Individual Consciousness and Collective Mind

Maurice Halbwachs

The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 44, No. 6. (May, 1939), pp. 812-822.

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 INDIVIDUAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND

COLLECTIVE MIND1

MAURICE HALBWACHS

ABSTRACT
A serious fault in classical, in associationist, and in physiological psychologies is that
they have been limited to the study of the isolated man. Even when man is artificially
separated from society, he retains its imprint, particularly with respect to his intellectu-
al processes. Actually, however, in our consciousness there exist both matter imagined
or perceived and social forms or patterns. Psychology will therefore be either the
psychology of the individual as a member of the species or collective psychology. The
collective thought is not a metaphysical entity to be sought in a metaphysical world
but exists only in individual consciousness and represents the interacting states of con-
sciousness of a number of individuals comprising the group. Thus two parts of col-
lective psychology emerge: the general study of the characteristics and modes of func-
tioning of group thought, differing in content according to the group; and the particular
collective psychologies of subgroups, the nation, family, class, etc. The field of sociology
is established by distinguishing between thoughts and sentiments, on the one hand, and
their concrete, exterior, manifestations (techniques), on the other; between the psycho-
logical and the physical aspects of institutions. Study of thelatter typeof phenomena (the
domain of sociology) is necessary because i t is the characteristic trait of collective rep-
resentations to manifest themselves in material form. Sociology views social phe-
nomena through the frame of reference of collective psychology. Even in demograph-
ic studies populations are regarded in terms of states of collective consciousness. The
collective mind gives the human consciousness access to all that has been achieved in
the way of attitudes and mental dispositions in diverse social groups.

There is a serious fault in classical, as well as in associationist and

physiological, psychologies because they have limited themselves to
the study of the isolated man. They have failed to recognize the
many factors which stimulate him from the outside, such as the in-
stitutions, customs, and interactions of ideas and especially of lan-
guage, which, from infancy throughout his life, condition his under-
standing, his feelings, and his behavior and attitudes in a manner
impossible for a man in isolation. And yet, even though they have
neglected these influences and have considered the individual con-
sciousness only within its own limits, they could not help but note
the effects in consciousness which these factors produced.
Even when man is artificially separated from society and viewed
outside of his relations to the group, he nevertheless retains its
imprint. The intellectual processes in particular, which are best ex-
' This paper was translated from the French by Dr. John H. Mueller, Indiana
University.
812

 INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 813

plained by the action of society upon man, in fact, can be explained

only by society, have been studied by all psychologists. One might
even assert that they have been the favorite subject of observation
and analysis at least of the classical psychologists; but, although
they made a penetrating analysis of these phenomena at times and
have described accurately their operation, the explanations which
they have offered have struck insurmountable difficulties. This is
true equally of empiricists and introspectionists; for how is one to
explain principles, ideas, thought, and judgment, all of which we
possess because they are possessed by others, and which we share
with others, if we accept the hypothesis of the isolated mind?
Moreover, a large number of them, especially the metaphysical
psychologists who have defended the theory of innate ideas, believed
that ('lower functions" of our mental psychic life, such as memory,
imagery, perception, and also the affective states and impulses, were
closely dependent on the "higher" intellectual life. Nor did they fail
to notice that the will was linked to intelligence and reason. But, in
confining the intelligence within ourselves, or, more exactly, looking
for its origin in an element outside the environment which encom-
passes us, they could not discern its nature or understand its char-
acteristic traits. Especially did they fail to perceive that intelligence
is a relative factor because it is related to the social milieu, which
changes and varies from place to place and from epoch to epoch.
Although they have approached the true solution, they have failed
to attain it. They were inevitably limited to a static and closed
interpretation of intelligence because they failed to take into account
the social milieu.
Not only metaphysical psychologists but associationists, intro-
spectionists, and physiological psychologists have also considered the
mind and the mental functions and have made an effort to explain
them. But they were especially interested in what they considered
to be the most simple, the most immediately perceivable and observ-
able elements of the psychic life-namely, sensation, imagery, and
organic tendencies. That is why the so-called "higher" mental states
and processes have seemed to them to be only a sort of extension and
a combination of sensory states and acts, thereby producing a struc-
ture and a superstructure, at once both complex and artificial. But
814 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

