Ex Libris 
 C. K. OGDEN
 
 THE FIRST THREE YEARS 
 OF CHILDHOOD 
 
 BY 
 
 BERNARD PEREZ 
 
 EDITED AND TRANSLATED BY 
 
 ALICE M. CHRISTIE 
 
 Translator of '" Child and Child Nature," etc., etc. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY JAMES SULLY, M.A. 
 
 Author of '" Outlines of Psychology ," etc. 
 
 STEREOTYPED 
 
 EDITION. 
 
 EcmtJan : 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., 
 PATERNOSTER SQUARE, 
 
 1892.
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 \\5\ 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 FOUR years ago this book appeared to be a fortunate 
 hit, offering as it did, though on the most simple scale, 
 a study of infant psychology. The character of the 
 work arose naturally from the line of study I had 
 planned. I had, in fact, set myself to follow out 
 in little children the gradual awakening of those 
 faculties which constitute the psychic activity, so 
 abundantly differentiated, so delicate and at the same 
 time so powerful, of the adult human being. It was, 
 no doubt, this intention possibly a somewhat pre- 
 mature one of systematizing a class of observations, 
 of which hitherto only rough sketches had been 
 attempted, which gained me the encouragement of 
 philosophers and educationalists, both in France and 
 abroad. Thus then, while endeavouring to improve 
 upon the modest beginning which had at first won 
 me their sympathy, I could do no better than keep 
 to my original method. My canvases were already 
 sketched in and accepted: I have merely endeavoured 
 to draw them a little better and to fill them in more,
 
 IV PREFACE. 
 
 to render facts and interpretations of facts clearer and 
 more precise. 
 
 With regard to the facts, either simply described or 
 dramatized in the form of psychological anecdotes, I 
 have carefully sorted and re- arranged them, discard- 
 ing a certain number which seemed to me of little 
 importance, and adding a good many others, either 
 taken out of my own journals of observations or bor- 
 rowed from other people, but all of them verified 
 by myself. I thought also that I should be readily 
 forgiven for having interpolated a few pages of psy- 
 chological observations taken out of my book on 
 Education from the Cradle, which seemed here in 
 their natural place, and which will be replaced in the 
 other book by considerations of a more specially peda- 
 gogic nature. Both books will, I think, have gained 
 by the exchange. 
 
 As to the interpretations of facts, I have striven to 
 be guided by the spirit of the experimental method. 
 If I have sometimes been happy in my observations 
 and judgments, it is to this method that the honour 
 is due ; the mistakes and omissions are my own 
 share. At any rate, no one of the systems of philo- 
 sophy, which, under different names, have more or 
 less exactly adapted themselves to the experimental 
 method, is responsible for my errors. Although I 
 have my preferences and my tendencies, I belong to 
 no school. I find myself most often, it is true, quot-
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 ing from a Darwin or a Spencer, but I am none the 
 less glad to do so from Mme. Necker, de Saussure, 
 and Guizot, from Messrs. E. Egger and L. Ferri, 
 when they can give me the fruits of real experience. 
 I do not ask of facts and ideas for their label and 
 trade-mark before admitting them to my humble psy- 
 chological domain ; it is enough for me that they are 
 facts well observed and well described, enough that 
 they are clear and judicious ideas. 
 
 It is in such a spirit that I would have my readers 
 deal with my essay on infant psychology ; letting all 
 thoughts of a particular system be secondary in their 
 minds, as they have been in my own. I have often 
 pondered trying to turn them to account myself 
 those most pithy words of Mr. F. Pollock's : "And as 
 science makes it plainer every day that there is no 
 such thing as a fixed equilibrium, either in the world 
 without or in the mind within, so it becomes plain 
 that the genuine and durable triumphs of philosophy 
 are not in systems but in ideas." 1 
 
 If some few good ideas are found scattered in my 
 book, I beg my readers neither to see or seek for 
 anything else in it. 
 
 BERNARD PEREZ. 
 
 1 Spinoza : His Life and Philosophy, p. 408
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PACE 
 
 I. THE FACULTIES OK THE INFANT BEFORE BIKTH . . i 
 II. THE FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW-FORN CHILD . 7 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 I. MOTOR ACTIVITY AT THE BEGINNING OF LIFK . .11 
 
 II. MOTOR ACTIVITY AT Six MONTHS . . . .16 
 
 III. MOTOR ACTIVITY AT FIFTEEN MONTHS . . .20 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 I. INSTRUCTIVE AND EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS . . .23 
 II. THE FIRST PERCEPTIONS 32 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 I. GENERAL AND SPECIAL INSTINCTS .... 44 
 II. SPKCIAL INSTINCTS 49 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE SENTIMENTS 60 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 I. INTELLECTUAL TENDENCIES 82 
 
 II. VERACITY 86 
 
 III. IMITATION 89 
 
 IV. CREDULITY 94 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE WILL 99
 
 viii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE FACULTIES OF INTELLECTUAL ACQUISITION AND RETEN- 
 TION. 
 
 I. ATTENTION " 
 
 II. MEMORY 121 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ASSOCIATION OF PSYCHICAL STATES. 
 
 I. ASSOCIATION 131 
 
 II. IMAGINATION 147 
 
 III. SPECIAL IMAGINATION 152 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON THE ELABORATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 I. JUDGMENT 164 
 
 II. ABSTRACTION 178 
 
 III. COMPARISON 190 
 
 IV. GENERALIZATION 197 
 
 V. REASONING 210 
 
 VI. THE ERRORS AND ILLUSIONS OF CHILDREN . . . 224 
 VII. ERRORS OWING TO MORAL CAUSES .... 233 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE, PARTS I., II., III. 236, 241, 251 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE ^ESTHETIC SENSE IN LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 I. THE MUSICAL SENSE 265 
 
 II. THE SENSE OF MATERIAL BEAUTY . - . . . 270 
 
 III. THE CONSTRUCTIVE INSTINCT 276 
 
 IV. THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT . . . . . 278 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I. PERSONALITY. REFLECTION. MORAL SENSE . . 282 
 II. THE MORAL SENSE 287
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 AMONG the many new fields of investigation 
 which modern science has opened up, there is 
 none which is more inviting than that of infant 
 psychology. The beginnings of all things are 
 full of interest, as we see by the amount of 
 inquiry now devoted to the origin of human 
 institutions and ideas, and all the various forms 
 of life. And the beginnings of a human mind, 
 the first dim stages in the development of man's 
 God-like reason, ought surely to be most in- 
 teresting of all. And infancy has its own 
 peculiar charm. There is an exquisite poetry 
 in the spontaneous promptings of the unsophis- 
 ticated spirit of the child. So far removed at 
 times from our one-sided prejudiced views, so 
 high above our low conventional standards are 
 the little one's intuitions of his new world. 
 Childhood has its unlovely and unworthy side 
 no doubt. Still I cannot think that any close 
 observer of infancy ever thoroughly believed 
 in its total depravity. Possibly, indeed, to a 
 perfectly candid mind its fresh and striking
 
 iv THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 observations about things, which, though often 
 bizarre, are on the whole thoroughly sound 
 and wholesome, are always apt to suggest the 
 pleasing fancy of Plato and Wordsworth, that 
 the little new-comer brings from his ante-natal 
 abode ideas and feelings which lie high above 
 the plane of earthly experience. However this 
 be, no thoroughly open and unspoiled mind can 
 fail to learn much that is good from a close 
 study of childhood. This is the period when 
 very ordinary mortals display something remark- 
 able. Perhaps indeed no healthy child has 
 ever failed to present some new mental or 
 moral phenomenon, to impress, amuse, or in- 
 struct, if only the appreciating eyes had been 
 there to see. 
 
 But it is not with the poetic side of infancy 
 that we are here specially concerned. We 
 have to look on the opening germ of intelligence 
 from the colder point of view of science. Not 
 that the savant need be insensible to the 
 aesthetic charm of his subject. A botanist 
 ought perhaps to feel something of the rich 
 store of loveliness which lies enclosed within 
 the tiny confines of a wayside flower. Scientific 
 curiosity often leaps into full and vigorous life 
 under the genial vivifying influence of a glow- 
 ing admiration. And a man who has a keen 
 eye for all the pretty and humorous traits of 
 infant life is all the better qualified for a close 
 scientific observation of its processes. Only
 
 INTRODUCTION. V 
 
 that in this case the aesthetic interest must be 
 subordinated to the scientific. 
 
 The science which is specially concerned 
 with the baby mind is Psychology. It is only 
 the psychologist who can pretend to record 
 and interpret all its strange ways. And on 
 the other hand, the domain of infant life is of 
 peculiar interest to the psychologist. True, he 
 can study in other ways the manner in which 
 the human mind behaves, and the laws which 
 bind together its sequent movements. He has 
 a mind of his own, which is directly accessible 
 to his internal vision ; and there are the minds 
 of his friends and acquaintances, about which 
 he can know a good deal too, always provided 
 that they are quite open and confiding. Still, 
 he cannot dispense with the young unformed 
 minds of infants. His business, like that of 
 all scientific workers, is to explain the complex 
 in terms of the simple, to trace back the final 
 perfectly shaped result to the first rude begin- 
 nings. In order to this, he must make a careful 
 study of the early phases of mental life, and 
 these manifest themselves directly under his 
 eye in each new infant. 
 
 Some of the gravest questions relating to 
 man's nature and destiny carry us back to the 
 observation of infancy. Take, for instance, the 
 warmly-discussed question, whether conscience 
 is an innate faculty each man's possession 
 anterior to and independently of all the ex-
 
 vi THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 ternal human influences, authority, discipline, 
 moral education, which go to shape it ; or 
 whether, on the contrary, it is a mere outgrowth 
 from the impressions received in the course 
 of this training. Nothing seems so likely 
 to throw light on this burning question as a 
 painstaking observation of the first years of 
 life. 
 
 This, however, is not the whole of the sig- 
 nificance of infancy to the modern psychologist. 
 We are learning to connect the individual life 
 with that of the race, and this again with the 
 collective life of all sentient creatures. The 
 doctrine of evolution bids' us view the unfolding 
 of a human intelligence to-day as conditioned 
 and prepared by long ages of human experience, 
 and still longer cycles of animal experience. 
 The civilized individual is thus a memento, a 
 kind of short- hand record of nature's far- re- 
 ceding work of organizing, or building up living 
 conscious structures. And according to this 
 view the successive stages of the mental life of 
 the individual roughly answer to the periods 
 of this extensive process of organization vege- 
 tal, animal, human, civilized life. This being 
 so, the first years of the child are of a peculiar 
 antiquarian interest. 
 
 Here we may note the points of contact of 
 man's proud reason with the lowly intelligence 
 of the brutes. In the most ordinary child we 
 may see a new dramatic representation of the
 
 INTRODUCTION. vii 
 
 great cosmic action, the laborious emergence of 
 intelligence out .of its shell of animal sense and 
 appetite. * 
 
 Yet it must not be supposed that the interest 
 here is wholly historical or archaeological. For 
 in thus detecting in the developmental processes 
 of the child's mind an epitome of human and 
 animal evolution, we learn the better to under- 
 stand those processes. We are able to see in 
 such a simple phenomenon as an infant's respon- 
 sive smile a product of far-reaching activities 
 lying outside the individual existence. In the 
 light of the new doctrine of evolution, the early 
 period of individual development, which is pre- 
 eminently the domain of instinct, that is to say, 
 of tendencies and impulses which cannot be 
 referred to the action of the preceding circum- 
 stances of the individual, is seen to be the re- 
 gion which bears the clearest testimony to this 
 preparatory work of the race. It is in infancy 
 that we are least indebted to our individual 
 exertions, mental as well as bodily, and that 
 our debt to our progenitors seems heaviest. In 
 the rapidity with which the infant co-ordinates 
 external impressions and movements, as in 
 learning to follow a light with the eyes, or 
 stretch out the hand to seize an object, and 
 with which feelings of fear, anger, etc., attach 
 themselves to objects and persons, we can 
 plainly trace the play of heredity that law by 
 which each new individual starts on his life
 
 viii THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 course enriched by a legacy of ancestral ex- 
 perience. 
 
 Viewed in this* light, infant psychology is 
 seen to be closely related to other departments 
 of the science. To begin with, it has obvious 
 points of contact with what is known as the 
 psychology of race (Volkerpsychologie). The 
 first years of the child answer indeed to the 
 earliest known stages of human history. How 
 curiously do the naive conceptions of nature, 
 the fanciful animistic ideas of things, and the 
 rude emotions of awe and terror, which there 
 is good reason to attribute to our earliest 
 human ancestors, reflect themselves in the lan- 
 guage of the child ! It is probable indeed 
 that inquiries into the beginnings of human 
 culture, the origin of language, of primitive 
 ideas and institutions, might derive much more 
 help than they have yet done from a close 
 scrutiny of the events of childhood. 
 
 Again, it is evident that the psychology of 
 the infant borders on animal psychology. The 
 child's love of animals points to a special facility 
 in understanding their ways ; and this, again, 
 indicates a certain community of nature. The 
 intelligence of children and of animals has this 
 in common, that each is simple and direct, un- 
 encumbered with the fruit of wide comparison 
 and abstract reflection, keen and incisive within 
 its own narrow compass. Both the child and 
 the brute are exposed by their ignorance to
 
 INTRODUCTION. IX 
 
 similar risks of danger and deception ; both 
 show the same instincts of attachment and 
 trustfulness. And so a study of the one helps 
 the understanding of the other. The man or 
 woman who sees most clearly into the workings 
 of a child's mind will, other things being equal, 
 be the best understander of animal ways, and 
 vice versa. 
 
 There is one particular aspect of this relation 
 between infant and animal psychology which 
 calls for special notice. The baby contrasts 
 strongly with the young of the lower animals 
 in the meagreness of its equipment for life. 
 Though, as observed above, the child reaps 
 the heritage of the past in instinctive germs of 
 capacity, these are far less conspicuous, far 
 less perfect and self-sufficing than the unlearnt 
 aptitudes of young animals. The young chick 
 seems able to co-ordinate the movements of 
 its head with visual impressions so perfectly 
 from the very first that it can aim with accuracy 
 at so small an object as a grain of corn. The 
 young kitten displays quite an experienced and 
 mature hostility to the hereditary foes of its 
 species. There is nothing corresponding to 
 this in the case of human offspring. The baby 
 has to begin life in the most pitiable state of 
 helplessness. For a year and more he cannot 
 execute one of the most important and wide- 
 spread functions of animal life, namely locomo- 
 tion. And this prolonged period of helplessness 
 
 b
 
 X THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 has a deeply interesting significance from the 
 point of view of the evolutionist. The back- 
 wardness of the human offspring, as compared 
 with the forwardness of the animal, is only a 
 striking illustration of a general law or tendency 
 of evolution. As creatures rise in the scale of 
 organization they have to adapt their actions 
 to a wider and wider variety of circumstances 
 and actions of the environment. In the lower 
 grades of animal life there is much more same- 
 ness and routine just because there is much 
 more simplicity. In the higher grades, actions, 
 having to adapt themselves to more complex 
 and changeful surroundings, are more varied, 
 or undergo more numerous and extensive 
 modifications : contrast the actions performed 
 by the bee in obtaining its food with those 
 carried out by the fox. And the capability of 
 thus varying or modifying actions is the result 
 of individual experience and education. Hence, 
 as the variability of the actions of life increases, 
 so does the area of individual learning or ac- 
 quisition, as distinct from that of inherited 
 aptitude or instinct. And since the range and 
 variability of human actions are immeasur- 
 ably greater than those of the most intelligent 
 animal performances, we find that the infant is 
 least equipped for his earthly pilgrimage and 
 has most to do in the way of finding out how 
 to live. 
 
 And here we seem to touch on the more
 
 INTRODUCTION. XI 
 
 practical side of our subject. To the helpless- 
 ness of the infant there correspond those in- 
 stincts of tendance, protection, and guidance 
 which, though discernible in the lower animals, 
 are only highly developed in man ; and which, 
 while they are seen most conspicuously in the 
 human mother, are shared in by all adults, and 
 underlie the long and tedious processes of 
 education. It is not only the theoretic psy- 
 chologist who needs to study infantine ways ; 
 it is the practical psychologist, that is to say, 
 the educator. The first three or four years 
 of life supply the golden harvest to which every 
 scientific educationist should go to reap his 
 facts. For the cardinal principle of modern 
 educational theory is, that systematic training 
 should watch the spontaneous movements of 
 the child's mind and adapt its processes to 
 these. And it is in the first years of life that 
 the spontaneous tendencies show themselves 
 most distinctly. It is in this period, before 
 the example and direct instruction of others 
 have had time to do much in modifying and 
 restraining innate tendency, that we can most 
 distinctly spy out the characteristics of the 
 child. It is the infant who tells us most un- 
 mistakably how the young intelligence proceeds 
 in groping its way out of darkness into light. 
 It is an historical fact, that the supreme ne- 
 cessity in education of setting out with training 
 the senses and the faculty of observation, was
 
 xii THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 discovered by a close consideration of the 
 direction which children's mental activity spon- 
 taneously follows. By sitting at the feet of 
 nature and conning the ways of untaught 
 childhood we may learn that all the essential 
 functions of intelligence, separation or ana- 
 lysis, comparison, discrimination, etc., come into 
 play under the stimulating force of a strong 
 external impression. In the act of holding and 
 looking at its brightly-coloured toy the infant 
 is already showing himself to have a distinc- 
 tively human mind, and to be on the road to 
 abstract reflection or thought. It is during 
 that prolonged gaze that the first rude tentatives 
 in distinguishing and relating the parts and 
 qualities of things are effected. And the object- 
 lesson, properly conceived, is nothing but a 
 methodical development of the mental processes 
 which are involved in every serious effort of 
 infantine inspectipn. 
 
 Nor is it only on the intellectual side that 
 this study of the infant mind is of moment to 
 the teacher. It is in the first three or four 
 years of life that we have the key to the emo- 
 tional and moral nature of the young. If we 
 want to know how a child feels about things, 
 what objects and articles bring him most plea- 
 sure, we must watch him at his self-prompted 
 play and overhear his uncontrolled talk. It 
 seems self-evident indeed that if the teacher is 
 to adapt his method of training so far as may
 
 INTRODUCTION. xiii 
 
 be to the tastes and predilections of the pupil, 
 he must have made a preliminary study of these 
 in their unprompted and unfettered expression. 
 If the study be deferred to school life it will 
 never be full or exact. The artificial character 
 of even the brightest school surroundings offers 
 too serious an obstacle to the free play of 
 childish likings. 
 
 Enough has been said, perhaps, to show that 
 the observation and interpretation of the infant 
 mind are at once a matter of great theoretic 
 and practical importance. And now comes the 
 question : By whom can this line of research 
 be best pursued ? The conditions of success 
 are plainly two : (i) proper qualifications for 
 the work, and (2) ample opportunity. 
 
 i. With respect to the first condition, it has 
 already been suggested that a good observer 
 of childish ways must combine a number of in- 
 tellectual and moral excellences. He must, 
 to begin with, be a painstaking and exact ob- 
 server. He must be determined to see children 
 as they actually are, and not to construct them 
 out of his own presuppositions. And this im- 
 plies a mind trained in observation, and a 
 certain scientific rio-our of intellect. Yet this 
 
 o 
 
 is clearly not enough, for many an excellent 
 observer of other domains of nature might 
 prove a very sorry depicter of infant traits. 
 The close habitual concentration of the mind 
 on things so trivial, to robust common sense,
 
 xiv THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 as baby whims and oddities, presupposes a 
 selective emotion, a strong loving interest in 
 this particular domain of natural fact. And 
 this, again, implies that the observer should be 
 touched by that enthusiasm for childhood 
 which shows itself as a kind of consuming 
 passion in men like Pestalozzi and Froebel. 
 
 Nor is this all. The infant mind cannot be 
 seen, but only divined. Every movement of 
 the tiny hands, every modulation of the baby 
 voice, is as meaningless as sounds of an un- 
 known tongue, until the interpretative work of 
 imagination is added. And it is just in the 
 ability thus to construe the external signs of in- 
 fantine feeling and thought that so many other- 
 wise good observers fail. Nothing, perhaps, 
 has been more misunderstood than childhood. 
 Few have the retentive memory of their own 
 early experiences which would at once put 
 them en rapport with the mind they are ob- 
 serving. And few have the disposition to 
 seriously endeavour to think themselves into 
 the situation and circumstances of the child, 
 casting aside their own adult habits of mind, 
 and trying to become themselves for the mo- 
 ment as little children. 
 
 Neither the close observation nor the careful 
 interpretation of children's words and actions 
 can be counted on where there is not love and 
 the habitual companionship which grows out 
 of love. The man to whom children will reveal
 
 INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 themselves, is not he who is wont to look on 
 them as a nuisance or a bore, but he who finds 
 them an amusement and a delight, who likes 
 nothing better than to cast aside now and 
 again the heavy armour of serious business, and 
 indulge in a good childish romp. Understand- 
 ing of the child's mental workings, his own 
 peculiar maniere de voir, his standard of the 
 importance of things, and so forth, presupposes 
 a habit of steeping the mind in the atmosphere 
 of child-life. 
 
 2. It follows that a complete qualification 
 for the office includes the second condition, 
 namely ample opportunity. Nobody ever ac- 
 quired the art of reading the book of child- 
 nature who had not enjoyed full opportunity 
 of observation. When, however, we consider 
 the first year or two of life, we see that oppor- 
 tunity is necessarily greatly restricted. Beyond 
 the mother, nurse, and perhaps the doctor, who 
 is there that is privileged to watch the first 
 tremulous movements of the baby-mind ? 
 
 And here the thought naturally occurs, that 
 the mother is the person specially marked out 
 by nature for this honourable task. She is, or 
 ought to be, the one who comes into closest 
 contact with the baby, and gives it the first 
 sweet taste of human fellowship. She too has, 
 or ought to have, the liveliest interest in the 
 child, the absorbing interest of idolatrous 
 maternal love. She, we all cheerfully grant,
 
 XVi THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 will grudge no effort spent in divining the 
 direction of those first obscure baby impulses, 
 the form of that first unfamiliar baby thought 
 But has she the other qualifications the mind 
 severe in its insistance on plain ungarnished 
 fact, trained in minute and accurate observation 
 and in sober methodical interpretation ? Here 
 our doubts begin to arise. Few mothers, one 
 suspects, could be trusted to report in a perfectly 
 cold-blooded scientific way on the facts of infant 
 consciousness. The feelings which rightly tend 
 to baby-worship would, one feels sure, too 
 often lead to an arbitrary limitation of the area 
 of fact, to confusion of what is actually observed 
 with what is only conjecturally inferred, to 
 exaggeration and misrepresentation. The very 
 excellences of maternity seem in a measure to 
 be an obstacle to a rigorous scientific scrutiny 
 of babyhood. 
 
 The doctor would of course be much more 
 likely to possess the scientific qualifications for 
 this office of baby- interpreter. And medical 
 men have been known to throw themselves 
 into the work. At the same time it is obvious 
 that a doctor's preoccupation of mind with the 
 physical state of the infant would necessarily 
 interfere with a close attention to psychical 
 traits. And at best he could only obtain, by 
 his direct observation alone, a few fragmentary 
 results. 
 
 And here, perhaps, we may do well to think
 
 INTRODUCTION. xvii 
 
 of another possible candidate for our post. 
 The father can, it is evident, find an ampler 
 opportunity than the doctor for a continuous 
 systematic observation of his child. No doubt 
 he will have obstacles put in his way. It is 
 not improbable that the nurse may assert her 
 authority and set her face resolutely against a 
 too free intrusion of man's footsteps into the 
 woman's domain. Still these obstacles may 
 by judicious cajoling be greatly reduced in size, 
 if not altogether removed. In most cases, it 
 may be presumed, he will have a moderate 
 paternal sort of interest in the doings of his 
 tiny progeny. And his masculine intelligence 
 will be less exposed to the risk of taking a too 
 sentimental and eulogistic view of the baby 
 mind. 
 
 The father cannot, however, hope to accom- 
 plish the task alone. His restricted leisure 
 compels him to call in the mother as collabora- 
 teur. Indeed, one may safely say, that the 
 mother's enthusiasm and patient brooding 
 watchfulness are needed quite as much as the 
 father's keen analytic vision. The mother 
 should note under the guidance of the father, 
 he taking due care to test and verify. In this 
 way we may look for something like a complete 
 record of infant life. 
 
 It is satisfactory to find that fathers are 
 waking up to a sense of their duty in this 
 matter, and are already laying the foundations
 
 xviii THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 of what may some day grow into a big biogra- 
 phical dictionary of infant worthies. The 
 initiative, as might have been expected, has been 
 taken by men of scientific habits and tastes. 
 Physicians, naturalists, and psychologists have 
 co-operated in this useful parental work. Among 
 physicians may be named Tiedemann, Sigis- 
 mund, and Lobisch. Among naturalists figure 
 the names of Darwin and Professor Preyer. 
 And the psychologists are represented by M. 
 Taine, M. Perez, Mr. F. Pollock, and others. 1 
 
 The volume which is here presented in an 
 English garb, is from the pen of one who 
 combines considerable physiological and psy- 
 chological knowledge with a practical interest 
 in education. M. Perez is best known perhaps 
 as a writer of paedagogic literature. He has 
 written a volume, as well as occasional articles 
 on distinctly psedagogic themes, and in addition 
 to this has edited writings of other peedago- 
 gists. 
 
 The peculiarity of this record of the first 
 three years of the child, is that it is not a bio- 
 
 1 Reference to the bibliography of the subject will be 
 found in Prayer's Die Seek des Kindes, cap. 19. The obser- 
 vations of Darwin, Taine, Pollock, and others are recorded 
 in Mind, vol. ii. pp. 252, 285 ; vol. iii. p. 392 ; vol. vi. 
 p. 104. I may also refer to two articles of my own, one on 
 Babies and Science, in The Cornhill Magazine, May, 1881, 
 and one on Baby Linguistics, in The English Illustrated 
 Magazine, November, 1884.
 
 INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 graphical sketch. M. Perez, so far as we can 
 judge, has made special note of the progress 
 of one or two favourites, but his record is a 
 wide and comparative one. This gives it its 
 peculiar utility. Each mode of chronicling the 
 events of child-life is valuable the careful chro- 
 nological report of a single child's development, 
 as that of Tiedemann, Darwin, Preyer, and 
 others, and the larger survey of facts which 
 comes from the observation of a number of 
 children and the averaging of the results 
 reached, as in the work of M. Perez. It may 
 be added that our Author appears to have en- 
 joyed very exceptional advantages in finding 
 out the ways of infants. 
 
 The obvious defect of a single biographical 
 record is, that it cannot be taken as typical. 
 As every mother of a family knows, children 
 manifest striking differences from the very 
 beginning of life. Indeed, it is not too much 
 to say, that the child shows its individuality 
 the very first day of its post-natal existence, in 
 the way it takes to the nutriment provided by 
 nature. The differences of mental precocity in 
 infants are very striking too. It is one merit 
 of the present volume, that it presents us with 
 a wide variety of childish character. In some 
 places we have a distinctly precocious trait 
 recorded, as for example in the odd display of 
 quasi-pity by a child of sixteen months, at 
 the sight of an adult undergoing a douche bath
 
 XX THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 (p. 80). En revanche, we have in other places 
 instances of quite commonplace achievement, 
 if not of decided backwardness, as when it is 
 recorded that a child of eleven months was 
 able to understand a number of words and 
 "even a few little phrases" (p. 238). It is 
 only by taking the dull and the clever infants 
 together that we are able to reach the idea of 
 an average typical development. 
 
 M. Perez combines, I think, in a very happy 
 and unusual way, the different qualifications of 
 a good observer of children. He has the first 
 condition loving interest, and the clear sym- 
 pathetic insight which grows out of this. Even 
 the much- neglected dreams of children are a 
 matter of concern to him, and receive illumina- 
 tion from his bright intelligence. Nor is he 
 without a quick sense of the poetic charm of 
 babyhood. Some of the stories he tells us are 
 as fresh and delightful as idylls. They trans- 
 port us into the very atmosphere of unconven- 
 tional child-nature. At the same time he never 
 allows his sentiment to get the better of him. 
 He is before all other things savant, and as 
 such he exposes the unlovely side of infancy in 
 a most merciless fashion. The account of the 
 little ones' fierce angers, petty jealousies, and 
 brutal insensibilities to the sufferings of others 
 will perhaps horrify some readers, who are accus- 
 tomed to think of them as having only a divine 
 or angelic side ; but they will be appreciated
 
 INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 by every one who cares more for the accuracy 
 of facts than for their conformity to our wishes 
 and fancies. 
 
 Another prominent feature of this work, is 
 its clear recognition and appreciation of the 
 bearings of evolution on the. facts of child-life. 
 M. Perez is evidently an ardent evolutionist, 
 and makes excellent use of the new doctrine in 
 explaining what he sees. This feature gives 
 the air of newness to the volume. The 
 reader feels that he is listening to one who 
 is fully abreast of the latest developments of 
 science. 
 
 With this feature may be coupled another, 
 namely, the ample reference to animal psy- 
 chology. M. Perez illustrates the observation 
 made above, that interest in children has ,a 
 close kinship with interest in animals. He has 
 himself been a careful observer of domestic 
 animals, and his references to his kittens are as 
 delightful to the imagination as they are helpful 
 to the understanding. 
 
 As remarked, M. Perez looks at the infant 
 from an educator's point of view. He knows 
 very well that education begins from the cradle, 
 and his book abounds with practical hints on 
 the proper way of training the very young. 
 His kindly nature is quick in detecting the 
 woes of childhood, and eloquent in pleading 
 for their mitigation. Instance what is said 
 about the wickedness of deceiving children
 
 xxii THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 (p. 98). At the same time, the psedagogic 
 intention is never obtruded unpleasantly on 
 the reader's notice. It is by way of passing 
 suggestion, rather than of elaborate enforce- 
 ment, that he aims at making this study of 
 facts a practical guide to the mother and the 
 teacher. 
 
 A last feature of this volume which is deserv- 
 ing of mention, is its thoroughly French form 
 and style. The reader feels at every page that 
 he is listening to a Frenchman who knows how 
 to shape his materials, give order and arrange- 
 ment to his exposition, light it up with per- 
 tinent illustration, and adorn it with the graces 
 of style. While in places the Author ventures 
 a few steps into the darker recesses of meta- 
 physical psychology, he never long forgets that 
 he is writing a popular work. And he has 
 succeeded in producing a volume which, while 
 it will be of special interest to the scientific 
 student, will attract the general reader as well. 
 
 It may not be superfluous to say perhaps, 
 what I feel sure the Author himself would 
 endorse, that this volume makes no pretension 
 to be a final and exhaustive study of its subject. 
 A complete theory of the infant mind will need 
 to be built up by the combined efforts of many 
 observers and thinkers. In the region of psy- 
 chology, much more than in that of the physical 
 sciences, repetition of observation and experi- 
 ment is needed to check and verify the results
 
 INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 of individual research. The secrets of infancy 
 will only be read after many pairs of eyes have 
 pored over the page. Though, as observed, 
 M. Perez has made his studies unusually wide, 
 it may be reasonably doubted whether in some 
 cases he does not give exceptional instances 
 as typical and representative. Certain it is 
 that his notes respecting the first appearance of 
 sensations, e.g. those of taste and smell, of the 
 perceptions of distance, etc., of the movements 
 of grasping objects, and so forth, differ in some 
 important respects from those of other observ- 
 ers. In certain particulars, too, this volume 
 is less full than some other records, notably 
 that of Professor Preyer's Die Seele des Kindes, 
 which, as it was published after the work before 
 us, is not referred to. Hence the student who 
 wants to be quite abreast of the present results 
 of research will do well to read other records 
 in company with this. This circumstance how- 
 ever does not in the least detract from the 
 value of The First Tkree Years, as a rich mine 
 of facts, and one of the fullest, if not indeed 
 the very fullest, monograph on its subject. 
 
 In conclusion, I would express the hope 
 that this pleasant volume will stimulate many 
 an English parent to new individual research 
 in the same promising field. After reading it 
 carefully, any person of ordinary intelligence 
 will have learnt something about the things to 
 be looked for, and the way in which they are
 
 XXIV THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 to be looked for. And I trust I am not going 
 idtra vires in reminding my readers that there 
 is an English journal of psychology, the Editor 
 of which has proved his readiness to publish 
 contributions to the young and promising science 
 of baby-lore. 
 
 JAMES SULLY.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE FACULTIES OF THE INFANT BEFORE BIRTH. 
 
 CAN the foetus be regarded as belonging to psychology? 
 Psychologists have no doubt whatever on the subject, for 
 they will not admit that any organism exists without 
 functions in a greater or less stage of development, and 
 they see in the foetus a rough sketch, as it were, of the 
 entire system of the organs of sensibility. No doubt, 
 either, is expressed on the question by philosophers of the 
 experimental school, who accord as much importance to 
 the unconscious as to the conscious life of the mind, and 
 who regard the apparently automatic movements of the 
 intra-uterine stage of existence as evident manifestations of 
 sensibility of some sort. We will begin by quoting the 
 opinion expressed by Dr. Luys concerning initial sensibility. 
 " In the first phases of foetal life it is very difficult to fix 
 definitely at what epoch sensibility manifests itself as a 
 motor force ; nevertheless, from the fourth month we can 
 observe that the nervous system begins to react and reveal 
 the vitality of the different apparatuses of which it is made 
 up. We know, indeed, that from this period the foetus is 
 sensitive to the action of cold, and that we can develop its 
 spontaneous movements by applying a cold hand to the 
 abdomen of the mother. We know also that it executes 
 spontaneous movements to withdraw from pressure that 
 constrains it and brings its sensibility into play. We may 
 then legitimately conclude that here we have the first 
 gleams of awakening sensibility, which from this period is
 
 2 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 transmitted through its natural channels by the nervous 
 system and already regulated in the manner in which it will 
 subsequently manifest itself throughout the organism." l 
 
 If we admit with this writer the persistence in the nerve 
 cellules of the vibrations which first set them in motion, 
 and, as regards intellectual activity, the persistence in these 
 vibrations of memories and ideas, unconscious though they 
 be, we shall understand the great interest which psycholo- 
 gists must feel in the study of the functional action, what- 
 ever its nature, of psychological life before birth. 
 
 M. Ribot, a philosopher of the experimental school, 
 admits the possibility of researches useful to psychology 
 being made on the subject we are treating of, but only 
 from the point of view of our knowledge of the unconscious 
 life. The first forms of unconscious life must be sought for 
 in the fcetal life a subject full of obscurity, and very little 
 studied from the psychological point of view. We may 
 hold, with Bichat and Cabanis, that though the external 
 senses are in the fcetus in a state of torpor, and though, in 
 the constant temperature of the amniotic fluid, the general 
 sensibility of the fcetus is almost null, still its brain has 
 already exercised perception and will, as seems to be 
 evidenced by the movements of the foetus during the last 
 months of pregnancy. 2 
 
 Professor Kussmaul goes still further. He admits " that 
 the child can, even before birth, experience certain sensations 
 and acquire certain aptitudes by means of the sense of touch 
 aroused in it through contact with the matrix which sur- 
 rounds it, as well as by the sensations of hunger and thirst 
 excited by the amniotic fluid which it swallows. Thus, at 
 this period already, the intelligence of the child would begin 
 to be developed, although very imperfectly." 
 
 What, we ask, do these modifications of the mental life 
 before birth amount to ? May we hope that experimental 
 analogy will one day enlighten us on this delicate and com- 
 
 1 Luys, Le Cerveau et ses Fonctions. See English translation 
 (International Scientific Series), p. 126. 
 
 2 Ribot, L? Hercdi.c. See English translation, p. 227.
 
 THE FACULTIES OF A CHILD BEFORE BIRTH. 3 
 
 plex question ? Will not the comparative anatomy of the 
 foetal brain, the child's brain, and the adult brain some day 
 inform us whether the primitive sensations are or are not 
 arrested before they reach the nerve fibres which help them 
 to transform themselves into perceptions ? The organs of 
 sense, although as yet incompletely finished, do they not 
 nevertheless produce local peripheric reactions, sensitive 
 vibrations, or veritable sensations, which are a kind of 
 rudimentary exercise and training to the parts acted on. 
 
 What is the action of external or internal life on these 
 semi-formed, semi-active, perhaps vaguely conscious souls. 
 If the movements of the foetus were all mechanical and 
 unconscious, would its sensations end only in dull excitations 
 of the sensibility the importance of which it is as unreason- 
 able to deny as to exaggerate ? Since the deviation of the 
 tenth part of a millimeter, sustained by a nerve fibre during 
 pregnancy, exercises a considerable influence over the con- 
 texture of any one organ, the impressions received during 
 foetal life whether regular or accidental and although 
 working on organs which are still imperfect and unexercised, 
 must nevertheless have an influence on the general con- 
 stitution of the mind, as well as on its special dispositions, 
 which it will no doubt be possible to determine within 
 certain limits. These are the first rays of spiritual life 
 whose dawn is the moment of birth. It is the first page of 
 a book which the psychologist should neither despair of 
 being able, nor be in too great haste to decipher. 
 
 What is the nature or the intensity of the sensations which 
 we suppose the foetus to experience ? They are probably 
 sensations already localized and differentiated, of visceral 
 comfort or discomfort, muscular, cutano-thermal, tactile, or 
 sapid sensations ; these latter less distinct because they are 
 less varied than the vital and muscular sensations ; we may 
 even suppose that, in spite of the imperfect development of 
 the auditory apparatus, the vibrations of sound, transmitted 
 through the abdominal partition or chamber, would produce 
 on the parts already completed concussions corresponding 
 to a rudimentary and general sensation of hearing. From 
 what we have been able to gather, however, as to the nature
 
 4 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 of these hypothetical sensations, we may infer that they are 
 not very distinct or intense. 
 
 Contemporary physiology recognises generally in sensation 
 only the result of the modification of the organs which takes 
 place in correspondence to each modification of the sur- 
 rounding medium. The intensity of sensation is in direct 
 ratio to the resistance offered by the fibres of sensation to 
 the action of external impressions. It is the repercussion 
 of this action on the sensorium which produces sensation. 
 The nerve of an adult is able to bear greater excitation than 
 that of a young child, and requires for the production of a 
 given sensation a minimum excitation stronger than the 
 minimum excitation which would produce the same sen- 
 sation in the case of the child. But the extreme adaptivity 
 of the infant organization to its surroundings, and the small 
 resistance which it offers to external excitation, renders the 
 sensational susceptibility considerably less than at a more 
 advanced age. Extremely open to new impressions, children 
 resist them but little, easily get accustomed to them, and 
 also, for that very reason, do not feel them long. And all 
 this applies still more strongly to the foetus. The relative 
 activity of the visceral functions, the extreme tactile sen- 
 sitiveness of the skin, partly the result of its yet imperfect 
 state, the already considerable development of muscular 
 sensibility, may all cause the foetus to experience distinct 
 and acute sensations, under the influence of pressure, of heat 
 or cold, or of internal modifications of the organization. 
 
 What do we know, however, concerning the degree of 
 actual vitality inherent in the organs and the nervous centres 
 at the period of which we are treating. In a word, does 
 the foetus really feel and receive the sensations which we 
 suppose it does ? 
 
 Most physiologists are, like Wirchow, of opinion that the 
 new-born child is simply " a vertebrate animal," that its un- 
 conscious sensations are nothing more than automatic 
 reflex actions, that its sensations and movements have no 
 echo in the centres of sensational and motive ideality. 
 Does this mean that these two encephalic centres are 
 inactive in the foetus? Our scientific knowledge of the
 
 THE FACULTIES OF A CHILD BEFORE BIRTH. 5 
 
 foetal brain, as far as I know, can teach us nothing decisive 
 on this point, and the brain of the new-born child is still 
 fallow ground, if we may judge from the small amount of 
 information to be found on this subject in the most recent 
 French works on the brain in general. We quote from Dr. 
 Charlton Bastian some interesting passages on the develop- 
 ment of the brain during fcetal life. 
 
 " By the end of the fifth month the growth of the cerebral 
 hemispheres has been so great that they completely cover 
 not only the corpora quadrigemina but also the now larger 
 cerebellum. . . ." 
 
 " In the remaining important section of intra-uterine life, 
 from the sixth to the end of the ninth month, the develop- 
 mental changes in the cerebrum are much more marked than 
 they are in the cerebellum. The walls of the cerebral hemi- 
 spheres become thicker, and there is a proportionate dimi- 
 nution in the capacity of the ' lateral ventricles,' the three 
 ' horns ' of which now become quite distinct. The corpus 
 callosum assumes a more horizontal direction, whilst it 
 increases both in thickness and in length. . . ." 
 " During the sixth month a surprising development of the 
 fissures and convolutions takes place, so that early in the 
 seventh month all the principal of them are distinctly trace- 
 able. . . ." 
 
 " During the attainment of this degree of convolutional 
 complexity, some important changes have been taking place 
 in the relative development of the different ' lobes ' of the 
 brain. At the seventh month the parietal lobe (which at 
 birth showed proportionately fuller development) is notably 
 small, while the frontal or temporal lobes are large. . . ." 
 
 " According to S. Van der Kolk and Vrolik it appears 
 that in their relative proportions, the lobes of the brain in a 
 new-born child hold just the mean between those of a 
 chimpanzee and of an adult man. In the adult orang, 
 however, the same proportion obtains between its different 
 lobes and those of the new-born child. . . ." 
 
 " In regard to the microscopical characters of the fcetal 
 brain, one brief but important statement deserves to be 
 recorded. According to Lockhart Clarke : ' In the early
 
 6 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 foetal brain of mammalia and man the structure [of the 
 cerebral convolutions] consists of one uninterrupted 
 nucleated network. As development advances, separate 
 layers may be distinguished.' 1 But even in these layers 
 there are only to be recognised, ' roundish nuclei connected 
 by a network of fibres,' or, in other parts, groups of more 
 elongated nuclei, in place of the distinct but differently 
 shaped nerve cells with inter-connecting processes which 
 are the prevailing and characteristic constituents of the 
 cerebral convolutions in their developed condition." 2 
 
 As far as these superficial indications allow of any 
 conclusion, we see that if the development of the superior 
 hemispheres appears to be ripe enough for perception, 
 emotion, and volition, the defective consistence of their 
 constituent elements indicates, at least during the uterine 
 period, a very limited functional power of the psychical 
 faculties. But it does not follow from the fact that the 
 development of the cerebellum, the organ of co-ordinate 
 movements, is not so advanced as that of the cerebrum, 
 that the centres of ideality and of motive volition have not 
 already entered on their functions before birth. 
 
 Psychologists ought then to be very careful of pro- 
 nouncing judgment in a matter where physiologists of the 
 highest authority are still so much in the dark. I may add, 
 that the latter not being able to subject new-born babies 
 to the murderous experiments of vivisection under anaes- 
 thetics, we have at the present moment but little to 
 expect from their direct sources of information on the 
 cerebral functions of young children and a fortiori of the 
 foetus. At the most, as we shall show further on, they 
 may contribute to infant psychology some indirect infor- 
 mation from their experiments on new-born animals. 
 Every age has its comparative psychology. 
 
 For the present, however, we may fairly assume from 
 
 1 Notes of Researches on the Intimate Structure of the Brain. Pro- 
 ceedings of Royal Society, 1863, p. 721. 
 
 8 Charlton Bastian, The Brain as an Organ of Mind (International 
 Scientific Series), ch. xix., pp. 341-346.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW-BORN CHILD. 7 
 
 analogy, that a long time before it is born a child will have 
 become acquainted both with pain and pleasure, in so far, 
 i.e., as its gradually developing organs have allowed the 
 passage of the impressions which normally produce these 
 sensations. It will also have experienced a great number 
 of lesser sensations, which, though they may have been 
 almost indifferent to it, will nevertheless have had some 
 sort of echo in its already formed consciousness. Most of 
 these sensations, from being produced without the con- 
 currence of the higher brain action, will be confused and 
 indistinct. Others, however, will be clearer, and result in 
 true rudimentary perceptions vague perceptions, i.e., and 
 not localized, and without any other connecting link than 
 that obscure and innate sentiment of personality which 
 is buried in I know not what mysterious corner of the 
 encephalus. These perceptions are, as it were, interior 
 and subjective. We shall have occasion to return to the 
 subject of perception during foetal life in the chapter 
 devoted to the perception of the new-born child. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE FIRST IMPRESSIONS OP THE NEW-BORN CHILD. 
 
 The child has already made acquaintance with pain 
 before coming into the world, and we cannot tell how much 
 more the hard labour of birth may have caused it to suffer. 
 There is no doubt, however, that the moment when it first 
 enters into relation with external realities is a very painful 
 one. As soon as its head comes in contact with the air, 
 this fluid pours in torrents down the delicate tissues of the 
 respiratory organs ; and the progressive succession of move- 
 ments of inspiration and expiration, which are the begin- 
 ning of pulmonary respiration, are not effected without 
 painful shocks. This is why a new-born infant utters 
 sounds similar to those produced by suffocation. It is 
 only slowly and after several days' time, that the little 
 being gets accustomed to the atmosphere which surrounds 
 it. When it first comes into the world, unfurnished with
 
 8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the power of resistance which it acquires later, its delicate 
 skin is suddenly enveloped in an atmosphere which is icy 
 cold compared to that which it has just left Cold is the 
 most serious enemy to new-born children. We know with 
 what care animals hasten to warm their little ones with the 
 heat of their own bodies. The first operation of washing 
 is another source of suffering, for, whatever care be taken 
 and however rapidly it be performed, the towel and the 
 sponge, even though of the finest texture, must irritate the 
 tender skin of a new-born child. The freedom of move- 
 ment, too, which its limbs have gained is in itself a source 
 of pain, after the soft pressure they have been accustomed 
 to j and the most gentle handling of the nurse or mother 
 are torture to its delicate frame, still suffering from the 
 struggle of coming into life. 
 
 All its senses are battered by repeated shocks of strange 
 impressions, and its wailing cries indicate how painfully 
 these are felt. A new-born infant is both deaf and blind, 
 but the rays of light strike none the less on its eyes with a 
 sense of shock, and the waves of sound dash all the same 
 against its tympanum. 
 
 Can we then wonder that the child's entrance into life 
 should be accompanied by those plaintive cries so well 
 described by the Latin poet. "A child at its birth, like 
 a mariner cast ashore by the angry waves, lies prostrate on 
 the earth, naked, speechless, destitute of all the aids to 
 existence, from the moment when it reaches the shores of 
 light, torn from its mother's bosom by the efforts of nature ; 
 and it fills the place it has entered with dismal wailings. 
 And such distress is but natural ! There lies before him 
 of traverse a life afflicted with bitter woes." 1 
 
 The child, however, has no presentiments of the sorrow or 
 the joy which will make up his longer or shorter career; but 
 the individual life that has become his is evidently a cause 
 to suffering to him. Like new-born animals, he is restless 
 and wailing under the influence of all the new impressions 
 
 1 Lucretius, De Natura Rcruin, lib. v., ver. 223, etc.
 
 FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF THE NEW-BORN CHILD. 9 
 
 which irritate his keen susceptibilities ; and it is strictly true 
 that children make acquaintance with external life through 
 suffering. Their entrance into the world is as painful as 
 their exit ; and this is the reason why so many children, 
 exhausted by all their efforts and sufferings, fall after birth 
 into a kind of corpse-like rigidity. A new-born infant 
 shows no immediate desire for food. This is probably 
 owing to exhaustion and the strong need of sleep, and 
 perhaps also to the powerful action of the air, which at 
 once begins to transform the venous blood into arterial 
 blood. 
 
 " It is not till after several hours that the need of nourish- 
 ment first makes itself felt The sensations of hunger and 
 thirst, both equally new, recall the child from the oblivion 
 of sleep, and it awakens with a cry. Maternal tenderness 
 responds instinctively to this appeal, and offers its first gift 
 The child now learns the delight of moistening its lips with 
 a sweet and pleasant liquid, imbibed from the breast on 
 which its head reposes so softly ; and the first sufferings 
 experienced at its debut are quickly effaced by this first 
 sweet pleasure. The satisfied child falls asleep again on 
 its mother's bosom, with the feeling of comfort which 
 satiety produces, and seems once more to return to the 
 isolated life which was its normal condition in the mother's 
 womb, and which its organism has not yet lost the habit of. 
 It reawakens from this slumber every time that the need of 
 nourishment returns to trouble its repose." l 
 
 Thus, though the child thrown naked on the earth soon 
 finds there the soft warm pillow of its mother's breast ; 
 though nature herself manages for it the transitions which 
 lead it gently up to the complete possession of sight, 
 hearing, and locomotion, the struggle for existence begins 
 nevertheless at birth. Hunger, thirst, cold, difficulty of 
 respiration and of digestion, tactile and muscular sufferings, 
 irritating impressions on the organs of sight and hearing, 
 all these await its awakening from each of its deep 
 
 1 Richard de Nancy, Education Physique des Enfants.
 
 IO THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 slumbers. And however little conscious and vivid these 
 sensations may be, they none the less affect the delicate 
 and still imperfect organs. This accounts for the great 
 difficulty there sometimes is in rearing little children, and 
 the frequency of nervous or pectoral affections which 
 carry off so great a number. Moreover, if it is reasonable 
 to judge of the welfare of a child by the strength of, and 
 the manner in which, its various functions operate, we may 
 fairly attempt to determine the condition of a new-born 
 infant by this one action of feeding. During the first feu- 
 days babies suck feebly and without energy, and quickly 
 weary of the process. At this period they are suffering 
 from various operations of nature, and up to the third day 
 there is a diminution of between three and four ounces in 
 their weight ; and it is not till the sixth or seventh day that 
 they get back to what they were at birth. Thus we con- 
 clude that a child's general well-being corresponds to the 
 degree of development of its organs and their power of 
 adaptation to their new surroundings and conditions.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT THE BEGINNING OF LIFE. 
 
 As the first manifestations of psychic life in a new-born 
 child are shown in movements which are more or less 
 automatic, it will be well for us first to study the nature of 
 these movements, which in adults are the expression of 
 psychological phenomena. From the very first days we 
 perceive in infants a sort of motor activity, general and 
 indefinite, which is due to external or internal excitations, 
 themselves also for the most part vague and undefined. 
 We recognise in all this activity a spontaneous tendency of 
 the nervous centre to spend its superabundant energies in 
 muscular force ; but we can also see in some of the actions 
 the expression of pre-established association between 
 certain movements and certain sensations, agreeable or 
 otherwise. For instance, the vague incoherent movements 
 of the arms, legs, and facial muscles, which young babies 
 make, as if trying to escape from the pressure of their 
 clothes, or struggling against some painful state of their 
 system ; the aimless movements which their arms perform, 
 striking right and left without any definite object; all these 
 belong to the first class of indefinite reflex actions. From 
 the first also, the mouth will seize and suck eagerly a finger, 
 or anything else held before it ; the fingers close mechani- 
 cally round any object with which the palm is touched; 
 " Like the leaves and flowers of a sensitive plant whenever 
 they are touched by a foreign substance." l The eyes blink 
 uneasily, as if endeavouring to accustom themselves to the 
 
 1 Mhnoire de Ticdemann,
 
 12 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 blinding light ; if the soles of the feet are touched gently, 
 or tickled with a feather, instinctive movements are at once 
 made to draw away the feet. All these movements, in 
 themselves automatic, but of definite use, belong to the 
 class of general distinct movements. According to Darwin, 
 one of the first reflex actions to be noticed in babies, and 
 one which appears at first sight to have nothing to do 
 with instinct, is the sneezing which accompanies the first 
 act of respiration. The same applies to the shrill staccato 
 screams which are the preliminaries to the action of crying, 
 the pouting of the lips, the wrinkling of the forehead and 
 eyebrows, the contraction of the mouth, by which the 
 lower lip is raised, with a convulsive depression of the 
 corners of the mouth, and finally the sobs and tears, when 
 the child is old enough to produce them. Darwin tells us 
 that in one of his own children he noticed a distinct sob at 
 the age of 138 days. With regard to the effusion of tears, his 
 observations show the period of their first appearance to 
 be very variable. He has never seen them before the twenti- 
 eth day ; once at the sixty-second day ; two other times at 
 the eighty- fourth, and once not before the hundredth day. 
 Laughter, which begins so early, is manifestly a reflex action. 
 This universal sign of joy consists in the retraction of the 
 corners of the mouth, with a slight separation of the lips ; 
 and we may remark this slight expansion of the anterior 
 muscles of the face, this smiling countenance, even in the 
 faces of dogs and cats when at play. Tiedemann thought 
 that he noticed in his boy five days after his birth "the 
 appearance of laughter without any particular motive, thus 
 most probably without intention or sentiment of pleasure, 
 and simply the result of chance action of the mechanism." 
 Tiedemann's son, however, was altogether remarkably preco- 
 cious. I would rather quote the authority of Darwin in the 
 case of points which have been scientifically observed by him. 
 " Those who have the care of young children," he says, 
 " know very well that it is difficult to determine with 
 certainty whether particular movements of the mouth 
 express anything, i.e., whether a child is really smiling." 
 He has scarcely ever observed anything like a real smile
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT THE BEGINNING OF LIFE. 13 
 
 before the age of forty-five days ; and the broken, jerky 
 sounds of genuine laughter he has never heard before the 
 sixty-fifth day. 
 
 " In this gradual development of the laughing powers we 
 find, up to a certain point, an analogy with what takes place 
 in the case of tears. It seems that in both cases a certain 
 amount of practice is wanted, just as for the production of 
 the ordinary movements of the body, or in acquiring the 
 power of walking. The faculty of screaming, on the con- 
 trary, the use of which is very evident, is completely de- 
 veloped at the outset." I have seen smiles on many infants' 
 faces before they were a month old. But this henceforth 
 reflex symptom of joy must not be confounded with certain 
 spasmodic and jerky twitchings of the lips which acute pain 
 produces in infants as well as in grown-up people. All the 
 children of two months old that I have observed have 
 laughed genuinely if they were tickled, or if anything pleased 
 them ; and their laughter has been more or less easy and 
 distinct according to their organization. But they were not 
 themselves aware that their smiles or laughter expressed 
 anything, and I have seen very few infants at this age 
 respond with a smile to their mother's smile. An appeal of 
 a more physical nature is needed at this period, an appeal 
 of the voice, or a sensation of physical pleasure. Or if ever 
 they smiled consciously without any apparent stimulus of 
 this kind, the intention was probably a very feeble one. 
 
 People who have to do with young babies know how, 
 even before the age of two months, they delight in moving 
 their arms and legs about in their cradles. While waiting 
 for the power of locomotion to develop, the tendency to 
 motion vents itself in incessant exercise of the limbs. And 
 these movements, for the most part vague and indefinite, 
 are accompanied by " sounds, simple and inarticulate it is 
 true, but full of variety " (Tiedemann). Nothing shows 
 more clearly the intimate relation between the motive centres 
 of the limbs and the centres of articulation, than this 
 necessity, both for children and animals, of associating 
 sounds with movements. M. Taine gives an instance of 
 his in a little girl on whom he made observations : " To-
 
 14 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 wards the age of three-and-a-half months she used to be 
 laid out on a rug in the garden, and there, lying either on 
 her back or her stomach, she would fling her four limbs 
 about for hours together, uttering at the same time all sorts of 
 varying cries and exclamations ; nothing but vowel sounds 
 however, no consonants ; this went on for several months." 
 But sounds, either articulate or inarticulate, are of no great 
 importance as far as psychology is concerned, since the 
 acquired language of gestures and words, as soon as children 
 understand their expressive value, render these early utter- 
 ances useless. It would be very interesting, however, to 
 study them in the case of children placed, if such a thing 
 were possible, in such a situation that they would have to 
 re-invent their language, without other help than the gestures 
 of their teachers. The experiment may possibly be made 
 some day. 
 
 But to return to the study of movements, so interesting to 
 the psychologist, because they are most often the expression 
 of mental phenomena, which in their turn they again pro- 
 duce. 1 Movements that are very frequent with children 
 hardly a month old, are those which they make when they 
 are held up, with both arms or with only one, with a slight 
 impulsion up and down, without apparent purpose and in a 
 more or less marked manner, accompanying the movement 
 with little clutchings of the fingers. In like manner, when 
 their legs are free, they kick them up and down with an 
 automatic regularity which reminds one of certain convuls- 
 ive movements of adults. Must we not recognise in these 
 movements a discharge of the surplus nervous activity, 
 which neither has nor seeks any special end, but which 
 nevertheless has a useful effect on the whole system of vital 
 functions ? It seems to me that we may also reasonably 
 regard them as the effect of latent tendencies eager to 
 manifest themselves by specialized movements ; and more- 
 over the result is facilitated by these movements, though 
 they may have no definite aim. In fact, each nerve and 
 each muscle produces its own action, more or less regular, 
 
 1 See M. Ribot, Revm Philosophiqttc, Oct. 1st, 1879.
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT THE BEGINNING OF LIFE. I 5 
 
 when its fibres and centres have reached a sufficient degree 
 of strength or organization ; and further, exercise, which is 
 favourable to the general development of the body, prepares 
 also the way for powers latent in the organization, and 
 which sometimes burst quite suddenly, or at least without 
 apparent gradation, into actuality. 
 
 During the three first months the movements of the head 
 from right to left, or left to right, or up and down, which 
 continue for some time to be so uncertain and feeble, 
 assume by degrees a more definite character. In the case 
 of a child of a month and a half only, I have noticed a 
 movement of the head which followed a look cast in my 
 direction, while the ear was bent forward as if listening to 
 me. I have seen a child at the age of seven weeks repeat 
 twice over a face of disgust at the sight of a dose of medicine, 
 accompanying the grimace with movements which later on 
 will signify No, but which at the time were only unconsciously 
 repellent. This, however, was a step in advance : an infant, 
 of eight days or a month simply makes a face, without any 
 accompanying movement, to reject anything that is disagree- 
 able to its taste. As for the movements of the eyes which 
 Tiedemann has observed, and which often occur the second 
 day after birth, they can only be considered as purely reflex 
 actions, even at the age of three weeks or a month, since, as 
 I have already said, children are blind during a period the 
 length of which it is impossible to determine. It may be, 
 however, that the vibrations of light excite their eyes to 
 automatic movements which seem, by chance, to be 
 following some object These movements are perhaps a 
 necessary stepping-stone to sight, for everything tends to 
 the belief in a vague correspondence between light and the 
 tissues intended for vision, since a like correspondence is 
 found where there is little or no visual organ. 
 
 " The rudimentary eye, consisting, as in a Planaria, of some 
 pigment grains, may be considered as simply a part of the 
 surface more irritable by light than the rest." l 
 
 A fortiori may this be the case with young babies, who 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, p. 314.
 
 1 6 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 have a special organ of sensibility to light. The automatic 
 movements of the eyes, which are produced by mere irrita- 
 tion, without any sensation of light, contribute nevertheless 
 to the nutrition of the muscular and nervous tissues, the de- 
 velopment of which is indispensable to the production of 
 visual sensibility. As the development of the muscles, the 
 nerve centres, and the motor centres proceeds, as the sensa- 
 tions become distinct and the judgments more extended, 
 the motor centres acquire more and more specialized powers 
 of adjustment. 
 
 A child of two months who can distinguish several objects 
 outside himself, and is beginning to have a vague idea of 
 distances, not being able to stretch out his hands and seize 
 distant objects, as he does those near to him, bends his 
 whole body towards them. At this same age children begin 
 also to have a clearer idea of extent, or rather of localization 
 relatively to the different parts of their bodies; they now 
 only scratch themselves at intervals. Before the end of the 
 third month, they begin to lift their hands to their faces 
 oftener than before, and a little later the first pains of teeth- 
 ing cause their fingers to be incessantly carried to the 
 mouth. They now use their hands more and to better pur- 
 pose ; the flexion of the hand from the wrist is accomplished 
 perfectly ; the fingers have acquired more regular and more 
 varied movements, and we notice efforts at stretching out 
 the arms ; this, however, rarely as yet. A child at this age 
 will also attempt movements of the legs and the thorax 
 to balance himself in an upright position when held up on 
 his feet, and will struggle with arms and knees to climb up 
 to his nurse's face, when she helps him forward on his feet. 
 
 In a word, he has gained greater consciousness and 
 mastery of his activity ; it affords him more pleasure, and 
 this very pleasure excites him to the use of it 
 
 II. 
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT SIX MONTHS. 
 
 From the fourth to the sixth month, progress is made in 
 numerous ways, but very slowly in comparison to some of 
 the superior animals. The reason of this is, that the more
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT SIX MONTHS. 17 
 
 the will is intended to operate in the control and co-ordina- 
 tion of the movements of the body, the more various and 
 complex will be the special locomotive attainments and the 
 longer the process of training. A cat at a month old, or a 
 dog at four months, will better use its paws for standing, 
 walking, seizing, or playing, than a year-old child will use 
 its hands and legs for the same purposes. A kitten, im- 
 mediately after birth, can drag itself along on its stomach, 
 if not walk ; and its efforts and progress, especially in loco- 
 tion, may be with interest compared to the corresponding 
 progress which takes place so slowly in a child. 1 
 
 It takes a child two years to accomplish stages of progress 
 which a kitten gets over in less than a month. A child of six 
 months, if lowered rapidly in its nurse's arms, will scarcely 
 put out his arms to save himself from falling. His triumph 
 is in the sitting posture. Seated on the floor, surrounded 
 with playthings, of which he shows himself a jealous master, 
 his hands, arms, and fingers accomplish many delicate and 
 varied movements of which a cat or a dog of a year old 
 would not be capable. His activity, doubled now by 
 curiosity, and stimulated to the highest pitch by emotional 
 sentiments of all sorts, makes him happier and happier, and 
 seems to him so great a necessity, that a quarter of an hour 
 of relative inactivity weighs on him as much as a whole day 
 of ennui on a grown-up person. 
 
 At this period a child gets an immense amount of pleasur- 
 able sensation of all kinds, muscular, intellectual, and moral, 
 from its first attempts at walking and talking and imitating 
 all the different gestures of the people around ; and all these 
 progressive steps are so much the more keenly relished by 
 its sensitive personality that" they are not the result of so 
 many conscious efforts or of gradual and intentional evolu- 
 tion, but more often come quite suddenly into operation, 
 according as the development of the different organs which 
 produce them proceeds. The sudden apparition of these 
 
 1 See Mes Deux Chats, Fragment de Psychologic Comparte, broch. 
 in- 12, chez Gernier Baillere, 1881. 
 
 C
 
 1 8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 fqrces, of which possibly a vague presentiment may have 
 been felt throughout the organism, but which have not been 
 intentionally called up, affords a child the constant delight 
 of fresh surprises. They are treasures which he wishes to 
 share with all around ; he will repeat, untiringly, some new 
 movement of which he has just discovered in himself the 
 power a special movement of the hands or legs, for in- 
 stance ; and he will endeavour to apply it to any and every 
 purpose, just as the first significant articulations which he 
 has learnt to utter serve him for general terms to designate 
 objects which perhaps have only a very distant resemblance 
 to each other. We need scarcely remind our readers that 
 with regard to the most important and personal progress 
 which goes on in children, the greater part is effected with- 
 out our concurrence, often indeed in spite of us. There is 
 at least very little that we can, or that we know how to, 
 watch over and direct But nothing is more interesting than 
 the study of those points in which we can to some measure 
 co-operate. 
 
 We will take the case of a child of ten months who has 
 for some time been learning to walk. His first efforts were 
 very laborious; although carefully held by his frock, he 
 often failed in his attempts 'at making steps, and more than 
 once he rolled over, and the lesson ended with crying. 
 For a good while he stuck at the A, B, C, of the art, that is 
 to say, at stamping up and down in one place, like a raw 
 recruit who is made to stretch out first one leg and then 
 the other. After a time he became a little firmer on his 
 thighs and at last he was able to make seven or eight steps 
 without stumbling. But he still keeps his head constantly 
 turned towards the person who is holding him up. He 
 knows that it is only thanks to this support that he is able 
 to keep upright ; he remembers his numerous falls, or per- 
 haps, like a cat set down for the first time on a slippery 
 floor, he has an instinctive feeling of the difficulty of the 
 enterprise ; whatever, the reason, however, he often exhibits 
 fear. But, encouraged by his increasing successes, he 
 finally forgets his apprehensions, grows eager and inspirited, 
 and executes a few well-formed steps, more or less firmly,
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT TEN MONTHS. IQ 
 
 and with evident delight. I am even inclined to believe 
 that something akin to pride, to the exultant feeling of a 
 difficulty conquered, has been awakened in him. And 
 this sentiment must be experienced in a more or less 
 exaggerated degree, for he measures the importance of his 
 efforts by the trouble they cost him ; and the distance 
 traversed by his footsteps is estimated by comparison of 
 the surrounding objects with his own dimensions. 
 
 The eminent philosopher, Herbert Spencer, has admir- 
 ably explained these two psychological facts. On the one 
 hand he says : 
 
 " The sense of effort which a child experiences in raising 
 a weight, greatly exceeds in intensity the sense of effort it 
 will experience in raising the same weight by the same 
 muscles twenty years afterwards. At maturity a like 
 amount of sensation is the correlate of an increased amount 
 of produced motion. Similarly this relation varies quanti- 
 tatively as the constitutional state varies. After a pros- 
 trating illness, the feeling of strain that accompanies the 
 raising of a limb, is as great as that which in health 
 accompanies a considerable feat of strength. 1 
 
 " The dimensions of our bodies and the spaces moved 
 through by our limbs, serve us as standards of comparison 
 with environing dimensions ; and conceptions of smallness 
 or largeness result according as these environing dimensions 
 are much less or much greater than the organic dimensions. 
 Hence, the consciousness of a given relation of two positions 
 in space, must vary quantitatively with variation of bodily 
 bulk. Clearly, a mouse, which has to run many times its 
 own length to traverse the space which a man traverses at 
 a stride, cannot have the same conception of this space as 
 a man. 
 
 Quantitative changes in these compound relations of 
 co-existence are traceable by each person in his own 
 mental history, from childhood to maturity. Distances 
 which seemed great to the boy, seem moderate to the man ; 
 
 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, p. 204.
 
 20 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 and buildings once thought imposing in height and mass, 
 dwindle into insignificance." l 
 
 It is the same with all the conscious efforts that a child 
 makes, and which habit so quickly transforms into reflex 
 actions. I suppose that the child of whom I shall have 
 occasion to speak later on, who seized hold of two feeding- 
 bottles at once and lifted them without help, thought he 
 was lifting two objects of enormous weight. In like 
 manner, when at three-and-a-half months children begin 
 to be a little less awkward in their way of feeling and 
 holding things, it is evident that joy in overcoming diffi- 
 culties is combined with the pleasure they experience in 
 touching and handling. At this age the mere fact of hold- 
 ing in the hands a coveted piece of paper, of hearing it 
 crackle in the fingers, seems a wonderful feat. But one of 
 the triumphs that a child enjoys the most keenly, is when 
 he is first able, however faintly, to imitate some of the 
 words which his attendants have repeated to him with so 
 much patience, and which, owing to the quick impression- 
 ability of his brain, had been promptly fixed in the memory, 
 but which the rebellious vocal organs had long refused to 
 utter. And when at last he succeeds in pronouncing them, 
 however badly, he makes up for lost time, and seems to 
 delight in deafening himself incessantly with the repetition 
 of these sounds. 
 
 III. 
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT FIFTEEN MONTHS. 
 
 At a year old, children begin to toddle a few steps by 
 themselves, letting themselves go from one person to another; 
 they are now no longer so much afraid of falls, which they 
 can ward off by reaching out their hands to the floor ; they 
 take kindly, moreover, to the role of quadruped, which they 
 find very convenient. It is curious to watch them at this 
 age, leaning with their stomachs against chairs or benches, 
 as they will for half-an-hour at a time, arranging and dis- 
 arranging their toys ; spreading out little mimic feasts, with 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, p. 213.
 
 MOTOR ACTIVITY AT FIFTEEN MONTHS. 21 
 
 any scraps they can get hold of ; playing with the cat or the 
 dog, who give themselves up most amiably to being tortured ; 
 then suddenly turning round to any one present ; stretching 
 out their arms with earnest pantomine, if the person moves 
 away or refuses them what they pointed to ; turning this way 
 and that, as their mobile impressions prompt them ; creeping 
 carefully round a chair or table, clinging on to it all the 
 time, stooping down with the same precaution in order to 
 sit on the ground, and then lifting themselves up again 
 with a little more difficulty in short, learning to trust to 
 their own resources, and now almost able to stand upright 
 and move about at will, with very little help from grown-up 
 people. 
 
 Towards the age of fifteen months children will execute 
 with a skill and precision comparatively great, a number of 
 movements which they have either just acquired or have 
 been gradually bringing to perfection. A few instances' 
 that I shall cite will give an idea of the enormous progress 
 accomplished by this time. The head can now be raised 
 or lowered, turned to right or left, held immovable by the 
 tension of the neck, shaken to signify No, nodded up and 
 down for Yes, tossed about with joy, or, at some outburst 
 of tenderness, sunk in the shoulders, or hidden playfully in 
 the hands. 
 
 The ear and the eye have become accommodated to 
 distances ; the ear is now always promptly turned towards 
 the point whence a sound is heard to come ; it can also 
 hear more sounds, and has even the power of choosing 
 what it will listen to, and of shutting itself against sounds 
 which are displeasing to it; it has further learnt to dis- 
 tinguish many creatures and objects by the different sounds 
 they produce. The eye has acquired a large store of 
 adaptations. Cheselden's blind youth, if such a meta- 
 physical blind being really existed, is already far advanced 
 in the double and reciprocal education of sight, touch, and 
 muscle. This eye has no longer the vacant expression of 
 former days ; its look seems sometimes to go through one, 
 it moves with electric rapidity in response to all outward 
 impressions, of whatever nature ; it expresses with force
 
 22 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 and delicacy all the various shades of thought, sentiment, 
 and will ; it is conscious of what it is expressing, and from 
 time to time it does so with intention. 
 
 There is something grand and dignified, so to say, in the 
 happy astonishment called forth in the eye by the discovery 
 of a new fact, and in the confiding and steady attention 
 which it pays to the slightest words, gestures, or looks of a 
 person who is speaking. Laughter and tears, which are 
 as frequent as a few months since, are now more often and 
 more " fully expressive intentionally so also though they 
 do not always express the sentiments, and above all the 
 shades of sentiment, which they are intended to do later 
 on. 
 
 As for the hand, the human organ par excellence, the stages 
 of its progress must of necessity escape the analysis of an 
 .observer attempting to record them ; for the movements 
 which it executes, nearly all of them complicated, and 
 most delicately combined, are the result of efforts and 
 acquirements, and degrees of perfection which have gone on 
 from hour to hour during long months. At fifteen months 
 the hand can already touch with more or less certain dis- 
 crimination and appreciation ; it can sometimes measure 
 .the effort required by the nature of the difficulty, either 
 known or inferred ; the fingers, always in motion, often 
 double themselves up to distinguish the roughness or 
 smoothness of objects, or to find out whether they are 
 hot by skimming the surface. The fist no longer closes 
 with automatic indifference ; it now expresses anger, shows 
 an intention to strike, beat, or thump. The first finger 
 often starts out by itself, and is stretched forward to point 
 out or name objects ; or the fingers will open out and 
 the hand be waved gracefully to make a salute, or ener- 
 getically to repulse anything that annoys. In short, the 
 hand can now hold, lift up, and carry weights adapted to 
 the strength and necessities of the child ; it is master of 
 the playthings which are its owner's treasure, and, what is 
 neither the easiest nor the least valuable step in advance, 
 it can carry a spoon and a glass more or less skilfully to 
 its mouth.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 INSTRUCTIVE AND EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS 
 
 SENSATIONS may be studied from three points of view, the 
 perceptive, the emotional, and the instinctive; that is to 
 say, in the perceptions or ideas which they leave behind 
 them, in the pleasant or painful emotions which they 
 occasion, and in the tendencies or inclinations which they 
 engender. We will begin by showing the order of the 
 natural development of perceptions in a child, as far, that 
 is, as it is possible to observe or to infer it. 
 
