of one individual by another,”[530] as Lloyd Morgan has defined it. Even this is of the greatest biological and psychological import, since it is responsible for what Baldwin calls “social heredity”; the psychic heritage or “tradition,” independent of physical heredity,[531] which hands down acquired habits from generation to generation. In using the word tradition, indeed, one naturally thinks more of habits acquired by their owner, who by precept and example imparts them to others, so that emphasis is laid first on the acts of the originator, though the inclination to impart would be fruitless without imitation on the part of the pupil. On close examination we find this literal use of the term far from satisfactory; as a rule, the acquisition of the habits of others depends entirely on the imitator, without intentional assistance from the model, a distinction which finds expression in the common proverb that example is better than precept. The operation of this principle is apparent among the higher animals. Wallace lays great stress on it, though in a somewhat partial way. Weismann employs the word in its wider sense when he says: “A young finch which grows up alone sings untaught the song of its kind, though never so beautifully nor so perfectly as when an older bird which is a fine singer is given him as a teacher” (teacher is here not to be understood literally). “He is largely influenced by tradition, though the fundamental principle of the finch’s song is already implanted in his organization.”[532] Indeed, the data of animal psychology give us a sort of experimental proof of the importance of the imitative impulse, since animals reared away from their own kind but with some other species are often strongly influenced by the alien models, in spite of their inborn instincts. An attempt to formulate satisfactorily the biological significance of imitation results somewhat as follows: To the higher animals imitation of their own species is an important adjunct to instinct. The young finch has, indeed, an inborn instinctive capacity for producing the note characteristic of his kind, but even with the assistance of experimentation this instinct is not adequate to his needs until imitation of practised singers rounds out, so to speak, the inherited capacity by means of acquired adaptations. It is evident that there are two ways of regarding this conception of imitation. The one which Baldwin develops is implied in Weismann’s “already” when he says that the fundamental principle of the finch’s song is “already” implanted in his organism, thus implying that imitation is an essential factor in the growth of his instinctive equipment. When the more intelligent individuals of a species have by means of independent accommodations made new life conditions for themselves they can manage to keep afloat by the aid of imitation until “natural selection, by favoring and furthering” coincident variations (those tending in the same