there is no reason why, in studying the mental processes, they should

have been led outside of the individual mind, since, they believed, it
had its roots in, and derived its existence from, the lower forms of
conscious life, which are conditioned by our organism and which,
being related to it, have approximately the same limits.
However, even as they studied more closely and more completely
these psychophysiological manifestations, the psychologists had to
recognize some evidences of a relation between the organisms, the
brains, and the nervous systems of numbers of men, which could not
in all cases be explained by an isolated organism-language, for
example, and the expression of emotions. To be sure, when mental
states are explained in terms of the body, when they are connected
with its movements and reactions, they emphasize those characteris-
tics which we have in common with animals. If, however, one re-
stricts himself to these elementary forms of the conscious life, how
are we to explain the manner in which we have succeeded in lifting
ourselves from such a simple level to the present higher forms?
Precisely because they perceived our mental functioning almost at
the organic level, the psychologists of this school had to be prepared
to admit that a large part of the mental life does not arise directly
from individual psychology, since the intellectual activities cannot
be explained from that viewpoint, and that therefore the mental life
must be the subject of another science which would deal with such
manifestations of groups.
I t is not surprising, then, that Blondel, who is himself a physiologi-
cal psychologist, stressed, in an article in the Journal de psychologie,"
what psychopathology can learn from sociology. Quoting Durkheim,
he said:
The individual does not invent his religion, his morals, his laws, his aesthetics,
his science, his language, the patterns of his everyday behavior with his equals,
superiors, or inferiors, with the strong and the weak, with the aged, women, or
children, his manner of eating and conducting himself at table, the infinite
detail, finally, of his thought or his conduct. All these he receives ready-made,
thanks to education, to instruction and to language, from the society of which
he is part. These include, to be sure, conscious activities; but they are mental
states whose most essential characteristics are distinguishable from the purely
individual states. If they are common to all, not only are they not peculiar to
'XXII (April, 1925), 333.
 INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 815
any person, but, further, they are not entirely realized in any of their individual
incarnations. The ideas of the moral men are not morality, those of the savant
are not science; our tastes are not aesthetics, the words which we exchange are
not language. A mental reality which constitutes and at the same time tran-
scends the individual consciousness, such is the essential nature of collective
representations.

The object of collective psychology being thus defined, we will do

well to distinguish it from what it is not and from what is still the
domain of individual psychology. According to Blondel, the psy-
chologist must place his emphasis solidly on the psychophysiological
and psychopathological data. As for collective representations and
tendencies, it is essentially a question of recognizing their action in
each individual mind, of describing this process, of noting its causes,
and of eliminating it-that is to say, of leaving the field clear for
physiological psychology. Since the latter seeks to arrive at that
which, in my states of consciousness, is explainable by my organism,
and especially by my organism as considered in its general nature
and in the traits that are found also in those who resemble it, it deals,
in reality, with the human species; and it must be called "psychology
of the species" @sychologie sptc$ique) or "comparative psychology."
What it studies in the individual organism is, in reality, the species.
For collective psychology the basic datum is the group and the
tendencies and representations common to the various social milieus,
but it does not turn to individuals to understand these collective
psychological states. It finds them first outside of individual minds,
in the form and structure of institutions and customs, in beliefs, and
in the group products, such as science, language, art, and technology.
I t locates them also in that social nature which each carries within
himself and which can be recognized from the outside, since every-
thing that it does is expressed in forms of language and of common
thought and rises not from individual introspection but from intel-
ligence in its collective form.
Thus, there are two complementary but clearly separated, or at
least separable and distinguishable, realms, which we may say are
analogous to form and content. We may compare these with the
distinction which Kant made, in his Transcendental Aesthetic, be-
tween the forms of sensation, space, and time, perceived a priori, and
816 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL O F SOClOLOGY

