Laws and Hypotheses for Behavior 253 



of two habits, one of getting, from the perceived act of an- 

 other, a certain inner condition, the other of getting, from 

 this inner condition, the act in question. There may be, 

 that is, cases where the perceived act of another in and of 

 itself creates a connection. 



It is apparently taken for granted by a majority of writ- 

 ers on human behavior that cases of such direct mental in- 

 fection, as it were, not only exist, but are the rule. I am 

 unable to find proof of such cases, however. Those com- 

 monly quoted are far from clear. Learning to talk in the 

 human infant, for example, the stock case of imitation as a 

 direct means of learning, offers only very weak and du- 

 bious evidence. Since what is true of it holds substan- 

 tially for the other favored cases for learning by imitation, I 

 shall examine it at some length. 



Let us first be clear as to the alternative explanations of 

 linguistic imitation. The first is that seeing the movements 

 of another's mouth-parts or hearing a series of word-sounds 

 in and of itself produces the response of making that series 

 of sounds or one like it. 



The other is that the laws of instinct and habit are ade- 

 quate to explain the fact in the following manner : A 

 child instinctively produces a great variety of sounds and 

 sound-series. Some of these, accepted as equal to words by 

 the child's companions, are rewarded, so that the child 

 learns by the law of effect to use them in certain situations to 

 attain certain results. It is possible also that a child in- 

 stinctively feels a special satisfaction at babbling when 

 spoken to and a special satisfaction at finding the sound he 

 makes like one that rings in the ears of memory and has 

 meaning. The latter would be like the instinctive satisfac- 

 tion apparently felt in constructing an object which is like 

 some real object whose appearance and meaning he knows. 



