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nydus/Instincts of the Herd in Peace and WarPublic
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Table of Contents

SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915

without understanding in regard to any creature of external origin and existence. Man, however, with his infinitely greater capacity for assimilating {125} experience, has not been able to maintain the rigid limitation of sympathy to the unit, the boundaries of which tend to acquire a certain indefiniteness not seen in any of the lower gregarious types.

Hence tends to appear a sense of international justice, a vague feeling of being responsibly concerned in all human affairs and by a natural consequence the ideas and impulses denoted under the term “pacifism.”

One of the most natural and obvious consequences of war is a hardening of the boundaries of the social unit and a retraction of the vague feelings towards international sympathy which are a characteristic product of peace and inter­com­mun­i­ca­tion. Thus it comes about that pacifism and internationalism are in great disgrace at the present time; they are regarded as the vapourings of cranky windbags who have inevitably been punctured at the first touch of the sword; they are, our political philosophers tell us, but products of the miasm

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