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THE MIND OF THE CHILD 
PART I 
THE SENSES AND 
THE WILL 
OBSERVATIONS CONCERNING 
THE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE HE MAN BEING 
IN THE FIRST YEARS OF LIFE 
BY 
W. PREYER 
PROFESSOR OF PHYSIOLOGY IN JENA 
TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL GERMAN 
By H. W. BROWN 
TEACHER IN THE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL AT WORCESTER, MASS. 
NEW YORK 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
1893 Copyright, 1888, 
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. EDITOR’S PREFACE. 
A careful study of this work will do much to put 
one in possession of the method of studying mental 
growth in children. Parents and teachers will find this 
method of observation invaluable, inasmuch as it will 
make experience constantly profitable. 
Experience, it is true, marshals its train of facts be- 
fore us in an endless succession every day of our lives. 
But, without scientific method, one fact does much to 
obliterate all others by its presence. Out of sight, they 
are out of mind. Method converts unprofitable experi- 
ence, wherein nothing abides except vague and uncertain 
surmise, into science. In science the present fact is 
deprived of its ostentatious and all-absorbing interest, 
by the act of relating it to all other facts. We classify 
the particular with its fellow-particulars and it takes its 
due rank. Such classification, moreover, eliminates from 
it the unessential elements. 
The method of science, as Herbart pointed out 
involves the ascertainment and fixing of quantitative 
relations. “ Every theory,” says he, “ to admit of com- 
parison with experience, must be developed until the 
same embodies the modifications of quantity found in 
that experience.” * 
* See “ Journal of Speculative Philosophy,” vol. xi, p. 251, J. 
F. Herbart on the application of mathematics to psychology. VI 
EDITOR’S PREFACE. 
The characteristics of accuracy and precision which 
make science exact are derived from quantity. Fix the 
order of succession, the date, the duration, the locality, 
the environment, the extent of the sphere of influence, 
the number of manifestations, and the number of cases 
of intermittence, and you have exact knowledge of a 
phenomenon. When stated in quantitative terms, your 
experience is useful to other observers. It is easy to 
verify it or to add an increment. By quantification, 
science grows and grows continually, without retrograde 
movements. 
One does not forget, of course, that there is some- 
thing besides the quantitative and altogether above the 
quantitative. The object itself is more important than 
its quantitative relations. The soul as a self-active 
essence is the object in psychology. Science determines 
the quantitative relations of its phenomenal manifesta- 
tion. In other words, science determines exactly the 
time when, the place where, the duration and frequency, 
the extent and degree of the manifestation of this self- 
activity in the body and through the body. 
The nature of feelings, volitions, and ideas in them- 
selves, is the object of introspective psychology and 
metaphysics. But all will concede that parents and 
teachers are directly interested in the order of develop- 
ment of the soul from its lower functions into its higher 
ones, and are consequently concerned with these quan- 
titative manifestations. 
The author’s comparisons between the steps of prog- 
ress in the child and the same in other animals consti- 
tute one of the most valuable features in this book. 
It is worth repeating that the supreme interest to us EDITOR’S PREFACE. 
VII 
in these observations is the development from lower 
degrees of intelligence to higher ones. The immense 
interval that separates plant life from animal life is 
almost paralleled by the interval between the animal 
and the human being. From mere nutrition to sensa- 
tion is a great step; from mere sensation to the con- 
scious employment of ethical ideas and the perception 
of logical necessity and universality, is an equal step. 
Yet it is to be assumed that the transitions exist in all de- 
grees, and that the step from any degree to the next one is 
not difficult when the natural means is discovered. It is 
this means that comparative psychology is discovering. 
The infant is contemplated in the process of gaining 
command over himself. His sense-organs gradually 
become available for perception; his muscles become 
controllable by his will. Each new acquisition becomes 
in turn an instrument of further progress. 
Exact science determines when and where the ani- 
mal phase leaves off and the purely human begins— 
where the organic phase ends and the individual begins. 
The discrimination of impulsive, reflexive, and instinct- 
ive movements, all of them organic, throws light on 
the genesis of mind out of its lower antecedent. Imita- 
tion is the first manifestation of the transition from the 
organic to the strictly spiritual. 
In this connection it is, before all, an important ques- 
tion, What is the significance of the relapse into uncon- 
scious instinct through the formation of habit ? We do 
an act by great special effort of the will and intellect; 
we repeat it until it is done with ease. It gradually 
lapses into unconscious use and wont, and has become 
instinctive and organic. W e need not suggest the bear- VIII 
EDITOR’S PREFACE. 
ing of this question on education, which deals so much 
with the formation of habits, and yet seems to aim 
always at bringing to consciousness in the pupil all of 
his unconscious presuppositions. Education deals in 
explanations. It exhumes for the individual his social 
history, his cosmical evolution, and sets before him in a 
systematic form the logical structure of his thinking, of 
his language, of his ethical and aesthetical motives. It 
turns his attention through mathematics upon the neces- 
sary forms which all phenomena assume. Everywhere 
education proceeds from the particular being before the 
senses to the general form of its existence, and drags 
into consciousness what has been hitherto merely organic 
—involved and implied but unperceived. Education, 
in fact, lifts us to the contemplation of the universal 
in each individual. Then by the aid of general ideas 
we are able to recall the particular facts, or drop them 
out of sight, at our pleasure. Learning by science 
to comprehend principles—which may be defined as 
energies moving according to their own laws—we be- 
come independent of memory to a great degree, and may 
let the instances which formed our ladder of discovery 
drop away. We thus arrive at what the School-men 
called the angelic form of knowing. 
The work of Professor Preyer before us contains 
three parts, respectively devoted to (tz) the develop- 
ment of the senses, (Z>) the will, and (c) the intellect. 
Parts first and second are contained in this volume; and 
part third, with three appendices, forms a second vol- 
ume, to follow immediately. 
William T. Harris. 
Concord, Mass., February, 1888. AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
I proposed to myself a number of years ago, the 
task of studying the child, both before birth and in 
the period immediately following, from the physiologi- 
cal point of view, with the object of arriving at an ex- 
planation of the origin of the separate vital processes. 
It was soon apparent to me that a division of the work 
would be advantageous to its prosecution. For life in 
the embryo is so essentially different a thing from life 
beyond it, that a separation must make it easier both for 
the investigator to do his work and for the reader to 
follow the exposition of its results. I have, therefore, 
discussed by itself, life before birth, the “ Physiology 
of the Embryo.” The vital phenomena of the human 
being in the earliest period of his independent exist- 
ence in the world are, again, so complicated and so vari- 
ous in kind, that here too a division soon appeared ex- 
pedient. I separated the physical development of the 
newly-born and the very young child from his mental 
development, and have endeavored to describe the latter 
in the present book; at least, I hope that, by means of 
personal observations carried on for several years, I 
have furnished facts that may serve as material for a 
future description. X 
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
A forerunner of the work is a lecture, “ Psycho- 
genesis ” (the Genesis of Mind), given before a scientific 
association at Berlin on the 3d of January, 1880, and 
soon after made public* in my book, “ Naturwissen- 
schaftliche Thatsachen und Probleme ” (“ Facts and 
Problems of Natural Science”) Berlin, 1880. 
This sketch has given manifold incitement to fresh 
observations. But great as is the number of occasional 
observations in regard to many children, I do not thus 
far know of diaries regularly kept concerning the 
mental development of individual children. Now pre- 
cisely this chronological investigation of mental prog- 
ress in the first and second years of life presents great 
difficulties, because it requires the daily registering of 
experiences that can be had only in the nursery. I 
have, notwithstanding, kept a complete diary from the 
birth of my son to the end of his third year. Occupy- 
ing myself with the child at least three times a day—at 
morning, noon, and evening—and almost every day, 
with two trifling interruptions, and guarding him, as far 
as possible, against such training as children usually re- 
ceive, I found nearly every day some fact of mental 
genesis to record. The substance of that diary has 
passed into this book. 
No doubt the development of one child is rapid and 
that of another is slow; very great individual differ- 
ences appear in children of the same parents even, but 
the differences are much more of time and degree than 
of the order in which the steps are taken, and these 
* See Jour. Spec. Philos, for April, 1881, for an English transla- 
tion of this lecture of Professor Preyer.—Ed. AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
XI 
steps are the same in all individuals ; that is the im- 
portant matter. Desirable as it is to collect statistics 
concerning the mental development of many infants— 
the activity of their senses, their movements, especially 
their acquirement of speech—yet the accurate, daily 
repeated observation of one child—a child sound in 
health, having no brothers or sisters, and whose devel- 
opment was neither remarkably rapid nor remarkably 
slow—seemed at least quite as much to be desired. I 
have, however, taken notice, as far as possible, of the 
experiences of others in regard to other normal children 
in the first years of life, and have even compared many 
of these where opportunity offered. 
But a description of the gradual appearance of brain- 
activity in the child, along with the most careful obser- 
vation of his mental ripening, would be only a begin- 
ning. The development of mind, like the development 
of body, must be regarded as dating back far beyond 
the origin of the individual being. 
If the infant brings into the world a set of organs 
which begin to be active only after a long time, and are 
absolutely useless up to that time—as, e. g., the lungs 
were before birth—then the question, To what causes do 
such organs and functions owe their existence ? can have 
but one answer—heredity. 
This, to be sure, explains nothing; but dim as the 
notion is, much is gained toward our understanding of 
the matter, in the fact that some functions are inherited 
while others are not. 
What is acquired by experience is only a part. The 
question whether a function of the brain, on which 
everything depends in the development of the child’s XII 
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
mind, is inherited or acquired, must be answered in each 
individual case, if we would not go astray in the laby- 
rinth of appearances and hypotheses. 
Above all, we must be clear on this point, that the 
fundamental activities of mind, which are manifested 
only after birth, do not originate after birth. 
If they had previously no existence at all, we could 
not discover whence they come or at what time. The 
substance of a hen’s egg that has been fecundated, but 
is frozen as hard as a stone, certainly has no sensation ; 
but after thawing and three weeks’ warming, that same 
substance, changed into a living chicken, has sensation. 
The capacity of feeling, in case of the fulfillment of 
certain outward conditions, if it be not a property of the 
egg, must have originated during incubation from mat- 
ter incapable of sentiency ; that is, the material atoms 
must not only have arranged themselves in a different 
order, receiving through their union and separation dif- 
ferent chemical properties, as actually happens; must 
not only have changed their physical properties—e. g., 
elasticity, solidity, etc., which are partly dependent on 
the chemical, partly independent of them—as likewise 
happens; but these atoms must have gained entirely 
new properties which were neither chemically nor 
physically indicated beforehand, were not to be assumed 
or predicated. For neither chemistry nor physics can 
attribute to the substances that constitute the egg other 
than chemical and physical properties. But if the 
warming, ventilation, evaporation, and liberation of 
carbonic acid have had their normal course during 
incubation, then these new mental properties present 
themselves, and that without the possibility of their AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
XIII 
being gained by imitation in the incubator. And 
these properties are similar to those of the beings that 
produced the egg. Hence, it must be admitted that 
these -beings have imparted to the egg matter which 
contained, in addition to the known or physically and 
chemically discoverable properties, latent properties not 
chemically and physically discoverable—psychical, there- 
fore, physiological—these being potential, so that warm- 
ing, airing, etc., are necessary to their development. 
The same conditions are required for the development 
of the tissues and organs of the embryo, which likewise 
were not contained in the albumen, sugar, and fat, in the 
water and the salts of the egg; neither do their prop- 
erties belong to those with which chemistry and physics 
are concerned, but they are like those of the generators 
of the egg. 
Some parts of the contents of the egg, then, possess 
potentially properties unquestionably mental—the ca- 
pacity of sensation, at least. And these parts must, at 
the same time, be those from which originate the coty- 
ledons (of plants'), the foundation of the embryo. As 
is well known, they are cellular forms with the power 
of independent movement, to which can not be denied, 
any more than to the lowest zoophytes, the capacity of 
discrimination. They grow and move by putting out 
and drawing in pseudopodia; * they undoubtedly appro- 
priate nourishment, require oxygen, multiply by divis- 
ion, conduct themselves in general like amoeba, or other 
simple living beings. The opinion that they possess a 
* Filaments thrust out from any part of the body, serving as or- 
gans of locomotion. XIV 
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
certain crude psychical endowment, sensation of an ob- 
scure sort, can not be refuted. 
Everything goes to show a continuity in the capacity 
of sensation. This capacity does not spring afresh each 
time in the human being out of material incapable of 
sensation, but, as a hereditary property of the parts of 
the egg, is differentiated in these, and by stimulus from 
without is brought into action—the process being hardly 
discernible in the embryo protected from this stimulus, 
but plainly visible in the new-born child. 
The mind of the new-born child, then, does not re- 
semble a tabula rasa, upon which the senses first write 
their impressions, so that out of these the sum-total of 
our mental life arises through manifold reciprocal ac- 
tion, but the tablet is already written upon before birth, 
with many illegible, nay, unrecognizable and invisible, 
marks, the traces of the imprint of countless sensuous 
impressions of long-gone generations. So blurred and 
indistinct are these remains, that we might, indeed, sup- 
pose the tablet to be blank, so long as we did not exam- 
ine the changes it undergoes in earliest youth. But the 
more attentively the child is observed, the more easily 
legible becomes the writing, not at first to be under- 
stood, that he brings with him into the world. Then 
we perceive what a capital each individual has inherited 
from his ancestors—how much there is that is not pro- 
duced by sense-impressions, and how false is the suppo- 
sition that man learns to feel, to will, and to think, 
only through his senses. Heredity is just as important 
as individual activity in the genesis of mind. No man 
is in this matter a mere upstart, who is to achieve the 
development of his mind (Psyche) through his individ- AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 
ual experience alone; rather must each one, by means of 
his experience, till out and animate anew his inherited 
endowments, the remains of the experiences and activi- 
ties of his ancestors. 
It is hard to discern and to decipher the mysterious 
writing on the mind of the child. It is just that which 
constitutes a chief problem of this book. 
Peeyer. 
Jena, October 6,1881. 
XV AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
The first edition of this book appeared in October, 
1881. Just two years afterward, a second became ne- 
cessary. This differs from the former chiefly in abbre- 
viation of the statements coming from other persons, 
and not indispensable ; in improvements in form; in a 
more careful and exact formulation of general conclu- 
sions ; and in a considerable enlargement of the material 
of facts in support of these conclusions. In respect to 
the last point, the communications that have come to 
me by letter, from the most various sources, have been 
of great value. 
To all those who have gratified me by sending their 
observations concerning the mental development of the 
child during his earliest years, I here express my thanks 
for the interest they have taken in my presentation, and 
for the help they have afforded me in the laborious 
work. 
The mental life of the human being is, in fact, so 
hard to investigate in its development, that very many 
persons must co-operate in the work; the individual can 
oversee but little of it. The evolution of the mind 
resembles a stream into which no one descends twice. 
Like that, it issues from obscure depths as a clear AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
XVII 
spring; the water trickles but scantily at first into the 
light of day, and gathers slowly and in stillness to a 
murmuring brook. Soon, however, its waves beat with 
increasing movement against the banks. The bottom is 
no longer clearly visible. Farther on, foaming gorges 
pour themselves into the still clear, but agitated waters, 
which only the solid rocks can restrain. In like man- 
ner self-will breaks against the resisting order of the 
world. When, at length, the torrent has victoriously 
opened its path in the mountains, and has adapted itself 
to its environment, then it hastens on, sometimes spark- 
ling and smooth, sometimes roaring powerfully, as if, 
like the turbulent boy, it would reach distant goals, and 
yet would cling to the heart of the mother, to moderate 
the spring-tide of the gushing life. 
At last, mirror-like in its calmness, powerfully dis- 
pensing blessings and diffusing life, it becomes master 
of itself, and loses itself in the ocean (|ut of which it 
once arose. 
Throughout the whole course, from the spring to the 
river’s mouth, the spectator sees the flow, sees the before 
and the after; he knows, too, that it is the same ele- 
ments that are hastening forward, though often united 
with new ones, and becoming changed; that many of 
these, indeed, pass off into vapor, but the river is ever 
the same. So is it also with the mind. From birth to 
death, the play of its waves does not cease; new im- 
pressions are mingled with old ones, many are forgotten 
and changed, yet the individuality remains to the last, 
and before the self {IcK} has come to the knowledge, 
whither the restless hastening forward is really leading, 
the hastening is at an end. XVIII 
AUTHOR’S PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
Thus, the highest questions of themselves press upon 
the observer of the child, upon the physiologist and the 
philosopher, the teacher and the educator, the physician 
and the psychologist, the philanthropist and the pastor, 
in the joyous form of the smiling, rosy face of the 
child, but at the same time these questions are as im- 
penetrable as is in general the great mystery of be- 
coming and of ceasing to be. 
The Author. 
Jena, April 28,1884. CONTENTS. 
PAGE 
Preface by the Editor v 
Preface to First Edition ix 
Preface to Second Edition . . • xvi 
Introduction by Professor G. Stanley Hall . , . xxi 
FIRST PART. 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES. 
CHAPTER 
I.—Sight 2 
Sensibility to Light, 2. Discrimination of Colors, 6. 
Movements of the Eyelids, 22. Movements of the Eyes, 
34. Direction of the Look, 41. Seeing Near and Dis- 
tant Objects, 50. Interpretation of what is Seen, 60. 
Sight in New-Born Animals, 66. 
II.—Hearing 72 
Deafness of the Newly-Born, 72. First Sensations 
and Perceptions of Sound, 76. Hearing in New-Born 
Animals, 91. 
III. —Feeling (or Touch) . 96 
Sensibility of the Newly-Born to Contact, 96. First 
Perceptions of Touch, 108. Sensibility to Tempera- 
ture, 111. 
IV. —Taste 116 
Sensibility to Taste in the Newly-Born, 116. Com- 
parison of the Impressions of Taste, 123. Taste in 
New-Born Animals, 127. 
V.—Smell 130 
Capacity of Smell in the Newly-Born, 130. Discrimi- 
nation of Impressions of Smell, 133. Smell in New- 
Born Animals, 136. XX 
CONTENTS. 
CHAPTER PAGE 
VI.—Earliest Organic Sensations and Emotions . . 140 
Feelings of Pleasure in General, 141. Unpleasant 
Feelings in General, 146. Feeling of Hunger, 152. Feel- 
ing of Satiety, 157. Feeling of Fatigue, 158. Fear, 164. 
Astonishment, 172. 
VII.—Summary of General Results 17G 
SECOND PART. 
DEVELOPMENT OF WILL. 
VIII.—Movements of the Child as Expressions of Will . 188 
Recognition of the Child’s Will, 188. Classification 
of the Child’s Movements, 195. 
IX.—Impulsive Movements 201 
X.—Reflex Movements 211 
XI.—Instinctive Movements 235 
Instinctive Movements of New-Born Animals, 235. 
Development of the Power of Seizing, 241. Sucking, 
Biting, Chewing, Tooth-Grinding, Licking, 257. Hold- 
ing the Head, 263. Learning to Sit, 267. Learning to 
Stand, 269. Learning to Walk, 271. 
XII.—Imitative Movements 282 
XIII. —Expressive Movements 293 
The first Smiling and Laughing, 294. Pouting of the 
Lips, 301. Kissing, 304. Crying and Wrinkling of the 
Forehead, 307. Shaking the Head and Nodding, 311. 
Shrugging the Shoulders, 317. Begging with the Hands, 
and Pointing, 318. 
XIV. —Deliberate Movements 325 
XV.—Summary of General Results 334 INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
If one would train and break horses, however un- 
manageable, like Willis J. Powel, who perhaps ex- 
celled all others in this art before or since, he must, like 
him, study long and patiently the nature of the horse. 
If one would raise sheep with greatest success, he must, 
like the English herdsman who said that he and his 
family were Cotswold people and knew nothing what- 
ever of Southdowns, serve a long apprenticeship in 
learning the habits, instincts, and all the conditions that 
affect sheep development favorably or unfavorably. 
The principle has long been a commonplace with breed- 
ers and trainers of domestic animals, although many 
naturalists now believe that for him who will long and 
patiently study and think and feel his way down and 
back into the soul of a particular animal, there are pos- 
sibilities both of scientific discovery and of control and 
modification of brute instinct undreamed of before. 
The trained agent of charity organizations, who la- 
bors among the poor, must prepare himself for effi- 
ciency by careful study of the way in which individual 
poor people, and even beggars, think, feel, live, and act. 
The modern prison-keeper studies criminals till he be- 
comes an expert in the psychology of crime. The mis- XXII 
INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
sionary first studies the existing beliefs and superstitions 
of the savage races among whom he is to labor, or, if 
not, his work is but little more effective than if he did 
not take the trouble to learn their language. 
Teachers as a rule do not study the nature of the 
children they instruct in any such way, and that for the 
following reasons : First, their business, as too often 
viewed, is not to educate or unfold, a process to which 
all have a right, but to instruct, or infuse set courses and 
sums of information to which the nature of the child 
may or may not have a right. Secondly, many think 
they have all the knowledge of childhood they require, 
from memory of their own childish years. This is 
wrong. Mental and moral growth necessarily involves 
increasing oblivion of everything of childhood save 
mere incidents, and even these are, other things being 
equal, remembered inversely as the degree of develop- 
ment to fullness of maturity. What remains from this 
source often misleads and has no regulative value for 
the teacher. Thirdly, many think a course in a text- 
book in psychology supplies this need. This is prob- 
ably the gravest mistake of all. All such books 1 know 
are far too abstract and schematic, too much devoted to 
definition or in some cases even controversy, too com- 
monplace and traditional in their subject-matter, so as 
to be sometimes an impediment to the fine tact and 
instinct that, in minds of finest fiber, divine, perhaps 
half unconsciously, the needs and individual nature of 
children. 
The living, playing, learning child, whose soul he- 
redity has freighted so richly from a past we know not 
how remote, on whose right development all good INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
XXIII 
causes in the world depend, embodies a truly element- 
ary psychology. All the fundamental activities are 
found, and the play of each psychic process is so open, 
simple, interesting, that it is strange that psychology 
should be the last of the sciences to fall into line in the 
great Baconian change of base to which we owe nearly 
all the reforms, from Comenius down, which distin- 
guish schools of to-day from those of the sixteenth 
century. It is a striking fact that nearly every great 
teacher in the history of education who has spoken 
words that have been heeded has lived for years in the 
closest personal relations to children and has had the 
sympathy and tact that gropes out, if it can not see 
clearly, the laws of juvenile development and the lines 
of childish interests. 
Among all the nearly fourscore studies of young 
children printed by careful empirical and often thorough- 
ly scientific observers, this work of Breyer is the fullest 
and on the whole the best. It should be read by teach- 
ers and parents even of older children, as the best ex- 
ample of the inductive method applied to the study of 
child-psychology. The development of each sense, and 
the unfoldment of the power of voluntary motion, are 
traced with great fullness; and still -more attention is 
devoted to the growth of the ability to speak, with a 
suggestive co-ordination of the progressive stages of 
decay of the linguistic centers in aphasia and allied 
forms of disease. 
A work on the whole so good awakens a desire for 
still further advance along the same lines. Not only 
does Breyer not continue his studies into school age, 
but he has not attempted, like Berez, to trace the un- XXIV 
INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
foldment of sentiments and emotions, nor, like Herbart 
and Ziller, to tabulate the spontaneous interests of chil- 
dren. The most hopeful effort yet made in this direc- 
tion was begun three years ago in the institution with 
which the translator of this work is connected, and may 
be described as follows, as characterized substantially 
in the words of the principal, E. H. Russell: Systematic 
observation of children is made a part of the regular 
work of this normal school, with a view of enlarging 
the scope of the ordinary study of psychology, to render 
it more objective and useful, to bring the prospective 
teachers into closer and better relations to children, and 
to gather a store of facts whereby in time to increase 
and rectify our present unsatisfactory knowledge of 
child-nature. The method is : First, to explain to the 
students, at the beginning of the second half-year in 
school, how to improve their opportunities on the street, 
at home, in families of friends, of noticing minutely the 
spontaneous, unconstrained activities, bodily and mental 
and physical, of children of all ages, at play, study, or 
work, etc. Then, at the earliest convenient moment, 
concise record is made on blanks with printed headings, 
and colored—e. g., white for personal observation, red for 
second-hand facts, etc. The records, now some five or 
six thousand in number, are classified, so far as can be, 
under memory, imagination, deceit, ignorance, mechani- 
cal construction, moral sense, etc., etc. Precisely what 
the value of this material will be it is now too soon to 
say, but as to its good effects on the powers of observa- 
tion, tact, psychologic knowledge and interest of those 
who make them, there can be no question whatever. 
The students soon become more interested in children INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. 
XXV 
and their ways, and more skillful in dealing with them ; 
and some acquire much ingenuity in following out the 
more complicated and obscure processes of child-life. 
They also acquire right habits of observation and in- 
vestigation generally, learning in some degree the cau- 
tion, discrimination, and veracity required in studying 
nature. It is so interesting that students must be rather 
restrained than impelled to the work; and graduates are 
believed to be distinctly guided toward best success and 
pleasure in their vocation by these studies, and display 
intelligence and sympathy in dealing with troublesome 
children. Many of the essays of the graduating class 
are based on this work. 
While commending this book to American teachers 
generally, the writer desires to commend the Worcester 
method of psychogenetic study to the careful attention 
of principals of normal schools. 
G-. Stanley Hall. 
Johns Hopkins University, January 7, 1888. EXPLANATION OF ABBREVIATED CITATIONS. 
Kussmaul: “ Untersuchungen liber das Seelenleben des neuge- 
borenen Menschen ” (“ Investigations concerning the Mental Life 
of the New-Born Human Being ”), 1859 (38 pp.); and “ Storungen 
der Sprache ” (“ Disturbances or Obstructions of Speech ”), 1877. 
Genzmer: “ Untersuchungen uber die Sinneswahrnehmungen 
des neugeborenen Menschen ” (“ Investigations concerning the 
Sense-Perceptions of the New-Born Human Being”), 1873 (re- 
printed 1882, 25 pp.). 
Sigismund: “ Kind und Welt ” (“ The Child and the World ”), 
1856. 
Gustav Lindner: in Twelfth Annual Report of the “ Lehrer- 
seminars in Zschopau,” 1882, and in the periodical “Kosmos,” 
1882. 
Frau Dr. Friedemann; Frau Professor von Striimpell; and Herr 
Ed. Schulte—to these the author is under particular obligation for 
MSS. 
All other references, sources of information, and names of au- 
thors are given without abbreviation. THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
FIRST PART. 
DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSES. 
The foundation of all mental development is the 
activity of the senses. We can not conceive of any- 
thing of the nature of mental genesis as taking place 
without that activity. 
Every sense-activity is fourfold in its character: 
First, there is an excitement of the nerves ; then comes 
sensation; and not until the sensation has been local- 
ized in space and referred to some point in time, do we 
have a perception. When, further, the cause of this 
is apprehended, then the perception becomes an idea. 
The adult human being is a person who is responsi- 
ble, who acts according to his own pleasure, and is capa- 
ble of independent thought. For our understanding of 
his psychical states and processes, it is of great impor- 
tance to know what is the condition of things as to the 
above stages of sense-activity, in the newly-born, and in 
the infant, who is not responsible, who does not act ac- 
cording to his pleasure, and does not think at all. 
I have therefore instituted many observations con- 
cerning the gradual perfecting of the senses at the 2 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
beginning of life, and I commence with a description 
of them. In these observations I have had especially 
in mind the prominent part played in the mental devel- 
opment of the child, at the earliest period, by the sense 
of sight. 
CHAPTER I. 
SIGHT. 
The observations with regard to the development 
of the sense of sight during the first years relate to 
sensibility to light, discrimination of colors, movements 
of the eyelids, movements of the eyes, direction of the 
look, seeing of near and distant objects, and interpreta- 
tion of what is seen. To these are attached some state- 
ments concerning sight in new-born animals. 
1. Sensibility to Light. 
My child’s sensibility to light, when he was held 
toward the window in the dusk, five minutes after 
birth, did not seem unusually great. For he opened 
and shut his eyes, with alternate movement, so that the 
space between the lids was about five millimetres wide. 
Soon after, I saw in the twilight both eyes wide open. 
At the same time the forehead wras wrinkled. 
Long before the close of the first day, the child’s ex- 
pression, as he was held with his face toward the win- 
dow, became suddenly different when I shaded his eyes 
with my hand. The dim light, therefore, undoubtedly 
made an impression, and, to judge from his physiog- SIGHT. 
3 
nomy, an agreeable one; for the shaded face had a less 
contented look. 
On the second day the eyes close quickly when a 
candle is brought near them; on the ninth, the head is 
also turned away vigorously from the flame, when the 
candle is brought near, immediately after the awaking 
of the child. The eyes are shut tight. But, on the 
following day, the child being in the bath, when a 
candle was held before him at a distance of one metre, 
the eyes remained wide open. The sensitiveness to 
light is, therefore, so much greater at the moment of 
waking than it is a short time afterward, that the same 
object causes at the one time great annoyance and at the 
other time pleasure. 
Again, on the eleventh day, the child seemed to be 
much pleased by a candle burning before him at a dis- 
tance of one half a metre, for he gazed at it steadily 
with wide-open eyes, as he did also, later, at a shining 
curtain-holder, when the bright object was brought into 
his line of vision, so that it was in the direction in 
which he seemed to be gazing. If I turned the child 
away, he became fretful and began to cry; if I turned 
him to the light again, then his countenance resumed 
the expression of satisfaction. To verify this, I held 
the child that same day at the same distance before a 
burning candle, once immediately after his waking, and 
again after he had been awake some time in the dark. 
In both cases he shut his eyes. 
That he liked moderately bright daylight was appar- 
ent from the frequent turning of his head toward the 
window when I turned him away from it. This twist- 
ing of the head became the rule on the sixth day; on 4 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
the seventh it was often repeated, and every time that 
the face was turned toward the window the expression 
of satisfaction was unmistakable. 
I have repeatedly made the observation that, when 
the light falls upon the face of sleeping infants they 
suddenly close the eyes more tightly, without waking, 
and this from the tenth day on. 
In the ease of my child, I found the pupils in ordi- 
nary daylight for the most part more contracted than is 
the case in adults—certainly less than two millimetres 
in diameter; and the lessening of the space between 
the lids, at sight of a bright surface of snow or of a 
shining summer cloud, was likewise more frequent and 
more persistent than with adults, during the whole 
period of observation. 
Brightly-shining objects, appearing in the field of 
vision, often produce, from the second month on, excla- 
mations of delight. But other highly-colored objects 
also easily rouse the attention of the infant. In the 
tenth month he is pleased when the lamp is lighted in 
the evening; he laughs at the light, and reaches after 
the bright globe. 
Of the observations of others concerning the sensi- 
bility of new-born human beings to light, the following 
are to be mentioned : 
1. Fully-matured children just born shut the eyes 
quickly and convulsively when exposed to bright light. 
Individuals, also, among children born two months 
too soon, distinguish between light and darkness on the 
second day. 
2. In the very first hours the pupil of the eye con- 
tracts in a bright light, and expands in light less bright. SIGHT. 
5 
3. If one eye of the new-born child is shut while 
the other is open, then the pupil of the latter expands. 
4. Infants from two to four days old, sleeping in the 
dark, shut the lids tightly, and even awake with a start 
when the bright light of a candle comes very near their 
eyes. 
To these statements of Prof. Kussmaul, the first of 
which, in particular, I can confirm, Dr. Genzmer adds 
that the eyes of the newly-born, when suddenly exposed 
to bright light, make a movement of convergence; and 
that sensitive infants are brought into a state of general 
discomfort and made to cry, by a sudden glare of light, 
or by a quickly-changing, dazzling light; this I can 
confirm. The alternate shutting and opening of the 
eyes, that is often to be seen in infants exposed to bright 
light, was seen by Genzmer even in a sleeping child 
two days old—a remarkable observation, which waits 
confirmation. On the other hand, I never saw a new- 
born child bear dazzlingly bright light quietly with open 
eyes. Assertions of an experience contrary to this may, 
perhaps, rest on the observation of children born blind. 
From all the foregoing statements we conclude 
that, with fully-matured new-born human beings, sensi- 
bility to light is normally present either directly after 
birth, or a few minutes, or at most a few hours, after 
birth ; that light and darkness are discriminated in sen- 
sation ; further, that the reflex arc from the optic nerve 
to the oculomotorius already performs its function— 
especially is this true of the filaments that contract the 
pupils. Here, then, we have an inborn reflex, and that 
of a double sort, since both pupils contract when the 
light reaches one of them. Further, at the beginning, 6 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
sensibility to light on awaking, or after being awhile in 
the dark, amounts to an aversion to light; yet a dim 
light is already sought, and therefore is not unpleasant. 
Finally, we infer that after some days ordinary daylight, 
or a brilliant and brightly-shining object, excites cheer- 
fulness, the aversion to light disappears, and the head is 
turned oftener to the window. 
2. Discrimination of Colors. 
At what age the child is capable of distinguishing 
colors, at least red, yellow, green, and blue, it is hard to 
determine. In the first days, it is certain that only the 
difference of light and dark is perceived, and this im- 
perfectly ; moreover (according to Flechsig), the tractus 
opticus, which in the matured child is still gray at first, 
does not get its nerve medulla, and with that its perma- 
nent coloring, till three or four days after birth. And 
even then the differentiation of simultaneous bright and 
dark impressions proceeds slowly. 
The first object that made an impression on account 
of its color, upon my boy, was probably a rose-colored 
curtain which hung, brightly lighted by the sun but 
not dazzlingly bright, about a foot before the child’s 
face. This was on the twenty-third day. The child 
laughed and uttered sounds of satisfaction. 
As the smooth, motionless, bright-colored surface 
alone occupied the whole field of vision, it must have 
been on account either of its brightness or of its color 
that it was the source of pleasure. In the evening of 
the same day, the flame of the candle, at the distance 
of one metre, caused quite similar expressions of pleas- 
ure when it was placed before the eyes, which had been 
gazing into empty space ; and so did, on the forty- SIGHT. 
7 
second day, the sight of colored tassels in motion, but 
in this case the movement also was a source of pleasure. 
In the eighty-fifth week, when I undertook the first 
systematic tests, with counters alike in form but unlike 
in color, no trace of discrimination in color was as yet 
to be discerned, although without doubt it already ex- 
isted. Different as were the impressions of sound made 
by the words “ red,” “ yellow,” “ green,” “ blue ” (these 
were certainly distinguished from one another), and 
well as the child knew the meaning of “ give,” he was 
not able to give the counters of the right color, even 
when only “red” and “green” were called for. We 
are not to infer from this, however, an inability of the 
eye to distinguish one color from another, for here it is 
essential to consider the difficulty of associating the 
sound of the word “ red ” or “ green ” with the proper 
color-sensation, even when the sensation is present. 
At this time, before the age of twenty-one months, 
there must have been recognition not only of the vary- 
ing intensity of light (white, gray, black), but also of the 
quality of some colors, for the delight in striking colors 
was manifest. Yet in the case of little children, even 
after they have begun to speak, it can not be determined 
without searching tests what colors they distinguish and 
rightly name. 
In order, then, to ascertain how the separate colors 
are related to one another in this respect, I have made 
several hundred color-tests with my child, beginning at 
the end of his second year. These I used to apply 
every day in the early morning, for a week; then, after 
an interval of a week, again almost every day, but in a 
different manner—as will be shown directly. 8 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
In all these tests I made use of the colored ovals 
which Dr. II. Magnus, of Breslau, gives in his “ Tafel 
zur Erziehung des Farbensinnes ” (1879), (‘‘Chart for 
the Training of the Color-Sense ”). 
After the names “red” and “green” had been re- 
peatedly pronounced while the corresponding colors 
were presented, then these two colors were simply pre- 
sented and the questions, “ Where is red ? ” and “ Where 
is green ? ” were put, always in alternation. The trials 
were absolutely without result in the eighty-sixth and 
eighty-seventh weeks. After an interval of twenty-two 
weeks, on the seven hundred fifty-eighth day, I received 
eleven times a right answer, six times a wrong answer. 
On the following day the answers were right seven 
times, wrong five times; on the day after that, nine 
times right, five times wrong. From this it seemed 
probable, already, that the two colors were distin- 
guished, either on account of their quality or on ac- 
count of their brightness, and that the right names were 
often associated with them. To my surprise, however, 
on the seven hundred sixty-third day the answers were 
right fifteen times and wrong only once, and on the fol- 
lowing day ten times right and not once wrong. The 
child had therefore firmly grasped the connection of the 
sound-impressions “ red ” and “ green ” with two differ- 
ent light-impressions. For such proportions as those of 
the above numbers exclude the possibility of chance. 
I carried the test further. To red and green I added 
yellow, and when the three colors were lying near one 
another, each one was rightly pointed out in answer to 
the question where it was. Then came a disinclination 
on the part of the child to continue, such as often makes SIGHT. 
9 
color-tests impossible in children so young. When the 
trial was repeated, he was inattentive, and he confound- 
ed the three colors with one another. On the following 
day, the seven hundred sixty-fifth, green especially was 
confounded with yellow. The answers on five days of 
the one hundred tenth week were : 
Red 
Right. 
26 
Wrong. 
10 
Green 
24 
7 
Yellow 
23 
5 
- ■ 
-—-I 
Total 
73 
22 
Blue was now added as a fourth color. The answers 
in eight trials, during the time from the end of the one 
hundred tenth to the beginning of the one hundred 
twelfth week, were: 
Red 
Right. 
32 
Wrong. 
14 
Green 
31 
8 
Yellow 
34 
2 
Blue 
27 
12 
— 
-1 - 
Total 
124 
36 
Often, especially on being asked “Where is blue?” 
the child would consider long, observe the four colors 
attentively before deciding, and then give me the color 
quickly. It appears evident that yellow is recognized 
more surely than are the other colors. Yellow seems to 
be the easiest to distinguish, and hence the easiest also 
to retain in memory. I made other tests of the same 
sort, which showed the superiority of yellow. Then 
violet was added as the fifth color, called “ lila,” as easier 
to speak, and a different way of conducting the experi- 
ment was adopted. 10 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
I laid each color separately before the child and 
asked, “What is that?” He answered, rroot [Eng. 
pronunciation wrote\ (for roth, red), delp, depp, gelp 
(for gelb, yellow), riltn, ihn [Eng. pr. reen, eeri\ (for 
gran, green), balau (for blau, blue), and Ulla (for lila, 
violet). 
In the one hundred twelfth week the answers in 
four trials were: 
Red 
Right. 
10 
Wrong. 
2 
Yellow 
9 
0 
Green 
9 
1 
Blue 
5 
7 
Violet 
11 
1 
■ - 
■■ 
Total 
44 
11 
Here, too, yellow is foremost; it was named cor- 
rectly nine times, not once wrongly named. Blue comes 
last. It was confounded especially witli green and vio- 
let. If the child’s attention failed, I broke off. 
Afterward the tests were continued in both ways 
combined; but these proved to be great consumers of 
time. It often happens that the child takes no interest 
in the colors. Sometimes, from roguishness, he will 
not name the color he knows, and will not point out or 
give me the one I ask for. At other times he himself 
brings the box that holds the color-ovals, and says 
wawa = “ Farbe ” (color), in expectation of a lesson. 
The trials in which the attention is undivided are, how- 
ever, not numerous. 
Gray is added. In the one hundred twelfth and one 
hundred thirteenth weeks five tests yielded the follow- 
ing answers: SIGHT. 
11 
Red 
Right. 
16 
Wrong. 
3 
Yellow 
22 
1 
Green 
14 
5 
Blue 
10 
15 
Violet 
18 
1 
Gray 
10 
2 
Total 
90 
27 
Yellow maintains the first place, being rightly named 
in twenty-two instances, and wrongly only once. The 
judgment in regard to blue is the worst; fifteen wrong 
judgments to ten right ones. It is noteworthy that in 
this series, as in the preceding, violet is rightly named 
oftener than green. 
I now bade the child, repeatedly, to place together 
the ovals of the same color. After much moving hither 
and thither, he succeeded with yellow, red, rose, green, 
and violet, but very incompletely. The expressions 
“light” and “ dark,” before the names of the colors, were 
beyond the child’s understanding. So the saturated and 
the less saturated colors, the light and the dark, were, 
as before, indicated by the common name of the quality 
alone. Four trials with the colors mixed, during the time 
from the one hundred fourteenth to the one hundred six- 
teenth week, resulted as follows: 
Red 
Right. 
15 
Wrong. 
1 
Yellow 
13 
0 
Green 
4 
7 
Blue 
3 
10 
Violet 
11 
2 
Gray 
6 
0 
Brown 
4 
0 
Rose 
1 
2 
Black 
2 
0 
-■ 
Total 
59 
22 12 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Blue "was especially confounded with violet, also 
with green. All very pale colors were confounded with 
gray, all dark ones with black. The order in which 
the colors were recognized, i. e., rightly named, is now 
the following: Yellow best of all, then red, violet, 
green ; and worst of all, blue. 
On other days I laid before the child, as I had done 
previously, a single color, with the question, what it was, 
and marked the answer wrong if it were not given right 
immediately. The colors are now called by the child 
rott, delp, drun, Hau, lila, grau, swarz, rosa, lyraun. 
Four trials in the one hundred fourteenth and one 
hundred fifteenth weeks yielded the answers: 
Red 
Right. 
13 
Wrong. 
0 
Yellow. 
11 
0 
Green 
7 
9 
Blue 
5 
13 
Violet 
10 
3 
Gray 
1 
3 
Brown 
4 
1 
Rose 
3 
3 
Black 
4 
0 
■ 
- ■' - 
Total 
58 
32 
For the first five colors this trial gives the same or- 
der of succession as above. Blue and green are very 
uncertain; blue is called drun (meant for griin) and 
lila (violet), green is called gray; and, oftener still, nei- 
ther blue nor green is named at all; while yellow, and 
red, and black, are given correctly and quickly. 
I now let the child take out of the box of colored 
ovals one after another of them, at pleasure, name it, SIGHT. 
13 
and give it to me. At the first trial he seized at ran- 
dom ; at the second he sought his favorite color, yellow. 
Two trials in the one hundred fifteenth week: 
Red 
Right. 
6 
Wrong. 
0 
Yellow 
8 
0 
Green 
1 
2 
Blue 
0 
5 
Violet 
4 
1 
Gray 
1 
5 
Brown 
0 
1 
Rose 
3 
2 
Black 
2 
0 
— 
■■■ 
Total 
25 
16 
The result is the same as above. Bed, yellow, and 
black are the only colors that are surely recognized. 
I now made no more trials for two months. The 
child spent the’larger part of the day in the open air, 
■with me, on a journey; the greater part of the time was 
spent in the neighborhood of Lake Garda. 
In the one hundred twenty-first week, an occasional 
examination showed a greater uncertainty than before. 
Blue was scarcely once named rightly, in spite of the 
most urgent cautions. When the trials were resumed, 
after our return, the result was bad. I took the colored 
counters in my band and put questions. At the very 
first questioning, yellow was indeed named rightly three 
times, and not wrongly at all; but red was twice wrong- 
ly and not once rightly named. 
1 got the following answers in the one hundred 
twenty-fourth week, in the first four trials with all the 
colors after the interval: 14 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Red 
Right. 
17 
Wrong. 
0 
Yellow 
22 
0 
Green 
0 
18 
Blue 
0 
13 
Violet 
9 
4 
Gray.... 
0 
5 
Brown 
4 
3 
Rose 
3 
4 
Black 
3 
0 
Orange 
_0 
_2 
Total 
58 
49 
Here it is still more evident than before that red 
and yellow are already more surely recognized and more 
correctly named than green and blue. On the eight 
hundred sixty-sixth day the child, without being con- 
strained, took colors out of the box and gave them to me, 
naming them as he did so. The colors that were mistaken 
for one another were rose, gray, and pale green ; brown 
and gray ; green and black ; finally, blue and violet. 
In the following experiments, also, the child every 
time took the colors out of the box and gave them to 
me, telling the names at the same time, without the least 
direction. Five trials out of the one hundred twenty- 
fourth and one hundred twenty-fifth weeks gave: 
Red 
Right. 
29 
Wrong. 
1 
Yellow 
16 
0 
Green 
0 
4 
Blue 
0 
6 
Violet 
14 
0 
Gray 
0 
8 
Rose 
14 
5 
Brown 
7 
2 
Black 
0 
2 
Orange 
0 
6 
Total 
80 
34 SIGHT. 
15 
Red and yellow are eagerly sought and almost al- 
ways rightly named; blue and green avoided and al- 
ways named wrongly (e. g., as Illa, swarz). I now re- 
moved all the red and yellow colors from the collection, 
and let the child give to me, and name as many of the 
remaining ones as he could on a stretch. Now that red 
and yellow are wanting, however, he shows from the 
first a less degree of interest, and in the case of green he 
says “ Papa tell! ” In all other cases he had a name for 
the color he took. If that was wrong, it was always 
corrected by me, often by the child himself; but it was 
always entered in the record as wrong, if the first an- 
swer was wrong. In the one hundred twenty-fifth and 
one hundred twenty-sixth weeks six trials were made in 
which this method was strictly observed and the follow- 
ing judgments were registered: 
Green 
Right. 
2 
Wrong. 
19 
Blue 
6 
20 
Violet 
20 
3 
Gray... 
0 
6 
Rose 
19 
6 
Brown 
15 
0 
Black. 
7 
2 
Orange 
11 
7 
Total 
80 
63 
The brighter colors were at first selected. The child 
confuses orange (oroos, as he calls it) with yellow, blue 
with violet, green with gray, black with brown. 
I tried repeatedly to induce the child to place to- 
gether the colors that seemed to him alike, but it was a 
total failure. Then I asked for single colors by their 
names, but the results of this procedure were likewise 16 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
poor. (This on the eight hundred seventy-ninth day.) 
Finally, I took a single color at a time and asked, “ What 
is that?” In four trials in the one hundred twenty- 
sixth, one hundred tw’enty-seventh, and one hundred 
twenty-eighth weeks, the answers were : 
Right. 
Wrong. 
Red 
11 
(1) 
Yellow 
11 
0 
Green 
1 
14 
Blue 
1 
11 
Violet 
12 
1 
Gray 
6 
1 
Rose 
11 
2 
Brown 
10 
0 
Black 
6 
1 
Orange 
6 
2 and (1) 
Total 
75 
34 
For green and blue—which are confounded with 
gray when they are light, and with black 'when they 
are dark—there is probably a less degree of sensibility, 
certainly a less interest. Blue is still called Ula. Be- 
sides, it is very difficult to direct the attention persist- 
ently to the colors. The child, although tested only in 
the early hours of morning, seeks now other means of 
entertaining himself. Now and then he makes a mis- 
take in speaking. (Errors of this kind are indicated by 
parentheses). But on the eight hundred ninety-eighth 
day every color was rightly named—green and blue, to 
be sure, only after some guessing. In six trials in the 
one hundred twenty-ninth, one hundred thirty-fifth, one 
hundred thirty-sixth, one hundred thirty-seventh, and 
one hundred thirty-eighth weeks the child took the colors 
and gave them to me, naming them. The answers were: SIGHT. 
17 
Red 
Right. 
27 
Wrong. 
1 
Yellow 
27 
0 
Green 
2 
14 
Blue 
2 
13 
Violet 
15 
2 
Gray 
* 
5 
1 
Rose 
10 
3 
Brown 
14 
0 
Black 
5 
1 
Orange 
12 
3 
Total 
.. 119 
38 
There is confounding of colors as before. The only- 
thing new is the designation gar nix (for gar nichts, 
“ nothing at all”) for green and blue. Unknown colors 
are now often named green—e. g., blue. In a bouquet 
of yellow roses these were designated as yellow, but the 
leaves were obstinately called garnix, and so likewise 
were very whitish colors, whose quality is, however, 
recognizable at once, in a moderate light, by adults ac- 
quainted with colors. 
On the nine hundred thirty-fourth day there was this 
remarkable utterance when green and blue were placed 
before the child : grin Viau kann e nicht, grosse mann 
kann grin Viau, which meant (as appeared from similar 
utterances), “ I can’t give green and blue rightly; a 
grown person can.” Green was mostly called gray; 
very rarely (inquiringly) it was called red; blue was 
named lila. In the one hundred thirty-first and one 
hundred thirty-fourth weeks I made three trials, asking 
for colors which I laid out; in the one hundred thirty- 
eighth and one hundred thirty-ninth weeks, in three 
trials, sometimes the child took the colors himself, some- 
times I put them before him. The answers were: 18 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Red 
Right. 
14 
Wrong. 
1 
Yellow 
. 24 
0 
Green 
4 
13 
Blue 
0 
15 
Violet 
9 
5 
Gray 
5 
0 
Rose 
.. 9 
2 
Brown 
11 
1 
Black .. 
