ANIMAL IXTELLIGENCE. 49 



or six, apparently sure evidence that they imitated the action, 

 each of the one in front. Now, it is again possible that among 

 gregarious animals there may be elaborate connections in the 

 nervous system which allow the sight of certain particular acts 

 in another animal to arouse the innervation leadinir to those 

 acts, but that these connections are limited. Tlie reactions on 

 this view are specific responses to definite signals, comparable 

 to any other instinctive or associational reaction. The sheep 

 jumps when he sees the other sheep jump, not because of a 

 general ability to do what he sees done, but because he is fur- 

 nished with the instinct to jump at such a sight, or because his 

 experience of following the flock over boulders and brooks and 

 walls has got him into the habit of jumping at the spot where 

 he sees one ahead of him jump ; and so he jumps even though 

 no obstacle be in his way. If due to instinct the only peculiar- 

 ity of such a reaction would be that the sense-impression calling 

 forth the act would be the same act as done by another. If due 

 to experience there would be an exact correspondence to the 

 frequent acts called forth originally b}^ several elements in a 

 sense-impression, one of which is essential, and done after- 

 wards when only the non-essentials are present. These two 

 possibilities have not been sufficiently realized, yet they may 

 contain the truth. On the other hand, these limited acts may be 

 the primitive, sporadic beginnings of the general imitative 

 faculty which we find in man. To this general faculty we may 

 now turn, having cleared away some of the more doubtful 

 phenomena which have shared its name. 



It should be kept in mind that an imitative act may be per- 

 formed quite unthinkingly, as when a man in the mob shouts 

 what the others shout or claps when the others clap : may be 

 done from an inference that since A by doing X makes pleasure 

 for himself, I by doing X may get pleasure for myself ; may, 

 lastly, be done from what may be called a transferred associa- 

 tion. This process is the one of interest in connection with our 

 general topic, and most of my experiments on imitation were 

 directed to the investigation of it. Its nature is simple. One 

 sees the following sequence : 'A turning a faucet, A getting a 

 drink.' If one can free this association from its narrow con- 



