stances, as to show clearly, that there is a certain determination. or proneness to the volition, originating in the general principles of our nature. It is the proneness, merely, that I am anxious at present to establish as a fact, without pushing the metaphysical analysis any farther; and when I employ on this occasion, the word involuntary, I use it in the same sense as when it is applied to those habitual acts, which, although they may be counteracted by the will, require for their counteraction, the exercise of cool reflection, accompanied with a persevering and unremitted purpose directed to a particular end. This proneness to imitation, although (as was formerly observed) most conspicuous in childhood, continues, in all men, to manifest itself on particular occasions, through the whole of life; and, as far as I can judge, is the general law to which many of the phenomena, resolved by Mr. Smith into the principle of sympathy, ought chiefly to be referred. If, indeed, by sympathy, Mr. Smith had meant only to express a fact, I should have thought it a term not more exceptionable than the phrase sympathetic imitation, which I have adopted in this chapter. But it must be remembered, that, in Mr. Smith's writings, the word sympathy involves a theory or hypothesis peculiar to himself; for he tells us expressly, that where this principle is concerned, the effect is produced by an illusion of the imagination, leading us to suppose that we ourselves are placed in a situation similar to that of our neighbour. "When we see a stroke aimed, and just ready to fall upon the leg or arm of another person, we naturally shrink and draw back our own leg or our own arm; and when it does fall, we feel it in some measure, and are hurt by it as well as the sufferer. The mob, when they are gazing at a dancer on the slack-rope, naturally writhe, and twist, and balance their own bodies, as they see him do, and as they feel that they themselves must do, if in his situation. Persons of delicate fibres, and a weak constitution of body, complain, that, in looking on the sores and ulcers which are exposed by beggars in the streets, they are apt to feel an itching or uneasy sensation in the correspondent part of VOL. IV. I their own bodies. The horror which they conceive at the misery of those wretches, affects that particular part in themselves, more than any other; because that horror arises from conceiving what they themselves would suffer, if they really were the wretches they are looking upon, and if that particular part in themselves was actually affected in the same miserable manner." These facts are, indeed, extremely curious, and I do not pretend to explain them completely. One thing, however, I apprehend, may be asserted safely, that in none of the cases here mentioned, is the sympathy, which is manifested by the spectator, founded on an illusion of the imagination, leading him to conceive himself in the same situation with the party really interested. In the instance of the rope-dancer, the most pertinent of all of them to Mr. Smith's purpose, the sympathy which accompanies the movements of the performers is extremely analogous to what is exhibited on various other occasions, where this theory cannot be supposed to apply. A person, for example, who plays at bowls, and who is deeply interested in the game, while he follows his bowl with the eye, naturally accompanies its deflections from the rectilinear course, with correspondent motions of his body;1 although it cannot 1.66 Mox, ubi funduntur latè agmina crebra minorem "Nec risus tacuere, globus cùm volvitur actus Sphæristerium, (The Bowling-Green,) Auctore Jos. Addison. well be imagined, that, in doing so, he conceives himself to be projected from his own hand, and rolling along the ground like the object about which his thoughts are so strongly engrossed. Such, however, is his anxious solicitude about the event, that he cannot restrain his body from following, in its movements, the direction of his wishes; nor can he help fancying, while the event is yet in suspense, that it is in his power to forward it by a verbal expression of his wish, or even by a mental expression of his will. Hence it is, that when the bowl takes a wrong bias, he is apt to address it, as if it could listen to, or obey his voice;-his body, in the meantime, not, as before, accompanying the motion of the bowl, but eagerly bending to the opposite side of the mark.1 The sympathetic movements of the spectator, in the case of the rope-dancer, seem to me to be strikingly analogous to this; due allowance being made for the more lively interest we take in the critical fate of a fellow-creature, than in the fortunate issue of a trifling game of skill; although, I frankly acknowledge, at the same time, that, in neither the one instance nor the other, am I able to account for the phenomena completely to my own. satisfaction. Something, I think, must unquestionably be referred to the principle of sympathetic imitation;—at least, in the case of the rope-dancer, so long as the movements of the spectator correspond with what he sees;--and, even when he strives, as frequently happens, to