7 
1 
Orange 
10 
1 
Total 
93 
39 
Here begins at last the right naming of green, while 
blue is not yet so often correctly designated. The child 
took the colors of his own accord and named them in 
three trials, in the one hundred thirty-ninth, one hundred 
forty-first, and one hundred forty-sixth weeks, as follows: 
Red 
Right. 
19 
Wrong. 
2 
Yellow 
12 
0 
Green 
2 
2 
Blue. 
2 
11 
Violet 
6 
1 
Gray 
1 
2 
Rose 
3 
0 
Brown 
10 
0 
Black 
3 
0 
Orange i 
8 
1 
Total 
66 
19 
The red twice misnamed was dark. The word 
“ green ” was now rightly applied continually to leaves 
and to meadows, and, before the completion of the third 
year, blue also was almost invariably designated correct- 
ly, if the attention -was not diverted. SIGHT. 
19 
With regard to the order in which the colors were 
rightly named up to the thirty-fourth month, the total 
result is as follows: 
JUDGMENTS. 
PER CENT. 
Right. 
Wrong. 
Right. 
Wrong. 
I. Yellow 
232 
8 
96’7 
3-3 
II. Brown 
79 
8 
90’8 
9-2 
III. Red 
.235 
36 
86-7 
13-3 
IV. Violet 
139 
24 
85 3 
14-7 
V. Black 
39 
7 
84-8 
15-2 
VI. Rose 
76 
29 
72-4 
27-6 
VII. Orange 
47 
23 
67-1 
329 
VIII. Gray 
35 
33 
51-5 
48-5 
IX. Green 
101 
123 
45-0 
55-0 
X. Blue 
61 
151 
28-8 
71-2 
Total 
1,044 
442 
70-3 
29-7 
Thus, of the four principal colors, yellow and red 
are named rightly much sooner than are green and blue; 
and yellow first—brown is (dull) yellow—then red. 
That the color-sensations, green, blue, and violet, exist 
in very different proportions, is probably not a peculiar- 
ity of the individual. Violet, which was much oftener 
named rightly than were green and blue, contains the 
already well-known red, and may appear to the child as 
a dirty red, or as dark red. For it is in fact probable 
that blue and greenish-blue were perceived in the earliest 
period, not as blue and greenish-blue, but as gray and 
black. That green of every sort is not named rightly 
till very late, may be owing, in part, to a stronger ab- 
sorption of light, by means of the blood of the vessels 
of the retina. Although the place of the clearest vis- 
ion, in the back part of the eye, is free from blood-ves- 
sels, yet the other colors which, like yellow, orange, red, 
and brown, reach the retina undimmed, in great exten- 20 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
sion, have, on that account, an advantage over green 
and blue, which are most easily confounded with gray. 
Even in the fourth year, blue was still often called 
gray in the dusk of morning, when it appeared to me 
distinctly blue. The child would wonder that his light- 
blue stockings had become gray in the night. This I 
observed on three days. 
Gray is, without doubt, ulong with white and black, 
rightly known long before the first discrimination of 
colors, but is often wrongly named, for the reason that 
green and blue are probably perceived as gray. The 
right naming of it became the rule before the end of 
the third year, whereas yellow was rightly named, al- 
most invariably, nearly a year earlier. To this color 
the pigment of the yellow spot is most helpful. Red 
may also have an advantage, in the fact that in bright 
daylight, when the eyes are shut, especially when snow 
is on the ground, that is the only color in the field of 
vision [i. e., the eyelids are translucent, and we perceive 
red] ; as black is the only one before we fall asleep in 
the dark. 
On the whole we must, accordingly, declare the 
child to be still somewhat lacking in sensibility to the 
cold colors in the second year and the first half of the 
third year; a conclusion with which occasional observa- 
tions concerning other children harmonize. At any 
rate, by very many children, yellow is first rightly 
named and blue last. One boy began, before he had 
reached the age of four months, to prefer a brilliant red 
to other colors.* All children prefer, like him, at this 
* According to Genzmer: “ Untersuchungen Uber die Sinnes- 
wahrnehmungen des neugeborenen Menschen,” 1859. SIGHT. 
21 
age and long after, the whitish colors, without regard 
to their quality. 
The incapacity of the two-years-old child to name 
blue and green correctly can not be attributed solely to 
his possible inability to associate firmly the names 
“ blue ” and “ green ” (which he has heard and which 
he uses fluently) with his possibly distinct sensations; 
for “ yellow ” and “ red ” have already been used cor- 
rectly many months before. If green and blue were as 
distinct as yellow and red in his sensation, then there 
would not be the least occasion for his giving them 
wrong names, and preferring red and yellow to them in 
all circumstances. The child does not yet ~know what 
green and blue signify, although he is already acquaint- 
ed with yellow and red. Neither does he yet know 
what “ green ” means when, in the one hundred ninth 
and one hundred twelfth weeks of his life, he apparent- 
ly distinguishes “ red ” and “ green ” correctly. Green 
is at this time, for him, merely something that is not 
red. 
I have yet to mention that my child, at the begin- 
ning of his third year, moved and handled himself with 
surprising sureness and quickness in the semi-darkness 
of twilight; he thus discriminated well between light 
and dark. And at the beginning of his fourth year he 
named correctly all the colors except the very dark or 
the pale ones, particularly even the most varying shades 
of green and blue, to the astonishment of those who 
had been occasionally present at the color-lessons here 
described, and who had witnessed his numerous errors. 
Other children, with sound eyes, are likewise per- 
fectly sure in their naming of colors at the age of three THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
22 
years, though very uncertain at the age of two years. 
A boy of two and two-thirds years was impressed by the 
colors in the following order : 
1, dark violet; 2, yellow ; 3, red; 4, blue; 5, green. 
Here the first named was singled out before the others 
on account of its being dark.* 
A boy of four years, who had received no regular 
instruction in observing colors, was asked by his father 
what colors he saw in a brilliant rainbow that was just 
then defining itself sharply upon the gray sky. The 
child answered slowly, but with decision, “ Red, yellow, 
green, blue ”; and he afterward, as I am informed by 
his father, Prof. Bardeleben, of Jena, always picked 
out these principal colors easily among paints, whereas 
the naming of violet, reddish-yellow, and other mixed 
colors, was difficult for him. 
3. Movements of the Eyelids. 
The eyelids are not often kept apart long in the first 
days of life. Newly-born children, even when awake, 
keep their eyes shut far more than they keep them open. 
And, when the lids are raised, there appears for the 
most part a strange asymmetry. One eye remains open 
while the other is shut. Alternate shutting and open- 
ing were seen by me frequently from the first to the 
eleventh day; afterward more seldom. Yet my child, 
before the first twenty-four hours were passed, had both 
eyes wide open, once, at the same time, in the twilight. 
During the first month the rule was, that when both 
eyes were open at the same time, they were not open 
* Frau Dr. Friedemann. SIGHT. 
23 
equally wide; this was still strikingly noticeable on the 
thirty-first day. At this time, too, the occasional keep- 
ing open of one eye only had not ceased. Further, 
even when both eyes were closed, the movements of the 
left and right upper lids were frequently not simulta- 
neous. 
Other remarkable irregular (atypische) movements 
of the lids were seen in connection with the raising and 
lowering of the look on one side and on both sides. 
Especially, in the fifth week, the lids were often raised 
while the look was directed downward, so that the white 
sclerotic was visible over the cornea; a movement that 
an adult imitates with difficulty, and that lends to the 
countenance an expression almost of a character to cause 
anxiety. But long before the third month the lid fol- 
lowed the pupil regularly when the look was downward. 
When, on the contrary, the child, as he lay on his back, 
directed his glance toward his forehead, which he did 
without wrinkling his forehead in the least, the lid was 
not always raised, but it often covered the iris close up 
to the pupil, sometimes even partially covering the lat- 
ter; and this I saw repeatedly as late as the eighth 
week. 
The “rolling of the eyes” by sick children, the pu- 
pils going upward and the upper eyelid downward, so 
that only the white sclerotic remains visible in the space 
between the lids, is an advanced stage of this physio- 
logical irregularity, which appears also in hysterical 
patients. Even toward the end of the third month I 
saw that when the child looked up (as he was carried on 
the arm in an upright position), e. g., to a lamp stand- 
ing high, the eyelid was not completely raised, but here, 24 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
too, the pupil was touched by the edge of the lid at a 
tangent. At this time the forehead, which, in the first 
days, appeared often in horizontal folds, as is the case 
with monkeys, was either not wrinkled at all or very 
little, and in exceptional cases, when the look was 
directed upward. Not till the ninety-eighth day was 
my boy’s brow wrinkled when he looked upward, and 
then not to such a degree as that of an adult, and even 
in the eighth month the brow was not wrinkled invari- 
ably ; but from the end of the ninth month it was regu- 
larly so. This co-ordinate movement is therefore ac- 
quired, probably because it enlarges the field of vision 
when one is looking upward, without making it neces- 
sary to bend back the head. 
The raising of the lid along with the downward 
look was seen in the first days of infant life, up to the 
tenth day, by Raehlmann, and Witkowski also, and 
they rightly call attention to the fact that the relation 
of compulsory dependence between the raising of the 
lid and the elevation of the cornea does not yet exist at 
the beginning. The muscle that raises the lid can con- 
tract at the same time with the lower rectus muscle of 
the eye; the upper rectus muscle of the eye may con- 
tract without the one that lifts the lid: later, this can 
no longer be done. There must be, then, at the begin- 
ning, within the province of the oculomotorius, an in- 
dependence of the separate branches, that is afterward 
lost. The co-excitement of the branch that goes to the 
elevator of the lid (levator palpebrse), on occasion of 
the excitement of the branch going to the elevator of 
the glance (rectus superior), in the upper division of the 
oculomotorius, is accordingly something acquired—is SIGHT. 
25 
learned afresh by each individual human being—on ac- 
count of the help it gives in the act of seeing. Just so, 
according to our observations, the perfectly useless ex- 
citement of the elevator-branch on occasion of the ex- 
citement of the branch that goes to the muscle that 
depresses the glance (rectus inferior) in the lower di- 
vision of the oculomotorius, though frequent at first, is 
so persistently omitted farther on, that adults are hard- 
ly able to contract at the same time the lid-elevator and 
the eye-depressor (rectus inferior), i. e., to direct the 
look downward with the eye wide open. Consequently, 
the movements under consideration—of the upper eye- 
lid upward in looking up, and downward in looking 
down—are not inborn in human beings. 
On the other hand, the closing of the lid when it is 
exposed to a strong light, as well as the contracting of 
the pupil in light, is inborn. But the case here is one 
of reflex action of the optic nerve: on the one hand, 
upon the orbicularis branch of the facialis; on the 
other hand, upon the iris branch of the oculomotorius, 
not therefore a case of associated movements, but of 
purely sensori-motor reflexes. 
The quick shutting of the eye by a sudden move- 
ment of the lid, followed immediately by the opening 
of it—what is called winking—does not appear, as is 
well known, in new-born or in very young infants. 
The fact is well established that they bear the sudden 
approach of a hand to the eye without moving the lid; 
whereas, later in life, every one in such circumstances 
shuts the eye for an instant, or even starts back at the 
first approach, just as after an actual touch—and this 
even when there is a pane of glass before the face—un- 26 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
less special practice in the control of this reflex move- 
ment leads in manhood to the voluntary inhibition 
of it. 
I have determined the time in the case of my child 
at which the first winking occurred as a sign of fright 
at any sudden impression, and as an expression of sur- 
prise at a new impression made upon the sense of 
sight. My experience is as follows: 
I put my hand suddenly near the face of the child, 
as he lay quiet with open eyes, without the least reaction 
on his part, on the sixth, eighth, eleventh, twelfth, 
twenty-second, twenty-fifth, fiftieth, and fifty-fifth days. 
During this period the softest touch of the lashes, of 
the edges of the lids, of the conjunctiva, or the cornea, 
occasioned an immediate closing of the lid. The drop- 
ping of the lid up to the twelfth day was, however, 
decidedly slower than it is in adults. On the fifty- 
seventh and fifty-eighth days I noticed that winking 
made its appearance for the first time, occurring when 
I put my head quickly near the child’s face; but, on 
repeating the experiment several times, both eyes re- 
mained open. On the sixtieth day, the quick, simul- 
taneous shutting and opening of both eyes in case of 
fright at a quick approach to the face (just as in case of 
a sudden loud sound), is already the rule. At such 
times the child often throws up both arms quickly, alike 
whether he is lying down or is held in the arms. This 
is the case especially as late as the fourteenth week. At 
this time, however, there was not observable any start- 
ing back with the head, or the upper part of the body, 
at the rapid approach of my face to his; whereas the 
winking now invariably appears promptly, even W’hen SIGHT. 
27 
the approach is repeated several times in close succes- 
sion. It was the same in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
weeks. Other children, however (according to Sigis- 
mund), do not yet close their eyes in the fourteenth and 
even the sixteenth week, when you thrust at them with 
the finger as if you meant to hit them. The difference 
is probably owing to the fact that the finger occupies 
too small an area in the field of vision compared with 
the palm of the hand and with the face. O. Soltmann 
found that the seventh and eighth weeks marked the 
first appearance of the lid movement in tlie experiment 
of the “attacking hand,” and my observations accord 
with this.- 
Not till after the first three months did I observe 
that the eyes were closed wdien, in the bath, water touched 
the cornea or even the lashes; in the first days the wet- 
ting of the eyes, even when it w’as repeated, having oc- 
casioned no closing of the lid at all. Probably it is ex- 
periences of this kind—of disagreeable sensation when 
the exposed parts of the eye are touched—that caused in 
the ninth week, for the first time, the closing of the lid 
when a large object suddenly approached the eye with- 
out touching it; for the rapid approach is in itself not 
pleasing. For the rest, the winking on occasion of a 
strong, unexpected impression remained, after it had 
once appeared, as an acquired reflex movement, which 
returned on every provocation of that sort. Thus, it 
followed with uncommon quickness upon a puff of wind 
in the face (e. g., in the twenty-fifth week). The child 
stared with an inquiring gaze in the direction whence 
the current of air came, after he had responded to it 
with the eyelids. 28 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
It is not allowable to assume, in explanation of this 
reflex movement, that the idea of danger must first be 
formed in order to produce the closure of the eyes, as 
many suppose. In that case there would be no purely 
reflex action, but a habit. But the time is too short for 
the production of an idea along with the volitional im- 
pulse to lower the lid, and a child of nine weeks has not 
yet the idea of danger. He does not know that, with 
the sudden change in the distribution of light and shade 
in the field of vision, at the approach of the hand, there 
may be joined a danger to himself; and he winks just 
the same at a sudden noise, even on the twenty-fifth day 
of his life. 
Had he the idea of danger, he would start back with 
the head or the upper part of his body at the quick ap- 
proach of my hand or my head, as he does later. We 
should be forced to adopt the auxiliary hypothesis that 
an experience made by the child’s ancestors in a more 
mature period of life led to a habit which then mani- 
fested itself in the descendants early in life as an heredi- 
tary habit. This Darwinian view is superfluous, because 
the disagreeable feeling that is connected with every 
unexpected, sudden, and strong sense-impression, is of 
itself sufficient to induce the closing of the lid. For so 
long as the child can not rightly separate his sense-im- 
pressions, especially those of sight, so long as he does 
not plainly discern the rapid changes in a moderately 
bright field of vision, he can not be disagreeably affected 
by these changes. But if he is sufficiently developed to 
observe sudden and important changes, then he will ex- 
perience a disagreeable feeling, will be frightened, and 
the immediate consequence of this will be the warding SIGHT. 
29 
off of that which offends him—he will shut the eyelids. 
Thus, the shutting of the eyes at the sudden impression 
of light is seen to be akin to the keeping of them tightly 
shut when exposed to bright light during the first days 
of life; and it remains only to explain the difference, 
that at the beginning the eye remains closed longer, for 
the newly-born do not wink. This difference, merely 
quantitative, is probably due to the less rapid propaga- 
tion of the nerve-excitement, to the greater extent of 
time involved in the reflex, and especially to the greater 
intensity and duration of the stimulus. Dazzling light 
causes to adults likewise a more disagreeable feeling 
than does the rapid approach of a strange hand. Light- 
ning produces a momentary closing of the lids; a sur- 
face of snow, brightly illuminated by the sun, occasions 
shutting of the eyes and blinking, and even the tight 
compression of the eyelids. 
The lessening of the space between the lids, and the 
complete closing of the eyes, in shutting them tightly, is 
effected, upon the whole, by the contraction of the mus- 
cle that closes the eye (musculus orbicularis), whereas 
the dropping of the upper lid in winking is produced 
by the contraction of the lid-muscles (musculi palpe- 
brales) alone; and blinking, proper, at the sight of a 
dazzlingly bright object, by the contraction of the ex- 
ternal parts of the orbicular muscle (particularly the 
orbital and cheek muscle). All these orbicular filaments 
are supplied by the facial nerve (nervus facialis) as their 
only motor nerve. As the reflex from the optic nerve 
is perfect from the first day of existence, since bright 
light causes tight closing of the eyes, it follows that 
the reflex arc from the optic nerve to this branch of the 30 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
facialis, as well as that to the iris branch of the oculo- 
motorius, must be inborn. 
The quick shutting and opening of the eye in case 
of surprise also becomes more intelligible if we dismiss 
the hypothesis of the idea of danger—an idea that is as 
yet foreign to the child—and consider rather that every 
surprise, even a joyous one, is at the first instant akin to 
fright, on account of the unexpectedness it brings with 
it—the sudden impression on the senses. Sudden dan- 
ger is only a special case. Even in adults an unexpected 
loud sound occasions invariably the winking movement 
of the lids. 
On the twenty-fifth day my child fixed his eyes for 
the first time upon the face of his nurse, then upon mine 
and his mother’s, and when I nodded he opened his eyes 
wider, and shut and opened the lids several times. The 
same movements appeared when I for the first time 
spoke to him in a deep voice, as I did on the day men- 
tioned. It was a reflex movement of surprise. 
At the end of the seventh month, a green fan being 
rapidly opened and clapped together at a distance of 
half a metre from his face, my child shut and opened 
his eyes quickly every time with an expression of the 
greatest astonishment, until I had repeated the experi- 
ment a good many times in succession; and even then 
there remained a boundless surprise at the disappearance 
and reappearance of the large, round surface. This was 
discernible in his immovability, following upon previous 
agitation, and in the intensity of his gaze. The play 
of the lid is also observed in case of other new move- 
ments, especially rhythmical ones, as in hearing new 
noises; and then the mouth often remains open, and SIGHT. 
31 
the eyes are wide open, yet there is no lifting of the 
eyebrows (in the eighth month). 
But not only surprise, strong desire is likewise as- 
sociated with the keeping of the lids open to the maxi- 
mum extent. When, in the thirty-fourth week, I took 
away from the babe his milk, he gazed at it rigidly, 
and opened his eyes wide, and they took on an ex- 
pression of indescribable longing. Moreover, sounds of 
desire were often expressed imperfectly, with closed lips, 
and this continued as a habit with him in the second 
year. The eyes were, besides, noticeably more lustrous 
than usual, when the child was mastered by strong de- 
sire, surprise, or joy, which is to be explained as the 
consequence of an excitement of the secretory nerve of 
the lachrymal gland (ramus lacrymalis trigemini) ac- 
companying the psychical excitement, rather than as 
the result of compression of the gland through increased 
supply of blood. 
More important in regard to psychogenesis is the 
"fact, established by me concerning all infants, that from 
birth they manifest a high degree of pleasurable feeling 
by wide-open eyes; unpleasant feeling by shutting the 
eyes and holding them firmly together. In reference 
to the first, it surprised me that when the child was 
placed at his mother’s breast, and even just before be- 
ing placed there, the eyes were regularly stretched 
open, and almost always remained wide open when he 
began to suck. This was observed in increasing meas- 
ure on the third, sixteenth, and twenty-first days. But 
also, in a warm bath of 35° C., the eyes were wide open 
in the first three weeks, and, although the child did not 
laugh, his countenance took on a pleasant expression 32 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
from the widening of the opening between the lids. 
Audible and visible laughing, which appeared first on 
the twenty-third day, is simply an advanced stage of 
this expression of pleasure, in which “ the eyes laugh.” 
Certain mild impressions of light also produce a wide 
opening of the eyes; this was often observed from the 
first day on, as has been already stated. In the case of 
another child, which cried out immediately after its 
head emerged from the womb, I put my finger, three 
minutes later, into the child’s mouth and pressed on the 
tongue. At once all crying ceased, a brisk sucking be- 
gan, and the expression of the countenance, which had 
been hitherto discontented, became suddenly altered. 
The child, not yet fully born, seemed to experience 
something agreeable, and therewith—during the suck- 
ing of the finger—the eyes were widely opened. All 
these observations decidedly support the opinion that 
pleasure is expressed by wide-open eyes, so far as these 
will bear the light of day—in twilight and moderate 
artificial light, even from the moment of birth. Equal- 
ly certain is it that discomfort is manifested by shutting 
the eyes. 
The eyes are generally shut together at the first cry 
of the child, and later the rule is that all outcry on ac- 
count of painful or unpleasant feelings, e. g., hunger, 
brings with it a gripping of the eyes together, or, at any 
rate, a considerable lessening of the opening between 
the lids. And the screwing up of the eyes without 
crying and without any vocal utterance, but often with 
turning away of the head—e. g., in the second half of the 
first year, when the teeth are coming or when the gums 
are examined—is an indubitable sign of discomfort. SIGHT. 
33 
Afterward follows the closing of the lids at all sudden 
strong sense-impressions, because these bring in their 
train unpleasant feelings; and with feelings of pleasure 
the eyes are opened. If that inborn expressive move- 
ment is frequently repeated, then it takes place with 
greater and greater rapidity, and becomes at last pure 
reflex movement, occurring at all sufficiently strong, 
new, sudden impressions, before feelings of pleasure or 
of discomfort can be developed. 
The already mentioned hereditary reflex from the 
trigeminus to the orbicular branch of the facialis—the 
existence of which is manifested on the first day by the 
closing of the lid when the hairs of the eyelash are 
touched, or wffien the conjunctiva or the cornea is 
touched—this, too, might be, at first, a defense against 
the disagreeable, an expressive movement of displeas- 
ure ; since every touch, even the lightest, of the ex- 
posed parts of the eye, so abundantly supplied with 
nerves, is unexpected and disagreeable. The corre- 
sponding reflex path is traveled with less swiftness at 
first, because at this time the feeling of displeasure 
probably inserts itself between the centripetal and the 
centrifugal processes—not to mention the less rapid 
propagation of the nerve-excitation. Later, the reflex 
closing of the lid will come mechanically, after contact, 
without previous feeling of discomfort, and even with 
the appearance of the most deliberate purpose of de- 
fense. It is as if one said, “ I shut my eye because it 
might be hurt ”—in reality, however, there is no delib- 
eration. 
The difference between this hereditary trigeminus- 
facialis - reflex and the hereditary opticus - iris - reflex 34 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
shows plainly the difference between reflexes of ancient 
inheritance (palaeophyletic) and reflexes inherited more 
recently (neophyletic). For the adaptation of the pupil 
to bright light, which appears at once and invariably in 
the newly-born, and in animals without eyelids, must 
have been inherited at an earlier epoch than was the 
closing of the lid upon the eye’s being touched, be- 
cause the latter does not occur so promptly in the new- 
ly-born. But the new-born holds the eyes shut when 
dazzlingly bright light is thrown upon them, and in 
general when it feels discomfort, as does the maltreated 
frog. Out of this act of holding the eyes tightly shut 
has probably been differentiated the sudden, brief clos- 
ing of the lid (opticus-facialis-reflex) that follows all 
sudden sense-impressions, and that still in the present 
generation, as an acquired reflex, even one that may be 
inhibited by the will, stands in contrast with the two 
other hereditary reflexive movements of defense. 
4. Movements of the Eyes. 
The eye-movements of the newly-born and of infants 
are of great interest in their bearing upon -the history of 
the origin of the perceptions of space. The contending 
parties, the Nativists and the Empiricists,* in support 
of their views, make their appeal expressly to the child 
that has had no experience. The Nativists maintain 
that a pre-established mechanism produces from the be- 
ginning co-ordinated, associated eye-movements in the 
newly-born. The Empiricists hold that this is not the 
case, but that the eye-movements of the newly-born are 
* See “ Elements of Physiological Psychology,” by George T. 
Ladd (1887), for explanation of these terms. SIGHT. 
35 
asymmetric and non-coordinated; that the intentional 
use of the muscles of the eye is learned only through ex- 
perience, and that binocular vision, such as adults have, 
becomes afterward possible through the association of 
the movements of both eyes in “ fixating ” an object. 
My observations show that, with regard to the sim- 
ple matter of fact, both parties are right. Some new- 
born children actually make associated, co-ordinated 
movements of the eyes several times on the first day; 
others do not. In some cases I saw both these facts in 
the same child, but I never found in any child co-ordi- 
nated movements exclusively. 
I saw my child before the close of the first day of 
his life turn both eyes at the same time to the right, 
then to the left, frequently, hither and thither, his head 
being still; then, again, he would do it moving the head 
in accord. During the whole time his face was turned 
toward the window, in the twilight. Nay, only five 
minutes after his birth, when I held him in the dusk 
toward the window, an associated movement of the eyes 
took place. And when I began to observe new-born 
children, it happened that I saw a child thirty-five min- 
utes after birth (January 4, 1869) move his eyes only as 
an adult is accustomed to do, in accord. 
Donders and Hering, also, have perceived such 
movements of the eyes in the newly-born. The ob- 
servation requires only patience, because the newly- 
born spend the first twenty-four hours mostly in sleep, 
and when awake they cry a good deal, and their eyes 
do not remain open. 
If we were to rest satisfied with noticing such facts 
as these, we should come to quite erroneous results. 36 
TIIE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
More accurate and often repeated observation of the 
eye-movements of the child, especially during the first 
six days, taught me that the simultaneous turning of 
both eyes to the right or to the left is not co-ordinated 
with complete symmetry, as it is in adults. In the 
cases of a child ten hours old, and of one of six days, 
their eyes being wide open, I saw eye-movements that 
were associated, and only such, but which showed them- 
selves, on more accurate observation, to be not perfectly 
in accord. On the whole, I have found that, in the 
newly-born, one eye very often moves independently of 
the other, and the turnings of the head take place in a 
direction opposite to that in which the eyes move. The 
unintentional charac er of both movements is plainly 
recognizable, and the combination of the two is, at the 
beginning of life, accidental. The turning of both eyes 
to left and right, also, which is established on the first 
day, takes on the appearance of accident, coming in as 
one among all possible movements. 
As the other muscles of the body and of the face are 
contracted, without intention, by the very young infant, 
so also are the muscles of the eye. 
For this reason we may observe all sorts of non-cdor- 
dinated movements of the eyes accompanying grimaces, 
wrinkling of the brows, and movements of the lips, in 
cases where there is no possibility of sight or of sensi- 
bility to light, the lids being closed—e. g., on the tenth 
day—while the child is not crying, but is lying still. 
Sometimes it falls asleep with eyes half open, as may 
be known by its regular breathing and by the repose of 
its limbs, and then also are seen various unintentional 
movements of the eyes. Among those which attract SIGHT. 
37 
notice when the child is awake are movements of de- 
cided convergence. The child looks like a squinting 
child. But at the beginning of the third week of life 
the maximum degree of convergence and the strabis- 
mus are by no means so frequent as in the first; the 
irregularity of the movements of the eyes, which others 
also have observed in many new-born children, is still 
clearly pronounced. Schoeler saw in the first days, un- 
til the fourth, only non-codrdinated movements, and un- 
til the tenth day no perfectly correct fixation. Here 
his observation ceased. On the thirty-first day, in my 
child, strabismus was noticed as rare; on the forty-sixth, 
as very rare; on the forty-eighth and fiftieth, the same; 
and irregular movements in general, as very rare from 
the fifty-fifth day on; but they did appear until the 
tenth week, while the child was awake. During sleep, 
however, he moved his eyes asymmetrically as late as 
the sixtieth day in a lively manner, often the lids, too, 
on both sides, the eyes being half open and his snoring 
uninterrupted. When he had attained the age of three 
months, non-coordinated movements of the eyes were no 
more to be observed. After this I watched the sleep- 
ing child, however, only now and then, and in the ninth 
month I noticed an occasional slight irregularity. 
This consolidation of the mechanism of the muscles 
of the eye does not, however, by any means involve the 
cessation of useless co-ordinated movements of the eyes, 
as is shown by several experiences. Thus, the gaze of 
one child in the twenty-third week was almost regularly 
directed toward his forehead. This child, troubled with 
an itching eczema on the head, would, at that time, let 
his head swing hither and thither when his hands were 38 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
held, in case anything whatever, were it only a pillow, 
touched his head. 
The eyes of my child easily converged in the ninth 
month without any assignable cause, and upon objects 
held before his nose at a distance of one or two inches. 
In the tenth month the convergence of the lines of 
vision seemed disturbed; a very insignificant squinting 
inward appeared, but this anomaly vanished completely 
a few weeks later, after I had directed that he should 
spend more time out-of-doors, in order to favor his see- 
ing at a distance. From that time the movements of 
the eyes continued to be normal. The readiness with 
which convergence of the eyes, upon my finger, held at 
the end of my boy’s nose, occurred (as late as the twen- 
tieth month), is remarkable, as well as the fact that at 
the beginning such high degrees of convergence occur 
along with pupils relatively very wide open, which is 
not the case with adults. 
All these observations are absolutely favorable to the 
opinion that conscious vision has decisive influence upon 
the regulation of the eye-movements; that only after 
discrimination of the light-impressions by the optic 
nerve-center do harmonious centro-motor impulses pro- 
ceed from the nerves of the muscles of the eye (the 
motor oculi, abducens, trochlearis of both eyes), and 
that at the beginning, before the faculty of sight mani- 
fests itself—i. e., so long as only the function of sensi- 
bility to light is active—the eye-movements are not asso- 
ciated and not co-ordinated. Even when they are found 
symmetrical we can not, in face of a majority or of a 
very great number of irregular eye-movements, infer a 
pre-established, complete nerve-mechanism, having bi- SIGHT. 
39 
lateral symmetry and capable of functioning at birth, 
such as exists in the case of sucking. For, if man 
brought such a mechanism with him into the world (as 
the chicken and other animals do), how could he come 
to make so many irregular, purposeless movements of 
the eyes before making permanent use of this mechan- 
ism ? 
The general rule is, that out of concurring non-co- 
ordinated movements of the muscles there grow gradu- 
ally co-ordinated ones; so, here, with the muscles of the 
eyes. And, after the co-ordinated movements have be- 
come confirmed in the act of sight, there takes place, 
little by little, an elimination of the superfluous ones, a 
preference of those that are useful for distinct vision 
with both eyes. Just so the unregulated movements of 
the legs at the time of learning to walk become more 
and more rare, and of the co-ordinated ones, the most 
useful alone are retained, those which do the most serv- 
ice with the least effort. 
It is surprising that representatives of the nativistic 
theory should, notwithstanding, urge in their own sup- 
port the results of the investigations in regard to the 
newly-born—e. g., Raehlman and Witkowski, as fol- 
lows : “ As for the character of the eye-movements in 
the newly-born, they are in some respects similar to 
those made in sleep, but in many respects not similar. 
They are so far similar that they are often entirely non- 
coordinated ; sometimes, though more seldom, of one 
side only; not similar, in that they generally follow 
much more rapidly, and in a very great majority of 
cases appear to be of both sides and often co-ordinated. 
Even at the first spontaneous opening of the space be- 40 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
tween the lids, following directly upon birth, we saw 
apparently co-ordinated lateral movements, which, how- 
ever, in extent and intensity, were of irregular character. 
The eyes moved for some minutes incessantly hither 
and thither with a vast range, such as they do not take 
later in the regulated act of vision. Among these we 
saw, to be sure, non-cobrdinated movements enter sud- 
denly, movements in which the principle of association 
had absolutely no part.” 
With this my observations are in full accord. And 
what the observers report of the eye-movements of sleep- 
ing children (whose lids were lifted up without their 
waking) also agrees in many particulars therewith and 
with the statements of Schoeler: “As to the form of 
such movements we find, first, lateral turnings that are 
associated—i. e., they take place bilaterally and with 
seeming co-ordination. These are rare in sleep, yet 
they seem to occur ; at any rate, it may be said decidedly 
that non-cobrdinated movements of the eyes are the most 
frequent ones. We see, e. g., both eyes move slowly 
to the right; the apparently associated side-movement 
is, however, not equal on the two sides, but is of varying 
force, now in one eye now in the other, so that conver- 
gences and divergences are introduced alternately. 
Moreover, there are frequently quite abnormal, dia- 
metrically opposed movements of the two eyes; one eye 
moves slowly to the right, the other to the left; or the 
right eye upward to the right, while the left moves up- 
ward to the left. Finally, there occur vertical variations 
of both eyes of such sort that, e. g., while the right eye 
turns to the left and somewhat downward, the left eye 
turns to the left and at the same time somewhat up- SIGHT. 
41 
ward. The most remarkable observation, however, is 
that absolutely one-sided movements occur. While, e. g., 
the right eye seems to fix the observer, the left eye is 
seen to move sidewise.” 
Although all these observations relate to the eyes 
of children (and adults) in sleep, they are all, accord- 
ing to my experience, perfectly applicable to waking 
infants in their first days. 
5. Direction of the Look. 
The ability to “ fixate ” a bright object is utterly 
lacking in the new-born child, because he is not yet in 
condition to move the muscles of the eye at his pleasure, 
and every fixation is an act of will. On the other hand, 
the ability to turn the head toward a bright object so 
that this can produce an image on the retina is often 
present on the first day of life. And the gaze of a new- 
born child as he lies quiet, with open eyes, is seen di- 
rected to the candle that is held before him in passing. 
But, in fact, the very young babe motionless, with 
a stupid expression of countenance, into empty space, 
and merely seems to “ fixate ” the object that is brought 
into his line of vision. For the staring with unchanged 
position of the eyes does not cease when the object is 
removed. The look does not yet follow the removed 
object, neither does the head. Yet the eyes move on 
the seventh day independently of the turnings of the 
head, and converge strongly. 
It has indeed been observed by Kussmaul that indi- 
viduals among children prematurely born (two months 
too soon) lying with head turned away from the window 
in the dusk of evening on the second day of life, repeat- 42 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
edly turned the head to the window and the light when a 
change was made in their position ; and I have observed 
the same thing in the fully-matured infant regularly on 
the sixth day; but this is merely a case of desire» in a 
primitive form, not a case of the gaze following an ob- 
ject. The object that is apparently sought is motionless, 
and is not a recognized cause of sensation. The nature 
of the experience is rather this: such and such a position 
of the body or of the head is associated with an agree- 
able sensation—in this instance an agreeable sensation 
of light—and is therefore preferred ; another position, 
a disagreeable one, in which the face is shaded, is avoid- 
ed. Just so the head is turned to the warm, smooth 
breast of the mother, and the turning away from it is 
felt as disagreeable, even in the dark. 
Accordingly, the turning of the head toward a motion- 
less, moderately bright light, that has been noticed in 
some children even in the first days, can not be regarded 
as a voluntary direction of the gaze. At the beginning 
there is nothing but staring when the eyes are opened, 
and even on the ninth day the turning away from daz- 
zling light is no sign of knowledge of direction. 
Here again I agree entirely with Raehlman and 
Witkowski, when they report that they have never seen 
movements of real fixation up to the tenth day. “ It 
may occasionally happen that upon a certain change of 
the position of the lighted candle, or through some move- 
ments of the child's eyes, the eye is accidentally put in 
position for the light; i. e., an image arises on the yel- 
low spot, but this apparently intentional relation of posi- 
tion between the eye and the object is a purely accidental 
one, and assuredly is not based upon a conscious fixation.” SIGHT. 
43 
When Darwin says that on the ninth day the eyes 
were directed to the lighted candle, the meaning is 
simply that the flame was placed in the line of the fixed 
gaze; but w'hen he adds that up to the forty-fifth day 
nothing has seemed thus to fasten the eyes, it must be 
that the critical period of the beginning of fixation 
passed unnoticed. 
The second stage is made known by the turning of 
the head from one motionless, extended, bright surface 
in the field of vision to another. On the eleventh day 
my child held his gaze from one to two minutes steadily 
upon my face, and turned his head toward the light, 
which appeared close by in the field of vision. In like 
manner behaved a female child, who on the fourteenth 
day directed her gaze, which had been fastened upon 
her father’s face, to some one who came up, and at the 
sight of this person’s head-covering the child’s gaze be- 
came rooted as if with surprise.* 
At this time and later it is noticed*also that the in- 
fant gazes preferably upward toward the white ceiling 
of the room. But the upward look that grows out of 
this, through which the human infant is said to be es- 
sentially distinguished from the animal, depends with- 
out doubt upon his horizontal position in the arms of 
his mother or nurse. If the babe were never carried in 
this manner, it would hardly look upward often. 
The third stage is attained with the following of a 
bright object in motion, and is characterized by the 
associated movement of the eyes while the head is mo- 
tionless. 
It was on the twenty-third day of his life that my 
* Frau Prof, von Striimpell. 44 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
child, who was gazing at the candle burning steadily at 
the distance of one metre before him, turned both his 
eyes to the left when I moved the candle to the left, 
and to the right when the candle was moved to the 
right. As soon as I held the burning candle up, both 
his eyes were directed upward toward the light, without 
any movement of the head. At the same time his face 
suddenly assumed a surprisingly intelligent expression, 
not before observed. When the light was moved side- 
wise the head was moved, often; but generally the eyes 
alone moved. It would also happen that the movements 
of the eyes were accompanied by a slight sympathetic 
movement of the head. The motion of the candle had 
to be very slow always, otherwise it was not followed. 
Twenty times that day, certainly, I repeated the ex- 
periment, the result of which greatly surprised me, as 
other children do not follow a moving light with their 
eyes till after many months. I had, to be sure, made 
the trial almost every day since the birth of my child, 
and thereby the mechanism of convergence may have 
got an earlier start. 
Two days later, and seven days later, the same trial 
was made with the slowly-moved candle or with my 
hand only. Whenever the movement was slow enough, 
the child followed it with his look, moving sometimes the 
eyes only, sometimes head and eyes in accord. Every 
time that both eyes moved with the light, the counte- 
nance assumed again the contented, intelligent expression 
W’hich it had never worn until the twenty-third day. 
With that day began also active looking (as distinguished 
from staring). The outstretched hand, the flame of the 
candle, faces when they came into the field of vision, SIGHT. 
45 
were looked at, one can not yet say “ fixated,” because 
with this word is associated the notion of voluntary, 
distinct vision. But from this time forth the gaze of 
the child was actively directed, daily, without any con- 
trived occasion, to bright surfaces in the field of vision 
such as have been mentioned. 
It is to be noted that no part is played in this prog- 
ress by the cerebral cortex. For Longet removed care- 
fully the cerebral hemispheres of a pigeon, sparing the 
corpora quadrigemina and the rest of the brain, kept 
the bird alive for eighteen days, and saw that in the dark 
not only did the sudden approach of a light produce 
contraction of the iris and blinking, but also as soon as 
he moved the burning candle in a circle the creature 
made a corresponding movement of the head. To this 
act, then, the cerebrum is not indispensable. But after 
the destruction of the corpora quadrigemina the trial 
yields no results. 
While by means of such observations the transition 
from staring to looking could be marked with tolerable 
accuracy, the passage from looking to observing and 
“fixating” objects was not so sharply defined. In the 
fifth week the Christmas-tree, with its many lights, was 
looked at with pleasure; in the seventh the child fol- 
lowed with both eyes a lamp carried by some one, a 
glittering gold chain, or the movements of his mother’s 
head, much more quickly and exactly than before. 
When looking persistently at a face quite near, his 
mouth is pursed in a remarkable manner, as is often 
seen to be the case in adults when there is a great strain 
of the attention. 
A week earlier even, on the thirty-ninth day, the 46 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
swinging movement of tassels close in front of the 
child’s face would elicit a pleased expression and a cry 
of delight. It happened also that the child, when he 
had been moving actively in his bed, and so had unin- 
tentionally shaken it, suddenly became still, and laughed 
when the blue tassels over his face were set swinging in 
consequence of the shaking. 
In the following weeks, gilded picture-frames, that 
shone brightly as they reflected the light of the lamp, 
were looked at for minutes at a time, and the gaze 
was lifted accordingly. Such strong impressions of 
light produced gayety, just as swinging objects did. 
On the sixty-second day, for example, the child looked 
for almost half an hour at a swinging lamp hanging 
from the ceiling, with continuous utterances of pleasure. 
The eyes did not, however, in this case, follow closely the 
separate oscillations. Both eyes, indeed, often moved 
simultaneously to the left or to the right, but not in 
time with the lamp. His pleasure manifested itself by 
movements of the arms, and by sounds such as are made 
by a child only when he is pleasurably excited; his in- 
terest was shown by an unwavering gaze. 
The day before, the child had looked upon the 
friendly face of his mother for some minutes and then 
given a cry of joy. It was as if for the first time he 
had discovered his mother. The face of his father, too, 
which always exerted a quieting influence on the child 
when “ worrying,” became at this time—before the 
tenth week—an occasion of gayety. In the case of a 
little girl, the same thing took place in her sixth week.* 
* Frau von Striimpell. SIGHT. 
47 
All these facts indicate that motionless images on 
the retina are distinguished from moving ones, although 
distinct sight is not yet attained; accommodation, in- 
deed, is still wanting. 
With this the fourth stage is reached, marked by 
the ability, which is retained from this time forth, to 
direct the eyes toward an object. Right and left, above 
and below, are distinguished, and very soon the most 
extended use is made of this ability. For now the 
child seeks with his eyes untiringly for new objects, 
when he is awake and well. This seeking, i. e., prima- 
rily the endeavor to give a definite direction to the look 
and to hold it there, dates back to the first three months. 
In the tenth week, a girl-child looked for the face of 
the person calling her, although it was with difficulty 
that she held her head erect. On the other hand, a boy 
of the same age,* who was lying on his back, could not 
follow with his eyes a cane that I moved hither and 
thither before him, but simply stared at it. 
A third child began, after the end of the sixteenth 
week, to look at its hands, and in the twenty-third week 
carried to its mouth the finger of another person that 
had been put into its hand.f 
When, on the eighty-first day, at a distance of about 
one metre from my child, I rubbed with my wet finger 
a tall drinking-glass, and produced high tones new to 
the infant, he immediately turned his head, but did not 
hit the direction with his gaze ; sought for it, and, when 
it was found, held it fast. From this time forth he fol- 
lowed with a more animated look, much more accurate- 
* Frau von Strumpell. 
f E. Schulte. THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
48 
ly, even without movements of the head, an outstretched 
hand not in rapid motion. When the hand was moved 
very quickly, however, the eye did not follow at all 
(thirteenth week). What the child seemed to like best 
of all to follow with his eyes, was a person walking 
back and forth in the room; he would turn the head 
more than ninety degrees, and look attentively after the 
moving figure (fourteenth week). 
On the one hundred first day a pendulum, which 
was making just forty complete oscillations to the min- 
ute, was for the first time followed surely and with ma- 
chine-like regularity. This proves that less than three 
eighths of a second is needed for the lateral movement 
of the eye. But for the present such quick movements 
are not preferred. When, in the sixteenth week, the 
infant went with us on a journey by rail, he directed his 
gaze, not at the images that were swiftly passing by the 
windows, but persistently and attentively at the sides and 
ceiling of the carriage, and (after our arrival) at the 
new, motionless objects in the room into which he was 
brought. The persistent gazing at the ceiling with 
head leaning back, peculiar to many infants, was espe- 
cially frequent at this time and in the nineteenth week 
(p. 43). Yet it is becoming easier for him all the time 
to follow objects moved quickly. When I have been oc- 
cupied with the child, if I suddenly get up to leave the 
room, the child always turns his head round exactly to- 
ward me very quickly, and looks after me with great 
eyes, one might almost say with thoughtful, inquiring 
eyes (fifth month). But it was not till the twenty-ninth 
week that I saw the child look distinctly, beyond all 
doubt, after a sparrow flying by. SIGHT. 
49 
But a much longer time passed before objects thrown 
on the floor, playthings which had served to amuse for 
a time, were followed with the eyes. Inasmuch as the 
point concerned here is of a discovery made afresh by 
every individual human being, viz., that bodies are 
heavy, and fall if they are not supported, I directed 
my attention particularly to this, and I give here 
some observations concerning it in the case of my 
child : 
30th week.—The child very often lets fall to the 
floor objects held a short time in the hand, but up to 
this time he has not once looked after them. 
31st week.—If the child sees or hears anything fall, 
he sometimes turns his gaze in the direction where the 
fall took place. 
33d week.—The falling and letting fall of an object 
make no impression, although objects moved slowly 
downward are followed with especially close gaze of 
both eyes. 
31fth week.—The child but rarely looks after an ob- 
ject that falls out of his hand. 
36th week.—Objects thrown to the ground are not 
yet followed by the child regularly, or with any expres- 
sion of attention, whereas he fixes his gaze with the 
greatest interest on any slowly-moving objects that he 
can hold in view, e. g., tobacco-smoke. 
Ifid week.—The child looks after objects thrown on 
the floor, oftentimes as if in wonder. 
Iflth week.—The child throws down objects of all 
sorts that are put into his hands, after busying himself 
with them some moments, and frequently looks after 
them. Once he threw a book on the floor eight times 50 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
in succession, with eager attention, which was manifest- 
ed by the protruding of the lips. 
63d-65th weeks.—Very often the child throws down 
objects that displease him, or with which he has played 
awhile, and generally looks after them. 
78th week.—The throwing away of playthings is 
rare (giving up of the habit). 
week.—Throwing the ball, of all plays, yields 
by far the greatest pleasure, and the gaze follows the 
ball with special precision. 
The knowledge that bodies are heavy would begin, 
according to this, in my child, with the forty-third week, 
when for the first time the fall of an object previously 
held in his own hand causes astonishment. It would 
be interesting to know how it is with other children in 
this respect. Darwin observed that a child, even in the 
eighth month, could not properly follow with his gaze 
an object swinging only moderately fast: on the other 
hand, at the age of thirty-two days, this child perceived 
his mother’s breast three or four inches away ; for with- 
out touching it he protruded his lips, and his eyes were 
“fixed” (cf. p. 32), just as happened on the forty-ninth 
day at sight of a brightly-colored tassel, which made him 
stop moving his arms when it appeared in the field of 
vision. 
6. Seeing Near and Distant Objects. 
The approach of the flame of a candle or of a shining 
metallic surface to the face of an infant that has not yet 
moved its eyes, produces, in the first two to six weeks, 
convergence of the lines of vision and strabismus. 
This convergence seems to be associated with a strain of 
the muscle of accommodation, as Genzmer ascertained SIGHT. 
51 
by observation of the lens-images. He examined one 
eye while the other was alternately brightly lighted and 
shaded, and he concludes that a previously-formed con- 
nection exists between the position of convergence and 
the strain of accommodation. This conjecture is, in 
fact, very probable. For the ante-natal existence of the 
reflex arc from the optic nerve to the motor oculi is 
proved by the contraction of the pupil exposed to light 
immediately after birth. Now, the motor oculi, 
through the excitement of which the pupil is contracted, 
is also the nerve of accommodation, which strains the 
ciliary muscle when near objects are seen, and is at the 
same time the nerve which supplies the internal rectus 
muscle of the eye and so the muscle of convergence. 
When a bright object approaches the eye, accord- 
ingly, through the mere excitement of the motor oculi 
from the retina outward, the whole machinery of adap- 
tation, accommodation, and convergence is at once set 
in action. Contraction of the pupil, thickening of the 
lens, and looking inward, occur together when a light is 
brought near the child, without justifying the suppo- 
sition of the least choice or intention in the case, solely 
through the reflex excitement of the motor oculi from 
the optic nerve outward. At any rate, vision is intro- 
duced through the concurrence of these three processes 
with the sensation of brightness. Indistinct as the mus- 
cular sensation of the ciliary and convergence muscle 
may be, it will associate itself with the sensation of 
light the more perceptibly the oftener a bright object 
approaches the eye. The contraction of the pupil, more- 
over, does not invariably take place along with conver- 
gence in the newfly-born (p.38). THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
52 
But thus far the conditions are not fulfilled for 
securing a sharply-defined image on the retina, nor if 
such an image were to arise could the object be distinctly 
seen as a bounded surface. 
