vi THE PLAY OF ANIMALS. 



intelligence and preparing the way for it, by rendering 

 a great number of specialized instincts unnecessary. It 

 is interesting to the present writer to contrast this view 

 with that which he has himself recently developed * — 

 i. e., the view that imitation supplements inadequate 

 congenital variations in the direction of an instinct, and 

 so, by keeping the creature alive, sets the trend of fur- 

 ther variations in the same direction until the instinct is 

 fully organized and congenital. If both of these views be 

 true, as there seems reason to believe, then imitation 

 holds a remarkable position in relation to intelligence 

 and instinct. It stands midway between them and aids 

 them both. In some functions it keeps the perform- 

 ance going, and so allows of its perfection as an in- 

 stinct; in others it puts a stress on intelligence, and so 

 allows the instinct to fall away, if it have no independent 

 utility in addition to that served by the intelligence, f 

 In other words, it is through imitation that instincts both 

 arise and decay; that is, some instincts are furthered, 

 and some suppressed, by imitation. And all this is ac- 

 complished with no appeal to the inheritance of ac- 

 quired characters, Professor Groos agreeing with Weis- 

 mann that the operation of natural selection as gen- 

 erally recognised is probably sufficient (see his preface). 

 For myself I find most helpful the theory of Organic 

 Selection referred to by Professor Groos on pages 64 and 



* See Science, March 20, 1896. 



f In a private communication Professor Groos suggests to me 

 that the two views may well be held to supplement each other. 

 The case is very much the same with early intelligence, in the 

 form of Association of Ideas: where it fully accomplishes the 

 utility also subserved by an instinct, it tends to supersede the 

 instinct; otherwise it tends to the development of the instinct 

 (Groos, this edition, p. 71, and Baldwin, Science, April 10, 1896). 