 "The mind of man," says Bacon, "must work upon 
 stuff." Sensations are the primary matter of the mind, the 
 determining cause of our ideas. But we cannot affirm on 
 the evidence of facts that intellectual operations are, like 
 ideas, engendered by the medium of sensation. If we 
 regard sensations as a particular state of the sensory centres, 
 ideas as special modifications of the intellectual centre, 
 and the various operations as special dispositions of the 
 spiritual organs, the one and the other tending from habit 
 and practice to reproduce themselves, and to excite each 
 other mutually, it remains to be proved, with the help of the 
 scalpel and the microscope, that the transformation, for 
 instance, of the idea into attention, produces a new and 
 persistent disposition of molecules in the tissues and cells 
 of the brain. No observations of this nature have yet been 
 made. But there is no longer any doubt in the mind of
 
 24 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 anatomists and physiologists, that the play of our faculties 
 is intimately connected with the perfection of the instrument. 
 " Not only does the slightest pathological modification 
 affect the whole of the cerebral functions, but we find these 
 functions increase as age multiplies the cerebral fibres and 
 cells, or complicates their relations to each other. Science 
 has not yet arrived at specifying the functions of each fibre 
 in this wonderful labyrinth ; they count by thousands ; most 
 of them measure less than the thousandth part of a milli- 
 metre; some of them even can scarcely be seen through 
 the best microscopes." l It is the condition of this instrument 
 in the new-born child that we want to understand. 
 
 Comparative psychology and physiology, as I have 
 already said, can hardly give us any information concerning 
 the state of the centres of perception during the first period 
 of life. Brain anatomists, however, foresee the moment 
 when experiment may open this vast field to human thought. 
 " It would be extremely interesting," says Ferrier, " to 
 ascertain whether, in an individual born blind, the sight 
 centre presents any peculiarities, either as regards the form 
 of the cells or their processes, or otherwise, differing from 
 those of the normal brain. If such were detectable, we 
 should come near arriving at the characters of the physical 
 basis of an idea." 2 Dr. Tarchanoff has made some experi- 
 ments on the nerve centres, and especially on the psycho- 
 motor centres of new-born animals, and their development 
 under different conditions, the interesting results of which 
 I will give here in his own words, " In a new-born rabbit 
 the auditory passage of the ear is closed, and does not 
 begin to open till the fifth day after birth, when it has the 
 appearance of a very fine slit. The first sign of a slit 
 between the eyelids appears towards the tenth or eleventh 
 day ; and towards the twelfth day, in most cases, the eyes 
 are quite open. The psychomotor centres generally make 
 their appearance towards the twelfth or thirteenth day. It 
 
 1 G. Pouchet, Analyse du Livre de M. Ribot sitr tHcrcdite, dans le 
 Journal Le Siecle, juin, 1873. 
 
 8 David Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain, p. 260.
 
 INSTRUCTIVE AND EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS. 2$ 
 
 is the motor centres of the jaw the centres of mastication 
 which develop first on the grey cortex of the brain. 
 After these, the motor centres of the anterior paws appear, 
 and three or four days later, those of the posterior limbs. 
 By the sixteenth day, all the psychomotor centres of the 
 rabbit are fully developed. An almost identical order of 
 development of the psychomotor centres has been described 
 by Soltman in the dog." 
 
 What knowledge have we of the condition of the seat 
 of perception or ideation, whether visual, auditory, or 
 even motor, in new-born infants ? Almost none. In the 
 first place, as far as vision is concerned, although the con- 
 stituent parts of the ocular apparatus may be sufficiently 
 developed, and though the child sometimes shuts its eyes 
 under the action of a bright light, as it is continually 
 shutting them, it is difficult to draw any inferences from this 
 as regards sight. During the first days of existence, the 
 immobility of the pupils and of the iris appears to indicate 
 insensibility of the retina to light. It is however probable 
 that it soon begins to distinguish feebly between day and 
 night. This stage is generally reached by the end of the 
 first week. A few days after, the eyes begin to follow the 
 direction of light, and of candles. But, except when the 
 child is sucking, the eyes continually wander ; they do not 
 fix themselves on any objects or follow their movements, 
 which is a proof that they do not distinguish them better 
 than at the moment of birth. They do not begin to dis- 
 tinguish objects till the end of the fourth week, and then 
 still very confusedly. 
 
 We know that newborn babies are deaf, the external 
 auditory passage being closed, and the cavity of the 
 tympanum containing too little air. But we are ignorant 
 as to whether they arrive at the faculty of hearing by inter- 
 mediate degrees, or by a sudden bound, their auditory 
 apparatus becoming all at once sufficiently developed to 
 fulfil its functions. It is easy, however, to observe during 
 the first fortnight a very great susceptibility to the slightest 
 sound of any kind. A baby shudders and blinks its eyes 
 when it hears any sudden noise, a door being closed, a
 
 26 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 piece of furniture moved, the rolling of a carriage, a sneeze, 
 a burst of laughter, a scream, or a loud song. 
 
 As regards muscular perceptions, which, as we have said, 
 are no doubt faintly begun in the foetus, their progress in 
 number and differentiation is very limited during the first 
 month. Muscular perceptions, being connected with 
 motivity, are still very rudimentary at this period ; but this 
 does not apply to the other muscular sensations, or to 
 cutaneous sensations. Young infants, being continually 
 subject to new sensations of contact, pressure, and tem- 
 perature, are able to retain and develop sufficient percep- 
 tions, by the laws of integration and differentiation, for 
 the faculty of localizing sensations from external causes 
 in the different parts of the body to have made some pro- 
 gress at an early period. But what point has been reached 
 by the second month in the knowledge of external objects ? 
 And, first of all, how does a child see them at this age ? 
 
 It would be well, perhaps, to ask oneself whether a little 
 baby a month, or even two months, old sees all the objects 
 situated in the field of vision. Is there for the individual 
 also a progressive evolution of the sense of colour, as 
 Gladstone and Magnus assert that there is for the race ? 
 According to their theory, the sense of colour has only 
 been developed in man since the heroic ages, i.e., about 
 3,000 years. The ancients before Homer's time only dis- 
 tinguished light as brightness and colour. As the education 
 of the organ progressed, three principal colours seem to 
 have been apprehended by it, and in the order of greater 
 or less refrangibility, viz., red, green, and violet. In the 
 second phase of development, the sense of colour becomes 
 quite distinct from the sense of light. Red and yellow, 
 with their various shades, including orange, are now clearly 
 distinguished. The characteristic of the third period is the 
 power of distinguishing colours which, as regards brilliancy, 
 belong to neither extreme but are on the whole varieties of 
 green. Finally, in the fourth period man begins to dis- 
 tinguish blue. This phase is still going on, and with regard 
 to some portions of humanity is not yet far advanced ; we 
 ourselves, indeed, easily confuse blue and green by candle-
 
 INSTRUCTIVE AND EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS. 27 
 
 light. 1 M. G. Atlen, as the advocate of evolution pure 
 and simple, has undertaken the refutation of the theory of 
 historic evolution ; but there remains still the ante-historic 
 question. The formation of the human visual organ as it 
 exists at the present day, and the development of the sense 
 of colour, can only be explained by hereditary transmission. 
 Our more immediate ancestors of the pre-historic age, did 
 they see the same colours that we do? Do children see 
 colours in the same way as we ourselves ? Certain patho- 
 logical facts engendering optical illusions, and in particular, 
 Daltonism, which is so frequent in adults, might lead us to 
 suppose, considering the incompleteness of the visual organ 
 and the optic centres in new-born children, that they do not 
 see all colours at the beginning of life, that the sense of 
 certain colours is perhaps wanting in them at first, and that 
 these deficiencies in sight vary with different individuals, 
 and in each individual according to the physiological state 
 of the organs, and even according to the day and the hour. 
 
 But what data have we for establishing this hypothesis ? 
 I believe, moreover, that the value of chromatic distinction 
 is of little importance to the question in point. The non- 
 distinction of colour does not necessarily imply the non- 
 perception of light ; and it is by their degrees of light and 
 shade, by the greater or less intensity of the impressions 
 they produce, that a child distinguishes objects. 
 
 It is probable that the field of vision only opens out 
 gradually to a child, and that the different parts of it are 
 only apprehended by him according to the degree of 
 intensity of their light or colouring. We should form a 
 wrong idea of the first perceptions of children if we suppose 
 them to be like Cheselden's blind youth, to whom different 
 objects placed before his eyes seemed only a mass of colours 
 spread over a plane surface. Binocular vision, as soon as it 
 operates with regularity of adjustment, produces the per- 
 ception of coloured space in two dimensions, and suggests 
 the idea of the third dimension. This power is increased 
 
 1 See the interesting review of M. G. Atlen's book by M. A. Espinas, 
 Revue Philosophique, Jan., 1880.
 
 28 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 in the child by the simultaneous seeing and touching of 
 things brought near to it, but the progress is very slow up 
 to the age of six weeks. Towards the end of the second 
 month, however, a marked improvement begins. First, the 
 child pays a little more attention to the impressions which 
 come to him. His tactile and muscular functions (the 
 latter especially) proceeding from centres more fully 
 developed, bring their contingent of perceptions indispens- 
 able to those of sight. The eye, moreover, has grown more 
 mobile, its muscles are stronger, and it opens wider, thus 
 not only giving an enlarged field of vision, but also allowing 
 the formation of ideas of localization, relief, and distance. 
 
 That all these ideas are still very confused in the brain 
 of an infant of two months, is however a matter of course ; 
 but it will already have had a great number of those 
 muscular experiences on which the formation of all ideas of 
 outside things, and above all the distinction between the 
 external and the internal depends. Just as by the distinction 
 between his own cries and the voices of others, a child at 
 once conceives as distinct from himself other beings capable 
 of making themselves heard like himself, so the muscular 
 sensations produced by movements which he makes himself 
 are distinguished by him from the sensations resulting from 
 movements foreign to himself, and this distinction is cor- 
 roborated by the concomitant sensations of sight, which 
 cause him to see foreign bodies in motion. His progress 
 in mobility thus carries with it progress in his ideas of the 
 separate existence of things, as well as their forms, their 
 relations to each other, and their distances. By the age of 
 three months the mobility of his eyes, neck, and arms has 
 increased, and hence a quantity of muscular sensations 
 combined with visual ones, which result in a clearer dis- 
 tinction of all the ideas of which we are speaking. He 
 also begins now to have the power of discerning, I do not 
 say of appreciating, weight, which calls into play the 
 muscular sense of effort, and above all, if we go by Fenier, 
 the feeling of the contraction of the respiratory organs. 1 
 
 1 Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain, p. 358.
 
 INSTRUCTIVE AND EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS. 2Q 
 
 Mary, at the age of three-and-a-half months, can already 
 distinguish several parts of her body. When her mother says 
 to her, " Where are your feet ? " her eyes first of all move 
 uncertainly to right and left, and then, bending her neck for- 
 ward, she directs them towards her feet She plays with and 
 fondles her mother ; when her mother's face is bent over 
 hers, she seizes it with her little fat hands, and touches and 
 pats it with an evident intention of showing tenderness. 
 "She chatters to the flowers," to quote her mother's words. 
 She is passionately fond of colours, especially very brilliant 
 ones. If a coloured picture is shown her, she makes two 
 or three sudden starts, and then holds her little hands out 
 eagerly towards it, palpitating with desire or pleasure, her eyes 
 attentively fixed, her face beaming with joy, and uttering 
 all the time little birdlike cries. But seeing is not enough ; 
 she soon wants to handle the beautiful object, and seizing it 
 with both her hands she crumples it up and gazes at it ad- 
 miringly, but without seeing anything more in it than pretty 
 colours. The word picture will now make her smile from 
 association of ideas and feelings. She is very fond of bab- 
 bling to the birds, with whom she is well acquainted ; and 
 she not only turns towards the cage when the canary is 
 singing, but also when he is quite quiet, if her mother says 
 to her, " Where is Coco ? Listen to Coco." 
 
 She understands, from the expression of the face and the 
 tone of the voice, when she is being scolded, and then she 
 wrinkles up her forehead, her lips twitch convulsively and 
 pout for two or three seconds, her eyes fill with tears, and 
 she is on the point of sobbing. She is very sensitive to 
 caresses, and laughs and plays with every one who laughs and 
 plays with her. But she is jealous in the extreme. If her 
 elder sister is placed beside her on her mother's lap, and 
 the mother kisses the sister, quite a tragic scene ensues ; for 
 a few seconds she remains still with her eyes fixed, then her 
 mouth begins to twitch, her eyes fill with tears. She be- 
 comes convulsed with sobs, she turns away her head so as 
 not to see her rival, and presents for some minutes the picture 
 of misery. She behaves precisely in the same manner if 
 her mother gives her sister the feeding-bottle, or if the latter
 
 30 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 takes it up from the table ; but when the mother takes the 
 bottle herself and pretends to suck from it, she instantly re- 
 covers her serenity : it seems as if she had no sense of egotism 
 in her relations with her mother. 
 
 Let us take another child of different sex and tempera- 
 ment. Georgie is seven months old. He has hardly entered 
 my room when his attention is vividly excited by the noisy 
 movements of a sparrow hopping up and down in its cage 
 close to the window. Then he fixes his eyes steadily for 
 the space of three minutes on a cat lying cuddled up at the 
 foot of an arm-chair : he has often seen cats before. 
 
 But the sparrow sings a few notes, and Georgie looks 
 round on all sides, not knowing whence the pleasant sounds 
 proceed. I call him by his name, Georgie ; and though he 
 has never heard my voice before, he smiles at me most 
 sweetly. The next thing that attracts his attention is a 
 bunch of flowers which I placed on a table near him. He 
 stretches out his arms towards these, and evidently derives 
 great pleasure from looking at them; but his delight does not 
 manifest itself in those bounds and cries and outbursts of joy 
 which I have already noticed in little Mary and many other 
 children of the same age (three-and-a-half months) under 
 similar circumstances. Georgie is a big, fat boy of Alsatian 
 parentage, chubby-faced, grave, slow, and obstinate ; while 
 Mary, on the other hand, is a pale, slender, animated, spark- 
 ling little Parisian. Ten days after his first visit to me, 
 Georgie was brought into my room for a second " sitting." 
 This time he amused himself with making jumps at my cat. 
 When tired of this game he stretched himself forward to seize 
 a plate which stands in the middle of the table ; I allowed 
 him to reach across the table and to touch the plate ; he 
 handled it with evident gestures of pleasure, and his face 
 also expressed extreme delight. After a while (I supporting 
 three-fourths of the weight) he carried it to his mouth, as he 
 does with all objects he gets hold of. His grandmother has 
 brought him up with a bottle. I have noticed in this child, 
 as in many others, a quite peculiar tenderness for his grand- 
 mother, who has been his nurse. The instant he has got 
 hold of a desired object, and whenever he experiences any
 
 INSTRUCTIVE AND EMOTIONAL SENSATIONS. 31 
 
 pleasure which is not connected with eating, he turns smil- 
 ingly towards her, as if his joy were not complete till he 
 had shared it with her. Or must we see in this nothing 
 more than a mechanical habit, the child having never ex- 
 perienced any joy without his grandmother being at hand to 
 take part in it ? 
 
 Thus in children of three-and-a-half and seven months we 
 find the power of distinguishing a large number of essential 
 ideas. They can distinguish themselves from their mother, 
 their grandmother, their sister, myself, a bird, a cage, a cat, a 
 table, a plate, etc. But even at seven months they see promi- 
 nent details better than whole objects; they see them by a 
 kind of process of imaginative abstraction^ by means of which 
 external perceptions come to them as scraps of colour. 
 They have only an imperfect appreciation of distance and 
 weight ; an object a little way off must be very bright or 
 very sonorous, for their curiosity, even when excited by 
 craving, to fasten upon it. 
 
 They try to seize objects before they are within their 
 reach ; they will put out a whole hand and all their strength 
 to take up a bit of coloured paper, as if it were a compact 
 and heavy substance. At three months a child can distin- 
 guish his feeding-bottle by its form and colour ; but so little 
 does he compare, that he will seize an empty or a full bottle 
 with equal eagerness. At seven months he compares better 
 than at three ; and he appears at this age to have visual 
 perceptions associated with ideas of kind; for instance, he 
 connects the different flavours of a piece of bread, of a cake, 
 of fruit, with their different forms and colours. At one or 
 two years old, when his curiosity has been developed by 
 exercise, by the continual supply of fresh emotions, by the 
 growth of his muscular forces, and above all of his mobile 
 and locomotive faculties, his power of comparison is very 
 much greater. All his ideas of situation, of figure, of relief, 
 of distance, and of weight have now reached such a pitch of 
 perfection that in many cases they are nearly equal to those 
 of an adult. But many are the illusions he will suffer, some- 
 times consciously, from these perceptions, which bring into 
 conflict the actual sensations of sight and the judgment ac-
 
 32 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 quired from outside. Countless experiences, countless errors, 
 deceptions vividly felt, will have to be gone through before 
 the child can arrive at the summary knowledge of the ex- 
 ternal world, such as it appears to the eye of an adult. This 
 knowledge, in point of fact, has no limits; or rather, its limits 
 are for ever receding before science. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE FTR^T PERCEPTIONS. 
 
 The Sensations of Taste. The first manifestations of 
 pleasure in little children are connected with the sense of 
 taste. A few hours after birth, hunger makes itself known 
 by the efforts of the mouth, as if to seek its food, and its 
 attempts to suck any object presented to it, and by wailings 
 accompanied with lively movements of the arms. During 
 the following days, when the infant has learnt to suck, it 
 will remain glued to the breast, and, until its appetite is satis- 
 fied, the strongest appeal to its attention will not disturb it. 
 There is no doubt, however, that after the child has sucked 
 for a few seconds it goes on doing it mechanically, without 
 any feeling of pleasure or otherwise, except at intervals, its 
 organs being for the present incapable of feeling a sensation 
 repeated too often. The sensation of taste soon ceases to 
 react on the nerves subject to its influence, and after a cer- 
 tain time the intervention of a stronger excitement is needed 
 to produce a reaction. Greediness then comes in as a 
 stimulus, and in a child is as legitimate as it is common. 
 
 We are at liberty to believe that the sense of taste is very 
 slightly developed in a child just born, the indirect proof of 
 this being the small necessity there is for a child to distin- 
 guish flavours. But we have more positive reasons also for 
 this assumption ; we know that in adults the sensations of 
 taste are mixed up with sensations of smell which influence 
 us in distinguishing flavours. " If our nostrils were closed," 
 says Longet, " we should not be able to distinguish vanilla 
 cream from coffee cream, and both would only produce a 
 general sensation of softness and sweetness." But also, as
 
 OLFACTORY SENSATIONS. 33 
 
 Brillat-Savarin has told us, " the empire of flavour has its 
 blind and its deaf, and degrees of sapid sensitiveness, very 
 different in different people, are seen already at a tender 
 age." In some cases children of six months have been in- 
 duced to take disagreeable medicine simply by a change 
 being made in the colour. Others again, at an earlier age, 
 will refuse to suck from their mother, or from particular 
 nurses, because of something unpleasant either to their 
 sense of smell or taste. Some children are very easily dis- 
 gusted. I have seen a child two months and a half old refuse 
 its bottle determinately and with a face of disgust, once 
 because it was filled with water, and another time because 
 the milk was not sweetened. Some children appear sensi- 
 tive to all impressions of taste, whatever they may be, while 
 others again are indifferent to them. A member of my family, 
 when a child, could never be persuaded by her mother to 
 taste wine ; and, in spite of the advice of doctors, she has 
 never been able to drink anything but water. Other chil- 
 dren, and by far the greater number, begin very early to 
 notice the acid taste in certain substances. In general, 
 however, children very easily change their tastes, which is a 
 reason for not forcing them to eat things against their incli- 
 nation when there is no necessity for it 
 
 Olfactory Sensations. Children, as a rule, appear to re- 
 main for some time insensible to bad smells. The pro- 
 bability, however, is, that they are only less sensitive to 
 them than adults are, and that their olfactory apparatus, 
 the delicate organs of which are closely related to the 
 different regions of the brain, are not highly developed in 
 the earlier months. This would not be at all surprising, 
 as the olfactory sense seems to be of no use whatever to 
 the nursing child. Possibly also, as odours are variable 
 and fleeting in their nature, it may require a practised 
 judgment to distinguish the sensations produced by them, 
 and to refer them to the right objects and causes. To 
 know the origin of a sensation, is to be able to single it 
 out from the concomitant sensations. 
 
 Nevertheless certain specialist doctors have assured me 
 that new-born infants are impressed by smells, and I have 
 
 D
 
 34 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 had cited to me the cases of a child of six weeks, and 
 another of two months, who, in refusing or in taking the 
 breast of certain nurses, were guided only by the smell of their 
 perspiration. Tiedemann, whose son at the age of thirteen 
 days had rejected different medicines after having tasted them 
 several times, supposes that "he distinguished them from 
 his food by their smell." A son of Darwin's thirty-two days 
 old, " recognised its mother's breast at a distance of 75 to 100 
 millimetres, as the movement of its lips and the fixity of 
 its eyes testified;" and Darwin assumes 'that sight and touch 
 had nothing to do with this, and that the child was guided 
 by the sensation of heat, or by the smell. But scientific ob- 
 servations concerning smell, both from the emotional and 
 the cognitive point of view, are very incomplete, even when 
 coming from the most competent people. 
 
 An infant of fifteen days, one month, or two months, 
 manifests only visual or tactile sensations in the presence 
 of, or in contact with, a rose, a lily, a geranium, or a nose- 
 gay of flowers ; but I would not affirm that it experiences no 
 other sensations. I have subjected a certain number of 
 Children between the ages of ten and fifteen months, to 
 experiments relating to the olfactory sensations, and all of 
 them, excepting one who was insensible to any smells, even 
 those of tobacco and ether, felt the different olfactory im- 
 pressions very vividly. One child of ten months seemed 
 to me to be very sensitive to pleasant smells and very 
 much annoyed by bad ones. When I prevented his seizing 
 hold of a rose, or a bunch of violets, which I had held close 
 to his nose, his expression and his gestures evidently begged 
 me to give them to him. When I again held them up to 
 his nose, he remained some time quite motionless, smiling 
 with pleasure ; in short, he seemed to appreciate and delight 
 in pleasant scents. As we said above, there are some kinds 
 of food which not only impress the organs of taste (affording 
 us the sensations described as sweet, saline, sour, acid, bitter, 
 etc.), but which also act on the olfactory nerves, chocolate 
 and coffee, for instance, and these this child was extrava- 
 gantly fond ot ; and it certainly appreciated, as thoroughly as 
 a grown-up person could, the perfumes of cocoa and mocha.
 
 ORGANIC SENSATIONS. 35 
 
 I have seen two other children of the same age who cared 
 less for the perfume of a rose or of mignonette, by which 
 the alimentary organs are not affected, than they did for 
 the smell of chocolate. Odours connected with food are 
 apt, as we can easily conceive, to take rank before odours 
 pure and simple with the inexperienced sensibility of a 
 child, while the contrary is frequently the case with adults. 
 The ancients crowned themselves with roses at their ban- 
 quets ; and we ourselves often deck our dinner-tables with 
 flowers, or at any rate we generally have about us delicate 
 perfumes which do not impair the flavour of the wines and 
 viands. 
 
 Organic Sensations. Bain has given this name to those 
 sensations which arise from the diverse dispositions and 
 affections of our bodies and which all become fused into 
 the vital or fundamental sense the general sensation of 
 existence and the immediate sensation of our own body, 
 which is, according to Luys, the sum of all nervous actions, 
 and, as it were, the organic basis of consciousness. To the 
 organic sense are to be referred the respiratory sensations, 
 \\hich we have already spoken of, the sensations of the 
 circulation and nutrition, the organic sensations of the nerves 
 and the muscles, such as fatigue, pain from a cut or a 
 scratch, cramps, spasms, etc. There is no doubt that 
 children, with their incomplete organisms and imperfect 
 powers of adjustment, frequently suffer from these different 
 kinds of pain, especially during the first period of existence. 
 It is less evident that they experience corresponding sensa- 
 tions of pleasure, the latter being only equivalent to a 
 passive state of functional regularity and general well-being 
 which is not expressed by violent signs. 
 
 The state of comfort resulting from regular breathing is 
 one of these passively pleasurable sensations which children 
 have most experience of. In fact, respiration being mqre 
 active in infancy than in adult life, and the frequency of 
 inspiration in children causing them greater need of oxygen, 
 they must on the one hand have their attention a good 
 deal excited by this respiratory action, on account of the 
 rapid modifications which it causes in their organs ; and, on
 
 36 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the other hand, the quality and temperature of the air 
 breathed must afford them sensations corresponding to the 
 freshness and appetition of their respiratory organs. We 
 know, moreover, that even before the age of a month there 
 is nothing more salutary or enjoyable to infants than to be 
 carried out into the open air. 
 
 If we admit that there is an organic and automatic con- 
 sciousness always watching over all the internal and external 
 parts of a young infant, we may also class among its happy 
 sensations those which regular sleep afford it. Sound 
 slumber in a child implies healthy and thorough nutrition, 
 and perfect harmony of all its functions. Not only is sleep 
 the necessary condition of the growth of the organs, and of 
 moral and intellectual development, which depends less on 
 the impressions received than on the perceptions digested 
 and consolidated, but it is the greatest boon that nature 
 bestows on children before the age of eager curiosity and 
 easy locomotion. 
 
 Muscular Sensations. I have already had occasion to 
 speak of a sense to which a certain number of the tactile 
 properties of bodies have been transferred the muscular 
 sense ; which, in the opinion of Renouvier, is only an hypo- 
 thesis, but the existence of which Bain and Wundt believe 
 they have established by irrefutable experiments. To this 
 " interior contact " are usually referred all sensations of 
 pressure, weight, traction, and even resistance ; it is re- 
 garded as the conscious centre, not only of muscular con- 
 tractions, but even of the state of the muscles, and, in a 
 lesser degree, of the state of the articulations of the skin 
 accompanying muscular contractions. 
 
 Whatever be the origin and whatever the centre of these 
 sensations, it cannot be denied that there result from them 
 sensations of pleasure or pain of a particular sort, inde- 
 pendent of the moral pleasure or displeasure resulting from 
 desires more or less keen and more or less perfectly satisfied. 
 An effort pleases in itself when it is not too violent ; it 
 may then be said that sensations of pressure, of weight, of 
 muscular efforts, are agreeable to children when not beyond 
 their strength, and more or less disagreeable to them in the
 
 MUSCULAR AND THERMAL SENSATIONS. 37 
 
 contrary case. These sensations are also all the more 
 agreeable the more they are varied. Each limb, and each 
 organ is capable of an infinite number of movements which 
 produce in the owner the personal, although perhaps un- 
 conscious, sense of his own activity and existence. How 
 many muscles are put into play successively or simultane- 
 ously by the simple action of dragging along a ball tied to 
 a piece of string ! And in the matter of a weight, however 
 small, to be lifted or held up, it is not only the muscles of 
 the back, shoulders, neck, or arm which are exerted, but also 
 a certain number of respiratory muscles. Ferrier seems in 
 fact to have demonstrated that the sense of effort necessary 
 for the discernment of a heavy weight " would be more 
 correctly assigned to the region of the respiratory muscles." 
 This sensation of weight, which precedes the appreciation 
 of weight, is thus a muscular phenomenon of such complexity 
 that the host of sensations which result from it must deeply 
 affect the muscular consciousness, or the centre where the 
 attributes of that consciousness are located. The pleasure 
 of a state of equilibrium and health, the pleasure of moderate 
 and appropriate exercise when he moves his own limbs or 
 they are moved for him, such are the enjoyable sensations 
 which unconscious infants experience every day. But on the 
 other hand, how many disagreeable and hurtful sensations 
 do not we ourselves cause them, without being aware of it. 
 
 Thermal Sensations. The sensations of heat and cold 
 depend essentially on the difference of temperature between 
 our organs and the surrounding atmosphere, the radiating 
 body and the body in contact either the air or any object 
 whatever. When the disproportion is only moderate, there 
 results an agreeable sensation of warmth or coolness, as the 
 case may be j when it exceeds certain limits, it causes pain 
 and at the same time more or less serious trouble in the 
 depths of organic life. In spite of the incomplete develop- 
 ment of their " plexus " and nerve centres, children, from the 
 delicacy of their epidermic tissues, their slight degree of 
 nutritive activity, and the smallness of their bulk, are pre- 
 disposed to very great susceptibility to temperature. We 
 have already seen that the foetus is very sensitive to high or
 
 38 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 low temperature. With all new-born animals, the tendency 
 to suffer from cold is very great, and they are very apt to 
 die of cold even in summer, if out of reach of the sun. 
 
 The pleasure which young children derive from sensa- 
 tions of warmth is so evident that it is needless to dwell on 
 it. But we may legitimately ask whether the sensations of 
 cold which cause death to so many are as painful to them 
 as they would be to older children or adults. My own 
 opinion is, that very young children suffer less in reality 
 than we should expect, considering the sensitiveness of their 
 organisation to such impressions. Sensations of the above 
 nature are generally modified in the adult by judgments, 
 habits, and sentiments of diverse and variable kinds which 
 a rise or fall of some degrees may awaken in them. A 
 sentry on duty during a hard frost will possibly have 
 thoughts in his mind which may counterbalance the keen 
 sensations of cold, or may make reflections and comparisons, 
 call up recollections, indulge in imaginations, which will 
 have the result of making the cold more painful to him than 
 to a child of two months, or only a few weeks, exposed 
 perhaps on a doorstep a few paces from him. It is needless 
 to insist on a fact patent to all, viz., that the individual 
 constitution, and the accidental state of health augment or 
 diminish, in children as well as in adults, the susceptibility 
 of which we are speaking. 
 
 Sensations of Touch. The sense of touch is a means of 
 preservation before it becomes a means of instruction ; and 
 we know that, like the muscular and thermal senses, it 
 operates already in the womb under the action of the 
 pressure of a hand or of heat or cold air. At the moment 
 of birth cutaneous sensibility is very acute, and the child 
 seems to show, either by a happy state of quiescence or by 
 cries and convulsions, that the contact with outward objects 
 causes it pleasure or pain. 
 
 The sensation of resistance is considered by some to be 
 the fundamental sensation of touch. The intensity of this 
 sensation, and the modifications of which it is capable, 
 according to the nature of the objects which cause the 
 impressions, will produce in children feelings that are either
 
 SENSATIONS OF TOUCH. 39 
 
 really painful or simply annoying and irritating; such are 
 the feelings of tickling, rubbing, bandaging, pricking, etc. 
 Sensations of contact which seem to us insignificant cause 
 a child great uneasiness, and will cause it to make faces, 
 to scream, to wriggle its body, to toss its arms about and 
 carry them automatically to its face. A feather passed 
 over the eyes and nose of a child fifteen days old made 
 it frown, contract its nose obliquely, and close its eyes. 
 Other children again, at an older age, are insensible to this 
 kind of excitation. 
 
 As to the pleasant sensations of touch, it is not so easy 
 to tabulate their signs (though, as we have said, they are 
 very evident) in children less than two months old. Light 
 and delicate pressure, the contact of a soft skin or material, 
 do not call up in the face any decided expression of 
 pleasure, a smile or movement of the eyes. Infants, how- 
 ever, are not insensible to this kind of sensations, which 
 signify to them already the presence of certain objects ; it 
 is impossible but that they should produce in the little 
 creatures some vague sensations of comfort, in spite of their 
 inability to localize or differentiate them. Later on, experi- 
 ence and comparison will have taught them to distinguish 
 these sensations from the more violent ones which cause 
 pain or annoyance. But at the age of two months, when a 
 child appears to enjoy the touch of my hand stroking its 
 own hand, or cheek, or forehead, is it the contact itself 
 which pleases it, and even makes it smile, or is it the idea 
 of its mother's breast which the contact of the skin calls up, 
 or the pleasure resulting from the sensation of temperature ? 
 Possibly all these at the same time. Soon too the sym- 
 pathetic significance of caresses, which babies are not slow 
 in understanding, begins to afford them very evident pleasure 
 in connection with tactile sensations. However this may 
 be, and notwithstanding the absence of signs indicating it, 
 I incline to believe that tactile pleasure is experienced at a 
 very early period. There is no doubt about it in the case 
 of young animals. If I pass my finger, gently, and several 
 times in succession, over the head of a sparrow ten days 
 old, it will almost close its eyes, and with its head bent
 
 40 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 down it will put itself into a position favourable to the 
 continuance of this pleasant process. The same thing 
 happens with kittens and puppies. And why should it 
 not be the same also with young children ? 
 
 Visual Sensations. We cannot but regard as exaggeration 
 Tiedemann's statement concerning his son, who, when 
 scarcely thirteen days old, he tells us, showed, both in his 
 eyes and his general countenance, expressions of pain or 
 pleasure at the sight of certain objects, and paid sustained 
 attention to the gestures of people who spoke to him. But 
 to keep within well-established limits, we may without 
 audacity affirm that at the age of a month or forty days a 
 child has already experienced a certain number of pleasures 
 and pains suggested by visual impressions. The pleasures 
 consist in the sensations caused by luminous objects candles, 
 lamps, the flames of the fire, the sunlight, brightly coloured 
 objects, and the lights and shadows caused by moving them 
 about. The pains are caused by impressions of too violent 
 a nature, colours which are too bright, sounds which are 
 too noisy, objects brought too abruptly in contact with the 
 retina, or too rapidly shaken in front of it, and also by the 
 moral annoyance which must result from imperfect adapta- 
 tion to one's surroundings, or at any rate the physical pain 
 arising from efforts after normal adjustment. This latter 
 hypothesis seems to me indeed to rest on grave analogies. 
 It is unfortunately not true that the progressive adaptation of 
 the young human being to the surroundings for which it is 
 hereditarily constituted takes place by successive steps, with 
 gentle transitions and providential management. As a 
 matter of fact, the sufferings of a human being are all the 
 greater in proportion to his weakness. With regard to 
 intellectual perception, the organs may exercise themselves 
 usefully according to their strength; but the same cannot 
 be said of sensibility relatively to pleasure. As Rousseau 
 has said, " Much time is needed for learning to see," and 
 imperfect sight is necessarily accompanied by painful sen- 
 sations, like all other ill-satisfied needs. 
 
 Visual impressions do not produce in children the same 
 emotions of pain or pleasure, nor perhaps so great a number
 
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY SENSATIONS. 4! 
 
 of them, as in adults. All colours, it is true, attract and 
 fascinate them ; subdued colours, also, are not always in- 
 different to them, and sometimes they afford them evident 
 pleasure, provided they are distinct and contrasted with 
 brighter ones, as black on grey, or even grey on white, and 
 provided, above all, that the child's organism is impressible. 
 I saw a little girl of three months and a boy of five months 
 delighted with some drawings of a uniformly grey colour. 
 The boy took a particular fancy to some lithographs in 
 black and white ; it was enough to say the word " picture " 
 to him, for his eyes to turn to the part of my room where 
 these lithographs hung. Another child of six months only 
 evinced pleasure at the sight of bright-coloured pictures and 
 flowers ; but these seemed to delight him quite as much as 
 they did the other children. The conclusion I came to 
 was, that, owing either to hereditary causes or to personal 
 habits, there was less energy in his visual organs, or that his 
 moral sensibility was not so easily excited by the sensation 
 of colour as that of his two companions. 
 
 It would not be very easy to discern in a child between 
 the ages of one day and five months the painful emotions 
 produced by certain colours, although it is incontestably 
 established that the visual organs have adaptive powers, 
 and also without doubt likes and dislikes. I have not 
 succeeded in discerning in children of this age, or even in 
 much older ones, any trace of those affective predispositions 
 of sight, the result of differences of organisation, which 
 express themselves unconsciously in adults in marked 
 preferences for such and such colours. 
 
 The pleasures and pains of sight are possibly in great 
 measure artificial phenomena with adults. But with chil- 
 dren who go on for a long time without any distinct ideas 
 all the utility or the hurtfulness of different objects; all 
 objects whatever are in their eyes merely moving colours, 
 all of which give them pleasure as soon as they produce im- 
 pressions on their visual organs. 
 
 Auditory Sensations. Infants are very early excited by 
 sound, by musical instruments or song. Tiedemann's son 
 heard the piano played for the first time when he was forty
 
 42 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 days old, and he is said to have shown singular delight 
 and excitement at the sound. A young relation of mine 
 delighted in hearing singing or playing when only a month 
 old. At the age of six months he was taken on a visit to 
 some aunts ; and the strong emotion produced in him by 
 the songs they sang to him was manifest from the bright- 
 ness of his eyes and the immobility and heightened colour 
 of his face. The younger one sang to him first, and he 
 listened to her with evident delight ; but when the other 
 sister joined in, with her more vibrating and more melodious 
 voice, he instantly turned to her, and an undefinable ex- 
 pression of admiration and surprise came over his counten- 
 ance. All children are not equally sensitive to melody ; 
 but all clear, ringing sounds, especially if reiterated more 
 or less rhythmically, seem to amuse them when they do not 
 strike too violently against the tympanum. I have seen 
 many infants of two months whom noises of medium in- 
 tensity, the sound of a door being shut, a footstep, a voice, 
 the bark of a dog close by, did not seem to affect in any 
 way whatever. But at four or six months almost all babies 
 like being sung to, and a great many try to warble them- 
 selves, from instinct or love of imitating. We may, then, 
 conclude that there are sounds which are pleasant and 
 sounds which are unpleasant to children, according as their 
 vibrations correspond to certain conformations of the 
 acoustic apparatus, or to certain inherent states of the 
 personality, or awaken concordant emotions in the mysteri- 
 ous recesses of their hereditary sensorium. 
 
 However it may be, children become soonest accustomed 
 to those very noises which at first, for one reason or another, 
 impressed their tympanum disagreeably. Startling, piercing, 
 scraping noises are not so disagreeable to them as to grown 
 people. They will shudder, it is true, on hearing them, and 
 sometimes cry if the noise is very loud and near ; but few 
 sounds displease them on moral grounds, or by reason of 
 the association of ideas which makes noises call up the 
 idea of objects known to be disagreeable. They are not 
 more particular about melody, either, than bees, serpents, 
 monkeys, and other animals, to whom the most rude and
 
 AUDITORY SENSATIONS. 43 
 
 deafening noise, providing it is rhythmical, is as good as 
 music. From the moment that children can hold things 
 in their hands, anything that they produce sound with de- 
 lights them, and they are evidently as happy as they can 
 be in the execution of these feats. I can never see little 
 children doing their best to deafen themselves and others 
 without being reminded of the monkey musicians of Africa, 
 of which Houzeau writes : " The noise of these animals 
 is not always the mere accidental result of the play of their 
 organs, it is sometimes produced intentionally ; they will 
 make a noise for the love of the noise, and as a means 
 of amusing and exciting themselves. I am not alluding to 
 the ordinary sounds with which tropical forests resound 
 deafening screams, the crashing of broken branches, the 
 pecking of beaks on the bark of trees, the cracking of nuts 
 in the teeth which are the natural result of the existence 
 and occupations of the inhabitants of the woods. I mean 
 the sounds which are produced by monkeys with as deter- 
 mined an intention as that of a bell-ringer or a player on 
 the drum. The black chimpanzees of Africa, for instance, 
 will assemble together as many as twenty, thirty, or fifty, 
 and amuse themselves not only with uttering shrieks, but 
 by beating and thumping on dead wood with small sticks 
 held in their hands or feet." l 
 
 1 Houzeau, Les Facultes Mentales des Animaux, etc., t. ii., p. 106.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 GENERAL AND SPECIAL INSTINCTS. 
 
 IN man as in animals, instinct manifests itself in congenital 
 dispositions to perform certain definite actions under certain 
 special circumstances. These dispositions to produce given 
 actions are the tendencies which make up our natural and 
 hereditary constitution. It is the unconscious experience 
 of our ancestors adapting itself with more or less con- 
 sciousness or freedom to the individual experience of theii 
 descendants. It is necessary to insist on these mysterious 
 impulses of organic and psychic activity, and to set forth 
 their true nature, in order that we should not be tempted 
 to look on animals as mere machines, set in motion once 
 for all at the beginning of life, and on children (with the 
 exception that they have reason in addition) as animals, 
 with analogous, and perhaps rather inferior instincts. 
 
 The best treatises of current philosophy, whether intended 
 to awaken in the young generation or to perfect in the 
 more erudite a sense of psychological observation, still 
 represent instinct as having the following characteristics : 
 ignorance of the end in view, immediate perfection of spe- 
 cial actions, infallibility, immobility, and uniformity in these 
 actions. To be quite just, however, we must own that 
 M. Janet does not recognise " in these characteristics abso- 
 lute and inflexible laws." 1 He admits as a fact of experience 
 that instinct may vary " under the influence of certain 
 circumstances, though within very narrow limits and in 
 exceptional cases;" in a word, that these modifications are 
 
 1 Janet, Traite Elementaire de Philosophic, t. i., p. 37. 
 
 44
 
 GENERAL AND SPECIAL INSTINCTS. 45 
 
 nothing else than " an innate power of adaptation of the 
 animal to its surroundings," and that they only occur in 
 very secondary details. 
 
 Let us first endeavour to show what part ignorance, or 
 rather unconsciousness, plays in the working of instinct. 
 It is perfectly evident that not one of the movements of the 
 foetus can be explained by reason, or intelligent will, or 
 experience. They do not proceed from consciousness, 
 considered as an impulsive cause, although they may be 
 supposed to provoke the exercise of consciousness. When, 
 shortly after its birth, we see a little baby feeling after its 
 mother's breast, and co-ordinating the movements of its 
 mouth, head, and neck so as to suck in the milk ; when it 
 combines the actions of the tongue, palate, and pharynx, 
 which co-operate in the process of deglutition; when, a 
 little later on, it presses its little fingers and fists against the 
 breast, in order to facilitate the passage of the milk, when 
 the combined and harmonious' action of all these numerous 
 organs produces respiration ; when the eyelids close if the 
 conjunctiva be touched, or if too Intense a light disturbs 
 the retina, or a violent sound shocks the ear ; when 
 irritation of the face, ears, or tongue causes contraction 
 of the muscles, etc., etc., we know that neither experience 
 nor reason have taught the little creature these movements, 
 which are accomplished with a precision far superior to 
 what we find in actions where the will intervenes. Both 
 children and young animals perform all these actions with- 
 out knowing either their object or the means by which 
 they are executed ; but they are aware of what they are 
 doing, and the more they advance in knowledge the more 
 fully will they be aware of it, and the more they will realize 
 the means to the end, and the end associated with the 
 means. The impulses are arbitrary and unconscious, but 
 the actions have a constant tendency to revert to their 
 original nature, which may often have been conscious and 
 even voluntary. 
 
 Let us proceed to consider the immediate perfection of 
 instinctive actions. " Animals," says M. Joly, " generally
 
 46 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 succeed the first time, without any preliminary attempts and 
 failures. Birds have no need to study in order to make 
 their nests. Carnivorous animals feel no hesitation when 
 they find themselves for the first time in the presence of the 
 prey destined by nature for them ; and amongst the herbs 
 of a meadow ruminants will go straight to those adapted to 
 them." This perfection and infallibility of animal instinct 
 are very much exaggerated. The assertion is true in 
 general with regard to the principal mechanical functions 
 of life, the most delicate and indispensable organic actions, 
 the execution of which it would have been dangerous to 
 entrust to the will. 
 
 Here the impulse of instinct is certain and unerring, 
 " like all the great harmonies of nature," says Houzeau. 
 But in the greater number of .other less necessary actions, 
 which are " ruled or at least influenced by the animal itself," 
 we find an instinct " subject to accidental illusions, to the 
 aberrations of the individual, to the idiosyncrasies of species." 1 
 It would not be uninteresting to quote a few examples from 
 this same author, showing that instinct can sometimes err. 
 
 "The large earth-worm, or lob-worm, is very much 
 frightened of the mole ; and whenever it feels the earth 
 moving, it mounts to the surface to escape from this insect- 
 hunter. Now certain birds, such as the gull and the lap- 
 wing, and fishermen who use earth-worms as bait, prowl 
 about on the sands in search of the latter. The worm, 
 thinking that the shaking of the earth is caused by the 
 approach of a mole, comes out of his subterranean retreat, 
 and falls a prey to the other enemy. This is a false appli- 
 cation of instinct, but it is not correctly speaking a false 
 instinct. . . ." In the following facts, however, we see 
 error rather than illusion : " Of what use would it be for a 
 hen to retain the instinct of sitting when her eggs are addled, 
 just as if she were able to hatch them ? A superior guide 
 would make a distinction. It is true all the same that a 
 hen will sit without eggs, when the proper time arrives, 
 
 1 Houzeau, Etude sur les Faculth Mentales chez les Aninuiux, t. i., 
 P- 295-
 
 GENERAL AND SPECIAL INSTINCTS. 47 
 
 from which we surmise that repose, the attitude of prostra- 
 tion, and a partial abstinence are necessary to the dissipa- 
 tion of an overabundance of organic heat. The hen which 
 broods over an empty nest, does so from personal necessity 
 . . . But the instinct of preservation is sometimes faulty. 
 Thus, little birds mistake the cuckoo for a sparrow-hawk ; 
 and these same sparrows attack the. European goat-sucker 
 as if they had reason to fear him, while in reality the latter 
 bird feeds solely on moths and nocturnal insects. . . . 
 Instinct here goes too far in the idea of protection ; it may 
 be said to be an excess of precaution. Here however is 
 an example of a contrary case. The aphides, or plant 
 insects, do not know that the larvae of the syrphides are 
 their mortal enemies. They feel no ,fear at the sight of 
 them and will even walk over their bodies. The syrphides, 
 which feed on aphides, take advantage of this imprudence, 
 as may easily be imagined. 
 
 "Thus the cpnsciousness of danger, and even of an 
 ordinary and constant danger, may be at fault ; instincts 
 therefore are not absolute. But the facts in our possession 
 are certainly very insufficient to determine the important 
 question at the head of this chapter Can instinct err?" 
 
 It is probable, but it has not yet been demonstrated, that 
 the execution of instinctive actions is influenced in a certain 
 measure by volition. We may infer this particularly from 
 the fact that animals have the power of suspending their 
 respiration and exercising a partial or momentary control 
 (as man himself can) on certain automatic functions. Dogs 
 and horses suspend their breath, in order to listen better, 
 when they apprehend some danger. Now, if certain actions 
 of the automatic life of animals are in part subjected, though 
 in a very limited degree, to the control of volition, why 
 should it be a matter of surprise if one day it were de- 
 monstrated that all instincts may be equally influenced by 
 a like control ? 
 
 Since, then, instinct may err, and since, up to a certain 
 point, it is subject to the control of consciousness and 
 volition, it follows also that it is neither uniform for the 
 species nor invariable for the individual. Even in the
 
 48 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 case of animals, it obeys the law of progress ; and this pro- 
 gress is more or less rapid according to the usefulness 
 which is to result from it to the species, more or less slow 
 according to the degree which it is to attain in the species, 
 and no doubt also according to the aptitudes of the in- 
 dividual and the influence of surroundings. 
 
 Colts, calves, and young chickens all walk by instinct as 
 soon as they are born" with an automatic action facilitated 
 by their organization and which they perfect by exercise 
 and attention. Birds fly, or try to fly, as soon as their 
 wings are strong enough. And see how usefully heredity 
 mterposes in similar cases ; sheep cannot take care of their 
 young ones as monkeys and women do, the lambs would 
 therefore perish if they could not very soon use their legs 
 and walk. A child sucks by instinct, and moreover, like 
 cats, dogs, and lambs, it very quickly learns to perform this 
 operation with rapidity and certainty. With walking, how- 
 ever, it is different ; and although the child may have an 
 instinctive faculty for the operation, it only acquires it 
 perfectly by dint of countless efforts and at the price of 
 many tumbles. Here too we see the care of nature, for if 
 the organs of locomotion were perfect at starting, while 
 intellectual and moral experience is wanting, they would be 
 the cause of dangerous errors and fatal adventures. Again, 
 children very early show themselves adepts at the signs, 
 gestures, or cries which are expressions of emotion or 
 volition ; but it is not until their psychic faculties have 
 already reached a degree of development superior to that 
 of many adult animals that they begin their first attempts at 
 speech. 
 
 Thus, neither with human beings nor with animals is 
 instinct a uniform and infallible guide. For children, as for 
 animals, though in the former case within limits generally 
 less restricted, there is a more or less easy and certain 
 development of the instinct to be followed ; a child has to 
 carry on the simultaneous development of all its senses and 
 faculties intellectual, volitional, and moral. One is struck, 
 it is true, with the slowness of a child's progress in com- 
 parison to that of young animals ; but a child of a year old
 
 -SPECIAL INSTINCTS. 49 
 
 is in many respects much more advanced than an adult 
 animal will ever be. In these respects there are great 
 differences in children, according to their natural energy, 
 the force of hereditary transmission, and the nature of the 
 circumstances under which their development proceeds. 
 This should never be forgotten by those who are closely 
 connected with young children. Their influence, whether 
 they will or no, is by no means a matter of indifference, 
 whether from a quantitative or a qualitative point of view, 
 to the development of the instincts of their young charges. 
 They would be making a great mistake if they imagined 
 that nature does everything at this early age, in other words, 
 that instincts, the fruit of hereditary experience, like a sort 
 of providential grace, dispenses young infants from all need 
 of effort and personal experience. 
 
 We, who are partisans of the doctrine of evolution, must 
 be careful to avoid the error into which the optimist cham- 
 pions of final causes fell through exaggeration in the 
 opposite extreme. We must not sacrifice personal ex- 
 perience to the experience of the race, nor imagine that the 
 apprenticeship of life is nothing more than reminiscence, 
 that the child has only to repeat mechanically the work of 
 its ancestors. As has been very aptly said, " Notwithstand- 
 ing hereditary transmission of instincts, everything has 
 continually to be done over again, to be begun anew in 
 each new individual ; and life is made up, not of a series of 
 easy reminiscences, but of a chain of laborious acquisitions 
 and personal conquests. In short, in the evolution of the 
 race we must not lose sight of individual evolution." 
 
 II. 
 
 SPECIAL INSTINCTS. 
 
 Instinctive activity presents a great many different forms 
 in new-born children, or in children several weeks old ; we 
 shall endeavour to make a rapid analysis of the principal 
 of these. And first of all we must distinguish between 
 general tendencies, or simple appetites and instincts, 
 and special tendencies, or complex appetites and instincts. 
 
 E
 
 SO THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Among the first we class the instincts of taste, odour, sight, 
 hearing, touch, muscular activity, and thermal equilibration ; 
 and among the second the instincts of nutrition, of sleep, of 
 utterance, locomotion, and sexuality. 
 
 General Instincts. Wherever there are organs of sensi- 
 bility, there is also an instinctive tendency to perform 
 actions which awaken a certain sort of sensibility. All the 
 senses desire to be satisfied ; and we have seen that from 
 the moment of birth, or at any rate, a few days after, a 
 young child will begin to use the energy which belongs to 
 each of its different senses. This is especially the case 
 with the sense of taste, which nevertheless at the outset is 
 passive and obtuse, because it is confounded with the 
 sense of nutrition. By the fourth month, however, the 
 child has become better able to abstract his various sensa- 
 tions, and shows evident signs of a tendency to desire 
 the food he has recognised as agreeable. It is the same 
 also with the sense of sight. By the third week the eye 
 begins to be attracted by light, and soon after by any 
 luminous or coloured objects near at hand ; and we can 
 here plainly see that the instinct which impels every organ 
 to maintain its vitality is in harmony with the instinct 
 which drives them to seek satisfaction in exercise ; all 
 colours are pleasing to young children if they stimulate 
 their sight without disturbing it. The same may be said 
 of auditory impressions ; we have seen how much young 
 children delight in noise, and how indifferent they are to 
 discord, provided their ears are not shocked. These two 
 senses, sight and hearing, which later on will become two 
 essential instruments of instruction and emotion, operate 
 at first solely for themselves, if I may so express myself, 
 and with an aim entirely affective. A child of two or three 
 months spends the greater part of his waking hours in 
 looking and listening for "the sole pleasure that the sen- 
 sations of seeing and hearing afford him, independently of 
 any immediate or future utility, and without any feeling 
 of curiosity properly so called. The next sense that is 
 awakened is that of touch. At the age of three months, 
 children begin to stretch out their hands in order to take
 
 THE INSTINCT OF NUTRITION. 5 1 
 
 hold of things ; they touch and feel everything within 
 reach, and their tactile sensations develop day by day. 
 
 A child of six months spends at least half of his waking 
 hours in exercising the organs which afford him pleasant 
 sensations, visual, auditory, tactile, and muscular ; and 
 there is no doubt that these exercises have as a rule no 
 other object than the development of the organs, though 
 at intervals the child notices them with attention, and this 
 attention contributes usefully to his progress. But the 
 tendency to enjoy pleasant sensations, and to repeat them 
 over and over again for their own sake, is the dominant 
 instinct at this period. This, tendency, moreover, exists at 
 all periods of life. A grown-up person, who is not com- 
 pelled either by the necessities of existence, or the claims 
 of duty, or the influence of special or professional habits, 
 to bring all his faculties under the discipline of useful 
 attention, reverts to the state of a child the sensual and 
 unconscious instinct reassuming its sway over the voluntary 
 and intellectual instinct ; the man returns gradually to the 
 infant state of looking for the mere pleasure of seeing, of 
 listening for the sake of hearing, of feeling for the sake of 
 gratifying the touch, of moving and walking for the sake of 
 the more or less agreeable sensations which these automatic 
 actions produce. How many people are there not whose 
 days are passed in vacuity, that is to say in nothing higher 
 than the unconscious functional actions of the instincts of 
 sense, which have gradually become transformed into 
 barren habits ! That which is a constant necessity for a 
 little child, who after slight efforts at attention and intel- 
 lectual operations requires to rest in less' engrossing sen- 
 sations, is only necessary to the adult at intervals, in order 
 to recover from nervous or muscular fatigue, or in case of 
 illness. 
 
 The Instinct of Nutrition. The appetite for nutrition, 
 or the instinct of nourishing oneself, which occupies the 
 first place among special appetites, is not one of those 
 tendencies whose stimulus is always present in the visceral 
 organs, as the need of breathing, for instance, is from 
 the moment of birth ; this stimulus has to be supplied from
 
 52 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 without, and the state of the viscera to which the appetite for 
 nourishment corresponds is reproduced at regular intervals. 
 Even in the later stages of uterine life, the intimate union 
 between sensory activity and visceral wants is established 
 relatively to this instinct ; it is because its functions are too 
 delicate, too important, and too complex for the organs 
 destined to perform them to be able to come into play at 
 the moment of birth a time liable to a multitude of acci- 
 dental variations. Hence the following facts, related by 
 Houzeau, are by no means improbable. 
 
 " Mammals and birds absorb nourishment before escaping 
 from their integuments ; the cjiicken consumes the white of 
 the egg, the child sucks up the water of the amnios, as also 
 do calves and the greater number of mammals. This fcetal 
 alimentation is the cause of the often very copious motions 
 of new-born animals. But calves go still further. It is an 
 ascertained fact that they lick themselves before the time 
 of birth, pieces of their own hair having been found in 
 their stomach with the water of the amnios. . . . The 
 instinct of nourishment is thus as innate as the need of 
 taking nourishment." 1 We should even add, that this 
 instinct is already specialized, " that it does not impel the 
 infant indifferently towards all objects alike, but towards a 
 certain class of objects." After the first months of milk 
 diet, children show very marked omnivorous tendencies, 
 with characteristic differences of likes and dislikes ac- 
 cording to the individuals. 
 
 The instinct of nutrition is innate ; and so, up to a 
 certain point, is the faculty of nourishing oneself, but it is 
 not perfect on the day of birth. Some animals, as Bastian 
 says, exhibit this faculty "almost immediately after birth, 
 and without making any previous abortive efforts." - The 
 wild boar and the chicken, for instance. But in the case 
 of animals who do not attain, while yet in the oviduct or 
 the uterus, the necessary development for the exercise 
 of certain faculties, the latter do not appear, or rather are 
 
 1 Etude stir les Factdth Mentales des Animaux, t. i., p. 193. 
 " The Brain as an Organ of Mind.
 
 THE INSTINCT OF SLEEP. 53 
 
 not developed, until a few days or weeks after birth. A 
 child manages the operation of suction, though awkwardly 
 it is true, a few hours after birth ; but it cannot masticate or 
 take hold of other food adapted to its species any more 
 than a new-born kitten can catch or devour prey. And 
 just as a kitten does not learn to lie in wait for prey, or to 
 seize its food and masticate it until certain parts of its 
 organism have become sufficiently developed, and birds do 
 not attempt to fly away and seek food for themselves until 
 the right organs are ready, so children only learn to take 
 hold of and eat an apple, a piece of bread, a cake, etc., when 
 their organs of mastication have reached a certain stage of 
 maturity. I may add, that the forces which suffice to pro- 
 duce the stimulus of instinctive action in infants, as in 
 kittens, and even in young birds, result at first merely in 
 more or less successful attempts. The power of feeding 
 oneself, like that of walking or flying, requires always a 
 longer or shorter education, in which the initiative of the 
 young being needs to be helped by the example and 
 encouragement of grown-up people. 
 
 The Instinct of Sleep. The appetite of sleep manifests 
 itself in quite a special way, as a negative tendency, if I 
 may so express myself, as a need for the cessation of 
 activity. Hence the movements and actions which produce 
 tranquillity and sleep are monotonous and slow ; the natural 
 rocking of branches for birds, the rhythmic movement of 
 the head in horses when standing upright, and the rocking 
 of the arms or cradle, accompanied by a monotonous song, 
 for children's sleep, is interesting to study from the double 
 point of view of physiology and psychology. 
 
 The physiological cause of sleep is unknown. On what- 
 ever hypothesis it be explained, whether cerebral congestion 
 or cerebral anemia, we can at any rate easily observe the 
 almost constant characteristics of this phenomenon. It 
 takes possession, gradually in adults, and often abruptly 
 in children, of all the different organs : first of all the 
 muscles of the limbs, the arms and legs, become fixed in 
 the position they happen to have assumed ; after the limbs, 
 the voluntary muscles of the trunk relax themselves into a
 
 54 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 state of more or less complete flexion. It has also been 
 noticed that during sleep respiration and pulsation become 
 rarer. But what is the mental condition of the animal 
 while asleep? While the nutritive functions and reflex 
 movements are still going on, does the brain cease 
 to operate? Does sleep only suspend a portion of the 
 phenomena of psychic activity ? We know nothing about 
 it. It is probable that the abolition of mental states is 
 never absolute, that it never reaches all the regions of the 
 brain, even when sleep is profound. 
 
 It is at any rate certain, both memory and the nature of 
 dreams prove this, that the cerebral hemispheres have a 
 great tendency during sleep to recommence their functions, 
 though always in an incomplete manner. We know also 
 that the impressions which come from the viscera, or a very 
 slight hindrance in the circulation or respiration, or too 
 strong a muscular pressure, or repletion or vacuity of the 
 intestines, or even perceptions from the external world 
 coming abruptly and disagreeably, will give rise to very 
 painful ideas and emotions, and cause corresponding screams 
 and movements. Although dreams do not appear to be 
 excluded, even from profound sleep, they are generally 
 fatiguing to the organs. Sleep means the reparation and 
 restoration of the forces of the body, and the incoherent 
 activity of the dream state is a premature expenditure of 
 the force intended for the activity of the morrow. 
 
 But when dreams are light, intermittent, and pleasant, 
 when they do not hinder the complete repose of the 
 principal organs, and when they only exercise the cerebral 
 organ moderately and without tiring it, they are entirely 
 negative from a physiological point of view, while at the 
 same time they are highly favourable to the intellectual and 
 moral development. In the absence of any actual per- 
 ceptions, past perceptions work themselves out under the 
 law of association, and free from the control and the 
 obstacles of reality. The mind, as it were, isolates itself 
 from the external world in order to abandon itself freely to 
 its work of ideal incubation and digestion. 
 
 It is then, and perhaps better then than in our waking hours,
 
 THE INSTINCT OF SLEEP. 55 
 
 that the fortuitous association and dissociation of images 
 produce those abstractions by which individual forms are 
 detached from masses, details from the whole, and qualities 
 from objects ; there is no doubt that in dreams a child's 
 brain is crossed by images as vivid in themselves as they 
 are unlike absolute realities : hallucinations of sound, 
 colour, and tactile impressions, of muscular sensations, of 
 forms isolated or grouped together, of objects that resemble 
 each other, and objects that are differentiated, and still 
 more series of actions accomplished by a greater or less 
 number of actors, and giving rise to reasonings and sym- 
 pathetic sentiments. All the intellectual operations, all the 
 emotional faculties, are exercised in dreams with all the 
 more ease and utility that they act solely on their own 
 resources ; in this state the mind works on its own acquire- 
 ments and ideas, we may almost say, on itself. Thus it 
 may be said that sleep is for children general repose of 
 muscular, sensorial, and cerebral activity, though with inter- 
 mittent returns of activity, all the more agreeable and 
 serviceable as the dreams are rare and light. We know, 
 moreover, that a child of two or three years old dreams 
 more than one of six months or a year, a child of from six 
 to ten years, more than one of three, the adult less than 
 the youth, and the old man less than the adult. The fre- 
 quency and the vivacity of dreams, pre-supposing of course 
 the normal condition of the subject, appears to be in pro- 
 portion to the psychic excitability or activity. 
 
 Dreams are not only an important fact of psychic life, 
 interesting to our intellectual faculties, their influence 
 extends to our sentiments and even to our morality. The 
 mental states which are produced, with or without con- 
 sciousness, during sleep, are the consequence of and the 
 preparation for certain states of our waking hours. " It is 
 possible," says M. Ch. LeVeque, " that the cheerful or sad 
 humours of the day are a faint repetition of the agitations 
 experienced in sleep, and that all the workings of the mind 
 during the night may help to produce certain actions of the 
 day." There is indeed no doubt that remembrance is not the 
 only trace dreams are able to leave after them. According
 
 $6 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 to the nature of the dreams which it has had during the 
 night, the child is more or less cheerful during the day, 
 more or less inclined to be good and obedient. 
 
 I have said enough about the instinct of locomotion ir> 
 the chapter on movements, to make it unnecessary to go 
 over it all again here. The instinct of utterance I shall 
 treat of in the chapter dedicated to language. The instinct 
 of sexuality will be most fitly considered in a chapter de- 
 voted to modesty or to the moral sense ; though it will not 
 be amiss to devote some attention to it in this chapter con- 
 cerning special tendencies. 
 
 The Sexual Instinct. The localization of the sexual 
 instinct in the brain is far from being determined. The 
 hypothesis of Gall, who asserted that a constant relationship 
 exists between the development of the cerebellum and the 
 sexual appetite, has been entirely confuted by the facts 
 elicited by clinical observation and human pathology. Ac- 
 cording to Ferrier, the organic needs which constitute the 
 basis of sexual appetite, centre round a special form of tactile 
 sensation which may be supposed to have its centre in close 
 relation to the hippocampal region. But it is only conjec- 
 ture; he affirms nothing. He adds, moreover, resting his 
 supposition on the power which some odours have to excite 
 the sexual instinct, that a region in close relation to the 
 centres of the sense of smell and to the tactile sensations 
 might be considered as the probable seat of the sensations 
 which constitute the basis of sexual appetite. 1 The centres of 
 this sensation, according to the same writer, " are probably 
 placed in the regions which unite the occipital lobes to the 
 infero-internal region of the temporo-sphenoidal lobe. As 
 the reproductive organs in women form such a preponderant 
 element in their bodily constitution, they must correspond- 
 ingly be more largely represented in the cerebral hemispheres, 
 a fact which is in accordance with the greater emotional 
 excitability of women, and the relatively larger development 
 of the posterior lobes of the brain." '< Thus we are reduced 
 
 1 David Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain, p. 198. 
 3 Ibid., p. 263.
 
 THE SEXUAL INSTINCT. 57 
 
 to hypotheses with'tegard to the localization of this instinct, 
 and it is not necessary to inquire whether the brain of a 
 little child possesses, in any degree of development, the 
 cerebral organs of sexual appetition. But we must not 
 overlook the fact that this instinct is not exclusively charac- 
 terized by the reproductive tendency. Its chief character- 
 istic is the appetition of the sensations whose unconscious 
 object, or rather, perhaps, whose result, is the multiplication 
 and preservation of the human race. I quote here the words 
 of a recognised authority on comparative psychology. 
 
 " Modern anatomists have proved that the disparity of the 
 sexes is much less radical than we are inclined to think. 
 The type is the same for all the individuals of a species. 
 The male mammifer, like the female, has breasts, which only 
 lack development. The analogy is continued, if not between 
 the relative proportions of the different parts, at least in the 
 general plan of structure, down to the genital organs. 
 Everard Home goes as far as to think that at the beginning 
 the germ may be indiscriminately endowed with either sex, 
 and that its being male or female would depend on ulterior 
 circumstances of a simple nature, such as accidents of im- 
 pregnation. . . Even in superior animals, the sex, 
 though it cannot be changed, is not such an exclusive thing 
 as is generally thought. At birth, and during all the first 
 period of life, the sex can only be distinguished by the 
 structure of the genital organs. It is only later in life that 
 other characteristics appear, the beard, the breasts, etc. 
 The male bird decks himself out in the most resplendent 
 plumage ; and those mental affections which are allied with 
 sexual phenomena, and which have hitherto lain dormant, 
 or almost so, now burst forth in all their strength." ' 
 
 The same author cites a number of examples taken from 
 the mammifer species, and tending to show that the devia- 
 tion of the sexual instinct, going as far as to anomalous 
 confusion of sex and age, and the exclusive pursuit of sensa- 
 tions connected with this instinct, is not special to human 
 
 1 Houzeau, Eludes surles Facultcs Mentales des Animaux, tome, i., 
 pp. 274, etc.
 
 $8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 beings. In recording these physiological observations, the 
 great naturalist has no other object than to explain the 
 brutality of the passion of love in different animals. They 
 enable us to understand the like excesses in man, who is 
 not necessarily a reasonable animal, but an animal who can 
 and ought to be reasonable. Without dwelling on these 
 delicate questions, which frequent criminal scandals and the 
 success of a certain class of novels force on the considera- 
 tion of moralists and legislators, I shall content myself with 
 pointing out to parents and educators who are ignorant of 
 them, the possible dangers resulting from the deviation and 
 corruption of the sexual instinct, even as regards quite young 
 children. Let me again quote a few passages from a book 
 of high moral purport, which grown-up people may study 
 with profit both to themselves and to children of any age 
 who may come under their care. The quotation refers only 
 to the moral interests of young children. 
 
 " The following points, bearing on the moral education of 
 childhood and youth, must be considered by all parents 
 who are convinced of the saving value of sexual morality, 
 viz., observation of the child during infancy, acquirement 
 of the child's confidence, selection of young companions, 
 care in the choice of a school and of studies which will not 
 injure the mind, the formation of tastes, outdoor exercise, 
 companionship of brothers and sisters, the choice of a 
 physician, social intercourse and amusements. These vari- 
 ous points require careful consideration. 
 
 " The earliest duty of the parent, is to watch over the 
 infant child. Few parents are aware how very early evil 
 habits may be formed, nor how injurious the influence of 
 the nurse " [why of the nurse only ?] " often is to the child. 
 The mother's eye, full of tenderness and respect, must 
 always watch over her children. . . . This watchfulness 
 over the young child, by day and night, is the first duty to 
 be universally inculcated Two things are necessary in 
 order to fulfil it; viz., a clear knowledge of the evils to 
 which the child may be exposed, and tact to interpret the 
 faintest indication of danger, and to guard from it without
 
 THE SEXUAL INSTINCT. 59 
 
 allowing the child to be aware of the danger." l Dr. Eliza- 
 beth Blackwell adds, in a note in the Appendix, the following 
 melancholy considerations : " Terrible instances of this 
 may be seen in Trelat's medical work, 'La Folie Lucide;' 
 and Lallemand and other French surgeons report numerous 
 cases of fatal injury, done even to nursing infants, by the 
 wicked actions of unprincipled nurses. I have myself 
 traced the ill-health of children in wealthy families to the 
 habits practised by confidential nurses, apparently quiet 
 respectable women ! Abundant medical testimony confirms 
 these observations." 2 
 
 1 Advice to Parents on the Moral Education of their Children, p. 85 
 (Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell). 
 
 2 Id., Ibid. Appendix.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 
 
 I CANNOT resign myself to seeing in a little child, even when 
 only a few days old, a mere machine or automaton. A 
 learned man to whom I had expounded, without convincing 
 him, my ideas on the direction that should be given to the 
 faculties of young children, sent me by way of refutation 
 the following description of his infant son, then about two 
 months old : " He is a thorough little animal, voracious to 
 excess, and never quiet except when asleep or at the breast. 
 I could never have believed that a little child was so 
 absolutely an animal, with no other instincts than that of 
 gluttony. To avoid being completely disgusted, one has to 
 remind oneself that in a few months there will be some gleams 
 of intelligence, and that the creature will begin to show 
 some likeness to a human being." All at once, I suppose ! 
 By one knows not what miracle of nature! My friend 
 received from me a variety of further observations which, 
 however, had no greater success. He wrote again : " I 
 believe still in the pure animalism of the infant, and to give 
 a real idea of the voracity of this age, I can only compare 
 it to a larva, always eating without pause or rest." Setting 
 aside for the moment some details which appear to me to be 
 doubly calumnious, both towards children and animals, I must 
 allow that my friend has well observed and well described 
 the state of a young child subject to the tyrannical need 
 of food. M. Luys has observed the same state of things ; 
 but he, like myself, has also observed something further, 
 and this something is of the greatest importance : " His 
 organic appetites are gratified by the milk he sucks, and he
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 6 1 
 
 feeds himself organically, like an organic cell, which borrows 
 from the surrounding medium the materials which suit it 
 But at the same time he expresses the satisfaction he feels 
 in his own manner ; he smiles on seeing the breast which 
 yields him his nourishment and life, and from that time his 
 natural sensibility is thrown into agitation, his sensorium is 
 affected. He rejoices because he remembers, because he 
 has retained a memory of the satisfaction of his physical 
 appetites." l 
 
 Sentiments connected with Taste. A child's most vivid 
 sentiments are for a long time after its birth those connected 
 with the sense of taste. The need of nourishment dominates 
 for a long time over all the others, even that of movement ; 
 it manifests itself the first and is the most persistent. The 
 emotions connected with this incessant and imperious want 
 are the most agreeable ones that children experience. It 
 is through the satisfaction of their appetite that they learn 
 to know and to love first of all the breast they suck, or their 
 feeding-bottle, and secondly the hands, the face, the voice, 
 the eyes, the smiles, the caresses, the entire person of their 
 nurse or mother. Their first affections are those of an 
 epicure ; their first feelings of gratitude are awakened by the 
 stomach ; they test their first tactile experiences, as much 
 as possible, by the sense of taste. If one puts an object of 
 any kind into the hands of a child of six months, he will 
 touch and feel it for a few seconds without seeming to learn 
 much from the tactile impression, and then, if he is strong 
 enough, he will carry it to his mouth, and experiment upon 
 it with the organs of taste. His nurse's finger, a bit of rag, 
 a stick, a box, fruit, flowers, etc., anything and everything, 
 great or small, pleasant or unpleasant, all goes up to the 
 mouth. Pretty to look af, and good to eat, are synonymous 
 terms to babies ; a pretty picture, the colours of which first 
 attracted it, is seized hold of, and, like everything else, put 
 into the mouth. Even after they have learnt by frequent 
 experiments that all objects have not a pleasant taste, they 
 
 1 Luys, Le Cervcau et ses Fonttions, Eng. Trans , p. 127.
 
 62 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 only mistrust, at first sight, those which are notoriously 
 offensive to them. Later on, after the age of four months, 
 the desire to stop the itching of the gums becomes, no 
 doubt, an additional reason for the constant movement of 
 the hands to the mouth ; but the chief cause of it is the ex- 
 cessive excitability of the functions of taste, and of the ideas 
 and sentiments connected with this organ. 
 
 The sensations of joy and pain connected with taste con- 
 tinue to be the dominant ones during the first months ; but 
 they are not the only ones that children feel. 
 
