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I saw how they all acted from the mighty impulse of the herd-instinct, the group-sense, the sacred gift of Christ, warrant of their power and safety but at the same time how they all thought they acted from personal, independent judgment and reasonable conviction, to their own miserable confusion and wretchedness.
They adjured us, by our mothers, to come to Jesus ... all the while, over and over again, softly, was sung, "O Lamb of God, I come, I come!" "Just as I am, without one plea, But that Thy blood was shed for me!" Weakening under the pressure, and swung by the power of herd-instinct, most of us "came." Then there was the hypnotism of the enthusiasm which laid hold of us.
There is not a natural market for one-fourth of the manufactured objects in the world. A market was created for these motor-cars by methods more original and gripping than ever went into the making of the motor or the assembly of its parts. The herd-instinct of men was played upon.
History suggests, I think, that this group-regeneration is effected in the last resort through a special sublimation of the herd-instinct; that is, the full and willing use on spiritual levels of the characters which are inherent in human gregariousness. We have looked at some of these characters in past chapters.
The Marxian assumes that a man's "herd," from the point of view of herd-instinct, is his class, and that he will combine with those whose economic class-interest is the same as his. This is only very partially true in fact. Religion has been the most decisive factor in determining a man's herd throughout long periods of the world's history.
This also for the chapter: "Morals as Timidity." The extraordinary limitation of human development, the hesitation, protractedness, frequent retrogression, and turning thereof, is attributable to the fact that the herd-instinct of obedience is transmitted best, and at the cost of the art of command.
I do mean, however, that they tend to suppress opinions which would reflect an autonomous appreciation. Moreover, whatever may be said for herd-instinct in the realm of politics and morals, where the need for common action makes necessary some sort of consensus among the members of a group, very little can be said for it in aesthetics, where no practical issues are directly involved.
Therefore if Japan is to emerge successfully, a much more intense Westernizing must take place, involving not only mechanical processes and knowledge of bare facts, but ideals and religion and general outlook on life. There must be free thought, scepticism, diminution in the intensity of herd-instinct.
Some go with a noble sense of sacrifice, some with blood-lust in their hearts, most with the herd-instinct following the lead, little knowing that they are but the pawns of a game which is being played behind closed doors by the great gamblers in the courts and Foreign Offices, and committee-rooms, and counting-houses, of the political casinos in Europe.
He had felt that there must be something wrong with him, something lacking, for it seemed to him that people everywhere committed the most outlandish follies, believed in the most incredible things, were swayed by pure herd-instinct into the most harmful courses of behavior. They could not all be wrong, he thought, so he must be wrong and it had worried him.
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