STIMULI TO IMITATION 125 



of those with whom we live ; we may indeed 

 begin to stammer if we associate with a stam- 

 merer, and are half-impelled to expectorate if 

 we travel in America. Advertisements move 

 us by their insistency. Personal influence receives 

 the homage of imitation, especially from those who 

 are not naturally self-assertive : one who is 

 hypnotized abandons himself entirely to the 

 suggestions of the hypnotist. Our imitative 

 impulse is strengthened by the social instincts 

 of veneration or sympathy. Children copy their 

 parents, scholars their teachers, servants their 

 masters : a hat, a necktie that is favoured by 

 royalty even a limp with which a royal person 

 may be afflicted is copied by loyal subjects. 

 The inventions, or novelties, the imitation of 

 which has gradually advanced civilization, have 

 owed their adoption rather to the influence of 

 authority than to their intrinsic merit. Religions 

 have spread very largely through the conversion 

 of princes; and the conquests of the past owe their 

 enduring interest to the impulse that has been 

 given by the authority, or prestige, of the con- 

 queror to the assimilation of a language, an idea, 

 or a custom. Sympathy, on the other hand, 

 urges us to imitate our own kind. If one dog 

 barks, or a jackal howls, the dogs and jackals 

 of the vicinity start barking or howling. Sym- 

 pathy breeds the respect for the crowd which 

 impels us to act according to the opinions of the 

 majority to imitate behaviour which we see 

 practised around us. A boy translated to a 

 school, a recruit incorporated in a regiment, imi- 

 tates a multitude of fashions, some of which may 

 be ludicrous, and none would have attracted him 

 in the environment of his home. 



But habit also may be reinforced by feelings 

 of reverence or sympathy. Inventors may search 



