The Psychology of Nations

The Psychology of Nations
A Contribution to the Philosophy of History

By

0
(0 Reviews)
The Psychology of Nations by G. E. Partridge

Published:

1919

Pages:

257

Downloads:

2,763

Share This

The Psychology of Nations
A Contribution to the Philosophy of History

By

0
(0 Reviews)
This book contains two closely related studies of the consciousness of nations. It has been written during the closing months of the war and in the days that have followed, and is completed while the Peace Conference is still in session, holding in the balance, as many believe, the fate of many hopes, and perhaps the whole future of the world.

Book Excerpt

o much. The question arises whether the motives are not more complex, even from the beginning, and whether both the tendencies or impulses by which the group was formed or held together and the motives behind aggressive conduct against other groups have not been produced or developed in the course of social relations, rather than have been brought up from animal life, or at any point introduced as instincts. We notice at least that animals living in groups do not in general become aggressive within the species. Possibly it was by some peculiarity of man's social existence, or his superior endowment of intelligence or some unusual quality of his instincts, perhaps very far back in animal life, that has in the end made him a warlike creature. Man does seem to be a creature of feelings rather than of instincts as far back as we find much account of him, and to be characterized rather by the weakness and variability of his instincts than by their definiteness. It is quite likely, too, that man never was