ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on "Socialism and Human Nature" by means of psychological and anthropological knowledge. It discusses whether the instinct of acquisition has been modified through the activity of some other instinct or by means of the influence of tradition and education. The chapter shows that spontaneity of social behaviour such as would be explicable through the activity of a herd-instinct is especially characteristic of such peoples as the Melanesian to illustrate the existence of a socialistic society. The existence of a herd-instinct in man, or perhaps more correctly of an instinctive component in the gregarious behaviour of man, will only be demonstrated by the convergence and agreement of lines of evidence from many different fields of inquiry; and from the comparison of the behaviour of different societies.
