Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/747

 THEORY OF IMITATION IN SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 733

not whether we name these race characteristics "instincts," "impulses," or what not. The important thing is to recognize that race heredity has fixed in us, and is tending more and more to fix in us, through a process of evolution by natural selection, certain coordinations of nerve cells and muscle fibers which tend to discharge in one way rather than in another, and which make personal and social development tend to take one direc- tion rather than another. But to recognize this truth would be fatal to the imitation theory of individual and social develop- ment, even in the moderate form in which it is stated by Profes- sor Baldwin. Accordingly, we find Professor Baldwin, almost alone among eminent modern psychologists, refusing to recog- nize the importance of the innate or instinctive in mental devel- opment. James, 1 Dewey, Wundt, 2 and lately H.R.Marshall 3 have all elaborated arguments in the spirit of the doctrine of descent to show the importance of "instinct," or of "innate impulses," in the mental life of man as well as in that of the animals beneath him. But Professor Baldwin says : " The human infant has very few instincts, and these are almost all fitted to secure organic satisfaction." 4 These instincts, plus the "mag- nificent capacity of learning" by imitation, he thinks, are suf- ficient to account for the growth of the child into the fully equipped socius. 5 And they are, if the imitation theory of per- sonal development is correct.

But it is evident that Professor Baldwin is using the term "instinct" in quite a different sense from that in which it is employed by the writers above mentioned, and in which it has been used in this paper. With him "instincts" are those "ready- made activities " which manifest themselves in the child at birth or soon after, and which are best exemplified among the

1 See his famous chapter on " Instinct " (pp. 383-441) in Vol. II of his Principles of Psychology.


 * See Lecture XXVII in his Lectures on Human and Animal Psychology.

3 See chaps, ii and iii in his Instinct and Reason. Compare also the chapter on " Play and Instinct " in GROOS, Play of Animals, especially pp. 66-76.


 * Social and Ethical Interpretations, p. 62.

id., pp. 58, 59-