Mat 20, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



765 



nome strikes. Such a distraction often 

 improves the performance. 



To describe the stimulus to the imagina- 

 tion from the group would be common- 

 place. "We need not go to the laboratory 

 nor cite the case of children for illustra- 

 tion. The man in the crowd has always 

 been able to see what has happened and 

 more besides, to foresee impending danger, 

 or anticipate success, or hear voices from 

 the unknown and behold inspiring visions. 

 We need not, I think, go back to ancient 

 history for illustrations of even the latter. 

 A week ago in my home city thousands of 

 people watched for mysterioiis lights in the 

 heavens, and not a few saw them and knew 

 exactly what they meant. Nor was this 

 the only place where men saw the moving 

 lights of airships. Even of the groups on 

 Boston Common it was reported that the 

 clear rays of a moon approaching the full 

 failed to undeceive "those who, having 

 seen, believed, or believing that they had 

 seen refused to doubt, or not having seen, 

 had met and talked with those who had 

 seen, or believed they had seen or had met 

 those who had seen." 



As regards the relative merits of solitude 

 or a social environment for scholastic pur- 

 suits I am not concerned here to speak. 

 But the weight of evidence thus far seems 

 to be to indicate the advantage of group 

 work, except when individual and original 

 thinking is required. This is perhaps one 

 reason why the man of genius has fre- 

 quently desired solitude. There are un- 

 doubtedly, also, great individual differ- 

 ences as regards the effect of social envir- 

 onment; there are even perhaps different 

 types as regards the effectiveness of the 

 stimuli from the social group. There may 

 perhaps be one type that does its best work 

 in solitude, another type that does its best 

 work in the group. This again is one of 

 the problems that should be investigated. 



Again, of course, the question is relative 

 to the kind of work done. Mayer's experi- 

 ments indicate that for some kinds of work 

 the stimulus of the social group is needed. 

 For some kinds of work, especially where 

 original thinking is demanded, the environ- 

 ment of solitude is better. 



What we may call the social stimulus to 

 mental activity is such a commonplace 

 matter that probably very few realize its 

 significance. When, however, we recall 

 the fundamental character of our social 

 instincts it is not strange that the presence 

 of other people should be a most potent 

 stimulus either increasing or checking the 

 mental activity. Psychologists have al- 

 ways recognized the fundamental char- 

 acter of the stimulus from ambition, ri- 

 valry and the like. But this social 

 stimulus goes much farther back and is 

 rooted in the reflexes of the sympathetic 

 nervous system that are correlated with 

 emotion. This is well illustrated in ex- 

 periments with animals. Mosso found in 

 his experiments testing directly the sympa- 

 thetic reflexes in the dog that the presence 

 of the master in the room at once affected 

 the reflexes; and Dr. Yerkes, of Harvard 

 University, finds that in his experiments 

 with dogs the presence of the experimenter 

 is always likely to affect the results. 



The fundamental character of the social 

 stimulus is shown also in many fields of 

 human activity according to one view of 

 esthetics. The artist always works with 

 the audience in his mind. The teacher 

 also and the orator are apt to do much of 

 their work with the class or audience in 

 mind. I am not concerned here with the 

 fact that this often becomes a grotesque 

 and exaggerated mark of the profession 

 but merely with this as an illustration of 

 the fundamental character of what we 

 have called the social stimulus. 



In fact this social stimulus colors every- 



