e outcome of mass suggestion. Nicolai tersely analyses this
conception. It is remarkable, he says, that whenever several animals or
several human beings do anything together, the mere fact of cooperation
causes each individual's action to be modified. We have scientific proof
that two men can carry far more than twice as much as one. In like
manner, a number of human beings react in a very different way from
these same beings in isolation. Every cavalryman knows that his horse
will do more in the troop than it will do alone, will cover more ground
and will suffer less fatigue. Forel has pointed out that an ant which,
surrounded by companions, will readily face death, shows fear and runs
away from a much weaker ant when she is alone and some way from the
ant-hill. Among men, in like manner, the feeling of the crowd greatly
intensifies the reactions of each individual. "This is most evident at a
public meeting. In many cases the speaker has hardly opened his mouth
before he communicates some of his own emotion to every one of his
hearers. Suppose it to be only the hundredth part on the average, and
suppose that the audience numbers one thousand, then the speaker's
emotion has already been multiplied tenfold, as will speedily appear
from the reactions of the audience." This in turn reacts on the speaker,
who is carried away by the emotions of his hearers. And so it goes on.

Now in our day the audience is of enormous size, and the world war has
made it gigantic. Thanks to powerful and rapid means of communication,
thanks to the telegraph and the press, the huge groups of allied states
have become, as it were, single publics numbered by millions. Imagine,
in this vibrant and sonorous mass, the effect of the least cry, of the
slightest tremor. They assume the aspect of cosmic convulsions. The
entire mass of humanity is shaken as by an earthquake. Under these
conditions what happens to such a sentiment as the love of country,
originally natural and healthy? In normal times, says Nicolai, a good
man loves his country just as he should love his wife, while well aware
that there may be other women more beautiful, more intelligent, or
better, than she. But one's country to-day is like a hysterically
jealous woman who is in a fury when anyone recognises another woman's
merits. In normal times the true patriot is (or should be) the man who
loves what is good in his country and resists what is evil. But nowadays
anyone who acts thus