 Fear. The automatic instinct of fear exhibits itself in 
 infants from the very first. We may even, moreover, see 
 obscure manifestations of this instinct in the tremblings 
 produced in the foetus by any sudden terror in the mother. 
 A lady who had had a great shock three months before the 
 birth of her child, felt the child move convulsively within her. 
 The baby only lived three months ; and during this time it 
 used frequently to give those violent starts, without any 
 external cause, which characterize excessive fear. These are 
 indisputably the effects of congenital imaginativeness, against 
 which a mother and those around her should guard as 
 much as possible. 
 
 As for the tremblings, the screams, the cessation or pre- 
 cipitation of breathing, which are common symptoms of fear 
 in new-born children, their cause is often so slight that it is 
 not always possible to foresee or prevent them. Sudden 
 sounds and sights of all sorts clearly distinguished, disturb 
 a child's rest. At three months, and even earlier, the mere 
 sight of a strange face will sometimes so agitate a child and 
 affect its breathing, as to make it seem on the point of 
 suffocation. Darwin has noticed signs of fear in infants 
 during the first weeks, at the slightest unexpected noise, 
 and later on at any strange noise or attitude. He speaks 
 also of the fear felt by some children at a more advanced 
 age, on finding themselves in the dark ; but he does not 
 tell us whether he considers this tendency hereditary. 
 We think, however, that such is his opinion, for he at- 
 tributes (what to my mind seems exaggerated) the fear 
 felt by his child in the Zoological Gardens at the sight of
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 63 
 
 large animate " to the hereditary effects of real dangers and 
 abject superstitions which prevailed at the period of savage 
 life." With all deference for the opinions of this illustrious 
 physiologist, I cannot help asking -whether a little baby's 
 fright at the sight of an enormous animal may not be partly 
 due to its own sense of comparison ; and whether it is neces- 
 sary to go back to the experience of its savage ancestors to 
 explain this particular manifestation of a tendency which is 
 hereditary only in so far as it is general. 
 
 The following observation of Charles Bell may no doubt 
 be applied to the age of six or seven months : 
 
 " If an infant be laid upon the arms and dandled up and 
 down, its body and limbs will be at rest as it is raised, but 
 in descending it will struggle and make efforts. Here is the 
 indication of a sense, an innate feeling, of danger ; and we 
 may perceive its influence when the child first attempts to 
 stand or run. When set upon its feet, the nurse's arms forming 
 a hoop around it, without touching it, the child slowly learns 
 to balance itself and stand ; but under a considerable appre- 
 hension ; it will only try to stand at such a distance from 
 the nurse's knee, that if it should fall, it can throw itself for 
 protection into her lap. In these its first attempts to use 
 its muscular frame, it is directed by a fear which cannot as 
 yet be attributed to experience." 1 If a child tumbles down 
 while trying to walk, it sometimes gives up the attempt for 
 a long time. But there is as great difference in this respect 
 in individuals of the human race, as in the young of animals. 
 
 Like little children in their first efforts at difficult games, 
 or in their first gymnastic exercises, some puppies exhibit 
 remarkable boldness, which no amount of tumbles can over- 
 come, and others a laughable degree of cowardice and 
 prudence. 
 
 Fright is less often caused in children between the ages 
 of three and ten months by visual than by auditory impres- 
 sions ; with kittens, after the fifteenth day, the reverse is the 
 case. A child of three-and-a-half months, in the midst of 
 
 1 The Hand, p. 234.
 
 64 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the alarm of a house on fire, and surrounded by flames and 
 tottering walls, showed neither astonishment nor fear ; he 
 even smiled at the woman who was taking care of him and 
 keeping watch over the furniture while waiting for his 
 parents. But the sound of the bugle, and of the firemen 
 coming up, and the noise of the engine wheels made him 
 tremble and cry. I have never seen a child at this age 
 startled by lightning, however vivid ; but I have seen many 
 terrified by the sound of thunder. On this point my obser- 
 vations are in opposition to those of Rousseau and Herbert 
 Spencer. The former thinks erroneously, with Locke, that 
 fear is a sentiment derived from experience of hurtful 01 
 dangerous things, and that, in the absence of very startling 
 impressions, it does not become developed in children. " I 
 have noticed," he says, " that children are rarely frightened 
 at thunder, at least if the claps are not too violent, and do 
 not hurt the ear ; otherwise this fear does not disturb them 
 until they have learnt to associate thunder with danger and 
 possible death." 1 Herbert Spencer's opinion is as follows: 
 
 " It happens, no doubt, that a child may be seized with 
 terror at a clap of thunder; and an ignorant person will 
 regard a comet with superstitious terror. But claps of 
 thunder and comets are not every-day phenomena, and do 
 not form part of the usual order of things." 3 The fact is, 
 that certain children, in their first months, are frightened by 
 certain very sharp or very sonorous sounds, and above all, by 
 unusual sounds. It is also true, as Locke and Rousseau 
 have observed, that the more a child becomes accustomed 
 to any sounds, the less it will be frightened at them. A 
 child who was very much frightened by thunder at the age 
 of six months say in May would not be so frightened 
 five months later, at the end of September, having heard 
 the same sound several times, and having become familiar 
 with it. But at a still later age, owing possibly to bad 
 training, this fear will reassert its dominion. 
 
 There is a kind of natural fear, organic and hereditary, 
 
 1 Emile, livre I. 2 Principles of Sociology, vol. i.
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 65 
 
 the result of anterior experiences, and which is a safeguard 
 to the young infant against certain very real dangers, of 
 which it has not yet had any experience. This is the reason 
 why fear is stronger and more easily excited at five years 
 old than at three, and at three years than at six months, 
 and also why it is more apt to be aroused in little children 
 by auditory impressions than by visual ones. The anterior 
 life of civilized man has rather predisposed the race to listen 
 for dangers which are near at hand, than to be on the look- 
 out for distant ones; i.e., the ear has been more trained to 
 keep watch than the eye. And accordingly, setting aside 
 all individual susceptibilities, which are the fruits of special 
 heredity, we find that in the inexperienced infant fear is 
 excited rather through the ear than the eye. It is natural 
 that the reverse should be the case in animals, so organized 
 as to perceive danger from afar. Thus, though I have never 
 come across a child who was frightened at the first sight of 
 fire, I have found the contrary to be the case in several 
 kinds of domestic animals dogs, cats, chickens, and birds 
 for instance. A chicken found lying half-dead in the garden 
 was brought indoors and placed near the fire; and, in spite of 
 its feeble condition, it quickly hopped away from it. It was 
 brought back again and placed on a stool, and after a good 
 deal of coaxing and petting it began to lose all fear, shut its 
 eyes, and fell asleep. It was then left to itself; and whether 
 that it was too feeble to fly away, or that it had become 
 happy in its new situation, it remained perfectly slill there 
 all the rest of the day and the following night. The next 
 day it had quite recovered, but it came back of its own 
 accord to take up its position on the footstool. For several 
 years past I have given a home to a stray cat. She was 
 about a year old when I first took her in. A few months 
 after, when the cold weather set in, I lighted a fire in my 
 study, which is also the cat's sitting-room. At first puss 
 looked at the flames with a frightened expression. I made 
 her come near the fire, but she bounded away and hid her- 
 self. I had a fire in the room every day, but it was not until 
 towards the end of the winter that I could induce the cat to 
 remain on a chair near it. By the following winter, however, 
 
 F
 
 66 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 her fears had disappeared, and she would as a matter of 
 course seat herself on a chair in front of the fire. Noise of 
 any description at once puts her on her guard with her 
 eyes, not with her ears ; the sound of thunder or of a heavy 
 waggon causes her to look up suddenly at the ceiling, and 
 then to listen at the window; the reason of this is, that the 
 shadows of objects passing along the street in the evening 
 often flit across the ceiling of my room, as I only have my 
 shutters half-closed. The conclusion, then, that we arrive at 
 is, that there are predispositions to fear which are indepen- 
 dent of all experience, but which the gradual accumulation 
 of experience lessens very considerably, and that in the case 
 of children they are chiefly connected with the sense of 
 hearing. 
 
 Anger. During the first weeks of existence children's 
 instinctive mode of expressing the pain which any object 
 inflicts on them seems to consist only in screams and move- 
 ments of resistance. But when about two months old, they 
 begin to push away objects that they do not like, and have 
 real fits of passion, frowning, growing red in the face, trem- 
 bling all over, and sometimes shedding tears. At three 
 months old, they begin to experience the feeling of jealousy, 
 which is shown in tears, screams, and contortions, if one 
 pretends to be going to take away their feeding-bottle or 
 any other object of their affections. They also become very 
 much irritated if they cannot at once get at their mother's 
 breast, or when being washed, or having their clothes 
 changed, or if their wishes are not guessed and satisfied 
 quickly enough. At six months they will scream with im- 
 patience if their toys are taken from them. This may be 
 either owing to an inborn instinct of proprietorship, or be- 
 cause of the amusement which their toys afford them. 
 
 At this same period their movements and cries during 
 sleep appear to indicate painful dreams. Towards the age 
 of one year their anger sometimes exhibits itself in hurtful 
 actions in which we see, so to speak, the germ of the passion 
 of revenge. They will beat people, animals, and inanimate 
 objects if they are angry with them ; they will throw their 
 loys, their food, their plate, anything, in short, that is at
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 67 
 
 hand, at the people who have displeased them, or simply at 
 the first person near, when it is the objects that have caused 
 displeasure. Thus anger has its origin, and that at a very 
 early age, both in simple and complex sentiments, and is 
 expressed either by simple and automatic actions or by 
 complex ones acquired personally. 
 
 If the theory of evolution is true, it is necessary for the 
 young human being to pass through, in a certain gradation, 
 all the principal stages which have brought his ancestors 
 from animalism up to the first beginnings of civilization. It 
 is but natural that a child should at one moment reproduce 
 this ancestor, at another resemble that savage, with whom 
 many would identify primitive man. Now, irascibility is 
 one of the special characteristics of inferior races. Irrita- 
 bility and impulsiveness are, with few exceptions, funda- 
 mental traits of all these races. 
 
 " Spite of their usually unimpassioned behaviour, the 
 Dakotahs rise into frightful states of bloody fury when kill- 
 ing buffaloes ; and among the phlegmatic Creeks, there are 
 "very frequent suicides, caused by trifling disappointments." 
 Passing from North America to Asia, we come to 
 the Kamtschadales ; of whom we read that they are " ex- 
 citable," not to say (for men) hysterical. A light matter 
 set them mad, or made them commit suicide." . 
 Among the Negrillos the Papuan is " impetuous, excitable, 
 noisy;" the Fijians have "emotions easily roused but 
 transient." . . . The Tasmanians " quickly change from 
 smiles to tears." . . . The Fuegians " have hasty 
 tempers, and are loud and furious talkers." " There are 
 the Australians, whose impulsiveness Sturt implies by saying 
 that the 'angry Australian yVw exceeds the European scold,' 
 and that a man ' remarkable for haughtiness and reserve ; 
 sobbed long when his nephew was taken from him.' " l 
 
 This impulsiveness and irascibility are in our children 
 legacies inherited from our primitive ancestors : they are, as it 
 were, instinctive weapons of defence, and native instruments 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology, pp. 63 etc.
 
 68 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 of self-preservation. It appears then a priori to be estab- 
 lished, that systematic evolution, or education, should preserve 
 this force while disciplining it. But experience alone can 
 teach us what may be the consequence, either in infancy or in 
 the .future, of combating or encouraging these sentiments, 
 and consequently what place we should allow this moral 
 factor in education. 
 
 Anger is legitimate in young children when it expresses 
 unconscious revolt against the first sufferings of life convul- 
 sions, colic, pains of teething, discomfort produced by fever, 
 or by the want of air, of locomotion, or of sleep. The 
 screams and movements in which they vent their anger dis- 
 tract and relieve them, in a certain measure, from the feeling 
 of pain ; and to the parents or guardians of the child they 
 are warnings dictated by nature herself. In like manner, 
 when a child, in its first awkward attempts at speech, has 
 given a wrong idea of its meaning, it is quite justified in 
 screaming, beating the ground with its foot, and showing 
 indignation at being so badly understood when it thought 
 it had spoken so well. It has still more right to be angry, 
 when, after having been accustomed by its nurse to any bad 
 habit, such as being rocked to sleep in its cradle or in any 
 one's arms, or being put to bed with a light in the room, 
 these habits are suddenly discontinued ; still more so again, 
 when, without regard for its delicate sensitiveness, we try to 
 force it to do something which, either from nature or habit, is 
 repulsive to it, such as swallowing a bitter draught, or under- 
 going some punishment or privation without complaining, 
 or kissing a person it dislikes. Another case, mentioned by 
 Rousseau, in which a child's anger is perfectly legitimate, is 
 when the nurse beats it for crying, and, an additional form 
 of suffering being thus added to that which he probably 
 experienced before, he expresses both by loud screams and 
 rage. 
 
 There are also certain forms of impatience which betoken 
 a frank and generous character, and which are closely allied 
 with the budding of the earliest moral virtues. A young 
 child, for instance, who delights in walking alone, although 
 at the risk of falling, will get extremely angry if any one
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 69 
 
 should persist in trying to help him. At a later age, again, 
 suppose a child to repeat in his mother's presence some 
 foolish joke which the servants had always been very much 
 amused at, but in which his mother sees nothing to laugh 
 at, his face will get very red and he will close his lips firmly, 
 evidently feeling that he has exposed himself to ridicule and 
 appearing quite irritated with himself. Again, at about two 
 years old, when a child is suddenly punished severely by 
 some person who had before been generally indulgent to 
 him, he will fly into a passion for a punishment which he 
 would have received submissively had it been inflicted by 
 his parents. Once more, if he sees two children fighting 
 in the street, he will run up to them with clenched fists and 
 crimson cheeks, and try to separate them. Are not all these 
 ebullitions of temper invaluable guides to the knowledge of 
 a child's character and helps in its moral education ? 
 
 But if anger has its good sides, its use and justification, it 
 has also its evils and abuses. It is often the outcome of 
 caprice, jealousy, hatred of all the hostile passions, com- 
 bativeness, destructiveness, and vengeance. It is the two- 
 edged sword of human wickedness, which wounds the 
 striker as well as the victim. If indulged in too frequently, 
 it will injure the moral and physical development of the 
 child, who ought always to be surrounded by an atmosphere 
 of peaceful serenity, and in whom we should endeavour to 
 maintain calmness and tranquillity of spirit. Outbursts of 
 anger may have specially disastrous effects on children pre- 
 disposed to convulsive maladies at an age when the muscular 
 system is not sufficiently developed to counteract shocks to 
 the nervous system. What is more likely to hinder the 
 growth of good-humour or docility in a child, than the habit 
 of getting irritated at the slightest cause because an object 
 he tries to take hold of slips out of his hands, or because he 
 is given something to eat or to play with that he does not 
 like, or because a stranger speaks to him or kisses him ? 
 What less pleasing spectacle can there be, than that of a 
 pretty little child a year or two old, who habitually vents its 
 anger on the furniture, the books, flowers, fruit, or food, the 
 cat or the dog, its nurses, or even its parents ?
 
 7O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 I have seen a capricious little creature eleven months 
 old put herself in a violent temper because she could not 
 succeed in seizing hold of her grandfather's nose ! Another 
 child I know of had a beautiful doll, of which she was very 
 fond ; her parents took her once with them to Cauterets, 
 and on getting out of the carriage she saw another child 
 with a doll just like her own ; instantly there were screams 
 and paroxysms of rage ! She flew upon the child, scratched 
 her, beat her, and bit her ; and she had to be carried away 
 by force. Her fury was so great that she was quite ill from 
 it for several days. Another little girl of the same age had 
 such fits of passion every evening when her mother was 
 putting her to bed, that the neighbours would sometimes 
 come in and help to quiet her. There was one person 
 whom she specially dreaded, and the sight of whom was 
 sufficient to quiet her : this was a gentleman with a loud 
 voice and a long beard, who sometimes whipped her in her 
 cot. A little boy fifteen months old used to bite his mother 
 when she put him to bed. Another child, three years old, 
 who had been sent away from the dining-room on account 
 of his naughty behaviour, came back soon after and laid 
 himself down on the floor across the doorway, throwing out 
 his arms and legs, and screaming at the top of his voice. 
 
 Having thus pointed out the use and the abuse of anger, it 
 seems to me that we may, on a posteriori as well as on a 
 priori grounds, place this passion among that class of animal 
 sentiments which it would be waste of time to endeavour to 
 exterminate, but which need to be carefully directed and con- 
 trolled. We should recognise in the passionate temper one 
 of the most fruitful principles of human activity, one which, 
 if united with sympathy, will lead to acts of self-devotion 
 and may help in the formation of moral habits by obliging 
 the child to examine himself and his own actions, or by 
 inspiring him, as far as his tender age permits, with a germ 
 of 
 
 . . . ces haines vigoureuses 
 Que doit donner le vice aux ames generalises. 
 
 Jealousy. The instinct of jealousy, common to all animals,
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 71 
 
 but unequally distributed amongst individuals of the same 
 species, manifests itself in very different ways and circum- 
 stances. It is not always the sign of very acute sensibility 
 or of strong personality, for it shows itself very markedly 
 in young children and in adults of a calm and equable 
 temperament. Sometimes it will burst into flame, like latent 
 fire. Sometimes it smoulders on like burning ashes. Love 
 and affection are its most violent excitants ; but any trifling 
 cause may also give rise to it. A cat or a dog will be jealous 
 of each other about their food, or about a favourite place, 
 a plaything, or a caress. A sparrow tamed by a lady was 
 jealous of the cats when its mistress fondled them, and of 
 the visitors who came to see her; its attitudes and cries 
 plainly betokened this. In like manner a child will show 
 jealousy if any one approaches its nurse, or touches its 
 bottle, or is caressed by its mother. A child of fifteen 
 months was evidently jealous if sugar or dessert was given 
 to its nurse. 
 
 This feeling is roused by very different objects, and is 
 sometimes confounded with envy and the desire of appro- 
 priation and imitation. Children often want things not so 
 much for the sake of having and enjoying them, as because 
 they do not like to see them in the possession of others. 
 And what applies to things applies also to persons. A child 
 of fifteen months used to enact very curious little scenes out 
 of jealousy. If his father and mother kissed each other in 
 his presence, he would run up and try to separate them, 
 scolding and pushing away his father, who was by no means 
 the favourite. The same child, at this age, could never see 
 anything in anybody else's hand without asking for it, or 
 trying to touch or take hold of it ; nothing could ever be 
 done in his presence, without his wanting to meddle in it. 
 In the kitchen he must have a knife, or something like a 
 knife, and pretend to be at work with the parings of the 
 vegetables while the servant is preparing the dinner. When 
 his older brother is writing, he insists on having a high chair 
 at the table and some paper and a pen, and then he fancies 
 that he is doing the same as his brother ; once he gravely 
 asked for his father's razor, that he too might shave. Thus
 
 72 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 we see that the proprietary and imitative tendencies enter 
 largely into the displays of envy and jealousy. 
 
 Fathers, by the way, need not be troubled by the prefer- 
 ence their little children generally show for their mother or 
 nurse. This is quite natural, and more favourable than 
 otherwise to their moral and intellectual development. 
 Mothers, on their part, need not be unduly distressed at the 
 inconstancy of their little hearts. They will right themselves 
 in time, provided the parents do their duty by their chil- 
 dren ; and manifestations of jealousy in either father or 
 mother would be a very bad example to a child. 
 
 There is always, no doubt, a little self-love, if not vanity, 
 mixed up with the jealousy a child feels towards its brothers 
 and sisters, especially with regard to the marks of tender- 
 ness and attention which are shown them. Tiedemann 
 says of his son, at the age of twenty-two months, "Jealousy 
 and vanity became stronger and stronger; if any one praised 
 his little sister, he instantly came up to be praised also ; he 
 always endeavoured to get away from her whatever had been 
 given her, and he would even hit her on the sly." When 
 this little sister was born, the boy had shown signs of dis- 
 pleasure ; he wanted to beat her whenever he saw her on 
 his mother's lap or in his own cot, because it was disagree- 
 able to him to see anything which he had possessed 
 exclusively for some time taken away from him. 
 
 One of my nephews, at the age of three years, used con- 
 tinually to talk of the little brother he was soon to have. 
 " I shall love him so much," he would say at every instant. 
 But when he saw the baby taking up his mother's lap and 
 kisses and caresses, and his father's care and attention, he 
 expressed his annoyance loudly. He even said to his 
 mother one day : " Won't little Ferdinand soon die ? " 
 When the baby began to walk and talk, the elder child would 
 torment him in hundreds of naughty ways, beating him, 
 dragging him out of his chair in order to take his place, 
 shouting in his ears, calling him naughty and ugly, taking 
 away his toys, and mimicking his way of talking and walk- 
 ing. 
 
 Sentiments of various kinds. When experience has taught
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 73 
 
 a young child to know a certain number of objects as having 
 the power to afford him pleasant or painful sensations of 
 sight or touch, his waking hours begin to be more and more 
 divided between his meals and his playthings. To the in- 
 stinct of hunger or greediness, still dominant but no longer 
 exclusive, there are now added fresh wants, which the Scotch 
 call intellectual, because they imply a certain growth of the 
 intelligence. 
 
 Here is a child of eight months, of ordinary intelligence. 
 He is interested in a number of objects which have nothing 
 to do with his palate, and which he only carries to his 
 mouth accidentally. These objects are instruments of play 
 and study for the child. He handles them, turns them 
 round and round, knocks them down, sets them up again, 
 throws them away, fetches them back, crawls after them on 
 all fours when they are out of his reach, knocks them one 
 against the other, puts them inside each other, thrusts his 
 hands into them, piles them up in heaps and then knocks 
 them down ; in short, disports himself with them and learns 
 from them in a thousand different ways. Sight and touch, 
 which before seemed generally mere auxiliaries of taste, 
 now act on their own account ; the original synthetic con- 
 dition of the functions has now given place to an analytic 
 condition which gains daily in strength and delicacy ; the 
 concentric circles of sensations, perceptions, judgments, 
 sentiments, go on expanding ; and henceforth my friend the 
 savant is able to admire the little animal, who rises day by 
 day and hour by hour to the level of a little man. 
 
 Take another child of eleven months. He is passionately 
 fond of his bottle, which is for him the embodiment of ex- 
 quisite enjoyment ; but he has made acquaintance with a 
 certain number of other eatables soup, bread, meat, cakes, 
 fruit, etc. which he seems to like as much as his first food. 
 However, when his appetite is satisfied, and he is taken 
 back to his toys, one sees that he enjoys them just as much, 
 if not in the same manner, as he did eating and drinking. 
 He shows the same desire to seize hold of them, the same 
 attraction towards them, the same distress if they are taken 
 away ; his expressions, gestures, and attitudes of delight prove
 
 74 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 that they afford him equally agreeable sensations. Then 
 again I perceive that he shows love for his mother, his nurse, 
 his sisters, his aunt in fact, for all the people who feed, pet, 
 talk to, and amuse him. Moreover, there are evidently 
 different degrees in his affection. He seems more pleased 
 to go to the arms of his mother or nurse than to his little 
 sister, who hugs him so awkwardly that she sometimes makes 
 him cry, or to his aunt, who means to be very loving and 
 caressing, but who does not look so, and who, in addition 
 to a repelling countenance, has a shrill voice. This child 
 brightens up at the sight of a young or pretty face, but shows 
 very little interest in old or ugly ones, or faces covered with 
 veils. His affections vary according to the nature of objects 
 and the sensations they afford him, and according to the 
 character, manners, and actions of different persons ; he has 
 also his dislikes, both for persons and for things. He gets 
 exasperated when a little neighbour, seven years old, who 
 has played him several tricks and made faces at him, conies 
 up to him to kiss him. One of his uncles often brings with 
 him a little black dog, much given to barking ; and the mere 
 sight of this animal distresses the child. Soap and water, 
 and towels, the rod, and the enema syringe, he looks upon 
 as personal enemies. Inanimate objects have a large share 
 in the sentiments of little children. The pleasure and the 
 pain which these objects cause to some of his senses are the 
 germ of all these affections and repulsions. But curiosity 
 and the incessant need of new and vivid emotions are his 
 stimulants, and furnish daily food for his affective sensibility. 
 The affections of a child, however, like the curiosity which 
 excites them, are very transitory. They glide from object 
 to object, from person to person. Owing to their ignor- 
 ance and feeble power of attention, they are unable to oc- 
 cupy themselves long with one person or object which 
 cannot vary and be metamorphosed every instant to suit their 
 restless curiosity. Here is a child of ten months. He con- 
 fuses flowers with other inanimate objects; a piece of rose- 
 coloured paper excites in him as vivid and durable a feel- 
 ing of curiosity and pleasure as would a beautiful rose. 
 When I sniff a rose in his presence, and invite him to
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 75 
 
 imitate me, saying to him, " It smells so nice," he draws in 
 his breath and looks pleased, showing that he is sensible 
 of the sweet smell of the rose ; but the sensations which 
 perfumes excite in us are so quickly effaced that the artificial 
 habits of adults are necessary in order to appreciate them, 
 and to like flowers for the sake of their smells. These sub- 
 tle charms, so keenly enjoyed by grown-up people, soon 
 cease for children. With regard to these fragile works of 
 nature, their pleasure is still more fragile, especially when 
 they hold them in their hands. They will jump with de- 
 light at first seeing and smelling them, but will very soon 
 leave them for something else. The infant organization, 
 more feeble than our own, is subject, almost without excep- 
 tion, to the law of nature according to which the most vivid 
 sensations are the least enduring. This is the reason why 
 objects which excite in children sensations keenly painful 
 or pleasant, never please or distress them for any length of 
 time. 
 
 Animal Sympathy. Animate objects have rather more 
 power than inanimate ones of arresting the attention and 
 awakening curiosity, and hence of exciting the emotions of 
 children. Dogs, cats, sheep, birds, chickens all these 
 creatures are par excellence their objects of recreation, in- 
 struction, and affection. And it is not strange that it should 
 be so. They afford all the gratifications of sight and hear- 
 ing combined, all the various pleasures of touch, and that 
 latent voluptuousness which follows the satisfaction of the ap- 
 petite of movement. Added, also, to the perpetual renewal 
 of curiosity excited by these animals, are the no less powerful 
 influences of animal sympathy. How intense is a child's 
 delight when almost strangling one of these good-natured 
 creatures in its eager grasp. It seems like its own life, its 
 own personality, vibrating in those organs which beat with 
 the same movements as his own. This feeling, which is 
 hereditary rather than acquired by sympathy, sometimes has 
 phases of superior excitation : the games, the caresses, the 
 screams of delight, the gentle purrings, the waitings and 
 moans of a cat or a dog, all this combination of sympathetic 
 sensations stimulate the curiosity and excite to the highest
 
 76 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 pitch the affections produced by the increased gratification 
 of the senses of sight, hearing, touch, and movement which 
 the presence of these animals affords children. 
 
 This sympathy for animals, however, does not include 
 moral sympathy. The child of a neighbour of mine, who 
 is two months old, and who plays all day long with the cat 
 and the dog, loves these animals more for its own sake than 
 for theirs, i.e., for the pleasure they afford him. It does not 
 seem to occur to him that these creatures can also suffer 
 and enjoy. Their gambols, their happy bark or mew, de- 
 light him ; their cries of anger or pain frighten and distress 
 him, and that is about all. The dog being more good- 
 natured than the cat, there is no trial to which this child 
 will not subject its patience; I have seen him pull him 
 by the tail, by the paws, by the ears, and even bite his 
 tail, thrust all sorts of things into his jaws, throw all his toys 
 on him, drop a chair down upon him, or beat him with his 
 wooden spade, etc., etc. The other day, the nurse seated 
 this child on the lawn, and put a tortoise near him to amuse 
 him. At first he looked at the animal with great curiosity, 
 and seeing this, the nurse left him alone for a moment ; on 
 her return, the tortoise had one leg half torn off, and this 
 enthusiastic student of natural history was occupied in pull- 
 ing off another with all his strength. This insensibility to 
 the suffering of animals, unless it is very evident to the eye 
 or ear, is very common in children, and even in a great 
 number of adults; but it is due to a faulty education, rather 
 than to a defect in natural sensibility. I have often heard 
 ignorant, uneducated, people assert that such and such ani- 
 mals or insects could not feel pain. And have not the ex- 
 treme advocates of the automatism of beasts, Malebranche 
 among others, positively declared that they do not feel ? 
 It is remarkable, moreover, that a learned man, the cele- 
 brated Lamarck, one of the precursors of Darwin, has dis- 
 tinguished a part of the animal kingdom by the name of 
 a-pathetic animals. 
 
 Human Sympathy. A child of twelve months who came 
 back to his father's house after a month's absence, took no 
 notice of the purrings and caresses with which his old friend
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 77 
 
 the cat welcomed him home. He hardly noticed the dog 
 either, though he had been in the habit of seeing him every 
 day, and had sometimes been allowed to play with him, and 
 used to repeat his name. It took him ten minutes or more 
 to recover his familiarity with either of them. Scarcely 
 however, did he catch sight of the faithful old servant be- 
 fore even she had called him by his 'name than he held 
 out his arms to her, starting and jumping with delight. 
 The fact is, that though children often seem to love cats and 
 dogs as much as their parents or nurse, they forget animals 
 much faster than people. A rather older child remembers 
 animals much better, and will, even speak of them constantly 
 when away from them. But I think that in general the 
 affection they feel for people is of a deeper nature. Setting 
 aside the tendencies to human sympathy which are the re- 
 sult of organization and heredity, man is always necessary 
 to man ; and this is especially the case with the little child, 
 that " etre ondoyant et divers" the subject of ever new 
 curiosity, always seeking fresh gratification. A little child 
 hangs, in the full sense of the word, on the looks, words, 
 and actions of the human beings around him. Human 
 speech is in itself, apart from the ideas and sentiments it 
 expresses, a music, of which the rhythm and the intonations 
 correspond to the aesthetic faculties of a little child. The 
 ever-changing expression of the eye lends a further charm 
 to this delightful music. The eye is one of the most interest- 
 ing and ai tractive of objects ; the vivacity of the pupil set 
 in its oval background of white, its sparkles, its darts of 
 light, its tender looks, its liquid depths, attract and fascinate 
 a young child, like the roundness and the shifting patterns 
 of a beautiful agate; it is a source of perpetual enchant- 
 ment Although children may not be subtly sensible to all 
 the delicate impressions produced by beauty, graceful figures, 
 pleasant faces and manners, cannot but have a powerful 
 attraction lor them. The play of the human countenance, 
 moreover, so strongly affects the organization of sensitive 
 beings, that even animals who do not live habitually in the 
 company of human beings will endeavour to find out its 
 meaning. And all these objects of intense and incessant
 
 78 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 curiosity are associated in a child's mind with the ideas of 
 caresses, games, affection, pleasure, nourishment, i.e., all the 
 pleasures, moral, intellectual, and physical, that they have 
 experienced. 
 
 One sees in children, especially towards the age of ten 
 months, sudden fancies for new faces which it is not always 
 easy to explain. A young relation of mine, eleven months 
 old, came once on a visit to my family. On first seeing 
 me, his father being present at the time, he called me, 
 " Papa, papa." I held out my hand to him and he seized 
 hold of my fingers and dragged me along, saying : " Papa, 
 mene, mene." I at once understood that he wanted me to 
 help him to walk, and to his great delight I gratified his 
 wish. During the whole week that he remained with us he 
 continued to show a marked preference for me over every 
 one else. He would often leave his mother, and his father 
 still oftener, to come to me. Often at meals, when he was 
 on his mother's lap at a considerable distance from me, he 
 would fix his eyes on me, say "Papa, papa" and then slip 
 from his mother's lap and scramble on all fours under the 
 table up to my feet, in the hopes that I should take him up. 
 Sudden affection of this sort deserved to be examined into, 
 and I believe that I found the key to the mystery. On the 
 day of his arrival, seeing me smoking a cigar, he began to 
 puff vigorously as if he were blowing smoke through his 
 lips. Now he goes through this performance with his 
 grandfather ; the latter, moreover, whom he also calls papa, 
 has a long beard like mine. It was no doubt these points 
 of resemblance, and possibly some others, such as likeness 
 in manner, figure, and voice, which caused me to become at 
 once the depository of the affection before bestowed on his 
 grandfather. Now, however, he has learnt to like me for 
 myself, or rather, I should say, because of the games I have 
 played with him, and which he cannot enjoy without me. 
 
 Human beings are thus the objects of children's most 
 marked affections, as they seem also to be of tame animals. 
 It is seldom, however, that a child manifests its sentiments 
 with a sufficient degree of energy to merit the name of 
 passion. Exalted love so-called passion is the charac-
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 79 
 
 teristic of the adult. It implies an element of reflection, 
 though not perhaps always reasonable, and a strong impulse 
 of the will, though not always regulated ; and these elements 
 are wanting in young children. They have no such things 
 as passions, but, like animals, they have attachments and 
 habits. As regards sympathy properly so called, we must 
 not look for anything more in them than the germ of this 
 sentiment. A young child has not yet made sufficient trial 
 of the good and evil of life, to be able to imagine them in 
 his fellow-creatures. He does not sufficiently understand 
 the full signification of the facts which he observes, he does 
 not possess in a sufficiently high degree the faculty of in- 
 duction and judgment for his sensibility to be affected by 
 the external manifestations of complex sentiments. He 
 does not experience those moral sufferings which, for the 
 adult, are often far harder to bear than any physical pain. 
 He may suffer from the deprivation of a beloved person or 
 object, but he does not say to himself that he suffers. 
 Suffering is only connected in his mind with tears and 
 groans. 
 
 This period of life, so full of irreflective sympathy, is, in 
 the words of the fable, without pity, owing to want of ex- 
 perience and to feebleness of judgment. Every day we see 
 children, even as old as three or four years, innocently doing 
 violence, by their inopportune remarks and cruel proposals, 
 to the most sacred griefs of those who love them. I re- 
 member that, when about five years old, having lost a young 
 sister, I was taken by my aunt to the bed where the dead 
 child was lying. The pallor and immobility of her face, 
 her half-closed eyes, and her distorted mouth (she had died 
 of croup) all made a deep impression on me ; but at the 
 same time, she reminded me so strongly of a very pale-faced 
 little boy, whom I had often noticed on my way to school 
 on account of his colourless complexion, that I could not 
 rest till I had found my mother to tell her of this likeness. 
 A child of four years old had lost one of his favourite 
 companions ; he was taken to the little boy's house, and 
 the father took him on his lap and held him there a few 
 minutes while giving way to a fit of weeping. The child
 
 80 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 understood nothing of all this grief; he got down as quickly 
 as he could, disported himself a little while about the room, 
 and then suddenly going back to the poor father, exclaimed : 
 " Now that Peter is dead, you will give me his horse and 
 his drum, won't you ?" 
 
 Sometimes, however, we see exceptions to this rule. I 
 know a little child, not yet three, who is a striking 
 example of what has been aptly called the " memory of the 
 heart." His grandfather and father, whom he was very fond 
 of, are both dead. The grandfather has been dead a year, 
 and the father five months. Not a day passes that he does 
 not speak of them. Whenever he is taken to his grand- 
 mother's house, he seats himself on his grandfather's arm- 
 chair, asks to have the curtain lifted up from grandpapa's 
 picture, and looks at it with an expression of real emotion. 
 At home he asks every day for the photograph of his father; 
 he kisses it and makes his sister and his elder brother do the 
 same. He understands why his mother is sad, and says to 
 her, " You are sad because father is not here." If he sees 
 her crying, he kisses her and says, " Don't cry ; I will go 
 and fetch papa, I will make him come back ; I have got 
 the key of Paradise." 
 
 Let me mention one or two more facts to show how 
 very unequally different kinds of sympathy may be developed 
 in the same child. The following facts were furnished me 
 by a friend : " Since I have been under hydropathic treat- 
 ment, it has twice happened that the child (sixteen months 
 old) has been present at the operations. . . . Each 
 time, when I began to douche myself, he burst into tears, 
 probably, I suppose, because he remembered what a dis- 
 agreeable sensation he feels himself when he is put into a 
 bath. The first time, I was obliged to leave off the per- 
 formance and put him out of the room away from this 
 painful sight. The second time, I let him remain, but he 
 cried the whole time. He fetched my clothes from the 
 chair, and held up my shirt for me to put on. This sym- 
 pathetic sensibility touched me deeply." 
 
 " The little fellow is perfectly miserable if either his 
 mother or I say to him, ' I am angry, baby.' If any one
 
 THE SENTIMENTS. 8 1 
 
 scolds him, it is the displeased expression of face that causes 
 him the most distress and sets him off crying. If the 
 scolding is not of a very decided nature, one sees him 
 hesitate, his mouth is uncertain whether to laugh or cry, 
 and he finally decides according to the dominant expression, 
 If he cries a great deal at being scolded, his mother can 
 always comfort him by saying, ' Mother not cross now ; be 
 mother's little darling,' and then he is instantly consoled 
 and holds up his face to be kissed." 
 
 But the reverse of the medal is always there also. This 
 same child at the same age, and even a year later, was die 
 terror of all cats. During a visit that he paid at my house, 
 I went one day suddenly into a room where he had been 
 left alone with a little kitten. On seeing me he cried out, 
 " I'm not hurting the kitten." This was true at the moment 
 at which he spoke, for I found the little creature squatting 
 under a cupboard, frightened to death.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 INTELLECTUAL TENDENCIES. 
 
 A CHILD'S curiosity, like its intelligence, is at the outset 
 entirely egotistic and sensual, but it is gradually and in- 
 stinctively elevated by a kind of scientific disinterestedness. 
 It is in the first instance a vivid excitation of the sensibility, 
 and, by repercussion, of the activity, in the presence or 
 expectation of new and vivid sensations. 
 
 Fe"nelon has given a psychological, if not an exactly 
 physiological description, of this interesting organ of the 
 infant mind. " The substance of their brains is soft, but 
 it hardens day by day. As for their minds, they know 
 nothing, all is new to them ; owing to the softness of the 
 brain, impressions are easily traced on it, and the novelty of 
 everything causes them to be easily excited to admiration 
 and curiosity. This moisture and softness of the brain, 
 combined with excessive heat, produce in it easy and con- 
 stant movement ; hence arises the restlessness of children, 
 and their inability to keep their minds fixed on one object, 
 any more than their bodies in one place." Fe"nelon says 
 elsewhere : " The curiosity of children is a natural tendency 
 which goes in the van of instruction." Let us say rather, 
 " in the van of pleasure," and the definition will be more 
 exact. 
 
 At two months a child will turn its eyes and ears and 
 stretch out its hands and arms towards the objects which 
 strike its senses. At three months it seizes the objects 
 brought within its reach and shakes them about to amuse 
 itself; it knows that its hands are the instruments by means 
 of which it can procure itself impressions and produce move- 
 ments, and it exercises them in touching and in bringing
 
 INTELLECTUAL TENDENCIES. 83 
 
 near to its eyes, and better still its mouth, as many objects 
 as it can. When it is undressed it rubs its hands all over 
 its little body, down its stomach, along its legs and feet; and 
 it is astonished to feel so many different things which are 
 all parts of itself. When it is seated on its nurse's lap or 
 on a cushion in the middle of the room, one of its favourite 
 occupations is to take its foot in both hands and to pull it 
 up to its mouth. The mouth is the central point of all its 
 young experience ; it is here that every fresh bit of know- 
 ledge is brought to be measured and determined. Very 
 often too, whether from the need of testing everything by 
 the taste, or from the desire to sooth the smarting of its 
 teeth or gums, and to arrive at the remedy by what seems 
 the shortest road, children will try to take hold of distant 
 objects with their mouths. 
 
 Then soon comes the stage at which everything within 
 reach becomes the subject of continual study and desire, 
 and the child's curiosity flits from one thing to another 
 and backwards and forwards to the same things over and 
 over again, changing as rapidly as does the pleasure which 
 he feels in holding, moving, looking at, and listening to 
 different things. Woe henceforth to you parents who have 
 not kept your children in check, but have made yourselves 
 the ready slaves to their caprices. By a graceful wave of 
 the baby hand, or by resolute and imperious screams, they 
 will now insist on your bringing or giving them whatever 
 strikes their fancy ; your watch, your eye-glass, your arm- 
 chair, a picture, a porcelain vase, a lamp, possibly even a 
 gas-burner in the street, " everything," as Rousseau says, 
 " including the moon." 
 
 Towards the age of a year, when a child begins to be 
 able to walk, its sphere of personal investigations becomes 
 rapidly enlarged, and the additional faculty of speech 
 supplies its curiosities and wishes with the means of endless 
 variety, and of enforcing attention. A hundred times an 
 hour, provided there is some one to listen to him, his little 
 voice will be heard, expressing some wish or asking some 
 question. All the observations which he formerly made 
 with his eyes, are now made with his hands and mouth;
 
 84 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 he darts about hither and thither, he crawl r or toddles from 
 one thing to another ; he opens things, breaks them, knocks 
 them about, mixes them together. He pours his broth into 
 his grandfather's watch, puts the gold fish into the doll's 
 bed, and the doll into the water of the fish-globe ; in short, 
 he commits the whole series of incongruities which artists 
 of late have been ingeniously striving to reproduce ; and all 
 this is done, not so much from a desire to know what the 
 things are and what can be done with them, as from the 
 need of fresh sensations. 
 
 A little later, these mischievous tendencies become still 
 more numerous. The child seems to be everywhere at 
 once in the kitchen, in the garden, in the drawing-room, 
 with eyes and ears wide awake, hearing and seeing every- 
 thing without seeming to do so, asking endless questions, 
 often very embarrassing ones, and storing up in his memory 
 all the most striking details, to be brought out suddenly for 
 the entertainment of visitors. This craving of young children 
 for information is an emotional and intellectual absorbing 
 power, as dominant as the appetite of nutrition, and equally 
 needing to be watched over and regulated. 
 
 We should strangely exaggerate the hereditary influence 
 of scientific tendencies in man, if we transferred it from the 
 social group to the individual : all that belongs to the indi- 
 vidual is a greater aptitude at perceiving and at combining 
 his perceptions so as to form systematic and co-ordinated 
 conceptions ; but the instinct for abstract truth, the neces- 
 sity of finding out the truth for its own sake, is not trans- 
 mitted, it must be inculcated. If then there are no questions 
 asked by children to which a true answer should not be 
 given, we may comfort ourselves with the thought that little 
 children are not very critical, and that a very vague answer, 
 if necessary, will satisfy them. For instance, a little girl 
 asked her mother why there was water in the river. Her 
 mother answered, " Because there must be water somewhere 
 but not everywhere." Another child asked why beans 
 grew in the earth. Her mother answered, "Do you not 
 grow ever)' day ? and kittens, don't they grow ? All animals 
 get bigger, and little ones become great ones ; and the
 
 INTELLECTUAL TENDENCIES. 85 
 
 plants do just the same." Another child asked why water 
 was not wine. His father asked him in answer, " Is a dog 
 a cat? Wine is wine, and water is water." All these 
 answers are not partly true, they are absolutely true, and 
 quite sufficient for children of this age. 
 
 Children do not trouble themselves about the invisible ; 
 they feel, indeed, an instinctive repulsion for what is mys- 
 terious. It may be said of them, as Spencer has well said 
 of primitive man : " He accepts what he sees, as animals 
 do ; he adapts himself spontaneously to the world which 
 surrounds him ; astonishment is beyond him." If, then, it 
 is not possible to attribute the birth of religions to those 
 two tendencies said to be innate in man, automorphism, 
 which causes him to place a will similar to his own behind 
 natural phenomena, and wonder, which seizes him in the 
 presence of certain of these phenomena and impels him to 
 invent mysterious and supernatural explanations for them, 
 we may boldly assert that the sense of religion exists no 
 more in the intelligence of a little child, than does the 
 supernatural in nature. 
 
 Children, I take it, occupy their minds very little with 
 those conceptions of the invisible, of the infinite, and of 
 finality, which are disputed about in philosophic circles. 
 Their reverence and their love attaches itself to the human 
 beings who are kind to them, but to nothing which is in- 
 visible or distinct from their species. Their instinct of 
 finality is wholly objective and utilitarian. They ask what 
 such a thing is called, in order to know in what it is either 
 good or bad ; and also but this chiefly because they have 
 been taught to ask it where it comes from, who has made 
 it thus, who has put it there ; i.e., what is there to like or 
 fear about any particular thing? There is nothing meta- 
 physical in all this ; they are only inquiries founded on 
 very concrete analogies and experiences. The mystery of 
 their own existence and of the existence of the world does 
 not interest or preoccupy young children, unless they have 
 had their attention directed to these subjects ; and, in our 
 opinion, parents are very much mistaken in thinking it their 
 duty to instruct their little ones in such things, which have
 
 86 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 no real interest for them as who made them, who created 
 the world, what is the soul, what is its present and future 
 destiny, and so forth. 
 
 So great, moreover, is the confidence and credulity of 
 children, that they will accept, not always though without 
 a little kicking, almost any beliefs that you try to impose 
 on them. If you want to persuade your child that he was 
 born under a cabbage, that Hop-o'-my-Thumb had seven- 
 leagued boots, that the sky is peopled with angels, that 
 under the earth there are howling demons, that garrets and 
 chimneys are full of ghosts, you have only to look as if you 
 believed all this seriously yourself, and they will be con- 
 vinced at once. 
 
 II. 
 
 VERACITY. 
 
 Montaigne has said that the falsehood and stubbornness of 
 a child grows with its growth ; and with regard to the first of 
 these faults, of which I shall treat in this chapter, he has 
 spoken very truly. Like all hereditary vices, the habit of 
 lying is developed more or less in each child, according as 
 internal or external circumstances, education, example, the 
 influence of such and such other tendencies or habits 
 favour or counteract its growth. As a matter of fact, it is 
 an absolutely subordinate vice, and we must search out its 
 primary source and its accidental derivations if we wish to 
 apply a timely and efficacious remedy to the evil. 
 
 A child's truthfulness is in proportion to its credulity, 
 although there is no direct relationship between these two 
 qualities. Nevertheless, at a very early age the illusions 
 from which no one of its senses is exempt, begin to startle 
 its early confidence, though without at once shattering it. 
 There is no doubt that many things astonish children on 
 account of the distinction they are obliged to make be- 
 tween them and other things which resemble them. I 
 have seen a child of five months old quite perplexed and 
 bewildered at discovering that what she had taken for one 
 and the same cat was two cats of the same colour. Very 
 young children are frequently surprised and irritated by
 
 VERACITY. 87 
 
 mistakes which they have fallen into. But they are much 
 more annoyed and irritated by deceptions practised on 
 them by others. 
 
 If you give a child of seven or eight months a piece 
 of bread instead of a cake which he had seen and coveted, 
 he will thrust aside the mocking gift with a gesture of dis- 
 gust ; and the twitchings of his mouth, his tearful eyes, and 
 puckered forehead threaten an imminent outburst. Who that 
 has had to do with children is not familiar with the terrible 
 scenes that occur when a change of nurses, or the necessity 
 of weaning the child, obliges those around it to resort to all 
 sorts of little tricks and manoeuvres. Happy the parents 
 who can flatter themselves that neither they nor any of 
 their household have ever deceived a child unnecessarily, 
 and without legitimate cause. 
 
 Thus then we see that children from twelve to fifteen 
 months old have already discovered that all that grown-up 
 people do or say is not always truth. Very soon, more- 
 over, if the phenomenon of falsehood has not already come 
 under their notice, the cunning which is innate in every 
 animal organization will lead them to it by the practice of 
 useful dissimulations. The story of the piece of sugar 
 stolen by the young Tiedemann or the young Darwin, is the 
 story of all children at the same age. 1 They hide them- 
 selves instinctively to do what they know is forbidden, as if 
 in play, just as they will say what is not the case by way of 
 fun. A child of two years who says to me : "I have just 
 seen a butterfly as large a cat, as large as the house," is 
 telling for fun what he knows to be a falsehood. It is the 
 same, too, when he crouches behind a door saying, " Victor 
 isn't here." But of these two untruths the one is spon- 
 taneous, the other is imitated ; the playful imagination of 
 children, and their tendency to imitate the games of others, 
 are two sorts of inducements to them to counterfeit the 
 truth. But in whatever way they do it, whether by gesture, 
 mien, or speech, it is more for their own edification than 
 
 1 See my brochure : Thierri Tiedemann et la Science de F Enfant, 
 etc., p. 36.
 
 88 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 for that of others. They enjoy the surprise or the fright 
 which they think they have caused their nurse by suddenly 
 popping their head out from behind their table-napkin, or 
 by coming out of a hiding-place where they thought them- 
 selves invisible. " How I frightened you ! " said a little 
 girl of twenty months to her uncle, who had pretended to 
 be frightened at hearing her imitate the barking of a dog 
 behind the door. We see also from example that the 
 gratification of the feeling of amour-propre has something to 
 do with this tendency of deceiving for fun. 
 
 Children will also turn a thing into a joke in the same 
 sort of way, to avoid being scolded, or to appear as if they 
 did not deserve a scolding. " Naughty, naughty," said a 
 little child of two-and-a-half to its mother who was putting 
 it into a bath against its will. " What ! " said the mother, 
 " is that how you speak to me ? " " No, no, it's not you ; 
 it's the water that's naughty," was the prompt reply. In 
 this case the falsehood, though suggested by the mother's 
 question, had more the nature of spontaneity than imitation. 
 
 All egotistical feelings are conducive to lying. A child 
 who has just had some good thing to eat, will say that he 
 has not had it, or that he has had very little, in order that 
 he may have some more given him. Another child has 
 burnt his mouth, say, in drinking his broth, and begins to 
 cry. His nurse tries to comfort him, saying, " Poor baby, 
 it hurts very much, doesn't it," etc., etc. All these words 
 of comfort the child repels with movements of the arms 
 and head, accompanied by unintelligible sounds, till at last 
 it says more distinctly : "No, no; not hurt." 
 
 In this case the imagination, over-excited by pain and 
 anger, suggests to the child the idea of denying the reality, 
 because he does not wish to believe it. A little girl, three 
 years old, seeing her mother fondling her brother for several 
 minutes without taking any notice of her, said all of a 
 sudden : " You don't know, mamma, how naughty Henry 
 has been to the parrot." This was a falsehood suggested by 
 jealousy. 
 
 Laziness will also lead children to tell untruths. A child 
 is told to go and look for a stool in the next room; he
 
 IMITATION. 89 
 
 returns without having looked for it, and says it is not 
 there. Or he is given a book to take to his uncle who is 
 sitting out in the garden. He reluctantly leaves his play- 
 things, hesitates before starting, walks as slowly as he can, 
 looking round several times to see that no one is looking at 
 him, and when out of sight, he drops the book into a bed 
 of flowers, and runs back to his toys, as if he had executed 
 the commission. Laziness, disobedience, and hypocrisy are 
 all combined in this action. 
 
 The fear of being scolded, or punished, or of being 
 deprived of an expected treat, will also often lead a child 
 into falsehood ; but this is generally at an older age after 
 they are three or four years old. Very often, moreover, it 
 is our manner of trying to elicit the truth which leads to 
 defiance, dissimulation, and falsehood. Did you do that ? 
 Who has done this? Questions like these, asked in a 
 threatening voice and with severe looks, provoke an answer 
 which may save from punishment, or at any rate may put it 
 off ; and so the child tells a lie. 
 
 Truthfulness is so essential a virtue, and the habit of 
 lying is so dangerous, and one which in so many ways 
 affects all the details of human life, that we cannot be too 
 much on our guard against the first symptoms of prevari- 
 cation. It is a matter in which preservatives are more 
 valuable than correctives. It is a common-place truth, but 
 one too much forgotten in actual practice, that, with justice 
 and kindness, we can make almost anything we like of 
 children. They will be frank and open, if they are en- 
 couraged to be confiding ; they will not seek to make 
 excuses for their faults, if they know that it grieves their 
 parents, and that this will be the worst consequence of 
 their naughtiness. And lastly, we should be specially care- 
 ful never to scold them for unintentional faults. 
 
 III. 
 
 IMITATION. 
 
 During the first months of life, the imitative tendency is as 
 little developed as the power of observation; it exhibits
 
 90 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 itself, however, in various little efforts. Darwin thinks that 
 he noticed it in his son at four months old, when the child 
 appeared to imitate certain sounds ; but he only determined 
 it positively at the age of six months. Tiedemann has 
 noted the following phenomenon in his son at four months, 
 and he thinks it a clear indication of association of ideas : 
 " If he sees any one drinking, he makes a movement with 
 his mouth as if he were tasting something." In this and 
 analogous actions must we not recognise, besides the 
 instinct of finality which makes the child understand the 
 object of buccal movements, the result of that instinctive 
 sympathy of movement which, in beings provided with the 
 same organisation, makes like call forth like, and, given the 
 impulsive character of childhood, results naturally in imita- 
 tion? 
 
 M. Egger, 1 while agreeing that the faculty of imitation is 
 very precocious in children, does not note it with certainty 
 until the age of nine months, and then in the following 
 actions : i. Alternately hiding and showing themselves, as 
 a game. 2. Throwing a ball, after having seen some one 
 else throw one. 3. Trying to blow out a candle. 4. Try- 
 ing to sneeze, in imitation of some one else. 5. Trying to 
 strike the keys of a piano. M. Egger does not notice at 
 the same period "any conscious effort at imitating sounds." 
 He considers, moreover, that the development, or rather 
 the appearance of this faculty of imitation, is simultaneous 
 with the first awakening of intelligence. For my part, 
 admitting as I do the co-existence in children at a very 
 early age of automatic movements and conscious and in- 
 telligent movements, I believe that the imitative function is 
 also very early connected with these two sorts of movements. 
 
 Owing to the nervous connection of the auditory and 
 phonetic apparatus, young birds attempt mechanically to 
 produce the notes they hear sung by adult birds ; talking 
 birds try mechanically to reproduce the words and the 
 sounds which strike on their ears ; and mechanically also, 
 
 * Le Devdoppemer* de F Intelligence et du Langage chez les Enfants, 
 pp. 10, etc.
 
 IMITATION. 91 
 
 as it seems to me, children, as soon as the second month, 
 make attempts at sounds, in order to answer people speak- 
 ing to them, or to imitate the sounds, of the piano. Like- 
 wise at the age of three months, having learnt mechanically 
 to follow the direction of a look or a movement, they will 
 fix their eyes on objects which they see other people look- 
 ing at, turning their head also sometimes where they see 
 other persons turn theirs, and all this, though in a very 
 limited measure, with the intention of imitating. The same 
 applies to all young animals. 
 
 As the simultaneous development of the faculty of ob- 
 servation and of the play of the organs proceeds, the sphere 
 of children's imitations is proportionately enlarged : for 
 instance, their arms at first attempted a variety of instinctive 
 movements towards objects which attracted their attention 
 or excited their desires ; the desire to imitate analogous 
 gestures, which he sees others make with success, excites 
 him to renew his efforts, and indicates to him the way to 
 succeed in his turn : at the age of four months he stretches 
 out his arms with more assurance to the people around him.; 
 he is more successful in smiling, he even attempts to laugh 
 and all this improvement is due to the attempts at 
 imitation which have helped and strengthened the first 
 spontaneous efforts. At six months children respond with 
 little starts and jumps to any attempt to amuse them ; they 
 stroke their mother's face with their little hands, they babble 
 inarticulate expressions of admiration at any object which 
 they are made to contemplate. A little later still, their 
 ni m m and///, more or less spontaneous, becomes the 
 mamma mamma, and papa papa, which have been repeated 
 to them a hundred times a day. And finally their first efforts 
 at walking, partly due to their own initiative, and partly to 
 the guidance and help of nurses and mothers, will be 
 brought gradually to perfection through their anxiety to imi- 
 tate the grown-up people whose walking they watch so 
 attentively. 
 
 The older a child grows, the more he will be helped by 
 example in guiding the operations of his senses, as well as 
 those of his moral and intellectual faculties. For instance,
 
 92 THE FIRST THREE. YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 as has been said above, " We feel the desire to eat arising, 
 when we see others eating," and the practical lesson to be 
 learnt from this is, not to give the stimulus of example to 
 the instinct of greediness innate in children. The same 
 may be said of all actions which have more or less connec- 
 tion with sympathy, sociability, or with anti-social tendencies. 
 A little girl only fifteen months old had already begun to 
 imitate her father's frowns and irritable ways and angry 
 voice ; and very soon after she learnt to use his expressions 
 of anger and impatience. When three years old, this same 
 little girl gravely said to a visitor at the house with whom 
 she had begun to argue quite in her father's style : " Do be 
 quiet, will you, you never let me finish my sentences ! " 
 Thus we see that the contagious effect of example operates 
 very early on the habits and morals of children. They 
 copy everything, evil as well as good, and are very quick 
 to adopt the opinions and ways of acting of their elders. 
 We must not, however, be in too great a hurry to judge 
 them from their passing estimate of particular actions, or 
 from their imitation of them, which is purely accidental. 
 It is not so much habits as tendencies to habits which 
 they exhibit, and these are often lost as soon as learnt, as 
 well as the manners or language which they have acquired 
 in the same fashion. Moreover, there is in every child a 
 distinct individuality, the result of heredity and habits, 
 which can always be discovered if we will but look for it, 
 underneath all its plagiarisms. 
 
 The spontaneity natural to early infancy is sometimes the 
 means of saving children from the inconvenient results 
 of their extreme organic and intellectual plasticity. But it 
 would be dangerous to count too much on this spon- 
 taneity. The respect due to the individuality of a human 
 being makes it incumbent on us to be very careful as to 
 the examples a child sees around him, especially from the 
 moral point of view. The ideal in education would be, to 
 allow each child scope for his own particular bent, while 
 at the same time setting our example before him. Locke 
 understood the necessity of respecting the natural bias in 
 each child, and could not endure the artificial product which
 
 SPONTANEITY. 93 
 
 is the invariable result of constraint and affectation. He 
 specially deplores this fault in what concerns manners and 
 behaviour in society. " Affectation," he says, "is a clumsy 
 and forced imitation of what should be easy and natural, 
 and is devoid of the charm which always accompanies 
 what is really natural, because of the opposition which it 
 causes between the outward action and the inward motions 
 of the spirit. . . ." Away with politeness and agreeable 
 manners if they endanger the frankness and sincerity of the 
 child. " Mamma,'' said a child of four years old, " are you 
 not going to tell Madame X. to go away ? She has been 
 here a long time." I greatly prefer, even in a child of four 
 years old, this frank and innocent rudeness, to formulas of 
 politeness repeated by rote but not felt. 
 
 There is another reason, well worth our consideration, 
 which should deter us from stifling a child's natural initia- 
 tive by the undue influence of our example and activity. We 
 see in animals a wrt of individuality of action which does 
 not belong to man ; the development of their powers and 
 skill affords them the greatest possible amount of enjoyment 
 when they are young, and later on inspires them with a kind 
 of proud confidence. And the same thing may be ob- 
 served in little children. Tiedemann says of his son at 
 fifteen months old, and the observation might have been 
 made earlier, " When he has done something of his own 
 accord, given a certain impetus to one of his toys, for 
 instance, he shows evident delight, and takes pleasure in 
 reiterating the action." And he goes on to remark with 
 equal truth : " Children in general like to do by themselves 
 what they have hitherto been obliged to let others do for 
 them. They like to feed themselves with their own hands, to 
 wash and dress themselves, etc., etc. This liberty of action, 
 even in imitated actions, is one of the conditions of a child's 
 happiness ; besides that, it has the effect of exercising and 
 developing all its faculties. Example is the first tutor, and 
 Liberty the second in the order of evolution; but the second 
 is the better one, for it has Inclination for its assistant"
 
 94 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 IV. 
 CREDULITY. 
 
 The instinct of credulity is at first nothing else than the 
 instinct of belief. It is impossible for us to have a sensation, 
 or a perception, or in fact a clear idea of any sort without 
 referring it at first to some object which is present, and later 
 on to something which has been or might be present in 
 short, to some real and tangible cause. This is why, in the 
 case of children or young animals without discernment, 
 and, up to a certain point, in the half-civilized adults whom 
 we call savages, belief, or, if we prefer it, credulity, is con- 
 founded with the desire to see such and such objects either 
 present to the sight or fixed in the memory, and to see them 
 with such and such attributes, agreeable or disagreeable. 
 The child begins with a lively faith in the truth of appear- 
 ances ; but day by day he goes through experiences which 
 teach him to mistrust, not appearances in general, but certain 
 sorts of appearances. In this respect his feculty of discrimi- 
 nation and generalization makes marked progress during the 
 important period from the third to the sixth month. 
 
 A little child of seven months who is on a visit to me, is 
 seated on the table before me as I am writing. I place a 
 brush within his reach with the bristles turned towards him : 
 he presses both his hands upon it, but soon lifts them up 
 again very slowly, and looking very grave. His attention 
 is then attracted in another direction. Some minutes after, 
 I try the experiment over again, and this time I notice a 
 little more rapidity in the child's recoiling movements. I 
 repeat it five times more at intervals, and varying the cir- 
 cumstances ; but I do not remark any new facts. A quarter 
 of an hour having passed after the seventh experiment, I 
 again place Georgie in a position to touch the brush. This 
 time he draws back quickly at first sight, and without trying 
 to touch it. Having then amused him and distracted his 
 attention for a short space of time, I repeated the experi- 
 ment once more for the last time. The child looked fixedly 
 at the brush without stirring, then, after a few minutes of 
 hesitation or reflection, he threw himself back and kissed his 
 grandmother.
 
 CREDULITY. 95 
 
 Children make experiments of this kind for themselves 
 every day ; and though they generalize them very little, they 
 help them, by dint of repetition, and thanks to analogy and 
 association of ideas, to know how to act advantageously 
 with regard to new objects which come before them. But the 
 mistakes which they make so frequently they do not realize 
 as such; they regard them merely as isolated experiences; 
 and thus in most cases the little creatures, irreflective rather 
 than inexperienced, judge things from their appearance. 
 
 A fortiori then will children trust blindly in the words 
 of others. " The sounds which a child has become accus- 
 tomed to recognise and to attach to certain objects while 
 learning to speak, will naturally awaken in him the thought 
 of the same objects when heard again : until these associa- 
 tions have been disturbed by the experience of error and 
 falsehood, they reproduce themselves naturally and in- 
 fallibly ; the same words recall always the same ideas. If 
 every time that one says to a child, ' I have a cake for you,' 
 one really gives him a cake, it is impossible but that the 
 same words, spoken another time, should not awaken in him 
 the same idea and expectation ; but if once, instead of the 
 promised cake, he is given a bit of wood, he finds himself 
 suddenly confronted with a falsehood that nothing could 
 have made him foresee, and he begins to cry. We can 
 plainly see that the instinct of veracity is not needed to 
 explain these facts." I am of the same opinion as M. 
 Janet : it is not necessary to have recourse, as Reid has 
 done, to the instinct of truth, to explain the natural belief 
 of human beings in the testimony of other human beings. 
 This fact has its principle in the natural belief of a child in 
 the sense expressed by words, that is in the objectivity of 
 the ideas that words express. Even at the age of two or 
 three, when the child has made experience of error and 
 falsehood, he will tell untruths himself, without ceasing to 
 believe in the veracity of others. He only mistrusts cer- 
 tain people, and those never entirely. Untruthful and credu- 
 lous, these are two qualities which go very frequently 
 together in childhood, and also, I think, in adult life ; it is 
 easier to tell lies than to believe that others are doing so.
 
 96 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Children, then, accept unhesitatingly as true all the ideas 
 which pass through their brains, and especially those which 
 gain confirmation and precision from the words or looks of 
 grown-up persons. The tales of the latter, whatever they 
 may be, instantly become the child's creeds. This is what 
 constitutes the charm, and also, in my mind, the danger, of 
 all the improbable stories which are related to children, be- 
 fore even they thoroughly understand the language in which 
 they are told. 
 
 At the age of twenty months a child is not keen to hear 
 stories and fables, which he would not understand ; but he 
 delights in recounting his own little experiences. A little 
 girl of this age, whenever her mother took her out with 
 her, used to relate to her father in the evening all that 
 she and her mother had seen and done : " We went out 
 under the large trees of the Luxembourg ; the dog was 
 with us ; he kept running round the perambulator of a 
 little girl, and every now and then he came up and licked 
 her hands and face. But the dog was very naughty, he 
 ate the little girl's cake. Mamma scolded the dog well, and 
 drove him away with her blue umbrella, which made Mary 
 laugh just when she was beginning to cry. Then a little 
 boy named Joseph came and sat on a bench by Mary. He 
 was bigger than little Mary, but he was very polite, and 
 he is very fond of the little girl. He let her take his 
 balloon and he did not hurt her doll ; then he and Mary 
 jumped about together, but the little boy tumbled down and 
 made a bump on his forehead. He cried very much, and 
 the little girl cried too because he was hurt. And then we 
 walked a long, long way to the furthest bench with 
 Madame X., who loves baby very much. Madame X. said to 
 baby : ' When are you coming to see me ? There are some 
 beautiful apricots for you in the garden, and the birds in the 
 aviary are always very pretty and very happy : they often 
 ask where little Mary is, saying, Cout, coui, coui' etc., etc." 
 And during this recital, often interrupted by the kisses and 
 pettings of her mother, or by bursts of laughter and short 
 remarks from her father, the little girl, all eyes and ears, 
 enacted all the various emotions which the events called
 
 CREDULITY. 97 
 
 forth, gesticulating with arms, feet, and head, and mimicking 
 the cries of the animals she was talking about. She would 
 become half lost in the narrative, or rather in dramatizing 
 it ; and the habit of recounting these true stories prepared 
 her for following the fictitious ones which her mother in- 
 vented for her, suiting them gradually to the progressive 
 development of her intelligence. When two years old, she 
 could not exist without these exciting little tales ; and she 
 used to say several times a day to her mother, " Mamma, tale 
 about dood ittle dal ; mamma, tale about ittle dal." 
 
 These little dramas and comedies, of which children are 
 so fond, are taken by them quite seriously, even when they 
 get to the age of three. When once they know them by 
 heart (a particularly happy expression in their case !), if you 
 change a single word, the charm is gone, and the attention 
 with it. A child who went on a visit to some relations when 
 only two-and-a-half years old, was particularly fascinated by 
 the tales which his youngest aunt used to tell him. He 
 only liked to hear them from her, and he wanted them over 
 and over again every day. Often after late dinner, if he did 
 not fall asleep in the middle of dessert, he would settle him- 
 self comfortably on her lap, leaning his head on her shoulder, 
 and remain perfectly still waiting for her to begin. And then 
 nothing could make him stir; no noise or interruption 
 would disturb his immovable attention. But we could tell 
 by the expression of his face, by his sudden changes of 
 colour, and by the movements of his eyes and the twitch- 
 ings of his lips, what a series of profound emotions was suc- 
 cessively agitating his little mind. 
 
 One evening his aunts were out, and he was left alone 
 with the eldest of his cousins, a young man. He soon 
 began to find himself bored. His cousin proposed to tell 
 him the story which he liked best, the one about a young 
 bird, which, having left its nest, although its mother had for- 
 bidden it to do so, flew to the top of a chimney, fell down 
 the flue into the fire, and died a victim to his disobedience. 
 
 The narrator thought it necessary to embellish the tale 
 from his own imagination. " That's not right," said the 
 child at the first change which was made, "the mother said 
 
 H
 
 g8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 this and did that." His cousin, not remembering the story 
 word for word, was obliged to have recourse to invention to 
 fill up gaps. But the child could not stand it. He slid 
 down from his cousin's knees, and with tears in his eyes, 
 and indignant gestures, exclaimed, " It's not true ! The 
 little bird said, COM, coui, coui, coid before he fell into the fire, 
 to make his mother hear ; but the mother did not hear him, 
 and he burnt his wings, his claws, and his beak, and he 
 died, poor little bird." And the child ran away, crying as 
 if he had been beaten. He had been worse than beaten, he 
 had been deceived, or at least he thought so ; his story had 
 been spoiled by being altered. So seriously do children for 
 a long time take fiction for reality.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WILL. 
 
 I KNOW not if it be very daring to suppose that all the 
 movements produced during uterine life are not absolutely 
 unconscious, and that the child may have some sort of idea of 
 a few of them at the moment they are going to be produced. 
 For instance, we may ask ourselves if it has in no measure 
 preserved the recollection of certain sensations of tempera- 
 ture, of pressure, of contact, of taste, and also of movements 
 more or less denned, such as contortions, tremblings, con- 
 tractions of the muscles of the mouth, which the organism 
 will have made in response to these different sensations. If 
 it were so, the consciousness which, according to our hypo- 
 thesis, would be either concomitant with or consecutive to 
 these instinctive movements and the sensations which deter- 
 mined them, would tend to forestall the action : or it might 
 diverge into two separate actions, bearing successively on 
 the sensations and on the movements in question. This is 
 how it would be : a sensation would be strong enough to be 
 felt, but not strong enough to produce instantaneously the 
 corresponding movements ; this hesitation of the instinct of 
 movement in following the shock of the sensation, perhaps 
 a pause produced by two crossing sensations, would give 
 the child time to interpose a glimmer of consciousness 
 between the sensation and the action ; and this would be a 
 first slight beginning of spontaneity. Is it at any rate alto- 
 gether exaggerated to suppose that during the long travail 
 of birth, composed of such varied actions and interludes, 
 the child, however little conscious of some of the efforts 
 which it makes itself, and of the sensations of different 
 
 99
 
 IOO THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 degrees of intensity which cause it to make them, is never- 
 theless capable of accidentally producing some of these 
 movements with a vague desire of doing so ? It is this in- 
 tervention of consciousness and desire (or of personal spon- 
 taneity in the production of movements fatally determined), 
 if it does exist before and during birth, that we must look 
 upon as the germ of voluntary activity. 
 
 But without troubling ourselves further as to this meta- 
 physical hypothesis, let us try to interpret scientifically some 
 few of the facts observed at a later date. That which dis- 
 tinguishes voluntary movements and actions from involuntary 
 ones, is, that in the former there exists a desire either to 
 renew or to get rid of certain sensations, and besides, some 
 idea of the movements necessary to produce this result ; in 
 other words, some idea of the muscular sensations corres- 
 ponding to these movements. The desire may be more or 
 less vivid, the idea of the movements more or less distinct, 
 and by so much is the intervention of the will greater or 
 less. It is generally very slight during the first period of 
 existence. Whether the great nerve centres, motor and 
 other, be incomplete at birth, whether instinct makes easy 
 to the child a large number of the movements which it seems 
 to learn, the volitions, that is to say, consciousness, effort, 
 and desire, play very little part in those movements which 
 are predetermined by organization and heredity. Thus 
 the fingers of a child a few days old close too easily on 
 any object placed in contact with its palm, for it to be very 
 early stimulated to produce similar movements voluntarily. 
 In like manner it may be maintained that the progress made 
 in the act of suction during the first days has gone on with 
 as little of consciousness and desire as possible, that this 
 progress is due to a development of forces and to exercise, 
 which are purely mechanical; but can the same be said 
 apropos of the remark made by Tiedemann on his sixteen- 
 days-old child. " If put in a position to suck, or if he felt 
 a soft hand on his face, he left off crying, and felt about for 
 the breast." There appears to be something more here than 
 association of ideas. There seems to be a recollection of 
 and a desire for the action of sucking, and perhaps for the
 
 THE WILL. 101 
 
 movements of suction. M. Preyer only recognises the first 
 appearance of volition in a child in its holding its head up- 
 right, and this it does not do till the end of fourteen weeks. 
 We may, however, notice other conscious efforts towards 
 the same period. When a month and five days old, Tiede- 
 mann's child " distinguished by himself objects outside him, 
 showing the first effort to seize something by extending his 
 hands and bending his whole body." 
 
