164 INTELLIGENT BEHAVIOUR 
The relatively helpless young of many of the higher 
mammalia exhibit also much overproduction of seemingly 
aimless movements. But from these intelligence selects those 
which are of value for the purposes of life—those which 
experience proves to be effective. ‘These—the relatively few— 
afford the motor impressions which by repetition stand out in 
experience, while the rest lapse from memory and are elimi- 
nated from experience as they are eliminated from practical 
performance. This is a great gain. Motor experience is 
rendered generic; the composite image that is retained is the 
net result of effective behaviour; and all that is valuable in 
the acquisitions of early life is condensed within manageable 
limits. 
This process of rendering generic the particular items of a 
widening experience has a marked effect in the development of 
the conscious situations in the light of which behaviour is 
intelligently guided. It is not the master holding this whip 
or that ball which suggests to the dog a hiding or a scamper ; 
it is a generic situation with interchangeable details. It is not 
this, that, or the other previously unseen cat that at once 
determines the situation for the fox terrier; the particular 
animal has never entered into his past experience: it is the 
fulfilment of the essential conditions of the generic image 
that is operative in behaviour. ‘The experience of animals 
must inevitably become in large degree generic by the 
elimination of the unessential and survival in re-presentative 
consciousness of the salient elements in many slightly diverse 
situations. 
Stated in terms of this conception, the familiar phenomena 
of mimicry are due to the fact that the mimicking form accords 
sufficiently well with the generic image to carry the same 
suggested meaning. As is well known, the model has been 
proved in many cases to be unpalatable or hurtful, while the 
mimic is in itself neither the one nor the other. The drone- 
fly, Hristalis, mimics the drone. And it has been urged that 
this cannot be a true case of mimicry, since the drone is harm- 
less, though the female and “ neuter” bees are possessed of stings. 
