1 68 Habit and Instinct. 



is similar to that which affords the stimulus, such respon- 

 sive behaviour may be described as imitative. A chick 

 sounds the danger note ; this is the stimulus under which 

 another chick sounds a similar note, and we say that the 

 one imitates the other. Such an action may be described 

 as imitative in its effects, but not imitative in its purpose. 

 It is objectively, but not subjectively imitative. Only from 

 the observer's standpoint does such instinctive behaviour 

 differ from other modes of instinctive procedure. It is for 

 him that the instinctive response falls under the head of 

 imitation. We seem justified in asserting that, from the 

 biological point of view, any stimulus or group, of stimuli, 

 may give rise to a congenital response of any kind. In 

 the case of an imitative action, the stimulus is afforded by 

 the performance by another * of an action similar in 

 character to that which constitutes the response. From 

 the observer's point of view, this is noteworthy, and, from 

 the point of view of biological interpretation, important. 

 But from the performer's point of view, if one may so say, 

 it is in line with all other cases of instinctive activity. 

 A stimulus, visual, auditory, or other, is followed auto- 

 matically by a co-ordinated response, and there is no 

 similarity between either the stimulus or the states of 

 consciousness accompanying it, on the one hand, and the 

 response, or its conscious concomitants, on the other 

 hand.f Such, it would seem, is the nature of instinctive 



* This seems to be part of the accepted implications of the word 

 " imitation." Prof. Mark Baldwin uses the term with an extended signifi- 

 cation, so as to include, under the head of imitation, repetition of an action 

 by the same individual. From the observer's point of view, it is, of course, 

 open to us to call the repeated act one that is imitative of the previous act of 

 which it is a repetition ; but if we do so we must abandon the accepted 

 usage, according to which " imitation " is applied to the repetition by one 

 individual of the behaviour of another individual. There appears to be no 

 sufficient reason for such a complete change of accepted usage. 



t Prof. Mark Baldwin has suggested that imitation should be defined as 

 a response which tends to reproduce its own stimulus — a " circular activity," 



