1 72 TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



constrained to follow the tastes and the judgments of the masses, 

 under penalty of being ignored or contemned. A writer devises a 

 style which the public receive with enthusiasm : he has struck a vein. 

 He accustoms those who read his books, or who witness his plays, to 

 this style, be it good or bad, and the result is that, for some time, all 

 authors are compelled more or less to imitate the fortunate innovator, 

 if they wish to succeed. Hence, though one were not led to imitate, 

 by instinct or by nature, still he would do so from necessity or from 

 self-interest. The founder of the London Times was once asked how 

 he contrived to have all the articles in that journal appear as though 

 written by one hand. " Oh," said he, " there is always one editor who 

 is superior to all the rest, and they imitate him." 



The history of religions from beginning to end is full of facts show- 

 ing how men are guided, not by arguments but by exemplars, and ex- 

 hibiting the tendency they have to reproduce what they have seen or 

 heard, and to regulate their lives according to the bright and trium- 

 phant examples that stand before their eyes. Many victories, esteemed 

 by apostles to be the effects of persuasion, are rather to be attributed 

 to that recondite influence which leads men irresistibly to imitate their 

 fellows. And does not this same agency of imitation appear in the 

 body politic, transforming little by little, but yet radically, the habits, 

 the opinions, and even the beliefs of men ? Nothing is easier, than, 

 for a man who has acquired an influence over the populace, to bring 

 them over to his own sentiments, ideas, and chimeras. And the ob- 

 servation is confirmed by daily experience in the education of chil- 

 dren. In a school we often find the external characteristics — the tone, 

 the gait, the games, changing from year to year. The reason of this 

 is that some dominant spirits — two or three pupils who used to have 

 an ascendency over the rest, have left ; others are now in their place, 

 and every thing wears a different face. As the models change, so do 

 the copies. The pupils no longer applaud or jeer at the same things 

 as before. 



This instinct of imitation is specially developed in persons of de- 

 fective education or civilization. Savages copy quicker and better 

 than Europeans. Like children, they have a natural faculty for mimi- 

 cry, and cannot refrain from imitating every thing they see. There is 

 in their minds nothing to offset this tendency to imitation. Every 

 well-instructed man has within himself a considerable reserve of ideas 

 upon which to fall back ; this resource is wanting in the savage and 

 in the child : they live in all the occurrences which take place before 

 them ; their life is bound up in what they see and hear ; they are the 

 playthings of external influences. In civilized nations persons with- 

 out culture are in the like situation. Send a chambermaid and a phi- 

 losopher into a country, the language of which neither of them is ac- 

 quainted with, and it is likely that the chambermaid will learn it before 

 the philosopher. He has something else to do : he can live with his 



