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16. Occult Imitation. 
Of direct imitation, i.e ., the obvious reproduction of sounds 
in their totality, e.g., the Kamic aua (ox), ba (ram), miau 
(cat), nothing more need be said : but the psychological lin- 
guistic of the future will be concerned with the unfolding of 
the principles of occult imitation. A mimic ( mimmick , 
Shakspere ; Greek, mimos , a reduplicated form, the doubling 
in the form of the word illustrating the doubling involved - in 
the action ; Proto- Aryan root, ma, “to measure ”), is one who 
“ measures,” i.e., “ compares ” himself with another ; and it is 
to be observed that this comparison or imitation is not of the 
thing itself, but of our concept or apperception of it. A dog 
barks ; the circumstance produces some effect upon our con- 
sciousness, and if we attempt to imitate the original incident 
we give an expression of that effect. Our imitation being thus 
second-hand, we see how easily it may, nay must, differ, and 
that probably very considerably from the original ; and, further, 
how widely imitations of the same thing or circumstance, made 
by different persons, must differ from each other, their differences 
being the ratio of the powers and opportunities of the several 
imitators. Now the circumstance that that which is imitated 
is, as it were, passed through our consciousness prior to our 
imitation of it, shows how sound may be imitated by silence, 
or silence by sound. For if anyone says st! we may place 
a finger on the lips to express this ; or, conversely, if we place 
a finger on our lips, some one may imitate the action by ex- 
claiming st ! And the reason of this is that the human con- 
sciousness, unlike, e.g., the parrot consciousness, takes not merely 
one only but many analogies or corresponding measurements 
of things, and, indeed, grasps, although with extreme faintness, 
the principle of the Unity of the All ; so that when a blind man 
compares red to a trumpet-note, or a deaf-mute compares a 
trumpet-note to red, we feel that this measurement is at once 
true and appropriate. 
.. Another point which may be incidentally remarked is, that 
the principles of imitation suggest that many primeval words 
were not monosyllabic, just as many natural sounds are pro- 
longed, reduplicated and varied. Phonetic Decay, of the Law 
of Least Effort, is constantly working in favour of monosyl- 
labism. Thus periwig dwindles to wig, omnibus to bus, 
withhold to woh, and withstay to way ! “ Bohtlingk notes that 
many Tibetan words at present monosyllabic were formerly 
polysyllabic, and the polysyllabism of the roots of the Ba-ntu 
