[139]. Fear, chap. xi.
[140]. See a curious case in Gélineau, op. cit., p. 99.
[141]. For detailed descriptions see Darwin, chap. x.; Lange, op. cit.; Mantegazza, op. cit., chap. xiii. The latter transcribes the picture drawn by Seneca in his De Ira, and is of opinion—in which I agree with him—that it is traced by a master hand.
[142]. Tamburini distinguishes three kinds of fixed ideas: simple, emotive, and impulsive, according as the obsession determines forced attention, a state of anguish, or an action.
[143]. Morel, Maladies mentales, pp. 420 et seq.
[144]. The psychology of imitation does not form part of our subject. Baldwin has made an excellent study of it (Mental Development in the Child and Race, pp. 263-366). He defines it as "a sensori-motor reaction, which finds its differentia in the single fact that it imitates; that is, its peculiarity is found in the locus of its muscular discharge. It is what I have called a ‘circular activity’ on the bodily side,—brain-state due to stimulating conditions, muscular reaction which reproduces or retains the stimulating conditions,—same brain-state again, due to same stimulating conditions, and so on." Imitation appears early in the child, at fifteen weeks (Preyer) or four months (Darwin). Are we to consider it as an instinct? Popular opinion is inclined to do so, as are also several psychologists—Stricker, James, and others. The contrary is maintained by Preyer, Bain, Sully, and Baldwin—a view I am myself inclined to take. Imitation does not present the true characteristics of an instinct; it is not adapted at the first attempt; it gropes its way, it is tentative, it fails again after success, it retrogrades, or progresses but slowly. It is an ideo-motor reflex; it takes its place above instinct (a blind and innate tendency inferior to the voluntary activity for which it prepares the way), because it is the first attempt at convergence towards an end.
[145]. Principles of Psychology, vol. iv. p. 565.
[146]. The point has been very well treated by this author (The Emotions, chap. vii. p. 127). See also Mantegazza, chap. xi. Lange does not mention it.
[147]. Sully, The Human Mind, ii. pp. 104, 105.
[148]. For these facts see Romanes, Mental Evolution, chap, xx., and Lloyd Morgan, Animal Life, pp. 397, 398.