tion Francis Galton's classical
account of this instinct in its crudest form: "Describing
the South African ox in Damaraland, he says he displays
no affection for his fellows, and hardly seems to notice their
existence, so long as he is among them; but, if he becomes
separated from the herd, he displays an extreme distress that
will not let him rest until he succeeds in rejoining it, when he
hastens to bury himself in the midst of it, seeking the closest
possible contact with the bodies of his fellows."[1]

[Footnote 1: McDougall: _Social Psychology_, p. 84.]

This original tendency exhibits itself among human beings
in a variety of ways. The tendency of human beings to herd
together, for which there is evidence in the earliest history of
the race, may be observed on any crowded thoroughfare, or
in any amusement park, or city. That group life has expanded
partly through practical necessity, is, of course, true,
but groups of humans tend to become, as in our monster cities,
larger than they need be, or can be for economic efficiency.

The fascination of city life has not infrequently been set
down to the multiplicity of opportunities offered in the way
of companions, amusements, and occupations after one's own
taste. But the fascination has clearly a more instinctive
basis, the desire to be with other people. Many a man, as
has been pointed out, lives in a large city as unsociable and
secluded a life as if he were surrounded by miles of mountain
or prairie, who yet could not be happy elsewhere. Any one
who has failed to be amused by a really good comedy when
the theater was comparatively empty, or in the presence of
thousands of others hugely enjoyed a second-rate baseball
game, or gone down to the crowded shopping district to get
what he could have purchased on a side-street uptown, can
appreciate how instinctive is this undiscriminating desire for
companionship.

The native intensity of this desire is what makes rural
isolation, on the other hand, so unsatisfactory. The bleakness
of New England country life as pictured in Edith
Wharton's _Ethan Frome_, or in some of Robert Frost's _North
of Boston_, is due more than anything else to this privation
from companionship. Perhaps nothing better could be said
for the rural telephone, the interurban trolley, and the cheap
automobile than that they make possible the fulfillment of
this normal human longing to be near and with other people
in body and spirit. The horro