Imitation. 183 



adventurous life, if one may so put it. They seem to lack 

 initiative. From which one may infer that imitation 

 affords to some extent a means of levelling up the less 

 intelligent to the standard of the more intelligent ; and 

 of supplying a stimulus to the development of habits which 

 would otherwise be lacking. 



Under normal conditions, however, the conservative 

 tendency of imitation, bringing the newly born members 

 of the animal community into line with the average 

 behaviour of the species is probably its most important 

 office. Mr. W. H. Hudson, in his " Naturalist in La 

 Plata," speaks of fear in birds as being "the result of 

 experience and tradition." * And I have, in another 

 work,f adopted this term. " I am inclined to regard 

 imitation and tradition," I there said, " especially in 

 animals which live in flocks, packs, or herds, as of very 

 great importance. By tradition I mean this : that the 

 animal is born into a group of animals which perform a 

 number of activities in certain ways, and that through the 

 imitative tendency it falls into these ways, which are thus 

 handed on or carried down through tradition." We should 

 distinguish this process by which habits are handed on 

 from generation to generation, as clearly and sharply as 

 possible from transmission through heredity. Hence I 

 regard Prof. Mark Baldwin's subsequently proposed term 

 " social heredity " t as unfortunate. It is, as Prof. Bitchie 

 has well pointed out in discussing human civilization, 

 just because the effects produced are independent of 

 heredity, that they demand special attention. Since, 

 therefore, Prof. Baldwin can advance no claim to priority 

 in drawing attention to the facts either for men or animals, 



* Page 93. 



t " Introduction to Comparative Psychology," pp. 170, 210. 



% " Mental Development in the Child and the Race," chap. xii. 



