--- title: Human Nature in Politics url: https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/ description: Human Nature in Politics by Graham Wallas (1908), full text with provenance and rights. section: FRAME --- ![Illustration: a pre-1914 imperial intelligence-dossier collage of colonial telegraph logs, sepia field photography and empire maps.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/detail/hero-pre1914.jpg) [Library](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/) · Book # Human Nature in Politics At a glance Wallas's 1908 argument that politics should be studied through human instinct and non-rational inference, which Lippmann read closely. - **Author:** Graham Wallas - **Published:** 1908 - **Origin:** United Kingdom - **Length:** 71,394 words, 13 chapters Full details - **Edition:** Human Nature in Politics, third edition (1920; first published London: Archibald Constable, 1908; Project Gutenberg's proofread transcription) - **Language:** English - **Text source:** [Project Gutenberg, ebook #11634](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11634) - **Text basis:** Proofread transcription by Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders (Europe). The three prefaces (1908, 1910 and 1920) are the author's. - **Rights:** First published in Britain in 1908 and this text printed no later than 1920, so in the public domain in the United States (published before 1931); Project Gutenberg marks the ebook public domain in the USA. Wallas died in 1932, so the British term ended in 2003. - **Rights checked:** October 2, 2026 On this page - [Read the text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/#read) - [Provenance and rights](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/#provenance) - [Where it appears in the archive](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/#cited) - [Related](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/#related) Graham Wallas's 1908 book on the part played by impulse, habit and non-rational inference in political life, which Walter Lippmann's *A Preface to Politics* (also in the Library) discusses. The archive's page on Bernays names Wallas among the crowd and group psychologists whose work *Propaganda* draws on. It is the third edition, with the prefaces of 1908, 1910 and 1920. ## Read the text - [Preface](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/01-preface/) 297 words - [Preface to the Second Edition](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/02-preface-to-the-second-edition/) 127 words - [Preface to the Third Edition (1920)](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/03-preface-to-the-third-edition-1920/) 1,397 words - [Introduction](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/04-introduction/) 4,181 words - Part I: The Conditions of the Problem - [Part I, Chapter 1: Impulse and Instinct in Politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/05-part-i-chapter-1-impulse-and-instinct-in-politic/) 9,163 words - [Part I, Chapter 2: Political Entities](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/06-part-i-chapter-2-political-entities/) 9,407 words - [Part I, Chapter 3: Non-rational Inference in Politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/07-part-i-chapter-3-non-rational-inference-in-polit/) 3,687 words - [Part I, Chapter 4: The Material of Political Reasoning](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/08-part-i-chapter-4-the-material-of-political-reaso/) 5,646 words - [Part I, Chapter 5: The Method of Political Reasoning](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/09-part-i-chapter-5-the-method-of-political-reasoni/) 6,581 words - Part II: Possibilities of Progress - [Part II, Chapter 1: Political Morality](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/10-part-ii-chapter-1-political-morality/) 7,667 words - [Part II, Chapter 2: Representative Government](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/11-part-ii-chapter-2-representative-government/) 10,028 words - [Part II, Chapter 3: Official Thought](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/12-part-ii-chapter-3-official-thought/) 6,613 words - [Part II, Chapter 4: Nationality and Humanity](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/13-part-ii-chapter-4-nationality-and-humanity/) 6,600 words [Download as plain text](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908/wallas-human-nature-in-politics-1908.txt) 71,394 words, with the provenance header above the text ## Provenance and rights - **Edition:** Human Nature in Politics, third edition (1920; first published London: Archibald Constable, 1908; Project Gutenberg's proofread transcription) - **Text source:** [Project Gutenberg, ebook #11634](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11634) - **Text basis:** Proofread transcription by Project Gutenberg's Distributed Proofreaders (Europe). The three prefaces (1908, 1910 and 1920) are the author's. - **Rights:** First published in Britain in 1908 and this text printed no later than 1920, so in the public domain in the United States (published before 1931); Project Gutenberg marks the ebook public domain in the USA. Wallas died in 1932, so the British term ended in 2003. Checked October 2, 2026. - **Changes made:** Line wraps rejoined and headings set in title case; the Project Gutenberg licence header and footer removed. Wording, spelling and punctuation are the source's own. The contents list, the author's synopsis of contents and the index are left out, and the transcriber's description of a diagram is not reproduced. The author's footnotes stay where the Gutenberg text puts them, after the paragraph that cites them. - **Source file checksum:** `b045fb5e07afebb0…` (SHA-256 of the download this text was made from) ## Where it appears in the archive - [Edward Bernays, Propaganda (1928)](https://propagandaarchive.org/about/bernays-propaganda/) ## Related - [A Preface to Politics](https://propagandaarchive.org/library/lippmann-preface-to-politics-1914/)