the mathematical activity possesses 
a peculiar attraction for him and follows him through- 
out his life. He has lived through the period of acci- 
dental motives, and has developed a final motive. Any 
subject that can be approached by the method of 
mathematics elicits his ready response. The mere 
opportunity suffices. We now have a motive, the value 
of which we can estimate. It would be practically 
impossible, now, to make anything but a civil engineer 
of one who has had such a history. He can no longer 
be understood in the light of any particular act as 
a mathematician, stimulated by any specific problem. 62 
SOCIAL MOTIVES 
It is hopeless now to describe his motive, simply as 
purpose or end in view. It was once no more than 
that, now it is much more. It is vividly conscious 
purpose and desire reduced to even more general terms 
than ambition which usually implies at any rate a fre- 
quent consideration of ends. It has become a settled 
disposition. 
We may conceive a similar illustration in the growth 
of an individual into good citizenship in an American 
town. His psychological history first reveals a con- 
scious purpose to be of public service in various re- 
spects. His motives are of the conscious sort. In 
course of time a disposition develops in the light of 
which those forms of activity, such as serving on school 
boards, election boards, expending time and effort 
toward the development of sentiment for public parks, 
etc., once objects of conscious purposes, have now 
acquired immediate attractiveness. The mere oppor- 
tunity now suffices to set off acts of good citizenship. 
We cannot understand the good citizen by observing 
particular occasions of his activity. We must get his 
history. The history of the development of the anti- 
social motives of the criminal, as will be inferred, fol- 
lows an analogous route. “ It seems as if the isolated 
moments of desire sum themselves up in the course of 
time and then break out as the crime. In such cases 
the explaining motive of the deed is never to be found 
except in the criminal’s past” (7). 
Remorse — Self Approbation — Conscience. — 
From the point of1 view developed above, it appears 
that a motive or disposition or “ submerged complex ” 
is the root of remorse, self-approbation, and con- REMORSE AND CONSCIENCE 
63 
science. That these functions are controlling factors 
in behavior, inhibiting or encouraging it, should fol- 
low from their partaking of the warp and woof of 
final motives as already described. Whenever a clash 
of motives occurs, excited by a particular situation, 
and the one that has finally expressed itself in, behavior 
contradicts that disposition that we recognize as our 
truest representative, or that that has been the object 
of our purposes, then there is remorse. When on the 
other hand, the motive that finally determines be- 
havior after a struggle is recognized as in correspond- 
ence or agreement with this disposition, self-approba- 
tion occurs; but the well-knitted personality who plays 
his part without a struggle contemplates his behavior 
simply as a matter of course. The good citizen who 
has been reared from his childhood up in an atmos- 
phere of disinterested community service, and who has 
steadfastly practised the art of citizenship has reason 
for being surprised when his friends commend him for 
his stand in favor of practical public improvement. 
A corollary to all this will suggest itself in the case 
of the delinquent who has become what he is through 
a long course of development. Remorse, as a symptom 
of conflict when anti-social acts have been indulged, 
disappears in the same ratio as does the conflict among 
motives. 
It is already clear from the foregoing what query 
will arise with reference to the social conscience. Does 
analysis reveal anything called conscience that has 
characteristics quite its own, distinct from what have 
been under discussion above? Or is it but another 
name for the feeling that follows the issue of a con- 64 
flict? If the last question should be answered affirma- 
tively, then it would appear that conscience has pur- 
sued exactly the natural course of development that 
has been attributed above to other motives. Indeed 
“ promptings of conscience ” and the “ voice of con- 
science ” would be the faint or strong incipient expres- 
sions of our final motives in cases in which there is an 
inner conflict. 
SOCIAL MOTIVES CHAPTER IV 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS AND PSYCHIC 
STABILITY OF THE POPULATION 
The intellectual level of sections of the general 
population is another element that has a large bearing 
upon the problems of Social Psychology. In a similar 
category are the psychopathic nature and those insta- 
bilities of character that are recognized as signs of 
the hysterical disposition, mental instability, etc., and 
mental dullness such as may arise from infections that 
reduce the energy of the individual to a low ebb. 
The term “ intellectual level ” suggests feeble-mind- 
edness and moronity, which connote varying degrees 
of incapacity, by reason of a general mental defect, 
existing from early age or birth, to take ordinary 
care of one’s affairs and to adjust one’s self to the 
usual circumstances of life. The terms are believed 
to represent native conditions that cannot be over- 
come by processes of education, though in certain 
respects they may be relieved; for example those of the 
higher grades of feeble-mindedness may be taught to 
care for their persons and even to provide a living 
for themselves in simple manual occupations. 
Proportion of Feeble-Mindedness in the Gen- 
eral Population. — Obviously it is impossible for 
such a group as this to become knitted into the general 
population and to become one with it. It is impos- 66 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
sible to develop co-operation on any but the smallest 
scale between this group and the normal elements in 
the population. To whatever extent such a subnormal 
group exists in the general population it is a drag 
upon the effective co-ordination and progress of the 
entire group. Besides, it is potentially the source of 
very great embarrassment to the whole. It is perti- 
nent, therefore, to attempt here an account of the 
extent and distribution of feeble-mindedness in the 
population. 
One naturally turns to the United States Census 
Reports for whatever light they may throw upon the 
general question. But the manner in which the census 
is taken provokes a question as to the accuracy of any 
figure it may report upon this point. The heads of 
families of whom inquiry is made are not likely to 
report eagerly cases of feeble-mindedness in their 
respective houses, if, indeed, they know that they are 
there. The agents of the census bureau, further- 
more, are certainly not, on the whole, skilled in making 
inquiry as to this particular point. Any ratio arrived 
at in this manner, therefore, is likely to be too small 
rather than too large. The same observation may be 
made with propriety as to the report of the Royal 
Commission of 1908 in England (13), which states 
that in the general population of England there is one 
feeble-minded to every 305. The Massachusetts 
report on the extent and increase of feeble-mindedness 
and epilepsy in that state is frankly an estimate, and 
it places the ratio at 1 in 171. 
Another source of evidence is in studies of groups 
of school children. For example, Dr. Goddard re- PROPORTION OF FEEBLE-MINDED 
67 
ported (8) 2% of feeble-minded among 2,000 public 
school children in New York City. This figure is 
derived from an intensive examination of each of the 
2,000 pupils by means of the Binet Tests, which, at 
the time investigation was made, were just coming into 
vogue. 
Of much broader scope is the survey of 12,000 
pupils in the Toronto public schools under the direc- 
tion of the Canadian National Committee for Mental 
Hygiene during 1919. Of the number examined, 
1.5% were found mentally defective with an intelli- 
gence quotient of 75 or less. Some very retarded 
children were not examined, owing to their absence 
from school. It is, therefore, the judgment of Pro- 
fessor W. G. Smith of the University of Toronto that 
the total per cent of mental defect, of the degree 
mentioned above, among the 12,000 children examined, 
would amount to about 2% (14). This would confirm 
Dr. Goddard’s result in New York City, and would 
indicate further that among the 80,000 public school 
pupils in Toronto there are 1,600 mentally defective 
children, and 10,000 in the Province of Ontario. One 
cannot realize the barrier to social unity and co-oper- 
ation that is created by such an army until one thinks 
of them as within a system such as the organized public 
schools of a city or state. 
Other results obtained by the Canadian Committee 
show 3.34% and even 3.56% of defectiveness of the 
degree mentioned, in the school populations of Guelph, 
Ontario, and in British Columbia. These figures are 
based upon surveys of groups of 2,245 and 2,273 
school children (12). They are the highest estimates 68 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
of the per cent of feeble-minded in the public schools. 
The lowest, 0.42%, is that made in certain Australian 
schools in 1912 (12). 
These are widely divergent figures and their dif- 
ference is doubtless due to a lack of standardization 
of methods in large part, and in other part to the 
personal equation amongst the examiners. Taking 
all the variant circumstances into account as accu- 
rately as possible, Dr. Kuhlmann has estimated that 
about 0.5% of the general population in the United 
States is feeble-minded (10). Since this estimate was 
made the World War has brought before the country 
both the opportunity and the responsibility for making 
an extended survey of the psycho-physical make-up of 
the drafted men. This survey is the first careful and 
very extended effort of the sort that had been at- 
tempted, and the result affords undoubtedly the most 
comprehensive picture of the psycho-physical back- 
ground of a people that is extant anywhere. “ Ner- 
vous and mental defects, including feeble-mindedness, 
mental deficiencies, paralyses, psychasthenia, consti- 
tutional psychopathic states, and neurasthenia were 
among the defects, victims of which were most com- 
monly rejected. These are the defects that are incom- 
patible with the strain of military training and active 
service. It doubtless would have been well had none 
of these been accepted for general military service. 
It is noteworthy that certain conditions, like psychas- 
thenia, constitutional psychopathic states, neuras- 
thenia, and hysteria, which are difficult to detect, were 
passed over by local boards and were, therefore, an ARMY EXAMINERS QUOTED 
69 
exceptionally common cause for rejection at mobiliza- 
tion camps” (4). 
We quote here from the “ Memoirs of the National 
Academy of Sciences ” which contains a detailed 
account of psychological examining in the United 
States Army during the World War (11): 
“ The psychological examiner is frequently asked 
this question: ‘ How intelligent is the Army? ’ There 
is an inherent difficulty in making an answer, for there 
are no standards in terms of which the statement can 
be made. The most familiar measures of intelligence, 
(years of mental age as determined by the Stanford- 
Binet examination) are the results of investigations of 
a much smaller group (approximately 1,000 cases) 
than the group studied in the Army. For norms of 
adult * intelligence the results of the Army examina- 
tions are undoubtedly the most representative. It is cus- 
tomary to say that the mental age of the average adult 
is about 16 years. This figure is based, however, upon 
examinations of only 62 persons,f 32 of them high 
school pupils from 16 to 20 years of age, and 30 of 
them ‘ business men of moderate success and of very 
limited educational advantages.’ This group is too 
small to give very reliable results and is furthermore 
probably not typical. High school pupils and busi- 
ness men of moderate success presumably do not repre- 
sent the average American adult with respect to intelli- 
gence. 
“ It appears that the intelligence of the principal 
* Italics ours. 
f See Terman et al: The Stanford Revision and Extension 
of the Binet-Simon Scale for Measuring Intelligence, 1917, p. 49. 70 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
sample of the white draft, when transmuted from Alpha 
and Beta*' examinations into terms of mental age, is 
about 13 years (13.08). Here we have a measure of 
the average intelligence of nearly 1,000,000 white 
recruits. We can hardly say, however, with assurance 
that these recruits are three years mental age below 
the average. Indeed, it might be argued on extrinsic 
grounds that the draft itself is more representative 
of the average intelligence of the country than is a 
group of high school students and business men. The 
draft, it is true, is highly selected at the upper end 
by reason of the fact that men of higher intelligence 
became officers without being drafted or constituted 
the greater part of the group of professional and 
business experts that were exempted from draft be- 
cause they were essential to industrial activity in the 
war. It is impossible to guess the extent of this selec- 
tion with respect to intelligence. It seems quite im- 
possible that it could have reduced the intelligence 
level of the draft so much as three years. Consider- 
ably less than 15% of the draft lie above 16 years 
mental age. This discrepancy would mean that a very 
large number of men in proportion to the draft (con- 
siderably more than one man to every three of the 
draft, perhaps even so great a proportion as two to 
every three) would have been exempted because of 
service as an officer or because they were in some essen- 
tial industry. No positive figures of the number 
of men exempted for these reasons are at present avail- 
* See Appendix for a brief description of the Alpha and 
Beta tests used in the army. A complete and fully illustrated 
description of them may be found in the Memoirs of the National 
Academy of Sciences referred to at the end of the chapter. ARMY EXAMINERS QUOTED 
71 
able, but there seems to be no doubt that it was con- 
siderably smaller than these indicated proportions. 
Undoubtedly the intelligence of the draft is somewhat 
lower than that of the country at large, although it is 
quite unlikely that the difference should be so great. 
It must be recalled further that there was also selec- 
tion at the lower end of the scale of intelligence. The 
low-grade feeble-minded were not in general included 
in the draft. This selection tends to offset the selec- 
tion at the upper end, although presumably it does not 
completely counter-balance it, and thus to render the 
average intelligence of the draft more nearly repre- 
sentative of the population at large than would other- 
wise be the case. 
“ In general, then, we are forced to reply to the 
question 4 How intelligent is the Army? ’ by stating 
arbitrary figures that refer to the draft itself, and by 
arguing further that the draft is approximately a 
representative group which is presumably, however, a 
little lower in intelligence than is the country at large. 
. . . It may be necessary to revise our notion of the 
frequency of occurrence of these various levels of 
intelligence. . . . 
“ A moron has been defined as anyone with a mental 
age from 7 to 12 years. If this definition is inter- 
preted as meaning anyone with a mental age less than 
13 years, as has recently been done, then almost half 
of the white draft (47.3 per cent) would have been 
morons. Thus it appears that feeble-mindedness, as 
at present defined, is of much greater frequency of 
occurrence than had been originally supposed. 
“ Table 333 (Memoirs, National Academy of 72 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
Sciences, XV, 1921, p. 790), gives the best summary 
of the intelligence of the draft that is available. It 
will be noted that there are two sets of figures: one 
a set derived from Groups I, II, and III,* of the prin- 
cipal sample as laid down on the combined scale, and 
the other the actual percentages obtained in the Stan- 
ford-Binet examinations of the 653 native-born white 
recruits of Group X. The former group is large and 
representative but involves an error dependent on the 
fact that these men were examined by Alpha and Beta 
and not by a mental-age scale. The second group 
suffers from the fact that it is small and cannot be 
demonstrated to be representative. If the two distri- 
butions are taken together the results can undoubtedly 
be considered accurate within the limits of discrepancy 
between them. It will be seen that a level of eight 
years mental age for rejection would mean the elimi- 
* Group I represents the draft of the United States at large, 
pro-rated by states. (41,278.) Group II is intended to furnish a 
basis for comparing the intelligence levels of states. In the 
cases of a few states the pro-rata selection for the sample 
groups did not furnish a sufficient number of individuals to 
make an adequate basis. In those instances additional selections 
were made so that no state was represented by fewer than a 
thousand. (14,684.) Group III was selected by camps without 
respect to states. (40,392.) These three groups together make up 
a sample of 96,354 of the white draft. 
Other groups forming additional samplings are as follows: 
Group IV Negroes pro-rated by states, 19,992 
Group V Northern negroes from Illinois, Indiana, New 
Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, 5,400 
Group VI White officers, 15,528. 
Group VII Negro officers, 
Group VIII White established organization, various arms 
of the service, 24,205. 
Group IX Negro established organizations. 
Group X Special experimental group, 1,047. BAILEY AND HABER QUOTED 
73 
nation of from 0.5 to 2 per cent of white recruits and 
approximately 17 per cent of negro recruits. Placing 
the level at nine years would eliminate 4 or 5 per cent 
of whites and presumably 32 per cent of negroes. A 
10-year limit rejects from 10 to 13 per cent of white 
and 48 per cent of negro recruits. It would be totally 
impossible to exclude all morons as that term is at 
present defined * for there are under 13 years 47 per 
cent of whites and 89 per cent of negroes.” 
Dr. Pearce Bailey, who during the War was Chief 
of the Section of Neurology and Psychiatry in the 
Surgeon General’s Office at Washington, makes the 
following statement, in collaboration with Dr. Haber, 
with reference to the prevalence of mental defect 
(imbeciles and morons) in the draft army (1): 
“ Of the 72,323 cases of nervous and mental dis- 
orders identified by the neuro-psychiatric examiners of 
the Medical Corps of the army detailed in the United 
States, 22,741, or 31.4 per cent, were mental defec- 
tives. The mental defect was so pronounced that the 
bulk of these recruits were considered unfit for any 
kind of military service. They constituted nearly 
one-third of all the rejections for nervous or mental 
causes, and were far more numerous than any other 
single clinical group. If the mental defectives re- 
jected at the local boards are added to those rejected 
at camps, the total number of individuals seriously 
handicapped by mental defect brought to light by 
the mobilization reaches 26,545. 
“ But while the figure of 26,545 undoubtedly repre- 
sents the bulk of mental defectives originally called to 
* Italics ours. 74 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
Mental Age 
White draft 
Groups I, 
II, and III 
White draft 
Group X 
Negro draft 
Group IV 
Sheridan white 
individual 
examination 
Sheridan negro 
individual 
examination 
Grant, 
white 
discharge 
Grant, 
negro 
discharge 
Dis- 
Dis- 
Dis- 
Dis- 
Dis- 
Dis- 
Dis- 
tribu- 
Sum 
tribu- 
Sum 
tribu- 
Sum 
tribu- 
Sum 
tribu- 
Sum 
tribu- 
Sum 
tribu- 
Sum 
tion 
tion 
tion 
tion 
tion 
tion 
tion 
22-22.9 
0.05 
100.0 
21-21.9 
.07 
99.9 
20-20.9 
.08 
99.9 
0.01 
100.0 
19-19.9 
1.5 
99.8 
0.9 
100.0 
.04 
100.0 
18-18.9 
2.3 
98.3 
3.7 
99.1 
.10 
100.0 
0.1 
100.0 
17-17.9 
3.9 
96.0 
7.3 
95.4 
.27 
99.9 
.3 
100.0 
16-16.9 
6. 1 
92.1 
8.4 
88.1 
.79 
99.7 
.3 
99.7 
6.7 
99.8 
15-15.9 
9.3 
86.0 
9.8 
79.7 
1.7 
98.9 
.3 
99.4 
0.2 
99.8 
0.7 
99.1 
14-14.9 
13.6 
76.7 
12.0 
69.9 
2.8 
97.2 
.4 
99.1 
.8 
99.6 
1.4 
98.4 
13-13.9 
15.8 
63.1 
10.7 
57.9 
5.4 
94.4 
1.3 
98.7 
1.4 
98.8 
0.7 
97.0 
12-12.9 
17.0 
47.3 
12.6 
47.2 
10.0 
89.0 
3.8 
97.4 
2.7 
97.4 
0.7 
96.3 
11-11.9 
12.7 
30.3 
10.7 
34.6 
15.0 
79.0 
10.7 
93.6 
4.3 
94.7 
0.7 
95.6 
10-10.9 
7.6 
17.6 
10.4 
23.9 
16.0 
64.0 
21.9 
82.9 
9.9 
90.4 
3.5 
94.9 
9- 9.9 
4.7 
10.0 
9.5 
13.5 
16.0 
48.0 
27.0 
61.0 
22.7 
80.5 
9.2 
91.4 
0.6 
100.0 
8- 8.9 
3.15 
5.3 
3.4 
4.0 
15.3 
32.0 
21.2 
34.0 
20.8 
57.8 
15.6 
82.2 
4.4 
99.4 
7-7.9 
1.75 
2.1 
. 1 
.6 
8.5 
16.7 
8.3 
12.8 
24.9 
37.0 
29.1 
66.6 
11.4 
95.0 
6- 6.9 
.20 
.4 
.3 
.5 
5.2 
8.2 
3.5 
4.5 
9.3 
12.1 
23.4 
37.5 
22.8 
83.6 
5- 5.9 
.10 
.2 
.2 
.2 
2.1 
3.0 
.6 
1.0 
1.6 
2.8 
11.3 
14.1 
25.3 
60.8 
4- 4.9 
.04 
. 1 
.55 
.8 
. 1 
.4 
.6 
1.2 
2.8 
2.8 
24.1 
35.5 
3- 3.9 
.05 
. 1 
.26 
.3 
.3 
.4 
.6 
9.5 
11.4 
2- 2.9 
.01 
.0 
.04 
.0 
.3 
.3 
.2 
.2 
1.9 
1.9 
1- 1.9 
Number of cases 
93,955 
653 
18,891 
690 
514 
141 
158 
Median mental age 
13 
. 15 
13.25 
10.1 
9.6 
8.9 
7. 
4 
5 
6 
PERCENTAGE COMPARISON OF MENTAL AGE OF GROUPS FROM THE DRAFT 
(From Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci. XV, 1921, p. 790) BAILEY AND HABER QUOTED 
75 
the colors, it does not represent all of them. It does 
not include the cases (afore mentioned) found in 
France and returned to this country from the A. E. 
F., or those found at the demobilization examinations. 
Also, some were discharged under a different diagnosis 
than mental defect; some were disposed of directly by 
the court; some were discharged as unfit under Para- 
graph 148—J A. R. Also, numerous borderline cases 
were accepted by the examiners. Some of these 
higher-grade defectives became part of the army, 
settled to low strata of usefulness, and served through 
the war. . . . 
‘f The most important question arising from this 
inquiry is: how many mental defectives are there in 
the United States? The answer to it, vouchsafed by 
the army figures, while perhaps not absolutely accu- 
rate, may be not far from correct. If the number of 
men examined be approximately 3,500,000 there would 
be a ratio of 6.5 defectives for every 1,000 men ex- 
amined. The number of cases discovered at the local 
boards is so small that the preceding ratio may be used 
in estimating the number of mental defectives between 
the ages of 21 and 31 years, exclusive of those con- 
fined in state and private institutions. There were 
10,101,506 registrants between the ages of 21 and 31 
years, and the ratio of 6.5 per thousand would give, 
for this number, 65,650 male mental defectives of the 
given age period. 
“ If mental deficiency ran uniform among persons 
of all ages, there would be 353,210 male defectives in 
the United States; if uniform for the ages between 76 
18 and 45, there would be 164,710 male defectives in 
this group. 
“ As a matter of fact, we know that mental defect 
by reason of the high mortality incident to it, 
especially in youth, has a greater frequency in groups 
under 18 years than in those over that age. So it 
seems evident that the estimates drawn from adults 
would understate the number as related to the entire 
population.” 
If Dr. Bailey’s analysis is correct, somewhat under 
1% of the general population may be assumed, on a 
very liberal basis, to be of such low intellectual level 
as to be classifiable with the mentally deficient — 
morons and lower. 
Those of this group who are at any time and place 
confined in institutions and so are in very large meas- 
ure removed from the possibility of obstructing the 
community as a whole, are the lowest grades of feeble- 
minded. Kuhlmann estimated that 18% of the feeble- 
minded were in confinement at the time he made his 
analysis, and that this included but 2% of the highest 
grade, the morons (10). But those of the highest 
grade, partly by reason of the fact that they are not 
easily recognized, are a particularly embarrassing ele- 
ment in any community. They may be pleasing person- 
ally. Those of the so-called verbal type, for instance, 
make a good impression with the result that they make 
their way into situations for which they are not fitted. 
But after all our statistical reports upon the 
“ intelligence level ” of adults it is of fundamental 
importance to keep this qualification in mind: that 
whether we talk of a mental age of 13 years Qr of 16 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS MENTAL ALERTNESS 
77 
years, more or less, as the general level of adult “ in- 
telligence,” we cannot be speaking in terms of absolute 
values. The values are relative — and relative to the 
“ intelligence levels ” of children of given chronological 
ages. But children and adults differ so widely in point 
of background and hence in outlook, disposition and 
behavior, that it is extremely doubtful whether they are 
comparable, especially in the respect we are consider- 
ing here. Indeed in our relations to adults and to 
children, respectively, as educators or as superintend- 
ents in any capacity we assume wide differences 
between juveniles and adults in respect to all their 
reactions to the same conditions, and the assumption, in 
practice, is justified. 
Furthermore, we believe that in our testing for “ in- 
telligence levels,” whether of children or adults, hither- 
to, we may not have been getting at “ intelligence ” at 
all (perhaps not more than glimpsing it) but have 
been testing alertness instead. That adults, even of 
broad experience and high social station, usually fare 
illy in the tests as compared with children and 
adolescents supports us in this belief. But employers 
and others who have for long periods been close 
observers of large numbers of men engaged in making 
their adjustments to complicated situations have 
undoubtedly found that alertness, apart from certain 
traits of character such as accuracy, persistency, 
honesty and good humor, is, in the long run, of very 
minor significance. 
In this connection we believe it is in keeping with 
sound judgment to withhold conclusions at certain 
points in the reports upon the use of Army tests to 78 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
determine the relative intelligence of large groups of 
recruits; to withhold it until we can answer, for 
example: “What is the probability that many thou- 
sands of white men from our remote Southern high- 
land regions, and other thousands of negroes from 
the plantations of Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, 
Louisiana, etc., have had the experiences that would 
make it likely that, in a picture completion test, they 
would insert a filament in the outline of an electric 
bulb and a net in that of a tennis court? ” But these 
are only isolated instances. The details of any test 
should be narrowly examined before it is put into 
practical use, with a view to discovering what are the 
possibilities of reaction to its several sections, on the 
part of groups of people who are widely separated 
from one another in experience and geographically. 
And finally, when these possibilities shall have been 
stated, a scheme should be invented by which suitable 
allowances may be made uniformly when one sub- 
group is compared with another. A thorough pro- 
cedure is complicated! 
Psychic Defects Other than Feeble-Minded- 
ness. — Other groups included amongst those draftees 
who were found to be suffering from mental and ner- 
vous disorders are the constitutionally psj'chopathic, 
the victims of psychoses, the epileptics, those afflicted 
with organic nervous diseases, the inebriates and those 
who suffer from neuroses and from glandular disorders 
which had had the effect of retarding physical develop- 
ment. All these, together with the feeble-minded, 
according to the report, represent approximately 
2.25% of the general population. This figure is prob- OTHER PSYCHIC DEFECTS 
79 
ably too low. About the same ratio was found in the 
course of the examination of 28,000 recruits at the 
Great Lakes Naval Training Station. 
The figures quoted, of course, mean that such por- 
tions of the population are definitely unfit for military 
and naval service according to the standards of the 
respective branches of the service. It is undoubtedly 
within the bounds of probability that there are many 
of somewhat mental and nervous instability in the 
region of the indefinite border of normality who, if 
added to the foregoing, would materially increase the 
total per cent. Many of the unfit for military service, 
by reason of nervous and mental defects, are capable 
of carrying a part successfully in civil life. These 
cases, other than the feeble-minded, may be super- 
ficially brilliant; they may appear normal by the 
criteria of intellectual progress in school, versatility, 
and range of information. As long as the affairs with 
which they come into touch are of the usual sort; as 
long as no special difficulties of long endurance occur, 
such persons may pursue their usual course, honored 
in their several communities and contributing usefully 
to the social and professional or commercial life of 
their time and place. 
But let the unusual occur; something that induces 
a prolonged strain and diverts attention from the 
customary grooves — then the precarious character 
of the individual’s adjustment becomes apparent. 
There is a sharp increase in these circumstances in the 
number of pronounced cases of mental disease. 
The numbers of individuals who belong to the 
groups we have discussed in this chapter are not large 80 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
in proportion to the general population. The great 
majority of those of low intellectual level are them- 
selves alone altogether harmless, self-satisfied and in- 
capable of leadership. The minority are a constant 
source of embarrassment. The difference between 
these groups is probably in what Goddard refers to as 
“ that vague something that we call temperament.” 
The psychopathic group, however, is probably very 
much the more numerous of the two. Estimates are 
confessedly very unreliable. Many of these folk are 
brilliant, volatile, unsteady, attractive personally, 
capable of leadership, at any rate for brief periods, 
inciters to unrest, and therefore potentially and act- 
ually sources of grave concern to the social psycholo- 
gist and to other students of social problems. 
The Question of Heredity. — The mental con- 
dition of the groups we have been considering is 
assumed, on many hands, to be hereditary and inescap- 
able in the strains in which it may be discovered. The 
histories of the Jukes (5), the Kallikaks (7), the Nam 
Family (2), the Hill Folk (3) and many others of like 
quality have created presumed support for the hypoth- 
esis. It is very likely, however, that the conclusions 
are based upon incomplete statistics. For example, 
it is highly improbable that nearly all of the descend- 
ants of the feeble-minded girl of Revolutionary days 
who figures in the history of the Kallikak family are 
represented by the figure 1146 which is reported in 
the text. Furthermore such investigations a,s have 
been made respecting the families referred to, assum- 
ing complete enumeration, must necessarity gain what 
validity they possess chiefly from the accuracy of HEREDITY OF DEFECTS 
81 
memory and statement of persons who have been inter- 
viewed, and secondarily from written records of ex- 
traordinarily questionable value. It is of little, if any 
positive worth, to be told as we are in reports of some 
of these families that individuals were “ shiftless and 
neurotic ” or “ shiftless and alcoholic,” or “ a shift- 
less drinking fellow,” or “ a wild fellow,” etc. 
But it is of more fundamental importance in this 
connection that feeble-mindedness is most probably not 
a unit character at all; and if not, the formula for 
inheritance is at best doubtfully applicable to it. By 
the terms of the theory the determiners that carry 
the qualities of future offspring are segregated accord- 
ing to mathematical ratios. Therefore it is not to be 
inferred that because a person may be weak in one 
particular this particular form of weakness will be 
handed on to any or all of his descendants. We may 
expect a proportion of his progeny to be likewise 
affected, but which ones cannot be predicted. The 
laws of heredity in their present stage of development 
are useful to explain what has already happened, but 
are of little predictive value as to what will happen 
in respect to individuals as a result of a particular 
fertilization; this because we know so little as we do 
of the qualities of the germ plasm of the parents and 
more remote ancestors. Were we interested only in a 
mass of tens of thousands as is the wheat grower dur- 
ing each planting and reaping season, the situation 
would be very different. In our human relations we 
are emphasizing the family of two or three and the 
like in a single generation, and their ten or a dozen 
descendants in the next generation. Our regard for 82 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
this small and at best slowly growing group we con- 
sider one of the finest fruits of our civilization and we 
are not prepared, forgetting them and the possibilities 
that lurk in even exceptional cases of defective 
heredity, as for instance the Edwards stock, to look 
abroad to the whole of tens and thousands in the 
distant future. 
The Question of Acquisition of Mental Defects. 
— But leaving aside the question of inheritance of 
feebleness of mind and other forms of mental weak- 
ness, we are confronted by another situation: the 
belief that these conditions may be acquired in the 
course of life history has some currency. What ap- 
pears in this light may be only mental dullness from 
physical causes, but even in that case it is undoubtedly 
often mistaken by the less skillful examiners for 
natural feebleness of mind or other mental defect — 
and in fact as far as the individual himself is con- 
cerned his adjustment in society may be equally 
affected whether he belongs with the high grade feeble- 
minded or with the dull for physical causes. Cases 
of this sort are an immediate but not a primary social 
problem. The possibility of the acquisition of feeble- 
ness of mind and other mental defects or mental dull- 
ness is properly one for the consideration of students 
of psychology, for whatever factor or factors are 
upturned may be looked upon as a situation or a 
stimulus that incites a reaction and repeated reactions 
which ultimately, under the general law of automatiza- 
tion or habituation, develop well fixed dispositions or 
“ second nature.” 
The recent development of social and mental hygiene ACQUISITION OF DEFECTS 
83 
has brought data to light that have been believed to 
add force to an argument that the hypothesis of ac- 
quired feeble-mindedness is a fact. Dr. William A. 
White (15), for example, looking at mental defect 
from the viewpoint of therapeutics says: “ . . . the 
problem of feeble-mindedness and many other social 
problems intradigitate, as it were, and the resulting 
problems are not necessarily problems of feeble-mind- 
edness at all. For example, not a few defectives are 
such because of the effects of congenital syphilis upon 
the central nervous system.” The problem in this case 
is a much broader one than of mental defect. “ Again 
— in the south many children are defective just be- 
cause they have not the energy sufficient to enable them 
to give attention and to learn. The problem is again 
incidental to a larger one, namely, that of uncinariasis 
(hook worm infection) which produces these results as 
a consequence of its effect upon the general health. 
A similar situation arises as the result of adenoids 
with resulting serious interference with respiration. 
Causes which are distinctly more psychological are 
those defects in the sense organs — eye and ear — 
which make it impossible for the child adequately to 
perceive the environment and therefore adequately to 
react to it.” 
No better evidence of the prevalence of venereal 
infection in the population of the United States at 
large can be found than that that is available in the 
records of the drafted men in the World War. The 
maximum is 5.6%, based upon examination of the 
second million draftees, and but little lower than this 
is the result based upon over 2,500,000. The rate INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
referred to includes all elements in the general popu- 
lation (4). The official report on the results of psy- 
chological examining in the army makes it appear 
doubtful whether this infection has a great effect 
upon the showing of intelligence. The infected white 
group is somewhat inferior to the unselected draft but 
not greatly so. 
Intelligence Distribution of 
Intelligence Grade 
Whites (I) Negroes (II)EorD 
- D 
C- 
C 
C+ B A 
( Venereals (1562 Cases)... 
.4.2 
22.6 
22.6 
26.4 
14.6 6.7 2.9 
I. | Unselected draft (167,035 
cases) 
1 7 
20.6 
25.4 
25.4 
14.9 7.9 4.0 
_ ( Whites, Groups I, II, III 
II. (93,973) 
.7.1 
17.1 
23.8 25.0 
15.0 8.0 4.1 
[ Negroes, Group IV (18,891) 49.0 
29.7 
12.9 
5.7 
2.0 0.6 0.1 
In the above table at II we have inserted a com- 
parison showing the distribution of letter grades of 
sample groups of white and negro recruits. It is 
apparent that the difference in intelligence so measured 
is much greater between the two races in the United 
States than between the infected and the non-infected 
whites as shown in Section I of the table. 
A much greater difference in intelligence is apparent 
between a group of whites infected by hook worm and 
a group of the same race not so infected. The com- 
parison is based upon the records of 632 who were 
infected with the disease and 5615 who were free 
from it. HOOK WORM 
85 
Prob. 
Error 
of 
mean 
Weighted Score (Alpha).... 
50-99 
100-149 
150-199 
200-249 
250-299 
300-349 
350-414 
mean 
s. d. 
Infected (501) 
.... 30.3 
29.5 
21.0 
12.0 
4.6 
1.6 
0.8 
94.38 
2.85 
63.83 
Non-infected (4792) 
.... 13.7 
25.9 
25.4 
18.1 
10.5 
4.5 
1.5 
0.3 
118.5 
1.03 
71.23 
Weighted Score (Beta) 
.... 0-29 
30-59 
60-89 
90-119 
120-149 
150-212 
Infected (131) 
42.8 
18.3 
5.3 
0.8 
0.8 
45.38 
2.46 
28.19 
Non-infected (823) 
33.4 
20.8 
11.2 
4.5 
0.6 
53.26 
1.19 
34.18 
HOOK WORM DISEASE 86 
INTELLECTUAL LEVELS 
A similar table shows that 131 infected and 2877 
non-infected negroes differ somewhat less in intelli- 
gence scores than do the whites. Reference to II in 
the preceding table indicates once more a considerably 
greater difference between the intelligence rating of 
white Groups I, II and III on the one hand and the 
negro Group IV on the other hand than appears be- 
tween the infected and non-infected white groups. 
The psychological examiners urge: “It is impor- 
tant, however, to guard against the assumption that 
data of this kind prove the existence of a causal rela- 
tion between hookworm disease and mental inferiority. 
Low native ability may induce such conditions of living 
as to induce hookworm infection, or poor environ- 
mental conditions may be responsible for both the 
disease and the low test record.” 
It may be granted that hookworm disease is never 
a cause but that it is indirectly an effect of low native 
ability and at the same time it is probably a safe con- 
clusion a priori that this disease and other long con- 
tinued infections are causes of a mental dullness that 
is quite as serious in its effect upon the adjustment 
of the individual as is feeble-mindedness, technically 
considered, itself. More than that, by way of social 
inheritance, the dulling effect of this and other diseases 
may be passed on to succeeding generations; for the 
dull head of a family, from whatever cause he may be 
dull, creates an atmosphere in his home in which his 
children live and grow. This is equivalent to saying 
that he provides stimuli and creates situations to which 
his children are repeatedly reacting, implicitly or ex- 
plicitly, until fixed dispositions are built up in them. THE LARGER PROBLEM 
87 
If this is a correct assumption Dr. White is right in 
his judgment that the larger problem is the correction 
of the conditions out of which devastating infections 
arise, for they occasion behavior that in the long run 
becomes crystallized into firmly knitted dispositions. CHAPTER V 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
Again and again we have laid emphasis upon the 
fact that the unity of a people depends in very large 
measure upon the degree of their mutual understand- 
ing or acquaintanceship. Whatever favors or stands 
in the way of such a relationship indirectly aids or 
prevents the growth of social unity, and is, therefore, 
proper subject matter for the student of social psy- 
chology. 
One of the great alleged barriers among people is 
found in racial distinctions. Everybody recognizes 
that such distinctions exist. We have no difficulty, 
ordinarily, in marking off the staid matter-of-fact 
Englishman from the stirring, ebullient son of Italy. 
The differences among peoples are in part as to color 
and form, and in other part as to dispositions, capaci- 
ties, prejudices, and outlook. It is a question for 
the student of social pyschology how firmly these 
distinctions are rooted and whether they are heredi- 
tary or acquired in the course of a life history: an 
alternative that we do not attempt to settle in this 
chapter. Furthermore, we are interested in the possi- 
bility of transcending these barriers, and the means 
by which it may be accomplished, if at all. Neither 
do we attempt to derive a formula for this process; 
but obviously the issues of domestic and even of inter- BODILY PROPORTIONS 
89 
national co-operation and good will may, in consider- 
able measure, depend upon the way we think about 
these problems. 
There will be no question that differences as to 
color of races, at any rate, and of bodily proportions 
on the whole, are natural and heritable characteristics. 
As to this point, it should be remembered, however, 
that Franz Boas (1) has presented some very con- 
vincing data that go far toward establishing the 
proposition that even bodily proportions may be 
altered with change in surroundings in the course 
even of a single generation. This he was able to 
establish by means of extensive measurements of, 
especially, the cranial proportions of groups of Italian 
and Slavic immigrants into the United States. There 
is a tendency for the round head to become long and 
vice versa. This may appear to be of distinctly minor 
importance as far as our problem is concerned, but 
yet we must not forget that mutual relations are 
facilitated by the recognition even of physical like- 
ness among people. More than that, there are many 
who maintain that on the whole physical development 
is indicative of mental development, and they point to 
the fact that school children of superior talent are, 
on the whole, of superior stature and proportions 
(See Chapter IX), and that on the other hand, 
delinquents and defectives are inferior in these respects. 
It is questionable whether the correlation of stature 
and other physical proportions is directly with mental 
quality or with developmental history and social 
status, and thus indirectly with mental quality. We 
are dealing here with questions that for the most part 90 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
cannot be put to the laboratory in any justifiable 
hope for a satisfactory answer. Recourse must be 
had to statistical analysis of broad scope. 
Intellectual Qualities of the Negro. — Only in 
respect to the negro as compared with the white race 
has there been any considerable attempt at experi- 
mental determination of mental differences amongst 
races. This has been the object in several American 
instances of the application of the Binet-Simon and 
other psychological tests. In no case, it should be 
said, is there assurance that the experimenters were 
dealing with pure representatives of the negro race. 
Indeed it may safely be assumed that they were not. 
In practically all cases in which the psychological tests 
have been resorted to as a means of comparing the 
races, the comparisons have been drawn between groups 
of school children belonging to them, respectively. 
One of the first attempts of this nature was made 
by Miss A. Strong (24), who, in Columbia, S. C., made 
a comparison of three groups: one from schools for 
the colored, one of white mill-working children, and the 
third of more favorably conditioned whites from 
schools in the heart of the city and its outskirts. Com- 
parisons were made only among the children of the 
first five school grades. The percentages of retarded 
and advanced pupils in the three groups respectively 
are as follows: 
City 
Mill 
Colored 
Children 
Children 
Children 
More than one year retarded. 
...5.4% 
18.3% 
25.6% 
Satisfactory 
. .84.2 
81.6 
74.4 
More than one year above 
.. 10.4 
0. 
0. ODUM, FERGUSON AND PYLE 
91 
Such data, however, are extremely unsatisfactory to 
the student of natural racial differences. There is 
no information available as to the faithfulness of the 
groups respectively in the matter of school attendance, 
and the quality of teaching in the schools respectively, 
nor are we informed whether the terms were of the 
same length in the three cases under observation. We 
are told that there are no marked differences in the 
way in which the white and colored children responded 
to the tests. Although no statistics are reported by 
the investigator, she does tell us what tests are most 
difficult for the colored group. They are precisely 
those that require home or school training or both for 
most successful performance, and are not, therefore, 
certainly indicative of native qualities. 
Odum (14), Ferguson (4), Pyle (IT), and others 
have contributed to the literature bearing upon the 
same subject. Odum points out that the Binet scale 
applied to a group of 300 colored school children in 
Philadelphia, chosen at random, would indicate that 
while those of the chronological ages five, six, and 
seven, test normal, those more advanced in years are 
far below normal, so that on the whole the negroes 
show 6.3% of feeble-mindedness as compared with but 
3.9% among white children. 
In Ferguson’s experience with colored children their 
response to cancellation and maze or steadiness tests 
is not appreciably different from that of the whites, 
but they are inferior in their reaction to the mixed- 
relations and the Trabue form of the completion test: 
exercises that call upon a degree of facility in logic 
and language; and language, in its turn, is a social 92 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
product, in very large measure, at least. The young- 
sters who figured in these tests were divided into four 
groups according to the depth of coloration. Shade 
was accepted as an indication of the proportion of 
white blood and the author concluded that “ in the 
more intellectual tests, success increased with the pro- 
portion of white blood.” We are not told whether 
those with the largest percentage of white blood in 
their veins were also most successful socially and 
in the economic sense. Pyle distinguished two groups, 
the socially inferior and superior, respectively, but 
made no attempt at distinguishing greater and less 
admixtures of colored and white blood. Those who 
have been most successful in the social sense surpass 
in memory, substitution, association, logical memory, 
and imagination tests. 
Pressey and Teter have concluded as follows from 
an examination of 187 colored and 2800 white chil- 
dren of the same age from the same schools and geo- 
graphical district: 
“ The colored children of a given age are at about 
the average for white children (in the same city) two 
years younger. . . . Analysis by test shows the col- 
ored children to average below white children of the 
same age on all the tests.” 
It should be kept in mind that even between social 
levels within the same race there are considerable men- 
tal differences — as such differences are measured by 
psychological tests. Binet found that between Paris- 
ian school children of the same chronological age in 
the public and private schools, respectively, there was 
a difference of from one to one and a half years men- WORLD WAR DATA 
93 
tally. This difference may be attributed to the quality 
of the home life through which the groups respectively 
had grown up, and not to native characteristics. Those 
who stood higher in the tests — the private school 
group — grew up in the better grade of Parisian home. 
Allowance for this factor should probably be made 
in the comparisons we have at hand, especially in so 
far as the investigators were employing something 
other than performance tests. There is, on the other 
hand, the theory that blood will tell regardless of 
social advantages or disadvantages, and that, there- 
fore, on the whole, those who belong to the lower levels 
of social and economic welfare are, by mental consti- 
tution, inferior. Galton, for example, who believes 
that the negro race has not had a fair chance to 
compete with the whites and at the same time that 
their capacity is about two grades below that of the 
Anglo-Saxon race, is of opinion that social and his- 
torical conditions are no more, on the whole, than 
disturbing factors in the career of genius. This, in- 
deed, is the position assumed by most special students 
of heredity. Such judgments, in so far as they are 
derived from experimentation in the laboratory, as a 
matter of course, are based upon a narrow range of 
observation and should not be accepted as a final 
statement of fact. Further discussion of this point 
may be found in the chapter on progress, particularly 
in the section on intellectual leadership. 
The Division of Psychology of the office of the Sur- 
geon General has brought together data accumulated 
in the army camps in the course of the World War, 
which enables us to make a comparison between white 94 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
and negro adults (13). The negro Group IV* com- 
prising 18,891 individuals is made up of approximately 
a pro-rata selection by states and is therefore de- 
scribed as representative of the negroes of the country 
at large. It is comparable to Group I for whites and 
was selected in the same manner. The pro-rating was 
made on the basis of one recruit to every 250 negro 
males aepording to the census of 1910. The negroes 
of Group IV when compared with whites by the per- 
centage making a given letter grade with the total 
number of white cases similarly distributed, appear to 
show a striking inferiority in intelligence of the col- 
ored troops. 
The comparison is as follows: 
No. of 
Percent Making Grade 
Cases 
D— 
D 
C- C 
c+ 
B 
A 
Whites 
Groups I, II, III 
93,973 
7.0 
17.1 
23.8 25.0 
12.0 
8.0 
4.1 
Negroes 
Group IV 
.18,891 
49.0 
29.7 
12.9 5.7 
2.0 
0.6 
0.1 
These figures represent distinctly a massing of ne- 
groes in the lower grades and of whites in the middle 
grades. Had there been included in the samples a 
fair representation of high officials pro-rated by 
states it is probable that the showing would be still 
more to the disadvantage of the negro group. 
It is important in this connection, too, to observe 
that 65.6% of the negro sample (Group IV) took the 
Beta test (for illiterates) as compared with'but 24.7% 
of the whites in Groups I, II and III. The negro 
* The basis for the groupings I, II, III, IV, etc., has already 
been explained (p. 72). (See the Appendix at the end of this 
volume for a sketchy description of the tests). ARMY DRAFT GROUPS 
95 
group who are represented in this calculation includes 
those who had taken the Alpha test (for literates), 
and who had been recalled for Beta, and those who 
had taken Beta alone. The figures are the more mean- 
ingful because all the negroes in the group are native 
born and speak the English language, whereas a large 
percentage of the whites who took the Beta test were 
immigrants who had difficulty with the language and 
were possibly at disadvantage for this reason alone. 
The large difference between the negro Group IV 
and the white Groups I, II and III appears much less 
formidable when we take the colored Group V into 
account. This is made up of recruits from the follow- 
ing northern states: Illinois, Indiana, New Jersey, 
New York, and Pennsylvania. Owing to incomplete 
records there are no data for Ohio, and because of 
this lack suitable additions were made from New York, 
New Jersey and Illinois so as to make the total from 
all the states named equal to one in every fifty of the 
negro population according to the census of 1910. 
This provides a total of 4705 individuals in Group V 
and makes possible a comparison of the whites of 
Groups I, II and III, negroes of Group IV and negroes 
of Group V, showing the percent of each of the samples 
who took Alpha and were required to take Beta re- 
pectively for final rating: 
No. of 
Cases 
Alpha 
Beta 
All 
Individuals 
Whites 
Groups I, II, III.. 
...93973 
71.8 
24.7 
3.5 
Negroes 
Group IV 
...18891 
30.1 
65.6 
4.3 
Negroes 
Group V 
...4705 
58.2 
39.4 
2.4 96 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
This table indicates a distinct superiority of north- 
ern over southern negroes. It is impossible, on the 
basis of data at hand, to state with any degree of 
satisfaction whether this is due to a difference in 
educational opportunity as between northern and 
southern negroes or to the probable fact that the 
northern group is composed of more intelligent stock 
— and the descendants of such stock — who had 
enough push to lead them to migrate from south to 
north. There is probably no ground for the argu- 
ment that northern representatives of the race contain 
a relatively large admixture of white blood and that 
their superiority is due to this fact. Suffice it to 
say with respect to education that the report on psy- 
chological examination of recruits shows that 19% of 
southern and 7% of northern negro recruits report 
no schooling whatever; more than half of those from 
the southern states have not gone beyond the third 
grade and only 7% finish the eighth. In the northern 
states half do not go beyond the fifth grade, and about 
25% finish the eighth. The median years of schooling 
of the white and colored draft, respectively, is shown 
in the following figures: 
White draft, native born..6.0 (almost through grade 7) 
White draft, foreign 4.7(almost through grade 6) 
Negro draft, northern 4.9(almost through grade 5) 
Negro draft, southern 2.6 (half way through grade 3) 
On the whole the great disparity in showing of 
intelligence between northern and southern negroes 
may, in considerable measure, be accountable to differ- 
ences in schooling, and by the same token this obser- 
vation may apply to the gap between northern negroes NEGROES AND ITALIANS 
97 
and the white draft. After all, however, this observa- 
tion applies best, if at all, to the findings on the Alpha 
test which certainly reflects, more than the Beta, the 
effects of school and home training. But yet the 
difference between northern and southern negroes is 
quite as great in the Beta (requiring little if any school 
and home training for successful completion) as in 
the Alpha test. This, on its face, suggests that in 
the northern group we are dealing with individuals 
whose migration is a selection on the basis of native 
intelligence, and that the test results are an index of 
such intelligence. 
