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 / by William McDougall.

  • McDougall, William, 1871-1938.
Date:
1927
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: 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 / by William McDougall. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    the part of this vast nation. The one great distracting and disturbing factor in the life of China has been the intrusion of the Manchus, a people of somewhat different race and traditions. On the other hand, India is peopled by many different stocks, and, although these are geographically much mixed, they are but very little blended, owing to the prevalence from early times of the caste system. The light coloured intellectual Brahman lives side by side with small black folk, as different physically and mentally as the Englishman and the Hottentot; and there are also large numbers of other widely differing racial stocks, including some of yellow race. Hence an extreme diversity of social environment, save in the case of the Moslem converts, who, however, being scattered among the rest, do but increase the endless variety of custom, creed, and social environment. Hence the people of India have never been bound together in the shghtest degree, save purely externally by the power of foreign conquerors, the Moguls and the British; and hence, even though nations have begun at various times to take form in various areas, as e.g. the Sikh nation, they have never achieved any high degree of permanence and stability and are restricted in area and numbers. Now let us consider for a moment an apparent exception from the conclusion to which the foregoing argument seems to point— namely, that homogeneity of innate qualities is the prime condition of a developed and harmonious national life. The most striking exception is afforded by the people of the United States of America, or the American nation. There we see a great area populated by immigrants from every part and race of Europe in times so recent that, although they are pretty well mixed, they are but little blended by crossing; a considerable part of the population still consisting of actual immigrants and their children. Here, then, there can be no question of any homogeneity as regards innate mental qualities. Nevertheless, the people is truly a nation and, perhaps, further advanced in the evolution of national conscious¬ ness, thought, and action than many other of the civilised peoples. This we must attribute to homogeneity of mental qualities which is in the main not innate but acquired, a uniformity of acquired qualities, especially of all those that are most important for national life. Following Miinsterberg’s recent account of The Psychology of the American People we may recognise as individual character¬ istics, almost universally diffused, a spirit of self-direction and self-