the material conte%twhich becomes knowledge only when it is related

to the framework of these forms. Likewise there exist in our con-
sciousness, on the one hand, social forms or patterns and, on the
other hand, matter imagined or perceived-items of thought and
knowledge similar to the perceptions and images of animals, which
differ from these only because our organism and our nervous system
are more complex than theirs. These mental phenomena are origi-
nally of a vague sort, which may be likened to the confused thought
of a man in a dream. They become knowable only when they enter
the frame of reference of social thought; but at the same time their
nature is changed, and they are transformed into collective states
with only a fringe of organic consciousness, which is obscured in the
indefiniteness of animal life. In so far as it is the raw material of
consciousness and the mental life of the species, these phenomena are
to be studied exclusively from without, but always with reference to
their organic manifestations in the individual.
Psychology will therefore be either collective psychology or a
psychology of the individual as a member of the human species
(spe'ci$que), and everything that is in our minds will be explained
either in terms of the group or of the species. In placing these two
sciences in juxtaposition and illuminating the one by the other, we
would thus, in a measure, explain mental life in its entirety; for our
mind owes all that it is and all that it holds either to the organism
or to social groups; these debts recognized, if not repaid, one can say
that it owes no more to anyone.
Nevertheless, Blonde1 has maintained that, aside from these two
psychologies, there is a third, the only one, moreover, according to
him, which deserves to be called individual, for the following reason.
It is understood that man, as Tarde said, is a social being grafted
onto a biological being. But the individuality itself which results
from this crossing, or this contact, between a series of physiological
and social elements, neither the psychologist nor the sociologist can
explain completely. Nevertheless, we are well aware that there are
individual differences within the social group. They arise from com-
binations or interferences between organic conditions and social cir-
cumstances which are not the same for the various individuals. It is
proper, then, that some day psychology should undertake to account
 INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 817
for not only the functioning of the mind in general but also the pe-
culiarities of the phenomena which occur in individual consciousness.
Thus we arrive at the necessity of dividing the study, for example,
of memory, of perception, and of the emotions and the feelings be-
tween three psychologies : the one collective, the second physiologi-
cal (spe'cijque), and the third differential. It is the latter which, in
his system of positive polity, August Comte proposed to add as the
seventh science to those which he had already included in his classifi-
cation, under the name of "anthropology" or "moral philosophy,''
meaning by this the science of individual mental phenomena.
Let us accordingly consider this point of view. What, exactly, is
the object of individual or differential psychology as thus defined?
Is it a question of explaining all the behavior of every individual, in
every place, at every moment, or even of one or of a few individuals?
But when it is a question of the human mind, just as when it is a
question of organic beings or of material events, one cannot explain
scientifically the individual case. A fire, an avalanche, the growth of
a given plant, and the death of some animal are unique events not
in respect to type but in so far as each of them is distinguished from
all others of the same type. This applies equally to the complex
states of the individual consciousness or the acts by which a human
being expresses his own personality. It is an aspect of history, or
perhaps history itself, if one understands by it the description of
unique beings and facts, which begins precisely where the science of
social facts ends.
Blonde1 makes his conception more explicit when he enumerates
several of the studies which represent the differential psychology
that he has in mind: pedagogy, vocational guidance, "ethology,"
and mental pathology. But, in each of these it is, of course, evident
that individual circumstances occupy the foreground. I t is neces-
sary, in considering the individual, to determine his intellectual or
occupational aptitudes, his moral dispositions, and his mental condi-
tion. And there are also as many problems of method, which imply
preliminary distinctions or classifications. We are concerned with
the individual case only a t the moment of application, and none of
these disciplines will be regarded as a (pure) science if they restrict
themselves to the accumulation of individual observations.
818 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

One can go even farther and ask himself if these are really sciences
in the measure that they restrict themselves to assembling hetero-
geneous data borrowed from the different sciences. We hardly know,
in truth, of any really scientific laws which do not bring into rapport
homogeneous terms, and we do not believe that the studies here cited
advance beyond the stage of description.
In conclusion, there is a collective psychology and a psycho-
sociology. But perhaps both of these sciences are, as yet, too little
developed to enable us to set up problems that involve their col-
laboration-problems that are more complex and perhaps insoluble.

