thstanding there are those who would have us to be
flock-minded.

It is doubtful if the herder is anything more to the flock than an
incident of the range, except as a giver of salt, for the only cry they
make to him is the salt cry. When the natural craving is at the point of
urgency, they circle about his camp or his cabin, leaving off feeding
for that business; and nothing else offering, they will continue this
headlong circling about a bowlder or any object bulking large in their
immediate neighborhood remotely resembling the appurtenances of man, as
if they had learned nothing since they were free to find licks for
themselves, except that salt comes by bestowal and in conjunction with
the vaguely indeterminate lumps of matter that associate with man. As if
in fifty centuries of man-herding they had made but one step out of the
terrible isolation of brute species, an isolation impenetrable except by
fear to every other brute, but now admitting the fact without knowledge,
of the God of the Salt. Accustomed to receiving this miracle on open
bowlders, when the craving is strong upon them, they seek such as these
to run about, vociferating, as if they said, In such a place our God has
been wont to bless us, come now, let us greatly entreat Him. This one
quavering bleat, unmistakable to the sheepman even at a distance, is the
only new note in the sheep's vocabulary, and the only one which passes
with intention from himself to man. As for the call of distress which a
leader raised by hand may make to his master, it is not new, is not
common to flock usage, and is swamped utterly in the obsession of the
flock-mind.

_b. The Herd_[301]

My purpose in this paper is to discuss a group of curious and useless
emotional instincts of social animals, which have not yet been properly
explained. Excepting two of the number, placed first and last in the
list, they are not related in their origin; consequently they are here
grouped together arbitrarily, only for the reason that we are very
familiar with them on account of their survival in our domestic animals,
and because they are, as I have said, useless; also because they
resemble each other, among the passions and actions of the lower
animals, in their effect on our minds. This is in all cases unpleasant,
and sometimes exceedingly painful, as when species that rank next to
ourselves in their developed intelligence and organized societies, such
as elephants, monkeys, dogs, and