CHAPTER V 
SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR 
I.—Imitatron 
THE characteristic feature of social behaviour is that it is in 
large degree determined by the behaviour of other members of 
the social community. In all animals which mate there is a 
temporary or more lasting influence on each other of the 
individuals which unite to procreate their kind ; and in those 
which foster their young there is a social relation of parents 
and offspring. Some of these mutual relationships will be 
discussed, in their emotional aspects, in the next chapter. 
Here we will consider the more general factors which serve to 
determine the course of social evolution. 
Among these is commonly reckoned imitation. M. Tarde 
says, “La socicté c’est limitation.” But this word, like so 
many others which are employed alike in popular speech and 
in more or less technical discussions, carries a somewhat wide 
range of meaning, and is by some writers used in a broader, by 
others in a narrower sense. Thus Professor Mark Baldwin * 
says, ‘‘ that all organic adaptation in a changing environment 
is a phenomenon of biological or organic imitation,” under which 
category will fall, therefore, the organic behaviour of the 
protozoa and of plants, On the other hand, Professor HK. L. 
Thorndike, though he admits in the lower animals “ certain 
pseudo-imitative or semi-imitative phenomena,” has been led 
by experiments, to be presently noticed, to the conclusion that 
* “Mental Development in the Child and the Race— Methods and 
Processes,” p. 278. 
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