 The same movements, more or less conscious, are to be 
 remarked in cats and dogs before the end of the first week. 
 The little Tiedemann, however, seems to me much too pre- 
 cocious. The following observation has much more veri- 
 similitude. When a month and twenty-seven days old, the 
 same child already showed that he realized his own 
 activity ; his gestures of pleasure indicated this, as well as 
 his fits of anger and violence in pushing away disagreeable 
 things. The remark made at the same period by Tiedemann, 
 on the imperative intention of tears, is confirmed by similar 
 observations of Charles Darwin's. At the age of eleven 
 weeks, in the case of one of his children, a little sooner in 
 another, the nature of their crying changed, " according to 
 whether it was produced by hunger or suffering." This 
 means of communication appeared to be very early placed 
 at the service of the will. The child seemed to have learnt 
 to cry when he wished, and to contract his features accord- 
 ing to the occasion, so as to make known that he wanted 
 something." ' This development of the will takes place 
 towards the end of the third month. At the same period, 
 Tiedemann's son was still at the stage of those instinc- 
 tive, or rather primitive, movements of desire which show 
 themselves by the mechanical extension of the arm and 
 the inclination of the whole body ; it was not until 
 towards the fourth month that he began to take hold of 
 objects placed within his reach ; and in carrying them to 
 
 1 Examples taken from Darwin's "Expression of the Emotions," 
 and which I have reproduced in my brochure : Thierri Tiedemann et 
 la Science de V Enfant. Mes Deux Chats, a fragment of comparative 
 psychology, pp. 12 etc.
 
 IO2 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 his mouth he learnt to hold them firmly ; all these steps in 
 advance being conscious and intended, that is to say, 
 voluntary. In proportion as the understanding and the 
 motive forces, or, in other words, the great nerve centres of 
 the child, develop, the emotional element of volition or 
 desire, and the idea or conception of the movement to be 
 made, become more marked. Desire is so much the more 
 keen, as the conception of the object desired becomes 
 clearer. This is the case with all movements, which, 
 though partly instinctive, are also more or less acquired ; 
 they become all the more conscious and intended in pro- . 
 portion as their more complicated nature renders their exe- 
 cution more difficult. 
 
 We see how greatly the child is interested in his efforts 
 to stretch out his hands towards a wished-for object, to hold 
 it up, to handle it, to sit down, to stand upright, to walk, 
 etc., etc., from the fact that he never tires of repeating 
 these actions after having once accomplished them, and 
 will even repeat them quite inopportunely " in response to 
 desire in general, however ludicrously insufficient to accom- 
 plish the desired end." ' 
 
 The will of a child, being more emotional than intellectual, 
 is generally very little amenable to personal control from 
 the age of three months to a year. At this age desire 
 manifests a more or less impulsive character, the volition of 
 a being without experience, if left to itself, being insensible 
 to the influence of any but the simplest motives. When, at 
 the age of four months, a child has learnt to execute a few 
 special actions with his hands, more than one lesson is 
 needed to form an association in his mind between touch- 
 ing a certain brilliant object and sharp pain, and to counter- 
 balance his strong tendency to touch a bright flame. But 
 at six or seven months, the contact with a prickly brush, ex- 
 perienced several times over in a few minutes, will begin to 
 establish, if only for a day or an hour, one of those associa- 
 tions which, by keeping up the recollection of pain, neutral- 
 izes the intensity of desire. 
 
 1 Fcrrier, The Brain and its Functions.
 
 THE WILL. 103 
 
 The elements which preponderate in a child's will are 
 impulsiveness and stubbornness ; and can we expect any- 
 thing else from a little creature who is ignorant of the 
 distant consequences of actions, and who, under all circum- 
 stances, obeys only the desire or the aversion of the mo- 
 ment? The following anecdotes plainly illustrate the truth 
 of this. 
 
 A little girl of three months old, who had always been 
 accustomed to be rocked to sleep, woke up one day whilst 
 the nurse was out of the room for a quarter of an hoiK ; 
 when the nurse came back, she found the child in a frenzy 
 of despair : her face was crimson, and her eyes for the first 
 time wet with tears ; her screams could be heard fifty yards 
 off. The nurse rushed to the cradle and tried by every 
 means in her power to soothe the terrified child. For some 
 time, however, her efforts were all repulsed, the child's 
 hands pushing her away ; and it was quite ten minutes before 
 her caresses and coaxings had any effect. At last, however, 
 the child seemed to be pacified, and consented to take the 
 breast. But as soon as its appetite was satisfied, its fore- 
 head puckered up again, its eyes half closed under its con 
 tracted eyebrows, its mouth quivered, and it set off crying 
 again. The nurse then thought the child must be ill ; but 
 turning suddenly round she saw lying at the foot of the bed 
 a heap of plaster which had fallen from the ceiling. She 
 was horrified at the discovery, and naturally settled that this 
 was what had frightened the child and made it cry. She 
 kissed and petted it, and began rocking it to sleep again, 
 and in a very few minutes its cries ceased and it was sleeping 
 peacefully. Then the nurse, who was alone in the house, 
 set to work to clear away the pieces. She had to go down 
 into the yard to throw them away, and a neighbour on 
 the rez-de-chaussee, told her that he had heard the noise 
 of the plaster falling (which was very slight) directly after 
 the nurse went out : he had seen her go out, and thought 
 the child was with her The noise of the falling plaster 
 must have awakened the child with a start, but this could 
 hardly have been the cause of its crying so long : the 
 fact was, she wanted to go to sleep again, and grew more
 
 IO4 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 and more distressed at having no one to rock her to sleep, 
 as usual. Had the nurse rightly guessed at the cause, she 
 would have had much less trouble in quieting her. After- 
 wards, in telling me this incident, she added : " I finished 
 where I ought to have begun children are very stubborn, 
 monsieur, about their habits and customs." 
 
 All who have had anything to do with the management 
 of babies know well what dreadful scenes often take place 
 during the operation of washing and dressing, what 
 screams, tears, and struggles. They cannot bear being 
 touched by water, even if it is warm. With some children 
 these scenes begin over again every day, unless by very 
 great skill they can be slipped into their cradles while 
 asleep. I knew one child who, at the age of four or five 
 months, could not be got to bed without the assistance of 
 several people. If one leg was got under the clothes, the 
 other would be kicked out ; one hand had to be held whilst 
 the other was being bandaged up (it was necessary to 
 bandage his hands, to prevent his scratching his face whilst 
 asleep) ; and the whole proceedings were accompanied by 
 screams, howls, and contortions of the face and body, 
 when he was six months old, his mother, wishing to avoid 
 the almost daily recurrence of these disagreeable scenes, 
 resolved to put him on her bed to sleep for an hour or two 
 after dinner. Instead of this improving matters, however, 
 his fury was all the greater when he was put in his cradle 
 again ; the bed had spoiled him, and he would have nothing 
 to do with the cradle. It ended in their having to let him 
 be on the bed as much as possible, and take care to get him 
 sound asleep before he was put into his cradle at night. 
 If he woke up afterwards, the flickering flame of the night 
 light was enough to prevent his crying and to soothe him to 
 sleep again. 
 
 I saw this child again when he was about a year old ; and 
 his nurse then told me that though in five or six matters he 
 was still very obstinate and self-willed, yet he was generally 
 good-humoured and even pliable. If any one smiled at 
 him, he would smile back again ; he made himself at home 
 on anybody's lap ; he had learnt not to wipe away certain
 
 THE WILL. 105 
 
 people's kisses ; and he could be left alone quite happily for 
 hours with neighbours, or even with strangers whom he had 
 never seen before. But this was if his mother or nurse 
 were not present. Directly one or other of them appeared, 
 he would smile at her from a distance, hold out his arms to 
 her, and make efforts to get down if she did not come to 
 take him, or if he were not carried to her. Sometimes they 
 would put him on the floor to go to the person he wanted; 
 and then he would crawl on all-fours, pushing himself along 
 with the help of his knees and stomach. This was a 
 pleasing kind of self-will. In the morning, when his mother 
 had had her breakfast, she used to take him to his father's 
 bed, and there he went through all sorts of little games 
 and tricks, turning over and over, now on his back, now 
 on his stomach, burying his head in the pillow, diving under 
 the sheets, wriggling about like a serpent, mimicking the 
 noise of birds, and giving vent to decided bursts of laughter. 
 This morning entertainment he looked upon as his right 
 If, when breakfast was over, his mother did not at once 
 take him up to his father's room, even when he did not 
 hear his father's voice, he would call out Papa ! and then, if 
 no one seemed to understand his gestures and his eloquent 
 looks, there would come mingled screams and sobs and 
 shrieks of Papa. 
 
 A little girl, now rather a big girl, and of an extremely 
 amiable and sweet disposition, was very difficult to bring 
 up, so her grandmother told me. Up to the age of a year, 
 there was always the greatest trouble to get her into her 
 cradle. It was often necessary to wait a long time for a 
 favourable moment to pop her in, and then the slightest 
 movement would wake her up again ; or if she did not 
 wake up again at this critical moment, she would set off 
 crying like an automaton moved by a spring, the instant 
 she came in contact with the obnoxious cradle. This 
 unconscious crying always roused her up, and she had to 
 be taken out of the cradle again, to avoid the tears and 
 screams which made her mother fear for her health. There 
 was also the same difficulty always over the bath. She 
 would stiffen herself out like a poker, I was told, and scream
 
 106 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 like a little fury. Every possible dodge was tried to get 
 her to stay in ; the nurse pretended to get in with her, her 
 favourite toys were brought her, etc. ; and when at last she 
 had been got in, the mother or the nurse must not stir, or 
 the crying and kicking began again. 
 
 I will give one more example at about the same age. 
 Juliette is twenty-two months old. Her mother has for- 
 bidden her to touch the flowers in the window ; she is only 
 allowed to water them with a child's watering-pot. She 
 performs this task with a zeal which is only equalled by 
 her awkwardness. She has to ask her mother's permission 
 always before doing it; the flowers would be swamped 
 every day if she watered them whenever she wanted to. 
 When she has been disobedient, the nurse waters the flowers 
 instead. Several times a day she is heard saying : " Ittle 
 dal dood, water fower." The other day her mother was in 
 the drawing-room with some visitors and the child suddenly 
 disappeared with her toys. At the end of ten or twelve 
 minutes she reappeared, her frock and pinafore literally 
 soaked with water. " Ittle dal dood, water fower," were 
 her first words on coming into the room. One of the 
 visitors, on kissing her, remarked the state she was in. Her 
 mother flew into the next room, where water was flowing 
 everywhere. This is what had happened : as Juliette had 
 been disobedient at table, she was forbidden to water the 
 flowers, and her little watering-pot had been hidden. But 
 the temptation was greater than her fear of being scolded 
 for disobeying a second time. She had got hold of her 
 nurse's watering-pot and turned on the tap to try and fill it 
 herself; but she had only succeeded in producing an in- 
 undation and deluging her frock. She looked so crestfallen 
 and penitent that her mother's only scolding was to laugh 
 at her. In the evening she said to her father : " Ittle dal 
 not be dood, not no longer dood, cause not like water 
 fower not like be all wet." The next morning the nurse 
 gave her back her watering-pot; but she threw it down 
 saying. " Not dood water-pot, not dood, wet ittle dal, no 
 more water fower." Her resolution, however, did not hold 
 out when she saw the silvery shower pouring out of the
 
 THE WILL. 107 
 
 nurse's watering-pot. " Ittle dal, velly dood, water fower," 
 said she, and picked up her own little pot 
 
 There is not one of the above-cited examples which does 
 not prove that, whether under the form of automatic desire, 
 or of conscious desire, or of voluntary determination, action 
 in children is almost always subordinate to their sensibility. 
 What they want, is what pleases them at the moment, or 
 what they remember to have been pleased with ; what they 
 dislike is whatever displeases them or has displeased them. 
 
 In proportion as a child forms its experience, a greater 
 number of sensations, of sentiment and ideas, that is to say, 
 of determinant motives and impulses, intervene between 
 the action and the determination, which was before simple 
 and instantaneous. The action, when one is produced, is 
 determined by the strongest motive : actions of this nature 
 are called deliberate, in distinction to those which are 
 impulsive. One often sees a young child hovering between 
 two contrary motives, both of which equally solicit him to 
 action : in general, the hesitation lasts but a short time, 
 especially if both the motives are agreeable. This, no doubt, 
 is for the reason assigned by Delbceuf, " because in this 
 case it is better to act than to wait. Buridanus' donkey, we 
 may be sure, died neither of hunger nor thirst." 1 There is 
 not even in such a case a conflict, properly so called, but 
 merely a concurrence of motives. An almost analogous 
 case is, when a child has to choose between the pain of not 
 having a strong desire gratified, and some compensating 
 pleasure or present which is offered to him. Here regret 
 struggles with an attractive reality ; the child who was 
 crying is on the point of smiling ; then he begins to cry 
 again, and finally he consoles himself and begins to laugh 
 and play. At other times, again, the conflicting elements 
 are more nnmerous and more distinct ; for instance, we find 
 on the one hand these four terms : obedience, privation of 
 a desired object, approbation, caresses ; and on the other 
 hand these four : disobedience, the attraction of the for- 
 
 1 See Revut Phihsofhique, Nov. 1881, p. 517.
 
 IO8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 bidden object, reproaches, punishment. These different 
 motives either evolve themselves separately or are fused 
 together ; and under the influence of their representations, 
 'mpulse is counter-balanced for a longer or shorter time. 
 In cases of this sort the habit of associations formed between 
 certain motives and certain ways of acting greatly facilitates 
 the operation of the will But deliberating volition, i.e., the 
 reciprocal inhibition of the tendencies to action, tends more 
 frequently in children to revert to impulsiveness, and to 
 impulsiveness dominated by actual and personal suggestions. 
 When Bernard, fifteen months old, cries without any 
 reason, his father says in a loud voice, " Hold your tongue ; " 
 and sometimes he stops at once. When his father says, 
 Drink, or Walk, he also generally obeys. But he obeys much 
 more readily when it is a question of anything which amuses 
 him or gives pleasure to others. Thus, when told to imitate 
 the dog or the cat, or a monkey, to clap his hands, to say 
 No and shake his head, he does not have to be told twice. 
 If he is forbidden to do anything that pleases him, he obeys 
 less promptly than if it is something that is indifferent to him. 
 He obeys positive orders more readily than negative ones 
 i.e., when he is told to do something, than when told not 
 to do something ; and this one can easily understand, for 
 in the first case there is no conflict between the will and the 
 order given him. Although he sets himself obstinately 
 against walking alone, I made him take four steps towards 
 me, by holding out to him half a peach which he wanted 
 very much, and which I would not take to him. But his 
 will to do right is as vacillating as his legs. When he had 
 eaten his bit of peach, I made a second trial, and the result 
 was different this time. I offered him another bit of peach 
 and said, " Come to papa, come and fetch the peach," and 
 he came at once, but on all-fours, which is his way of 
 running. He obeys his mother, however, better than his 
 father, gentleness being either better understood by him 
 than sternness, or else having more influence over him. 
 He had let fall a piece of bread, and his father having told 
 him to pick it up, he turned a deaf ear. His mother went 
 up to him, and he wanted to take her hand; but she said
 
 THE WILL 109 
 
 to him : " I will give my hand to baby when he has picked 
 up the bread ; first pick up the bread." He picked it up, 
 and then held out his hand to his mother. 
 
 Thus we see, even in children less than three years old, a 
 certain faculty, very fluctuating and capricious it is true, 
 " of inhibiting or restraining action, notwithstanding the 
 tendency of feelings or desires to manifest themselves in 
 active motor outbursts." 1 This faculty of restraint, which 
 insures the volitional control of the movements, and, up to 
 a certain point, of the ideas also, belongs to a period of 
 greater maturity, when experience suggests stronger motives 
 to the mind by calling up before it the pleasant or un- 
 pleasant consequences of actions, and when the faculty of 
 attention, as well as the brain centres which minister to it, 
 being more developed, restrains, as by a sort of mechanical 
 inhibition, the sensations, sentiments, and ideas, whose 
 tendency, if not combated, is to produce instant action. 
 We see then that attention is one of the most important 
 elements of volition, which explains the indecision, weak- 
 ness, changeableness, and caprice of a child's will. 2 
 
 1 Ferrier, The Brain and its Functions, p. 232. 
 
 8 I shall consider further on the close relation between the will and 
 the moral sense.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE FACULTIES OF INTELLECTUAL ACQUISITION AND 
 RETENTION. 
 
 ATTENTION. 
 
 As attention is the result of an intense or distinct sensation, 
 and as the organs of young children are not yet able to 
 prolong these vibratory excitations, shocks of attention 
 appear to be very rare in babies quite at the beginning of 
 life. They seem, however, to occur now and then. When I 
 waved an object at a little distance from the eyes of an 
 infant seventeen days old, his eyelids trembled and closed, 
 expressing either fear or the desire to escape from a vaguely 
 unpleasant sensation. His eyes followed, from right to left 
 and left to right, a candle that I moved in either of these 
 directions. The sound of a door being shut, or a loud 
 voice, made him tremble so much that it was felt by the 
 person holding him. -But the same causes only reproduced 
 the same effect during the space of three or four minutes ; 
 afterwards the child was no longer impressed by the colours 
 of the moving object, the light, or the various sounds ; it 
 reassumed its habitual rapt expression, its eyes becoming 
 fixed and immovable as if looking within. After a short 
 time, all these different impressions, by dint of constant 
 repetition, become objects of reminiscence, of vague in- 
 tention, of desire, or of dislike. 
 
 The attention paid by children to their sensations and 
 recollections becomes stronger and easier every day, so 
 much so that if often appears reflex. When children
 
 ATTENTION. 1 1 1 
 
 seem most to wish to fix their attention, and in fact when 
 they are most attentive, there is in reality the least need for 
 their being so. One might well compare an attentive 
 infant to a kitten, which the sight of some bright object, or 
 some \vatched-for prey, will hold for a long time immovable, 
 its neck stretched out, its paws pressed against the ground, 
 its body drawn up, its eyes dilated, its upper lip slightly 
 arched, as if directed to the object of its desire. Here we 
 have a sensation, or group of sensations, exclusively per- 
 ceived, repeatedly renewed, and expected ; the observing 
 subject seems to belong less to himself than to the object 
 he is observing ; it is a case of intense reaction, though as 
 it were passive, of attraction more or less conscious, of 'the 
 fascination of an attentive being by the object of his atten- 
 tion. The pleasure which sucking the breast affords a 
 baby becomes an object of attention. The child delights 
 in the operation, and as it were listens to and looks at 
 himself, and feels that he is enjoying himself. This 
 budding of the conscious faculty, which is designated by 
 the name of attention, is produced first from the exterior 
 to the interior ; it is an excitation of the nerve cellules under 
 the influence of an irritating impression ; it is not a tension 
 or an effort from within, but only an adaptation of the 
 nerve centres to admit a sensation. Attention may be the 
 result of an action of the will ; but its own proper actions 
 are apart from the will; it is a channel which opens to 
 external impressions, and which the will may sometimes 
 keep closed, but which is generally open in spite of it It 
 is this muscular and nervous tension, this intense reaction 
 of vivid impressions, more often forced than voluntary, 
 which constitutes the primitive character of attention. 
 Bossuet designates it as " forced attention," and he adds : 
 " But this is not altogether what we call attention ; we only 
 apply this name when we choose an object to think about 
 it voluntarily." This only means that attention has degrees, 
 and that that of which young children are capable, volun- 
 tary or involuntary, is always in the beginning induced by 
 sensibility. 
 
 I knew a child who, at the age of a month, certainly
 
 112 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 from time to time paid sustained attention to the act of 
 suction. This was evident from the fixed expression of 
 his eyes, which sparkled with pleasure, and at intervals half 
 veiled themselves under the eye-lids. One day his bottle 
 was filled with sugared water ; after sucking a few drops he 
 stopped for three seconds, and then began again and went 
 on with the same attentive expression of satisfaction as if the 
 bottle had contained milk. Plain water without sugar did 
 not have the same success ; he stopped short after the first 
 mouthful, went back to the bottle after a pause of five or 
 six seconds, and soon turned from it again frowning and 
 pouting most significantly. Here then we see attention 
 applied to the functions of taste. 
 
 During the first month, the various movements of the 
 organs, automatic or conscious (I allude only to the pre- 
 hensile organs), are executed in so awkward a manner, they 
 are so vague and undecided, that I have not been able to 
 recognise in them with certainty the influence of attention 
 applied to tactile sensations. It is, however, impossible 
 but that attention should be equally exercised in this 
 manner. In fact, when, at six weeks old, the hands of a 
 child wandered over its mother's breast, face, and hands, 
 the fixed and joyous expression of its eyes, and its wide- 
 open mouth indicated that it enjoyed prolonging these 
 tactile sensations, however vague they might be. At two 
 months and six days the same child would feel its mother's 
 breast and face and keep hold of her finger with evidently 
 voluntary attention. At the same period he began to 
 stretch out his hands towards his mother's breast, when 
 she uncovered it at a distance of two decimeters from his 
 eyes. 
 
 I have seen a little girl twenty-eight days and a little boy 
 thirty-five days old, show, by the fixity of their eyes and 
 the movements of the lips at the sight of the feeding-bottle, 
 that they recognised the instrument by which they were fed, 
 and were capable of directing their attention to it. At the 
 same period they used to lift their hands automatically to 
 their face with probably very little consciousness of this 
 involuntary movement; but when the object of the move-
 
 ATTENTION. 113 
 
 merit was to rub some part of the face, the repetition of it, 
 and the accompanying puckering of the forehead and 
 dilating of the eyes, indicated that their attention was 
 directed to some disagreeable sensations which they were 
 experiencing. A child of one month would look fixedly 
 for three or four minutes at the flickering reflection of the 
 light on a table near the window. On the forty-fifth day I 
 saw him follow with his eyes, after having first well looked 
 at it, a doll dressed in light blue which a little girl was 
 dandling up and down at a distance of more than a yard. 
 Five days later, the fixity of his eyes turned in a certain 
 direction indicated that his attention was concentrated on 
 something white, blue, or violet ; other colours appeared to 
 be indifferent to him, perhaps owing to temporary Dalton- 
 ism. When two months old, he began to notice red ; but 
 he still took no notice of black, brown, lilac, or yellow. 
 
 This might either have been the result of special pre- 
 disposition to certain sensations of colour, or of relative 
 feebleness in the different organs of sight ! We must put 
 together the results of a large number of experiments in 
 order to draw any reliable conclusions. Infants progress 
 from day to day and sometimes from hour to hour, re- 
 vealing, one after another, faculties which had not at first 
 been noticed. Those faculties svhich will one day be the 
 strongest are not always the first to appear. I know a case 
 of a child who did not fix his attention on any coloured 
 object before the age of two months, but who at two 
 months and a half" was as sensible to colour as are the 
 most precocious children. 
 
 As to the attention paid to sounds, it shows itself in 
 the second fortnight. Most babies at the age of twelve, 
 thirteen, or fifteen days tremble When they hear a loud 
 noise. " On the 5th of September, thirteen days after his 
 birth, that is to say, it was observed that Tiedemann's son 
 took notice of the gestures of those who spoke to him (?) ; 
 their words even called forth or stopped his tears." I have 
 seen a child sixteen days old sometimes leave off crying 
 when his mother spoke coaxingly to him ; but the rhythmic 
 movements which she made at the same time had perhaps 
 
 I
 
 114 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 as much to do with pacifying him as her words. One 
 night, however, she could not succeed in quieting him ; 
 the father got angry and scolded the child, and finally in 
 a loud voice ordered him to be silent. I cannot say what 
 was the impression produced on the child, but he instantly 
 stopped crying. 
 
 "At two months and a half," says M. Taine, a propos of a 
 child whom he had studied, " I noticed a movement which 
 was evidently acquired. Hearing the voice of her grand- 
 mother, she turned her head in the direction whence the 
 sound came/' I have also thought I noticed the same 
 thing in a child of a month and two days. I was on his 
 left hand and was speaking in a loud voice ; his head 
 appeared to turn towards the left ; and the fixity of his eyes 
 seemed to express a certain amount of attention to the 
 sound of my voice. At the age of a month and a half a 
 little girl-baby would consciously express either pain or the 
 desire to be fed, by two different kinds of cries. When she 
 was two months old there was no difficulty in distinguishing 
 whether her tears meant pain, desire, or anger. Another 
 child, six weeks old, used to make starts on his mother's 
 lap at the sound of the violin. When two months old, 
 the barking of a dog in his room caused him to contract 
 his eyebrows, purse up his lips, and begin to cry ; the dog, 
 on being petted, changed his barking to a sort of coaxing 
 yelp ; the child listened very attentively, became gradually 
 calm, and appeared to take pleasure in this new sound. 
 
 At a very early age we notice direct correlation between 
 the strength of attention and the vivacity of the sensations 
 or feelings experienced. With little children, as with 
 young animals, those who most easily fix their attention 
 seem to be those whose nervous excitability is the greatest 
 At three months and a half, a very quick little girl, who 
 could already distinguish some parts of her body, paid 
 attention to all that went on around her, to noises of every 
 description, the sound of a voice, a step in the room, the 
 shutting or opening of a door or window, and to all 
 colours, even the least vivid, when they were placed within 
 reach of her sight A boy six months old, intelligent on
 
 ATTENTION. 115 
 
 the whole, but lymphatic and not very sensitive, would 
 hardly look at a nosegay of pale-coloured flowers, placed 
 rather near him ; I had to wave them close in front of his 
 eyes in order to arrest his attention. A very brilliant 
 flower, however, which I put beside the nosegay, gave him 
 great pleasure, and he looked at it for one or two minutes. 
 Presently a cat came on the scene, a kind of animal that he 
 had not yet seen. The child uttered several cries of joy, 
 stretched out his arms, and leant his whole body towards 
 the animal. As the cat, however, did not come up to 
 him, he subsided into an attitude of quietude. Thus it is 
 evident that the power of attention is primarily related to 
 the vivacity of sensation. 
 
 The more developed sensibility which produces the 
 various sentiments, that is to say, ideas, recollections of 
 sensations, magnified and exaggerated, exercises a consider- 
 able influence over the attention of adults. " With the 
 greater number of men, the definite direction which intelli- 
 gence takes, is inspired by sentiment." l What is it to love, 
 if not to think constantly and with pleasure of some 
 person or object? What is it to hate? To think always 
 with pain of a disagreeable object. It is passion, that is to 
 say, attention constantly excited, or even over-excited, by 
 feeling, which makes lovers, artists, heroes, and savants. I 
 would modify the saying of Buffon, and I would say that 
 genius is a long passion. The little infant, hardly a month 
 old, is, as we have said before, already capable of feeling 
 sentiments properly so called, though in a limited degree. 
 He loves his mother for what he gets from her, if not for 
 herself; he loves his feeding-bottle or the breast which 
 feeds him, the arms which caress or carry him, the faces 
 which sing to or smile on him, the eyes which speak to him. 
 He fears, he desires, he suffers, he hopes, he frolics, he 
 gets irritated; and these are all so many different exci- 
 tations of his faculty of attention, already developed by 
 exercise and by the habit of keen sensations. But his 
 
 Dr. Castle, Spiritualistic Phrenology, chapter on Education.
 
 Il6 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 moral sensibility, still in a state of vague formation, can 
 only influence his powers of attention in a very slight 
 degree, even when there are the most favourable hereditary 
 predispositions. 
 
 This original diversity of the faculties which concur to 
 form or to excite attention, is generally modified by the 
 effect of natural compensations. A very impressionable 
 child experiences too great a number of different sensations 
 for them to be able to transmit durable impressions to the 
 brain, hence a habit of quick and ready attention capriciously 
 or insufficiently bestowed on every object in turn, and thus 
 it is to be feared that the little girl of whom I have spoken 
 above, with the ordinary education which awaits her, that is, 
 very little more than the chance action of circumstances on 
 her own original faculties, will become a mere commonplace 
 or flighty woman, with no definite power of thought, and full 
 of unbalanced and fantastic ideas ; superficial, in short, both 
 in heart and mind. On the other hand, the boy described 
 at the same time, less susceptible to ordinary impressions, 
 with sensibility less easily roused, more slow to bestow his 
 attention, and more slow also to take it away, will very 
 likely, under the same educational conditions, develop a 
 clear, firm, and practical mind. He may perhaps have few 
 ideas, but those he has will be firmly held and accurate, 
 because he will have taken his time to form them ; and 
 provided the spontaneous development of his mediocre 
 faculties be not checked, he will know well the little he 
 does know. We may add that his organs of attention will 
 have 'acquired by exercise a power of adaptation which will 
 perhaps compensate for their want of natural quickness. 
 This is a point of great interest to rational educators. 
 
 Whatever differences natural dispositions or regular 
 exercise may produce in individual faculties, the general 
 tendency of a child's attention is to be brief and volatile. 
 The concentration of mental activity, the direction of the 
 intellectual vision, look after look, on one subject, is as 
 difficult for a little child as it would be for a valetudinarian 
 to repeat during the space of two minutes the series of 
 muscular efforts which represent the lifting of a heavy
 
 ATTENTION. I \J 
 
 weight. What we call an act of attention, is in /octUty a 
 series of attentive actions, repeated a greater or less number 
 of times during a relatively short interval. We must not, 
 however, exaggerate the astounding rapidity of thought. 
 Its supposed immeasurable velocity has in fact been 
 measured, both in men and animals, by the Dutchman 
 Bonders, and others after him. But although the rapidity 
 of thought is not incalculable, it is none the less very great ; 
 and to pay attention to any one thing, if only for a few 
 minutes, is to have observed it several times during that 
 short space of time. 
 
 Thus, in spite of the services that will, firm desire, and 
 habit render the faculty of attention, by continually increas- 
 ing its facility and energy, yet even in the most gifted of 
 men it is always liable to fail. Persons the most accustomed 
 to intellectual work are often obliged to force themselves to 
 set to work even at the most familiar tasks. Very few 
 people, I take it, work because work is pleasant to them. 
 It is almost always the urgent motives of necessity, interest, 
 ambition, or duty, which determine them to make and re- 
 make the first painful plunges ; but once started again in 
 the accustomed groove, the pleasure and excitement of 
 getting on keeps them going and facilitates and sharpens 
 their power of attention up to the moment when lassitude 
 causes it to wane. Grown-up people find a remedy for this 
 periodical weariness and difficulty in intellectual labour, in 
 that law of nature which makes change of work a rest to 
 the mind, just as variety in diet gives a fresh stimulus to 
 the appetite. But a young child, drawn continually in all 
 directions by over-exciting impressions, and endowed with 
 very little power of resistance, has no such antidote for 
 lassitude of the brain. At the smallest effort he is com- 
 pelled to surrender. 
 
 Thus the greatest amount of attention in a child is in- 
 finitely little. This faculty of attention, which plays so 
 considerable a part in scholastic life, has hitherto been very 
 imperfectly studied. I know scarcely more than two men, 
 Horace Grant and Edwin Chadwick, who have taken up 
 the subject Their researches have taught us, that after five
 
 II 8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 or six minutes in the case of infants, and from thirty to 
 forty-five in the case of older scholars, the attention becomes 
 fatigued and intellectual effort fails; that in schools, the 
 capacity for attention varies with the duration of the classes, 
 the season of the year, the time of day, the day of the week, 
 the interval of time between meals and studies, etc. These 
 observations, however, have done no more than open up the 
 way. 1 If this question has only begun to be considered 
 with regard to children in general, it has not even been 
 thought of in connection with the first period of infancy, 
 that is to say from birth up to the first attempts at speech. 
 Long and patient observation will be necessary, to construct 
 merely the outline of this science of infant psychology, of 
 which we do not here intend to make an exhaustive treatise 
 but simply a sketch. 
 
 But if children use their attentive powers very feebly, 
 they use them frequently, and in a rapid but nevertheless 
 profitable manner. The strong sensibility of their young 
 brains sometimes makes up for the adults' power of con- 
 centration, especially if it be aided by frequent repetition. 
 "In young children," says M. Luys, "the cerebral cells are 
 endowed with special histological characters ; they are 
 flabby, greyish, flexible in a manner; they- are, moreover, 
 from the dynamic point of view, virgin to any anterior im- 
 pression. 2 The sensorial excitation that affects them at 
 that age must therefore imprint itself upon them more 
 readily, since it finds them in a state of vacuity, their power 
 of retention not being put to the test. On the other hand, 
 in the first years of life the cerebral substance is in perpetual 
 exercise and organic development. New elements are per- 
 petually being added to the old ones ; and as the new are 
 most probably derived from their predecessors, we are led 
 to conclude that the daughter-cells which appear, borrow 
 from the mother-cells which give them birth an inevitable 
 bond of relationship, a species of hereditary transmission ot 
 the different states of the mother-cells from whence they 
 
 1 Fonsagrives, The Physical Education of Boys, p. 1 76. 
 
 2 This is not altogether our opinion.
 
 ATTENTION. 1 19 
 
 spring. . . . It is in these intimate connections between 
 cell and cell, in these mysterious bonds of relationship, that 
 we must look for the secret of the perennial character of 
 certain memories. Thus it is, that certain impressions re- 
 ceived in our childhood become the common patrimony of 
 certain families of cells, which maintain them in a state of 
 freshness, incessantly vivifying them by a sort of permanent 
 co-operation. ... In the young child the impression- 
 ability of the cerebral substance is such that it retains, motu 
 proprio, all the impressions that assail it, as passively as a 
 sensitized photographic plate that we expose to the light, 
 retains all the images that are reflected on its surface." 1 
 
 It remains for us to examine two questions relative to 
 this faculty of attention, which is said to be the master 
 faculty of the mind. First, Helvetius has maintained the 
 rather Cartesian opinion, that all men are naturally gifted 
 with the attention and intelligence necessary for the same 
 degree of development ; but that attention means labour, 
 and that all men are not susceptible of sufficiently strong 
 passions to change this labour into pleasure. The differ- 
 ences in men thus proceed from inequality of the passions, 
 and not of the faculty of attention. The famous professor 
 Jacolot has taken up the same theme in the present day ; 
 and he seems to have even exaggerated the paradox. Ac- 
 cording to him, all intelligences are equal; minds only differ 
 in consequence of the different powers of attention, which 
 are in proportion to the will of the individual. The truth 
 is, in a physiological and psychological sense, that we bring 
 with us at birth intellectual and moral orgnizations different 
 in quantity, but not in quality. But it is not perhaps quite 
 reasonable to trust absolutely to first appearances in respect 
 of intellectual and moral inequalities. Is it, in fact, impos- 
 sible to remedy an incapacity of attention which is perhaps 
 hereditary, perhaps accidental and passing? Can we tell, 
 either, whether these inequalities are not, perhaps chiefly, the 
 result of the training during infancy ? This question, which 
 
 1 Luys, Le Cervcau et ses Fon.iijiis. See Eng. Trans. (Internat. 
 Sclent. Series), pp. 159, 160.
 
 120 THE FIRST THRF.E YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 I shall do no more than briefly suggest here, is a complicated 
 one. To settle it now, either by the laws of heredity or 
 by means of the very meagre knowledge of infant psycho- 
 logy we at present possess, would in my opinion be' pre- 
 mature. At any rate I shall content myself with merely 
 suggesting the question here, and shall hope later on to 
 enter into it more fully, taking into consideration all its 
 developments and ramifications. 
 
 The second question of importance to those interested in 
 infant education, is to know whether it is possible to predict 
 a child's capacity for attention from phrenological indica- 
 tions. This is a problem connected with the preceding 
 one, and quite as difficult to solve. This much, however, 
 we may say, that without admitting with Gall and Spurzheim 
 a topographically separate localization of the independent 
 faculties, modern phrenology recognises the facts that certain 
 portions of the cerebral hemispheres, the anterior lobes, for 
 instance, are always concerned in the carrying on of intel- 
 lectual operations, and that these operations, identical in 
 nature, evidently show different degrees of complexity in 
 different individuals. Ferrier, who, by his skilful experi- 
 ments on the brains of monkeys, has thrown so much light on 
 these obscure subjects, believes in the possible localization 
 of the perceptive centres in the hemispheres. With regard 
 to attention, he thinks, like Bain and Wundt, that this faculty 
 implies the activity of the motive faculties. " In calling up 
 an idea " he says, " or when engaged in the attentive con- 
 sideration of some idea or ideas, we are in reality throwing 
 into action, but in an inhibited or suppressed manner, the 
 movements with which the sensory factors of ideation are 
 associated in organic cohesion. . . . The recall of an 
 idea being thus apparently dependent on excitation of the 
 motor element of its composition, the power of fixing the 
 attention and concentrating consciousness depends, further, 
 on inhibition of movement. During the time we are en- 
 gaged in attentive ideation, we suppress actual movements, 
 but keep up in a state of greater or less tension the centres 
 of the movement or movements with which the various 
 sensory factors of ideation cohere. ... In proportion
 
 MEMORY. 121 
 
 to the development of the faculty of attention are the intel- 
 lectual and reflective powers manifested. This is in accord- 
 ance with the anatomical development of the frontal lobes 
 of the brain, and we have various experimental and patho- 
 logi^al data for localizing in these the centres of inhibition, 
 the physiological substrata of this psychological faculty. 
 . . . The powers of attention and concentration of 
 thought are, further, small and imperfect in idiots, with de- 
 fective development of the frontal lobes ; and disease of the 
 frontal lobes is more especially characteristic of dementia or 
 general mental degradation. . . . The development of 
 the frontal lobes is greatest in men with the highest intel- 
 lectual powers ; and, taking one man with another, the 
 greatest intellectual power is characteristic of the one with 
 greatest frontal development. 
 
 " The phrenologists have, I think, good grounds for local- 
 izing the reflective faculties in the frontal regions of the 
 brain ; and there is nothing inherently improbable in the 
 view that frontal development in special regions may be in- 
 dicative of the power of concentration of thought and 
 intellectual capacity in special directions." J 
 
 It is thus beyond doubt that a marked projection of the 
 frontal region of the cranium is generally the sign of natural 
 power of attention ; from which, however, we must not infer, 
 in the case of proportionate depression of this region, a 
 radical incapacity for attention. There is no hereditary 
 defect which education cannot lessen or do away with. 
 
 II. 
 
 MEMORY. 
 
 Memory is not a purely intellectual faculty whose role is to 
 preserve and reproduce the past actions of its owner. It is 
 that property inherent in everything, and especially in every- 
 thing that lives, to retain a trace of all impressions received. 
 Every impression leaves a mark, more or less deep and 
 durable, and capable of combining in a thousand ways with 
 
 1 Ferrier, The Functions of the Brain, pp. 285-288.
 
 122 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the marks of other impressions in the cellules of the nerve, 
 muscular, and cerebral tissues. Thus, in all parts of the 
 being, there are dispositions, either hereditary or acquired, 
 to remember, that is, to preserve and to reproduce. There 
 is not only a psychological but also an organic memory ; 
 sensations, sentiments, affections, states of the viscera, the 
 nerves, and the muscles, movements and association of 
 movement, all that has once gone on within, may be re- 
 vived, whether we are conscious of it or not. 
 
 From the moment of its birth, an infant, whose first act of 
 breathing, as we have already said, is pain, who hungers and 
 thirsts, who suffers from the relative cold of the surrounding 
 atmosphere, from the sudden freedom given to its limbs, 
 from the sounds which shock its feeble hearing and the 
 rays of light which strike on its eyes, from the unaccustomed 
 contact witli people and things that come near it, and who 
 expresses all these different feelings of annoyance by 
 screams, or rather sharp gaspings, by agitated gestures, and 
 deep flushes over its face and head, is executing automatic 
 actions, i.e., hereditary reflex movements, which have be- 
 longed to others before him ; and this is hereditary memory. 
 " Each nerve has a sort of memory of its past life, is trained 
 or not trained, dulled or quickened, as the case may be ; 
 each feature is shaped and characterized, or left loose and 
 meaningless, as may happen ; each hand is marked with its 
 trade and life, subdued to what it works in ; if we could but 
 see i^ 
 
 All this is found transmitted by heredity, in the actions 
 and gestures of the new-born child, and why should not 
 what is true in respect to apparent movements be also true 
 in regard to other manifestations of human activity, such as 
 sensation, sentiments, and primordial ideas ? 
 
 I have often put this question to myself, and not without 
 anxiety, when I have found myself face-to-face with a little 
 child, a mysterious sphinx unconsciously watching me ob- 
 serving it, and whose large calm wondering eyes disconcert 
 
 Bagehot, Physics and Politics, p. 3.
 
 MEMORY. 123 
 
 my laborious inductions. I remembered that such and such 
 an action, buried a long time in the storehouse of potential 
 faculties, had suddenly sprung to light, aroused by the for- 
 tuitous concurrence of certain favourable circumstances. I 
 have asked myself if I must not set down to the credit of 
 instinct and heredity that which my observations had led 
 me to attribute to consciousness and individual experience. 
 Thus, children have an instinctive faculty for walking, and 
 yet they have to learn the process by long efforts, conscious 
 and progressive. They have an instinct for sucking, and 
 nevertheless, as in the case of dogs and lambs, this operation 
 has also to be learnt by them. Chickens, colts, and calves 
 walk by instinct as soon as they are born, and this is an 
 automatic action, rendered easy by their organization, but 
 which they perfect by exercise and attention. 
 
 These reflections have suggested another which has quieted 
 my conscience as an observer, namely (and Darwin is not 
 opposed to this opinion), that the operations due to instinct 
 may easily, at the very outset, awaken a conscious sense ; 
 and that, for instance, the first attempts at sucking or walk- 
 ing may unite in varying proportions reflex influences with 
 conscious efforts. Thus then we may believe unreservedly 
 in the existence of actual activity, even when the gestures 
 and movements seem to be derived from heredity, for they 
 are brought into sub-order, controlled and perfected by the 
 present personality. Thus the little baby who, at the age 
 of five weeks, when his nurse sang him a familiar air or 
 spoke in a caressing voice, began to warble various little 
 sounds, did this by instinct and organic sympathy the 
 result of hereditary memory, and also by the help of recol- 
 lection associating together these sounds and the nurse's 
 voice i.e., the result of individual memory. 
 
 It needs only the most elementary powers of observation 
 to see that the extent of the personal acquisitions of a little 
 child, only a few weeks old, is considerable. We have 
 already seen in play, from the age of two and three months, 
 all the various and numerous actions, instinctive, voluntary, 
 intellectual, and moral, which psychologists generally observe 
 at a more advanced age. It is needless to recapitulate these
 
 124 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 facts, which indicate so evidently how prompt, energetic, and 
 tenacious a faculty memory is at the commencement of life. 
 
 It is noticeable also that the recollections most firmly 
 planted in the mind are not always those which exhibit 
 themselves most prominently. The most important, and 
 perhaps the most durable, are those of which custom appears 
 to have dulled the vividness, and whose capacity for revival 
 is dependent on the reflex or unconscious energy of the 
 intelligence. When Georgie stops before the prickly brush 
 without touching it, the idea of a brush is clearly fixed in his 
 mind, and yet nothing betrays the recollection of a painful 
 impression. This is what leads us to believe that nothing is 
 unimportant in the life of man, and that the education of 
 infants should have the same interest for us as that of older 
 children. Most of the ideas which influence the intellectual 
 and moral nature of a man during the whole of his life (as 
 the startling instances of revived memories recorded in cases 
 of hallucination, of hypnotism, or simply of exaggerated 
 passion, testify) spring from the latent capacities of the mind 
 the mysterious but dominant basis of the soul. Nothing 
 is lost in nature, and, as Mr. Bagehot has eloquently said, 
 each nerve retains perhaps the memory of its past life. 
 
 How many of the sudden flashes of sentiment, idea, 
 movement, of happy or deplorable inspiration, which we 
 attribute either to the natural powers of the mind, or to 
 education, or to the effects of example or excitement, are 
 perhaps in truth reminiscences from the cradle. True, I 
 have not been able to establish any instances of memory 
 going back beyond the two first years of life, but that is no 
 reason why none should exist. Language has become in- 
 corporated with a great number of ideas anterior to itself; 
 and as, generally speaking, words accompany the reappear- 
 ance of ideas, we are prone to imagine that the race has had 
 no other ideas than those which are symbolized by speech, 
 and that we have only retained traces of those ideas which 
 were acquired at the epoch and by the means of speech. 
 To affirm this, however, is to deny the existence in animals 
 of a considerable number of ideas which they have no means 
 of expressing. My belief is, that all the ideas which were
 
 MEMORY. 125 
 
 well conceived and well preserved before the epoch of 
 speech, though they may have been defined and fixed by the 
 use of signs, have been inherent in memory from the most 
 remote epoch. 
 
 Such are the familiar ideas of dog, cat, birds, flowers, milk; 
 heat, cold, roughness, polish, palatable, bitter, etc., etc. All 
 essential ideas, that is to say, and which, although modified 
 by the posterior work of intelligence, have not the less pre- 
 served their date and their rank in the collection of cerebral 
 processes. It is not likely that these impressions, so numer- 
 ous and so powerful, and which have served as mental exer- 
 cise during the first two years, should only have been the 
 point of departure of future modifications. These were the 
 first impulsions of a movement which has gone on develop- 
 ing and expanding, and is still going on. Life, in an organized 
 being, does not break off and begin again ; it is a prolonged 
 and continuous series of modifications. Not one of the 
 perceptions of our infancy, whether or no modified by lan- 
 guage, is extinct ; they have reappeared, or may reappear, 
 in the intelligence, in the will, or in the sensibility. 
 
 In the excellent monograph on memory lately published 
 by M. Th. Ribot I find a kind of confirmation of the hy- 
 pothesis for which I wanted facts. It is known that the 
 general excitations of the memory seem to depend exclu- 
 sively on physiological causes, which are often abnormal 
 ones. As to the partial excitations, they too most often 
 result from morbid causes ; but the two following examples 
 would seem to indicate that they can be produced in a 
 sound state of mind : 
 
 " A lady, in the last stage of a chronic disease, was carried 
 from London to a lodging in the country ; there her infant 
 daughter was taken to visit her, and after a short interview 
 carried back to London. The lady died a few days after, 
 and the daughter grew up without any recollection of her 
 mother, till she was of mature age. At this time she hap- 
 pened to be taken into the room in which her mother died, 
 without knowing it to have been so ; she started on entering 
 it, and when a friend who was along with her asked the cause 
 of her agitation, replied, 'I have a distinct impression of
 
 126 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 having been in this room before, and that a lady, who lay 
 in that corner and seemed very ill, leant over me and wept." 1 
 
 Here is another example : 
 
 " Several years ago, the Rev. S. Hansard, now Rector of 
 Bethnal Green, was doing clerical duty for a time at Hurst- 
 monceaux in Sussex ; and while there he one day went over 
 with a party of friends to Pevensey Castle, which he did 
 not remember to have ever previously visited. As he ap- 
 proached the gateway, he became conscious of a very vivid 
 impression of having seen it before ; and he ' seemed to 
 himself to see' not only the gateway itself, but donkeys 
 beneath the arch, and people on the top of it. His convic- 
 tion that he must have visited the castle on some former 
 occasion, although he had neither the slightest remem- 
 biance of such a visit, nor any knowledge of having ever 
 been in the neighbourhood previously to his residence at 
 Hurstmonceaux, made him inquire from his mother if she 
 could throw any light on the matter. She at once informed 
 him that, being in that part of the country when he was 
 about eighteen months old, she had gone over with a large 
 party and had taken him in the pannier of a donkey ; that 
 the elders of the party, having brought lunch with them, had 
 eaten it from the roof of the gateway, where they would have 
 been seen from below, whilst he had been left on the ground 
 with the attendants and donkeys. It may be worth mention- 
 ing, that Mr. Hansard has a decidedly artistic temperament." 2 
 
 These facts of normal hypermnesia are still more curious 
 than the much better established facts of hypermnesia from 
 morbid causes. They show clearly, on the one hand, the 
 incalculable power of resuscitation of the impressions re- 
 ceived at the beginning of life, and, on the other hand, the 
 close relation which exists between attention and memory, 
 between well seeing and well remembering. And seeing 
 how much sensibility influences attention, it appears evident 
 to us that the quality of the memory depends still more on 
 affectivity than on intelligence. I am led to believe that 
 
 1 Abercrombie, Essay on Intellectual Powers, p. 120. 
 
 2 Carpenter, Mental Physiology, p. 431.
 
 MEMORY. 127 
 
 much that is put down to want of attention is in reality want 
 of sensibility. Is it from want of attention or from defective 
 sensibility that old people, idiots, and young children have 
 such bizarre and scatter-brained recollections ? Perhaps it 
 is owing to both these causes. The feebleness and inter- 
 mittence with which impressions are transmitted along the 
 peripheric nerves, and with which they strike on the intel- 
 lectual, motor, and sensory centres, in all these cases, neces- 
 sarily cause incomplete and disconnected emotions, ideas, 
 judgments, volitions, and movements. However this may 
 be, the debility of the organs in old people in their dotage, 
 and young children, shows itself in two opposite ways dis- 
 persion and fixedness of ideas and sentiments. There is a 
 great deal of both in the period of infancy; and there is no 
 doubt that the babbling, at first monotonous but gradually 
 becoming rather varied, which babies of two months will 
 repeat several times a day, after hearing some one speak or 
 sing near them, and later on their parrot-like chatter, and 
 also the rambling talk of old people, are the result of some 
 dominant recollections which pass and repass in their minds, 
 along with a train of vaguer reminiscences. I should ex- 
 plain in the same manner the apparently automatic move- 
 ments of the eyes, arms, and legs, which young children 
 make with so much animation and so little signification, in 
 their cradles, in their nurse's arms, or when set upright on 
 the ground. These are often impulsions, desires, repulsions, 
 ideas, sensations, and feelings, recollected more or less con- 
 sciously, but with alternations of incoherence and impor- 
 tunity, which the purely instinctive need of locomotion does 
 not sufficiently explain. 
 
 This intermittent importunity of recollections differs from 
 monomania, in that it is generally connected with objects 
 that are present, or with the remembrance of familiar objects. 
 A little girl of eight months, when she has been sucking, 
 makes a movement with her arm analogous to that of a 
 person ringing a bell ; it is because she is absorbed in the 
 idea of a little bell which serves her as a plaything ; if she 
 has it in her hands, she makes it tinkle for a few minutes, 
 carries it to her mouth, rings it again, and then throws it
 
 128 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 carelessly away. When she has shaken her other toys about 
 for a little while she asks for her bell again by the usual 
 gesture, and she will repeat the same manoeuvres more 
 than twenty times in half an hour, if she is indulged ; this 
 is a purely reflex habit. One day, when I was visiting her 
 parents, I imitated the little girl's movements with a box 
 which was very brilliantly coloured, and made an exciting 
 noise : the child at once wanted the box, and shook it about 
 with evident delight. After two or three minutes I put her 
 little bell back into her hand ; she shook it with an air of 
 indifference, and very soon threw it away. I then gave her 
 the box again, and she shook it about for a long time, 
 crowing with delight. This box remained her one interest 
 and occupation for nearly an hour ; the Jittle bell was sup- 
 planted. Another fixed idea, analogous it is true, had re- 
 placed the habitual one. This temporary possession of the 
 mind by an idea is most noticeable in little children begin- 
 ning to talk ; whether it be that names, by recalling the 
 objects, give them a clearer idea of them and stronger 
 recollection or desire, or that the mere sound of words 
 which have no meaning for them keep their brains and 
 vocal organs on the alert. A relation of mine, when fifteen 
 months old, would keep on incessantly repeating the double 
 sound a-teau, which represented to him the idea of boats 
 (bateaux), which he had seen on a river, and which had made 
 him wild with delight. 
 
 Some months afterwards his vocabulary was augmented 
 by the following jargon, "Cote noi, tonte vilai; cote blan, toute 
 jolie." This black cocotte and this white cocotte were two 
 hens, which he used to go and look at two or three hundred 
 times a day in their yard at the bottom of the garden; the 
 white hen was very gentle, but the black one sometimes 
 pecked his fingers when taking the food he brought them. 
 The boats and the hens were at this time his absorbing 
 preoccupations. Some months later, having made a railway 
 journey, he used to talk every day of the locomotives, the 
 carriages, the whistle, and the steam : minfer had supplanted 
 the boats and the cocottes in his brain and his conversation. 
 One of the most debated questions of the day, and one
 
 MEMORY. 129 
 
 interesting alike to psychologists and pedagogists, is whether 
 it is possible in early infancy to form an estimate of the in- 
 tellectual faculties of a child, and especially of its memory 
 memory, i.e., in the sense of reproduction of ideas. Gall, 
 and many others after him, have inclined to the affirmative. 
 This savant considered that large prominent eyes were the 
 index of a facile memory (always, be it understood, a 
 memory for ideas). I believe I have also heard thick eye- 
 brows mentioned as signs of a like facility, and especially 
 of tenacity of memory, or at least eyebrows which are close 
 together, and which also denote jealousy. My personal 
 observations do not warrant me in either adopting or reject- 
 ing any of these theories. 
 
 But I hope that the study of the connection between 
 physiognomy and transmitted faculties, will furnish the 
 means of determining, even before children can speak, 
 whether they have good or bad memories, and that we 
 shall thus be able to improve the bad memories by exercise 
 and training. Then, too, it will be possible, and very useful, 
 to be able from the first months of life to distinguish 
 between the original aptitudes of the memory and those 
 acquired under the influence of various circumstances, to 
 mark the union and the conflict of the one with the other, 
 in a word, to determine how far exercise and education 
 modify the memory, as a whole and in its special adapta- 
 tions. 
 
 I must particularly insist on the error of considering 
 memory as an intellectual faculty having different adapta- 
 tions, and of believing, for instance, that memory for senti- 
 ments is one of these adaptations. The truth is, that there 
 exists in every human being, not one, but several memories. 
 Not only do we recollect our past sentiments and affections, 
 without experiencing them over again, but sentiment only 
 persists on condition of keeping its place in the memory. 
 " The most affectionate heart," says Chateaubriand, " would 
 lose its tenderness, if it did not remember." We can say 
 that, in regard to sensibility and the emotional life, each one 
 has its memories, more or less marked and tenacious. In 
 the same way that each sense, and each intellectual faculty, 
 
 K
 
 I3O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 has its memory, or its associations of memory, more or less 
 energetic according to the individual organisation, so all 
 sentiments and all combinations of sentiment have their 
 memories, which are unequally distributed among men. 
 Caesar, it is said, never forgot injuries : some other people 
 forget neither the good nor the evil which is done to them, 
 and others again only forget the good. 
 
 This mode of conceiving of emotional memory, which 
 throws a new light on the genesis of passions and desires, 
 enables us in many cases to penetrate to the bottom of the 
 infant soul. Underlying all the sentiments and tendencies 
 which manifest themselves at given moments of life are the 
 tendencies and sentiments inherited from our ancestors, 
 who have exercised and developed them before us ; and the 
 same also may be said of our pains and our pleasures : we 
 know not how much of the past enters into the joys and 
 sorrows of the present. The impressions of our emotional 
 life people our souls and our sensoriums, and are always 
 ready to be revived afresh, whether with or without our 
 consciousness. It is the same with past emotions as with 
 past ideas : consciousness only reveals an infinitesimal part 
 of them. This is what the poet Musset expresses with so 
 much delicacy in the following lines : 
 
 " Et Ton songe a tout ce qu'on aime 
 Sans le savoir."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ASSOCIATION OF PSYCHICAL STATES. 
 
 I. 
 
 ASSOCIATION. 
 
 ASSOCIATION is the state of dynamical connection which 
 accompanies the production and reproduction, not only of 
 the facts of intellectual and moral life, but of all the mental, 
 muscular, and nervous facts which are co-ordinated if not 
 altogether brought about in certain fixed regions of the 
 brain. Association is not, properly speaking, a special 
 faculty, like sensibility, emotion, and motor activity. It 
 is one of the apparent or underlying forms of all organic 
 or psychic manifestations. Everything is continuous and 
 bound together, in our perceptions, our affections, our 
 thoughts, and our volitions. We have already seen that all 
 our distinct ideas of objects are equivalent to syntheses or 
 associations of ideas arrived at synthetically. These ab- 
 stractions and groups of perceptions, which are found in the 
 apparently simplest ideas, explain the nature and conditions 
 of psychic life, which is a series of mental states reproduced 
 and capable of combining with other series of the same kind 
 and with impressions of the moment inserted in the com- 
 plex woof of former combinations. 
 
 It is impossible to know at what moment of the foetal or 
 intra-uterine life, associations of mental states, properly so- 
 called, begin. Some have certainly been formed long 
 before the time when we first observe them. In fact, what
 
 132 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 external signs could reveal the numerous impressions which 
 must associate themselves together to produce even a hazy 
 knowledge of the simplest object, such as the feeding bottle, 
 the nurse's face, etc. ? 
 
 M. Ribot vividly describes all that is involved in a recol- 
 lection which consciousness presents to us as simple. 
 
 "The memory of an apple is necessarily a weakened 
 form of the perception of an apple. What does this per- 
 ception suppose ? A modification of the complex structure 
 of the retina, transmission by the optic nerve through the 
 corpora geniculata and the tubercula quadrigemina to the 
 cerebral ganglia (optic tract ? ), then through the white sub- 
 stance to the cortex. This supposes the activity of many 
 widely separated elements. But this is by no means all. 
 It is not a question of a simple sensation of colour. We 
 see, or imagine, the apple as a solid object having a 
 spherical form. These conceptions result from the ex- 
 quisite muscular sensibility of our visual apparatus and from 
 its movements. Now, the movements of the eye are regu- 
 lated by several nerves the sympathetic, the oculo-motor, 
 and its branches. Each of these nerves has its own termin- 
 ation, and is connected by a devious course with the outer 
 cerebral layer, where the motor intuitions, according to 
 Maudsley, are formed. We simply indicate outlines. For 
 further details the reader should consult standard works on 
 anatomy and physiology. But we have given an idea of the 
 prodigious number of nervous filaments and distinct com- 
 munities of cells scattered through the different parts of the 
 cerebro-spinal axis, which serve as a basis for the psychical 
 state known as the memory of an apple, and which the 
 double illusion of consciousness and language leads us to 
 consider as a single fact." l 
 
 Under these circumstances, then, we cannot hope to 
 " seize in the act " the first associations formed in a child's 
 mind between the different perceptions visual, muscular, 
 and motive, auditive, or tactile, or between these percep- 
 
 1 Ribot, Maladies de la Memoire. See Eng. Trans. (Internal. 
 Sclent. Series), pp. 42, 43.
 
 ASSOCIATION. 133 
 
 tions and different sensory and emotional conditions : these 
 facts go on in the mysterious depths of consciousness, if 
 even they do not belong in part to unconscious cerebra- 
 tion. We must be content to point out the most apparent. 
 
 Darwin does not notice any positive manifestation of 
 ideas in a child's mind before the age of five months. For 
 instance, speaking of one of his children at this age, he 
 says, " As soon as his hat and cloak had been put on, he 
 became very cross if not taken out at once. At five 
 months his eyes would seek his nurse when he heard her 
 name pronounced." This date, which to me seems tardy, 
 is much nearer the truth, however, than that of ten months, 
 indicated by M. Taine for the appearance of the same 
 phenomenon in his daughter. Tiedemann, rightly or 
 wrongly, notes the beginning of the association of ideas 
 two days after birth. If any one placed his son " on his side 
 in a position to suck, or if he felt a soft hand on his face, 
 he became quiet and felt about for the breast." " Here," 
 writes his father, " association of ideas is evident, the feeling 
 of a particular position or of a soft hand awaking the idea 
 of sucking at the breast. On the 26th of January, when 
 five months old, the growing desire to learn manifested itself 
 more plainly. The nurse, whenever the weather permitted, 
 took him out into the street, which delighted him beyond 
 measure ; and in spite of the cold, he was always very eager 
 for this event The child soon learnt to notice, that when 
 the nurse took up her cloak it was a signal for going out ; 
 and he smiled and crowed, even in the midst of his tears, 
 every time she performed the operation." 
 
 When I put two little kittens (three days old) which I 
 am rearing, on my hand in a standing position, they will 
 remain some seconds without stirring, as if enjoying the 
 heat of my hand ; but soon, the contact of my skin not 
 affording them the same sensation as that of the body of 
 their mother, they begin to shake their heads, show signs of 
 uneasiness, move about on their little tottering paws, and 
 try to suck that portion of my hand which has possibly 
 reminded them of their mother's breast. But as the sucking 
 produces no result, after a few fruitless efforts they become
 
 134 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 more and more uneasy ; they do not feel at home ; they 
 have begun to realize the difference between my hand and 
 their mother's warm, soft body, and they begin to pine for 
 their familiar shelter, and to cry out for it loudly. 
 
 These few facts, taken at random, show us how very early, 
 both in young children and young animals, the exercise of 
 this physical and intellectual faculty, formerly incorrectly 
 called association of ideas, but which is really the associa- 
 bility of all the actions of the nervous system, either with 
 their congeners or with their neighbours, comes into play. 
 
 All the first manifestations of animal sensibility testify 
 to the faculty which the mind has of associating and blend- 
 ing in one the different series of homogeneous impressions 
 which it receives. A baby fifteen days old, who had just 
 gone to sleep, and in whose mouth I put a feeding-bottle 
 filled with plain water, sucked it for a few minutes and 
 then began to make faces, to open its mouth, and finally to 
 cry. The same child, who was lying awake in its mother's 
 arms, was taken up in the same position by its uncle, and 
 began at once to whimper. A child two months old, who 
 already smiled consciously at his nurse, would allow himself 
 to be fed by another nurse, his own being close by. These 
 examples prove that homogeneous sensations were asso- 
 ciated in their minds to such a point that they recognised 
 them when they were reproduced, and that, not finding 
 them when they expect them, they suffer in consequence, 
 in spite of the feebleness of their powers of comparison. 
 
 Herbert Spencer gives to this remarkable phenomenon 
 the name of integration of the sensations. " A colour, the 
 moment it is perceived, not only irresistibly aggregates 
 with the class of feelings that originate on the outer surface 
 and imply outer stimuli, but also with the sub-class of 
 visual sensations, and cannot be forced into any other 
 sub-class. While being recognised, a sound falls simul- 
 taneously into the general assemblage of feelings derived 
 from the senses which hold converse with the external 
 world, and also into the more special assemblage of feelings 
 distinguished as auditory ; and no effort will separate it from 
 this special assemblage. And to say a smell cannot be
 
 ASSOCIATION. 135 
 
 thought of as a colour or a sound, is to say that it associates 
 itself indissolubly with previously-experienced smells." 1 
 
 On the other hand, " these simultaneous impressions, 
 optic, olfactory, acoustic, received at the same moment, and 
 in several circumscribed localities at the same time, con- 
 stitute a series of contemporaneous souvenirs, which are 
 created and implanted in the memory ; and henceforth 
 those vibrations which were born together, and were simul- 
 taneously conceived, will represent in the series of reminis- 
 cences, a definite group, of which the elements, united by 
 the bonds of a mysterious federation, will all live with the 
 same life, anastomose one with another, and recall one 
 another as soon as one link of the chain is struck." 3 
 
 My two kittens, which the mother had left to go and lap up 
 a saucer of milk I had put down for her, after tumbling over 
 and over for a few minutes, at last cuddled together to go 
 to sleep. Suddenly the mother returned and sprang lightly 
 into the box without touching her kittens. Instantly, how- 
 ever, they sat up, as if moved by a spring ; the slight noise 
 which the mother had made in getting back into the box, 
 and the movement which she imparted to it and which they 
 had felt, produced auditory and muscular impressions which 
 became associated in their brain with the idea of her pre- 
 sence; and to the idea of her presence was joined the desire 
 to suck, for they immediately set to work at this operation. 
 
 When six weeks old, these same cats, having made 
 acquaintance with raw meat, precipitated themselves, one 
 after the other, on a ball of red paper, which they had 
 taken for a piece of meat, and were beginning to eat The 
 sensation of a particular colour was associated in their 
 minds with the idea of food, and with the movements of 
 absorption and prehension, which they already produced by 
 reflex action. 
 
 A little child, of four months and a half, was in its 
 mother's arms ; its nurse, who had just returned after a 
 
 1 Herbert Spencer, Principles of Psychology, p. 255. 
 
 2 Luys, Le CcK>eau et ses Fonctions. See Eng. Trans. (Internat. 
 Scient. Series), p. 154
 
 136 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 short holiday, before coming into the room, put her mouth 
 to the key-hole and in her most coaxing voice called little 
 Paul three or four times. The latter first raised his head, 
 then turned to the right and the left, and cast questioning 
 looks at his mother ; the nurse went over the comedy again, 
 laughing rather loud. Paul could not stand it any longer, 
 he held out his little arms, and made impatient starts of 
 joy, desire, and vexation ; and was on the point of tears, 
 when his mother, to spare him unnecessary teasing, called 
 in the nurse. Thus the sound of his nurse's voice and 
 laugh had become very early associated with the idea of 
 her person, with the pleasure of her presence, of the need 
 of seeing her when she spoke, and with instinctive move- 
 ments to be taken in her arms. 
 
 A little child a year old could not see a hat or bonnet, 
 or any article which appeared to be a covering for the head, 
 without saying, "Menesnene" (promener), by which he meant, 
 that some one was to take him by the hand and lead him 
 out for a walk. Whilst playing one day at a table, he took 
 a little round mat and put it on his head, calling out 
 " Mene, men'e." He said the same thing also when his 
 aunt touched an umbrella. The word "peudu " (perdu*} is 
 associated in his mind with the idea of any object that lie 
 sees fall down, and which he throws away, or which he 
 cannot see when he hears it talked about. One day he 
 took my hand with both his, stroked it, shook it about like 
 one of his playthings, and then, the fancy seizing him to 
 throw it on the ground, he pushed it away and let go of it, 
 saying, "Peudu" and looking on the floor to see where it 
 had gone. If a flower is given him to smell, he sniffs it 
 for a few moments, and then immediately offers it to some 
 one else to smell. When he is walking in the garden by 
 the flower-beds, he seizes hold of the stalks of flowers, drags 
 them towards him, and gives whatever remains in his hand 
 to some one to smell. The sight of the smoke which I 
 puff out of my lips when indulging in a cigar, causes him to 
 make a very curious movement of expiration resembling 
 the action of a smoker. 
 
 But smoke of all sorts attracts him, and makes him
 
 ASSOCIATION. 137 
 
 say "Mene ; " and when he is near it, it it is I who am with 
 him, he looks at me with a happy expression, and makes 
 this movement of the lips which his grandfather has taught 
 him, and which I have already noticed in another child. 
 
 Thus we find in young children the same kinds of associ- 
 ations as in adults. There is not one of the combinations of 
 associations which have been studied so carefully by psycho- 
 logists, of which we cannot find at least a faint foreshadow- 
 ing in a child of six or seven months. We can also discern 
 in little children a sketchy idea of the relations of sequence, 
 which is the principle of the idea of time. A child eight 
 months old, to whom its mother held out her arms while ad- 
 vancing toward it, stopped for a moment, and then held out 
 his arms ; she called him, but did not yet go up to him ; he 
 gesticulated with his whole body and began to scream ; she 
 advanced a little nearer and he pushed himself forward as 
 if to hasten the meeting. Thus movements, begun at a 
 certain distance and in his direction, were associated in his 
 mind with the idea of continuation. 
 
 A child of eleven months warbles, as a sort of accom- 
 paniment, so to say, when his nurse sings a simple little air, 
 which he is very fond of, and which she has sung to him 
 ever since his birth. If the nurse stops in the middle, or 
 does not quite finish the song, the child looks at her with 
 astonishment and stops his warbling ; if the nurse goes on 
 with the song where she left off, the child evinces great 
 delight. These associations of successive sensations, multi- 
 plied to infinity, prepare for the formation of the abstract 
 and general idea of time, which develops so slowly in 
 young children, even after they have begun to talk. A 
 child six months old will cry for his bottle as if he were 
 starving, even if he has had it a little while before, as soon 
 as day begins to dawn. The mother says, " He guesses 
 that it is time for his breakfast." No, but the return of 
 light is associated in his mind with the idea of sucking his 
 bottle, and this is why the morning twilight provokes in 
 him the factitious need of a meal. We may notice this 
 kind of association, and consequently a faint rudiment of 
 the concrete ideas of time, in the supposed instinct which
 
 138 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 causes even very young animals to know the hours of their 
 masters' or their friends' meals. Who has not seen dogs, 
 cats, and birds put in a punctual appearance in gardens 
 and houses, at the hours when meals are going on. It is 
 an indisputable fact that signs analogous to those which give 
 us our ideas of time, that is to say, successions of impres- 
 sions, indicate to these dumb creatures the opportune mo- 
 ment for returning to their restaurants. 
 
 The associations of resemblance are not less clearly 
 expressed by the language of action in little children. A 
 boy of nine months is opposite me. His grandmother has 
 just pronounced the word papa. The child smiles at her 
 then at me, and holds out his arms to me. The child 
 certainly did not take me for his father, even at first sight ; 
 but certain general resemblances between me and the father 
 had awakened, at the name of papa, the ideas, feelings, and 
 actions which had for a long time been associated with the 
 presence of his father, and which caused the child to smile 
 at me, to hold out his arms, to utter little cries of joy, to 
 embrace me and let himself be fondled by me. 
 
 It is by associations of this kind that little children learn 
 very early to see well-known people or things in other 
 people or things, resembling them in some way. In a very 
 remarkable article, though, unhappily for the study in which 
 we are engaged, the observations are not taken till after 
 the age of three months, M. Taine notes the following 
 facts, " She sees her grandfather every day, for they show 
 her his portrait drawn in crayon, much smaller than life, but 
 very like him. When any one says to her, " Where is 
 grandpapa ?" she turns towards this portrait and smiles. 
 But before her grandmother's portrait, which is much less 
 like, she shows no sign of recognition. 
 
 It is this association of like ideas which suggests to little 
 children those comparisons which we often take for abstract 
 generalizations, and which cause the little chatter-boxes to 
 talk of everything a propos of everything, their vivid and 
 inexperienced imagination showing them everywhere the 
 known in the unknown, the like in the unlike. It is this 
 imagination also which makes them afterwards seize so
 
 ASSOCIATION. 139 
 
 vividly and be so startled at contrasts in objects and actions 
 in which at first sight they thought they saw similarity. It 
 is this which suggests to them analogies of all sorts, which 
 to us seem sometimes so strange and unaccountable, but 
 which are so natural to them, though at the same time they 
 have only an external signification for them. For instance, 
 a little girl who had seen some cockchafers on a tree, asked, 
 " When would the cockchafers begin to bud ?" Again, it 
 is the association of analogous sounds which causes children's 
 strong liking for alliteration and consonances ; this taste 
 first of all shows itself in meaningless repetitions and later 
 by their delight in music and rhymes. 
 
 I do not think it is possible to determine in children who 
 cannot yet talk, the existence of associations based on the 
 law of contrast. Is it not possible that for the fusion of 
 opposite ideas a greater degree of intellectual development 
 and a greater power of comparison is needed than a child 
 of hardly a year old possesses? Children pass from the 
 easy to the easy, from like to like, before advancing from 
 the easy to the more difficult, from like to difference, from 
 analogy to contrast. 
 
 Besides these connections, which philosophers have en- 
 titled accidental or fortuitous, there are others which they 
 have distinguished by the name of logical or rational, such as 
 the relations of cause to consequence, of means to ends, of 
 signs to the things signified. I wish merely to remind my 
 readers of this order of classification, without attempting to 
 discuss it. I shall confine myself to remarking that, the 
 laws of nature and intelligence being given, there is not one 
 of the different kinds of association enumerated above which 
 docs not necessarily exist in every intelligence. The proof 
 of this is, that all or nearly all the forms of association 
 called logical, exhibit themselves, as well as the others, in 
 young infants. What baby is there of three or four months, 
 who, having burnt itself with a candle or the fire, or what 
 child of ten months, who, having had a nasty dose of 
 medicine, will not recoil instinctively at the sight of these 
 objects, which remind them of the pain or disgust they have 
 caused. Here we have the concrete idea of cause asso-
 
 140 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 dated with the concrete idea of effect. The relation of the 
 means to the end, which in children's minds is confounded 
 with that of cause to effect or succession, is a matter of 
 daily practical application at the earliest age. The sight of 
 their food and toys, of the people and objects who please 
 them and gratify their desires, or the reverse, remind them 
 at every moment that they are the instruments of their 
 pleasure or their pain. When, at the age of three months, 
 they cry for their food, or to be rocked to sleep, they already 
 possess a concrete idea of a means tending to an end ; and 
 what is more, they utilize this knowledge in their own way. 
 They know well enough, long before they can speak, what 
 such a sound or such a modulation of the voice means, 
 what is the signification of this attitude or that gesture ; in a 
 word, the sign and the thing signified are associated in their 
 young minds. As to associations established concerning 
 the relationship of genus to species, we should not be able 
 to find more than very vague rudiments of these in little 
 children whose power of generalization is always rather 
 feeble, needing, as it does, for full play, a fairly large amount 
 of experience combined with considerable progress in the 
 acquisition of speech. 
 
