INSTINCT. 409 



operator makes before their ej-es.* A successful j^iece of 

 mimicr}^ gives to both bystanders and mimic a peculiar 

 kind of aesthetic pleasure. The dramatic impulse, the ten- 

 dency to pretend one is someone else, contains this pleasure 

 of mimicry as one of its elements. Another element seems 

 to be a peculiar sense of power in stretching one's own 

 personality so as to include that of a strange person. In 

 young children this instinct often knows no bounds. For 

 a few months in one of my children's third year, he liter- 

 ally hardly ever appeared in his own person. It was 

 always, " Play I am So-and-so, and you are So-and-so, and 

 the chair is such a thing, and then we'll do this or that." 

 If you called him by his name, H., you invariably got the 

 reply, " I'm not H., I'm a hyena, or a horse-car," or what- 

 ever the feigned object might be. He outwore this impulse 

 after a time ; but while it lasted, it had every appearance 

 of being the automatic result of ideas, often suggested by 

 perceptions, working out irresistible motor efiects. Imita- 

 tion shades into 



Emulation or Bivcdry, a very intense instinct, especially 

 rife with young children, or at least especially undisguised. 

 Everyone knows it. Nine-tenths of the work of the world 

 is done by it. We know that if we do not do the task some- 

 one else will do it and get the credit, so we do it. It has 

 ver}^ little connection with sympathy, but rather more with 

 pugnacity, which we proceed in turn to consider. 



Pugnacity ; anger ; resentment. In many respects man 

 is the most ruthlessly ferocious of beasts. As with all 

 gregarious animals, ' two souls,' as Faust says, * dwell with- 

 in his breast,' the one of sociability and helpfulness, the 

 other of jealousy and antagonism to his mates. Though in 

 a general way he cannot live without them, yet, as regards 

 certain individuals, it often falls out that he cannot live 

 with them either. Constrained to be a member of a tribe, 

 he still has a right to decide, as far as in him lies, of which 

 other members the tribe shall consist. Killing off a few 



* See, for some excellent pedagogic remarks about doing yourself what 

 you want to get your pupils to do, and not simply telling them to do il, 

 Baumann, Haudbuch der Moral (1879), p. 33 II. 