When now we compare negro recruits with 4007 
foreign-born Italians (who comprise about one third 
of all alien recruits in the samplings on which the 
analysis is based) we arrive at the following figures 
showing the percent of negroes (Group IV) and of 
foreign-born Italians who received final rating on 
Alpha and Beta tests respectively: 
Italians 
Number of Cases 
4007 
Alpha 
14.4 
Beta 
72.0 
Negroes 
18891 
30.1 
65.6 
The small percent of Italians finally rated on Alpha 
(14.4) and the large percent rated on Beta (72.0) 
implies an inferiority on their part, as compared with 
the negroes — given approximately equivalent educa- 
tional opportunities — but, on the other hand, a dis- 
tinct inferiority of the black race is indicated by the 
percent of negroes and Italians in the letter grades: 
No. of 
Percent Making Grade 
Cases 
D- 
D 
C- 
C 
c+ 
B 
A 
Italians 4007 
28.4 
40.0 
9.1 
24.4 
2.3 
0.6 
0.2 
Negroes Group IV 18,891 
49.0 
29.7 
12.9 
5.7 
2.0 
0.6 
0.1 98 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
Certain alleged characteristics of the negro as com- 
pared with the white race have been brought forward 
from the basis of ordinary observation. Among these 
the so-called extreme emotionalism of the colored people 
has a prominent place. They are said also to exhibit 
an abnormally enlarged egoistic sense. It is question- 
able whether, in their emotional life as a race, they 
are less stable than, for example, the Mediterranean 
peoples, between whom and the various branches of 
the Teutons there is no such social barrier as that 
which exists between the colored and the white races 
in America. The evidence for their exalted ego, like- 
wise, is drawn from casual observations of individuals, 
much as Charles Dickens obtained his widely heralded 
indices of the characteristics of the elements that made 
up the population of the youthful United States of 
America. Such eccentricities of character are — for 
all the evidence we have at hand — probably to be 
found in any group of people that is but beginning to 
sense its independence. It would be even more appro- 
priate to draw upon the data, ready at our hand, that 
show conclusively the rapidly increasing economic 
competency of the negro in America, in the course of 
the brief space since the Civil War, as proof of the 
substantial quality of the negro and other races in 
America. Such facts as these have a value in con- 
nection with this chapter, comparable to that of statis- 
tics. They are signs, on the whole, of steady and 
persistent reaction tendencies, fixed purposes, self-de- 
nial and of normal intelligence level on the part, at 
least, of those who have become, or are becoming 
economically competent. THE NEGRO’S PROGRESS 
99 
PROGRESS OF AMERICAN NEGRO IN FIFTY-SIX YEARS 
(From the Negro Year-Book, 1922) 
Some Lines of Progress 
1866 
1822 
Gain in 
Fifty-six Years 
Economic Progress —■ 
Homes Owned 
12,000 
650,000 
638,000 
Farms Operated 
20,000 
1,000,000 
980,000 
Businesses Conducted 
2,100 
60,000 
57,900 
Wealth Accumulated 
$20,000,000 
$1,500,000,000 
$1,480,000,000 
Educational Progress — 
Per Cent Literate 
10 
*80 
70 
15 
500 
485 
Students in Public Schools 
100,000 
2,000,000 
1,900,000 
Teachers in all Schools 
600 
44,000 
43,400 
Property for Higher Education.... 
$60,000 
$30,000,000 
$29,940,000 
Annual Expenditures for Education 
$700,000 
$28,000,000 
$27,300,000 
Raised by Negroes 
$80,000 
$2,000,000 
$1,920,000 
Religious Progress —■ 
Number of Churches 
700 
45,000 
44,300 
Number of Communicants 
600,000 
4,800,000 
4,200,000 
Number of Sunday Schools 
1,000 
46,000 
45,000 
Sunday School Pupils 
50,000 
2,250,000 
2,200,000 
Value of Church Property 
$1,500,000 
$90,000,000 
$88,500,000 
* According to the report of the U. S. Army psychological 
examiners 65.6% of negroes in Group IY (18,891, distributed 
proportionally by states) were required to take examination 
Beta. In other words they were illiterate in the sense of the 
army: that is they could not read a newspaper and write a 
letter home. Evidently there is a difference here as to the 
criterion of literacy. 
Among reports based upon more or less casual, but 
from all appearances, careful observation, is one in 
particular that must not escape the attention of the 
student of this subject. Ellsworth Faris (3) lived 
during a number of years in the region of the Upper 
Congo River where he visited villages in which whites 
had never been. The people in this region have no 100 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
written language but their speech indicates that the 
natives think in abstract terms — contrary to the 
common opinion — and that they make many nice dis- 
tinctions that we do not make in English speech; and 
nice distinctions of the sort are generally accepted as 
indicative of intellectual capacity. 
Furthermore, the anthropologists have brought to 
light some interesting facts concerning the remote an- 
cestors of our American negroes that are pertinent to 
our present subject (1). Their art as expressed in 
carving is said to be quite as worthy as that of prim- 
itive European peoples, whose handwork is now the 
prized possession of civilized nations, and their tribal 
government as nicely adapted to the circumstances of 
the times and place in which they lived. 
All of this means, according to our interpretation, 
that in the background of the personalities of these 
people there is such a basis for the development of 
practical and symbolic expression as we recognize 
more clearly in more highly favored peoples. This 
assumes that primitive art is an expression of native 
capacities and dispositions which, therefore, persist 
from one generation to another, and that a race that 
has once demonstrated a given capacity does not lose it. 
however it may be eclipsed by the acquisitions of suc- 
cessive generations. 
On the whole there is an appearance of inferiority 
of the negro as compared with the white race. It is 
most apparent in the results of psychological testing 
in the army. But this may be taken too seriously if 
we overlook the immense economic and educational 
strides the race has made in scarcely more than a OTHER RACIAL GROUPS 
101 
half century, and the further fact that the mass of 
negro recruits are rural folk — southern representa- 
tives of the race particularly — who, owing to a cer- 
tain lack of mental nimbleness fall behind their urban 
brothers in reaction to tests. An inferior endowment 
of the negro race may be acknowledged but that it 
has been exaggerated there is little doubt. The re- 
corded difference between colored and white recruits 
is probably not greater than that between bodies of 
white recruits drawn from different geographical sec- 
tions (11, Part III, Chap. 5). At any rate the claim 
can not be seriously advanced that there is a gap here 
so wide that by itself it constitutes an effective barrier 
against the development of a sense of social unity em- 
bracing the two races, and a spirit of co-operation. 
What barrier there is springs rather from differences 
in physical appearance and from the prejudice that 
attaches to the slave or, for that matter, to other 
menial servants. At any rate, this appears to be a 
hypothesis with sufficient warrant to justify open- 
mindedness against the time when more conclusive 
data may be available. The hypothesis acquires 
additional support from the fact that in England and 
in continental Europe, where there is no history of 
African slavery as in America, there is no such closed 
door between the races as is found in this country. 
Psychologic Traits of Other Racial Groups — 
Le Bon (9) and Ross (20) have described the Chinese 
with slight reference to the psychological factor and 
Radosalevitch (19) has described the Slav. Stevenson 
(21) has discussed the Teutonic, Alpine and Mediter- 
ranean races of Europe, keeping before him the ques- 102 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
tion whether anthropometric type equals sociologic 
type. He assumes that neighboring races should de- 
velop widely different types of institutions if they 
differ markedly by nature in point of anthropological 
and psychologic characteristics. But they do not 
draw strictly racial lines around their institutions. 
Whilst there are anthropologic differences among 
races yet the similarities predominate and it cannot 
be demonstrated that the same race will in all places 
meet the same problem of social adjustment in the 
same way. On the other hand each race is likely to 
solve its problems much as its neighboring races do, or 
in a way that is suitable in view of the total surround- 
ings in the midst of which it is living. Left alone it 
will insensibly adapt itself appropriately. There is no 
assurance that a thousand Slavs planted in America 
will forever live the life of the old-country Slav and 
hand on their institutions, unchanged, to their suc- 
cessors. Yet this assurance should be forthcoming if 
they were essentially a peculiar people compared with 
other races. 
A strong racial group is bound to make an impres- 
sion upon constitutions and laws and other institutions. 
But when one group is imposing institutions upon 
another it must, for reasons of expediency if for no 
other, cut and fit the institutions; this, not because 
Semitic peoples, for instance, are lovers of authority 
and Aryans lovers of liberty; nor because one race is 
generous and the other selfish, nor one stubborn and 
another pliable. No such generalizations as these can 
be made with safety, and even if they could be the 
general trait will always bend before the particular AMERICAN INDIANS 
103 
circumstance — as the young robin with its undiffer- 
entiated disposition for vocal expression takes on the 
manner of singing of its constant and only companion, 
the oriole. The cutting and fitting must be made be- 
cause the racial group stands with a weight of con- 
vention or of tradition upon it. Each individual feels 
as a matter of course, that he personally shares credit 
for the achievements of the race and not only so but 
for the accomplishments of the race’s leaders. It is 
this character of individuals that must be accommo- 
dated and slowly bent when new institutions are im- 
posed. It is the impact of this same character that 
alters the institutions in the new country into which 
the immigrant has come, and there can be no melting 
of racial groups into a civilization very different from 
what is customary — certainly no early melting — 
until adjustment of this character or of those institu- 
tions, or of both together, occurs. Incidentally this is 
one thing that makes government difficult in a popula- 
tion of mixed racial groups and relatively easy in one 
of uniform racial character. It may help to account 
for the complexity and variety of codes in the one 
population and their simplicity and uniformity in 
another. 
Two recent studies of American Indians and cross- 
breeds made altogether independently and by different 
methods yield results that agree, as to this race and 
the whites, with those already cited relating to the 
negro. The Indians were literate pupils in schools 
and colleges. Those of mixed blood, by one investi- 
gator were found to be superior to the full-blooded 
in intellectual capacity by one full year of mental age. 104 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
The other compared white children with Indians of 
full blood and with those of one quarter, one half and 
three quarters of white blood, respectively. He found 
that the cross-bred approximate to the white level 
in proportion to their share of white blood. He 
concludes that the difference is probably due to race 
— and the conclusion is cautiously drawn. It is ex- 
traordinarily difficult in cases of this sort to make nec- 
essary allowances with due conservatism. There is 
always the possibility that the Indian of mixed blood 
owes a degree of his superiority to the social stimuli 
of one or the other parent dating from earliest in- 
fancy: stimuli that from the beginning have induced 
a level of reactions that otherwise would have been 
lacking, and have built up personality complexes that 
are next to original nature as respects substantiality. 
The social stimuli that are most effective in the long 
run are undoubtedly those that the infant receives 
from its mother, for the reason that the child, in its 
earlier years is in closer association with the mother 
than with the father. If the mother be white, there- 
fore, and the father Indian it is probable that the 
personality complexes that have their rise in the in- 
fancy of the offspring will account for an individual 
more divergent from the level of the father’s race than 
would occur if the situation as to parentage were 
reversed. 
Whatever the value of the foregoing observation in 
this connection it should be equally weighty whatever 
races are concerned. Many observers of human af- 
fairs, and amongst them, Stoddard, have duly rec- 
ognized the general principle involved (22). Speaking COOPER QUOTED 
105 
of the improving status of women amongst oriental 
peoples he says: 44 The social consequences of this 
rising status of women, not only to women themselves, 
but also to the community at large, are very impor- 
tant. In the East, the harem is, as Vambery well 
says, the 4 bulwark of obscurantism.’ Ignorant and 
fanatical herself, the harem woman implants her ig- 
norance and fanaticism in her sons as well as in her 
daughters. What could be a worse handicap for the 
Eastern ‘ intellectual ’ than his boyhood years spent 
‘ behind the veil ’ ? No wonder that enlightened Ori- 
ental fathers have been in the habit of sending their 
boys to school at the earliest possible age in order to 
get them as soon as possible out of the stultifying 
atmosphere of harem life. Yet even this has proved 
merely a palliative. Childhood impressions are ever 
the most lasting, and so long as one half of the Orient 
remained untouched by progressive influences, Oriental 
progress had to be begun again de novo with every 
succeeding generation. 
44 The increasing number of enlightened Oriental 
women is remedying this defect. As Cooper in The 
Modernizing of the Orient says: 4 Give the mothers 
education and you transform the whole situation. 
Girls who are learning other things than the unintel- 
ligible phrases of the Koran are certain to impart such 
knowledge as daughters, sisters, and mothers, to their 
respective households. Women who learn housewifery, 
methods of modern cooking, sewing, and sanitation in 
the domestic-economy schools, are bound to cast about 
the home upon their return the atmosphere of a civi- 
lized community. The old-time picture of the Oriental 106 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
woman spending her hours upon divans, eating sweet- 
meats, and indulging in petty and degrading gossip 
with the servants or with women as ignorant as her- 
self, will be changed. The new woman will be a com- 
panion rather than a slave or a toy of her husband. 
Marriage will advance from the stage of a paltry 
trade in bodies to something like a real union, involv- 
ing respect toward the woman by both sons and 
fathers, while in a new pride of relationship the woman 
herself will be discovered.’ ” 
How far the tests that have been employed to de- 
termine racial differences actually unearth capacities 
or original endowments rather than acquisitions is yet 
open to investigation; excepting, very probably, those 
tests that are most exclusively of capabilities for effect- 
ing concrete motor adjustments. 
A study of the intelligence of oriental and American 
student intelligence (27) has been directed especially 
toward a comparison of (1) concentration of attention, 
(2) speed of learning, (3) association-time, (4) imme- 
diate memory, (5) deferred memory, (6) range of 
information. The following results were reported: 
SCORES 
Test 
American 
Chinese 
Indian 
1.... 
75 
75 
62 
2.... 
6(5 
62 
45 
3.... 
46 
38 
58 
4 
, . 
54 
5.... 
80 
. . 
88 
6.... 
23 
15 
24 
The most significant thing in these results is the 
low score of the East Indians on Number 1 — concen- McDOUGALL QUOTED 
107 
tration of attention which Professor James (Principles, 
II, p. 562) and many others have been in the habit of 
identifying with will — and which undoubtedly is, 
however we define the term, a very prominent aspect 
of the complex act of willing. The disadvantage of the 
lack of data of this sort when we attempt a comparison 
of races and peoples undoubtedly counterbalances much 
of the advantage that accrues from the possession of 
information relating to the remaining points in the 
table above. Observation of men in their relations to 
one another furnishes, again and again, support for 
the hypothesis that the superiority of one over another 
in such matters as the management of men and things; 
the solution of intricate problems of whatever sort and 
ultimately gaining the recognition of one’s professional 
colleagues or what not, lies just in this capacity for 
sustained or concentrated attention. This amounts 
to saying that the superiority of one people or nation 
over another may be traceable to the same source — 
at least in their leaders. This is not passing over 
the obvious truth that in other respects psychic equip- 
ment must be normal. 
Professor McDougall, commenting upon the scores 
quoted above, has the following to say in respect to 
the Indian people (12): “Now the more or less 
orderly and successful government of three hundred 
millions of India by a mere handful of British men, 
during more than a century, is one of the most remark- 
able facts in the history of the world. It is a marvel- 
ous achievement. And Englishmen have marvelled over 
it. And, when they have sought to explain how it has 
been possible, they have always come to the same con- 108 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
elusion. They have recognized that the natives of 
India, or very many of them, have much intellectual 
capacity; that they are clever, quick, versatile, reten- 
tive; that some of them have brilliant intellects. But 
such observers have frequently expressed the opinion 
that, as compared with their British rulers, the natives 
of India are relatively defective in character or will- 
power; and they have found the explanation of British 
ascendency in this fact. ... If this conclusion is 
really well-founded, as it seems to be, may we not 
infer from it that, if the qualities of Indians and 
British had been reversed in this single respect — if 
the Indians had been as innately superior in will-power 
as they seem to be inferior — then, not improbably, 
a few Indians would at the present time be ruling over 
and administering the affairs of all Europe, and per- 
haps of all America as well? It is a strange reflection. 
It is not utterly fantastic and absurd. It may at 
least serve to suggest how profoundly peculiarities of 
moral constitution may affect the destinies of peoples.” 
Benjamin Kidd, who might be pardoned, by reason 
of nationality for partiality toward Britain, once 
described France as the “ head of the intellectual 
nations of the west ” notwithstanding that she was 
continually worsted in her struggle with England dur- 
ing the second half of the eighteenth century. Eng- 
land, during the period, continually enlarged her terri- 
tory and cramped her adversary. The secret springs of 
success, as Kidd conceived them, lay in British char- 
acter. He says: “ The qualities which made these 
results possible were neither brilliant nor intellectual. 
. . . They are not qualities which impress the imag- FRENCH CHARACTER 
109 
ination. They are, above all, strength and energy of 
character, honesty, and integrity, simple devotion and 
the idea of duty. Those who attribute the enormous 
influence which the English-speaking peoples have ac- 
quired in the world to the Machiavellic manoeuvres of 
their leaders are often very far from the truth. This 
influence is largely the result of qualities which have 
nothing brilliant about them” (10). 
These qualities are without doubt even more telling 
in the pursuit of industry and commerce in hum-drum 
peace-time than in the more romantic clash of military 
force and diplomacy. Le Bon, having commented upon 
the enormous inferiority of the French in industrial 
life as compared with the Germans — an inferiority 
that was elaborately demonstrated before the war in 
the report of the National Association for Economic 
Expansion in France — says (10): “. . . The gen- 
eral causes of our industrial insufficiency are indeed 
of a psychological order, since this insufficiency re- 
sults, as the inquiry has proved, from certain defects 
of character which are identical in all our industries. 
“ Among the most disastrous we may count the 
absence of solidarity, which renders the manufacturer 
incapable of disciplined and co-ordinated collective 
effort; the spirit of routine, which makes it impossible 
for him to introduce any change in established 
methods; and the dread of incurring risks, the tim- 
idity and the lack of initiative which make him fearful 
of large undertakings. 
“ Our lack of solidarity is a very old story. Col- 
bert remarked upon it long ago. In one of his 
memoirs the famous Minister bitterly deplores ‘ that 110 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
the French, the most civilized people in the world, 
should find it so hard to endure one another, that 
combination among them should be so difficult and 
their associations so unstable, and that the most fa- 
vorable ventures should come to naught in their hands 
by I know not what fatality.’ ” 
There is good reason to assume that in the future 
as in the past the race will be run successfully, not 
necessarily by the most alert, but by those who will 
not only map out their course, but who will persist 
in it. 
Rigid racial unity has perhaps never survived in 
the period of advanced culture when two races are in 
contact. Variations there will probably always be and 
there is room for them in a civilization as complex as 
ours, but the widest of them are insensibly toned down 
when variant peoples breathe the same social atmos- 
phere and are immersed in the same cultural system. 
The process through which this is accomplished is 
identical with the course of psychic events that termi- 
nates, on a smaller scale, in the conventionalities that 
make up much of the religious and political and other 
aspects of the social life of a neighborhood. 
The Scientific Attitude — The scientific attitude 
toward these problems of comparison of racial mental 
qualities is so admirably illustrated by Franz Boas 
that we quote below from him at length: (2) 
“ I will now select a few of the mental qualities 
which are most persistently claimed as racial char- 
acteristics of the lower groups of mankind. Among 
the emotional characters impulsiveness is considered 
the most fundamental. Most of the proofs for this BOAS QUOTED 
111 
alleged peculiarity are based on the fickleness and un- 
certainty of the disposition of primitive man and on 
the strength of his passions aroused by seemingly 
trifling causes. I will say right here, that the trav- 
eller or student measures the fickleness of the people 
by the importance which he attributes to the actions 
or purposes in which they do not persevere, and he 
weighs the impulse for outbursts of passion by this 
standard. Let me give an example. The traveller, 
desirous to reach his goal as soon as possible, engages 
men to start on a journey at a certain time. To him 
time is exceedingly valuable. But what is time to 
primitive man who does not feel the compulsion of 
completing a definite work at a definite time? While 
the traveller is fuming and raging over the delay, his 
men keep up their merry chatter and laughter and 
cannot be induced to exert themselves except to please 
their master. Would they not be right in stigmatizing 
the impulsiveness and lack of control of many a trav- 
eller when irritated by a trifling cause like loss of 
time? Instead of this the traveller complains of the 
fickleness of the natives who quickly lose interest in 
the objects which the traveller has at heart. The 
proper way to compare the fickleness of the savage 
and that of the white is to compare their behavior in 
undertakings which are equally important to each. 
Does not primitive man persevere wonderfully in the 
manufacture of his utensils and weapons? Does he 
shrink from privations and hardships which promise 
to fill his ambition of obtaining higher rank among his 
fellows? The Indian, fasting in the mountains, await- 
ing the appearance of his guardian spirit, the youth 112 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
who must give proof of his bravery and endurance 
before being accepted in the ranks of the men of his 
tribe, may be adduced as examples. The alleged 
fickleness may always be explained by a difference of 
the valuation of motives and is not a specific charac- 
teristic of primitive man. Primitive man perseveres 
in certain pursuits which differ from those in which 
civilized man perseveres. 
“ The same may be said of the outbursts of passion 
occasioned by slight provocations. What would a 
primitive man say to the noble passion which preceded 
and accompanied the War of the Rebellion? Would 
not the rights of slaves seem to him a most irrelevant 
question? On the other hand, we have ample proof 
that his passions are just as much controlled as ours, 
only in different directions. The numerous customs 
and restrictions regulating the relations of the sexes 
or the use of the food supply may serve as examples. 
The difference in impulsiveness may be fully explained 
by the different weight of motives in both cases. In 
short, perseverance and control of passion are de- 
manded of primitive man as well as of civilized man 
but on different occasions. If they are not demanded 
as often, the cause must be looked for not in the 
inherent inability to produce them, but in the social 
status which does not demand them to the same 
extent.” 
And again says Boas in the same connection: 
“ I will select one more trait which has often been 
adduced as the primary reason why certain races 
cannot rise to higher levels of culture, namely, their 
lack of originality. It is said that the conservatism PRIMITIVE ORIGINALITY 
113 
of primitive man is so strong that the individual never 
deviates from the traditional customs and beliefs. 
While there is certainly truth in this statement in so 
far as customs are more binding than in civilized 
society, at least in its most highly developed types, 
originality is a trait which is by no means lacking in 
the life of primitive people. I will call to mind the 
great frequency of the appearance of prophets among 
newly-converted tribes as well as among pagan tribes. 
Among the latter we learn quite frequently of new 
dogmas which have been introduced by such individ- 
uals. It is true that these may often be traced to the 
influence of the ideas of neighboring tribes, but they 
are modified by the individuality of the person and 
grafted upon the current beliefs of the people. It 
is a well-known fact that myths and beliefs have been 
disseminated and undergo changes in the process of 
dissemination. Undoubtedly this has often been accom- 
plished by the independent thought of individuals. I 
believe one of the best examples of such independent 
thought is furnished by the history of the ghost-dance 
ceremonies in North America. I am indebted to Mr. 
James Mooney, a close student of this subject, for 
the following opinion: ‘ Briefly and broadly it may be 
stated that the more primitive a people, the more 
original their thought. Indian prophets are usually 
original as to their main doctrine, but are quick to 
borrow anything that may serve to make it more im- 
pressive. Heathenism is usually tolerant and the 
Indian sees no inconsistency in adding to his heathen- 
ism anything that he can borrow from Christianity.’ 
A few cases which have come under my own observa- 114 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
tion are entirely in accord with this opinion; that is 
to say, the doctrine of the Indian prophet is new, 
but based upon the ideas of his own people, their 
neighbors, and the teachings of missionaries. The 
notion of future life of the Kwakiutl of Vancouver 
Island has undergone a change in this manner, in so 
far as the idea of the return of the dead in children 
of their own family has arisen. The same independent 
attitude may be observed in the replies of the Nic- 
araguan Indians to the questions regarding their 
religion which were put to them by Bobadilla and 
which were reported by Oviedo. 
“ To my mind the mental attitude of individuals who 
thus develop the beliefs of a tribe is exactly that of 
the civilized philosopher. The student of the history 
of philosophy is well aware how strongly the mind of 
even the greatest genius is influenced by the current 
thought of the time. This has been well expressed by 
my friend Rudolph Lehmann in his work on Schopen- 
hauer. ‘ The character of a system of philosophy is, 
just as that of any other literary work, determined 
first of all by the personality of its originator. Every 
true philosophy reflects the life of the philosopher as 
well as every true poem that of the poet. Secondly, 
it bears the general marks of the period to which it 
belongs, and the more powerful the ideas wrhich it 
proclaims, the more strongly it will be permeated by 
the currents of thought which fluctuate in the life of 
the period. Thirdly, it is influenced by the particular 
bent of philosophical thought of the period.’ 
“ If such is the case among the greatest minds of 
all times, why should we wonder that the thinker in NO SPECIFIC DIFFERENCES 
115 
primitive society is strongly influenced by the current 
thought of his time? Unconscious and conscious imita- 
tion are factors influencing civilized society, as has 
been shown by G. Tarde, who has proved that primi- 
tive man and civilized man, as well, imitates not such 
actions only as are useful, and for the imitation of 
which logical causes may be given, but also others 
for the adoption or preservation of which no logical 
reason can be assigned. 
“ Based on these considerations we believe that in 
the more complicated psychological phenomena no 
specific differences between lower and higher races can 
be found. By this, however, we do not mean to say 
that no differences exist or can be found, only that the 
method of investigation must be different. It does 
not seem probable that the minds of races which 
show variations in their anatomical structure should 
act in exactly the same manner. Differences of struc- 
ture must be accompanied by differences of function, 
physiological as well as psychological; and, as we 
found clear evidence of difference in structure between 
the races, so we must anticipate that differences in 
mental characteristics will be found. Thus, a smaller 
size or lesser number of nervous elements would prob- 
ably entail loss of mental energy, and paucity of con- 
nections in the central nervous system would produce 
sluggishness of the mind. As stated before, it seems 
probable that some differences of this character will 
be found between the white and the negro, for 
instance, but they have not been proved yet. As all 
structural differences are quantitative, we must ex- 
pect to find mental differences to be of the same 116 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
description, and as we found the variations in struc- 
ture to overlap, so that many forms are common to 
individuals of all races, so we may expect that many 
individuals will not differ in regard to their faculty, 
while a statistical inquiry embracing the whole race 
would reveal certain differences. Furthermore, as 
certain anatomical traits are found to be hereditary 
in certain families and hence in tribes and perhaps 
even in peoples, in the same manner mental traits 
characterize certain families and may prevail among 
tribes. It seems, however, an impossible undertaking 
to separate in a satisfactory manner the social and 
the hereditary features. Galton’s attempt to estab- 
lish the laws of hereditary genius points out a way 
of treatment for these questions which will prove use- 
ful in so far as it opens a method of determining the 
influence of heredity upon mental qualities. 
“ On account of this difficulty I do not enter upon 
a discussion of the characters of nations. Much has 
been said about the hereditary characteristics of the 
Jews, of the gypsies, of the French and Irish, but I 
do not see that the social senses which have moulded 
the character of members of these people have ever 
been eliminated satisfactorily; and, moreover, I do not 
see how this can be accomplished without previous 
investigations into the question as to which groups 
of mental qualities are hereditary. A number of ex- 
ternal factors may easily be named: climate, nutrition, 
occupation; but, as soon as we enter into a consider- 
ation of social factors, we are unable to separate 
cause and effect or external and internal factors. The 
first-named groups effect the physiological functions BARRIERS NOT INTELLECTUAL 
117 
of the body and through them the mind. An excellent 
discussion of these influences upon the character of a 
people is given by A. Wernich in his description of 
the character of the Japanese. He finds some of their 
peculiarities caused by the lack of vigor of the mus- 
cular and alimentary which in their turn 
are due to improper nutrition, while he recognizes 
other physiological traits which influence the mind 
as hereditary. We may expect to find still more 
far-reaching effects of malnutrition which was con- 
tinued through long generations among the Bushmen 
and the Lapps.” 
Without over-assurance we may say in the light of 
the evidence that there are no intellectual differences 
amongst races of the degree that should make it 
impossible for them to get together upon such a 
plane as to assure mutual understanding, sympathy 
and co-operation. If there are insuperable barriers 
they are of a different sort. With this statement 
Professor Thorndike appears to be in general agree- 
ment. After a review of studies in racial differ- 
ences, in acuteness of sense perception and in intel- 
lectual capacity, he says: “ Again, the civilization — 
the habits and customs — of a race need not be in a 
direct proportion to its intellect, even if entirely 
caused by it. A very slight difference in intellect 
might give one race supremacy over another, enable 
it to condemn the other to servitude and so free its 
own intellect from unconstructive labor. It would 
thenceforth progress in civilization much more rapidly 
than the other. What the mental ability of a race 
actually achieves is due to the conditions under which 118 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
it operates, and a race may put on or put off such 
conditions or have them imposed or removed by other 
races, for all sorts of reasons. 
“ From all these facts each student may make his 
own estimate of the original mental differences of 
races, and learn at least the need of more actual 
measurements of race differences and of intelligence 
in interpreting them. My own estimate is that 
greater differences will be found in the case of the 
so-called higher traits, such as the capacity to asso- 
ciate and to analyze, thinking with parts, or elements, 
and originality, than in the case of the sensory 
and sensori-motor traits, but that there will be 
great overlapping. Calling the difference between the 
original capacity of the lowest congenital idiot and 
that of the average modern European 100, I should 
expect the average deviation of one pure race* from 
another in original capacity to be below 10 and above 
1, and the difference between the central tendencies of 
the most and the least gifted races to be below 50 and 
above 10. I should consider 3 and 25 as reasonable 
guesses for the two differences. 
“ Even if the differences were far larger than these, 
the practical precept for education would remain 
unchanged. It is, of course, that selection by race 
of original natures to be educated is nowhere nearly 
as effective as selection of the superior individuals 
regardless of race. There is much overlapping and 
the differences in original nature within the same race 
* Defining a pure race arbitrarily as one whose ancestry has 
less than 1 per cent of community with that of any other race 
for at least 20 generations back. CONCLUSION 
119 
are, except in extreme cases, many times as great as 
the differences between races as wholes.” 
Conclusion — What insuperable barriers there are 
between races are not such as we have usually assumed. 
What radical differentia do exist without doubt are in 
respect to physical appearance. In so far as these 
form an inescapable mark of indentification they con- 
stitute a serious barrier because, on one hand, they are 
a constant reminder of race prejudices: prejudices 
that represent a defense reaction on our part toward a 
race that by crowding us may take our place in 
commerce, industry, agriculture, discovery or what 
not and thus edge out of our hands, a bit at a time, 
our means of living. They are attitudes that are 
assumed toward the strong or those who, we fear, 
may prove to be strong. But if these physical 
characteristics are not permanent and certain marks 
of identification we neglect them. They are not, 
therefore, constant reminders that keep prejudices 
alive and that maintain our reactions of defense. The 
way to amalgamation of races is open if differences 
in physical appearance are not striking. Witness the 
history of representatives of the Teutonic and Slavic 
and Mediterranean races in America. 
But where indelible marks of racial identification do 
occur the situation is different. In this case it is 
less prejudice than revulsion, without deserving so 
strong a term. It is not directed necessarily against 
the strong who are able and aggressive enough to 
deprive us, nor against those whom we suspect 
of strength and aggressiveness. Whether we like to 
admit it or not it is often turned toward the weak. 120 
THE RACIAL FACTOR 
There is more or less of hesitation on our part in the 
matter of approaching those who are like us yet 
markedly different in human form, as dwarfs and 
others who are deformed by nature. It is possible, 
too, that those of us who bear unsightly scars are at 
better ease when we have hidden them from view be- 
cause we recognize the existence of such a motive in 
human kind. If there is any natural antipathy 
amongst races it is probably due to such causes as 
these. 
Whether inter-racial barriers are due to different 
levels of intellectual capacity, to prejudice with its 
tap root in fear or to a feeling akin to revulsion be- 
cause of striking differences in appearance, there is 
but one way around them; a way that will be apparent 
to representatives of the races respectively only when 
they seek it thoughtfully: let each representative do 
carefully what lies nearest his hand in the place where 
he may be. Then as we observe one another at work 
there will gradually emerge a recognition of each one’s 
capacities, adaptability and usefulness. Inevitably, 
then, as in all social relations, they will draw together 
in a matter of course relationship, and then the bar- 
riers will have vanished. 
“ Under the influence of common environment, in- 
terest, language and religion these heterogeneous races 
may, by a process of fusion, become one homogeneous 
race. 
“ Fusion between different peoples is the work of 
centuries. Having insufficient time at their disposal, 
the founders of various empires — Turkey, Russia, 
and Austria notably — have simply replaced it by CONCLUSION 
force. Their work has always remained, for this 
reason, somewhat artificial, and the populations, how- 
ever submissive in appearance, are not yet amal- 
gamated ” (22). CHAPTER VI 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
In this chapter we (1) discuss two definitions of 
suggestion and suggestibility, and (2) describe the 
conditions that affect both. This should enable us 
(3) to understand the limitations of suggestion and 
suggestibility as means of arriving at large social 
unities. 
Titchener defines suggestion as “ any stimulus, 
external or internal, accompanied or unaccompanied 
by consciousness, which touches off a determining 
tendency” (13). For example, in the simple reaction 
experiment the instruction to react on a given signal 
sets off a determining tendency which releases the 
reaction movement. What made the reactor ready to 
accept instruction? What brought him into the 
laboratory? What brought him to the university? 
What brought him to seek an education in any uni- 
versity? In each case a previous suggestion. The 
reaction to this train of previous suggestions, each in 
its turn, has developed a complex disposition because 
of which the reaction is made as a matter of course, 
once the stimulus is presented. 
This definition makes suggestion no different from 
a command or a sensory stimulus. To understand 
the response to a command or a sensory stimulus we 
must assume that a tendency or a disposition has DETERMINING TENDENCY 
123 
already been prepared which is of such a nature that 
it may be touched off by the appropriate word, ges- 
ture, or other stimulus. We would not command an 
ox to attend to the demonstration of a geometrical 
proposition because we assume that the animal has 
no disposition favorable to such a reaction. Nor is 
suggestion in this case different from any stimulus 
in the technical sense. A certain visual impression 
awakens the train of processes which ends in the 
emotion of fear. But the visual stimulus occasioned 
by the presence of a serpent, e.g., could have no rela- 
tion to fear were there not already a determining 
tendency to be touched off by it. It is difficult to con- 
ceive of any reaction that is not a response to a sug- 
gestion according to this definition. 
Again we have suggestion defined by Bunnerman, 
not as an external condition or stimulus, but as a 
mental state of expectancy or emotional disturbance: 
as an unusual working of the function of interpre- 
tation due to expectancy or emotional disturbance (1). 
If we accept the view that expectancy is a state 
both of mental and physiological readiness or pre- 
paredness for response — more or less definite response 
according as attention is more or less sharply focused 
in a particular direction— then this definition con- 
fuses suggestion in Titchener’s sense with the “ deter- 
mining tendency ” that is “ set off ” by a stimulus, 
and with the act of interpreting the stimulus. The 
implication in Bunnerman’s viewpoint is that the 
suggestion in Titchener’s sense must be accepted by 
the person to whom it is addressed and that it must 
become a part of his personality, so to speak. Or as 124 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
certain practitioners in the field of mental therapy, 
Coue and his disciples, for instance, put it: suggestion 
must run into nwio-suggestion in order that it may be 
effective. • The one — Titchener — emphasizes the 
part of the stimulus or the one who presents it; the 
other — Bunnerman — stresses that of the one who 
reacts. Titchener’s “ tendency ” is as substantial as 
human nature. Bunnerman’s “ expectancy or emo- 
tional disturbance,” as a state of consciousness which 
is implied, is as temporary as the particular occasion 
that elicits it. On the one hand, the usualness of 
suggestion and response receives the emphasis, where- 
as on the other, it is described as “ unusual.” All 
definitions of the term now in vogue closely approxi- 
mate one or the other of the foregoing points of view. 
There is, moreover, the definition of the term, intol- 
erable because of its implications, as the transmission 
of a conviction or an idea from one person to another. 
An adequate treatment of suggestion and suggesti- 
bility must recognize the former as in the nature of a 
stimulus and the latter as relating to a degree of 
sensitiveness or of readiness to react on the part of 
the more or less stable dispositions or tendencies of 
human nature. The two are functionally related. 
Suggestibility is the usual or normal, not the unusual 
or abnormal state of the human organism. Suggesti- 
bility is sharpened temporarily by fleeting expectation 
and by emotional disturbances, but it is not traceable 
wholly to a temporary emotional condition. 
As to the suggestion, only confusion results from 
overlapping it with the command or with the “ stim- 
ulus ” in the technical sense in which this term is DETERMINING TENDENCY 
125 
employed in our chapters on sensation. It is not 
a direct appeal, such as a command, in the ordinary 
sense, issued by one person to another, in the 
full light of awareness of what is going on, nor as a 
sensory stimulus which, in its most technical sense is 
a particular vibration of a gas or a solid or a par- 
ticular chemical reaction that produces a response in 
a group of nerve cells whose function has become so 
differentiated from that of other cells that they can 
react normally to nothing else. Thus one might sus- 
pend pictures until doomsday before the ears of one’s 
neighbor without so much as beginning to excite his 
auditory nerve. So soon, however, as vibrations of air 
are reflected into his ears, that is, at the moment the 
atmosphere vibrating at a certain rate, is made to 
impinge upon his auditory apparatus a reaction 
occurs in it — a sensory response. The suggestion, 
on the other hand, is conceived as an indirect awaken- 
ing of a determining tendency, not in full conscious- 
ness — on the part of the one who receives the sug- 
gestion — of what is going on. It is in consequence 
of this subterranean route by which the suggestion 
operates upon the subject that he, in reacting upon 
it, has more the sense of acting on his own initiative 
than of responding to external influence. He appears 
to be acting on his own initiative because there are 
no conflicting tendencies. Those that in other situa- 
tions would conflict have become “ dissociated ” or 
thrown out of connection. He is, so far as his 
suggested behavior is concerned, in a state analogous 
to that of children and other immature persons whose 
sum of experience is small by reason of their having 126 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
a paucity of contacts with many angles of life. They 
have, therefore, not yet developed a host of disposi- 
tions or tendencies toward reaction of many sorts 
which together insure a capacity for inhibition. We 
are using “ dissociated ” and “ disassociation ” in the 
sense of the psycho-analysts as relating to a dis- 
connection amongst submerged complexes; complexes 
that have been repressed, it may be voluntarily, be- 
cause the social atmosphere makes it urgent so to 
do, or because for other reasons there is no oppor- 
tunity to give them an outlet in the course of behavior. 
Thus through mere lack of opportunity for outlet 
many a one submerges without destroying, those com- 
plexes that would otherwise express themselves in 
play and in the care of children. Most of us volun- 
tarily submerge a complex that is the root of one or 
another ambition, but in neither case is it destroyed. 
It is described as, even in its submerged state, “ intelli- 
gent ” in the sense of being adaptable to circum- 
stances, and as affecting the contentedness of the 
individual and as exercising more or less independent 
control of the ordinary forms of activity when re- 
straints are removed or sufficiently reduced. We solve 
problems “ in our sleep.” The somnambulist climbs 
over the partially completed frame of a barn, or goes 
directly to the spot where he had placed his check for 
safe-keeping, and there he finds it after having spent 
days in fruitless, anxious search for it when the full 
light of awareness was on. These are intelligent 
forms of behavior that are performed through the 
agency of complexes submerged and dissociated. In 
normal waking life suggestion operates to reduce DISSOCIATION 
127 
restraint; remove inhibitions; in other words, to pro- 
duce the state of at least partial dissociation. By this 
we do not mean to imply that the dissociated state we 
are considering is one of passivity. Obviously it is 
quite the contrary. But there is a shifting of activity 
from one department of the organism, so to speak, to 
another. 
Suggestibility as Dissociation. — Suggestibility 
is understood, therefore, as that condition of the 
organism in which one or another determining tend- 
ency or disposition may express itself with relative 
freedom. In extreme suggestibility this freedom of 
expression is most marked. It is untrammeled by the 
inhibitions that normally control. The active dis- 
position or tendency has been, partially, at least, 
dissociated from others, to use a phrase that is cur- 
rent among students of the abnormal mind. In other 
words, it functions at least in a considerable degree 
of independence of the whole system of dispositions 
that make up the personality. This is the point of 
view that is represented by Sidis (9). “Abnormal 
suggestibility is a disaggregation of consciousness, a 
slit, a scar, produced in the mind, a crack that may 
extend wider and deeper, ending at last in the total 
disjunction of the waking, guiding, controlling con- 
sciousness from the reflex consciousness; from the rest 
of the stream of life.” In normal suggestibility “ the 
lesion effected in the body of consciousness is super- 
ficial, transitory, fleeting. In abnormal suggestibility, 
on the contrary, the slit is deep and lasting — it is 
a severe gash. In both cases, however, we have a 
removal, a dissociation of the waking from the sub- 128 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
waking, reflex consciousness, and suggestion is effected 
only through the latter. It is the sub-waking, the 
reflex, not the waking, the controlling consciousness 
that is suggestible. Suggestibility is the attribute, the 
very essence of the sub-waking, reflex consciousness. 
. . . Suggestibility varies as the degree of disag- 
gregation, and inversely as the unification of conscious- 
ness.” The conception is a reminder of the highly 
segmented animal. It gets on best when all of its 
parts are properly joined, each to each; but any one 
segment is capable of a more or less independent exist- 
ence. 
Suggestibility Due to Superstitious Nature. — 
If this is the correct view of the case we are pre- 
pared to understand that there are two large types of 
background for suggestibility. One is in our natural, 
the other in our acquired, dispositions. 
There is our superstitious nature which is never 
quite held in leash by our scientific and professional 
habits. Signs and portents, shadows in the moon- 
light, etc., affect our attitude and our behavior more 
than we are often willing to acknowledge, and bring 
into the foreground of consciousness images and fears 
with their appropriate reactions which appear to the 
observer, in view of the occasioning shadow or what 
not, to be very far-fetched. They produce their 
effects by reason of the existence in the organism of a 
disposition fostered in us by years of wondering at 
phenomena which we are unable to understand. This 
disposition is never fully integrated with our acqui- 
sitions ; it is always more or less dissociated from those 
dispositions that would control it, and it is, therefore, SUPERSTITIOUS NATURE 
129 
so to speak, upon a hair trigger and ready to be 
touched off upon slight provocation. 
Rarely has suggestibility, resting upon this back- 
ground of superstition-disposition, been so well illus- 
trated on a large scale as in the witchcraft craze. 
Stoll (11), commenting on the atrocious witch trial 
at Zug, Switzerland, in 1737, shows how completely 
even some learned judges of the time suffered a dis- 
sociation between their superstition-complex and other 
complexes, which we usually think of as exercising 
control or restraint. They were under the spell of the 
universal witchcraft belief of the times. They did 
not, and could not in the psychological situation, 
recognize how perfectly the accounts that the accused 
gave of themselves tallied with the objective circum- 
stances. One of them, Kathri Gilli, had a small bag 
of white powder. Her accuser declared it was a 
poison for the destruction of cattle. She explained 
that it was oat flour, showed that it had no ill effect 
upon a dog when a portion was fed to him, and she 
offered to prove it harmless by partaking of it her- 
self. Nevertheless the witchcraft idea so obsessed 
the mind of the court that Kathri was found guilty 
and sentenced to the rack: a victim of the super- 
sensitive superstitious nature of her neighbors. 
A similar illustration is found in the great Ken- 
tucky religious revival of 1799-1800. (8) The same 
disposition-complex to stand in wonderment and awe 
before what is not understood and the natural dis- 
position to seek alliance with a real or imagined 
stronger power in times of uncertainty or imagined 
distress compose the sensitive background which needs 130 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
but to be touched to make it respond in the form of 
religious frenzy. 
Disposition to Agree with the Strong. — Again, 
it is the disposition to follow after the strong, or those 
who show evidence of strength, that makes us pecu- 
liarly open to suggestion from men and women of 
prestige, whether their prestige is due to social or 
economic, or professional position; to physical or 
mental qualities for leadership, or what not. The 
reports concerning testimony offered by children show 
how fatally the replies of the young are determined 
by the character of the questions that are put to them 
in court. Note, for example, a very striking case 
in Belgium in 1910: three little girls, aged nine and 
ten, had been playing by the roadside. In the eve- 
ning they separated; two who were sisters went to- 
gether to their home and the third set off in a dif- 
ferent direction to her home. The next morning this 
girl was found by the roadside, murdered. The two 
sisters were awakened and asked of the whereabouts 
of their companion of the day before. They replied, 
“We do not know7.” Nevertheless the detectives in the 
case succeeded in putting into their mouths the state- 
ment that they had seen a stranger on the previous 
day, a man w7ho stopped to speak with them. He wore 
a black mustache, a slouch hat, and black clothing. 
Such a man was then arrested and brought to trial. 
There was additional incriminating testimony by the 
two sisters: questions and answers aggregated hun- 
dreds of pages in typewritten form. The defense 
sought and obtained permission to try an experiment 
in testimony before the court. He brought a group TESTIMONY 
131 
of school children into the courtroom and plied them 
with questions concerning the man who, on that morn- 
ing, had crossed their school yard and engaged their 
teacher in conversation at the door of the school. The 
children’s answers built up a detailed account of the 
appearance of the man, even to his necktie, and they 
spoke of their teacher’s agitation when the stranger 
had gone. As a matter of fact no stranger had been 
seen on the school premises on that day. The ques- 
tioner had been able to play upon their sensitive com- 
plexes and to stimulate spontaneous expression. The 
whole performance illustrates the play of suggestion 
upon a suggestible make-up. (15) 
Children have not the advantage of acquired dis- 
positions, or the results of experience, that compose 
complexes in conflict with their natural disposition to 
ally themselves with the apparently strong, and con- 
sequently they give assent whereas they would other- 
wise withhold it. The effect would be the same if 
these experiences had in fact been acquired but had 
been dissociated from the more primitive tendency to 
yield to the prestige of strength, position, or what 
not. 
But the testimony of adults, too, particularly if 
it is offered with respect to an exciting situation, illus- 
trates the response of the suggestible disposition. 
The inclination to agree with the strong is not, how- 
ever, so patent as in the false testimony of children. 
A time of excitement is one of emotional instability. 
One does not have one’s self “ in hand.” Self-control 
and even the unity of the personality are threatened. 
It is a time of contending impulses to run away and 132 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
to stand firm; to fight and to surrender; of fleeting, 
unsteady attention to each one of many interpretations 
of the situation or adjustments to it. The whole be- 
havior, both in the sense of conscious and of overt 
activity at such times comprises symptoms of an 
organism that is in turmoil through and through. 
On the side of conscious life at least partial dissocia- 
tions are the rule.. The whole organization of com- 
plexes can not be brought to bear for the purpose of 
interpretation. Hence the great variety of disposi- 
tions that are forth-coming from the members of a 
group respecting the same exciting event. It is essen- 
tially a case of suggestion and response. 
Two classical illustrations are here presented of the 
reactions of the suggestible natures of adults of 
mature judgment as demonstrated by their testimony 
concerning exciting situations: 
In Professor von Liszt’s famous school of criminol- 
ogy in Vienna, several years ago, an attempt at murder 
was staged before a group of students of law in the 
final year of their studies. A pre-arranged alter- 
cation arose between two members of the school. 
Insults and threats followed. One seized a revolver 
and fired point-blank at the other. Other members 
who were present were then called upon to offer their 
testimony relating to what had happened. Some 
wrote out their depositions on the evening of the day 
of the occurrence; others, after one, three and five 
weeks, respectively. The event had taken them all by 
surprise. The extent of their errors more than 
doubled when they were describing what occurred at 
the culmination as compared with the beginning of the TESTIMONY 
133 
scene. That is, it increased from 9.3% to 20.3% (3). 
A more striking demonstration occurred at a meet- 
ing of the Congress of Psychology at Gottingen. It 
was described originally by von Gennep (16) : 
“ Not far from the hall in which the Congress was 
sitting there was a public fete with a masked ball. 
