nifest inconsistency between what he really is and what
he thinks. What these instincts are, Le Bon does not specify;
presumably they may be either better or worse than the conscious
motives.

Trotter (82) and also Murray (90) consider war from a biological
standpoint, regarding it as a herd phenomenon. Trotter's view,
especially his interpretation of Germany, which we are not to consider
here, is original and important. War is a result of the action of a
_herd instinct_, a specific instinct which is peculiar in one respect,
in that it acts upon other instincts but has no definite motor
reactions of its own. War is the result of the action of the herd
instinct in man upon the old instinct of aggression. At least
aggressive war is. Men in all their social relations show the play of
these instincts; in war it is the old aggressive instinct, the old
passion of the pack, that dominates them; and it is the ancestral
herd-fears that overcome them in their panics. It is the herd instinct
that makes men in groups so highly sensitive to the leader, whose
relations to the herd or pack are always dependent upon their
recognizing him as one of the group; that is, as acting in accordance
with the desires of the herd.

It is by the union of the herd, Murray says, or through the herd
instinct, that suppressed unconscious impulses are given an
opportunity to operate; when the human herd is excited by any external
stimulus, the old types of reaction are brought into play. Curiously,
in such times, leadership may be assumed by eccentric and even
abnormal members of the group--by those who are governed by perverted
instincts; by men who are touched with the mania of suspicion, or who
even suffer from homicidal mania.

The essential point of these biological views is that, when the human
herd is subjected to any influences that tend to arouse the herd
instinct--that is, to unite the herd in any common emotion or action,
the old instinctive forms of response are likely to be brought to the
front. Whatever the stimulus, the tendency is for the herd to fixate
its attention upon some external object, which at once is reacted to
with deep emotion. Plainly, if this be true, if herd instinct does
throw human society from time to time and from various causes into
attitudes of defense and offense with the appropriate emotional
reactions, and if in such times leaders are likely to appear, having
exaggerated instinctive tendencies, there is alway