Now it is necessary to ask ourselves what is the place of collective

psychology in the field of sociology. It might seem that, when we
study collective psychology in the same manner as the traditional
classical individual psychology, sociologists are content to perfect
the psychology of the individual, to expose all that he borrows from
the social life without focusing on the social mind itself.
This would not, however, be exactly true. The collective thought
is not a metaphysical entity which must be sought in a world apart,
in a world equally metaphysical. It exists and is realized only in indi-
vidual consciousness. I t is, in short, only a certain order of arrange-
ments or relationships between individual minds; it is the states of
consciousness of a greater or lesser number of individuals comprising
the group. For this reason it ca'nnot be understood a t all if it is con-
fined within the individual mind; and it is necessary, in order to
reach it and study it, to seek it in the manifestations and expressions
of the entire group taken as a whole.
In other words, it is necessary always to consider the diverse
mental functions, such as are carried on by this or that person, as
fragmentary aspects of a function which they share with all the other
members of the group, in view of which one can say that they think,
feel, or act in common, in adopting a mental attitude which belongs
to the group.
We would thus be led to distinguish, in collective psychology, two
parts. The one, general, is the study of the characteristics and modes
of functioning of group thought, such as are found in any given
society within which these forms of collective consciousness appear
and in which are developed representations and tendencies which
 INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 819

differ in content according to the group and are therefore peculiar to

the group. After this general study there should follow the particular
collective psychologies-for example, that of the religious group,
that of the family, the nation, the social class, the diverse economic
groups, etc.-which will study their specific nature and the peculiar
content of the memories and traditions, the concepts, the thoughts,
the sentiments, and the perceptions which characterize them.
But does not such a study occupy the same field as the sociology of
groups? Does one find in the course of their existence and in their
social activity anything other than the play of collective tendencies
and representations; and are there, henceforth, grounds for dis-
tinguishing between sociology as such and collective psychology?
Since society comprises a collection of human beings who think,
feel, and act in common, sociology deals, accordingly, first and fore-
most with ideas, beliefs, sentiments, and tendencies-that is to say,
with psychological materials. But society itself embraces, perhaps,
something beyond this.
In the first place, in order to achieve social solidarity and a cor-
respondence between thoughts, sentiments, and acts, it must accept
certain conditions which appear in the form of mechanisms, of
mechanical devices. These are what we call "techniques." They are
most apparent in the realm of economic life: techniques of produc-
tion, mechanization, commerce, and the circulation of money. But
there are also religious techniques, and juridical, scientific, and
artistic techniques, etc.; there is, especially, the general technique of
language. Without doubt these techniques imply memory, reason-
ing, and concepts that are common to the groups that employ them.
It was necessary to invent them; and they must be preserved, re-
newed, and developed. Once fixed, however, they function almost
automatically. The organism and the materials are brought togeth-
er; the manipulations and movements of the former become, in the
utilization of the technique, more physical than conscious. They are
only the applications of natural laws-laws which are not those of
social life but are imposed upon society from without.
To that extent one can ask whether they really constitute an
essential part of the life of the social group, or whether they are not
always there as a foreign element. It has been asserted that all evolu-
tion-social, economic, juridical, and religious-is explained by the
820 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

evolution of industrial technology. But the important thing from

the point of view of collective psychology is that these are not so
much instruments, materials, machines, and operations as they are
ideas, or, rather, the collective representations that are made of
them. The study of the technique in itself, in its scientific nature, is
outside the field of collective psychology, sociology, and even of
economic sociology.
We would not maintain that science is not a product of group
thought, but it is necessary to distinguish here between science and
its content or material applications. Thus, techniques can be the
object of social reflections, while at the same time the invention of
the technique, as of science and its applications, results from collec-
tive thought. But science itself, in its material nature, does not con-
stitute a part of society.
Furthermore, one can distinguish two aspects in all institutions:
collective acts and representations. An institution such as the royal-
ty, for example, consists first in obedience to the king, in the recogni-
tion of his power and his prestige, in sentiments of atiection and
respect. These are psychological elements. On the other hand, there
are the crown, the throne, the scepter, the royal palace, the robes,
the uniforms which distinguish the dignitaries and the royal officers,
according to their ranks; there are the written documents which
legitimize the royal power, ancient manuscripts, charters, decrees,
and ceremonies, sessions of parliament, and court pageants, with all
detail strictly according to rules of etiquettqand tradition. In short,
there is the exterior form of the institution, made up of physical ele-
ments which we may call "morphology."
Shall we, therefore, conclude that the sociological study of institu-
tions extends beyond the outlines of collective psychology, since it
includes the characters and forms of laws, customs, governments, and
social organizations, characters and forms which are not at all
psychological, which are not reproduced as states of consciousness
but exist, visible and tangible, in space? I t was this aspect of social
realities to which Durkheim referred when he recommended treating
social facts as things. In that way, indeed, the modes of existence of
societies assume a place among the mass of material objects with
which they seem in part to be identified.
 INDIVIDUAL AND COLLECTIVE CONSCIOUSNESS 821

