We All Imitate Each Other.

Otago Witness, Issue 2303, 21 April 1898, Page 53

We All Imitate Each Other.

Have you ever noticed how persona who have something, on their minda imitate unconsciously tho actions of others ?

A sub-intelligence seems to be at work in all of us, at all times, that controls our actions and causes us to do a great many things unconsciously. A nervous man or woman will twist and tear a scrap of paper, or toy with some article, for an hour ab a time. When spoken to, such persons start and look at the article in their hands as though wondering where they had obtained ib. In nine cases oub of ten this person: i»w some other person doing the same thing, and unconsciously his or her hands, under the* direction of sub-intelligence, sought out bhe paper or article to play with. A few days ago a physician experimented on this- subject in a railway station waiting room where a score of business men were waiting for the train, all preoccupied mentally with the business of the day. The physician began a march Tip and down the waiting room. In two minutes a worriedlooking man, -who appeared to bs a prosperous merchant, began to march also. Tito clerks and a stout, person followed his example. In

; papers were the only persons out of the twentyodd in bhe room who were not walking- about. ■ The physician ceased suddenly. Peculiar as it ■ may seem, his action appeared to give the whole assemblage a shock. They woke up, as it were, but not sufficiently to know that they had been experimented upon. Before the train arrived they had assumed the positions in which the physician had found them.

" Another thing I have noticed," added the physician, "ia that the higher the intelligence of a man is the more liable he is, to be controlled by sub-consciousness. An unintelligent man seems to have none of ih"