For, as to the first point, it is evident that only 
seldom does the flame of the candle (or any bright ob- 
ject whatever) come directly within the distance at 
which the child’s eye sees plainly. The infant seems 
to recognize distinctly, earliest of all, the face of his 
mother or nurse, since this is light, pictures itself often- 
est on his retina, and is at the same time so near that it 
comes most frequently within the range of distinct vis- 
ion. In this way the difference between a faint retinal 
image (of objects distant or too near) and sharply-defined 
images is impressed upon the child. The diffusion 
circles must assert themselves less when the moder- 
ately bright object is at a certain small remove from 
the eye; at all other distances they make their ap- 
pearance. 
As to the second point, it is certain that in the first 
days or weeks, even if the diffusion images should be 
utterly wanting, still the form of the object can not be 
plainly seen ; the only distinct sensation is that of bright- 
ness. All experiences with people born blind, but after 
some years operated on successfully, point in this direc- 
tion. And although learning to see is with such persons 
a different thing from what it is with normal infants, 
because the long repose of the central organs of the 
sense of sight causes a partly quicker, partly slower, 
functional development of these, yet no radical essen- 
tial difference between the two developments of the 
process of sight can be established if the operation is SIGHT. 
53 
performed during childhood. Even the experiences of 
space gained through seizing and touching can not be 
directly made available at the first attempt at accommo- 
dation by one born blind and gaining sight late in life. 
By him, as by the infant, among the countless retinal im- 
ages must be preferred above all others, those which are 
of moderate brightness and those in which the diffusion 
circles amount to a minimum. For very great bright- 
ness is disagreeable, like every over-strong nerve excite- 
ment, and the dark involves a weaker nerve excitement 
than the moderately bright, and thus seems less adapted 
to arouse the attention of the eye. Of the images of 
medium intensity of light, that which is sharply defined 
is observed before all others, for the reason that this one, 
apart from the pleasurable feeling it causes, is distin- 
guished from all others—precisely through its sharp 
outlines—the relative position is better ascertained, and 
the object is more easily recognized when seen again. 
Thus when the retinal images all appear together the 
brighter and sharper ones are preferred; these impress 
themselves first and most enduringly upon children, the 
others being consequently neglected. In this way the 
function of accommodation is set in operation. Then the 
eye can fixate, one after another, objects that are at un- 
equal distances from it. 
Still the step, from the reflex accommodation at the 
approach of an object to the eye in repose to the volun- 
tary accommodation at the sight of two unequally dis- 
tant objects, remains obscure. Probably it is first taken 
upon the ground of a logical process, after the child has 
moved himself, or at least his head and his arms, toward 
the object. Then first will the knowledge dawn upon 54 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
him, “ I do not need to be nearer the object in order to 
see it plainly.” 
This experience can not, however, be turned to ac- 
count before the development of the power of choice. 
For “ fixation ” is the voluntary bringing of an illumi- 
nated point on the place of clearest vision, the yellow 
spot, to a distinct image. The child that for the first 
time gazes at the flame of the candle has no power of 
choice; for him, therefore, fixation is not possible. He 
simply stares spell-bound by the new sensation. 
Binocular fixation must, however, be inexact long 
after the first voluntary act of accommodation, because 
irregular movements of the eyes are still frequent. Fix- 
ation, properly speaking, does not in any case take place 
before the day on which for the first time a moving ob- 
ject is voluntarily followed with the gaze—not before 
the close of the third month (according to my observa- 
tions and those of Cuignet). 
But for a long time after this critical point, the per- 
ception of objects unequally distant from the eye, as also 
the estimate of distances, remains imperfect. How 
slowly the third dimension of space gets established in 
perception, in spite of daily practice, appears from the 
following observations, separated by great intervals of 
time, made in regard to my boy, whose sight was after- 
ward very keen. 
In the ninth week the apparatus of accommodation 
was already in action. At least I inferred so, from the 
fact that, while head and eyes were motionless and the 
amount of light remained unvarying in good daylight, 
the pupils expanded and contracted alternately several 
times, although this was done also even when my face SIGHT. 
55 
remained at the same distance from that of the child. 
He was evidently experimenting here, letting his eyes 
converge more and less strongly, allowing my face to 
become distinct and less distinct before them. 
17th week.—Objects accidentally seized are moved 
toward the eyes. The child often grasps at objects 
which are twice the length of his arm away from him; 
indeed, at the same object several times in succession. 
18th week.—Reaching too short for the distance is 
very frequent. 
hhth week.—Rew objects are no longer, as was the 
case earlier, carried to the eyes (and to the mouth), or, 
at any rate, only rarely; on the other hand, they are at- 
tentively regarded and felt with the hands, the mouth 
being pursed. When the child regards a stranger near 
him (in the seventh month) his countenance takes on 
an expression of the greatest astonishment, mouth and 
eyes being wide open, all the muscles becoming sud- 
denly rigid in the exact position they were last in. The 
new retinal image must therefore be quite clear, to be 
so easily distinguished from other retinal images of hu- 
man faces—i. e., the accommodation is perfect. 
Jflth week.—Playing with a single hair (a woman’s), 
on which the eyes were long fixed, proves the same 
thing. 
51st week.—Some men sawing wood, at a distance of 
more than one hundred feet, attract the attention of the 
child and give him pleasure. His sight, therefore, is 
keen at a distance, as it is for near objects. But that 
things plainly seen are at unequal distances he has not 
yet comprehended ; for, in the— 
58th week.—The child grasped again and again, with 56 
TIIE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
great perseverance, at a lamp in the ceiling of a railway- 
carriage in which he was passing some hours, and was 
unusually merry over it. 
68th week.—He continues to come short, very often, 
in his attempts to seize objects; he also reaches too far 
to the left or to the right, and too high and too low. 
96th week.—I stood at the window in the second 
story and threw a piece of paper to the child, who was 
in the garden below. He picked it up, looked at it, and 
held it toward me a long time, with uplifted arm, ex- 
pressing his desire that I should take it—a convincing 
proof how little he appreciates distance. 
108th week.—Looking at small photographic like- 
nesses of persons known to him, the child at once knows 
whom they represent; he must, therefore, have good 
power of accommodation, since only in well-defined 
retinal images can be perceived the differences, often 
slight, by which human faces are recognized. 
113th week.—Articles of household furniture known 
to the child are also recognized at once when represented 
in the picture-book, and at a distance of three inches, 
and of three feet. 
It follows from these observations that the accom- 
modation is perfect long before the perception of dis- 
tance begins—i. e., the child is able to see plainly ob- 
jects at very unequal distances from the eye without 
knowing how unlike their distance is, nay, even without 
any knowledge of their being at unequal distances. He 
becomes acquainted with distance only at a later period, 
probably through the movement of his body toward the 
object seen, and through the failure of his attempts to 
seize what lies at a distance. SIGHT. 
57 
Yet, for all children, probably the correct estimate 
of distance is first established by this very act of seizing, 
because in this there is abundant experience, the num- 
ber of the attempts being great. On the contrary, by 
the act of offering things to others a correct estimate of 
distance is not formed till much later, because there is 
a lack of experience at the beginning. Giving makes 
its appearance much later than taking. 
In any case the child is much longer in getting his 
bearings in space, even after he has the power of visual 
accommodation, than are many animals, e. g., the chicken, 
which, after a few hours, correctly perceives the dis- 
tance of a grain of corn at which it pecks (p. 67). The 
human being must infer, by a roundabout way, from 
many individual experiences, the third dimension of 
space, whereas those animals inherit a nervous mechan- 
ism which makes this appear by no means a thing to be 
learned. In man, right and left, over and under, are 
given by means of the arms and legs, as these are sepa- 
rated from one another ; but extent from before to be- 
hind is not thus given, because the child does not see or 
feel itself behind. For the knowledge of extent from 
front to rear, i. e., of the dimension of depth, there is 
need of movements, especially of seizing; hence, this is 
not acquired until later. 
The old, much-mooted question, whether the child 
supposes the objects it first sees distinctly (but not yet 
as at unequal distances from the eye) to be in the eye 
or outside of it, is answered by John Stuart Mill (1859), 
according to the Berkeleyan theory of space-perception, 
for he says that a person born blind and suddenly en- 
abled to see would at first have no conception of in or 58 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
out, and would be conscious of colors only, not of ob- 
jects. When, by his sense of touch, he became ac- 
quainted with obj’ects, and had time to associate men- 
tally the objects he touched with the colors he saw, then, 
and not till then, would he begin to see objects. 
The correctness of this view is shown by all the 
earlier and later reports of oculists in regard to blind 
children who learn to see after being operated upon. 
The same thing is true of newly-born children that have 
their sight; for, whenever two impressions belonging to 
different departments of the senses occur together in 
our experience, then from the presence of the one we 
infer the other. The knowledge of outness is hence 
much earlier awakened and established than that of the 
unequal distances of objects from the eye. “ At the 
age at -which a child first learns that a diminution in 
brightness and in apparent magnitude implies increase 
of distance, the child’s ideas of tangible extension and 
magnitude are not faint and faded, but fresh and vigor- 
ous.” In the beginning, how’ever, the perception of 
distance, as well as perception by touch, does not exist 
at all, and the former is still utterly lacking when the 
latter has reached a comparatively advanced stage. For 
the experiences with persons born blind that have after- 
ward learned to see, show that some of these patients 
supposed the objects seen to be touching their eyes, as 
objects felt touch the skin. Here Stuart Mill is quite 
correct in saying, “ That the objects touched their eyes 
was a mere supposition which the patients made, be- 
cause it was wTith their eyes that they perceived them.” 
From their experiences of touch, perception of an object 
and contact with it were indissolubly associated in their SIGHT. 
59 
minds. The patient would certainly not say, however, 
that all objects seemed to touch his eyes, if some of them 
appeared farther off than others. Cases of this sort, 
therefore, fully prove that children are at first incapable 
of seeing things at unequal distances. But because the 
patients show great zeal in learning to judge of impres- 
sions of sight by means of the sense of touch, they must 
also learn to judge of distances. 
One question more belongs here: Are newly-born 
children oftener myopic (near-sighted) or hypermetropic 
(far-sighted) ? 
We have the observations of Von Jager (1861) and 
of Ely concerning the eyes of the newly-born and of 
infants, but these observations are in part contradictory. 
The first observer is of opinion that the configuration 
of the eye in the earliest days is myopic, there being an 
inborn prolongation of the axis of the eye, which lasts, 
however, but a few weeks. Evidence of this he found 
also in measurements made in post-mortem examinations. 
Tie maintains, on the evidence of his ophthalmoscopic 
and anatomical investigations, that at the beginning the 
adjustment for shorter distances prevails, but in the more 
matured child the adjustment for greater distances (in 
the early years). Ely, on the contrary, who (1880) tested 
newly-born children and infants of a few weeks (living 
children only) with the ophthalmoscope, making use of 
belladonna (whereby a higher per cent can be obtained 
for inborn hypermetropia, as he himself remarks), found 
that emmetropia, myopia, and hypermetropia are all in- 
nate, with a preponderance of the last condition. Konig- 
stein, who examined nearly three hundred children, states 
that the eye of the child is probably hypermetropic ex- 60 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
clusively (1881). Renewed observations, without the 
use of belladonna, are desirable, though they are, of 
course, attended with great difficulties. 
I saw the eyes of my child, on the twelfth day of 
his life, shine very brightly (both pupils dark-red) when 
the flame of a candle was behind my head at one side. 
This glow of the eye indicates hypermetropia at that 
time. Later, this child’s eyes became emmetropic. 
It can not be without influence on the whole mental 
development of the child whether he distinctly sees near 
objects only, or distant ones also, in the first years of his 
life, but there is as yet a lack of data for estimating this 
influence. 
One thing only I would lay down as settled, viz., 
that the protracted occupation of little children with 
fine work, such as the pricking of paper, the placing and 
drawing through of threads, etc.—notwithstanding the 
fact that these exercises are warmly recommended in 
the so-called Kindergartens of Germany, and are prac- 
ticed daily for a long time—must be injurious to the 
eyes. The prolonged strain of looking at near objects 
is for children from three to six years old, even in the 
best light, unqualifiedly harmful. All strain of atten- 
tion to near objects in the evening, wdien lamp-light must 
be used, should especially be forbidden, otherwise the 
apparatus of accommodation will get a one-sided use too 
early, and near-sightedness will be invited. 
7. The Interpretation of what is Seen. 
Many suppose that the infant, if he distinguishes 
at all any individual visible thing, sees “ all objects as 
if painted upon a fiat surface ”—that he has as yet no SIGHT. 
61 
conception of anything external, existing outside of his 
eye; at any rate, no suspicion that anything moves to- 
ward him; that his seeing seems to be at this time 
merely a dim sense of light and of darkness; the finger 
appears to him only as a dark patch in a bright field of 
vision, and does not project in relief from the surface 
of the picture.* 
In opposition to this I must contend—while I agree 
with the view in relation to the newly-born and the first 
days of life—that in the second quarter of the first year, 
when this is also said to hold good, there must be al- 
ready something more than a mere “dim sense of light 
and dark.” For, in the first place, the convergence of 
the lines of vision exists much earlier; so that the at- 
tention is directed to individual points in the field of 
vision. Secondly, the glance of both eyes follows mov- 
ing objects much earlier, though not voluntarily. Third- 
ly, it is early announced, by exclamations of pleasure 
and displeasure over single objects held before the face, 
that the discovery has been made of the demarcation in 
space of the changing fields, colored, or dark and light, 
in the visual plane. 
Withal a considerable time elapses before the child 
is capable of interpreting the colored, light and dark, 
large and small, disappearing and reappearing mosaics 
■—before he can understand and appreciate, before he 
ceases to wonder at transparency and luster, reflection 
and shadow. In this the normal babe is inferior, in 
learning to see, to the person born blind but gaining 
* Sigismund’s work on “The Child and the World” (“Kind und 
Welt”), 1856. 62 
THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. 
sight through a surgical operation; the latter learns 
much more rapidly to interpret the field of vision, by 
reason of his more abundant experiences of touch. 
Some of my observations concerning the interpreta- 
tion of the more common retinal impressions of the 
child, made at various times, may be brought together 
here for illustration. 
6 th month.—When I nod with a pleasant look to 
my child, he laughs with unmistakable signs of pleasure, 
moving his arms up and down. (When strangers accost 
him, however, he does not do this.) Once he observed 
my image in the mirror, became very attentive, and 
suddenly turned around toward me as if he were about 
to compare the image in the glass with the original, 
or wished to convince himself of the doubling of the 
face. 
7th month.—The infant stares at a strange face near 
him fully a minute, and longer, with eyes fixed and 
with an expression of the greatest astonishment: he 
therefore interprets it at once as something strange. 
8th month.—The greatest interest is aroused by bot- 
tles—nursing-bottles, wine-bottles, and bottles for water. 
They are “ fixated ” with a protracted gaze; the child 
wants them, and they are recognized even at a distance 
of two or three metres. The interest is to be explained 
by the circumstance that the child now gets his nourish- 
ment from the bottle, which he takes hold of several 
times a day and sees near by. For this reason he recog- 
nizes objects like it in the field of vision more easily 
than other objects (except human faces). 
9th month.—Just as it is with bottles that resemble 
nursing-bottles, so it is now with boxes that resemble an SIGHT. 
63 
infant’s powder-box; these are gazed at fixedly, and are 
desired, with outstretched arms and wide-open eyes. 
More and more, however, the child shows his interest in 
other things and occurrences in his neighborhood; in 
particular, he turns his head quickly toward the door 
when it is opened or shut, and observes attentively new 
objects that he holds, or that are moving, for a longer 
time than formerly. 
10th month.—Visual impressions that are connected 
with food are, however, most quickly and surely inter- 
preted correctly. The child follows the preparation of 
his food with lips protruded and with wide-open, glis- 
tening, eager eyes. 
11th month.—When the child is awake he hardly 
remains quiet a moment; is always moving the eyes 
hither and thither, and in like manner the head, while 
he tries to fixate with his gaze every one who comes in 
or goes by. 
If these facts in regard to isolated sight-impressions 
show an early faculty of perception by the eye, since 
faces, bright and large moving objects, are soon distin- 
guished from other parts of the field of vision and are 
easily recognized again, yet the following facts, although 
they come from a still later period, prove how far from 
correctly new impressions are interpreted. 
15 th month.—The child grasped repeatedly at the 
lighted candle, but not far enough to reach it, and when 
he was near enough put his hand into the flame; but 
never again afterward. 
16th month.—In the bath the child grasps at the 
jets of water that flow’ from his head when the sponge 
is squeezed upon it, as if these were strings. He tries 64 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
to catch them in his fingers in a pretty way, and seems 
surprised at his failure. 
17th month.—The child grasped, at various times, 
generally with a laugh, at some tobacco-smoke a few 
feet away from him, bent his fingers and exerted him- 
self to seize the smoke, which floated between him and 
a lamp. Only imperfect conceptions are formed, then, 
even yet, of the distance and the substantiality of ob- 
jects. 
18th month.—At the unexpected sight of a tall man 
dressed in black, the child becomes suddenly still, stares 
at the man about a minute, flees to his father and gazes, 
motionless, at the tall figure. Immediately after the 
man had withdrawn, the child said atta, and was unre- 
strainedly merry and loud as before. 
Here an unexpected visual impression had evidently 
caused anxiety, without any assignable reason, for the 
man whose appearance the child did not know how to 
interpret was friendly toward him. It was not till the 
end of his second year that the child ceased to be so 
easily embarrassed by strangers in black dress. 
month.—New impressions seem to enchain his 
attention in increased degree; the mysterious grows 
more and more attractive. 
month.—The child observes very attentively 
animals that are moving, even the slowly - creeping 
snail and the beetle. These objects, easily followed 
with the eye, appear not to be at all understood, to 
judge from the inquiring expression of countenance. 
The child is surprisingly tender with them, almost 
timid. 
At this period the understanding of actions, and of SIGHT. 
65 
the use of all sorts of utensils, is further developed than 
the ability to interpret representations of them, al- 
though an inexhaustible fancy in play has been mani- 
fested a long time already in various ways. Sigismund’s 
child, at the end of the second year, understood a circle 
as representing a plate, a square as a bonbon, and had in 
his twenty-first month recognized the shadow of his 
father, of which he was at first afraid, as a picture, for 
he pointed at it joyously, crying “ Papa! ” Much later 
than this my boy called a square, window ; a triangle, 
roof; a circle, ring ; four points, little birds. 
Not till after the third year is the ability to repre- 
sent known objects, even by lines on paper or by cut- 
ting out, manifested. Before this the child wants to 
“ write,” raiwe (schreiben), i. e., to draw; and thinks 
that by all sorts of marks he is representing a locomo- 
tive, a horse, a spoon, a plate, a bottle; but does not 
succeed without help. I have had information of one 
child only that, in its fourth year, without instruction, 
could cut animals out of paper with the scissors (giraffes, 
greyhounds, horses, lions, camels, fishes) in such a fash- 
ion, and draw them so on the slate with a pencil, that 
everybody knew at once what the lines inclosed (even in 
the case where he had sketched a man sitting). Such a 
talent is very rare, and indicates an inherited sense of 
form. An average child can not, before the end of the 
third year, draw an approximately circular line return- 
ing upon itself. This boy of three and a half years, 
however, bites animals out of bread, draws them with a 
stick in the sand, models them in clay, sees animal 
forms in the clouds, and devotes himself to his art with 
the greatest perseverance for months, without direction, 66 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
without the least stimulus from parents or brothers and 
sisters.* 
The surprisingly persistent desire of my boy (in his 
thirtieth month), repeated daily (often several times in 
the day), to “ write ” locomotives, Locopotwoe raiben (he 
meant “ draw ”), sprang from his seeing locomotives fre- 
quently. These objects interested him in a remarkable 
degree in his third and fourth years, evidently because 
greater changes in the field of vision excite the special 
attention of the infant very early, on account of the 
great number of optical nerve-fibers excited by the 
change of light and dark. In the country the locomo- 
tive is one of the largest moving objects. It also moves 
swifter than horses. That this, the largest moving mass 
perceived, became the most interesting of all, as was the 
case with the steamer on the sea, seems therefore nat- 
ural. 
As to the rest I have not been able to determine in 
what way little children represent to themselves such 
movements. Many regarded the locomotive as tired 
when it stood still, as thirsty when its tank was filling 
with water, as a stove when it was heated; or they were 
afraid of every steam-engine near them, so long as it 
was in operation. 
8. Sight in Newly-born Animals. 
The perfection of sight in quite young fowls, with- 
out experience, is astonishing as compared with the in- 
complete development of this sense in new-born human 
beings. Let their eyes be kept shut, without injuring 
* Frau Dr. Friedemann. SIGHT. 
67 
them, from one to three days, and, in many cases, within 
two minutes after the removal of the bandage, they will 
follow the movements of creeping insects with all the 
accuracy of old fowls. Within from two to fifteen min- 
utes they peck at any object, estimating the distance with 
almost infallible accuracy. If the object is out of reach, 
they will run to it and hit it every time, so to speak, for 
they never miss by more than a hair’s breadth, even 
when the kernel of grain at which they pecked is no 
larger than the smallest dot of the letter i ; seizing at 
the moment of pecking is a more difficult operation. 
Although an insect is sometimes caught with the bill 
and swallowed at the first attempt, they generally peck 
five or six times, and pick up crumbs once or twice, 
before they succeed in swallowing food for the first 
time. So Spalding reports. 
His statements hold good, also, according to my ob- 
servations, for fowls one day old, not bandaged but kept 
in the dark one day; these, without mother or compan- 
ions, at once find their way of themselves wherever 
they are, in the incubator or on the table in the labora- 
tory. But I can not admit the supposed infallibility to 
within a hair’s breadth. They miss in pecking by as 
much as two millimetres, though seldom. On the other 
hand, the attempts at swallowing frequently fail. Here 
it should be considered that even grown fowls are not 
sure in their pecking, seizing, or swallowing, as any one 
that observes closely may easily perceive. The accuracy 
is, however, marvelous at the very beginning. A duck- 
ling of a day old snapped at a fly that was just flying by, 
and caught it; a turkey of only a day and a half directed 
its bill, after the manner of the elders of its race, atten- 68 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
tively and deliberately, at flies and other small insects. 
(Spalding.) 
Many new-born mammals have likewise in the very 
first hours of life the ability to move not only the head 
but the whole body toward a visual impression—e. g., 
young pigs. Spalding bandaged the eyes of two pigs 
just born. One of these was brought immediately to 
the mother; it soon found the teats and began to suck. 
Six hours afterward the other was placed at a short dis- 
tance from the mother. It found her in half a minute, 
after going about in a rather unsteady manner. After a 
half-minute more it found the teats. In both cases smell 
and taste must, therefore, have determined the direc- 
tion of the movement; in the last case probably hearing 
also. But it is not expressly stated whether the mother 
made her voice heard. On the following day it ap- 
peared that the one of the young ones that had been 
left with the mother no longer had on the bandage. 
The other was wholly unable to see, but walked about, 
bumping against things. In the afternoon the bandage 
was taken off. Then the creature ran about as if it had 
already been able to see before it was bandaged. Ten 
minutes later it was hardly to be distinguished from 
another young one that had enjoyed the use of its eyes 
without interruption. “ Placed on a chair, it saw that 
the height required considering,” knelt down and 
jumped off. After ten minutes more this animal was 
placed, together with another, twenty feet from the 
sty. Both got to their mother in five minutes, at the 
same instant. 
If, in the last-mentioned experiment, smell and hear- 
ing not being excluded, imitation of the animal whose SIGHT. 
69 
sight has not been interrupted is possible to the one 
that has been for only twenty minutes able to see, yet 
the very remarkable fact of the jumping down from the 
chair after the previous kneeling must be based on an 
act of sight. The operation of estimating distance, 
however imperfect it be in the brain of an animal not 
yet two days old, and not able to see till within ten 
minutes before jumping down, proves that even thus 
early the third dimension of space comes to conscious- 
ness through the eye, as the result of retinal impres- 
sions, otherwise the animal would not have knelt 
before jumping. Now, since it had hitherto had no 
sight-perceptions, and in those ten minutes none that 
gave occasion for jumping, the association of retinal ex- 
citement, estimate of distance, muscular movement for 
kneeling and for the jumping that followed, must be 
inherited. For no one would attribute to a pig so 
young, blind ten minutes before, such a gift of inven- 
tion, as to initiate, out of independent deliberation, 
a proceeding so rational and so well adapted to its pur- 
pose. The animal jumps because its ancestors have 
jumped countless times without waiting long or esti- 
mating carefully the distance. A human infant does 
not possess this association of retinal excitement and co- 
ordinated muscular movement. It moves without pur- 
pose and falls from the chair. The young Guinea-pig, 
on the other hand, does not jump and does not fall by 
accident, but lets itself drop, as I have often proved. 
Kids kneel and see on the first day of life, without 
any example for imitation and without guidance, yet 
quickly and efficiently. I have seen them suck in this 
manner before they were twenty-two hours old. They 70 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
stride rather awkwardly up to the mother, snuff at her 
teats, kneel down and suck, wagging their tails continu- 
ally and pushing with their heads. 
In the human being so many more associations of 
sight with co-ordinated muscular movements are pos- 
sible than in the brute at the moment of birth, that it 
takes a longer growth after birth for these all to be de- 
veloped. 
Not before the sixth week, as O. Binswanger has dis- 
covered, are fully-formed ganglionic cells present in the 
human cerebrum, and at the same period are first de- 
veloped the cerebral convolutions, according to the in- 
vestigations of Sernoff. Therefore, not only does the 
human brain continue to grow after birth, but it differ- 
entiates itself after birth, not before; since not until the 
second month does it receive its characteristic morpho- 
logical marks. 
Such complicated mechanisms of associations as those 
mentioned can not be developed before birth, because too 
many other established inherited mechanisms go along 
with them. They are all present potentially, but which 
of them finally become most easily operative depends on 
experience—i. e., on provocation from without, the more 
or less often repeated treading of the separate paths of 
association in the cere bro-spin al system. In other words, 
the child learns much more than the animal. 
The philosopher, Eduard von Hartmann, as early as 
1872, used the following striking language with refer- 
ence to this difference: “ The human child seems to 
bring nothing at all with him, but to learn everything; 
in reality, however, he brings everything, or at any rate 
far more than does the lower animal that creeps all com- SIGHT. 
71 
plete out of the egg; but he brings everything in an 
immature condition, because there is in him so much to 
be developed that in the nine months of embryonic life 
it can only be prefigured in the germ. So, then, in the 
progressive development of the infant brain the matur- 
ing of tendencies goes hand in hand with learning—i. e., 
with the modification of these tendencies by exercise; 
and the result is far richer and finer than can be attained 
in the brutes by mere inheritance.” ■ 
The superiority of the animal, which utilizes at once 
its retinal excitations for its own advantage in jumping, 
is thus merely an apparent one, for it lacks the aptitude 
to learn other ways of utilizing experiences. This utili- 
zation may be conceived of as an inherited logical pro- 
cess—i. e., as instinctive ; since the animal is born more 
mature than the human being, it is, unconsciously, earlier 
capable of performance such as the human being learns 
later through individual experience and accomplishes 
only with consciousness. 
The same holds true of the association of seeing and 
touching, seeing and seizing, and other associations of 
which we have yet to speak. 
Still, it is not to be denied that in man also the at- 
tainment of complicated combinations of this sort—of 
movements of the muscles of the eye and the arm upon 
receiving certain sense-impressions—is essentially assist- 
ed by inherited endowment. The muscular movements 
fall into the required groove without imitation the more 
quickly, in proportion as these have been the habitual 
combinations in the life of the race. 72 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
CHAPTER II. 
HEARING. 
The observations concerning the gradual develop- 
ment of the faculty of hearing in early childhood relate 
to the deafness of newly-born children—which is nor- 
mally of only short duration—and to the babe’s first 
sensations and perceptions of sound. Then follow some 
statements concerning the hearing of new-born animals. 
1. The Deafness of the Newly-born. 
All children immediately after birth are deaf. It 
was formerly conjectured merely that the reason why 
the new-born child can not hear is the filling of the 
cavity of the tympanum with mucus, and that this 
deafness lasts until the cavity is emptied. 
It is now settled that the temporary deafness is occa- 
sioned, also, and chiefly, by the lack of air in the cavity 
before respiration. 
Several investigators have found in the middle ear 
of the foetus a yellowish liquid, others a peculiar ge- 
latinous substance. Gelle thinks that the latter comes 
from a strong oedematous infiltration of the mucous 
membrane of that part, and has its place supplied soon 
after birth with air, by means of the respiratory move- 
ments, after it has become liquid—as he proved that it 
does become, shortly before birth. He found in a cat, 
half an hour after birth, both tympanic cavities filled 
with air, and no remaining trace of the gelatinous magma. HEARING. 
73 
The animal had cried out, and its lungs contained a good 
deal of air. 
The question how far this gelatinous tissue, hyper- 
semia and swelling of the mucous membrane of the 
tympanic cavity, a sub-epithelial layer of the membrane, 
fill up the tympanic cavity before the first respiration, 
is not yet decisively answered. Neither has the point 
of time been ascertained, after how many respirations 
the Eustachian tube, in the human being, is permeable. 
Probably the advent of respiration is not alone suffi- 
cient to accomplish the emptying of the tympanic cavi- 
ties after birth and the filling of them with air; rather 
are repeated swallowing and breathing essential to it, 
and a few respirations are not sufficient, as Lesser proved, 
to replace with air the liquid contents of the tympanic 
cavity of the foetus, or to change their character. Only 
after several hours’ respiration can air be proved to 
exist in the middle ear along with the liquid; but Lesser 
found that the rapidity with which the liquid gave place 
to air did not sustain a constant relation to the duration 
of the extra-uterine existence. As Lesser examined forty- 
two new-born human beings, of whom thirteen were 
still-born, sixteen had lived a few minutes after birth, 
and thirteen had lived several hours or days, greater 
value is to be attributed to his results than to the iso- 
lated experiences of others. His results are of practical 
importance, and are especially remarkable in that they 
show that the fcetal condition of the middle ear in 
children prematurely born may persist more than twenty 
hours after birth. Such children, according to this, 
must be deaf somewhat longer than those born at the 
full time. 74 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
As to the rest, the old view of Scheel (1798), accord- 
ing to which the amniotic fluid comes directly into the 
middle ear before birth through the Eustachian tube, as 
the air does after birth, namely, through swallowing, is 
not improbable. And we can not help agreeing with 
him when he observes that because some of the amniotic 
fluid remains in the tympanic cavity during the first 
days after birth, a loud sound is less injurious to the 
organ of hearing than if the cavity were at once filled 
with air. The collection of fluid in the middle ear 
makes adults also hard of hearing. It was well said by 
Herholdt (1797): “ Experiments made on animals have 
convinced me that in the foetus the tympanic cavity is 
completely filled with mucus and amniotic fluid, which 
enters and is renewed through the Eustachian tube. So 
the remainder of the amniotic fluid and that in the 
tympanic cavity are in equilibrium and the tympanum 
is pressed equally from all sides. By this the tympanic 
cavity is relieved during the growth of the foetus from 
the obstacles that might stand in the way of its proper 
development, and the tender tympanic membrane is pro- 
tected from harm. After birth the liquor flows out 
slowly through the same channel, and the atmospheric 
air takes its place. Then first can the organs of hear- 
ing perform their functions, though not perfectly until 
their development has become complete and the bones 
of the head are firm and in reciprocal connection. The 
older physicians, who did not know this, dreamed of 
an hereditary or inborn atmosphere.” 
In accord with this are the investigations of Mol- 
denhauer and Von Troltsch (1880). The latter is of 
opinion that the hyperplastic mucous membrane, which HEARING, 
75 
in the foetus almost fills up, like a cushion, the aperture 
of the tympanic cavity, often shrinks together before 
birth; the mucous cushion may even disappear within 
the uterus, in which case something else must occupy 
its place, and this can only be the amniotic fiuid. 
Besides the lack of air in the tympanic cavity, there 
is also to be taken into account, as a cause of the deaf- 
ness of the human being at birth, the temporary closing 
of the external auditory canal, which is due, according 
to Urbantschitsch, not to epithelial agglutination, but to 
absolute contact of the coatings of the auditory canal. 
Many animals, also, but probably no birds, are for this 
reason deaf, or hard of hearing, directly after birth. So 
much the more surprising is the sensitiveness of others, 
e. g., of the Guinea-pig, of which something will be said 
by-and-by. 
If the tympanic cavity in the new-born child is al- 
ready filled with air, a deafness of half an hour, or of sev- 
eral hours, or even of several days, may be caused by the 
closing of the external auditory canal (the obstruction does 
not very quickly disappear), or by the narrowness of the 
canal. The difference in the results of observations ac- 
cording to which infants from one to three days some- 
times react distinctly upon the stimulus of sound, some- 
times ignore it completely, seems intelligible, however, 
if we only take into account the varying rapidity with 
which the Eustachian tube and the auditory canal are 
pervious to air, apart from all other obstacles, even pos- 
sible cerebral ones. On the other hand, I must posi- 
tively pronounce false the statements according to which 
children from three to four months old possess normally 
very slight capacity of hearing, and according to which 76 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
it is hard to give a decided opinion as to whether such 
children hear at all or not. My observations upon many 
infants and my information from trustworthy mothers 
leave no doubt that, long before the third month, in the 
normal condition, the human voice is heard ; and in 
fact mature and sound children before the close of the 
first week of life react, in unmistakable fashion, upon 
the stimulus of loud sound, as Dr. Kroner, of Breslau, 
also found. 
The longer continuance of difficulty of hearing is 
certainly of great advantage to the infant, as it stands in 
the way of the multiplication of reflex movements, and 
so of the tendency to convulsions. 
But if children born at the right time make no 
movement in the fourth week when a loud sound is made 
behind them, then there is reason to suspect that such 
children will remain deaf and dumb. 
2. The First Sensations and Perceptions of Sound. 
How many hours, days, or weeks after birth the very 
earliest sensations of sound are experienced it is not 
easy to determine very accurately, for the reason that 
an unmistakable sign that a sensation of sound has been 
experienced is lacking. Movements of the eyelids, 
starting, throwing up the arms, and screaming, which 
appear in the child at the stimulus of sudden loud sound, 
appear readily at fright caused by any strong impression, 
while slight noises and soft tones remain unnoticed. 
The turning of the head toward the invisible source of 
sound does not take place till later. 
Frequently-repeated attempts to test the ability of 
the newly-born to hear, leave no doubt that it is in- HEARING. 
77 
creased by exercise, and that an occasional temporary 
dullness occurs. But the experiments made thus far 
are too scanty and uncertain. 
Kussmaul could make the loudest discordant noises 
near the ears of new-born children during the first days, 
while they were awake, without any reaction on their 
part. Numerous experiments made by him in this di- 
rection had only a negative result. But he adds that 
another cautious observer, Feldbausch, has seen sleeping 
children more than three days old start when he broke 
the silence by clapping his hands hard. Champney’s 
child, on the contrary, did not react before the fourth 
week upon any noise, however loud, not even clapping 
of the hands, if there was no vibration of the room or 
of the bed. If a door was slammed-to, the child start- 
ed, just as it did directly after birth when the scales of 
the balance in which it lay suddenly sprang up. When 
fourteen days old, this child turned its eyes toward its 
mother when she spoke to it, but as it did not at that 
time stir at any noise, however loud, if there was no 
shaking, this turning may be attributed to the feeling 
of warmth at being breathed upon; for the movement 
took place only when the mother’s face was turned to- 
ward the babe, and it was presumably a movement of the 
head rather than of the eyes. 
Genzmer was the first to make experiments by 
measuring. He ascertained the greatest distances at 
which infants’ eyelids quivered at the striking of a little 
bell, which was done in just the same way always, with 
a small iron rod. It appeared that almost all children 
of one day, or certainly of two days, react upon impres- 
sions of sound, but their sense of hearing is, without 78 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
much reference to the degree of their maturity, at first 
unequal, and grows more acute within the first weeks. 
The average distance at which the striking of the bell 
was heard was found to be eight to ten inches, but the 
figures varied from one to twenty. In one case, that 
of a very active child, the distance on the first day was 
eight, on the sixth eighteen, on the twenty-fourth 
twenty-four inches ; with a phlegmatic child, the audi- 
tory reflexes were on the first day irregular, on the 
eighth they occurred at five, on the twenty-fourth at 
eleven inches distance from the bell. It may be seen 
from these figures how unequal the progress is. But 
as the sound could hardly be of exactly the same force 
in all the experiments, and as the quivering of the eye- 
lids is not caused by the stimulus of sound exclusively, 
and as not every sound-stimulus is responded to by a 
quiver of the eyelids, this whole series of experiments, 
limited to about thirty observations, on fifteen children, 
is uncertain. 
The observations of Dr. Moldenhauer likewise leave 
much that is doubtful, although his mode of proceeding 
is better. He made use, as a test of the hearing, of the 
French toy, cri-cri, which gives a loud, brief, disagree- 
able sound, with discordant high overtones. This sound 
continues almost exactly identical after many experi- 
ments, and can be made quite close to the ear without 
involving other stimulus. The most important result 
of this experiment was that, with very few exceptions, 
children distinctly reacted at once upon the sound- 
stimulus at the first trial. Yet the degree of the reac- 
tion was extraordinarily unequal in different individu- 
als, and in the same individuals on different days. Fifty HEARING. 
79 
children were tested. Of these only ten were less than 
twelve hours old (these all reacted), and only seven from 
twelve to twenty-four hours old, all the rest older. The 
least degree of reaction was indicated by a distinct 
quiver of the eyelids, even without interruption of 
sleep; a stronger degree by wrinkling of the forehead. 
Then came head-movements, mostly single short twist- 
ings of the head; finally, starting, accompanied by vio- 
lent quivering of the head, the arms, and the upper part 
of the body; sleeping children awoke and screamed. 
The reflexes occurred more plainly and more quickly 
after the end of the second day than on the first two 
days. In experiments that followed one another in 
quick succession, there was very often manifested a 
dullness, going as far as entire absence of reaction. 
Children sleeping soundly, and babes nursing, re- 
acted less distinctly than those awake or half asleep. 
Most children, then, even those born three or four 
weeks too early, respond in the first days to strong im- 
pressions of sound by reflex movements in the region 
of the facialis. The action of those just born, in the 
first five hours, was not investigated. The four young- 
est were six hours old, as the author tells me. Deaf- 
ness was in some few cases (four out of fifty) well es- 
tablished, even after more than twenty-four hours ; thus 
my observation that no reaction follows upon sound-im- 
pressions immediately after birth is not modified by 
this discovery. In fact, I saw a strong child, of ten 
hours, that did not react in the least upon the cri-cri, 
and I saw one of six days react very slightly. 
Moldenhauer found further that, of four children 
who were tested for the first time after more than 80 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
twenty-four hours and did not react, three did distinct- 
ly react in later repeated experiments in the same hour 
or on the following day. A child of three days did not 
react even at the second trial. 
When the bell that has been mentioned was struck 
by Genzmer softly, very near the ear of children that 
heard well (probably more than two days old), they 
sometimes turned the head to that side; if occupied 
with nursing, they broke off from their occupation. 
Very violent striking of the bell made them restless. I 
have likewise observed that infants are greatly dis- 
turbed by strong sound-stimulus, just as new-born ani- 
mals are ; e. g., the shrill whistle of a locomotive near by 
easily produces persistent lively movements and violent 
screaming in a child previously perfectly quiet. Not 
every infant, indeed, shows so strong a reaction, nor 
does any in the first hour of life. But on the ninth 
day the turning of the head (in my judgment accident- 
al) toward the source of sound was observed by Mol- 
denhauer. 
Too great a range is, however, commonly allowed 
for individual differences. When some children are re- 
ported as starting at loud sounds, even on the first day, 
others after three days, others again not till after eight 
weeks, there is reason to attribute the last statements to 
inaccurate observation, unless they apply only to those 
hard of hearing or prematurely born ; or, unless too 
deep sounds and unsuitable noises were employed. 
If a small tuning-fork, in vibration, warmed and 
carefully placed on the head, produces no other reaction 
than that produced by a fork not in vibration, similarly 
placed, we may infer that the inner ear has some share HEARING. 
81 
in the deafness of the newly-born. But such experi- 
ments must be made on many individuals. Molden- 
hauer got no definite result with tuning-forks on ac- 
count of the sensitiveness of the skin of the head. 
A very vigorous male child, born after his time, was 
seen by Dr. Deneke, in the lying-in asylum at Jena, six 
hours after birth, to close his eyes tighter every time 
the doctor struck two metallic covers together close to 
his ear. In this case, however, the reflex may have been 
started by the current of air arising from the sudden 
motion. A very strong new-born child, weighing nearly 
four and a quarter kilogrammes, did not react upon 
any noise, when I tested it half an hour after birth. 
That is the way all ordinary children behave just after 
birth. By ever so loud a noise, clapping of hands close 
to the ear, whistling, very loud screaming, they are not 
within the first half hour, according to my experiments, 
brought to screaming from a state of quiet, nor quieted 
if they are screaming. But they cry out if you blow 
on them, if you press softly on their temples, or strike 
them upon the thigh, after they have begun to breathe. 
Only there is a noticeably longer interval between the 
contact and the outcry than at a later period. 
I saw my child, in the twenty-first hour of life, 
move both arms symmetrically, at a loud call, but this 
is perhaps to be attributed to being breathed on; for 
clapping of hands, whistling, speaking, produced no 
result, and on the second and third days no reaction 
upon sound-stimulus could be induced. It was not until 
the first half of the fourth day that I was convinced 
that my child was no longer deaf. For hand-clapping, 
or whistling, close to him then produced sudden open- 82 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
ing of the half-shut eyes, as the child lay warm and 
satisfied with food, and to all appearance comfortable. 
As this result followed every time on repeated trials 
the fourth day, but not once on the third day, there 
can be no doubt that in this case the sound was heard 
by means of the tympanum on the fourth day, but not 
before. It also happened for the first time on the 
fourth day, and indeed several times, that the child 
when crying stopped as soon as I began to whistle close 
to him. This observation was made also upon babes of 
two and three days old. On the eleventh and twelfth 
days I noticed that my child became quiet always at 
the sound of my voice, which seemed also to call forth 
a sort of intense expression of countenance that, how- 
ever, can not be described. 
On the twenty-fifth day pulsation of the lids often 
followed when I spoke to the child in a low voice, stand- 
ing before and near him. On the following day he 
started suddenly when a dish that he could not see was 
noisily covered near him. He is frightened, then, al- 
ready, at unexpected loud sounds, as adults are. On the 
thirtieth day this fright was still more strongly mani- 
fested. I was standing before the child as he lay quiet, 
and being called, I said aloud, without changing my 
position, “Ja!” (yes). Directly the child threw both 
arms high up quickly, and made a convulsive start with 
the upper part of his body, while at the same time his 
expression, which had been one of contentment, became 
very serious. The same scene was enacted at another 
time on the slamming of a door. 
In the fifth week the sensibility to sound has in- 
creased to such a degree that the child seldom sleeps in HEARING. 
83 
the daytime if any one walks about or speaks in the 
room; whereas, so late as the seventh day, a loud call 
did not wake the sleeping child. The increased sensi- 
bility is also proved by the quick turnings of the head 
when any one sits on the child’s bed without being seen 
by him, and also by the starting at moderately loud 
noises. 
In the sixth week I noticed this starting at quite in- 
significant noises, even when the child was asleep and 
did not wake. About this time he could already be 
quieted at once, when he was screaming, by his mother’s 
singing. The first time this happened the child opened 
his eyes wide, evidently a symptom of astonishment at 
the new sensations of sound. On the following day, 
when his mother again quieted him by singing, he gazed 
at her with wide-open eyes (cf. p. 46), so that I already 
suspected he had associated the tones he heard with the 
oval of the face he saw, as is unquestionably the case 
with older children (e. g., of four months) when they 
laugh and utter joyous cries as soon as the mother sings 
anything to them. 
In the seventh week the fright at a loud sound was 
still greater than before. Dishes fell to the floor several 
times while the child was asleep. Instantly both arms 
went up swiftly, and remained for more than two 
minutes upright in that strange position with fingers 
outstretched and parallel, without the child’s waking. 
The attitude reminded one of the spreading of the wings 
of a frightened bird. There appears to be already a 
greater sensibility to tones, possibly to melodies, for an 
expression of the greatest satisfaction is perceived on 
the child’s face when his mother hushes him with cradle- 84 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
songs softly sung. It is worth noticing, also, that even 
when he is crying from hunger a low sing-song causes 
a pause in the crying and attracts attention. Speaking 
does not effect this invariably, by any means. 
In the eighth week the infant heard, for the first 
time, the music of an instrument—the piano. He made 
known his satisfaction at the new sensation by an un- 
usual straining of the eyes and by lively movements of 
arms and legs at every forte, as well as by smiles and 
laughter. The higher and softer tones made no such 
impression. This delight in music manifested itself in 
like manner in the following months, from which we 
may conclude that more than a year before the first im- 
perfect attempt at speech there is discrimination between 
(musical) sounds and noises. The child of two or of 
three months often utters sounds of satisfaction when it 
hears music. 
In the ninth week the sound of a repeating watch, 
wdiich had earlier produced not the least impression on 
the child, now aroused his attention to the highest pitch. 
But his head was not turned with certainty toward the 
source of sound, whereas he would follow a moving 
hand accurately. At every sudden noise, scream, call, 
tones, clapping of hands, there is a quick shutting and 
opening of the eyes, and very often the arms are at the 
same time lifted quickly, no matter in what position the 
body is held. The same in the fourth month. In the 
seventh and eighth the closing of the lids predominates. 
The raising of the arms has already become rare. 
In the eleventh week I noticed for the first time, 
what some others have not perceived before the second 
quarter of the year, though some have done so earlier, HEARING. 
85 
that the child, beyond doubt, moved his head in the di- 
rection of the sound heard. I knocked on a mirror, be- 
ing behind him. Immediately he turned his head round 
toward the source of the sound. At this period it is in 
general surprising with what ease single tones, scales, 
and chords attract the attention of the babe, to such a 
degree that the greatest restlessness subsides at once 
when these are sounded, and he hearkens with an in- 
tense gaze. 
In the twelfth week the turning of the head toward 
the sounding body was sudden, even when the look did 
not take at once the right direction. When the direc- 
tion was found, the child would hearken evidently -with 
close attention (cf. p. 87.) 
In the sixteenth week the turning round of the head 
toward a sound takes place with the certainty of a reflex 
movement. Before this time no notice at all was taken 
of more distant sound-stimulus—a hand-organ below in 
the garden, the voice of a person speaking aloud at the 
other end of the room; now both these sounds cause 
lively motions of the head, and an altered, not dissatis- 
fied, expression of countenance. 
The first noise artificially produced by the child him- 
self, one that gave him apparent pleasure and was ac- 
cordingly frequently repeated, was the crumpling of 
paper (especially in the nineteenth week). In the 
twenty-first week, at the beating of a gong, sounded 
for the purpose of taking his photograph, he became 
motionless—his attention was so enchained by the new 
noise—and stared with fixed gaze at the metallic plate. 
In general, his hearing became so much more acute in 
the fifth month that, when taking his milk, he almost 86 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
invariably broke off from his occupation and turned 
about whenever a noise, not altogether too slight, was 
made near him. 
After a half-year the babe often kept his gaze steadi- 
ly directed for minutes at a time on my face, and with 
an expression of wonder, with eyes and mouth open, 
when I sang single notes to him. He utters a joyous 
cry at military music. 
In the eighth month there is a quick closing of the 
lids, a single wink of the eyes for the most part, not 
only at every loud, sudden sound-impression, but even 
at every new one—e. g., when the voices of animals are 
imitated. This is no longer the expression of fright 
merely, but of astonishment also. In fright there has 
come, in place of the raising of the arms, a starting of 
the whole body and a convulsive movement of arms and 
legs together, which was also observed as early as the 
second month. The rapid shutting and opening of the 
eyes continued unchanged. 
In the ninth month, when the child more than twelve 
times in succession shut down the cover of a large 
“caraffe,” so that a loud slam was heard every time, 
this winking of the eyes and starting of the whole body 
took place every time, the countenance meanwhile ex- 
pressing great attention. The reflex movements in this 
case were not, then, the expression of fright, for the 
child himself eagerly repeated the shutting down of the 
cover after I had raised it. The combined tactual and 
visual impression surpassed in interest the accompany- 
ing phenomenon of sound; the intensity of the latter, 
however, was so great as to involve the reflex move- 
ments. At this period I often saw, during the sleep of HEARING. 
87 
the child, lively movements of the hands after sound- 
impressions that did not waken the sleeper, the remains 
of an earlier reflex raising of the arm. Not only does 
the child turn his head round when he hears my voice 
without seeing me, but (as also in the tenth month) at 
every new loud noise—e. g., thunder. So, too, the turn- 
ing of the head in the first and second weeks, when a 
loud sound is heard, is not a directing of the head toward 
the source of sound (p. 80); this does not take place 
till later (p. 85). 