Suddenly \he door of the hall was thrown open and 
a clown rushed in madly pursued by a negro, revolver 
in hand. They stopped in the middle of the room 
fighting; the clown fell, the negro leapt upon him, 
fired, and then both rushed out of the hall. The whole 
incident lasted hardly twenty seconds. The presi- 
dent asked those present to write a report immediately 
since there was sure to be a judicial enquiry. Forty 
reports were sent in. Only one had less than 20% 
of mistakes in regard to the principal facts; fourteen 
had 20% to 40% of mistakes; twelve, from 40% to 
50%; thirteen more than 50%. Moreover in twenty- 
four accounts 10% of the details were pure inventions 
and this proportion was exceeded in ten accounts and 
diminished in six. Briefly, a quarter of the accounts 
were false. 
“ It goes without saying that the whole scene had 
been arranged and even photographed in advance. 
The ten false reports may then be relegated to the 
category of tales and legends; twenty-four accounts 
are half legendary, and six have a value approxi- 
mating to exact evidence. 
“ Experiments on certainty, led to analogous results. 
Witnesses were asked to underline the passages in 
their accounts to which they would be prepared to 
swear before a tribunal. It was found there were as 134 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
many mistakes in the underlined passages as else- 
where. The important point to notice in this con- 
nection is that the underlined statements were of the 
same type as legends; they were objects of belief.” 
Descriptions of any extraordinary event involve an 
enormous measure of fantasy and error among us and 
the tendency to error operates from the moment of 
observation. 
Race and Sex Factors in Suggestibility. — The 
race and sex factors are other native determinants 
of the degree of suggestibility, but they may very 
easily be over-emphasized. It is true, as Ross says, 
(8) that the American Indian, far from being a thor- 
oughly impassive creature, is extremely susceptible 
to suggestive influences. He cites the instance of the 
ghost-dance religion that spread among the Indians 
from 1889 to 1892, and took possession of probably 
sixty thousand souls. The central features of this 
phenomenon were a sacred dance and hypnotizing 
operations upon the dancers who had begun to show 
signs of ecstasy. “ They kept up dancing until fully 
one hundred persons were lying unconscious. They 
then stopped and seated themselves in a circle, and as 
each one recovered from his trance, he was brought 
to the center of the ring to relate his experience.” 
This is a case in which a superstitious disposition, 
or a crude religious nature, unhindered by the checks 
that prevail among most cultured people, has been 
able to express itself freely. It is probable that a 
member of any other race, brought up from infancy 
in an American-Indian environment, would behave in 
like fashion. If so the case is not properly cited as RACE AND SEX FACTORS 
135 
illustrative of a racial factor as a determinant of 
suggestibility. 
The often-quoted data from Starbuck (10) to the 
effect that women are much more susceptible than men 
to religious influence; that in religious revivals “ men 
display more friction against surroundings, more dif- 
ficulty with points of belief, more doubt arising from 
educational influences, more readiness to question 
traditional beliefs and customs, more pronounced ten- 
dency to resist conviction, to pray, to call on God, 
to lose sleep and appetite ” lend further support to 
the principle stated above — that suggestibility is to 
be explained on the ground of the degree of dissocia- 
tion of a complex disposition, or system-complex from 
controlling dispositions. Practically such a disso- 
ciation is illustrated in the suggestibility of woman. 
Compared with man she has been in relative isolation 
from the affairs of practical life outside the home. 
Outside that sphere she has not acquired the dis- 
position, therefore, to examine narrowly before judg- 
ing or acting. She either does not possess those com- 
plexes, normal among active men in contact with the 
world, which express themselves in the control that 
characterizes the conservative, or if she has acquired 
them through such contacts she still lacks a strong 
unification of her personality. As Ross says, (8) 
“ They are, in a sense, a social class shut out from 
many of the bracing and individualizing experiences 
that come to men. ‘ Nowhere in the world,’ declares 
Thomas (9) ‘ do women as a class lead a perfectly 
free intellectual life in common with the men of the 
group like the modern revolutionary party in Russia.’ 136 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
Hence woman is by no means synonymous with human 
female. Almost everywhere propriety and convention- 
ality press more mercilessly on woman than on man, 
thereby lessening her freedom and range of choice and 
dwarfing her will. Individuality develops through 
practice in choosing. If women are mobbish, it is 
largely for the same reason that monks, soldiers, peas- 
ants, moujiks, and other rigidly regulated types are 
mobbish. Much of woman’s exaggerated impression- 
ability disappears once she enjoys equal access with 
men to such individualizing influences as higher edu- 
cation, travel, self-direction, professional pursuits, 
participation in intellectual and public life.” 
As women mingle more and more freely in the life 
outside of the home they will gradually build up and 
unify those complexes which will undoubtedly place 
them on the same level with men in point of suggesti- 
bility. 
Suspicion and Suggestibility. — Iago’s deft hand- 
ling of Othello when he and his master were left alone 
after Desdemona had intervened with her husband, 
Othello, in Cassio’s behalf is an excellent instance of a 
suggestion tapping a native suspicious disposition that 
had been aroused by events immediately preceding: 
Iago: My noble lord, — 
Othello: What dost thou say, Iago? 
Iago: Did Michael Cassio, when you woo’d my lady, 
know of your love? 
Othello: He did, from first to last: why dost thou ask? 
Iago: But for a satisfaction of my thought; 
No further harm. 
Othello: Why of thy thought, Iago? SUSPICION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
137 
Iago: I did not think he had been acquainted with her. 
Othello: O, yes, and went between us very oft. 
Iago: Indeed! 
Othello: Indeed! Ay, indeed; discern’st thou aught in 
that? Is he not honest? 
Iago: Honest, my lord? 
Othello: Honest, ay, honest. 
Iago: My lord, for aught I know. 
Othello: What dost thou think? 
Iago: Think, my lord! 
Othello: Think, my lord! 
By heaven, he echoes me 
As if there were some monster in his thought 
Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean some- 
thing; 
I hear thee say but now, thou likst not that 
When Cassio left my wife. What didst not like? 
And when I told thee how he was in my counsel 
In my whole course of wooing, thou criedst, 
“ Indeed!” 
And didst contract and purse thy brows together, 
As if thou hadst shut up in thy brain 
Some horrible conceit: If thou dost love me, 
Show me thy thought. 
Iago: My lord, you know I love you. 
Othello: I think thou dost. 
And for I know thou’rt full of love and honesty 
And weigh’st thy words before thou givest them 
breath, 
Therefore these stops of thine fright me the more: 
For such things in a false disloyal knave 
Are tricks of custom; but in a man that’s just 
They’re close dilations working from the heart, 
That passion cannot rule. 
Iago: For Michael Cassio 
I dare be sworn I think that he is honest. 
Othello: I think so too. 138 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
Iago : Men should be what they seem; 
Or those that be not, would they might seem none! 
Othello: Certain; men should be what they seem. 
Iago: Why then I think Cassio’s an honest man. 
Othello: Nay, yet there’s more in this; 
I prithee, speak to me as to thy thinkings, 
As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of 
thoughts, 
The words of words. 
Acquired Disposition and Suggestibility. — 
What has preceded will indicate that it is not only 
the native disposition that determines the degree and 
direction of suggestibility when it is partially or en- 
tirely dissociated from controlling complexes. It is 
not possible to draw a sharp distinction between that 
which is rooted in the native disposition and what 
grows out of our acquired habits. It is impossible, 
therefore, with entire satisfaction, to speak of the 
relation of suggestibility either to innate or to ac- 
quired dispositions. It is usually a question which 
background should be emphasized in a discussion. 
Certainly each one and both together determine the 
degree and direction of suggestibility when they are 
partially or wholly dissociated from controlling 
complexes. 
The acquired disposition, or the product of edu- 
cation is a potent factor. If you seat yourself before 
a bank of electric lamps and place your fingers upon 
a coiled wire which is apparently in circuit with the 
lamps, the coil will seem to the unsuspecting observer 
to grow warm when the lamps are lighted, even though 
a secret switch beneath the table may be so thrown ACQUIRED DISPOSITION 
139 
as to allow the current to pass only through the lamps 
and not through the coil. Here is suggestion that 
indirectly produces a thermal sensation. But the 
subject could not have been suggestible in this respect 
had he not acquired a certain disposition (an elec- 
tricity-complex, we may say) in the course of his 
experience up to that time with electric currents and 
hot wires. We of our civilized place and time 
have so often seen the incandescent lamp. We have 
felt it grow warm when the current is turned on so 
as to light the lamp. We have made our morning’s 
toast over coiled wires that have been made red-hot 
by an electric current passing through them. We have 
warmed our feet over coiled wires in the winter, and 
in many other ways the man and woman in the street 
have developed a substantial dispositional background 
by reason of which it is inevitable, unless they are 
very closely upon their guard, that they should report 
a warm wire. The lighted lamp is a stimulus ade- 
quate to occasion a visual sensation of brightness, not 
of temperature. It is only indirectly that it excites 
the behavior that comprises the vocal expression of 
the words: “Now the wire is warm.” It is because 
of the round-about devious route of the stimulus and 
the excitation it arouses that we speak in such a case 
of suggestion and the response of a suggestible dis- 
position; or as some prefer to say “ suggesting ” (the 
application, in this case, of the lighted lamp) and 
“ suggestion ” (in this case, the whole chain of inner 
and outer events that terminates in the spoken words, 
“ the wire is warm.”) 
“ The wire is warm ” response is all the more likely 140 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
to occur if the operator introduces the experiment 
by giving the direction “ Now tell me when the wire 
becomes warm.” This, for the reason that the expec- 
tation element is injected into the situation, which is 
equivalent to heightening, temporarily, the sensitivity 
of the complexes whose activity is involved in the whole 
proceeding. In other words, the complexes involved 
are thus more completely than otherwise dissociated 
or disconnected from other elements in the organiza- 
tion that in different circumstances would bring to 
bear more or less of inhibiting influence. 
If a native of the remotest corner of the South Seas 
could be suddenly transported to our laboratory and 
be there immediately confronted with such an experi- 
mental situation as has been described it is hardly 
conceivable that he wrould respond to the suggestion 
or the “ suggesting ” by the “ Now the wire is warm ” 
phrase as does the tutored product of our urban life. 
The professional disposition or complex of the 
physician renders him suggestible in the face of situa- 
tions that leave the carpenter untouched. He re- 
sponds with enthusiasm to a movement for paving the 
streets because it “ suggests ” to him what never 
occurred to the proposers — the improvement of sani- 
tary conditions. But why “ sanitary conditions ” ? 
Because the physician during the years of his practice 
and throughout his preparatory years has lived in an 
atmosphere that was charged with considerations of 
measures of sanitation. Thousands of situations dur- 
ing all these years have occasioned him to think and 
in other ways to do things relating to the protection 
and preservation of health by means of proper sani- ACQUIRED DISPOSITION 
141 
tation. In this respect he stands in a peculiar rela- 
tion to his fellow-men. We say that his habits of 
reaction — professional habits — are through and 
through so thoroughly a part of his nature that he 
cannot be rid of them if he would. His “ sanitation 
complex ” is, just now, a controlling element in his 
make-up, and one who has dealings with him must take 
it into account. 
The automobile salesman, even, has now and again 
occasion for entertaining considerations like these in 
the face of his prospective buyers. There is the 
farmer who cannot be overcome by frontal attack. 
A direct urging that he buy a car arouses an antago- 
nistic reaction. Yet there are numerous complexes 
in his make-up, any one of which, and all together, 
may be brought to such a state of high sensitivity tem- 
porarily that by a skillful flank attack or suggestion 
they may set off that behavior that will culminate in 
the farmer’s purchasing a car. Let us assume that 
the agent knows at the outset that the farmer is of 
an envious nature; that it stirs his pride to see his 
family stand up with the best of them and enjoy life 
as much as his neighbors do; and that he is disposed 
to compete vigorously and by all means with his neigh- 
bors in the pursuit of his occupation. Because he is 
aware, in advance, of these psychologic character- 
istics, the agent will not make it known at the begin- 
ning that he is a salesman but after some conversation 
of a general nature he will, in an apparently casual 
manner, bring the farmer’s attention to the fact that 
his neighbor up the road has lately purchased a car; 
that he is now in the market with his produce and home 142 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
again in the morning in a quarter of the time that he 
formerly required for the customary daily expedition; 
that “ the early bird catches the worm ”; and finally 
he leads the farmer to think of the pleasure that the 
neighbor’s family has in the new car. By all these 
means the agent stirs up a group of sensitive com- 
plexes in the back-ground of the personality of the 
prospective buyer. He makes it known that he is 
authorized to take orders for automobiles, but not 
until the farmer has begun to evince a real interest 
in owning a car and when he says, it may be, that he 
will some day make the purchase. The entire process 
has been one of suggestions until certain complexes, 
native and occupational or professional, have been 
sufficiently aroused. Then it seems to the farmer that 
his entire course of reaching a decision has been on 
his own initiative. 
Mass Effects. — But suggestion and response are 
of particular interest when they involve the large 
group — especially when the individuals of the group 
in reaction to suggestion are caught up into co-oper- 
ative behavior and belief in common on a large scale. 
Illustration is found in many situations that came to 
pass in the course of the recent World War. Two 
cases will suffice. 
Before the year 1914 had passed Germany and the 
German Army were filled with rumors, accepted as 
facts, that Belgian and French priests and civilians 
were committing all sorts of atrocities against Ger- 
man soldiers and civilians; that the priests were using 
church towers, etc., for purposes of signalling for the 
aid of the Belgian and French soldiery. These rumors MASS EFFECTS 
143 
persisted during 1915 and the priesthood of Belgium 
and France became the objects of angry revilings. 
There were strong elements in Germany who were 
aroused to bitterness by the attacks against the clergy 
of their enemy countries and at last the situation be- 
came so tense that German civil and military authori- 
ties were ordered to co-operate fully with Pax (an 
association of German priests) in a thorough investi- 
gation of the whole matter. After an exhaustive ex- 
amination of evidence a report was issued to the effect 
that the charges against the Belgian and French 
clergy were unfounded. 
Such phenomena as these signallings and the like 
may properly be classified with illusions and they are 
so treated by many hands. But the essential feature 
of the response in illusor}7 phenomena is precisely that 
that characterizes the reaction to suggestion. Fur- 
thermore, the stimulus or the situation that induces 
the illusion produces its effect only by a round-about 
route; as when the stump of a tree in the twilight by 
a lonely road appears to be a threatening robber when 
the timid traveler, fearful for his safety, sees it at a 
distance. 
The whole web of tales relating to the alleged par- 
ticipation of Belgian and French priests and civilians 
in unlawful warfare and in atrocities against enemy 
wounded and prisoners is so instructive from the view- 
point of the subject matter of this chapter that we 
quote here liberally from van Langenhove, the Scien- 
tific Secretary of the Solvay Institute of Sociology at 
Brussels who, in “The Growth of a Legend” (14) 
has brought the stories together and along with them 144 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
the reports of German civil and military authorities 
addressed to Pax, the investigating body. 
“ From R. P. Duhr in Der Liigengeist, 
“ PRIESTS WITH MACHINE-GUNS ON THE BELFRIES 
“ Priests armed with machine-guns, posted on the 
belfries of churches, appear by hundreds in the 
original tales from Belgium and France. The result 
is, each time, the execution of the traitor. 
“ Repeatedly already tales of this kind have passed 
from newspapers into books. (See, for example, Pauls, 
Aus eiserner Zeit, Elmshorn, 1914; Hans Leitzen, 
Der grosse Krieg in Feldpost-Briefen, Wolfenbiittel, 
1914; Feldpost-Briefen, 1914, edited by Herm Sparr, 
Leipzig, 1915.) 
“ The novels are all engrossed with the theme. 
Thus Richard Sexau has published in his book, Bint 
und Eisen, a short story, Der Zweifer, wherein he de- 
picts a fight for the possession of a village situated 
on the French frontier and defended by some enemy 
troops and some hidden francs-tireurs. The adversary 
finds his chief stronghold in the church of the place, 
on the belfry of which a machine-gun is in action. 
The German lieutenant Hoik advances to the assault 
of the tower. ‘Now he has attained the summit. A 
devil in a black robe is found there, his eyes fixed on 
the gun sights, his hand on the instrument of murder: 
it is the abbot.’ 
“ This fragment is so suitable for the literary sup- 
plement of the M.-Augsburger Abendzeitung, the 
Samnder, (January 4th to 9th) for its ‘ series of the 
best novels written under the influence of the first 
weeks of war ’ that it reproduces it and appropriates 
it. (Bayer, Kurier, No. 14, January 14, 1915). 
“ Many of these stories of church belfries are 
derived less from ill-will than from ignorance. “GROWTH OF A LEGEND” 
145 
“Three facts are, generally, completely ignored: 
the first is the right of ownership of the parish over 
the belfry of the church; the second is the uniform 
of the Belgian town guard; the third is that many 
priests have been taken to Germany only as hostages 
who have not been guilty of the least fault or who 
are not even suspects. 
“ In Belgium, the church belfries are, according to 
the French decrees of 1809 and 1813, which are still 
effective, the property of the parish, whilst the rest 
of the church is the property of the vestry of the 
church (Kirchetigemeinde). The parish has the right 
on certain days of national fetes, etc., of ringing the 
bells which are in the tower. The burgomaster pos- 
sesses the keys of the belfry for this purpose. The 
vestry of the church has only the right to use the 
belfry for the needs of the religious offices and for 
this reason the cure also possesses a belfry key. If 
one wishes to put the responsibility upon someone for 
the installation of machine-guns on the belfries it is 
then the burgomaster whom one should consider in the 
first place and not the cure. Moreover, neither of 
them should be held responsible. The machine-guns 
have not been put on the belfries either by the burgo- 
master or the cure but by military authority. When 
the latter considers it convenient, for military reasons, 
to place a machine-gun on a belfry it does not ask 
the permission of the burgomaster or of the cure. 
The burgomaster, no more than the cure, is then in a 
position to refuse the keys. In case of necessity, when 
they are not put rapidly enough at his disposition, the 
military authority simply forces the door leading to 
the belfry. The situation is entirely similar in France. 
In virtue of the well-known law of separation the 
churches have become completely the property of the 
State. The cure can then do nothing if the belfry is 
employed for military purposes. (Cf. Kolnische Volks- 
zeitung, No. 956, November 5, 1914). 146 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
“ It is necessary to add to these considerations that 
the uniform of the Belgian town guard can very easily 
be mistaken for the religious dress by any man 
ignorant of it and, moreover, by any man not warned. 
The Belgian town guard wears notably a black blouse, 
more often a dark grey one which descends as far as 
the knees and which, in consequence, resembles in a 
striking manner the short cassock of our priests. A 
black hat, rigid, high, and round, serves him for head- 
gear. A black, yellow, and red cord is tied around 
and is only seen by an observer who is particularly 
attentive to it. The rifle is the only arm.’ * 
“ At the beginning of Franco-German hostilities the 
town guard was particularly ordered to mount guard 
in the belfries of the places on the frontier and to 
inform the Belgian field army of the movements of the 
German advance. 
“ An example of defective observation and of faulty 
knowledge of events is furnished by a conversation 
which took place in a tramcar at Aix-la-Chappelle and 
in which a priest took part. 
“ A soldier of the Landsturm was concerned. He 
told how he had recently to escort a convoy of prison- 
ers. As well as soldiers he had some civilians, also 
three priests who were accused of having taken part 
in the fighting against the Germans. 
“ ‘ How were they dressed? ’ asked the priest. 
‘Had they long black cassocks?’ 
“ ‘ No, not long ones but short ones coming nearly 
to the knee.’ 
“‘Was this robe really black?’ 
* “ The description given here by R. P. Duhr of the uni- 
form of the non-combatant town guard is not entirely correct. 
The distinctive signs of this uniform are essentially the blue 
blouse, the armlet, and the tricolour cockade. Many details be- 
longing to this paragraph are therefore of a doubtful accuracy. 
We leave the responsibility for it to R. P. Duhr.” (Van 
Langenhove.) “GROWTH OF A LEGEND” 
147 
44 4 No, brown,’ was the response of the soldier. 
44 4 Then they were not priests; they must have 
been town guards. It is in this manner that these 
are dressed.’ 
44 The soldier was silent, surprised; this truly he 
did not know.’ (Miinchener Tageblatt, September 
20, 1914. 
44 Thus a whole series of these stories of machine- 
guns on belfries which involve the priests and which 
one has been able to follow up are shown to be pure 
products of the imagination. 
44 The cure of Arlon was said to have fired from the 
top of the belfry on the Germans and afterwards to 
have been shot. Informations Pax has received in 
reference to this subject the following report: 
44 4 Arlon, November 6, 1914. 
44 4 We have the honour to make known to you, 
whilst returning to you the enclosed letter, that the 
rumour in question is devoid of all foundation. 
44 4 Yours faithfully 
44 4 For the communal administration. 
44 4 Reuter ’ 
44 The rumor was current at Diisseldorf that the 
Cure of Orchamps near Neufchateau had been shot. 
With the sacristan and three inhabitants of the place 
he had fired from the top of the belfry with a machine- 
gun on the Germans at the moment of their passage. 
“ Informations Pax gathered from the Imperial 
Command at Namur the following information upon 
this subject: 
44 4 Military Government of the Province 
of Luxemburg, Arlon, 
44 4 November 21, 1914. 
44 4 Answer to the letter of the 21st of October, 
1914, addressed to the Imperial Command at Namur: 148 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
“ ‘ It appears from the observations made by the 
4th mobile squadron of the Landsturm of Bonn, at 
present at Bertrix, that the news suggesting that the 
Cure of Orchamps, near Neufchateau, accompanied by 
a sacristan and three inhabitants of the place had 
fired from the top of the belfry with a machine-gun 
upon the German troops, is not correct. The cure 
and the sacristan were only shut up as hostages in 
the church; they wrere at once released. 
“ ‘ The Military Government 
“ ‘ Anderheid, Captain # Adjutant.’ 
“ R. P. Duhr, Der Liigengeist. 
“ ‘ ATROCITIES IN THE CELLAR OF A MONASTERY 
AT LOUVAIN 
“‘The Berliner Lohal-Anzeiger reports in its issue 
of August 31, 1914, the following from Rotterdam, 
dated August 30th: 
“ ‘ A nurse who had arrived in Rotterdam from 
Louvain had spoken in the latter town with a German 
officer who gave her the following particulars of the 
punishment of Louvain. In the early days of the 
occupation of the town all was quiet, the inhabitants 
having put away their arms; the German visitors were 
not molested and were on sufficiently good terms with 
the population. Subsequently there were found in a 
cellar the bodies of fifty German soldiers who had 
apparently been killed by the brothers belonging to 
the monastery. The occupants of the monastery were 
arrested and the superior was shot. When he was 
led out he laughed triumphantly.’ 
“ This horrible fable was quoted in numerous anti- 
Catholic journals. As it was likely to revive sec- 
tarian bitterness, the General commanding the 7th 
Army Corps sent the following note to these journals 
on September 6, 1914: “GROWTH OF A LEGEND” 
149 
“ Munster, September 6, 1914. 
“ ‘ Vague statements regarding the pretended mur- 
ders of a large number of German soldiers by monks 
at Louvain, like those which have recently appeared 
in a series of journals, make it desirable for me to 
remind you that such articles, which are calculated 
to stir up religious or political discord, are forbidden. 
“ * I insist that this interdict shall be observed in 
the most rigorous way by journals, and I draw your 
attention to the consequences of an infraction, as pro- 
vided by my proclamation of August 27th, lie. No. 
2588. 
“ ‘ Frhr. Von Bissing, 
General Commanding ’. 
“ The canard continued its flight and the informa- 
tion bureau of the Catholic press at Frankfort endeav- 
oured to learn something about it from the German 
Command at Louvain. The reply was: ‘ We know 
nothing here of this incident. The story is unworthy 
of belief.’ (Bayer, Kurier, No. 269, September 26, 
1914). 
“ Shortly afterwards Informations Pax of Cologne 
sent a similar inquiry to the Commandant at Louvain 
and received the following answer: 
“ ‘Headquarters of the Imperial Garrison, 
“ ‘ Louvain, October 7, 1914. 
<c * Reply to your letter of September 29, 1914. 
“ f It appears that the numerous statements which 
the journals have reproduced in regard to events at 
Louvain from August 25 to 27, 1914, are exaggerated 
out of all proportion and are in part completely 
imaginary. The article to which you make allusion 
in your letter belongs to this category. 
“ ‘ (s) von Thiel,’ 
“ From Kolnische Volkzeitung, No. 247, 
March 25, 1915. 150 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
“ ‘ ANOTHER UCONFIRMED RUMOR. 
44 4 The following rumour was in circulation at 
Poppenhausen in the neighborhood of Cassel at the 
beginning of last December. 
44 4 At Vouziers, at the beginning of September, a 
French priest and a woman, who was doubtless his 
housekeeper, were condemned by the military authori- 
ties and hanged. This priest had been the cure of 
a village near Chalons-sur-Marne. He had welcomed 
into his house thirty-five wounded Germans and had 
then by means of a telephone in his cellar signalled to 
the French artillery to open fire upon the house filled 
with wounded. The propagator of this rumour even 
pretends that he saw the cure taken from Chalons to 
Vouziers with some French prisoners and francs- 
tireurs. He saw him hanged from a tree near the 
barracks in the former locality together with the 
woman mentioned.’ 
“‘On January 19, 1915, the Prussian Ministry of 
War sent the following communication to the Pax 
bureau: 
“‘In reply to your letter of January 15, 1915 
(AJct.-Zeich., F. 51), the Ministry of War informs 
you that nothing is known of the rumour in question 
and that, without more precise details, it is impossible 
to discover anything. 
“ 4 By order, 
44 4 (s) Bauer Wagner.’ 
“ Informations Pax wrote also to the commandant 
of the 9th mobile transport of the 3d army at Vou- 
ziers and received in reply the following letter: 
44 4 In answer to your enquiry of the 2nd inst. 
(F. 51) we have the honour to inform you that the 
rumour circulated at Poppenhausen, near Cassel, 
according to which there had been hanged here a “GROWTH OF A LEGEND” 
151 
French cure and his housekeeper is a pure invention. 
“ ‘ The military tribunal sitting at Vouziers has not 
up to the present sentenced any one to death. 
“ ‘ (Seal and signature,) ’ ” 
In this manner throughout approximately one 
hundred pages van Langenhove recites the tales and 
sets down the answers as they were communicated to 
Pax after investigation by German officials, civil and 
military. In the following words he concludes this 
section of his work: 
“ Such are the different categories of stories of 
which a rigorous control has established the imaginary 
character. Most of them, it is seen, have been sur- 
prised not far from their origin and have hardly 
passed the first phases of elaboration. These indeed 
are the only ones which afford scope for enquiry since 
the data of place, time, and individuality have not yet 
been lost and they therefore permit of checking.” 
The facts as they are related here are set forth 
also by Dr. Albert Helwig, who was in the German 
military service, in a pamphlet on the psychology of 
mass suggestion. Both van Langenhove and Helwig 
offer approximately the same account of the origin 
of the tales as follows: 
In the war of 1870-1871 the Germans were greatly 
harassed by franc tirieur or “ guerilla ” warfare. 
The formal discipline of the German soldiers had not 
equipped them to engage successfully in this type of 
individual fighting and it was correspondingly terri- 
fying. Subsequently German military teachers and 
writers gave a great deal of attention to methods of 
engaging in this type of struggle. It is said that 
each German soldier entering Belgium carried with 152 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
him a book of instructions, one chapter or section in 
which dealt with methods of meeting franc tirieur 
warfare. So it may be assumed that the German 
soldier, when he crossed the Belgian border, shaken 
by fear and uncertainty (activity of native complexes 
and of others acquired through training — and all 
made temporarily more sensitive than usual), easily 
conjured up the images that fitted in with the situation 
of the hour and the atmosphere created by his previous 
instruction. When, therefore, a party of them, ap- 
proaching a position in the night, are fired upon by 
an unseen foe, and especially if approximately at the 
same time lights are seen in or about the church in a 
near-by village (suggestion of something afoot), the 
setting is complete for the mushroom growth of a 
story of clerical complicity with citizens in the much 
dreaded franc tirieur warfare. Fear throws off the 
inhibitions and one, more credulous than the rest, 
reported having seen suspicious lights in the village. 
It matters not at all whether he was merely the victim 
of his imagination or hallucination or not. His fel- 
low soldiers throughout the army, and the civilian 
population as well, for that matter, have just such 
suggestible natures as his own; the same instinctive 
fears and the same acquired complexes growing out 
of reaction to circumstances similar to those he has 
met. When, therefore, he tells his tale of lights in the 
villages, it finds ready acceptance in thousands of 
minds and catches like wild fire throughout the nation 
behind the lines. Other tales have the same history 
and the whole people are caught up into a mad frenzy 
that in normal circumstances would be held in check. CONCLUSION 
153 
The angels walking at Mons is a similar case. 
Fear has thrown off the inhibitions and the native 
superstitious disposition is aroused by the scenes of 
carnage around the soldier. He is excited by the 
fear of imminent death and his childhood’s images 
of awaiting angels arise, in a dream or otherwise, and 
now a gray cloud moving across the horizon before 
the wind becomes, in his eyes, an angel or a group of 
angels. Others, prepared as he has been, take up the 
story as he renders it and thousands accept it. 
Conclusion — If our analysis of these concepts of 
suggestion and suggestibility is correct, the possibility 
of successfully employing these means alone to build 
up large social unities is limited by three factors: (1) 
racial and other native differences, (2) prejudices due 
to social and economic position, (3) inequalities in 
education and want of uniform experience among 
sections of the population. All such factors as these 
tend to keep people apart and so stand in the way 
of a mutual understanding. They therefore maintain 
the people between whom such differences exist in a 
reciprocally defensive attitude. In this situation the 
suspicious nature is at high tension, and social stimuli, 
whatever their nature, are likely to be followed by an 
antagonistic reaction. 
Wherever there is a group of people with so much 
in common that they constitute a crowd, a mob, an 
audience, the readers of a particular periodical or the 
disciples of a particular ism, there is opportunity for 
a fairly wide-sweeping interplay of suggestion and 
suggestibility. As the means and frequency of com- 
munication among men increase, and as localism be- 154 
SUGGESTION AND SUGGESTIBILITY 
comes swallowed up in nationalism and more, we should 
expect an increase in the waves of phenomena of sug- 
gestion and suggestibility, were there no counter- 
balancing factor. Such a factor is provided, how- 
ever, more and more generously as the years come and 
go, in our institutions for higher learning, in industry 
and commerce, in as far as they cultivate a disposition 
to seek first-hand data and weigh the evidence, pro 
and con, upon new problems. 
It appears from the foregoing that a discussion of 
suggestion and the suggestible nature applies to the 
psychology of action and likewise to that of feeling 
and belief. As applied to action it is linked up with 
the development of the habits of individuals and the 
customs that prevail in groups. As applied to feel- 
ings and beliefs it is associated with conventions and 
morale in the individual and amongst peoples. CHAPTER VII 
THE CROWD AND ALLIED PHENOMENA 
The crowd is an unorganized or leaderless group. 
Its chief characteristic from the viewpoint of its psy- 
chological nature is that its members have their atten- 
tion centered upon the same situation and are in an 
attitude of more or less expectancy with respect to 
it: for instance, a group of commuters in a railway 
station awaiting the appearance of a belated train at 
the close of a day’s work. All have for the most part 
thrown off the immediately practical interests of the 
day: they have left their business affairs behind them 
in their offices. All are at the evening hour looking 
forward toward rest and recreation at home, and this 
attitude is intensified by the delay. Each member 
of this railway-station crowd sees every other member 
and hears his fellow-waiter’s vocal expression of dis- 
appointment. Visual and auditory signs indicate 
surely that all are feeling and thinking as he is doing. 
Each one, therefore, recognizes a certain kinship be- 
tween himself and the others and a sense of unity 
pervades the group. There is no idea held in common 
with respect to what shall be done about anything. 
This is the crowd state of mind. We are thinking 
here of the simplest form of crowd. We have referred 
to it as a leaderless group. 156 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
Whenever, in whatever circumstances, a leader comes 
forward the crowd becomes specialized. It may then 
be a mob, an audience, a deliberative assembly, or what 
not, according to the circumstances of the time and 
place, the purpose of the leader, etc. Distinctions 
of the sort serve mainly for convenience. The funda- 
mental criterion — attention in common — is unal- 
tered. Its direction is conditioned by different means: 
in the case of the crowd so-called, by a direct percep- 
tional stimulus; in the audience, by ideals or situations 
presented by a speaker who holds the floor in a formal 
manner and directs the attention of each member of 
the group now to one and now to another aspect of 
a subject by a more or less systematic presentation 
of ideas; in the deliberative assembly, similarly, a pre- 
siding officer controls by recognizing one by one those 
who are permitted to present their ideas. Obviously 
tlue development of this crowd state of mind is facili- 
tated by the ease of communication among members 
of the group in the railway-station-situation, e.g., and 
by another factor also: all the individuals are in such 
close physical contact — let us assume — that their 
freedom of movement is to some extent interfered with, 
and this, as Professor James has pointed out, goes 
a long way toward robbing each one of his individ- 
uality and bringing all to a common level of interest 
and desire. 
It is a corollary to the foregoing that differences 
may be expected among aggregations of individuals 
with respect to the facility with which they may be 
made into crowds in the sense in which we are using 
the term. Persons who cannot understand one another; THE MAN IN A CROWD 
157 
whose background of experiences differ greatly or who 
have widely different prospects upon life do not 
readily mold into crowds. A group of newly arrived 
immigrants of different nations, races, languages and 
customs, whether jammed together or dispersed over 
a country can hardly be a crowd. An aggregation of 
such diversified folk will inevitably break up into 
crowds of smaller number unless they can quickly be 
brought to an understanding in which their funda- 
mental differences are submerged. 
It is often said that in a crowd the individual is 
of a different nature than in an isolated condition; 
that the “ psychology ” of the man or woman in a 
crowd is different from that of the same person in 
relative isolation. This in a sense is true, but when 
it is put in that fashion it carries untrue implications. 
The “ psychology ” of the man in the crowd differs 
from that of the man in his study in the very sense 
in which it differs from the same individual between 
a cold room and a hot room, or between a church en- 
vironment and a base-ball environment. Amongst 
these situations there are wide differences in the pres- 
sure of desires, ambitions, and anticipations. The 
desire to pursue his business vigorously has been tem- 
porarily substituted in the railway station by a desire 
to reach home and family; the ambition to make a 
commanding impression upon the head of the firm, 
until tomorrow, takes a subordinate place. The 
plnTsical surroundings in the railroad station provide 
stimuli that are quite different from those to which 
he reacts in the office. He behaves differently in the 
crowd than in his office or in his study, that is true. 158 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
But he does so because of a different set of stimuli, 
purposes, and the like, not because he is now of dif- 
ferent nature than formerly nor because of a ‘ crowd 
self ” that has somehow taken the lead. 
But it is not necessary that a group of people 
should be jammed into physical contact in small space, 
nor even that they be within the range of sight and 
hearing of one another in order to be designated 
properly as a crowd. They may constitute the widely 
distributed population of a state and yet be a crowd, 
if their attention is bent in the same direction, if each 
one has a certain awareness that the attitude of others 
approximates to his own, and if all are actuated by 
similar motives. There is thus a stage in the develop- 
ment of a political party campaign, in the rise of a 
financial panic, and in the growth of a war spirit in 
which the population of a state and of a nation may 
be described as a crowd. The attainment of this 
condition in the state at large is facilitated by easy 
means of communication. Within the four walls of 
the railway station there is practically no bar to inter- 
communication among individuals. Each can see and 
hear his neighbors and mutual understanding is 
assured. Within the boundaries of the state or of the 
nation, the telegraph, telephone, and daily mail are 
the means by which communication is established and 
mutual understanding secured. Through these means, 
the conditions are supplied for the emergence of a 
nation-wide crowd. The possibility of the development 
of a crowd in this respect assumes such a level of 
training and intelligence on the part of the citizenship 
as will enable the people to make use of the means of DEVELOPMENTAL FACTORS 
159 
communication, and further, it assumes that the popu- 
lation is not so divided in respect to race and other 
distinctions, including class prejudices, as to preclude 
the development of common interests. In spite of the 
existence of such antagonistic conditions the crowd 
may be developed and its life may span a brief space, 
but it must be maintained at the cost of extraordinary 
effort to stir the emotions of the people; to appeal to 
some of the most fundamental interests of men and 
women — whether for the sake of truth it is proper 
to invoke them or not — or at any rate to emphasize 
them at the expense of other interests. It is thus 
that “ hearth and home,” “ our sacred firesides,” 
“ our households,” “ our flag ” and such phrases or 
shibboleths attain their prominence in many a political 
campaign and during the stress of war time. There 
are many sharp and deep-rooted differences amongst 
the people of a state, but we all agree in our attach- 
ment to “ our sacred firesides ” above all else. If our 
attention can be distracted from our differences and 
centered upon some interest such as this that is held 
in common it is highly probable that within a limited 
period we will act in unison. But when the campaign 
is over or when peace has been declared and the multi- 
tude of our advisers have ceased bandying their 
phrases our divergent interests reassert themselves and 
we awake to find the large, apparently unified group 
of yesterday, broken into contending factions. Nearly 
every national and state campaign, preparatory to 
a general election, affords illustration, and on a larger 
and more tragic scale is the picture of world powers 
allied during the crisis of the war, broken apart and 160 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
contending over minor problems since the peace was 
attempted at Versailles. 
Some of the consequences of the emergence of the 
crowd are important. Individuality is lost or dimin- 
ished: that is, the differences that set one off from 
another in ordinary circumstances, are toned down 
somewhat. This inevitably follows when a group of 
people are attending to the same situation and are 
moved by approximately the same purposes. Further- 
more the group of conflicting complexes that make up 
the organization we designate by the term person- 
ality, is quiescent. The inhibitory effect of one com- 
plex upon another is allayed. Each person in the 
crowd is, therefore, in a higher state of suggestibility 
than in other circumstances. An appropriate stimulus 
may, as we have expressed it already, tap ordinarily 
submerged or inhibited complexes and excite them to 
the point of active control of behavior, after the 
manner with which we are familiar in the case of sug- 
gestion and response in the laboratory. 
The Mon. — When the crowd state has developed, 
the situation is prepared for the leader who may skill- 
fully take advantage of the suggestible nature of the 
individuals who compose the crowd to harangue them, 
or by more subtle means to stir them up to such 
activity as will suit his own purpose. This may be a 
mad rush to destroy the railroad property or to 
wreck a newspaper plant down street. It may be a 
landslide to support a certain candidate at the polls; 
a craze for investment or a rush for the gold fields 
such as Down has described under the title “ The Rush 
to the Klondike” (4): “On July 18 the Portland KLONDIKE RUSH 
161 
arrived in Seattle, on Puget Sound, having on board 
sixty-eight miners, who brought ashore bullion worth 
a million dollars. The next day it was stated that 
these miners had in addition enough gold concealed 
about their persons and in their baggage to double 
the first estimate. Whether all these statements were 
correct or not does not signify, for those were the 
reports that were spread throughout the states. 
From this last source alone, the mint at San Fran- 
cisco received half a million dollars’ worth of gold in 
one week, and it was certain that men who had gone 
away poor had come back with fortunes. It was 
stated that a poor blacksmith who had gone up from 
Seattle returned with $115,000, and that a man from 
Fresno, who had failed as a farmer, had secured 
$135,000. 
“ The gold fever set in with fury and attacked all 
classes. Men in good positions, with plenty of money 
to spend on an outfit, and men with little beyond the 
amount of their fare, country men and city men, clerks 
and professional men without the faintest notion of 
the meaning of ‘ roughing it,’ flocked in impossible 
numbers to secure a passage. There were no means 
of taking them. Even in distant New York, the offices 
of railroad companies and local agencies were be- 
sieged by anxious inquirers eager to join the throng. 
On Puget Sound, mills, factories, and smelting works 
were deserted by their employees, and all the miners 
on the upper Skeena left their work in a body. On 
July 21 the North American Transportation Company 
(one of two companies which monopolized the trade 
of the Yukon) was reincorporated in Chicago with a 162 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
quadrupled capital, to cope with the demands of traf- 
fic. At the different Pacific ports every available 
vessel was pressed into the service, and still the wild 
rush could not be met. Before the end of July the 
Portland left Seattle again for St. Michael’s and the 
Mexico and Topeka for Dyea; the Islander and Tees 
sailed for Dyea from Victoria, and the G. W. Elder 
from Portland; while from San Francisco the Excel- 
sior, of the Alaska Company, which had brought the 
first gold down, left again for St. Michael’s on July 
28, being the last of the company’s fleet scheduled to 
connect with the Yukon river boats for the season. 
Three times the original price was offered for the 
passage, and one passenger accepted an offer of $1,500 
for the ticket for which he had paid only $150. 
“ This, however, was only the beginning of the 
rush. Three more steamers were announced to sail 
in August for the mouth of the Yukon, and at least 
a dozen more for the Lynn Canal, among which were 
old tubs, which, after being tied up for years, were 
now overhauled and refitted for the voyage north. 
One of these was the Willamette, an old collier with 
only sleeping quarters for the officers and crew, which, 
however, was fitted up with bunks and left Seattle for 
Dyea and Skagway with 850 passengers, 1,200 tons 
of freight, and 300 horses, men, live stock, and freight 
being wedged between decks till the atmosphere was 
like that of a dungeon; and even with such a prospect 
in view, it was only by a lavish amount of tipping 
that a man could get his effects taken aboard. Besides 
all these, there were numerous scows loaded with pro- THE SO-CALLED AUDIENCE 
163 
visions and fuel, and barges conveying horses for pack- 
ing purposes. 
“ A frightful state of congestion followed as each 
successive steamer on its arrival at the head of the 
Lynn Canal poured forth its crowds of passengers and 
added to the enormous loads of freight already ac- 
cumulated. Matters became so serious that on Aug- 
ust 10 the United States Secretary of the Interior, 
having received information that 3,000 persons with 
2,000 tons of baggage and freight were there waiting 
to cross the mountains to the Yukon, and that many 
more were preparing to join them, issued a warning to 
the public (following that of the Dominion Govern- 
ment of the previous week) in which he called attention 
to the exposure, privation, suffering, and danger inci- 
dent to the journey at that advanced period of the 
season, and further referred to the gravity of the pos- 
sible consequences to people detained in the mountain- 
ous wilderness during five or six months of Arctic 
winter, where no relief could reach them.” 
Even what, in popular language, is often erroneously 
described as an audience is from our view-point prop- 
erly a mob. Sidis, for example, describes such a case 
in the following language: * “ On the 11th of August, 
1895, there took place in the open air a meeting at 
Old Orchard, Maine. The business at hand was a 
collection for missionary purposes. The preacher re- 
sorted to the following suggestions: 4 The most 
remarkable remembrance which I have of foreign lands 
is that of multitudes, the waves of lost humanity who 
* Die Bedentung der Suggestion im Sozialen Leben. Wies- 
baden, 1905. (Quoted from Park and Burgess: Introduction to 
the Science of Sociology, Chicago, 1921, 415 f. 164 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
ceaselessly are shattered on the shores of eternity. 
How despairing are they, how poor in love; their 
religion knows no joy, no pleasure, nor song. Once 
I heard a Chinese say why he was a Christian. It 
seemed to him that he lay in a deep abyss, out of 
which he could not escape. Have you ever wept for 
the sake of the lost world, as did Jesus Christ? If 
not, then woe to you! Your religion is then only a 
dream and a blind. We see Christ test his disciples. 
Will he take them with him? My beloved, today he 
will test you. (Indirect suggestion.) He could con- 
vert a thousand millionaires, but he gives you an op- 
portunity to be saved. (More direct suggestion.) 
Are you strong enough in faith? ’ (Here follows a dis- 
cussion about questions of faith.) ‘ Without faith God 
can do no great things. I believe that Jesus will 
appear to them who believe firmly in him. My dear 
ones, if only you give for the sake of God, you have 
become participants in the faith. (Still more direct 
suggestion.) The youth with the five loaves and the 
two little fishes. . . .’ (The story follows.) ‘When 
everything was ended, he did not lose his loaves; there 
were twelve baskets left over. O my dear ones, how 
will that return! Sometime the King of Kings will 
call to you and give you an empire of glory, and 
simply because you have had a little faith in him. It 
is a day of much import to you. Sometime God will 
show us how much better he has guarded our treasure 
than we ourselves.’ The suggestion had the desired 
effect. Money streamed from all sides; hundreds be- 
came thousands, tens of thousands. The crowd gave 
seventy thousand dollars.” MOB MOTIVES 
165 
In situations similar to either of the foregoing, once 
the quiescent crowd has taken on a fervor of unthink- 
ing activity in the wake of a leader, we have what is 
properly termed a mob. (The army and the like, 
acting under discipline, is in a different category.) 
The unconscious background of the personality of 
each member of the group is not only ready to ex- 
press itself in action, but it has come into active 
control. Other controls are inhibited, and each indi- 
vidual is doing what in other circumstances he would 
not and could not do. There is a mutual exchange of 
stimulation among the members of the group. Be- 
cause all are doing approximately the same thing the 
total volume of stimulation is large and powerful; 
the complexes that were aroused at the moment of 
the birth of the mob come more and more distinctly 
into the foreground and are increasingly sensitive 
with the consequence that the frenzied activity of the 
mob knows no limit until quiescence follows through 
sheer exhaustion, or until a counter stimulus arouses 
inhibitory controls or scatters the participants in the 
mob action. 
Here, as in so many other connections that appear 
in the study of human behavior, it is impossible to 
draw hard and fast boundaries and to attempt it is 
to invite confusion. It is impossible to show just 
where the crowd ends and the mob begins. The dis- 
tinction is in large part one of convenience, and in 
part one of traditional emphasis upon conscious states 
and processes on the one hand, and upon behavior in 
the narrow sense, on the other hand. 
Motives of the Mob. — The analysis of mob phe- 166 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
nomena leads us to a great variety of motives, in 
some measure native and in others acquired in the 
course of life history. Let us take as an example 
the great religious revival in Kentucky in 1800. From 
the point of view developed in this chapter the Ken- 
tuckians involved in this case constituted first a crowd 
and then a mob. We will attempt to see what con- 
ditions gave rise to the phenomena. The pioneers of 
the day in eastern Kentucky had immigrated from 
the hills of Virgina and from farther east. They were 
on the whole of sturdy English and Scotch stock, such 
as is supposed not to lend itself easily to mob phe- 
nomena. Yet these people in this sparsely settled 
region, interested in common, and having a common 
purpose (crowd), came in throngs to the revivalist’s 
services, fell to the ground under the spell of religious 
excitement that was aroused by the leader, shook the 
saplings in the wood and pawed up the earth in their 
religious frenzy. The group is now a mob. 
In the towns and relatively densely populated rural 
districts in old Virginia, these people had been ac- 
customed to meeting for the exchange of religious 
experiences and for social intercourse of other forms. 
Furthermore, at any rate among the Scotch and 
Scotch-Irish elements in the population, there is be- 
lieved to be a natural trait that easily expresses itself 
in the guise of religious emotion. Such native and 
acquired dispositions are suppressed and inhibited by 
reason of lack of opportunity for their expression in 
a sparsely settled community such as eastern Ken- 
tucky in 1800 where the means of communication were 
few and precarious. But let the effective revivalist MOB MOTIVES 
167 
appear and make his vigorous appeal to even a small 
group, and the pent-up complexes are provided an 
outlet. The appeal comes to them bearing the color 
and atmosphere of the older days. The crust of in- 
difference, bred of isolation, melts under the influence, 
and the Kentuckians throw themselves into the revival 
with zest and enthusiasm, reinforced by the unloosed 
complexes that lie at the roots of their natures: with 
reduplicated enthusiasm, in fact, for it is the way with 
men, on release from restraint, to give rein to a strong 
reaction. The repression of any complex implies ten- 
sion and the psycho-analysts are repeatedly reporting 
and demonstrating cases in which the removal or 
breaking of an inhibition is followed by a vigorous, 
and sometimes blind expression of the repressed 
complexes. 
It has been pointed out above that the members of 
a group may be widety separated and yet constitute 
a crowd in all essential respects, and for that matter 
a mob as well. Up to the moment of their coming 
together under the spell of the voice of the revivalist 
this condition obtained in the case of the Kentucky 
revival. 
The circumstances leading up to a rush of home- 
seekers from the East to take up agricultural lands 
in the West will set forth once more, sufficiently, the 
characteristics of the crowd and the mob, in which 
the individual members are in relative isolation from 
one another. 
