192 HEREDITY AND SELECTION IN SOCIOLOGY 



prescribed, not merely because another has accomplished it 

 before him, but because the act in question possesses social sanc- 

 tions. We shall see that, if any code of laws or traditions is to 

 be effective, it is essential that the justice of these laws should 

 be recognised by those subjected to them. The socialised indi- 

 vidual is a conscious being ; his conscience is a social creation, 

 and it must necessarily play an important role in his social life. 

 Thus, the obedience to traditional formulse, to laws and customs, 

 in a society possessing adequate integration, and in which such 

 obedience is not merely verbal, presupposes an act of conscious- 

 ness, of individual judgment. The reproduction of an act com- 

 manded by society is, therefore, not the automatic repetition of 

 that act ; for automatic repetition excludes consciousness. Imita- 

 tion, on the other hand, is the automatic reproduction of an act 

 without any intervention of individual judgment between the 

 representation of the act to be reproduced and its reproduction. 

 It is the repetition of an act without motivation, for the mere 

 sake of repeating. 



It is also obvious that the word " imitation " cannot be applied 

 to those cases of social contagion which are included under the 

 rubric of the psychology of crowds. A crowd of persons is 

 assembled either for a definite purpose, or for no particular pur- 

 pose at all ; and, under the influence of what we may term social 

 contagion, it is induced to commit an act or acts which were 

 entirely unforeseen by any individual member of the crowd. 

 For instance, the crowd assembled in October, 1906, at the 

 Longchamps Racecourse, near Paris, under the impression that 

 a race had been " faked " and the betters cheated, sacked and 

 burned the betting-sheds. A sort of electric shock pervades the 

 crowd at such a moment. Not one of the visitors to the Long- 

 champs Racecourse had the slightest intention before he went 

 there of sacking or burning anything ; but the race was badly 

 managed, the nervous excitement of some who had risked their 

 money on it communicated itself to others, and as the nervous 