During teething, the sensibility to acoustic stimulus 
is, moreover, noticeably increased. A loud word then 
produces winking, fright, quicker breathing, screaming, 
and tears. 
In the eleventh and twelfth months, the screaming 
child generally allows itself to be quieted in a few mo- 
ments by a decided “ Sh! ” just as it did in the first 
month. No other spoken utterance has this effect, not 
even the sharp “ ss ” or “ pst,” but any singing, even 
false notes, will do it. 
At this time—the three hundred nineteenth day— 
occurred a remarkable acoustic experience, which gives 
evidence of great intellectual advance. The child 
struck several times with a spoon upon a plate. It 
happened accidentally, while he was doing this, that 
he touched the plate with the hand that was free; 
the sound was dulled, and the child noticed the dif- 
ference. He now took the spoon in the other hand, 
struck with it on the plate, dulled the sound again, and 
so on. In the evening this experiment was renewed, 
with a like result. Evidently the function of causality 
had emerged in some strength, for it prompted the ex- 88 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
periment. The cause of the dulling of the sound by 
the hand—was it in the hand or in the plate ? The 
other hand had the same dulling effect; so the cause 
was not lodged with the one hand. Pretty nearly in 
this fashion the child must have interpreted his sound- 
impression, and this at a time when he did not know a 
single word of his later language. 
In the twelfth month the child was accustomed, al- 
most every morning, to observe the noisy putting of 
coals into the stove, A. On the three hundred sixty- 
third day it took place in the next room, in the stove, 
B. The child at once looked in the direction of the 
sound, but as he discovered nothing he turned his head 
around nearly one hundred and eighty degrees, and re- 
garded the stove, A, with an inquiring gaze: that stove 
had already been filled. This likewise shows logical 
activity applied to perceptions of sound, and this before 
the ability to speak. 
Such experiments were from time to time carried 
on after this, entirely of the child’s own accord; e. g., 
in the thirtieth month the child, while eating, held his 
hand by chance to his ear while a kettle of boiling water 
stood before him. At once he becomes attentive, no- 
tices the diminution in the force of the sound, takes 
his hand away, listens in silence, open-mouthed and 
with an expression of surprise, to the modification of 
the sound, holds his hand to his ear five or six times, 
and establishes the fact anew each time, like an experi- 
menter, until the connection between the alteration in 
the sound and the movement of the hand no longer 
seems wonderful, because he has perceived it several 
times. HEARING. 
89 
I note here that one of the earliest sound-perceptions 
in which causality operated without language, is the one 
mentioned (p. 87), occurring on the eighty-first day. 
I have not been able, notwithstanding the greatest 
attention and very much outlay of time, to record any 
more observations of this sort concerning the activity 
of reasoning without speech, in the domain of sound. 
After the end of the first year the child strikes 
with his hands on the keys of the piano, and looks 
around occasionally while doing it, as if to assure him- 
self that somebody is listening to him. He takes pleas- 
ure in a canary-bird, laughing when it moves and listen- 
ing in silence when it sings, and then laughing again. 
In general, laughing is frequent in the following months 
at new noises, like gurgling or clearing the throat (fif- 
teenth month). Even thunder made the child laugh. 
A favorite acoustic occupation consisted in holding 
a watch to his ear and listening to the ticking (sixteenth, 
seventeenth, and twenty-fourth months). But some- 
times the watch was held behind the auricle and some- 
times against his cheek. If I held it above, on his head, 
the ticking was heard (nineteenth month), as could be 
told by the look of attention. The conduction of sound 
by the bones must have been already established for 
some time past. 
The pleasure in music, that showed itself even in 
the first three months, increased manifestly in the six 
following months. But it was nearly the end of the 
second year before the child, who was roused to the 
liveliest movements by hearing the most varied kinds of 
music, performed these movements in time. He did 
indeed dance, but in his own fashion, not rhythmically 90 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
(twenty-first month). Somewhat later, he would him- 
self beat time with tolerable correctness with the arms, 
or with one arm, trying meanwhile to sing over a song 
that had been sung to him (twenty-fourth month), but 
he did not succeed in this till later, and then imper- 
fectly. Playing with fife and drum at that period gave 
hardly more pleasure than striking some keys of the 
piano, and that with both hands at once. But I must 
add that it was absolutely impossible, notwithstanding 
much pains, to teach the child to name rightly even the 
three notes C D E (end of third year), though his 
hearing for noises and vocal sounds was in general 
acute. 
Another child, on the contrary, a girl, could, in her 
ninth month, sing correctly every note given her from 
the piano, and seemed to find discords unpleasant; at 
least she always wept bitterly at that age whenever any 
one blew on a small tin trumpet. This child, and two 
others of the same family, could sing before they could 
talk, and sing correctly airs that had been sung to them. 
Not only theyn’fc/i, but the stress and the shade of tone 
are given by such musical children (in the eighth month), 
who listen to all music with the greatest strain of atten- 
tion. Such a child even sang itself to sleep (in the 
eighth month), and later (in the nineteenth month), ac- 
companied songs and pieces sung and played by others, 
clapping its hands in correct time. (Frau Dr. Friede- 
mann.) 
Another little girl takes pleasure in hearing music 
(in the eleventh month), likes to strike on the keys of 
the piano, and when any one begins to sing airs that 
have often been sung to her, she springs and accompa- HEARING. 
91 
nies the singing with the movement of her body, and 
turns her hands this way and that. (Fr. v. Strumpell.) 
Through the whole of the third year it was not easy 
to waken my child by sound-impressions alone. He 
often fell asleep even when there was a racket near 
him, and yet his hearing was acute enough when he 
was awake, as appears from the observations reported. 
Even the knowledge of the direction of sound, 
though imperfect, still appeared earlier than in other 
cases. Darwin reports—e. g., that one of his acutely- 
hearing children, when more than seventeen weeks old, 
did not easily recognize the direction from which a 
sound came, so as to turn its gaze thither; with which 
should be compared the above statements (page 85); 
also that of Vierordt, that sometimes in the fourth 
month the child begins to turn his head in the direction 
of the sound; and that of R. Demme, who found that 
of about one hundred children only two, at the age of 
three and three and a half months, distinguished the 
voices of their parents from those of other persons call- 
ing to them ; these children made animated movements 
and joyous utterances ; all the other children were much 
later in making this distinction. 
Individual differences, partly hereditary, partly ac- 
quired, are in this department very great. 
3. The Hearing of New-born Animals. 
Guinea-pigs not yet twelve hours old show unmis- 
takably, by movements of the ears, as I found, that 
they hear all high tones of from one thousand to forty- 
one thousand double vibrations a second. For when, 
unseen by the animals, everything around being still, 92 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
I struck one of my forty small tuning-forks that ranged 
through that interval (from the 0 of the third octave to 
the E of the eighth) the ears of the animals were always 
immediately moved in time, either lowered or folded; 
and at loud tones the creatures invariably started. This 
reflex movement, nowhere mentioned hitherto, viz., 
the contraction of the auricles, took place with such ma- 
chine-like regularity that I can compare no other move- 
ment with it in regard to precision, with the exception 
of the contraction of the pupil to light. In grown 
Guinea-pigs the auditory reflex for all these tones of the 
tuning-forks is likewise easy to prove; but it is some- 
times very slight, especially after frequent repetition of 
the experiment. In the first half-hour after birth it is 
utterly wanting. New-born animals are accordingly deaf 
at the beginning. 
On the other hand, it was at once demonstrable that 
all healthy Guinea-pigs an hour after birth, even those 
born some days before their time, respond to the most 
varied noises, both loud and soft—e. g., clapping of 
hands, by a quiver of the whole body; at first often by 
a spring and by movements that seem like attempts 
to flee. This behavior can have its origin only in he- 
redity. 
The reflex arc from the auditory nerve to the motor 
nerves has been so frequently used by their ancestors, 
when in moments of danger a noise made flight advisa- 
ble, that the representatives of the present generation, 
without as yet any knowledge of danger, quiver at the 
first noise that comes. Even in the human babe of a 
few days old the starting at a sudden sound is a relic of 
this fright, and the same is true of adult human beings HEARING. 
93 
and horses. The first movement of the eyelid upon 
sudden noiseless sight-impressions is, on the contrary, 
to be explained differently, as I showed above (page 28) ; 
because the movements of flight, the starting and the 
drawing back of the head, are wanting in the begin- 
ning. 
New-born Guinea-pigs are especially sensitive to 
sounds of slight intensity. They recognize their mother 
by hearing on the first day of their life, even when she 
grunts quite softly and interruptedly, whereas they do 
not recognize her by sight after four or five days, as 
I found (1878) by a series of laborious experiments. 
As, moreover, the voice of the mother and that of the 
other little ones of the same litter produces a direct 
movement toward the source of the sound, when the 
members of the family have been separated, the direc- 
tion from which the sound comes must be perceived on 
the first day. 
The same is true of new-born swine. For Spalding 
observed that, at the age of only a few minutes, if they 
are removed several feet from their mother, they soon 
find their way back to her, guided apparently by the 
grunting she makes in answer to their squealing. The 
mother, in one case that was observed, got up in less than 
an hour and a half after giving birth to the young, and 
went off to feed; the young ones went around and tried 
in every way to get nourishment, followed the mother and 
sucked while she ate standing. One of the young ones 
was put in a bag the moment it was born and kept in 
the dark till it was seven hours old. Then it was placed 
outside the sty, a distance of ten feet from where the sow 
lay concealed inside the house. The pig soon i recog- 94 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
nized ’ the low grunting of its mother, went along out- 
side the sty, struggling to get under or over the lower bar. 
At the end of five minutes it succeeded in forcing itself 
through under the bar, at one of the few places where 
that was possible. No sooner in than it went without a 
pause into the pig-house to its mother, and was at once 
like the others in its behavior. There can be no doubt 
that in this search the sensation of sound caused by the 
grunting wTas (for the creature that had not until five 
minutes before been exposed to the light) decisive of the 
direction to be pursued. Still, smell does not seem to 
have been excluded. 
Among the animals that hear well at the very be- 
ginning must be counted the chicken just from the egg. 
For soon after leaving the shell, as soon as it can run, it 
follows the cluck of the hen; and even beforehand, in 
the egg after the shell has begun to burst, it responds 
by peeping to sounds of that kind. If it remains for a 
day or two in the dark after it has been hatched in the 
incubator, and is then exposed to the light at a distance 
of nine or ten feet from a box in which a brooding-hen 
is concealed, it will, after chirping one or two minutes, 
betake itself straight to the box, following the call of the 
hen, though it has never seen and never before heard 
her. This takes place, too, when it involves the over- 
coming of obstacles in the grass, the passage over un- 
even ground, when the little creatures are not in condi- 
tion to stand on their feet. Even chickens deprived of 
sight from the first follow blindly the call of the cluck- 
ing hen when they come within five or six feet of her. 
Mr. Spalding, who conducted both these experiments, 
also made chickens deaf before they left the shell by HEARING. 
95 
sealing their ears with several folds of gummed paper, 
uncovered their ears again after two or three days, set 
them free within call of the hen which was separated 
from them by a board, and then saw that, after turn- 
ing around a few times, they ran straight to the spot 
whence came the first sound they had ever heard. To 
them, therefore, the first sound-sensation could not be 
empty or meaningless. It became at once perception, 
and inherited memory asserted itself in a psycho-motor 
way. So thinks Spalding. But I have been able to 
prove in the case of thirty chickens hatched in an incu- 
bator, from one to three days out of the shell, that when 
food had been placed before them several times and a 
knocking upon wood made at the same time, they gen- 
erally ran, every time I knocked in their neighborhood, 
to the spot whence the noise issued, although there was 
no food there. They had, therefore, recognized the 
direction of the sound already, and had learned some- 
thing, or at least they had associated that special sound 
with the food. For they did not leave their place for 
other noises—e. g., whistling or the clucking of the hen, 
which they had never before heard; but they listened 
instantly to the clucking when I brought several cluck- 
ing-hens successively into the neighborhood unseen by 
them, and they started at a loud report without moving 
from the spot. Besides, it is questionable whether the 
chickens with ears sealed were actually deaf, and whether 
they had not heard the voice of the hen before the stop- 
ping of the ears. The chick peeps before the shell has 
a crack in it, as I often perceived ; has, therefore, heard 
its own voice, certainly, before emerging from the shell, 
and possibly the voices of others likewise. 96 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
At all events, the hearing of chickens just out of the 
shell, and of many new-born mammals, is vastly superior 
to that of the just-bom human babe, both in regard to 
the discrimination of pitch and loudness of sound, and 
in respect to the perception of kinds of sound, the direc- 
tion and perhaps the duration. It must be the case that 
the normal human being at birth hears nothing, then 
hears individual sounds indistinctly, then hears much 
indistinctly, and very gradually hears distinctly an in- 
dividual sound out of the number of those indistinctly 
heard, finally hears much distinctly, and distinguishes 
strong, high tones earlier than deep ones. Every mother 
loses many thousands of words that she speaks, whis- 
pers, or sings to her child, without the child’s hearing a 
single one of them, and she says many thousand words 
to him before he understands one. But if she did not 
do it, the child would learn to speak much later and with 
much more difficulty. 
CHAPTER III. 
FEELING. 
The observations concerning feeling in the newly- 
born and the infant relate chiefly to sensibility to con- 
tact, to the first perceptions of touch, and to sensibility 
to temperature. 
1. Sensibility of the Newly-born to Contact. 
The mature new-born child is known to be less sen- 
sitive to painful impressions than are adults. But it 
would be a mistake to infer from this a condition of FEELING. 
97 
anaesthesia or analgesia. For apart from anomalous 
cases, as of new-born children apparently dead, scream- 
ing and movements can be elicited from children and 
animals just bom, when they are for the first time quiet 
and motionless, by pinching the skin ; or, in the case of 
a child, by slapping the upper part of the thigh. I have 
convinced myself most fully of this in regard to chil- 
dren born at the right time, and prematurely born 
animals some minutes after birth, but at the same time 
I was convinced that the expressions of pain lack by a 
great deal the intensity and duration they have in older 
children. In this respect the newly-born resembles the 
foetus, differing from it, however, to this extent, that 
immediately after pulmonic respiration begins, every 
sort of irritation of the skin produces stronger reflexes. 
Often the reflex mechanism starts into activity at once, 
the first time air is breathed. The clock was already 
wound up, as it were, but the pendulum gets its regular 
swing only through respiration. Before this it oscillated 
temporarily and with breaks, urged only by weak im- 
pulsions. By the act of birth the central nervous sys 
tern is first literally awakened. And there is nothing 
against the assumption that the first contact, pressure in 
the act of birth, causes pain. I have twice heard a child 
scream whose head only was as yet bora, and the ex- 
pression of countenance in this half-born condition was 
one of extreme discomfort. The compression of the 
body, and the compression of the skull that had just 
preceded, probably awakened the child out of its intra- 
uterine sleep. 
That rude contact in the act of birth may cause pain, 
in the strict sense of the word, to the mature foetus, is THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
98 
probable, because the foetus may in the same circum- 
stances experience pleasure; for when I put into the 
mouth of the screaming child, whose head alone was as 
yet bom, an ivory pencil or a finger, the child began to 
suck, opened its eyes, and seemed, to judge from its 
countenance, to be “ most agreeably affected ” (cf. p. 32). 
Since in adults the sensibility of the skin and of the 
mucous membrane varies greatly according to the num- 
ber of nerve-extremities of the part of the skin that is 
tested, we are especially interested to know whether 
such differences in sensibility to contact are already 
manifest in the newly-born. Kussmaul, whose experi- 
ments of the year 1859 were repeated and supplemented 
by Genzmer, 1873, was the first to investigate this ques- 
tion experimentally. He found several facts that indi- 
cate the hereditary character of certain differences. I 
will give the results of these observers on this point 
along with my own. 
Tongue.—Tickling the tip of the tongue on the up- 
per surface with a smooth glass rod occasions sucking 
movements; meantime the edges of the tongue curve 
upward on both sides of the rod and the lips protrude 
like a snout. At the same time appears the pantomime 
that indicates the sensation “ sweet.” When the mid- 
dle of the tongue is touched on the upper surface, the 
eyes are shut tight, the nostrils and the corners of the 
mouth are raised ; there is no sucking. Tickle the root 
of the tongue and of the palate, and the results are 
choking, opening the mouth wide, sticking out the 
tongue, lifting of the larynx, increased secretion of 
saliva, pantomime for “ bitter ” corresponding to the 
expression of nausea in adults. FEELING. 
99 
These differences in the reflex movements and the 
sensations, according to the part of the tongue tickled 
by the rod, whether the tip of the tongue, the middle, 
or the root, may be regarded as established in general, 
but can not be proved in every individual case. Thus 
movements do not invariably follow the touching of the 
middle of the tongue. I have often been unable to elicit 
any movements at all from new-born children by using 
the glass rod. Yet in most cases children act exactly like 
just-born rabbits and Guinea-pigs in this respect, sucking 
at the rod when it presses in front, and pushing it out 
when it presses in the back part of the cavity of the 
mouth. When an infant has eaten enough, it does not 
suck at all, and when tired it sucks irregularly and 
feebly. But the results obtained in regard to new-born 
children whose stomachs are empty leave no doubt that 
even before birth the two paths from the sensory nerves 
of the tongue to the beginning of the motor nerves of the 
tongue, the nervus hypoglossus, and from there to its ex- 
tremities in the tongue, are developed and passable, and 
that the sensibility of the upper surface of the tongue— 
from the tip to the root—to contact is, like that of the 
palate, inborn and already considerable, entirely apart 
from sensibility to taste. That along with the sucking 
at the rod there should be movements of swallowing is 
a further consequence of that practicability of the reflex 
path established before birth in the swallowing of the 
amniotic fluid. But none will assume the existence of 
the sensations “ bitter ” and “ sweet ” at the mere touch- 
ing of the tongue, for they do not appear in such con- 
ditions even in adults. The mimetic movement for 
“ sweet ” is rather that of satisfaction associated with the 100 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
agreeable feeling that comes with sucking, and the 
mimetic movement for “ bitter ” is that of discomfort 
associated with the disagreeable feeling manifested by 
choking. 
Lips.—The sensibility of the lips to contact is 
great immediately after birth, for even very faint 
touches of them with a feather produce (on the sixth 
day) starting or movements of sucking, provided the 
newly-born are awake and hungry. Especially stroking 
of the lips with the finger easily produces sucking. 
But I have not seen these sucking movements ap- 
pear invariably in mature children just born or in ani- 
mals. A machine-like certainty in their appearance is 
wanting, probably because those just born are not in 
every case hungry. The situation of the human foetus 
makes it easy for the lips to be touched by the hands 
long before birth, and the swallowing of the amniotic 
fluid presupposes a streaming of it over the edges of 
the lips and so a frequent excitation of the nerve-ex- 
tremities. 
The reflex sensibility of the upper lip even outside 
the red border, which is surprising on the first day, I 
found also in the seventh week, when the touching of 
the lip produced an animated play of feature perceptibly 
greater than in adults. 
Mucous Membrane of the Nose.—Irritation of the 
mucous membrane of the nose causes, in the mature 
newly-born, strong reflexes. The vapor of acetic acid 
and of ammonia occasions violent sneezing, or corruga- 
tion of the forehead, or at least blinking, sometimes 
rubbing of the face with the hands. Tickling the inner 
surface of the wing of the nose produces movements of FEELING. 
101 
the eyelids, stronger and appearing sooner on the side 
tickled than on the other. If the irritation is increased, 
the child moves its head and puts its hands toward its 
face. Sometimes, too, there is a secretion of tears, which 
is the more remarkable as children generally shed no 
tears in the first days of life. 
The reflex excitement of the lachrymal nerves (ra- 
mus lacrymalis nervi trigemini) and the reflex secretion 
from the nerve-extremities in the mucous membrane of 
the nose outward, are accordingly possible at a surpris- 
ingly early period. Here we have, besides, a case of in- 
born reflex activity of a gland within the domain of one 
and the same nerve; for the centripetal and the cen- 
trifugal (secretory) fibers, which go to the tear-gland, 
belong to the fifth cranial nerve (trigeminus). 
The great sensibility of the nasal mucous membrane 
to contact is, I must add, not present until the last 
weeks before birth, as children born at seven months 
make only doubtful responsive movements. Yet this 
sensibility has been found to be just as great in a child 
born at eight months as in those born at the right time. 
It is a purely hereditary peculiarity. Since there is 
hardly any occasion within the womb for an excitement 
of the inner surface of the nostril, this reflex arc from 
the nasal branches of the fifth cranial nerve to the face- 
nerve (facialis) must be a very firmly established one. 
The same is true of the reflex paths that go from 
the extremities of the trigeminus in the nasal mucous 
membrane to the spinal motor nerves, inasmuch as a 
regular shaking has been observed by me to follow 
upon a gentle touch of the nasal mucous membrane. 
In the first three months of the second year, my 102 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
boy one day accidentally touched the septum of his 
nose with a raveled string. He at once made a wry 
face (excitement of the facialis), did not cry out, 
but shook, throwing his body violently this way and 
that, as if the certainly very disagreeable sensation of 
tickling in that spot were to be shaken off. 
Conjunctiva and Cornea of the Eye and the Eye- 
lid.—If the conjunctiva, the edge of the cornea, or an 
eyelash be touched in the newly-born, a closure of the 
lid follows. Which of these parts are the most sensi- 
tive is matter of dispute. Kussmaul thinks the lashes, 
but Genzmer could touch these three or four times in 
some children without causing closing of the lid, where- 
as the closure never failed when the cornea was touched, 
and generally touching of the conjunctiva was followed 
by a bilateral closing of the lids. If we consider the 
fact that in adults the lashes can be touched without 
even an inclination to close the lid, but not so the con- 
junctiva or the edge of the cornea, we can not agree with 
Kussmaul in this case. I find also in new-born Guinea- 
pigs and in chickens just out of the shell the periphery 
of the cornea more sensitive to contact than the lashes 
or the lids and their edges. In all three cases, however, 
closing of the lid appears soon after birth, most quickly 
of all upon the touching of the cornea. 
Blowing in the face of new-born children through a 
tube also causes closing of the lid, but only when the 
cornea or the conjunctiva or the lashes are reached by 
the air, and the eye of the side that is blown upon is 
shut tighter and more quickly than the other. 
From my experiments upon new-born, normal 
chickens and Guinea-pigs, it appears that the closing of FEELING. 
103 
the lid does not follow quite so promptly immediately 
after birth as it does later. Still, the interval during 
which the inactivity Of the reflex can be recognized, 
without arrangements for measuring the time, is very 
short, since with chickens, e. g., only a few hours after 
leaving the shell, the nictitating membrane is pushed 
forward when I touch the corner of the eye. 
In a babe of eight days the eye shuts, when I touch 
the upper lid without touching the lashes ; but in one of 
eleven days the closing of the lid upon the touching of 
the conjunctiva is considerably slower than in adults 
(p. 26). 
On the fiftieth and fifty-fifth days the lightest touch 
of an eyelash produces an instant closing of the lid. In 
contrast with this sensitiveness stands the fact already 
mentioned (p. 27), that the child in the bath, during the 
first weeks of life, keeps its eyes open even when luke- 
warm water touches the cornea. In the seventeenth 
week the eyes were closed if even a drop of water 
touched the lashes. The persistent keeping of the eyes 
open in spite of wetting, at a considerably earlier period, 
which always surprised me afresh, considering the great 
sensitiveness of the cornea to the touch of the finger, 
suggests the surmise that even before birth the eyes 
have been accustomed to contact with liquid, through 
being sprinkled writh the amniotic fluid, and so have 
sometimes been opened. The embryo chick occasion- 
ally opens its eyes many days before leaving the shell, 
as I perceived. 
On the whole, it appears that this reflex arc from 
the trigeminus to the facialis is capable of performing 
its function before birth, inasmuch as the reflex closing 104 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
of the eye upon being touched takes place immediately 
at birth even in animals born prematurely, and is thus 
an ancient inheritance; but sprinkling with water, as 
in the case of the adult, is not equal, as a reflex stimulus, 
to a dry touch; on the other hand, blowing induces a 
vigorous closing of the lid, and even sneezing, in the 
very young infant as well as in the one of six 
months. 
Nose.—When the tip of the nose is touched, the 
new-born child shuts both eyes tight; if one wing of 
the nose is touched he closes, generally, only the eye on 
the side touched ; at a stronger irritation both eyes are 
shut, the head being meanwhile somewhat drawn back: 
these being inborn reflexes of the nature of defense. 
Palm of the Hand.—Put a finger into the hand of 
a new-born babe, and his hand closes around it. A fillip 
of the finger against the hand produces a withdrawal of 
the latter, and very likely a movement of the other arm. 
But I find the sensibility of the palm of the hand to be 
less than that of the skin of the face, for rude touches 
of the hand may often fail to call forth reflex move- 
ments. 
xShfe of the Foot.—Touching the sole of the foot of 
a new-born child causes spreading of the toes; slapping 
the sole causes a backward bending of the foot, a bend- 
ing of the knee and of the hip joint. If the stimulus 
be greater, the same movements are generally made in 
addition, in the same order, with the other leg. The 
prick of a needle most easily causes, in the newly-born, 
reflex movements of pain, from the sole of the foot out- 
ward, viz., restlessness and screaming, but the time 
that elapses between the first touch and the beginning FEELING. 
105 
of the movement—the reflex period—is longer than in 
adults, and extends to two seconds. 
The skin of the forearm and of the leg, in the new- 
ly-born, has an inferior sensibility to contact; that of the 
shoulders, the breast, the abdomen, the back, the upper 
part of the thigh, is less sensitive still. If the new-born 
child is not merely touched, but slapped with the hand, 
then general movements take place, often screaming and 
persistent restlessness, which indicate that the stronger 
sensation of touch has become painful. Yet, according 
to Genzmer, the prematurely born do not react at all 
upon moderate pricks of a needle, during the first days; 
the mature newly-born, immediately after birth, do so 
indeed only faintly or not at all, but after one or two 
days they do so plainly. This shows the dependence 
of the force of the stimulus upon the number of the 
nerve-extremities that are affected. The slap reaches 
many, the prick few extremities of the cutaneous nerves. 
But the sensibility to pricks of the needle, which is 
greater from the beginning in those born too late, in- 
creases noticeably during the first week. 
I found in the case of my boy that the sensibility of 
the skin in different places was not so unequal in the 
first twenty-two hours as it was later, but it was surpris- 
ingly great; for the child reacted by movements upon 
the slightest touches of his face. On the second and 
third days, for instance, he started with a movement of 
the arms at gentle touches. On the seventh day the 
child is not waked by loud sound-stimulus, but is waked 
by a touch on the face. On the forty-first day, when 
the child had gone to sleep in my arms, 1 laid him on 
a sheet and then drew the sheet slowly away. At the THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
106 
first pull, both arms were moved quickly and simulta- 
neously toward the head and back again, without the 
child’s waking. Here we have not a localized touch, but 
a general slight agitation, calling forth the same reflex 
movement as a touch or a sound would do. In the 
fourteenth week, too, a sudden touch of the sleeping 
child occasioned a quick throwing up of both arms. 
According to this, the reflex excitability for local tac- 
tile stimulus is undoubtedly greater in the first weeks 
than it is later. In the second year of life I found it a 
good deal dulled. 
I may mention here also two remarkably sensitive re- 
gions in the skin of the infant. In the second quarter 
of the first year it appeared that the greatest disquiet, 
the loudest crying, the most distressed expression of 
countenance, as the child was turning and tossing hither 
and thither, at once vanished when a person put his 
little finger into the auditory canal. The child’s eye 
assumed a peculiar expression of strained attention. If 
this sudden alteration had not invariably taken place 
even when the child -was screaming, one might think 
rather of an acoustic than of a tactile excitation. Or, 
could the diminution of the loudness of his cries 
through the stopping of the ear attract his attention ? 
In that case we can not understand why the child that 
is not crying but is quivering in the bath becomes quiet. 
For the rest, the experiment failed almost invariably 
after the end of the first six months; from that time on 
it always failed, and Kroner found that not all new- 
born children were quiet when the external auditory 
canal was tickled, but that some put their hands to the 
face and not to the ear. FEELING. 
107 
How sensitive the dry skin of the forehead is to 
wet, is often shown by the reflex movements of babes at 
church-baptism. I once saw an infant of thirty-eight 
days, which remained tolerably quiet through the whole 
baptismal ceremony, make a sudden movement of both 
arms at once toward the head, without screaming, as 
soon as the lukewarm water trickled on its forehead. 
At the second wetting, directly afterward, there was a 
similar convulsive movement almost as of repulsion; 
and at the third, the child sneezed. According to this, 
the reflex excitability of the surface of the face in re- 
gard to wet is greater in the sixth week than it is in 
adult age. The adult can not be stirred to so vigorous 
reflex action by such a wetting as this of the christen- 
ing with a few drops of water, although he may be by 
sprinkling. 
Yet it seems difficult to determine the exact time 
when the great reflex excitability to contact manifested 
by the above facts, has so far subsided that a degree of 
excitability corresponding to the normal condition of 
adults is reached. 
Apart from hereditary individual inequalities, and 
the frequent morbid development of the reflexes in 
early infancy into convulsions, the time when the re- 
flexes begin to be inhibited is of the greatest account, 
no less than is the wearing out of the nerve-paths by 
frequent repetition of the excitements, in regard to the 
ultimate decline of the sensibility to touch. In the 
very earliest period, and before birth, the nerve-paths 
are not yet so easily passable as after repeated reflex ex- 
citation ; hence the longer time occupied in the reflex. 
It appears from numerous experiments of mine upon 108 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
unborn animals, and of Soltmann upon new-born and 
very young ones, that the sensibility of the nerves of the 
skin, estimated by the ease with which the reflexes take 
place upon slight stimulus, is continually on the increase, 
up to a certain point of time that may be designated as 
the beginning of inhibition of the reflex. But it is to be 
observed here that, while the central paths are traversed 
more and more easily through frequent use of them 
(and more rapidly, up to a certain limit), the peripheral 
extremities of the cutaneous nerves must be dulled 
through the inevitable stimulus of contact of wet and 
of cold, soon after the reflex activity has attained its 
maximum. For the permanent excitations of the skin 
of the infant must diminish the excitability of the 
nerves of the skin. What is gained, therefore, in cen- 
tral excitability (cranial and spinal activity and excita- 
bility) is lost in peripheral, and it is very probable that 
the reason of the slighter sensibility to pain in the newly- 
born is of a central character, because in the long repose 
before birth the extremities of the cutaneous nerves may 
have become very excitable while the brain was not yet 
active. 
2. The First Perceptions of Touch. 
From sensibility to contact it is a great step to the 
perception of touch. To the original consciousness be- 
longing to sensation is added the experience of succes- 
sion, and with that the consciousness of time; then the 
simultaneousness of the sensations of contact, and with 
this the consciousness of space; finally, the conscious- 
ness of the causal connection of two or more contacts 
that have come to consciousness in time and space, and 
with this the idea of the body touched. FEELING. 
109 
If the new-born child is slapped, it has a sensation, 
for it cries out; but it knows nothing of the place where 
it is struck, and nothing of the cause of the blow. If 
it is struck again after an interval, then there is the pos- 
sibility of a recollection, and so of a distinction of time. 
If the blow falls frequently upon different parts of the 
skin in like fashion, then distinctions of space will also 
come gradually into the child’s consciousness besides 
the mere sensations of pain, since different extremities 
of the skin, different nerve-fibers, are each time excited 
by the blow. If the blow is renewed with intervals of 
freedom from pain, then the hand that strikes will 
gradually, only after considerable time, to be sure, be 
pushed away or avoided as the cause of the pain. If 
the sensation of contact is, on the contrary, pleasurable, 
then it will be desired. In both cases movements must 
be executed, and these lead again to new sensations of 
contact, which may be even more important in the gene- 
sis of mind. 
Thus, the sensation of touch in the tips of the fingers, 
upon the first successful attempts at seizing, must as- 
suredly be very interesting to the child, otherwise he 
would not, after grasping at and getting hold of an ob- 
ject, observe his own fingers persistently and attentively 
even when (in the twenty-third week) one hand acci- 
dentally gets hold of the other in moving the hands 
about. Here the discrimination between the mutual 
contact of two points of the skin of his own body and 
the contact of one point of the skin with a foreign ob- 
ject is undoubtedly a great step toward the cognition of 
the self (des Ich). 
The earliest association, in time, of one sensation of 110 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
contact with another, is probably that -which is given in 
the act of nursing. When the nipple conies between 
the lips, there follows upon this sensation of touch the 
sensation of wet (the milk) in the mouth (to which the 
new sensation of sweetness also joins itself). Herein is 
given the first perception of touch. The newly-born 
makes one of his first experiences, namely, this, that upon 
a certain contact of the lips follows a different, an agree- 
able sensation in the mouth. Hence the contact with 
the lips is desired. Every similar soft touch of the lips 
is therefore agreeable. But how far from being firm 
the association of the space-element with the time-ele- 
ment is, appears in this, that the newly-born sometimes, 
as I observed, after “trying” at the breast, take the 
skin of the breast near the nipple into the mouth and 
suck at it a long time. And how late in being estab- 
lished is the causal connection between the lip-contact 
with the nipple and the sensation of liquid sweetness in 
the mouth when nursing, is manifest from the fact that 
the infant keeps up for many months the habit of suck- 
ing his own fingers and foreign objects. 
From this it appears, at the same time, how much 
more easily and more strongly the time-succession of two 
sensations impresses itself than does the connection in 
space or the causal connection. For the first act of suck- 
ing, after the first contact of the lips, brings countless 
other sucking movements in its train. Because it in- 
duced an agreeable sensation (of sweetness), it remains 
in the memory. The first causal connection of the lip- 
contact with the nipple, localized in space, with the 
sweet taste of milk, occurs not only later and so with 
more difficulty, but also is more easily forgotten. Else, FEELING. 
111 
after seeing that the desired sensation of sweetness and 
the flow of the milk occur only on sucking at the well- 
distinguished breast or the nursing-bottle, the child 
would not keep up so long the useless sucking at every 
object, capable of being sucked, that is brought to the 
mouth (even the lingers) when the feeling of hunger be- 
gins. However agreeable to the child the sucking at 
the fingers may be, his hunger is not lessened by it, and 
the sweet taste is not induced. Yet he sucks away ob- 
stinately, as if he thought the milk might be drawn from 
the fingers too. The fact that the milk in the breast is 
not visible may help to keep up the physiological error, 
and it would be worth while to investigate whether in- 
fants that take milk exclusively from the breast of the 
mother continue the useless sucking of all sorts of ob- 
jects longer than do those who draw their milk exclu- 
sively from transparent bottles. 
The habit of useless sucking seems the more strange, 
as the infant shows very early a sort of activity of un- 
derstanding in this field ; shows it by unambiguous 
movements, viz., by opening wide the eyes at sight of 
the mother’s breast. 
3. Sensibility to Temperature. 
Concerning sensibility to differences of temperature 
the observations are few. 
Whether the sadden cooling of the child immediately 
after birth, which may amount to several degrees, occa- 
sions a sensation of cold, is a question with regard to 
mature newly-born children, as well as the prematurely 
born, even in the cases where they shiver. For although 
an unpleasant feeling is certainly associated with the with- 112 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
drawal of warmth, yet in this particular case the possi- 
bility is lacking of comparing temperatures. Within the 
womb the constant, unfelt temperature of the foetus is 
somewhat higher than that of the mother. From the 
first instant of complete birth there begins a general 
and probably a pretty uniform cooling, because the air 
that surrounds the just-born child has only one tempera- 
ture, and the child is wet all over the surface of its body, 
and so the evaporation must cool off the whole of the 
skin. Now, the great difference in the temperature of 
the skin, before and after birth, will be perceptible, in 
part indirectly, through contraction of the vessels, and 
in part directly, through peripheral excitation of the 
nerves, but at first only as an unpleasant feeling. As 
soon as the warm bath, into which the newly-born is 
usually dipped, brings back the skin nearly to the tem- 
perature that has been kept constant for months within 
the womb, the excitement (which had never before ex- 
isted) of the nerves susceptible to temperature subsides, 
the contraction of the capillaries of the skin ceases, the 
feeling of discomfort passes away, and the first agree- 
able sensation of comfortable warmth is given ; in gen- 
eral, the first agreeable sensation since birth, for most 
children. It is agreeable, through the contrast with the 
refrigeration, as the altered physiognomy of the newly- 
born in a bath of 36° C. shows, in comparison with that 
of the still wet, shivering, screaming, just-born babe, to 
whose head the vernix still adheres. Besides, I saw— 
at the second bath—that the dry fingers were spread 
out, a thing that could not be caused by the moisture. 
As early as the seventh day the expression of pleasure 
in the widely-opened eyes, immediately after the bath, FEELING. 
113 
was different. No sensuous impression of any kind is 
capable of calling forth such an expression of satisfac- 
tion, at this period, in the infants observed by me. 
Still, in addition to the sensation of warmth, there is the 
freedom from swaddling-clothes which are often asso- 
ciated with a disagreeable irritation of the skin. 
In any case, the feeling of warmth and the feeling 
of cold are plainly manifest after the first bath, neither 
of these having been distinguished as such before birth, 
or probably directly after birth. 
It is likely, also, that the powerful effect of a sud- 
den general refrigeration upon the nerves of the skin, 
through the dipping of the just-born babe into ice-cold 
water, which has been made use of with the greatest 
success in restoring to life children apparently still-born, 
is attended with discomfort, even where the danger of 
strangling has been obviated. If the breathing has be- 
gun, this very strong stimulus produces a remarkable 
effect, the low whimpering being changed to a loud out- 
cry. This cry is the same as that which follows upon 
a vigorous (painful) slap. From my experiences with 
newly-born animals, wdiich cry out lustily on the appli- 
cation of electricity to the skin, and at other kinds of 
strong cutaneous stimulus, I can but regard this out- 
cry as an utterance of pain ; but it does not follow that 
the cooling of the child just born produces a sensation 
of cold. This can only come, as has been said, through 
contrast, where the possibility of comparison exists; 
therefore, after the first warm bath. The first cooling 
produces merely an unpleasant feeling. 
We have but few experiences also with regard to 
local warming and cooling. 114 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
About twenty children were tested by Genzmer, 
who touched different parts of the surface of the skin 
with an ice-cold iron rod, and saw lively reflex move- 
ments invariably appear. But, as the stimulus of touch 
was not excluded in this case, his further experiments 
of wetting and then blowing on the skin in special places 
are of rather more account. This sort of stimulus, ap- 
plied to the sole of the foot, produced withdrawal of the 
foot; applied to the hollow of the hand, it produced 
closing, then withdrawal of the hand. When the cheek 
was cooled the head was turned to one side. Unfor- 
tunately, nothing is said of the age of the children. In 
such cases the age should be reckoned by hours, and 
when new experiments are instituted, the blowing, 
which of itself acts as a reflex stimulus, is to be avoided ; 
and, above all, the previous temperature of the skin 
ought to be determined. Little children very often 
have cold hands and feet without making any complaint. 
Possibly this in itself causes less reflex sensibility to the 
stimulus of cold and greater to the stimulus of warmth. 
It is known that even quite young infants become 
restless and cry readily when they are wet anywhere 
with cold water. This dislike of the local withdrawal 
of warmth persists, during the first years of life, until 
at length the knowledge that a washing with cold water 
is refreshing overcomes the fear of cold (in the third 
year). 
Moreover, how sensitive individual children are, 
in perfectly sound health, in regard to the discrimina- 
tion of cold and warmth, was evident to me in the ex- 
periment of ordering the daily bath to be made colder 
gradually. The water could be cooled to 32|° C. with- FEELIXG. 
115 
out lessening the child’s pleasure. But every time the 
water was reduced to the neighborhood of 31|° C. or 
less, the child screamed uninterruptedly until warmer 
water was added. The temperature of the skin, there- 
fore, was presumably very near 32° C. But wdien the 
child was two and a half years old, he laughed and ut- 
tered joyous sounds in water of the temperature of the 
room—in a cold bath, therefore, such as formerly made 
him cry; and in his fourth year he objected to taking 
a warm bath 36° C. In the seventh month he became 
pale, always, at being put into water from 34° to 35° C., 
but regained his ordinary color within one or two min- 
utes. The case here is not one of direct contraction of 
the capillaries of the skin through sudden withdrawal 
of warmth, but is a case of vaso-motor reflex action, 
because it was precisely the skin of the face, which was 
not dipped in the water, that became most pale, and 
this happened as late as the age of more than two years. 
The sensibility of the mucous membrane of the 
mouth, of the tongue, of the lips, to cold and warmth 
is also surprisingly great in many infants during the 
first days. If the nursing-bottle is but a little more 
than blood-warm, it is refused, often with violent scream- 
ing ; and if it is some degrees colder than the milk sucked 
from the breast of the mother, it is refused likewise. 
Therefore, in experiments designed to test the gusta- 
tory sensibility in new-born children, the liquids em- 
ployed must have the exact temperature of 37° C. Yet 
infants learn easily to drink water and milk of the tem- 
perature of the room they live in, if their drink is given 
to them, w’hen they are hungry, only at this tempera- 
ture. 116 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
The sensibility of the lips to differences of tempera- 
ture in liquids is in any case determined by the con- 
stant temperature of the amniotic fluid before birth, 
and of the mother’s milk after birth. 
The difference in the neutral point of temperature 
between the mucous membrane of the mouth (tongue), 
and of the skin (e. g., the hand) which in the adult 
amounts to 5° or 6° C. (whereas before birth it is zero), 
can in general hardly establish itself in the first days of 
life. The tongue and the mucous membrane of the 
mouth maintain through life almost the same neutral 
point they had before birth ; whereas the external skin 
only gradually gets its varying neutral points through 
unequal refrigeration. 
CHAPTER IV. 
The observations concerning the sense of taste re- 
late chiefly to the question whether the newly-born 
have a sensibility to taste such as makes possible at 
once the distinction between different savors. Next 
comes the comparison of gustatory impressions already 
recognized as different. Then follow some statements 
as to taste in newly-born animals. 
1. Sensibility to Taste in the Newly-born. 
We know, from mimetic reflex movements of the 
same sort as those of adults, that the newly-born, and 
even those born a month or two before their time, react 
upon substances that have a taste, when these are intro- 
TASTE. TASTE. 
117 
duced into the mouth by means of a pencil. Kussmaul 
tested the sense of taste in this way in more than twen- 
ty newly-born children, making use of cane-sugar, qui- 
nine, common salt, and tartaric acid. Genzmer repeat- 
ed these experiments with twenty-live children, most of 
whom he observed immediately after birth and from three 
to six days after, some up to the sixth week. Kussmaul 
found that the salt, the quinine, and the acid occasioned 
grimaces as an expression of dislike, but with much 
variation in the manifestation in individual cases. The 
sugar, on the other hand, produced movements of suck- 
ing. The liquids to be tested were all warmed, so that 
the reaction upon them can not be ascribed to a feeling 
of cold in the mouth. 
As the acid, however, acted on the mucous mem- 
brane, it might cause pain in addition to the sour taste; 
yet the children did not cry out, and after the edges of 
the tongue were touched with a crystal of tartaric acid, 
the grimaces appeared instantaneously in two new-born 
children, while the crystal placed in the center of the 
upper surface of the tongue caused no change in the 
countenance for a considerable time, until the acid was 
sufficiently dissolved to reach the'edges of the tongue 
that were sensitive to it. So that it is the sour taste, 
and not an incidental painful effect of the acid, that 
elicits the “ sour ” look. The suspicion that the latter 
is generated only by excitation of the nerves of taste 
through the acid, is not pertinent; accordingly, we have 
here a certain ability to distinguish sensations of taste, 
active directly after birth, before anything has been 
swallowed except the amniotic fluid swallowed before 
birth. 118 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
The psychogenetic importance of this fact demands 
a more detailed examination of the observations on 
which it rests. 
Kussmaul found that the newly-born sometimes re- 
spond to the taste of sugar with the mimetic expression 
for bitter. It might thus be thought that the sensations 
were not distinguished, but were responded to irregu- 
larly, now w’ith one, now with another, reflex move- 
ment. But the circumstances under which the reflex 
takes place are not irregular. “ Some made a wry face 
at the first introduction of the solution of sugar, while 
they took in the rest of it with satisfaction. It was 
not the sensation of taste in itself apparently that was 
in fault, but another psychical experience, the surprise 
caused by the sudden effect on the sensitive nerves. 
One of the children even started directly with fright, 
when it came so suddenly to taste the unfamiliar liquid 
(•which was warmed). Children that had reacted strong- 
ly upon quinine, commonly made a grimace again, or 
several times in succession, when a solution of sugar 
■was introduced, but with decreasing animation, until 
finally a comfortable sucking and swallowing were sub- 
stituted. This accords with the experiences that every 
adult has in his own case, viz., that a very bitter or 
nauseous taste does not allow itself to be at once sup- 
planted by a sweet one, but at every fresh stimulus of 
the gustatory sense by substances of different savors, it 
recurs with decreasing force.” 
These deductions I must agree with, in every re- 
spect. I saw my child, the first day of his life, lick off 
the powdered cane-sugar that was put on the nipple, 
whereas he licked nothing else; so the sweet alone TASTE. 
119 
seemed desirable. On the second day, however, he 
licked at the mother’s milk just as he had done at the 
sugar, with a calm, satisfied expression of countenance. 
When this child later received salted food and food of 
different kinds, the first thing that was remarkable at 
every new sensation of taste was the expression of sur- 
prise ; and, as late as the second quarter of his second 
year (nay, occasionally in his fourth year), he would 
shudder, shut his eyes and distort his face in the strang- 
est fashion, when he tasted a new food that was agree- 
able to him in spite of his grimaces; for he often wanted 
it directly afterward, and took it then soon with the 
expression of satisfaction. On the other hand, it was 
often easy to persuade the child, after he had learned to 
speak (as a hypnotized adult may be persuaded), that a 
sourish or generally unattractive food, which he at first 
refused, was very pleasant to the taste, so that he would 
then want more of it. It is necessary to distinguish 
sharply from the very first, on the one hand, the ex- 
pression for the disagreeable manifested at the sudden 
new sensation, and the expression, not appearing till 
after this, of the agreeable that is excited by the pleas- 
ant taste ; and on the other hand, the expression for the 
disagreeable at the bitter, the salt, or the sour taste, and 
that for the agreeable at the sweet taste. 
It is certain, from all observations, that the newly- 
born distinguish the sensations of taste that are decid- 
edly different from one another, the sweet, sour, and 
bitter. 
But then Genzmer found in his experiments that 
individuals newly-born responded to an attenuated solu- 
tion (one quarter to one per cent) of quinine, and one 120 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
of vinegar, by sucking movements, just as they did to 
a solution of sugar. In one case, indeed, a child on the 
first day, as also in the sixth week, sucked at a five-per- 
cent solution of quinine without any sign of dislike (Kuss- 
maul’s solution was of four per cent). If the solution was 
more concentrated, the child made a wry face of com- 
plaint, as the others were wont to do at a weaker solu- 
tion (beyond one degree), then began to cry, and made 
it manifest that the disagreeable nature of the taste had 
become perceptible to him. 
Inasmuch as it has been established that there are 
great individual differences among the newly-born in 
their gustatory sensibility, and that, allowing for a consid- 
erable blunting of this through experimenting, there was 
only in the case of individuals in the first week a refine- 
ment of taste for differences in intensity, the hypothesis 
is forced upon us that, in the case of the attenuated solu- 
tions the gustatory sensations of many children were too 
weak to be found either agreeable or disagreeable ; that 
new-born children especially are not yet in condition to 
press the substance to be tasted against the hard palate 
with the upper surface of the tongue, whereby the dis- 
tribution to the end-organs of the nerves (these, more- 
over, being probably less numerous in the little tongue) 
is favored and hastened. In the case of these attenu- 
ated solutions there remains, then, only the effect upon 
the sucking-mechanism, as in the case of touching the 
tongue with the finger. There is no need of the addi- 
tional hypothesis that a weak bitter or sour taste is 
agreeable to individuals among the newly-born, in order 
to understand that the reaction upon a weak bitter or 
sour is not accompanied with the same animated reflex TASTE. 
121 
movements as a strong stimulus induces, but is ac- 
companied with sucking. In general, the newly-born 
make a wry face after the introduction of a three to 
five per cent quinine solution; they shut the eyes tight, 
the throat is convulsively contracted, the mouth is 
opened wide, and the liquid is ejected along with 
the mucus of the mouth, which is generally secreted 
very scantily, but in this case abundantly. The “ bit- 
ter ” expression of countenance is thus quite a different 
one. from the “ sweet,” even on the first day of life. 
