Lo Bon maintains that a nation approaches a crowd in the nature of its consciousness and that a. crowd induces in the individuals who compose it a state peculiar to itself and allied to the hypnotic and other abnormal conditions.
The German philosophers, since Hegel, have spoken as if a nation were the embodiment of a special spirit of divine or mysterious origin and as if the advancement of this spirit were necessary not only for the improvement of themselves but of the world. But the nation is not one immense _individual. The national spirit is net an entity which can be assumed to exist independently of its express sion, but merely an analogy by which certain acts and beliefs of the group had been expressed or explained. There is no more a common will in a specific sense than there is a common arm or trunk.
The nation becomes an emotional unit by its developments. Individuals who compose 4 nation suffer real pain when it is in any way injured, and even when it is disparagingly spoken of.
"A true Britisher feels a thrill of pride when he hears that the sun never sets upon British possessions, that the sun is followed in its course by the roll of the morning drum of British garsons. The American, however hum-Ble, is never left unmoved by the sta-fistics of billions of imports and ports, particularly when the balance is in favour of America. Neither may be in the slightest degree better off for the fact, neither thinks of the expense that may rest upon him for the attainment of these glories. He thrills as he does at his own success. As the ideal source or occasion of the emotion, the nation is as real an entity as a person.""
Ax Ararr or Tun Serzit.
The common thought and action of the nation are embodied in the nervous systems of individuals. The _group behaves as a nation because
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