We will first assume a promoter who is seeking to 
attract a large group of buyers to his western agri- 
cultural lands. He must advertise until his prospec- 168 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
tive settlers shall have centered their attention upon 
his lands practically to the exclusion of their ordinary, 
every-day interests. This advertising must be of such 
a nature that each person who is reached by it may 
be vividly aware of whatever favorable reactions others 
may be making1 to the appeal in behalf of western 
settlement. Thus a crowd consciousness will soon 
have been developed. To facilitate the process the 
promoter will judiciously select the group to which 
he will direct his advertising. He will not select the 
members of the legal, or the medical, or the clerical 
professions, e.g., because, while they may have the 
natural disposition favorable to interest in western 
agricultural life and successful adaptation to it, yet 
as a rule it is fair to assume that this natural back- 
ground is not reinforced by such acquired or profes- 
sional dispositions or complexes as will assure the skill 
and the interest in details needful to sustain the new 
westerner throughout the difficulties of the period of 
adjustment. Consequently the promoter will advertise 
amongst a group of farmers who may be assumed to 
have acquired an occupational complex, and more- 
over, amongst those who are not now satisfactorily 
exercising it, because of adverse economic conditions 
such as the high cost of land, because of sterile soil 
where they are now living, or for any other reason. 
Such folk are more likely7 to be his audience or his 
crowd than a group of farmers who are now satis- 
factorily expressing their professional or vocational 
motives and they are much more likely than others to 
sustain themselves in the course of the initial period 
of adjustment. MOB MOTIVES 
169 
Let us assume that this group, now a crowd, caught 
up with eager interest, concentrated zeal for western 
homesteading, and fascinated by the mental picture 
of hundreds of persons like themselves preparing to 
set out upon the westward route, and let us asume 
that the movement has already begun with more en- 
thusiasm than hard-headedness. Each one, in his own 
way, is making preparation for departure. He may 
know nothing of how others are going about the same 
task. All he knows — or thinks — is that he is one of 
a great number who are on their way. The group 
has assumed all the psychological characteristics of 
the mob — and it is a mob — notwithstanding that 
the individual members are isolated from one another, 
and notwithstanding that they are not madly rushing 
down the street bent upon destruction of life or prop- 
erty. Some of the deepest impulses in human nature 
have been freed from the restraints of conventional 
life and are in full control. 
It is appropriate at this point to recall that when 
these home-seekers have once arrived upon their west- 
ern lands the promoter has a new problem. He must 
hold his people during an unexciting period of adjust- 
ment during which their memories of what they left 
behind them in their old homes are very vivid. He 
must take account of the fact that they have in their 
make-up certain school-going, church-going, town- 
meeting and play complexes, and provide an outlet for 
each of them. They cannot, even if it were desirable, 
break completely away, and at once, from all that has 
been built into their natures in the course of their 
years in the old surroundings. 170 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
The Political Campaign. — No doubt, as has 
been already suggested, the voters at the conclusion 
of many a political party campaign constitute a mob 
in as true a sense as in any other relation that may 
be described. They have been caught up in a crowd 
state of mind by an arresting appeal: they have been 
bombarded with partisan paragraphs from platform 
and press: the band and the torchlight procession 
with banners have made their contribution and the 
voters in a jumble of excitement and zealous without 
knowledge, go to their polling places, no one thinking 
for himself: each one acting on an impulse or a tangle 
of impulses. Once more it is important to remember 
that neither in the crowd nor in the mob are we deal- 
ing with what some have called a “ crowd mind ” or a 
“ mob mind ” distinct from the mind of each individ- 
ual who is a part of the group. 
In every case in which we have a crowd and a mob 
there is a concourse of stimulations peculiar to the 
situation as a whole. These have brought the atten- 
tion of all to the same problem or related problems 
and later each one is borne upon, not only by the 
orginal, inciting stimuli, but by the additional excita- 
tions that impinge upon each one from every other in 
the group. All this arouses in every one the con- 
sciousness that all are concentrated upon the same 
end. Imagery of each other’s actions and attitudes is 
vivid. Stimuli from without and impulses from within 
are infinitely reduplicated. It is the highly keyed up 
state of each one in the crowd: a state in which one 
“ feels ” and shares the attitude of many others, that FASHION 
171 
is erroneously interpreted by some as evidence of a 
“ crowd mind.” 
We have said that the voters in many a political 
campaign constitute a mob. This is particularly true 
of a brief but active campaign and of those persons 
who, late in its progress, are caught up in its whirl. 
In cases in which the moment of decision and action 
is not imminent and pressure for action is felt to be 
correspondingly weak, the trumpets, brass bands and 
orators soon lose their power, and the eager, palpitat- 
ing excitement of the people subsides — save, at any 
rate, in exceptionally volatile natures that feed upon 
the hyperbole: those of unstable constitution whose 
will is the wind’s will, and whose reliance is always 
upon the new “ ism.” 
Fashion. — The phenomena designated by the gen- 
eral term “ fashion ” are fundamentally of the same 
nature as those that have been already discussed in 
this chapter. Though we are gregarious, whether by 
nature or by habit, and though we consequently are 
disposed to sink our individuality by compromising 
the differences between us and our neighbors, we nev- 
ertheless in divers ways assert our distinctness from 
the common herd. It is in this way that fashion is 
distinguished, as we think of it, from convention and 
custom. Fundamentally it is not a matter-of-course- 
like slipping into a compromise with our neighbors, 
our contemporaries in general and our predecessors. 
This is convention or custom, and the process of 
reaching it is leveling. Fashion is a struggle or a 
protest against the conventional. A group bound by 
convention may be the “ backbone of a nation ” in 172 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
the sense that we can always depend upon them and 
know ever where to find them, but they are deadening. 
Where there are fashion-folk, on the other hand, there 
is vitality and stimulation. Such folk may not be 
the “ backbone ” of a people but in their changing 
fashions there is at any rate the possibility of im- 
proved adjustments. 
We are probably all at once fashion-folk and con- 
ventional folk in one aspect and another. It is a 
matter of degree. Each of us, from the cradle to the 
grave, clamors for his neighbor’s attention. The dead 
level is unendurable. There is a limit beyond which 
the spirit of compromise between our individualistic 
nature and our gregarious disposition may strive in 
vain. At some cost, be it great or small, each of us 
will be, in one respect or another, the center of a 
group of lookers-on, and more than that, a leader 
of a group. So the individual sets a fashion and bids 
for his followers. It may be a fashion in dress, house, 
manner of behavior or in theory. 
What will determine its character? Obviously we 
shall have to seek our answer, in part, as in other 
instances, in the nature of the self. Professor James 
was wont to speak of the material self, the social self, 
and the spiritual self: three aspects of each person- 
ality. As a matter of course we cannot think of our- 
selves apart from our material possessions: our 
clothing, our watches and jewelry, our automobiles, 
our lands, our stocks and bonds. The sense of pos- 
session colors all our life. Take away our cherished 
material goods and we feel like different persons as 
compared with our former selves. We may volun- FASHION 
173 
tarily choose to make this so-called material self the 
outstanding feature of our character — or we may 
drift into such a choice quite as a matter of course. 
In either case the road has been laid along which we 
will travel. The acquisition of material goods will 
give color to our lives; leadership in activities relat- 
ing to acquisition will be our ambition: we will follow 
the fashions set by those who are like ourselves and 
in as far as we ourselves may become the imitators 
of fashion we will create fashions in dress, house 
furnishing, automobiles, etc. 
If we have chosen in any manner to emphasize what 
has been called the social self, our cherished fashions 
are once more predetermined and the way of our am- 
bition for leadership is laid out. The manner of after- 
noon teas, of dinner parties, etc., manners of address, 
and all that, supply the material out of which, or in 
which, fashions will be made. Finally if we have 
chosen to emphasize the spiritual aspect of the self 
our fashions will be in the theories, cults, doctrines 
that we devise or espouse; in the variations in artistic 
expression that we affect, etc. 
Once the new mode or what-not has been launched, 
the less ingenious or less independent persons into 
whose attention it falls become its followers. Thus 
for a period, at any rate, they satisfy their craving 
for differentiation from the common herd in whatever 
direction their preference may lie, and the country 
wide may be swept by the fashion, or fad. 
Fashions tend to the extreme. When a large 
group of followers have caught up with the fash- 
ion leader, the individual’s craving for distinction 174 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
from the common herd is no longer satisfied. The 
line of least resistance by which satisfaction may be 
secured is in the direction in which the fashion is 
originally set. Hence the coats become longer or the 
sleeves larger, or the theory more radical, until a 
limit is reached, when the fashion breaks down of its 
own weight and a new direction, probably the reverse, 
is set. 
The foregoing considerations account for the sub- 
version of good taste in pursuit of fashion. It is 
assumed that good taste is a sense of proportion that 
is expressed in our loyalty to the fundamentals of 
aesthetics in form, color, tone, etc. In other words, 
good taste is a sense of harmony. Obviously, there- 
fore, the pursuit of fashion — especially leadership 
therein — running as it does to an extreme — tends 
not only to break up established conventions in the arts 
and crafts, but even to the subversion of good taste. 
The resistance of the psycho-physical background, 
however, prevents the sudden onset of an extreme 
departure from the fundamentals of harmony. Its 
weight, furthermore, aids no little in reducing the 
extremities of fashion. It is more than a form of 
words to apply the term “ ballast ” to certain ele- 
ments in the population in this and other similar 
connections. 
The Audience. — The audience is a specialized 
form of crowd. Its members have not come together 
fortuitously from every occupational and professional 
walk in the city as they came into the hypothetical 
railway station which served for illustration in the 
first pages of this chapter, nor yet as the thousands DISCUSSION 
175 
of prospective voters within the period of a political 
campaign come to their newspapers before breakfast 
and to the campaign tent where the orators hold forth. 
The audience is a selected group that has come to- 
gether because its members are already interested in the 
subject matter that the speaker will present. There 
is already existing a defined intellectual craving to 
satisfy, and it is common to the members of the 
group. The demand for satisfaction overtops all else 
for the time. 
To be sure, it is not solely the acquired intellectual 
motive that is stimulated in the audience. The speaker 
often appeals to quite different motives and finds them. 
For example, at the outset of his address he flatters his 
hearers by speaking of his own concurrence in certain 
“ well-matured ” views that he is told they entertain, 
and by the use of other phrases that are well known 
to the public speaker, he brings other motives into 
play such as will facilitate the development of a rap- 
port between himself and his hearers and so enable 
him the better to direct the current of their thought. 
Discussion. — The leader of the audience may bring 
his hearers to a common opinion and to a common 
decision without further to-do. The members may go 
away with the feeling that nothing remains to be said 
and forthwith settle into inactivity. In the ideal sit- 
uation, however, the leader presents many viewpoints 
and directs his hearer’s thought without concluding it. 
He stimulates thought and discussion follows as a 
consequence. As this process goes on the kernel of 
the problem, whatever it may be, is approached from 
many angles and each participant has the opportunity 176 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
to observe many reactions to each line of approach 
— in fact to experience those reactions himself. More 
or less formal analysis inevitably goes with discussion. 
In fact in may be said to be the essence of discussion. 
Points of weakness and of strength are made to stand 
out distinctly so that comparisons may be made. No 
weak cause can withstand it and every strong cause 
courts it. One person talking to or at a group can 
stir their emotions, reduce them to a common level 
of feeling and purpose, and develop a crowd or a 
mob. But when the members of the group begin to 
discuss seriously amongst themselves every crowd-mob- 
making factor is dissipated: the possibility of a mob 
developing has forthwith vanished into thin air; all 
this for the obvious reason, as already stated, that it 
is the essence of discussion to analyze, to bring not 
one, but many aspects of a problem successively into 
attention, to eliminate non-essentials, and to get down 
to fundamentals. 
Public Opinion. — In the long run the upshot of 
the process of discussion is the emergence of a new 
phase in the psychological history of the group: a 
public opinion. It is more than the algebraic sum of 
individual opinions. As excitement is allayed, reflec- 
tion ensues, and in such instances there is food for 
reflection for in the initial period of excitement indi- 
vidual opinions, formed at every angle of approach, of 
every degree of maturity and good sense, have been 
bandied about, and each wide-awake member of the 
community has observed many types of reaction 
thereto. Gradually there emerges, as a result of a 
slow, but more spontaneous than deliberate analysis, a PUBLIC OPINION 
177 
certain apprehension of common and fundamental in- 
terests by all members of the group. This is a public 
opinion. It has no reference to all the varied contents 
of consciousness of the individuals who make up a 
community. It is rather, as we conceive it, a certain 
resultant that remains over from having entertained 
many opinions of more or less maturity. It is a sub- 
limation from all that has been stirring individual 
natures during w'eeks of campaign commotion; one 
that has been helped on at many a cross-road and 
elsewhere by discussion, the genius of which is to sift; 
and because it is such a sublimation, attained by those 
elements in the community that are by nature capable 
of reflection and discussion and disposed thereto, rather 
than by the unstable cravers for excitement, or by 
those whose dullness blocks reflection and discussion, 
it can be safely assumed to touch more fundamental 
issues, and therefore to lie upon a higher plane than 
the average opinion or the algebraic sum of the opin- 
ions of all individuals in the community. 
In the light of this it will be! apparent why the 
clever manipulator who has his own selfish ends to 
pursue prefers a short campaign to a long one. He 
must force a decision and action as soon as the pop- 
ulace shall have arrived at the mob state of mind, and 
before a real public opinion shall have been developed. 
Conversely the statesman of broad vision has his ad- 
vantage in a long campaign. Furthermore, if the 
above analysis is correct, it is safe to say that gov- 
ernment by public opinion in the sense in which we 
are using the phrase, is a reliable government to fol- 
low. On the other hand, government by so-called pub- 178 
THE CROWD —ALLIED PHENOMENA 
lie opinion, i.e. public opinion in the sense of general 
agreement as to objects of thought, and no more 
than that, may be a government by a mob. 
Incidentally government by public opinion is bound 
to be more satisfying to the governed than any other 
form for the reason that the governed have had a 
hand and voice in creating the opinion and therefore 
in building the laws and other institutions which are 
crystallizations therefrom. 
By this token government by arbitrary power and 
by experts is unsatisfying; it may even serve as an 
incitement to mob formation and action for the reason 
that no person nor institution can persistently neglect 
or refuse to recognize the fundamental demand of 
human nature to carve its own destiny: to find satis- 
faction of its craving for individuality, without sooner 
or later focussing the attention of all the people upon 
the objects of their fundamental demands to the ex- 
clusion of more immediate practical interests. At 
such a juncture there are always a few daring souls, 
devoted to an ideal, who will head a revolutionary 
movement. 
We have attempted in this chapter to interpret the 
crowd, the mob, and allied phenomena, as forms of 
behavior that develop upon a basis of dispositions that 
respond in every case to more or less well-defined sit- 
uations or stimuli in the social environment. The 
prevention and control of these phenomena are affected 
by creating situations or complexes of stimuli which, 
by inciting responses, are the occasions of those com- 
plexes or habit systems — public opinion in our sense 
of the word — that inhibit precipitate action. CHAPTER VIII 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
The terms convention, or conventionality, and cus- 
tom, are properly applied respectively to two aspects 
of the same broad phenomenon. They are products 
of imitation of which one may be wholly unconscious, 
although it may have been conscious and voluntary 
at the outset. The finished product is always an au- 
tomatism. “ Conventionality ” and “ custom ” are 
frequently used interchangeably. The term “ atti- 
tude ” may be substituted for conventionality. The 
whole subject is linked up with that of habits. 
Strictly speaking, a convention or conventionality 
is a matter-of-course, silent, unthought feeling of ac- 
ceptance, or approval or disapproval of a point of 
view or form of behavior or station in life; while a 
custom is an overt method, form or habit of behavior 
which gives outward expression to the feeling of ap- 
proval or disapproval. Practically it is no more 
possible to separate the two than to effect a similar 
division in the case of any personal habit. For the 
most part we drift into our conventions and customs. 
Thus we acquire our class spirit; our political and 
religious complexions; our race prejudices; our feel- 
ing for capital and labor; our fixed professional pref- 
erences ; the “ spirit of the age ”; morale, etc. These 
are, ordinarily, conventionalities. Most of us adhere 180 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
to one or another political party and to this or that 
religious denomination or sect, not because we have 
coldly analyzed the several political and religious 
tenets respectively and thoughtfully arrived at a con- 
clusion after the evidence has all been set in array, but 
because we have been saturated with the atmosphere. 
From the cradle onward we have seen and heard mem- 
bers of our own family and neighborhood in their 
observation and discussion of the practices of their 
political, social, and religious groups. We have heard 
their points of view as to capital and labor and races 
and have seen their behavior with respect thereto, and 
our natures all the while were being formed in the 
way in which they were being exercised The process 
is closely analogous to that by which a group of 
young men become professional lawyers. (Indeed in 
the course of time any profession becomes conven- 
tional in so far as its members get into the way of 
taking it as it is.) Their natures have become in- 
clined in that direction by repeated stimulation in the 
home where the father, it may be, is a lawyer; later 
accordingly in school and in college their attention 
is caught by matters relating to that profession; later 
still in the professional school the curriculum and all 
other stimuli are selected, controlled, and brought to 
bear as nearly as may be with the single purpose in 
view to create in each young man in the group the 
complex professional attitude or habit. The process 
is carried on intensively in the practice of the pro- 
fession until, before many years have lapsed, it is 
difficult, if possible at all, to turn aside to a different 
profession. STRUGGLE AGAINST CONVENTION 
The outstanding differ* e between the method of 
arriving at the professit al disposition or profes- 
sional convention, and that of developing a conven- 
tion of the lazy man’s sort, is that in the former case 
voluntary choice and systematic effort predominate in 
the initial steps, whereas in the history of the other 
sort, drifting; casual, perhaps only implicit organic 
responses to repeated sets of stimuli, that is, responses 
of an “ inner ” sort like the sub-vocal speech that 
accompanies thinking or to the “ atmosphere ” of a 
time or place is the rule. The finished professional 
man can give reasons for his attitudes and behavior 
in particular instances, though as a matter of fact, 
they probably rarely occur to him, and he is a matter- 
of-course creature much the same as others are. The 
conventionalized product of sheer drifting cannot sup- 
port himself upon cold reasons. He, too, goes along 
as a matter of course. 
But it should not be understood that either the 
non-professional or the professional man invariably 
accepts completely the lot of the group in which he 
has grown up. In fact it is often as a matter of 
course that he struggles against the social atmosphere 
around him: he is in it but not of it: he is as a matter 
of course under an inner compulsion to ally himself 
with others whose lot is cast elsewhere than with him. 
For example, not only does the four-hundred look 
upon manual labor as degrading and as the symbol 
of ill success or of positive failure, but the manual la- 
borer himself often assumes the matter-of-course atti- 
tude that pecuniary well-being is the culmination of a 
successful career and that one’s civic worth is meas- CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
ured by one’s bank account. This resistant conven- 
tion is being bent in the& latter days — but slowly. 
It rests upon a strong natural foundation: the ten- 
dency to gravitate toward the strong — or toward 
what displays accepted evidences of strength that 
reach the eye of the observer —1 and they are inclined 
to accept the testimony at its face value. Miss Jane 
Addams (1) cites an illustration in point. “During 
one of the Chicago (aldermanic) campaigns a clever 
cartoonist drew a poster representing the successful 
aldermanic candidate with pretentious dishes and sur- 
rounded by other revelers. In contradistinction was 
his opponent, a bricklayer, who sat upon a half-fin- 
ished wall, eating a meager dinner from a working- 
man’s dinner-pail, and the passer-by was asked which 
type of representation he preferred, the presumption 
being that, at least in a working-man’s district, the 
bricklayer would come out ahead. To the chagrin of 
the reformer, however, it was gradually discovered 
that, in the popular mind, a man who laid bricks and 
wore overalls was not nearly so desirable for an 
alderman as the man who drank champagne and wore 
a diamond in his shirt-front. The district wished its 
representative to stand up with the best of them, and 
certainly some of the constituents would have been 
ashamed to have been represented by a bricklayer.” 
This is clearly a case in which a community of manual 
laborers were conventionally striving against their 
own plane rather than slipping along within it — and 
in this particular instance to their own hurt, prob- 
ably; in which they have leaned in the direction of 
what has gripped their attention and presented ac- STRUGGLE AGAINST CONVENTION 
183 
ceptable signs of strength and power. On the other 
hand the bricklayer is drab; he wears no diamonds, 
no great watch chain, and he does not drive a limou- 
sine. He does not attract attention and he presents 
to his colleagues no evidence of strength more than 
they themselves possess. With the development of 
class leadership and the clearer understanding of class 
needs that inevitably follows upon liberal and general 
education, the convention we have been discussing is 
in process of crumbling in the group of manual trades- 
men, and the class spirit — another convention — is 
taking its place. 
Conventions arise then, first, from lazily drifting 
into an acceptance of prevailing conditions and view- 
points and sentiments as they are found in our imme- 
diate place and time, as when we drift into our political 
and religious life. Secondly, they arise from an 
opposition to prevailing conditions as when the popu- 
lation upon the lower economic levels, as a matter of 
course, looks upon the possession of material wealth 
or the1 attainment of a place in the public eye — espe- 
cially the former — as the criterion of civic worth, of 
success, of usefulness; or as when they look upon con- 
spicuous leisure or the conspicuous display of leisure 
and wealth as evidence of civic worth, etc. In the 
third place their history is that of the professional or 
occupational spirit; it is a result of a voluntary con- 
trol of circumstances; of voluntarily copying an ideal 
to the end that it may be attained or approximated 
at least, leading finally to the matter-of-course pro- 
fessional or other occupational spirit. 
Obviously the intelligent leaders of a community 184 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
prefer to see their neighbors growing into and express- 
ing conventional attitudes that are out of accord with 
the real situations in the midst of which they live — 
so long as the variance is in the direction of what they 
are rightly or wrongly pleased to call “ progress,” and 
so long, furthermore, as the rebellion is not merely the 
feverish unrest that is an expression of unadapted, be- 
cause unstable, human nature that is discussed in a 
subsequent chapter. In the natural course of events 
a people of low degree mingled with a community of 
persons of better estate (provided the obstructions are 
not well-nigh insuperable, and provided further that 
they are gifted with a modicum of the spirit of dis- 
content), will gravitate upward through the almost 
insensible processes of the growth of conventions. This 
upward gravitation is an expression of the elan vital 
of healthy natures which is assumed here as the 
“ going ” power of individuals in all their relations. 
Professor Pillsbury’s observation upon the growth 
of the spirit of nationality among our immigrants, to 
be discussed later, is to the point. The very fact that 
they feel a certain oppressive atmosphere from being 
looked at askance by their new neighbors is a stimulus 
to which the more sensitive and adaptable among them, 
at any rate, respond by adopting native manners, vol- 
untarily in large part, and gliding into the new spirit 
by exercising the new manners. The process described 
by Pillsbury goes on largely, no doubt, without their 
recognizing it and some day they wake up surprised 
to find how far along the way toward naturalization 
in the real sense they have already gone. The analogy 
is close to the formation of any automatism. SPIRIT OF THE AGE 
185 
Spirit of the Age. — The spirit of the age is con- 
ventional. “ We see nothing ‘ dogmatic ’ in the inspir- 
ing, but certainly most startling, theory of physical 
science, that we should collect facts for the sake of 
facts, even though they seem as useless as sticks and 
straws. This is a great and suggestive idea, and its 
utility is, in the abstract, quite as disputable as that 
of calling on oracles or consulting shrines which has 
been in times past said to prove itself. Thus, because 
we are not in a civilization which believes strongly in 
oracles or sacred places, we see the full frenzy of those 
who killed themselves to find the sepulchre of Christ. 
But being in a civilization which does believe in this 
dogma of fact for fact’s sake, we do not see the full 
frenzy of those who kill themselves to find the North 
Pole. I am not speaking of a tenable ultimate utility 
which is true both of the Crusades and the polar ex- 
plorations. I mean merely that we do see the super- 
ficial and aesthetic singularity, the startling quality, 
about the idea of men crossing a continent with armies 
to conquer the place where a man died. But we do not 
see the aesthetic singularity and startling quality of 
men dying in agonies to find a place where no man 
can live — a place interesting only because it is sup- 
posed to be the meeting place of some lines that do 
not exist” (13). The great body of scientists indi- 
vidually accept this spirit and act upon it, scarcely 
thinking why. It is their second nature. It is “ in 
the air ” and they are imitated by the novices who will 
develop and perpetuate the spirit after them. Various 
departments of science have startled us so often by 
their discoveries that they have acquired a glamour 186 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
of their own, by reason of which the masses of the 
people expect to be startled again and are predisposed 
to give their silent, matter-of-course, or conventional 
approval to the projects of men of science. Besides, 
because each branch of science has a glamour of its 
own, grown out of its startling accomplishments, it 
appears to the outsider to be a vital, powerful thing, 
and for this reason there is a predisposition on the 
part of observers to consent, conventionally, to the 
proposals that men and women of science may make 
from time to time, unusual though they may be. 
The spirit of the age described as economic is a 
confession that in the background of our consciousness 
the economic motive plays a large role. It is next to 
inevitable, especially in the case of that great multi- 
tude who must continually struggle for daily bread, 
and of that other group who are put to it to main- 
tain a family tradition by holding together and in- 
creasing a swollen fortune and managing large affairs, 
that the economic activity should after a while re- 
solve itself into second, in this case conventional, 
nature. 
Once a convention has been developed on a broad 
scale in a group of people, a bond has been created 
among them that contributes to the sense of unity 
that was the subject of an earlier chapter. A group 
of lawyers, of physicians, of commercial men, of 
farmers, plumbers, or day laborers, in part by reason 
of their professional or occupational conventions which 
they hold in common, understand one another, and 
take one another and the group into consideration in 
relation to their daily work. In consequence of all NATIONALISM 
187 
this they are able to co-operate toward ends that they 
value in common. 
Nationalism. — The formation of conventions 
amongst the members of a family or neighborhood or 
profession is, on a smaller scale, the same phenomenon 
as the assimilation of the diverse elements in the mixed 
population of a state or nation. It has a relation, 
therefore, to the Americanization of immigrants, or 
to the Germanization of a population. As soon as 
one people have begun, on a voluntary basis, to act 
and think as their neighbors do assimilation has begun. 
No deep-reaching alteration of their personalities has 
yet come to pass. They may be shaken apart on 
slight provocation. After sufficiently prolonged co- 
operation on a voluntary basis, deep-seated changes 
take shape. Both implicit and explicit habits are 
formed that involve the organism through and through 
in infinite permutation: a psycho-physical change has 
been perfected, and assimilation is a fact. The assim- 
ilated and the assimilators figuratively look through 
the same eyes and stand in the same shoes. From this 
new psycho-physical disposition, according to a hy- 
pothesis widely accepted among psychologists, arise 
impulses that lead to matter-of-course overt behavior. 
It is a question how far the process of assimilation 
can go. Undoubtedly it will vary with individuals and 
with groups. It will vary, too, writh the manner of dis- 
tribution of the foreign groups amongst the would-be 
assimilating population. If, colonies are planted down 
here and there so that the persistence of inter-stimu- 
lations common to the homeland is assured, assimila- 
tion may not even have a beginning. But if there is 188 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
no such grouping: if each and every individual immi- 
grant is so isolated from his countrymen that he can 
be played upon uninterruptedly by stimuli that are 
peculiar to the new society into which he has come: 
if necessity compels him to learn the new language: 
if getting on with his new neighbors compels him to 
take on new forms of behavior, and if he is brought 
into contact in season and out of season with the tra- 
ditions and ideals of American institutions, he will 
sooner or later inevitably become a matter-of-course 
naturalized member of the new community. 
Professor Pillsbury has made an attempt at select- 
ing the most potent situations that lead to the ultimate 
transforming of the foreigner into the naturalized 
citizen (11). 
“ In estimating the relative importance of the differ- 
ent influences, one may probably put first the desire 
for the better social standing and higher degree of 
physical comfort enjoyed by the native. That the 
superiority of wealth and ordinarily of education is 
an important factor in inducing the amalgamation, 
becomes evident if one thinks what the probable course 
would be were the immigrant to go among an inferior 
people. It has been the history of the settlement of 
countries inhabited by inferior races that they were 
merely driven out or exterminated. Where the native 
and immigrant are more nearly on a level or the natives 
are strong enough to hold their own, as in China and 
in certain of the more backward Latin American coun- 
tries, either the races live entirely apart or the two 
fuse into a new race to which each contributes its 
share. PILLSBURY QUOTED 
189 
“ Many of the altruistic social workers, and Zim- 
mern among the theorists, have criticized the American 
people for assumption of superiority and for their 
contempt of the foreigner. It must be admitted that 
it has no defense on theoretical or moral grounds. One 
must admit that the American is full of conceit as to 
his superiority and that the conceit is largely based 
on ignorance. In every city there are undoubtedly 
many men who are passed by with contempt, or more 
likely never noticed at all, who, by their training and 
ability, are entitled to a high place in literature or 
art or political theory. This attitude is taken not 
by the superior Americans but by the ordinary man, 
very much inferior in every respect to the men he is 
looking down upon. Much as we may deprecate the 
unfairness of the American in this respect and lament 
the opportunities that he misses on account of it, we 
must still grant that by it the process of naturaliza- 
tion is hastened. The unreasoning race prejudice 
which shows itself in repugnance toward the strange 
speech, customs, and standards of the immigrant is 
one of the strongest forces in compelling him to be 
absorbed. How the opposite course of accepting all 
as equals, with manners and clothing and standards 
that were merely different but just as good, would 
work, we cannot say because it has never been tried. 
Probably one would find that if the newcomer were not 
repressed he would dominate and soon oppress. At 
the best he would not be assimilated. Whatever its 
ethical value, even its logical truth, race prejudice is 
one of the most important forces in the amalgamation 
of the stranger. 190 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
“ It is, of course, granted that the more indepen- 
dent minds among the newcomers see the injustice of 
the native attitude; the more self-reliant resent it. The 
prejudice accounts in part for the strong socialistic 
and anti-governmental political beliefs among them. 
The great majority, however, feel that steady pressure 
of implied inferiority that meets them on every side 
and in every field. They respond to it both in essen- 
tials and non-essentials. Their costume may be af- 
fected first. The native dress is discarded as soon as 
possible. The women are ashamed to be seen without 
a hat; the native costume, however attractive in itself, 
soon becomes a mark of inferiority and a matter of 
reproach. All of the external manners and customs 
yield in the same way. The methods of salutation, and 
habits in connection with the toilet and table are grad- 
ually given up or modified to meet the prevailing 
American usage. 
“ Many of these are superficial and unimportant 
in themselves and serve only to indicate the way in 
which the assumed superiority of the new compels the 
change in old customs. In the more essential respects 
the same forces are at work. Between manners and 
hygiene there is a close relation. The reason for 
abandoning overcrowding in sleeping quarters, unhy- 
gienic food and personal habits is usually the social 
disrepute in which they stand rather than any rational 
consideration. To be able to receive friends in a room 
not used as a bedroom, to say that the wife does not 
keep boarders, is a mark of social distinction, or a 
plea for social recognition, quite as frequently as it is 
an acceptance of rational hygiene or a consideration PILLSBURY QUOTED 
191 
of the well-being of the wife. Even the possession of a 
bathroom is frequently, among the lower circles, more 
a mark of social superiority than a means of cleanli- 
ness. When the change, whatever its nature, has been 
introduced as means for the attainment of social dis- 
tinction, habits develop 'that have a hygienic value. 
Cleanliness in its different forms becomes essential to 
comfort and cannot be easily dispensed with. 
“ Frequently the change has been worked with slight 
recognition on the part of the individual. He may 
still look back with fondness to the good old ways. 
It is only when he tries to return to the old that he 
appreciates his change and the advantage of the new. 
I remember a relatively young Greek at Patras, who 
had been recalled for service during the Turkish war 
and had gone back to the shepherd’s life of his parents 
while waiting for induction. Before his return he had 
looked back upon the shepherd’s life as idyllic, even 
as ideal. When he experienced it, the hardships, par- 
ticularly the dirt, were insufferable. After a few 
weeks he gave up the life and came to Patras and 
worked as a porter about a hotel. Even there he could 
not endure his accommodations but rented a room at 
his own expense to obtain the cleanliness that had be- 
come essential to him. Once the standard of comfort 
has been raised by the social forces, the new habits 
and the emotions that develop with them prevent slip- 
ping back to the lower level.” 
It would probably be going too far to assert that 
Professor Pillsburv has named here the most potent 
factor universally. But whatever that factor is in a 
given case it is the one that best succeeds, in the 192 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
long run, in paving the way toward a certain emotional 
reaction of at-home-ness on the part of the immigrant 
in his new environment. 
Morale. — The term “ morale of a people ” is de- 
scriptive of a state that is not greatly unlike that to 
which we apply the term “ convention.” The differ- 
ence! seems to be that the former implies something 
more of a recognition of aims and purposes than does 
the latter, and that the people look upon those aims 
and purposes with warmth of emotion. They are the 
only objects that seem worth while. If this is correct, 
morale may be interpreted as a partially fixed con- 
vention ; or as a phase in the development of a con- 
vention which it fully becomes when novelty has been 
displaced by accustomedness. We are repeatedly say- 
ing in war time that the morale of the people must 
be bolstered up or maintained at all costs and that 
the morale of the army must not be allowed to suffer, 
whatever circumstances may befall. We use the same 
term in peace time in political campaigns, etc. The 
leader of an army or of a people in time of peace can 
execute his plans only on the assumption that the 
morale of the army or of the public is at a sufficiently 
high pitch. If it is not so the leaders must first set 
about to develop it. How it grows up may be appre- 
ciated by reverting to some of the experiences gained 
in the World War. 
It was necessary in the last degree to weld all the 
people; to create a nation-wide spirit of co-operation 
toward a well-defined end, and a common determination 
to brook no interference with such co-operation. All 
of this was covered by the term “ morale.” It was MORALE 
193 
pre-eminently the function of intellectual leadership to 
develop it. Once secured it afforded opportunity, both 
to intellectual and executive leadership, for other 
accomplishment. 
In the course of the war there were special difficul- 
ties before the leaders of the people of the United 
States who were attempting to assure such a morale 
of the whole population as would insure victory. Their 
difficulties and the way they were met are full of mean- 
ing for the morale of peace time as well as for war 
time. 
The people of the United States are sometimes de- 
scribed as lacking in national traditions. There is a 
measure of truth in this but there is at least one 
important exception. We have from the first cher- 
ished an aloofness from Europe. This is traditional. 
That we should have no entangling alliances with Eu- 
ropean powers was, up to 1917, ail ideal that was 
cherished by natives and immigrants alike. This had 
to be overcome and it could never have been accom- 
plished had advantage not been taken of the sinking of 
American passenger vessels, other acts of violence on 
the part of the Central European powers, and of the 
timely cry, “Make the world safe for democracy.” 
The latter carried with it always the suggestion that 
our vaguely conceived ideal of democracy was being 
endangered and that we must take up arms to insure 
its development abroad if we would protect it at home. 
Overt violence to our lives and property and real or 
imagined violence — it matters not which, for our 
purposes — to our ideals: these alone could grip the 
attention of practically all of the people. Nearly all 194 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
the exceptions were to be found in that considerable 
group of immigrants whose sympathies naturally lay 
with their homeland in Central Europe. And this is 
the first and most essential condition of morale in war 
or in peace: the attention of practically all the people 
must be gripped by one thing, or by a group of sev- 
eral things, to be accomplished — whether the act of 
accomplishment is to be protective or aggressive — 
and the people must be made to feel that the accom- 
plishment is the one thing worth while: that by the 
side of it everything else fades into insignificance. The 
love of fighting and of the chase are so strong in 
human nature that in other circumstances it would 
not be difficult to bring about this result. In this 
case, however, the disposition to fight and the love of 
adventure plus the strong resentment of the hour had 
to be reinforced in order to overcome the national 
regard for our traditional isolation and the divided 
sympathies of the people that were so manifest in the 
early period of the European struggle. 
Resort was had to many expedients — among others 
to millions of posters to stimulate enlistment with the 
Marines and the Navy, and to support drives for the 
Red Cross, for loans, for the promotion of the moral 
and physical health of the soldiers, for the conserva- 
tion of food, etc. — all for the one great end of win- 
ning the war “ to make the world safe for democracy.” 
Dr. G. Stanley Hall (5) lists fifty of these posters, 
all of which have had circulation in the United States. 
At least forty were drawn by American artists for use 
in our country. The Clark University Library, says 
Dr. Hall, has on exhibition about 6,000 of them col- POSTERS AND WAR MORALE 
195 
lected from the entente powers — including proclama- 
tions. The German government used the same means 
to bolster morale amongst the Teutonic population. 
All of these, from whatever country they have come, 
were used to stir up the emotions: to “ uncap impulses 
that may be made to spur men on to great decisions,” 
for it is the nature of emotion to dispel doubts by 
suppressing the alternatives to decision and action 
that lie in the background. On every corner these 
posters met the eye with their compelling appeal. 
Says Dr. Hall: “Not until the history of this great 
conflict shall have been written up shall we realize to 
what an amazing extent art has simply been the very 
incarnation of war morale. Many of these artists 
have already been decorated, and the end of the war 
by no means marks the end of their influence or of 
their work.” In England “ some of the best artists 
were engaged, and a series of about 150 posters were 
soon conspicuously displayed all over Great Britain 
with a message it was hard to ignore. All agreed that 
they were a prominent, if not the chief factor in rais- 
ing a volunteer army of over three million men. When 
and before recruiting was superseded by the draft the 
same method was applied to war loans, and by its aid 
over three billion dollars were raised in two weeks.” 
By all these means, and by the aid also of countless 
three-minute snappy speeches and other varieties, 
morale was developed and maintained at home. The 
essence of the whole proceeding consisted in giving 
the people one great, clear-cut aim to think about, 
and not only so, but in reiterating the aim in countless 
ways and by many devices, and in stirring up the 196 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
emotions of the people until all alternatives to the 
one great decision and action were suppressed. On 
a broad scale the process was similar to the first type 
of decision described by Professor James (7), except- 
ing that in this case the materials for decision are 
being set in order deliberately by the leaders of the 
people with a view to obtaining the reaction they them- 
selves desire. 
The problem of developing and maintaining morale 
among the soldiery at the front and in the camps, is 
not widely different from that at home. It may be 
assumed that there were no pronounced differences in 
sympathy to be leveled. It was their job to fight and 
their decision to that end had already been made. But 
to keep up the fighting spirit — meaning to maintain 
the desire or love for fighting and the enthusiasm for 
all hard work and drudgery preparatory thereto — 
this was the special problem relating to morale among 
the fighting forces. 
Several expedients were resorted to. As has been 
indicated in an earlier chapter there was never such 
a gigantic system afoot for eliminating from a group 
of men those who were mentally unfit at the very be- 
ginning of an enterprise, as we saw in this war — par- 
ticularly in connection with the participation of the 
United States in it. The Surgeon General’s Office, as 
has already been indicated, maintained a force of psy- 
chiatrists and psychologists to weed out in every camp 
those who were unfit in mental and nervous organiza- 
tion for living the life of a soldier. Such unfits or 
misfits never contribute to a steady morale. Arrange- 
ments for sanitation and hospitalization in the camps PHYSICAL ENERGY AND HUMOR 
197 
and at the front were so extensive that at home the 
people were in danger of serious deprivation of medi- 
cal attendance in case of widespread need; this pro- 
vision was an official recognition of the fact, so well 
known in smaller circles, for a long time, that the 
spirit of accomplishment, or the will to do, is depend- 
ent upon mental and physical well-being and even upon 
brawn. Not only so, but the sordidness and the te- 
dium of an immediate environment are strongly inimical 
to high morale. If sordid surroundings and tedious- 
ness are inevitable, every device must be employed to 
enable the soldier to forget them. Pawlow’s studies 
of emotional life, and those of his pupils, have shown 
us how fundamental are normal appetite and proper 
metabolism for healthy and vigorous mental states, 
To quote again from Dr. Hall: “War, of course, 
needs intense physical energy, and the labor of drill 
and camp work, which has toned up so many men of 
poor physique, has left a bequest to morale that ought 
long to outlive the war. To be weak is to be miserable 
and to be strong and well predisposes to true virtue. 
The muscles are nearly half the body weight. They 
are the organs of the will, which has done everything 
man has accomplished, and if they are kept at concert 
pitch the chasm between knowing and doing which is 
often so fatal, is in a measure closed. There is no 
better way of strengthening that class of activities 
which we ascribe to the will than by cultivating muscle,” 
and he might have added, “ general health.” 
By means of the spirit and expression of humor 
men and women lift themselves out of the humdrum 
of every-day life and escape from the ugliness of a 198 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
situation that they would have ordered otherwise if 
they could. By its means they create for themselves 
a symbolic sphere of existence that is more tolerable 
than the actual. It is a defence mechanism. There 
is no one, certainly, but finds his burden lightened 
thereby. Fewer there are who are able to give it 
expression. Those who possess this capacity are 
worth more than their numbers to the regiment that 
is so fortunate as to possess them. The Irishman 
sitting smilingly in his trench when enemy shells are 
bursting round him and others in his vicinity are shat- 
tered by fear, is worth more than can be estimated 
because he has just finished explaining that he is not 
afraid for the reason that “ my fortin teller has towld 
me that Oi’ll have sivin more years o’ bad luck.” Be- 
sides, humor is almost instinctively accepted as a 
suggester of reserve power and resourcefulness. The 
person who can indulge in humor is not quite down 
or “ all in ” and if he bobs up with his cordial wit 
and humor when circumstances are of the most des- 
perate sort, when he and his companions are not yet 
accustomed to them, he is justifiably the hub of all 
around him. Wherever he goes and whatever he does, 
others will go and others will do likewise. Thus far 
he is the stuff of which successful leaders are made. 
He lifts his fellows with him instead of dragging 
anchor after them. 
Reading played its part in the maintenance of 
morale in the camps. The strong demand was for 
fiction including tales of adventure. The leading mo- 
tive seemed to be for diversion and for living in 
imagination through the exciting scenes of battle for MORALE IN PEACE 
199 
which they were preparing, or at any rate for living 
a life that is recognized, for the time being at any 
rate, as more nearly approximating an ideal than the 
actual present existence. Reading in the camps, there- 
fore, in large measure, was for providing the materials 
for a defence reaction. (8) 
But this is not all, for there was always a demand 
upon camp libraries to furnish books that may be 
described as technical: relating to the French lan- 
guage and literature; the science and art of warfare, 
etc., and thus more or less directly associated with 
the new profession upon which our soldiery had en- 
tered. This suggests an acquired or professional mo- 
tive, perhaps the conscious, choosing phase of the 
development of the matter-of-course, unconscious mo- 
tive which we have discussed heretofore. 
Morale in Peace.—At the outset of this rehearsal 
of the methods of developing and maintaining morale 
in camp and at the front, and in the civilian popula- 
tion in war time, the statement was made that we 
should be able to draw important inferences therefrom 
for the development and maintenance of morale in 
peace. And at this point it is appropriate to say that 
the process of Americanization, of developing better 
codes of commercial and professional ethics, and a 
strictly non-partisan and non-commercial attitude 
toward the selection of school-boards — all this and 
the like is a going toward the development of morale 
which, as Dr. Hall says, cannot be defined. It can 
only be felt. 
We have seen that in war time the first great essen- 
tial is to grip the attention of the soldiery and of the 200 
CONVENTION, CUSTOM AND MORALE 
public at large by the aims and purposes of the strug- 
gle. These must be made to appeal personally to each 
individual to insure the morale that will make victory 
possible. 
Morale in time of peace, and the conditions that 
foster it are essentially in no wise different from those 
in time of war excepting in the aims and purposes 
that are the objects of attention. In peace it is 
more difficult than in war to inject aims and purposes 
of such vividness that they can hold attention against 
competitors and assure the emotional reaction that 
is essential to pursuit of those aims. From the angle 
of the psychologist the Boy Scouts, the Camp Fire 
Girls and many of the activities of the settlements 
amongst the immigrant population of our great cities 
and the like, are so many organizations that are at- 
tempting, through their varied programs, to make 
good citizenship appear so much worth while to every- 
one in touch therewith that no deviation from it can 
be tolerated. Their success in developing morale will 
depend in great measure upon the vividness of their 
appeal to widely-held motives and upon the vigor with 
which their members repeatedly react to the ideals and 
duties that are implied in membership. 
Religion, both in war and in peace, bolsters morale 
because in the religous attitude all eyes are turned 
toward a being whose greatness and power are con- 
ceived as embracing everything. Brush aside all 
dogma as to the nature of God and His relations to 
men, and all ceremonial, both of which are superficial 
and conventionalized, and there still remains the core 
of religion which implies a conviction that there is RELIGION AND MORALE 
201 
something superior to men and to all the forces of 
nature; something that somehow is in control of every- 
thing. Millions personify that something and endow 
it with the most beneficent nature that can be con- 
ceived. Then when health and fortune fail, when 
armies are crushed and governments totter and every 
other visible support is in danger, we lean back upon 
religion, and this process has undoubtedly been the 
source of many victories both in war and in peace. 
In such a case our religion is our morale. It depends 
for its effectiveness upon precisely the same conditions 
as affect morale in any other relation; aims and ideals 
must be made vivid and our behavior must square with 
them. CHAPTER IX 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
Were our instinctive and conventional or customary 
attitudes or states the sum and substance of our social 
psychology, we should have a static system; we should 
ignore the most important feature of community life: 
the altering face of social phenomena. 
The upward push is the great central fact in life. 
It defies analysis. We may call it “ the will to do ” 
but the phrase is not descriptive. It is not instinct 
nor habit nor does it comprise only the intellectual 
capacities of men. These are avenues through which 
the push finds outlet, and in every discussion of 
these elements it is assumed that the elan vital, as the 
French describe the upward urge of human nature, is 
the fundamental thing. Some students are likely to be 
unhappy whilst reading of social progress from the 
psychologist’s angle unless this assumption is made at 
the outset. 
Customs or conventions are crusts that tend to limit 
the extent and direction of the upward push and of 
adjustments among individuals, and at the same time 
they are the results of repeated reactions to these 
forces. They are, in fact, as has already been pointed 
out, habitual mental attitudes and habitual modes of 
behavior; they are, therefore, essentially, not differ- 
erent from a habit of speaking or a habit of writing, IDEAS OF PROGRESS 
203 
and just as a habit of speaking the English language 
stands in the way of the acquisition of French speech, 
so the conventional or customary attitude of a class 
stands in the way of adopting or of appreciating the 
attitude of another class. It, by the same token, 
stands in the wray of those changes that we describe by 
the term progress. 
Progress, as we use the word here, implies move- 
ment or change in the direction of a goal chosen and 
approved in advance; if chosen by the wisdom of a 
group with an eye to the unity and co-operation of 
members of the group it is social progress. We do 
not wish to emphasize the deliberateness of the choice 
in this connection. It may or may not be deliberate 
in the technical sense of the term. The “ change ” 
involved in progress is essentially and in the very last 
analysis, an inner alteration of the personality of 
which other changes in the external relationship of 
persons may be signs. 
The methods of organization and co-operation in 
business, political and other forms of social life are 
sometimes described as comprising progress in so far 
as, by common consent, they are understood as effect- 
ing improved adaptations to the conditions of life. 
But we are interested in these matters and in the in- 
vention and adoption of mechanical and other devices 
— invention in the narrow sense of the term — first, 
because we interpret them as signs of progress or the 
reverse; it is impossible to conceive of a mechanical 
device whose inventor was not, at the time of invention, 
in a social attitude of mind. He must in some terms 
or other have imagined a need for the device and have 204 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
pictured others using it when completed; secondly, 
because we conceive of them as so many stimuli that 
occasion new reactions and bring people into contact 
with a large number of hitherto unknown phases of 
their environment; or at any rate as making possible 
the larger and more varied stimulation by surrounding 
circumstances. Thus the invention of the steam en- 
gine, the telegraph, the democratic form of govern- 
ment, etc., brings people into new relations among 
themselves and with the surrounding world, and facil- 
itates directly or indirectly the growth of new customs 
and conventions; new unconscious backgrounds of 
personality which, as we have already seen, determine 
largely the course of human social behavior. 