But it is different also from the “ sour,” as in the case 
of adults, since in the movements of choking the cor- 
ners of the mouth are drawm sharply up and sidewise; 
so they are, according to Genzmer, at the introduction 
of pretty strong acetic acid (which anv way is unsuited 
to such experiments on account of its smell). The 
strongest solutions caused, besides, in his experiments, 
agitation and screaming for the most part; sugar, on 
the contrary, is tasted with satisfaction by all newly- 
born children, when it acts in sufficient quantity, after 
the first surprise is over. About this there is no doubt. 
Since very sour and very bitter substances call forth 
in the newly-born different reflex movements under cir- 
cumstances otherwise similar, and very sweet substances 
call forth quite different movements still, therefore these 
various gustatory qualities are distinguished. 
The fact that weak solutions of bitter and of sour are 
by some taken in much the same way as weak solutions 
of sweet, with sucking movements, with no sign of dis- 
comfort, is explained by the slight sensibility of the 
tongue for degrees of intensity. The sensations of con- 
tact caused by the substances to be tasted, sensations 122 
THE MIXD OF THE CHILD. 
which of themselves start sucking movements, over- 
power at that time the weak sensations of taste. But 
what to one child tastes strong, to another tastes weak. 
For many children one per cent of acetic acid was too 
sour, while they would suck away at a two-per-cent so- 
lution of quinine; with others it was the reverse. This 
fact, too, is in accord with the above statement. 
The association of certain mimetic contractions of 
muscles with certain sensations of taste is a surprising- 
ly strong one—it is inborn. Children born about two 
months or more too early are no less sensitive to the 
gustatory stimuli spoken of than are those born at the 
right time. 
Accordingly, the opinion, often expressed, that the 
new-born infant possesses only a general sensation of 
taste, and that the qualitative differences of taste be- 
come perceptible to him only through his becoming ac- 
customed to them—this opinion falls to the ground. 
Were it correct—did every moderate stimulus what- 
ever of the nerves of taste cause sucking movements as 
a simple reflex, and did any strong stimulus whatever, 
on the other hand, cause choking, likewise as a simple 
reflex—then the most intensely sweet taste must be re- 
garded as only a moderate stimulus, and the fact before 
recognized as established would be inexplicable, that 
under circumstances alike in other respects the mimetic 
expression for bitter is different from that for sweet and 
from that for sour, when the corresponding gustatory 
stimuli are strong enough. 
Kussmaul’s inference from his experiments is there- 
fore correct, that the sense of taste in the newly-born 
is already capable of acting in its characteristic forms of TASTE. 
123 
sensation; the sensation received by it is not one alto- 
gether undefined and vague. 
2. Comparison of the Gustatory Impressions. 
The sense of taste seems to be the first of all the 
senses to yield clear perceptions, to which memory 
directly attaches itself, as Sigismund rightly pointed 
out. The gustatory impression of the milk to which the 
child is accustomed abides, so that a comparison may 
be made with strange milk. Of this ability to compare 
the child soon makes use, for, during the whole nursing 
period and even longer, the taste of sweet is preferred 
by far to all other tastes, and these others are experi- 
enced with signs of disgust when they are strong, and 
this from the first day on. 
Burdach is wrong in affirming that not till the end 
of the first month does the babe begin to object to 
medicines, on the ground that then first is the child 
disagreeably affected by astringent, bitter, salt, sour 
tastes, whereas at the beginning he takes every liquid— 
e. g., camomile-tea and tincture of rhubarb, just as will- 
ingly as milk, and does not yet manifest choice. If the 
camomile-tea and the tincture of rhubarb are sweetened, 
and are not cold or hot, he takes them ; but liquids that 
are not sweet, or that have a strong taste, or that are 
cold or hot, he does not take so readily as he does 
milk. The cavity of the mouth is, even for the newly- 
born, something more than a mere “sucking-organ.” 
Although the food is not so mixed with saliva, by mus- 
cular movement, and so brought into contact with the 
mucous membrane of the mouth as it is later, still it is 
tasted and especially its temperature is noticed. 124 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
In fact, I have found the gustatory sensitiveness to- 
ward different degrees of intensity considerably in- 
creased very early. Thus, my child on the second day 
took, without hesitation, cow’s milk diluted with water, 
which on the fourth day he stoutly refused. He must 
have compared the less degree of sweetness with that of 
his mother’s milk. But an extremely small quantity of 
cane-sugar sufficed to make the bottle acceptable. It 
only needed a few grains applied to the mouth of the 
bottle. 
How, as bad-tasting medicines generally have some 
corrective, especially sugar, added to them, it is not sur- 
prising that infants often take them at once without 
discrimination. I have repeatedly convinced myself 
that this is the case, and at the same time that those 
medicines tasted sweet. If they are very sweet—e. g., 
one hundred parts sugar to one part calomel—they are 
taken willingly, even by the child of six months and 
more; the younger child does not need so great an ad- 
dition, precisely because it does not discriminate so 
nicely, but it rejects strong-tasting substances that are 
offered to it without any corrective. 
Every new taste occasions in the babe of more than 
six months old a play of countenance which at first sug- 
gests surprise, then either a desire for more, or disgust. 
But very often the food that was at first desired is 
ejected after a second trial, with turning away of the 
head; and, as has been mentioned (p. 119), that which 
at first caused expressions of displeasure is directly aft- 
erward desired. Here are at least four different points 
to be noticed : 1, the stimulus of the new; 2, the sensa- 
tion of taste; 3, the sensation of touch and of tempera- TASTE. 
125 
ture in the mouth; 4, the sense of smell. All four may- 
act in harmony, but they may also counteract one an- 
other so that the child does not know whether the new 
thing tastes good to him or not, etc. Where the iaste 
alone varies in tw’O impressions of like sort, as wdth sweet 
and salt, the child of six months can discriminate ac- 
curately at once. 
How far the comparison of the gustatory sensations 
discriminated may be carried after the weaning of a 
child has taken place, is shown, in the case of my child 
and some others, by the following observations: 
From the one hundred fiftieth day on, the breast was 
to be given him only in the night. But after five nights 
the child refused to take the breast as hitherto, prob- 
ably because in the days preceding so much cane-sugar 
had been added to the boiled and diluted cow’s milk, that 
it tasted somewhat sweeter than milk from the breast. 
At the end of the twenty-third week the child had a 
new nurse, whose milk it took eagerly. Then were 
taken, apparently7 with equal willingness, this milk and 
diluted, sweetened cow’s milk, as well as meat-broth 
with yolk of egg, and yolk of egg beaten up in cow’s 
milk. 
From the one hundred and eighty-fifth day on, no 
more nurse’s milk. Cow’s milk boiled (one part water 
out of four parts), with a little egg, seems to relish. 
Water-gruel with yolk of egg was taken once, but not 
again; leguminous food of that sort is refused after a 
single trial. 
From the eighth month on, the child was fed almost 
exclusively for months on Nestle’s “prepared food” 
(Kindermehl), which was most agreeable to him. He 126 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
utters a cry of joy, as if to make known his pleasure at 
the good taste, and this more loudly and persistently 
than over any food thus far tried. It would hardly be 
possible for an adult, owing to the sameness of the taste, 
to take for so long a time uninterruptedly, several times 
a day, nothing but this prepared food. 
9 th month.—With great surprise—at the new taste— 
the child took yolk of egg mixed with cane-sugar. He 
drinks water with liking, and sucks with pleasure at a 
piece of white bread. But in this the sucking doubt- 
less yields more pleasure than the taste. 
11th month.—The child takes, without pleasure, 
meat-broth with egg that has a slightly salt taste. He 
rejects obstinately scalded skimmed milk without sugar, 
but likes dry biscuit. 
12th month.—The child is very fastidious (wah- 
lerisch) in regard to the taste of his food; refuses fari- 
naceous food except “prepared food” and biscuit. 
Everything bitter was now, and for the two years fol- 
lowing, detested, slightly salt food no longer so. 
The idiosyncrasy of antipathy to many articles of 
food (even in the fourth and fifth years) went so far 
that even the sight of such food (e. g., peas) called forth 
lively demonstrations of disgust, even choking move- 
ments, a phenomenon exhibited by many children, and 
one that leads us to infer a largely developed capacity 
of discrimination in taste and smell. 
As to the practical bearing of this, I hold, as a fixed 
rule—however much it may be at variance with the 
prejudices of a traditional method of training—that a 
young child should in no case be constrained to eat food 
that is distasteful to him. I can see no advantage what- TASTE. 
127 
ever to the child from such severity, but it may very 
likely have an injurious effect upon the nutrition and 
the development of character, even if vomiting does not 
follow soon after the meal. 
The refusal of the little child to eat certain kinds of 
food is by no means—as Heyfelder thinks it is—naugh- 
tiness. The babe is right in refusing to drink sour milk 
in the first place; and at the critical period of weaning 
it is not the child that deserves punishment when he re- 
jects the salted food or food hard for him to digest, but 
the nurse that forces it on him who deserves it. Such 
constraint first develops often enough an antagonism to 
some dishes, and general willfulness. This is afterward 
vainly contended against as idiosyncrasy or naughtiness. 
But let the child’s taste in the beginning have free 
course—guarding him always against excess—and he 
will of himself become accustomed to the food of the 
family. In this matter it should not escape notice that 
this last presupposes a certain blunting of smell as well 
as of taste, which the child gains only in the course of 
years. 
3. Taste in Newly-born Animals. 
In newly-born animals, also, whose sense of taste I 
tested, there is certainly a decided preference for sub- 
stances of certain particular tastes, along with indiffer- 
ence to solutions that are qualitatively unlike and weak 
to the taste, and the memory of tastes is developed on 
the first day. 
Experiments on little Guinea-pigs, only eight to six- 
teen hours old, and separated from the mother after two 
hours, proved to me absolutely that concentrated water- 
solutions of tartaric acid, soda, glycerine, introduced 128 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
into the mouth through glass tubes, are swallowed just 
as greedily or eagerly as cow’s milk and water, with 
vigorous sucking. But then the empty tube, placed 
with the end upon the tongue, occasioned just such 
sucking. The experiments conducted in this manner 
can not, therefore, yield much that can be depended 
upon. Touch, as a reflex stimulus to sucking in hungry 
new-born creatures, overpowers any taste-stimuli acting 
at the same time. Newly-born animals that have eaten 
enough do not, however, suck regularly in general. 
For this reason another criterion, at least for the 
recognition of an agreeable sensation of taste, is of es- 
pecial value, viz., licking. This must be regarded as a 
sure sign of enjoyment of the sw’eet in the case of new- 
born human beings also—they lick persistently sugar, 
but not crystals of tartaric acid, or the nipple-shell that 
is not sugared. 
A Guinea-pig, not yet seventeen hours old, was placed 
by me in a glass box along with a bit of oil of thyme, 
a bit of camphor, and a piece of sugar-candy. The 
creature ran about, stayed longest by the sugar, gnawed 
at a corner of that, and thereupon began to lick the 
sugar very eagerly. One could see plainly how it 
stretched forth the tongue and drew it along the smooth 
surface of the crystal. After it had kept up this opera- 
tion for some minutes, apparently with great satisfac- 
tion, I removed it, bandaged both its eyes, and repeated 
the experiment after twenty-four hours. To my sur- 
prise the animal now again distinguished the sugar, al- 
though it had not touched the oil of thyme and the cam- 
phor, and although it could not see. This was probably 
owing to the smell. The glass and the wood were not TASTE. 
129 
licked, but the sugar was licked just as before, and just 
as it was after the animal was again allowed the use of 
its eyes. I have not seen other Guinea-pigs manifest on 
the first day such decision in taste. But the one in- 
stance proves that the sensation of sweet can be dis- 
criminated on the first day, can be desired and be found 
agreeable. 
The chick just out of the shell also distinguishes dif- 
ferent kinds of food by the taste. For when I placed 
before a chick boiled white-of-egg, boiled yolk, and 
millet, it pecked at all three, one after another, as it did 
at bits of egg-shell, grains of sand, spots and cracks in 
the wood floor; but only at the yolk-of-egg did it peck 
often and eagerly. When I took the last away, and 
then, an hour later than the first trial, placed it again 
before the chick, the creature ran directly to it and took 
some of it, whereas at the first trial it had tasted the 
white-of-egg only once, and had swallowed only one 
grain of millet, rejecting the rest obstinately afterward 
as before. This preference of the yolk-of-egg rests ac- 
cordingly upon discrimination and taste-memory. 
New-born animals, therefore, distinguish qualities of 
taste without having had any other gustatory impres- 
sions than those of the amniotic fluid swallowed in the 
egg- 
This remarkable capacity can rest only on inherited 
recollection—on an instinct of taste. 
Further experiments in this matter, especially upon 
newly-born human beings, are urgently to be desired, 
in order to ascertain in detail, better than hitherto, the 
gradual increase of sensibility according to the different 
degrees of concentration (in solution), and the charac- 130 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
teristic reflexes for agreeable and disagreeable sensations 
of taste. Only chemically pure, odorless, strong-tasting 
substances should be used, in accurately graded quanti- 
ties, for such experiments; preferably dissolved in luke- 
warm, distilled water; for sweet tastes, glycerine, cane- 
sugar, and sugar-of-milk; for bitter, sulphate of qui- 
nine; for salt, cooking-salt; for sour, tartaric acid and 
lactic acid ; for alkalines, soda. 
CHAPTER V. 
SMELL. 
Tite observations concerning the faculty of smell re- 
late first to the evidence of its existence in the new-born 
human being; next to the discrimination of impressions 
of smell on the part of the infant. These are followed 
by some statements concerning smell in new-born ani- 
mals. 
1. Faculty of Smell in the Newly-born. 
The child can, even in its first days, be constrained, 
by strong-smelling substances, to mimetic movements. 
Kussmaul has ascertained that new-born children in 
sleep, when the odor of asafoetida or of the very bad- 
smelling Dippel’s-oil enters their nostrils, frequently shut 
the eyelids tighter together, distort the face, become 
restless, move the head and the arms, awake; and go 
to sleep again when the cause of the smell is removed. 
Genzmer observed that well-developed, lively children, 
are brought to screaming by strong impressions of smell. 
He made use of the ill-smelling aqua foetida anti- SMELL. 
131 
hysterica, which was rubbed with a pencil upon the 
upper edge of the upper lip of sleeping and waking 
children. The infants made movements of sucking, 
when but little liquid was put on; of choking, when 
more was put on; the eyes, too, were screwed up and 
the countenance was distorted, as after strong gustatory 
impressions. How many hours old the children were, 
is not stated. 
In these observations the sensation of wetness has 
been overlooked, and both investigators have failed to 
consider that in their experiments there was by no 
means an excitement of the nerves of smell exclusively. 
The failure of the first to obtain decisive results when 
he selected waking infants, and the circumstance that 
only strongly stimulating substances were found effica- 
cious, as well as the appearance of strong reflex move- 
ments, points rather to an excitement of the sensitive 
nerve (the trigeminus) than of the nerve of smell (the 
olfactory). Still the tests with asafoetida are to be re- 
ferred to the latter alone. Children born a month too 
soon likewise react on odorous substances in the above 
fashion (Kussmaul). 
The proof of the existence of the faculty of smell 
in the newly-born child would be produced, if its mother 
or nurse would make up her mind to smear her breast 
with a strong-smelling substance that has no taste, or 
if some volatile stuff like petroleum, spirits of wine, 
cologne-water, asafoetida, in small quantity, were put 
upon a nursing-bottle or a nipple-shell. If the child 
then refuses to suck at the breast or the bottle that 
smells of the stuff, and does not refuse the source of 
milk that has been left in its natural state, then the 132 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
child can smell. For in case of weak odors of this sort 
it is not to be assumed that there will be perceptible 
accompanying excitement of the nasal fibers of the tri- 
geminus. Such experiments are urgently to be wished. 
A girl babe of eighteen hours obstinately refused the 
breast upon the nipple of which a little petroleum, or 
oil-of-amber, had been rubbed, but gladly took the other 
breast. This experiment of Kroner’s alone corresponds 
to my suggestion given above (made in 1878); only it 
ought to be repeated with a number of very young 
children. For the observation that infants in the first 
days reject the breast of the mother, when this has by 
accident acquired a strange smell, was not instituted with 
regard to infants just born. And the fact that many 
new-born children after having once tasted their mother’s 
milk, refuse for a long time, in spite of hunger and 
thirst, to take any other food, is not convincing, for this 
is not a case of sensations of smell exclusively, nor again 
of children just bom. 
On the other hand, some of Kroner’s observations 
are decidedly in favor of the view that the normal child 
can smell, a quarter of an hour after birth, and a few 
hours or days after. For it turns up its nose and makes 
a wry face when Dippel’s-oil or amber-oil is offered it, 
and “ children several hours old become generally rest- 
less, screw the eyelids tight together, open the mouth, 
and thrust out the tongue.” 
In all experiments of this kind concerning the sense 
of smell in the newly-born, care must also be taken that 
the nostrils shall be perfectly open to the passage of the 
air. The child must breathe easily with his mouth shut. 
The filling of the nostrils with amniotic fluid excludes SMELL. 
133 
the possibility of a sensation of smell before birth. But 
directly after the beginning of respiration this liquid is 
displaced by air, and it is a question whether then the 
olfactory mucous membrane needs first a longer invigo- 
ration by the air before the olfactory cells can be the 
means of a sensation of smell, or whether a reaction fol- 
lows immediately upon the inhalation of air that has an 
odor. 
The sense of smell, when it has once been aroused 
to activity, continues to be of decisive importance to the 
infant in the choice of food, and this from the beginning. 
Sensations of smell are present, for the first time, not at 
the age of four weeks, or from the second month on, as 
many think, but even in the first days, and the pleasant 
and unpleasant feelings occasioned by them increase in 
intensity from day to day. Children of a few weeks 
sometimes do not take the breast of a nurse whose skin 
has a disagreeable smell, and they cry out as soon as the 
breast approaches them. There is no doubt that chil- 
dren born blind very early smell the spoon filled with 
milk or broth, and the disinclination of many infants, in 
the first week, to take cow’s milk after they have had 
the breast, must be ascribed to the smell rather than to 
the taste, since they sometimes refuse the milk when it 
is brought near them without tasting it. In such a case 
the decisive experiment would be to hold the child’s 
nose and bandage its eyes, to see whether it would not 
then take willingly the new food. At all events, the 
sense of smell in children born blind plays an essential 
part in the taking of food, and develops its own memory 
as early as does the sense of taste. 
2. Discrimination of Impressions of Smell. 134 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Whether the babe, however, knows its sleeping 
mother in the night by the smell, as animals undoubt- 
edly do, must be left undecided. To me it is probable 
that the child does not recognize her when it does not 
see, hear, or feel her. 
That the sense of smell is concerned in the seeking 
of the nipple, on the part of the babe that is merely laid 
by the nurse but not otherwise assisted (as is the case 
with animals), also seems to me improbable from my 
own observations in the lying-in hospital. For the chil- 
dren, indeed, push hither and thither (often with sur- 
prising quickness and violence), with the whole head 
against the breast (like young lambs, kids, calves, foals) 
with open mouth and intermittent movements of the 
lower jaw ; but in my own child it was not till the 
eighth day of life that I saw this groping about; and 
whether the sense of smell co-operates in this is doubt- 
ful, for the child often sucked at the wrong place. 
Later, long after weaning, the sense of smell is un- 
questionably the least turned to account for the knowl- 
edge of things. Impressions of smell are regularly con- 
founded with impressions of taste. The following notes 
regarding the behavior of my child show how late in 
his case smell appeared distinctly: 
In the fifteenth month, freshly-ground coffee and 
cologne-water, both of which he liked very much to 
smell in his third year, made no impression at all, or 
only a slight one. They were not desired, neither were 
any movements made to repel them if they were held 
under the nose of the child when his mouth was shut. 
At the end of this month, however, cologne-wTater held 
under his nose made the child laugh. He took pleasure SMELL. 
135 
in the odor as in any other new, agreeable sense-impres- 
sion. In the sixteenth month he was affected in just 
the same way by the odor of oil-of-roses. 
In the seventeenth month, however, the inability to 
separate smell and taste showed itself still in unmistak- 
able fashion. For every time that I wanted to make 
the child smell something—for example, when I held a 
hyacinth or an essence to his nose—he would open his 
mouth, and in fact take the sweet-smelling flower into 
his mouth. He thought, therefore, that as he had hith- 
erto had agreeable sensations of smell only in connection 
with taste (of milk), he must now, since he was smelling, 
also taste—a very interesting proof, in relation to the 
genesis of mind, that sensation is independent of the 
knowledge of the organ of sensation; and that the 
reasoning processes depend upon the preceding associa- 
tions of sensation. 
In the eighteenth month the child no longer carried 
regularly to his mouth the objects he was to smell or that 
he wanted to smell; he had therefore recognized the 
separation of smell from taste. If I gave him a rose, say- 
ing, “ Smell of it! ” (“ Riech einmal! ”) he would put 
the flower to his nose, with his mouth shut, and inhale 
the aroma through the nose, though, to be sure, only 
after exhaling the breath many times against the flower. 
For a long time “ smell ” was understood to mean ex- 
haling, probably because the nurse, in order to indicate 
smell, had always feigned a sneeze. Yet the opening 
of the mouth occasionally appeared later also, when the 
child was to smell anything. Genuine snuffing, taking 
in the air for the purpose of smelling, did not take 
place. 136 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
As no exercises in smelling are in general instituted 
for children, and as the infant almost always has a sour- 
ish smell of half-digested milk, and has little opportunity 
to smell anything except milk and his own perspiration 
and that of his nurse or mother, the late development of 
smell, as a conscious act, is not surprising. The im- 
portance of this function for testing the atmosphere and 
food, and for cleanliness, is unfortunately almost uni- 
versally underestimated. We find, too, as is well known, 
in many, probably in most, adults, a great uncertainty 
as to whether they have a sensation of smell or a sensa- 
tion of taste, or both. The civilized child ordinarily 
growTs up without instruction in this respect, although 
it would be very useful to impress upon him early the 
various kinds of smell, in association with definite ex- 
pressions for them, as is usually done with colors and 
tones. 
3. Smell in New-born Animals. 
Many mammals are capable of distinguishing differ- 
ent impressions of smell only a few hours after birth. 
Especially in the case of new-born Guinea-pigs, no 
one of which was more than seventeen hours old, I was 
able easily to establish this fact. For when I put ill- 
smelling substances, like asafoetida, in not too small 
quantities, on the bottom of a wide-mouthed glass bottle, 
lying in a horizontal position, into which the animal 
under observation crept, the creature repeatedly wiped 
and rubbed its nose with the fore-feet. Further, the 
animals turned away, with a quick sidewise movement 
of the head, after concentrated propionic acid, or car- 
bolic acid, or water-ammonia, had been held before them 
some seconds. Often they sneezed at the same time SMELL. 
137 
with a peculiar noise. The smell of camphor, on the 
other hand, seemed to be not disagreeable to young 
Guinea-pigs; for they stayed a long time in a glass half 
filled with pieces of camphor, when they might easily 
have left it, and they made none of those movements of 
repulsion. The same is the case with gum-benjamin. 
Here, to be sure, the rapid blunting of sensitiveness to 
odors should be taken into account. 
I tested several more odorous substances in this way, 
especially oil-of-thyme, alcohol, ethylic ether, chloro- 
form, prussic acid, and nicotine. Toward these last the 
Guinea-pigs did not act with so much decision on the 
first day as they did toward the first-mentioned, prob- 
ably because the attenuation, in order to avoid its being 
poisonous, was too great. Thus much, however, is set- 
tled : new-born animals a few hours after birth discrimi- 
nate between agreeable and disagreeable smells. The 
impressions must simply be strong enough. Any one 
who has seen how animals, when only half a day old, 
behave toward asafoetida and camphor, will not doubt 
that the former causes them discomfort, while the latter 
does not. Tobacco-smoke also is offensive to them, and 
when blown against the face causes, even before the 
close of the first day of life, shutting of the eyes and 
drawing back of the head—accordingly, purposive re- 
flexes of defense. 
We are not justified, indeed, in assuming that mam- 
mals just bom perceive the odorous substances men- 
tioned by means of their olfactory nerves only, for the 
sneezing, the rubbing of the nose with the fore-feet, the 
closing of the eyelids, the turning away and drawing 
back of the head from strong-smelling substances, the 138 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
surprising indifference toward substances having a less 
intense but still a decided odor, indicate, in the experi- 
ments upon animals of one day old, an excitement of 
the nasal branch of the trigeminus. But it is demon- 
strated by other facts that mammals, dogs, rabbits, cats, 
can really smell directly after the first respirations. 
Biffi bisected the olfactory lobes in very young pup- 
pies that had not yet their sight. They bore the opera- 
tion well, and the mother’s licking helped to heal the 
wound. Animals thus treated could no longer find the 
mother’s teats, so long as they were blind. They crept 
about on her belly, trying to suck everywhere—tentando 
qua e Id col muso gli oggetti. In most cases somebody 
had to open their mouths and put the teat in. On the 
contrary, blind puppies in the normal state find the 
teats at once, as if they saw them. Accordingly, it is 
not to be doubted that in trying to find the source of 
the milk, the young are guided by smell, for they could 
make use of touch (after being operated on) as they 
could before. We may conclude, then, that the olfac- 
tory nerve is excitable in other just-born mammals also, 
and that it was concerned in the above experiments. 
This inference is confirmed by the experiments of 
Gudden, which show that in rabbits one or two days 
old, the closing of one nostril, or the removal of one 
hemisphere of the brain, hinders the development of 
the olfactory nerve, of the olfactory bulb, and of the 
tractus of that side. With the removal of one bulbus, 
the tractus almost entirely disappears. After the re- 
moval of both the olfactory bulbs, which makes a 
comparatively insignificant wound, the little creatures, 
entirely deprived of the sense of smell, soon perished SMELL. 
139 
in consequence of deficient nourishment, since they no 
longer found their way well to the old ones and their 
teats, notwithstanding the assistance they got from the 
nervi trigemini. It is then as it is in the case of sim- 
ple bisection of both olfactory nerves. When, on the 
other hand, the organs of smell were left unharmed, and 
both eyes were taken from the newly-born, and both 
ears stopped, then the sense of smell was developed in 
a very high degree, the olfactory bulbs being demon- 
strably enlarged beyond the ordinary measure. In like 
manner, the external ears of a rabbit, that had been de- 
prived of both its eyes soon after birth, had a vigorous 
development, and the hearing became acute beyond 
what is normal. 
From these experiments we infer both the depend- 
ence of the organic development upon stimulation from 
without and the power of physiological concurrence, 
but in particular we infer that rabbits very soon after 
birth can smell and that they make abundant use of 
this capacity in finding the teats. Otherwise it would 
be incomprehensible that they can no longer find the 
teats after the destruction of the olfactory nerves alone, 
and that they perish of hunger. 
Spalding has observed, further, that four kittens, 
three days old, and still blind, when he put near them 
his hand, which a dog had just licked, began to spit in 
a way that was amusing. He infers from this that the 
cat abhors her hereditary enemy even before she can see 
him. Here the fact ought to be brought to notice that 
on the third day the cat possesses a finely-developed 
sense of smell. 
At the same time, however, by this observation and 140 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
many others, especially that of the “pointing” and 
“ setting ” of young bird-dogs, the fact is proved that 
the memory of certain impressions of smell is inherited. 
In man such olfactory instincts probably no longer 
appear. With him the sense of smell plays in general 
a much less pronounced part in the genesis of mind 
than it does in the brutes, which are well known to 
surpass him greatly, at an early stage, in recognizing 
and discriminating odors, and which are occupied all 
their lives, much more than man is, with perceptions of 
smell. 
CHAPTER VI. 
THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
With regard to the physiological conditions of the 
organic sensations and emotions of adult human beings, 
so little that is of general application is established, that 
an investigation of these in the child who can not yet 
speak seems premature. I have, therefore, directed my 
attention merely to a small number of sensations and 
emotions in the child. My observations are, unfortu- 
nately, as yet very fragmentary in this direction. But 
it is better to communicate them than to be silent about 
them, if only to show that here many new problems are, 
as it were, growing up out of the ground, close upon 
one another. 
The whole behavior of the child is determined es- 
sentially by his feelings of pleasure and his feelings of 
discomfort. For this reason I shall speak first of these THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
141 
in general. Next appear in the life of the child, among 
the special feelings, the feeling of hunger, and the feel- 
ing of satiety, concerning which I append some obser- 
vations. I have likewise considered the feeling of fa- 
tigue, which is much less marked in children. 
Of emotions, fear and surprise are prominent in im- 
portance for the mental development of the very young 
child. 
1. Feelings of Pleasure in General. 
In the first three months the feelings of pleasure 
are not manifold. Besides the appeasing of hunger, 
with the enjoyment that ever recurs along with it, of 
sucking and of the sweet taste, there comes in the first 
month, and indeed from the first day on, a pleasurable 
feeling through the warm bath. The less intense but 
constant satisfaction in moderately bright impressions 
of light comes next, and, somewhat later, that in objects 
moved slowly before the eyes. The pleasure in both 
steadily grows, but is not so great as the pleasurable 
feeling in being undressed, which likewise makes its 
appearance in the first weeks. The release from cloth- 
ing, etc., is followed regularly by lively movements, 
especially by alternate stretchings of the legs and visi- 
ble comfort. Great satisfaction is also afforded the 
infant by the process of wiping it dry. 
Acoustic impressions regularly produce pleasurable 
feelings in the second month. Singing, piano-playing, 
and all sorts of musical sounds, sometimes quiet the 
restless child, sometimes cause lively expressions of joy 
in the child, as he is lying comfortably or is held in the 
arms. So it is when he is spoken to by members of 
the family. The large, bright oval of the face, that 142 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
moves close in front of the child’s face, and speaks and 
sings and laughs, arouses attention and produces cheer- 
fulness early through its peculiarity, being different 
from all other optical impressions, yet the human child 
hardly knows its mother before the third month. 
In the fourth month, the pleasure of grasping at all 
possible objects conies gradually into view, becomes 
plain in the fifth, and continues to increase in the 
sixth. The delight of being taken out-of-doors at this 
period is probably occasioned more by the change, the 
greater brightness, and the fresher air, than by the 
sight of trees and houses. The child’s own image in 
the mirror was in one case observed with unquestion- 
able signs of pleasure in the seventh month; animals 
and watches do not generally excite the child’s pleasur- 
able interest till later. 
A new sort of pleasurable feelings, in which an in- 
tellectual element already mingles, appears when the 
child begins himself to produce some change, espe- 
cially of form, through his own activity, so that he 
gradually acquires the knowledge of his own power. 
Here belong not only the effects of the voice, espe- 
cially of screaming and of the first sounds uttered by 
himself, but also the first plays. First of all, and that 
in the fifth month, in the case of my child, it was the 
act of crumpling a sheet of paper, that wras taken up 
and repeated with evident gratification. Tearing news- 
papers to pieces and rolling them up into balls afforded 
him great pleasure from that time to his third year. 
A like enlivening effect was produced by the long- 
continued pulling of a glove this way and that (prac- 
ticed from the fifth month to the fourth year, from time THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
143 
to time), also by pulling at the hair of one’s beard (at 
the same period), then by the ringing of a little bell, 
continued an intolerably long time. Later it was the 
movements of his own body in locomotion (in march- 
ing), and purely intellectual pleasures that amused him : 
putting things in and out, cutting with scissors, turning 
the leaves of books, looking at pictures. Last came the 
inventive, embellishing and yet moderate imagination, 
that gives life to shapeless blocks of wood, transforms 
the leaves of trees into savory food, and so on. 
On the whole, however, it is manifest in the case 
of all children in the first part of their life, that much 
more happiness comes through relief from disagreeable 
conditions than through the provision of positively 
agreeable conditions. Hunger, thirst, wet, cold, swad- 
dling-clothes—the getting rid of these produces pleas- 
urable feelings, which are in part stronger, in part not 
weaker, than those occasioned by mild light, moving 
tassels, lukewarm baths, song, and the friendliness of 
parents. It is not until the second three months that 
wholly new scenes of enjoyment are entered upon with 
the first successful attempts at grasping objects. 
The first period of human life belongs to the least 
agreeable, inasmuch as not only the number of enjoy- 
ments is small, but the capacity for enjoyment is small 
likewise, and the unpleasant feelings predominate until 
sleep interrupts them. 
The expressions of pleasurable feeling are at the 
beginning not very various; but from the first day 
signs of pleasure are open eyes, and soon after an ani- 
mated gleam in them—a slight excitation of the secre- 
tory nerve of the lachrymal gland. 144 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
The voice is in the first days an altogether different 
one when pleasurable feelings are expressed from what 
it is when the child is hungry, and high, crowing tones, 
as a sure sign of joy, have in fact been observed by me 
in the fourth month. They 'were always employed 
with the same significance even in the fourth year. 
Toward the end of the first year there appeared in the 
case of my boy, as an acoustic expression of pleasure, a 
peculiar grunting, caused probably by oscillations of the 
uvula with the mouth shut. This made its appearance 
especially when the child had a joyous anticipation, 
was expecting something agreeable, and it used to be 
associated frequently with a movement of abdominal 
pressure. A genuine pressure or straining, accompa- 
nied by a strong expiration, or by that grunting with 
shut mouth, wras for months an indubitable expression 
of pleasure. I have not succeeded in finding an ex- 
planation of this peculiarity. 
More commonly, movements of the extremities are 
found in infants as signs of pleasurable feelings—stretch- 
ings and bendings, drawing up and throwing out the 
arms and legs (especially in the bath, and when the 
piano was played, were these clearly manifested, even 
in the second month) ; at a later period these are multi- 
plied and are associated with very loud, joyous shout- 
ing, as early as the third quarter of the first year. What 
is called “ Strampeln ” (kicking), is also frequently ob- 
served after the clothes are taken off, when the infant 
has been fed and is comfortable in a warm, dry bed, in 
a moderate light, not excited by new impressions. I 
saw also, in the sixth month even, the quick, bilateral, 
symmetrical movement, up and down, of the arms (not THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
145 
of the legs), joined with laughing, as an expression of 
pleasure, when one simply nodded to the child in a 
friendly manner. The striking of the hands together 
and laughing for joy, perhaps at the lighting of a lamp, 
does not occur till later (ninth and tenth months). But 
loud laughing from this time on is not always an ex- 
pression of joy ; for, from the end of the first half-year, 
my child very often laughed when others laughed to 
him, and from the end of the first year almost invaria- 
bly when any one laughed near him, merely in imita- 
tion, and quite mechanically, vacantly, without knowing 
why. If he crowed meantime, with vigorous employ- 
ment of abdominal pressure, then, indeed, he had some 
special reason for joy. But when (in the second month) 
he laughs on being tickled upon the sole of the foot, 
the laughing is reflexive. Intentional laughing for 
pleasure—e. g., at the repetition of an agreeable play, 
or of a musical chord (in the first quarter of the sec- 
ond year)—is, even for the practiced ear, difficult to dis- 
tinguish from reflexive laughing, but the countenance 
of the child, smiling as he regards the face of his 
mother, is easily distinguishable, even in the third 
month (by the direction of the look), from that of the 
child smiling vacantly, upon a full stomach. In both 
cases the smile is a sign of pleasure; but in the first 
case it is a sign of a special sensation—in the last, of 
nothing more than a general sensation. 
With regard to the connection of all these muscular 
actions with the nervous processes underlying the joy- 
ous emotion, nothing is as yet known. Screaming from 
pain and laughing from pleasure are modified expira- 
tions, and not the least help is to be elicited from the 146 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
relation of the respiratory apparatus to the sensorium 
for the explanation of these expressions of antagonistic 
emotions. The excessive inclination to movement as a 
symptom of joy, in little children and young animals, 
seems mysterious, and the hysterical leap from crying to 
laughing in a moment, in children three to four years 
old, which has nothing morbid in it, can not lessen the 
difficulty of the attempt at a physiological explanation. 
It is probably true of little children in general, that 
every strong feeling brings in its train a motor discharge. 
It is, in fact, very difficult, even for older children—nay, 
for many adults as well—not to betray great joy, just 
experienced, by some look, or by the brightness of the 
eyes, or an increased animation, and not to make some 
movement on hearing merry dance music. 
2. Unpleasant Feelings in General. 
In the first half-year of life, unpleasant feelings are 
more frequent than afterward. Even with the most 
careful nursing, ventilation, regulation of the tempera- 
ture of the air and of the bath, control of the milk of 
mother, nurse, or cow, or of the substitute for this, and 
with the most favorable surroundings, it is not often 
granted to a human child to continue in perfect health, 
without a day of suffering. Birth itself may be painful 
to the child, or may involve inevitable treatment of a 
painful character; and the number of children’s dis- 
eases that are in part accompanied by severe pain is not 
small. In no period of life is the mortality anything 
like so great as in the first year. Through this tend- 
ency to illness, which is shown in the helpless, defense- 
less, inexperienced infant, many unpleasant feelings THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
147 
must arise, for only the healthy organism can experience 
unalloyed pleasure. 
But I do not mean to speak here of the numerous 
unpleasant feelings caused by illness, and by attempts 
at cure, but only of such as even the perfectly healthy 
child can not be spared, not even under the most favor- 
able circumstances. To these belong hunger and thirst, 
discomfort in consequence of inconvenient position in 
lying or in being held, or of cold, or wet, or ill-smelling 
air; then the discomfort arising from the tight swath- 
ing that unfortunately still prevails far too widely in 
Germany ; the pain of teething, the disagreeable effects 
of driveling (“ drooling,” and of sucking at 
objects not fit to be sucked; later, the pain of being de- 
nied things eagerly craved. 
It is an error to maintain that the very young child 
is not yet capable of having the genuine feeling of pain 
or even a high degree of unpleasant feeling; for he 
who can enjoy must also be able to suffer, otherwise he 
could not enjoy. And that the new-born child experi- 
ences pleasure in sucking at a full, healthy breast, no- 
body doubts. The outward signs of unpleasant feeling 
in the infant are also unmistakable for every diligent 
observer. 
Above all, crying is characteristic : it is piercing, and 
persistent in pain; a whimpering in an uncomfortable 
posture ; uninterrupted and very loud in the cold bath ; 
interrupted by frequent pauses in hunger; suddenly 
waxing to unexpected intensity, and again decreasing 
quickly, when something is desired and not obtained. 
Soon are added, as expressions of discomfort, inarticu- 
late and articulate sounds. The infant can not yet 148 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
moan and groan, he only utters cries, and in the first days 
does not feel pain at many kinds of treatment that would 
cause pain to older children—treatment confined to a 
small area of the skin; for example, pricks of a needle, 
cooling with ice, sewing up of wounds after operations 
(Genzmer)—for he often keeps perfectly quiet under 
such treatment, and even falls asleep. All new-born 
infants, besides, react much more slowly by crying, in 
response to the strongest impressions, than do older 
infants. 
A second sign is the shutting of the eyes and 
holding them tightly closed, which often takes place in 
adults also in the same fashion. In the first year the 
child regularly closes his eyes when he manifests a 
strong feeling of discomfort by screaming. He often 
shuts the eyes (especially in the ninth month) without 
screaming, with corrugated brow, when he has to en- 
dure something disagreeable; e. g., when he is dressed, 
or when a finger is put in his mouth, at the period of 
teething, in order to feel the coming of a tooth. 
A further symptom of discomfort is the turning 
away of the head, which I likewise perceived unac- 
companied by crying, under the circumstances just 
mentioned (distinctly marked in the first as in the 
ninth month). 
The most delicate index of the child’s mood is, 
however, the form of the mouth, as even the least de- 
gree of unpleasant feeling is surely expressed at once 
by drawing down the angles of the mouth. But this 
alteration of the child’s countenance, which appears 
more and more distinctly up to the fourth year in every 
single case, is not developed so early as the three pre- THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
149 
viously mentioned expressions of discomfort. In my 
child, whom I observed carefully, this action of the 
muscle that depresses the angles of the mouth was not 
perceived at all before the eighteenth week. But 
during and before the twenty-third week, whenever 
the child was addressed in a harsh tone, the stern 
countenance of the speaker was stared at a moment, 
then both angles of the mouth were drawn down. 
Hereupon began for the first time the plaintive cry, 
accompanied by the appearance of the naso-labial cor- 
rugation ; the cry, however, ceased as soon as the coun- 
tenance that had been severe toward the child changed 
to friendliness. Very soon the previous cheerfulness 
returned. Darwin saw even earlier this form of the 
mouth, from about the sixth week to the second and 
third month. 
Accordingly, the first appearance of this peculiar 
sign of discomfort is in some cases in the first three 
months; in others, in the first half of the second three 
months. From this time on, every vexation, but noth- 
ing else, is announced by this sign, which is espe- 
cially pronounced from the sixth month on. Finally, 
from the eighth month to the end of the third year, 
appears also, together with violent screaming, another 
singular form of the mouth. The mouth becomes, viz., 
as I often observed, quadrangular, a parallelogram, 
sometimes almost a square—a form which presents 
itself at once (even with perfectly deaf children, to 
judge from the mere look) as a sure sign of the highest 
degree of discomfort, as Darwin rightly brings to notice. 
In spite of all these signs of the existence of un- 
pleasant feelings, it is often extraordinarily difficult, 150 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
especially in the first year, to find out what causes 
underlie them. 
Why does the little girl (of four months) weep 
when her mother comes near her with a great hat on 
her head, whereas the child smiles at her when the 
mother appears without a hat or lays the hat aside? 
(Frau Dr. Friedemann). Probably fear mingles with 
the surprise at the strange, as is the case with brutes. 
I once had a good horse, that knew me well, but 
was afraid and began to tremble somewhat when I dis- 
mounted and crouched down upon the ground (to get 
a shot at a bird without being seen). The beast was 
evidently afraid of the new phenomenon. His master 
in that hitherto unseen attitude had become to him 
a strange being. In like manner the very young child 
will often fail to understand an alteration in persons 
whose image is well impressed upon his mind, and will 
be afraid. Children may turn away with horror from 
hands they like to kiss, if these hands are covered with 
black gloves, and they may be brought to weeping just 
by the sight of a figure, well known to them, if it be 
clothed in black. It was not till the nineteenth month 
that my child ceased to be reserved toward strangers, 
and occasionally condescended to give his hand to them 
when asked, provided only they were not dressed en- 
tirely in black (cf. pp. 145-147). 
In many children a high degree of uncomfortable 
feeling may exist, and in a fashion decidedly comical 
for adults, especially through pity. When figures of 
all sorts—e. g., human forms—were cut out of paper 
with scissors for the amusement of my child, he would 
often weep if a paper figure was in danger, through THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
151 
hasty cutting, of losing an arm or a foot (twenty-seventh 
month). A like account has been given me of a little 
girl. 
When an infant, fed, warm, and dry, one that we 
are justified in declaring to be perfectly healthy, never- 
theless screams, screws up his eyes, draw's down the 
comers of his mouth, and does not suffer himself to be 
quieted—we can not easily assign an external cause of 
his discomfort. It must, therefore, be an internal, un- 
known cause. I once let my child, of three months, in 
such a situation, cry on. It wyas not quite twenty 
minutes before he fell asleep, and he awoke in good 
spirits after several hours. Often it is not mere ill- 
humor that expresses itself in such cases, but an uncon- 
querable impulse to cry out, which can not be called 
morbid. In some children it is sleepiness, weariness, 
even after nursing, that manifests itself in crying, 
especially when anything hinders them from going to 
sleep. Screaming also is a substitute for the deficient 
movement of the limbs in the case of children in swad- 
dling-clothes. 
When no one of the symptoms mentioned of a 
strong feeling of discomfort is present, a state of dis- 
content of a low grade may be announced by a lack of 
luster in the eyes, indolent movements, cessation of the 
play of countenance, or a somewhat paler complexion. 
But in this case the cause is usually some disturbance 
of the health, however slight, just as it is with orang- 
outangs and chimpanzees. In the babe, as in the 
weaned and even the older child—nay, even in adults 
that have not toned down the natural play of feature, 
or concealed it by self-control—even in this case I am 152 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
compelled to designate the drawing down of the angles 
of the mouth as the most delicate form of reaction, one 
which does not fail even in sleep, since it continues 
after the falling asleep, in case of illness, and imparts 
to the countenance an extremely doleful, piteous ex- 
pression. Whether a cheerful or a sad mood prevails, 
may be discerned, without seeing any other part of 
the face, from the appearance of the angle of the 
mouth alone. 
3. The Feeling of Hunger. 
Soon after birth hunger and thirst assert themselves. 
They are unmistakably recognizable in this, that, after 
objects capable of being sucked are put into the mouth, 
sucking movements appear, whereas the babe that has 
had enough does not suck, as I very often proved. 
If the feeling of hunger and thirst continues, the 
child cries and becomes restless. But the restlessness 
always disappears temporarily during the first days of 
life when something to suck is put into the mouth, be 
it only the corner of a pillow or a finger, so that we are 
justified in assuming that the discomfort that is joined 
with hunger is displaced by the pleasure that belongs to 
sucking. Yet in many children, even a week after birth, 
the crying from hunger can not so surely be checked 
by letting the child suck at strange objects as it could 
earlier (Genzmer). So early as this, then, the child 
has had a useful experience. In the first days, almost 
every hungry child sucks at its own fingers. Then the 
crying begins again. This is from the beginning a dif- 
ferent thing from the crying caused by pain, and is dis- 
tinguished from it especially by the fact that it does 
not continue so long uninterrupted; on the contrary, I THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
153 
have always found—and I am confirmed in this by ex- 
perienced nurses—that very small children, when hun- 
gry, cry with short and long intervals. The voice, too, 
has a different ring; the cry of pain is higher than that 
of hunger. The cry of hunger is, likewise, easily dis- 
tinguished from the cry of satisfaction, even during the 
first days: for, when the child cries from hunger, the 
eyes are generally tightly closed; when it gives a cry 
of joy, they are open. Moreover, my child, when cry- 
ing with hunger, used to draw back the tongue and 
spread it out; this does not take place in other kinds 
of crying. (In my boy this appeared plainly as late as 
the twenty-ninth week.) 
The reflex excitability of the infant is, as others also 
have observed, increased during the condition of hun- 
ger, especially in regard to touches, most of all on the 
lips and cheeks. 
A sure sign of hunger, or of the lively desire arising 
from it, is, further, the opening of the eyes widely on 
being brought near the breast, even before being placed 
at it, a thing which occurs regularly in the first weeks 
of life, but not before the very first experience of the 
breast. Experience, then, is necessary for this also. 
I have not seen any other than the hungry child, 
directly before beginning to suck at the breast, make 
the peculiar shaking movements of the head, which 
take place in the same "way when an artificial nipple 
is put to the lips of the babe (in the first and second 
months); these movements, however, become fainter 
and cease if the rubber is often removed from the 
mouth and again put in, as if the uselessness of those 
movements were perceived. Although these move- 154 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
ments soon cease entirely, the animal eagerness for 
food manifestly increases in the first year. While 
draining the bottle the eyes are opened wide, and 
the gaze is never turned from the bottle (especially 
in the sixth and seventh months). If the child of six 
months is very hungry, he turns the head and the gaze 
vigorously and persistently toward the bottle, held before 
him at a small or a great distance, and at once cries vio- 
lently if it be taken out of the room. On the other 
hand, he opens his mouth eagerly if the bottle be 
brought near him. This object, and in general every- 
thing connected with it, has in the third quarter of the 
first year by far the greatest interest for the infant, who 
stretches out his arms toward it with sparkling eyes if 
he has not had enough. 
From the fifth month on, however, we succeeded in 
diverting his attention temporarily from the taking of 
food by means of new noises and movements (page 86); 
in the last three months of the first year his eating was 
not so hurried as before ; hunger no longer prevailed so 
much over all other feelings. This progress, apart from 
the fact that under normal circumstances his hunger is 
always appeased without delay, is also due to the increase 
in the quantity of nourishment taken at a single meal. 
The smaller the stomach, the oftener it becomes empty. 
