ial standards, our political faith, and our religious
creeds. Our views of life and the values we set on its attainments are
largely a matter of imitation.

INDIVIDUALITY IN IMITATION.--Yet, given the same model, no two of us
will imitate precisely alike. Your acts will be yours, and mine will be
mine. This is because no two of us have just the same heredity, and
hence cannot have precisely similar instincts. There reside in our
different personalities different powers of invention and originality,
and these determine by how much the product of imitation will vary from
the model. Some remain imitators all their lives, while others use
imitation as a means to the invention of better types than the original
models. The person who is an imitator only, lacks individuality and
initiative; the nation which is an imitator only is stagnant and
unprogressive. While imitation must be blind in both cases at first, it
should be increasingly intelligent as the individual or the nation
progresses.

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS IMITATION.--The much-quoted dictum that "all
consciousness is motor" has a direct application to imitation. It only
means that _we have a tendency to act on whatever idea occupies the
mind_. Think of yawning or clearing the throat, and the tendency is
strong to do these things. We naturally respond to smile with smile and
to frown with frown. And even the impressions coming to us from our
material environment have their influence on our acts. Our response to
these ideas may be a conscious one, as when a boy purposely stutters in
order to mimic an unfortunate companion; or it may be unconscious, as
when the boy unknowingly falls into the habit of stammering from hearing
this kind of speech. The child may consciously seek to keep himself neat
and clean so as to harmonize with a pleasant and well-kept home, or he
may unconsciously become slovenly and cross-tempered from living in an
ill-kept home where constant bickering is the rule.

Often we deliberately imitate what seems to us desirable in other
people, but probably far the greater proportion of the suggestions to
which we respond are received and acted upon unconsciously. In
conscious imitation we can select what models we shall imitate, and
therefore protect ourselves in so far as our judgment of good and bad
models is valid. In unconscious imitation, however, we are constantly
responding to a stream of suggestions pouring in upon us hour after hour
and day