POSTSCRIPT OF 1919

between Germany and England before and during the war. These differences I attributed to variations in the type of reaction to herd instinct shown by the two peoples. The aggressive social type represented by Germany and analogous with that characteristic of the predaceous social animals I regarded as being relatively primitive and simple. The socialized type represented by England and presenting analogies with that characteristic of many social insects I regarded as being, though imperfect as are all the human examples available for study up to the present time, more complex and less primitive, and representing at any rate a tendency towards a satisfactory solution of the problems with which man as a gregarious animal is surrounded. Now, it is a very obvious fact that the susceptibility to leadership shown by Germany and by England before the war was remarkably different. The common citizen of Germany was strikingly open to and dependent upon discipline and leadership, and seemed to have a positive satisfaction in leaving to his masters the management of his social problems and accepting with alacrity the solutions that were imposed upon him. The nation consequently presented a close knit uniformity of purpose, a singleness of national consciousness and effort that gave it an aspect of moral power of the most formidable kind. In England a very different state of affairs prevailed. The common citizen was apt to meet with indifference or resentment all efforts to change the social {249} structure, and it had long been a political axiom that “reform” should always await an irresistible demand for it. Instances will be within every one’s memory of politicians who met with crushing rebuffs through regarding the supposed desirability of a reform as a justification for imposing it. This almost sullen indifference to great projects and ideals, this unwillingness to take thought in the interests of the nation and the empire in spite of the apostolic zeal of the most eloquent political prophets, was generally regarded as evidence of a weakness and slackness in the body politic that could not but threaten disaster. And yet in the trials of the war the moral stability of England showed itself to be superior to that of Germany,