The more it can hold, the longer will hunger be post- 
poned, there being no lack of nourishment. In healthy 
new-born infants the stomach holds (according to 
Beneke) only thirty-five to forty-three cubic centime- 
tres ; after two weeks, one hundred and fifty-three to 
one hundred and sixty; after two years, seven hun- 
dred and forty (leaving out great individual variations). THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
155 
Tims the intervals between the meals become gradually 
longer, and the meals less frequent, and there remains 
in the intervals more time for the infant to turn its at- 
tention to other things than food, since the child, the 
older it grows, sleeps so much the less and consumes its 
food so much the less rapidly. In the tenth week, to 
be awake and hungry three times in a night (from eight 
to six o’clock) is little; in the fifteenth week, the inter- 
vals between meals are prolonged in the daytime to 
three or four hours, against two hours at the beginning 
of life; and in the eighteenth week—and perhaps earlier 
—there are nights of ten to eleven hours without the 
taking of any nourishment at all. Great differences 
exist, to be sure, among perfectly healthy infants in this 
respect. Still, it is true of all that they are hungry 
more frequently at the beginning of life than in the 
second, and certainly in the third, quarter of the first 
year. If one busies himself too much with the child, 
allows too many new sense impressions to act upon him, 
brings too much strain on his attention, then hunger 
arrives unseasonably, accompanied with crying, although 
during “ play ”—that is, in my case, during my observa- 
tion of the child, and my experiments upon him—his 
cheerfulness may have been undisturbed. This sudden 
access of fretfulness and hunger I have often observed, 
and, indeed, even from the sixth week on. Later, how- 
ever, viz., in the eighth and ninth months, the craving 
for food was less and less manifested by crying, and was 
often expressed by a peculiar cooing (Girrert) with the 
mouth shut tight. This cooing, joined with movements 
of the larynx, always bore the character of desire, even 
for those who were not acquainted with its significance. 156 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
It does not seem to appear in many children. The ori- 
gin of it is quite obscure. The child made the strange 
sound only when hungry, when he saw the food directly 
before him, which he could not at once take, because it 
was perhaps still too hot or not warm enough. 
Notwithstanding the fact that the feeling of hunger 
is by far the strongest of all the feelings of the new-born 
and of the quite young infant, as appears from his whole 
behavior, yet it would be an error to suppose this feel- 
ing to be capable of producing a voluntary movement 
in the first weeks. I observed a child that, on the 
fourth and sixth days, obstinately refused, in spite of 
seven hours’ abstinence from food, to take the left 
breast, whereas it took the right gladly every time, 
because the left was not so convenient for sucking, 
though it supplied milk enough. But even with the 
very convenient artificial nipple, this breast was often 
declined, and on the nineteenth day persistently, even 
after a fast of six to seven hours. On the other hand, 
the child sucked a long time at the skin near the nipple, 
then cried, and finally fell asleep, tired out with its vain 
effort. Manifestly in this by no means solitary instance 
the hunger is indeed great, but the knowledge that it 
might easily be appeased does not exist; and does not 
exist for this reason, because, at the first attempt to suck 
on the left side, the child’s experience was that sucking 
was not so easy there as on the right. That this dis- 
crimination could be made so early as the fourth day of 
life is just as remarkable as the persistence with which 
it was held to by the infant, who regarded the difference 
as still existing in all following trials, even when the 
greatest convenience was attained. THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
157 
4. The Feeling of Satiety. 
Opposed in every respect to the expressions of the 
feeling of hunger and of thirst are the expressions of 
the feeling of satiety in the infant. The same food and 
source of food that were before desired with the great- 
est eagerness are now abhorred. When the child has 
sucked enough at the breast that yields milk in great 
abundance, so that his stomach is full, then he actually 
pushes the nipple away with his lips (third to fifth 
wreek). Just so, the child pushes out the mouth-piece 
of the nursing-bottle when he has sucked at it (fourth 
week). In the seventh month I plainly saw that the 
mouth-piece was vigorously thrust out with the tongue, 
almost with disgust. The head had already been turned 
away some time before, after the child had nursed abun- 
dantly. These movements are to be regarded as sure 
signs of the presence of the feeling of satiety. Other 
signs besides are early added to these. 
As early as the tenth day, when the child had fallen 
asleep after eating his fill, I saw his mouth unmistak- 
ably take on the form of a smile, by which the ex- 
pression of great satisfaction was imparted to the coun- 
tenance. Later, this was frequently perceived. In 
the fourth week were added still other signs of the 
highest satisfaction, between the close of the child’s 
feeding and the beginning of sleep : laughing, opening 
the eyes, then half-shutting them, inarticulate sounds, 
in which every person, even those who did not see the 
child, discerned satisfaction. In the first months, and 
even in the eighth, the expressions of pleasure and of 
discomfort are the most pronounced when the feeling 158 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
of satiety has come or just before. The appeasing of 
hunger is the greatest pleasure; the increase of the 
feeling of hunger and of the feeling of thirst, which is 
not yet separated from that of hunger, is the greatest 
discomfort for the healthy infant. 
Yet I have not been able in any case to attain the 
conviction that the infant is as yet capable, as Kuss- 
maul thinks, of feeling nausea. Neither overfullness 
nor vomiting, neither the greatest uncleanliness nor the 
most repulsive, foul smell, calls forth in the child in the 
earliest period the physiognomy associated with the 
feeling of nausea. The repugnance to bitter substances 
may, as Genzmer rightly observes, express itself even 
without that feeling, although the corresponding de- 
fensive reflexes in the adult are accustomed to be asso- 
ciated with that feeling. 
5. The Feeling of Fatigue. 
In spite of the lethargy of the newly-born or of the 
infant, it might seem doubtful whether he is easily 
fatigued, because he apparently makes but little effort, 
mental or physical. A closer consideration shows, how- 
ever, that several causes of fatigue must be operative 
directly after birth; that a feeling of weariness may 
come soon after that event; and that the physiological 
lethargy of the infant is connected with that feeling. 
For the waking condition there is need of stimuli— 
i. e., excitations of the sensory nerves. Now, if these 
nerves are but little excitable, as is the case before birth, 
and if few stimuli are present, then the opposite of wak- 
ing—viz., sleep—will be persistent and sound. But 
when after birth the excitability of the nerves and the THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
159 
number of the stimuli are increased, by the very open- 
ing of the eyes and ears and the activity of the nerves 
of the skin, then sleep is interrupted. The longer this 
interruption lasts, the greater must be the accumulation 
of the products of the activity of the central and periph- 
eral portions of the organs of sense, on the one hand, 
and on the other hand of the muscles, which contract 
more strongly and more frequently in the waking con- 
dition than in sleep. Now, these materials of fatigue, 
as I have attempted to show in my treatise on the 
causes of sleep (“ Uber die Ursachen des Schlafes,” 
Stuttgart, 1877), hinder prolonged waking, because they 
withdraw from the blood the oxygen required for activ- 
ity, in order to unite themselves with it, so that they 
may be oxidized, and finally expelled. What are the 
substances formed through the activity of the muscles 
and the brain, and inducing the feeling of fatigue, we 
have yet to ascertain. 
In the new-born and the infant, whose muscles in 
and of themselves are but little serviceable, and resem- 
ble the muscles of tired adults, as Soltmann proved by 
comparative experiments upon animals, there are two 
actions especially that require strong muscular effort— 
viz., crying and sucking. The crying of the hungry 
child is a sign of the waking condition that quickly 
produces weariness. For, let the child have his cry out, 
and he usually falls asleep soon, even without having 
been fed. Sucking at a breast that contains little milk 
is likewise tiresome; and I repeatedly within the first 
three months saw sleep take possession of the child 
while he was sucking thus at a scanty breast of the 
nurse; and the sucking was frequently interrupted by 160 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
long intervals, even when the child must have been 
hungry. 
Then there is the fatigue of the organs of sense. 
After the first two or three weeks are past, so that the 
attention can begin to be directed to something else 
than the milk, manifold changing impressions of light 
and sound, along with strong, cutaneous stimuli through 
touch and temperature from the beginning, act with 
rapidly fatiguing power upon the infant, especially 
when his relatives busy themselves too much with him. 
Thus, with my boy the hearing of piano-playing, in his 
eighth week, was followed by an unbroken sleep of six 
hours, whereas up to that time sleep had not once lasted 
so long. 
But the weariness brought on by crying, sucking, 
manifold sense-impressions, is hardly sufficient to ac- 
count for the brief duration of the waking periods in 
the first half-year, even if we make the largest allow- 
ance for the movements of the extremities, and add to 
that the labor performed by the respiratory muscles and 
by the heart. There must be still another cause that 
produces sleep, inasmuch as under normal conditions 
the greater part of the first two years of human life is 
actually spent in sleep. This other cause is, probably, 
the relatively smaller supply of oxygen (on account of 
the smaller quantity of blood and the less energy of the 
respiratory process) and the need of oxygen for growth; 
so that, on the one hand, less work is done and less 
warmth is produced ; on the other hand, less oxygen can 
be spared for keeping up the change of matter in the 
ganglionic cells during the waking hours. We must 
also take into account the character of the food, which THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
161 
regularly consists uniformly of milk alone in the period 
of much sleep. Milk and whey in large quantities ex- 
ert a somnific influence even upon adults. They con- 
tain sugar of milk, which, in the stomach produces lac- 
tic acid. This unites in the intestines with alkali, and 
thus after every meal larger quantities, relatively, of 
lactates must enter the blood in the infant than in the 
adult. These become oxidized, and thereby withdraw 
from the brain, according to the above-mentioned theory 
of sleep, in great measure the oxygen required for the 
waking condition, and for this reason, perhaps, the in- 
fant regularly falls asleep not long after each abundant 
supply of milk. The milk may also contain somnific 
materials from the blood of the mother. Finally, the 
almost uninterrupted act of digestion of the milk, 
scarcely ever discontinued more than two hours at a 
time, may, by collecting blood in the vessels of the di- 
gestive organs, withdraw from the brain temporarily, 
larger quantities of blood (which are necessary for the 
waking condition). 
With these hypotheses accords the universal experi- 
ence that in the first three months the duration of the 
period of sleep between two meals is much shorter than 
in the second three months, and that it continually in- 
creases. At first the period of digestion is shorter than 
it is afterward, on account of the smallness of the stom- 
ach. I found the sleep of the infant the sounder and 
more lasting, the more concentrated the milk was, other 
circumstances being the same. Mother’s milk, abun- 
dant and good, produces a sounder and longer sleep 
than diluted milk of the cow, or scanty milk of the wet- 
nurse. But even if the mother’s milk be given exclu- 162 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
sively, the periods of sleep are shorter than in the first 
weeks, the waking more frequent than later; yet the 
whole time spent in sleep is longer. The frequent 
waking is doubtless favored by other causes than hun- 
ger, especially by the greater uncleanliness of the early 
period, and by wet—that is, by cutaneous irritation. 
The notes I wrote down concerning the duration of 
sleep in the case of my boy show clearly the decrease 
of the duration of sleep as a whole, and the increase of 
duration of the single period of sleep, from the first 
day until the close of the third year. I extract the fol- 
lowing particulars: 
In the first month sleep lasted without interruption 
not often longer than two hours; but of the twenty- 
four hours, sixteen at least, and generally much more, 
were spent in sleep. 
In the second month, a three-hours’ sleep often ap- 
peared ; now and then a sleep of five to six hours. 
In the third month the child often sleeps four hours, 
frequently even five in succession, without waking. 
In the fourth month, the sleep often lasts five to 
six hours ; the intervals between the times of eating, 
three and four hours (against two hours at an earlier 
period). Once the sleep lasted nine hours. 
In the sixth month, a sleep of six to eight hours is 
not infrequent. 
In the eighth month, restless nights, on account of 
teething. 
In the thirteenth month, as a rule, fourteen hours 
of sleep daily, in several separate periods. 
In the seventeenth month, prolonged sleep began; 
ten hours, without interruption. THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
163 
In the twentieth month, prolonged sleep became 
habitual, and sleep in the daytime was reduced to two 
hours. 
From the thirty-seven th month on, the night’s sleep 
lasted regularly eleven to twelve hours, and sleep in the 
daytime was no longer required. 
Thus, from the fourth year, the waking period is 
longer than that of sleep, and sleepiness does not come 
on so quickly as before. The child, when walking, no 
longer says, “swer” (“ schwer ”) for “imide” (tired), 
as he often did in the third year; and although the 
feeling of weariness sometimes asserts itself, yet drow- 
siness and sleep no longer follow directly upon it. The 
unwearied springing and running of older children is 
well known. The varied food taken at present, as con- 
trasted with the milk-diet of an earlier period, unques- 
tionably contributes to this, but chiefly the increased 
functional ability of the respiratory apparatus, of the 
blood, of the muscles, and ganglionic cells. The sleep 
itself is now in general more quiet, inasmuch as dreams, 
accompanied by movements and outcries, no longer 
occur so often. 
I consider it as exceedingly important in the case of 
little children not to interrupt sleep artificially—to give 
them milk, it may be—and not to wake larger chil- 
dren either. By waking them a condition of real dis- 
tress, accompanied with trembling and convulsions, is 
easily induced in perfectly healthy children, and a last- 
ing depression of spirits generated. I know of no ad- 
vantage to the child from being waked. It ought the 
more to be avoided, inasmuch as almost invariably a 
fright is given to the child, and all fright is absolutely 164 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
harmful, whether caused by harsh address, or by threat- 
ening the child with the “ black man,” so called, or by 
catching the child, pouring water on him, and the like, 
in the way of fun. Older children like to show their 
superiority to younger ones by such misdeeds, and even 
ignorant nurses not seldom adopt such means. Thereby 
they arouse timidity, which may easily be increased by 
grewsome stories (“ grausige Geschichten ”) and foolish 
tales, and then it leads early to a morbid excitability. 
6. Fear. 
The time at which a child first betrays fear depends 
essentially upon his treatment, in so far as the avoid- 
ance of occasions of pain prolongs the period that is 
marked by unconsciousness of fear; -whereas the multi- 
plication of such occasions shortens the period. 
There is, however, an hereditary timidity, which 
manifests itself as opportunity offers. How happens it 
that many children are afraid of dogs, pigs, and cats, 
before they know the dangerous qualities of these ani- 
mals ? A little girl was afraid of cats as early as the 
fourteenth week of life (Sigismund). Thunder makes 
many children cry—for what reason ? 
If there is in this case the co operation of ideas, 
either clear or obscure, of danger, or of reminiscences 
of pain after a noisy fall, or of disagreeable sensations 
at loud rumbling and the like (I observed that my child 
in his second year cried with fear almost every time 
that heavy furniture was pushed about), yet in the ex- 
pressions of fear on the part of inexperienced animals 
factors of this sort are excluded. 
A hen with her first brood, about a week old, was THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
165 
frightened by Douglas Spalding, who let fly a young 
hawk. “ In the twinkling of an eye most of the chick- 
ens were hid among grass and bushes ”; and when the 
bird of prey touched the ground, at a distance of twelve 
yards from the hen, the hen attacked it, and would un- 
doubtedly have killed it. I have repeated this experi- 
ment. A young kestrel, very lively, as large as a do- 
mestic cock, was by me held by the wings and brought 
near to thirty-three chickens, three and a half weeks 
old, hatched in the incubator and raised in an inclosed 
space, without intercourse with other fowls. At first 
they did not appear to notice the bird. But as soon as 
they heard its voice, they all became still and attentive, 
and moved but little. Then I let the falcon loose: in- 
stantly the chickens scattered in all directions, and con- 
cealed themselves. ELow, except through inheritance, 
did the chicks arrive at the point of hiding themselves 
at seeing and hearing the falcon? They had never seen 
it or its like before, and a mother could not have de- 
scribed it to her offspring. But when, after a long 
interval, I let a pigeon, instead of a falcon, fly away 
over the thirty-three chickens, they were just as much 
frightened; they scattered and hid themselves. On 
the other hand, they were not in the least frightened at 
their first sight of a hen wffiich cackled loudly. The 
hereditary enemy must therefore be known through in- 
born memory. Yet I will not conceal that I do not 
regard the experiments, or this inference from them, as 
sufficiently conclusive (the check experiment with the 
pigeon prevents that), although no imitation by the 
chicks of the behavior of a hen was possible. When I 
put a kitten into a box in which there were eighteen 166 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
chickens not yet four hours old and two about twenty 
hours old, not one of the chicks made the least move- 
ment of flight. Even after the kitten had bitten a 
chicken, had been taken away, and afterward put into 
the box with the twenty chickens again, there was no 
stir at all among them; the one that had been bitten 
did not even turn away. The same thing took place 
on the third day. A turkey ten days old behaved as 
the chickens did in the above experiments. When he 
heard the voice of the hawk for the first time, and close 
to him, he “ shot like an arrow to the other side of the 
room, and stood there, motionless and dumb with fear,” 
for ten minutes, as Spalding reports. Chickens show 
unmistakable signs of fear in regard to bees also as a 
general thing, according to him, although they have not 
been stung. They bring the timidity with them, then, 
from the egg, as an hereditary property. Yet against 
this inference it might be urged that every sudden, 
strong sense-impression elicits the same symptoms as do 
the impressions that excite fear. The behavior of the 
inexperienced chickens was the same at the sudden ap- 
pearance of the dove as at the cry and the approach of 
the falcon. But when I let the latter loose among a 
great number of fowls that were busily pecking, the 
warning cry of the cock at once sounded; and when 
the falcon made toward a hen, they all flew off, except 
one that prepared to attack the bird of prey. A pea- 
hen did the same thing directly afterward. We see 
from this that fear and courage are very unequally dis- 
tributed among creatures of the same kind. Timidity 
and bravery are accordingly to be admitted as heredi- 
tary qualities. THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
167 
The case must be similar in the human child, who is 
afraid of all sorts of things not at all dangerous, as well 
as of things really dangerous, before he knows danger of 
himself, and before he can be infected by the timidity 
of mother or nurse. It is altogether wrong to maintain 
that a child has no fear unless it has been taught him. 
The courage or the fear of the mother has indeed ex- 
traordinary influence upon the child, to the extent that 
courageous mothers certainly have courageous children, 
and timid mothers have timid children, through imita- 
tion ; but there are so many cases of timidity and of 
courage in the child, without any occasion of that sort, 
that we must take into account, as in the case of ani- 
mals, an element lying further back, hereditary. Thus, 
Champneys observed (1881) that his boy, when about 
nine months old, showed signs of fear for the first time, 
becoming attentive to any unusual noise in a distant 
part of the room, opening his eyes very wide and begin- 
ning to cry. A month or so later this child had a toy 
given him, that squeaked when it was squeezed. The 
child at once screamed, and screamed afterward again 
and again, when it was offered to him. But after some 
time he became accustomed to the squeaking; then he 
was pleased by it, and would himself make the toy 
squeak. 
Among the observations that I made on my boy, a 
boy not particularly timid in his fourth year, but rather 
one who would defend himself against two or three 
older children together, are some that certainly are not 
to be referred to imitation, as the fear of machines and 
of small animals when near. 
In the ninth month I observed him for the first 168 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
time crying, turning away, and drawing back from fear, 
when a small dog barked at the nurse, who was carry- 
ing my child on her arm. The same thing happened 
just a hundred days afterward, and again in the seven- 
teenth month. In the second quarter of the third year 
the fear of all dogs is very conspicuous, although the 
child has never been bitten by such an animal, and, so 
far as can be determined, has never seen a dog bite a 
child. Even in the thirty-third month, his crying at 
the approach of even the smallest dog, of a few wreeks 
old, is remarkable. Yet soon after this period the 
timidity wTas gradually overcome, and on one occasion 
the child, in my presence, actually took an apple out of 
the teeth of the dog, which had taken it away from 
him. 
How little this fear of dogs, so late to be overcome, 
was a result of education, appears from the behavior 
of the child toward other small animals. To give pleas- 
ure to him, when he was two and a quarter years old, a 
number of very young pigs were shown to him. He.at 
once became serious at the sight. But, when the queer 
creatures proceeded to suck at the teats of the mother 
that lay there perfectly quiet, then the child began to 
scream, to shed tears, to cling, and to turn away with 
fright. He thought, as it afterward appeared, that the 
sucking pigs were biting the mother. That he should 
himself be thrown into a state of genuine fear every 
time he was brought near them is the more strange, as 
they were all shut up in a pen with a high, strong fence 
about it. This fear became so great in the course of the 
fourth and fifth years in my child that he sometimes cried 
out in the night, and imagined that a pig was going to bite THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
169 
him. He seemed to see the animal as if it were actually 
there, and he could not be convinced that it was not 
there, even after his bed was brightly lighted up. The 
explanation offered by Heyfelder for similar cases may 
apply to some. He supposes that when children cry 
out in falling asleep, and believe themselves to be bitten 
by a dog, a sudden jerk of the leg or arm occasions a 
feeling out of which the imagination constructs the ani- 
mal. But when a child that is sleeping in perfect quiet 
suddenly cries out, “ Go away, pig! ” and this without 
waking, we must assume that the dream-image appears 
without any external movement. A little girl was so 
afraid of doves in the seventeenth week and in the 
eleventh month that she could not make up her mind 
to stroke them; in the thirteenth month she ventured 
to stroke a dove, but immediately drew back her hand; 
in the fourteenth month her fear was overcome. 
Just as remarkable as this fear of animals is the fear 
of falling at the first attempt to walk. Although the 
child never had fallen, so far as could be determined, 
he did not dare, in the fourteenth month, when he could 
not yet go alone, to take a step without support, and 
became fearful if he was not held. The child had be- 
fore this bruised himself repeatedly, but in this case 
he cried from fear of falling, without having had the 
experience of being bumped in falling. 
Two more examples: In the sixteenth month my 
child was afraid (to my surprise, for I thought to please 
him) when I drew tones of high pitch from a drinking- 
glass by rubbing with the finger, as I had done once at 
an earlier period (p. 47). His fear, which did not 
at that time—in the third month—appear, now increased 170 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
to the point of shedding tears, whereas the ring of the 
glasses when struck was greeted with a cry of joy. Did 
the unusual tone in the sixteenth month seem uncanny on 
account of ignorance of the cause ? Yet the same child 
laughed at the thunder and lightning (in the eighteenth 
and nineteenth months); another child even in the 
thirty-fifth month did the same, and imitated cleverly 
with the hand the zigzag movement of the lightning 
(Gustav Lindner). 
In the twenty-first month my child showed every 
sijjn of fear wdien his nurse carried him on her arm close 
by the sea (in Scheveningen). He began to whimper, 
and I saw that he clung tighter with both hands, even 
during a calm and at ebb-tide when there was but a 
slight dashing of the waves. Whence the fear of the 
sea, which the child is not acquainted with ? The water 
of the Eider Canal, of the Saale, of the Rhine, he was 
not in the least afraid of in the same year. The great- 
ness of the sea could not of itself excite fear, for the 
symptoms of dread were shown only close by the water. 
Was it, then, the roaring heard in advance? 
The fear of persons in black, too (seventeenth 
month), even when they are friendly, as well as the 
fear of a deep voice, of masked faces, of strange faces 
(Frau von Striimpell), (in the seventh month and in 
the twenty-fourth week), is not derived from educa- 
tion (Herr Ed. Schulte). It expresses itself in this 
way: The infant cries at the sight of strangers or at 
hearing strange voices, a thing he did not do in the first 
three months. On the other hand, the fear of punish- 
ment—a fear that has been bred in him—appearing 
in the second year, may easily be distinguished from THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
171 
natural dread. The child that for the first time 
disobeys a well-known prohibition does not cry, or 
tremble, or cling closer, or cower down, but he tries 
to get away. The fear of being chastised, however 
often it appears, through many successive genera- 
tions, in the same form, at the same age, is always ac- 
quired anew. A proof of this I find, as do others, in 
the fact that my child is not in the least afraid in the 
dark, no doubt for the reason that he has never been 
punished by being shut up in a dark place. 
How the special symptoms of fear, e. g., the charac- 
teristic trembling, are developed, is wholly unknown. 
It is asserted, in regard to little children, that they can 
not tremble (in fact, Darwin says this). But children 
just born, and those of four years, can tremble, as 
I have myself perceived. A perfectly healthy child, of 
good weight, not yet a quarter of an hour old, trembled 
almost incessantly, sometimes more, sometimes less, dur- 
ing my observation, although it was comfortably warm 
in the room (in the lying-in hospital). The child had 
already had a warm bath. Many just-born children, to 
be sure, do not tremble. 
Many new-born animals—dogs, mice, rabbits, Guinea- 
pigs, and chickens, which I have often observed in re- 
gard to this point—tremble in a warm nest. But they 
have not at first the least fear at being laid hold of with 
the hand. The behavior of the chicken hatched in the 
incubator is very different in the first days of its life 
from what it is afterward; in the following days you 
have often the greatest difficulty in catching it. In the 
beginning it does not run away, though it knows how 
to run well enough; but later it runs away invariably. 172 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Bird-dogs are likewise entirely without fear of man at 
the beginning of life, even after they can see. But, 
after they have once become acquainted with the whip, 
they manifest fear of man in the most marked manner— 
badger-dogs, in individual cases, in a striking degree, 
as Romanes reports, without their having ever been 
whipped, so far as appears. How inherited endowment 
is united here with individual experience wTe can not at 
present say, for lack of facts. But that fear of man is 
not originally present, but is introduced into many ani- 
mals in common by inoculation through man’s own 
agency, appears from the behavior of many animals, 
which in the wilderness unvisited by man are not in 
the least shy, whereas their fellows of the same species, 
where they are hunted, hide themselves with the great- 
est caution, or flee, even when they are not pursued, if 
they get scent of human beings. Of the graceful pha- 
laropes, especially, I know this to be true, from per- 
sonal observation. They have no fear at all of man in 
the uninhabited interior of Iceland, where I frequently 
observed them, whereas on the inhabited coast they are 
anything but tame. 
So, with man also, it is, on the one hand, ignorance 
of danger, on the other hand, the becoming accustomed 
to it, that makes him fearless. 
It is exceedingly difficult to determine the moment 
when a human being is for the first time in his life as- 
tonished. Surprise, which manifests itself by a reflex 
movement of the arms, and that in the first week, after 
a sudden loud noise, is essentially different from aston- 
7. Astonishment. THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
173 
ishment. And the great concentration of attention that 
the infant bestows on his own fingers, after he has be- 
gun his attempts at touching and seizing (in the fourth 
and fifth months), is different from the state of being 
overpowered by a high degree of astonishment at some 
new impression. But precisely at this period I could, 
not seldom, distinguish accurately the astonishment of 
the infant from that strain of attention—and this in the 
twenty-second w’eek. When the child was in a railway- 
carriage, and I suddenly entered after a brief separation, 
so that at the same moment he saw my face and heard my 
voice, he fixed his gaze upon me for more than a min- 
ute, with open mouth (the lower jaw dropped), with 
wide-open, motionless eyes, and in other respects abso- 
lutely immovable, exhibiting the typical image of as- 
tonishment. 
Just so he stared at a stranger (in the sixth and 
seventh months), who suddenly entered the room, for 
more than a minute, motionless, with open mouth and 
eyes. In the eighth and ninth months these symptoms 
seemed to be still more pronounced, and appeared not 
unfrequently at new impressions of sight and sound— 
not at new impressions of smell and taste—and in re- 
markable uniformity. E. g., the child was thus aston- 
ished in the thirty-first week at the clapping together 
of a fan; in the thirty-fourth, at an imitation of the 
voices of animals ; in the forty-fourth, at a strange face 
near; in the fifty-second, at a new sound; in the fifty- 
eighth, at a lantern (after waking). I do not remember 
to have perceived along with this a raising of the eye- 
brows ; but this may have been overlooked on account 
of its being slight at this early period. Often, when the 174 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
mouth was opened, an ah was heard. The attitude of 
the astonished child was in every case that which he had 
in the moment just before the new impression. This 
attitude was retained, with eyes stretched wide apart 
and with the mouth very widely open. But when a less 
degree of astonishment than in the cases mentioned was 
felt, then in every instance a pulsation of the eyelid or 
a succession of such movements indicated wonder; the 
eyes, indeed, were opened wide, but not the mouth. 
Toward the end of the second year, the symptoms 
of the highest degree of astonishment made their ap- 
pearance, in genera], more seldom than before, espe- 
cially the dropping of the lower jaw. It took more, 
therefore, at this time, to turn the entire attention to a 
single impression of sight or hearing so powerfully that 
the lower jaw could not be kept up. The child had 
been astonished too often, and had become accustomed 
to the once new impressions. 
The whole behavior of the child when astonished is 
completely original with him, not being in the least 
acquired by imitation or through training, for it was in 
the fifth month at latest that his astonishment was of 
the sort described. His immobility is the consequence 
of the sudden, powerful, new impression, and resembles 
the cataplexy of animals, caused by the arrest of the 
will through fright. For particulars, see my treatise on 
“ Cataplexy and Animal Hypnotism ” (“ Die Kataplexie 
und der thierische Hypnotismus,” Jena, 1878). 
Individual animals, however, may be astonished at 
new impressions without being so frightened as to lose 
their will completely. I have repeatedly seen a bird- 
dog stand motionless before the stove-door, in which THE EARLIEST ORGANIC SENSATIONS AND EMOTIONS. 
175 
there was isinglass, after the fire had been kindled, 
staring at the flames and hearkening to the blowing 
noise and the crackling. The dog was astonished, as a 
child is at the fire in a stove, not yet knowing what 
it is. Astonishment is certainly not an emotion pecul- 
iar to mankind alone. 
Animals experience also the mingling of fear and 
astonishment, just as children do, especially when some 
quite new and incomprehensible thing happens. Ro- 
manes gives us (1878) the following observations, made 
by himself, which he adduces as proofs that animals 
form concepts, but which I use as proofs that fear and 
astonishment are mingled when the understanding fails 
—i. e., when insight into the connection of new per- 
ceptions with old is lacking: 
A dog was afraid of thunder, and became fright- 
ened when one day a noise like thunder was made in 
the house by pouring apples upon the floor of the gar- 
ret. But when he was taken up there, and had seen 
what occasioned the uproar, he was again as lively as 
usual. Horses that are easily frightened behave in a 
similar manner, showing fear only so long as the 
cause of a noise remains unknown to them. 
Another dog was in the habit of throwing dry bones 
about. Romanes one day fastened a long, fine thread 
to a bone, and while the dog was playing with the bone 
began to draw this away slowly, standing apart. The 
whole bearing of the dog changed; he started aside, and 
observed with terror how the bone seemed to move 
of itself. The same dog was frightened by soap-bub- 
bles on the floor, but touched one of them with his paw, 
and when it vanished he ran away, manifestly horrified 176 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
by the incomprehensible disappearance of the large 
ball. 
In these cases, just as in the examples of the child 
above given (also p. 150), want of knowledge generates 
fear, but at the same time the novelty of the impres- 
sions generates astonishment. In the first case, fear 
came first and disappeared in astonishment at the recog- 
nized cause ; in the second, both were present together; 
in the third, astonishment came first, then fear, on ac- 
count of lack of comprehension. 
If we were to try these three experiments with little 
children, we should certainly find many who would be- 
have like the dogs—only it would not be easy to select 
those of the right age. There is no doubt that astonish- 
ment makes its appearance earlier than fear. 
CHAPTER VII. 
SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
It is very difficult for the matured human being to 
place himself in thought in the condition of a child that 
has had as yet no experiences, or only vague ones; be- 
cause every individual experience leaves in the brain, 
without doubt, after the first epochs of growth are suc- 
cessfully passed, an organic modification—as it were a 
scar—so that the previous condition of the sensorium in 
the newly-born, a condition as yet undisturbed by indi- 
vidual impressions—affected only by the traces of the 
experiences of past generations — can not be recon- SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
177 
structed without employing the help of imagination. 
For the mental state of each man is so much the prod- 
uct of his experiences, that he can not picture himself 
to himself at all as being without these experiences. 
And yet I believe that, on the basis of the facts com- 
prised in the previous chapters, something may be laid 
down as probable. 
With regard to sense-activity in general, we may 
note, as in the highest degree probable, that before birth 
no sensation of light exists, no luminous image produced 
by pressure on the eye, or by pulling upon the optic 
nerve or the retina, and yet immediately after birth light 
and darkness are distinguished. It is certain that no 
sensation of smell is experienced before birth, and yet 
the newly-born react upon strong-smelling substances in 
the first hour of life. No human being, certainly, can 
hear before birth ; but several hours (with animals half 
an hour) after birth reflex movements upon strong im- 
pressions of sound have been, in individual cases, regu- 
larly demonstrated by me. A sensation of taste, in the 
strict meaning of the wTord, can hardly be possessed by 
the child before birth, but directly after birth he behaves 
quite differently toward very bitter substances from 
what he does toward sweet. There remains, then, only 
the sense of touch, as a probably active one in the foetal 
state. Yet the unborn human being, beyond a doubt, 
is not in condition to distinguish warmth from cold. 
Accordingly, unless general sensations may exist, it is 
only sensations of contact that the human being just 
born has experienced before he comes into the world. 
In regard to the development of the separate senses, 
the following results are especially to be mentioned : 178 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Seeing.—The human child can not see, in the proper 
meaning of the word, during the first weeks. At the 
beginning, the child merely distinguishes light from 
darkness, and discerns the change from one to the other 
only when a large part of the field of vision is illumined 
or shaded. But if the light object is much brighter 
than the surroundings, as the flame of a candle in a dark 
room, then it produces the sensation of light in the very 
first week, even if the object be small. 
The discrimination of colors is in the first months 
exceedingly imperfect, and is, perhaps, restricted to the 
discerning of unequal degrees of light. The first colors 
to be rightly named are yellow and red, and the sensations 
of brightness, wdiite, gray, and black; green and blue, 
on the contrary, are not correctly named till much later. 
Probably the child of one year continues to perceive 
green and blue almost as gray, at any rate as not so dif- 
ferent from each other as at a later period. A child will 
hardly name correctly the four primitive colors men- 
tioned before the end of the second year; while, on 
the other hand, every normal child will, in the fourth 
year, even without special training of the color-sense, 
recognize and name them better than the compound 
colors. 
The winking of the eyelid on a sudden approach to 
the face is wanting in the first weeks, and is a reflex 
movement of the nature of defense, which originates 
only after a disagreeable feeling, in consequence of a 
sudden hitherto unobserved change in the field of vis- 
ion, has been able to be developed. Accordingly, the 
rapid opening and shutting of the eyes is, from the sec- 
ond month on, a sign of perfected sight, especially a SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
179 
sign of the perception of rapid movements. Further, it 
is true in general, that the eyes are opened wider when 
impressions and conditions are agreeable than when dis- 
agreeable. 
The eye-movements of new-born human beings are 
not co-ordinated, not associated as they are later in dis- 
tinct vision, but are in the first days predominantly 
irregular; yet it often happens that, among the mani- 
fold unregulated movements of the eyes, there even ap- 
pear turnings of both eyes at the same time to the left, 
or to the right, or upward, or downward. These origi- 
nally rare and not quite symmetrical eye-movements, 
soon become more frequent and quite symmetrical, and 
gradually displace the irregular movements entirely, be- 
cause they favor clearer vision. 
The “ fixation ” and distinct seeing of an object are 
slowly developed. In the first stage the child stares 
into empty space. In the second, he turns the eye fre- 
quently from an object that is in the line of his gaze, 
e. g., a face, to a remarkably bright object that emerges 
near by, e. g., the flame of a candle, and then stares at 
this. In the third stage he follows a slowly-moving ob- 
ject with eye and head, or with the eyes only. 
The transition from staring to looking is complete ; 
that from looking to observing is attained in the fourth 
stage. Accommodation is now effected; objects un- 
equally distant from the eye are distinctly seen in suc- 
cession, whereas, at the beginning, all seemed to be 
blended in the same plane. The contraction of the pupil 
comes with convergence of the lines of vision in seeing 
near objects, whereas, at the beginning, the contraction 
of the pupil to light, even without near vision, and 180 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
without convergence, is noticed, and dilated pupils are 
often present along with convergence. The expression, 
when there are convergence and binocular vision of a 
slowly-moving object, is always “intelligent.” 
The longest delay of all in the child is in the gradual 
development of the ability to interpret what is seen. 
Transparency, lustre, shadow, are for years incompre- 
hensible, and lose the mystery that clings to them only 
through very frequently repeated perception. 
The thickness of objects seen remains long un- 
known, and the third dimension of space becomes a 
constituent part of perceptions late and imperfectly, in 
comparison with the first two (the length and breadth). 
The failures of attempts at seizing objects show 
how imperfectly (even in the second and third years) 
the estimate of distance still is; the erroneous inter- 
pretations of ordinary sight-impressions, as of steam 
and flame, prove that the establishment of a relation be- 
tween the impressions of touch and those of sight is 
effected but slowly in the first years; and that in par- 
ticular the perception of the difference between a sur- 
face-extension and an extension in three dimensions 
begins late and is established slowly. Yet the ability to 
recognize pictures of known objects and persons as such, 
is developed early. 
As to the theory of space-perception, the facts prove 
directly that there does not exist in the human being 
immediately after birth a ready-made, inborn mechan- 
ism to be set in regular activity by impressions of 
light; but that the impressions themselves really de- 
velop the inherited mechanism, which is but incomplete 
at birth. In this the empirical theory is correct. The SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
181 
foundations only are innate, not the entire apparatus. 
And yet this proposition can by no means be admitted 
to be exclusive, to be invariably true. It is true for 
mankind; but, on the other hand, many animals that 
see at birth—especially chickens and pigs, but many 
others, too—bring with them into the world a mechanism 
for space-perception that is completely capable of per- 
forming its function—that needs only some luminous 
impressions in order to operate at once nearly or quite 
as perfectly as in the adult animal. In this case, which 
supports the most extreme nativism (see p. 34), the 
possibility of any considerable perfecting of sight by 
practice on the part of individuals is, it would seem, 
excluded, to begin with; the chicken, which, when 
just hatched, pecks accurately at a grain of millet 
does not learn to see much better through frequent 
seeing. Man, on the contrary, learns, from the time 
of birth on, to see better day by day, and, even 
in later life, can, by much seeing, vastly improve 
his visional apparatus in more than one direction. The 
hereditary mechanism is, therefore, still plastic in him— 
still highly capable of differentiation—because not so 
far advanced and one-sidedly developed as in the fowl, 
which is sharp-sighted immediately after being hatched, 
having a visual organ that is complete, and no longer 
so plastic, and also relatively much larger. 
Hearing.—The hearing of the new-born child is so 
imperfect that it must be called deaf. All mam- 
mals are also incapable of reacting upon impressions 
of sound immediately after birth. The cause of this 
peculiarity is partly peripheral. Previous to respiration, 
air is wanting in the middle ear, and the outer auditory 182 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
passage is not yet permeable, the tympanum being set 
too obliquely. 
Even after the sound-conducting parts of the ear 
have become open, from a quarter of a day to several 
days after birth, there is no discrimination of sounds; 
but before the end of the first week we notice, in nor- 
mal children, the characteristic winking of the eyelid 
after a sudden loud noise. The starting at powerful 
sound-impressions, which continues for several months, 
proves the growth of the faculty of hearing. Mean- 
while, although particular kinds of sounds, not pre- 
viously observed, are perceived as different even in 
the first months of life—e. g., deep voices and high 
voices, hissing sounds and <9-sounds, singing and speak- 
ing—still, it is three quarters of a year, at least, before 
a child knows the notes of the piano, and it is question- 
able whether he can learn to name correctly c, d, g, 
a, 1) before the end of the second year. Many children, 
notwithstanding, learn to sing before they talk, and all 
distinguish the noises and tones of speech long before 
they can produce them themselves. At the same time 
the intensity of the sound-impression made, in the case 
of great differences, is recognized by the attentive ob- 
server, by the varying liveliness of the reflexes, even in 
sleep. The direction of the sound is perceived by the 
child as early as the second and the third month. 
The great superiority of the ear to the eye, from the 
psychogenetic point of view, is but slightly prominent 
upon superficial observation of the child that does not 
yet speak; but we need only compare a child born 
blind with one born deaf, after both have enjoyed the 
most careful training and the best instruction, to be SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
183 
convinced that, after the first year, the excitements of 
the auditory nerve contribute far more to the psychical 
development than do those of the optic nerve. 
Further, many mammals and fowls are provided, 
at their entrance into the world, with a more developed, 
much more correctly-working auditory apparatus than 
that of man, and are far superior in perception of pitch, 
intensity, and direction of sound, to the human child; 
but in no animal is the cerebral portion of the organ of 
hearing capable of so fine differentiation after birth, 
for none reacts with anything near the precision with 
which the child reacts upon the subtile variations of in- 
tensity and quality of the sounds of human speech. 
Sensibility to contact is, in the first hour of life, 
much inferior to what it is later; the sense of tempera- 
ture does not yet exist. The latter probably leads, but 
not till after repeated alternations of warm baths and the 
cooling off of the whole surface of the skin and of par- 
ticular places, to discrimination of the sensations “ hot, 
warm, cool, cold,” inasmuch as the neutral point of the 
temperature of the skin, always the same before birth, 
can not at once be established. 
To painful assaults that reach only a few nerves of 
the skin, the newly-born show an inferior degree of 
sensibility; yet it can not be doubted that they are 
capable of highly unpleasant sensations after they have 
exhibited unambiguous signs of comfort (in nursing and 
in the warm bath). 
The inferior degree of sensibility to contact, as well 
as to temperature and to pain, in the newly-born, are to 
be referred (as with the foetus) to the as yet incomplete 
development of the brain, not of the skin. On the con- 184 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
trary, the nerves of the skin are very excitable, no doubt 
because they alone, of all the nerves of sense, are very 
frequently excited before birth, the movements of the 
child causing contact at many points of the skin. 
Taste.—Of all the organs of sense that of taste is best 
developed in the new-born child at birth. Sweet is at 
once distinguished from bitter, sour, or salt, and the sour 
gives a different sensation from the bitter. Here we 
have one of the cases, rare in mankind, of innate ca- 
pacity to distinguish among qualities in the same de- 
partment of sense. Many animals can likewise imme- 
diately after birth distinguish sweet from other tastes. 
On the other hand, the ability to distinguish unequal 
intensities of taste is very slightly developed in the 
child at the beginning of life. 
Smell.—Probably the newly-born can not smell any- 
thing immediately on its entrance into the world, because 
the cavity of the nose has been previously filled up with 
amniotic fluid; and in the adult, when the cavity has 
been filled with liquid, there is for some time inability 
to smell, or a dullness of the sense of smell. But, after 
some hours, and it may be even in the first hour after 
birth, normal children can distinguish between agree- 
able and disagreeable smells. Of many animals, it is 
known that they do not delay to make use of their sense 
of smell when the nasal cavity has once been filled with 
air by breathing. And the normal child, too, early dis- 
tinguishes clearly different kinds of milk; accordingly, 
he very likely distinguishes some odors at the end of 
the first day of life. 
Feelings.—As to the feelings of the child in the first 
period of life, it is certain that they arc not manifold, in- SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
185 
deed (because the activity of the senses is still incom- 
plete), but they may be very intense. Every sensation, 
when it is compared with a different sensation, produces 
a feeling. All feelings are either agreeable or disagree- 
able. In the first case, they awaken in the child the de- 
sire for a repetition of the sensation concerned, since the 
very lack of the agreeable produces discomfort; in the 
second case, the desire for repetition is not stirred. It is, 
however, a peculiarity of all agreeable feelings that, after 
a certain duration, they are no longer agreeable, doubtless 
because they depend upon excitations of the ganglionic 
cells, and these cells are soon fatigued when they are 
intensely excited—i. e., when the feeling is very vivid. 
In little children this is shown by the rapid change in 
what they think desirable. 
The feelings that are not agreeable are either dis- 
agreeable or indifferent. The former are wont to be 
expressed by vigorous, loud expirations of the breath, 
by cries, and, even at the earliest period, by an unmis- 
takable play of the countenance, especially by the shape 
the mouth takes. 
Little as is known thus far of the emotions and feel- 
ings of the young child, one thing may, however, be de- 
clared as certain—that these are the first of all psychical 
events to appear with definiteness, and that they deter- 
mine the behavior of the child. Before a sure sign of 
will, of memory, judgment, inference, in the proper 
sense, is found, the feelings have expressed themselves 
in direct connection with the first excitations of the 
nerves of sense, and before the sensations belonging to 
the special departments of sense can be clearly dis- 
tinguished as specifically different. But through repe- 186 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
tition of feelings, opposed in character, are gradually 
unfolded memory, power of abstraction, judgment, and 
inference. 
The most powerful agent in the development of the 
understanding at the beginning is astonishment, together 
with the fear that is akin to it. 
Out of the desire of everything that has once occa- 
sioned pleasurable feelings is gradually developed the 
child’s will. SECOND PART. 
DEVELOPMENT OF WILL. 
Activity of will is possible only after perceptions 
have been had. What is desirable must necessarily have 
been set off from what is to be repelled, through re- 
peated comparison of sensations, before willing can show 
itself. For whoever wills, knows what he wills and 
what he does not will; has previously ascertained what 
is to him desirable and what is repulsive. The new- 
born child knows nothing of this, and hence has as yet 
no will. He has not yet had any experiences in regard 
to his own states; has not compared any sensations; 
perceived anything of the external world ; and so has 
obtained no knowledge of what will be to him agreeable 
or disagreeable. He who wills has gained this knowl- 
edge through his own experience, and regulates accord- 
ingly his behavior—i. e., his movements. 
In order to follow the very slow transition, accom- 
plished not by steps but in a continuous flow, from the 
one condition to the other, all movements made by the 
human being while he is still feeble must, as far as pos- 
sible, be observed, with the question in view, how far 
they may be expressions of a will. 
I therefore put together, in this second part, my ob- 188 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
servations touching the movements of the child, and 
some conclusions that follow directly from them, bear- 
ing upon the formation of the will. 
CHAPTER VIII. 
TITE MOVEMENTS OF THE CHILD AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
It is only through movements that the will directly 
expresses itself. The possibility of recognizing the will 
of the child in his movements must, therefore, be estab- 
lished, and the manifold character of the child’s move- 
ments be set forth, before we consider the observations 
upon the gradual development of will. 
1. Recognition of the Child’s Will. 
Widely different as are the phenomena within the 
domain of will, that owe their origin directly to it, every 
expression of will is first recognized in movements, viz., 
words, acts, looks, gestures. Not every spoken sound, 
nor every act performed, nor every look or gesture, is 
the expression of an act of will: for sleeping persons 
can talk ; somnambulists do various things without will- 
ing, without knowing what they do; and expressions of 
countenance may be produced artificially, by electrical 
stimulus, in opposition to the influence of the will; and 
infants that have no will often make gestures, the sig- 
nificance of which as expressions of will (to adults) is 
wholly unknown to them. But, conversely, it is true 
strictly and universally, that the will, in the ordinary 
sense, during its development, announces itself only MOVEMENTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
189 
through the language of words, acts, looks, and gest- 
ures. 
After its first stages of development it can reveal 
itself indirectly, also, by the opposite means, to wit, 
by the suppression of these very movements. No one 
doubts that a man is capable of expressing his will in- 
directly by silence and by inactivity, without altering 
his countenance and without gestures, precisely by the 
inhibition of movements. In this, however, we have to 
do, not with a particular kind of willing which is to be 
classed with those positive expressions of will that have 
been spoken of, but we have to do with the exact op- 
posite. It is clear that in all these cases in which the 
will has been already much developed beforehand, the 
person that inhibits the movement is in the state of non- 
willing, noluntas, or nolentia, in contrast with voluntas. 
To this state of being-unwilling belongs the voluntary 
inhibition of a movement, this inhibition being nothing 
else than the non-willing of the movement. Non-will- 
ing is not, however, characterized by the absence of 
symptoms of willing, as the mere negation of that, but 
is a peculiar condition of excitement in that it checks a 
movement, or is intended to check one. 
The will-apparatus, or the complex organism of cen- 
tro-motor structures of the highest rank, which is to be 
looked for in the cerebrum, must be so organized that, 
when it is in activity, some muscular contraction results ; 
when it is not active, either nothing happens, because 
there are no ideas (without prejudice to the possibility 
of immediate activity of will in case a motor idea pre- 
sents itself), or nothing can happen, because the ap- 
paratus is brought to a standstill by other ideas. This 190 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
last is the state of inhibition, which, as so-called volun- 
tary inhibition or nolition, also controls, from the brain 
outward, motor centers of lower rank (in part). 
To the state of willing is opposed, in general, the 
state of not-willing; in particular, the state of inhibition 
of a movement. Not-willing is the excluding or con- 
tradictory opposite of willing; inhibition in the physi- 
ological sense, the contrary opposite of willing. An 
illustration will make this clear. Take a bar of soft 
iron and make it magnetic by means of an electric cur- 
rent that incloses it, and it attracts another piece of 
iron; but let a second electric current of the proper 
strength, in a second spiral wire, circulate around the 
bar in an opposite direction to the first, and the bar no 
longer attracts the iron. When this second inhibitory 
current is interrupted, then the attraction is present 
again. Here the attraction of the iron represents a 
muscular movement in the condition of whiling; the 
non-attraction represents muscular rest in the condition 
of not-willing; while in general a bar of iron does not 
attract another, so, too, in a particular case, a bar of 
iron encircled by two properly-graded electric currents 
having opposite directions, likewise does not attract 
another, but regains its magnetism at once when the 
second current ceases. Thus, when a child expresses no 
will—i. e., makes no voluntary movement—two cases 
are to be distinguished from each other : either the child 
has as yet no will, or he checks his movements with a 
will already much developed: he wills, namely, that a 
movement shall not be made. As soon as the inhibition 
or nolition passes away, movement appears again, in case 
the antecedents of it in the brain have not in the mean MOVEMENTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
191 
time vanished. For voluntary inhibition has influence 
in general only on those muscles the nerves of which 
are in organic connection with the cerebrum, the seat of 
the will. 
