© 1930 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
Psycho-Pathology and the Herd-Instinct
Lancashire County Mental Hospital, Winwick, Warrington
ABSTRACT
Summary and Conclusion: To summarize this short discussion: we have seen how complex is the subject of instinct generally and how the views concerning it are still widely divergent. There are many ways of conceiving of a herd-instinct, and in psycho-pathological works this instinct is ill-defined, vaguely described and variously applied—if applied at all. On examining more closely the grounds for believing in a herd-instinct, it appears that they are not always secure, either as regards the herd-instinct itself or in respect of the general theory of which it is a part. Further, this concept is linked to that of a group-mind, and not only is the evidence for the latter controversial too, but the very limitations of human understanding vitiate our speculations concerning it. We have further given a rapid glance to the ways in which certain phenomena that are so peculiar to group psychology as to afford a basis for the postulation of a herd-instinct or group-mind have nevertheless by some schools been explained without having recourse to such postulation.
The time has now come for us to conclude; but we have so vacillated from side to side, picking up one theory and then dropping it for another, considering this and that view only to point at its insecurity, embarking upon a promising trail without the necessary time to follow it up, that we are hard put to enunciate any but vague and tentative conclusions. We might, however, advance the view that a herd-instinct may perhaps exist as an innate tendency towards gregariousness, but that it has become so modified in man, and obscured in its real effects by the growth of intelligence, that it has become a factor of diminishing importance. It would certainly be unjustifiable to ascribe to it such further qualities as might necessarily urge towards the organization of groups or the innate observance of custom and law, since these can well be accounted for on other grounds. We might retain in addition the concept of a herd-system, but even this should not be taken too literally and should be regarded as a descriptive facility, a fiction of the "As If" type of Vaihinger, applied to the appearance of unitary urge occurring when the single and separate instincts are combining and acting together in complex ways to produce those results we are agreed to call social. At the most might it be regarded as an orientating factor, acquired through education and therefore not innate, which moulds conduct without producing it, and is not endowed with any such dynamic force as is ascribed to instinct.
Finally as regards psycho-pathology, there is little need in it for a mere instinct of gregariousness and as to invoking any broad herd-system as a factor in mental derangement, it would be regarding this factor as much more unitary and definite than it really is, and the very comprehensiveness and complexity of construction of such a system would make it too unwieldy for clinical explanations. Last but not least it would introduce still more complexity in those "mental mechanisms" that are already too numerous and ill-defined.