Let us admit that institutions are, first and foremost, forms-

stable and stabilized ways of life. Nevertheless, if we go back to the
origins of these structures, we find mental states, representations,
ideas, and tendencies, which, in becoming stabilized, became in some
way crystallized. To be sure, there are many degrees and differences
in this respect between the newborn institution and the old institu-
tion which is inflexible and ossified. In the latter case it has somehow
lost a part of its mental content. Nevertheless, one cannot under-
stand its existence and character unless one recalls and recaptures
the collective thought that gave it birth, which is now diminished
and reduced and perhaps all but absorbed, but capable of being
revived if, by a succession of circumstances, the institution can gain
a new start and assume a new form. Furthermore, the important
factor is again the idea that society has of an institition, of its
exterior aspects, and of the gestures and reactions that it can control.
Finally, there exists a morphology of the population which seems,
at first sight, not to belong to the field of collective psychology but
which is, nevertheless, a part of sociology. The physical distribution
and mass of a group, the number of inhabitants in a city and their
concentration, migratory movements, the incidence of births and
deaths-are they not all physical and organic facts? Shall we not
consider human groups and units in their purely material aspect, in
their relation to the soil and to geographical distribution and in their
habits of life, which are subject to the laws of birth and of death? We
would feel, however, that this is only a superficial view. Populations
are not inert masses which obey physical laws as passively as grains
of sand, or even as herds of animals. All these phenomena occur as
though they became conscious of their distribution, of their mass and
their form, of their movements, of their growth and declines, etc. I t
is, rather, the states of collective consciousness, morphological or
demographical, which the statistician tries to reconstruct on the
basis of his numerical data.
Thus, neither the techniques nor the morphological facts of popu-
lation can be studied and explained without seeking, within and
behind them, psychological facts, which are facts of collective
psychology. These latter intrude, accordingly, into the entire do-
main of sociology.
822 T H E AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

In conclusion, we must bear in mind that the characteristic trait

of collective representations and tendencies is to express and mani-
fest themselves in material forms, often of symbolic or emblematic
nature. All phenomena occur as though the thought of the group
could not be born, survive, and become aware of itself without re-
lying on certain visible forms in space. That is why it is necessary to
study the material manifestations and expressions, to analyze them
in all their peculiarities, to relate them to one another, and to follow
them in their combinations. This necessity, which is imposed on
sociology, can be compared to that which obliges physiological
psychology to study the motor reactions and the functioning of the
nervous system and of the brain. I t turns its attention toward the
individual organism. As for sociology, it extends its observation to
the visible traits of entire groups.
There we have the difference between individual psychology and
sociology. But there we have also the circumstance that makes pos-
sible and desirable a union and mutual aid in their several researches.
For conscious life seems to imply two sorts of conditions: it is bound
to an organism; but it is also in rapport with a social milieu, its
institutions, techniques, and population. Toward organic condi-
tions and toward social conditions it turns, one might say, its two
faces, which are exactly complementary. That which reflects the
organic life depends on individual psychology; and that is well, for
it is an essential characteristic of organisms that they be isolated,
separated one from the other. That is to say, they present them-
selves as individuals. As for the aspect of the mental life which is
related to society and to its institutions and customs, it can be only
collective, for it is in union with the collective realities which pervade
it, which it finds reflected in its own nature.
What we have definitely wished to describe, and what must be
clearly understood, is the way in which the collective mind, revolving
about men in association, about groups and their complex organiza-
tion, gives the human consciousness access to all that has been
achieved in the way of thought and feeling, attitudes and mental
dispositions, in the diverse social groups in which it has its being.