Furthermore, we are interested in the persistence 
of these inventions because it is a sign that there is in 
the personality of the individuals affected a disposi- 
tion that is capable of reacting to the new order. 
Thus the persistence of the democratic form of gov- 
ernment of nations and other institutions is a sign 
that the people among whom it thrives have a disposi- 
tion that is favorable to co-operation for the advan- 
tage of the whole, and that they have the capacity, 
as we say, each one to put himself in the other’s place; 
all of which, no doubt, grows very largely from the 
fundamental factor that we have attended to hitherto: 
viz., our capacity to imagine our neighbor. If an in- 
vention such as a method of government, e.g., not only 
persists but is gradually adopted more and more 
widely, after a period of earnest try, try again, the 
student of psychology interprets it as an indication 
of the development of dispositions that existed earlier ESSENTIAL OF PROGRESS 
205 
only in embryo. Conversely, the failure in this direc- 
tion and consequent retrogression to more primitive 
forms means to him that the people either had not 
the suitable background to begin with or that they 
were crowded forward more rapidly than dispositions 
to react to the new situation could be developed 
through education or otherwise. 
One essential thing then, in social progress, is the 
suitable psychic or psycho-physical disposition: the 
unconscious psychic background as distinct from the 
conscious psychological aspects of life. It matters 
little whether this disposition be a heritable trait. It 
is equally effective if it is acquired in the lifetime of 
the individual. But the favorable disposition must be 
there ready to spring into activity when the suitable 
stimulus or stimuli are presented. 
It should be apparent from the foregoing that we 
think of the goal of social progress as implying those 
changes in the personality of individuals that are 
comprehended in complete mutual understanding 
among the members of the social group and the ulti- 
mate extension of that group to include all peoples. 
It implies further the approach of a complete matter- 
of-course co-operation among men such as will nat- 
urally arise with complete mutual understanding. We 
are dealing with internal modifications but not solely 
in the sense of the eugenist. 
We do not deceive ourselves by accepting a con- 
ception of “ general progress.” Undoubtedly pro- 
gressive and retrogressive movements go on coincident- 
ally. If the theory of progress that underlies this 
chapter is correct we should expect that generation 206 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
after generation retrogressive movements should be- 
come relatively fewer and fewer. 
Obviously we do not presuppose the existence of a 
social mind that comprehends all individual minds, 
perceives various possible courses of social evolution 
any one of which may be pursued by society at large, 
and makes a selection among them. Such a presup- 
position is in the minds of many students. It has 
hardly arisen from the employment of scientific method. 
We have not found it necessary to employ it hitherto 
in these chapters and we shall not be compelled to 
resort to it in connection with our discussion of social 
progress. 
Not too great steps at any one time, may be re- 
quired with impunity of those dispositions the develop- 
ment of which we describe as progress. A Jovian 
intervention from without, even though it may be aimed 
at what those of our civilization would describe as 
ideal, is doomed to failure. All deliberate intervention 
must be preceded by an intelligent appraisal first, of 
what dispositions may be counted upon for reserve 
power and as steering gear, and secondly of what 
stresses and strains they may be expected to endure, 
and of the spans they can safely cover in each suc- 
cessive adjustment. 
The very hub of social progress then is a growing 
psychic background of such a quality that the people 
who possess it are growing daily more and more capa- 
ble of mutual understanding and co-operation, and 
more and more inclined thereto. Practically, we may 
be permitted to say that social progress is the increas- 
ing occurrence amongst the personnel of a community A REFORM BROKEN 
207 
of sympathetic co-operation toward a common goal. 
This is equivalent to the statement that social progress 
is always a slow, gradual process. There are accele- 
rations and retardations as in all processes of growth 
and decay, but these are never sensationally abrupt 
like a flash from the clear sky. The great political 
campaign, the stirring religious revival, the war craze 
sweeping the land, are not progress but ripples upon 
the surface of the great silent current of progress or 
reaction in every normal personality, occasioned by a 
leader’s or agitator’s interference with its accustomed 
course. 
Failure to recognize these fundamental truths 
breaks many a reform movement which in more auspi- 
cious circumstances might have been the means, in the 
course of time, of developing new dispositions, ex- 
pressed in enlarged outlook and sympathy among mil- 
lions of people. Such failure it is that leads to social 
reaction and disaster. A case in point is that of Em- 
peror Joseph II of Austria — attempted reformer 
(22): 
“ He was permeated by the characteristic ideas of 
the eighteenth century as to the duties of an absolute 
monarch, and began at once to give effect to them in 
a fearless and almost revolutionary spirit. His first 
step was to combine the various nationalities subject 
to him into a single state with thirteen administrative 
districts. He refused to be crowned King of Hungary, 
and would not summon the Hungarian diet, insisting 
that the country should be governed as a province, 
and causing German to be used as the official language. 
Among other reforms he proclaimed the abolition of 208 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
serfdom, substituted various punishments for the cap- 
ital penalty, established common tribunals, and issued 
new codes based on the principle that all citizens are 
equal before the law. He transferred the censorship 
of books from the clergy to laymen of liberal sympa- 
thies, and granted complete freedom to journalism. 
He instituted public libraries and observatories, founded 
a medical college in Vienna, a university in Lemberg, 
and schools for the middle classes in various parts of 
the monarchy, and encouraged art by offering prizes 
in connection with the academy of the plastic arts. 
Industry and trade he fostered by destroying many 
monopolies, by aiding in the establishment of new man- 
ufactures, by raising Fiume to the position of a free 
harbor, and by opening the Danube to his subjects from 
its source to the Black Sea. ... In 1781 he issued 
an edict of toleration, granting freedom of worship to 
all Protestants and to members of the Greek Church; 
and between 1782 and 1790 about 700 monasteries 
were closed, the members of religious orders being re- 
duced from 63,000 to 27,000. All these changes were 
well meant, but the emperor, in the ardor of his phil- 
anthropy, shot too far ahead of the prevailing senti- 
ment of his people. Moreover, his good intentions 
were often rendered fruitless by unskilled or unsympa- 
thetic subordinates. In nearly every part of the mon- 
archy discontent soon manifested itself, and some of 
the inhabitants of the Tyrol broke into open rebellion. 
The Hungarians bitterly resented the suppression of 
their ancient privileges, and in 1787 the emperor’s new 
institutions led in several districts to a furious con- 
flict between the peasantry and the nobles. The PROSPERITY AND DELINQUENCY 
209 
estates of the Austrian Netherlands persistently 
opposed the execution of his schemes, the clergy 
being especially active in stirring up popular in- 
dignation. ... In Hungary there was so dangerous 
an agitation that in January, 1790, Joseph had to 
undo almost everything he had attempted to accom- 
plish in that country during the previous nine years; 
he succeeded only in maintaining the decrees by which 
he had abolished serfdom and established toleration. 
Thus his last days were rendered miserable by the 
conviction that his career had been a failure.” 
Of the same order is the group of phenomena re- 
ferred to by Aschaffenberg (2) in his discussion of 
the relation of juvenile delinquency in Berlin to the 
economic level of the people concerned. It had been 
urged, and is yet on many hands, that if the pinch 
of poverty could be removed; if people in general 
could but receive a good wage, delinquency and crime 
would disappear. This hypothesis was the more widely 
accepted in Berlin because during the decade following 
1882, when juveniles of working age were not gener- 
ally employed owing to industrial depression, the wave 
of delinquency waxed at an alarming rate. But dur- 
ing the following decade of industrial prosperity in 
which practically all of working age were profitably 
employed, delinquency continued to increase at a rapid 
rate. The difference between the two periods is that 
in the former thievery ran high whereas in the latter 
this type of offense became less frequent relatively, 
and personal violence increased almost as if without 
let or hindrance. Offences of assault and battery, for 
instance, increased 123% over the preceding period, 210 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
breach of the peace 128.6%, insult 105%, resisting 
an officer 50%, malicious mischief 55%, fraud 40%, 
offenses against chastity 19% and theft only 8%. 
Undoubtedly this disappointing phenomenon appeared 
for the reason that the youths concerned were not 
equipped with either native or acquired dispositions 
such as would enable them to take advantage of the 
best opportunities that economic prosperity placed in 
their hands. The economic improvement in this case 
was only an illusory show of progress. The essential 
groundwork had not been completely prepared, and 
society, as far as it was represented by the youths in 
the case, was in no better situation, if indeed it was 
not worse off, than before. 
Social progress cannot be forced from without. It 
must wait upon developments within. The liberal in- 
dustrial or commercial organization establishes a wel- 
fare bureau which is interested in all that the name 
implies: recreation, health, education, home manage- 
ment, etc., among the workers. But the employees, 
especially if they are native Americans or of British 
origin, resent what seems to them to be paternalistic 
and set their faces toward forms of recreation, etc., 
of their own devising. The promoters of the welfare 
enterprise are in danger of running counter to funda- 
mental tendencies in human nature. 
The like observation may be made properly of an 
industrial plant, the management of which institutes a 
profit-sharing plan, participation in which on the part 
of employees is conditioned upon their living in certain 
localities; in certain types of house; in spending such 
a portion of their income for insurance, purchase of EXECUTIVE LEADERS 
211 
home, clothing and so on. As a general rule people 
are not made continuously happy thereby, because 
their personal initiative is sacrificed. Their sense of 
self-management is shocked; they are offended by 
paternalism. 
There must be exceptions to these statements when 
one bears in mind large blocks of individuals who are 
near the edge of normality like the constitutional in- 
feriors, whose philosophy is of the laissez-faire type, 
and of other large groups immigrated from paternal- 
istic regions. Even as to the red-blooded ambitious 
element in the population the paternalistic devices re- 
ferred to above cannot be utterly condemned in the 
name of progress. Such devices may properly now 
and then be interpreted as stimuli adequate to call 
out desirable behavior such as ultimately will result 
in a complex of acquired dispositions favorable to good 
housing, to recreation, insurance, mutual understand- 
ing and co-operation, etc. The process of approxima- 
tion toward such a result is progress. It is the part 
of unusual wisdom to discern how far paternalism may 
go without endangering the process. 
Leaders. — Progress assumes the activity of lead- 
ers ; and the nature of leaders and the sources whence 
they come are of prime importance for our consid- 
eration. 
Executive Leaders. — A distinction may properly 
be made between two types of leader: the executive and 
the intellectual. It is not pretended that this division 
is altogether exhaustive. One might mention many sub- 
types : the ward leader, the labor agitator, the reli- 
gious leader, etc. But all of these and whatever others 212 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
may be suggested are probably comprehended in the 
two types we have named. 
The first in this classification is illustrated in 
many military men and responsible heads of large 
commercial or industrial establishments. Such men 
have a capacity to grip the attention of their followers 
by a certain physical appearance of vitality, a vivid 
statement of purposes and means, and withal an invit- 
ing rather than an antagonistic personality. The 
entire make-up of such an individual is suggestive of 
strength. For that reason the native impulse of his 
followers is to go with him without questioning •why. 
Aided by his vivid portrayal of ends and purposes and 
methods, each follower catches a vision, not only of 
what he himself is doing but of what is at the hand 
of every other in the group as well. Perhaps he 
catches a view of a thousand others who are doing 
almost precisely as he himself is. At any rate he sees', 
even though meagerly, how they all fit into a general 
scheme. Mutual understanding and sympathy arise 
in the group and we have a degree of morale which 
may be so “ high ” that nothing can stand in the way 
of the expenditure of the last ounce of energy by each 
individual follower for the attainment of the common 
purpose. It is meant to be implied in the foregoing 
that the successful executive leader exercises a capac- 
ity for inciting enthusiasm in his followers. But this 
could not be accomplished were he not able also vividly 
to portray aims and ways and means (16). 
Furthermore, such a leader as we have in mind skill- 
fully estimates the morale of his followers and is able, 
therefore, to determine within reasonably accurate WIT AND MADNESS 
213 
limits, how far he may expect them to go with him 
in a given enterprise. He is able, also, to seize upon 
the “ psychological moment,” as we say, for launching 
his program; in other words, he recognizes the times 
at which the psychic disposition of his followers will 
most favorably respond to active leadership. He thus 
takes a hand in fixing and developing those disposi- 
tions because he gives them an outlet and exercises 
them. 
True Wit and Madness. — It is at least an inter- 
esting phrase from the pen of Dryden that suggests 
the alliance of true “ wit and madness.” Much has been 
written, not strictly apropos of this dictum, but yet 
in support of it, especially as applied to the executive 
type of leader. Ireland, for example, in his descrip- 
tion of the characters of Mohammed and Joan d’Arc 
(21) recites at length the evidence that these leaders 
were victims of hallucinations in waking life and that 
they accepted their hallucinatory experiences as rep- 
resenting actualities. He presents evidence, too, that 
the first named, at least, was an epileptic. According 
to tradition, when “ Mohammed was walking in the de- 
files and valleys about Mecca, every stone and tree 
greeted him with the words, 4 Hail to thee, O messenger 
of God! ’ He looked round to the right and to the 
left, and discovered nothing but trees and stones. The 
prophet heard these cries as long as it pleased God 
that he should be in this condition; then the angel 
Gabriel appeared, and announced to him the message 
of God in the mountain Hira, in the month of the 
Ramadan.” 
Again, on Mount Hira, he heard a voice from 214 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
Heaven. “ He stood still, for he felt faint on account 
of the voice, and he turned his face upwards, and be- 
hold, Gabriel sat with crossed legs upon a throne be- 
tween heaven and earth, and cried out, 6 O Mohammed, 
thou art in truth the messenger of God, and I am 
Gabriel! ’ The prophet then turned back. God had 
gladdened his heart and filled it with courage. Then 
followed revelation upon revelation.” 
These quotations run to the question of hallucinosis. 
As to alleged epilepsy in the case of Mohammed, Eman- 
uel Deutsch writes (quoted by Ireland) : 
“ Mohammed was epileptic; vast ingenuity and 
medical knowledge have been lavished upon this point, 
as explanatory of Mohammed’s mission and success. 
We, for our own part, do not think that epilepsy ever 
made a man appear a prophet to himself or even to 
the people of the East; or, for the matter of that, 
inspired him with the like heart-moving words and 
glorious pictures. Quite the contrary. It was taken 
as a sign of demons within — demons, 6 devs,’ devils, 
to whom all manner of diseases were ascribed through- 
out the antique world: in Phoenicia, in Greece, in 
Rome, in Persia, and among the lower classes of Judea 
after the Babylonian exile.” 
Yet whatever was Mohammed’s pathological condi- 
tion, says Ireland: “We do not seek to explain the 
nature or success of Mohammed’s mission by his epi- 
lepsy. These lie in the character of the man and the 
circumstances of the times; but we think that the start- 
ing point of his hallucinations came through the nervous 
disorder which affected him, and of which the epi- 
leptiform fits were the visible proof. It was this JOAN d’ARC 
215 
which held before his eyes, and made sound in his 
ears, the hallucinations which led him to believe that 
he had a message from God. Without this, no amount 
of religious fervour or abstract monotheism would 
have made him take such a view. The message once 
granted, each step becomes easy. We are inclined to 
believe that the fits were rather rare, as a frequent 
succession of them would be fatal to an active and 
difficult career; yet Mohammed had to encounter much 
opposition, both before the flight to Medina and after 
it. He showed great activity in war; he led twelve 
military expeditions, underwent much exposure, and 
was many times in extreme danger. Setting aside his 
claims to Divine communications there is no proof 
that he was in the least deranged. He evidently pos- 
sessed an intellect of the highest order for managing 
and controlling affairs, and was skillful both in con- 
ducting war and treating with his adversaries.” 
As to the alleged hallucinatory experiences of Joan 
d’Arc, Ireland writes: 
44 In a letter of Perceval de Boulainvilliers to Philip 
Visconti, Duke of Milan, dated 21st June, 1820, there 
is an account of Joan, which was probably taken from 
original observation — for Boulainvilliers held a high 
office at the court of the Dauphin. He writes that the 
first revelation made was when Joan was twelve years 
of age. She agreed to try a race with some of her 
companions. She ran with such swiftness that one of 
the girls cried,4 Joan, I see you flying over the ground.’ 
She stopped to take breath at the end of the meadow. 
“ She thought she heard a boy’s voice saying, 4 Joan, 
go home, for your mother needs you to help her.’ 216 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
Thinking it must be her brother, or some other boy, 
she hastened home. Her mother asked her why she 
had left her sheep, to which the girl answered, ‘ Did 
you not send for me? ’ Her mother said, ‘ No.’ Then, 
believing herself mistaken about the boy, and wishing 
to return to her companions, suddenly before her eyes 
a bright cloud or haze appeared, and from the cloud 
a voice came, saying, ‘ Joan, you must lead another 
life, and do wonderful actions, for it is you whom the 
King of Heaven has chosen for the succour of France, 
and the help and protection of King Charles expelled 
from his dominions. You will put on male attire, and, 
taking arms, will be the leader of war. All things 
will be ruled by your counsel.’ It seems likely enough 
that these two accounts reproduced different circum- 
stances of the same story, for Joan may have thought 
that the first voice, calling her to her mother, was not 
worth mentioning or it may have been suppressed in 
the truncated notes of her trial. 
“ These visions returned again. The angel Michael 
brought with him St. Catherine and St. Margaret, 
who often visited her. She knew their voices which 
were gentle and sweet, said that she had embraced and 
kissed them, and felt that they had a good odour. 
They exhorted her to lead a pure life, and to go to 
mass, and she made a vow of virginity to them. At 
her trial a great many questions were put to her about 
the appearance of these angels and saints, whether the 
angel wore a crown? and whether he had hair beneath 
it? and whether the hair was long or short? or whether 
the saints had rings in their ears, or wore dresses of 
the same cloth? When it came to such particulars TRIAL OF JOAN d’ARC 
217 
Joan refused to answer, sometimes saying she was for- 
bidden to answer, perhaps because the visions had a 
vague form, or that she feared some snare under their 
captious questioning. A few months before Joan’s 
trial a woman in Paris had been burned because she 
said that the Maid was doing the will of God, and that 
she herself had seen God, and that He wore clothes, 
which was treated as blasphemy. Joan, however, 
firmly maintained the reality of the apparitions. She 
said that Michael had the form of a proper man. ‘ I 
saw them,’ she said to her judge, ‘ with my own eyes, 
as plainly as I see you; and when they retired from 
me I wept, and much I wished that they would take 
me up with them.’ She kissed the ground over which 
they had passed. Joan told no one of these visions, 
not even her confessor; but apparently her parents 
had their surmises or fears, for about two years after 
her first vision, when she was about fifteen, her mother 
told her that her father had dreamed that their daugh- 
ter would go away with armed men to France. He 
told her brothers that he would rather she were 
drowned than that this should happen to her. She 
said that her father and mother watched her, and kept 
her in great subjection and that they almost lost their 
senses when she went to Vaucouleurs. She said she 
had never disobeyed them save in the case of the young 
man who wanted to marry her. He summoned her to 
the court at Toul, saying she had promised to marry 
him, which she denied on oath. The voices told her 
that she would gain her process. Apparently 
this young man had seen Joan at Neufchateau, where 
she had gone for fifteen days to live with a woman who 218 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
kept an inn. Her enemies made a good deal of this 
residence at the inn, saying that she used to take 
horses to water, and thus learned to ride. It is not 
very clear how she learned to be so expert at riding, 
as it seems she was, when she appeared before the Dau- 
phin at Chinon. 
“ As time wore on the tumult of war came nearer 
and nearer, and the prolonged siege of Orleans kept 
the whole of France in a state of excitement. The 
voices told her twice or thrice a week to go to Robert 
of Baudricourt, the commandant at Vaucouleurs, and 
that he would help her.” 
And again in the course of her trial at the hands 
of her English captors: 
“ Joan boldly defended the truth of her revelations, 
even when threatened with torture. She said that she 
had heard the voices every day in her prison, and that 
light accompanied the voices. Visions, if they ap- 
peared at all, were much less frequent. The angel 
Gabriel conversed with her on one occasion; the voices 
told her that it was he. But the voices of St. Cath- 
erine and St. Margaret were often in her ears. They 
told her to answer boldly. Sometimes they came with- 
out her asking; sometimes their voices were drowned 
by the noise made by her guards. They told her 
what to say, and when she prayed to God for them 
they came immediately. Sometimes the saints would 
ask God what she should say, and return with the 
answer. They promised that she should be freed from 
prison, but in what manner she did not know. ‘ Take 
everything cheerfully,’ they said. ‘ Do not distress THE LEADER’S INSIGHT 
219 
yourself about your martyrdom, you will come at last 
into the Kingdom of Heaven.’ ” 
It is unthinkable, however, that it was because of 
these abnormalities that these characters were the 
great executive leaders that they proved to be accord- 
ing to the record of history; it was, on the other hand, 
in spite of them. Rather it was because of their 
rare intellectual acumen (it is reported, for example, 
that no trained artillery captain could excel Joan 
d’Arc in the placement of guns) coupled with un- 
bounded religious enthusiasm: an emotional reaction 
that often accompanies the psychopathic disposition. 
But it need not, of course, be a religious enthusiasm to 
be effective; whatever its object or complexion, en- 
thusiasm linked with intellectual acumen — even of 
average measure — will make the executive leader. 
A while back we said of the executive leader that 
he seizes the “ psychological moment ”: that he rec- 
ognizes the times at which his followers will best re- 
spond to his active leadership. Tins is true of our 
successful political leaders. We sometimes say of 
them that they “ have their ears to the ground ”: by 
which we mean that they are catching indications as 
to the trend of the people’s thought and sounding their 
morale preparatory to the execution of a plan. We 
say that? a secret of their success lies just in their 
ability to listen accurately “ with their ears to the 
ground.” They know the common people and such 
knowledge quickly becomes mutual. They can inter- 
pret what to others are inconspicuous signs of the 
people’s meaning as one member of a family interprets 
the meaning of his brothers and sisters. 220 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
Intellectual Leaders. — The intellectual leader 
points the way for his collaborator of the executive 
tvpe. We do not mean to imply that the two are 
wholly distinct. There is more or less overlapping of 
types. The inventor of devices and of theories; the 
expounder of viewpoints; the investigator in science, 
history, art or what-not, is an intellectual leader and 
often, though not always, he is able to put his dis- 
coveries and theories to work. But whether so or 
not he is a leader. By the fact that he is pushing out 
the frontiers of knowledge and building an accumula- 
tion of data in his laboratory or library far from 
the limelight, though the people at large have the 
vaguest understanding of the data and only a cloudy 
grasp of the fact that the frontiers of knowledge are 
being disturbed in any manner, the spirit of the age 
is maintained in a plastic state; the formation of 
unyielding conventional crusts is thwarted or delayed, 
and the people are therefore in an adaptable and sym- 
pathetic state of mind with respect to leaders of this 
sort. From the viewpoint of a psychological concep- 
tion of social progress the development of the condi- 
tion described above in itself represents a measure 
of social progress. 
There are others who as intellectual leaders stand 
out from amongst the investigators behind the scenes. 
These are men and women with a capacity for a quick 
grasp and analysis of masses of details. They catch 
the meaning — or at least a meaning — of it all and 
have a certain facility for bringing it to public notice, 
and developing a consuming interest therein, in such 
manner as to hasten the reshaping of customs, view- STATISTICAL STUDIES 
221 
points and dispositions in consonance therewith. Or 
they give expression in music, in carving or upon 
canvas, to the inarticulate, half-conscious backgrounds 
of human nature. Forthwith they are recognized as 
leaders. Under their hand what wras inarticulate be- 
comes articulate on the tongues and in the behavior 
of thousands of people who thus are brought a pace 
nearer to a realization of a common interest and to 
a mutual understanding and spirit of co-operation. 
Statistical Studies of Men of Science. — A 
part of the general question as to the nature of the 
executive and the intellectual type of leader, respec- 
tively, are the more specific questions relating to their 
racial characteristics and their national and sectional 
origins, and the circumstances of their development. 
Let us consider first the national and sectional ori- 
gin of American leaders in various departments of 
science and later their racial affiliations. A careful 
study of data relating to these questions may be found 
in Professor J. McKeen Cattell’s studies of the fami- 
lies of American men of science (7). The table below 
shows the nationality of the parents of 917 leading 
scientific men: 222 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
Nationality of the Parents of American Men of Science 
American ... 
Both 
Parents 
....628 
Father 
Only 
23 
Mother 
Only 
42 
Total 
Families 
660.5 
English .... 
48 
36 
28 
80 
Scotch 
9 
13 
15 
23 
Irish 
.... 4 
10 
12 
15 
Canadian ... 
.... 14 
3 
7 
19 
German .... 
64 
23 
12 
71.5 
Norwegian .. 
0 
0 
6 
Swedish .... 
6 
0 
0 
6 
Danish 
1 
2 
1 
2.5 
Russian .... 
6 
0 
0 
6 
Dutch 
3 
3 
6 
7 
French 
.... 6 
6 
2 
10 
Swiss 
6 
4 
0 
8 
Italian 
0 
1 
0 
0.5 
Japanese ... 
o 
0 
0 
2 
Total 
793 
124 
124 
917 
Six hundred and twenty-eight, or more than two- 
thirds, have both parents of native American (United 
States) birth, 23 others have an American father only 
and 42 only an American mother. Foreign men have 
married American women more frequently than the 
reverse. In 165 cases both parents are foreign born 
and of the same nationality. Including Americans 
there are 124 marriages in which the nationality of the 
parents was mixed, but they were largely British. The 
American-born parents are mainly of British and New 
England descent; of foreign-born parents, 137 fathers 
and an equal number of mothers are English, Scotch, 
Irish or Canadian. Germany contributes 77 fathers 
and 66 mothers. Other nations contribute in all 51 
fathers and 44 mothers — fairly equally distributed 
among Norwegians, Swedes, Russians, Dutch, French NATIONALITY OF PARENTS 
223 
and Swiss, with several from Denmark, Italy and 
Japan. The parents of American men of science are 
thus predominantly British-American (American, 
English, Scotch, Irish and Canadian), with an admix- 
ture of nearly 8 per cent, of Germans and about 5 
per cent from other nationalities (including French, 
approximately 1 per cent). 
Twelve and six-tenths per cent of our leading scien- 
tific men are foreign-born, 12.6 per cent are native 
born of foreign-born parents, and 7.1 per cent have 
one foreign-born parent. In the general population 
of the United States 11 per cent of the people are 
foreign-born, 13.5 have both parents foreign-born and 
6.7 have one parent foreign-born. The foreign-born 
and those of foreign-born parentage thus contribute 
less, but only slightly less, than the native population 
to scientific productivity. There is a great difference 
in the different nationalities. Those born in Great 
Britain contribute 1.2 per cent to the population and 
3.4 per cent to our scientific men; Germany con- 
tributes 2.7 per cent to the population and 1.9 per 
cent to the scientific men; Russia 1.7 to the popula- 
tion and 0.6 to the scientific men; Italy 1.5 to the 
population and 0.1 to the scientific men. These differ- 
ences are not, however, necessarily due to any racial 
superiority of the British and Germans. This will be 
apparent as we proceed. 
In the following table Professor Cattell sets forth 
the per cent of scientific men in each of four grades 
according to the nationality of their parents (the 
grades represent relative degree of attainment in 
science) : 224 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
The Percentage of the Scientific Men in Each of Four 
Grades According to the Nationality of their Parents. 
Percentage 
of Each 
Grade 
No. 
I 
II 
III 
IV 
American .... 
652.5 
7.7 
18.3 
57.9 
16.0 
British 
137 
6.6 
17.9 
56.9 
18.7 
German 
73.5 
10.2 
20.4 
57.1 
12.2 
Others 
48 
8.3 
20.8 
56.3 
14.6 
Total 
911 
71 
169 
525 
146 
Per cent 
7.8 
18.6 
57.6 
16.0 
The showing of a certain superiority of foreign 
groups may be accounted for on the ground that a 
number of European men of science, highly trained, 
had been imported by universities into the United 
States. This in itself therefore is of no significance 
in relation to our problem. For the matter of that, 
whether immigrants as a whole in this country — and 
their children — contribute more or fewer than their 
proportionate share to the total number of intellectual 
leaders in America is of no definite significance in 
this context. It may reflect, not the qualities of a 
nation or a race, but of the social strata from which 
our immigrants come — in some cases the best, in 
others the worst strata. It should be said for all adult 
immigrants who do not speak our language and who 
do not understand our customs that they are at a dis- 
advantage in the matter of establishing leadership. 
Of more significance are the sectional origin of men 
of science in the United States and the occupations 
of their parents (10). The table below from Cattell’s 
Study of American Men of Science shows the birth 
rate of men of science per million inhabitants in that SECTIONAL ORIGIN 
225 
year, based upon the census of 1860 in nineteen 
states: 
Mass 
108.8 
per 
million 
inh, 
Conn 
86.9 
59 
55 
59 
Me 
46.1 
59 
55 
59 
N. H 
46 
59 
59 
59 
Vt 
57.1 
55 
59 
•> 
N. Y 
47.2 
55 
59 
59 
Pa 
22.7 
59 
59 
99 
Va 
8.8 
55 
59 
99 
N. C 
5 
55 
55 
99 
Ga 
2.8 
55 
59 
99 
Ala 
2.1 
59 
59 
V 
Minn 
1.3 
59 
59 
59 
La 
1.4 
59 
59 
59 
O 
32.1 
59 
59 
99 
Mich 
36. 
55 
59 
99 
Wis 
45.1 
59 
59 
59 
Ill 
24.5 
55 
59 
59 
Mo 
11.8 
59 
59 
59 
Ky 
6.9 
55 
59 
59 
Massachusetts has produced many fold as numerous 
scientific men as the average of the southern states 
in this list. In other words, the probability of a youth 
born in Massachusetts becoming a leader among men 
of science in his generation was 50 times as great as 
that of a youth born at the same time in Georgia or 
in Alabama. It would be rash to conclude therefrom, 
however, that New England stock is 50 times as fer- 
tile in this respect as southern stock. If this were true 
the average attainment of Massachusetts-born men of 
science should be as many times higher than that of 
the product of Georgia and Alabama. But this, as 
Professor Cattell says, is by no means the case. In- 
deed, from an impartial viewpoint, the one stock is as 
substantial and fertile as the other. 
The social life of the two groups at the time in ques- 226 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
tion and after, was vastly different and their traditions 
differed widely. The southern family lived in a 
considerable degree of isolation upon a large planta- 
tion, and the young men of the foremost families were 
brought up in an atmosphere that accustomed them 
to the management of things and men rather than to 
the management of abstract ideas and the details of 
science. It was an admirable matrix for the growth 
of the publicist, the statesman and the military leader, 
as the northern states learned to their discomfiture. 
Massachusetts, and New England as a wdiole, on 
the other hand, was a region of towns, factories and 
small farms. There was a relatively dense popula- 
tion. There were strong churches, schools, lecture cir- 
cuits and periodicals accessible to the masses. Per- 
sonal contacts and interstimulations of a variety of 
sorts were constant. In a word, the conditions for 
the development of the particular kind of intellectual 
leadership we are now considering were of the best. 
It appears to be the social environment, not solely 
the biological nor the psychological factor in the nar- 
row sense, that developed the picture. 
The distribution of this same group of American 
men of science, according to the professions of their 
parents, shows that 21.3 per cent have sprung from 
the agricultural class, 35.7 per cent from the manu- 
facturing class and 43 per cent from the professional 
group. 
In detail, Professor Cattell divided the men of sci- 
ence into four groups in the order of their superiority 
and showed that the sons of clergymen, physicians, 
lawyers and teachers have a considerable advantage SUPERIOR CHILDREN 
227 
over all others in the struggle for a place in the upper 
ranks of scientific men. On the whole, the professional 
classes named contribute, in proportion to their num- 
bers, 14 times as many scientists to the nation as do 
other classes. But it would be extreme to say that 
this disparity is a result of a fourteen-fold superiority 
of stock among the professional as compared to the 
non-professional folk. The only plausible accounting 
for such a difference as this is on the hypothesis that 
the social environment in the homes of professional 
classes affords mental stimuli that are so powerful as 
to turn even intellectual mediocrity toward intellec- 
tual leadership. The isolated life of the farm and of 
the plantation; the mechanic’s bench and the desk of 
the manufacturer and the merchant are not conducive 
to intellectual leadership in science because their social 
environment does not supply such stimulation — at 
least not in sufficient measure. 
In the light of all the foregoing it would appear 
that one of the very first obligations of a state should 
be to supply the conditions or stimuli that will con- 
tribute toward developing dispositions for intellectual 
leadership, and stimulate effort for accomplishment. 
Superior Children. — The recent investigations 
among exceptionally bright children in the schools con- 
tribute more or less directly to the psychology of 
leadership, especially of the intellectual type, assum- 
ing that the unusually bright pupils of today will 
recruit the supply of intellectual leaders, and the few 
outstanding ones among them whom we call geniuses, 
of a quarter century or more hence. 
Support for this assumption is principally in the 228 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
nature of impressions. There are many examples of 
intellectual leaders (28) who, according to their biog- 
raphers, were very precocious youths. John Stuart 
Mill, Thomas Macaulay and others are cases in point. 
In no instance has an attempt been made at a quanti- 
tative estimate of the intellectual level in youth of 
these leaders excepting in the case of Francis Galton. 
Terman has estimated his intelligence quotient at 
200 (25). The estimate is based upon the biographer’s 
account of Galton’s intellectual attainments at the 
chronological ages of 3 to 8 years and upon the known 
intelligence quotient of normal and precocious chil- 
dren of our own day whose chronological age and 
attainments are comparable to those of Sir Francis 
Galton at the time of which the biographer was writ- 
ing. There are undoubtedly many who are properly 
classified as intellectual leaders who were not preco- 
cious children — perhaps it is more accurate to say 
that they were, at any rate, not recognized as 
precocious. 
A fairly widespread popular belief that such chil- 
dren are mentally unstable and physically unfitted to 
endure the strains incident to preparation, and later 
for the responsibilities of leadership, is hardly borne 
out by the facts developed in recent studies of such 
classes. On the whole, children of superior intelli- 
gence in the public schools are of superior physical 
development, and there is no evidence of greater or of 
more frequent liability to failure of mental equilibrium 
in the group of exceptionally bright children than in 
an average group. 
Professor Terman is authority for significant data SUPERIOR CHILDREN 
229 
relating to fifty-nine superior school children of whom 
eighteen were girls (26), Their average intelligence 
quotient was 149.7 and the median was 145. Reck- 
oned on the basis of chronological age the average 
acceleration of this group was slightly more than two 
years. 
Apropos of the popular suspicion that very bright 
children are afflicted with such instability of character 
traits as to interfere with their prospects for attain- 
ing leadership, the rating of Terman’s group with 
reference to such traits as obedience, conscientiousness, 
dependability, unselfishness, evenness of temper and 
will power is in point. The ratings of teachers on 
these points were 1.51, 1.61, 1.56, 1.73, 1.90, and 1.50, 
respectively, — compared with average children, and 
Terman interprets this as meaning that the group is 
as superior morally as intellectually. 
As to their physical condition, Professor Terman 
has the following to say: 
“ Only four were said to have defective vision, and 
only one defective hearing. Twenty-one had under- 
gone operation for removal of adenoids, and two others 
were known to have more or less adenoid trouble. The 
record for tonsils was similar. The fact that approx- 
imately half of our superior children have had either 
adenoids or diseased tonsils suggests that these defects 
may not be as injurious to mental development as 
common opinion would have us believe. 
“ One had chorea a few years ago but has recovered. 
Two others had noticeable muscular twitchings. There 
were two stutterers in the group, both of whom at 
the time of the investigation were taking corrective 230 
SOCIAL TROGRESS 
lessons. There were no cases of abnormal fears. A 
part of the nervousness and restlessness occasionally 
mentioned was probably due to their not having 
enough school work to keep them busy. One boy, 
asked how he liked school, said he liked it in the morn- 
ing but not in the afternoon, because by noon he al- 
ways knew his lessons and then there was nothing to 
do! So much has been said about the nervous unbal- 
ance of precocious children that it is surprising to 
find over two-thirds described as free from symptoms 
of this kind. The symptoms of most of the others 
indicated nothing serious. The proportion of stutter- 
ing and chorea was not far from that which is usually 
found for unselected children. 
“ All but three of the children were said to sleep 
‘ perfectly.’ The average time of sleep for the chil- 
dren of each age was found to be slightly greater than 
the Terman and Hocking average for 2692 unselected 
school children. There was no case of marked sleep 
deficiency. 
“ Of the nine cases who were said to have occasional 
headaches, eight had them very seldom, not more than 
two or three times a year. One had long been subject 
to serious recurrent headaches. 
“ Five were described as ‘ not strong.’ One of these 
had always been sickly and at the age of eight years 
had attended school only one year. In that year, how- 
ever, he did the work of the first three grades. Another 
of these has also had insecure health from birth. He 
did not enter school until the age of fourteen. Be- 
tween the ages of six and twelve he had only one hour 
per day of private instruction, and in that time com- SUPERIOR CHILDREN 
231 
pleted the work of the first eight grades. The other 
three of the five were apparently just not strong enough 
to endure serious physical strain or excitement. Only 
three were seriously handicapped by ill health, a rec- 
ord which would probably not be excelled by an equal 
number of school children picked at random.” 
Tentatively Professor Terman offers the following 
conclusions concerning the nature of superior 
children: 
“ 1. That intellectually superior children are ap- 
parently not below the average in general health; 
“ 2. That in the vast majority of cases their abil- 
ity is general rather than special or one-sided; 
“ 3. That the superiority is especially marked in 
moral and personal traits; 
“ 4. That ‘ queerness,’ play deficiency, and marked 
lack of social adaptability are the exception rather 
than the rule. 
“ 5. That while superior children are likely to be 
accelerated on the basis of chronological age, they are 
usually two or three grades retarded on the basis of 
mental age; 
“ 6. That their school work is such as to warrant 
promotion in most cases to a grade closely correspond- 
ing to the mental age; 
“ 7. That the superiority tends to show early in 
life, is little influenced by formal instruction, and is 
permanent; 
“ 8. That superior children usually come from su- 
perior families.” 
As far, at any rate, as height and weight of normal 
and superior children are concerned, Baldwin and 232 
SOCIAL PROGRESS 
Steelier (4) have confirmed the high correlation be- 
tween superior physical development and mental 
normality and acceleration. Their report is based 
upon 143 studies of individuals who had been followed 
up from 1917 to 1921 by methods of such refinement 
that the commonest sources of error were no doubt 
elminated. 
Lacking more extensive evidence on either side of 
the question, it is a good hypothesis that our intellect- 
ual leaders arise from a group of exceptionally bright 
pupils and that this group will continue to be the 
source of supply. 
Evidently, to assure us of progress we must, at the 
earliest possible moment find who amongst the young 
folk in any group are the most capable; and, having 
found them, we must do our utmost to surround them 
with such conditions as will help on their development. 
To discover them is the proper function of a person- 
nel service in our educational institutions. But hav- 
ing found them in high school or in college we believe 
it is a mistake forthwith to feed their interests in a 
particular occupation to the exclusion of other occu- 
pations or professions. To do so is to ossify them or 
to conventionalize them in a narrow sphere when they 
should be cultivating the most inclusive possible range 
of interests. This view, we believe, is justified by con- 
siderations of utility even, if by no other. The best 
satisfied, and the most efficient workman in any sphere 
is one who has the habit of observing broad relation- 
ships among even widely separated areas of human 
interest, and the leader must always keep them in 
view. He dare not be over-specialized. CHAPTER X 
SOCIAL ADJUSTMENTS AND MALAD- 
JUSTMENTS IN RELATION TO 
MENTAL QUALITY 
The data presented in the chapter on Intellectual 
Levels and Psychic Stability of the Population are 
of first rate importance for the behavior or adjustment 
of groups in the organization of society as a whole. 
The various levels of intelligence and other psychic 
qualities that occur amongst a people must be con- 
ceived as correlated with certain broad aspects of 
social adjustment and with progress. 
These correlations are inevitable phenomena — in- 
evitable, that is, assuming the fixed nature of the in- 
tellectual levels and degrees of psychic stability of the 
elements of the population. People of the same qual- 
ity tend to drift into the same eddies and back bays, 
or to rise to the same heights approximately, as the 
case may be. We do not mean to imply it as a state- 
ment of fact that the people of the slums, for example, 
would make a slum of the avenue and vice versa, if 
their positions were exchanged, but that there is a 
tendency in this direction cannot be gainsaid; the 
backwardness of sections of the population, however 
— mountaineers for illustration — cannot, without de- 
bate, be attributed to a low intellectual level. This 
may be attributable to the personal qualities that we 234 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
are in the habit of grouping under the illy-defined term 
“ individualism,” which, generally speaking, stands in 
the way of unity and co-operation on a broad scale. 
Hence it is in the way of successful achievement in 
the usual sense of “ successful.” “ Individualism,” 
however, as applied to the mountaineer is probably a 
product of age-long social and physical conditions in 
the midst of which the people of the rugged highlands 
have to live. Where the roads are few and so pre- 
carious in every sort of weather that even walking and 
riding on horseback from place to place are fraught 
with extraordinary difficulties, it is the nature of things 
that those human characteristics should develop that, 
taken together, make up our picture of the individ- 
ualist. But “ individualism ” is entirely consistent with 
a high order of native, untutored general intelligence. 
It is expressed in self-reliance, in the loyal cohesion of 
small groups in matters of local and even of broader 
concern in exceptional circumstances, in whole-hearted 
respect for the rights and claims of others, and in 
vigorous defence thereof on occasion, even though such 
defence may now and again run to persons who in 
common knowledge may be known as transgressors of 
recognized and even generally respected law. These 
qualities are all outstanding in our southern mountain- 
eers and they have earned their reputaton as individ- 
ualists. That such folk are, moreover, capable of in- 
tense enthusiasm for large, nation-wide purposes is 
demonstrated by the reactions of these Highlanders of 
Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, and tlve Carolinas to 
appeals for support of the United States Government 
in the World War. Considerable districts are said INTELLIGENCE AND OCCUPATION 
235 
to have over-subscribed their quota to government 
loans, as well as to have responded to the draft com- 
pletely and loyally (8). This is certainly not a 
picture that could be drawn of a population a great 
mass of which is technically mentally defective. Fur- 
thermore, the ancestral history of these folk, so far 
as it is known, in the independent and daring pioneer 
small farmers of western Virginia does not unquali- 
fiedly suggest support for the hypothesis of heredi- 
tary mental defect. 
Intelligence and Occupation. — It is probable 
that the distribution of the population amongst the 
professions and occupations represents a tendency of 
individuals to adjust themselves on the basis of intel- 
ligence levels. The most comprehensive data hearing 
upon this point are to be found in the records of the 
United States Army psychological examiners (17). 
“ Figure 57 * brings out the fact that there seem 
to he four or five occupational levels. The highest 
level might be termed the professional level, and is 
probably subdivided into two parts — those profes- 
sional groups having very high educational and pro- 
fessional standards (median intelligence rating A) and 
those professional groups having slightly lower edu- 
cational and professional standards (median intelli- 
gence rating B). The next lower level contains such 
occupational groups as clerical workers, technical 
workers, and probably those 'skilled mechanics and 
skilled operatives who because of high average intelli- 
gence and leadership become foremen (the median 
* The figure, numbered as above, is taken from Memoirs of 
the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XV, p. 830. 236 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
intelligence of this level is C-j-). In the next lower 
level we have apparently a larger number of occupa- 
tional groups than in any other. The bulk of these 
laborer . . 
Can. miner 
Teamster . 
Barber . . 
Horseahoar ... 
Bricklayer . . 
Cook ...... i 
Baker ......... 
Fainter ......_ 
Sen. Blacksmith . 
Gen. carpenter . .. _ 
Butoher ......... 
Gen. machinist . . . — 
Band riveter ...... 
Tel. & tel.,lineman . 
Gen.pipefitter . . » . 
Plumber . . 
Tool and gauge maker . 
Gunsmith ....... 
Gen. mechanlo • . . . . 
Gen. auto repairman . 
Auto engine meohanio . 
Auto assembler . . . . 
Ship carpenter .... 
Telephone operator . . 
Concrete const, foreman 
Stook-keeper . 
Photographer ...... 
Telegrapher ...... 
R.R. clerk 
Filing olerk 
Sen. olerk ....... 
Army nurse ....... 
Bookkeeper 
Dental officer . . . 
Mechanical draftsman 
Accountant ..... 
Civil engineer ... 
Medical officer . . . 
Engineer officer . 
. Occupational Intelligence Ratings. Letter-grades on horizontal scale. Length of bar for each occupatlori is midrange 
of 50 percent (distance between first and third quart lies); median point is shown by a crossline. Classification is that of Committee on Classi- 
fication of Personnel 
fall under the heading of skilled mechanics and skilled 
operatives and the semi-skilled worker (median intel- 
ligence of this level is C). The lowest level is next INTELLIGENCE AND OCCUPATION 
237 
and contains those groups that may be characterized 
as unskilled labor (median intelligence of this level is 
C — ) ” 
When we are considering the data on which the 
above graph is based it is extremely important — and 
this the army workers realized — to make allowance 
for the fact that in many instances, the frequency 
of which can hardly be estimated, highly intelligent 
and skilled workmen in many occupations and pro- 
fessions were exempted from the draft, and that the 
records they might have made do not enter into the 
calculations. Such exemptions applied to “ necessary 
highly specialized technical or mechanical experts of 
necessary industrial enterprise.” Undoubtedly, too, 
the preference given to men of family in granting ex- 
emptions has operated to leave out of the calculations, 
on the whole, a host of the more intelligent men. After 
all allowances have been made, however, as we have 
already said, the figures doubtless represent a tendency 
toward adjustment to occupations and professions 
within the social organization on the basis of intelli- 
gence. 
Dr. Goddard, in what he calls the “ deadly parallel ” 
below, presents wage, school and intelligence data in 
such a manner as to suggest a correspondence of the 
intelligence levels amongst recruits, school grade at- 
tained and wages earned (13). 
But again we must emphasize the point that it is 
not only on the basis of intelligence that men adapt 
themselves to occupational levels—intelligence whether 
in the sense of mental alertness, of large funds of 
general or of specialized information, or of any other 238 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
Wages 
of 100 Wage Earners 
School 
of 100 Children 
Intelligence 
of 1,700,000 Soldiers 
9% earn $150-$200 
13% leave in 4th grade, age 10 
10% 
in “D —” group, mental age 10 
12 
“ 250- 300 
13 
“ “ 5th “ “ 11 
15 
“ “D ” 
“ 11 
16 
“ 350- 400 
14 
“ “ 6th “ “ 12 
20 
““C-” “ 
“ 12 
31 
“ 450- 600 
27 
“ “ 7th & 8th grade, age 13, 14 
25 
“ “C 
“ 13, 14 
68 
“ less than $15 per week 
67 
do not finish 8th grade 
70 
are below mental age 15 
27 
“ $750-$1000 
23 
leave after 8th grade 
16} 
“C + ” group, mental age 
15 
3 
“ 1250 
10 
attend high school 
9 
“B” 
16, 17 
2 
“ over 1250 
3 
graduate high school 
4} 
“A 
18, 19 
1.5 college CHARACTER AND OCCUPATION 
239 
commonly accepted criterion. On the other hand, it is 
one of the commonest of phenomena to find individuals 
striving to make adaptation to occupational or to 
professional levels that, judging from their qualities 
of intelligence, are beyond their reach, and ultimately 
establishing themselves securely. This is one of many 
conditions that make a progressive civilization possible. 
The intellectual qualities of the East Indians, which 
McDougall recognizes, have not yet enabled them to 
fit into the occupations that western civilization has 
been carrying to their doors for upwards of a cen- 
tury, and the explanation of the failure lies, appar- 
ently, in those character traits, the ensemble of which 
are described as will. On this point we quote at length 
from Stoddard (27), a passage that represents a well- 
supported viewpoint. At the same time, it must be 
admitted that there are extant more hopeful views 
of the adaptability of the Indian people to the occu- 
pations of the west. . . . “ But neither the Moslem 
world nor India have developed factory labor with the 
skill, stamina, and assiduity sufficient to undercut the 
industrial workers of Europe and America. In India, 
for example, despite a swarming and poverty-stricken 
population, the factories are unable to recruit an ade- 
quate or dependable labor-supply. Says M. Mitin: 
‘ With such long hours and low wages it might be 
thought that Indian industry would be a formidable 
competitor of the west. This is not so. The reason 
is the bad quality of the work. The poorly paid 
coolies are so badly fed and so weak that it takes at 
least three of them to do the work of one European. 