 M. L. Ferri, in an interesting article on The First Three 
 Vears of Childhood?- has expressed his opinion that the 
 intelligence of a child exists in a degree and is exercised in 
 a sphere proportioned to the degree of experience of which 
 the child is capable before it has acquired any abstract 
 notions ; and that human intelligence, when it is only 
 founded on the sensitive associations common alike to men 
 and animals, consists essentially in an intuitive activity, which 
 distinguishes and combines, affirms and denies the connec- 
 tion either of sensations or of things, and is not limited to 
 a passive reception of corresponding associations. This is 
 also my opinion. I think it is the natural organization only 
 which predisposes a child to modify certain actual ex. 
 periences according to the dynamic impulsions which an. 
 
 1 In the Filosofia delle Scuole Ilaltane, Oct. 1879. See in Revue 
 Philos., April 1880, the review of this article.
 
 ASSOCIATION. 141 
 
 terior experiences have deposited in its organs under the title 
 of latent energy. This would still only indicate a greater or 
 less facility of accommodation in the young being to new 
 experiences, and perhaps the necessity for him of certain 
 associations which are imposed on him by his specific 
 organization, as much as by the nature of things. At any 
 rate, I agree with M. Taine that the associations of ideas 
 formed in the mind of a child of ten months do not go 
 beyond the scope of animal intelligence ; but this may be 
 because I grant more to the latter than does M. Taine, or 
 even Darsvin, at any rate in the above-mentioned treatise. 
 Darwin sees a marked difference between the aptitude of a 
 little child and that of the most intelligent adult animal, in 
 forming associations due to instruction and associations 
 spontaneously produced. I cannot subscribe to this. Does 
 the dog who runs from the bottom of the garden on hearing 
 the word sugar, show a faculty of association inferior to 
 that of a child of six or seven months, who moves his head 
 from right to left when one says to him, " Shake your head " ? 
 I think not. 
 
 I have had cited to me an example of association furnished 
 by a little French girl in Vienna. She was two and a half 
 years old, when she heard related a detailed account of the 
 assassination of the Czar Alexander II. All the events of 
 the narrative were firmly imprinted on her mind ; but she 
 confused the assassins of the Emperor with the men who 
 swept away the snow on the scene of the assassination. A 
 fortnight later, snow was falling in Vienna; the window 
 being open, the child looked out in the street and saw 
 several men occupied in sweeping away the snow. Suddenly 
 she cried out, "Oh, wicked men, they have killed the 
 Emperor ! me like to see poor Emperor buried ! " But 
 why should we refuse to believe that animals which cannot 
 speak are not susceptible of analogous associations ? Here 
 is an example showing how durable connected recollections 
 may be in certain animals. " A turtle-dove, which had been 
 very carefully brought up by a lady from London, was given 
 to an officer who carried it away with him on an expedition. 
 The bird remained absent a year and a half. When it was
 
 142 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 brought back after this interval of time, it heard its former 
 mistress speak before it saw her. At the first sound of her 
 voice it showed signs of extraordinary impatience, and flut- 
 tered about the cage, a prey to excessive emotions." 1 
 
 Philosophers have often remarked the influence of asso- 
 ciation of ideas on sentiment. Thus, the word mamma will 
 make a child smile, whereas that of papa will only make 
 him turn round quickly, to see the person whom he loves 
 with more of respect than tenderness. In general, the 
 habits founded on associations which are the most frequently 
 repeated appear to be the strongest. But there are cases 
 where the vivacity of the emotions engenders associations 
 suddenly, and, in consequence, establishes lasting habits. 
 Locke speaks of a little girl whom her mother was obliged 
 to whip, in order to cure her of the bad habits she had 
 learnt from her nurse. A single day's correction sufficed. 
 Painful affections, as we can easily understand, have an 
 influence proportioned to their vivacity, on our moral habits 
 especially. Hence those who have the bringing up oi 
 children should keep them as much as possible out of the 
 way of terrible spectacles and alarming tales. 
 
 In order to well understand the mechanism of thought in 
 children, and to be able to interpret at every turn their 
 gestures, words, and actions, we must not overlook that 
 law of association which causes memory to touch over and 
 over again on the culminating points of a series, an 
 abbreviative process which may be succeeded by the detailed 
 analysis of intermediate and secondary points. This 
 tendency of the mind, which enables the adult to construct 
 artificial chains of ideas, manifests itself spontaneously in 
 children, and it is possible to follow the formation of the 
 chain up to a certain point. I will cite one among a thou- 
 sand examples. A lady had gone to call on a friend and 
 had taken with her her little boy two years and four months 
 old. After the child had well inspected every corner of the 
 drawing-room, he slipped through an open door into a 
 little passage which led into an adjoining room. The door 
 
 1 Frank Pmckland, Cuiiosities of Natural Hiztjry, vol. i., p. 183.
 
 ASSOCIATION. 143 
 
 of this room being half-open, he went a few steps into it, 
 and in so doing upset a chair. This noise awoke the 
 husband of the lady, who, being either tired or indisposed, 
 had lain down on his bed in his clothes with his nightcap 
 on his head. "Who is there? " cried the sleeper, disturbed 
 in his slumbers. The sudden sight of this bizarre apparition 
 caused the child inexpressible fear and surprise. He ran 
 out of the room, took refuge with his mother, and pulled 
 her dress repeatedly, as if to make her come away. Soon 
 after the mother went home with the child ; and the whole 
 way along the child talked of nothing but Pierrot whom he 
 had seen lying down, and who had frightened him very much. 
 More than three months later, when this lady came to see 
 the child's mother, the child asked her abruptly, " How is 
 Pierrot ? Is he sleeping on his bed ? " The lady answered 
 that he slept in his cage on a perch, and not in a bed. " Is 
 Pierrot naughty ? he frightened me very much." The lady 
 thought he was speaking of her sparrow. Another time, 
 she answered him that Pierrot was dead. " Then," said the 
 child, "he is no longer in bed." The lady still thought he 
 meant the bird, which had just died. The child's mother 
 burst out laughing, and explained the misunderstanding. 
 These were the salient points of that association of images 
 and ideas so alarming to the child. To all these prominent 
 recollections there belonged a number of others, which 
 came back capriciously to the child when he talked of this 
 redoubtable Pierrot. 
 
 Another question of importance is, whether it is easier or 
 more natural to recall a series of incidents in the same 
 order in which they occurred or in the inverse order ? In 
 my opinion, this last kind of association is essentially arti- 
 ficial ; but it is not equally easy, or at any rate habitual, to 
 different orders of mind, apart from all inequality of in- 
 telligence. One of my friends, a scientific man of superior 
 mind, sent me the following reflections on this subject : " I 
 remember that Taine asserts that memory can reproduce 
 ideas and incidents in the inverse order to that in which 
 they first arose. He cites as an example a journey along a 
 particular road, all the events of which can be recalled by
 
 144 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the memory in an order exactly the reverse to that in which 
 they happened, that is to say, beginning at the point of 
 arrival and going back to the point of departure. A mani- 
 fest error. I have vainly made the experiment, and I have 
 realized that in a series of objects or impressions, a, b, c, d, 
 e, / if I wanted to go backwards from /to the preceding 
 object, I was obliged by a rapid flight to imagine myself 
 as having reached e or even d before getting to/ To pass 
 from e to d, I must first recall c or even b. Thus, having 
 learnt by heart the series of stations from Bordeaux to 
 Morceux, it required a tremendous effort to recall the in- 
 verted series from Morceux to Bordeaux, and I was only 
 able to construct it by the help of fragments of the direct 
 series." Such a conclusion surprised me in a man of 
 science, and one thoroughly initiated in the methods of 
 natural science. Must we conclude that he was wanting in 
 capacity to accomplish the feat, or was it only want of 
 habit ? It may be that certain minds are naturally more 
 apt at it than others. As far as concerns my friend, I 
 verified by experience that this operation is as difficult for 
 him as it is easy to myself. I made the experiment apropos 
 of a road which was well known to us both since our child- 
 hood ; taking a distance of two leagues from a town to a 
 village, I repeated, both inversely and otherwise, every little 
 road on the left hand and on the right, which diverged from 
 the high road. My friend made some mistakes even when 
 beginning at the point of departure, but he would have 
 made a still greater number had he attempted the reverse 
 way. This faculty, which I am convinced is essentially an 
 acquired one, but which is also more or less a natural gift, 
 must be very feeble in children. But that it is entirely left 
 out at the beginning of life, nothing seems to show. 
 
 It is association which makes the unity of our mental 
 existence, by establishing a natural bond between all the 
 various parts of which it is constituted ; and it is to associa- 
 tion that we must look for the formation of the habits, 
 judgment, character, and morality of children. Association 
 presents us with an easy means of exercising the memory 
 methodically, of verifying its acquisitions and its aptitudes,
 
 ASSOCIATION. 14$ 
 
 of facilitating its play, and rectifying its errors, by the facility 
 which it affords a child's mind especially when influenced 
 by an adult will of ascending or of descending the chain 
 of its ideas and sentiments. Do what we will, however, we 
 shall never arrive at knowing and being able to guide more 
 than a very limited number of the associations which work 
 in a child's mind. The important matter is, to know that 
 we can discover and establish a great many essential ones, 
 those which are the most apparent and habitual, and that 
 we can thus to a certain extent move according to our own 
 will the secret springs of the young character. 
 
 We must not give in to Pension's opinion, that it is 
 enough to awaken the curiosity of a child and to heap up 
 in his memory a mass of good materials, which will combine 
 of themselves in due time and which the brain when more 
 highly developed will arrange in systematic groups ; we 
 should endeavour as far as possible to control the first 
 impressions which sink unconsciously into a child's mind, 
 but still more careful should we be in the selection of those 
 later ones which we try to inculcate on him, and of the links 
 which we wish to establish between such and such per- 
 ceptions, sentiments, or actions ; for the older a child grows 
 the less must we count on the innate tendency of just ideas, 
 suitable sentiments, and useful impulses to combine them- 
 selves in logical and durable associations. To a child's 
 mind every combination is logical and moral from the mere 
 fact of its existing. From infancy therefore we must keep 
 careful guard over the formation of those associations over 
 which we have any hold. Why is it that domestic animals, 
 so far as they have escaped man's training and follow 
 the natural impulses of their organization combined with the 
 direct action of external objects, appear to us often to show 
 proofs of a surer and quicker judgment in the things which 
 are useful for them to know than most human beings would 
 in like circumstances ? It is because the instincts in each 
 species, and their variable development in each individual, 
 are subject less to imitation and to education than to per- 
 sonal experience, and to the latter less than to hereditary 
 experience ; and by experience we mean associations firmly 
 
 L
 
 146 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 combined and in a very limited space. Their logic is more 
 limited than ours, it is circumscribed within a small sphere 
 of relations, but in this sphere it moves easily ; it is founded 
 on the natural relations of things, on associations truly ex- 
 perimental. 
 
 As much may be said, in many respects, of savages. It 
 is not only by the acuteness and special adaptations of their 
 senses that they are superior to us, but by the judgments, 
 limited it is true, but founded on practical experience, 
 which they bring to bear on the impressions of their senses. 
 Not only are some of their senses, sight and hearing for 
 instance, of much wider scope than ours, but their daily 
 life places them in circumstances fitted for the exercise and 
 development of their sensorial judgments. Concerning the 
 Arawaks, Hillhouse says, " Where a European can discover 
 no indication whatever, an Indian will point out the foot- 
 steps of any number of negroes, and will state the precise 
 day on which they have passed ; and if on the same day, 
 he will state the hour." ..." Along with this acute- 
 ness of perception there naturally goes a high degree of 
 skill in those simple actions depending on the immediate 
 guidance of perception. . . ." l Such is the result of 
 frequent or minute observation of a limited number of 
 objects. We must therefore be careful to select experiences 
 for children who cannot choose for themselves, and this 
 not only with a view of developing little by little the 
 sensorial faculties of our species till they equal those of 
 savages and certain animals, but also of developing, side by 
 side with the perceptions, the faculty of judging and acting 
 rightly. 
 
 To give a child very little to observe at a time, but to 
 make it observe that little well and rightly, is the true way 
 of forming and storing its mind. 
 
 1 H. Spencer, Principles of Sociology, p. 88.
 
 IMAGINATION. 147 
 
 II. 
 IMAGINATION. 
 
 Representative or reproductive imagination, or the return 
 of vivid impressions, images, forms, sounds, colours, objects, 
 persons and places which have keenly affected us, begins 
 to work very early in life. The child, hardly a month old, 
 who recognises his mother's breast at a very short distance, 
 shosvs, by the strong desire it has to get to it, that this sight 
 has made an impression on it, and that this image must 
 be deeply engraven on its memory. The child who, at the 
 age of three months, turns sharply round on bearing a bird 
 sing, or on hearing the name coco pronounced, and looks 
 about for the bird-cage, has formed a very vivid idea of 
 the bird and the cage. When, a little later, on seeing his 
 nurse take her cloak, or his mother wave her umbrella, he 
 shows signs of joy and pictures to himself a walk out of 
 doors, he is again performing a feat of imagination. In 
 like manner, when, at the age of seven or eight months old, 
 having been deceived by receiving a piece of bread instead 
 of cake, on finding out the trick, he throws the bread away 
 angrily, we feel sure that the image of the cake must be 
 very clearly imprinted on his mind. Finally, when he 
 begins to babble the word papa, at the sight of any man 
 whatever, it must be that the general characteristics which 
 make up what he calls papa are well fixed in his imagina- 
 tion. 
 
 The terrors which young children and animals are subject 
 to, and which are as vague and unaccountable as they are 
 strong, are in both cases sure indices of the workings of 
 the imagination. How can we otherwise explain a child's 
 dreams, the sudden tremblings, the screams, the sobs, the 
 smiles, the movements to seize hold of an object or to repel 
 it violently, which we observe in an infant of three months 
 while asleep, and which resemble the actions produced 
 during its waking hours by fear, pain, hunger, desire, and 
 joy ? It may be supposed that these recollections of ob- 
 jects with which he has already come into contact came to
 
 148 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 him also during the diurnal exercise of his faculties, but 
 more as means for identifying analogies and various feel- 
 ings, than as distinct images in his mind. The absorbing 
 preoccupations of their short waking moments do not leave 
 children as much time as adults for imagining recollections 
 or for waking dreams. Thus, a little baby of two months 
 and a half, who had been held in his father's arms for ten 
 minutes, stretched out its arms eagerly and with evident 
 delight towards its mother when she advanced towards it. 
 The numerous impressions with which the father had 
 occupied and distracted it during its mother's absence, had 
 they not prevented it from thinking of the absent one and 
 imagining her near at hand ? Happily for children's peace 
 of mind and delicate health, they are rarely left to them- 
 selves while awake. 
 
 From my sitting-room I have often heard the children of 
 working-people, whose mothers had been obliged to leave 
 them alone for a couple of hours, screaming distractedly 
 in their cradles ; their agonized shrieks of Mamma, mamma, 
 as soon as they can utter the sound, indicate clearly what was 
 the nature of the images and sentiments which distressed 
 them several months before, when, on finding themselves in 
 the same isolated state, they had no power of expressing 
 their grief and anger. If children exercise their imagination 
 when awake, everything leads us to believe that they exercise 
 it still more during their sleep. This is in my mind the 
 most favourable time for the intellectual labour of little 
 children, labour which must be frequent and peaceful, and 
 whose value is almost always in direct ratio to the apparent 
 repose of the exterior organs. It is then that those hallu- 
 cinatory sensations without any present or definite object, 
 those vivid reminiscences, those countless associations 
 flashes of abstraction and generalization those collocations 
 verging on comparison, those objective judgments and 
 reasonings, resuscitate, under the more or less open eye 
 of consciousness, in the fibres of the brain, charged as they 
 are with recent impressions and along which the blood ebbs 
 and flows rapidly, awakening incessantly the vitality which 
 is scarcely affected by the paralysis of slumber.
 
 IMAGINATION. 149 
 
 Let us study the transition from reproductive to pro- 
 ductive imagination, which is also called poetic or creative. 
 As soon as ideas no longer present themselves in the order 
 in which the intelligence has first perceived them, as soon 
 as something has become altered were it only one link 
 suppressed in a series of associated images there may be 
 said to have taken place an artificial mental composition, a 
 modified conception of reality, a spontaneous work of pro- 
 ductive imagination. These free combinations of images 
 arise spontaneously in young children ; and is it not often 
 the same with adults, who are visited by so many unex- 
 pected inspirations ? The little Tiedemann, when five 
 months, old " guessed/' his father says, when he was going 
 to be taken out, and showed signs of delight. His bio- 
 grapher sees no more in this than an association of ideas ; 
 but there is more in it Mixed up with the act of judgment 
 which the word guess presupposes, there is a very vivid 
 conception of some of the recollections attached to the idea 
 of going out, which produces in the child's mind a series of 
 delightful pictures. Now, supposing the child to be awake, 
 this conception would probably remain for some time in 
 exact correspondence with the reality. But during sleep 
 the capricious mobility of the ideas would uitroduce into 
 these images of reality some circumstances ind details of 
 a fantastic description. Certain details would be added, 
 others would disappear; time, places, objects, would be 
 transformed in a thousand unforeseen ways. The impres- 
 sions of the reality would become, to a sleeping child, a 
 fictitious reality. 
 
 Let us picture to ourselves the working of infant intelli- 
 gence during dreams, inferring, as analogy will allow up to 
 a certain point, from a child who can speak to one who is 
 still mute. 
 
 The infant has just slept for a quarter of an hour : this first 
 slumber, consecrated to the repose of the organs, has been 
 very profound ; a flow of blood to the brain, occasioned by 
 some internal trouble, half wakes him up ; the nurse rocks 
 him, and in two or three minutes he is again asleep. As 
 the first sleep has already in some measure repaired the losses
 
 I5O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 of organic life, this second sleep is lighter and more favour- 
 able to dreams. Vague sensations, transmitted from the 
 periphery to the brain, excite a revival of ideas, and the play 
 of associating and dissociating images has already begun. A 
 fly settling on the child's face, a movement of its bed curtains, 
 a sensation of contact caused by the sheets or its nightgown, 
 a ray of light falling on its closed eyelids, a noise in the 
 house or in the street, the muscular sensations caused by one 
 of the child's automatic movements, an impression surging 
 up from the depths of the organs of vegetative life in short, 
 the slightest circumstance foreign to the ordinary life of the 
 brain, will suffice to awaken its functional energy, and set 
 the child off dreaming. Instantly memory recalls to him any 
 of the most striking incidents of the day the green bench, 
 for instance, on which his nurse sat with him ; and with 
 this comes a whole train of associated images. A large tree 
 with waving branches, a beautiful white cloud on a bit of 
 blue sky, the smiling face of a child who kissed him, let 
 him handle his toys, and play with him, then a dog, spotted 
 with white and brown, which came and put its paws on the 
 child's frock and licked his face ; then a man in a red and 
 blue uniform, whose large sword glittered and made a great 
 noise, then anpther man like the first, who passed very near 
 the path, sounding a drum ; then a horse galloping the same 
 way, then some more men in red and blue with gleaming ^ 
 bayonets on their shoulders, then a heavy cart which bumped 
 on the pavement with a loud noise, and directly after that 
 an ugly woman with a smiling face, offering cakes for sale 
 out of a basket. We are supposing that all these salient 
 events, which happened whilst the child was out of doors, 
 have come back to his mind in the order of succession of 
 the real impressions. But the reproduction of these recol- 
 lections the illusion of sleep assisting has made of them 
 a simultaneous picture. This in itself would be a notable 
 modification, were there no other, for imagination to have 
 introduced into recollections of real incidents. To modify 
 still further this chain of associations, it needs only a fresh 
 excitation, coming either from outside or rising from within, 
 which shall combine in the brain old recollections with new
 
 IMAGINATION. 1 5 I 
 
 ones, separate what was united and unite what was separated, 
 and form disproportioned and incongruous associations of 
 ideas ; and the reproductive imagination will have given 
 place to the productive imagination. 
 
 If the series of impressions conceived in the dream were a 
 faithful imitation of the real impressions, why should there 
 be those violent contractions of the face, those contortions 
 of the limbs, that wild laughter and those piercing screams 
 and convulsive tremblings so painful to witness, and all those 
 evident signs of intense sensations and emotions which the 
 realities, the recollection of which forms the tissue of the 
 dreams, did not excite in the child ? A considerable change 
 must therefore have been produced in his hallucinated brain, 
 a change affecting the proportions of the images and their 
 mutual relations. 
 
 For example, the large horse will have taken the place of 
 the dog; with awful neighings, he advances his gigantic 
 nostrils close to the child's face. The cake, a piece of which 
 was snapped up by the dog, will be seized by the huge mouth 
 of the horse, which will then gallop off to the cart carrying 
 away the nurse and the little child ; and so on through the 
 whole chapter, until the horror reaches a climax, and the 
 child awakes with a loud scream. 
 
 But his half-open eyes have perceived, transfigured as in 
 the dream, the gentle face of his nurse, who is rocking him 
 and whispering comforting words in his ear. The charm 
 takes effect, and the child goes to sleep again, and resumes 
 the thread of his dream interwoven .now with joy and happi- 
 ness ; the green bench reappears, and the little children, 
 dressed in white and blue and pink, with bright eyes and 
 rosy cheeks; cake and toys are given to him, and so on, 
 and so on, at the will of the capricious fairy, who is the 
 association of ideas. Such is the rudimentary working of 
 creative imagination. 
 
 Dreams are the poems of children, who, even when awake, 
 are always more or less of poets. Ah ! the strange dramas, the 
 merry comedies, the sparkling idylls, the dismal elegies, the 
 thrilling odes which have haunted in their cradles the brains 
 of future poets ! Fictitious inventions which will perhaps
 
 152 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 return to them later in life without being recognised, when 
 they think they are imagining quite new and original combi- 
 nations. For the adult, as well as for the young child, what 
 we call creative imagination consists in separating, combin- 
 ing, cutting down, amplifying, abridging, exaggerating, and 
 juxtaposing in a thousand different ways, and often in an 
 order the least intended, former perceptions, judgments, and 
 reasonings, in order to create out of these materials an 
 inner world quite different from the outer one, though made 
 after its image. 
 
 In the waking state the exercise of this faculty shows 
 itself by manifestations of diverse kinds. 
 
 III. 
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. 
 
 Every sense has its special imagination; but psychologists 
 tell us that the senses of sight and hearing call up more 
 vivid and distinct images than the other senses. " This 
 is because sight and hearing play a more important part in 
 our existence than taste and smell ; incessantly employed 
 for the most various needs, these senses are seldom left 
 inactive. Besides which, the nerves set in vibration by 
 auditory and visual impressions are finer, more distinct, and 
 more numerous, and their ramifications in the cerebral sub- 
 stance are more systematic." l Moreover, it is the images 
 perceived by these senses which dominate in animal intelli- 
 gences, and in human intelligence in a state of rest, or of 
 relative suspension of thought, such as reverie, natural sleep, 
 and hypnotism. In induced somnambulism, as M. Richet 
 has said, " the medulla acts when the brain has become 
 powerless ; " and in addition to automatism of movements, 
 one of the most characteristic phenomena of this state is the 
 seeing of images. A child in its ordinary state is what a 
 somnambulist is by accident ; in the one and the other the 
 superior nerve centres are but little active and balanced. 
 It is not astonishing that a child's imagination should respond 
 
 1 H. Jolly, Cours de Philosophic^ p. 136.
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. 153 
 
 to external excitations, and d fortiori to those of sight, which 
 are the most vivid and numerous. The habitual state of 
 little children is that of waking dreams. 
 
 Mr. Galton has made some interesting researches on the 
 mental representation of visual images. The result has been 
 to prove the existence of natural varieties of mental dispo- 
 sition in different races, sexes, and ages. It appears to be 
 established, on the testimony of learned men themselves, that 
 to the great majority of them mental imagery was unknown, 
 and that they looked on him as fanciful and fantastic in 
 supposing that the words ' mental imagery ' had more than 
 a metaphysical meaning. On the other hand, people of the 
 world, women and children, on being interrogated by Mr. 
 Galton, " declared that they habitually saw mental imagery, 
 and that it was distinct and full of colour." It has also been 
 established, that colour is more easily imaged than form, 
 especially with children, but that the faculty of imaging 
 colour disappears sooner than the other. These are facts 
 of the highest importance in the training of infant faculties 
 and intelligence, if we allow that imagination is always asso- 
 ciated with the other phenomena of psychic life, and that 
 in children it dominates over these others and carries them 
 away with it. 
 
 Imagination can also reproduce, and sometimes with 
 great power and vividness, the perceptions of sound. The 
 tone of a human voice, the noise of an animal, the cracking 
 of a whip or the rumbling of a carriage, the ringing of bells, 
 the loud chords of an orchestra, haunt us still when the 
 sounds themselves are silent. We can recall the airs that 
 we have heard played or sung ; when we hum the scale, we 
 have every note of it in our ears. A musician composes in 
 his mind, and when he tunes his instrument, he compares 
 its sounds with those he hears in imagination. We also 
 hear mentally the words which express our thoughts, so that 
 it has become almost impossible to us to think without words, 
 a phenomenon designated by philosophers under the name 
 of internal speech. The auditive imagination, more or less 
 developed, according to the infant's organization, plays a 
 very important part in its intellectual evolution, and a very
 
 154 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 important one also in its emotional, moral, and aesthetic evo- 
 lution. We shall have occasion to refer to this later. 
 
 All recollections imply mental images more or less dis- 
 tinct and vivid ; and we could not remember or recognise 
 a single taste or smell if the senses of taste and smell had not 
 also their special imaginations. There is no doubt that we 
 represent flavours and odours to ourselves in a particular 
 manner. If a gourmet can taste and smell in imagination, 
 a gourmand can enjoy his dinner in advance. The recol- 
 lection of sensations of smell, although generally feeble, may 
 sometimes be vivid enough to make us take them for reality. 
 People with a very delicate sense of smell can enjoy in 
 anticipation the scent of a rose which they see, or that of 
 a bunch of violets which they are about to buy. We have 
 shown above that this kind of imagination is already intel- 
 lectually and emotionally active in some young children. 
 
 There is also certainly a tactile imagination, a muscular 
 imagination, and a thermal imagination. The imagination 
 of touch is exemplified in people born blind, who can picture 
 to themselves, without the help of sight, the objects around 
 them, who read raised letters by means of their fingers, who 
 possess a tactile system of geometry, and represent to 
 themselves tangible figures as we do visible ones. 1 These 
 three kinds of imagination, which superficial observers con- 
 found in one only tactile imagination are powerfully 
 exercised from the first days of life. We have already de- 
 voted a few observations to them in the chapter on emotional 
 and sensual perceptions. We will content ourselves here 
 with reminding parents and educators of children of their 
 extreme susceptibility to the different impressions in ques- 
 tion. A child of three months will already distinguish people 
 from the manner in which they touch, stroke, hold, or carry 
 him. At six months he already appreciates very imagina- 
 tively the little punishments that are inflicted on him, the 
 people in connection with these punishments, and the 
 objects which are the instruments of them. There are some 
 
 1 Diderot, Lctires sur les Aveugles.
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. 155 
 
 children whom the sight of a doctor who has attended them 
 will drive almost mad. If there are some children who are 
 very little sensible, one might almost say insensible, to 
 blows, it is quite the contrary with the greater number. I 
 can never help laughing when I see the peasant women in 
 my own country frightening their little pickles of two or 
 three years old, or more, with nothing but these words : 
 ' Qu'ou t'epeli" or " Quet ba cose" (crude Gascon formulae, not 
 easy to translate). Whoever is inclined to doubt the power- 
 ful effects of tactile imagination, has only to read the retro- 
 spective memoirs of a child, now almost an old man, who 
 has not forgiven his mother the " thrashings " of old days. 1 
 It is a happy thing, moreover, that tactile and muscular im- 
 pressions do leave deep traces on the child's imagination. If 
 this is the secret of some of his little troubles and sorrows, 
 it is also the cause of his greatest pleasures. We may often 
 notice in little children between fifteen months and four 
 years old an inexplicable kind of hyper-excitement of the 
 tactile -muscular imagination ; they feel a need to cuddle up 
 against anything or anybody, inanimate objects, people, 
 animals. " Let us squeeze each other," said a child of two 
 years old to a friend of its mother's, proceeding at the same 
 time to hug her tightly. Is this play, or a superabundance 
 of vitality, or unregulated and unconscious impulsions of 
 affectivity ? 
 
 The influence of sentiment on imagination and of imagi- 
 nation on sentiment are facts so well known, and which are 
 so frequently the cause of affectionate rapprochements between 
 grown up people and children, that they need not be dwelt 
 on here in connection with children. The affections, senti- 
 ments, passions, desires, fears, aversions, pleasures, and loves 
 of children have a continual tendency to embody themselves 
 in people and animals and inanimate objects ; they appear 
 before their eyes as images in relief, varied, capricious, and 
 incoherent, nearly always false and exaggerated, often ter- 
 rible, sometimes enchanting. 
 
 Jacques Vingtras, L Enfant.
 
 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 At the age of a year, when a child is not yet a " speaking 
 intelligence," and even after he has begun to speak, things 
 present themselves to his mind more than -the signs, terms, 
 or gestures which express them. Everything is reproduced 
 in his mind in pictures ; he thinks in images, he measures 
 the truth of things by the vivacity of his impressions. 
 Owing to their power of scenic imagination, which brings 
 before their mind's eyes the salient features of real life, and 
 awakens in their hearts the corresponding sentiments, little 
 children who can speak, and doubtless also those who 
 cannot, have frequent moments of retrospection, which 
 affect in a greater or less degree their happiness and their 
 moral health, and consequently, also their physical health. 
 
 A little girl, two-and-a-half years old was heard relating 
 with all the seriousness of a grown person, with touching 
 sadness and with tears in her eyes, the acts of brutality 
 which her father sometimes committed towards her mother. 
 " Naughty papa," she said, " very naughty papa ! He 
 always does like that to mother ; he throws her down, and 
 then I cry. He is very naughty ! " 
 
 A little boy, between three and four, saw some fir-cones 
 in a park. " Pretty fir-cones ! " cried he ; " there are some 
 like that at Arcachon, at the sea-side. I went last year to 
 Arcachon with papa and mamma. I played a great deal, 
 and was not much scolded." 
 
 What has struck all observers of little children is, that 
 with their aptitude in recalling, even with emotion, all that 
 they have seen and heard, they are unable to localize their 
 recollections in time or space. These Kantian forms of 
 understanding are very incomplete categories at this epoch 
 of rudimentary analysis, abstraction, and comparison. A 
 child of two years, who passed nearly every day along the 
 same street on the way to the Jardin des Tuileries, was one 
 day taken by his nurse to the garden of the Luxembourg 
 instead. The instant he caught sight of the garden railings 
 he cried out, " Chadin Tiri." Although young children are 
 chiefly engrossed with what they are doing at the present 
 moment, they have also a vague idea of the recent past as 
 such ; but this idea must have some actuality for them, in
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. 157 
 
 order to interest them. They will say, " I did that yester- 
 day," when it was done in the morning. The future which 
 is not very near, or which does not appear so to them, has 
 no influence over their imagination. A child of two years 
 said to his mother, " As we are going to Royan to-morrow 
 to see grandmamma, why don't you dress at once ? " But 
 at three years old, this same child, who was very happy in 
 a temporary residence, and who knew that his parents were 
 going to leave it in a week, tried to put back the day of 
 departure by an illusion of his imagination, which was con- 
 cerned in seeing that day deferred as long as possible. He 
 used to say to his aunt, "We are going to Bordeaux in 
 eight days, not to-morrow, no, but in a very long while." 
 Let it then be our endeavour to make this present, which 
 is everything to children, happy and joyous; let us by all 
 means insure to them that happiness which costs so little, 
 and which is the first condition of their moral progress. 
 Happy children are good children. 
 
 Rousseau has written some beautiful passages on the 
 happiness which is due to children, who may perhaps never 
 know it later. 
 
 One of the most terrible diseases that mankind is subject 
 to is insanity, and facts authorize us in thinking that the 
 youngest child is not more proof against this form of 
 disease than against any other. All that we can say is, that 
 it is relatively less frequent in infancy. M. Compayre has 
 collected from writers on lunacy a number of observations 
 to which we call the attention of our readers. Convulsions 
 may, up to a certain point, be considered as the first stage 
 of insanity in children, whether arising from constitutional 
 or accidental causes. They have all the external character- 
 istics, and often all the intellectual and moral consequences 
 of mental disease. Trousseau cites a curious example. 
 " A doctor, called in to attend a young child in convulsions, 
 advised that its cap should be taken off. He then saw a 
 piece of thread lying on the child's head ; and in trying to 
 remove it he dragged out a long needle which had been 
 deeply buried in the cranium. The instant the needle was 
 taken out, the convulsions stopped. Convulsions, however,
 
 158 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 more often arise from constitutional causes, from cerebral 
 affections transmitted by heredity. They appear in indi- 
 viduals who are endowed with special nervous suscepti- 
 bility, which is transmitted by birth from the forefathers to 
 the children, and which manifests itself now by one phe- 
 nomenon, now by another by convulsions in children, by 
 epilepsy or hysteria in adults. On careful investigation, it 
 will perhaps be found that there is not a single family where 
 madness exists in which convulsions have not played a 
 certain part Even in families which are only highly nerv- 
 ous, and who have yet had no cases of madness in their 
 midst, the appearance of infantine eclampsia manifesting 
 itself successively in several children, should be considered 
 a very bad symptom." It is, as it were, the first signal of 
 the possible invasion of insanity in a family hitherto sane. 1 
 
 Hallucination, which is the second degree of insanity, 
 rarely shows itself in children by unmistakable signs. If 
 it does take possession of a child of three or six months, it 
 may easily be confounded with the disorders consequent on 
 over-excited sentiment. We can nevertheless point to cases 
 where the absorption of poisonous substances has thrown 
 young children into nervous states analogous to the state of 
 hallucination. Dr. Thore is our authority for the following 
 case : 
 
 "A little girl, fifteen months old, had swallowed, in her 
 mother's absence, a considerable number of grains of 
 Datura Stramonium. Almost instantly the child was thrown 
 into a state of agitation which frightened her mother very 
 much. The doctor who was called made the following 
 depositions : ' A great change has supervened in the visual 
 organs ; the child seems to be deprived of sight ; she does 
 not look at any of the objects around her, and pays no 
 attention to things which used to please her and which she 
 was in the habit of asking for. A watch is shown to her, 
 and some of her toys ; but they do not attract her atten- 
 tion, while, on the contrary, she appears to be reaching after 
 
 1 Compayre, La Folie chez I' Enfant. Revue F/ul., Dec. 1880, in the 
 Annales Medicales.
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. 159 
 
 imaginary objects at some distance from her, and which she 
 tries to get hold of by constantly stretching out her arms 
 and clutching with her hands. She even raises herself up 
 by leaning on the sides of her cradle, as if to get nearer to 
 these objects. She tosses her hands about in the air as if 
 trying to catch objects that are flying away.'" 1 
 
 Here are some more facts which, although indeed be- 
 longing to a rather more advanced period than that treated 
 of in this book, are none the less interesting to students of 
 infant psychology. 
 
 The most habitual form of intellectual aberration in 
 children appears to be mania, that is to say, incoherence 
 and delirium of ideas, furious agitation or tranquil wan- 
 dering of the thoughts. On this point most authorities are 
 agreed. Dr. Delasiauve, 2 Dr. Paulmier (in his thesis en- 
 titled " Mental Affections in Children, and Mania in par- 
 ticular "), 3 and Dr. Morel, 4 declare that insanity in children 
 generally takes the form of maniacal excitation. 
 
 The following are some remarkable cases collected from 
 the writings of mad-doctors. We will quote first the 
 very circumstantial case given by Dr. Chatelain, who has 
 himself had occasion to study a child of four years and 
 some months, the daughter of a farmer of the Jura. Two 
 causes especially, the one entirely physical (viz., measles), 
 the other moral (a great fright caused by the sight of a 
 fire-engine), had acted on the feeble constitution of this 
 child, and determined the peculiar state from which she was 
 suffering. " Louise," Dr. Chatelain states, " is c drole,' sin- 
 gular, and distraite. She answers at cross-purposes to the 
 questions put to her. One day her father told her to bring 
 him her doll ; she went to fetch it, but brought back 
 nothing, though saying at the same time, ' Here it is ' ; the 
 hand and the arm made the gesture of a person giving 
 
 1 Quoted by M. Compayre, loc. citat. 
 
 2 See Annahs Medico-psyrhologiques, 1855, tome i., p. 527. Forme 
 Maniaque spedale chez les Enfants. 
 
 3 La These de M. Le Paulmier, 1856. 
 
 4 See Annales Mcdico-psychologiques, 1870. tome ii., pp. 260-269.
 
 l6o THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 something, but the hand was empty. Since her illness her 
 character has sensibly altered ; she has entirely lost the 
 timidity natural to her age. In the presence of two phy- 
 sicians who were unknown to her, and who examined her, 
 she showed no shyness and no awkwardness. If asked a 
 question, she answered vivaciously and without hesitation, 
 but quite at random." And then follows a full-length 
 description of a conversation testifying to the complete 
 disorder of ideas in a child otherwise very intelligent, and 
 whose ailment cannot be confounded with idiotcy. 
 
 The preceding example gives us a case of calm and 
 tranquil mania. The little girl in question, however, was 
 also subject to fits of furious mania, which took the form 
 of a need of perpetual movement, of tears and screams, 
 and threats of death to her parents. At other times, agita- 
 tion is the permanent characteristic. 
 
 With rather older children cases of maniacal madness 
 are still more frequent. Dr. Morel cites the case of a child 
 five years old, who, in consequence of a shock caused by 
 fear, fell into a state of "continual turbulence and maniacal 
 exacerbation." 1 Dr. Guislain records, under the name of 
 furious monopathy, a malady of the same kind in a little 
 girl of seven years. Here the cause of the evil was a blow 
 on the head. 2 And as moral causes always alternate with 
 physical ones in the generation of insanity, we find in 
 Foville a case of a boy ten years old who lost his reason 
 through reading too much. 
 
 " It is a remarkable fact, that with all these numerous 
 examples of infant mania, the list of which we might prolong, 
 not a single case of monomania can be recorded. Fixity of 
 ideas is quite as impossible in children in a state of mania, 
 as in their normal and rational state. The little mad girl 
 described by Dr. Chatelain was continually undergoing a 
 change of ideas. " Generally speaking, some one idea would 
 occupy her exclusively for a day or two, and would then give 
 way to another." Monomania appears at first sight to be a 
 
 1 Morel, op. cit., p. 102. 
 
 3 Dutionnaire de Mtdecine, \ 829.
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. l6l 
 
 sign of great intellectual weakness, since all the ideas and 
 sentiments are as it were annihilated before one single 
 thought, which has become sole master of the consciousness. 
 And yet, if we think about it, monomania presupposes a 
 certain force of intelligence and power of concentration, 
 since it is a thoroughly systematic delirium. Children, with 
 their mobile, incoherent ideas, their fluctuating, volatile im- 
 pressions, may easily become delirious i.e., pass from one 
 idea to another without connection or reason ; but we can 
 understand their not having sufficient strength to group all 
 their faculties round one single mad conception in a perma- 
 nent manner. This then, no doubt, is the reason why intel- 
 lectual disorder manifests itself in children by a rapid and 
 incoherent succession of ideas, incessantly and distractedly 
 chasing one another, rather than by the obstinate concen- 
 tration of all the forces of the mind in one direction." l 
 
 One of the most curious forms of imagination is automa- 
 tism. It is one of the most important phenomena of 
 somnambulism, and one which will help us to realize what 
 goes on in a child's imagination. " If we ask a sleeping 
 person to say what he is thinking about, he will always 
 answer, that he is not thinking of anything, and that he has 
 no ideas whatever. We must take this answer aupied de la 
 lettre. A somnambulist does not think at all. His intelli- 
 gence is a blank absolute vacuity. This psychic inertia 
 shows itself by the complete inertia of the face and of the 
 voluntary movements. But if, in the middle of this utter 
 blankness, an image or an idea is suddenly presented, this 
 idea will at once take possession of the entire imagination." 2 
 
 Thus in children, their relative psychic inertia explains 
 the vivacity of their impressions, their strong objectivity, 
 their temporary possession by some idea : they are, as it 
 were, at the mercy of momentary impressions, and especially 
 of those of the greatest intensity. All that they see they 
 believe to be exactly as they see it All that is told to them, 
 
 1 These remarks are in accordance with those which I have made in 
 the chapter on Memory. 
 3 Ch. Richt, Revue Philosoph., Oct. 1 880, p. 361. 
 
 M
 
 162 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 rises in vivid images before them. All the ideas that are 
 suggested to them appear to them in a visible form, and 
 they instantly proceed to execute or imitate them. All this 
 explains the powerful influence of example on these pliable 
 little spirits, and also the contagious effect on them of senti- 
 ments expressed by words and gestures. As the person 
 magnetized is subject to the magnetizer, so, in a lesser degree 
 and without complete continuity, children are subject, phy- 
 sically, intellectually, and morally, to the suggestions and 
 influence of the people about them. They are veritable 
 automatons, obeying consciously or unconsciously, with 
 more or less entire docility, the tyrannical influence of any 
 image that suggests itself or is presented to their minds. 
 The following extract describes a hypnotized subject, whom 
 the automatism of which we have spoken reduces in some 
 respects to the level of a child. 
 
 "I say to V., ' Stroke that dog.' Immediately she goes 
 up to the dog and strokes him. If the dog tries to escape 
 from her caresses, V. runs after him ; if he goes out of the 
 room, she attempts to follow him. If you put an arm-chair 
 or a bench in front of her, to stop her from passing, she 
 either knocks it over, or, if she cannot do this, she gets irri- 
 tated with it, and pushes it angrily away. But at a sign from 
 me, she will stand still, trembling with rage and indignation. 
 I give her some object or other, a pencil for instance, for- 
 bidding her to give it up to any one. If one of the assist- 
 ants tries to take it away, she will make a desperate resist- 
 ance, running across the room, fighting, biting, and kicking, 
 in a state of indignation which one could hardly form an 
 idea of if one had not witnessed such scenes. Professional 
 magnetizers take pleasure in exhibiting such scenes in public, 
 and sceptics decide that they are impostors. This they 
 might certainly be, for there is not one of the phenomena 
 which cannot be counterfeited. These performances, how- 
 ever, are not necessarily trickery, and nothing is more real 
 than the complete subordination of all the intellectual forces 
 to a word of command. It seems as if the sleeping or 
 mesmerized subject had no other concern than to conform 
 to the intimations received. One idea has taken possession
 
 SPECIAL IMAGINATION. 163 
 
 of the intelligence and has become sovereign master. All 
 beside is as nothing. All is darkness by the side of this 
 one vivid idea, and everything which hinders its execution 
 is repulsed with anger." 1 
 
 1 Ch. Richet, Revue Philosophique, Oct. 1880, p. 365.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 ON THE ELABORATION OF IDEAS. 
 
 I. 
 JUDGMENT. 
 
 " IF intelligence cannot exercise itself without distinguish- 
 ing and comparing, neither can it do so without affirming, 
 either explicitly or implicitly, verbally or otherwise. In 
 other words, every intellectual operation presupposes a 
 judgment ; for judgment, according to the definition of Aris- 
 totle, is an operation which consists in affirming something 
 about something. We cannot declare anything without 
 believing it; and to believe, to affirm, to judge, are all one. 
 What is it to perceive an object? It is to cognise its shape, 
 position, distance, dimensions, etc., etc. To know, for 
 example, the distance at which an object stands from us, is 
 this not to bring to bear on this object, mentally at any rate, 
 a certain affirmation ? Can we form a general idea, without 
 affirming that this idea extends to such and such individuals, 
 and comprehends such and such qualities ? We see, indeed, 
 that imagination makes us conceive fictions or chimeras ; but 
 even then we affirm either the possibility of the things which 
 we conceive, or the desire that we have to see them realized. 
 In short, we affirm the subjective fact of these dreams, even 
 when we do not think that they correspond to anything 
 external. Thus, in a word, we car) neither perceive, nor 
 compare, nor abstract, nor generalize, nor remember or 
 imagine, without making an affirmation or a judgment." 1 
 
 1 Joly, Cours de Philosophie, p. 94. 
 164
 
 JUDGMENT. 165 
 
 The above is a psychologist's definition of judgment A 
 physiologist will perhaps explain, up to a certain point, its 
 origin and working. Judgment, according to M. Luys, is 
 only the reaction, the repercussion, the affirmation of our 
 personality "in the presence of an excitation from the exter- 
 nal world, either moral or physical. The action of judging, 
 so far as it is a physiological process accomplished by means 
 of the cerebral activities in movement, is decomposable into 
 three phases, which are as follows : 
 
 " i. A phase of incidence, during which the external exci- 
 tation impresses the sensorium and rouses the conscious 
 personality to action. 
 
 " 2. An intermediate phase, during which the personality, 
 seized upon and impressed, develops its latent capacities 
 and reacts in a specific manner. 
 
 "3. A final phase of reflection, during which the process, 
 continuing its progress through the cerebral tissue, is pro- 
 jected outwards in phonetic or written co-ordinated manifes- 
 tations. The impressed human personality, in fact, expresses 
 itself, exhales itself in its entirety, in either articulate or 
 written language." 1 
 
 This interpretation accounts both for the diversity of 
 human judgments and their greater or less rapidity in 
 operating, and also for the necessity of these judgments 
 which are common to the species principles of common 
 sense, which correspond to whatever there is in common in 
 all cerebral organizations. 
 
 If to judge is to believe something about something, it is 
 evident that little children, like young animals, are conscious 
 of their sensations, that they localize them elsewhere than 
 in some part of their own persons, that they appreciate and 
 differentiate them, that they know themselves without hav- 
 ing seen themselves, and know their mothers in a word, that 
 they judge, i.e., they believe something about something. 
 
 We have only to spend a few hours with an infant of two 
 or three months, to convince ourselves that it is capable of 
 
 1 Luys, Le Cervcau et ses Fotutions. See Eng. Trans. (Internal. 
 Sclent. Series), p. 289.
 
 1 66 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 forming judgments. The little Tiedemann who, on seeing his 
 nurse take up her cloak, guessed that she was going to take 
 him out, and instantly showed signs of delight, went through 
 several acts of judgment or belief. He believed that the 
 person who approached the chest of drawers, raised her 
 arms and took out her mantle, was his nurse ; he believed 
 that she made all the movements just stated ; he still further 
 believed, by virtue of familiar association, that these acts 
 would be followed by others equally well known the 
 going out of the house, the ride in his perambulator between 
 long lines of houses, amidst the noise of the carriages, 
 horses, and dogs, the sitting under the trees, etc. . . . 
 All the things which he believes to be and which he sees, 
 all the other incidents which he believes will happen be- 
 cause he has generally seen them follow the first, are modes, 
 manners of being, forms of persons and things which he 
 remembers, and imagines either as co-existent or as follow- 
 ing each other, they are so many sympathetic judgments d 
 posteriori, as Kant might have said. 
 
 When little Marie, at three months and a half old, dis- 
 tinguishes the various parts of her body, plays with her 
 mother and strokes her face, chatters to the flowers, stretches 
 out her eager little hands towards them, utters admiring ex- 
 clamations at the sight of their brilliant colours ; turns round 
 towards the bird-cage if her mother says, "Listen to Coco !" 
 understanding the gestures, the tone of voice, the faces of 
 those who speak to her, laughs when she is praised and cries 
 when she is scolded ; turns away her face dejectedly so as 
 not to see another child on her mother's lap, etc., etc. ; is 
 there any need to demonstrate that all these facts imply 
 judgments of a very characteristic nature ? 
 
 Thus, in the case both of little children and young animals, 
 the only debatable point is the degree in which they possess 
 this faculty of judging. They do not form abstract judg- 
 ments as grown-up people do, but they go through the same 
 mental operations as adults at the sight of anything a 
 person, an animal, fruit, toys, a piece of furniture, etc. 
 They recognise these objects as having been seen before, 
 they discern in them such and such qualities, they distin-
 
 JUDGMENT. 167 
 
 guish them from the surrounding objects, they .discover in 
 them either a resemblance or a difference, they range them 
 in such or such a group ; and all these operations presup- 
 pose a judgment, or are in fact themselves the judgment. 
 
 If all intellectual operations, even the most simple, 
 imply in a certain measure the operation of judging, it is 
 the association of ideas, added to the mental grasp of the 
 individual, which has most influence on the formation and 
 nature of the judgments. "Two minds, constituted exactly 
 alike and placed in exactly the same surroundings, would 
 develop in the same manner and would produce the same 
 thoughts. ... In the generation of an idea there are 
 two sorts of causes ; the state of the organism, as dependent 
 upon anterior impressions, and this same state as affected 
 by physical conditions. 
 
 Now these two kinds of states vary in different individuals. 
 The regions of the brain where ideas are elaborated, are not 
 equally abundant in nervous elements ; and these elements 
 are not endowed with such strong vitality, are not so im- 
 pressionable, and do not combine so well in one individual 
 as in another. Hence all the different degrees of brain 
 power and aptitudes which show themselves in differences 
 of judgment 
 
 Three little children, from eight to nine months, are seated 
 at play in the middle of the room. I speak very loud to 
 attract the attention of all three, and at the same time I 
 place at a distance of a yard from where they are sitting a 
 little white horse on wheels. One of them, A, instantly 
 utters a cry of admiration ; B opens his mouth and fixes 
 his eyes on the toy ; C looks at it with indifference. Five 
 seconds have now passed ; A throws up his arms and 
 stretches his head forward ; B also stretches out his arms, 
 but more tranquilly, and as if in imitation of A ; C looks 
 on at the agitation of the other two, and then in his turn 
 utters a sort of warbling cry. Four more seconds have 
 passed. A can contain himself no longer ; he precipitates 
 himself forward, rolls over on his side, knocks his head 
 against the floor, and begins to cry. I help him up again, 
 whereupon he instantly recommences the same gestures
 
 1 68 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 and movements, and tries to crawl on all fours towards the 
 horse ; B up to this moment had never taken his eyes oft" 
 the toy, but he now looks at me, makes beseeching gestures, 
 and is on the point of crying. As for C, he looks at A going 
 on all fours, and seems more engrossed with this than with 
 the horse. This example suffices to show how the aptitude 
 for judging differs both as to rapidity and quality of judg- 
 ment according to the difference of impressionability and 
 personal reaction. The older a child grows, the easier it is 
 to observe these differences ; but when he arrives at the initial 
 period of speech, the most superficial observer cannot fail 
 to notice them. 
 
 Whatever difference the varieties of organization and the 
 accidents of intellectual life produce in the judgments 
 formed by various minds, there are nevertheless analogies 
 common to the species, and also general similarities and 
 universal judgments, which constitute what is called common 
 sense, or reason. There is no human intelligence deficient 
 in the ideas, more or less distinct, which certain philosophers 
 still call innate or primary, and which would be better 
 designated by the name of essential. These categories of 
 Aristotle, subjective forms of thought, ideas of quality, 
 being, number, time, space, etc., etc., correspond to the 
 structure of the brain, the constitution of the human mind, 
 and the immutable properties of nature. Every human 
 being, in presence of external phenomena, cannot fail to 
 acquire them at an early age. We are all born with 
 intelligences capable of deducing them with more or less 
 rapidity and energy from our first impressions. And thus 
 the theory of innate ideas can very well be reconciled with 
 that of the tabula rasa. There is a reason in things which 
 corresponds to human reason, the latter being only the 
 product or image of the former. Reason as a faculty for the 
 production of pure ideas, does not exist. 
 
 We have seen that children of three months go through 
 a process of judging similar in many respects to that of 
 grown-up people. We must now show by what stages they 
 arrive at developing this faculty, which begins by being a 
 simple affirmation of existence, passes from the concrete
 
 JUDGMENT. 169 
 
 to what is called the abstract, becomes comparative judg- 
 ment, and extends to the conception of similarities more or 
 less numerous. 
 
 The first form of judgment is the apprehension pure and 
 simple of a concrete object with one or several of its qualities. 
 This object may be the child's own person, or the persons 
 surrounding it. We cannot say by which of these two kinds 
 of apprehension the child begins. It is probable, that at 
 first he exercises both at once. The first judgments are 
 nothing else than the immediate application of the child's 
 mind to his own being and to other objects; that is, to the 
 sensations which he feels himself, and feels or infers of other 
 things. But just as the first judgments are without distinc- 
 tion of subjective or objective, so they are also without 
 distinction of subject and attribute. For children, as well 
 as for inferior animals, these terms remain for some time 
 fused together. An oyster has some feeling of itself, and 
 some feeling of external objects; it does not affirm its 
 existence, but it feels it and believes in it strongly. It also 
 believes firmly in the existence, i.e., the reality, of external 
 objects. These are judgments of existence, modality, and 
 externality implicitly formed. In like manner with the 
 foetus, its own existence and that of other foreign bodies 
 affirm themselves to it from the time of the first conscious 
 sensations ; they are implicit and confused, but, at the same 
 time, real judgments. In the period which follows birth, 
 a child's judgments begin to be a little more pronounced, 
 without nevertheless going for a long time beyond the 
 sphere of individual concretions. This phase may last till the 
 end of the second month, but with a more or less marked 
 tendency to pass from the concrete to the abstract, from the 
 individual to the general. Noteworthy progress has been 
 made in the faculty of judging when a child begins to 
 recognise images, and still greater progress when he expects 
 certain facts or sensations to follow certain appearances. 
 This is what takes place in all the examples cited at the 
 beginning of this chapter. Primitive judgment, in its first 
 phase, is a discernment of perceptions ; the second phase is 
 an association of images, a suggestion accompanied by belief.
 
 I/O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Judgment, properly so called, is already found in due 
 proportion in children three months old. When a child of 
 this age mentally applies an idea of quality to such and such 
 form and colour of any object, for example, when he dis- 
 tinguishes one kind of food from another, one animal from 
 another, there is already established in his mind a tendency 
 to recognise likenesses and distinguish differences. This is 
 a mode of judgment, very poor as far as comparisons are 
 concerned, and absolutely void of generalities, but which 
 none the less resembles the ordinary judgments of an adult. 
 A child of ten months begins to have this judgment of 
 existence, which I will not call abstract in the philosophical 
 sense, but which is separate and distinct while remaining 
 concrete. In fact, whatever may have been said on the 
 subject, judgments regarding existence form no exception 
 to the general rule. They also have for their origin, con- 
 dition, and occasion, those collocations of images and 
 representations which produce in our minds ideas accom- 
 panied by evidence, belief, and recognition. 
 
 The presence and the absence of a person or a thing are 
 already very distinct facts, even for a child who cannot yet 
 speak ; for him, to exist, is to be there ; not to exist, is to 
 have disappeared. Hence he understands thoroughly what 
 is meant by the words a-pu (il n'y en a plus), which he soon 
 learns to repeat himself, as well as peudu {perdu}. The 
 judgment of existence is confused at first with that of 
 presence or absence, and relates always to something con- 
 crete. Children are capable of this. 
 
 It would be a mistake to suppose, that in order to deal 
 with the evidence which supports even tacit affirmation, 
 judgment needs the assistance of very wide generalizations. 
 A very distict image, which the child connects with the 
 representation of an object, has for him the same force of 
 reality that it would have for an adult it is to him reality 
 itself. It is not necessary that the conception of always, nor 
 the whole number of known similarities, should be added 
 to this evidence ; a few well-grounded experiences, a few 
 similarities, or even one very distinct one, will suffice to 
 constitute judgment in its fullest import. Thus we see that
 
 JUDGMENT. 171 
 
 minds which are limited in their ideas, which contain few 
 images and few associations, are the most thorough and 
 often the most ardent in their affirmations. 
 
 If we look carefully into the matter, we find that generality 
 of thought carries with it, if not a certain vagueness, at any 
 rate an amount of indecision, which may have the appearance 
 of breadth of judgment, which is often the precursor of it, 
 but which is a necessary stage before it becomes an in- 
 tellectual merit. The more the power of generalizing is 
 extended, and the more numerous are the known examples 
 of similarities, the more they suggest ideas of real differences, 
 and consequently of possible affirmations. Thus the savant, 
 or the man of experience, will hesitate and suspend his 
 judgments and actions, where ignorant and inexperienced 
 people, adult animals, and children, will judge and act 
 precipitately. 
 
 It is because we are ignorant of the natural course of 
 development of a young child's mind, that we imagine his 
 logic to be at fault when it is in opposition to that which 
 \ve practise, and the principles of which we inculcate on 
 him ready-made in our language. As our judgments relate 
 to comparatively general conceptions, at any rate more 
 extended and more numerous and quite different from those 
 of a child, the words which he uses have not the same 
 arbitrary signification which we attribute to them. To him 
 they represent facts, whereas we make them signify collec- 
 tions of similarities, general affinities, etc., etc. He applies 
 one of his general ideas, that is to say a particular and 
 empiric term, to a given sensation, but as our interpretation 
 of his judgment is not a relation between two facts, but a 
 relation between an idea and a fact, we find the statement 
 false. It is truth to him, but error to us. Those who 
 observe and bring up young children ought to be convinced 
 tiiat the progress of thought at the earliest age is in relation 
 to that of the faculty of analysis bearing on objects, rather 
 than to the progress of speech. Too often, it is true, we 
 exaggerate this fact, and imagine, like Conclillac, that infants 
 are capable of observing " down to little details even," not 
 external objects only, but even the operations of the mind.
 
 172 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 According to this old theory, but lately still in repute, 
 children, while learning to express their judgments in words, 
 also learn to analyse them bit by bit ; the art of thinking 
 is, so to say, the art of speaking. Yes ; if children spoke 
 their own language, and not ours. Condillac, however, by 
 a slight contradiction of himself, admits that children judge 
 and reason before they have learnt to speak. In truth, if 
 abandoned "to the sole impulses of nature," children fall 
 into frequent and serious errors. Animals, which some 
 people look upon as a raw product of nature, often make 
 the greatest mistakes, even in things which concern their 
 own interests. The fallibility of instinct is a fact ascer- 
 tained by science. But in the case of children, in addition 
 to the errors which proceed from the spontaneous use of 
 their own faculties, there are a great number which we must 
 attribute to the mistaken meaning which they attach to 
 our language, and to our no less mistaken interpretation of 
 theirs. 
 
 The first business of developing infant faculties is carried 
 on in great measure by nature alone ; and her method is by 
 exciting cravings and desires, which are the condition of 
 useful exercise of the faculties. A child learns chiefly 
 because he finds pleasure and use in it ; he acquires distinct 
 ideas through the need he feels of disentangling his thoughts. 
 He acquires them for himself, by the simple method in which 
 he uses his senses. But do not his mistakes arise from the 
 urgency of his desires and needs, which lead him to form 
 hasty judgments? This may happen, and indeed does 
 happen often. He has then used his senses badly ; but 
 the error may be only momentary. " Deceived in his ex- 
 pectation, he finds that it is necessary to make a second 
 judgment, and this time he judges better ; experience, which 
 watches over him, corrects his mistakes. Does he think 
 he sees his nurse, because in the distance he sees some one 
 who resembles her ? His error does not last long. If a 
 first look has deceived him, a second undeceives him, and 
 he again uses his eyes to seek for her. In my opinion 
 Condillac greatly exaggerates the judicial power of chil- 
 dren, especially of quite young ones, and their power of
 
 JUDGMENT. 173 
 
 reflection and of reaction from their first decisions. This 
 correction of the errors of sense by iVesh observations is 
 performed by children unconsciously; they judge and un- 
 judge quite mechanically. 
 
 What also appears to me extreme in this theory (adopted 
 in part by Rousseau and reproduced with eclat by H. 
 Spencer), is to suppose that young infants perceive clearly 
 " that pain follows a false judgment, just as pleasure follows 
 a true one." It is true that by the time children are five or 
 six months old (but not at the beginning of their existence) 
 they will already have acquired, though in a very limited 
 degree, the power of understanding and utilizing some of 
 the lessons of experience. This is quite true. But that 
 pleasure and pain " their first tutors " give them infallible 
 lessons, " because they teach them whether they are judging 
 rightly or wrongly," is an untenable theory. Pain and 
 pleasure are indeed teachers of most incontestable authority, 
 but themselves also requiring to be trained. It would be 
 equally hazardous to hold absolutely by the conclusion 
 which springs naturally from these premises, that during 
 infancy we make rapid and astonishing progress because 
 we make it under the direction of these marvellous teachers 
 of wisdom. The inherent susceptibility and retentiveness 
 of the organs in infancy, when they are so elastic and almost 
 free from impressions, the very nature too of the impressions 
 at this period, relating as they do chiefly to the most essential 
 needs and being comparatively few in number and easy to 
 discern, in short, the preponderance of the power of ab- 
 sorption over the power of digestion and combination, 
 count for something with the teachings of natuie in this 
 rapid but superficial progress. It must also be remembered 
 that a child scarcely a year old, whose faculties and claims 
 have increased, finds himself in presence of a vaster and 
 more difficult work, and it is thus natural that his progress, 
 should appear proportionately small. Besides all these 
 causes of error, which are natural because they result from 
 the nature of things and from that of the mind, and those 
 special causes of false judgments which result from particu- 
 lar organic predispositions or psychic constitution, another
 
 1/4 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 important and constant one is the necessary imitation of 
 our language and intellectual processes. 
 
 Nature always gives serious warnings with a view to 
 rectifying the numerous errors committed in spite of her, 
 or even with her aid. But these warnings are specially 
 intended for adults, and intelligent mothers understand how 
 to introduce them into their training. I knew one mother 
 who, in order to prevent her child from going near the fire, 
 allowed him to burn himself slightly with a hot iron which 
 she held out for him to touch. The child thus made this 
 dangerous experiment for himself, but at the same time 
 safely under his mother's eye. He cried ; and his mother 
 comforted him and said to him several times, while showing 
 him the iron : " It is hot, it will burn Edmund." This 
 experiment, repeated with variations and always in the 
 same safe manner, taught him very quickly, and by the time 
 he was twelve months old, to be afraid of the fire and of 
 any objects that were taken off it or out of it. From hear- 
 ing these two words, hot and burn, and seeing the simple 
 action of blowing, which is both a visual and an auditory 
 sign, applied to a few well-defined objects, he had learnt 
 the meaning of them. He even acquired the habit of 
 making a gesture of repulsion and imitating with his lips 
 the noise of blowing when he saw anything near him which 
 smoked or seemed hot. Thus by experiment of this sort, 
 and by the simple play of association of ideas, we may 
 lead children to form right judgments about a great many 
 things, and to act in conformity with these judgments. 
 Nature and the child itself carry on three-quarters of the 
 work of natural education, we ourselves must do the rest. 
 
 By attentive observation of children we obtain a multi- 
 tude of indications, not only concerning the genesis of their 
 faculties, but also as to the direction to be given to them. 
 For instance, children of their own accord judge by com- 
 parison ; it is for us to watch over and help their judgment 
 without seeming to do so. 
 
 A child will go on tormenting a cat or a dog till suddenly 
 the animal turns round and bites or scratches him ; and 
 then he says: "Bad pussy," "bad doggie." It is for us then
 
 JUDGMENT. 175 
 
 to make him correct the judgment by which he has afiirmed 
 his conception of the relation between the idea of cat or 
 dog. and scratch or bite. When he says, " Good baby " or 
 " Naughty baby," he again makes a comparative judgment, 
 bearing on the relation between such and such actions and 
 the qualification they generally receive. Our part is to 
 place the child frequently in positions to renew such judg- 
 ments, with the use of the same formula, a propos of actions 
 and events of which we cannot always actually bring about 
 the occurrence, although we can always turn it to profit. 
 Thus, without crushing the child's initiative, we shall be 
 doing all in our power to increase its store of observations, 
 of terms of comparison, and of similarities in one word, 
 its intellectual sphere. 
 
 But here the great danger to be feared is, that we should 
 aim at developing children, not for themselves, but for our- 
 selves. How often we see people endeavouring to inculcate 
 on children the judgments and the practices of adults, with- 
 out stopping to consider how much their young minds are 
 capable of understanding or retaining. I will cite but one 
 example, of which I was a witness at a table d'hote at Luchon. 
 It is the custom in good Spanish families always to leave 
 something on one's plate, in order not to appear too great 
 an eater. They accustom their children to this habit by 
 telling them frequently : " Politeness requires you to leave 
 something on your plate ; don't forget this, it is politeness." 
 At the table where I was sitting, a little girl, two-and-a-half 
 years old, had reluctantly left a portion of some sweet dish. 
 She leaned toward her mother and whispered in her ear, 
 but loud enough for every one to hear : " Please, mamma, 
 may I eat politeness to-day ?" It is thus we are understood 
 by children whom we do not take the trouble to seek to 
 understand. We either give them credit for too much or 
 too little intelligence. 
 
 And here I must point out an error common enough in 
 moralists and educators, and doubtless also in parents, viz., 
 the idea that children are good observers and judges of 
 character. This requires explanation. Their faculty of 
 discernment, very limited in its scope, is always con-
 
 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 fined in rather narrow subjective bounds. Like animals 
 and savages, they only direct this faculty of discernment 
 towards the most salient external qualities, and, above all, 
 those which have some interest for them, either actual or 
 near at hand. The attention, awakened by interest, causes 
 a child to notice a thousand differences, full of importance 
 for himself, though often of none whatever to other people. 
 That which generally takes hold of him at first sight, is the 
 expression of the gestures, the physiognomy, the tone of 
 the voice, the simple and common sentiments, the broad 
 signification, rather than the delicate shades even of 
 emotions which closely touch his sympathy. A child of 
 six months knows very well with whom he has to deal (but 
 in respect to a few actions only) if he is with a severe 
 father or an indulgent one, a firm or yielding mother, an 
 uncle who is fond of playing with him, or a sedate aunt, 
 lively good-tempered companions, or dull and surly ones. 
 He knows very well, even at this age, but better still a few 
 months later, what he may venture with the one and the 
 other. In like manner, animals distinguish their prey a 
 long way off, and proceed towards it in a very different way 
 than they do towards other animals. In the same way too 
 the acuteness of sense, or rather the judicial sensibility, of 
 savages is exclusively limited to the kind of perceptions 
 which they have had most interest in discerning ; just as a 
 compositor can distinguish by the mere touch the letters 
 which he wants ; or a seamstress can pick out with a 
 single glance the needle and thread of the size she wants 
 from amongst a quantity of others ; or a botanist will tell 
 you the name of a plant which, either from its distance or 
 diminutive size, can hardly be seen by other people. This 
 faculty of discernment is a matter of interested habit, but 
 it is nevertheless liable to numberless errors. 1 
 
 1 As ideas scarcely exist without judgments, or judgments without 
 reasonings, we may say, that error is generally the result of faulty 
 induction or deduction. We shall therefore treat more particularly of 
 error in the chapter on Reasoning.
 
 JUDGMENT. 177 
 
 We may sometimes notice in quite young children judg- 
 ments which are as concrete and as little general as possible, 
 which in an adult pass for general judgments. I will give 
 an example bearing on plurality of repetition, which is 
 almost always confounded with a definite number of times 
 in which an event has happened. I was walking with my 
 nephew Charles, then four years old. We were going along 
 a canal bordered with willows and alder-trees. Charles, 
 who was a born naturalist, and had his eye on everything, 
 talked on without ceasing in the most interesting fashion, 
 and suddenly showed me a dragon-fly with blue gauzy 
 wings which had just flown away at our approach. " Gen- 
 erally," Charles began to say (and I listened attentively, 
 asking myself what this fine-sounding adverb might mean 
 from a mouth of four years old), "generally," he said a 
 second time, " dragon-flies sit on the leaves in the sun- 
 shine, but not always." I confess I was surprised to find 
 so young a child performing thus a process of applied 
 abstraction, or at least showing a tendency towards general 
 abstraction apropos of concrete facts, which had been in- 
 terpreted before him, and of which he had understood the 
 interpretation. 
 
 There is not a single specimen of this sort of abstrac- 
 tion, resulting in practical judgments, of which one cannot 
 discover the rudiments even in a child of twenty months. 
 But we must not surely expect them to distinguish between 
 the good and the evil, the qualities and faults of persons 
 and of things ; or, if they do, it is only after the fashion of 
 so many ill-educated and not over-wise adults, without 
 knowing it and in a very slight measure. It is however 
 very certain that the ideas a child has of its father and 
 mother, and all the things it knows are not simple ideas ; 
 but that he has formed general and dominant conceptions 
 of them mental wholes from which he is continually 
 cutting off abstractions proportioned to his judicial capacity. 
 The people he knows but little are wholly good or bad, 
 without modification, like the heroes of pseudo-classic 
 tragedy. Those whom he knows well, are sometimes one 
 sometimes the other chiefly according to his own conduct. 
 
 N
 
 178 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 Thus, within very narrow limits, his judgment proceeds 
 from the abstract to the general. 
 
 II. 
 
 ABSTRACTION. 
 
 As all our ideas are produced by sensations, we may say 
 that each distinct idea is the result of analysis. " No one 
 sense presents to us all the qualities which we perceive in 
 a body. Sight presents colours ; hearing, sounds, etc. 
 . . . When we use our senses separately, the objects 
 become decomposed as it were : we observe successively 
 the different parts of a watch. Touch is, of all the senses, 
 the one which reveals to us the greatest number of qualities ; 
 but though it presents several of them synchronically, we 
 only note them successively." 1 This necessity of analysis, 
 inherent in our organization, may be considered as having 
 two principal degrees or forms, that which results in notions 
 of individuals, and that which results in notions of modes 
 or qualities, or abstract ideas, as it has been agreed to call 
 them. We shall study both these forms of analysis in the 
 young child. 
 
 The most important stages in a child's progress take 
 place when the senses of sight and hearing have come to 
 the aid of touch and taste. It is at this period that we 
 can begin to take hold of some of the manifestations of 
 the young intelligence in process of development. We 
 should form a false conception of the first visual percep- 
 tions of a little child, if we compared him to the blind 
 youth whom Cheselden operated on for cataract, and who 
 saw different objects placed before his eyes only as masses 
 of colour spread over a plain surface. In the first place 
 the sense of touch has not yet furnished the child with the 
 conception of a plane surface, and secondly, the field of 
 vision only opens out to him gradually. Tiedemann says 
 of his little son, when only two or three days old : " His 
 eyes already moved in all directions, not by chance, but as 
 if he were looking out for objects, and they seemed to rest 
 
 1 Condillac, Cours d> Etudes, t. i. , p. 47. Edit. Dufart, an II. de la Rep.
 
 ABSTRACTION. 179 
 
 by preference on things in motion." This observation is 
 not strictly accurate. I have never seen any infant before 
 the age of eight days follow any object with its eyes except 
 a candle or the flame of a fire. But I have seen many at 
 a month old whose eyes could follow (their head all the 
 while remaining immovable) the movements of an object 
 waved about at a distance of a few inches, or who would 
 fix their eyes for a length of time on any brilliant object 
 two or three yards off. In proportion as a child's visual 
 organs are exercised and its field of vision enlarges, visual 
 perceptions come to it as luminous or coloured particles. 
 
 In what would be a picture to an adult, a child sees only 
 the salient points. His eye only distinguishes the different 
 colours little by little, and the want of adjusting power in 
 his sight prevents his seizing any but a few prominent 
 objects or even some parts of these objects. This must 
 be the case if the observations which I have recorded in 
 the chapter on attention are accurate. First of all, it is 
 his mother's or his nurse's breast, the bright flame or 
 reflection of a candle, the outline of a piece of furniture or 
 a window, anything striking in form or colour (these are 
 everything to children) which strike his retina and engrave 
 themselves on his memory. External impressions seem to 
 make their way to a child's eyes, as they do to all his other 
 senses, bit by bit, colour by colour. Hence, to perceive 
 sensations distinctly, to preserve a distinct recollection of 
 them apart from the vague complexity of the concomitant 
 impressions which have only very slightly affected the senses, 
 this is a work of separation which may be considered a 
 sort of rudimentary abstraction. 
 
