We may begin with desires for the necessaries of life: food, drink,
sex, and (in cold climates) clothing and housing. When these are
threatened, there is no limit to the activity and violence that men
will display.
Planted upon these primitive desires are a number of secondary
desires. Love of property, of which the fundamental political
importance is obvious, may be derived historically and psychologically
from the hoarding instinct. Love of the good opinion of others (which
we may call vanity) is a desire which man shares with many animals; it
is perhaps derivable from courtship, but has great survival value,
among gregarious animals, in regard to others besides possible mates.
Rivalry and love of power are perhaps developments of jealousy; they
are akin, but not identical.
These four passions--acquisitiveness, vanity, rivalry, and love of
power--are, after the basic instincts, the prime movers of almost all
that happens in politics. Their operation is intensified and
regularized by herd instinct. But herd instinct, by its very nature,
cannot be a prime mover, since it merely causes the herd to act in
unison, without determining what the united action is to be. Among
men, as among other gregarious animals, the united action, in any
given circumstances, is determined partly by the common passions of
the herd, partly by imitation of leaders. The art of politics consists
in causing the latter to prevail over the former.
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