172 Habit and Instinct. 



child probably inherits a congenital power of articulation, 

 which may fairly be termed instinctive, since articulation 

 involves a relatively definite co-ordination which is absent 

 in the case of merely inarticulate sounds. His own 

 articulations afford auditory stimuli which, by association, 

 become linked with the effects in consciousness of those 

 motor processes by which they are produced. He obtains 

 certain results from his own activities, and hears also 

 the results of the activities of others. Thus the data are 

 afforded for copying these results, and the child gradually 

 learns to reproduce articulate sounds, and incidentally 

 and unconsciously to imitate certain motor activities. I 

 say " incidentally and unconsciously," because the action 

 of the vocal cords is hidden from his sight, and the learn- 

 ing to produce certain sounds cannot, in the normal child, 

 be in any important degree the result of imitating the lip- 

 movements of others. And it is instructive to note that 

 the acquired articulation of deaf mutes is mainly a matter 

 of imitation, and not of copying, since the sounds pro- 

 duced are inaudible to the producer, and thus afford no 

 data for copying. The normal child, in learning to 

 articulate like its companions, thus copies certain sounds, 

 and unconsciously imitates certain actions — though, from 

 the observer's point of view, the actions are, no doubt, 

 imitative. 



As has before been said, the distinction in the use of 

 the terms " imitation " and " copying " — often used inter- 

 changeably — could not, perhaps, be conveniently main- 

 tained. The distinction is here used as a temporary one 

 to emphasize the difference between reproducing an action 

 or movement, and reproducing a given result of such 

 activity. Sometimes the attention is chiefly fixed on the 

 one, sometimes on the other. Both are commonly called 

 imitation ; when, for example, we say that a child imitates 



