REVIEWS OF BOOKS.
The appearance of this book is a very good illustration of the tendency of modern science to seek for analogies and origins. The whole treatment is comparative and genetical. The conclusions of the book are based upon observations of childhood (apparently very carefully carried out, though somewhat too restricted in their range, one cannot help thinking, to serve as the basis of such far-reaching conclusions as are built upon them), and, as the title indicates, parallels are constantly sought between the development of the individual (ontogenesis) and that of the race (phylogenesis).
A large portion of the book is really a reproduction of a number of magazine articles, published by the author from time to time, describing observations on infants, and giving explanations and deductions. During the progress of these observations there came, as he says, "such a revelation of the genetic function of imitation," that he was inspired to set about the elaboration of a theory of mental development from this point of view. It became evident, however, during the prosecution of this task, that a consistent unfolding of this topic required also a doctrine of the race-development of consciousness, a theory of the evolution of mind. The literature of biological evolution was then studied in the light of the doctrine of child-development thus taking shape in the author's mind; with the result that the current biological theory was modified to meet the requirements of the facts, and the whole subject of mind-growth, both in the race and in the individual, was brought under the one all-embracing principle of Imitation. One would do the author a great injustice, however, if one understood this word 'Imitation' in its ordinary meaning, which is less than half its connotation as here employed. It seems unfortunate that another term cannot be found to express this principle, and that an old familiar word has to be used in what is practically a new and strange signification. Imitation means with Professor Baldwin, a reaction in response to a stimulus, in such a way as to repeat, retain, enjoy that stimulus, provided it be vitally beneficial (or provided it be pleasant, for the two
