On the Different Forms of Acquiring Knowledge. 159 



and primarily in arousing attention and thereby in- 

 ducing the other to follow, or to take part in a given 

 enterprise. 



The importance of the instinct of imitation in the 

 psychic life of animals is universally recognized. A 

 dog is seldom heard to bark alone : his canine acquaint- 

 ances in the neighborhood cheerfully chime in at the 

 first sound of his voice. Through its instinct of imita- 

 tion a young pointer or setter can learn many a trick 

 from an older expert, which it would have found out 

 only after a long time, or perhaps not at all, through its 

 own sensitive experience. And as we have previously 

 observed in discussing the first form of independent 

 learning, this instinct of imitation greatly facilitates the 

 practice of their innate reflex mechanisms in the off- 

 spring of higher animals that live in families or flocks. 

 The so-called lessons which birds and carnivorous ani- 

 mals give their offspring are psychologically explained 

 by the pleasure which the parent animals feel in playing 

 with their young. Thus they instinctively show them 

 how to do this or that trick. This performance is in- 

 stinctively imitated, and the young are said to "learn. 3 ' 

 Kittens learn to catch mice by playing in company with 

 the cat with a living mouse which the latter brought 

 along and uses as the object of their common "game at 

 hunting." The fact that under the influence of ex- 

 ample the young make many sensile experiences sooner 

 than without that influence, makes it plain that the 

 fourth form of learning is supplementary to, and sup- 

 ports the second. 



The impulse to imitate is so strongly developed in 

 apes that it has become proverbial. But the very word 



