All this is simply a puzzle to the child; his father's conduct is capricious, "projective." But the child's curiosity in the matter takes the form of imitation; he takes up the pin himself and goes through the same manipulation of it that his father did.

Thus he gets himself pricked, and with it has the impulse to throw the pin away.

By imitating his father he has now discovered what was inside the father's mind, the pain and the motive of the action.
This way of proceeding in reference to the actions of others, of which many examples might be given, has a twofold significance in the development of the child; and because of this twofold significance it is one of the most important facts of psychology.

Upon it rest, in the opinion of the present writer, correct views of ethics and social philosophy.
1.

By such imitation the child learns to associate his own sense of physical power, together with his own private pleasures and pains, with the personal actions which were before observed, it is true, in other persons but not understood.