 With these primary perceptions, parcelled out and isolated, 
 which we look upon as the first abstractions, there mingle 
 by degrees secondary perceptions, the whole sum of which 
 make up the first concretions. Now one of the dominant: 
 perceptions will recall to the child and lead him to infer 
 a whole group of secondary perceptions associated with 
 this dominant one. Such and such a colour or sound, or 
 any particular tactile or sapid impression, will instantly 
 suggest the idea of such and such a form, object, or person.
 
 I SO THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 The person of his nurse will at first have become known 
 to him by a continual succession of analytical perceptions. 
 Her breast, which afforded him the keenest enjoyment, 
 and against which he nestled his little face, delighting in 
 its softness and warmth ; her warm caressing hands, so 
 sympathetic both to touch and sight ; the different parts of 
 her face, her eyes, her cheeks, her lips, whence come the coax- 
 ing words and pretty songs, and the smile he so soon learns 
 to understand. The different parts of his cradle, the bars 
 and legs of the chairs, the polished surface and shining 
 edges of the table and the surrounding pieces of furniture, 
 are all objects from which there have come to him succes- 
 sions of detached impressions which will presently combine 
 among themselves to form individual conceptions. But 
 these ideas of individuals and whole objects are still 
 extremely vague and incomplete. I knew a child of two 
 months old who could clearly distinguish a person from an 
 animal, or from a piece of furniture ; but he used to smile 
 indiscriminately at the first comer, and would seek the 
 breast of any woman who took him in her arms. But at 
 three months he could so well distinguish his nurse from his 
 mother that if, when his mother was holding him, his nurse 
 took another child on her lap, or he saw her being em- 
 braced by any one, he would at once show his jealousy by 
 frowns and tears. At this age he also clearly distinguished 
 a cat from a dog, the former having scratched him more 
 than once, whereas the latter overwhelmed him daily with 
 caresses ; the moment the dog appeared, he always showed 
 great delight. One month had thus sufficed to fix clearly 
 in his mind a large number of individual conceptions. 
 
 The necessity which children are under of seeing in a 
 detached and scrappy manner in order to see well, makes 
 them continually practise that kind of abstraction by which 
 we separate qualities from objects. From those objects 
 which the child has already distinguished as individual, 
 there come to him at different moments particularly vivid 
 impressions. Thus, I place a beautiful rose, in the light 
 of a shaded lamp, before a four-months-old child : his 
 mother holds him upright on her knees before the table
 
 ABSTRACTION. l8l 
 
 where I have placed the pretty flower; the child opens 
 his mouth, babbles, holds out his arms, jumps, throws 
 himself forward ; his mother then places him on the table, 
 and he twists and twirls himself about in the most curious 
 fashion, looking all the time at the rose. Is it not probable 
 that this colour, which appears to his eye without any pre- 
 cise form, and which has so keenly excited his attention, 
 will remain in his memory as a very vivid colour, without 
 any definite concrete embodiment? A few minutes after, 
 I lifted up the shade, and the strong flood of light, very 
 brilliant and soft, made him utter cries of joy and jump 
 about more vigorously than ever ; the rose is forgotten 
 he does not even see it he is wholly taken up with 
 the lovely golden flame, which fascinates and dazzles his 
 sight We may be sure that the memory of this bright 
 and flickering flame will be preserved with far greater 
 vividness than that of the nearer surrounding objects, 
 which have only produced very feeble and indefinite 
 impressions on him. Dominant sensations of this kind, by 
 their energy or frequency, tend to efface the idea of the 
 objects from which they proceed, to separate or abstract 
 themselves. Sometimes even in their waking hours, but 
 more especially during their dreams, when there are no 
 external impressions to renew the chain of usual associations, 
 there is no doubt that children's brains are traversed by 
 impressions as vivid in themselves as they are vague and 
 undetermined, and that hallucinations corresponding to a 
 sound, a colour, a tactile, muscular, or thermometric 
 sensation, a form, a dimension, or a taste, awaken vivid 
 sensations in them without being accompanied by those 
 feebler sensorial impressions which were grouped around 
 them ; i.e., without the aid of any definite object. Here we 
 see reproductive imagination assisting in the operation of 
 modal abstraction. 
 
 These acts of abstraction, resulting in individual or modal 
 conceptions, which the infant practises very early, have a 
 continual tendency to relapse into the confused masses, 
 the indistinct wholes, and the various concretions from 
 whence they were drawn. The series, I will not say of
 
 1 82 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 impressions, but of habitual conceptions, regular and 
 natural, is that of synthetic vision for the child as well as 
 for the adult. The individual forms are so many and so 
 varied, that the memory allows them little by little to fall 
 back into the great objective mass, vaguely but directly 
 seized, and from which they only detached themselves 
 under exceptional or temporary circumstances. The qualities 
 separately perceived in these entities, however striking they 
 may have been at first, are not always so in the same degree, 
 cannot always equally captivate the attention or awaken 
 the memory. The flame of a candle is not always equally 
 bright or flickering ; tactile, sapid, olfactory, and auditive 
 impressions do not always strike the child's sensorium with 
 the same intensity, nor during the same length of time. 
 This is why the recollections of individual forms, although 
 strongly graven on their intelligence, lose by degrees their 
 first precision, so that the idea of a tree, for instance, 
 furnished by direct and perfectly distinct memories, comes 
 back to the mind in a vague and indistinct form, which 
 might be taken for a general idea. In the same way, the 
 essential, constant, and necessary qualities which analysis 
 has discovered in different objects, are preserved in the 
 mind with indelible marks ; but though the remembrance of 
 these qualities may very often be unaccompanied by any 
 series of distinct impressions, there is always mixed with 
 it a vague and confused image of certain perceptions which 
 were associated with them. 
 
 Thus, however much we may try and it is the same, I 
 take it, with more than one psychologist it is impossible 
 for us to think of any abstract idea of white, red, a sharp 01 
 flat sound, beauty, ugliness, goodness, vice, number, space, 
 extent, without imagining some particular object, more or 
 less determined in form, to which the abstraction which we 
 have conceived mentally joins itself, and thus becomes a 
 concretion. 
 
 This then being our conception of the process of 
 abstraction which Locke, Condillac, and so many others 
 only regard as a consequence of language, it will not seem 
 surprising that we should allow this power to exist in young
 
 ABSTRACTION. 183 
 
 children. Language up to a certain point fixes and defines, 
 but it does not engender what are called abstract ideas. 
 The most abstract idea that we can conceive is equivalent 
 to the conception of the most abstract sign i.e., to a material 
 idea to a kind of simplified and refined concrete. This 
 means first, that such a thing as a pure idea does not exist, 
 that it is a conception of metaphysicians and algebraists a 
 logical convention ; and, secondly, that relatively abstract 
 ideas (the only ones which we admit) are even in their origin 
 independent of the faculty of language. M. Vulpian goes 
 even further than we do : he is of opinion that animals as 
 well as children possess this power of abstraction. 
 
 "There are," says M. Vulpian, "abstractions relative 
 to material things, or rather to the sensations which they 
 produce on us. There are, for instance, the abstractions 
 by which we form the ideas of trees, dogs, red, green, such 
 and such sounds, etc. In a word, there are tangible 
 abstractions, formed by the help of tangible properties. 
 Well then ! It seems to me difficult to refuse the capacity 
 for these abstract ideas, in a measure at least, to the superior 
 animals, for it is evident that their memory, reflection, and 
 reason are sometimes exercised on ideas of this sort. 
 
 " As to general abstract ideas, it seems to me quite doubt- 
 ful whether animals have them whether they have the 
 slightest abstract idea of infinity, of time, of space, of 
 dimension, number, connection, etc. What confirms me 
 in this conviction that they have none of these abstract 
 ideas, is, that I am not sure that man has them himself. 
 We are here at the mercy of an illusion which has been too 
 little insisted on. Animals, or at least, certain kinds of 
 animals, have a sort of language which enables them to 
 communicate with each other, by modulations and variations 
 of the voice, or by other special sounds, or by graduated 
 contact. Concerning this latter mode, we know nothing 
 more remarkable than the antennal language of ants, 
 described by Huber. But, definitively speaking, these 
 modes of language are very different to those of man. 
 Man alone possesses real articulate language, he alone can 
 make very varied abstractions by the aid of this language ;
 
 184 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 he alone, I need hardly say, can also make metaphysical 
 abstractions. But from the fact that, by means of certain 
 words agreed upon, we have been able to designate these 
 abstractions, we must not deduce as a necessary conclusion 
 that man is capable of conceiving abstract metaphysical 
 ideas. There is no possibility of the existence of any ideas 
 unless there is the possibility of more or less distinct 
 intellectual representation of them. For instance, can we 
 represent to ourselves in an abstract manner time, space, 
 etc. ? If I am not mistaken, so-called general ideas do not 
 exist in reality, and they ought only to be considered as 
 algebraical abstractions, so to speak." 
 
 Thus, between the abstractions produced by the adult and 
 those which the child and the animal form, without the aid 
 of vocal signs, the difference is not qualitative, but only 
 quantitative. 
 
 If we take a child at the moment when he is beginning to 
 use language with tolerable ease, we see that, in spite of the 
 signs he gives of deliberation and efforts to remember, he 
 is always, as he will still be when grown up, indolent as to 
 abstraction which does not rest on an objective representa- 
 tion, sufficiently determinate. A child of two years perfectly 
 well understood the sense of these phrases : " This glass is 
 larger than this stopper;" "Baby is a good boy;" "The dog 
 is naughty." But at three years of age he did not understand 
 these expressions : " The size of that house," " The goodness 
 of papa," "The naughtiness of the dog;" notwithstanding 
 the resemblance of sound between the abstract words and 
 the corresponding adjectives. A little girl of twenty-three 
 months could recite fluently the names of the principal 
 colours, but she could only identify a few of them on objects. 
 Her father pulled out one book after another from his 
 shelves, and showed them to her, saying : " What colour is 
 that?" ' "It is white," "It is black," "It is blue," "It is red," 
 she replied, naming the colours quite rightly. But there was 
 one colour which she could not determine. " It is not red 
 nor blue," she said, after several seconds' hesitation. Her 
 father insisted : " What colour is it then ? " She answered : 
 " Not red, nor blue, nor white, at all, at all." She could
 
 ABSTRACTION. 185 
 
 not find the word yellow, although it was well imprinted in 
 her memory, and the colour yellow was also well known to 
 her and clearly differentiated in her mind; for she added 
 presently : " Like little girl's hat." Her hesitation proceeded 
 more from the difficulty of evolving an idea relatively 
 abstract, than of recalling a well-known word. In fact, 
 another day, she made a mistake about green, not being 
 able to name the colour of a green ribbon ; and another time 
 again about yellow. Her father having said to her, " Go and 
 look on my table for a yellow paper," she brought three of 
 different colours, and none of them the right one. 1 
 
 We have already shown, in the chapter on association, 
 that young infants possess the rudiments of the ideas of 
 cause, place, time, etc. We may also observe in them, 
 among other signs of judgments resulting in what we call 
 common-sense notions, the existence of the notion of quantity, 
 and in particular of numeric quantity. A very young baby, if 
 we offer it a large piece of cake or fruit, together with a 
 smaller piece, will stretch out its hand to the larger piece. In 
 like manner, a kitten two months old to whom I had thrown 
 a piece of meat, left this piece to go after a larger piece 
 which I had thrown to another cat. As to ideas of number, 
 children, and no doubt animals also, confuse them for a 
 long time with ideas of greater or less quantity. I have 
 been able to prove that a three-months-old kitten had only 
 the vaguest notion of number. The last time but one that 
 she presented me with a family of kittens, I only kept one 
 of them ; in her grief at losing the others, she used to leave 
 this one alone for hours, or else carry it about from place 
 to place ; it died when ten days old, just as its eyes were 
 opening, and there was no doubt that its death was caused 
 by want of care and food. The next time, I kept two out 
 of five. She was perfectly happy with these two, and did 
 not trouble herself about the rest ; and I could not but con- 
 clude that two represented many to her, just as well as/z><? 
 did. 
 
 1 Vulpian. Physiologic du Systtme Nervtu.v, pp. 911, 912.
 
 [86 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 M. Houzeau does not deny this faculty to certain animals, 
 but he reduces it to very narrow limits. " There is no 
 doubt," he says,, " that certain animals are able to count, 
 whether it be a number of objects or the number of times 
 that a similar action is repeated, provided that the number 
 is not high. This is the case, for instance, with the magpie 
 (Pica caudata). When this bird is watched by a party of 
 sportsmen, ft does not stir till they begin to move away. If 
 they go away one after the other, the bird will wait till the 
 fourth has gone ; but beyond this number it seems to lose 
 count, and sometimes flies out of its hiding-place too 
 soon, showing that it has made a mistake. 1 The following 
 anecdote proves that mules can count up to five at any 
 rate. In some of the cities of the United States many of 
 the trams are drawn by mules. This is especially the case 
 at New Orleans, where mules are preferred to horses. The 
 St. Charles Street line has a short branch-line, that of the 
 Napoleon Avenue, where each mule makes the journey five 
 times before being unharnessed. The veterinary surgeon 
 of the line, the clever Dr. Louis, one day called my atten- 
 tion to this fact, which I was able to verify, that the mules 
 on duty remain silent during the first journeys ; but at the 
 end of the fifth, as soon as they arrive at the station, they 
 begin to neigh, knowing that it is time for them to be un- 
 harnessed. 
 
 "There are some birds and quadrupeds that are capable 
 of appreciating number, at least up to four or five. How 
 do these animals, who have no conventional language, suc- 
 ceed in counting up to five, and perhaps higher ? They 
 must have a certain numerical medium, a means of dis- 
 tinguishing among their recollections. Is it by visual 
 memory and the juxtaposition of similar images, as we 
 might count by placing in thought a number of trees in file, 
 or again by putting counters in a line ? We cannot decide 
 this question." l 
 
 According to the same naturalist, " Children at first can 
 
 1 Houzeau, Facultes Mentahs des Ani/naux^ t. ii., p. 207.
 
 ABSTRACTION. 187 
 
 only distinguish between a single object and plurality. At 
 eighteen months they can tell the difference between one, 
 two, and several. At about three, or a little sooner, they 
 have learnt to understand one, two, and four two times 
 two. It is scarcely ever till a later age that they count the 
 regular series one, two, three, four ; and here they stop for 
 a long time. In the Brahmin schools, children in the first 
 class are only taught to count up to four ; in the second 
 class they go up to twenty. In Europe it has been found 
 that it takes six or seven years to get a child up to a hun- 
 dred. Children can no doubt repeat the numeration tables 
 learnt by heart before this age; but this does not mean 
 understanding numbers, or being able to determine the 
 numbers of any given collection of objects. The preceding 
 examples apply to European children of medium intelli- 
 gence who are receiving the best instruction. 
 
 My personal observations with regard to little children 
 who cannot speak have not furnished me with any indica- 
 tions contrary to the assertions of M. Houzeau. When a 
 child nearly three months old to whom two feeding-bottles 
 are presented, seizes both at once ; when he takes two 
 objects rather than one, three rather than two, when, at 
 eight months, seeing near him two cats resembling each 
 other, he takes one for the other, and thinks there is only one 
 cat, he is evidently confounding the idea of plurality with 
 that of quantity. A little intelligent child, two and a half 
 years old, knew how to count up to twelve ; but he had 
 not a clear idea of the length of time represented by three 
 days. " I shall come back in three days," I said to him 
 once ; and he answered quickly : " What does that mean, 
 in three days ?" I then said : " I shall come back, not 
 to-morrmv morning, but to-morrow, to-morrow, and again 
 to-morrow" and he appeared satisfied with this explanation. 
 When three years and three months old, the same child 
 told the gardener that he was going away to-morrow, and 
 that he should not come back for a long time. " I shall 
 come back," he said, " in many, many, many to-morrows 
 in a year." This last formula had been learnt, but not 
 understood; the first was within his comprehension, and his
 
 1 88 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 own invention. The same child, and I have remarked the 
 same fact in many other children, had still greater trouble 
 in going backwards in time, and it was only with great 
 difficulty that, at three years of age, he learnt to understand 
 the idea of yesterday and the day before yesterday. 
 
 Another child, at three years old, had only the most hazy 
 rudimentary conception of the abstract notions of truth, of 
 moral goodness, and even of physical beauty or ugliness. 
 " What is truth ? " he asked his aunt, who had said to him : 
 " Come, Charlie, tell me the truth." " It is when one does 
 not tell lies," she said. He knew very well what telling lies 
 meant, having been once severely punished for saying 
 something for fun which was not true. " Being good," 
 meant for him to be petted, not to do things which caused 
 him to be scolded, which made his mother look sad and 
 his father speak angrily and slap his hand. To be naughty, 
 on the contrary, was to do all these things. But he con- 
 founded the idea of ugly and naughty. When two and a 
 half years old, he used to repeat over and over again : 
 " Such a person, such an animal, is very ugly ; " sometimes, 
 but very rarely, he would say, Such and such a person or 
 thing was very pretty. I said to him one day, in order to 
 coax him to be quiet whilst he was being dressed : " You 
 are a nice little boy, you are very good and very pretty." 
 He answered, " Oh, no ! I am not pretty ; mamma told me 
 I was not pretty." " Then are you ugly ? " I said to him. 
 "Yes, sometimes, when I give papa or mamma trouble." 
 He knew the difference between pretty and ugly, but he 
 confused pretty with gentle and good, and ugly with naughty 
 or disobedient. He had not yet got a clear idea of moral 
 goodness or badness, moral beauty or ugliness, but he had 
 very distinct ideas of physical beauty or ugliness. He would 
 look at some people with more attention and pleasure than at 
 others, because they had prettier or pleasanter faces. But 
 we have now said enough concerning the existence in little 
 children, in a rudimentary and concrete state, of those ideas 
 called rational, which are both the result and the basis of 
 the most ordinary and most generalized judgments of adults. 
 
 In conclusion, if it is not quite accurate to consider
 
 ABSTRACTION. 1 89 
 
 abstraction as a special case of attention operating on con- 
 cretions from the lowest to the highest rung of the ladder, 
 let us at least admit that there is an easy kind of abstraction 
 and a more difficult one; one kind more obtuse and more 
 frequent, another subtler and rarer ; in short, that there are 
 degrees in abstraction. An individual idea is a synthesis in 
 respect to the totality of its parts or qualities; it is analytic 
 as regards the sum of individuals. The ideas of red, blue, 
 or white are abstract in respect to the ideas of the flowers 
 possessing these qualities of colour ; the idea of colour or 
 of number generally, and independent of any coloured 
 object or numerical collection, is still more abstract, etc. 
 In children we only have examples of the lowest form of 
 abstraction. The starting-point of this faculty is no other 
 than the faculty of discrimination. A child who dis- 
 tinguishes a certain number of persons and objects his 
 mother from his nurse, the dog from the cat, the table from 
 the book-case, has already made abstractions. Every time 
 that, for one reason or another, he seizes in any object one 
 point of view, one concrete quality which stands out in his 
 eyes from all the others, he makes an abstraction. Abstrac- 
 tion of this sort affords a child intense and absorbing sensa- 
 tions. If a candle is brought near him, his attention is 
 fixed for a moment on the flame, which is the most brilliant 
 part ; if several objects of different colours are shown 
 him, he looks at the one whose colour strikes his eye most 
 vividly, so that he gets an idea of the colour rather than 
 the form of the object. This is the sort of abstract ideas 
 which are most familiar to young children. They are 
 detachments from concretions. The proof of this is the 
 difficulty that children, and often, too, adults, have in 
 retaining ideas of colour, sound, form, and still more of 
 quantity, goodness, wickedness, beauty, ugliness, etc., when 
 the objects whence they have abstracted these ideas are no 
 longer in their presence. Even language, notwithstanding 
 its power of recalling the ideas of objects and qualities, is 
 not equivalent to the presence or the distinct recollection of 
 the object itself for reminding the child of the particular 
 quality belonging to it which impressed him most.
 
 IQO THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 We may say that abstraction is a tendency to separate 
 which is always ideal and instantaneous ; and it is by asso- 
 ciating these abstract ideas, which for a moment presented 
 themselves as it were alone to the mind, with some con- 
 crete idea, that memory will recall the ideas to the child. 
 Children understand very well, after their own fashion, the 
 words : " Papa good," " Baby nice," " Baby naughty " ; but 
 they attach no meaning, during the first two years at least, 
 to the words goodness, wickedness, ugliness, and many 
 other familiar ideas, which moreover very few adults would 
 explain without the intervention of concrete ideas. 
 
 It is not therefore accurate to say that children shrink 
 from abstractions ; on the contrary, they understand and 
 like them when they cost them neither labour nor mental 
 effort i.e., when they are the least abstract of abstractions. 
 
 " Children would be quite content only to look at things 
 as they pass. . . . We must not, however, exaggerate 
 their indolence in this respect ; it is not so great as people 
 think. All effort, in fact, has its charm ; abstraction, more- 
 over, quickly makes up to us for the trouble it costs ; it 
 produces those simple ideas which the mind above all 
 delights in, that clearness which is its chief good. 
 Abstraction, then, is not an enemy ; quite the contrary ; and 
 the mind becomes disciplined to it. This is why it is well 
 not to spare children the trouble of thinking under abstract 
 forms, so long as we do not fatigue them, and disgust them 
 with study." 
 
 These reflections, which apply to children generally, must 
 necessarily, in some measure, apply to children during the 
 period in which we are studying them. 
 
 III. 
 
 COMPARISON. 
 
 To clearly distinguish two individuals, alike or different, as 
 being two, is not to compare, but it is a step towards com- 
 parison. To be effectual, comparison, or the fixing of the 
 attention successively on two or several objects, or on two
 
 COMPARISON. igi 
 
 or several portions of objects, must be combined with 
 modal abstraction. It must lead to the conception of a 
 relation, either of resemblance or of difference, cognised 
 between these various objects or parts of objects. Com- 
 parison, properly so called, is impossible to very young 
 babies, at least for several weeks ; and it only becomes 
 possible when their intelligence is sufficiently developed to 
 combine a tolerably distinct vision of details with a power 
 of attention sufficient to take in several objects one after 
 another in a short space of time. A young baby has not a 
 precise idea of the relations between things, and does not 
 look out for them. If comparisons are formed in its mind, 
 it is of themselves that they arise ; the terms come together 
 in his mind and remain associated, under the form of in- 
 tegration and disintegration, of concrete resemblance and 
 difference ; but the child does not complete the work 
 begun by chance, he does not perceive the bearings pre- 
 cisely, and he draws no conclusions. 
 
 A little child at two months old hesitates to take sugared 
 water in place of milk ; he will refuse plain water, and will 
 get angry, scream, and gesticulate wildly after having 
 swallowed a draught of bitter medicine. These are all so 
 many different sensations for him ; but how many analogous 
 experiments must be repeated on a large number of objects, 
 before he gets a clear idea of the quality which makes the 
 difference, or begins to examine if such and such an object 
 has or has not this quality. In like manner with young 
 animals, if several bits of meat are thrown near a puppy or 
 a kitten two months old, they will take any piece indif- 
 ferently probably that which is nearest ; but when a little 
 older they will instinctively choose the largest piece, be- 
 cause the strongest visual impression determines the 
 strongest desire. But when they are a good deal older, if 
 these experiments have often been repeated, they will have 
 acquired distinct ideas of size and even of superiority of 
 taste ; and it will now be deliberate reflection that makes 
 them run after the largest piece and fight for it with their 
 companions. They become progressively apt at com- 
 parison.
 
 192 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 At three months old children seem to apprehend a large 
 number of resemblances and differences ; but as yet to 
 compare very little, if at all. As I have related above, I 
 once offered a little girl of three months first a feeding- 
 bottle filled with milk, and then an empty one ; she lifted the 
 second to her mouth with as much eagerness as she did the 
 first. I then offered them to her both at once, and holding 
 them close together, so that she could see the white liquid 
 moving in the one. She did what Buridan's celebrated ass 
 would perhaps have done, had he had two hands, and been 
 placed between a bucket of water and a peck of hay ; he 
 would have seized them both. The little girl, as well as her 
 awkward little hands would let her, seized both the bottles 
 at one grasp. Soon, without letting go the full bottle which 
 she held in her right hand, she lifted the empty one with 
 her other hand to her lips. Was this the result of mere 
 chance, or because the empty bottle was the easier to lift ? 
 It matters little to the question with which we are con- 
 cerned here. She made several fruitless attempts at suck- 
 ing, and then pursed up her mouth and began to cry, letting 
 fall the unsatisfactory bottle. Soon, however, she became 
 aware of what she had in her right hand, applied it promptly 
 to her lips, and sucked in several drops of its contents with 
 evident satisfaction. Up to that moment the child had 
 seen no difference between these two objects ; and possibly 
 even, as her attention had only been superficially directed 
 towards them, she had seen but one object in these two so 
 nearly alike. 
 
 I wanted to vary my experiments on her ; and knowing 
 her to be very fond of brilliant colours, I placed before 
 her in succession some engravings of different kinds. I 
 began with pale tints. The child, on seeing them, started 
 forward and uttered some joyous exclamations, and stretched 
 out her hands. But her joy was beyond bounds when I 
 placed more brightly coloured ones before her ; she felt 
 them all over, thumped them with her hands, rubbed and 
 crumpled them up, put them in her mouth, and gazed at 
 them in ecstasy. I varied the experiment a second time. 
 After some minutes devoted to another amusement, I placed
 
 COMPARISON. 193 
 
 two pictures before her, one of which was brilliantly coloured. 
 She threw herself towards both, as if they were one single 
 object. I then showed them to her separately ; she evinced 
 great pleasure in looking at the more sombre one, but with 
 regard to the other her joy and excitement were indescrib- 
 able. But notwithstanding that she had been so strongly 
 impressed by these striking differences, they had been 
 nothing more to her than more or less vivid impressions ; 
 there was no reversion of the attention to the objects which 
 had produced the impressions, not the slightest suspicion 
 of difference of quality, or even of quality possessed in 
 different degrees, not the slightest attempt at comparison. 
 
 From similar experiments I have come to the conclusion 
 that comparison, as we understand and practise it, is not 
 possible to a young brain of only three months. Is the 
 power acquired a little later ? and, if so, in what measure ? 
 Here again I leave facts to speak for themselves, without 
 hastening to draw conclusions. 
 
 Some years ago, I had two grey cats, mother and son, 
 alike in shape, colour, and general appearance. One day, 
 a child of eight months old who was brought into my room, 
 perceived the she cat at a little distance from him, and 
 called out for it with expressive gestures and sounds. I 
 called the animal up to me, and friendly relations were soon 
 established between it and the child. The cat raised her 
 head and her back to be stroked^ purred, and rubbed itself 
 backwards and forwards against the child's frock. The 
 child squeezed the cat in both his hands and pulled it 
 about to his heart's content. While this was going on, the 
 other cat came on the scene, approached the child, purring, 
 and demanded his share of the caresses. What was the 
 child's amazement at seeing on his left hand the same 
 animal that he saw on his right. He turns on one side 
 and sees a grey cat, he turns on the other and sees a grey 
 cat there also. He seemed as if he could not believe his 
 eyes, and could not make up his mind to see more than 
 one object, his mind being absorbed with the vivid con- 
 ception of one alone. What could have been passing in 
 that little brain ? The eyes, the movements of the arms,
 
 194 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the bending expectant attitudes, all testified to very strong 
 amazement. But the uncertainty of his judgment did not 
 last long ; and, before the end of the visit, having seen the 
 two cats before him, side by side, and at a distance, and in 
 different positions, he carried away the remembrance of 
 two similar animals, without however saying to himself that 
 they were alike. Experiments of this kind often repeated, 
 and they are repeated every day, provide abundant 
 materials for abstraction, and enable children to detach 
 from similar or different perceptions the conception of 
 analogous qualities, and stimulate them to make com- 
 parisons. 
 
 I knew a little child of ten months who made a great 
 distinction between cakes and potatoes, which he was very 
 fond of, and bread, which he liked less, and also between 
 meat and bread, milk and wine, and wine and water. I 
 subjected him to the following experiment. On one side 
 we placed a cake, on the other a piece of bread ; without 
 hesitation he seized the cake and carried it to his mouth. 
 It was then taken away from him, and it was a sight to see 
 his wild agitation, the energetic movements of his arms, his 
 face purple with rage, and his eyes all the time following 
 with fixed attention the movements of the hand which had 
 ravished the cake. Soon the bread was offered him ; he 
 fell into the snare and took it; but before biting it he re- 
 cognised his error and threw it away with signs of violent 
 anger. If one wants him to eat soup, one must not allow 
 him to see potatoes, meat, or fruit. He also behaves 
 differently with regard to his own playthings and those of 
 other children. He has no objection to taking possession 
 of their toys and piling them up with his own ; but if any 
 one touches his, he snatches them violently away, thus 
 showing that he is able to distinguish his own things from 
 others'. Also, if two or more objects are held just in front 
 of his eyes, he sees clearly that one is not the other, and he 
 also sees in what they differ; he compares almost without 
 knowing or wishing it this is a great step in advance. 
 
 This slow progress in the capacity for comparison, pro- 
 perly so called, has to do with the nature of the attentive
 
 COMPARISON. 195 
 
 power, which is so slight and fluctuating in little children 
 that they only observe objects superficially, even those 
 which interest them and appeal vividly to their sensibility ; 
 and generally they only observe them from the point of 
 view of the particular emotions they excite at a given 
 moment. A child of three months tries to take hold of, to 
 touch, to raise to his mouth, or to throw down anything 
 that comes to his hand ; and, whether from curiosity or 
 from the need of using his restless activity, one thing is 
 quickly abandoned for another, to be again perhaps taken 
 up in a few moments. A child of this age is relatively so 
 ignorant that he finds very little to see in any one object, 
 especially in inanimate objects, which have not the power 
 of living objects to modify themselves in all sorts of ways 
 and to keep continually alive the curiosity which they first 
 inspired. This is why very young children who cannot yet 
 speak are content with a cursory notice of the most pro- 
 minent analogies and differences. The past being of less 
 interest to them than the present, they feel but little need 
 of comparing. 
 
 But from the age of fifteen months, and especially be- 
 tween twenty months and two years, when words are 
 beginning to come to their aid, they begin to make large 
 use of their faculty of comparison. They are very little on 
 the look-out for differences, although they are very much 
 struck by them when they see them ; but everywhere they 
 are on the look-out for resemblances. I have even noticed 
 this in a little boy of thirteen months. As one of his 
 cousins was like his uncle, having the same sort of beard 
 and the same kind of figure and voice, the child treated him 
 at once as an old acquaintance. He called him Toto, 
 insisted on being taken to him, poked his finger in his 
 eyes, nose, and ears, wanted to sit by him at meals, found 
 his way to him crawling on his hands and knees, as soon 
 as he was awake, in order to play on his bed. After meals 
 he insisted on being taken on his cousin's lap, and thence 
 proceeded to climb on to the table, where he began all the 
 little games which he was accustomed to play with his 
 uncle. Seeing a pencil in his cousin's hand, he took it
 
 196 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 from him, put it in his mouth, and made with his lips the 
 movements and sounds of a man who is smoking and 
 puffing the smoke into the air. His uncle used to smoke. 
 When he got down from the table, he took his cousin's 
 hand, and said in a tone of entreaty : " Lou, lou, lou, 
 lou;" this was explained to the cousin as signifying that he 
 was to imitate the dog, as his uncle was in the habit of 
 doing, to the child's great delight Out in the garden, the 
 child made another request which the cousin did not un- 
 derstand, much to the astonishment of the former, who was 
 accustomed to being instantly obeyed by his uncle. Thus 
 this child, only thirteen months old, reasoned and acted on 
 the ground of analogy ; from certain resemblances in ob- 
 jects he inferred others, or even complete similarity. At 
 first it would surprise him, not to find the other points of 
 resemblance combined with the first, and he would seek 
 for them with attention heightened by vexation. His 
 cousin, having been coached up in his part, humoured as 
 far as possible all the habits which the uncle had made 
 necessary to the child ; but some he replaced by ways of 
 his own ; and the end of it was, that after being with his 
 cousin for three weeks, the child afterwards expected from 
 his uncle all the gestures, tones of voice, games, indul- 
 gences, and acts of obedience which the new Toto had 
 accustomed him to. The parts were changed, but the 
 intelligence, the sensibility, and the will of the child worked 
 in the same fashion. 
 
 At the age of two-and-a-half children compare a great 
 deal. They frequently use such phrases as these : " baby 
 tree " (little tree), " papa tree " (great tree), " mamma 
 duck," "baby duck," to signify that any one object is 
 larger or smaller than another. A child of the same age 
 once said to me : " You not naughty ; baby much not 
 naughty,'' wishing to express that I was not naughty, and 
 he was still less so than I. He delighted in using meta- 
 phors to excite laughter : "You are . . ." then he would 
 pause to excite my curiosity, or to seek for an idea which 
 was perhaps slow in coming; "You are a duck, or else a 
 leaf, an acacia, a knife, etc." These were absurdities, but
 
 GENERALIZATION. 197 
 
 they indicated habitual efforts to find out likenesses, how- 
 ever ridiculous they might be. When three years old, 
 wishing to say something pleasant to a little girl he was 
 very fond of, he said to her : " You a rat, a real rat, a 
 pretty little rat !" Already, for several months, he had 
 been in the habit of looking fixedly and very attentively at 
 new faces, to take stock of them ; and after having studied 
 them for some moments he would say : " Beard like papa, 
 blue dress like mamma, watch like grandpa. . ."At 
 this age he knew the names of more than twenty trees, and 
 could indicate the most apparent specific characteristics of 
 each ; this showed great progress in the faculties of observa- 
 tion and comparison. 
 
 IV. 
 
 GENERALIZATION. 
 
 It has been for a long time admitted that language is a 
 necessary instrument for fixing, and indeed for forming, 
 general ideas. J t seems to me however that we may observe 
 the rudiments of these processes in animals and children who 
 cannot yet speak. 
 
 Animals furnish us with instances of an initial form of 
 generalization. The farm-dog, who, by virtue both of his 
 trade and his taste, 
 
 " Donne la chasse aux gens 
 Portant baton et mendiants," 
 
 recognises them in the first instance by their dress and 
 their baton. These specific characters are engraved in the 
 dog's intelligence, and associated with the mechanical neces- 
 sity of barking. It is all very well for Bossuet and his dis- 
 ciples to urge, that if dogs bark at people of a certain aspect, 
 it is because their masters have taught them this quite 
 mechanical habit. Why then do dogs not confound one 
 beggar with another beggar? Some beggars will excite 
 them to fury, while others, on the contrary, have the power 
 of gaining the dog's goodwill. From a distance, the dog 
 will bark at the one as well as the other this is the effect
 
 198 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 of the specific character; but on nearer sight he will soften 
 down this is the effect of individual character. 
 
 In all garrison towns one sees dogs who are particularly 
 sympathetic towards soldiers ; the sight of red trousers will 
 make them run up to their owner. But when close to the 
 soldier, they behave differently, according to the individual ; 
 they will caress one with eager joy, another they will treat 
 with indifference, another perhaps with defiance. After the 
 general idea awakened by the sight of the uniform, and 
 which is equivalent to caresses, friendship and play, etc., 
 there rise up remembrances of good or bad treatment asso- 
 ciated with such and such a particular resemblance. 
 
 M. Houzeau is of this same opinion. "While Huber 
 was making his splendid observation on bees, one of the 
 hives met with an unforeseen accident. Part of the honey- 
 comb became detached from the partition to which it was 
 fixed, and slipping down several inches rested on the floor 
 of the hive. It was not in the power of the bees to raise it 
 up ; its weight was too great for their physical strength. So 
 they confined themselves to making it secure in its new 
 position, by constructing fastenings of wax, with here and 
 there abutments or props. But at the same time they 
 thought of another necessary piece of work, that of consoli- 
 dating the different combs which had not yet met with 
 accidents. They fortified all the former points of attach- 
 ment with fresh wax mixed with propolis." If this act of 
 prudence does not attest the power of generalization, we 
 should be glad to know under what name it should be de- 
 signated. Bees are not in the habit of thus consolidating 
 the fastenings of their honey-combs. They resolved on this 
 precaution after the failure of their labours, and they ex- 
 tended it to all the combs which still remained in their 
 proper position. They had evidently concluded from a par- 
 ticular case to the general. 
 
 Here is an analogous example in the case of mammals. 
 "In October, 1859, 1 had made one day a long topographical 
 examination of the watershed between the valleys of Rio-Frio 
 and the Nucces. My animals had been without water from 
 ihe time of my departure at four o'clock in the morning.
 
 GENERALIZATION. 199 
 
 Towards three in the afternoon, I had finished certain sur- 
 veying operations ; and I mounted my horse and, descend- 
 ing the side of the little hill on the summit of which I had 
 spent part of the day, I took the direction which would 
 lead me soonest to a watercourse. After crossing a stretch 
 of undulating ground, we entered a large prairie almost 
 bare of trees, and which stretched for ten or twelve miles in 
 front of us. The ground was smooth, but furrowed at inter- 
 vals by little tortuous trenches, a few inches in depth, hol- 
 lowed out by the rain in the wet season, but dry at all other 
 times. 
 
 " The land having no decided slope, these various furrows 
 did not unite in veins ; but ended in little ponds or minia- 
 ture lakes, which were scattered over the plain, ' like the 
 spots in the skin of a panther,' to borrow a comparison from 
 Strabo. But at the time when I was crossing, all the little 
 conduits were dried up, and there was not a drop of water 
 to be got from them. I had two dogs with me, who were 
 suffering cruelly from thirst. Scarcely did they perceive the 
 first of these furrows from a distance, than they scampered 
 towards it full gallop, descending unhesitatingly in the direc- 
 tion in which the water had once flowed. After a run of a 
 few hundred yards they reached the dried-up pond, and 
 after a short examination of its solid bottom returned to 
 me, evidently disappointed. The same thing went on during 
 the whole journey across the plain, which lasted till the 
 close of day. In this space of time the dogs explored be- 
 tween forty and fifty furrows. They invariably recognised 
 them from a long way off, rushed eagerly towards them, and 
 followed the dried-up course to its end. One could not 
 maintain in these circumstances, that the dogs were led to 
 these lakes by the smell, or by the effluvium of the water, 
 because there was not a drop to be found. They were not 
 guided by the character of the vegetation, for there was not 
 a single tree to be seen either along the furrows or by the 
 ponds. There was not even any particular kind of grass grow- 
 ing, so short a time does moisture last there. The dogs in 
 this case were guided by general ideas, seconded to a certain 
 degree by experience, and of a very simple kind no doubt ;
 
 2OO THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 but in our conceptions of these furrows, of their origin, and 
 of their use, they and I evidently reasoned in the same 
 manner. 
 
 " I must add, moreover, that this observation is by no 
 means an isolated one. I have simply chosen it as a par- 
 ticular case which is safe from various objections. I have 
 many times seen, not only dogs, but horses, mules, oxen, 
 and goats begin to look for water in places where they have 
 never been before. They must have been guided by general 
 principles, since they went to ponds or streams which were, 
 at the time, entirely dried up." 1 
 
 In default of words, the actions and gestures of children 
 will often indicate to us what we are warranted in inferring 
 concerning their power of generalization. For instance, a 
 baby of eight months amuses himself for several hours a day 
 seated on a carpet in the middle of the room. One of his 
 favourite toys is a tin box which he likes because of its metallic 
 sound, but especially because of its opening, into which it is 
 his great delight to stuff anything that will go in or won't go 
 in ! He has discovered that many of his little possessions, 
 such as a pail, a little cart, a bottle, a trumpet, etc., etc., 
 have this capacity for holding other things, and so, when 
 any fresh toy is given to him, he instantly begins to examine 
 it, to see if it has an opening. 
 
 The other day he got hold of a dressed doll ; and he tried 
 to stuff a smaller doll, a piece of bread, and a little phial 
 between its legs. Another time the stopper of a bottle wa.s 
 given to him, and because it was transparent he persisted in 
 thinking there must be an opening at one end ; and he tried 
 to put several things into this supposed hole. One of his 
 favourite tricks is to put his forefinger in the eyes of people 
 who hold him on their knees ; and this makes him laugh 
 very much. In short, he has acquired a general idea of this 
 quality of an opening and a capacity for holding things, which 
 he has discovered in so many objects, and which he now 
 seeks foi in everything. 
 
 1 Houzeau, Eludes sur Ics Facultts Mcntales des Animaux, t. i., pp. 
 2'>4, etc.
 
 GENERALIZATION. 2OI 
 
 A child of eight months old always made starts of delight 
 at the sight of any young or pretty person. Must there not 
 have been in this case a distinction between a pleasant 
 and an unpleasant appearance, which the child seized at 
 first sight in all persons who came under his notice ? Tins 
 again was the germ of a general idea. The same child, 
 when a fortnight older, manifested a desire for solid food, 
 which he always recognised as such amongst many other 
 things ; whether it were bread, cheese, butter, fruit, meat, 
 or sugar, he would lean towards it, stretching out his hand 
 and making a vaguely articulate sound like "wroiia" ; he 
 never did this when asking for his feeding-bottle or his 
 mother's breast. At nine months old, the sight of a dog, 
 a cat, a chicken, or a bird would send him into raptures ; 
 and he would hold out his arms, and look significantly at 
 the person who was caressing the animal, as much as to say 
 that he wanted to go close up to it. His movements for 
 begging, and afterwards for showing his joy, always finished 
 up with the repetition of the syllables appa ! appa ! appa ! 
 Thus he had a distinct idea, which, up to a certain point, was 
 also a general one, of solid food and of animal, although he 
 did not yet designate any of the individuals comprised in 
 these two classes of objects by special names corresponding 
 to the special qualities he did not fail to remark in them. 
 At eleven months the exclamation expressing a general idea 
 was changed into ah ! and a few of his specific ideas were 
 expressed by words of his own which need not be quoted 
 here. 
 
 At the time when every one admits that children pos- 
 sess general ideas, that is, when they can express a good 
 many of them by words, we can observe in them other 
 general ideas which are not expressed by words. A little 
 child of thirteen months knows very well how to say maty'c 
 (marcher) when he wants some one to take his hand and 
 lead him about. But if his wish is refused, he knows how 
 to fall back on his own resources ; he leaves the person who 
 is holding him, slips down on the ground, and crawls along 
 on his stomach. Whether he wants to go straight along or 
 to make detours, to go up stairs, or even down stairs (which
 
 202 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 he does less adroitly, and not without tumbles), crawling is 
 his general means of getting along by himself. 
 
 If, when he is seated on the ground, the fancy suddenly 
 seizes him to get up by leaning on his two hands, once 
 upright on his legs, he is very often much embarrassed by 
 his vertical position ; and he will entreat the first comer for 
 a hand, whether it is a person he knows or not. Here 
 again is a clear idea of a general means of getting out of his 
 difficulty to take hold of the hand of another person. 
 This same child, who designates by the word peau-peau 
 (cliapeait) every species of headgear, bonnet, hat, night-cap, 
 etc., etc., always puts on his head any object of the kind 
 that is within his reach. There are also a certain number 
 of things which he mistakes for this article of clothing, as 
 for instance his nurse's basket, a paper-bag, a dish-cover, a 
 lamp-shade, a handkerchief, and other objects, whose shape 
 recalls more or less the idea of an object suitable for cover- 
 ing the head. This general idea has thus assumed extensive 
 dimensions in his mind. 
 
 From all these facts, which each one can multiply for him- 
 self at pleasure, we infer the existence in quite young chil- 
 dren of general ideas independent of language. When any 
 particular characteristic has struck them vividly in a certain 
 number of objects, it begins to fix itself in their intelligence 
 in the shape of an abstraction, that is to say, of a very clear 
 idea but no longer associated with the precise idea of certain 
 objects. It is a sort of analogy summed up in a vivid con- 
 ception which every object more or less similar is capable 
 of reviving. When a means of fixing this conception is 
 acquired, it assumes definite limits, either contracting or 
 expanding, and becomes a true general conception. Words 
 are only a more simple and efficacious means of recall than 
 the pure sensation which was formerly wont to re-awaken this 
 idea. Whatever may have been said about it, language is 
 more an instrument for defining and fixing than for forming 
 general ideas. 
 
 Let us observe a child generalizing after our example, but 
 in his own fashion, with the words which we have taught 
 him. To know things, is to distinguish the principal boun-
 
 GENERALIZATION. 203 
 
 daries which separate them into different classes. To know 
 a language, is not only to know words, but things, to have at 
 one's finger's end, ready for daily use, all the observations, 
 and experiences which language comprises. We can clearly 
 see the part that words play in the working of thought, by 
 noticing the irrepressible tendency of children, I do not say 
 to classify, but at once to connect a known term with the 
 various objects they see. With their unconscious and happy 
 audacity they often give us most interesting examples of 
 inferior generalization. Reason in children is, generally 
 speaking, nothing more than comparison as little abstract as 
 possible. The town of Tarbes has a pretty public garden 
 which bears the name of the donor. A child from Bordeaux 
 twenty months old, said to us : " There is a jardin Massey 
 at Bordeaux." A child fifteen months old has a wooden 
 horse christened dada. He only needed one single ex- 
 ample, one single resemblance, to apply this word dada to 
 one single horse (in which he was somewhat aided by his 
 parents), and afterwards he would apply it instantly to every 
 horse he saw. Here again there are only particular simi- 
 larities, not conceptions that can be called general In the 
 middle of a court-yard filled with all sorts of animals, the 
 child saw some chickens, which he called koko, from the 
 name of his canary and turtle-dove ; he saw some ducks and 
 geese swimming in a pond, and he reduced them to one 
 and the same species the duck ; a swan also is to him a 
 duck. The broad lines of classification are already defi- 
 nitely acquired by the age of three ; and a single point of 
 resemblance suffices for the first rough outline, an enumera- 
 tion (of instances) far from complete, for subsequently 
 extending and confirming them. 
 
 There is, I think, some subtlety in the following mode of 
 reasoning : " If it is true that the distinct general idea is 
 posterior to confused particular ideas, conversely it may be 
 true to say that the confused general idea is anterior to the 
 distinct particular idea. Thus, the idea of man, in so far as 
 it is characterized by the abstract and classical definition of 
 a reasonable animal, or by the zoological definition, pre- 
 supposes doubtless a comparison between many individual
 
 2O4 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 men ; but the confused sense of what there is in common 
 between all men is pre-existent to the definite distinction of 
 individuals : for instance, it takes a child some time to dis- 
 tinguish his father from other men ; it takes a dog some 
 time to distinguish his master. It has been said with 
 reason, that the faculty of generalizing is a characteristic of 
 intelligence : it may also be said, that the faculty of indi- 
 vidualizing is no less essential a sign." l I accept the 
 conclusion, but I make my reserve as to the premises. 
 When a child applies the word papa to all the individuals 
 who resemble his father generally, he only sees in them a 
 particular resemblance. The author above quoted sees in 
 this an absolutely generalizing tendency, and he confirms 
 his opinion by adding : " One does not find that little 
 children generalize the word mamma like the word papa. 
 This no doubt is owing to the fact that, being more with 
 their mother than with their father, they individualize her 
 better." Might not one reason for this difference (which 
 must not be exaggerated) be, the habit that the mother and 
 the women about a child have of making particular demon- 
 strations at every appearance of the father ? " See, there's 
 papa ! Where is papa ? Look at papa. Say, ' How do you 
 do ' to papa," etc. Thus instructed, the child sees papa 
 everywhere, and when he begins to speak brings out the 
 word papa at all moments, in season and out of season. 
 Moreover, are there no examples of children generalizing the 
 word "mamma "in quite as elementary a fashion as the word 
 "papa"? Here is one, at any rate. A child, three years 
 and five months old, had returned with his parents from 
 Tarbes, where he had spent* more than a month. At the 
 beginning of the journey, he asked every ten minutes where 
 were his aunts and his grandmother ? What were they 
 saying? When would he go back to Tarbes ? Afterwards 
 he attracted the attention of a lady, whom he amused by 
 singing to her "St. Anthony," "Little Ida," " Marlborough," 
 and the " Little Bird." Then he became confidential to- 
 wards her. He told her that he \\adfive mammas ; first of all 
 
 1 P.Janet, Traitt Elemental cfe Philosophie, p. 165.
 
 GENERALIZATION. 20$ 
 
 his mother, then Aunt P., Aunt V., Grandmamma of Tarbes, 
 and Grandmamma Louise ; the mother of the latter, the great 
 grandmother, was not a mamma. " But," said the lady to 
 him, " Aunt V. is not your mamma ! " " Oh, yes; because 
 she takes care of me." Then he began to imitate a grocer, 
 his mother's grocer, the only one he had ever seen. 
 Grandmamma Louise had given him a little grocer's shop. 
 He said that he sold a great many goods, " M. Francois and 
 Mme. Collette " (the heroes of a little story that had been 
 told to the child) "often have colds, and then they come to 
 buy the little black bonbons of me." Here everything is 
 particular the matter, the form, and even the incidents, 
 which may vary according to the characters of the children, 
 the vivacity of their imagination, the education they receive, 
 and tjbove all the examples set them. 
 
 We can now affirm that children do not begin, either by 
 general conceptions or by terms which they transfer from 
 the individual to the general, in virtue of that primitive 
 tendency to generalization which, according to some philo- 
 sophers is exercised before any individual discrimination. 
 Max Miiller has said, and M. Taine has repeated after 
 him, that there are no general ideas without words. 
 " There is in every language," says Max Miiller, " a cer- 
 tain layer of words which may be called purely emotional. 
 It is smaller or larger according to the genius and history 
 of each nation, but it is never quite concealed by the later 
 strata of rational speech. Most interjections, most imitative 
 words, belong to this class. They are perfectly clear in 
 their character and origin, and it could never be maintained 
 that they rest on general concepts. But, if we deduct that 
 inorganic stratum, all the rest of language, whether among 
 ourselves or among the lowest barbarians, can be traced 
 back to roots, and every one of these roots is the sign of a 
 general concept. This is the most important discovery of 
 the science of language. . . . These concepts are 
 formed by what is called the faculty of abstraction, a very 
 expressive term, which designates the action of decompos- 
 ing sensuous intuitions into their constituent parts, of 
 stripping each part of its momentary and concrete character.
 
 2O6 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 . . . How is this work of the human intellect, the 
 forming and handling of concepts, carried on ? Are con- 
 cepts possible, or, at least, are concepts ever realized, with- 
 out some outward form or body ? I say decidedly, No. If 
 the science of language has proved anything, it has proved 
 that conceptual or discursive thought can be carried on by 
 words only. There is no thought without words, as little 
 as there are words without thought ! " l 
 
 M. Taine, who quotes this passage from Max Miiller, 
 adopting the opinions it expresses, has considerably en- 
 larged on this interesting subject. In a chapter of his 
 book on " Intelligence," where he has collected together 
 observations of the same nature as those of Tiedemann, he 
 speaks appreciatively, as a free disciple of Locke, of a cer- 
 tain number of facts relative to the formation of general 
 ideas in children. He attributes the origin of general ideas 
 simultaneously with general terms, or on the occasion of 
 the latter, to an operation special to man, which he desig- 
 nates under the vague term of tendency to generalization. 
 The examples which he has brought forward in support of 
 his theory, will lead us to very different conclusions from 
 his. 
 
 " The formation of these general names may be narrowly 
 watched ; with little children, we take them in the act. We 
 name to them such and such a particular determined ob- 
 ject ; and, with an instinct of imitation common to them 
 with monkeys and parrots, they repeat the name they have 
 just heard. Up to this point they are but as monkeys and 
 parrots ; but here there appears a delicacy of impression 
 which is special to man. We pronounce the word papa 
 before a child in its cradle, at the same time pointing out 
 his father. After a little, he in his turn lisps the word, and 
 we imagine that he understands it in the same sense that 
 we do, or that his father's presence only will recall the 
 word. Not at all. When another person, that is, one 
 similar in appearance, with a long coat, a beard, and a loud 
 
 1 Lectures on Darwin's " Philosophy of Language." See Fraser's 
 Magazine, 1873, pp. 36 and 49.
 
 GENERALIZATION. 2O7 
 
 voice, enters the room, he calls him also papa. The name 
 was an individual one ; he has made it general. In our 
 case, it is applicable to one person only ; in his,- to a cjass. 
 In other words, a certain tendency corresponding to what 
 there is in common to all persons in long coats, with beards 
 and loud voices, is aroused in him in consequence of the 
 experiences by which he has perceived them. This tendency 
 is not what you were attempting to excite, it springs up 
 spontaneously. In it we have the faculty of language. It 
 is wholly founded on the consecutive tendencies which sur- 
 vive the experience of similar individuals, and correspond 
 precisely to what they have in common. 
 
 We see these tendencies continually at work in children, 
 and leading to results differing from ordinary language ; so 
 that we are obliged to correct their spontaneous and too 
 hasty attempts. A little girl, two years and a half old, had 
 a blessed medal hung at her neck. She had been told, 
 " C'est le bon Dieu," and she repeated, " Cest le bo Du," 
 One day, on her uncle's knee, she took his eye-glass, and 
 said, " C'est le bo Du de mon oncle." It is plain that she 
 had involuntarily and naturally constructed a class of ob- 
 jects for which we have no name; that of small round 
 objects, with a handle, through which a hole is pierced ; and 
 hung round the neck by a ribbon ; that a distinct tendency, 
 corresponding to these four general characters, and which 
 we do not experience, was formed and acting in her. A 
 year afterwards, the same child, who was being asked the 
 names of different parts of her face, said, after a little 
 hesitation, on touching the eye-lids, " These are the eye- 
 curtains." A little boy, a year old, had travelled a good 
 deal by railway. The engine, with its hissing sound and 
 smoke, and the great noise of the train, struck his atten- 
 tion ; and the first word he learnt to pronounce was fafer 
 (chtinin de for}. Henceforward, a steamboat, a coffee-pot 
 with spirit-lamp every thing that hissed, or smoked, or made 
 a noise, was a. fafer. Another instrument to which children 
 have a great objection (excuse the detail and the word I 
 mean an enema) had, naturally enough, made a strong 
 impression on him. He had termed it, from its noise, a
 
 208 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 zizi. Till he was two-and-a-half years old, all long, hollow, 
 slender objects, a scissor-sheath, a cigar-tube, a trumpet, 
 were for him zizi; and he treated them all with distrust. 
 These two reigning ideas, the zizi and the fafer, were two 
 cardinal points of his intelligence, and from them he set out 
 to comprehend and name other things." l 
 
 Let us call by their real name these tendencies correspond- 
 ing to what there is in common between similar individuals 
 or objects : they are embryo, if not complete, acts of 
 generalization. There is a simpler and, to my thinking, a 
 more accurate manner of interpreting the facts quoted above, 
 as well as the analogous facts which I myself have been able 
 to bring forward. Objects which are similar awaken the 
 same ideas in the intelligence of children. At first, in con- 
 sequence of their feeble capacity for analysis, these ideas 
 of similarity are particular; but by dint of frequently 
 seeing similar things, simultaneously or successively, they 
 perceive in them distinctive characteristics, or differences ; 
 they cease to confound one with the other, they no longer 
 take every gentleman with a beard for papa, all hissing ob- 
 jects for fafer, or every round object for Bo-Du ; yet they 
 nevertheless retain the idea of resemblance which they had 
 grasped at first, and which is reawakened at every fresh 
 sight of the objects, suice, while now distinguishing them 
 clearly from one another, they still call them all by the 
 same name. 
 
 Here language is much behind thought : if the common 
 term corresponds to the general conception, the particular 
 or individual idea has not yet its equivalent in the child's 
 vocabulary. A certain colour, a certain form, have sud- 
 denly made him aware of the presence of some sort of food, 
 and he pronounces the general term by which he expresses 
 the idea of good to eat ; but at the second glance, he has 
 distinguished cake from bread, potatoes from butter ; thus 
 from the general idea there have been detached particular 
 ideas, which he does not know how to express. When he 
 
 1 Taine, IJ Intelligence. See Eng. Trans, by F. D. Ilnye, p. 15.
 
 GENERALIZATION. 20Q 
 
 has set terms to express them by, the first general terms will 
 merge more and more into the particular, and he will invent 
 or acquire other terms by which to express the former 
 general ideas, which, on their part, will go on enlarging. 
 
 The capacity of children to generalize before they can 
 speak, seems to me to be precisely established by what 
 M. Taine calls this sudden tendency to generalize terms 
 which to us are individual. Such marvellous virtue in 
 words would be contrary to the law of intellectual evo- 
 lution. If general ideas did not exist, in however rudi- 
 mentary a degree, before the terms which are their cor- 
 relatives, I should see in the latter an effect without a 
 cause, the less producing the greater, the sign, the thing 
 signified. When you show a child his father, and say to 
 him, papa, you supply him with a word, which associates 
 itself in his mind with an already existing idea of a form 
 of such and such a kind. But this idea was not particular 
 in the child's mind ; he had already seen this form be- 
 fore, and he sees it nearly every day ; it is a vague idea 
 of resemblance, which is not abstract to him, but which 
 is re-awakened at the sight of all similar objects. The 
 words papa, fafer, etc., signify to him qualities which have 
 struck him, not in one object only, but in several. If the 
 child designates by the same name all similar objects after 
 having seen a certain number of them, and without taking 
 one for the other, it is incontestably shown that analogy 
 touches closely on generalization, and this for the 
 reason"" that analogy of ideas tends towards a certain 
 generality. Words progress like ideas and by means of 
 ideas. 
 
 Generalization is, in fact, only more or less extended 
 similarity. It has not yet become (even when they begin 
 to exercise the function of speech easily) that superior 
 faculty of applying an abstract idea of quality to a whole 
 group of objects compared among themselves. The steps 
 which lead them to these distinct ideas of kind and species 
 will be very slow and gradual. 
 
 A child of three years old, of highly developed intelli- 
 gence, could not at all understand words signifying species
 
 210 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 or class. "What does that mean, this animal is of the 
 same kind ? " he persisted in asking me. I could only get 
 out of the difficulty by answering : " It means, that the 
 animal is almost the same." He understood that the one 
 was like the other, and that was all. There is nothing, 
 moreover, in which we find so much difference, even among 
 adults, as in general ideas, especially the way in which they 
 are understood. Take ten persons at hazard, and mention 
 in their presence the terms virtue, humanity, force, law, 
 nature, quantity, quality, or any other general term; ask 
 each person the sense which he or she attaches to these 
 words of every-day usage, and you will be astonished at the 
 differences there will be in the answers ; and the reason is, 
 that the greater the power of thought, the more experience 
 and analysis intervene in our intellectual operations, and 
 the more general terms and ideas will define themselves, 
 whether by contracting or expanding. Bo-Du will gradually 
 cease to be the name of all round hanging objects, papa of 
 all men with coats, beards, etc. ; and in proportion as 
 objects assume their individual names, or the names con- 
 sidered as such, they will take their place with the corre- 
 sponding ideas in other general categories. The analogies 
 first noticed become less striking, differences are more and 
 more clearly perceived ; classes are divided into species, 
 species into varieties, and individualities into singularities. 
 There is, as it were, a progressive acuteness in the intellec- 
 tual vision, which at first grasps great masses only, after- 
 wards the more important details, and finally the small 
 minutiae, and which corresponds to our generalizations 
 successively ascending and descending. 
 
 V. 
 
 REASONING. 
 
 "The process of judgment has then for its special charac- 
 teristic, according as it advances, the privilege of extending 
 itself; of determining the reaction of the surrounding 
 cerebral elements; of searching, to some extent, into the 
 archives of the past; of associating former notions with
 
 REASONING. 211 
 
 those of the present ; of creating partial local judgments, 
 established a priori as results of the inner experience of the 
 individual; and of permitting us, at a given moment, to 
 juxtapose and agglomerate partial judgments to agglutinate 
 them, in the form of arguments, into a complete judgment, 
 which resumes them all in a true synthesis." l 
 
 If then reasoning consists in the fact that the pre- 
 sentation of certain phenomena (which already have their 
 equivalent in different psychic states produced by past 
 experiences) excites these psychic states to reproduce them- 
 selves, either wholly or in part ; in other words, if reasoning 
 is nothing else than a series of consecutive judgments co- 
 ordinated according to the law of habitual associations, it is 
 evident that both little children and animals are able to 
 reason. 
 
 A child of seven months has already very well associated 
 in its mind the idea of the movements of mastication with 
 that of the agreeable sensations resulting therefrom. When 
 he sees his nurse lift any food to her mouth, and sees her 
 lips and jaws moving, he judges that she is eating ; that 
 what she is eating is good to her taste, and would be the 
 same to his; and he knows by experience that his nurse 
 would probably let him share this pleasure if he asked her 
 in an irresistible manner, i.e. if he cried, or pretended to be 
 going to cry and he acts accordingly. We can see here 
 the origin both of the analogical reasoning by which he 
 formed this chain of consecutive judgments, and of the 
 deductive reasoning which made him apply these experi- 
 ences which he had generalized to the present circumstances. 
 Before continuing the examination of the faculty of reason- 
 ing in little children, let us study its analogous phenomena 
 in animals. 
 
 A young dog, about six months old, had been given to 
 me. In order to form in him habits of cleanliness, which 
 his former master had neglected to teach him, I used to 
 whip him every time that he made a mess in a room. Soon 
 
 1 Luys, Le Cervcati et ses Fonctions. See Eng. Trans. (Internal. 
 Scient. Series), pp. 293, 294.
 
 212 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the idea of punishment becoming associated with that of a 
 particular need, excited in him the idea of acting in such a 
 way as to prevent punishment. He took to waking me up 
 every night, either by scratching vigorously at the door of 
 my room, or, if this did not have the desired effect, by 
 setting up a piteous howling. All the judgments which he 
 performed in this instance were linked together by such 
 close bonds that we have only to put them into words to 
 see in them the elements of perfect reasoning. Let us try 
 to utter his thoughts. " My master whips me soundly when 
 I make my bedroom dirty (first inductive reasoning). But 
 when, having opened the door, I go out for a little while 
 into the court below, he is pleased with me, and instead of 
 punishing me, he pats me and praises me (second induc- 
 tion). Now, when I make a loud howling, he wakes up 
 and opens the door for me (third induction). Come then, 
 I'll bark with all my might, wake him up, and I shall not 
 be beaten." (Deductive reasoning.) % 
 
 The following fact is not less conclusive. I borrow it 
 from the immense store of observations and quotations of 
 M. Houzeau, who was a witness of the incident. "It is 
 known that the milk-sellers of Brussels employ dogs, har- 
 nessed to little carts, to go every morning the round of 
 their customers. These dogs draw up of their own accord 
 at the different houses ; but in this there is nothing more 
 than memory. One day in 1854, I was walking along 
 the Rue Saint-Gery, and I happened to follow one of 
 these dogs drawing its cart, while some steps behind him 
 followed the milkvvoman. A carriage with two horses was 
 also going along the street, at the same pace, side by side 
 with the milk-cart. This carriage formed a constant ob- 
 stacle on the dog's left hand, as it was between him and 
 the line of houses, one of which he had to stop at. The 
 problem in his mind was, whether to cross in front of the 
 horses, or to let them pass on and cross over behind them. 
 The dog went on walking at his usual pace, casting alternate 
 despairing glances at his mistress and at the door of his 
 customer. The expression of the animal's face said unmis- 
 takably : ' What shall I do now ? ' The interrogation
 
 REASONING. 213 
 
 was so plain and positive that the rnilkwonuin not only 
 understood and answered it, but she solved the problem 
 in the manner that the dog's look seemed to suggest She 
 begged the coachman to stop his horses for a minute, and 
 the dog then instantly crossed over in front of them and 
 drew up at the right door. Any one who has witnessed a 
 similar scene cannot deny that dogs are capable of re- 
 flection." l 
 
 "At the time of the great inundation of the Loire, in 
 1836, the water spread over a garden where two nightin- 
 gales had built a nest in the hedge. The floods mounted 
 higher and higher, and threatened to submerge the young 
 family ; for the little ones, but newly-hatched, were not yet 
 capable of flying. Under these circumstances, we might 
 assert that the old birds must have been able to reason in 
 order to understand the increasing danger. But, unques- 
 tionably, there was something more than automatic action 
 when the birds carried the nest bodily off, and placed it at 
 some distance, out of reach of the waters. This is, in fact, 
 what the parent birds did ; each took one side of the nest 
 by the beak, and with a swift and balanced flight the night- 
 ingales accomplished the journey and saved their little ones 
 from the threatened drowning." 
 
 I will quote another example of a different kind, also 
 about birds. "I had received a present of a beautiful male 
 grossbeak," writes Audubon ; " but the bird was in such an 
 exhausted state that one would have said he was simply an 
 inanimate mass of feathers. However, with careful feeding, 
 he soon recovered, and became so tame that he would eat 
 out of my hand without showing the least sign of fear. To 
 make captivity bearable to him, I allowed him to fly about 
 my bed-room, and on getting up in the morning, my first 
 care always was to give him some seed. It happened, 
 however, that for three consecutive days I lay in bed later 
 than usual, and then the bird came to wake me by flutter- 
 ing on to my shoulder and demanding his usual meal. The 
 third day I k-t him flutter about some time before appearing 
 
 Houzeau, Facultcs Men fates des Antmanx, vol. ii., p. 195.
 
 214 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 to be awake. But he no sooner saw that he had attained 
 his end, than he retired to the window and waited patiently 
 till I had got up." 
 
 Thus we perceive in animals a variety of intellectual 
 operations and intelligent actions which cannot be set down 
 to instinct. The examples above quoted do not belong to 
 the class of habits common to a whole species, which we 
 might consider as dependent on the organic constitution, 
 but they are individual manifestations, under exceptional 
 circumstances, and varying with external changes. It is 
 human reasoning, with all its independence of automatism. 
 We must, however, be careful, whether as regards human 
 beings or animals, not to attribute too much to spontaneity 
 pure and simple. Are we not constantly startled by the 
 sudden apparition of some faculty long buried in the depths 
 of hereditary automatism ? and may not certain exceptional 
 actions performed by animals proceed from the same mys- 
 terious source? Are inundations, for instance, such rare 
 events in the life of the species, that they may not have 
 determined in birds up to a certain point the semi-instinctive 
 faculty of transporting their nests by the help of their beaks ? 
 la like manner, in the case of the child above mentioned, 
 who watched his nurse eating with envious eyes, there must 
 have been combined with the conscious operations of the 
 intellect, with the process of pure reasoning, certain reflex 
 judgments and movements which were the result either of 
 individual or of transmitted habits. Might not the mere 
 sight of the movements of the jaws excite in a child un- 
 conscious and involuntary movements, such as opening the 
 mouth, holding out the arms, leaning forward, and even 
 crying ? It is very difficult to determine how much belongs 
 to unconscious and how much to conscious cerebration, in 
 this aggregate of apparently rationally co-ordinated organic 
 sentiments, ideas, and impulses. It is certain, however, 
 that consciousness enters largely into the matter. In fact, 
 as we have already said, all instinctive movements, all 
 reflex actions, come in course of time to be consciously 
 realized by their agent, provided they are important enough 
 in themselves, or that by quickly recurring reiteration they
 
 REASONING. 21$ 
 
 are brought out, so to say, in relief. In adults we see the 
 consciousness suddenly roused by great crises or theatrical 
 climaxes, whereas ordinary events leave them indifferent. 
 In like manner, if children are encouraged to reproduce 
 these movements, which at first have passed unnoticed by 
 them, or to perform them with varying or increased intensity 
 or complexity, their attention is sure to be attracted sooner 
 or later, as is proved by the fact that they will modify these 
 actions under the counteracting influence of particular im- 
 pressions or sentiments. 
 
 A little child of ten months wished very much to hold in 
 his arms a kitten which his elder sister was playing with on 
 her lap ; he held out his arms towards the animal, looking 
 alternately at it and at his sister, and uttering cries which 
 sounded like hiccoughing. His sister did not grant his 
 desire, not wishing to subject her pet kitten to the awkward 
 hugging of the baby. The latter then began to scream. 
 His sister remained calm and impassive. The baby then be- 
 came more urgent, shook his whole body violently, struggled, 
 writhed, sobbed, and howled. His sister said to him : " Be 
 quiet, you naughty child, you shall not have pussy, you will 
 hurt him ;" but the child's passion only increased in fury, and 
 finally reached such a pitch of intensity that his conscious- 
 ness quite disappeared in the hurly-burly of moral and 
 physical excitement, and he ended by forgetting the cause 
 of his rage in the rage itself. He went on screaming and 
 holding out his arms without knowing what he was doing, 
 for the kitten, terrified by this turbulent scene, had escaped 
 and hidden behind a bed. To calm her little brother, the 
 sister called the kitten back and took it to him ; he in- 
 stantly became quiet, but after a few seconds he began to 
 cry again ; the sister then kissed and petted him, and tried 
 to make him stroke the kitten. When at last he was a little 
 tranquillized, he took no more notice of the kitten, but 
 asked his sister for a bonbon. Here we see the fluctuating 
 and capricious procedure of a child's judgments and move- 
 ments, which, though co-ordinated by the law of habit, are 
 shifted and changed in a thousand unexpected ways at the 
 beck of intervening impressions and associations of ideas
 
 2l6 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 which alternately present them to and withdraw them from 
 the consciousness. 
 
 If automatism passes back to consciousness in certain 
 determined cases, consciousness is equally ready to relapse 
 into automatism. A child of two years was accustomed 
 to see his mother's lodger (Mme. Jillet) re-enter the house 
 nearly every day on her return from market. Whenever he 
 saw his mother come back with a basket on her arm he 
 used to call out, "Where me" Gile? Me want see Gile. 
 Call me" Gild." Are not all the acts of judgment expressed 
 by these baby phrases linked together in such a way as to 
 constitute a chain of concrete but effectual reasonings? 
 Well then, the child has already acquired the habit of 
 repeating these phrases several times a day, and no matter 
 at what hour, and quite mechanically, like a parrot, every 
 time he sees his mother take up a basket. What was 
 rational has become automatic, by dint of constant 
 repetition. I observed other examples of the same nature in 
 this child. When the lady in question comes to pay her 
 morning visit after marketing, the child runs up to her, 
 hangs on to her gown, and says : " Maman dear Gile," then 
 he pulls open a corner of the basket, forages about with 
 his hands among the provisions, and pulling out no matter 
 what, says, " Want this, I do \ I say, I want this." All 
 these natural operations of judgment happen in so constant 
 an automatic order, that one would suppose that the child 
 had no consciousness of them. 
 
 But here are two examples of a contrary nature, fur- 
 nished by the same child, from which we shall see the 
 intervention of consciousness in a collection of judg- 
 ments and movements performed chiefly in a reflex manner. 
 His father is a workman who often goes out fishing, and 
 the child is accustomed to eating fried fish. The other 
 day, the father, who had returned home after the hour for 
 the family supper, was eating some fish by himself. " Me 
 want fish, papa, me want fish." The father turned a deaf 
 ear for a few moments. " Me want fish," again said the 
 little one, pulling his father's sleeve and trying to attract 
 his attention. The father went on eating without speaking
 
 REASONING. 217 
 
 a word (up to this point all the child's words, as well as 
 its actions and gestures, had expressed ideas automatically 
 associated and co-ordinated) ; but finding his efforts fruit- 
 less, he suddenly got under the table, and pulling his 
 father's leg began again : " Me want fish, not pussy have 
 fish, me want fish." He had suddenly reflected that the 
 cat generally went under the table ; and by a sudden inspira- 
 tion of his consciousness, which made him imagine and 
 execute movements quite new to him, he assumed the 
 character of a cat. 
 
