654 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



presence catches the infection of yawning from him," ^ are reminders of the 

 imitative impulses constantly streaming through society. Imitation, whether 

 in its most effective form of unwitting imitation, ^ or as " imitation by 

 approval,"^ or, widening its definition for present convenience, as a com.pul- 

 sion by general consent or resolve on many individuals or as a submission 

 of many to the will of one, produces in the human group a homogeneity 

 exhibited as an extensive sjmipathetic response, in which the action of one 

 is constantly repeated throughout the members of the group. This repeti- 

 tion of habit or action, this system of sympathetic responses, impresses on 

 each individual an expectation of like conduct among all the members of his 

 group. The great uniformity or social homogeneity that is usually admitted 

 to characterise primitive communities would intensify this expectancy. 

 This preconception invites an application to the pervasive conviction of 

 sympathetic response in growing things to the phases of the moon. The 

 moon is in society, growing things are in society, men are in society ; the same 

 habit will run through them all. 



Since imitation tends to be specially definite when the group has a definite 

 leader,* and the prominence of the moon in the dark sky endowed her with 

 prestige, it would be natural to assume a special imitative or sympathetic 

 response to her. The assumption would be spontaneous or unwitting and 

 would include any object of special attention, corn, for example, or the locks 

 of Tiberius, in its scope. 



The prominence of the moon and her varying phases was, according to 

 the hypothesis propounded here, the originating centre of the doctrine of 

 lunar sympathy. A real increase or decrease in her size, through ignorance 

 of the role of reflection of light in her varying aspects, would impress itself 

 upon the primitive mind with all the force of a sensible intuition. A sense 

 of social community, clearly expressed in primitive myth and custom that 

 spontaneously accepted the moon as a member of society, applied a precon- 

 ception to this spontaneous estimate. The arrestiveness of the moon endowed 

 her with prestige, and a preconceived estimate of imitative or sympathetic 

 responses pervading society fixed on this prominent, mysterious, and con- 

 stantly changing object as a centre or initiator of such responses. This 

 fundamental notion can be detected in all the varying estimates of the 

 moon, whether she simply, by her own waxing, stimulates the hair of Tiberius 

 or whether she is more personalised in her promise of resurrection to men. 

 The doctrine of lunar sympathy, in short, in all its rich variety of detail, 

 depends firstly upon the sensible impressiveness of the moon, and secondly 

 upon primitive man's inveterate inclusion of all things within his social 

 group. 



A net thrown widely enough will catch some fish, and a belief in universal 

 lunar control will light on some truths. There is some degree of connection 

 throughout the universe, and astrology errs through misapplying this fact. 

 The moon does assist in the control of our tides, and Mr. Fox has discovered 

 some " Lunar Periodicity in Living Organisms." * A Suez sea-urchin ripens 

 reproductively as the moon waxes and recuperates as it wanes, some marine 

 worms " show a lunar reproductive periodicity," and human menstruation 

 appears to contain " a rhythmic causative factor having the period of the 

 revolution of the moon." These rhythms may be mediate and immediately 

 stimulated by some change more directly produced by the moon — the sea- 

 urchins might be. for example, tidally stimulated, though Fox thinks they 



2 



^ Plato, Charmides (Jowett's trans.), 169. 



^ Rivers, Instinct and the Unconscious, p. 92. 



3*" Reid, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Essay 3. 



* Rivers, loc. cit., p. 90. 



* Fox, loc. cit. 



