IMITATION REFLEXES AND INSTINCTS 401 



instinctive actions on the one hand, and, on the other, actions which 

 are often termed automatic, or intelligent, or rational, but which as 

 a class are best distinguished as actions the performance of which 

 depends on stored experience, on memory. So alike are our 

 acquired emotions and dexterities to their ' innate ' counterparts 

 that a being from another planet, who for the first time saw a man 

 walking, cycling, or reading, could not distinguish the nature of 

 these acquirements from such instinctive actions as the running, 

 flying, or building, of an insect. The patriotic emotion of a 

 Spartan or a Japanese differs from that of a bee or an ant merely 

 in its mode of origin. Were the religious fervour of a Salva- 

 tionist or a dervish, or the hatred of religion which characterises 

 the atheist, innate, it would be an instinct. But these emotions, 

 like many of our ' physical ' dexterities, are obvious acquirements. 

 This, then, is the main distinction between man and the low 

 animal ; the emotions and (apart from the reflexes) the dexterities 

 of the man are mainly HABITUAL or 'acquired ;' those of the low 

 animal are wholly or almost wholly instinctive or ' inborn' The 

 former develop under the stimulus of use ; the latter under that 

 of nutriment. 



663. A principal function of our faculty of making mental 

 acquirements, of our conscious and unconscious memories, is to 

 supply us with those automatic and stereotyped ways of thinking 

 and acting which are our substitutes for numerous reflexes and 

 instincts. Our conscious memories supply us in part with our 

 stereotyped mental attitudes desires, beliefs, aspirations, habitual 

 ways of thinking, and so forth. Our unconscious memories, not 

 only aid in building up our mental attitudes, but give us our stereo- 

 typed ways of acting those automatic ways of acting (e.g. walking, 

 reading, cycling, etc.), we have just considered. At the same time 

 our physical ' memories ' (our powers of making physical acquire- 

 ments) enable us to develop, in perfect co-adaptation with our 

 mental acquirements, our bodily parts, our brains, limbs, lungs, 

 heart, and the like. As we grow older our imitation reflexes and 

 instincts increase in number and importance ; they form a larger 

 and larger portion of our total reaction to the environment. They 

 equip us for the battle of life with a thousand faculties for acting 

 readily^ quickly, and easily. In the aggregate they are immensely 

 superior to real instincts and reflexes for they render the individual 

 adaptable ; they enable him to grow into fitness to the particular 

 environment in which he is reared ; and, even if he changes it, to 

 grow to fit the new one. Whether he be artist or sailor, beggar 

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