Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 8.djvu/189

SOCIAL AUTOMATISM AND THE IMITATION THEORY. 175 from all others, and identified with them precisely through these differences, by which alone he can co-operate with them. Similarities are superficial consequences of the rela- tions which identity in difference prescribes. The error, then, if I am right, springs from working with Similarity instead of Identity. Directly we introduce Identity, Difference falls into its place as an inherent aspect of the principle, and we understand that no reconciliation is needed, but the universal is unity manifested in difference from the beginning and throughout. In the laws of habit, thought and action, Identity exhibits itself in the shape of Relative Suggestion ; the point of which is that the mind is reproductive not of a similarity, but ac- cording to a universal, the more or less systematic scheme of a whole. I need not enlarge on the conception in question, which is familiar to readers of Mr. Stout's Analytic Psychology. I will only insist on two points ; first, that it follows imme- diately from the substitution of Identity for Similarity in the theory of Association ; and, secondly, that it at once satisfies the absolute demand of social experience, for a doctrine that will show why we never do simply what others do, but always something different from what they do and definitely related to it. The whole idea of the social mind has, in my view, been narrowed and distorted by the failure to grasp the importance of this principle, and it has not been understood that all social co-operation necessarily involves a unity of intelligence and habit which is in its nature logical and in- ventive ; the invention not being confined within individual minds, but being simply an aspect of the differentiated reactions, by which a co-operative body taken as a whole endeavours to be equal to the situation at a given moment. Every action, without any exception, is in principle a differ- ence within an identity. The use of language is a familiar example. Every application of a word has an element of originality, and when the slightest difficulty of expression occurs the aspect of invention becomes emphatic, and is attended with noticeable pleasure. I have taken this oppor- tunity of explaining my position towards the Imitation theory, partly because in a forthcoming work, which afforded me no space for psychological discussion, I have been obliged to refer very briefly to the views of Prof. Baldwin and others. 1 1 1 regret that Prof. Baldwin's Presidential Address on " Selective Thinking," delivered in December, 1897, only came into my hands at the moment when the present paper was being sent to press. So far as I can judge, it confirms my view that Prof. Baldwin occupies a position intermediate between that of Associationism and that of Relative Sug- gestion, with a tendency towards the latter.