[108] Prof. Lipps, who does not believe in an “internal imitation,” says that the anthropomorphic interpretation of outward reality “rückt uns die Dinge näher, macht sie uns vertrauter und damit zugleich vermeintlich verständlicher” (“brings the things nearer to us, makes them more familiar, and thereby produces an illusion that they are more comprehensible”). According to the view which we have adopted above, the gain in comprehensibility is real, and not only illusory. Cf. Lipps, Raumaesthetik, p. 6.
[109] Cf. with regard to the above argument the chapter on movement-perception in Stricker’s Die Bewegungsvorstellungen, especially pp. 20, 21. Cf. also the remarks in Dugald Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind, iii. pp. 10, 11, 157.
[110] Cf. the often-quoted story of Campanella’s device to divine the thoughts of people by imitating their behaviour, as told, for example, in Burke’s The Sublime and the Beautiful, pp. 98, 99. Mr. Stanley quotes one of Poe’s tales, in which the same trick is used by a detective (Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling, p. 364).
[111] Cf. Groos, Die Spiele der Menschen, p. 430.
[112] An almost simian tendency to imitation has been noticed among several primitive races, such as the Australians (Spencer, Descr. Soc. Div. i. No. 3, p. 5, quoting Sturt) and the Fuegians (Spencer, ibid. quoting Weddel).
As is well known, imitation is in tribes of a hysterical disposition, such as the Malays and the Lapps, apt to become an endemic disease. Cf. with regard to the Malays, Swettenham, Malay Sketches, pp. 70-82; Stoll, Suggestion und Hypnotismus, p. 74; with regard to the Lapps, Düben, Lappland, p. 192; Schmidkunz, Psychologie der Suggestion, p. 199. Instances of contagious mental diseases and pathological imitation among civilised nations are too familiar to be enumerated.
[113] Cf. Baldwin, Mental Development, p. 403.
[114] Preyer, Die Seele des Kindes, p. 228; cf. Harless, Lehrb. d. plast. Anatomie, p. 125, and Dugald Stewart, Philosophy of the Human Mind, iii. pp. 6, 7, 193, 194.
[115] Goncourt, Journal des, i. p. 281:—Hier j’étais à un bout de la grande table du château. Edmond à l’autre bout causait avec Thérèse. Je n’entendais rien, mais quand il souriait, je souriais involontairement et dans la même pose de tête.... Jamais âme pareille n’a été mise en deux corps.
[116] Cf. especially Binet, Le fétichisme dans l’amour, p. 248.