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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    confidence, of independence and initiative of a degree unknown elsewhere, a marvellous optimism or hopefulness both in private and public affairs, a great seriousness tinged with religion, a humourousness, an interest in the welfare of society, a high degree of self-respect, and a pride and confidence in the present and still more in the future of the nation; an intense activity and a great desire for self-improvement; a truly democratic spirit which regards all men (or rather all white men) as essentially or potentially equal, and a complete intolerance of caste. Such high degree of acquired homogeneity of individual qualities seems to be due in about equal parts to uniformity of social and of physical environment, both of which make strongly in the same direction. The physical environment consists in a great and rich territory, still only partially developed, a fairly uniform climate, and a uniformity of the physical products of human labour resulting from the immense development of the means of communication. The importance of the physical uniformity we may realize on reflecting that the one great divergence of physical conditions, the sub-tropical climate of the southern States, gave rise to the one great and dangerous division of the people which for a time threatened the har¬ monious development of the national life; that is to say, the civil war was due to the divergence of the social system and economic interests of the southern States resulting from their sub-tropical climate. The uniformity of social environment we must ascribe, firstly and chiefly, to the fortunate circumstance that the first immigrants were men of one well marked and highly superior type, men who possessed in the fullest measure the independence of character and the initiative of the fair northern race, and who firmly established the superior social environment of individualistic type that had been gradually evolved in England. Secondly, to the fact that the peopling of the whole country has taken place by diffusion from this strongly organised initial society; its institutions and ideas, especially its language, its political freedom, its social seriousness, being carried everywhere. Thirdly, to the fact that the country was just such as to give the greatest scope to, and so to develop, these innate tendencies of the earliest settlers and their successors. Fourthly, to the fact that the great diffusion of the population of mixed origin has only taken place since the means of communication have become very highly developed. Consider, as one example of the effects of the ease of communication between all parts, the influence of the American Sunday newspapers. These papers are read on an enormous scale