194 SOCIAL EVOLUTION 



modified by passing from one race to another. Myths 

 are changed in this way.'^'' 



For a time the course of imitation is between the past 

 and the present. Then the current changes, and the 

 course of imitation is between contemporaries. For 

 what Tarde calls ''custom imitation" is substituted 

 ''fashion imitation. " ^^ "To down-transmission or 

 social heredity succeeds cross-imitation or conventional- 

 ityt, In the latter period the old is distrusted and the 

 new has the presumption in its favor. In the former 

 period the recent is weak, the presumption is with the 

 ancient, and the maxim of statesmanship is, Let things 

 alone." '^'^ Custom and fashion imitation are in opera- 

 tion simultaneously, only in different parts of the social 

 system. Usually, however, custom imitation is the more 

 prevalent and the more powerful of the two forms. For, 

 "Imitation . . . that is engaged in the currents of 

 fashion is but a very feeble stream compared with the 

 great torrent of custom."^- Thus, for men to change 

 slightly the fashion of their trousers by wearing a cuff 

 on the end of each pantaloon leg, invokes comparatively 

 little discussion, but an attempt to revert to the colonial 

 habit of short knee breeches and silk stockings, would 

 rouse no end of objection and criticism. The one is 

 merely a change in fashion imitation, the other would be 

 an interruption of custom imitation. 



Imitation modifies a people's civilization in two differ- 

 ent ways; by substitution or accumulation.^^ "The new 

 culture element spreads by imitation among the people 

 and either conflicts with, drives out, and supplants some 



39 Ihid., p. 22. 42 Tarde, op. cit., p. 244. 



40 Ihid., ch. vii. 43 McDougall, op. cit., p. 336. 



41 Ross, op. cit., p. 187. 