Also, the Indian workers lack, not only strength 240 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
but also skill, attention, and liking for their work. 
. . . An Indian of the people will do anything else in 
preference to becoming a factory operative. The fac- 
tories thus get only the dregs of the working class. 
The workers come to the factories and mines as a 
last resort; they leave as soon as they can return to 
their prior occupations or find more remunerative 
employment. Thus the factories can never count on 
a regular labor supply. Would higher wages remedy 
this? Many employers say no — as soon as the 
workers get a little ahead they would quit, either 
temporarily till their money was spent, or perma- 
nently for some more congenial calling.’ These state- 
ments are fully confirmed by an Indian economic writer, 
who says: ‘ One of the greatest drawbacks to the 
establishment of large industries in India is the scarc- 
ity and inefficiency of labor. Cheap labor, where there 
is no physical stamina, mental discipline, and skill 
behind it, tends to be costly in the end. The Indian 
laborer is mostly uneducated. He is not in touch with 
his employers or with his work. The laboring popu- 
lation of the towns is a flitting, dilettante population.’ 
“ Thus Indian industry, despite its very consider- 
able growth, has not come up to early expectations. 
As the Official Year Book very frankly states: 4 India, 
in short, is a country rich in raw materials and in 
industrial possibilities, but poor in manufacturing 
accomplishments.’ In fact, to some observers, India’s 
industrial future seems far from bright. As a com- 
petent English student of Indian conditions recently 
wrote: ‘ Some years ago it seemed possible that India 
might, by a rapid assimilation of Western knowledge ELIMINATION FROM SCHOOL 
241 
and technical skill, adapt for her own conditions the 
methods of modern industry, and so reach’an approx- 
imate economic level. Some even now threaten the 
Western world with a vision of the vast population 
of China and India rising up with skilled organization, 
vast resources, and comparatively cheap labor to im- 
poverish the West. To the present writer this is a 
mere bogey. The peril is of a very different kind. 
Instead of a growing approximation he sees a grow- 
ing disparity. For every step India takes toward 
mechanical efficiency, the West takes two. When India 
is beginning to use bicycles and motor-cars (not to 
make them), the West is perfecting the aeroplane. 
This is merely symbolic. The war, as we know, has 
speeded up mechanical invention and produced a pop- 
ulation of mechanics; but India has stood compara- 
tively still. It is, up to now, overwhelmingly medieval, 
a country of domestic industry and handicrafts. Me- 
chanical power, even of the simplest, has not yet been 
applied to its chief industry — agriculture.” 
Because those who belong to the same occupation 
or profession or to closely allied occupations or pro- 
fessions, most clearly understand one another, a sense 
of unity grows up amongst them severally. We have, 
therefore, in the intelligence levels amongst a people, 
and whatever other characteristics they hold in com- 
mon, one source of those lines of occupational cleav- 
age that tend to form a partial separation of one 
class from another. 
Intelligence and Elimination from School. — 
Another angle of the effect of intelligence upon adap- 
tation to the forms of our social organization is found 242 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
in the statistics of elimination from school grades and 
in estimated correlation between intelligence (as 
measured in the army) and schooling: 
The psychological examiners in the army report 
(18): “Of 100 white recruits who entered the first 
grade in this country, 95 remained in school till grade 
two, 92 till grade three, 87 till grade four, 79 till 
grade five, 70 till grade six, 59 till grade seven, and 
45 till grade eight; 21 of them entered high school, 16 
kept on till the second year, 11 till the third, and 9 
of the 100 graduated from high school; 5 of these 
entered college, and 1 graduated from college.” These 
figures include the foreign-born but not the negro 
draft, and do not include officers. 
Corresponding figures for the native-born white 
draft alone are as follows: Of 100 who entered school 
98 remained till grade two, 97 till grade three, 94 
till grade four, 90.5 till grade five, 83 till grade six, 
73.5 till grade seven, 63 till grade eight, and 48 grad- 
uated from the grades. Of these 23 entered high 
school and continued till the second year, 17 till the 
third year, 12 till the fourth year, and 9.5 graduated. 
Of these five entered college and continued till the 
second year, 4 till the third, 2 till the fourth and 1 
graduated. These figures correspond closely to those 
earlier given out by Ayres (4, 5), Strayer (29) and 
Thorndike (30). 
The coefficients of correlation between intelligence, 
as estimated in the army, and schooling run high. 
“ In general it may be said of examination Alpha that 
in an unselected group (i.e. including those men who 
would ordinarily be considered too illiterate to take MENTAL DISEASE 
243 
Alpha) the correlation with the number of years of 
schooling reported approximates -(-0.75; in an Alpha 
group (i.e. excluding illiterates) the correlation co- 
efficient approximates -(-0.65. If Alpha were to be 
given to an unselected group the dispersion of whose 
scores covered the whole range of the examination, 
and whose reported schooling varied from none at 
all to seven years or more of college work, the corre- 
lation coefficient would doubtless be greater than any 
here presented.” The nearest approach to this is a 
combination of companies A and B, Third Provisional 
Regiment Ordnance Training Camp, and Company B, 
Ordnance Supply School, with an unselected group of 
1047 white English speaking recruits from nine camps. 
This is the special experimental group known as 
Group X. It is a composite group and is of wide 
range as to schooling and also as to Alpha weighted 
total. 
Psychic Instability and Social Mal-Adjust- 
ment Evidenced in Mental Disease. — In the fore- 
going pages we have been thinking solely of peculiari- 
ties of adjustment as occasioned, apparently by levels 
of intelligence. Such adjustment may be studied from 
the viewpoint of psychic instability. The data in this 
relation are of a less specific nature than those with 
which we have been dealing, but no less important, 
doubtless, perhaps more so, according to authorita- 
tive opinion. In the instable and certainly fertile 
springs of mental disease, of ineffectiveness in daily 
occupation, probably of much of the unrest in every 
generation, and certainly of a deal of criminal be- 
havior. In periods of stress upon the individual or 244 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
upon the group as a whole these instabilities most 
apparently bear upon adjustment. 
The immense importance of these considerations for 
our viewpoint cannot be more clearly expressed than 
in the words of Dr. Pearce Bailey written apropos of 
the Great War, but before the results of psychiatric 
examining in the army had been brought together (6) : 
“ The world over, insanity is rated as being approx- 
imately three times as frequent, even under peace con- 
ditions, in the army as in the civil community. Those 
who see nothing but evil in armies may construe this 
as proof that army life produces mental disease. But 
another explanation seems nearer the truth. It seems 
a more reasonable hypothesis that the army demon- 
strates constitutional incapacity and weakness rather 
than creates mental disease; that, under a service 
which requires a robuster mental stability than do 
some of the varied opportunities of civil life, slightly 
unbalanced persons, who might get along fairly wTell 
in a suitable civil capacity, are immediately detected 
as not fully fit for an army, and so are discharged 
from it. A large percentage of the soldiers who break 
down mentally have, before recruitment, already either 
passed through nervous episodes which required so- 
journs in sanitoria, or through periods of mental dis- 
traughtness which interfered for a time with the usual 
routine of their lives. That these interruptions in 
activity are symptoms of constitutional unsoundness 
rather than initial attacks of mental disease, is borne 
out by the fact that the recovery rate from insanity 
in soldiers is nearly twice that in civilians. Inferences 
drawn from statistics, to be informative, must be con- RATE OF INSANITY 
245 
sidered with some knowledge of the purpose for which 
the statistics were gathered and the waj they were 
collected. For its own safety, a military organization 
must, sooner or later, identify and count its undepend- 
able persons. In civil life there is neither demand nor 
opportunity for such a minute survey of mental 
health. Civil communities count only the insane who 
actually require confinement, and so even in the best- 
surveyed states, the registered insane are well under 
the actual number; in those states which provide inad- 
equately for the insane, and keep them herded in alms- 
houses or jails classed as paupers and criminals, the 
insanity rate falls far below the normal rate of one 
insane person for every thousand of adult population. 
But, obviously, a rate so arrived at is untrue and 
misleading. 
“The army rate of insanity, three to every 1,000, 
high as it seems, remains at that level only under 
peace conditions and only then when the troops stay 
at home. Foreign service causes it to go up, even in 
peace. For example, there is more insanity among 
our troops serving in China than those stationed at 
home. Under war conditions, the normal rate rises. 
This cannot be entirely explained by the actual hard- 
ships of war. It must be partly explained by the 
same emotional factors as those which upset civilians. 
The outbreak of war, like the occurrence of such 
allied catastrophes as earthquakes and conflagrations, 
dislocates all mental operations. To be harmonious, 
mental actions must be in accord with actual condi- 
tions, and during the process of a sudden and violent 
readjustment of new conditions the mind undergoes 246 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
severe tests of its resistance. Some cannot make the 
adjustment to war-times at all, as is shown, at the 
outbreak of war, by the increased number of old 
persons who die, by the increase in apoplexy, and by 
the fact that many persons who were able to maintain 
their equilibrium under ordinary conditions find their 
way, as though called by the clarion, to asylums. In 
countries such as England and America, in which 
three years ago war seemed like some legend, war 
brings with it to many a collapse of moral support 
and a complete transmutation of ethical values. They 
are suddenly told to renounce their cherished belief 
that the world has reached a point of perfection where 
wars are impossible. They become much depressed, 
and face the alternative of making some personal 
adaptation to the new and ugly condition, or of going 
mad. Some find their relief in believing that this 
marks the end of all thought-out destruction; in 
others the early distress is replaced by a welling mar- 
tial spirit as they realize the actual peril or humilia- 
tion of their own country. They thus construct for 
themselves psychological defenses of some kind, al- 
though few who are not actual combatants can do so 
completely, as is shown in the falling off in all original 
work not directly connected with national defense. 
The compensation most commonly arrived at is the 
sinking, for a time, of personal considerations. Na- 
tional interest absorbs all others. Under its stimulus, 
professional and social differences fade away and ex- 
clusiveness becomes less a goal. Even butlers find their 
long-deferred opportunity to converse. There is an 
emotional desire for action, to do something for the EFFECT OF THE UNUSUAL 
247 
common cause, to help at no matter what personal sac- 
rifice. In Germany, at the outbreak of this war, the 
luxurious sanitoria lost most of their wealthy patients, 
and in one prison the complaints of the prisoners 
diminished by half. Under the steady daily routine 
of discipline and service and sacrifice, as organization 
replaces enthusiasm, these emotional reactions become 
less conspicuous: and as war becomes a grim business, 
the whole nation settles down to its work, accepting its 
hardships and sorrows more and more as a matter of 
course. That people live with more temperance and 
less leisure may explain the strange contradiction that 
the admissions to civilian institutions for the insane, 
which go up at the beginning of a war, sink below 
normal finally. 
“ The struggle to attain a personal adaptation, 
which disturbs the civil population, must also in a 
measure account for the increase in insanity among 
soldiers at the outbreak of war. It is greatest during 
the earlier months — that is, during mobilization and 
training, before the fatigue and exposure and exhaus- 
tion of continuous fighting. With the exception of 
campaigns carried out in foreign countries under un- 
usual conditions, insanity is noted most at the main 
bases and diminishes with an actual approach to the 
front. Under the exactions of discipline, of prompt 
obedience, or giving up or doing without what he 
prizes, the individual who is physically and mentally 
sound usually experiences a distinct gain from the 
new form of life. But such measures are not always 
so successful in persons who are distinctly neuro- 
pathic. They may think themselves unjustly treated, 248 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
feel they are persecuted, or may find themselves fall- 
ing short of the expected, and thus be brought to a 
fuller realization of their own inadequacy. They be- 
come much depressed in this way and their minds be- 
come troubled, less over the present situation, perhaps, 
than over past problems of their own life, which in 
civil life, with its protection and possibilities of avoid- 
ance, they were able to compensate for. It has been 
noted over and over again in this war that soldiers, 
in their mental distress, referred less to immediate 
issues than to the facts in their own past conduct and 
relationships. 
“ The figures, which show a three-fold increase dur- 
ing the war of a disability which strikes harder at mil- 
itary effectiveness than any other medical disability, 
are drawn from the cases of actual insanity only. 
They hy no means express all that armies suffer hy 
reason of mental disability. Among other conditions 
which, while not classified as insanity, are allied, to 
it, both in causation and effects, are two well-known 
neuroses, neurasthenia and hysteria. Of eighteen 
United States Army officers retired for disability in 
1915, four were for neurasthenia. It is never possible 
to define exactly the limitations of these two neuroses, 
but they are generally understood as indicative of 
mental wrorry or of anxiety, or of shock; they are 
essentially recoverable and do not correspond to the 
general symptoms of insanity. They are always fre- 
quent in armies even during peace, and are more apt 
to arise at the front than are cases of actual insanity. 
By hysteria is usually understood a mental state 
which, more or less independently of consciousness, MENTAL DISEASE IN NEW YORK 
249 
arouses physical symptoms or dictates some specific 
behavior for the purpose of obtaining a personal ad- 
vantage or avoiding a disagreeable situation. The 
hysteric, without entirely realizing it, shams illness 
for an end, under the various circumstances which 
make illness an asset rather than an incubus, and which 
changes the normal impulse to get well into an im- 
pulse to stay ill, until certain disagreeable conditions 
are removed. In civil life it is found in many of the 
ailments of children, among plaintiffs who are suing 
for damages for personal injuries, and as a classical 
means for one party to a matrimonial contract to 
keep the other in hand. Armies have always had to 
contend with it as the soldier’s way of signifying his 
unwillingness to endure longer. It even gets into his 
slang, as when he says he 4 is sick of it.’ The appeal 
for relief is expressed not in words, but in physical 
terms of the situation itself. Hysterical blindness is 
a mute way of stating unwillingness to look any longer 
at horrible sights, deafness a refusal to hear any 
longer the explosions. The paralytic refuses to stand 
up or go, and the tremors, speech defects, and other 
symptoms of hysteria are a way of saying, 4 Don’t you 
see how ill or badly injured I am? ’ ” 
An analysis of statistics of mental disease in the 
State of New York made by Dr. Horatio M. Pollock 
supports the preceding statement and is therefore in 
line with the thought of this chapter (21). All the 
more so because it is dealing with elements in the civil 
population, not in the military forces. 
44 It is but reasonable to suppose, however, that the 
war, by increasing excitement, anxiety and grief, has 250 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
been a precipitating factor of no small importance in 
the causation of mental disease. 
“ The available facts that have a bearing on the 
question may be set forth under the following heads: 
I. Increase of insane patients in institutions. 
II. Increase in first admissions. 
III. Changes in the principal clinical groups. 
7. Increase of Insane in Institutions 
“ The statistics of the institutions for the insane in 
New York State are compiled by fiscal years. Prior 
to 1916 the fiscal year ended on September 30; since 
that time it has ended on June 30. 
“ The yearly net increase in patients in all the 
institutions for the insane in the state since 1911 has 
been as follows: 
Fiscal Year Net Increase 
1911 653 
1912 662 
1913 1,060 
1914 691 
1915 939 
1916 (9 mos) 918 
1917 1,183 
1918 937 
“ The net increase in patients during the four years 
preceding the war was 3,066; a yearly average of 767; 
during the 3f years following the outbreak of the war 
it was 3,977; a yearly average of 1,061. The differ- 
ence between the increases in the two periods was quite 
remarkable, but it is accounted for in part, at least, 
by the accumulation in the hospitals of deportable INSANE IN INSTITUTIONS 
251 
aliens who could not be taken to their homes in Eu- 
rope while the war was in progress. 
“ Additional light is thrown on the subject by the 
following tabulation showing the ratio of patients 
under treatment to the general population of the state 
from 1908 to 1918. 
Insane Patients in aix Institutions at End of Fiscal Year 
Year 
Number 
Per 1,000,000 of 
general population 
1908 
of the state. 
349.6 
1909 
31,540 
352.1 
1910 
32,658 
358.3 
1911 
33,311 
361.0 
1912 
363.6 
1913 
35,033 
370.4 
1914 
35,724 
373.2 
1915 
36,663 
378.4 
1916 
37,581 
383.4 
1917 
38,764 
391.9 
1918 
39,701 
395.7 
“ It is seen that the rate per 100,000 increased 11.4 
points from 1908 to 1911; 12.2 points from 1911 to 
1914; and 22.5 points from 1914 to 1918. The rates 
are based on the federal census of 1910, and the state 
census of 1915, and estimates made therefrom for the 
other years. As immigration has been greatly re- 
duced by the war and as many men have been removed 
from the state for military purposes, it is probable 
that the estimates of population for 1917 and 1918 
computed according to standard methods are too 
high. If this be true, the ratios of the insane to the 
general population for these years as given above are 
correspondingly low. 252 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
“ In New York State first admissions have been 
carefully distinguished from readmissions since the be- 
ginning of the fiscal year of 1909. We are therefore 
able to compare the rate of first admissions during 
the war period with that of the years immediately pre- 
ceding the war. 
II. Increase in First Admissions 
First Admissions to Ail Institutions for the Insane in 
New York State, 1909-1918. 
Year 
Number 
Rate per 100,000 
of general population 
1909 
5,784 
of the state. 
66.4 
1910 
5,944 
65.2 
1911 
6,228 
67.5 
1912 
6,300 
67.4 
1913 
6,650 
70.3 
1914 
6,789 
70.9 
1915 
6,690 
69.1 
1916 (9 mos).... 
5,269 
53.8 
1917 
7,340 
74.0 
1918 
7,244 
72.2 
“ Thei average annual rate for the four years, 1911- 
1914, was 69.0 and for the 3f years from 1915-1918, 
71.7. For the reason stated above, it is probable that 
the rates given for 1917 and 1918 are too low. . . . 
III. Changes in the Principal Clinical Groups 
“ A closer view of mental disease in the state during 
the war period may be obtained by examination of 
the varying distribution of the principal psychoses 
over the past ten years. For this purpose we take 
only the first admissions to the civil state hospitals 
and select the senile, paretic, alcoholic, manic-depres- 
sive, involution melancholia, dementia praecox and ANALYSIS OF ADMISSIONS 
253 
psychoneurotic groups. Together these constitute 
about 70% of all first admissions. 
First Admissions with Certain Psychoses, Civil State Hospitals 
1909-1918 
Year 
Senile 
General 
paralysis 
Alcoholic 
Manic- 
depressive 
and allied 
forms 
Involu- 
tion mel- 
ancholia 
Dementia 
praecox 
and allied 
forms 
Psycho- 
neuroses 
1909 
606 
658 
561 
574 
207 
1181 
44 
1910 
615 
815 
581 
769 
143 
1015 
61 
1911 
583 
758 
580 
826 
143 
1031 
66 
1912 
596 
719 
567 
854 
119 
1129 
74 
1913 
594 
768 
572 
924 
133 
1250 
105 
1914 
542 
774 
464 
880 
188 
1445 
106 
1915 
570 
814 
345 
879 
165 
1663 
73 
*1916 
486 
640 
297 
846 
164 
1173 
57 
1917 
585 
866 
594 
1136 
201 
1786 
77 
1918 
652 
913 
354 
976 
219 
1883 
83 
* 9 months. 
“ Computing the average annual admissions for the 
4 years 1911 to 1914 and for the 3f years 1915 to 
1918, we have the following results: 
Average 
annual 
admissions 
1911-1914 
Average 
annual 
admissions 
1915-1918 
Per cent of 
increase or 
decrease 
Senile 
579 
611 
5.5 
General Paralysis 
755 
862 
14.2 
Alcoholic 
546 
424 
22.3* 
Manic-depressive and allied forms. 
871 
1023 
17.5 
Involution melancholia 
145 
200 
37.9 
Dementia praecox and allied forms 
1214 
1735 
42.9 
Psychoneuroses 
88 
77 
12.5* 
* Decrease. 254 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
“ Referring to the foregoing figures we note a slight 
increase in senile cases and a more marked increase in 
cases with general paralysis. The etiology in these 
groups is well known and it is probable that the war 
is not responsible for the increase to any great 
extent. 
“ In the alcoholic psychoses the decrease in cases 
might have been influenced by the restrictions placed 
on the liquor traffic during the war, but a marked 
decline in the influence of alcohol in causing insanity 
was noted the yrear before the outbreak of the war. 
The reasons for the rise in the number of cases in 
this group in 1917 and for the sudden drop again 
in 1918 are not known. 
“ In the manic-depressive, involution melancholia 
and dementia praecox groups the increase in the an- 
nual number of admissions during the war period 
is quite striking. In dementia praecox especially the 
change has been remarkable. Part of this increase 
may be due to modifications in diagnostic principles, 
but in the main the figures may be taken at their face 
value. 
“ The influence of the war in bringing the consti- 
tutional cases of mental disorder into the hospitals 
is a matter of conjecture. It seems but reasonable to 
ascribe a part of the increase in the annual admissions 
in these groups to the mental conflicts arising from 
circumstances connected with the great war. Social 
and economic changes produced by the war may also 
have a bearing on the matter. 
“ The annual rate of first admissions of the psycho- 
neurotic group decreased during the war period. INSTABILITY AND UNREST 
255 
However, as this group is so small and is subject to 
such marked variations no significance can be attached 
to the change during the war period.” 
Psychic Instability and Unrest. — But psychic 
instability finds many other avenues through which it 
makes its appearance when thousands together are 
contending to effect adaptation on their part to the 
conditions of daily life. They easily become followers 
of the isms and fads and radical movements of the 
day (what the conservative describe as “ isms and 
fads and radical movements”), sustained often by a 
vague sense of being in the front ranks of the pro- 
cession. The more brilliant among them may be spo- 
radic local leaders at least and altogether they are 
an almost ready-made audience for their local leaders, 
“ the apostles of unrest,” and even for the balanced 
and thoughtful student who now and again proposes 
a program for social reconstruction. But they con- 
tribute no steadying morale; on the other hand they 
are sources of embarrassment to many an institution, 
the personnel of which may be earnestly attempting 
to do the best toward keeping abreast with the needs 
of the day. 
One would be going quite too far, however, if one 
were to say or imply that all unrest in industry and 
in society generally is attributable to psychic in- 
stability — or if the implication were made it should 
be accompanied by the admission that in many rela- 
tions such psychic conditions may be an asset rather 
than a liability. Certainly, at any rate, one cannot 
off-hand draw a line between those natures that make 
inconsequential apostles of unrest and their followers, 256 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
and those other natures that make up in their respec- 
tive times the grandly discontented Socrates, Jesus, 
Waldensians, Albigensians, Martin Luther, the fathers 
of the English Bill of Rights, and the fathers of Ameri- 
can independence. Without such “ apostles of un- 
rest ” as these we should soon become hopelessly bound 
up and entangled in our conventional states. 
If unrest is any more prevalent in our day than 
heretofore it may be for the reason that the masses 
of men and women are thinking more than they have 
done in the past — and this whether they are victims 
of unstable natures or not. But it is for the addi- 
tional reason that in our generation great masses of 
people have experienced profound and sudden disloca- 
tions in their social and industrial life. In other 
words, old established adjustments have been wrecked 
or severely strained and these circumstances have car- 
ried with them the urgency for new adaptations. 
In the course of the World War, for illustration, 
hundreds of thousands of men almost literally awoke 
on a morning to find themselves no longer in the fur- 
rows, before the blast furnace, or behind the counters 
but in a military camp and over seas, thrust with 
breathless speed into conditions in which not even their 
lives were their own. Other hundreds of thousands, 
not in the military service, were dislocated from their 
accustomed occupations to fill the gaps left by those 
who had gone, and other gaps like them created by 
the extraordinary expansion of industry as an inci- 
dent to the war. The new adjustments had by no 
means been completed when suddenly the abrupt cessa- 
tion of hostilities dislocated them again and made new INDUSTRIAL DISLOCATIONS 
257 
adaptations necessary. Those who had lately come 
into industrial life where they saw a possibility of 
realizing their wish for economic independence, for 
elbow to elbow association with others of their kind, 
and for the feeling of co-operation with others in the 
accomplishment of results that appeal to the senses 
— creating, for example, a monster gun or ship-loads 
of munitions — had to return to the farm and store 
where they were soon faced by conditions of depres- 
sion. Those who had gone into the military service 
— particularly into its most active phases — returned 
to what seemed to them the unbearable monotony of 
farm and village and factory life where the contrast 
at once made them feel intensely the grip of the wish 
for excitement and action which war inevitably stim- 
ulates, both in those who are actually in the fight and 
in those who are in prospect of engaging therein, and 
whose imagination is continuously stimulated by con- 
tact with those who have already been at the front. 
Social recognition which all crave by nature, and to 
which the soldier probably felt he held a title by rea- 
son of his service, was undoubtedly short of expecta- 
tions in the experience of hosts of men. By reason 
of industrial depression, actual or foreseen, employ- 
ment and wages were insecure. All in all the war 
period and the years immediately following were times 
of extraordinary dislocations, that entailed indescrib- 
able strains incident to adjustment and untold disap- 
pointments of some of the deepest motives of human 
nature — the wishes, on the part of ambitious folk, 
for independence, for social recognition, for novel, 
exciting experience or romance. 258 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
The roots of the unrest now prevalent in India 
are described by Stoddard in terms that are instruct- 
ive in this connection. Having referred to the In- 
dustrial Revolution in Europe he quotes a British 
economist, Dodwell, with respect to conditions just 
preceding the war (27) : “ But the revolution was 
not nearly so sweeping as that which is now in opera- 
tion in India. The invention of machinery and steam- 
power was, in Europe, but the crowning event of a 
long series of years in which commerce and industry 
had been constantly expanding, in which capital had 
been largely accumulated, in which economic principles 
had been gradually spreading . . . No, the Indian 
economic revolution is vastly greater and more funda- 
mental than our Industrial Revolution, great as it 
was. Railways have been built through districts where 
travel was almost impossible, and even roads are un- 
known. Factories have been built, and filled by men 
unused to industrial labor. Capital has been poured 
into the country, which was unprepared for any such 
development. And what are the consequences? India’s 
social organization is being dissolved. The Brahmins 
are no longer priests. The ryot is no longer bound 
to the soil. The banya is no longer the sole purveyor 
of capital. The hand weaver is threatened with ex- 
tinction, and the brass-worker can no longer ply his 
craft. Think of the dislocation which this sudden 
change has brought about, of the many who can no 
longer follow their ancestral vocations, of the com- 
motion which a less profound change produced in Eu- 
rope, and you will understand what is the chief motive- 
power of the political unrest. It is small wonder. UNREST IN AMERICA AND INDIA 
259 
The wonder is that the unrest has been no greater 
than it is. Had India not been an Asiatic country, 
she would have been in fierce revolution long ago.” 
These lines were written, as has already been said, 
before the Great War broke over the heads of Europe. 
They present a picture of an unrest that differs from 
that which we have experienced in America since the 
close of the war. The difference is in the motives in 
which it has its roots. We must guard against that 
extreme simplification of a complex phenomenon that 
would find it growing out of but one causal relation 
— one human motive in this case. Yet it cannot be 
far from the truth that in America since the war the 
tap-root of social unrest is in that inner urging or 
wish for effecting adjustments or adaptations different 
from those that have already been made; these are 
hum-drum and there is a reaching out away from 
them to others that are conceived as ideal or as ap- 
proximating the ideal. In India, on the other hand, 
before the war unrest was an expression by a people 
dazed by the sudden onslaughts of civilization, of a 
wish to be let alone; to remain upon the old tread- 
mills ; to continue their purely domestic arts. It is 
another angle of an old picture: a picture of a people 
who have not already the dispositions acquired or 
native that enable them to use, even approximately, 
the opportunities and responsibilities that a new age 
or a new occasion has brought to their door. It is 
another case of a Francis Joseph thrusting reforms 
upon a people before they are able to play their part. 
Thrust them against a task that for them is insuper- 
able and you have discouragement and finally rebel- 260 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
lion. Let successive tasks be but a little beyond the 
level of present attainments and let each one be pre- 
sented when the people are already fully habituated in 
what has preceded; thus conditions are made favorable 
for new adjustments with enthusiasm. 
It is, no doubt, this wish to be let alone upon the 
old levels; this complacency of the masses of Indian 
people that has accounted for the measure of success 
of Ghandi’s movement of non-co-operation: i.e, boycott 
of everything British including voting, the payment of 
taxes, the purchase of British-made goods, and the 
like. This is in effect a bid to solve the unrest of 
the day by sitting still or by returning to the old 
ways and standing by them. Given a leader, such a 
call was assured of a large response because it opened 
an outlet to some basic motives of the Indian people. 
So in any case unrest is interpreted as a symptom 
of failure in adaptation: of unrealized wishes for se- 
curity of wage and employment; for freedom to go 
about in search of contacts with novel situations, and, 
as a corollary to this, for release from wdiat has be- 
come the hum-drum of commonplace tedium of the 
occupation at hand; for active contacts and partici- 
pation in the affairs of institutions and communities; 
and for recognition as demonstrated by the level to 
which the individual has attained in the councils of his 
own group and class by the consent of his co-laborers, 
and in those of other groups and classes. These 
wishes may not become vocal; they may not even be 
definitely conscious as one consciously wishes for clear- 
ing weather in order that the morning may be suitable 
for hunting or fishing, but it is present none the less REACTION OF THE INSTABLE 
261 
and is a symptom of ill-adaptation to the complex 
circumstances surrounding. 
Among the less intelligent, unbalanced, or instable 
folk of any age, the sense of unfulfillment which is 
the vague conscious sign of inner conflict, finds expres- 
sion in more or less bizarre behavior; in grasping at 
straws thrown out by leaders of circumscribed vision, 
it may be. But in the case of the more intelligent and 
poised, it is not so. There comes to their attention 
now one and now another aspect of their present sit- 
uation, trade or profession, that is of sufficient 
interest to make the case bearable, and even more than 
just bearable. They soon see attractive pictures in 
clouds of smoke and discover an element of humor in 
the contacts of men in the office force. They so bide 
their time and occasion for making the adaptation 
for which their nature is pushing. The instable lack 
the balance needful for such compensatory behavior 
as this. They must break away now and realize the 
end of their inner urging at once. This may take 
the shape of fixing against all comers upon an uncom- 
promising individualistic ideal; in other words, of an 
utter blindness to all considerations that arise in the 
minds of others, the mass of intelligent folk, who be- 
lieve that ideals that are held in common are condi- 
tioned and grown out of circumstances that are com- 
mon, oft-repeated experiences; and that in crises the 
herd must be next to unquestioningly supported in the 
expectation that in the long run new occasions will 
teach new duties to all. 
One could conclude, a priori, that such folk, as com- 
pared at least with the general average of the popu- 262 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
lation, are not lacking in native intelligence, whatever 
be the other aspects of their psychic quality. Were 
they so lacking it could be assumed that they would 
placidly and pliantly accept things as they are. 
It is possible that many “ conscientious objectors ” 
brought to light in the period of the World War 
belong in the group we are considering. If so there 
is support in the experience of army examiners for 
the a priori conclusion mentioned in the paragraph 
above. The following table, for example, shows the 
distribution of letter grades amongst conscientious 
objectors of the religious and political types respec- 
and, for the purpose of comparison, of the 
principle sample of the white draft, Groups I, II and 
III. 
Per cent of Intelligence Ratings of Conscientious 
Objectors in 
Isolation at Fort Leavenworth Compared 
with 
that 
of 
the White Draft, Groups I, 
II and III. 
Group E,D — 
D 
C- 
C 
c+ 
B 
A 
Religious 5.0 
5.0 
20.0 
20.0 
15.0 
25.0 
10.0 
Political 
11.7 
11.7 
11.7 
5.9 
50.0 
Total 2.7 
8.3 
16.4 
10.8 
13.5 
16.4 
32.6 
White Draft 
Groups I, II, III..7.0 
17.1 
23.8 
25.0 
15.0 
8.0 
4.1 
The late Dr. E. E. Southard was certainly one of 
the first amongst the psychiatrists to sense the func- 
tion of his professional group in the face of the unrest 
that is so prevalent in the social organization, as 
well as to point, from the psychiatrist’s angle, to 
fundamental causes. This he does in his discussion 
of the findings of the Commission on Industrial Unrest 
in England. That the evidences of unrest that the 
commission had to deal with were, in their sum total, DR. SOUTHARD QUOTED 
263 
reactions of individuals to unfulfilled wishes may be 
accepted as at least a satisfactory working hypothesis. 
That they are altogether indications of psychic insta- 
bilities in any but a normal, harmless sense in those 
individuals is quite beyond the bounds of possibility. 
Dr. Southard writes as follows (23) : 
“ According to the Commission’s report, there were 
the following four universal causes for unrest in Eng- 
land: (1) food prices and distribution of supplies; (2) 
restriction of personal freedom; (3) card system for 
military and industrial service; (4) inco-ordination of 
government papers. Certain acute, though not uni- 
versal, causes of unrest were housing, drinking, and 
fatigue. The commission speaks also of psychological 
conditions and remarks that the great majority of the 
causes of industrial unrest specified in the (8 district) 
reports have their root in certain psychological con- 
ditions. Among these may be mentioned lack of con- 
fidence in the government, feeling of inequality of sacri- 
fice in army and industry, the idea that solemn pledges 
were broken and turned into scraps of paper, feeling 
of unreliability of certain trade union officials; and 
feeling of the uncertainty of the whole industrial 
future. 
“ The commission was no doubt justified in laying 
enormous emphasis on what it calls psychological con- 
ditions. The psychiatrist and the medical men in 
general must feel that the blanket term 4 psychological 
condition ’ covers a good many psychiatric difficulties. 
Thus, whoever follows the strong trend to individual- 
ization in medicine, psychiatry, in education — both 
intellectual and moral — and even in the law courts, 264 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
must be convinced that individualization should pro- 
ceed to greater lengths in industry. There is nothing 
more wide spread in modern sociology than certain 
ideas about group action as the be all and end all of 
progress and failure in social developments. As one 
author puts it, group experience leads to group 
thought, group thought to group action. If we take, 
for example, the universal causes of unrest summar- 
ized by Barnes of England, we shall of course be con- 
vinced that food prices might well be a group experi- 
ence; a poor distribution of supplies might be to a 
large extent a group experience. There would also 
be a group experience of the evils of card systems 
which might lead to a group thought, and unrest of 
mind might create tendencies to strikes; distribution 
of supplies would tend to follow group experience and 
thought as in the case of prices and service cards. 
When it comes, however, to a question of the restric- 
tion of personal freedom and to a question of govern- 
ment inco-ordination, it must be observed that these 
are hardly group experiences as much as individual 
experiences. The workman who objects to being 
passed automatically from one sphere of labor to 
another may make himself heard effectively in group 
thought; the victim of some inco-ordination on the 
part of government departments may do the same. 
But it certainly must be true that the effects of such 
restriction of freedom and of temperamental inco-ordi- 
nation are, as a rule, individual. The voices of the 
victims, however, are raised along with the voices of 
general unrest concerning food prices and the service- 
card system. DR. SOUTHARD QUOTED 
265 
“ We cannot help thinking that the principles of 
social work and especially of psychiatric social work, 
applied to the problems of the restriction of personal 
freedom or of temperamental inco-ordination, will solve 
most of the problems. The matter of automatic 
transfers from certain spheres of labor is of course 
a war rather than a peace matter, but the item will 
serve as well as another to indicate that universal 
causes of unrest need not be the product of group 
experience, need not have led to group thought, and 
need not lead to group action unless in the presence 
of other more general causes of unrest. Many of 
these problems, possibly the majority of them, are 
extraordinary rather than main problems. The same 
holds for the acute as contrasted with the universal 
causes of unrest, most of which acute causes are 
described by the commissioners as arising locally from 
different problems, such as family housing, drinking, 
fatigue, or even such a problem as that of lack of 
confidence in the government, specified among the 
findings as lack of commercial sense. We find from 
the commission’s report that this lack of commercial 
sense was especially noticeable in South Wales where 
there had been a break-away in faith in parliamentary 
representation. I do not know any single important 
fact relative to South Wales and its break-away from 
the democratic faith, but certainly there must have 
been a local condition which no doubt had local causes, 
some of which are almost certain to have been due to 
the operations of particular men in a group of men. 
“ This introduces us to the most general aspect of 
the unrest problem, the aspect which leads me to give 266 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
my paper the somewhat cryptic title: The Modern 
Specialist in Unrest. It may be — or, as I suspect, 
it may not be — that group experience leads to group 
thought and group thought to group action as the 
ordinary course of events in social developments. But 
whether these developments are group matters or not, 
it remains true that most of the information we 
possess concerning group psychology and group psy- 
chopathy is derived from the psychology or the psy- 
chopathy of the individual. If this statement be 
accounted true, then I do not need to insist that the 
psychiatrist is rather more likely than any other 
expert to know how the main lines of unrest will run. 
Unrest on the part of the individual is the big problem 
of the psychiatrist; year in and }rear out he comes in 
contact with the finest, as it were, and the most brilliant 
examples of unrest in the shape of particular patients 
in his wards. If this general account of things be 
correct, the psychiatrist ought to have a message 
for industry. Psychiatric knowledge about the unrest 
of the individual ought to be turned to account in our 
analyses of group unrest. . . . 
“What is unrest? The theory that group experi- 
ence leads to group thought, which in turn leads to 
group action, may be sound theory for a portion of 
industrial phenomena, but the individual experience, 
individual thought, and even individual action are also 
factors in industrial situations. How far is unrest 
a matter of group or crowd or mass psychology? 
How far does mass psychology depend upon the ps}’- 
chology of the individual member? It will not be wise 
to generalize to the effect either that industrial unrest DR. SOUTHARD QUOTED 
267 
is entirely a group phenomenon or that it takes its 
rise entirely in the minds or in the hearts of individuals. 
We have seen that some of the causes of unrest in 
England might well be matters of group psychology, 
but that other causes of unrest seem almost in their 
nature to have been of individual origin. 
“ That portion of the unrest problem which de- 
pends not upon group experience, but upon individual 
experience, not upon group thought, but upon indi- 
vidual thought, and finally not upon group action, 
but upon individual action, is the proper topic for the 
psychiatrist. The psychiatrist, particularly in com- 
pany with the psychiatric social worker, has always 
been a specialist in unrest — unrest, to be sure, con- 
fined within asylum walls. The modern psychiatrist 
has under more or less definite supervision large 
numbers of the so-called psychopathic personalities — 
persons who are not insane in a kind or degree to 
warrant their commitment to institutions, but who 
are psychopathic enough or in such wise as to benefit 
from community supervision. It is this modern con- 
tact with the psychopathic personalities, with instances 
of so-called psychopathic inferiority, with psycho- 
pathic states, that makes the modern psychiatrist a 
specialist in a kind of unrest that interests the com- 
munity very deeply. These psychopathic personali- 
ties have been recognized even in the immigration laws 
and in the official tabulations of the army and navy 
under the terms constitutional psychopathic inferior- 
ity, constitutional psychopathic state, and similar 
designations.” 
Additional support for the thesis respecting the 268 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
psychic background that is manifest in unrest is 
afforded by Spargo in his “ The Psychology of 
Bolshevism ” (26) : 
“ Their most marked peculiarity is the migratory 
nature of their lives. Whether this is self-determined, 
a matter of temperament and habit, or due to uncon- 
trolled factors, it is largely responsible for the con- 
tempt in which they are popularly held. . . . They 
rarely remain long enough in any one place to form 
local attachments and ties or anything like civic 
pride. They move from job to job, city to city, 
state to state. . . . The absence of friends, com- 
bined with the prejudice against vagrants which 
everywhere exists, subjects them to arbitrary and 
high-handed injustice such as no other body of 
American citizens has to endure. ... In this man- 
ner the ‘ Wobbly ’ becomes a veritable son of Ishmael, 
his’ hand against the hand of nearly every man in 
conventional society. In particular he becomes a 
rebel by habit, hating the police and the courts as his 
constant enemies. 
“ Doubtless the great majority of these men are 
temperamentally predisposed to the unanchored, 
adventurous, migratory existence which they lead. 
Boys so constituted run away to sea, take jobs with 
traveling circuses, or enlist as soldiers. The type is 
familiar and not uncommon. Such individuals can- 
not be content with the prosaic, hum-drum, monoto- 
nous life of regular employment.”1 
It is another case of men of approximately the same 
temperamental equipment, unadapted or ill-adapted to 
the conventional forms of organized society, coming CRIMINAL BEHAVIOR 
269 
together into the same current where, through mutual 
recognition and understanding of one another they 
have developed into a solid social group. In that 
current they remain quite apart from the rest of us, 
and no assimilation can be accomplished until we can 
know their psychology and act thereupon precisely as 
the unruly victim of psychoses in our hospital ward 
can not re-establish social relations with us, his earlier 
neighbors, until we have grown to understand his 
psychology and until we act upon our knowledge by 
relieving him of his tensions. It is a case that calls 
for alteration of conditions in such manner that those 
conditions may elicit behavior that will provide satis- 
faction for the patient and for others; and the “ con- 
ditions ” may imply both physical and spiritual sur- 
roundings, mental habits and even bodily health. 
Criminal Behavior. — Other phenomena of im- 
perfect social adjustment are to be found in criminal 
behavior, and it has been and is a fruitful hypothesis 
that such behavior represents a failure in adjustment 
due to the psychic quality and intelligence level of 
individuals. There is no hard and fast catalogue of 
forms of such behavior. A given act may today be 
in no sense regarded as criminal, but tomorrow, owing 
to legislation that may have occurred in the meantime, 
the same act may be so described. Leaving such in- 
stances aside, however, and considering the matter 
in the rough, it will be satisfactory in this connection 
to follow Garofalo (12) in his conception of 
“ Natural Crime ” which he limits to offenses against 
the sentiment of pity on the one hand and on the other 
to offenses against the sentiment of probity. 270 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
The first category includes (a) attacks upon human 
life and all manner of acts that tend to produce 
physical harm to human beings such as the deliberate 
infliction of physical torture, mayhem, the maltreat- 
ment of the weak and infirm, the voluntary causing of 
illness, the imposition upon children of excessive labor 
or such work as tends to injure their health or stunt 
their physical development; (b) physical acts which 
produce suffering at once physical and moral such as 
the violation of personal liberty; abduction and kid- 
napping for ransom are types; (c) acts which directly 
produce moral suffering such as defamation of charac- 
ter and false accusation. 
The second category includes: (a) attacks upon 
property involving violence, such as robbery, extor- 
tion, malicious mischief, arson, and the like; (b) 
attacks without violence but involving breach of trust: 
such as obtaining money under false pretences; embez- 
zlement; fraudulent conveyance of property; bank- 
ruptcy through fraud or negligence; the revelation 
of professional secrets; plagiarism and all forms of 
counterfeiting; (c) indirect injuries to property or 
civil rights by false statements or entries made in a 
formal manner as on oath. Among these are per- 
jury, forger}7, destruction of documents, etc. There 
are important differences of psychic make-up amongst 
individuals who commit crimes of the foregoing cate- 
gories, respectively. 
Juvenile offenders are not classed with criminals 
nor their offenses with crimes for the good reason 
that there is a gap between the psychologic nature 
of juveniles and adults by reason of which the mis- PER CENT OF FEEBLE-MINDED 
271 
deeds of the former are regarded less seriously than 
those of the latter. But the two groups are not in 
wholly distinct classes. The offenses of each may be 
interpreted as indications of a failure in the process 
of adaptation of the individual to his world. The 
analysis of the cause of this failure is not a simple 
operation. There are certainly many causal factors. 
Among these is mental defect — feeble-mindedness. 
Its frequency in both juvenile and adult groups has 
been the subject of many debates, and estimates on the 
basis of mental testing have varied greatly — as to 
the juvenile group from 7% to more than 16%. The 
estimates were made upon examination of the popula- 
tion of juvenile reformatories and the personnel of the 
daily grist of cases in juvenile courts. The average 
has been, by competent observers, set at 45% to 50%. 
Some difference in frequency amongst localities occurs 
and should be expected owing to variations in the 
practices of the courts in the matter of commitment, 
to different methods and standards in use by examin- 
ers, to the nature of the population in the localities 
respectively, etc. The drift of opinion of competent 
students is undoubtedly toward the lower estimates. 
Of 1212 juvenile delinquents in Boston 7% have been 
reported as definitely feeble-minded (16). Even of 
these cases it can never be asserted positively that 
the mental defect is the sole cause of the failure in 
adjustment that is described as the delinquent act or 
the delinquent career. The “ born criminal ” and the 
“ moral imbecile ” hypotheses have no support in the 
facts as they have become known in recent years. 
What has been interpreted as a moral imbecile is but 272 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
a low-grade feeble-minded person whose inhibitions 
are therefore weak and whose natural impulses are 
for that reason peculiarly lacking in restraint. Un- 
doubtedly, too, there are other psychic defects than 
this in his make-up. The psychological tests them- 
selves do not bring forward the sole criteria of 
diagnosis. 
It is possible that feeble-mindedness is in no case, 
strictly speaking, even a primary cause of delin- 
quency. By reason of it the individual is unable to 
map out his course so as to avoid pitfalls; he may 
not recognize the meaning or the consequences of an 
act that he is about to do; he has few interests that 
can serve as inhibitors and consequently he is more 
likely than a normal individual to act impulsively 
whenever an occasion may arise. 
It is important to observe that special abilities and 
disabilities occur amongst juvenile delinquents so that 
the individual requires at the outset a particular 
adjustment in order that he may avoid unnecessary 
grating against the conditions of existence. If a 
youth has a high grade of musical talent and is medi- 
ocre in general the particular adjustment he requires 
is easily apparent. But there are highly specialized 
abilities in mathematics, in engineering, in drawing, 
in the management of men, etc. (7) One of all-round 
ability may fit in without irritation at any one of 
many points in the social organization; not so in the 
case of the natural specialist. A misplaced individual 
who possesses a highly specialized capacity may 
quickly become an example of unrest; and this unrest 
may (depending upon the nature of the total person- INTELLIGENCE DISTRIBUTION 
273 
PERCENTAGES OF I21J JUVENILE REPEATED OFFENDERS DISTRIBUTED ACCORDING TO "INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT” MEASURED BY THB 
STANFORD REVISION OF THE BINET-SIMON AGE-LEVEL SCALE. 274 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
ality and circumstances surrounding) find expression 
in delinquent acts, in other behavior not so described, 
but of a character disturbing to the established course 
of affairs — vagrancy for example—or in minor 
psychoses or in frank mental disease. 
However significant the proportion of 7% or 10% 
of feeble-minded amongst juvenile delinquents may be, 
other facts relating to the distribution of intelligence 
levels amongst them are full of meaning also. Of 
the 1212 in the Boston group referred to, 8% are 
supernormal. The whole group presents a fairly 
normal distribution — somewhat skewed toward the 
lower levels. This makes it apparent that other 
factors than mental level are at work — probably 
many others. If both the very bright and the very 
dull are misdoers; if many feeble-minded youths live 
decently and do their simple work well, there must 
certainly be other causes of delinquency than low in- 
telligence level. 
There is lack of balance amongst natural impulses; 
those qualities that express themselves in the vigorous 
or the lethargic use of one’s endowments; personality 
traits such as love of adventure, revengefulness, stub- 
bornness, etc., with their outlet in such attitudes as 
the grudge; habitual mental imagery with its outlet 
in impulsions, illustrated without doubt in the behavior 
of many a “ model man ” in the community who has 
“ gone wrong ” over night as it were, and the like. 
If feeble-mindedness is minor amongst the psychic 
causes of delinquency in juveniles it is probably still 
less pronounced as a cause of criminality amongst 
adults. Because the practise of the psychologists in MILITARY PRISONERS 
275 
the camps in the World War has had the effect of 
producing relative uniformity of method and inter- 
pretation in psychologic diagnoses in civil life, investi- 
gators here and there have begun to report for the 
population of their institutions, respectively, a hardly 
larger proportion of defective intelligence than was 
found in the United States Army. And the intelli- 
gence of the army was probably of but little lower 
level than that of the population at large. Thus 
“. . . we have come to the rather radical con- 
clusion that the adult prisoner in this state (New 
Jersey) is of average normal intelligence when com- 
pared with such standards as were obtained as a result 
of psychological examining in the army. To be sure, 
the median intelligence of prisoners is slightly inferior 
to the median intelligence of army recruits, but this 
is because among the prisoners certain factors of selec- 
tion are at work which make the two groups some- 
what incomparable. It is only after allowance has 
been made for nationality, color and occupational 
selection that the prisoner is seen to have approxi- 
mately the same intelligence as the soldier.” The 
characteristic repeating offender in this state is a 
native white of even somewhat superior intelligence 
(9). Practically the same conclusion (not referring 
to repeating offenders) has been reached in an investi- 
gation of less scope in Indiana (28) and in one of 
broad scope in Illinois (3). 
