The term has been brought into prominence in scientific
discussions through the work of Gabriel Tarde, who in his _Les lois de
l'imitation_ points out that imitation is a fundamental fact underlying
all social development. The customs of society are imitated from
generation to generation. The fashions of the day are imitated by large
groups of people without any consciousness of the social solidarity
which is derived from this common mode of behavior. There is developed
through these various forms of imitation a body of experiences which is
common to all of the members of a given social group. In complex society
the various imitations which tend to set themselves up are frequently
found to be in conflict; thus the tendency toward elaborate fashions in
dress is constantly limited by the counter-tendency toward simpler
fashions. The conflict of tendencies leads to individual variations from
the example offered at any given time, and, as a result, there are new
examples to be followed. Complex social examples are thus products of
conflict.

This general doctrine of Tarde has been elaborated by a number of recent
writers. Royce calls attention to the fundamental importance of
imitation as a means of social inheritance. The same doctrine is taken
up by Baldwin in his _Mental Development in the Child and Race_, and in
_Social and Ethical Interpretations_. With these later writers,
imitation takes on a significance which is somewhat technical and
broader than the significance which it has either with Tarde or in the
ordinary use of the term. Baldwin uses the term to cover that case in
which an individual repeats an act because he has himself gone through
the act. In such a case one imitates himself and sets up what Baldwin
terms a circular reaction. The principle of imitation is thus introduced
into individual psychology as well as into general social psychology,
and the relation between the individual's acts and his own imagery is
brought under the same general principle as the individual's responses
to his social environment. The term "imitation" in this broader sense is
closely related to the processes of sympathy.

The term "social heredity" has very frequently been used in connection
with all of the processes here under discussion. Society tends to
perpetuate itself in the new individual in a fashion analogous to that
in which the physical characteristics of the earlier generation tend to
perpetuate themselves in the ph