ction and thought is in
large part responsible for the comparative absence of innovation
in either of these fields. A premium is put upon the
conventional, the customary, the common, both in the instinctive
satisfaction they give the individual, and in the high
value set upon them by society. In advanced societies, however,
the habit of inquiry and originality may itself come to
be endorsed by the majority, as it is among scientists and
artists. The herd instinct need not always act on the side of
unreason. Among the intellectual classes, it is already enlisted
on the side of free inquiry, which among scholars is the
fundamental common habit.

If rationality were once to become really respectable, if we feared
the entertaining of an unverifiable opinion with the warmth with
which we fear using the wrong implement at the dinner table, if the
thought of holding a prejudice disgusted us as does a foul disease,
then the dangers of man's suggestibility would be turned into
advantages.[1]

[Footnote 1: Trotter; _loc. cit._, p. 45.]

SYMPATHY (A SPECIALIZATION OF GREGARIOUSNESS). Sympathy,
in the strict psychological sense of the term, means a
"suffering with, the experiencing of any feeling or emotion
when and because we observe in other persons or creatures
the expression of that feeling of emotion."[2] The behavior
of animals exhibits the external features of sympathetic action
very clearly. "Two dogs begin to growl or fight, and at once
all the dogs within sound and sight stiffen themselves, and
show every symptom of anger. Or one beast in a herd stands
arrested, gazing in curiosity on some unfamiliar object, and
presently his fellows also, to whom the object may be invisible,
display curiosity and come up to join in the examination
of the object."[1]

[Footnote 2: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 92.]

[Footnote 1: McDougall: _loc. cit._, p. 93.]

Human beings tend not only sympathetically to reproduce
the instinctive actions of others,[2] but they tend, despite
themselves, to experience directly and immediately, often
involuntarily, the emotions experienced and outwardly manifested
by others. Almost everyone has had his mood heightened
to at least kindly joy by the presence in a crowded street car
of a young child whose inquiring prattle and light-hearted
laughter were subdued by the gray restraints and responsibilities
of maturity. One melancholy face can crush the joy of a
boisterous and cheerful party;[3] the ea