correct, by a contrary effort, a false movement of the performer, the effect may, perhaps, be still resolved into the same principle, the event conceived and wished for then impressing the mind more forcibly than what is actually presented to the senses; and, of conse 1 We seem, in this case, to have a momentary belief that the bowl is animated; similar to what we experience when a paroxysm of rage leads us to wreck our vengeance on a stick or a stone, or anything else confessedly insentient. In both instances, the animal or instinctive principles of our nature acquiring a momentary ascendency over the rational, we relapse for a time into the habitual conceptions of our infant years. A dog, in like manner, while he sees the bowl rolling along the ground, seldom fails to pursue it with eagerness, as if it were his natural prey, barking or howling till he overtakes it, and then attempting to seize it with his month and with his feet. [V. Lucretium.-Ed.] quence, the imitation being directed, not to a real, but to an ideal object. Before concluding these general remarks on our propensity to imitation, it may be worth while to add, that it is not confined exclusively to the rational nature. The imitative powers of several sorts of birds are sufficiently evinced by the astonishing command they display over those muscles of the throat on which the voice depends; and the variety of forms in which the same powers appear in the tribe of monkeys, is surpassed only by the exhibitions of the human mimic. I have mentioned this last fact, because much stress has been laid on it by those writers who are anxious to refer all the intellectual superiority acquired by man over the brutes, to the peculiarities of his bodily organization. To such writers, the combination which exists, in the monkey, of a resemblance to the human structure, and of that propensity to imitation which is so intimately connected with our intellectual improvement, could not fail to appear a very plausible presumption in favour of their theory. But on a closer attention to the fact, this very tribe of animals, which has been so often quoted, in order to mortify the pride of our species, furnishes the strongest of all arguments in proof of an essential distinction between our nature and theirs; inasmuch as they show, that neither an approach to the human figure, nor yet the use of the hand, nor yet the faculty of imitation, (which are all of such inestimable value when under the direction of a superior intellect,) can confer on them one solid advantage, or even raise them to a level with the more sagacious of the quadrupeds. SECTION II.—OF THE POWER OF IMITATION. The observations hitherto made on the principle of Sympathetic Imitation relate chiefly to our propensity or proneness to imitate; a circumstance in human nature which has been remarked and illustrated by different writers, both ancient and modern. The power by which the imitation is, in certain cases, accomplished, although a subject not less interesting than the corresponding propensity, has not yet, as far as I know, attracted the notice of any philosopher whatever. It was before observed, that the powers of imitation displayed, in so extraordinary a degree by the mimic, seem to be only a continuation of capacities possessed by all men in the first years of their existence; but which, in most individuals, are in a great measure lost from disuse soon after the period of infancy. The consideration, therefore, of some circumstances connected with this peculiar talent, may perhaps throw light on the general or common principles of the human frame. When a mimic attempts to copy the countenance of a person whom he never saw before, what are the means which he employs in order to effectuate his purpose? Shall we suppose that his efforts are merely tentative and experimental; or, in other words, that he tries successively every possible modification of his features, till he finds, at last, by the information of a mirror, that he has succeeded in the imitation of the original? Nobody can for a moment believe this to be the case, who has attended in the slightest degree to the subject. On the contrary, it is a fact universally known, that the imitation is often perfectly successful in the very first trial; and that it is not from a mirror, but from his own internal consciousness, that the mimic judges of its correctness. I acknowledge, at the same time, that the fact is sometimes otherwise, and that instances occur, in which the best mimics are found to make many successive efforts before they accomplish their end; or in which, after all their efforts, the attempt proves ultimately abortive. But it will not be disputed that the former statement holds in general, where the propensity to mimicry is strong; and even where exceptions take place, there is commonly, from the first, such an approximation to the resemblance aimed at, as sufficiently demonstrates, that, how much soever experience may be useful in finishing the portrait, the most important part of the process must be referred to causes of a different description. The fact seems to be perfectly similar with respect to the |