In this connection we quote the army findings as to 
the relative intelligence of the principal sample of the 
white draft and of military prisoners convicted on 
serious charges by general courts-martial and con- 276 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
fined in the United States disciplinary barracks at 
Fort Leavenworth (18). 
E, D— 
D 
C— 
C 
c+ 
B 
A Total No. 
Number: Prisoners in 
each grade group 201 
633 
700 
799 
538 
300 
197 
3368 
Per cent 6.0 
18.8 
20.8 
23.8 
16.0 
8.8 
5.8 
White draft, 
Per cent 7.1 
17.0 
23.8 
25.0 
15.2 
8.0 
4.1 
94004 
This group of prisoners, in comparison with the 
white draft “ is normal or average. There is a slight 
tendency to higher ratings than those obtained by the 
white draft, but it is probably not significant.” 
The table below compares Camps Dix and McClellan 
prisoners who were convicted of minor charges with 
both the Fort Leavenworth and the white draft 
groups: 
E, D- 
Dix and McClellan 
- D 
C- 
C 
C + 
B 
A Total No. 
prisoners, per cent 20.6 
Leavenworth prisoners, 
26.6 
21.6 
18.9 
8.3 
3.4 
2.1 
1004 
per cent 6.0 
White draft, 
18.8 
20.8 
23.8 
16.0 
8.8 
5.8 
3368 
principal sampling 7.1 
17.0 
23.8 
25.0 
15.0 
8.0 
4.1 
94004 
A comparison of the two preceding tables makes 
it appear that low intelligence may be a factor in the 
less serious delinquencies but not in those of graver 
concern. 
On the whole those who had been convicted on 
charges of acquisitive crimes such as larceny, robbery, 
forgery, fraud, etc. — offenses against the sentiments 
of probity (Garofalo, supra) — are of a higher intel- 
ligence level than the average. Those who were con- 
victed of crimes of aggression (excepting those whose 
aggression took the form of disloyalty), — offenses HABIT-FORMED TRAITS 
277 
against the sentiments of pity (Garofalo, supra) — 
were below the average intelligence level. 
It appears, therefore, on the whole, that a psycho- 
logic account of those evidences of mal-adjustment 
that we call the crimes of adults, if the new trend be 
borne out by further investigation, is very likely to 
relegate feeble-mindedness to the negligible. A sub- 
stitute for the old emphasis upon this factor is in the 
field of emotional and temperamental constitution 
which includes all those factors that we have pre- 
viously referred to as psychic instabilities, and, we 
may add, defects of personality. 
But the ill effects upon adjustment to the social 
organization, produced by warped human nature, are 
not limited to such traits as have been mentioned in 
the foregoing. Habit-formed traits may be no less 
effective. Indeed it is possible that such peculiar 
tendencies or readiness for reaction as have been 
implied in the foregoing discussion are — many of 
them — properly classified as habitual. Certainly we 
are justified in considering our mental capacities, 
even, in their concrete practical operation, as habit- 
uated forms of behavior. We take this position in 
effect each time we state the proposition that capaci- 
ties can not be improved but that we can acquire the 
benefit of improvement by training in the art of using 
the capacity. It is better than a plausible hypothesis 
that the forests conceal many a woodsman who posses- 
ses the natural capacity that, had it been trained 
appropriately, would have accounted for a highly 
competent mathematician, scientist, or follower of a 
practical art. In other words, what the capacity 278 
ADJUSTMENT AND MALADJUSTMENT 
lacks in such an instance, is the support of a complex 
of acquired habits. This hypothesis is supported by 
the data in Chapter IX, particularly by Dr. Cattell’s 
“ Statistical Study of Men of Science ” in America, 
and by many a casual observer, who now and again 
finds, in the more obscure walks of life, an individual 
of inquiring disposition, keen observation, and origin- 
ality. 
This consideration prompts the thought that those 
who live and grow in the midst of conditions that are 
unfavorable; conditions, that is, that thwart the 
“ wishes ” of human nature for security of main- 
tenance, for release from hum-drum and contact with 
the unfamiliar, for enlarging participation in daily 
work: that those who live in such thwarting conditions 
and react to them over and over again must develop 
something analogous to a professional disposition. 
And a disposition so developed may be merely a grudge 
or any other psychic twist or deformity that impedes, 
rather than aids, normal social adjustment, if it does 
not positively facilitate mal-adjustment. 
Obviously it is the proper function of leaders of 
society not to attempt to find relief from mal-adjust- 
ments of whatever nature by forcing the ill-adjusted 
into ready-made modes but to look upon the conditions 
in which we live — both material and spiritual — as 
so many stimuli or situations that induce the reactions 
or responses that are called “ unrest ” and “ crime ” 
and what not; and secondly, in-so-far as possible, to 
alter those stimula with a view to obtaining more 
favorable responses. 
This may or may not lead to increasing wages and ALTERATION OF STIMULATION 
279 
guaranteeing an income; to granting enlarged partici- 
pation in the control of working conditions; to revo- 
lution of the educational system. But wheresoever it 
leads, to be successful it must create and maintain a 
sense of satisfaction from having relieved and from 
continuous relief of the pressure of the sense of unful- 
filled wishes. But this is not even an expression of 
a pious hope that by manipulation of the external 
conditions of life all such difficulties as we have had 
in mind may be made to disappear. The best that 
may be reasonably expected from such experiments in 
stimulation and response is an approximation to relief 
from crime and pathological unrest and the like. CHAPTER XI 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
OF CIVILIZATION 
The considerations brought forward in the last 
chapter raise the question whether such evidences of 
mal-adaptation as were cited are increasing from year 
to year. If so the fact would probably be accepted as 
evidence of the absolute or relative decadence of 
human nature: relative, that is, to the increasing 
demands that civilization places upon it. The ques- 
tion may be considered as preparatory to the further 
enquiry whether the race is able to sustain and 
develop the complex and exacting civilization that we 
ourselves have created. 
Questions of Decadence vs. Improvement. — The 
scope of reliable information is today so narrow that 
the question of the increase of that restlessness that 
was described in the last chapter as an illustration of 
social mal-adaptation can be summarily dealt with. 
There is no reliable evidence of such increase. If 
restlessness is more apparent today than it was a 
generation ago it may be so for the reason that there 
are more instruments now than there were formerly 
for registering the varied voices of unrest: that is, 
there is a vast increment of periodicals, of lecture 
platforms, of organizations, and the like, for the ex- 
pression of opinion than formerly could be found, DECADENCE FA. IMPROVEMENT 
281 
and for these and other reasons ‘communication is 
speedy today as compared with that of a half century 
ago and less. Furthermore, even if an increase could 
be demonstrated it could hardly, unqualifiedly, be 
interpreted as a sign either of absolute or relative 
progressive decay. It might, on the other hand, be 
attributed to an intellectual awakening to unnecessary 
inequalities and injustices in the social order. Cer- 
tain unrest undoubtedly springs from pathological or 
from defective natures and is contagious amongst 
others of approximately the same sort to the em- 
barrassment of the social order. But it was the unrest 
of individuals and their mal-adaptation to conditions 
as they were that led to Magna Charta and to the 
American and French Revolutions. That the spirit 
of unrest is abroad is one of the hopeful things in any 
generation, assuming, of course, that it is an expres- 
sion of a healthy vitality and that it is guided by 
enlightened leaders. 
Neither is there satisfactory evidence of the increase 
of mental defect and of mental disease over a genera- 
tion. According to the reports of the United States 
Census Bureau the mentally diseased in the hospitals 
of the United States, in proportion to the population 
of the country has increased from 81.6 per hundred 
thousand in 1880, to 118.2 in 1890, to 183.6 in 1904, 
and to 204.2 in 1910. In the report of 1880 it was 
estimated that there were 101.7 insane per hundred 
thousand of the general population outside of insti- 
tutions in this country, and in 1890 when the estimate 
was made on a different basis the figure was reduced. 
These estimates are probably very inaccurate. 282 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
In England and Wales the total number of insane 
per hundred thousand inside of institutions and out- 
side of them by decades from 1859 to 1839 inclusive, 
and yearly from 1904 to 1908 inclusive, is as follows: 
186.7, 239.3, 275.4, 296.5, 329.6, 347.1, 350.9, 353.1, 
354.8, and 366.7. Other European countries show 
much the same increase in the reported numbers of 
the insane. But the increment that is suggested in 
these figures may be a reflection of the increase and 
improvement of facilities, legislative and institutional, 
for the care of the insane and for their discovery and 
diagnosis. The farther back we go the smaller is the 
number of insane segregated in institutions and there- 
fore the less complete is the enumeration. The same 
considerations apply to the question of the increase 
of feeble-mindedness or mental defect. Recent legis- 
lation, grown out of general enlightenment with 
respect to the subject, has immensely stimulated the 
discovery and enumeration of the feeble-minded. 
The prevalence of crime as reported in what statis- 
tics are available is no less sensitive a barometer of 
legislation, of economic and industrial conditions, of 
the state of mind of the people who compose a com- 
munity, and even of orders from police headquarters. 
If a group of citizenry persistently insist upon the 
prosecution of offenders in a certain type of cases, 
and if the chief of police gives the appropriate orders 
to his force, the showing of offenses of the sort will 
be larger, at least temporarily, than otherwise. Fur- 
thermore, at least in America, there is no systematic 
and reliable body of criminal statistics of more than 
very limited scope. Moreover there are undoubtedly DURATION OF LIFE 
283 
many sociological and economic causes of crime which 
are effective in co-operation with psycho-physical 
causes, and, for that matter, altogether independent 
of psychic or of physical defect. 
An alleged decreasing death rate and an increasing 
average duration of life have been accepted as support 
for the proposition that the members of the race are 
improving their capacity for adapting themselves to 
their complex environment. This may be due, not to 
an increased resistance on the part of the race but 
to an accession of skill on the part of physicians and 
hygienists in warding off diseases and so in prolonging 
life. On the other hand Rittenhouse of the Equitable 
Life Insurance Company claims that the mortality 
from degenerative diseases is increasing for all ages 
of life (7). He says: “In sixteen cities the mortality 
rate from heart, apoplexy and kidney affections alone 
has increased in thirty years from 17.94 to 34.78, or 
94 per cent; during ten years (1900-1910) it in- 
creased from 29.4 to 36.78 or 18 per cent. In 
New Jersey (1880-1910) it increased from 16.5 
to 34.3 or 108 per cent.” He shows also that 
in these cities the death rate in ages over 45-54 
has increased. According to the same author 
this is true also of Massachusetts and New 
Jersey. In these states the death rate of the total 
population aged 40 and over has increased during 
thirty years (1880-1910) 21.2 per cent; in sixteen 
cities, 25.3 per cent, and in ten states from 1900-1910, 
3 per cent. The writer concludes from such data as 
these that while the average length of life has in- 
creased the extreme span has been shortened. Upon 284 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
this point Holmes urges a caution and says: “ . . . 
the increasing mortality after middle age in this 
country may be largely explained by the increasing 
proportion of foreigners and their immediate descend- 
ants, among whom the average expectation of life is 
considerably lower than among the native popu- 
lation of native parentage. As an inspection 
of Glover’s life tables will show, the differences 
in the mortality rates of the native and the 
foreign-born become greater with advanced ages, 
although they have become reduced in extreme age. 
That the decreasing longevity in advanced age groups 
is not a general characteristic of modern civilization 
is indicated by a comparison of the life tables of sev- 
eral countries of Europe. Taking the expectation of 
life at sixty years as an index of vitality in old age, 
we find in France a slight increase from 1861-1865, 
when it was 13.55 years, to 13.58 years in 1877-1881, 
and a further increase in 1898-1903 to 13.81 years. 
The increased expectation of life at sixty years in 
Germany is shown as follows: 
Dates 
.. .1871-1881 
1881-1890 
1891-1900 
1901-1910 
Expected 
years of life... 
12.11 
12.43 
12.82 
13.14 
Denmark shows a steadily increasing expectation of 
life at sixty years from 1835-1844 to 1900, and Nor- 
way shows a general increase since 1856 and Sweden 
since 1861. The expectation of life at sixty years in 
England fell somewhat from the middle of the 19th 
century to 1881-1890, after which it has increased 
about two years. For the past thirty to forty years 
people of the old-age groups have been living slightly THE BIRTH RATE 
285 
longer on the average in Australia also. In the more 
advanced ages the expected duration of life has shown 
a smaller amount of increase, but in a number of 
countries even the man of eighty may count on living 
a little longer than he would a few decades ago.” 
The nature of the variations in the birth rate from 
group to group in the general population is another 
phenomenon that occasions misgivings as to the ability 
of the race to adapt itself to the vast complexities 
of modern civilization and to sustain it. Those dis- 
tricts that show evidence of prosperity have a low 
birth rate while in poverty-stricken regions the reverse 
is true. Bertillon gives the following figures relating 
to the birth rate per thousand women aged 15 to 50 
years in four European cities (1): 
Paris 
Berlin 
Vienna 
London 
Very poor districts 
....108 
157 
200 
147 
Poor 
.... 95 
129 
164 
140 
Comfortable 
.... 72 
114 
155 
107 
Very comfortable 
.... 65 
96 
153 
107 
Rich 
.... 53 
63 
107 
87 
Very rich 
34 
47 
71 
63 
It has been estimated that the death rate in the 
poorer districts is not sufficiently high to counter- 
balance the distribution of the above figures. 
Among the graduates of three American colleges 
for women, the birth-rate per hundred is as follows: 
Number of 
Children per 100 
1890-99 
1900-09 
147 
68.8 
171.5 
77.4 
182.3 
91.2 286 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
Such data can be multiplied and from them students 
have drawn the disturbing conclusions that we are 
losing our native American stock and that those 
elements in our population that have achieved success 
financially, socially and intellectually are being lost. 
Other supplementary data, furthermore — namely the 
known fecundity of the mentally defective — lead 
some to fear that the average level of intelligence may 
become progressively lower rather than higher — a 
result that would necessarily make it impossible, ulti- 
mately, to sustain civilization at its present level of 
complexity and that would cause a progressive social 
decay, rather than further growth. 
No data of the sort referred to thus far in this 
chapter afford sufficient proof of the decadence of the 
race, and even if extensive changes of the sort had 
taken place it is certain that the facts could not be 
established by the kind of records that have been 
compiled. In other words, up to this point, there are 
no reliable data that deny the potentiality of the race 
for sustaining the present level of civilization at its 
highest and even of lifting it to higher planes. 
Factors Affecting Development. — Possibly we 
can judge of the present trend of racial development 
by a study of some of the forces that are assumed to 
be producing changes in human nature. The most 
prominent of these and perhaps the most potent is 
urban life. 
In the United States the per cent of the total popu- 
lation in cities of 8,000 and over has increased rapidly 
from 3.35 in 1790 to 38.8 in 1910. Including those 
who were living in towns and cities of 2,500 or more CITY DEATH RATE 
287 
inhabitants, the per cent was 46.3 in 1910, and it is 
probably over 50% at the present time. It is esti- 
mated that 30.7% of the increase in urban population 
in this country has been produced by migration from 
the rural districts, so that the population of cities is 
increasing much more rapidly than is that of the 
country at large. 
The crude death rate in the city is lower than in 
rural districts. The actual condition, however, is ob- 
scured by the fact that that portion of the population 
of the city that is made up of adolescents and of 
men and women in the prime of life is relatively large. 
Such people crowd into the cities on account of the 
opportunities afforded there for occupation and for 
preparation for a profession, or what not. The fol- 
lowing figures show the age composition of the cities 
of Germany and the rest of the country, respec- 
tively (5) : 
No. per 1,000 
Inhabitants 
Under 16 yrs. 
16-30 
30-50 
60-70 
Over 70 
In large cities... 
306 
301 
264 
111 
19 
Outside of large 
cities 380 
234 
226 
131 
29 
The mortality by age groups is indicated in the 
following (5) : 
Deaths per 10,000 in 
Germany (Mombert) 1900-1901 
In large cities Outside large cities 
Died in 1st year 
2322 
2134 
” ” 1st to 15th yr.... 
1073 
930 
” ” 15th to 60th yr..., 
899 
879 
” ” 60th yr 
6861 
7207 
These figures show the city at a disadvantage and 
so do those relating to the per cent of recruits ac- 
cepted in Germany in 1907 and 1908 for military 288 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
service. According to Bindewald the larger the city 
the smaller the per cent accepted and the largest per 
cent of all are from the country. That this is not a 
reflection of the occupations of city and rural men 
respectively, is shown by the fact that the same con- 
dition holds within the occupations. 
These considerations suggest that the city exceeds 
the country in the strength of its deteriorating in- 
fluences, and that the enormous growth of cities at the 
expense of other districts imparts increased potency 
to them. 
What these influences are may be conjectured. 
Crowding and poor housing afford peculiar oppor- 
tunity for infection, but medical and hygienic science 
be expected to keep pace, as the years go on, with 
this factor. Other conditions are probably more 
serious. The rural migrant and the immigrant from 
foreign countries suffer a considerable break-up of 
their conventional anchorages. They drift and are 
at once living a life to which they are not accustomed. 
The morals of the weaker ones suffer and the con- 
ditions are all the more favorable for deterioration. 
Add to these considerations the fact that the city 
affords innumerable stimuli of all sorts that arouse as 
many reactions and we have that constant state of 
tension or of excitement that Nordau emphasizes 
among the deteriorating influences of the day. It is 
not difficult to conceive of the condition we have in 
mind if we imagine the number and character of the 
stimuli our grandfathers experienced each day of 
business in the town or upon the farm and compare 
them with the situations we meet today in the heart CITY CONDITIONS 
289 
of a great city. Even the journey to the city today 
entails responses to unknown numbers of stimuli where 
our grandfathers responded to but one. Compare the 
noisy subway or elevated with the horse and carriage. 
It is not to the point to urge that we become accus- 
tomed to the thousand jangles of the train and that we 
do not notice them. Nor is it pertinent to urge that 
because we have got into the way of sleeping soundly 
during the night, surrounded by city noises, they have 
no effect upon us. When we have become so accus- 
tomed and have gone to the country for a week we are 
usually sleepless at night for the silence of the sur- 
roundings. This is proof enough that during the 
nights when we are asleep in the city we are, though 
unconsciously, reacting to the city noises. If this is 
the case our muscle system must be tensed up, and the 
organism is not at rest. In the long run our organ- 
isms are being torn down by these conditions. This is 
undoubtedly a sound position. It is entirely con- 
ceivable that the conditions operate to break the health 
ultimately, to impair our effectiveness and even to 
shorten life. 
But even though we assume that this is actually the 
case it does not afford indubitable proof that the 
city, in however long a run, is producing conditions 
that, by tearing down the quality of the race, stand 
in the way of the maintenance and even of increasing 
the complexity of our civilization. There are un- 
doubtedly many compensating factors by dint of which 
conceivably, in the course of a shorter period of life, 
or of health, more may be accomplished than in a 
longer. 290 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
It is pertinent, at any rate, in this connection to 
make a reference to experimental work with distract- 
ing stimuli (for the multitude of stimulations that the 
city dweller and worker meets daily may be described 
as distractions). By distracting stimuli one means 
stimulations that tend to produce reactions that are 
different from those required by the work in hand. 
When we are writing letters at our desk and the shouts 
of bathers in the lake reach our ears we are receiving 
distracting stimuli: distracting, because they tend to 
arouse in us those reactions that are preparatory to 
swimming or bathing in the lake rather than the re- 
actions of writing. Morgan, for instance, has shown 
that, when the stimulating value of a problem or task 
in hand, whatever it may be, is kept at high pitch, the 
loss in output, or decrease in work done on account of 
distraction is less than has been popularly supposed, 
notwithstanding that in such circumstances the sub- 
ject works with more effort than otherwise. He re- 
quired his subjects to press a key similar to that of a 
typewriter a certain number of times when a given 
symbol appeared. The behavior was probably not 
very different from that of typewriting. As the sub- 
ject continued to make his adjustments a firebell with 
an eight-inch gong was sounded directly behind and 
eight feet away. Bells of other sorts, buzzers and 
phonograph records were used also. He concludes 
that the initial effect of such distractions was to re- 
tard the subject’s speed in successively pressing the 
key ... no doubt an . . . effect of shock. But 
after this initial retardation there was an increase 
of speed. During the period of distraction extra pres- DISTRACTING STIMULI 
291 
sure was exerted upon the keys and there were changes 
in breathing and more or less verbal articulation 
occurred. By means of this additional muscular 
effort the amount of work done per unit of time was 
not materially decreased (6). 
It is appropriate to the same situation that Watson 
says (9) : “ One of the most striking illustrations of 
this was observed in the army. In the Air Personnel 
office when the force was small typewriters had to be 
stopped when long-distance calls were answered. As 
the pressure of the work was increased and as the 
office force trebled and quadrupled, it was no uncommon 
sight to see a man answering a long-distance telephone 
call with fifteen or twenty typewriters going in his 
immediate neighborhood and a hundred or more going 
in the one large room.” With respect to this sort of 
situation Watson says further that “ while experimen- 
tation over short periods of time may show that such 
stimuli are without immediate effect, it still seems 
safest to have offices and factories arranged so that 
the worker is as free as possible from extraneous dis- 
turbances. The wear and tear upon the human 
organism is probably a positive thing even though 
temporary laboratory studies fail to give marked evi- 
dence of it ”: a precautionary statement that may run 
only to the question of the duration of the period over 
which successful adjustment to the conditions of work 
may be maintained and to the duration of life itself. 
The statement does not necessarily apply, however, to 
the possibility of the individual’s adjustment to the 
complexities of daily life in such manner that the work 
entailed by our civilization, and even more complex 292 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
orders of life, may be done and done effectively. 
Compensations for the alleged drains upon human 
vitality and capacity incident to the diverse pushings 
and pullings of a thousand varied stimuli may be 
effected as we go on from period to period in propor- 
tion as employers of labor and other leaders who deal 
with men encourage systematic studies aimed at im- 
proving the conditions in which work is done and then 
take advantage of the results of such studies. 
For example, the results of a certain investigation 
bear upon the proper adjustment of periods of work 
and rest. The “ Iron Age,” quoted by Watson, de- 
scribes a situation in which a group of laborers who 
were engaged in wheeling heavy loads in barrows up an 
incline were offered a premium for increased amounts 
of this labor, but without result. “ Prompt investi- 
gation by an expert disclosed that the trouble lay in 
the fact that the men were working without sufficiently 
frequent periods of rest. Thereupon, a foreman was 
stationed by a clock, and every twelve minutes he blew 
a whistle. At the sound every barrowman stopped 
where he was, sat down on his barrow, and rested for 
three minutes. The first hour after that was done 
showed a remarkable change for the better in accom- 
plishment ; the second day the men all made the pre- 
mium allowance by doing more than what had been 
too much; and on the third day the minimum compen- 
sation had risen, on the average, 40 per cent, with no 
complaints from overdriving from any of the force.” 
Other investigations relative to the effects of quan- 
tity and quality of food and drink, narcotics, cocaine 
and the like upon the capacity of the organism to EFFECTS OF CAFFEINE 
293 
endure the complex strains of a modern day’s work are 
significant in this connection. Rivers, for example, 
has the following to say of the effect of doses of 
alcohol upon the capacity to work: “ In the case of 
muscular work, we have seen that there is a definite 
evidence that small doses, varying from 5 to 20 c.c. 
of absolute alcohol, have no effect on the amount or 
nature of the work performed with the ergograph, 
either immediately or within several hours of their 
administration, the results previously obtained by 
other workers being almost certainly due to defects 
of experimental method. With a larger dose of 40 
c.c. there was evidence — in one case, at least — of 
an increase in the amount of work under the influence 
of the substance; but the increase was uncertain and 
inconstant, and the possibility cannot be excluded that 
it was due to disturbing factors. With larger doses 
than 40 c.c., we have the work of Hellsten, showing 
a decided falling off in the amount of work with a dose 
of 80 grammes ” (8). 
Upon the effects of caffeine Hollingworth has made 
comprehensive tests during a period of forty days, 
covering speed of movement, motor co-ordination and 
steadiness. There was an increase in the speed of 
movement which depended somewhat upon the size of 
the dose from 2 to 6 grains. The effect was usually 
noticed within an hour and lasted from 1 to 4 hours. 
There was no secondary depression within 72 hours. 
Small doses appeared to increase the efficiency of motor 
co-ordinations but larger doses of 4 to 6 grains de- 
creased it. Both small and large doses appeared to 
occasion tremor. Caffeine doses of every size ap- 294 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
peared to increase the efficiency of certain intellectual 
functions like association, and naming of colors, and 
the increase lasted during 3 to 7 hours. Speed at 
the typewriter was increased by small doses and de- 
creased by larger ones (4). 
The experimental studies of the effect of tobacco 
indicate that it is always a depressant. This is recog- 
nized by athletic trainers who prohibit its use by mem- 
bers of a team. 
The point in all this discussion is that as experts 
study and report upon such subjects as those referred 
to above — and one may add dietetics to the list — 
knowledge will be accumulated and disseminated in 
the light of which such self-control may be instituted 
as will go a long way toward compensating for the 
extraordinary tensity of the conditions under which 
we are living. It places a responsibility upon edu- 
cators and educational institutions not only to search 
out the truth relating to every aspect of human adap- 
tation but to broadcast the truth in such a vitalized 
atmosphere that not only the leaders but the populace 
as well will seek it and react to it; for the ideal in 
these relations is attained when the restraints and 
impulsions by which individuals and groups make their 
compensations are self-imposed. However benevolent 
the motives of leaders may be they, in the long run, 
contribute to the unhappiness and hence to the ineffec- 
tiveness of their followers when they impose their 
“ thou shalts ” and their “ thou shalt nots ” from 
without. 
Obviously it is premature to urge or conclude that 
human nature is incapable of sustaining so complex a READJUSTMENTS 
295 
civilization as ours, let alone a more complicated one, 
until we first shall have exhausted the possibilities that 
lie in the line of economizing, not wasting, our human 
capacities, and so compensating for the assumed de- 
structive over-stimulation of our day. Each of us has 
observed individual instances, at least, in which such 
compensation has been actually realized. There is 
undoubtedly a deal of truth in the frequently quoted 
statement (though obviously it does not lend itself 
to accurate verification) that men do not use more 
than 25% of their muscular power nor more than 10% 
of their mental ability. 
Those who question from time to time the capacity 
of the race to advance the complexity of modern life 
far beyond its present level or even to sustain it at its 
present pitch are wmnt to draw attention to the fact 
that President Lincoln never communicated by means 
of the telephone nor had his letters written by type- 
writers nor rode on an electric car and the like; and 
much more recent characters never sped from place 
to place by gasoline motor car or by airplane. The 
assumption is made in such connections that human 
nature can not stand up under such sudden and ex- 
treme transitions. But the acuteness of the readjust- 
ments implied as required of individuals whose lives 
have spanned the era of invention through which we 
have been passing is much overdrawn. If our fathers, 
before they had attained their majority, had never 
talked over a telephone, they nevertheless had talked; 
they had dictated their letters prior to middle age 
though not to a typist; they had controlled other 
machines before they undertook the gasoline engine; 296 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
they had been transported from place to place in a 
high-powered motor car before they rode in the air. 
The point is that, however novel the experience of a 
new day, some habits have already been acquired that 
serve as a foundation stone and so facilitate the tran- 
sition. Strictly there is nothing new under the sun. 
Furthermore, our ancestors of a hundred years ago 
were wont to speak now and again of the complexities 
of their times — which seem to us simple almost beyond 
comparison with ours. Again, it has never been neces- 
sary, and it is not needful now, that an individual, 
even a leader, comprehend the whole of an intricate 
civilization — let alone, possess in his own person the 
capacities to sustain it in toto. Specializations of 
adjustment there have always been and they must be 
more and more numerous as the faces of civilization 
become more manifold. What is needful and more 
needful with the multiplying angles of social life is 
that men and women become better and better ac- 
quainted with the conditions that affect the psycho- 
physical life of the organism and its capacities to react 
to many types of situations. As such knowledge in- 
creases we will be in progressively better position to 
direct ourselves and others so as to increase accom- 
plishment without increment of energy expended. 
Our present knowledge affords no measuring rod, to 
determine in advance the extreme possibilities of ad- 
justment either for an individual or for a group. We 
have again and again been amazed to see the capacity 
of an individual to handle himself creditably when he 
has been thrust into a situation of unusual complexity 
entailing heavy responsibility. And the World War MOTIVATION 
297 
similarly afforded in every warring nation illustration 
of unthought-of capability for mass and co-operative 
effort. As to America’s part in it Le Bon says (5) ; 
“. . . Thanks to the vigor of its character, the 
American people, despite its love of comfort and 
independence, was able in a few months to adapt itself 
to all the necessities involved in such a conflict. 
“ Its devotion was absolute. Accepting entirely 
novel conditions of existence, it renounced all the 
liberties of which it was so proud, subjected itself to 
the abnormal despotism of the state, to severe priva- 
tions, and above all to that obligatory military system 
of which the very idea had formerly seemed intolerable 
to it. 
“ All sorts of inconveniences were suffered without 
a murmur. No taxation seemed too heavy, and in the 
trenches of Europe the improvised American soldiers 
acquitted themselves as valiantly as the best.” 
Let there he hut increased motivation and, with our 
knowledge of human nature as it is, we can enormously 
increase the quantity and quality of our output even 
in the face of unaccustomed complexities. 
In the next place, with respect to our capacity to 
sustain what we have built, there is surely an auto- 
matic control; it is hardly conceivable that the race 
would build that to which it can not make a success- 
ful adjustment, any more than a manufacturer would 
build a machine so complicated that men would be 
unable to comprehend it and to control it. 
Finally — running now to the question of the ability 
of the race both to maintain what has already been 
built and to build further — it is a question of our 298 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
capacity for learning; that is, our capacity for form- 
ing habits and complexes in the background of our 
personalities. At the same time, it is a question of 
maintaining sufficient pliability in human nature so 
that the individual may not be entirely breakable and 
helpless in the face of a variety of differing and chang- 
ing circumstances. This is the duplex purpose of edu- 
cation that both now and always tries the soul of the 
educator, of the curriculum and of the system of 
education; to build individuals who will be always 
substantially and doggedly upon the road toward high 
ends, — which implies a vision to see those ends — 
and at the same time so pliable that he can co-operate 
with many others who are not entirely like himself, 
compromising where necessary, in order that all to- 
gether they may the sooner realize their purpose. 
Now it will be conceded that the building of habits 
and complexes is less the creation of new “ pathways ” 
in the nervous system and more the modification and 
the linking up of larger or smaller habits and com- 
plexes that are already a part of the organization. 
These linkings together are called neurone patterns 
because the individual elements or units are so thor- 
oughly knitted together and co-ordinated that they 
altogether function as one. They, on their part, are the 
products of every adjustment and partial adjustment 
that the organism has made in the course of its his- 
tory. For it is assumed upon the basis of good evidence 
that has been brought to light in recent years by 
means of many psychiatric investigations that the 
effects within the organism of no single experience are 
ever entirely erased but that they persist and, singly A GROUNDLESS FEAR 
299 
and collectively, make up the substantial background 
of our personality. They determine the character of 
our dreams, our phantasy, our fears and obsessions, 
our prejudices and conventions, our interests and 
desires, our all but unconscious feelings of continuous 
urging toward the purposes of life, and our capacities 
for adjustment. These are the more or less submerged 
complexes of our personality. They are just as num- 
erous as are the spontaneous and other movements of 
the babe and the growing child plus the reflexes and 
simple and complex habits, prejudices, likes and dis- 
likes, of the youth and the adult. The number of pos- 
sible combinations of these units or patterns into new 
complexes — the number of new habits or adjustments 
that are possible theoretically for an individual — 
could be determined only by application of the rule 
of permutations given the correct number of units to 
start with; and the permutations of even a hundred 
units, to say nothing of more of them, is sufficient to 
stagger computation. 
From such theoretical considerations as this, and in 
view of the probability that research may teach us how 
to conserve our energy, it would appear to be a 
groundless fear that our civilization must crumble due 
to the frailities of human nature. They should, on 
the other hand, contribute to our confidence in the pos- 
sibilities that lie in mankind for further building, 
so far, at least, as its maintenance and building de- 
pend upon developing the mechanism of human nature 
and upon understanding the conditions in which it may 
operate most effectively. 
When we speak in this manner of developing a 300 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
mechanism we mean to suggest training in tech- 
nique which is implied in 'technical education. As 
complexities are added, one after another, to the con- 
ditions of community life, technical education becomes 
more and more essential in order that the many phases 
of necessary activity in the city and state may be 
done successfully and in order that the whole web 
of civilization may be kept intact and made to grow. 
No person can be adapted all along the line. If 
he could be, the question of this chapter might easily 
be answered in the affirmative: civilization can be main- 
tained at its present level and pushed to higher levels, 
for in such a case, very few at most will suffer and 
fall from the failure of one. Each one would copy his 
successful neighbor on the whole line and avoid the 
errors of the unsuccessful. Community life, such as 
there would be, would run on smoothly. This is pre- 
cisely the way things go in primitive pioneer life 
where each person, or each family is an economic unit. 
But, as we have said, no one individual in a complex 
life can be adapted all along the line. He is by 
necessity a specialist in considerable measure (though 
there must be man}q too, who are not in the strict 
sense specialists). As a specialist the product of his 
work must join up smoothly with that of many an- 
other: as, for example, when one man is making the 
cylinder of an engine and another, miles away, the 
piston; or when one is making a certain drug and 
putting it up for use, and another is practicing medi- 
cine. In these instances and hundreds of the like 
training in technique, — that is, training in doing 
things according to rules and formulae that have been TECHNICAL EDUCATION 
301 
generally agreed upon is a sine qua non of highly 
civilized life. This is a point that many educators, 
of an older generation, whose outlook was that of a 
much simpler time than ours, apparently find it diffi- 
cult to comprehend. Technical education must be on 
the increase in such a time, and in such circumstances 
as ours. 
But at the same time, merely technical education 
(as we might say, in a “narrow” sense) defeats its 
own ends. A striking illustration of this point is at 
hand in the experience of a youth, — a ward of the 
juvenile court, — who, by the aid of a probation of- 
ficer, found employment in the shoe section in the base- 
ment of a large department store. Pie had grown up 
in a small village and was confused by the complexity 
of his immediate surroundings. He was active and 
of normal intelligence but he “ could not see the town 
for the houses,” judging from his account of himself, 
and he quit his “ technical training in the narrow 
sense ” at the bottom of a long ladder that could con- 
ceivably have led him to eminence. A young girl from 
the country entered a training school for nurses. Her 
somewhat slow imagination had not yet been stirred 
and she did not see that her tedious training was dove- 
tailing usefully into a vast web of interrelated social 
functions. She dropped training after a few months 
of apparently hopeless inefficiency in the training 
school and returned to her home. In the course of a 
year she began to see the larger meaning of it all, 
re-entered the school, completed her training with 
credit, and at once became successfully adapted and 
enthusiastic in her occupation. 302 
POTENTIALITY FOR DEVELOPMENT 
The point in these illustrations is that the technical 
training that our day requires must be accompanied 
by a heavy emphasis upon a view of a broad social 
landscape. What do the men and women of one call- 
ing contribute to those of another? What are the 
capacities, habits, prejudices and likes and dislikes, in 
the large, of the groups and classes of people who 
compose the state? What is the machinery by which 
men and women of one group co-operate with one 
another? What are the indications of failure and of 
success in co-operation? The technical student must 
be led to think seriously upon such questions as these 
if he will be successful in the larger sense demanded 
by our civilization. These questions, like those of a 
more narrowly technical sort, must, as far as possible, 
be tested in the crucible of the laboratory method, — 
for even history can be approached from the angle 
of the laboratory and there is nothing compared to 
it as a means for developing the open and interroga- 
tive mind that guarantees both stability and pliability 
of nature. This is the scientific spirit, and it, quite 
as well as blind adherence to the doctrine of high pro- 
tection, may become conventional. 
The emphasis of the education of the day so far 
as it relates to the development of specialists, or to 
fitting men and women into “ jobs ” must be at the 
same time upon technique and upon broad social re- 
lationships such as will eventuate in mutual under- 
standing or the ability to “ put one’s self into the 
other fellow’s shoes.” This involves some redirection 
of educational effort, to be sure, but at the same time 
it puts the broad-visioned professional or incidental NEED FOR NON-SPECIALISTS 
303 
teacher where he belongs. Those who dwell intellec- 
tually, for the most part, in the realm of ideas and 
of ideals and who are impatient and unhappy amidst 
the details of technical procedure in the shop, in the 
laboratory, and at the counter belong in a place of 
immense advantage for the running of affairs in a 
complicated civilization. The greater the number of 
specialists the larger must be the group of capable 
men and women who think in large outlines of the whole 
web of civilization. 
Professor William James’ figurative saying is a tru- 
ism: “We learn to swim during the winter and to 
skate during the summer.” We learn some things of 
utter importance about running a business so as to 
meet the needs of our civilization even when we are 
far away from the statistical laboratory and the in- 
terest tables, studying even human nature and the 
aspirations of groups of people, whether we find these 
people in the fields or in authoritative literature. 
These things will determine how they may unite and 
co-operate satisfactorily. APPENDIX I 
THE ALPHA AND BETA TESTS 
At many points in the text very frequent reference has been 
made to the Alpha and Beta tests that were used in the United 
States Army in the course of the Great War and to the results 
of their application to the problems of race differences and in- 
telligence levels. For those who are not already familiar with 
these tests this sketchy description is added. For a detailed 
description and account of the method of use of the tests the 
reader is referred to The National Academy of Sciences — 
Memoirs, Volume XV, 1921, Part I, Chapter 5. 
The Alpha test was designed for the literate as defined in the 
army; that is, for those who had such a command of the English 
language that they could read simple directions and requests 
for information regarding their age, nativity, occupation, 
schooling and the like, and not only so but to write replies 
thereto. Those who satisfied the examiners on this score were 
admitted to the group examination Alpha. 
The Beta test was made up for those who were illiterate in 
this sense, and for those who were unable to make use of the 
English language; certain recent immigrants, for example. 
Each of these tests comprises a number of part tests and each 
part requires of the persons who are being examined from ten 
to forty responses or answers. One or two samples of each 
part test are included for the purpose of illustration. 
1. The first test gets at the examinee’s capacity to grasp 
and follow very simple verbal directions. For example: “When 
I say ‘Go’ make a cross in the space that is in the triangle but 
not in the square, and also make a figure ‘ 1 ’ in the space that 
is in the triangle and in the square. — Go! ” This is the fourth 306 
APPENDIX I 
item in the first part Test 1, — (Not over 10 seconds are 
allowed for this performance). 
2. The second test comprises twenty arithmetical problems 
of various degrees of complexity as: “How many are 30 men 
and 7 men?” and “A commission house which has already 
supplied 1897 barrels of apples to a cantonment delivered the 
rest of its stock to 29 mess halls. Each mess hall received 54 
barrels. What was the total number of barrels supplied?” 
Spaces are provided for answers and the recruit is asked to 
supply them as quickly as possible. 
The number and quality of the answers in this test indicate 
at once, within the limits of the test, the degree of the soldier’s 
profit from school training and his capacity to handle arith- 
metical concepts and his intellectual insight into arithmetical 
situations. 
The directions are as follows: “Attention! Look at the 
directions at the top of the page while I read them. ‘Get the 
answers to these examples as quickly as you can. Use the side 
of this page to figure on if you need to.’ I will say ‘Stop’ at 
the end of five minutes. You are not expected to finish all of 
them but to do as many as you can in the time allowed. The 
two samples are already answered correctly. — Ready, — Go!” 
3. Number three is a test of practical judgment. Following 
is the preamble or direction in the printed form: “This is a 
test of common sense. Below are sixteen questions. Four 
answers are given to each question. You are to look at the 
answers carefully; then make a cross in the square before the 
best answer to each question as in the sample: ‘Why do we use 
stoves? Because — they look well, — they are black — , they APPENDIX I 
307 
keep us warm — , they are made of iron. ’ Here the third 
answer is the best one and is marked with a cross. Begin with 
No. 1 and keep on until time is called.” (Before each alter- 
native, as in the sample, a small square is printed, and in the 
sample a cross is inserted before the third choice.) One minute 
is allowed for the test. 
4. In the next test forty pairs of words are set down, some of 
which are opposites. The directions are as follows: “If the 
two words of a pair mean the same or nearly the same, draw a 
line under same. If they mean the opposite or nearly the 
opposite draw a line under opposite. If you cannot be sure, 
guess. The two samples are already marked as they should 
be. Below are reproduced the first five of the forty pairs and 
the samples for the examinee’s guidance. One and one half 
minutes are allowed. 
5. The fifth test consists of 24 groups of mixed words each 
of which will make a sentence, true or false when properly 
arranged. The examinee is instructed to think their proper 
arrangement — not to write them out — and to indicate the 
character of statement they would make by underscoring either 
the word “true” or the word “false.” Two minutes are allowed. 
Below are reproduced the first and the twenty-fourth groups: 
1. dogs meat eat true false. 
24. cardinal not cultivated virtues the be should 
true false. 
This may be interpreted as a test of general information 
though it is more particularly so of mental alertness as indi- 
cated by the use of words. 
6. Number six is a “number series completion test.” There 
are twenty groups, each containing five numbers. Each number 
has a certain relation to those that precede it. The examinee is 
to discover this relation and when he has done so, he is to use 
it in supplying a sixth number in the series. Two samples are 
printed on the sheet as follows: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 — (here the sixth, 
obviously is 12 and it, in the sample, has been printed in heavy 
type in the space provided for it.) 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, — (here 
the sixth number of the series should be 18 and in the sample 
that number is printed in heavy type in its proper place.) 
Two minutes are allowed. 308 
APPENDIX I 
7. The ninth is an analogies test. The directions to the 
examinee are approximately as follows: “In each of the lines 
below, the first two words have a certain relation. Notice that 
relation and draw a line under the one word in the parenthesis 
which has that particular relation to the third word. Begin 
with No. 1 and mark as many sets as you can before time is 
called.” There are forty sets. Three samples, properly marked, 
are as follows: Sky — blue; grass— (grow, green Cut, dead). 
Fish—swims: Man—(boy,woman,walks,girl). Day — night: 
white — (red, black, clear, pure). Three minutes are allowed. 
8. This is a general information test, samples of which are 
as follows: “The anvil is used in — blacksmithing, — car- 
pentry — , typewriting, — bookkeeping.” “Jess Willard is a 
— fortune-teller, — labor-leader — , pugilist, — singer.” “Bile 
is made in the — liver, — kidneys, — spleen, — stomach.” 
The test includes forty such arrangements as these. In each, 
there are four choices and the examinee is asked to underscore 
the word that, with the fore part of the arrangement, makes 
the truest sentence. There is but one correct underscoring in 
each case. 
The test as a whole affords a standard by which to assist the 
examiner in forming an estimate of the soldier’s mental alert- 
ness and interest in a very wide range of subjects. Three 
minutes are allowed for this performance. 
This completes the Alpha test, (Form 7). Other forms vary 
more or less from this. A definite time is allowed for each part, 
and it is so brief that one must work very rapidly to cover the 
whole. In fact, few can complete any test before time is called. 
Taken together, the responses afford a good outlook over a 
wide range of capacities and as well, an index of one’s alertness. 
The Beta test for illiterates comprises (in its final form) 
seven part tests. Neither reading nor writing is involved in 
making answer. 
1. In the first test are five mazes or labyrinths, simple and 
complex. The examinee can pass his pencil through from en- 
trance to exit, following of alleys, so to speak, formed here 
by vertical and there by horizontal lines. He can do so without APPENDIX I 
309 
touching a line, and this is his problem. There are many blind 
alleys to be avoided. 
This may be described as a test of the speed of visual per- 
ception of a complex situation, and of hand-eye coordination. 
A sample, the fifth maze, is reproduced below. 
2. The second test is for ability at cube analysis. Sixteen 
piles of small cubes are illustrated. Not all are visible in the 
drawing. The examiner has solid models at hand, by the aid 
of which he suggests to the examinees that each drawing rep- 
resents a solid body. They are then to estimate the number of 
small cubes in the group, and write the number in a space 
provided therefor. Below are samples: 
Test 2 
3. The third is the “x-o” test. It is somewhat analogous 
to the number completion test in Alpha. A more or less com- 310 
APPENDIX I 
plex scheme of repetitions of x and 0 is set forth on the sheet. 
The examinee must find by insight what the scheme is in twelve 
instances and carry it on through several spaces. The samples 
below will be understandable: 
Test 3 
4. The fourth is called the “digit symbol test.” The prob- 
lem is to make several series of substitutions of other symbols 
Test 4 APPENDIX I 
311 
for digits. Thus the digit “1,” wherever it occurs in a series, 
is always to be substituted for by a dash (—): the digit “8” 
by a cross (x) etc. 
5. In the fifth test the examinee is required to place a cross 
between two numbers that are alike and to leave vacant the 
space between unlike numbers. There are fifty pairs of numbers 
before him and they vary in length from three to eleven digits. 
The pairs are equally divided as to the likeness and unlikeness 
of their numbers. 
Test 5 
650 ,650 
041 044 
2579 2579 
3281 3281 
55190 55102 
10243586 10243586 
659012534 6590211354 
388172902 381872902 
631027594 631027594 
2499901354 2499901534 
6. The sixth is a picture completion test. Twenty drawings 
are on the sheet and each one is incomplete in some one detail; 
the pistol, e.g., lacks a trigger, the violin lacks strings, the 
tennis court with players upon it in action has no net. The 
missing parts are to be supplied. This requires a quick insight, 
not into the relations of ideas, but into objects. 
— 6- 312 
APPENDIX I 
7. The last in this series of tests in on “geometrical con- 
struction.” There are ten parts, each of which contains the 
drawing of a square, and, in addition, two or three other geomet- 
ric figures. The examinee’s problem is to show by lines drawn 
within the square that the other objects will just fill it. 
Test 7 
All together, the Beta tests are assumed to afford an indica- 
tion of an individual’s untrained ability to understand and to 
execute orders, to perceive quickly the nature of an objective 
situation, and the like. 
A method of scoring was devised and used in connection with 
these tests by the aid of which letter grades were assigned for 
various degrees of excellence in performance in connection with 
each series of tests. APPENDIX II 
References and Exercises 
Chapter I 
1. Baldwin: The Individual and Society; Boston, 1911, 
Chap. vn. 
2. Bentley: Studies in Social and General Psychology: A 
Preface to Social Psychology. Psych. Monog. XXI, 4, 
1916, 6-25. 
3. Editors: The Field of Social Psychology and its Relation 
to Abnormal Psychology. Jour, of Abnormal Psychology 
and Social Psychology, XVI, 1, 3-7, April, 1921. 
4. Ellwood: Introduction to Social Psychology. New York, 
1917, Chap. I. 
5. McDougall: The Group Mind. New York, 1921, Chap. I. 
6. McDougall: Introduction to Social Psychology, 13th ed. 
Boston, 19i8, Chap. I. 
7. Ross: Social Psychology. New York, 1918, Chap. I. 
8. Tourtoulon: Philosophy in the Development of Law (trans- 
lated by Martha McC. Read), New York, 1922, Chap. V. 
9. Urwick: Philosophy of Social Progress. London, 1912, 
Chaps. IV and V. 
10. Wallas: The Great Society. New York, 1914, Chap. II. 
11. Woodworth: Dynamic Psychology. New York, 1918, 
Chap. VIII. 
Chapter II 
1. Davis: Psychological Interpretations of Society. New York, 
1909, Chaps. XI and XII. 
2. Ellwood: Introduction to Social Psychology. New York, 
1917, Chaps. IV, V, VI. 
3. Ellwood: Sociology in its Psychological Aspects. New York. 
1912, pp. 143-152, 182-197. 314 
APPENDIX II 
4. Giddings: The Principles of Sociology. New York, 1896. 
5. Gumplowicz: The Outlines of Sociology (English trans- 
lation by Frederick W. Moore, of Grundriss der Sociologie. 
