The Group Mind: A Sketch of the Principles of Collective Psychology With Some Attempt to Apply Them to the Interpretation of National Life and Character

In the foregoing chapter we have noted the great fact that the leading modern nations of Western Europe have shown a much greater capacity for progress than all the earlier civi...

It is a notorious fact that, when a number of men think and feel and act together, the mental operations and the actions of each member of the group are apt to be very different...

In considering the mental life of a patriot army, as the type of a highly organised group, we saw that _group self-consciousness_ is a factor of very great importance—that it is...

We have prepared ourselves for the study of the national mind by our preliminary examination of the two extreme types of collective mental life, that of the quite unorganised gr...

We have found reason to believe that national character, as expressed in the collective mental life of any people, is only to be understood and explained when we take into accou...

We have seen that the idea of the nation can and does, in virtue of the formation of the sentiment of devotion to it, lead men to choose and decide and act for the sake of the n...

We have found reason to believe that during the historic period the peoples of Europe have made no progress in innate qualities, moral or intellectual; yet that period has been...

The peculiarities of simple crowds tend to appear in all group life; but they are modified in proportion as the group is removed in character from a simple crowd, a fortuitous c...

Rousseau, in his famous treatise, _Le Contrat Social_, wrote “There is often a great difference between the will of all and the general will; the latter looks only to the common...

society, when it enjoys a long life and becomes highly organised, acquires a structure and qualities which are largely independent of the qualities of the individuals who enter...

In the foregoing chapter we noticed certain well-marked and generally recognised differences of national character presented by the French and the English peoples—namely, the gr...

In the two foregoing chapters, we have considered in relation to the life of nations three principal conditions essential to all collective mental life and action, even that of...

Let us consider now the type of nation which from our present point of view is the most interesting, the type which approximates most nearly to a solution of the problem of civi...

We considered in our last chapter the principal modes in which physical environment affects the character of a people—namely, (1) influence on temperament exerted chiefly throug...

Let us now see what can be said about the process of racial differentiation which, as we saw in the foregoing chapter, was in its main features accomplished in the prehistoric o...

Having studied the most general principles of the collective mental life, as exemplified in the two extreme forms of the unorganised crowd and the highly organised army, having...

To define exactly the relations of the several special sciences is a task which can never be completely achieved so long as these sciences continue to grow and change. It is a p...

In the first Part of this book we have reviewed the most general principles of collective mental life, beginning with the unorganised crowd as affording the simplest example, co...

We have discussed the psychology of the simple crowd or unorganised group; and taking an army as an extreme and relatively simple type of the highly organised group, we have use...

We turn now to a third very important condition of the growth of the national mind, one which also has its analogue in both the crowd and the army. A crowd always tends to follo...

Let us consider now very briefly in relation to the life of a nation a second essential condition of all collective mental life—namely, that the individuals shall be in free com...

The idea of the nation is constitutive—ideas work as forces in national life only in virtue of sentiments grown up about their objects—the notions of society as an organism and...

The crowd presents the phenomena of collective life in crude and simple forms—the formation of the psychological crowd—its peculiarities—spread and intensification of emotions—h...

The influence of occupations—the leading principle of the school of Le Play—the development of the spirit of protection in the people of Gaul—the development of the spirit of in...

The self-consciousness of the group—the group idea and the group sentiment—the group consciousness in primitive life—views of Cornford and Lévy Bruhl examined—‘collective repres...

Rousseau’s doctrine of the general will—Prof. Bosanquet’s view inadequate—the national mind has both organic unity and the unity of self-consciousness—increase of national self-...

National deliberation—the influence on it of organisation and of traditions—certain advantages of the representative system—public opinion arises from an informal organisation—t...

National character defined—conditions essential to its formation—homogeneity a prime condition—the influence of racial qualities on national character—the durability of racial q...

The rarity of progress—the conditions enabling progress—group selection—in what has progress consisted?—views of Buckle and Kidd—conquest and domination an early condition of pr...

Difficulty of defining nationhood—Prof. Ramsay Muir’s definition not adequate—mental organisation, resting on tradition, the most essential condition—lack of clear conceptions h...

Physical environment determines racial adaptation directly by selection—indirectly by determining occupations and social organisation—the protective spirit in France—the spirit...

Race substitution—the population of Greece—internal selection—its effects in Spain—various forms of social selection—mostly negative or injurious to national stock—economic sele...

Differentiation of races from a common stock—human evolution differs from that of the animals in becoming group evolution—physical environment supplanted by social environment a...

Liberty and social organisation—caste makes for rigidity—the growth of toleration—imaginative sympathy increases with increasing freedom of intercourse, bringing strife and unde...

The need for a more concrete psychology—the conception of the group mind—objections to the conception examined—the conception not a new one but familiar in political philosophy...

The principal conditions of organisation—the army as the type—how its organisation raises the soldier to a higher plane of collective life—the nature of collective will illustra...

Civilisation does not imply improvement of racial qualities—it abolishes selection by the physical environment—it consists in improved intellectual and moral traditions and is d...

A common purpose—war the unifier—national responsibilities—continuity of national life—organisation of the national mind analogous to that of the individual mind—national self-c...