SPECULATIONS UPON THE HUMAN MIND IN 1915

to localize itself in channels customary to the individual and leading to fears for his future, his food supply, his family, his trade, and so forth. Side by side with fear there was a heightening of the normal intolerance of isolation. Loneliness became an urgently unpleasant feeling, and the individual experienced an intense and active desire for the company and even physical contact of his fellows. In such company he was aware of a great accession of confidence, courage, and moral power. It was possible for an observant person to trace the actual {141} influence of his circumstances upon his judgment, and to notice that isolation tended to depress his confidence while company fortified it. The necessity for companionship was strong enough to break down the distinctions of class, and dissipate the reserve between strangers which is to some extent a concomitant mechanism. The change in the customary frigid atmosphere of the railway train, the omnibus, and all such meeting-places was a most interesting experience to the psychologist, and he could scarcely fail to be struck by its obvious biological meaning. Perhaps the most striking of all these early phenomena was the strength and vitality of rumour, probably because it afforded by far the most startling evidence that some other and stronger force than reason was at work in the formation of opinion. It was, of course, in no sense an unusual fact that non-rational opinion should be so widespread; the new feature was that such opinion should be able to spread so rapidly and become established so firmly altogether regardless of the limits within which a given opinion tends to remain localized in times of peace. Non-rational opinion under normal conditions is as a rule limited in its extent by a very strict kind of segregation; the successful rumours of the early periods of the war invaded all classes and showed a capacity to overcome prejudice, education, or scepticism. The observer, clearly conscious as he might be of the mechanisms at work, found himself irresistibly drawn to the acceptance of the more popular beliefs; and even the most convinced believer in the normal prevalence of non-rational