Wien, 1895). Bulletin of the American Academy of 
Political and Social Science, No. 253. Philadelphia, 
1899, pp. 145-150. See also L. Gumplowicz, Le role des 
luttes sociales dans revolution de l’humanite. Annales 
de l’institut international de sociologie, XI, 1907, pp. 
131-143. 
6. McDougall: The Group Mind. Cambridge, 1920, Chaps. 
VI, VII, VIII, XI. 
7. Stoddard: The New World of Islam. New York, 1921, 
Chap. V. 
8. Tourtoulon: Philosophy in the Development of Law. New 
York, 1922, Chap. V, f. 
9. Urwick: A Philosophy of Social Progress. London, 1912. 
1. Write out a description of your feelings when you were 
tempted to participate in a form of conduct that is disapproved 
by your family and neighbors with whom you have lived until 
now, and that you yourself have until now more or less con- 
ventionally disapproved. 
2. Write a statement of the means that you would adopt to 
develop a sense of unity in a football team, school, church, 
and club. 
Chapteb III 
1. Ayres: Instinct and Capacity. Jour, of Philos., XVIII, 
1921, pp. 561-566. 
2. Conradi: Song and Call Notes of English Sparrows when 
Reared by Canaries. Amer. Jour, of Psych., XVI, 
1905, 190-198. 
3. Dewey: Human Nature and Conduct. New York, 1922. 
4. Dunlap: The Identity of Instinct and Habit. Jour, of 
Philos., XIX, 1922, pp. 85-94. 
5. Dunlap: Are there any Instincts? Jour, of Abnor. Psych., 
XIV, 1919, pp. 307-311. 
6. Ellwood: Introduction to Social Psychology. New York, 
1917, Chaps. Ill, IX, X, XI. 
7. Gross: Criminal Psychology. Modern Criminal Science 
Series, Boston, 1911. APPENDIX II 
315 
8. Kuo: Giving up Instincts in Psychology. Jour, of Philos. 
XVIII, 1921, pp. 645-664. 
9. Mackenzie: A Manual of Ethics (pp. 37-38). 
10. McDougall: Introduction to Social Psychology, 13th ed. 
Boston, 1918. 
11. Muirhead: Elements of Ethics (p. 56). 
12. O’Higgins: The Secret Springs. A Popular Treatment of 
Psycho-analysis. New York, 1922. 
13. Prince: The Unconscious. New York, 1914. 
14. Patrick: The Psychology of Social Reconstruction. New 
York, 1920. 
15. Putnam: Human Motives. Boston, 1915. 
16. Salleilles: Individualization of Punishment. The Modern 
Criminal Science Series. Boston, 1911, p. 240. 
17. Scott: Data on Song in Birds: Observations on the Song 
of Baltimore Orioles in Captivity. Science, N. S. XIV, 
1901, pp. 522-526. 
18. Scott: Data on Song in Birds: The Acquisition of New 
Songs. Science, N. S. XV, 1902, pp. 178-181. 
19. Scott: The Inheritance of Song: Science, N. S. XIX, 
1904, pp. 154 and 957-959. 
20. Scott: The Inheritance of Song. Science, N. S. XX, 1904, 
pp. 282-283. 
21. Stocks: Motives. Mind, N. S. XX, 1911, pp. 54-66. 
22. Tarde: The Laws of Imitation. Translated from the 2d 
French edition by Elsie Clews Parsons. New York, 1903. 
23. Thorndike: The Original Nature of Man. New York, 1913. 
24. Tolman: Instinct and Purpose. Psych. Rev. XXVII, 3, 
1920, 217-233. 
25. Trotter: Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War. London, 
1916. 
26. Watson: Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist. 
New York, 1919. Chaps. VII and VIII. 
27. Woodworth: Dynamic Psychology. New York, 1918. 
1. What are the traditional distinctions of instincts, re- 
flexes, and habits? 
2. Discuss the implications of instinct and instincts. 
3. Describe as completely as possible two different instinc- 
tive acts you have performed within the last twenty-four hours 
and point out as accurately as possible their differences as well 
as their likenesses. 316 
APPENDIX II 
4. What is the meaning of the terms complex and conflict 
and why should a discussion of them enter into a chapter in 
Social Psychology? 
5. What is the significance of the Freudian wish for the 
student of Social Psychology? 
6. Write a short paper to show the bearing of this chapter 
upon industrial life. 
7. An adult tendency or propensity may be simply an 
unmodified instinct, or it may be derived from instinct by 
combination, etc. Try to identify each of the following as an 
instinct, or to analyze it into two or more instincts: 
(а) Love for adventure. 
(б) Patriotism. 
(c) A father’s pride in his children. 
(d) Love for travel. 
(e) Insubordination. 
(/) Love for dancing. 
8. What so-called instincts are most concerned in making 
people work? 
9. What so-called instincts find outlet in (a) dress, (b) auto- 
mobiling, (c) athletics, (d) conversation? 
Chapter IV 
1. Bailey and Haber: Mental Deficiency: its Frequency and 
Characteristics in the United States as Determined by 
the Examination of Recruits. Merit. Hyg. IV, 3, 1920, 
564-596. 
2. Danielson and Davenport: The Nam Family. Mem. 
Eugen. Rec. Off. 2, 1912. 
3. Danielson and Davenport: The Hill Folk. Mem. Eugen. 
Rec. Off., I, 1912. 
4. Davenport and Love: Defects Found in Drafted Men. 
Set. Mo. X, 1, 1920, 5-26. 
5. Dugdale: The Jukes. New York, 1877. 
6. Estabrook: The Jukes in 1915. Washington, 1916. 
7. Goddard: The Kallikak Family. New York, 1912. 
8. Goddard: Feeble-Mindedness, Its Causes and Consequences, 
New York, 1914. APPENDIX II 
317 
9. Holmes: The Trend of the Race. New York, 1921. 
10. Kuhlmann: Distribution of the Feeble-Minded in Society. 
Jour, of Crim. Law and Criminol. VII, 2, 1916, 205-218. 
11. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, XV, Part III, 
Chaps. VIII, XI, XIII, 1921. 
12. Report of the Minister of Public Instruction for the Year 
1911-1912. Melbourne, 1913. 
13. Report of the Royal Commission on the Care and Control 
of the Feeble-Minded. London, 1908. 
14. Smith: Immigration and Defectives. Canadian Jour, of 
Ment. Hyg. II, 1, 1920, 73 ff. 
15. White: Principles of Mental Hygiene. New York, 1917. 
1. What methods are extant in your community (a) for 
discovering and encouraging those of high intellectual level? 
(b) for discovering those of low level and helping them to find 
themselves? (c) What methods would you recommend? 
2. Write an appraisal of our methods of discovering the 
intellectual level of a group. What do you mean by “intel- 
lectual?” 
Chapter V 
1. Boas: Mind of Primitive Man. New York, 1911. 
2. Boas: Human Faculty as Determined by Race. Pro- 
ceedings of the American Association for the Advancement 
of Science, XLIII, 1894, 301-327. 
3. Faris: Mental Capacity of Savages, Amer. Jour. Sociol. 
XXIII, 5, 603-619. 
4. Ferguson, Jr.: The Psychology of the Negro. Archives of 
Psychology, XXV, 36, New York, 1916. 
5. Fishberg: The Jews. A Study of Race and Environment. 
London and New York. 1911. 
6. Garth: Proceedings of the Meeting of the American Psy- 
chological Association. Psychol. Bui., 1921. 
7. Gulick: The American Japanese Problem. A Study of the 
Racial Relations of the East and the West. New York, 
1914. 
8. Hunter: Proceedings of the American Psychological Asso- 
ciation, Psychol. Bui., 1921. 
9. Le Bon: Psychology of Peoples. New York, 1899. 
10. Le Bon: The World in Revolt. New York, 1921. 318 
APPENDIX II 
11. Mayo: Mental Capacity of the American Negro. Archives 
of Psychology, XXII, 28, 1913. 
12. McDougall: Is America Safe for Democracy? New York, 
1921, pp. 69, 70. 
13. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, XV, 1921. 
Part III, Chaps. 8 and 10. 
14. Odum: Negro Children in the Public Schools of Philadel- 
phia. Amer. Acad. Pol. & Soc. Sci., XLIX, 86-208. 
15. Park: Social Contacts and Race Conflict. (Introduction to 
Steiner, The Japanese Invasion, Chicago, 1917.) 
16. Park: Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups. Publica- 
tions of the American Sociological Society, VIII (1913), 
75-82. 
17. Pyle: The Mentality of the Negro Compared with the 
Whites. Psych. Bui., XII, 71, XIII, 82-83. 
18. Pressey and Teter: A Comparison of Colored and White 
Children by Means of a Group Scale of Intelligence. 
Jour, of App. Psychol., 1919. 
19. Radosavljevich: The Psychology of the Slav. The Russian 
Review, III, 3, July, 1917. 
20. Ross: Race Fibre of the Chinese. Pop. Sci. Mo., LXXIX. 
21. Stevenson: Socio-Anthropometry: An Inter-Racial Critique. 
Boston, 1916. 
22. Stoddard: The New World of Islam. New York, 1921. 
23. Stone: Is Race Friction between Blacks and Whites in the 
United States Growing and Inevitable? American Jour. 
Sociol., XIII, 1907-1908, 677-698. 
24. Strong: Three Hundred and Fifty White and Colored 
Children Measured by the Binet-Simon Scale of Intelli- 
gence. Ped. Sem., XX, 1913, 485-515. 
25. Thorndike: Educational Psychology, New York, 1913, 
Vol. II, 33. 
26. Tourtoulon: Philosophy in the Development of Law, New 
York, 1922, Book II, Chapter III. 
27. Waugh: Comparison of Oriental and American Student 
Intelligence. Proceedings of the American Psychological 
Association. 1920. 
28. Weale: The Conflict of Color. New York, 1910. 
29. Weatherly: The Racial Element in Social Assimilation. 
Publications of the American Sociological Society, V, 
57-76. 
30. Woodworth: Racial Differences in Mental Traits. Science, 
N. S. XXI, 1910, 171-186. APPENDIX II 
319 
1. Interpret the phrase: “Man is not born human.” 
2. To what extent are racial differences natural and acquired, 
respectively? 
3. In what way do racial temperament and tradition deter- 
mine national characteristics? To what extent is the religious 
behavior of the negro determined (a) by temperament, (b) by 
imitation of white culture? How do you explain Scotch econ- 
omy, Irish participation in politics, the intellectuality of the 
Jew, etc.? 
4. What is the distinction between racial traits and indi- 
vidual differences? 
5. What significance for social psychology is to be found 
(a) in Boas’ anthropometric studies of immigrants and their 
descendants and (b) in Stevenson’s Socio-Anthropometry? 
6. Write a critical analysis of Ferguson, Mayo, Odum and 
Pyle with respect to the subject of racial differences. 
Chapter VI 
1. Bunnerman: Ueber Pschogene Schmerzen. Monatschr. f. 
Psychat. w. Neur., XXXIV, 1913, 142-171. 
2. Cooley: Human Nature and the Social Order. New York, 
1902, Chap. II. 
3. Jaffa: Beitrage zur Psychologie der Aussage, B.I., H.I., p. 79. 
4. McDougall: Introduction to Social Psychology, 13th ed., 
Boston, 1918, Chapter XV. 
5. Munsterberg: Psychotherapy. New York, 1909, Chapter V. 
6. Otto: Testimony and Human Nature. Journal of Criminal 
Law and Criminology, IX, 1, 98-104. 
7. Pfungst: Clever Hans (The Horse of Mr. Von Osten). 
New York, 1911. 
8. Ross: Social Psychology. New York, 1913, Chap. II. 
Also 13th Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 
p. 917. 
9. Sidis: The Psychology of Suggestion. New York, 1898, 
pp. 88-89. 
10. Starbuck: A study of Conversion. American Journal of 
Psychology, VIII, 268-308. 
11. Stoll: Suggestion w. Hypnotismus in der Volkerpsychologie. 
Zweite Auflage, Leipzig, 1904, pp. 6, 41. 
12. Thomas: Sex and Society, Chicago, 1907, p. 311. 320 
APPENDIX II 
13. Titchener: A Textbook of Psychology, New York, 1910. 
14. van Langenhove: The Growth of a Legend, New York, 1916. 
15. Varendonc: Les temoinages d’enfants dans un proces 
retentissant. Arch, de Psychol., XJ, 1911, pp. 129, 171. 
16. von Gennep: La Formation des legendes. Paris, 1910. 
17. Washburn: Animal Mind. 2d ed., New York, 1917, 
pp. 257-312. 
18. Watson & Raynor: Conditioned Emotional Reactions. 
Journal of Educational Psychology, III, 1920, pp. 1-14. 
1. Explain the deadliness of the innuendo. 
2. How is it that with faint praise one can damn a rival 
more than with downright depreciation? 
3. Show why, in exchange or diplomacy, the one who best 
dissembles his estimate of the thing he has and of the thing 
the other man has is likely to get the better of the bargain. 
4. Account for the fact that the best way to get the offer of 
a coveted position is to affect an indifference to it. 
5. Explain why, in coping with men, boldness is so often 
justified by the outcome. 
6. What is the point of the saying, “He doth protest too 
much?” 
7. Assume that the succession of hero types in the devel- 
opment of the boy into the man corresponds to the succession 
of folk heroes in the rise of a people from barbarism to civiliza- 
tion, account for the correspondence on the ground of the psy- 
chology of suggestion and suggestibility? 
8. Show why education, custom, tradition and religion dis- 
place force in the government of a people. 
9. How do you distinguish suggestion from other forms of 
stimulus? 
10. What is meant by the saying that historical figures 
embody in themselves the emotions and desires of the masses? 
11. What are the criteria by which you distinguish so- 
called imitation responses from responses to suggestion? APPENDIX II 
321 
Chapter VII 
1. Aria: Fashion, Its Survivals and Revivals, Fortnightly 
Review, CIV, (1915), 930-937. 
2. Clark: The Crowd, University of Illinois Studies: Psy- 
chol. Monog., No. 92, XXI, 26-36. 
3. Conway: The Crowd in Peace and War. New York, 1915. 
4. Down: The Rush to the Klondike, Cornhill Magazine IV, 
1898, 33-43. 
5. Ellwood: Introduction to Social Psychology, New York, 
1917, pp. 237-239. 
6. Ellwood: Introduction to Social Psychology, New York, 
1917, pp. 235-237. 
7. Ellwood: Introduction to Social Psychology, New York, 
1917, pp. 155-157. 
8. James: Principles of Psychology, New York, 1907, Chap. X. 
9. Kroeber: On the Principle of Order in Civilization as 
Exemplified by Changes of Fashion. American Anthro- 
pologist, U.S., XXI, 1919, 235-263. 
10. Le Bon: The Crowd. London, 1897. 
11. Martin: The Behavior of Crowds. New York, 1920. 
12. McDougall: The Group Mind. New York, 1920, pp. 264 
and 270 and Chap. II. 
13. Patrick: The Psychology of Crazes. Pop. Sci. Monthly, 
LVII, (1900), 285-294. 
14. Ross: Social Psychology. New York, 1913. Chaps. II, 
IV, V, VI, XVIII and XXII. 
15. Shaler: The Law of Fashion. Atlantic Monthly, LXI, 
386-398. 
16. Simmel: The Attraction of Fashion, International Quarterly, 
X, 130-155. 
17. Tarde: The Laws of Imitation, Translated from the 2d 
French Ed. by Elsie Clews Parsons. Chap. VII, pp. 
244-365. 
18. Tawney: The Nature of Crowds. Psychol. Bull., II, 
329-333. 
19. Wallas: The Great Society. New York, 1914, Chap. VIII. 
20. Woolbert: The Audience. Psychol. Monog., No. 92, XXI, 
1915,36-54. 322 
APPENDIX II 
1. Why, from the psychologic angle, does the popular orator 
find it useful in haranguing his audience to: 
(a) Seem to agree with it at the outset? 
(b) Make each one in the audience imagine that he himself 
is being addressed personally? 
(c) Cut out statistics and formal proof? 
(d) Be an actor. 
(e) Make frequent use of such phrases as “home,” “the 
church,” “the fathers,” “our country,” “our cause,” 
etc.? 
2. Distinguish open-mindedness and suggestibility. 
3. Does cultural difference or class difference present the 
greater obstacle to the sweep of an idea or emotion? Why? 
4. How do financial and familial responsibilities affect one’s 
responsiveness to the crowd and the mob and their leaders? 
Why? 
5. Does mental epidemic show itself more in the United 
States in rural or in urban populations? Why? 
6. What can be said for and against the guidance of public 
opinion by the “better classes” and by experts? 
7. Distinguish public opinion, advertising and propaganda 
as means of social control. 
8. What is the relation of news to social control? 
Chapter VIII 
1. Addams: Democracy and Social Ethics. 257-258. 
2. Baldwin: Mental Development in the Child and the Race. 
Methods and Processes, pp. 308-319. New York, 1895. 
3. Chesterton: Heretics. 302-303 (Quoted by Ross: Social 
Psychology, 118-119.) 
4. Commons: Races and Immigrants in America. Chap. IX, 
pp. 198-238. New York, 1920. 
5. Hall: Morale in War and After. Psy. Bui., Vol. XV, 
No. 11, Nov. 1918, 361-426. 
6. Hall and Allin: The Psychology of Tickling, Laughing, 
and the Comic. Amer. Jour. Psychol., IX, 1, Oct. 1897, 
1-41. 
7. James: Principles of Psychology. New York, 1907. 
8. Koch: Books and the War, New York, 1919. 
9. Mayo-Smith: Theories of Mixture of Races and Nationali- 
ties, Vale Review, III, 166-186. APPENDIX II 
323 
10. Park: Racial Assimilation in Secondary Groups with 
Particular Reference to the Negro. Am. Jour, of Sociol., 
XIX, (1913-1914), 606-623. 
11. Pillsbury: Psychology of Nationality and Internationalism. 
New York, 1919. 
12. Prince: A World Consciousness and Future Peace, Jour. 
of Abnor. Psychol., XI, 287-304. 
13. Ross: Social Psychology, New York, 1913, 118-119. 
14. Tarde: The Laws of Imitation, Translated from the 2d 
French ed. by Elsie Clews Parsons. New York, 1903. 
15. Warren: Social Forces and International Ethics. Inter- 
national Journal of Ethics, XXVII, 350-356. 
16. Weatherby: The Racial Element in Social Assimilation. 
Publications of the American Sociological Society, V, 57-76. 
1. Name three wide-spread conventionalities and describe 
the psychological roots of each of them. 
2. Explain the following: “ Social institutions are not founded 
in similarities any more than they are founded in differences; 
but in relations, and in the mutual interdependence of the 
parts.” 
3. Give an illustration of transition from “morale” to 
“convention.” 
4. (a) Describe what methods are now in use in a particular 
relation, in a community with which you are familiar, to develop 
morale. (6) What is the evidence of success, if any? 
5. Criticize Pillsbury’s views, as quoted in this chapter, 
concerning the conditions that facilitate the assimilation of 
immigrants. 
Chapter IX 
1. Allport and Allport: Personality Traits: Their Classifi- 
cation and Measurement. Jour, of Abnor. Psych, and 
Social Psych., XVI, 1921, 6-40. 
2. Aschaffenburg: Crime and its Repression. Modern Crimi- 
nal Science Series, Boston, 1913, pp. 149, ff. 
3. Baldwin, J. M.: Social and Ethical Interpretations in Mental 
Development, Chap. XIV, pp. 537-550. New York, 1906. 
4. Baldwin, B. T., and Stecher: Mental Growth Curve of 
Normal and Superior Children. Studied by means of 324 
APPENDIX II 
Consecutive Intelligence Examinations. Univ. of Iowa 
Studies in Child Welfare, II, 1, 1922, pp. 61. 
5. Bosanquet: The Psychology of Social Progress. Internat. 
Jour, of Ethics, VII, 1896, 265-281. 
6. Bronner: The Psychology of Special Abilities and Disa- 
bilities. Boston, 1916. 
7. Cattell: Families of American Men of Science, Pop. Sci. 
Mo., 86, 1915, pp. 504-515. 
8. Cattell: A Statistical Study of Eminent Men. Pop. Sci. 
Mo., 74, 1903. 
9. Cattell: The Biographical Dictionary of American Men of 
Science. 
10. Cattell: A Statistical Study of American Men of Science, 
III. Science, XXIV; also XXXII, 623, 633, 672, 1906 
and 1910. 
11. Cooley: The Social Process. Chap. XXVII, pp. 309-328, 
New York, 1918. 
12. Dewey; Progress. Internal. Jour, of Ethics, 26: 1916, 
312-318. 
13. Dolbear: Precocious Children. Fed. Sem., 19: 1912, 
461-491. 
14. Downes: Seven Years with Unusually Gifted Pupils. 
Psych. Clinic., 6: 1912, 13-17. 
15. Ellis: A Study of British Genius. 1904. 
16. Eltinge: Psychology of War. Fort Leavenworth, 1918. 
17. Galton, et al.: Eugenics, Its Scope and Aims. Amer. Jour. 
of Sociol., X, 1904. 
18. Galton: Hereditary Genius, London, 1914. 
19. Galton: English Men of Science. London, 1874. 
20. Harley: Physical Status of the Special Class for Bright 
Children at the University of Pennsylvania, Summer 
Session, 1912. Psych. Clinic., 7: March, 1913, 20-23. 
21. Ireland: The Blot upon the Brain: Studies in History and 
Psychology. Second Edition, Edinburgh, 1893. 
22. Ross: Social Psychology. New York, 1913, pp. 300-302. 
23. Sakaki: Some Studies on So-called Abnormally Intelligent 
Pupils. Psy. Clinic., Vol. VI, 1, pp. 18-26. 
24. Sterb: The Supernormal Child. J. Educ. Psych. 2: 1911, 
143-148 and 181-190. 
25. Terman: The Intelligence Quotient of Sir Francis Galton. 
Amer. Jour. Psych., Vol. XXVHI, Apr. 1917, pp. 209- 
215. APPENDIX II 
325 
26. Terman: The Intelligence of School Children, Chap. X. 
New York. 1919. 
27. Terman: Genius and Stupidity. Fed. Sem. 13, 1906, 
307-373. 
28. Terman: A Preliminary Study of the Psychology and 
Pedagogy of Leadership. Fed. Sem., XI, 1094, 413-451. 
29. Thorndike: Exceptional Children. Educational Psychology, 
Chap. XII, New York, 1903. 
30. Todd: Theories of Social Progress. New York, 1918. 
31. Whipple: Classes for Gifted Children: School and Home 
Education Monographs, No. 1, Bloomington, 111., 1919. 
32. Whipple: The Supernormal Child. J. Educ. Psych. 2: 
1911, 164, 287. 
33. W7hipple: Supernormal Children, in Cyclop, of Educ., 1913. 
34. Woods: Mental and Moral Heredity in Royalty. New York, 
1906. p. 312. 
35. Woods: The Influence of Monarchs. Steps in a New 
Science of History. New York, 1913. 
36. Yoder: The Study of the Boyhood of Great Men. Fed. 
Sem. 3: 1894, 134-156. 
1. (a) Define what may be called the eugenic, the psycho- 
logical and the social concepts of progress, 
respectively. 
(b) Name a leading representative of each conception. 
(c) Are their views mutually inconsistent? Explain. 
2. How can progress be controlled under each of the fore- 
going conceptions? 
3. How is our instinctive nature related to progress? 
4. Discuss thoroughly the value of illustrating the progress 
of a race by submitting tables of statistics showing the race’s 
economic improvement. 
5. Describe, from as many angles as possible, two mature 
leaders in a community with which you are familiar. 
6. Select four students who are recognized as leaders and 
four who are not so recognized. Have four persons, independ- 
ently, rate each of the eight according to their personality 
traits. Put results into convenient graphic or tabular form and 
compare. (See Allport and Allport, Jour, of Abnor. Psych, and 
Soc. Psych., XVI, 1921, 6-40.) APPENDIX II 
326 
Chapter X 
1. Abbott: Crime and the War. Jour, of Crim. Law and 
Criminol., X, 1, May, 1918, 1-32. 
2. Adler: Unemployment and Personality — A Study of 
Psychopathic Cases. Mental Hygiene, I, 1917, 16-24. 
3. Adler: Publications of the Department of Public Welfare, 
Springfield, Illinois, 1922. 
4. Ayres: Laggards in Our Schools, New York, 1909. 
5. Ayres: Cleveland Education Survey, Vol. 3; Cleveland, 1917. 
6. Bailey: Psychiatry in the Army. Harper’s Magazine, 
No. 806, July, 1917, 251-257. 
7. Bronner: Special Abilities and Disabilities. Boston, 1917. 
8. Campbell: The Southern Highlander and His Homeland, 
Chap. VI. New York, 1921. 
9. Doll: Criminal Psychology: The Training School Bulletin, 
April, 1921, 1-10. 
10. Doll: A Classification of Defective Delinquents. Jour, of 
Crim. Law and Criminol., XII, 3, 1921, 360-368. 
11. Doll: The Comparative Intelligence of Prisoners. Jour, of 
Crim. Law and Criminal., XI, 2, 1920, 191-197. 
12. Garofalo: Criminology: The Modern Criminal Science 
Series, Part I, Chap. I. Translated from the First Italian 
and the Fifth French editions by Robert Wyness Millar; 
Boston, 1914. 
13. Goddard: Human Efficiency and Levels of Intelligence. 
Princeton University Press, 1920. 
14. Gross: Criminal Psychology. The Modern Criminal Science 
Series. Translated from the Fourth German edition by 
Dr. Horace M. Kallen. Boston, 1909. 
15. Healy: The Individual Delinquent, Boston, 1915. 
16. Healy: The Practical Value of Scientific Study of Juvenile 
Delinquents. Children’s Bureau Publication, No. 96, 
Washington, 1922. 
17. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XV, 
Part III, Chap. XV; 1921. 
18. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XV, 
Part III, Chap. IX; 1921. 
19. Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. XV, 
Part III, Chap. XII; 1921. 
20. Parker: The Casual Laborer and Other Essays, New York, 
1920. APPENDIX II 
327 
21. Pollock: Mental Diseases in New York State during the 
War Period. Mental Hygiene, III, 2, April, 1919, 253- 
257. 
22. Salmon: Some New Problems for Psychiatric Research in 
Delinquency. Jour, of Crim. Law and Criminol., X, 3, 
1919, 375-384. 
23. Southard: The Modern Specialist in Unrest: A Place for 
the Psychiatrist in Industry. Mental Hygiene, IV, 3. 
550-563. 
24. Southard: The Mental Hygiene of Industry. Bid. of the 
Mass. Dept, of Ment. Diseases, V, 1, Jan. 1921, 57-77. 
25. Southard: Trade Unionism and Temperament: The 
Psychiatric Point of View in Industry. Bid. of the Mass. 
Dept, of Mental Diseases, V, 1, Jan. 1921, 78-93. 
26. Spargo: The Psychology of Bolshevism. New York, 1919. 
27. Stoddard: The New World of Islam, Chap. VII, New York, 
1921. 
28. Stone: A Comparative Study of 399 Inmates of the Indiana 
Reformatory and 653 Men of the United States Army. 
Jour, of Crim. Law and Criminol., XII, 2, 1921, 238-257. 
29. Strayer: Age and Grade Census of Schools and Colleges, 
U.S. Bur. of Ed. Bui., 1911, No. 5. 
30. Thorndike: The Elimination of Pupils from School. U.S. 
Bur. of Ed. Bui., 1907, No. 4. 
1. Recall a particular instance of failure in social adaptation 
— an individual with whom you have been acquainted who has 
been eliminated from school, become delinquent or criminal, 
or pronouncedly at unrest with respect to his occupation — 
to see if you can find in it any indication of one or more of the 
factors referred to in the text. 
2. What does the psychology of play suggest as to means of 
preventing the mal-adjustments referred to in this chapter? 
3. Describe as fully as you can your own or others’ behavior 
in the face of “baulked disposition” or an unfulfilled wish in 
the sense of this chapter. 
4. Describe the possible consequences to society of the 
doctrine that all criminals are feeble-minded or insane — 
assuming such a doctrine. 
5. Account in as much detail as possible for the great varia- 
tion between present-day estimates of the frequency of feeble- 328 
APPENDIX II 
mindedness among criminals and those that were extant prior 
to 1917. 
6. Describe one or more reconstructions in any department 
of human activity that in your judgment would relieve, some- 
what, that irritation of individuals that is assumed to facilitate 
mal-adjustment of any form. 
Chapter XI 
1. Bertillon: Birth Rates in European Cities. Bull. Inst. 
Internal. Stat., 11, 1899, 163-176. (Holmes, P. 132-133.) 
2. Fosdick: Our Machine Civilization. Privately printed, 
1922. 
3. Gillette: Constructive Rural Sociology. 2d ed., New York, 
1916. 
4. Hollingworth: The Influence of Caffeine on Mental and 
Motor Efficiency. New York, 1912. 
5. Holmes: The Trend of the Race. Chaps. VII, XIV, XVI. 
New York, 1921. 
6. Morgan: See Watson. Psychology from the Standpoint of 
the Behaviorist, p. 380. 
7. Rittenhouse: The Increasing Mortality from Degenerative 
Diseases. Pop. Sci. Mo., 82, 1913, 376-380. 
8. Rivers: The Influence of Alcohol and other Drugs on Fatigue. 
London, 1908. 
9. Watson: Psychology from the Standpoint of the Behaviorist. 
New York, 1919, Chap. X. INDEX 
Acquired disposition, 131; and 
suggestibilty, 138-142 
Acquisitiveness like construc- 
tiveness, 41; points in com- 
mon with hunting and curi- 
osity, 41; social value of, 
48, 49 
Activity, universal instinct of, 
46 
Addams, 182 
Adjustment to war conditions, 
Bailey on psychic instabili- 
ties in relation to, 244-249 
Alcohol, upon capacity to do 
work, Rivers on effect of, 
293 
Alpha and Beta tests, 70, 94, 
304-311 
American Indians, intelligence 
of, 103, 104 
Army examiners quoted on 
intelligence of the draft, 
69-73 
Aschaffenburg on control of 
juvenile delinquency, 209, 210 
Assembly, deliberative, 156 
Audience, 8, 153, 156; so-called, 
a mob, 163-165 
Auto-suggestion, 124 
Automatization, 22 
Bailey quoted on mental de- 
fect among recruits, 73-76; 
on psychic instabilities in 
relation to adjustment to 
war conditions, 244-249 
Behavior, 10; Anomalies in, 
9; Automatic, 5; instinctive, 
37; modifiability of instinc- 
tive, 43-46; non-social, 3; of 
Criminals, 12; social, 3, 4, 5; 
Unconscious, 5 
Bertillon on the birth rate, 285 
Beta test for final intelligence 
rating, percentage of whites 
and negroes who had taken 
Alpha and who were re- 
quired to take the, 95, 96 
Beta Tests, the Alpha and, 
304-311 
Bindenwald on city conditions, 
288 
Binet tests, 67 
Birthrate, 285, 286 
Boas, 89; on mental qualities 
of races, 110-117 
Bodily proportions, 89 
Bolshevism, Spargo on, 268 
Boy of ’61, 11, 19, 28, 29 
Boy Scouts, 200 
Bunnerman, definition of sug- 
gestion, 123, 124 
Caffeine, Hollingworth on 
effect of, 293, 294 
Camp Fire Girls, 200 
Cattell, 221, 223, 224, 226 
Character of the American 
people, Le Bon on, 297 
Children, Professor Terman’s 
summary of the nature of 
superior 227-232 
Civilization not in proportion 
to the intellect of races, 117, 
118 
Civilization, potentiality for 
the development of, 280-303 
Conflict, The, 57 330 
INDEX 
Conflicts, 254 
Conradi, experiments with 
English sparrows and cana- 
ries, 44-46 
Conscience, 63, 64 
Conscientious objectors, 262 
Consciousness, 6; of kind, 21, 
46 
Constructiveness like acquisi- 
tiveness, 41 
Continuity, Social, 22, 23 
Convention, custom and morale, 
179-201 
Conventionality, defined, 179 
Conventions, 202; manner of 
development, 183, 184 
Community of Interests, 13 
Compensation for drains upon 
human energy, 292 
Competition, Social value of, 
49, 50 
Complex, The, 53, 57; implies 
drive, 56 
Complexes, 8, 126 
Cooper on status of oriental 
women as affecting the edu- 
cation of the youth, 105, 106 
Criminal Behavior, 269-279 
Criminals, Behavior of, 12 
Crowd, 153; and allied phe- 
nomena, the, 155-178; not 
necessarily a group of indi- 
viduals in close proximity to 
one another, 158, 159 
Crowd self, 158 
Curiosity and hunting, no hard 
and fast distinctions between 
the so-called instincts of, 
40, 41 
Customs, 202 
Death rate in cities, 287, 288 
Decadence vs. Improvement, 
280-286 
Defective Folk, 9 
Definition and Scope, 3-12 
Delinquency, Feeble-mindedness 
minor among causes of, 274, 
275 
Determining tendency, 123, 124 
Development, Factors affect- 
ing, 286-302 
Disposition, anthropomorphic, 
20; to agree with the strong, 
130-134 
Dispositions, acquired, 12; fur- 
nish drive, 52, 53; native, 12 
Dissociation, 59, 126; sugges- 
tibility as, 127, 128 
Discussion, 157, 176 
Disintegration, 12 
Distracting stimuli, effects of, 
290, 291 
Dodwell on the industrial revo- 
lution in India, 258, 259 
Down describing the rush to 
the Klondike, 160-163 
Dr. Prince’s patient, B, C, A, 
54 
East Indian, McDougall on the 
intellectual qualities of the, 
239; on character of, 107, 
108 
Education of the youth, 
Cooper on status of oriental 
women as affecting the, 105, 
106; technical, 300, 301 
Educational effort, re-direc- 
tion of, 302 
Elimination from school, In- 
telligence and, 241-243 
Ellwood, 24 
Emotionalism of the colored 
race, 98 
Experimentation, laboratory, 12 
Faris, on the intelligence of 
the negroes of the Upper 
Congo, 99, 100 
Fashion, 171-174 
Fear, reactions common to 
self-abasement and, 39, 40 INDEX 
331 
Feeble-minded among J uve- 
nile offenders, 271, 272 
Feeble-mindedness in the gen- 
eral population, proportion 
of, 65-78; minor among 
causes of delinquency, 274, 
275; psychic defects other 
than, 78-80 
Ferguson, Pyle and Odum on 
the intelligence of the negro, 
91, 92 
French, Le Bon on industrial 
inferiority of, 109, 110 
Functions of instinctive equip- 
ment, 46-53 
Galton, intelligence quotient 
of, 228; on intelligence of 
the negro, 93 
Garofalo, 269, 270 
Ghandi’s movement for non- 
cooperation, 260 
Goddard on intelligence and 
occupation, 237, 238; on pro- 
portion of feeble-minded- 
ness, 67 
Gregariousness, aspect of con- 
sciousness of kind, 46; social 
value of, 47, 48 
Group mind, 25 
Groups of recruits, basis for 
judgment of intelligence of 
the army, 72 
Haber quoted on mental de- 
fect among recruits, 73-76 
Heredity, the question of, 
80-82 
Hill Folk, 80 
Hollingworth on effect of caf- 
feine, 293, 294 
Holmes on the duration of life, 
284 
Hookworm infection, 83; in 
relation to intelligence 
grades, 85 
Hunting and curiosity, no hard 
and fast distinction between 
the so-called instincts of, 
40, 41 
Image, 18 
Imagery, 5, 7; Anticipatory, 
5, 18; of others, 20 
Imitate, instinct to, 50-52 
Immigration, 251 
Impulses, 12 
India, Dodwell on Industrial 
Revolution in, 258, 259 
Indian, Ross on the suggesti- 
bility of the American, 134 
Indians, intelligence of Ameri- 
can, 103, 104; McDougall on 
character of East, 107, 108 
Individualistic Conception, an, 
24-25 
Industrial Dislocations, 256, 
257 
Industrial revolution in India, 
Dodwell on, 258, 259 
Industrial unrest in England, 
Southard on, 262-269 
Insane in England and Wales, 
282; patients in all institu- 
tions, 250 
Insanity, Pollock on increase 
of, 249-255 
Instinct, 8; as natural disposi- 
tion, 36; confusion in use of 
the term, 36, 37; distin- 
guished from reflex, 38; in 
sense of a generalized tend- 
ency, 41, 42; to imitate, 50- 
52 
Instincts and their role in 
social life, 36-43; doubtful, 
53; hypothesis that they do 
not exist in the plural, 41 
Instinctive act, connotation of, 
42, 43; behavior, 37; modi- 
fiability of, 4.3-46; equip- 
ment, Functions of, 46-53 332 
INDEX 
Intellectual leaders, 220, 221, 
227, 228; level, connotation, 
65; levels and psychic sta- 
bility of the population, 65- 
87; qualities of the East 
Indian, McDougall on, 239; 
intellectual qualities of the 
Negro, 90-101 
Intellectualistic, Social unity 
not, 23 
Intelligence, Alpha and Beta 
tests for, 94; among 1212 
juvenile delinquents in Bos- 
ton, distribution of, 273, 274; 
and Elimination from School, 
241-243; and Occupation, 
237; Goddard on, 237, 238; 
Army examiners quoted, 69- 
73; distribution of among 
hookworm infected and non- 
infected, 85; distribution of 
among venereally infected 
and non-infected, 84; level 
of negro, 72, 73; negro and 
foreign-born Italian recruits 
compared as to, 97; north- 
ern and southern negroes 
corn! _red as to, 96; of 
American Indians, 103, 104; 
of conscientious objectors, 
262; of negro and white re- 
cruits, 93-97; of negro chil- 
dren, Pressey and Teter on, 
92, 93; of prisoners, 275, 276; 
of the negro, Galton on, 93; 
of the Negroes of the Upper 
Congo, Faris on, 99, 100; 
oriental and American stu- 
dent, 106, 108; quotient of 
Francis Galton, 228; rating 
percentage of whites and 
negroes who had taken Alpha 
and who were required to 
take the Beta test for final, 
95, 96 
Interaction, 9 
Interest, Public, 25 
Interests, Community of, 13 
Invention, 203-205 
Inventor, the, 220 
Ireland, 213 
Italian recruits compared as 
to intelligence, negro and 
foreign-born, 97 
Italian immigrants, 89 
Joan d’Arc, 215-219 
Juvenile delinquents in Bos- 
ton, distribution of intelli- 
gence among, 212, 273, 274 
Juvenile offenders, 270; feeble- 
minded among, 271, 272 
Kallikaks, the, 80 
Kentucky religious revival, 
the, 166, 167 
Kidd on British character, 108, 
109 
Kuhlmann, 76; on proportion 
of feeble-mindedness, 68 
Leader, estimates the morale 
of his followers, the execu- 
tive, 212, 213 
Leaders, 11, 211; executive, 
211-219; intellectual, 220, 
221, 227, 228 
Le Bon, on industrial inferior- 
ity of the French, 109, 110; 
on the character of the 
American people, 297 
“ Legend, growth of a,” 143- 
144 
Life, duration of, 283, 284 
Macaulay, 228 
Mass effects of suggestion, 
142-154 
McDougall, on character of 
East Indians, 107, 108; on 
the intellectual qualities of 
the East Indians, 239 INDEX 
333 
Men of Science, nationality of 
the parents of, 222, 223 
Mental age, 72; of groups in 
the draft army, 74 
Mental defect, among recruits, 
73-76; increase of, 281 
Mental defects, the question 
of acquisition of, 82-87 
Mental disease, social mal- 
adjustment evidenced in, 
243-255 
Mill, 228 
Millet, 7 
Mob, the, 153, 160-165; mo- 
tives of, 165-169 
Modifiability of Instinctive be- 
havior, 43-46 
Mohammed, 213-215 
Mons, Angels walking at, 153 
Morale, 192-201; among the 
soldiers at the front, 196; 
distinction from convention, 
192; Dr. Hall on, 194, 195, 
197; influence of humor up- 
on, 197, 198; influence of 
reading upon, 198, 199; in 
peace, 199-201; of his fol- 
lowers, the executive leader 
estimates, 212, 213; religion 
and, 200, 201; stimulated by 
posters in the World War, 
194-196 
Morgan, on effects of distract- 
ing stimuli, 290 
Moron defined, 71, 73 
Motive as purpose, 60 
Motives, 294; final, 35, 60; 
genesis of, 60-62; of criminal 
found in his past, 62; of the 
delinquent cashier, 31-33; of 
the mob, 165-169; of the 
robber, 33, 34; social, 27-64; 
symptoms of, 30, 31 
Motivation, 297 
Nam Family, 80 
Nation, 15-17 
National and international 
unity, 50 
Nationality, of parents of 
American men of science, 
222, 223; of their parents, 
percentage of scientific men 
in each of four grades ac- 
cording to the, 224 
Negro, and foreign-born Italian 
recruits compared as to in- 
telligence, 97; and white 
recruits, intelligence of, 93- 
97; children, Pressey and 
Teter on intelligence of, 92, 
93; egoistic sense of, 98; 
emotionalism of the, 98; 
Oalton on the intelligence of, 
93; intellectual qualities of, 
90-101; progress of Ameri- 
can in fifty-six years, 99 
Negroes, art of the remote an- 
cestors of, 100; intelligence 
level, 72, 73; northern and 
southern compared as to in- 
telligence, 96; of the Upper 
Congo, Paris on the intelli- 
gence of, 99, 100 
Nordau, on degenerative con- 
ditions, 288 
Occupation, Goddard on in- 
telligence and, 237, 238; 
Intelligence and, 237 
Occupations, Stoddard on the 
adaptability of the Indian 
people to, 239-241 
Odum, Ferguson and Pyle on 
the intelligence of the negro, 
91, 92 
Personality, 299 
Personnel service, 232 
Pillsbury, on the growth of 
nationality among immi- 
grants, 184, 188-192 334 
INDEX 
Political campaign, the, 170, 
171 
Pollock, on increase of insanity, 
249-255 
Pressey, on intelligence level of 
negro children, 92, 93 
Prisoners, intelligence of, 275, 
276 
Professional, disposition, 181; 
habits as motives, 61, 62 
Progress, 184; depends upon 
our discovering the most 
capable, 232; implications of, 
203; implying changes in 
personality, 205-211; not to 
be forced by paternalism, 
210, 211; of American negro 
in fifty-six years, 99; social, 
202-232 
Psychic, defects other than 
feeble-mindedness, 78-80; in- 
stability and unrest, 255- 
269; nature, 8; stability of 
the population, intellectual 
levels, and, 65-87 
Psychologic traits of other 
racial groups, 101-112 
Psychopathic constitution, 9 
Pyle, Ferguson and Odum on 
the intelligence of the negro, 
91, 92 
Public interest, 25; opinion, 
176-178 
Purpose, as motives, 60; com- 
mon, 19; opening up ways 
for expression of instinct, 42 
Race and sex factors in sug- 
gestibility, 134-136 
Races, Civilization of — not in 
proportion to their intellect, 
117, 118; Boas on mental 
qualities of, 110-117; phys- 
ical appearance only radical 
difference among, 119, 120 
Racial, Factor, the, 88-121; 
Groups, psychologic traits of 
other, 101-112 
Reactions, 8; common to fear 
and self-abasement, 39, 40 
Readjustments, 295 
Recruits, school of advance- 
ment of, 242 
Reflex distinguished from in- 
stinct, 38 
Reform movements dependent 
upon psychic background for 
success, 207-211 
Reforms attempted by Em- 
peror Joseph II of Austria, 
207-209 
Religion as morale, 200, 201 
Religious revival, Kentucky, 
129, 130; 166, 167 
Remorse, 62, 63 
Bittenhouse, on the duration 
of life, 283 
Rivers, effect of alcohol upon 
capacity to do work, 293 
Ross, on the suggestibility of 
the American Indian, 134 
School, advancement of re- 
cruits, 242; Intelligence 
and Elimination from, 241- 
243 
Science, Statistical studies of 
men of, 221-227 
Scientific men, as distributed 
amongst nineteen states, 225; 
in each of four grades ac- 
cording to the nationality of 
their parents, the percentage 
of, 224; superiority of New 
England over the South in 
the production of, 225, 226 
Scott, experiments with bobo- 
links, orioles and robins, 43, 
44 
Self-abasement, Reactions com- 
mon to fear and, 39, 40 
Self-approbation, 62, 63 INDEX 
335 
Sense of Social Unity, 13-26; 
unity, 48, 50; unity depend- 
ent upon activity, 46 
Sex factors in suggestibility, 
race and, 134-136 
Sidis, describing a mob erro- 
neously called an audience, 
163-165; on suggestibility 
127, 128 
Similarity in bodily form, 20 
Slavic immigrants, 89 
Smith, on proportion of feeble- 
mindedness, 67 
Social, continuity, 22-23; life, 
Instincts and their role in, 
36-43; mind, 17, 206; mind 
an unnecessary concept, 25- 
26; Mai-Adjustment evi- 
denced in mental disease, 
243-255; motives, 27-64; 
progress, 202-232; relations, 
11; unity, 10, 11, 52; unity, 
sense of, 13-26; not intellec- 
tualistic, 23 
Solidarity, 13 
Southard, on industrial unrest 
in England, 262-269 
Spargo, on Bolshevism, 268 
Spirit of the age, 185-187 
Stanford-Binet examinations, 
72 
Starbuck, on suggestibility of 
women, 135 
Statistical studies of men of 
science, 221-227 
Statistics, 12 
Stevenson, on the Teutonic, 
Mediterranean and Alpine 
races, 101, 102 
Stimulus-Response, 15 
Stoddard, on status of oriental 
women as affecting the edu- 
cation of the youth, 104, 105; 
on the adaptability of the 
Indian people to occupa- 
tions, 239-241 
Stoll, on the witch trial at 
Zug, 129 
Strong, on the intelligence of 
the negro, 90, 91 
Stuart, Gilbert, 7 
Suggestibility, acquired dis- 
position and, 138-142; as 
dissociation, 127, 128; due to 
superstitious nature, 128- 
130; of the American Indian, 
Ross on, 134; of women, 
Starbuck on, 135; race and 
sex factors in, 134-136; Sidis 
on, 127, 128; suggestion and, 
12-154; suspicion and, 136- 
138 
Suggestible disposition, testi- 
mony of adults illustrating 
the, 131-134; nature, testi- 
mony of children illustrating 
the, 130, 131 
Suggestion, and Suggestibility, 
122-154; definition of by 
Bunnerman, 123, 124; defi- 
nition of by Titchener, 122, 
123, 124; factors limiting the 
play of, 153; mass effects of, 
142-154 
Super-consciousness, 11 
Superior children, 227-232; 
Professor Terman’s summary 
of the nature of, 231 
Superstitious nature, suggesti- 
bility due to, 128-130 
Suspicion and Suggestibility, 
136-138 
Swift, on the reflex eye-wink, 
39 
Technical education, 300, 301 
Terman, 228, 229 
Terman’s summary of the na- 
ture of superior children, 231 
Testimony, experiment in Pro- 
fessor von Liszt’s School of 
Criminology, 132-134; of 336 
INDEX 
adults illustrating the sug- 
gestible disposition, 131-134; 
of children illustrating the 
suggestible nature, 130, 131 
Tests, the Alpha and Beta, 
304-311 
Teter, on intelligence of negro 
children, 92, 93 
Thorndike, Civilization of races 
not in proportion to their 
intellect, 117, 118 
Titchener, definition of sug- 
gestion, 122, 123, 124 
“ True Wit and Madness,” 213- 
219 
Unity, national and inter- 
national, 50; not intellectual- 
istic, social, 23; of a people, 
10; sense of, 11, 48, 50; sense 
of social, 13-26; social, 10, 
11, 52 
Unmitigated hostility, 49 
Unrest, 278; increase of, 280; 
in England, Southard on in- 
dustrial, 262-269; modern 
specialist in, 266; psychic 
instability and, 255-269 
Venereal infection, 83; in rela- 
tion to intelligence, 85 
War atrocities, suggestion il- 
lustrated in stories of, 142- 
154 
Watson, on compensation for 
drains upon human energy, 
292; on distracting stimuli, 
291 
White, 83 
Witchcraft craze, 129 
Yerkes, on the frog-leg re- 
flex, 39 
Youth of 1861 and 1917, 7