IMITATION AND VOLITION. 



THE LATE C. L. HERRICK.i 



Imitation acquires heightened significance for the dynamogene- 

 tic psychology, since it has been id'entified as the source of the will. 

 Professor Baldwin has most ingeniously and elaborately brought 

 out this connection in his work, "Mental Development," and 

 elsewhere. "The child's first exhibition of volition is found in 

 its repeated effort to imitate something." It is, therefore, most 

 interesting to seek the origin of the imitative impulse— this avant- 

 courier of the dominant attribute of mind. But before entering 

 upon this search we may be pardoned for giving a side glance at 

 Professor Baldw^in's distinction between " deliberative suggestion" 

 and will. Professor Baldwin's waves aside the contradiction im- 

 plied betw^een the two terms thus yoked together by admitting that 

 the deliberation is in appearance only. Deliberative suggestion 

 is a ' 'state of mind in which coordinate sense stimuli meet, confront, 

 oppose, further one another." "The competition of processes is 

 probably in large measure subcortical." The child at this period 

 of its development, although "motor stimulations have multiplied 

 and emotional life is budding forth in a variety of promising traits 

 and the material of conscious character is present, nevertheless 

 "lacks self-consciousness, self-decision, self in any form." Much 

 here evidently depends on one's notion of the constituents and 

 origin of self. 



The illustration given is that of a child who, having acquired the 

 habit of scratching a face whenever brought within reach, is not 

 deterred from doing so, at least at first, by fear of punishment, but 

 seems to deliberate and then, being overcome by the impulse, 

 scratches and immediately bursts out crying in expectation of the 

 punishment. It is assumed in this case that the impulse has 

 acquired the value of a habit after having arisen as a spontaneous 



'See the footnote to the title of tlie preceding article. 