This distinction between willing and voluntary inhi- 
bition may seem an idle one, but it is necessary, because 
it refutes the notion that one can will a non-activity* 
One can merely will-not-to-be, inhibit, prevent activity ; 
for it lies in the nature of willing to be always positive. 
It can, therefore, be recognized only by positive expres- 
sions ; where these are wanting, we are authorized to 
deny its actual presence, and we have then to investigate 
not-willing (or willing not-to-be, or not-to-act). 
Now, according to experience, the expressions of will 
are four only—word, act, look, gesture. If, then, it is 
to be ascertained whether a child is in the state of will- 
ing, at least one of the four forms of expression must 
be proved by observation to be present. Failing in this, 
we must conclude that, invariably, at the time of ob- 
servation, the individual observed was demonstrably not 
in the state of willing. 
But, granting that we succeed, the inference as to 
the presence of the will continues still to be uncertain, 
inasmuch as in some circumstances the phenomena 
mentioned appear without will. Hence, we need more 
exact criteria. 
In the first place, it is settled that all willing is rec- 
ognized exclusively by movements of contractile parts 
of the willing being—in man and the higher animals 
by muscular contractions induced by excitement of 
nerves. But there are various classes of nervo-muscular 
movements, and in beings of low order without nerves 192 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
and muscles there are movements of contractile tissues 
to which choice can not in advance be denied. Finally, 
in all cases where a contractile tissue exists, direct stimu- 
lus of this is capable of producing contraction, which 
may take precisely the same course as if, instead of the 
artificial stimulus, the will itself had caused it. 
In order to ascertain in the midst of these manifold 
movements of contractile structures those to which the 
predicate “willed” applies, we should be obliged to 
have an objective sign once for all present in those very 
movements, and wanting in all others. But such a cri- 
terion can not be given. 
Only subjective means of distinguishing can be 
given, and the four following are, in my view, charac- 
teristic : 
1. Every willed movement is preceded directly by 
ideas, one of which, finally, as cause of the movement, 
acquires motor force. 
2. Every willed movement is previously known in 
general, or in its kind, to the one who executes it, and 
it has— 
3. An aim, more or less clearly represented in his 
mind ; finally, the movement may— 
4. Even at the instant of the rise of the voluntary 
impulse, be inhibited by new ideas. 
The three first-named signs accompany every willed 
movement; the last makes its appearance only after the 
will is completely formed, and stamps the willed move- 
ments as voluntary in the stricter sense. 
Every movement to which these four characteristics 
do not apply is involuntary. Accordingly, all muscular 
movements of man may, in fact, be distinguished as MOVEMENTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
193 
willed and not-willed, voluntary and involuntary. Many 
willed movements are executed by adults involuntarily 
also—e. g., talking in sleep; many involuntary move- 
ments voluntarily, especially by actors; but, for all that, 
the essential difference of the two remains. For the im- 
pulse to an involuntary movement has something added 
to it when it is changed into a voluntary; and the im- 
pulse to a voluntary movement has something subtracted 
from it when it becomes involuntary. This something 
is precisely the purely psychical element of the previous 
motor idea, the knowledge of the movement and of its 
aim, and the possibility of its being inhibited by new 
ideas. 
When do these attributes appear in the child ? 
The answer to this question, as I shall attempt to 
give it, presupposes that shortly before birth, and m a 
higher degree immediately after birth, the motor cen- 
ters possess a variable excitability, of such a sort that 
in certain conditions, especially the first agreeable ones, 
they supply fewer motor impulses; in certain other con- 
ditions—the first disagreeable ones—they supply more 
such impulses. By this the irregular, manifold, inborn 
movements of the very young babe are influenced neces- 
sarily—e. g., they are increased in the condition of hun- 
ger ; and this influence appears as the manifestation of 
an innate faculty of desire, so called. The movements 
continue until the increased excitability (e. g., that 
caused by hunger) is lessened. Then the assumed desire 
seems satisfied. With repeated variation in the central 
excitability (due purely to organic causes—nutrition, 
supply of oxygen, etc.), the feeling that now appears, 
of satisfied or unsatisfied desire, will work upon the 194 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
motor central organs in opposite ways, and will impart 
to the innate movements the character of longing or 
of repulsion. But these movements can not be trans- 
formed into willed movements until ideas are formed. 
Thus the will does not arise out of nothing, and does 
not pre-exist as such, but is developed out of that desire, 
which on its part is not a fundamental, simple function 
of the ganglionic cell, but the result of the variations in 
the excitability of that cell by means of feelings and 
then of ideas. The will, as such, is not inborn, but it 
is hereditary. The variable excitability of the motor 
central organs, and, associated with that, a succession of 
primitive (impulsive) movements, which adults desig- 
nate as movements of “ longing,” and ascribe to a fac- 
ulty of desire; this is inborn in every one as the first 
germ of willing. The question is, When does this germ 
manifest itself in such a way that no doubt can exist of 
the presence of will ? 
Evidently we must, in order to find the answer, test 
the normal infant, proceeding chronologically in our 
experiments, to ascertain ■whether a new movement, as, 
e. g., the first grasping at an object seen, is accidental 
or intentional; i. e., whether the grasping movement is 
known to the child that desires as well as grasps, and 
whether its aim actually hovers before him. But even 
then the movement is not yet necessarily voluntary. It 
is so, however, when it can be omitted; say, on account 
of the idea of disagreeable consequences. 
Although the discovery of the appearance of such 
activity of will in the child has an element of uncer- 
tainty in it, because it comes at a time when verbal lan- 
guage is still wanting, yet the determinatiofi of the first MOVEMENTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
195 
instance of excitement in non-willing is much more dif- 
ficult. Here, however, the earliest independent inhibi- 
tion of accustomed movements presents something for 
us to lay hold of. 
Both taken together—the development of will in 
the actually-executed movements of the child, and the 
development of non-willing in the inhibition of fre- 
quently-repeated movements—furnish the foundation 
for the formation of character. Both demand for their 
investigation, above all, a careful observation of the 
movements of the child from the beginning of its life. 
No one has up to the present time even attempted this. 
2. Classification of the Child’s Movements. 
A principle of classification for the movements of 
the human being, sufficient for all actual cases, has not 
yet been found. I must, therefore, attempt a new one, 
in order simply that the movements of the child that 
appear in the first years of life may be brought into 
groups for a synoptical presentation. 
If in this scheme of classification we regard the pro- 
cess immediately preceding the movement as the ex- 
clusive criterion of distinction, then there will be four 
different kinds of movements, according to the com- 
plexity of this process, to be separated from one another 
—movements of the first, second, third, and fourth rank 
—further movements may be derived from these, as 
will appear in what follows. 
The accompanying diagram will serve for illustra- 
tion. It lays claim only to a general significance—i. e., 
it is true anatomically only of the relation of each case 
to the following case : 196 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
R represents the extremities of all the nerves of sense (in the eye, ear, 
mouth, nose, skin). 
R S, the nerves of sense in their course (e. g., the paths of the optic 
nerve, auditory nerve, cutaneous nerves, in the upper portion of the pe- 
duncle of the cerebrum). 
S, the lower sensory centers (e. g., optic thalami, corpora quadrigemi- 
na, corona radiata). 
G, the higher sensory or emotional centers in the cerebral cortex (pa- 
rietal region). 
V, the ideational centers in the cerebral cortex. 
W, the higher motor or volitional centers (centro-motor and inhibitory) 
in the cortex also. 
M, the lower motor centers. 
1’, the extremities of the motor nerves (muscles). 
I. Impulsive Movements.—These may be distin- 
guished from all other movements by this, that they 
are caused without previous peripheral excitement, ex- 
clusively by the nutritive and other organic processes 
that go on in the motor centers of the lowest rank 
(M P). They are movements which the foetus already MOVEMENTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
197 
executes, and earlier than any others, at a time when, 
as it can not possibly be incited to movement by periph- 
eral stimulus, its centripetal paths are not yet prac- 
ticable or not yet formed at all, and the ganglionic 
cells from which the excitations proceed are not yet 
developed. After birth such purely centro-motor im- 
pulses may continue long after complete development 
of the centers, especially in sleep. All these move- 
ments are unconscious. 
II. Reflex Movements.—These require peripheral ex- 
citation—i. e., sense-impressions and centripetal, inter- 
central, and centrifugal paths (RSMP); they make 
their first appearance, therefore, in the embryo of the 
higher animals, after two sorts at least of centers of 
lower rank connected with each other are formed— 
sensory and motor. All reflex movements, in normal 
conditions, follow the sense - impression with great 
promptness and become conscious only after they have 
taken place. 
III. Instinctive Movements. — These likewise re- 
quire the presence of certain sense-impressions, and of 
at least three sorts of centers that have morphological 
connection with one another. Lower sensory, higher sen- 
sory, and lower motor centers must co-operate, in order 
that the simplest instinctive movement may take place 
(RSGMP). For these movements arise only after 
a sensation, and then an emotion, that supplied the 
motor impulse, have preceded. The instinctive move- 
ment must be preceded by a condition for which I find 
no more fitting designation than the word disposition 
(Stimm/ung\ Yet the development of the ganglionic 
cells of the cerebral cortex is not required for all in- 198 
THE MIN'D OF THE CHILD. 
stinctive movements—e. g., for sucking, which on that 
account comes near to the genuine reflexes. All in- 
stinctive movements have an aim, but are unconscious, 
as such, before and while they take place; and all are 
hereditary. Accordingly, when a human being or an 
animal executes a movement that was never executed 
by his ancestors, this movement can not be instinctive. 
This serves to distinguish instinctive from other move- 
ments, though it is to be borne in mind that many 
movements of the child may have been executed by 
his ancestors, which are not in the least instinctive. 
The ideo-motor movements of Carpenter are instinctive 
movements that lack the characteristic of heredity. 
IV. Ideational (Vorgestellte) Movements. As the 
lowest form and the point of departure of this group, al- 
ready characterized, are to be taken imitative movements 
or copies of others. These are necessarily dependent on 
sense-perceptions, and require at least four sorts of cen- 
ters—lower and higher sensory, and lower and higher 
motor (R S G V W M P and V W M P; five, therefore, 
when G and V are separated). The centrifugal paths 
probably go, according to Meynert, all of them, from the 
cortex through the corpora striata and the lower por- 
tion of the peduncle of the cerebrum, but according to 
others directly also to the anterior columns of the spinal 
marrow. For the production of the most simple imita- 
tion, and so of the simplest ideational movement, the 
sense-impression must be previously elaborated as to 
time, space, and cause, i. e., wrought out to the forma- 
tion of an idea, and this idea then works with motor 
force; it is determinative for the excitement of the 
motor centers and the muscles that reproduce the sense- MOVEMENTS AS EXPRESSIONS OF WILL. 
199 
impression. Imitations are, therefore, in the normal 
waking condition, always conscious; they can be uncon- 
scious only in various conditions of-partial sleep. But 
in this case many conscious imitations have gone before. 
A participation on the part of the cerebral cortex is 
certain, whereas all movements of the first and second, 
and many of the third rank, take place without that. 
From these four kinds of movement of the child 
may be derived all other centro-motor movements—- 
passive and peripheral, caused by artificial stimulus of 
the motor nerves in their course are not considered— 
since we may suppose not only the expressive move- 
ments, but also the whole of the specifically voluntary, 
i. e., deliberate movements, to have arisen partly out 
of the frequent repetition, concurrence, and union of 
the four kinds named, partly from modifications of 
these according to the variation in the sense-impressions, 
feelings, and ideas. Physical causes only lie at the 
foundation of the first two kinds of movement; the 
last two have also psychical causes. Inhibitions of the 
discharges of motor impulses in the child whose will is 
completely developed, come to pass, as in the adult, in 
the following manner: 
(l)RSM, (2)RSWM, (3) RS GM, 
(4)RSGWM, (5)RSGVWM, 
and after very frequent repetition also without an im- 
mediately preceding excitement of the nerves of sense, 
R S, of which later. 
No direct causes of the child’s movements can be 
named beyond these four: (1), central, purely physical, 
stimuli; (2), peripheral, purely physical, stimuli; (3), 
feelings; (4), ideas. They correspond to the above 200 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
groups. If, notwithstanding, the expressive, or expres- 
sional movements, and the deliberate movements, are 
hereafter treated by themselves, it is because of merely 
external reasons, in order not to complicate too much 
the presentation of the facts, a matter difficult at best. 
The intentional, voluntary, deliberate movements can 
not be separated physiologically from others, because no 
decisive objective criterion of distinction can be given; 
on the contrary, an involuntary movement becomes 
voluntary, simply by taking on something psychical, a 
particular activity of the central organs of the highest 
rank, which alters nothing in the movement itself (un- 
less by incidentally delaying it somewhat and making 
it less harmonious). In truth, a physical difference no 
more exists between a voluntary and an artificial, electri- 
cal, nervo-muscular excitation than between the vibra- 
tions of the air from a vowel-sound sung and one arti- 
ficially produced. The cock of the gun once set going, 
the shot follows invariably in the same fashion, no 
matter whether it was willed or not, whether it had an 
aim or not. 
Only the muscular movements before birth, and in 
the earliest period after birth, take a somewhat different 
course from that of the later ones; for, according to 
Soltmann, the excitability of the motor nerves of the 
newly-born is inferior to that of adults, and does not 
surpass that in domestic mammalia until several weeks 
after birth. The muscles of the newly-born are like the 
wearied muscles of adults. With this is doubtless con- 
nected the peculiar sluggishness of the movements in the 
earliest period—a sluggishness that forms the greatest 
contrast to the vivacity of a later period, and that is inter- IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
201 
rupted in the transition period (as in the case of the 
marmot waking from his winter sleep) by surprising 
stretchings of the arms and legs, following one another 
almost in jerks. 
CHAPTER IX. 
IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
Although the movements of the extremities in the 
unborn and the just-born child lack a characteristic mark 
by which these movements might at once be recognized 
as impulsive, they must, as must all later impulsive 
movements, be sharply distinguished from the reflex, 
the instinctive, the imitative, and other ideational move- 
ments, because they lack all the characteristic signs of 
the latter, as the following comparison will show: 
The movements of the arms and legs of the foetus 
and of the newly-born are of a reflex character, when a 
peripheral stimulus, be it only contact with the wall of 
the uterus, immediately precedes them. But how does 
the first movement of the embryo come to pass ? That 
it can not be occasioned by passive contact has been 
proved to me by means of a close observation of the 
chick in the egg—the creature moves of itself, as I 
found, from the beginning of the fifth day. Here oc- 
cur first only movements of the trunk, then also of the 
extremities and head—exactly as in the unharmed em- 
bryo of the trout, and like what occurs in the embryo 
of the frog in the egg—without the least change in the 
surroundings, and long before the reflex excitability is 202 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
present at all, the details of which are given in my book 
on the “ Physiology of the Embryo.” 
The cause of these remarkable primitive movements 
of the trunk in unborn animals must exist in the animals 
themselves, therefore, and can not be derived from a re- 
action of the superficial portions upon the central ones. 
The same must be the case with the human embryo. 
The impulsive movements are not instinctive, be- 
cause they have no aim. They can not be designated 
as directly useful or advantageous, appearing, as they do, 
in an extremely irregular manner, nor can they, in gen- 
eral, be styled movements answering to a purpose. It 
happens, in fact, that the very young child, by throwing 
his arms and legs violently about, directly harms him- 
self. In sleep he strikes his eye with his hand, rolls 
himself aimlessly hither and thither when fast asleep, 
so that he beats his head against the hard wood, and 
wakes himself up, or cries out in a dream. Once I saw 
my child (of sixteen months), when sound asleep, sud- 
denly raise his left hand and put it against his left eye, 
evidently by pure accident, so that the lid was raised. 
The child slept on with one eye open—the pupil much 
contracted—for a long time, and then removed his hand 
without waking, just as accidentally, upon which the 
lid dropped again. The eye did not move, notwith- 
standing the stimulus of the light. In this case the 
convulsive raising of the arm first into the air and then 
to the eye is to be called impulsive and almost danger- 
ous, but not instinctive; besides, all purely instinctive 
movements are co-ordinated, the impulsive movements 
—the greater part of them—not co-ordinated. 
The impulsive movements can not be expressive, for IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
203 
the reason that, before birth, states of feeling which 
might be expressed by these are not to be assumed, and 
the presumable seat of such excitations in the brain— 
in fact, the whole brain—may be wanting without the 
appearance of the least change in the impulsive move- 
ments of the extremities, as I have proved in the case of 
the animal embryo, and as has been demonstrated by the 
movements of headless and brainless human abortions. 
Neither does the attribute voluntary apply to them, be- 
cause no ideas, as yet, exist of their possible results; nor 
the term imitative, because a model is wanting. More- 
over, Soltmann has proved, by many experiments, that 
in the new-born dog, after manifold stimulus of the 
cerebral cortex no movements at all of the muscles of 
the extremities—the face, neck, back, belly, or tail—are 
produced, but that, on the contrary, these appear only 
from the tenth day, after the animals have got their 
sight. Corresponding to this, the destruction of the 
parts answering to the motor departments of the cor- 
tex in older animals had also no effect in creatures from 
one to nine days old. No ataxy followed—no paraly- 
sis or disturbance of the muscular sense, or the like, even 
up to the time when the electric excitability of the brain 
existed. The muscular movements of new-born blind 
dogs are thus, for this very reason, quite independent of 
the gray cerebral cortex, as well as of peripheral stimu- 
lus—i. e., they are impulsive. 
There is nothing left but to assume a cause of the 
impulsive movements that is internal, given in the or- 
ganic constitution of the motor ganglionic cells of the 
spinal marrow, and connected, in the early embryonic 
stages, with the differentiation and the growth of those 204 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
structures and of the muscular system. With the for- 
mation of the motor ganglionic cell in the spinal mar- 
row and cervical marrow a certain quantity of potential 
energy must accumulate, which, by means of the flow of 
blood or of lymph, or possibly through the rapidly ad- 
vancing formation of tissue, is, with remarkable ease, 
transformed into kinetic energy. 
Difficult as it is to specify with certainty, in later 
life, movements of the human being that take place 
without peripheral excitement of any sort, direct or in- 
direct, here we have them. And it is worthy of notice 
that impulsive movements, which outnumber others be- 
fore birth and perpetually appear in all the newly-born, 
diminish even during the nursing period, and withdraw 
in proportion as the will develops, until finally, with 
ever-increasing voluntary inhibition of the original 
youthful impulse of movement, such muscular activity 
appears, in the adult, almost solely in dreamless sleep. 
In the text-books hardly any notice is to be found of 
these peculiar centro-motor excitations, yet these are 
precisely of the very highest importance in the forma- 
tion of the will. Alexander Bain alone has (1859) 
distinguished them definitely from other movements. 
He calls them automatic and spontaneous; but, as he 
reckons among these the movements that result from 
muscular sensations also, in young children and animals 
—movements which are to be referred to the condition 
of the muscles, and so to peripheral excitations—I can 
not entirely agree with him; for I give the name of 
“ purely impulsive,” and have given it (in my treatise 
“ Psychogenesis,” * 1880) exclusively to the muscular 
* See “Jour. Spec. Phil.,” April, 1881, for English translation.—Ed. IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
205 
contractions, proceeding from the foetal constitution of 
the motor centers, that take place before centripetal 
stimuli operate, and so before muscular sensations can 
exist aud assert themselves in stimulating movement. 
The number of such movements is not great. Aside 
from those of the unborn, which are not to be taken into 
account here, the following may be specified : The out- 
stretching and bending of the arms and legs of the child 
just born, with movements sometimes quick, sometimes 
slow, generally non-coordinated, often co-ordinated, is 
nothing else than a continuation of the intra-uterine 
movements, and has, according to my observations, a 
striking resemblance to the extensions and flexions of the 
limbs of animals suddenly waking from their deep win- 
ter sleep. These, like sleeping children (and, indeed, in 
the first half of the second year it is still plainly marked), 
make genuine foetal movements, which look as if they 
were directed against some invisible resistance. Con- 
vulsive motion is generally not so frequent in sleep as 
slow contractions, along with spreading and bending of 
the Angers, movements which likewise become more 
rare toward the end of the second year (probably with 
all sound children), and are from the beginning mostly 
asymmetrical. 
The stretching of the limbs immediately after 
waking, which I have seen repeatedly in the second 
week, is often not distinguishable from these move- 
ments. It remains for years almost unchanged. In the 
twentieth month I saw it appear well marked, without 
being followed by waking. 
The movements of the eyes before opening them at 
waking, especially the lateral turnings of the pupil, are 206 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
impulsive. I have seen these movements, which can 
not be dependent on light, even in adults. The pupils 
moved rapidly under the lids this way and that, and 
indeed asymmetrically also. The lids, too, were mean- 
while half opened, without any interruption of the snor- 
ing (in the second month). 
The movements of the newly-born and of the infant 
in the bath, which has very nearly the same warmth 
as the amniotic fluid that perpetually surrounds the 
child before birth, can not be regarded as simply reflex- 
ive in character. We may, indeed, see in them already 
the beginning of expressive movements, especially ex- 
pressions of pleasure, the more so since they are regu- 
larly accompanied by an extremely contented expression 
of countenance (protrusion of the lips also); but these 
movements in the bath are for a long time (so late as 
the fourth month)—the greater part of them—just as 
purposeless, senseless, and asymmetric as on the first 
day. Sometimes the trunk also takes part in them, 
with half twistings and raisings, and this as early as the 
second month. 
There is nothing expressive in this. The infant is 
accustomed, also, as late as in the period from the fourth 
to the sixth month, just as on the first day, when he is 
left to himself, in the warm bath and in falling asleep, 
to give to his arms and legs by preference the same posi- 
tion almost that they had before birth. The position 
of the legs continues to be that of the foetus even much 
longer. The muscular contractions required for that are 
impulsive. 
A further impulsive muscular activity is brought to 
our acquaintance by observation of the play of feature, IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
207 
still empty of meaning, in sleeping babes. They very 
often move the facial muscles without waking, especially 
the lips and eyelids, and, indeed, for the most part, with 
bilateral symmetry, although grotesquely, and this with- 
out any interruption of their snoring. 
Babes that are awake also strike very vigorously 
about them with their arms (in the third quarter of the 
first year) quite aimlessly, while for the legs, as a rule, 
more frequently, in bed and bath especially, there is a 
pretty symmetrical alternation of stretching and bending. 
Yet it must be noted that the bilaterally symmetri- 
cal movement of the facial muscles and of the arms in 
reflexes appears very much earlier and is more pro- 
nounced than that of the legs. And the abductions, 
adductions, supinations, and rotations of the arms un- 
questionably appear plainly at an earlier period than do 
those of the legs in manifold variety. In the case of 
a very vigorous child, I saw that even in the first half- 
hour of its life the lips were protruded, and the mouth 
opened and shut, with perfect co-ordinate symmetry. 
The corrugation of the forehead, and the screwing up 
of the eyes, in the first hour of life, however, is not 
always impulsive; the latter, especially, is often of a 
reflex character. Only the strange asymmetrical grim- 
aces of new-born children when awake are probably 
purely impulsive. In connection with this, I have been 
surprised at the immobility of the nose, which I have 
not seen moved earlier than in the seventh month; of 
course, I except the very early dilating of the nostrils 
by means of the levator alae nasi, as a reflex and an 
accompanying movement in snoring, sucking, and dif- 
ficult breathing. 208 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
Crowing and other similar exercises of the voice are 
in the first year to be regarded in many cases as dis- 
charges of accumulated motor impulses, which, as well 
as the squeaking of new-born animals, and the peeping 
of the chick in the egg, can not have their origin merely 
in peripheral excitement. Precisely as the muscles of 
the arms and legs, of the face and of the eyes, so those 
of respiration, of the tongue, and of the larnyx are set 
in activity without purpose by a centro-motor impulse. 
In the first year the exercise of the muscles is with all 
healthy children the beneficial result of such animation, 
which, considered in itself, seems entirely purposeless. 
An adult lying on his back could not make these per- 
sistent movements, that are made by the seven-to-twelve 
months child, without a decided feeling of fatigue ; and, 
when we consider that the child, in addition, turns his 
head attentively, and cries at every noise, at every 
change in his neighborhood, the total of the nervous 
excitements seems relatively much greater in the one- 
year-old child than in the adult, who makes fewer super- 
fiuous movements, and has become dull to ordinary 
sense-impressions. 
Here belong, further, i( accompanying ’’-movements 
made by little children. 
In individual cases it can hardly be determined 
whether movements wholly useless (like those described 
on pages 23 and 24), especially of the facial muscles, 
are merely impulsive, or are the remains of an extinct 
instinct, or are accompanying-movements. We have 
an example in the holding out of the little finger apart 
from the others at the first attempts of the child to carry 
the soup-spoon to the mouth without help. In the IMPULSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
209 
eighteenth month this graceful movement was executed 
by my boy without the least incitement, and without any 
one’s having made the movement before in his neigh 
borhood, absolutely “of himself.” Surprising as it 
seemed at the beginning—it occurred often from that 
time on—I can not admit that an imitation of unknown 
examples is at the bottom of this, because the child did 
not give the least attention to his finger, but, on the 
contrary, was wholly absorbed in carrying the contents 
of the spoon to his mouth. The extending of the little 
finger straight into the air probably came in as an ac- 
companying-movement, but not in accord with the 
movement of the other fingers, without the cognizance 
of the child. In the third year it was only very rarely 
to be seen, and then also it was manifestly uncon- 
scious. 
Another still more surprising movement, wholly 
purposeless, and withal quite bilaterally symmetrical, 
was observed by me frequently in the first year, and 
even in the last month of it. When my child, namely, 
lying on his back on a soft couch, received the nursing- 
bottle which the nurse tilted for him holding it in 
her hand, he used almost invariably to stretch out 
his closed hands upward, with the lower arm bent at 
right angles to the upper arm, which rested on the cush- 
ion or the coverlet. And in this strange attitude the 
child remained until he had drained the bottle. If he 
was obliged (toward the end of the first year) to use one 
hand for giving the bottle a different direction or for 
holding it, then the arm that did not take part in this 
remained in its peculiar position. This has no resem- 
blance at all to the position of seizing; seems rather to 210 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
be an accompanying-movement going along with ex- 
treme strain of the attention. When the child was 
allowed to drink out of a glass (in the sixteenth month) 
that was held to his mouth, he would then stretch out 
his hands and spread all the lingers, and wdiile drinking 
would not cease from the muscular contractions neces- 
sary to those movements; this had a very peculiar look, 
and was more suggestive of grasping. 
Further, all little children make unsteady accom- 
panying-movements of various sorts, especially when 
they hear new sounds—music, singing. They like to 
move the arms up and down at such times. In play, 
too, when the cover of a pitcher is put on and off before 
their eyes, there is often a corresponding movement 
with the hand, executed wdiile the cover is clapped to 
and subsequently (eighth and ninth months), after the 
first observations have once been made by the children. 
Here w7e have to do not wdth attempts at imitation, but 
wdth pure accompanying-movements. The child sees 
and hears or tastes something new, strains his attention, 
and has a feeling (an agreeable one) of gratified curiosity. 
This feeling leads to the motor discharge. Such a move- 
ment showed itself in my boy frequently in the fourth 
year, especially with new’ impressions of taste. His 
right forearm would go sidewise hither and thither from 
two to four times in a second, wdiile he was tasting a 
new kind of food that he desired. 
All accompanying-movements of this kind, which 
approximate to the reflexes, are no more purely impul- 
sive, because they require a peripheral excitement, and 
because feelings co-operate in them. On the other hand, 
the movements of the head and legs in new-born pup- REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
211 
pies, and of most new-born mammals in general (move- 
ments called droll and comical on account of their strik- 
ing awkwardness), are probably purely impulsive. And 
the trembling of these creatures in a warm bed belongs 
here also (p. 171). 
CHAPTER X. 
REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
The fact firmly established by me in the case of 
numerous animal embryos, that no reflex movements 
can be elicited in early stages of development by how- 
ever strong and varied stimulus, whereas movements, 
especially bendings and stretchings of the trunk, regu- 
larly take place from internal causes, proves the untena- 
bleness of a wide-spread view, according to which all 
movements of the newly-born are of a reflex character. 
The human being just born has, in fact, in many re- 
spects, a less reflex excitability than the infant manifests 
later, and yet he moves in a lively manner. 
Notwithstanding this, many reflex movements of 
the newly-born are already strongly marked, answering 
to the reflex excitability that increases rapidly before 
birth in the last stage of the foetal development; and 
they have a very great psychogenetic significance, be- 
cause through their frequent repetition the harmonious 
co-working of many muscles as means of warding off 
what might injure or be unpleasant is soon perfected, 
and the development of the will is made possible 
through these co-ordinations. Then, later, is manifested, 
in unmistakable fashion, the powrer of the growing 212 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
cerebral will-mechanism in the inhibition of reflexes. 
These must, for this reason, have occurred previously 
in great numbers, so that again and again harmful re- 
sults have arisen, and the experience, e. g., has been 
made, “ Crying does no good, crying brings harm ; 
better, then, keep down the violent, loud expiration.” 
Through logical operations of this sort—long before 
gaining the power of speech—the foundation is laid for 
self-control, which rests essentially upon the inhibition 
of reflex movements. 
The beginning of reflex muscular contractions comes 
in the period before birth. For it is possible through 
outward impressions, even by means of continued gentle 
stroking {Palpwen)y to produce and to augment move- 
ments of the foetus in the more advanced foetal period. 
From my observations, I regard it as certain, also, that 
rough handling during the birth, especially where the 
amniotic fluid is scanty, may produce premature respira- 
tory movements in the child, and thereby endanger its 
life—a thing for midwives and physicians to heed. The 
embryo begins early to swallow. The chick in the egg 
makes movements of swallowing on the eleventh day ; 
and before anything of the creature is visible—on the 
twenty-first day of the brooding, according to my ob- 
servations—can be brought, by means of a prick of a 
needle, by cooling, and other harsh treatment, to loud 
peeping; the prematurely-born rabbit may be made to 
squeak by electric stimulation, provided only respiration 
has begun. I have even seen the embryo of the Guinea- 
pig in an unbroken ovary (in a warm, very much di- 
luted solution of common salt) before a breath had been 
drawn—the placental circulation being maintained—not REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
213 
only make bilaterally symmetrical reflexes with the ex- 
tremities on being lightly touched, but I have repeatedly 
proved, also, that in this case the touching of the lips, 
especially of the whiskers (Spurhaare\ produces an ex- 
tremely well-adapted movement of rubbing with the 
fore-paw of the same side—in the amniotic fluid—a 
movement, accordingly, which is, later, very frequent 
with the Guinea-pig, and which is proved by this ob- 
servation to be absolutely hereditary. But if the touch- 
ing of the lip or any portion of the skin is carried so far 
as to become pricking or pressure, then an inhalation 
takes place, and with that the reflex activity is modified. 
A series of new reflexes begins also with the birth 
of the human being, through breathing. 
The first cry of the new-born child was, indeed, for- 
merly regarded as anything but reflex, yet it is in the 
highest degree probable that this first loud expiration is 
a pure reflex effect. Kant wrote (certainly without hav- 
ing himself observed children and animals just born): 
“ The outcry that is heard from a child scarcely born 
has not the tone of lamentation, but of indignation and 
of aroused wrath; not because anything gives him pain, 
but because something frets him; presumably because 
he wants to move, and feels his inability to do it as a 
fetter that deprives him of his freedom. What can be 
the intent of Nature in causing the child to come with 
loud outcry into the world, when both for child and 
mother in a savage condition of nature, this is attended 
with the utmost danger? No animal, however, except 
man (as he now is), makes loud announcement of his 
existence at the time of his birth.” 
This remarkable view has been commented on in 214 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
various ways, and even at the present time many persons 
think that the whimpering and crying of the child just 
born have a higher psychical significance. All interpre- 
tations of this sort go to wreck upon the repeatedly es- 
tablished fact that new-born children without any brain 
at all cry out, and many healthy new-born children at 
their coming into the world, as Darwin reports, do not 
cry, but sneeze. In both cases the expirational reflex 
must be occasioned by a strong peripheral excitement— 
e. g., the sudden cooling off of the skin, and the rubbing 
of the back. For I have observed in the case of many 
new-born animals, especially Guinea-pigs, that they 
make their voice heard, with the same machine-like reg- 
ularity as does the frog deprived of brain, if you simply 
stroke their backs. It is known, too, that many ani- 
mals cry out during birth, and immediately thereafter. 
Calves especially bleat normally, not only directly after 
they have left the bodies of the mothers, but, as expe- 
rienced farmers assure me, often even during birth. 
Goats often cry out directly after birth. 
The purely reflexive movement of sneezing is fre- 
quent with the newly-born and with infants. It demon- 
strates the existence of a very firm connection, long 
hereditary, of the nasal branches of the trigeminus with 
the motor expiratory nerves, and is remarkable, as sob- 
bing is, for the reason that it requires an inborn complex 
co-ordination of many muscles. In observations con- 
cerning reflex excitability, the sneezing of infants is a 
much better sign of the effect of stimulus than are other 
movements. On the thirty-eighth day I saw sneezing 
produced by some drops of lukewarm water that trickled 
over the forehead ; on the forty third day I saw that par- REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
215 
tides of witch-meal caused sneezing; on the hundred and 
seventieth mere blowing on the child had the same effect. 
Adults do not readily show such sensibility. In sneez- 
ing, the eyes even of little children are invariably closed 
(just so it is with apes, according to Darwin); why, is 
not satisfactorily explained. Donders found that the 
contents of the blood-vessels of the eye are lessened by 
the closing of the lid. The shutting of the eyes in vio- 
lent expiration of breath seems from this to have a pur- 
pose. But it is purely reflex in character. F. H. 
Champneys, who observed his son throughout the first 
nine months, found that sneezing was always accom- 
panied by violent movements of all the limbs, the legs 
being drawn up, and the forearms bent with the elbows 
pushed forward ; noteworthy symmetrical accompany- 
ing-movements, which, however, do not appear in all 
infants. 
Other innate forms of loud expiration of breath are 
common with very small children, as is well known, but 
are likewise of very little or no psychogenetic signifi- 
cance; thus, wheezing or snuffling, a phenomenon ac- 
companying sucking ; snoring (first observed by me on 
the twenty-fourth day), yawning with wide-stretched 
mouth, a striking habit in all infants in the early period, 
and which, merely as an augmented and intensified man- 
ner of drawing in the breath, helps to bring the respira- 
tory apparatus, little by little, into regular activity, inas- 
much as it probably comes on invariably after a succes- 
sion of scanty inhalations, by way of compensation, after 
a stronger respiratory stimulus, or because the excita- 
bility of the respirational center has in the mean time 
increased. I once saw a child yawn on the seventh day 216 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
of its life, stretching its mouth very wide, and at the 
same time screwing the eyelids together; and it kept this 
attitude for some seconds. This child generally dis- 
torted its face in a remarkable manner when it had been 
disturbed in going to sleep. But a direct physiological 
connection of yawning with the dropping of the lids 
and with sleepiness is not demonstrated, unless we count 
as such the increased demand for oxygen, caused by the 
fatigue of the respiratory muscles also, which may pro- 
duce a deeper inspiration. Here, too, belongs the cough- 
ing that I, in one case, heard with perfect distinctness, 
in the first hour of life. Clearing the throat is, on the 
contrary, acquired, as Darwin rightly observes. Still, 
in very young babes, who cough somewhere about the 
fourth day, involuntary coughing has, as a matter of 
fact, the same effect as voluntary clearing the throat has 
later. The early involuntary pushing out of the nipple 
by means of the tongue, after nursing, is, in fact, much 
more adroit than the later voluntary spitting out of the 
skin of a grape or gooseberry that has been crushed and 
sucked out in the mouth. Yet the latter complicated 
movement was executed quite skillfully in the nine- 
teenth month (Sigismund). 
Sobbing and sighing, two psychically characteristic 
forms of expiration in later life, have in the infant not 
the least expressional significance. Both make their 
appearance late, under normal conditions. I observed 
sighing in the seventh month, and that repeatedly after 
the child had been brought from the recumbent to the 
upright, half-sitting position. Sighing often appeared 
in my child—even in the second year—when he was in 
a contented mood, and this without its being an imitation. REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
217 
The respiratory movements go on at the beginning 
of life, in general, without any relation whatever to 
the emotions. The heaving of the bosom in mental 
agitation, the holding of the breath under the strain of 
attention—these things do not take place in the very 
earliest youth. The respiration of the infant is, how- 
ever, very irregular in the first weeks, so that there is 
an illusory appearance of such phenomena. In the 
newly-born, the breathing, now violent, now again 
quite weak, interrupted by intervals in which the 
breathing ceases, then rhythmical, then soon after 
alternately deep and light, approaches but slowly the 
later type. 
At the close of the seventh week the number of 
respirations made by my boy in sleep was twenty-eight 
to the minute; in the thirteenth week twenty-seven. 
But for months yet the breathing was irregular. After 
four or five quick inspirations, would often follow a 
cessation interrupted by separate, deep breathings. The 
older the child, so much the more regular the move- 
ments of breathing and the less their frequency. Dur- 
ing the teething-fever the number went up (in the 
ninth month) temporarily to forty and forty-two 
in a minute, and in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
months, during sleep, amounted to twenty-two and 
twenty-five a minute. From this period on, the 
character of it was predominantly regular: in the 
twentieth month it was twenty-two and twenty-three. 
But whenever there is a noise made that is not quite 
loud enough to wake the quietly-sleeping infant, then 
the frequency of the breaths immediately increases to 
twenty-five and twenty-six, to fall again soon to twenty- 218 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
two and twenty-three. This extraordinary reflex sensi- 
bility of the respiratory apparatus I have often observed 
(p. 83). It is noteworthy because it proves the existence 
of a reflex arc from the auditory nerve to the inspiratory 
nerves (of the intercostal muscles and the diaphram). 
The very slow consolidation of the entire respiratory 
mechanism in all infants is certainly connected with 
this great reflex excitability. In later life stronger and 
more numerous stimuli may operate without the least 
change in the respiration. Moreover, since breathing, 
like the activity of the heart, gradually settles into a reg- 
ular rate without the participation of the will, it affords 
an excellent example of the development of a very com- 
plicated, co-ordinated, involuntary muscular activity of 
which no trace exists, under normal conditions, before 
birth. This co-ordination, however, as it begins directly 
after birth, in consequence of sufficiently strong excite- 
ment of the cutaneous nerves, as an imperfect periodical 
reflex, is not only hereditary but inborn, yet not so per- 
fect as after it has been longer manifested. 
Of reflexes not periodical those especially frequent 
in other departments are, in infants, vomiting, choking, 
and hiccough—all three inborn movements, which are 
performed at once in the same manner as they are later. 
In choking, children of one to five days old stretch 
forth the tongue, with a reflexive elevation of the 
larynx, and make grimaces, as adults do when they wish 
by a choking movement to throw out a foreign sub- 
stance from the oesophagus. The usual occasion of 
choking in infants seems to be accumulation of mucus, 
but it may also be produced by tickling the palate and 
the roots of the tongue, or by moistening them with REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
219 
bitter substances, on the first day (pp. 98, 121); nay, 
even by moistening the upper lip with bad-smelling 
substances (p. 131), and later by the sight of loathed 
food (p. 126). 
Vomiting occurs both after overfilling the stomach 
with unsuitable liquid (even nurse’s milk) and on put- 
ting the finger into the throat. In the fifth week I 
saw both cases, and observed how, without any external 
stimulus, the milk that had been swallowed shortly 
before sprang forth like a fountain, three or four inches 
high, from the mouth of the boy as he lay on his back. 
Eructation is not infrequent even in the first week. 
Hiccough is observed to be very frequent in children 
in the first three months; much more frequent than in 
adults. I have observed it within the first twenty hours 
after the birth of the child. It can be stopped by put- 
ting upon the tongue half a spoonful of lukewarm 
sweetened watei. After the swallowing of this small 
quantity, a very obstinate case of hiccough that I saw 
(in the tenth week) yielded; but I find no explanation for 
the effect of this simple remedy. For the diversion of 
attention is hardly sufficient here, since other sense-im- 
pressions do not produce the same result. The compli- 
cated mechanism for the movements of swallowing is 
inborn, and already performs its functions in man and 
in animals long before birth. 
More important than all these typical reflexes, in 
their bearing on the genesis of mind, are the already- 
mentioned reflexive eye-movements and the movements 
of the limbs and of the head, following irritation of the 
skin, particularly by blowing and by tickling, and 
sound-impressions. Of the first sort frequent mention 220 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
has been made in the first part of this book; in regard 
to the last I was in hopes of finding, by frequent obser- 
vation of sleeping children, confirmation of the con- 
formity to law that Pfiiiger discovered, such as exists 
in animals deprived of their brain. I was strengthened 
in my view after the first experiment (on the fourteenth 
day of my child’s life), for, upon touching the left tem- 
ple of the sleeping child, he started, and directed the left 
hand toward the place that wTas touched (law of the con- 
duction on the same side for unilateral reflexes). This 
experiment, repeated at intervals, yielded the same result 
three times. In the same way, in the fourteenth week, 
when I touched the right eye on the inner corner with 
the finger-nail, the right hand of the child went directly 
to that spot and rubbed the eye ; but, when I made the 
touch on the left, the left hand remained quiet. It is 
any way an accident that the little hand found exactly 
the right place, for in other cases it went by. When 
the child was awake, no convulsive, no reflex movement 
took place upon the same sort of contact, and the 
repetition of the touching of the sleeping child on other 
days had likewise often this negative result, or else ir- 
regular movements of rubbing as a consequence (p. 101). 
When in the seventh week I touched the left temple of 
the child as he lay quiet, his left arm remained motion- 
less, but the right arm made an energetic movement 
forward, upward, and to the left, although the left arm 
lay perfectly free. Whence this contra-lateral response? 
Perhaps the sensorium was active and did not yet local- 
ize accurately, or the reflex path of the same side was 
less easily passable. Such unexpected responsive move- 
ments I have often perceived in the first two years, and REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
221 
that as late as the thirty-fifth month in a sleeping child, 
even when the tickling was on the left, the right arm 
lying under the body of the sleeping child and the left 
arm being free. 
This observation is thus exactly opposed to that of 
Pfliiger (1853), who tickled a sleeping boy of three 
years, on the right nostril, and saw that he raised the 
right hand in defense, and rubbed the right nostril. 
When tickled on the left, the child took the left hand. 
Then Pfliiger laid both arms of the boy, who lay on his 
back asleep, gently near the body, held the left arm 
firmly with a light pressure, on a pillow placed upon it, 
and holding a feather in his free hand, tickled the left 
nostril of the little fellow. Immediately the left arm 
was moved, but could not be brought to the face. The 
child then made a grimace, and tried, after repeated 
tickling on the left, to press the left nostril with the 
right hand, “whereas he had at other times always 
chosen the hand of the same side, however much and 
however long he was tickled, until he awoke.” The 
“always ” can not hold good universally. 
But I often saw the reflex of the same side in the 
second year also. Thus, in the seventeenth month, I 
touched the right nostril on the inside, while the child 
was asleep; at once the right hand went to it and 
rubbed, and, when I had touched the left nostril, that 
was immediately rubbed with the left hand. Then, on 
the repetition of the experiment, there was no longer 
any responsive movement of the sleeping child. 
O. Rosenbach also has observed the action of reflexes 
in sleeping children, and has ascertained especially that 
some of them are lacking during sound sleep (those of 222 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
the abdomen, the cremaster, and patella), but he does 
not give the age of the children. 
At any rate, the experiments that I instituted suffice 
to show that, without detriment to the general validity 
of Pfliiger’s laws of reflexes, circuitous reflex routes 
must often be tried by little children, many experiences 
must first be had before those laws are manifested in 
their purity. Many times, to be sure, the experiments 
upon children sleeping soundly surprised me at once 
by their conformity to law. Yet simple experiments of 
that sort that I repeated upon several children, and the 
observation of the independent movements of arms and 
hands in the newly-born, have given me but few evi- 
dences of the existence of perfectly-developed inborn 
reflexes of the corresponding side after stimulus on one 
side. The trigeminus facialis reflex is such a case, since 
upon the touching of one eye, in the first hour of life, 
very often this one only is shut; another case is the 
spreading of the toes when the sole of the foot is 
touched (pp. 104, 225). The law of symmetry of the 
reflexes is recognized as valid for the just-born, in the 
dilatation of both pupils, when only one eye is shaded; 
in the closing of both eyes at the rude touch of one 
eye or one nostril; in movements of both feet when the 
sole of one foot is touched (p. 104); so likewise the 
appearance of the reflex in unequal degrees of intensity 
on both sides in bilateral reflexes following stimulus of 
one side is confirmed by the stronger movements of 
the eyelid (after the tickling of one nostril) as well as of 
the leg upon the irritated side (p. 104). But the law 
of inter-sensitive motor movement still needs proof; 
for, according to it, no reflex from the trigeminus to the REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
223 
motor oculi ought to occur. But if a child be waked 
by a touch of the eyelid, the raising of the lid seems 
to occur through reflexive action. The question comes 
up whether movements do not always take place before 
the opening of the eyes. I have not liked to experi- 
ment in regard to this, as I do not wake children with- 
out urgent reasons. 
Further, in the case of two children, who in the 
first half-year suffered from local itching eruptions of 
the skin (milk-crust), the reflexive movements of the 
limbs were quite irregular and at the beginning abso- 
lutely unsuited, afterward not in all cases suited, to re- 
lieve the pain or the feeling of tickling; at all events, 
apart from the turnings of the head, which was the 
most tormented, and which was moved hither and 
thither like a pendulum when the arms were confined 
(fourth month). Many times when the arms had es- 
caped from the tethers in the night, the face was 
scratched to bleeding in several places that were evi- 
dently not troublesome (fourth to sixth month). At 
every unguarded moment the hands went to the head ; 
and the skin, even the sound part of it, was rubbed and 
scratched. These scratching movements can not be in- 
born, they must be acquired. The result of an acci- 
dental contact of the head and hand appearing in the 
diminution of the tickling sensation must have induced 
a preference of the movement of the hand to the head 
among all sorts of movements; for in the concurrence of 
all muscular movements those are preferred—i. e., most 
frequently repeated—which bring with them feelings of 
pleasure, and which remove whatever excites unpleasant 
feeling, while the movements that prevent feelings of 224 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
pleasure and those that cause unpleasant feeling become 
more and more rare. 
The mentioned reflexive reaching toward the head 
had now, in one of the two cases before us, a peculiar asso- 
ciation as its further consequence (in regard to the other 
case there is lack of observation). When, namely, the 
eczema became less and at last had entirely disappeared, 
the lifting of the arms along with the carrying of the 
hands to the head still continued, showing itself every 
time that anything disagreeable occurred to the child, or 
when he refused to do anything—e. g., when he did not 
want to play any more or to play at all. Manifestly we 
have to do here with a primitive process of induction or 
generalization. Formerly that movement was regularly 
executed in connection with the disagreeable cutaneous 
sensation on the head (up to the sixth month); now that 
sensation, indeed, is wanting, but the movement is so 
firmly associated with the quality “ disagreeable ” of 
that feeling, that it is executed even when something 
else appears with the same quality (ninth month). Thus 
individual expressional movements arise from acquired 
reflexes, which disappear again later because they re- 
main individual. 
In direct contrast to the acquired reflex movements, 
stands the inborn spreading of the toes that follows the 
touching (tickling, stroking) of the soles of the feet, 
which I saw just as plainly marked in new-born chil- 
dren five minutes after birth, and in the first days, as 
in the fourth week. Darwin mentions that, after the 
touching of the sole with a bit of paper on the seventh 
day, the foot was suddenly jerked away, and the toes 
curled up. I have not been able to find out under REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
225 
what circumstances this reflex or the spreading of the 
toes at the touch of the sole of the foot occurs (cf. p. 
104), but I observed that as early as the eighth week, 
tickling of the sole was followed by laughing. This so- 
called reflexive (“reflectorische”') laughing (p. 145) is 
not a regular, absolutely pure reflex act, because it is 
dependent upon the previously existing mood. 
The reflexive starting, quivering, and stretching out 
of the arms at a sudden, unexpected, strong impression, 
especially a sound-impression, the starting back with 
the head and the upper part of the body at a sudden 
approach—fright, in fact—is wholly lacking in the first 
hours of life. The human child just born can not, 
properly speaking, experience fright any more than can 
animals just born, although many sensations, such as 
that of a dazzlingly bright light, are surprising and dis- 
agreeable to him. But this stage of inferior sensibility 
scarcely outlasts the first days in vigorous children; in 
some (born after their time) it may in the case of sud- 
den impressions (p. 80), have given place, even before 
the second day, to the susceptibility to fright that is 
more or less characteristic of the infant. 
