Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/744

 730 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

role in the organization of sub-human societies, and if human societies are admittedly genetically related to these, is it not probable that instinctive impulses have much to do with the < organization of human society ; and not simply one instinctive impulse, the tendency to imitate, but many ? If it be objected that, in so far as the organization of society is a matter of instinct, it is physiological and not psychological, the reply is that then all social organization is physiological, for the tend- ency to imitate is admitted to be an instinct. 1

Another objection to the theory that imitation constitutes the sole method of social progress comes to light when we con- sider animal societies. Animal societies are by no means sta- tionary. The changes which take place in them, though not readily observable, cannot be questioned. The high degree of organization of such insect societies as we have just considered is unquestionably to be regarded as the result of a series of gradual adjustments made through a long period of evolution and fixed by natural selection. The organization of sub-human societies would seem, then, to be wholly an outcome of the process of natural selection, and the changes and progress which they exhibit, though perhaps in some measure mediated by the process of suggestion and imitation, seem largely to be due to the working of the same principle. Now, if natural selection be the method of progress in the societies of the animal world, is it not reasonable to suppose that it is also in some measure a factor in the progress of human societies? "Certainly," a defender of the imitation theory might reply ; " but natural selection is not a psychical process ; it is wholly physical and physiological." This position is, however, not tenable. On the contrary, natural selection is mediated everywhere throughout the higher stages of animal life by certain psychical processes, and in so far is itself a psychical process. Thus sexual selection, now quite generally recognized as a part of the process of natural selection, is largely a conscious process. Even that form of

1 For Professor Baldwin's argument that the tendency to imitate is a true instinct see his Mental Development in the Child and the Race, pp. 261, 290, 356 ; and also p. v of his preface to GROOS, Play of Animals.