NOMADISM, OR THE WANDERING IMPULSE, WITH SPECIAL 



REFERENCE TO HEREDITY. 



I. SCOPE OF THE SUBJECT-MATTER AND NOMENCLATURE. 



It is a familiar observation that persons differ greatly in their capacity 

 for remaining quiet and satisfied for a long period in one place. One 

 occasionally meets a woman who, though living within 30 miles of a 

 metropolis, has, in the 80 years of her life, been there only once. At 

 the other extreme are the tramps and gypsies who travel constantly 

 or with only slight intermissions and many of whom have repeatedly 

 visited all quarters of the globe. An extreme in another direction includes 

 those who, while capable of steady and effective work, at more or less 

 regular periods run away from the place where their duties lie and travel 

 considerable distances, either fully conscious and oriented, or in a dazed 

 condition, or, it may be, living in a secondary, ordinarily submerged, 

 state of consciousness (trance or fugue). Thus human locomotor 

 responses range from sessility and extreme domesticity to "ambulatory 

 automatism." 



A term is needed to apply to these cases in all of their variety ; and it 

 is not easy to decide on one. The German word " Wandertrieb " is 

 satisfactory, implying an impulse to wander or travel. The word 

 'Wanderlust" (often and not improperly used as an English word) 

 implies a rather mild form of desire for and love of travel. Vaga- 

 bondage and vagrancy connote too much of pauperism and low social 

 status for our purpose. Fugue is usually applied to the extreme cases, 

 of most markedly pathological nature, where normal consciousness is 

 impaired. Dromomania has been used as a synonym of ambulatory 

 automatism. Nomadism has often been applied to a racial or tribal 

 tendency to wander. On the whole, I am inclined to use the word 

 "nomadism " just because it has a racial connotation. From a modern 

 point of view all hereditary characters are racial. Moreover, the term 

 "nomadic" is in good use for the restless, wandering type. Says 

 Lowell (Fireside Travels, p. 97) "The American is nomadic in religion, 

 in ideas, in morals, and leaves his faith and opinions with as much 

 indifference as the house in which he lives." In view of this usage 

 and the convenience of the word, the phenomenon with which this 

 paper deals will be called nomadism. 