 The mother of this child has accustomed him to call 
 Madame Jillet, towards twelve o'clock, and to ask her to 
 throw down the newspaper, in order to save her the trouble 
 of coming downstairs. The child discharges this duty very 
 solemnly, and will not let any one else do it for him, " Me* 
 Gile, give paper ! " He repeats this formula with very little 
 variation until the paper is thrown out of the window. One 
 day his brother wanted to call out for the paper instead of 
 him. The child became crimson with rage; his rights 
 were being invaded. He set off screaming with all his 
 might : " Me" Gile, give paper ! " and then, turning to his 
 brother ; " You not to call out, mtisn't call out, me cry out, 
 me" Gile ! " The paper fell at this moment, and the elder 
 boy picked it up ; the younger one instantly snatched it 
 from him, saying : "Give paper, me take mamma." Two or 
 three innovations had here crept into his accustomed routine ; 
 but he returned to this immediately, shaking the paper 
 which had fallen, and saying, " Not dirty ; " this had become 
 an almost unconscious habit with him. 
 
 It is in this faculty of assimilating past experiences 
 with new ones, of continually extending the chain of 
 inductions and deductions, that children and animals show 
 endless power of invention and resource of imagination a 
 power which adults, more accustomed to act on ready- 
 made arguments, acquired or learnt, than to construct new 
 ones, might envy them. A propos of this example, we may 
 observe that Locke and Mill have with reason maintained 
 that there is a mode of reasoning founded on the particular. 
 
 M. L. Fcrri, in his interesting study on Les Trois Pre-
 
 2l8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 mib-es Ann'ees d'une Enfant,* 1 has introduced some observa- 
 tions which confirm this opinion. 
 
 Young children are incessantly giving proofs of their 
 force of invention, and of the elasticity of their reasoning 
 power. All their intellectual, moral, and physical progress, 
 their games, their caresses, their little tricks, all bear 
 the mark of the practical and ingenious nature of their 
 reasoning powers. We will quote a few more instances 
 selected out of thousands, and of the kind which every 
 one may have observed, without however noticing or appre- 
 ciating them systematically, and with a view to the right 
 direction to be given to infant faculties. The word direction 
 does not rightly express my meaning. Everything bursts 
 forth so spontaneously in the evolution of young human 
 beings, the experiences they are continually accumulating 
 respond with such marvellous activity and diversity to the 
 excitations and necessities of accidental circumstances, 
 that the great art of education, even at the most tender 
 age, seems to me to consist rather in attentive and watchful 
 neutrality than in partial and domineering interference. 
 Woe to the child cast in the mould of conventional routine 
 and maxims, however wise and specious a form they may 
 assume ! " Let be," " Let pass," " Let live," and do not 
 force or repress, except when absolutely necessary, or you 
 run the risk of hindering the diffusion of the sap destined 
 to produce, successively and simultaneously, precious flowers 
 and exquisite fruit. 
 
 Here are some more examples from the category of 
 children who can already speak and walk, and thus 
 reveal in a more evident manner the workings of the 
 unseen phenomena which are going on within them. The 
 child I am about to speak of is two years and one month 
 old. When his father, whose night duties oblige him to 
 sleep rather late in the morning, seems to him to have 
 slept too long, he tries to wake him up, if left alone with 
 him for a moment, either by pulling off the counterpane or 
 making a noise with a chair, or by getting up on the chair 
 
 1 In the Ftiosophia delle Scqplc Ilaliane, Oct. 1879.
 
 REASONING. 
 
 and shaking his father's head. The other day, mounted on 
 the chair, he took his father by the neck, and then pinched 
 and pulled his ear. The father pretended to be asleep, in 
 order to see what would happen. At last the child lifted 
 up one of his father's eyelids and cried out, " Daddy, isn't 
 it light ? " This was a device that the father would have to 
 guard against in future. Another time the father had just 
 come in, and was waiting for supper; the child was watching 
 his mother's preparations ; she had just filled a plate with 
 soup and left the room for a moment. The child profited by 
 her absence to take up the plate in both hands ; and, not- 
 withstanding its weight, he carried it to his father, saying to 
 him : " Monsieur papa, mangez soupe." This action was 
 altogether new, and caused a burst of laughter from both 
 parents. The Monsieur papa was the most comical part of 
 the entertainment. Sometimes, when his father pretends to 
 be angry, the boy soon guesses, from his expression, and the 
 curve of his lip, and other familiar signs, that the anger is 
 only feigned, and he calls out, laughing, " Not angry, papa 
 play, not angry." This child has taken to a trick of slily 
 stealing something from his neighbour's plate at meals. 
 When he has transferred the bit of stolen meat or pudding 
 to his own plate, he pats and presses it up against the rest, 
 so that it should not be seen. This little trick has already 
 procured him several scoldings, which have not yet quite 
 cured him of it. He knows that his brother, who is past 
 five, and goes to school, does not like him to touch his 
 playthings, because he disarranges and spoils them. But, 
 no sooner is his brother gone, than he goes off to the 
 corner where the box of toys is hidden, or manages by 
 coaxing and tears to get them from his indulgent mother. 
 But he is on the qui vive all the time, and often runs to the 
 top of the staircase to see who is coming up ; and the 
 instant he recognises his brother's step he begins with both 
 hands to bundle all the toys pell-mell into the box, and to 
 put them back in their place. Although it is indisputable 
 that in many cases adult animals reason more promptly and 
 justly than do children from one to four years, or even 
 older, this is assuredly an example of contrivance superior
 
 220 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 to that which is ordinarily shown in the most intelligent 
 animals. 
 
 As children grow in strength and experience, their judg- 
 ment gains in accuracy, their reason becomes stronger, 
 more precise, and more subtle, more abstract, so to say, 
 and the verbal expression of their trains of reasoning, 
 which relate generally to their desires and fears, acquires 
 fluency and logic. 
 
 When I was a child of five years I had abused my right 
 of strongest, and taken away from a little girl cousin, two 
 years younger, a magnificent pear which our grandmother 
 had given her. The tears and screams and despair of the 
 poor little victim may be imagined. She related what had 
 happened very eloquently and circumstantially to rny 
 grandmother, and the latter tried to appease her by giving 
 her a fine bunch of grapes. When I came out of the hiding- 
 place where I had been enjoying my stolen fruit, the 
 little girl had not yet come to the end of her grapes or of 
 her grief. My grandmother scolded me very severely, and 
 then addressing my cousin : " Never mind, my child," she 
 said, " I will fetch you a very nice pear, and your cousin 
 shall not have one." This promise, and my disconcerted 
 air, restored my cousin's cheerfulness, and she ran off 
 merrily to her play. An hour passed by, and I had not 
 left the house ; probably I was waiting to see whether our 
 grandmother would have the courage to fulfil her threat, 
 and to give my cousin a pear in my presence without giving 
 me one. The little girl, on her part, had not forgotten the 
 promise either; she kept coming back every ten minutes, 
 fidgeting round the old lady, and saying pretty coaxing 
 things, asking if she could do anything for her, talking 
 to her about flowers, vegetables, etc., but the word pear 
 never passed her lips. She knew by experience that our 
 grandmother did not like importunity, especially in regard 
 to things to eat, and she avoided displeasing her by 
 appearing too eager for the promised fruit. At last, how- 
 ever, at the end of half an hour, she screwed up all her 
 courage, and nerving herself for all risks, came jumping 
 into the room from the court-yard, and laying a coaxing
 
 REASONING. 221 
 
 hand on her grandmother's shoulder, said : " It will be very 
 nice, won't it?" My grandmother understood very well 
 what this astute remark meant, but purposely made her 
 repeat it ; and the child, thus encouraged, went even further : 
 " It will be nice, grandmamma, the pear ! " My grand- 
 mother was charmed with this proceeding, and calling to 
 my grandfather, who was in an adjoining room, asked him if 
 he had time to go into the garden. " Will you go and 
 look for a fine pear which I have promised this little girl ? " 
 My grandfather went into the garden, and my cousin 
 accompanied him, holding his hand ; I too made one of 
 the party, but keeping at a respectful distance behind my 
 grandfather. My cousin had a beautiful pear given her ; 
 and she was so much engrossed with the pleasure of eating 
 it, that she forgot to say that I was not to have one. So we 
 all three enjoyed our pears together, and then we had a 
 good game among the trees in the garden with our grand- 
 father two little children and one big one ! 
 
 Children are thus capable of reasoning from their very 
 cradles ; if it were not so, they would never acquire the 
 power : according to the saying of Laromiguiere : " Reduced 
 to pure sensations, which they could neither disentangle nor 
 compare nor combine nor analyse, they would be destitute 
 of all ideas, and would never take rank among intelli- 
 gences." 1 But the natural logic of young children is very 
 limited in its grasp and very uncertain in its methods. If 
 in the sphere of analogical relations it goes straight to -the 
 end, as if by an imaginative glance ; if in the rather more 
 complex relations of particular similitudes, which lead 
 towards induction, it follows the course, sometimes tolerably 
 regular, of psychic associations ; and if it applies somewhat 
 resolutely some of these analogical and inductive concep- 
 tions to new cases, it is the primitive, summary, and irreflec- 
 tive method which suits children best. This method is 
 confounded with the most elementary acts of discrimination 
 and classification ; often it is only a similitude applied to a 
 passing fact, the most simple adaptation of movements to 
 
 1 Discoms sur la Langue du K^isonncment, p. 185.
 
 222 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 representations. Many of the above examples are proofs 
 of this. But it is a satisfaction to me to see my own inter- 
 pretations confirmed by observations analogous to mine. 
 Darwin, although he does not fix the positive beginning of 
 association of ideas in children before the age of five 
 months, nevertheless notices a sign of practical reasoning 
 in his little son at the age of a hundred days, when he 
 slipped his hand along the finger held out to him in order 
 to introduce it into his mouth. 1 A child who cannot yet 
 speak, but is beginning to walk, stumbles in passing from the 
 bare floor to the carpet. A moment comes whe/i it occurs 
 to him to raise his foot to a sufficient height to step over the 
 border of the carpet without stumbling. Here is a middle 
 term inserted between the end conceived and the point of 
 departure. 2 A little girl nineteen months old wanted to 
 have my hat, which was placed on a table too high for 
 her to reach : impatience, screams, tears. I get up and 
 give it to her. Her first impulse is to put it on her head ; 
 then, after a few minutes, during which she seemed to be 
 thinking, she went to fetch her own hat, which was on a 
 chair within her reach, and presented it to me with a most 
 serious expression. VVas it a mode of thanking me, or an 
 invitation to me to take her out? It matters little ; but it 
 was evidently analogical or even inductive reasoning. 3 
 
 These are the modes of reasoning in which children excel, 
 even after they have begun to talk. They seem less sure of 
 themselves in those which they attempt at our dictation, on 
 our system, and by means of the analogies and inductions 
 which are imposed on them by our language. They judge, 
 often very wrongly, from simple similitudes and forced 
 analogies. " If they dislike a person very much, every one 
 else who at all resembles that person will be repugnant to 
 them ; they would readily lay down this axiom : All persons 
 
 1 Biographical Sketch of a Little Child. Scientific Revieiv, July, 
 1877- 
 
 2 See the Revue Philosoplnque, April, 1880, on the above-cited paper, 
 by L. Ferri. 
 
 3 Paul Rousselet, Pcdagogie & I' Usage de V Enscigncmcnt Primaire, 
 p. 246.
 
 REASONING. 223 
 
 of such-and-such an aspect are bad. A premature and un- 
 scientific induction, yet nevertheless, at bottom, of the same 
 nature as those of savants" l It is not indeed very certain 
 whether most of the trains of reasoning that children prefer 
 and succeed in best from two to three years old, generally 
 surpass the average reasoning of adult animals. I had a cat 
 which, from the time she was a year old, was in the habit of 
 taking her dinner with me. The instant dinner was ready 
 she used to begin frisking about, from me to the table and 
 from the table back to me, and try by persuasive looks to 
 make me come to it. Do we find any superior element in 
 the reasoning attributed by M. Egger to his son ?* " From 
 the age of eighteen months, as soon as meals were ready 
 he used to summon all the absent members of the family 
 and drag them by their clothes to join the meal. ... At 
 twenty-eight months I observed the scope of his reasoning 
 powers extend. He now guessed that any person who took 
 up his hat was preparing to go out, that in going out he 
 Avould pass through the court-yard, and that he could see 
 him pass there; the instant any one takes up his hat, he 
 goes to the window to see him go." There is nothing in 
 this, whatever M. Egger may think, which indicates any 
 superiority of infant over animal intelligence. 
 
 The faculty of reasoning 4s always very limited in its 
 logical scope during the whole three years of which we are 
 treating. If language brings a child new elements of in- 
 duction, new facilities, and especially, under the example 
 of his elders, the to him new faculty of argumentation, it 
 most often only serves to bring out in relief his intellectual 
 feebleness ; and a very useful result this is, both for us and 
 for the child for us, who are thus enabled better to, con- 
 trol the child's progress, and for the child, who has thus the 
 opportunity to take stock of himself, and to realize the 
 limits and the scope of his budding intelligence. No one 
 
 1 Henri Marion, Lecons de Psychologic appliqide <J /' 'Education, p. 340. 
 * Observations et Reflexions sur le Developpement de I Intelligence etdu, 
 Langage chez Us Enfants.
 
 224 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 has better demonstrated than M. Egger these characteristic 
 facts of intellectual weakness in children who so often 
 astonish us by the precocity of their reason and the sagacity 
 of their judgment. The instances which we borrow from 
 him have moreover a double interest, psychological and 
 moral observation being closely bound up with the lexico- 
 logical considerations which they embody. 
 
 " The younger sister of Emile said to me : 'I shall carry 
 Emile when he gets little.' She had noticed that, of two 
 people, the biggest only can carry the smallest ; she has 
 also been told that she will become big . . . the con- 
 ditional and the future are confused together in her mind." 
 This observation is of real value from all points of view, 
 and I can say as much for the two following : " The reversing 
 of relations is very habitual with children at this period of 
 life. At four years, and even at five years of age, a child 
 will take correlative ideas one for the other, like that of 
 lending and borrowing. 'Will you borrow your seal to 
 me ? ' He said to me one day : ' I am very generous 
 to-day,' meaning to say : ' You have been very generous to 
 me.' " We must however add that these infantine confu- 
 sions take place rather in words than in things. Let us 
 study the natural limits and the most common deficiencies 
 of infant reasoning in circumstances almost independent 
 of the admixture of speech. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE ERRORS AND ILLUSIONS OF CHILDREN. 
 
 Children are subject to the same kinds of error and 
 illusion as adults ; the only difference between them is, that 
 particular kinds of error are more natural and unavoidable 
 in the former, owing to the imperfect development of their 
 faculties, which nevertheless from the beginning of life tend 
 to exercise themselves according to the specific laws of 
 human thought. Apart from this difference, we find in 
 children all the most common errors, false inductions 
 applied to the impressions of the various senses, the para-
 
 ERRORS AND ILLUSIONS. 225 
 
 logisms occasioned by precipitation and prejudice, and above 
 all, what we still call, after the logicians of Port Royal, 
 sophisms of amour-propre, of interest, and of passion. To 
 point out some few of these different errors, often analogous 
 in children and adults, will not be a work of idle curiosity 
 it will throw a flood of light on the operations of the infant 
 mind and afford us knowledge as useful for us who live in 
 the life of our children, as for the children whom we have 
 to prepare for life. 
 
 Plato has indicated very poetically and accurately the 
 principal source of our errors, viz. ignorance. " Let us 
 suppose our soul to be a sort of dove-cot for birds of every 
 species, some are gregarious, others that consort in small 
 numbers, some that fly by themselves through all the others, 
 this way or that as it may happen. By these birds we 
 must conceive that different kinds of knowledge are meant 
 While we are children the dovecot is empty ; but every 
 time that we acquire a piece of knowledge we let it loose 
 in the dovecot. When we want to ' recapture ' one of 
 these pieces of knowledge, it may often happen that we 
 get hold of one by mistake instead of the other ; as for 
 instance, if we were seeking the total of seven and five, 
 we might get hold of eleven instead of twelve our ring- 
 dove, as it were, instead of our rock pigeon. But in 
 this case it would be knowledge that would make us ignor- 
 ant" 1 However subtle these last remarks may be, we 
 may accept their imagery and profound meaning. It is, in 
 fact, on the strength of a little knowledge that we judge 
 rightly or wrongly ; and the reasonings, whether conscious 
 or intuitive, which lead us to error and to false judgments 
 apply to the simplest phenomena of the mind and even to 
 our perceptions. We shall find numerous examples of the 
 truth of this amongst children. 
 
 Let us first examine the errors which the exercise of our 
 senses gives rise to. The illusions of sight have to do with 
 the colour, the localization in space, the form, the dimensions, 
 the distance, the nature, the number of all objects which are 
 
 1 Thesetetus.
 
 226 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 illumined by light. The sensation of light produces the 
 notion or judgment of colour; the reality appears to us 
 under colours with which we ourselves invest it by virtue of 
 anterior judgments. What a time it must take a young 
 child to accustom itself to recognise the colours belonging 
 to the different surrounding objects, susceptible as they are 
 of a thousand variations and transformations, according to 
 their reciprocal actions on each other, the action on them 
 of different surroundings, and according to their distance 
 and position. A child of six months will gaze fixedly at, and 
 then stretch out his hands entreatingly towards, the flattened 
 sphere of a door-handle which he mistakes for the suspended 
 ball with which his nurse has amused him in his cradle. 
 He will take a flat disk with gradations of light and shade 
 for a globe of uniform colour ; as, later on, he will mistake a 
 sphere for a square. At this age, however, his most frequent 
 error is to take all the surfaces he sees for bulks. He wants 
 to hold in his hands everything of which the brightness 
 attracts him ; and the reason of this is, that, owing to his 
 limited knowledge of perspective, he does not judge of the 
 distance of far-off objects in comparison with the relative 
 distances of the objects which surround him : his scale of 
 height and length is entirely circumscribed by the environs 
 of his own person and the few places well known to him, 
 like his room or some parts of his room. 
 
 As early as ten months, or a year, it seems to us as if 
 children were enchanted by the solemn appearance of the 
 sun or moon, when setting or rising ; this however is an 
 illusion on our part. A child who is not in the habit of 
 contemplating these luminaries at other times, does not 
 invest them at rising and setting with the voluminous 
 appearance which we see in them on these occasions. I 
 have even remarked that a child's attention is scarcely 
 attracted by the brightness (much more relative than real) 
 of the stars : their scintillation, to eyes which only see them 
 as near objects, is very trifling. Children are constantly 
 making strange mistakes respecting the height, the distance, 
 and the form of numbers of things. Mountains, forests, 
 horizons, which we see and reckon to be eight or ten miles
 
 ERRORS AND ILLUSIONS. 227 
 
 from us, to a child even of fifteen months old, will seem no 
 larger or more distant than such-and-such a neighbouring 
 tree or house. Far-ofF objects seem to him as smaller 
 objects near by, while near objects he almost invariably 
 thinks to be much larger than their real size. 
 
 A little later on, when a child is four or five years old, for 
 instance, his sense of perspective, being now a little more 
 developed, will lead him into quite opposite errors. I 
 remember that when I was five or six years old, I accom- 
 panied my mother and an uncle to Bagneres-de-Bigorre. 
 We had been for a walk on Mont Bedat, whose base is 
 planted with trees, shading winding paths. My uncle, 
 having left us for a moment, disappeared amongst the trees, 
 and \ve did not see him till he reappeared on a footpath a 
 little higher up. I thought he was an immense way off, but 
 I have since verified that he could not have been more than 
 a hundred yards distant. It is in consequence of pyschical 
 (and not optical) errors that young children judge very falsely 
 of real forms, of movement, and of the distance of objects, 
 when the object is some little way off. If they are moving 
 along in a carriage or a boat, they go on for a long time 
 believing that the trees and houses they pass are moving; 
 when they see a long avenue, they think that the trees join 
 and touch each other. If two buildings at different dis- 
 tances off appear to them of the same height, they think 
 they are at the same distance, and of the same height. As 
 for rather distant objects, they are not capable of estimating 
 their real size by comparing their apparent size with the 
 distance at which they are. The utmost they can do, even 
 at two years old, is to estimate the distance, dimension, and 
 movement of near objects, within the reach of eye and 
 hand. But it has been noticed that the more intelligent 
 children are, and the more they are accustomed to games 
 and exercises which call forth strength, skill, and quickness 
 of sight, the greater is their certainty of visual appreciation. 
 
 The most frequent illusions of sight, normal illusions i.e., 
 not pathological ones, are those which relate to the relief 
 of objects, to the con/usion of what is visible with what can
 
 228 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 be held in the hand, and to the number of objects within 
 the field of vision. Children refuse for a long time to 
 believe in the solidity of objects. They feel them all round 
 and all over to find some cavity ; and they try to put all 
 sorts of things one inside the other. A child of fifteen 
 months who was very fond of hoisting himself up to the 
 second landing of the staircase at home, on another stair- 
 case stopped at the first landing because the landing was 
 so large that he thought the staircase ended there. There 
 is no doubt that children, even after a certain number of 
 experiences, will be very puzzle-pated in making distinc- 
 tions, which we determine at first sight, between such things 
 as the ledge of a chimney-piece, a roof, a portion of a wall, 
 the facing of a bridge, and the plane surfaces which are con- 
 tiguous to them. We can also well understand that a child, 
 even of three years old, and who has some idea of concrete 
 numerical quantities, will yet often make mistakes in esti- 
 mating the number of objects presented to him. Is it not 
 the same with adults ? We know that to each one of us 
 when we look up at the sky on a fine starry night the 
 number of stars we seem to see is immensely exaggerated. 
 Here we have an illusion entirely mental. An illusion of this 
 kind takes place in a child's mind when it wishes to count 
 a number of objects close to each other, even when but 
 little removed from himself. At the age of three years 
 he will perhaps be able to count, up to four or five, the 
 trees which are quite near him ; beyond that limit the 
 number becomes many trees, and the number increases 
 with the distance of the objects. That which is true of 
 numeric magnitude is also true of magnitude of extent. A 
 pool of water seems like an ocean to an infant of two or 
 three, and the sea is much, very much water ; but this vague 
 idea of the indefinite is much more limited in children than 
 in adults. 
 
 The sense of sight, like that of touch, must be exercised 
 in recognising the intrinsic properties of objects; in other 
 words, the intuitive appearance only becomes an object of 
 real cognition when it is referred to a genus which deter-
 
 ERRORS AND ILLUSIONS. 22Q 
 
 mines the object. When a child sees his nurse, at a few 
 yards distance from his cradle, take up her bonnet and 
 cloak, fill his bottle with milk, stroke the cat or dog, etc., 
 these are forms of tfwught rather than visual perceptions. 
 At the sight of these objects, or, let us rather say, on the 
 evidence of his sight which brings to him some of the sensa- 
 tions which cause him habitually to infer these objects, the 
 child affirms to himself believes that he sees them. By 
 virtue of judgments and reasonings as rapid as they are 
 unconscious, the child immediately refers these tangible 
 qualities to a known genus ; this is why the number of his 
 errors, relatively to this specific appreciation of objects, is 
 in inverse ratio to his accurate experiences and his well- 
 drawn inductions. 
 
 Finally, we must not forget those hallucinations, in some 
 sort legitimate, which are produced in a child's mind by 
 undecided combinations of light and shade, a sudden 
 passage from light to darkness, the juxtaposition of certain 
 colours. These illusions are more optical than mental ; 
 but from the tendency which all animals have to clothe in 
 an objective form any sensations that are rather vivid, 
 children, and sometimes, too, adults, are led to create 
 chimerical spectres, real phantoms, out of these optical 
 spectres. Nothing is more hurtful than to leave children 
 alone in badly-lighted rooms, or to let them pass suddenly 
 and alone from light into darkness. Some children, from a 
 false conception of the relations between light and darkness 
 especially if the light flickers at all have been the 
 victims of terrors resulting from illusions which have taken 
 bodily shape. We should try to accustom them gradually 
 to the changing effects of light and shadow, and teach them 
 to produce for themselves strange effects which they will no 
 longer be frightened at when they have become accustomed 
 to produce them themselves and to laugh at them. Thus a 
 child of two years used to beg his mother to leave the candle 
 till he was asleep, so that he might make dogs, elephants, 
 and jaguars with the shadow of his fingers on the wall. 
 
 The sensations of hearing give rise to special errors, but
 
 230 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 not such numerous or important ones as those caused by 
 visual sensations. The great difficulty for children, is not 
 so much to localize sound in space, as to refer it to its right 
 cause ; but these two cases seem often confounded in one. 
 As it is not essentially useful for a child to make this localiz- 
 ation in the absence of impressions of sight, he does not 
 acquire the power till rather late, and after he has had a 
 great many combined experiences of hearing, sight, and 
 touch, and that his faculty of comparison has developed to 
 some extent. Thus we see a child of a year old very easily 
 mistaken as to the distance of a sound otherwise familiar. 
 Nurses and other people who are about children will often 
 amuse themselves by raising or lowering their voice, re- 
 maining all the while hidden, to make the children think 
 they are either quite near or far off. As to the errors 
 relating to the fusion in one whole of various sensations, 
 either synchronic or successive, whatever importance they 
 may have as regards the musical education of little children, 
 they belong to the chapter of infant aesthetics, and we 
 abstain from alluding to them here. Suffice it to say, that 
 the spiritual ear, or the faculty of judging sonorous sounds, 
 plays many tricks, even if it renders good service, to the 
 material ear. 
 
 It is difficult to say how much harm is done to children 
 by people who do not scruple to give vent violently before 
 them to their tempers and passions. Children generally 
 imagine that this or that angry tone of voice means dis- 
 pleasure with them, and that they are going to be scolded 
 and punished. It is the same with dogs and cats whose 
 masters lose their temper about every trifle ; when they 
 begin to storm or to swear, the animals hide themselves 
 in terror. I knew a little girl of five months who used to 
 be constantly whipped and scolded to cure her of a dirty 
 habit ; and often the mere sight of an angry face, an angry 
 gesture or voice, would be enough, from some mysterious 
 association of ideas, to make her commit the fault in spite 
 of herself. Another little thing of fifteen months, whose 
 father used to scold her unreasonably often, whenever she
 
 ERRORS AND ILLUSIONS. 231 
 
 heard a heavy step on the stairs thought it was her father, 
 and ran trembling to her mother. 
 
 Smell and taste are liable to numberless causes of error. 
 In the first place we know that the nervous excitability of 
 the sense of smell very quickly wears off, so that we only 
 enjoy pleasant odours or suffer from bad ones at the mo- 
 ment and during short periods. For each scent in its turn to 
 be fully appreciated, they must succeed each other in a 
 certain order. We know also that smell and taste are 
 closely connected, and that they deceive conjointly. We 
 can tell the taste of cinnamon from its smell, and if we 
 pinch our nose while eating it, we find no taste in it but 
 that of fir-wood. Many other substances lose their flavours 
 in the same way. Thus, nurses act scientifically without 
 knowing it, when they pinch the babies' noses to make them 
 swallow disagreeable medicine. Taste deceives us in a 
 similar manner. When we eat or drink substances of 
 different flavours in quick succession, without giving the 
 nerves of taste time to rest from their first sensations, how- 
 ever different the flavours may be, we are no longer able to 
 distinguish them. By drinking alternately, with our eyes 
 bandaged, buttermilk and Bordeaux wine, it becomes im- 
 possible after several repetitions of the experiment, to 
 discover any difference between the two liquids. These 
 are illusions which children's doctors do not fail to avail 
 themselves of. 
 
 Finally, as to errors of touch. They are generally easily 
 corrected by the attentive use of the tactilo-muscular 
 organs. This is at any rate the case with regard to im- 
 pressions of surfaces, their smoothness or roughness, hollow- 
 ness or relief, etc. The exercise of our organs pure and 
 simple corrects more or less quickly and completely the 
 errors of the child in this respect. Needless to say that 
 the intelligence of the child and the intelligence of the 
 educator contribute much to hastening on progress of this 
 sort. It is, moreover, often difficult, even for adults, to 
 rectify the vague or determinate indications of the sense, 
 or the senses, of which we are treating.
 
 232 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 The appreciation of different weights is not an easy 
 thing. If we take up two things together, we cannot always 
 say which of the two is the heavier ; or, if the weights are 
 almost equal, we cannot determine whether they are exactly 
 equal or not. This explains to us the confusion made by 
 a three-months-old child, between a full and an empty 
 bottle. It also explains to us why a rather more experi- 
 enced child either attacks all objects alike and tries to lift 
 them, or else hesitates to touch even the lightest objects, 
 fancying they must be heavy. 
 
 The sense of touch is also subject to frequent errors with 
 regard to appreciating the different degrees of heat in 
 different bodies. But here children are scarcely more at 
 fault than adults. Doctors tell us that the heat which 
 exists in bodies in a latent state does not affect us. The 
 temperature of our bodies remaining the same, as well as 
 that of external objects, different objects affect us thermally 
 in an unequal manner. In a room where all the objects 
 are at a temperature of 120 degrees, we feel a lower degree 
 of warmth if we put our naked foot on the carpet than if 
 we touch the marble chimney-piece or any metallic object. 
 At the same degree of temperature the walls and the wood- 
 work appear much hotter than the clothes we have on. If 
 we suppose the same objects to be all of them at a much 
 lower temperature, the relative degrees will be reversed, 
 and the objects will appear colder and colder, in the same 
 order in which before they appeared to be warmer and 
 warmer. These singular phenomena are explained in the 
 first instance by the greater or less facility which different 
 bodies have of communicating heat, and of producing on 
 us the different impressions of heat and cold. It is for the 
 same reason that when one takes a cold bath, the water 
 seems colder that the air, and the air colder than our 
 clothes, although all these objects are of the same tem- 
 perature. In the same way, again, a child who comes out 
 of a warm bath, and is wrapped up in towels of the same 
 temperature, feels all the same a chill; it is because air 
 and stuffs transmit heat more slowly than water.
 
 ERRORS OWING TO MORAL CAUSES. 233 
 
 VII. 
 ERRORS OWING TO MORAL CAUSES. 
 
 Hitherto we have only considered illusions and errors 
 arising from physiological or purely intellectual causes. 
 But for children, as well as for adults, there are also moral 
 causes of error. So many sentiments and inclinations, so 
 many sources of error. It would take too long to pass 
 them all in review, so we will content ourselves with a few 
 prominent examples. 
 
 One frequent cause of error in children, is their feverish 
 need of movement and action, their passionate instinct of 
 exercise and of play. They often observe very well (but 
 only up to a certain point) things which interest them, 
 because they pay attention to them. But it is not a search 
 for truth which interests them, it is the need of acting, and 
 of acting quickly to arrive at such-and-such an end. Thus 
 they form their decisions, so to speak, by inspiration. They 
 do not trouble themselves about the real bearing, or the 
 limits or the distant results of things ; they have seen, or 
 half-seen what they wanted to see the means of producing 
 a certain result, and that is enough for them ; they believe 
 and they act. Too much precipitation is as detrimental to 
 action as to thought, as they often find out at their own 
 cost, but only to fall back again soon into the same errors. 
 Experience conies slowly. Here is an example of this 
 kind of errors, which at the same time marks " the intimate 
 connection of thought and of language, and the mutual 
 help they give each." With children, as with animals, 
 actions which appear to us sensible, make us suppose them 
 to be more intellectually developed than they are. When 
 a child, for instance, perceives that the pin which fastens 
 the wheel of his little carriage is loose, he soon comes to 
 foresee that the slightest shake will cause it to fall out, and 
 that then the wheel will fall also. From that moment the 
 idea of making the pin secure naturally presents itself to him ; 
 but we are not sure that there is anything in his mind but 
 a simple succession of images. By his action he realizes
 
 234 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 the image of a linch-pin and a wheel securely fastened, 
 because he does not wish for the continuance of the other 
 image in which these same objects in their unsteady con- 
 dition presage a catastrophe. In order for him to set to 
 work to seek out the causes, which would be a real exercise 
 of reason, it would be necessary for his intellect to make 
 another step in advance. 
 
 " Without presuming to decide that this progressive step 
 depends entirely on language, I maintain at any rate that 
 words will be the means of establishing it. Ask a child to 
 give you his reason for what he did to mend his cart. The 
 words which he will use in reply, will lead him to think that 
 he acted thus in consequence of certain laws which may be 
 applied to many things besides his cart. The particular 
 image will become effaced in the presence of more general 
 ideas. He will tell us that, the pin being loose, the wheel 
 would certainly fall ; and this word loose, the designation of 
 a quality separable from the object itself, applicable to a 
 thousand other objects, and suggesting a necessary event, 
 has already become a germ of general ideas. Notions of the 
 effects of weight, of friction, in short, of all the immutable 
 laws of nature, will in time result from this imperfect ex- 
 planation which he has given us." 
 
 Vanity, self-consciousness, and obstinacy also lead chil- 
 dren into a number of errors. Marie is on the swing, where 
 she makes more noise than all the three children who are 
 looking at her and awaiting their turn. In five minutes, she 
 manages to get in more than twenty phrases, all beginning 
 or ending with the word / or me. " Look at me, how fast I 
 swing myself ! No one can go as high as I can ! Look, I 
 am swinging myself all alone ! " She fancies all this is true, 
 whereas none of it is : it is illusion of judgment produced 
 by an exaggerated feeling of personal skill " My pleasures, 
 my troubles, my pains, and my happiness," are all exag- 
 gerated by the child, through inexperience, through want of 
 foresight, and through a strong sense of personality. 
 
 It is needless to enlarge on the perpetual illusions and 
 errors which self-interest, especially when connected with 
 the palate, give rise to in children. They are patent to
 
 ERRORS OWING TO MORAL CAUSES. 23$ 
 
 every one. But it is curious to observe the facility with 
 which their tendencies or their self-seeking habits lead 
 them unconsciously, from the best intentions, into error, and 
 even into the practice of sophistry. Two children, one 
 seven and the other four years old, were often very quarrel- 
 some together, either from jealousy or thoughtlessness. The 
 younger, formerly rather ruled over by his brother, is now 
 no longer afraid of him, and often provokes him. It is 
 only by fits and starts that they are kind to each other, 
 and then they say, "Shall we be friends?" The treaty 
 concluded, it lasts as long as one could expect. The other 
 day we were witness of a very droll scene. Some one had 
 promised at dessert to divide a piece of sugar between 
 them. The younger one said to his mother, " Mamma, I 
 \\-ant to be kind to Charles ; you must give him the biggest 
 piece." The mother, however, cut the sugar as equally as 
 possible, and there was hardly any difference to be seen 
 between the two pieces. There was a slight difference 
 however, which both children noticed. Charles said, "They 
 are the same size," preparing at the same time to take the 
 larger bit. But Fernand was quicker, and presented him 
 with the smaller piece, saying to him : " Here you are, 
 Charles, here's the largest piece." And Charles, not daring 
 to contradict him, but very much vexed, accepted it without 
 a word.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 
 
 HUMAN language, or speech, is only a superior kind of the 
 faculty of expression which all, or nearly all, animals possess. 
 Birds by their attitudes and their song, dogs by their barking 
 and howling, ants by the contact of their moving antennas, 
 certain kinds of fish by sounds, probably related to their in- 
 stinct of propagation, in short, the greater number of animate 
 beings are able to communicate to each other, species with 
 species, and individual with individual, by ocular, auricular, 
 or tactile signs, their sorrows and their joys, their desires, 
 their love, and their anger. For man and for other animals, 
 language has the same origin a complex origin, and one 
 in which direct observation of little children at the period 
 of lingual evolution may give us much valuable light. 
 
 The principle of language, or of expression in general, is 
 the correspondence of certain organic movements, strongly 
 marked outwardly, with the inward sensations and senti- 
 ments experienced. The internal modifications of the 
 machine are revealed by peripheric modifications, as con- 
 stant as they are varied in each species. Such are most of 
 the movements, the sobs, the laughter, the babbling of 
 children, mechanically executed from the first months. 
 They necessarily become conscious of them after they 
 have performed them a certain number of times ; but they 
 attach no significance to them, and produce them at first 
 without the slightest intention. These are neither more nor 
 less than reflex actions of the organism. But, with intelli- 
 gent beings, these unconscious utterances soon develop into 
 
 236
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 237 
 
 signs. This result is the work of the association of ideas. 
 The animal or the infant learns to associate the idea of these 
 organic phenomena, guttural or other sounds, movements of 
 the limbs, screams, sobs, laughter, and tears, with the idea 
 of the accompanying sentiments or sensations. By a kind of 
 natural selection these movements are changed from spon- 
 taneous to conscious, from mechanical to voluntary. The 
 child, who produced them at first from sheer necessity of 
 his nature, now repeats and perfects them for pleasure or 
 use. An infant of three months, who makes intentional 
 gestures with his little arms in order to ask for or to repulse 
 some object, knowing by experience that these gestures will 
 be understood, already exercises the innate, organic, and 
 hereditary faculty of expression. When he cries in order 
 to get his feeding-bottle, to be taken up, to be held in the 
 arms, to refuse a disagreeable dose, the action, which was at 
 first automatic, has now become conscious and intentional 
 it is even so much a matter of habit that it might be called 
 reflex. When tears of this sort are too promptly attended 
 to, and the desires expressed by gestures, screams, or other 
 signs too readily granted, children are apt to repeat the 
 process from caprice and habit, without desire or intention ; 
 they do not always shed tears without a motive, but it 
 happens very often. 
 
 The best proof of how much natural affinities and he- 
 reditary influences have to do with the first progress in speech, 
 is, that little children appear, from the very first, to under- 
 stand the simple language of their mother, and can distin- 
 guish their different tones of joy and anger, of coaxing or 
 threatening. Tiedemann says of his son at the age of one 
 month : " When any one spoke to him he tried to produce 
 sounds, very simple ones it is true, and quite inarticulate, 
 but nevertheless varied." A little girl, three weeks old, who 
 is by my side as I write these lines, stops screaming and 
 crying instantly when her mother speaks coaxingly to her. 
 I have also often noticed that quite young kittens will begin 
 to whine if left for a moment alone ; but they stop directly 
 they hear their mother coming back. But to return to our 
 children. A little girl who began to smile at fifteen days old,
 
 238 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 used also at this early age to express by particular sounds 
 that she wanted to be fed At three months she would 
 utter little cries of joy and admiration when she saw flowers 
 or birds, or any brilliant or moving object. If her mother 
 called her attention to things of this sort, saying : " Look at 
 this pretty flower ! " " See pretty Coco," or " this pretty 
 thing," she would instantly begin this joyous babbling, ac- 
 companied by little graceful actions, expressive of desire, 
 admiration, and delight. She attached a meaning to a num- 
 ber of words repeated to her by her mother, turning her 
 head towards the dog, when told to " Look at Me'dor ! " or 
 toward the bird-cage at the words, " See Coco." No doubt 
 also she attached some vague sense to the varied sounds 
 by which she expressed joy or anger, or violent desire. But 
 she did not appear to produce these with the same decided 
 intention that her movements or her screams, sobs, and 
 tears indicated at certain moments. 
 
 A child of seven months, who had never before seen me, 
 smiled at me as if I were an old acquaintance, on hearing 
 me pronounce his name. Here at any rate we have an 
 instance of a vocal sign joined to the memory of caresses 
 lavished on him by his nurse or mother while calling him 
 by his name ; or else perhaps the sign is associated with the 
 idea, already confusedly conceived, of his own personality. 
 When I called him by his name, or gave him something he 
 wanted, or if he procured for himself some much-desired 
 object, he would instantly turn to his mother smiling ; or if 
 he was frightened, astonished, or uneasy, he also turned to 
 her in a significant manner. It was as if he wished his 
 mother to know when he was happy or in trouble. At nine 
 months he uttered little cries of pleasure, or cries to attract 
 attention, some of which were evidently imitated, at the 
 sight of a dog, a cat, or a bird, and even once of a fly which 
 had crawled on the edge of his plate, and which his eyes 
 followed for a long time after it had flown away. At eleven 
 months he understood the meaning of a great many words, 
 and even of a few little phrases ; and he used to gesticulate 
 with much expression. One of his intentional gestures, 
 which consisted in clasping his two hands together, interested
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 239 
 
 me very much. He would stand upright in front of an arm- 
 chair against which he supported himself slightly; his mother, 
 three steps behind him, would show him a piece of cake, 
 or something that he had wished for. If she did not bring 
 it to him he moved his whole body round, making eloquent 
 signs that he wanted some one to help him to walk to her. 
 His mother would wait a little longer, and then he would 
 join his hands several times successively, crying at the same 
 time. He had been for some time in the habit of making 
 this gesture when he very much wanted anything which he 
 either noticed of himself, or which was shown to him. His 
 parents liked to designate it as the gesture of supplication, 
 which it would be very easy to explain in his case as the 
 result of heredity, and which it is impossible to refer to the 
 influences of imitation, the action never having been per- 
 formed before him. It has seemed to me that the action 
 of mechanically bringing the hands together to seize or to 
 retain an object, may have remained even when the object 
 was refused ; in fact, in the violence of desire, imagination 
 tends to confound the idea and the sight and the possession 
 of a thing. 
 
 j his gesture, at first unconscious, may easily become 
 intentional on the part of young children, and develop into 
 the gesture of prayer, provided that their desires are 
 satisfied when they make it. The child I have been speak- 
 ing of had nearly arrived at this point. I think this 
 remarkable gesture should be connected with analogous 
 movements that are so frequently seen in young animals. 
 A kitten, six weeks old, seeing its mother and two bigger 
 sisters standing on their hind paws and catching with their 
 front paws the food that was being thrown to them, tried to 
 imitate them ; but she tumbled awkwardly on her side without 
 accomplishing any result Then she took to climbing up 
 our trousers or petticoats to get at our hands. A few days 
 later, having become a little firmer on her hind quarters, 
 she made another attempt at catching her food, and half 
 raised herself, bringing her front paws together as she saw 
 the other cats do. Often, however, the movement of 
 prehension was made before the bit of food had been thrown
 
 240 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 or after it had fallen, or been caught by more skilful hands, 
 the kitten's paws still remained clasped together, as if the 
 wished-for prize had been obtained. As in the case of the 
 child above mentioned, the ideas of the desired object and 
 of its possession get confused : the gestures are finished in 
 the air. 
 
 Let us take another child of eleven months. He has a 
 little cardboard horse on wheels, which he treats as a sort 
 of scapegoat. He knocks it about, strangles it, pinches it 
 with all his might, etc., etc. These interesting exercises 
 are habitually accompanied by the exclamations, Hue, hue, 
 which he learned about a month ago. When any one 
 says to him, " Beat the horse," he takes his little wooden 
 spade, and belabours the back of the insensible quadruped. 
 A lady friend of his often sets the child astride on her knees, 
 saying ; broum I broum ! words which the little rider imitates 
 as well as he can, while performing his imaginary gallop. 
 He also says distinctly, papa, papa, without attaching any 
 sense to the words, as he has not seen his father, even in a 
 photograph. He has been taught to make with his hand 
 the gesture which corresponds to the words au revoir. He 
 cannot yet pronounce these words, but he makes the gesture 
 mechanically, through simple association of ideas, and only 
 when he is told to do so, to any one who is going away. 
 He also performs a little comedy of his own. If one says 
 to him, Prise, he sniffs like a person about to sneeze, with 
 an irresistibly droll curl of the lips and the tip of his nose. 
 This is the first act, which is followed by a second more 
 complicated and not less curious. An empty snuff-box is 
 given to him into which he inserts his fingers, carries them 
 to his nose, and recommences the performance of which we 
 have just spoken. The more one laughs at him, the more 
 ceremony he makes about conveying his fingers from the 
 snuff-box to his nose, the more he sniffs and turns up the 
 tip of his nose. He understands the meaning of such 
 phrases as : " Give this ; " " Take that ; " " Drink this ; " 
 " Eat that," etc. He has thus acquired not only knowledge 
 of signs representing individual objects, but, as we can see, 
 he also understands signs representing fairly complex ideas
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 241 
 
 and actions, and a few of which he has succeeded in 
 imitating. He understands the value of a word, and every 
 day he makes fresh progress in the art of speaking. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thus then we see imitative and oral language developing 
 side by side ; the former, however, thrown back for a time 
 because of the rapid progress of the latter, which is the 
 necessary, universal, and, so to say, official instrument of 
 human expression. This is also the more interesting 
 language for the psychologist to study, and it will be con- 
 venient here to give it special attention. Let us go over 
 briefly the first lines of this branch of study, and, checking 
 our own observations by those of eminent observers, let us 
 attempt in broad outlines a sketch of infant glossology. 
 
 First of all, it is necessary to decide which are the different 
 parts played by instinct, organization, heredity, and educa- 
 tion i.e. imitation in the acquisition of language. Man, 
 like other animals, utters sounds and produces spontaneous 
 movements which soon become conscious and voluntary 
 signs of what he feels and thinks : from the moment of his 
 birth he begins to speak the language of nature, and 
 possibly the language of his forefathers. "The intimate 
 connection between the brain, as it is now developed in us, 
 and the faculty of speech, is well shown by those curious 
 cases of brain disease in which speech is specially affected, 
 as when the power to remember substantives is lost, whilst 
 other words can be correctly used. There is no more 
 improbability in the effects of the continued use of the 
 vocal and mental organs being inherited, than in the case 
 of hand-writing, which depends partly on the structure of 
 the hand, and partly on the disposition of the mind ; and 
 hand-writing is certainly inherited." l 
 
 The part played by heredity in language, side by side 
 with that of imitation, and which appears to us so consider- 
 
 1 Darwin, Descent of Man, voL i., p. 58.
 
 242 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 able, is far from being established by experimental proofs, 
 either in the case of men or of animals. 
 
 " The experiment has never been fairly tried, of turning 
 out a pair of birds into an enclosure covered with netting, 
 and watching the result of their untaught attempts at nest- 
 making. With regard to the song of birds, however, which 
 is thought to be equally instinctive, the experiment has been 
 tried ; and it is found that young birds never have the song 
 peculiar to their species if they have not heard it, whereas 
 they acquire very easily the song of almost any other bird 
 with which they are associated." l 
 
 " The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects 
 the nearest analogy to language, for all the members of 
 the same species utter the same instinctive cries, expressive 
 of their emotions ; and all the kinds that have the power 
 of singing exert this power instinctively; but the actual 
 song, and even the call-notes, are learnt from their parents 
 or foster-parents. These sounds, as Daines Barrington 
 has proved, 'are no more innate than language is in man/ 
 The first attempts to sing 'may be compared to the 
 imperfect endeavour in a child to babble.' The young 
 males continue practising, or, as the bird-catchers say, 
 recording, for ten or eleven months. Their first essays 
 show hardly a rudiment of the future song ; but as they 
 grow older we can perceive what they are aiming at, and at 
 last they are said 'to sing their song round.' Nestlings 
 which have learnt the song of a distinct species, as with the 
 canary birds educated in the Tyrol, teach and transmit 
 their new song to their offspring. The slight natural 
 differences of song in the same species inhabiting different 
 districts may be appositely compared, as Barrington remarks, 
 ' to provincial dialects ; ' and the songs of all allied though 
 distinct species may be compared with the languages of 
 distinct races of man." z 
 
 We see in like manner that human beings only speak as 
 they have been taught ; but it would be interesting to know 
 
 Natural Stlation^ Fssays by A. Russel Wallace, p. 220. 
 2 Darwin, Descent of Man, vol. i., p. 55.
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 243 
 
 if, in the existing stage of the development of the human 
 brain, they would not of themselves evolve a sort of 
 hereditary language, of which the first efforts of infant 
 language would be the basis. The experiment made, 
 according to Herodotus, by king Psammetichus, is nor, in 
 this respect, either sufficient or even authentic. The king 
 of Egypt, curious to know what was the most ancient 
 nation of the world, had two new-born children shut up in 
 a cottage, where they could hear no one speak, and where 
 they saw no other living beings than the goats who nourished 
 them. At the age of two years, when some one went into 
 their room, these two little savages uttered the word beccos, 
 which signifies bread in the Phrygian tongue. Psamme- 
 tichus, so runs the legend, then thought himself sufficiently 
 authorized in proclaiming the Phrygians to be the most 
 ancient people of the world. We shall be more exacting 
 than this royal experimentalist. We declare ourselves to 
 be absolutely incapable of deciding d priori, whether children 
 subjected for a sufficient length of time to a like treatment 
 would work out for themselves any thing like a real language, 
 what sort of language it would be, and what sort of ideas 
 would be evolved in their brains, abandoned solely to the 
 resources of hereditary transmission and imitation of 
 nature. 
 
 Most of the recorded facts relating to the sequestration 
 of human beings at a tender age, and which some philoso- 
 phers think conclusive, we regard simply as not having 
 happened, as far as science is concerned. 
 
 " We read sometimes in the newspaper, of the brutal 
 state of those unfortunate beings whom avarice or cruelty 
 had from their early childhood kept confined in dark cellars, 
 and excluded from all social intercourse and intellectual 
 excitement. The physical and mental state of such indivi- 
 duals is mere vegetation, not a developed human existence. 
 . . . It was impossible to impart to the well-known 
 Caspar Hauser the idea of a horse. When the word was 
 pronounced, he thought of a wooden toy which he played 
 with during his imprisonment, being unable to attach 
 any meaning to the word horse but in this connection.
 
 244 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 . . . Corresponding observations have been made on 
 men, who from their earliest childhood had lived and 
 grown up among animals, removed from the society of men. 
 They lived and supported themselves like animals, they 
 had no spiritual wants ; they could not speak, and exhibited 
 not a trace of that ' divine spark,' which is said to be innate 
 in man." 1 The observations of this well-known German 
 materialist have no semblance of scientific experiment. 
 That an infant hidden away in a dark cell, that a young 
 savage nurtured by goats, and who actually lived and grew 
 up in the woods, should not be able to speak, or show by 
 the ordinary means of those who can speak, that they have 
 any general or specific ideas of existence, is not at all 
 surprising. But is it certain that they did not possess ideas 
 even general ones though they had no means of express- 
 ing them ? If five or six children were shut up together, 
 would they not evolve a common language ? This has not 
 yet been tried. This experiment, easier to make and less 
 barbarous than might be supposed, would no doubt enable 
 us to arrive at something more than conjectures on the 
 origin and nature of language, and on those interesting 
 problems of psychogenesis, which contemporary philosophy 
 approaches with so much reserve and so few results, but of 
 which natural science is preparing the probable solutions. 
 
 The ideas propounded by M. Taine on the acquisition of 
 language by children are a mixture, somewhat confused at 
 times, of the theory of Condillac and the modern theory of 
 selection. 
 
 According to him, children begin to exercise their vocal 
 organs by a continuous series of cries and varied exclama- 
 tions ; for several months they do not get beyond vowels ; 
 "by perpetual groping and attempts, and by gradual selection, 
 consonants are added to the vowels, and the exclamations 
 become more and more articulate." At twelve months old, 
 his daughter appears to him to have acquired the material 
 of language, without attaching any sense to the sounds 
 
 1 Biichner, Force and Matter. See English translation by J. F. 
 Collingwood, p. 164.
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 245 
 
 which she uttered. "All the initiative," he says, "is her 
 own ; it is personal, accidental, and momentary invention 
 which have caused her to find and to repeat such sounds as 
 //tw, kraaaie, papapa ; example and education have only 
 served to direct her attention to sounds which she had 
 either attempted or found out for herself." I must say that 
 in my opinion the list of sounds originated by children is 
 a very limited one, and little adapted for the basis of any 
 solid argument, touching the respective roles of personal 
 initiative and of imitation in the acquisition of language. 
 
 Pleading still the cause of the spontaneity of invention 
 or re-invention, which precedes in children the work of as- 
 similation, M. Taine affirms (no doubt with reason) that 
 this infantine babble is of astounding flexibility and variety 
 of meaning, and that every shade of emotion, astonishment, 
 gaiety, vexation, sadness, etc., is expressed in its various 
 tones. 
 
 Mr. Darwin also contributes some observations on the 
 means of communication possessed by children. These 
 are, at first, instinctive cries intended to express suffering in 
 general ; after a time, the tones vary according as pain or 
 hunger is the cause of the utterances ; a little later, the power 
 of voluntary tears is added ; at the age of forty-six days, 
 there are little varied sounds produced, as if by pleasure ; at 
 113 days, we see the first attempt at a smile, and possibly 
 at the same date efforts to imitate sounds. The articulate 
 sound da is formed at five-and-a-half months. " When a 
 year old, he tried to invent a word to designate his food, and 
 produced the sound mum ; and henceforth this S) liable sig- 
 nified : " Give me something to eat" This word corres- 
 ponds to the ham used by M. Taine's child, so Mr. Darwin 
 tells us, and he seems to attribute it wholly to spontaneity 
 and not to imitation, for he adds that he does not know 
 " what led the child to adopt that particular syllable." 
 
 M. Egger notices at five weeks old the transition from 
 the cry to the voice. The cry is the first sound that the 
 human organ makes ; it proceeds from the bottom of the 
 larynx and dates from the moment of the first breath. For 
 several weeks it is the only sound a child can make when
 
 246 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 he is in pain. " Towards the fifth week I observe the 
 mouth and tongue beginning to move (especially when joy 
 is felt), and to produce sounds which cannot be represented 
 by any letters in our alphabet, but which are certainly less 
 guttural than the previous sounds. These last sounds, as 
 they go on perfecting themselves, become real articulations. 
 . . . With Felix this distinct utterance of a cry of pain 
 was scarcely heard before the end of the second month." 
 
 As regards the infant voice, M. Egger makes one obser- 
 vation which does not appear to me to be borne out by 
 facts ; it is, " that the voices of children in earliest infancy 
 are not characterized by an individual timbre. The voice 
 acquires a distinct character at the same time that it be- 
 comes articulate, and that we can distinguish vowels and 
 consonants in it" I have no contrary observation to oppose 
 to this statement, but I read in a pamphlet of Dr. Laurent's, 
 that " the particular timbre of the infant's cry varies like the 
 human voice. In each child it exhibits particular modifica- 
 tions, which language cannot express, but which the ear can 
 seize ; and a mother can distinguish her own child's cry 
 from that of others." This point then, more interesting 
 to the philologist and the naturalist than to the psychologist, 
 calls for fresh information. 
 
 M. Egger, like M. Taine, assigns a large share in the de- 
 velopment of language to personal initiative and invention. 
 Besides the natural language of tears, cries, smiles, and 
 gestures, "which becomes the commencement of artificial 
 language when intention is mixed with it," he admits the 
 involuntary play of the voice, which, from the age of six 
 months, causes infinite variety in the attempted sounds and 
 articulations. Thus we seem to have an instinctive, natural 
 language, common to all times and all people, which recedes 
 gradually before the progress of another language, invented 
 by the child and susceptible of a host of individual varia- 
 tions. Neither M. Egger nor M. Taine have noted the 
 forms of this language, which, according to them, is spon- 
 taneous. Their observations have too vague and gene- 
 ral a character for their conclusions to be definite. One 
 must undoubtedly admit, even in the first period of infant
 
 ON EXPRKbbiON AND LANGUAGE. 247 
 
 babbling, that there is an hereditary instinct which urges 
 the young nurseling, like the young bird, to try its voice, 
 according to the measure of the feeble resources of its 
 organs, for pleasure rather than necessity, and from chance 
 rather than voluntary imitation. But already, even at this 
 period, involuntary imitation, organic sympathy, and musical 
 contagion have their part in the work. As to this first 
 period of artificial language, particular to each child, useful 
 for inter-communication with other children, and especially 
 with his nurse and his parents, it seems to me rash to affirm, 
 without the slightest experimental proof, that " there is not 
 one of his wants for which he does not invent one or several 
 articulate sounds, without any example being set him, in- 
 tentionally or otherwise." 
 
 One of the most competent observers, M. A. de la Calle, 
 has just made a notable contribution to the store of published 
 observations on the formation of infant speech. Accord- 
 ing to him it is very difficult during the first three months 
 to observe any appreciable phonetic phenomena. This 
 difficulty, however, has not discouraged him, and we 
 have his permission to quote some of his important obser- 
 vations. In one of his children he noticed on the forty-fifth 
 day a little bleating sound which accompanied his smiles ; 
 and from this date the child seemed to take pleasure in 
 exercising his phonetic organ. " At this period of life," he 
 says, "the faculty of imitation has not yet shown itself, and 
 one cannot admit that these babblings represent attempts to 
 imitate any sounds heard, or the songs with which the nurses 
 lull them to sleep." He attributes the pleasure which the 
 child finds in this babbling, which is as yet neither expres- 
 sive nor musical, rather to a combination of reflex actions 
 associated for the first time with conscious effort He has 
 moreover remarked that his children produced these bab- 
 blings with varied tones, more particularly under the influ- 
 ence of some agreeable impression ; he adds with reason : 
 " What is certain is, that these sounds, reiterated and more 
 or less continuous, have more affinity with the sounds of 
 laughter than of tears. . . . Natural selection ought to 
 bear principally on the sounds expressing agreeable sensa-
 
 248 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 tions, in virtue of the principle that " all pleasurable states 
 mean an augmentation of part or the whole of the vital 
 functions." 
 
 M. de la Calle has endeavoured to arrive at an exact 
 summary of the variety, number, and value of the different 
 sounds which a child utters before the appearance of any- 
 thing approaching to an articulate syllable ; and though he 
 could only succeed, he says, in obtaining a statement of the 
 fact, he endeavours to determine the eight different sounds 
 which compose the musical scale which a child goes through 
 several times in the day. He notes in the first place the 
 apparition of the vowel a, which he calls the vocal or sound- 
 ing cellule ; the sound at, 6, is produced next, and sometimes 
 at the same time, as au, and o, which are only the first dif- 
 ferentiations of the primitive sound a. 
 
 "At the age of six months, Fernando used to execute 
 a very characteristic series of sounds ; with the help of 
 this single sound a he could sometimes keep up a con- 
 versation for a quarter of an hour with his mother or 
 nurse, laughing, gesticulating, and babbling all on this same 
 vowel, which he varied with infinite shades of meaning, 
 with modulations and particular inflections, and with a 
 fluidity, so to say, which our organs, stiffened with use, 
 would be altogether incapable of. The intensity, swiftness, 
 duration, and pitch of the sound were varied by insensible 
 gradations, with alternations and repetitions excessively 
 curious to study. 
 
 " A little later, at eight or nine months (and now he had 
 the additional help of physiognomic and imitative expres- 
 sion), he still used by preference this same vowel a, though 
 he already knew how to articulate several syllables, for 
 pointing out, naming, calling, and asking for all sorts of 
 things and objects : ah (inspiration) signified astonishment 
 and content; ah (expiration), a call or indication of all 
 things and objects; ha, M, ha, very short and repeated, to 
 ask for something which he saw and wanted; ha, hd, 
 sustained, when he thought something very pretty, and 
 to express admiration generally. Hd, hd, hd, to inti- 
 mate a wish that some one should hold his hand to walk ;
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 249 
 
 sometimes too that he wanted to be taken out of doors. 
 Gestures, and the expression of the countenance came in 
 noticeably to the help of his interjections, the child pointing 
 out the desired object, or else extending his hand and con- 
 tracting his fingers several times as if to seize it ; the direc- 
 tion of the eyes and the expression of the look, the move- 
 ments of the body, in short, all the expressive manifesta- 
 tions that we have already studied, are used by children 
 with more or less skill. 
 
 I have also remarked that in certain cases the sound at 
 was produced at the same time, especially on the higher 
 notes ; but I have not been able to distinguish o very pure 
 in any of my children. It was only when they were crying 
 that I ever noticed it, and then it was like a compound sound 
 or diphthong ; o absolutely pure I have only been able to 
 observe in the articulate voice, before or after eight or nine 
 months, according to the individual. The following have 
 seemed to me accurate transcriptions of my children's cry- 
 ing sounds. After the third month [the sounds are French] 
 d-hd, a-hd, d-hd, e-he, heu ! ! ah, ah, ceu ! ! oheu, d-hd, d-hd, 
 d-hd, oheu ! e-he, e-he, e-he, d-hd, etc., etc. But these cries 
 are not those of the sharp grief, which is expressed by ah or 
 eh / . . . always deep and screeching. 
 
 "This preference, eminently physiological in children, 
 for the vowel a, inspired or expired, as the case may be, 
 is significant of the part that it plays in all rudimentary 
 and primitive tongues. It is the simple cellule, the phono- 
 logical embryo of spoken language." 
 
 It would take too long to give even a simple resume of 
 all the observations made by M. de la Calle on the first 
 phonations, on the vowels, diphthongs, gutturals, and labials. 
 We must be content to mention the principal phases of this 
 evolution. 
 
 "At four months and a half, he articulated the first 
 explosive sound joined to the phonetic a, saying dp' pa, 
 dp 1 pa, with an effort, which was evidently very great, for 
 he opened his eyelids wide and his eyes became very bright 
 
 "Some days after, he produced the sounds 'main ma, 
 mam md with less effort, or I should perhaps say with an
 
 2$O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 effort already better localized in the organs of speech ; for 
 though his eyes again sparkled, his eye-lids did not move ; 
 the effort is here characterized by the nasal sound itself, as 
 if the child wanted to speak and yet could not. It is in 
 fact the mu-mu of the deaf and dumb, by which they inform 
 us that they are not able, or do not know how to speak. 
 The English have a word mum, which means " Hold your 
 tongue !" 
 
 " At five months he had in a slight degree conquered 
 the difficulty, and could accomplish the articulation during 
 the expiration of a breath, and he could say pdpd (sharp), 
 mdmd (a little less sharp), but both words were very short 
 and staccato. 
 
 When he was in a passion, he gave out a prolonged 
 staphylin-guttural cry, clenching his fists and getting very 
 red in the face ; one would have said it was the cry of a 
 monkey ; but when he felt very joyous, or if any one 
 tickled him for any length of time, and his laugh became 
 spasmodic, the sound was prolonged from the expiration to 
 the inspiration of the breath, and he then produced a sharp 
 khr-ahr, exactly like the sound of an animal. I myself 
 provoked the repetition of this performance two or three 
 times, in order to be quite certain about it ; then he put 
 himself in a rage again, pouted his lips, began to cry, and 
 I was obliged quickly to kiss him in order to gain pardon 
 for my strange behaviour. Often, when he was happy and 
 satisfied, but not over-excited, he would articulate the 
 vowel e with a little explosive sound, medio-lingual, medio- 
 palatal ke-cke, and he would amuse himself by repeating it 
 for some time while he was apparently carefully examining 
 his fingers and hands which he turned round and round, or 
 else inspecting all over some object which had been given 
 him to play with. 
 
 " The modulations were often changed unconsciously and 
 without signification ; it was a vocal exercise which he 
 practised for pleasure, and which had gradually taken the 
 place of the babblings of earlier days ; but considerable 
 progress had been made by means of these articulations, 
 for the child now possessed all the materials for words.
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 251 
 
 " The sound ke-cke became now kd-ckd, now ak-kd, now, 
 ta-ta-ta, a-td-td, a-bd-bd-bd, dd-dd-dd, and then pe-pe-pe, 
 be-be-be, etc. A kind of gentle plaint, either when he was 
 worried by being dressed, or in any other way, for instance, 
 if he was hungry and was made to wait a little for his food ; 
 ayd' ya ! aya' ya ! aya' ya ! was a differentiation which I 
 think I have only remarked at nine months old ; never- 
 theless I seem to have heard it a good deal sooner in my 
 other children. However that may be, this discovery was 
 very important to the child, and he was probably aware of 
 it, for he enriched his language with a greater variety of 
 compound sounds while making use of this new scale. 
 
 " Thus, hd-hd, he-he, kd-kd, which were already a great 
 advance in facility of articulation during expiration, were 
 varied by differentiating and lending themselves to new 
 phonetic combinations ; hd hd became oyd' yd ; he he, 
 eye eye ; kd kd ; kayo? yd kayo? yd, and so forth ; and the 
 song would begin again with these new variations." 
 
 III. 
 
 We have now come to the period of the most important 
 acquisitions of words. 
 
 For more than a fortnight I have been observing a child 
 of twelve months who is backward in walking, and can only 
 toddle along when held by the hand, but who is very pre- 
 cocious in talking. A month ago he could walk alone, but 
 he had several falls and he is now afraid to repeat the 
 experiment, and if any one tries to make him do so he sits 
 down on the ground and says ; gno, gno (no, no). He 
 knows the meaning of a large number of words which he 
 hears, and he uses some of them himself in the ordinary 
 sense ; he says painin to ask for bread (pain) ; when his 
 frock is being put on, and he sees his hand coming out 
 through the sleeve, he calls out mainm. His brother Charles, 
 whose games and mischievous tricks delight him, he calls 
 at every instant : " Kiah, kiah." Meat (viande) he calls 
 miamiam ; mcn'e mcnc wene, indicates the desire to go from 
 one place to another ; peudu {perdu) indicates an object
 
 252 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 that has fallen, or been thrown away or disappeared ; some- 
 times he says a pu (il riy a, plus) to express that a thing 
 is either eaten, finished, hidden, or taken away. He imitates 
 donkeys, cats, cocks, and especially pigs ; when he wishes 
 very much to be taken out by a particular person, and has 
 gained his desire, he expresses his great pleasure by mimic- 
 ing that interesting animal. The other day, I was very 
 much astonished at hearing him reproduce the first 
 syllable of a word spoken in his presence. "Will you 
 have some cake (gateau}'?" his nurse had said to him, and 
 he instantly answered : Ga, ga, and directed the attention 
 of his nurse towards the dining-room, the use of which he 
 already knew, although he had only been in the house two 
 days. He also knows the meaning of many of the simple 
 phrases which are used in speaking to him. There is no 
 occasion to give examples of these, which are analogous to 
 those already quoted. But what is more important, I heard 
 him the other day attempting a thoroughly synthetic phrase 
 by putting two names together; his accompanying tones, 
 gestures, and movements left no doubt of his meaning. He 
 had been walking with me for several minutes, when he 
 saw his mother and wanted to go to her, and as I did not 
 instantly take him to her, he pulled hold of me, pointed to 
 his mother, and with a supplicating look said several times : 
 papa maman (papa, lead me to mamma). A little later, and 
 he would have interposed the word mene (lead) between the 
 two names. The advance however was not made this same 
 day, perhaps because I had not the patience to wait, but 
 obeyed the child's wish too quickly. Besides the move- 
 ment of the head from left to right to signify no, and that 
 of pointing out an object with the hand, I have noticed 
 another very characteristic one. When any one sings or 
 plays the piano, he sways backwards and forwards rhyth- 
 mically and almost in time ; he has been accustomed to 
 do this since he was five months old ; and he sometimes 
 accompanies the movements with a musical brumm. 
 
 In another child, thirteen months old, I have noticed an 
 expressive gesture which I have not yet quite made up my 
 mind about. His parents assure me that they have not
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 253 
 
 taught him a movement of indication with the forefinger, 
 which might be hereditary, or might proceed by selection 
 and simplification from the act of prehension. Here is 
 another action whose evolutionary origin does not appear 
 to me to be absolutely demonstrated. In the same child, 
 the gesture of negation, which consisted in waving the hand 
 backwards and forwards, may be considered in principle as 
 a derivation of the action of pushing away any disagreeable 
 thing. Two months ago there was no difference between 
 the movements with which this child pushed away anything 
 on the table which he did not want, and his refusal of 
 anything that was offered to him which did not suit him. 
 At present he uses this gesture in the following way also ; 
 if he sees some one out of doors who reminds him of his 
 father or mother, he considers the person attentively, and 
 after perceiving his mistake he says : mamma, papa, accom- 
 panying the word with this gesture of refusal or repulsion, 
 which is his way of saying no. The gesture of the head 
 meaning yes, he made at a very early age, I am told, with- 
 out having seen it made. It is a gesture evidently reflex, 
 like the half-shutting of the eye-lids which accompanies it. 
 
 A little girl, nineteen months old, has already accom- 
 plished three-quarters of this important and relatively rapid 
 process of evolution, which is the initiation into language. 
 She cannot yet say any phrases, however short, though she 
 understands the meaning of a great many tolerably long 
 ones ; but she pronounces a quantity of words intelligibly. 
 There was no difficulty in making her pass from inarticulate 
 to articulate sounds ; she felt after them instinctively, but 
 she needed the help of imitation to enunciate them easily 
 and distinctly. 
 
 Some months ago, when she was beginning the acquisition 
 of her vocabulary (now a very rich one), she could only re- 
 produce the last emphasized syllable of a word; and she 
 used to alter its articulation according to the rule of what 
 was least effort. It is noteworthy, that in the language of 
 children, as of primitive races, the roots or first attempts are 
 monosyllabic sounds ; in young animals the voice itself is 
 only a single guttural or labial intonation, prolonged or re-
 
 254 TH E FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 peated at short intervals. The puppy does not at once give 
 forth the characteristic bark of the dog, *vhich the French 
 represent as wrroua (with a guttural r), nor the kitten the 
 miaou of the cat, nor the young house-sparrow or swallow, 
 their kiou-kiou or tyi tyiri. Their first vocal attempts are 
 rudely simple and monosyllabic. The same with children ; 
 they more easily pronounce reduplicated monosyllables, as 
 in papa, mama, than dissyllables such as gateau, minet. They 
 will sometimes even bring out diphthongs, which are varieties 
 of monosyllables like oua, mia, mi'e, etc. For a long time 
 they rebel against real dissyllables, and still longer against 
 polysyllables. For a long time this little girl, whom I have 
 observed ever since her birth, up to the twenty-second month, 
 but unfortunately without noting each step of her progress, 
 could only say bou for tambour, fe for cafe, ye for Pierre, etc. 
 By pe.rseveringly separating each syllable for her very clearly, 
 her mother at last succeeded in making her pronounce the 
 distinct syllables of the words. The mother repeated slowly 
 and distinctly, tambour, Georget, pomme, pain, gateau; and 
 after a considerable number of fruitless lessons, the little 
 pupil succeeded in articulating, a-bou, o-y'e, om,pai, a-teau, 
 etc. It was the same with a number of other words, which 
 she now pronounces distinctly enough, save for the modifi- 
 cations of the consonants, which vary with every child. 
 There are no rules in children's pronunciation of the sounds 
 which they imitate. A child of fifteen months who says 
 a-to for bateau, for gateau says ca-co or cacou, or even a-ca-cou, 
 when in a very voluble mood. He says tu-tii for tortue 
 (tortoise), and also for confiture (jam). The same syllable 
 pronounced in one way, in one word, is often pronounced 
 differently in another word, or doubled, or augmented by a 
 useless syllable. 
 
 In general, we see clearly in infant language, the appli- 
 cation of certain rules which philosophy has long recognised 
 in the transformations of language ; and among others, the 
 modifications produced by the tendency of individuals to 
 diminish the muscular efforts of pronunciation. It is a very 
 common thing in France among French people to hear 
 particulier pronounced like particuyer, cuiller like cuye; and
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 255 
 
 this tendency to pronounce //like_y is on the increase, by 
 virtue of the law of the least effort 
 
 In like manner children begin by pronouncing the conso- 
 nants which are easiest to articulate, and they modify them 
 little by little in proportion as their organs become stronger 
 and more practised. 
 
 Mr. F. Pollock has been one of the first to try and syste- 
 matize in phonetic as well as logical order the first infant 
 gropings after language. His interesting study on the 
 " Child's Progress in Language," comprehends the period 
 between the twelfth and the twenty-fourth month. We quote 
 here the most essential points : 
 
 "Age, twelve months. M-m often repeated ! bd bd re- 
 peated an indefinite number of times. 
 
 " M-m generally indicated a want of something. Bd bd 
 was (i) a sort of general demonstrative, standing for the 
 child herself, other people, or the cat (I do not think she 
 applied it to inanimate objects) ; (2) an interjection, ex- 
 pressing satisfaction. Both sounds, however, seemed often 
 to be made without distinct intention, as mere exercise of 
 the vocal organs. 
 
 " Thirteen months. Da dd was used, at first as a vague 
 demonstrative (and about six weeks later it became a dis- 
 tinct proper name for the child's father). Wa wa, meant 
 water, drink ; wah, u>ah, with a guttural sound distinct from 
 the foregoing, was said to figures of animals dogs or cats, 
 which she now recognised in pictures. This fact is curious, 
 having regard to the inability of adult savages, as reported 
 by travellers, to make anything of even the simplest repre- 
 sentations of objects. Nd~nd, signified nurse of course as 
 proper, not generic name. 
 
