pendent on activities which it finds already in force when it becomes operative, then we must say that all that imitation does is to intensify the action of impulses to which alone, in the last analysis, our knowledge of the external world is due.

Interaction of Impulses.-Nor has imitation a monopoly of this kind of influence. Is it necessary to say that what begins as a blind impulse to handle things may be continued through the desire to know? Or that the boy whose combined constructive and intellectual impulses are not strong enough to induce him to experiment on things may be induced to do it through emulation? Or that the child whose constructive, intellectual, and emulative impulses together are not strong enough to incite him to do a bit of experimental work may do it through the desire to please parent and teacher? Or that the desire to do right may tip the scale when all other influences have failed?

Now this interlacing and interacting of impulses may be regarded as the normal mode of human development. Instead of saying that imitation is the method of the child's personal progress, we should say that the child develops under the combined influences of all the impulses of his nature. No one, for example, ever became a good writer or a good talker through mere imitation.

Of course the impulse that leads to both talking and writing is the social. But this alone, supported only by imitation unaided by the desire to excel, by the wish to please, by the ambition to play one's part in life rightly and honorably would inevitably fail to stimulate the exertion necessary to the achievement of success.

Another Interpretation of Professor Baldwin. It may be said that I have failed to grasp Professor Baldwin's meaning. He would grant, it may be contended, that the actions which result in growth are the result of the interaction of the various impulses of the child. His position, it may be said, is that, however various and complex the motives that issue in action, the thing done depends on imitation, provided the doing of it contributes to develop

ment.

If this is his doctrine, he is not exposed to the criticisms so far made in this chapter. In any event, it has seemed worth while to make them, because that interpretation of his teaching affords an excellent opportunity for stating the true relation between imitation and the other impulses of the mind. But according to the interpretation just suggested his theory is that, although all our impulses express themselves in action, the particular things done depend on imitation. Child and man alike, in their amusements as well as in their more serious occupations, find in the various impulses of their nature the sources of all their actions. With no models for imitation, children. nevertheless would play, and men would seek to obtain food and protect themselves against danger. The model only causes the imitating propensity to furnish a new vent for the other impulses. Without imitation, the actions of a human being would be due entirely to himself. The imitative propensity enables a man to combine with his fellows and learn from them. It causes children to play games which they otherwise would not, and men to seek to provide themselves with food and protect themselves against danger by methods which they would not else employ. It enables us, in a word, to gratify our impulses

by the improved methods due to the experience of the

race.

It must be conceded that this theory contains a large measure of truth. No one would say that children and young animals in general are addicted to play because of imitation. But imitation is undoubtedly the reason why in one school cricket, and in another football, is the favorite game.

Imitation and Intelligence.

But even in this sense it

is not true to say that imitation is the essential method of the child's growth, and that society grows by "imitative generalizations of the thoughts of others." Sometimes a child imitates a copy simply because it is before him, and sometimes because he sees that doing what another has done will enable him to reach a desired end in a simpler and better way. Looked at from the outside, both actions appear to have the same characteristics; each is an imitation of an action taken as a model. Viewed from the inside, the two actions are as far apart as the poles. The one is the result of a blind impulse to imitate; the other, of the open-eyed perception that the imitated action is a simpler and better means to a desired end. The men who imitated their fellows in carrying their corn to mill by putting on a horse a bag with a bushel of grain in one end of it, balanced by a stone of equal weight in the other, serve to illustrate one kind of imitation; the other kind is instanced by men who imitated the inventor who discovered that two bushels could be carried as easily as one by putting a second bushel in the place of the stone. To say that the latter action is due to imitation is to take no account of the essential factor in the case. With two

models before them, men imitated one and rejected the other. Why? Because of their intelligence; because they saw that one method of reaching their end was better than the other. If we are to describe the facts as they are, we must say that men influence their fellows in two ways: by performing actions which their fellows imitate simply because of their propensity to imitate, and by performing actions which are imitated not at all because of the imitative propensity, but because of the intelligence of those who imitate them.

But this statement of the case does not do justice to the influence of intelligence. The actions of the stupidest, most unintelligent men are rarely due to imitation alone. The man who balanced a bushel of grain in one end of a bag with a stone of equal weight in the other did not do so, as was stated above, through the influence of the imitative impulse. He wished to carry corn to the mill, and he saw that this was a better way than the only other one that occurred to him carrying it on his back. His action, it is evident, was due, not to his imitative propensity, but to his intelligence.

reason.

It is evident, therefore, that the inventor who thinks out a new way and the man who adopts the method already in vogue for attaining his end do so for the same The intelligence of the former enables him to see that he can accomplish his object in a new and better way; the intelligence of the latter only enables him to see that he can attain his end in the customary manner. It doubtless requires a greater amount of intelligence to invent a thing than it does to perceive its excellence. But it is not the degree but the kind of thing which is in question, and our contention is that it is utterly false to ascribe to

imitation an action which is really due to a lower degree of intelligence.

I submit, therefore, that Professor Baldwin is wrong when he says that society grows by imitative generalizations of the thoughts of others. Society grows by adopting the discoveries of others, and it adopts them because it sees them to be true. Urged by the desire to include the actions of living creatures under the most comprehensive induction, the Professor has ignored the fundamental distinction between actions which are imitated merely because of the disposition to imitate and those which are imitated through intelligence.

We shall not be mistaken, I think, if we suppose that he has made the same error when he says that the child's essential method of learning is by imitative absorption of the thoughts of other people. A boy may show his ability as a student of geometry in two ways: by the thoroughness with which he comprehends and appropriates the demonstrations of others, and by his originality in making demonstrations of his own. Each is due to the exercise of his intelligence. The only sort of geometrical study which could be properly called the imitative absorption of the thoughts of others is that which consists in the memorizing of the language of a demonstration when the demonstration is not understood. And it goes without saying that Professor Baldwin does not mean to say that a boy grows by that sort of absorption of the thoughts of geometry.

But if the Professor means the same thing by imitative absorption that I mean by the intellectual appropriation of the thoughts of others, why does it matter if we differ as to the terms to be employed in describing the fact? Because (1) there is that in the life of the child which is