“Thus a ‘circular’ activity is found in operation; life-processes issuing in increased movements, by which in turn the stimulations to the life-processes are kept in action.” But when a child imitates, himself reproducing the “copy” set for imitation, the reaction at which imitative suggestion aims is one which will _reproduce the stimulating impression_, and so tend to perpetuate itself. The stimulus starts a motor process, which tends to reproduce the stimulus, and, through it, the motor process again. It is a “circular activity.” Thus “we are able to reconstruct the theory of adaptation in such a way as to show that this kind of organic selection by movement, and this kind of imitative selection by consciousness, are the same thing. Organic imitation and conscious imitation--each a circular process tending to maintain certain stimulations and to avoid others--here is one thing;” and to this one thing the common term “imitation” is applied by Mr. Baldwin.
This extended usage is admitted by the author to be somewhat of an innovation. But if his hypothesis be sound this need be no bar to its acceptance. Two salient questions must, however, receive satisfactory answers. First, is all organic adaptation in a changing environment a circular process--a phenomenon of organic imitation? Secondly, does all conscious imitation tend to reproduce the imitating stimulus?
Professor Baldwin speaks of organic imitation and conscious imitation as “each a circular process tending to maintain certain stimulations and to avoid others.” Now, it may be granted that the tendency to maintain or repeat certain stimulations may be regarded as a “circular process.” But can the avoidance or non-repetition of others be so regarded? A large proportion alike of the hereditary adaptations and the acquired accommodations of behaviour are directed to this avoidance or non-repetition of hurtful stimulations. The instinctive shrinking of a chick from an aggressive animal is just as much adaptive as the repeated cuddling beneath the warm wing of the mother. The avoidance of nauseous cinnabar caterpillars is just as much an accommodation to the constitution of the environment as the reiterated seizing of palatable grubs. Even low down in the scale of animal life, Dr. Jennings’s observations on Paramecia seem to show that the retention of favourable stimulation is not due to its direct influence, but is the indirect result of a reaction to the relatively unfavourable stimulation which occurs when the Paramecium passes away from more satisfactory surroundings. A favourable environment is secured through the avoidance of the unfavourable. Unless, therefore, we exclude adaptive avoidance from the category of adaptations, we cannot regard all organic adaptation in a changing environment as a phenomenon of organic imitation due to a circular process tending to the reinstatement of stimulation.