70 The Recapitulation Theory and Human Infancy 



counting for so profound a disposition as the imitative tendency 

 in the human animal. 15 



In the course of the discussion of imitation the term has been 

 found too inclusive, and there is a noticeable tendency among 

 psychologists to distinguish between instinctive imitation or 

 suggestion and true imitation based upon " copies" existing in 

 terms of related "objects." Suggestion has now an important 

 literature of its own, and while much of it has made slight refer- 

 ence to biological history and any relation to infancy, enough has 

 been said in these connections to make of it a somewhat distinct 

 factor in the transmission of social modes. Suggestion is differ- 

 entiated from imitation in that its excitants are simpler, sensory 

 rather than perceptive and relational. It is therefore found 

 among gregarious animals before true imitation and is illustrated 

 in the pseudo-imitation of schools of fish, flocks of birds, sheep, 

 etc. But it has been retained in human evolution in great force 

 and must be accorded high if not supreme importance in the 

 transmission of social habit. Its primacy over true imitation 

 can scarcely be denied when one considers the comparatively 

 advanced nature of the latter, and its controlling power among 

 primitive and less cultivated men. 



Suggestion and imitation have been intimately associated 

 with play^ the biological value of which has been authoritatively 

 shownTy Karl Groos. With Groos "the very existence of 

 youth is due in part to the necessity of play; the animal does not 

 play because he is young, he has a period of youth because he 

 must play." 16 Whether or not one should quite agree to the 

 form of this statement, there can be no question of the most 

 intimate relationship of play to infancy. Infancy is the period 

 during which the young animal reaches the adult level of effi- 

 ciency upon which the species is maintained in its struggle for 



18 For the purposes of the present account imitation is referred as to a single or uni- 

 tary thing whereas the term of course denotes a highly intricate complex. In the mind 

 of the writer much confusion in the use of the term is due to an unjust distinction of it 

 from trial and error. Imitation is through and through a trial and error process, but 

 this trial and error is incited by, and in its higher forms in part guided by, the behavior 

 of others. The original or instinctive phase lies in the incitement to some response. This 

 response may be comparatively general to begin with but it becomes more definite by 

 trial and error with its resulting special habits. It is precisely in this combination of 

 instinctive incitement and capacity for adapted and suitable behavior that its biological 

 utility consists. For a specific instinctive response to the behavior of others would 

 prevent the adjustment that imitation obviously provides for. 



" Play of Animals, trans. 1898, preface, p. xx, and p. 75. 