 " Fifteen months. M-m discontinued. Bd bd was some- 
 times used instead, and sometimes she simply cried for a 
 desired object. Wah wah, miau, soon became generic 
 names of dog and cat (juah wah, which at first included cat. 
 becoming appropriated to dog). I think, however, wah wah 
 would include any middling-sized quadruped other than a 
 cat or a sheep. As to cat, her name for it became a few 
 months later aya-m or ayd-m, which, so far as I know, she in-
 
 256 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 vented for herself. The conventional ' gee gee ' for horse 
 was very soon understood by her, though she could not form 
 the / sound. She recognised a zebra in a picture alphabet 
 as ' gee gee ' and showed marked dissent when told it was 
 a zebra. 
 
 " These imitative sounds were all learnt on the suggestion 
 of adults, but studied from the real sounds ; for, as made by 
 the child, they are decidedly nearer to the real sounds than 
 the baa baa, etc., used by adult voices. 
 
 " ' Baby ' (or rather be bi), was now formed with fair 
 success, but soon dropped for a time. About a month 
 afterwards it was resumed, and became the child's name for 
 herself. This was long before she attempted any other 
 dissyllable. It was pronounced, however, rather as a re- 
 duplicated monosyllable. 
 
 " Seventeenth to eighteenth month. Her vocabulary is 
 now increasing fast, and almost any word proposed to the 
 child is imitated with some real effort at correctness. The 
 range of articulate sounds is still very limited ; a, a, i (short 
 and long) are the only vowels fully under command ; a occurs 
 in a few words, and is the result of attempts to form o : thus, 
 7&2 = nose. The long sound of English i (at) cannot be 
 pronounced; when she tries to imitate it, she says id or i-a. 
 No approach is yet made to the peculiar short English 
 sound of a in such words as hat, bat. Of consonants, g, /, r 
 (the true consonant initial sound), the final semivowel, 
 as in more, poor, is easy enough to her, and sibilants, 
 aspirates, and palatals are not yet mastered. ' Guy ' (a 
 younger cousin's name) is called dd, produced far back in 
 the mouth ; k is also produced far back in the mouth, with 
 an approach to t. Final consonants are seldom or never 
 given. With the exception of ' baby ' nd-ni, nd-nd, the 
 vocabulary is essentially monosyllabic. She once said 
 'lady' pretty well, but did not take it into use. No con- 
 struction is yet attempted. But even with these resources 
 the child already contrives to express a good deal, filling 
 up the meaning of her syllables with a great variety of tone, 
 and also with inarticulate interjections. Impatience, satis- 
 faction, amusement, are all very well marked ; and perhaps
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 257 
 
 even intellectual dissent (in the case of 'zebra 'and 'gee- 
 gee '), see previous page." 
 
 Amongst other acquisitions (from fifteenth to nineteenth 
 month) we may notice the word/0<?r, with no appreciable 
 difference from ordinary adult pronunciation, and which was 
 taught as an expression of pity, but extended to mean any 
 kind of loss, damage, or imperfection in an object, real or 
 supposed. . 
 
 "Nineteen months. O sound now distinctly made, and 
 g distinct by the end of the month. ' Guy ' is now gd 
 instead of da. L and /, final, and even /, are pronounced 
 more or less distinctly. The monosyllabic form still prevails. 
 1C is a. favourite sound, and she has several words formed 
 with it which are kept carefully distinct. Ku = stool, kah 
 (later &jr</) = cod [liver oil], which she considers a treat. 
 A'0='cosy' (or tea-pot), &z = cold. Kd kd = chocolate, 
 khien, or klien, = clean. . . . S, sh, ch, j, are on the 
 whole indistinct. ... W, v, /, are now formed, but 
 not well distinguished." (Mr. Pollock thinks, with M. 
 Taine, that infant pronunciation has some shades which 
 escape adult ears.) 
 
 " Twenty months. Dash or ddsk - dust. Ta's/i or td'sh, 
 learnt, I think, from 'touch' but soon dropped. Tas/i, 
 however, is adopted for [mous]tache. Final sibilants are 
 more under command than initial. ... A sudden 
 advance made to dissyllables, several being produced with 
 success on or about the same day. Fanny, honey, money ; 
 fd-wd, flower ; la-ta, letters ; ha-pi, happy ; bd-ta, butter ; 
 A'-si, Alice. R is still very impracticable, and attempts to 
 form it sometimes give d; but this was very transient, and / 
 soon became the constant substitute. . . ." (I omit a 
 few other stages of progress of the same kind, to pass on to 
 two or three more important ones, between the twenty-first 
 and twenty-second months). " The child is now more or 
 less able to answer direct, as distinguished from leading 
 questions. Thus, when she had been paying a visit to some 
 relations and cried to go home, she gave afterwards (March 
 17) a pretty connected account of it in monosyllabic 
 
 answers. ' What did you do to-day at ? ' ' Klaij 
 
 s
 
 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 {cry). ' What did you cry for?' l Hamj (home). Also, 
 when told not to handle a forbidden object, such as a knife, 
 she will say, in a tone of intelligent acquiescence ; no dd-dd 
 (i.e., I may not have that, but dd-dd may). One trisyllable 
 is in common use : Tenisi Tennyson, an illustrated edition 
 which divides her attention with Vats (Watts). 
 
 "At twenty-one months I noticed a distinct attempt at 
 grammatical construction, by the use of a real predicate so 
 as to form a complete proposition. The child had been 
 told, half in joke, that cabs were dirty as compared with 
 her perambulator. For some days she had been accustomed 
 to say 'dirty' on the mention of perambulator. Now she 
 made the whole statement for herself; Kabz dati y klam kl'in, 
 
 (Cabs dirty, peram' clean) (We must also notice 
 
 progress with regard to generic names.) 
 
 " Twenty-two months. Vocabulary and power of expres- 
 sion are gradually and steadily extending. ZJidtis is often 
 said for 'There it is;' 'Out-pull-baby-pecs* (spectacles); ' Run 
 away, man ; ' ' Mamma get Bessie ' (her doll). . . . The 
 consonants ch, /, and th are still imperfect, and consonantal 
 r is not yet formed at all . . ." Mr. Pollock also 
 records some expressions indicative of the dramatic faculty 
 in the child, and he adds : " I may observe on this, that I 
 have no reason to doubt that all the play with her doll is 
 purely and consciously dramatic, not animistic; in other 
 words, I have seen nothing to indicate a belief that the doll 
 is really alive ; nor is there, so far as I can observe, any 
 tendency to attribute life to other inanimate objects. I 
 think the child is perfectly aware of the difference between 
 animals and things, though I am unable to give specific 
 reasons for this impression." 1 
 
 (At this age there appears a decided tendency to imita- 
 tion of grown-up people's actions, and to asking questions.) 
 
 "Twenty-three months. The palatals, dental aspirates, 
 and the peculiar English short a (as in "hat ") are still im- 
 perfect, and r is represented by /. When s comes before 
 another consonant, one of the two is dropped. K is in 
 
 1 See Ulind, July, 1878, vol. iii., pp. 392-395.
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 259 
 
 some words confused with / or /. She says oken for ' open,' 
 kek for ' take,' . . ." etc. 
 
 M. de la Calle also has just added to this branch of study 
 a useful contribution of personal researches, which are all 
 the more valuable as he explains the facts collected by the 
 scientific laws of language. We quote as follows : 
 
 " I have observed, for instance, an absolutely constant 
 fact : Hard consonants are very difficult for a child to pro- 
 nounce simultaneously in the same word; he will suppress 
 the one and change the other, or perhaps replace both, if 
 they require hard expiration, by an analogous sound with 
 soft expiration. They will often insert a vowel sound 
 between the two. This proceeding reminds us of the 
 theory admitted by philologists, that certain double con- 
 sonants must have been originally separated by vowels and 
 afterwards have become reunited, sometimes even fused in 
 one, like the Greek \j/ (psi), and the Latin x (gs). 
 
 " I have also remarked this same process in the separa- 
 tion of diphthongs by an interpolated consonant, sometimes 
 amounting to a sort of harmonious reiteration of the altered 
 syllables ; transposition and contraction are also very fre- 
 quent. For instance, I find in my journal that Adolphus 
 at the age of twenty-two months said cou for clou, ot-tci for 
 ote-toi, doute for croute, toujer for tuer, baugrete for broiiette, 
 liff for livre, anoir for arnwire, la-lo for la-haut. Then 
 rghouise for nourrice, gouaselle for mademoiselle, acquelocque 
 for enveloppe, cacquette for casquette, poeterre for pomme de 
 tore. Corresponding phenomena are recorded concerning 
 the language of the eldest girl. Pepita used to say lache for 
 vache, loture for voiture, chelal for cheval, zdme for dame, 
 zenetre for fenetre, aristrocate for aristocrate, pa pi bo for pas 
 plus beau, les sansan for les enfants. Another little girl 
 whom I observed at about the same age used to say les 
 fanfatis ; but the harmonic phenomenon in the alteration 
 was identical. 
 
 " The confusion of / and r is also a characteristic pheno- 
 menon of infant language; children often mechanically 
 change or replace the one by the other ; but it is the great 
 difficulty in the pronunciation of the r which we are specially
 
 26O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 concerned with here. This consonant, pronounced by a 
 vibration of the tip of the tongue against the middle of the 
 palate, requires a certain amount of muscular exercise, and 
 is not mastered till much later. I have noticed that chil- 
 dren begin by sounding it in the middle of words, then at 
 the end, and finally when it is initial. But for a long time 
 there will be confusion between these two letters, and some- 
 times / will be substituted for r, sometimes r for /. This 
 reminds me that in cert; ..in romanized Latin words this 
 tendency to confusion of r and / has produced some altera- 
 tions which have been set down to an etymological law, 
 such as chapitre from capilulum ; pupitre from pulpituin ; 
 epitre from epistola ; apotre from apostolus ; and, vice versd, 
 peregrinus has become pelerin. It appears, also, that the 
 ancient Egyptians did not very clearly distinguish between 
 these two consonants." 
 
 M. de la Calle has also gone into the interesting question 
 of the primitiveness of monosyllabism. Contrary to the 
 ideas which obtain at the present day among philologists, he 
 has observed in his three children, " that monosyllabism is 
 no more than polysyllabism, an absolutely constant pheno- 
 menon." 
 
 The words which children retain most easily are those 
 which express the most salient qualities of things, or those 
 parts of them which produce the dominant impression. 
 Thus, a little girl of twenty months, when I took off my hat 
 and said to her, " What is it?" answered " bonnet" (cap). 
 This is her generalized name for every kind of head-gear, 
 masculine or feminine ; it is an object which has often 
 attracted her attention on her mother's head, and on her 
 own, when she looks at herself in the glass. She calls the 
 carafe, ve (yerre), while a bottle of wine is a /// (litre) ; the 
 word verre designating a quality which has struck her both 
 in the tumblers and the decanter, while the bottle, although 
 also glass, appears to her under a very different aspect. 
 She also calls a little medicine-bottle which hardly holds a 
 decilitre, lit. Her general idea of glass will go on enlarging 
 every day, while that of litre will gradually contract as she 
 gains fresh experiences.
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 26 1 
 
 A little child of two and a half calls all dogs oua-oua, 
 except his grandfather's dog Cambo, although he cannot pro- 
 nounce this name : he does not class him with the ordinary 
 oua-ouas. He also gives this name to all his wooden toy- 
 animals the dog, goat, wolf, hyena, and lion. But when 
 I called a stuffed lion an oua-otia, he seemed puzzled, and 
 looked at me as if he thought I was mistaken. Though 
 he can quite well distinguish donkeys and horses and oxen 
 in the street, in his wooden menagerie they are all called 
 mou (ox). The other day I had set him up on my table, 
 with a pencil in his hand and a piece of paper before him. 
 I drew for him roughly the outline of a quadruped, and he 
 instantly said mou, thus showing that it is the dominant 
 impressions which translate themselves, as general and 
 individual ideas, into the words most easily and firmly re- 
 tained. Other words are useless to the child ; they do not 
 interest him, and signify nothing to him. If he is forced to 
 learn them like a parrot, he forgets them more easily than 
 those which represent something to his intelligence. 
 
 These facts show that we should be much mistaken in 
 considering rapidity of progress in speaking setting aside 
 the question of the organs as a sign of precocious intelli- 
 gence ; the contrary indeed seems to me often true. I 
 have noticed remarkable backwardness in respect to the 
 exercise of speech, in several children of both sexes, born 
 of cultured parents, who expressed themselves with great 
 ease. The father of one of these even confided to me his 
 great fear lest his child would be dumb or partly dumb, 
 because at the age of thirteen months he could hardly 
 stammer out two or three words. This child began to 
 speak late, and he took his time even then in learning ; but 
 when three years old, the little man had a vocabulary as 
 rich as it was accurate, and expressed himself with very 
 great facility and precision. I could quote many similar 
 examples ; and it seems to me, therefore, that the more 
 intelligent a child is, the less he uses words, the more 
 necessary is it to him that words should signify something 
 if he is to learn them, and this is why he only learns words 
 in proportion as he gains ideas about objects. With chil-
 
 26'2 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 dren of little intelligence, but who are gifted with flexible 
 organs and with a memory in advance of their judgment, 
 words precede ideas, and often take their place ; they are 
 retained as sounds and associations of sounds, rather than 
 as representations of personal ideas. And thus, when the 
 children come to understand the sense of these words so 
 long pronounced for their sound, they find that their minds 
 are filled with other people's ideas, whereas more intelligent 
 children, slow in learning to speak, have got a large store of 
 original ideas, which have come to them, not through the 
 channel of words, but by means of direct observation and 
 experience. 
 
 Besides the habit of parrot-like repetition, which I have 
 explained as being caused by the fact that certain ideas 
 and sounds take possession of children, we may also notice 
 in the most intelligent of them a mania for jabbering strings 
 of syllables without any meaning, jumbled together at 
 hazard. A little girl, two years and two months old, went 
 on repeating from morning to night for a fortnight, toro 
 toro, toro toro, rapapi, rapapi, rapapi, a rhythmic monotone 
 which caused her great delight. Another child, nearly 
 three years old, has a stock of such refrains, which he either 
 speaks or screams, and which he sometimes produces for 
 fun in answer to any one speaking to him. For three 
 months he went on repeating these three syllables, articu- 
 lated in a sonorous voice, tabille, tabille, tabille. No one 
 understood the meaning of them, nor did they seem to have 
 any meaning for him. His father confided to me his 
 anxiety as to the child's intelligence. " I do not know if I 
 am mistaken," he said, " but I am less satisfied with his 
 intelligence than I was. Formerly he seemed to be observ- 
 ing and thoughtful ; but perhaps this was only a passing 
 and deceptive ray of light. I now find him heedless and 
 incapable of attention, or of following out an idea. Some- 
 times I fear that his brain is softening." I succeeded in 
 reassuring the father by giving him the following explana- 
 tion of his child's jabbering propensity : The feebleness of 
 his intellectual organs, over-exerted at the time of his fiist 
 attempts at speaking, cause him to seek rest and amuse-
 
 ON EXPRESSION AND LANGUAGE. 263 
 
 ment in these mechanical babblings without any sense, 
 which he has no trouble in producing, and which do not 
 excite his brain, and which, moreover, charm and please 
 his ear. Savages, in like manner, will go on for several 
 hours at a time making a monotonous melopoeia, whose 
 easy rhythm distracts their minds from care, and allows 
 their imagination to disport itself agreeably. It is, no 
 doubt, for a similar reason, that the dreamy and idle 
 peasants in the South of Europe, while watching their 
 flocks or working in their fields, will repeat either a song, 
 or a couplet, or a refrain, a hundred times in the same 
 afternoon. This is habitual, agreeable, and easy to them ; 
 a triple reason why they delight in the practice. There is 
 nothing in this meaningless reiteration to cause anxiety 
 with regard to children, when it does not fill up all their 
 time. It merely distracts them and relieves the fatigue of 
 their brain. 
 
 It is a universal fact that children always take hold of 
 the superficial qualities of things rather than their sub- 
 stance, of the simple rather than the complex, of what is 
 easy before what is more difficult. Thus we find them 
 more apt at imitating the emotional tone, the emphasis, and 
 the most sonorous syllables of words, than the entire words. 
 I have already said, their attention and powers of enunci- 
 ation are chiefly directed to accentuated syllables and 
 terminations. " If a child is not able to reproduce a 
 phrase it has just heard, it will at any rate reproduce the 
 emphasis, which is, as it were, its music. If we try to teach 
 a child the habit of expressing thanks for anything he 
 receives, and if he cannot repeat the phrase of thanks that 
 is taught him, he sings it without words, or at any rate 
 without the consonants, and generally on a single vowel." l 
 
 Philologists who have studied children, mention a num- 
 ber of similar facts, all of which they refer to the general 
 laws which govern the formation of languages. We would 
 specially refer our readers to two philologists, already cited, 
 
 1 E. Egger, op. cit.
 
 264 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 M. Egger and M. de La Calle, in whose works they will 
 find an abundant collection of valuable observations on the 
 progressive evolution of infant logic and dialect, showing 
 the gradual extension and generalization of the meaning of 
 the words they have learnt ; their first attempts in the art of 
 forming phrases without the use of the verb to be, by the 
 simple juxtaposition of a noun, a pronoun, or an attribute ; 
 the inflexible logic of analogy, which makes them confuse in 
 their mind the thing, the person, and the action, so that 
 they soon begin to designate them by uniform and general 
 appellations ; the incoherence and indefiniteness of their 
 notions of time and mood, of number and of person, which 
 makes them, first use all verbs in the infinitive, and after- 
 wards, by dint of analogy, put them in the times and 
 persons used by those who are speaking to them, i.e. taking 
 the second person for the first, and the first for the second ; 
 and so forth. On all these cases of progressive and parallel 
 development, often contradictory in appearance, the writers 
 above mentioned have contributed valuable information.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE AESTHETIC SENSE IN LITTLE CHILDREN. 
 
 I. 
 THE MUSICAL SENSE. 
 
 As soon as a child begins to distinguish sounds clearly, we 
 notice that some appear to please and others to displease 
 him ; this may arise either from the fact that particular tones 
 correspond to certain conformations in the child's acoustic 
 apparatus, or, by virtue of hereditary predisposition, to certain 
 innate conditions of his personality. We have also said 
 that children very easily accommodate themselves to sounds 
 which are very disagreeable to adults, provided they possess 
 some sort of rhythm, however rude. In short, we have 
 traced in young children the awakening of a kind of musical 
 sentiment, manifested either by their rhythmic movements 
 and joyous expression of face when any one sings or plays 
 on the piano, or by the evident enjoyment with which they 
 imitate the cry of an animal or the song of a person. We 
 must now endeavour to define these indications more pre- 
 cisely, and to show the genesis and the nature of the musical 
 sense in young children. 
 
 The primary element of musical impressions lies in the 
 emotional character of the sounds. The vibrations of matter 
 transmit themselves to the ear under the form of sounds. 
 In these sounds then the ear seizes certain vibrations of the 
 bodies producing them, something, i.e., of their life, so to 
 speak. It is, first and foremost, this expressive power of the 
 inner nature of things which awakens sympathetic sentiments 
 in the hearer ; and with it are combined the three essential 
 characteristics of sound pitch, intensity, and tone, and 
 the quality resulting from the duration of the note, rhythm, 
 
 265
 
 266 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 measure, and movement. In proportion as the pitch is 
 high, a note or sound becomes more distinct, more striking, 
 and, within certain limits, more agreeable. The medium 
 intensity between a feeble sound which is hardly perceptible 
 to the auditory nerves, and a violent one which shocks them, 
 is also productive of agreeable sensations for the ear. The 
 subtle relations of tone and feeling afford one of the most 
 powerful means of expression. With regard to rhythm, 
 which is both a soothing and a stirring influence, though it 
 strikes the nerves as a shock, its periodicity and order appeal 
 to the intelligence. 
 
 Let us examine the first manifestations of musical senti- 
 ment in children on the lines of these aesthetic principles. 
 There is no doubt that the pleasure they experience in 
 listening to singing or pianoforte playing springs from all 
 the causes we have enumerated above ; the human voice 
 pleases in itself, and so in a lesser degree does the sound of 
 an instrument, because both convey a vague expression of 
 existence. But this expressive character of music is very 
 confusedly apprehended by infants or animals. I doubt 
 even whether, before the age of six weeks, a child distin- 
 guishes at all clearly the tones of caressing, of pity, or of 
 affection, from those of calling, threatening, command, or 
 anger ; he soon arrives at understanding them, thanks to 
 the inherited powers of adaptation in which his organization 
 is so rich ; but the differences he feels in them at first are 
 physical rather than moral. It is necessary that associations 
 of ideas of pleasure and well-being, of pain and uneasiness 
 should intervene in the development of these functions, 
 latent in the organization. By the time a child is three 
 months old a slight advance has already been made in this 
 direction. The child begins to distinguish with clearness 
 and with pleasure certain sounds which to him are express- 
 ive ; but he is quite indifferent to others, whether clear, 
 harsh, or grave, which on an adult would produce either 
 pleasant or painful impressions. The tones of authority and 
 anger in his nurse's voice (and still more in his father) are 
 clearly distinguished by the child from those of coaxing or 
 fun. If light, sharp sounds enliven him, it is more on ac-
 
 THE MUSICAL SENSE. 267 
 
 count of their pitch than their timbre. But sounds of all 
 sorts, sharp or flat, intense or feeble, impressive or not, give 
 him pleasure, provided they are accompanied by rhythm. 
 
 Of these different musical elements those which will have 
 made most way by the age of six months, are those which 
 appeal in some sort to physical sensibility. I mean to say, 
 that sounds which transmit to our nervous system the very 
 vibrations of the matter itself will be more differentiated and 
 more keenly felt by the ear. It is the same with the sonor- 
 ous vibrations which not only affect the tympanum but which 
 shake the wl ole body more or less strongly. 1 Sweet and 
 clear sounds, or harsh, jingling ones, always please children 
 i i themselves ; but they please them much more when they 
 are rhythmic or reiterated. A child placed close to a grand 
 organ will cry and writhe under the sonorous vibrations 
 which shake its whole body ; the noise of a drum very near 
 has often the same effect. But heard a little way off, the 
 same sound, softened by distance, will please him immensely. 
 Thus it is the striking forms of emotional music rather than 
 its expression, the purely physical percussions and sensations 
 of sound, and above all the physical exciLement produced 
 by the mechanical excitation of sound, that a child of six 
 months feels the most keenly. 
 
 At this early period it would be premature to look for 
 genuine musical intentions in the first monotonous babblings 
 \vhich children seem to make with no other motive than 
 delight in the exercise of their little voices. The utmost 
 we can admit is, that lively airs and harmonious sounds 
 produce more marked impressions on them than do grave, 
 sweet, and even melodious sounds ; and that their irregularly 
 rhythmic utterances, vaguely and feebly expressed, are per- 
 haps an attempt to reproduce those sounds which please 
 them. There is no doubt that in addition to the immediate 
 pleasure of exercising the vocal organs, there comes in a 
 vague discernment of the variety of sounds, a subtle sense 
 of pleasure in this variety, and the still more subtle pleasure 
 
 1 G. Gueroult, DH Role dn Mouvement dans les Emotions Esthctiques. 
 Revue PhilosophiqHc, Juin, ib8i.
 
 268 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 of attempting to imitate sounds his nurse's voice when 
 singing, or the notes of an instrument. 
 
 Both language and music are in their origin but one and 
 the same thing ; they are first and foremost the expression 
 of sentiments little or not at all defined. Thus children 
 during the first few months practise the two simultaneously, 
 and more for pleasure than to express any wants. Adults, 
 however, soon teach them the separate use of these two arts 
 which in primitive man also were fused in one, but which 
 have been brought singly to perfection by the slow elabora- 
 tion of ages. First, between the ages of one and three, 
 children learn a very great number of oral signs and com- 
 binations of signs representing concrete ideas. But during 
 the same period they will scarcely learn to distinguish the 
 abstract scale of sounds better than that of colours. The 
 child's vocal music is of a different kind, and cannot ac- 
 commodate itself to ours. Not that his ear does not 
 seize with tolerable clearness the more delicate shades of 
 sound, provided people sing to him in tune ; but his ear 
 at this age is more natural than musical it distinguishes 
 musical sounds more from their accent and rhythm than 
 their expression. A child must first have learnt by a long 
 apprenticeship of hearing and sight to distinguish the 
 nature and origin of any sounds whatever, to recognise the 
 voices of different people, to imitate their speech and their 
 songs, or to mimic the cries of animals or the most striking 
 sounds produced by objects, before notes sung by the human 
 voice will have any marked expression for him. And 
 further : the development of the musical ear is quite as much 
 aided by the personal exercise of the voice as by hearing 
 the songs of other people. Now, the larynx of a child, though 
 it contains at birth all the same parts as it does in an adult, 
 is only a rough sketch of what it will be. During the first 
 months the cartilage is in an essentially fibrous state. It is 
 not until after the second year that the thyroid cartilage 
 assumes more marked forms, and that the arytenoids begin 
 to take shape. At the age of five or six years the posterior ex- 
 tremities of the thyroid and other parts acquire the charac- 
 ter of true cartilage. It is natural that the development of
 
 THE MUSICAL SENSE. 269 
 
 the voice should follow that of the organs. As the fibres 
 harden by slow degrees, the shrill screams and waitings of 
 early days give place to more sonorous sounds ; and by the 
 development of the muscles the vocal pipe is placed in 
 favourable conditions for modifying the discordant sounds 
 of the reed. . . . Towards the first year the voice begins 
 to acquire a more decidedly sonorous quality ; speech be- 
 comes an incessant medium of gymnastics for the voice, and 
 contributes enormously to its development. 1 
 
 From one to three years of age the development of the 
 voice appears to coincide with that of the brain, rather than 
 of the general organization. With regard to its sonorous 
 quality, it is pretty much at a standstill ; and it remains so 
 till the age of five or six. It is from the age of four or five 
 that the ear begins really to form, and learns most easily to 
 distinguish sounds ;~ and its progress has been greatly aided 
 by the gradual development and constant exercise of the 
 voice. A child of a year old may listen with profit to 
 music of a simple kind, moderately expressive and, above 
 all, lively ; it will conduce to form his musical ear. But his 
 real musical education, that which will produce the most 
 manifest fruits, scarcely ever begins before the age of five or 
 six ; and even then, his best model for vocal music will not 
 be a man, whose voice is an octave lower than his, but the 
 sweet voice of his mother or nurse, or of an older child 
 whose voice is already formed. As for instrumental music, 
 we know what it is, what it may be, and also what it should 
 not be at this age of animal virtuosite. We have already 
 seen, according to Houzeau, that the first rudiments of 
 instrumental music are not unknown to certain animals ; and 
 that their first attempts in this line are of the nature of 
 drum performances, that is to say, they consist in striking 
 sonorous objects with sticks. The drum, according to 
 Houzeau, is the universal instrument, the symbol of musical 
 art in the savage, and, perhaps we may also add, in the 
 quadrumana also. To this instrument of barbarous per- 
 
 1 De la Calle. op. cit., p. 141. 
 
 2 Dupaigne, Conferences PJagogifius t 1878.
 
 2/O THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 cussion, the offspring of the civilized bimana adds the 
 trumpet, symbol of a more refined savageness. The use 
 of the first of these instruments has been suppressed in 
 France for adults, let us hope that it will not be long before 
 children also are forbidden its use. As to the suppression 
 of the trumpet, this last vestige of animal combativeness, 
 it will come in its turn, though the time does not yet seem 
 near at hand. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SENSE OF MATERIAL BEAUTY. 
 
 At the end of the first month or towards the middle of 
 the second, the fixity of expresson, the sustained attention, 
 the smile, the automatic gestures of the head, arms, and 
 legs, which we notice in children when they see before 
 them brightly coloured or luminous objects, or objects 
 moved briskly about, do not appear to signify anything 
 more than the pleasure resulting from very exciting sensa- 
 tions. At this period also the sight of a candle, or anything 
 of pronounced colour, will cause starts and tremblings and 
 babblings, which are the child's ordinary expression of joy, 
 admiration, or desire. For some time already the sight of 
 his feeding-bottle, his nurse's breast, his parents and friends, 
 will have evoked from the child analogous cries, gestures, 
 and attitudes. During the first month, therefore, we may 
 assume that the child confuses the beautiful with what he 
 likes. The child is at the stage of the first purely animal 
 emotions, the accumulation of which has produced the 
 hereditary instinct called aesthetic. We are already able 
 to affirm that the intensity of these visual pleasures is in 
 relation to the individual impressionability, and we can 
 perhaps also vaguely foresee the degree of the future 
 development of this force. Psychologists, however, must 
 observe extreme caution and reserve in their diagnosis, for 
 these first indications have only a very limited object ; they 
 only bring into evidence the feeblest of the elements of 
 which the sesthetic sense will eventually be composed;
 
 THE SENSE OF MATERIAL BEAUTY. 271 
 
 besides which, inherited tendencies, especially when pre- 
 cociously displayed, are apt to become very mediocre in 
 quality. 
 
 Let us study a child at the age of ten months. A great 
 number of visual perceptions have become associated in his 
 brain with the admiration, joy, sympathy, and desire which 
 the sight of anything good or pleasant awakens in him ; 
 nevertheless, in spite of some progress which he has made 
 in the habits of imagining, comparing, abstracting, and 
 generalizing, it seems that the legacy of the ideal inherited 
 from his parents has not yet become amplified. The 
 aesthetic pleasure of admiration and purely sensual pleasures 
 seem still blended together. I give a cake to a child of 
 nine months ; he reddens with emotion, and his whole 
 being is agitated ; he stretches out his hands eagerly, and 
 carries the cake to his mouth with the most unconcealed 
 delight. I then present him with a plaything his sister's 
 doll ; his delight and admiration are shown at first by the 
 same signs as before ; but very soon discovering that this 
 charming object is only good to be looked at and handled, 
 he confines himself to enjoying it with the two senses of 
 sight and touch, and presently even invites me to share 
 his pleasure. Here we have a sentiment less egoistical 
 or rather an egoism which takes him out of himself and 
 which the very nature of the object has led the child to 
 experience. We can see in this a progress, though very 
 slight, of the cesthetic sense. 
 
 I see a child of ten months in a high state of delight just 
 after his nurse has put him on his smart new frock and 
 shoes. But I also observed that in putting them on she 
 said, " Pretty, pretty," a word which he applies in his mind 
 to everything that is good or pleasant ; I also reflect that 
 every change relating to his person makes him happy, 
 especially if the people about him appear to share his joy. 
 But then I remember also that he seems always very happy 
 in his everyday frock and shoes, and I can no longer 
 attribute this momentary excitement to a sentiment, except 
 perhaps a very obscure one, of the beauty of his clothes. 
 The colour of the stuff no doubt pleases, as that of a flower
 
 2/2 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 or piece of coloured paper would ; the rustling affects his 
 tympanum pleasantly ; the click-clack of the little new 
 shoes amuses him, as any new sound would; but this is 
 probably all. 
 
 Another child of ten months and his cousin of thirteen 
 months can distinguish easily amongst five or six other 
 kinds of food the cake or dainty they prefer ; and if they 
 seize hold of them it is with full consciousness of what they 
 are doing. But if I present to them at the same time 
 several toys and dolls of unequal prettiness, they generally 
 make a grab at hap-hazard and without choice. If they do 
 make a choice, it is anything but an aesthetic one ; it is size, 
 smartness, and novelty which attracts and fascinates them. 
 
 With regard to animal beauty, and the highest kind 
 especially, that of the human form, there is a sympathy of 
 origin and similarity, combined with the influence of familiar 
 experiences, which predisposes children to take lively de- 
 light in it. But there is little more than this. 
 
 I have often studied little children in the presence of 
 animals at the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, or the Zoological 
 Gardens of other great towns, and it is evident to me that 
 they take great notice of them and delight in looking at 
 them big ones and little ones, pretty or ugly, and especi- 
 ally those which resemble animals they are already ac- 
 quainted with. But I have examined the expression of 
 their eyes and faces, their gestures and exclamations, to 
 learn if they made any distinction, in virtue of hereditary 
 instinct, between the different representatives of zoological 
 species, and I confess that, to my great astonishment, I 
 could discover nothing of the kind. They showed quite 
 as much delight at the tricks of the monkeys as at the 
 gambols of the bears, or the grave and ponderous attitudes 
 of the elephant ; they admired with equal enthusiasm the 
 brilliant cockatoos, the hideous vultures, the grotesque 
 ostrich, and the graceful ichneumon ; and would gaze with 
 pleasure quite unmixed with horror at the awful boa-con- 
 strictor and the scaly lizards. The child has not yet got 
 beyond isolated perceptions, and is incapable of concep- 
 tions of wholes or masses ; and that is why his ideas of the
 
 THE SENSE OF MATERIAL BEAUTY. 273 
 
 beautiful and his correlative ideas of ugliness are so incom- 
 plete, variable, and fleeting. 
 
 The idea of proportion and suitability, which is a wholly 
 intellectual perception, takes longer to form itself than the 
 discernment of expression, which is almost entirely sensory. 
 The attitude of these little children in the presence of 
 people whose faces are unknown to them, seems to indicate 
 this. They are attracted at first sight by certain faces, 
 which also please adults ; and other faces which do not 
 please us seem also to frighten and repel them. But the 
 readiness with which they become reconciled to the latter, 
 provided they discover in them signs of benevolence, and 
 the equal readiness with which they withdraw their favour 
 from the others if they only find coldness in them, authorize 
 us in supposing that if hereditary influences and, up to a 
 certain point, personal experience, dispose the child to feel 
 the charm of a beautiful face, of a harmonious arrangement 
 of form and colour, a stronger tendency makes them capable 
 of understanding and feeling the true expression of senti- 
 ments which are not very complex. Even with adults 
 expression ranks before beauty of proportion. The best 
 proportioned face, if wanting in expression, says nothing to 
 us, whereas the most irregular features even the most 
 repelling if lighted up with expression, interest and please. 
 It is not surprising then that to children the intellectual 
 elements of the beautiful should be subordinated to the 
 sensory ones, or even entirely absent. 
 
 We have now come to a fresh stage in the slow evolution 
 of the aesthetic sense. The child is eighteen months old ; 
 his mind is stored with a considerable number of percep- 
 tions more or less well differentiated and generalized ; he 
 has made, and has heard made, quantities of judgments 
 implying a conception of the beautiful ; and this term, often 
 used by him or in his hearing, may have assumed the form 
 of an elementary abstraction. But how undetermined still 
 and fluctuating is this idea in his mind ! To him the 
 beautiful still means only what is pretty, but it is also what 
 is nice, and in both cases it is the concrete expression of 
 the known. All his aesthetic judgments refer always to 
 
 T
 
 274 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 himself; pretty applies to everything that is part of himself, 
 that belongs to him, that is for him or near him ; his person, 
 his clothes, his toys, his parents, his friends, his animals, 
 flowers, and trees. Sometimes, however, all these things 
 cease to be pretty himself, when he gets angry, or has 
 been disobedient, or given pain to some one ; his toys when 
 he is tired of them or has broken them or made them dirty ; 
 then nothing is pretty or good. Thus we see that the 
 dominant elements in the infant's sense of beauty are the 
 primary judgments and sentiments, or those immediately 
 derived from them, which make up his young personality. 
 
 A very few examples will show how very limited is that 
 part of his ideality which may be called rational, and quasi- 
 universal. A gaudy picture-book will drive children wild 
 with delight, even at the age of three, while the paintings 
 of a master do not appeal to them at all. Beautiful 
 statuary leaves them indifferent ; but they will watch with 
 the greatest interest the tricks and antics of a dog, the 
 flight of a bird, a boat gliding along. A little girl twenty 
 months old, who had been accustomed to looking at pictures 
 at home, and took pleasure in recognising the objects they 
 represented, escaped from her father when he tried to make 
 her look at the animals and people in the pictures of the 
 Louvre. Her chief delight here in public was to run about, 
 laughing and calling to me in a little shrill voice, and 
 getting in the way of the visitors. Another child, three 
 years old, after having looked at an Italian picture with 
 very bright colouring, partly from imitation and partly from 
 obedience, expressed his admiration thus : " It's very pretty, 
 papa ! There's lots of gold, lots of red, and lots of blue ; 
 and then, down there, there is a papa and a mamma ; there 
 is no baby ; and there is a papa tree and a mamma duck." 
 
 Children appreciate rural scenery as little as they do 
 pictorial or sculpturesque beauty. In Touraine, a beautiful 
 and open country greets the eye at every turn. A young 
 child will pass some time in the midst of its beauties, and will 
 perceive only himself or his parents. The latter adroitly 
 lead the cnversation to the subject of the lovely country; 
 the child mechaniclly repeats some fragments of their dis-
 
 THE SENSE OF MATERIAL BEAUTY. 275 
 
 course. Then the parents, seated on some rising ground, 
 invite the child to look at what they were admiring. His 
 reply is very brief : " Oh ! yes, it is very beautiful, very 
 beautiful, much more lovely than at home, and than where 
 grandmamma lives too." Before a thundering cascade, 
 glowing with rainbow tints, a child of the same age cried 
 out : " Say, mamma, why is the cascade of the mill-stream 
 at Tarbes not bigger than this ? " Another child, about three 
 years of age, imitating her mother's example, always admired 
 the beautiful Pic de Ger, which towers in the distance far 
 above the mountains surrounding Eaux-Bonnes. This 
 mountain, situated nearly to the south of the town, changes 
 its aspect according to the time of day. The child had 
 heard this spoken of, and repeated the words in his own 
 fashion : " The mountain is very large ! This morning it 
 was quite white, yesterday it was quite black, and the other 
 yesterday it was all rose-colour. Oh ! the lovely mountain. 
 It is a great deal bigger than our house, perhaps it is four 
 times as big." Of a beautiful animal, this same child said 
 it was of such and such a colour, and then, very large or 
 very good, not naughty or bad at all : of a very fine poplar, 
 that it was very tall or very pretty, but not so large as the 
 fig-tree, the big fig-tree in grandma's garden. 
 
 Children begin by feeling pleasure and admiration for 
 isolated objects, and so much the more as they appear to 
 them to be good or pleasant. The measure of their appro- 
 bation does not go beyond their familiar experiences. Of 
 masses they only perceive the general bulk ; of harmonies in 
 nature or in art, only the colours and the most salient points. 
 The ideality transmitted through ancestors, develops 
 according to the laws of general evolution, adapting itself 
 gradually to more distant objects, analysing and combining 
 them more and more. The more persons and objects 
 recall real connections and distinct associations of agreeable 
 and intense sensations, the more we may say that the sense 
 of the intellectual element of the beautiful, or ideality, has 
 progressed.
 
 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE CONSTRUCTIVE INSTINCT. 
 
 "Creative imagination," under the form of constructive 
 or destructive mania, "shows itself at a very tender age," 
 says Father Girard ; " for if the little child likes to give proof 
 of his strength by destroying, he also delights in producing, 
 after his own fashion, things new and beautiful. See how 
 he ranges his little soldiers, his toy horses and sheep, etc. ; 
 how he rejoices in new combinations ! And he calls to his 
 mother, that she too may share in his pleasure." l The 
 instinct of imitation, so active in all young animals, con- 
 duces to the rapid development of this hereditary faculty. 
 Tiedemann points out to us in his child, thirteen months 
 old, a rare aptitude for combining the ideas he had acquired 
 and of applying them to actual perceptions, with the evident 
 intention of representing the first by the second. 
 
 On the 2 gth of October the child got hold of some cab- 
 bage stalks and amused himself with making them represent 
 different persons visiting each other. The philosopher 
 rightly sees in this the germ of the poetic genius, which he 
 says, " seems to consist in transferring known images to 
 strangers." But he forgets to tell us how far this perform- 
 ance was genuinely spontaneous, and whether the child 
 had ever seen this done before, or whether it was his original 
 idea for representing scenes which he remembered. It is 
 true, however, that even if the action did proceed from 
 mechanical imitation, as consciousness would soon intervene, 
 it would assume a certain personal character. Possibly 
 also a future savant was exceptionally gifted with precocious 
 talents. 
 
 However this may be, this imaginative faculty shows 
 itself, with greater or less force, in all children from the age 
 of eight or ten months. A child of nine months, seated on 
 the floor in the middle of a room, seemed like a creating 
 and despotic diety in the midst of his playthings, and any- 
 
 1 De V Enseignement Regulier de laLangue Maternelle, liv. iii., p. 88.
 
 THE CONSTRUCTIVE INSTINCT. 2/7 
 
 thing else that was given him or that he could get hold of 
 by crawling along. Trumpets, drums, balls, paper, books, 
 cakes, fruit, were piled up together, ranged side by side, 
 separated, put back higgledy-piggledy, pushed away, fetched 
 back again, hugged up, kissed, gnawed, etc., etc., and all 
 this with an accompaniment of shouts, gestures of admira- 
 tion, and bursts of joy, which showed his imperative need 
 of exercising his physical powers, of satisfying an ever-new 
 curiosity, and of imitating; and also his intellectual and 
 moral necessity of realising an ideal corresponding to his 
 faculties, " of producing, to the best of his ability, something 
 new and pretty." Thus the infant-man constructs and 
 destroys in play, but with a seriousness and purpose which 
 reminds one of Sallust's patricians, who unceasingly con- 
 structed in order to demolish, and demolished in order to 
 construct 
 
 The aesthetic faculty may even at this early age receive 
 an appropriate kind of culture, through the development of 
 the constructive instinct. Give a child of twenty months or 
 two years a spade and a little pail, set him down on a sandy 
 beach, and you will have reason to admire his indefatigable 
 and ever-varying efforts at building and demolishing and 
 rebuilding. His imagination outstrips ours, in that it does 
 not know how to, or cannot limit itself. I saw the other 
 day in one of the squares which I frequently visit, a little 
 girl seated by her nurse's side, who, during a quarter of an 
 hour, never ceased filling her little pail and turning out 
 moulds of sand. After she had turned the pail over, before 
 lifting it up, she always patted it several times with her 
 spade ; this, the nurse told me, was to make the mould 
 even. But she did not always succeed in producing a 
 perfect shape, and then she would turn to her nurse and 
 hold out the spade and pail to her, as if inviting her to share 
 her labours. To let children work at what they can do and 
 what pleases them, seems to me an excellent plan. 
 
 Whilst encouraging, however, we must be on our guard 
 not to over-cultivate this constructive instinct, which is as 
 imitative as it is inventive, and as clumsy as it is irrepres- 
 sible.
 
 2/8 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 One day, thinking that I should greatly interest one of 
 my nephews, a little fellow rather more than three, and very 
 intelligent for his age, I said to him in the garden, that we 
 would make the river Adour, with the bridge, and the 
 poplars on its banks. With the end of my cane I scooped 
 out a long furrow several inches wide. I broke off some 
 arbutus twigs and planted them on each side of the furrow 
 to represent the poplars ; and I constructed the bridge with 
 the lid of a box supported on heaps of stones which repre- 
 sented the piles. When it was finished I asked my nephew 
 if it was not very pretty. He replied : " No, it is not pretty." 
 I was not discouraged, however; I emptied two large pails 
 of water into the furrow, and the water trickled slowly down 
 producing a stream which I dignified with the appellation 
 of the Adour. Still, however, I got no admiration for my 
 pains. I then made two paper boats and launched them 
 on my river, which I had first replenished with another 
 supply of water. The boy, who was very fond of boats, 
 instantly seized one of them and put it back on the river, 
 now almost dry again. I poured in a fresh torrent, which, 
 being too impetuous and abundant, submerged the frail 
 craft. The child cried out: "But there are no boats on 
 the Adour ! They are on the Garonne, and they don't do 
 like that on the Garonne. No, that is not amusing, no, not 
 at all." I thought it was useless to argue the matter, and I 
 walked off, laughing to myself over my clumsy attempt at 
 infant construction. I had already often read in books, but 
 this time I had learnt experimentally, that the initiative of 
 children is always superior to what we try to devise for 
 them. This experiment and many others have taught me 
 that their creative or poetic force is much weaker than is 
 commonly supposed. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 
 
 The imitation of gestures, sounds, and the cries of 
 animals, also indicates in all children a first awakening of the 
 aesthetic sense. One child of eleven months used to clasp
 
 THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 279 
 
 his hands together, as he had seen other people do, to 
 express astonishment or joy. He used to imitate all that 
 pleased him in other people ; and very often the mere fact of 
 imitation was a pleasure to him. I had given him a little 
 bucket, which he used to hold in his hand while walking 
 with me in the garden. One day I threw a pebble into the 
 bucket ; instantly the child picked up another pebble and 
 threw it in also, and then he rattled the bucket with all his 
 might. One lesson was enough to teach him a game which 
 he repeats frequently ; it consists in covering his head with 
 a table-napkin or shawl, and saying, "apu" (tl n'y est plus), 
 and then popping his head out again. 
 
 His aptitude for imitation showed itself very curiously, 
 up to a certain day he had always needed some one to 
 help him walk, but only one person. If he was with his 
 father, directly he saw me, he would call me papa, ask for 
 my hand, and leave his father as soon as he had hold of 
 mine. He would do the same to all new-comers let go 
 the hand he was holding to take theirs. One day I noticed 
 that he kept his eyes fixed on my feet all the time we were 
 walking, and to amuse him I began taking very long strides, 
 which made him laugh very much and jump about with 
 delight. I repeated this amusement the next day j the 
 child then, to imitate me, stretched out his legs till they 
 were almost horizontal. Naturally he lost his balance and 
 fell down. Then he asked for the hand of the next person 
 he saw, and without letting go of mine, he began to take these 
 long steps again. Now, if there are two people near him, 
 he must always have a hand from each, in order to perform 
 this peculiar walk. 
 
 We know how early children's games take the form of 
 dramatic scenes. When only three or four months old, 
 their whole bodies become agitated and they utter cries of 
 delight if their mother or sister hides for a minute behind 
 a handkerchief or an apron. They will repeat before 
 visitors the games which amused their parents. Almost all 
 children display, in varying degrees, a tendency to perform 
 monkey tricks, to say absurdities, and to repeat strange- 
 sounding syllables, for the edification of those around them,
 
 280 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 and especially to win the admiration of strangers. I know 
 two such children, the eldest of whom is more than three, 
 whose mania for this kind of thing renders them almost 
 insupportable : the presence of a visitor excites them to 
 such a degree that they have to be sent out of the room. 
 The eldest especially never makes a gesture or movement 
 without turning round to the visitors to see if they are look- 
 ing at him : he seems to think they have no eyes or ears for 
 any one but him ; and that they are only there to laugh at 
 him and his tricks. 
 
 We must endeavour to preserve in children and their 
 games their primitive character of innocent mischief and 
 fun. Mockery, which is an odious tendency, borders very 
 closely on the fun which delights us. I think that in general 
 this fault, even when hereditary, does not appear in children 
 under the age of three unless it has been developed by 
 example and encouragement. The sense of the ridiculous 
 seems to be very weak at this age. We must not imagine 
 that because children very early show a tendency to pick 
 out and imitate the physical defects of people, they have 
 any notion that they are defects or absurdities. It is only 
 that they are astonished at singular appearances and shapes 
 and want to know the reason of them. 
 
 A child four years old, having seen in the street a man 
 very much bent, and at another time a very little old man, 
 observed them very attentively and afterwards asked how they 
 were made like that. His brother, two years and a half, 
 made remarks of the same kind : " Why does he walk like 
 that, mamma ? " But there was no perception of the gro- 
 tescjue, as such, in either of the children. 
 
 A child of three years, having stayed for three weeks with 
 some relations, brought back with him some ugly mocking 
 habits. He had sometimes seen in his walks a little old 
 hunchback, and he had taken to mimicking him, bending his 
 back double and taking little hurried steps; and the servants 
 had laughed at and encouraged this pantomime. The family 
 too treated it as a laughing matter. From this time forth 
 the child's chief delight was to act the little old man. Num- 
 bers of parents are too ready to encourage this love of cari-
 
 THE DRAMATIC INSTINCT. 28 1 
 
 cature because they see in it the sign of a vivacious nature 
 and an observing turn of mind. But this is one of the worst 
 uses that intelligence can be put to. Ridiculing and cari- 
 caturing, unless for legitimate ends, are anything but pleas- 
 ing in adults, and certainly not in children, who have no call 
 to practise them. " These mocking, comedian manners," 
 says Fenelon, "have something in them that is low taste and 
 contrary to all good feeling." 
 
 Plenty of fun in their games, and plenty of merriment, 
 but no mockery, is the best rule for all infant dramatizing. 
 
 This tendency to imitate and dramatize may easily have 
 been derived from imitations which were both harmless 
 and instructive. Before they are fifteen months old, most 
 children will counterfeit very diolly the voices, the songs, 
 and cries of a certain number of animals. This is a very 
 innocent use of the comic faculty, and it has the advantage 
 of developing the vocal organs, and of leading children 
 to study the cries and habits of animals. It is very easy 
 to prevent this tendency from degenerating later into an 
 unkind, unbecoming habit.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 PERSONALITY. REFLECTION.- MORAL SENSE. 
 
 THE idea of the ego is a very obscure one both for psy- 
 chologists and physiologists ; for each individual, however, it 
 is very distinct Human beings and animals very quickly 
 learn not to confound themselves with the people around 
 them. This idea, moreover, is only a progressive development 
 of the innate sense of personality which we have alluded to 
 before. We may consider it up to a certain point as innate 
 and hereditary, and as being already exercised and nourished 
 by impressions during the foetal life ; in short, as forming 
 part of the cerebral predispositions which the child brings 
 with him into the world. It strengthens afterwards, and 
 becomes more defined in proportion as the organs develop, 
 as experiences multiply and comparisons extend, and as the 
 power of abstraction and of generalization progresses. 
 
 In the new-born child the personality is, or seems to be, 
 especially concentrated in the emotional sphere. He does 
 not distinctly recognise any object or himself ; but he feels 
 the presence of objects, and he feels himself live and feel 
 and act. A baby of one month has just been brought into 
 my room. He scarcely knows his mother's voice, and he 
 does not respond to it by any gesture, nor by smiling, which 
 action he still performs automatically and without any 
 meaning. But he is beginning to know his mother's breast 
 by sight. For the last teft days he has been able to see 
 sufficiently to distinguish objects. Before this he only fol- 
 lowed with his eyes the movements of a candle ; now he 
 follows all brilliant or moving objects. He has followed the 
 movement of my finger which I waved before him a few
 
 PERSONALITY. 283 
 
 centimetres off; he has also followed a sheet of white paper 
 which i shook a little further off. But nearly all the time 
 he has been in the room his eyes have been fixed on an 
 object placed near the window, or the window itself; I 
 think it must have been a picture-frame which glittered in 
 the light from the window which riveted his attention. It 
 seemed to me for a moment that he turned his head towards 
 me, i.e., to the left, to listen when I spoke; I placed myself 
 on the other side, and spoke in a loud voice ; he turned 
 again, but slowly, perhaps because the sound came rather 
 from behind. He performed, as if unconsciously, a balanced 
 movement from up to down with his left arm ; I touched his 
 cheek with my finger and then with a pen-holder ; he reversed 
 the automatic movement, but his arm did not go up to his 
 cheek. He made the same movement when I rubbed the 
 tip of his nose gently, accompanying it with a very rapid 
 twitch of his left nostril and a puckering of his forehead, 
 which lasted for three or four seconds. His mother hav- 
 ing pushed his cap a little aside, and then covered his head 
 with a veil, he puckered his forehead, opened his mouth 
 with a grimace, and uttered a little cry of discontent. When 
 he has a stomach-ache, which very often happens, he is very 
 much disturbed, and throws his arms about, as if to repulse 
 an unknown evil. I put my finger under his, his hand 
 trembled a little at first, and then he squeezed my finger 
 very tightly; I pretended to withdraw it, and he held it 
 still more firmly, and when at last I gave it up to him, he 
 lifted it to his lips. But he only sucked it for a few seconds, 
 very quickly realizing that it was not the teat which nourished 
 him. Thus then a child's impressions, ideas, and actions 
 at this age are entirely vegetative and rudimentary, and 
 almost exclusively, though vaguely personal His only per- 
 sistent and continuous idea of consciousness seems to be ot 
 himself; all else is fleeting, dimly seen, vaguely remembered, 
 anything but distinct. 
 
 Let us now take a child of three months. What progress 
 we now find has been made in all the functions, and in the 
 idea of its own personality ! This small infant distinguishes 
 his mother from the other people of the house, when they
 
 284 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 are with him at the same time as his mother ; he holds out his 
 arms to her in preference to any one else. He is not yet 
 sufficiently advanced in comparison to distinguish a feeding- 
 bottle full of milk from one full of water ; but when his sister 
 tries to take away his bottle he gets angry. He knows that 
 coco is a name for the bird, and he turns towards its cage 
 when he hears the word. He bends down towards his feet, 
 and stretches his arms towards the bottom of his frock when 
 any one asks him where his feet or his frock are. His 
 mother's fondling often stops his tears when he is in pain. 
 He smiles when any one smiles at him, and strokes his 
 mother. Here we see all the faculties, sensibility, intelli- 
 gence, and intentional motricity, already exercising them- 
 selves with delicacy, strength, and facility, and consciously 
 into the bargain. He distinguishes different objects from one 
 another and also from himself, and he can distinguish the 
 various parts of his body. Two months more, and the as- 
 sociation of his name with the impressions connected with 
 his personality will be a real symbol to him, distinctly repre- 
 senting his personality and nothing else. 
 
 The concrete notion of personality which succeeds the 
 primitive sentiment of this personality seems to me already 
 completely formed when the child begins to express his 
 thoughts. This is why I think it a mistake to attempt too 
 much to find out what he is thinking by what he says. For 
 instance, although the contrary is generally held to be true> 
 I cannot admit that, because children speak of themselves 
 in the third person, therefore the notion of their personality 
 and the term which they use to express it, are not yet com- 
 pletely detached from external objectivity. When the child 
 learns to say /or me, instead of Charles or Paul, the terms 
 / or me are not more abstract to him than the proper names 
 which he has been taught to replace by / and me. Both 
 the pronouns and the names equally express a very distinct 
 and very concrete idea of individual personality. When a 
 three-years-old child says, / want that, it is only a transla- 
 tion of Paul wants that; and /, like Paul, indicates neither 
 the first nor the third person, but the person who is himself, 
 his own well-known personality, which he continually feels in
 
 PERSONALITY. 285 
 
 his emotions and actions. An abstract notion of personality 
 does not exist in a young child's mind. 
 
 May we not also believe that animals have quite as dis- 
 tinct an idea of their own personality as we ourselves have ? 
 I have a cat which answers to the name of Mitni, which she 
 knows very well only designates herself; not only does she 
 come when she is called by this name, but if any one men- 
 tions the name casually in her presence, she pricks up her 
 ears and looks up with a significant expression of counte- 
 nance ; and more than this, although she is never addressed 
 as mother, if any one says the mother, she shows plainly that 
 she has learnt, impossible to say how, that this word also 
 is qualificative of her individuality. 
 
 " No one supposes," says Darwin, " that one of the lower 
 animals reflects whence he comes or whither he goes 
 what is death and what is life, and so forth. But can we 
 feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and 
 some power of imagination, as shown by his dreams, ne\xi 
 reflects on his past pleasures in the chase ? And this would 
 be a form of self-consciousness. On the other hand, as 
 Biichner remarked, how little can the hard-worked wife of a 
 degraded Australian savage, who hardly uses an abstract 
 word and cannot count above four, exert her self-conscious- 
 ness, or reflect on the nature of her own existence. 
 
 " That animals retain their mental individuality is un- 
 questionable. When my voice awakened a train of old 
 associations in the mind of the above-mentioned dog, he 
 must have retained his mental individuality, although every 
 atom of his brain had probably undergone change more 
 than once during the interval of five years. This dog might 
 have brought forward the argument lately advanced to crush 
 all evolutionists, and said : ' I abide amid all mental moods 
 and all material changes.' " l 
 
 This being conceded, we do not think we are detracting 
 from the dignity of infant man, if, in spite of his intellectual 
 predispositions and the incontestably superior impressions 
 
 1 Darwin, Descent of Man, etc., vol. i., p. 62.
 
 286 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 which result from education, we recognise in him no higher 
 notion of personality, or power of reflection on his states of 
 being and his operations, than what we may suppose to 
 exist in the superior animals when young ; while, in com- 
 parison to adult and experienced animals, we think the 
 young human being inferior in this respect. 
 
 Between the ages of two and four, the personal sentiment 
 manifests itself in an extreme degree, even in the gentlest 
 and best-brought-up children. A child I knew who is now 
 a little over three, was extremely thin-skinned up to his 
 twenty-sixth month : he would cry and scream for the slight- 
 est fall, and thought himself done for if he got a scratch. 
 He has been cured through his amour propre. The other 
 day he had a heavy fall in my presence ; he picked him- 
 self up quickly, however, after first going on all fours to 
 make believe he had not fallen. Another time he stumbled 
 on the staircase, and rolled over several times, bumping 
 his head pretty hard. I ran up to him, but he had already 
 got up and was struggling his hardest not to cry. "Did 
 you fall?" I said. "No, no," he answered indignantly, 
 " I'm not crying, I tumbled down for fun." 
 
 This personal feeling and instinct of reflection sometimes 
 occasioned in him, even before the age of three, naif and 
 touching fits of inward retrospection. He had a bad cold 
 and head-ache one day. He had been promised that some 
 little girl friends should come that evening to tea with him. 
 In spite of his suffering he was awaiting them impatiently, 
 and was determined not to go to bed. It was piteous to 
 see him holding his little head in his hands and saying, 
 " I should like to die ; when one is dead, one cannot have 
 a headache. If I had not been born, I should not suffer. 
 But I don't want to die, mamma would be so sad." When 
 the expected playfellows arrived, he ran up to them, and 
 kissed them, and then brought chairs to the fire and said 
 to them, " Sit down and warm yourselves ; cold gives you 
 headache ; " then addressing the little one he liked best 
 among them, he said, " Perhaps you don't much want to 
 dance ? Have you got a headache ? " The suffering, which 
 had thrown him back on himself in so touching a manner,
 
 THE MORAL SENSE 287 
 
 had opened up in his heart a well of sympathy, which 
 quality is not so rare as one would suppose in these shallow 
 and egoistic little beings. 
 
 The sense of personality is so strong in young children 
 that it is always on the verge of excess. It amounts in them 
 to egoism, self-sufficiency, and assertiveness, though they 
 now and then have sudden rebounds of sympathy, tender- 
 ness, credulity, and self-distrust. It is from this personal 
 feeling, the natural tendencies of which have both to be 
 encouraged and checked, that the moral sense springs, or, 
 in so far as it is hereditary, that it draws material for 
 its development. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE MORAL SENSE. 
 
 The wholly objective notion of good and evil, the intel- 
 lectual germ of the moral sense, cannot be determined 
 before the age of six or seven months. I have seen a child 
 seven months old, whose mother had taught by scolding 
 and shaking him, that he must not scream to be taken out 
 of bed or nursed, if his gestures and articulations to this 
 end were not instantly attended to. But how many children 
 are there not at this age, and even later, who, the more one 
 tries to exact silence from them, the less they will obey ? A 
 slight thwarting of their wills results often in tremendous 
 scenes of passion, tears, sobs, and screams. A child of ten 
 months (and many well-trained children arrive at this earlier) 
 knew very well how to make himself understood when he 
 was afraid of making a mess in his cradle. He knew too 
 that when he wanted anything which was refused him, it was 
 naughty to persist in wanting it, and especially to cry in 
 order to get it. He had a habit of scratching the face of 
 people who took him in their arms, half in play and half 
 from unconscious naughtiness ; but he had at last been 
 taught obedience in this matter. In all this we see the 
 germ of the moral sense. 
 
 The first dawning of the moral sense appears in the child 
 as soon as he understands the signification of certain intona-
 
 288 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 tions of the voice, of certain attitudes, of a certain expression 
 of countenance, intended to reprimand him for what he has 
 done or to warn him against something he was on the point 
 of doing. This penal and remunerative sanction gives rise 
 by degrees to a clear distinction of concrete good and evil. 
 As soon as the child begins to obey from fear or from habit, 
 he enters on the possession of the moral sense ; as soon as 
 he obeys in order to be rewarded or praised, or to give 
 pleasure, he has advanced further in this possession. 
 
 The moral sense, in its objective form, is still very incom- 
 plete in little children, even between the ages of two and 
 four. They have, however, a very advanced idea of what 
 is allowed and what forbidden, of what they must or may, 
 and what they must not do, as regards their physical and 
 moral habits. Moral law is for them embodied in their 
 parents, in the mother especially, even during their absence. 
 
 Last summer we had a little nephew staying with us for 
 two months. Just at first he was very reserved and very 
 good, as if he were on the defensive, or as if he were taking 
 stock of his surroundings. He behaved well at table, asked 
 politely for what he wanted, and when he had had enough, said, 
 " I have finished." But when the meal was ended, excited 
 by a certain amount of indulgence which he had received 
 (unconsciously on our part), but which he had fully appreci- 
 ated, he said : "At home, when I have done eating, mam- 
 ma lets me leave the table. We hastened to gratify this 
 desire, which seemed very legitimate. Then we began to 
 play with him, and succeeded in amusing him for half an 
 hour. At last he grew tired and burst into tears, saying : 
 " Mamma puts me to bed when I cry." He was then taken 
 to the bedroom and undressed. Then he began to cry again 
 and to gesticulate in a desperate manner; he talked about his 
 mother, and we thought he was fretting for her ; but he 
 hastened to explain that his mother did this, and that, and the 
 other when she put him to bed; and then followed a string 
 of prescriptions, relative to his going to bed, which he 
 evidently regarded as so many obligations we were bound to 
 fulfil. Thus, whatever was ordinarily done for him was his 
 idea of what was right to do. It was the same with his own
 
 THE MORAL SENSE. 289 
 
 actions. He said to us : " It is very wicked to tell stories 
 or to disobey ; it gives mamma pain, and makes her cry." 
 
 Thus, for the young child, as well as for animals, good is 
 what is permitted ; evil, what is forbidden. And hence arises 
 frequent uncertainty with regard to new actions or to habi- 
 tual ones under new circumstances. At the end of several 
 days, the good habits of the child became modified accord- 
 ing to his new impressions and according to the character of 
 the persons who surrounded him. At first I inspired him 
 with great respect. It was I who brought him to the house; 
 and no doubt I reminded him of his father, whom he feared 
 more than his mother. He always looked at me before 
 doing anything that he knew was not right : he was more at 
 his ease and less circumspect with other members of my 
 family, who inspired him with less awe. He acquired some 
 habits contrary to those he had formed at home. He was 
 sometimes disobedient, and he got into the way of crying 
 for what he wanted. I found myself henceforth compelled 
 to make a departure from one of my principles regarding 
 infant education, which is, to turn children's attention as 
 much as possible away from their illegitimate desires or 
 their little sorrows arising from trifles, and to reprimand 
 them as little as possible and only in extreme cases. I was 
 now obliged to raise my voice very often, and to make a 
 gesture which he recognised as a dreaded gesture of his 
 father's, but which I did not go the length of putting into 
 effect 
 
 The preceding observations show that the morality learnt 
 by the young child is an edifice built up at the cost of great 
 labour, patience, and prudence, and which may crumble 
 away in a few weeks in the midst of different circumstances 
 and surroundings. 
 
 The moral sense, then, is one of the hereditary faculties 
 most liable to be modified by circumstances. It is not in 
 vain that we appeal to this social instinct, this individual 
 impressionability and sympathy, this innate desire to please, 
 which plays such an important part in the culture of the 
 young moral faculties. A little girl fourteen months old was 
 always very unhappy when her mother said, " I am angry, 
 
 u
 
 290 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 baby." But she was indifferent to most of the scoldings of 
 her father, whom she was accustomed to hear rage and 
 threaten. When two years and five months old, the son of 
 Tiedemann, if he thought he had done something very good, 
 used to cry out : "People will say, That is a very good boy!" 
 When he was naughty, if any one said to him, "The neighbour 
 will see it," he desisted immediately. There are delicacies 
 of sensibility innate in children which are never appealed to 
 in vain by good educators, and which even with children 
 who are the least gifted in this respect are the best auxili- 
 aries and the most efficacious substitutes for coercive 
 means. I saw a woman yesterday passing in the street who 
 had been shopping with her little girl about three years old. 
 The child was walking a step or two in advance of her 
 mother, and kept on turning round to catch a look or gesture 
 of approval ; she had been charged with the execution of a 
 task which she considered very serious, and she thought 
 herself very meritorious for performing it well. She was 
 carrying on the palms of both her hands a parcel of very 
 large circumference but very thin and light, and which must 
 have seemed exceedingly large to her in comparison with 
 her own small dimensions ; and to carry it without stumbling 
 or letting it fall seemed to her a great feat of skill. She was 
 taking all this trouble to please her mother, and to win her 
 admiration and praise. Passive obedience, and the fear of 
 being punished or scolded, would scarcely have obtained a 
 result like this, which is so easily and surely gained by an 
 appeal to the benevolent and generous sentiments of our 
 nature. 
 
 The sentiment of justice sometimes manifests itself with 
 great force in young children, especially at the period when 
 they have become able to express distinctly what they feel. 
 The first time that a certain child of my acquaintance, now 
 four years old, told a deliberate falsehood, his mother 
 thought it her duty to punish him. She told him that she 
 was going to shut him up in the cellar, and she made him go 
 with her down the stairs which led to it. On the way down, 
 the child, whose imagination was struck with the importance 
 attached to his fault, and who had begun to feel very guilty,
 
 THE MORAL SENSE. 2Q1 
 
 said to his mother : " But, mamma, perhaps I am not suffi- 
 ciently punished for such a great fault?" 
 
 Some months afterwards, he was sent to his grandmother's, 
 where he used to behave as a little despot and tyrant One 
 day, when he had perpetrated some mischief or other which 
 was considered very serious, his grandmother shut him up 
 in a dark room close to the kitchen. Five minutes had 
 hardly passed when, notwithstanding her deafness, the old 
 lady heard shrill screams like those of a peacock. She 
 hurried to open the door of the prison, and the child rushed 
 out, his face bathed in tears and convulsed with fear and 
 anger. As he was only half-afraid of his grandmother, who 
 was much too indulgent to him ; he thought she had not the 
 right to punish him so severely, and he protested against 
 what he considered an injustice : " Oh ! naughty grand- 
 mamma, you are very naughty! I said I would never go 
 back there, and you have shut me in there again ! You 
 want the rats to eat me ! They would first of all have eaten 
 my feet, and then I should have died. Mamma would have 
 been very unhappy : she would never have come back here, 
 nor my father either. I will tell him about it." It is note- 
 worthy that children at first only apply the idea of justice 
 to other people's actions, according to the nature of the senti- 
 ments which these actions awaken in themselves. They are 
 irritated when any one takes away their toys ; and it is t>y 
 dint of experiencing this annoyance and also from hearing 
 it said that it is naughty to take other people's things, that 
 they end by forming, first a concrete notion and then a 
 tolerably general one, of illicit appropriation. Again, if one 
 of his brothers or sisters is punished, he will come and tell 
 you all about the punishment, the fault which was com- 
 mitted, and above all the manner in which the culprit bore 
 the punishment ; and he will not fail to qualify the faulty 
 action by some general epithet : and all this because he 
 himself has committed like faults and consequently undergone 
 like punishments. Children, moreover, detest injustice, 
 especially when perpetrated, or supposed to be perpetrated, 
 against themselves ; but they see nothing more in it than 
 disagreement between the habitual and the accidental way 
 of treating them.
 
 292 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 It is the same with all other moral habits, and also with 
 the moral sense, which in children indeed also in adults 
 is generally nothing more than the theory of their thoughts 
 and actions. " This psychological law should never be lost 
 sight of, of so great consequence is it. All our tendencies, 
 innate or acquired, good or bad, and consequently all our 
 habits, in whatever way we have contracted them, not only 
 tend to determine our conduct as a matter of fact and as 
 actual motives, but also to impose themselves as reasons 
 to the deliberative will, or at any rate to suggest justifying 
 sophisms, of which the corrupted judgment finally becomes 
 a dupe almost in good faith." 1 Actions influence thoughts, 
 and thoughts influence actions. Hence interest, self-love, 
 and passion have their good share in the best resolutions 
 of children. They seek to determine the motives of their 
 actions, even when they are not asked for them. " I did 
 this or that because . . ." This formula is constantly 
 on their lips. They try to obtain our praises for numbers 
 of insignificant actions which they think meritorious. They 
 imagine motives, sometimes utterly improbable, for the 
 actions of others, which they judge according to their own ; 
 but above all they imagine specious reasons for explaining 
 their own most blamable actions. What is true of habits, 
 is also true of the moral sense ; if in one way they tend to 
 disinterestedness, they are always " interested in some way 
 or other." 2 
 
 If then we wish to understand the meaning of the actions 
 of little children, and to direct their wills in a useful and 
 progressive manner, we must bear in mind that all their ten- 
 dencies, whatever they may be, begin and end with egoism. 
 We must especially beware of attributing to the moral sense, 
 and with children still less than with adults, a power of de- 
 termination which it does not possess. If man is far from 
 being able to do what he wills, a fortiori is he far from being 
 able to will that of which he may have a very distinct idea. 
 
 The moral sense simply furnishes the more or less con- 
 
 1 H. Marion, La Solidarity Morale, p. 109. 
 8 V. M. Guyau, La Morale c? Epicure, p. 220.
 
 THE MORAL SENSE. 293 
 
 scious will with motives more or less strong according to 
 individuals, places, times, and situations. The business oi 
 psychlogical educators is much more concerned with the 
 habits that children may acquire, and with their wills, which 
 are also developed by habitual practice, than with the de- 
 velopment of their moral conscience. The latter is the 
 blossom which will be followed by fruit ; but the former are 
 the roots and branches. 
 
 With the development of intelligence and thought, the 
 primitive distinction of good and evil enlarges and becomes 
 better defined. Submission to authority, and docility, also 
 increase with experience and reflection. With the ten- 
 dency to reflection there spring up also, little by little, sym- 
 pathy, the love of praise, amour-propre, the susceptibility to 
 example, the fear of reproach, the desire not to be scolded 
 and to give pleasure to those belonging to one. And thus 
 that state of mind is constituted in which reflection dominates 
 the contrary tendency and renders possible the government 
 of self. Out of all these diverse elements the moral con- 
 science is gradually formed, which means to say that good 
 intention and the moral sentiment are added to the moral 
 habits at first acquired. A child may have been trained 
 more or less easily or completely according to the innate 
 dispositions of its character ; but at this point it is still in- 
 capable of managing itself. It begins, however, to reconsider 
 its impulsive tendencies, it has a vague sentiment of its still 
 very limited liberty, and it can co-operate in the guidance 
 of its small personality. 
 
 What touching examples we see even in little children 
 barely two years old, of self-introspection accompanied by 
 well-grounded mistrust of themselves, and the moral pain 
 of mdiora video, deteriora sequor ! The daughter of L. Terri, 
 while still at the age of thorough impulsiveness, when en- 
 treated by her mother to be good, answered more than once : 
 " I feel that I cannot be good," thus giving proof of self- 
 introspection with a sense of her weakness. " At five years 
 old, having one day been praised by her mother, she said : 
 * To-morrow I should like to please you still more. I 
 should like to be always good. But tell me why I can't
 
 294 THE FIRST THREE YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. 
 
 be always good.' " l It must not be supposed that even at 
 five years old the most gifted and best-brought-up children 
 will always be able to keep at this relatively high level of 
 moral sentiment. Even considerably later on, they will 
 often fall back below what they may have been or seemed 
 to be at the early age of three or even two years. The 
 important point is, that at so tender an age it should be 
 possible to awaken at intervals the ever fitful light of moral 
 reason. 2 
 
 1 Osservazioni sopra una Bambino,, in La Filosojia delle Scuole 
 Italiane, Oct. 1881. 
 
 2 For further development of this subject see in my book V Education 
 des leJBerceau, chap, vii., on the " Moral Habits and the Moral Sense," 
 from page 265 to 300. 
 
 THE END.