This has already been spoken of repeatedly, so far 
as the bilaterally symmetrical reflexes, occasioned by all 
sorts of acoustic, optical, tactile impressions (e. g., by 
taking hold of the child, or blowing upon him), espe- 
cially the extending and raising of the arms, the start- 
ing and the quick pulsation of the eyelid, are symptoms 
of being frightened (p. 82). Apart from the starting, 
which is not always regular, these reflexes are dis- 
tinguished above others by their perfect symmetry. 
Both arms are raised exactly simultaneously, both eyes 226 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
close for a moment after a sudden impression, even 
when this is made only on one side (as in pulling at the 
blanket on which the child is lying). This reflex mech- 
anism, that unites the motors of the extremities with 
the organs of sense, must have an easy action from the 
beginning, although no direct advantage from it to the 
child can be affirmed. 
Another constant symptom of fright in children is 
their silence. For example, when a child has had a fall, 
screaming does not begin till after an interval. It is 
probable that this condition of not being able to scream, 
like that of apthongia or reflex aphasia, rests upon teta- 
nic excitement of the motor nerves, especially of the 
nerves of the tongue, in consequence of which every at- 
tempt to form a sound may result in spasm of the tongue. 
In children this occurrence is by no means so rare as in 
adults. Children, both before and after they have be- 
gun to learn to speak, do not begin to scream until some 
time after the effect of the sudden impression; for this 
reason, probably, because by that impression the will is 
completely paralyzed, so that at first they do not even 
get so far as to the attempt to form a sound. All the 
muscles that at other times are voluntarily movable are 
no longer moved becauses the impulses of will are want- 
ing ; so it is also with the tongue and the muscles of 
the larynx. Even the reflex excitability is diminished. 
Hence, probably, the silence of those frightened in the 
first moment. The very strong excitement of particu- 
lar centers brings with it an arrest of the other central 
functions. Finally, the motor impulse becomes oper- 
ative, but produces that spasm of the tongue, and not 
till after that passes, screaming. REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
227 
It takes a long series of experiences, which each in- 
dividual must go through for himself anew, before such 
fright-reflexes and infringements upon the activity of 
the will can be controlled, and many persons never learn 
to control them. Still, it is of the greatest importance 
for the cultivation of the child’s wTill to exercise chil- 
dren as early as possible in the conscious inhibition of 
reflex movements. 
At the beginning, probably, no reflex is inhibited, 
but there exists a peculiarity discovered by Soltmann, 
which counteracts the disadvantages arising from this 
defect. The excitability of the nerve-muscle, namely, 
in cats, dogs, rabbits, gradually increases from birth on 
(in man probably until toward the sixth week of life, 
as it then about equals that of adults, or somewhat sur- 
passes it). The inferior excitability of the motor nerves 
in the earliest period exerts a beneficial counter-influ- 
ence to the tendency to convulsions after physiological 
stimulation. Here I must agree with Soltmann, and 
attribute to this factor, as he does, great importance, 
especially on account of the absence of will and of the 
inhibition of reflexes; but my experiments and obser- 
vations upon new-born Guinea-pigs, and on those born 
prematurely, leave not the least doubt that in these ani- 
mals inhibitions of reflexes take place through strong 
peripheral stimuli even before birth, or with the first 
drawing of breath. For when, in such a foetus or new- 
born creature, I pinch sharply with the forceps any spot 
whatever on the skin after breathing has begun, the 
auricle does not react in the least, or reacts only very 
feebly upon the strongest impressions of sound ; but if 
the peripheral stimulus ceases, then both auricles plainly 228 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
move at once upon the same acoustic stimulus. Here 
exists, then, soon after the beginning of respiration (in 
the prematurely and the normally born) an inhibition 
of a reflex through strong localized cutaneous stimuli. 
A paralysis of the reflex, or paraplegia, after contusion— 
e. g., of a kidney—it has not been possible, thus far, to 
produce in new-born creatures (dogs and rabbits). The 
inhibitory effect of the excitement of the vagus upon 
the activity of the heart is, on the other hand, present 
in the new-born mammal. 
It is highly desirable now to fix, by observation and 
simple experiments, the date of beginning of inhibi- 
tions of reflexes in the human being. I saw a sixteen- 
days-old child, that was screaming violently, become 
quiet in an instant when it was laid face downward 
on a pillow; and I have observed, even in very young 
babes, the quieting effect of singing, making a hushing 
sound, and playing on the piano. But in these cases 
we have not to do with inhibitions of reflexes in the 
strict sense of the term, but with the supplanting of a 
feeling of discomfort, along with its motor consequences, 
or a reflex activity, by means of a new impression. A 
brainless new-born child, even, that was screaming vio- 
lently, could be easily quieted, as Pfiiiger relates, by 
letting him suck the finger. The cerebral activity of 
the newly-born can not yet influence the reflexive 
and impulsive activity of the spinal cord, because the 
brain is not yet sufficiently developed. Soltmann has 
proved, by experiments on new-born dogs, that at the 
beginning of life no excitements pass from the brain 
to the spinal cord, which would be capable of arresting 
the reflex operations effected by the cord. And I have REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
229 
no doubt that the very same thing is true of many other 
new-born animals. But it is not true of all, and 
whether it is precisely in the human being that imme- 
diately after birth no trace of the inhibition of reflexes 
exists, is doubtful. The Guinea-pig, which is much 
more mature at birth, comes into the world, according 
to the previously-mentioned observations, with a com- 
plete apparatus for inhibition of reflexes. 
Genuine inhibitions of reflexes may first be observed 
with certainty in little children at the time when they 
no longer (as they do in the first six to nine months), 
without the least sign of self-control, excrete at once 
the products of nutrition when the accumulation of 
these stimulates them reflexively to do so. In all 
healthy infants this reflex excitability is great. But I 
lack observations as to when for the first time the 
reflex stimulus, that shows itself normally on the first 
day of life, is overcome, or the immediate response to it 
is at least delayed. At the beginning of the first year 
children are accustomed to scream after the evacuation ; 
later, to scream before it, formally announcing it. In the 
latter case they have had the experience that the threats, 
the chastisements, and the natural disagreeable conse- 
quences of the immediate reflex activity cause more 
discomfort than waiting does. We have here one of 
the strongest effects of early training, as is proved by 
the behavior of animals and many insane persons. 
The point of time at which control of the sphincter 
vesicce begins, allowed itself in one case to be approxi- 
mately determined. From the beginning of the tenth 
month, viz., the desire to evacuate the bowels was, in the 
daytime, in a healthful and waking condition, almost 230 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
invariably announced by great restlessness. If the 
child was then attended to, the evacuation took place 
invariably not till several seconds after giving him the 
proper position. The child needed so much time, 
therefore, in order to annul the inhibition by means of 
his now unquestionably authenticated will. 
Here we have two proofs of the existence of choice : 
first, the inhibition of a reflex never inhibited in the 
first half-year, the non-willing of it; second, the re- 
moval of the inhibition, the willing of the reflbx. The 
first inhibitory act, which, for that matter, does not 
last long when it is not regarded, seems to occur sel- 
dom before the last three months of the first year 
(sometimes much later). It is lacking, as a rule, when 
the child does not enjoy undisturbed health, when his 
attention is strongly claimed, and when he is tired. 
The overcoming of the reflex stimulus in sleep, which 
takes place independently of will by means of habit, 
requires for that very reason a much longer period of 
time. It is to be borne in mind, however, in this case, 
that a pretty strong pressure, like other peripheral 
stimuli, first interrupts the sleep, and thereby makes 
room for the influence of the will. 
Those reflexes which during the whole of life are 
not inhibited by the will, appear, notwithstanding, to 
be in part more distinct in the new-born and the infant 
than in the following years of life. At least Eulenburg 
found (1878) in two hundred and forty-one children 
under twelve months the reflex of the tendon of the 
patella at the beginning not quite so frequent, indeed, 
as in adults; where it did appear, however, it was 
more distinct than it was later, especially in forty-one REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
231 
children examined in the first month, and in sixteen (out 
of seventeen) one day old. Later observations of the 
same investigator and his assistant Dr. Haase (1882) con- 
firmed the relatively more frequent absence of the knee- 
phenomenon in one hundred and sixteen children from 
one to twenty-four months old. In seven cases it was 
wanting on both sides, in three cases on one side. The 
foot - phenomenon was wanting, in fact, in the great 
majority of the cases. It was distinctly seen only in 
twenty-two out of the one hundred and sixteen children. 
The osseous reflexes were still more rare (tibia reflex 
observed in fifteen, radius reflex in fourteen of the one 
hundred and sixteen). On the other hand the reflex of 
the abdomen, of the nose, of the cornea, and of the 
pupil were not missing in a single case. The ear-reflex 
was only in five cases indistinct. (In seventy-eight boys, 
from one to sixty months old the cremaster reflex was 
lacking in twenty cases.) It appears from this that the 
tendon-reflexes are not so easily inherited as those of 
the skin and mucous membrane. The latter are more 
useful to the organism. 
The decrease of the general reflex tendency 
flexdisposit.ion”'} in the earliest years is identical in 
ultimate effect with the increase of an inhibition of re- 
flexes. To be sure, the individual efficient factors in 
both cases can not yet be isolated. The tendency to 
spasms that has its origin partly in the lack of all reflex 
inhibition in the earliest period, and the heightened 
reflex sensibility easily to be established physiologically 
in every teething child, which gives occasion for the 
strangest grimaces, find their counterpoise only after 
the development of the will—i. e., after far advanced 232 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
development of the gray substance of the cerebrum, 
upon the removal of which there appear in animals re- 
flex phenomena similar to those in new-born and quite 
young individuals. But in older children, too (in the 
fourth year) many reflexes are found, especially the 
mimetic and the defensive (such as that mentioned, 
p. 101—“ shuddering ”), more strongly expressed than 
after their training has been carried further. 
The pain-reflexes that are most strongly manifested 
in later life are, according to the experiments of Genz- 
mer, already in part mentioned, least developed pre- 
cisely in the earliest period. Through observation of 
some sixty new-born children, it was established by him 
that they are, on the first day, almost insensible to the 
prick of a needle, and in the first week they still have 
an inferior degree of sensibility. Prematurely-born 
infants were in the course of the first days so sharply 
pricked with fine needles in the nose, upper lip, and 
hand, that a little drop of blood flowed from the punct- 
ure, and yet they gave no sign of discomfort; indeed, 
often not even a slight quivering could be noticed. To 
pricks that are acute for the adult, normal children re- 
sponded after one to two days, seldom earlier, merely 
with reflex movements as upon being touched. “ The 
pain-reflexes diflier from those reflexes of touch in this, 
that the movement is wont to follow the stimulus only 
after a longer pause (up to two seconds), while in the 
touch-reflexes the physiological period is considerably 
shorter.” The sensibility to needle-pricks was found to 
be somewhat greater in children born after their time, 
and it increases generally in the first weeks. It is of 
great interest, in connection with this, that in children REFLEX MOVEMENTS. 
233 
of some weeks there followed occasionally upon a prick 
in the sole of the foot a distortion of the countenance 
without local reflexes. “ They seemed to become con- 
scious of the feeling of pain. In the first week this 
was never the case.” A reflexive lachrymal secretion 
could not be produced at that period by any prick, but 
only by irritation of the mucous membrane of the 
nose; “ at pricks on the skin of the face, the moisture 
of the eyes did seem, but only at times, to increase.” 
Now from all these facts it does not follow that the 
newly-born are sensible of no pain at all, but it follows 
that the pain-reflexes are still wanting when the painful 
impression is circumscribed—reaches but few nerves— 
as in the prick of a fine needle. Fifty simultaneous 
needle-pricks would doubtless bring pain-reflexes in 
their train immediately after birth. So much is made 
certain by my experiments on prematurely-born rabbits 
and Guinea-pigs, which responded, with unmistakable 
pain-reflexes, only to very strong local, and to weaker 
extended, painful assaults—to electric, thermal, mechani- 
cal, chemical cutaneous stimuli. Distortion of the face 
and loud screaming appear also in mature or nearly 
mature new-born human beings upon strong electrical 
stimulation of the skin, as Kroner found (1882). 
It would be of great interest to draw up a list, as 
complete as possible, of the reflex movements of the new- 
ly-born, the infant, and the child not yet able to speak; 
to separate the inborn movements from the acquired, 
those capable of being inhibited from the purely physi- 
cal reflexes and the pain-reflexes; and to test whether 
there is a single reflex that belongs to the human child 
alone. A thorough - going comparison of new-born 234 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
chimpanzees and orangs with new-born negro children 
in regard to the reflexes would perhaps disclose no dif- 
ferences. 
In the human infant there have been proved—to ad- 
duce only one sensory and one motor nerve as example 
—six different regular reflex movements from the optic 
nerve to the motor oculi alone, which appear in case of 
light-impressions, viz.: 
1. Contraction of the superior rectus muscle of the 
eye in raising the glance, when bright light appears 
above; in the fourth week or earlier (p. 44). 
2. Contraction of the elevator of the lid in moderate 
light; immediately after birth (p. 4). 
3. Contraction of the internal rectus muscle of the 
eye (movement of convergence) at a moderately bright 
impression of light just before the tip of the nose; in 
the second week (p. 50). 
4. Contraction of the inferior rectus muscle of the 
eye in lowering the gaze when bright light appears 
below; in the fourth week (p. 44). 
5. Contraction of the muscle of accommodation at 
the approach of bright light to the eye; after the third 
week (p. 51). 
6. Contraction of the sphincter of the iris under the 
influence of bright light; immediately after birth (pp. 4 
and 51). 
Anatomy has not yet discovered the paths of con- 
nection for any one of these six reflexes from the retina 
to the muscles of the orbit that are supplied by the 
motor oculi. And the same thing is true also of the 
mimetic reflex movements of the infant from the nerve 
of hearing, smell, and taste to the facial nerve, and from INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
235 
the sensitive nerve of the face to the facial nerve. 
Microscopic investigation has, in fact, thus far been 
unable to demonstrate in a single embryonic reflex the 
two centers—the sensory and motor ganglionic cells— 
in full development. Complete ganglionic cells have 
not been seen in the brain till after birth (p. 70). 
Probably the paths of the embryonic reflexes are still, 
in general, imperfectly isolated. 
CHAPTER XI. 
INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
The instinctive movements of human beings are not 
numerous, and are difficult to recognize (with the ex- 
ception of the sexual ones) when once the earliest youth 
is past. So much the more attentively must the in- 
stinctive movements of the newly-born and of the infant 
and of the little child be observed. In order to under- 
stand them, accurate observation of the instinctive 
movements of new-born animals is necessary. I will 
first group and present some statements upon that point. 
1. Instinctive Movements of New-born Animals. 
Movements unquestionably instinctive are manifested 
by chickens in the very first hours after leaving the egg 
—in fact, even while they are still engaged in breaking 
the shell. For what else was it but such a movement 
when a chick that had worn an opaque hood from the 
moment of breaking the shell until the lapse of some 
days, moved its head, six minutes after it was unhooded, 236 
THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 
in the right way to follow with its gaze a fly twelve 
inches distant? After ten minutes the insect came 
within reaching distance of the neck, and was seized and 
swallowed at the first effort. At the end of twenty min- 
utes this chick was placed, on uneven ground, at some 
distance from a hen with which was a chick of the same 
age as the one under observation, in such a way that it 
could see and hear the hen. After chirping for about 
a minute, it ran straight to the hen (Spalding). The 
very young chick does not invariably succeed in -seizing 
the insect or the kernel, at which it pecks, between its 
upper and its under mandibles, in such a way that the 
object can be swallowed, but almost all peck at it. 
Chickens one day old, and those of several days, accord- 
ing to my observations, often peck six, even nine and 
ten, times inaccurately, and very often toil in vain, with 
all sorts of movements of the head (p. 67), even after 
a successful seizure of the kernel, to swallow it. 
Here, then, are in complete development—1. Head- 
movements at the sight of objects in motion. 2. Peck- 
ing, when these objects are capable of being reached. 
3. Running or scudding (Rutscheri), when the cluck of 
the hen is heard for the first time or she is for the first 
time seen. 4. Bill- and head-movements, when a small 
object is got ready for swallowing. All these movements 
may, indeed, fail to be made, even when the external 
conditions of their appearance are completely fulfilled, 
as I have several times seen in chicks from one to three 
days old hatched in the incubator; but they are not to 
be looked upon as acquired or voluntary, for they are 
still new to the chick itself, and are executed without 
a previous idea of the result. Otherwise, the little creat- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
237 
ures would not, as I have seen them do, peck at their 
own nails. The very young chick, which has never yet 
seen the movements mentioned, can have no self-acquired 
idea of them beforehand, because no experience pre- 
ceded them; but its ancestors had the idea, and the 
chick itself inherited, without knowing it, a memory- 
image (Erinnerungsbild) of that. The chick thus acts 
skillfully, and with seeming intelligence, not out of its 
own deliberation, but through the inherited association 
of the sensuous recollection with the motor recollection, 
not through the idea of the movement itself executed 
by the creature, this movement being rather involun- 
tary. If the movement be omitted—under external 
conditions otherwise similar—then, in the concurrence 
of the inherited sensory-motor associations with one 
another and with the new connections of sensation and 
movement arising from individual sense-impressions, 
another association has appeared in greater force than 
those spoken of, or a new feeling prevails. Likewise 
the diligent pluming of the down with the bill by the 
chicken not yet one day old, and the scraping of the 
head with the foot, that I saw on the third day (the 
creature never having seen the thing done), and the 
scratching, appearing on the second day (without a model 
for imitation), can be nothing else than hereditary, in- 
stinctive movements. Spalding says forcibly : “ The 
instinct of present generations is the product of accumu- 
lated experiences of past generations. The permanence 
of such associations in the individual life depends upon 
the corresponding impression on the nervous system. 
We can not, strictly speaking, experience any individual 
fact of consciousness twice; but, as by pulling at the 238 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
bell we can produce the same ring that we heard yes- 
terday, so we are capable, as far as the established con- 
nection of nerves and nerve-centers holds, of living over 
again our experiences. Why should not these modifi- 
cations of the substance of the brain (which, persisting 
from hour to hour, from day to day, make permanent 
acquirement possible) pass on from parents to their off- 
spring just like any other physical peculiarity ? Instinct 
is inherited memory.” 
It is no objection to this conception of instinct as an 
hereditary association that not all the sensory-motor con- 
nections of the parents pass over to their posterity. For 
very many of them are not firm enough The firmest 
in the chicken are the movements of pecking, swallow- 
ing, peeping, running, scratching, and scraping, and the 
beating with the future wings in scudding forward, 
which last I saw very lively in the fourth hour, without 
possibility of its being an imitation. Yet some of these 
movements, long hereditary, may also vanish, or at least 
may not appear, if the external occasions are wanting. 
Chickens that were hatched by Allen Thomson upon a 
carpet, and were kept on it for some days, showed no 
inclination to scratch, because the stimulus that was ex- 
ercised upon the soles of their feet by the carpet was 
new, and was not adapted to set in activity their in- 
herited mechanism for scratching. As soon, however, as 
a little gravel was spread upon the carpet, the scraping 
began at once (as Romanes reports). We see clearly 
from this that chickens do not from the beginning of 
their life scratch with the purpose of seeking grains of 
seed. For the quite thinly spread gravel could not 
furnish the prospect of finding such in the carpet. I INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
239 
have even seen chickens that were hatched in the in- 
cubator, and then brought up in an inclosed space by 
themselves away from all other fowls, make vigorous 
scratching movements on smooth white paper without 
spots, especially in the fourth week of life, as if the 
brightness of the great surface might be scraped away. 
The scratching of fowls thus takes place without delib- 
eration, after certain visual and tactile impressions, as a 
purely instinctive movement, like peeping, pecking, run- 
ning, and flying. 
Swallows do not learn to fly; they receive no in- 
struction as to how they have to contract their muscles 
in order to speed through the air for the first time from 
the maternal nest, but they fly of themselves. The 
young redstarts, also, which I have observed daily be- 
fore they were fledged, receive no directions for flying. 
But they exercise their wings in the nest before their 
first attempt at flight, often spreading them and making 
them whir. The first excursion is slower than the flight 
of the parents; the young creature flies downward, but 
it never hits against anything, and after a few days the 
certainty of its flight is worthy of admiration. Confi- 
dence grows with practice. 
These flight-movements of quite young birds can 
not be voluntary movements ; they are instinctive, pre- 
cisely as is the pecking of the chicken that has been 
hatched a few hours, which, having come into the world 
alone in the incubator, without mother or companions, 
in the utmost quiet (without guiding noises), pecks at 
every single visible object capable of being pecked at, 
or at a spot or hole in the wooden floor on which the 
creature stands, as well as at its own nails, with aston- 240 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
ishing address. Pecking is not, therefore, according to 
these observations of mine, set agoing by hearing, as 
has been suspected, when the noise made by the pecking 
of the mother was imitated with the finger-nail (Dar- 
win). I have, in fact, observed that chickens between 
three and twenty hours old, hatched in the incubator, 
almost all of which had pecked at the yolk and white 
of egg put before them cut into small bits (after being 
hard boiled), and were now pausing—I have noticed 
that, when I let two large fowls close by them pick up 
the same food upon hard wood, noisily and persistently, 
the young ones were not in the least affected by the 
hammering of the bills, although they had hearing, for 
they started, at sudden loud noises, all simultaneously, 
like one fowl—a strange sight. 
If a drop of water be put on the eye of a chicken 
on the twenty-first day, before the creature has left the 
shell, it shakes off the drop briskly, like a hen ; put the 
drop on the tip of the bill, and the chick makes many 
movements of swallowing, as I often observed. 
All these movements are, like pecking, inherited. 
They appear, in fact, not exceptionally, but very fre- 
quently, when nearly the same conditions, internal and 
external, are fulfilled that were fulfilled when their an- 
cestors executed them—executed them times innumera- 
ble. How easily in this case instinctive activity takes 
on the stamp of great individual intelligence is shown 
especially in the following observation made by A. 
Agassiz (1876): Very young hermit-crabs, not long 
after leaving the egg, rush with extraordinary anima- 
tion for suitable shells that are given to them in the 
water. They examine the opening at the mouth, and INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
241 
take up their quarters inside with remarkable alacrity. 
But, if it chances that the shells are still occupied by 
mollusks, then they stay close by the opening, and wait 
till the snail dies, which generally occurs soon after the 
beginning of the imprisonment and the strict watch. 
Upon this the small crab pulls out the carcass, devours 
it, and moves into the lodging himself. What fore- 
sight I On account of the preference of the empty 
shells, the whole proceeding can not be hereditary. But 
the young animals are not instructed. They were from 
the beginning separated from their parents, and had no 
time or opportunity for experiences of their own. They 
must, therefore, have inherited their practice of waiting 
from their ancestors, as a rule of conduct for the case 
where a shell is occupied, and they can at once distin- 
guish such a one from an empty one. 
Now, precisely as it is true of these animals that are 
sagacious in one direction, and of the chicken, and, in 
general, of all animals, that they come into the world 
with a good share of inherited memory for movements 
(p. 71)—i. e., with instinctive motility (Motilitat)—so it 
will be true of the human child. Which of its move- 
ments are instinctive ? First, seizing. 
Of all movements of the infant in the first half-year, 
no one is of greater significance for its mental develop- 
ment than are the seizing movements. I have on this 
account observed these with special attention. 
It is supposed by many that the moving of the 
hands hither and thither in the first days of life is a 
kind of seizing, since the fingers are carried not only 
2. Development of Seizing. 242 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
to the face, but also to the mouth. Such a view is ir- 
reconcilable with the ordinary meaning of the word 
seize and with the facts. For seizing presupposes the 
perception of an object desired, and, in addition, a con- 
trol of the muscles, both of which are wanting in the 
first days. 
The first putting of the hand into the mouth has 
nothing in common with the later seizing, except that 
it requires a movement of the arm. The hand is not 
even carried to the face, but, in its random movements 
about, it gets to and into the mouth, as well as elsewhere, 
•which, on account of the position of the arms in the 
foetus long before birth, seems perfectly natural. New- 
born children, left to themselves, keep this attitude, and 
move their hands to the face and to the lips, as they 
must have done already before birth. If the lips are 
touched, then sucking movements readily appear in the 
hungry infant; therefore nothing of purpose can be 
found in the early sucking of the child at its own fin- 
gers (observed by Kussmaul on the first, by me on the 
fifth, day), which is followed later by the biting of the 
fingers. The position of the arms and hands in the 
uterus is conditioned by the restricted space. Every 
other position -would involve an enlargement of the 
superficies of the foetus. 
It appears, therefore, that we are not justified in 
seeing in the first approximation of the hand to the 
mouth, the beginning of seizing-movements. In the 
first days of his life the infant moves his hands about 
his face and into his eyes, in a very different way from 
that of seizing, which comes later as a gesture expressing 
a desire. Young infants, whose fingers have accident- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
243 
ally, in the random movements of the arms, come to 
the mouth, are not able, if anybody takes the fingers 
away, to put them to the mouth again. Nay, even if 
some one carries their fingers to their lips for them, the 
infants can not hold their own fingers there, in case 
gravity makes the arm drop (Genzmer). Later, however, 
babes are often seen to suck at their own fingers in sleep. 
Neither does the fact that the infant, as I noted on 
the ninth day, when he is sleeping, does not, as he does 
when awake, clasp my fingers placed in his hand—• 
neither does this fact indicate a seizing as a purposive 
movement; but the clasping is to be regarded as a re- 
flex, just like the spreading of the toes when the sole of 
the foot is touched (pp. 104, 224). The proof of this I 
see herein, that the older child—e. g., of seventeen 
months—when I put my finger in the hollow of his 
hand during his sleep, does not clasp it either, but when 
I move my finger with a gentle rubbing movement 
back and forth upon the flat of his hand, he often 
clasps it quickly, almost convulsively, with his fingers, 
without waking. The foot behaves like the hand in 
this respect, in the earliest period, as it responds less 
readily in sleep. The absence of the clasping in sleep 
is thus to be ascribed simply to the insufficient excite- 
ment of the nerves of the skin, and the diminution of 
the reflex excitability in sleep; in no case is the clasp- 
ing of the finger, by a child that is awake, intentional 
within the first two weeks. 
The first grasping at objects, with manifest desire to 
have them, was seen by Sigismund in a boy nineteen 
weeks old; by me, in a girl in her eighteenth week, 
and in my boy in his seventeenth week. 244 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
The contraposition of the thumb, an indispensable 
condition to the completion of the act of seizing—which 
is said to be an easy matter for young monkeys, even 
within the first week of life—is very slowly learned by 
the human child, as I noticed ; he does not learn at all 
to place the great-toe opposite the other toes. It is a 
question, indeed, whether human beings born without 
arms, can learn to use the great-toe as a thumb, as the 
quadrumana do. I once saw a young man without arms 
make a drawing -with his foot. But in doing it the 
pencil wras held between the great-toe and the second, 
without contraposition, as one would hold it between 
the forefinger and the middle finger, in case one wanted 
to draw or write without the help of the thumb. 
Adults succeed easily in doing the latter, even without 
practice. 
Having the opinion that possibly at the beginning 
of life seizing might be done with the great-toe as with 
the thumb, I tested hands and feet in the case of my 
boy in the earliest period, and I present here my ob- 
servations concerning the development of seizing, in 
chronological order : 
First to third day: movements with the hands to 
the face predominate. 
On the fourth day, a pencil was decidedly not held 
firmly by the foot. 
On the fifth day his fingers clasp my finger very 
firmly; his toes do not. For the rest, his hands often 
move to the face, at random, without getting hold of it. 
On the sixth day, the same. The hands even go into 
the eye. 
On the seventh day, it appears that a thin pencil is INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
245 
held with the great-toe and the other toes exactly as 
with the thumb and fingers. But in this there is no 
seizing; of a contraposition of the thumb there is just 
as little to be observed as of the great-toe, but in case 
of convenient position of the pencil between thumb and 
forefinger, and between the great-toe and its neighbor, 
fingers as well as toes are vigorously bent and the ob- 
ject is held. 
On the ninth day the finger is not clasped by the 
sleeping child. 
In the third to seventh weeks, the child has not yet 
clasped my finger with his thumb, but only with his 
fingers. 
In the eighth week I am convinced that the thumb 
is still put around the pencil, as the fingers are, but it 
may more easily than before be bent passively for seiz- 
ing, so that my finger is held firmly. The four fingers 
of the child’s hand, directly without co-operation of the 
thumb, embrace my finger when I put it in the hollow 
of the hand of the child. 
Up to the eleventh week no noticeable advance. If 
I put a pencil into the child’s hand, he holds it firmly, 
indeed, but without heeding it (without knowing it, one 
would say of an adult, i. e., mechanically, as in absence 
of mind), and can not perfectly use the thumb in 
clasping. Another child, of exactly the same age, could 
not even clasp and hold the stick that was put into his 
hand. 
End of the twelfth week: when the child was mov- 
ing his hands about in the air, it often happened that 
my finger, held near, came into one of the little hands. 
On the eighty-fourth day I saw, in connection with this, 246 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
for the first time, a placing of the thumb opposite, so 
that it looked just as if the child had purposely seized 
the finger, which was not presented to him, but merely 
held motionless within reach, and allowed to follow 
passively the movements of the child’s arm hither and 
thither. This experiment was repeated several times 
on the same day, with like result. Then first I gained 
the firm conviction that the contraposition of the 
thumb and the seizing of the finger, followed reflex- 
ively, without intention, as a consequence of the cu- 
taneous stimulus occasioned by the contact. 
In the thirteenth week, the thumb already follows 
more readily the bending fingers, when a pencil is put 
into the child’s hand. 
In the fourteenth week, seizing that is undoubtedly 
intentional is not yet present, but the little hand holds 
objects that come accidentally into it, or that are put 
into it, longer and more firmly than at an earlier period, 
and with a decided contraposition of the thumb, by 
which many have doubtless been misled to suppose that 
“ proper grasping at objects ” begins in this week—a 
thing which certainly is not universally true. I, at 
least, detected no trace of intentional seizing after ob- 
jects seen, in the fifteenth and sixteenth weeks, and on 
the one hundred and fourteenth day. While the babe 
is nursing, however, a finger is reflexively clasped by 
thumb and fingers more often than formerly. Others, 
also, whose attention I directed to this point, confirm 
my opinion that in the third month seizing is merely 
apparent. It does not begin, as Vierordt also found, 
before the fourth month. 
In the seventeenth week (one hundred and seven- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
247 
teenth day) I saw for the first time earnest efforts to 
take hold of an object with the hand. It was a small 
rubber ball that was within seizing distance, but the 
child missed it. When now it was put into his hand 
he held it for a long time very firmly and moved it to 
his mouth and to his eyes, and that with a peculiar, new, 
more intelligent expression of countenance. On the 
following day, the awkward but energetic attempts to 
seize upon all sorts of objects held before the child were 
more frequent. He fixated the object—e. g., my fin- 
ger—and grasped three times in succession at an object 
distant twice his arm’s length from him, (p. 55)— 
and also fixated his own hand (cf. p. 109), especially 
when this had once successfully seized. His expression 
of countenance meantime indicated great attention. 
Again, after a day, the repeated grasping at every- 
thing that comes within reach of the arms seems to 
give the child pleasure. But wonder is mingled with 
it, for— 
In the eighteenth week, in the attempts to seize, 
when they fail, his own fingers are attentively regard- 
ed. Probably the child has expected the sensation 
of contact, or if it occurred has wondered at the nov- 
elty of the sensation of touch. He continues to hold 
firmly, regard, and carry to the mouth objects once 
seized. But at this time the outstretching of the 
arms, as if to seize, becomes also the expression of the 
strongest desire. On the one hundred and twenty-first 
day the child, for the first time, stretched out both arms 
toward me at the morning greeting, and that with an 
indescribable expression of longing. On the day before, 
nothing of this sort was yet to be perceived. The 248 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
progress from grasping at inanimate things to grasping 
at members of the family came suddenly. 
In the nineteenth week the child took a bit of meat 
that was offered to him on the point of a fork and 
carried it with his hand to his mouth. 
In the thirty-second week seizing with both hands, 
at the same time directing the line of vision to the ob- 
ject, was more sure and more frequent than before, the 
attention at the same time being more active. The 
child lying on his back, raises himself v’ithout help to 
a sitting posture and bends over forward, reaching out 
with both hands to lay hold of anything that is before 
him. The straining of the attention expresses itself 
especially by the protruding of the lips, which I saw 
besides on the one hundred and twenty-third day for 
the first time, in connection with the act of seizing. 
During all this time the seizing is still imperfect, as 
the four fingers do not all work in harmony with the 
thumb. When the child sees an object that he wants, 
he generally spreads out all the fingers of both hands 
while stretching out the arms. But when he has 
clasped the pencil or my finger, it often happens that 
in doing so the thumb and one finger only are em- 
ployed ; frequently the thumb with two fingers or with 
three or with all. Very often, too, the co-operation of 
the thumb is entirely wanting. But the ability to seize 
accurately with thumb and fingers is so far developed 
that nothing more is wanting but the co-ordinating 
will to do it in every suitable case. Thus far it depends 
much more on the situation and form of the object 
and on the accident of the position of the hand, than 
it does on the purpose, how many and wThat lingers, as INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
249 
they bend in the act of seizing, actually take part in 
this act. 
In the thirtieth week the seizing was noticeably 
quicker and more perfect, but the lack of certainty in 
getting hold of objects seized was still great. The 
hands still often pass by the object gazed at, with 
fingers spread. Grasping at objects at the distance of 
a metre becomes more frequent. Very often, probably 
always, whenever form, color, or luster has excited the 
child’s gratification, the thing seized is at once carried 
to the mouth, the tongue is put far out, and the object 
licked. Probably we have here a case of primitive logi- 
cal inference ; up to this time sucking and tasting were 
the most important strong, agreeable, sensations the 
young being has known ; when, therefore, he has a new 
agreeable sensation (e. g., of a bright color, a round, 
smooth body, a soft surface), it is brought into associa- 
tion with the lips and tongue, through which the pleas- 
urable feeling at taking in the sweet milk was received. 
The quick moving of the hands to a new object 
presented for the first time—e. g., a brush—must un- 
questionably be interpreted as a sign of desire. The 
parts of his own body, moreover, appear to the child as 
foreign objects. For in the thirty-second week, as he 
lies on his back, he likes to stretch his legs up vertically, 
and observes the feet attentively as he does other ob- 
jects held before him. Then he grasps with the hands 
at his own feet, and often carries his toes to his mouth 
with his hand. 
The child also expresses interest, by protruding the 
lips, his gaze being firmly directed to the object seized, 
presumably in the now discovered fact that the thing be- 250 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
fore seen and desired is at the same time the thing which 
is touched, and which yields new sensations. The bright, 
colored, long, short, appears now to him as also smooth, 
rough, warm, cold, hard, soft, heavy, light, wet, dry, 
sticky, slippery. The combination of two departments 
of sense in one object gratifies. Such an object is like- 
wise his own foot seen and touched. In case the object 
seen and touched stands immovably firm, and so can not, 
like the ball and the toes, be brought to the mouth, the 
child tries, notwithstanding, in unmistakable fashion, to 
get hold of it, to pull it to him, and to bring it to his 
mouth, the source of his greatest feeling of pleasure, no 
matter whether it is large or small. At the same time 
it often happens, as I perceived to my astonishment on 
the occasion of his taking hold of a firmly-standing carved 
post, that the child (borne upon the arm) draws himself 
with the arms to the desired object and puts his mouth 
close up to it. The pleasure obtained in this way, also, 
through the touching of the object seen, which is the occa- 
sion of renewed seizing movements, is probably likewise 
the occasion of the desire to taste it. For now, after 
the nursing-bottle is presented to the child, he grasps 
at it with his hand; whereas he used to suck at it with 
arms inactive, he now tries to hold it fast, sometimes 
with the expression of eagerness. In this case the re- 
membrance of the taste, or what in this regard amounts 
to the same thing, the gratification in the appeasing of 
hunger, stimulates the seizing movement. The order 
of succession originally is: tasting, then tasting and 
seeing, then seeing and desiring, tasting and desiring 
more, thereupon seeing, seizing, tasting. Through 
repetition of these associations, probably, the remem- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
251 
branee of the taste has, as it were, become amalgamated 
wfith seeing and seizing in general, until experience has 
taught that the things touched and seized have no taste 
or have a bad taste. 
It is worthy of notice in this connection, that pre- 
cisely during the first attempts at seizing, the greatest 
strain of attention, along with protrusion of the lips 
was observed, and later—in the thirty-fourth week, 
when the seizing wras done more quickly—the mouth 
was opened before or directly after the seizing and then 
the object was put into it. At the first attempts the 
putting into the mouth followed without being intended 
beforehand, but now the hand is stretched out with the 
purpose of bringing the thing seen to the mouth, and 
the mouth is open ; here it is to be borne in mind that 
the very thing that excites pleasure, the nursing-bottle, 
was especially often carried to the mouth. If the child 
at this period and afterward wTas allowed to carry a crust 
of bread to the mouth without assistance, it was often 
seen that in spite of accuracy in laying hold of the 
crust, it was carried not into the already-opened mouth, 
but against the cheek, chin, or nose—an uncertainty of 
touch that appeared still in the first attempts to eat 
with a small spoon, in the seventeenth month. 
Failure to grasp, grasping too short, and grasping at 
objects very far off, disappear so gradually that I can 
not assign a definite period of disappearance. 
Neither could it be ‘/Jertained at what time the 
putting of the fingers into the mouth and the grasping 
at the face without getting hold of any part of it ceased. 
Invariably, shortly before and after a tooth comes 
through, the child moves his fingers about in the mouth 252 
THE MINI? OF THE CHILD. 
a good deal, keeping three or four fingers in the mouth. 
When alleviation had been experienced several times 
through chewing of the fingers, these no longer went 
accidentally—after moving about the hands in the air at 
random—but went regularly during teething into the 
mouth; and it must come, finally, through frequent 
repetition of the movement, to a reflex process, as the 
hand is brought near to every approachable place that 
feels pain. The first experience that biting the fingers, 
even before the teeth are there, moderates the pain or 
the tickling, appears as a consequence of the putting of 
the hand into the mouth; other painful impressions 
likewise become, therefore, later, the occasion of move- 
ments of the hand which may simulate seizing-move- 
ments. 
In the forty-third week the child without help not 
only grasps properly with both hands at a nursing-bot- 
tle, but carries it correctly to the mouth ; the same with 
a biscuit lying before him. He pulls strongly at the 
beard of a face that he can reach. 
On the other hand, he grasped at the flame of the 
lamp in the forty-fifth week; in the forty-seventh, and 
later, at objects separated from him by a pane of glass, 
as if they were attainable, and that persistently, with 
attention and eagerness, as if the pane were not there. 
The discovery of the transparency of glass, which as- 
suredly appears wonderful to every child, requires many 
such fruitless attempts at seizing. 
The greatest progress in the movement of the mus- 
cles of the arm manifested itself at just this time, in 
the fact that often very small shreds of paper on the 
floor were grasped at and deftly laid hold of by thumb INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
253 
and forefinger. Bat precisely this frequent play with 
the bits of paper afforded occasion to observe the above- 
mentioned uncertainty of the sense of touch when un- 
supported by sight. For whereas before this, when the 
child used to take pleasure in biting pieces out of a 
newspaper, these had to be taken out of his mouth by 
some one, in the fourteenth month he could be allowed 
to bite the paper to pieces undisturbed, because he now 
of himself took out of his mouth with his right hand 
every piece he had bitten off, and handed it to me. In 
connection with this, I made the observation that the 
shred of paper in the mouth on or near the lips was not 
always found by the child when he touched with the 
tips of his fingers. Without the guidance of the sense 
of sight, therefore, touch was still quite imperfect. 
Both senses united, on the other hand, did astonishing 
things even much earlier than this, in spite of the fail- 
ure to grasp, especially the failure to grasp far enough, 
as late as the second year (p. 55), and the numerous 
attempts to get hold of what could not be laid hold of 
(p. 63). Thus I saw the child, at the age of ten months, 
amuse himself, entirely of his own accord, by taking 
deliberately from one hand into the other a long hair 
that he had found on the carpet, and by gazing at it. 
Of the many thousand nerve-fibers and muscle-fibers 
that must come into harmonious activity in order that 
such a movement may take place, the child knows noth- 
ing, but he directs already the whole nervo-muscular 
mechanism with his will, which was generated by desire. 
Before he is capable of this, the sensuous stimulus that 
starts the seizing-movements must have been repeated 
many hundreds of times, so that one and the same sensa- 254 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
tion often returned, an agreeable feeling arose, a per- 
ception at first indistinct, then gradually more and more 
distinct, and finally an idea of the objectivity of the 
thing seizable could be formed. Secondly, the move- 
ment of the arm, also, which, before as well as after 
birth, is directed to the mouth or the face, must have 
been very often repeated before it came to conscious- 
ness—i. e., before an idea of it could be formed, be- 
cause in the beginning it wTas not perceived at all by 
the child. When, however, the desired object is 
represented in idea, and the movement of the arm is 
represented, the rapid succession of both representations 
favors their union, which calls into life the will. In 
fact, the distinct representation of the movement is not 
required any more at a later period, provided only that 
the aim is clearly recognized. Too much importance 
has often been attributed to the representation of the 
movement, the representation not being necessary be- 
forehand except for a new purposive movement; this 
mistake has been made by W. Gude and Lotze; the 
representation of the aim remains the principal thing. 
For many voluntary movements—e. g., those of the 
eyes—are generally not clearly represented beforehand, 
at any period, while the end and aim of them fill the 
consciousness. At that time the kind of movement 
necessary to the attainment of the aim is known only in 
a general way. 
But, in order to be able to execute a simple volun- 
tary movement, such as reaching after objects, similar 
movements must previously have been often executed 
involuntarily, because only through these can muscular 
sensations or sensations of innervation be developed. INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
255 
These are, however, necessary pioneers for the voluntary 
motor impulses, and they play an important part in 
other movements also besides the voluntary ones of the 
child and of the adult, viz., the instinctive ones. For 
the memory-images of the innervation-sensations, or 
muscular sensations, which the contraction of the mus- 
cle in contrast with its repose brings with it, determine 
which muscles are to be contracted, and how strongly 
each is to be contracted, after the kind of movement to 
be executed is settled upon. 
Now, if the repetition of a voluntary movement— 
e. g., a seizing movement—occurs very often, then the 
turning to account of those memory-images is hastened 
and simplified to such a degree that, without the co- 
operation of the brain-sensorium, the brain-motorium 
alone sets the muscles in activity after a sensory im- 
pression has acted upon it. Herein consists the chief 
characteristic of the cerebro-motor acquired reflexes; to 
these belongs also the grasping at a hat caught by a gust 
of wind, at a later period of life. 
But, on the other hand, in dreams—e. g., with the 
child (and with the hypnotic subject) after exclusion of 
the will—the sensory impression may affect only the 
brain-sensorium in such a way that complex movements 
go on just as if they were voluntary. Such movements 
Carpenter has called ideo-motor movements. The cere- 
bral-motor impulses are accordingly not purely reflexive, 
as are those of the spinal reflexes, for in the latter no 
center of higher rank, no brain-sensorium, no brain- 
motorium, is originally concerned. 
Moreover, for both these last there comes into con- 
sideration a cerebral inhibitory apparatus, which, want- 256 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
ing to the infant, arrests more and more easily, with his 
increasing development, the voluntary, or ideo-motor or 
purely reflexive (spinal-motor) movement that follows 
the sensory impression, and becomes manifest at the 
period when self-control begins. 
That movement of the quite young child, which 
from the beginning is commonly called “ seizing,” origi- 
nates, accordingly, in the following manner: 
The moving of the hands hither and thither, espe- 
cially to the face, is inborn, impulsive, determined by 
the position of the child within the womb. 
The clasping of the finger laid in the hand in the 
first days is purely reflexive. 
Then follows the “ absent-minded ” (in the adult) or 
“ mechanical ” holding fast of objects put into the hand 
as an unconscious, instinctive movement (in the adult, 
a movement that has become unconscious or no longer 
conscious; in the child, a movement not yet conscious). 
Next is observed the holding fast of the object with 
contraposition of the thumb, when the object is so 
situated that the hand, moving hither and thither, acci- 
dentally grasps it. As the thumb now co-operates, the 
pure reflex has become complicated, and the central 
separation of the previously united impulses has been 
attained. As the holding-fast lasts much longer than in 
case of the reflex, and the attention, although only very 
imperfectly and transiently, is directed to the new experi- 
ence of holding fast, the movement has now no longer 
taken place without the consciousness of the cerebral 
sensorium, but it is not yet voluntary; this kind of 
primitive holding-fast (not seizing) still approximates to 
the instinctive (ideo-motor) movements. INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
257 
In the seventeenth to the nineteenth weeks the par- 
ticipation of the will of the brain-motorium in this act 
begins to attain its full force ; the child does not yet 
stretch out its arm, but wills to hold fast the object 
that has accidentally come into his hand. He looks at 
it and forms an idea of it. From this fixation of the 
held object to the seizing of the object fixated is only a 
step. With that, willed-seizing is present, since the 
path of connection is at last passable from the brain- 
sen sori um to the brain-motorium. 
Years now pass before this seizing, which is indis- 
pensable for the development of the understanding (i. e., 
for having experiences) is perfected, and the voluntary 
inhibition of it by new, chiefly inculcated ideas, becomes 
possible. 
Most of the voluntary inhibitions, the first acts of 
self-control, come into existence at a period that lies out- 
side of the scheme of this exposition. 
3. Sucking, Biting, Chewing, Teeth-Grinding, Licking. 
Sucking belongs to the earliest co-ordinated move- 
ments of man; it is associated directly with swallow- 
ing, and has been repeatedly perceived even before the 
child was fully born, in case an object that could be 
sucked got into the mouth, and upon the upper surface 
of the tongue, at the same time touching the lips. 
When (December, 1870) I touched with my finger the 
tongue of a child, born at the right time, and moved 
my finger to and fro, or turned it on the upper surface 
of the tongue, three minutes after the head had emerged 
—the child was already crying feebly as soon as the 
mouth was free—the babe immediately stopped crying 258 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
and sucked briskly, but not when I merely touched the 
lips or put the finger between them. Without doubt, 
every normal child has become acquainted with the 
swallowing of the amniotic fluid before birth, but has 
hardly sucked as yet at his own fingers. Still, it is a 
matter of absolute indifference, for the performance of 
the act of sucking, whether liquid comes into the cavity 
of the mouth or not, and the sucking for hours at empty 
rubber-bottles—a vicious, highly reprehensible practice 
—encouraged in Thuringia for the purpose of keeping 
infants quiet, shows, just as the sucking at cloths and 
at the fingers a few minutes after birth (according to 
Champneys) shows, that swallowing is not required for 
prolonged sucking. Yet under normal conditions, swal- 
lowing is the muscular action that attaches itself directly 
to sucking. 
Of what kind is this movement, which is to so 
high a degree indicative of adaptation to an end ? As 
human abortions without brain, and puppies wdthout a 
cerebrum, can suck, the participation of the intellect, 
any choice or purpose, is excluded in advance. But 
since in the normal condition only the hungry, or, at 
least, only the not completely satisfied infant, sucks 
(the one that is full rejecting the nipple forcibly), we 
have here something other than a purely reflex move- 
ment. For the absence of the sucking movement can 
not be ascribed in the satisfied child to fatigue caused 
by previous sucking, because frequently the act is not 
renewed for a long time after the previous sucking has 
been finished. No more is it an impulsive movement, 
since it appears, in the waking condition at the begin- 
ning, only after lips, or tongue, or palate are touched by INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
259 
an object capable of being sucked. The sucking move- 
ments of sleeping (dreaming) infants with empty, un- 
touched mouth, however, show that the act may arise 
from purely central causes, after it has once been ini- 
tiated through peripheral stimuli. 
Accordingly, sucking must be classed among the in- 
stinctive movements. A scruple concerning this may 
easily be removed. 
It has been maintained that young animals easily 
forget how to suck, if they omit sucking for some days. 
Such an assertion, however, relates either to such ani- 
mals (like Guinea-pigs) as at the very beginning of life 
bite and chew, digest other food than milk, and soon 
have no more need to suck; or to the unlearning of 
sucking at the breast, which is somewhat less easily ac- 
complished than is sucking from the bottle. In both 
cases, therefore, the question is not of a forgetting of 
the act of sucking—an act which yields great pleasure 
to older children also, as is well known, and even to 
adults (in smoking). 
Of all the movements of the “ suckling,” hardly any 
is so perfect from the beginning as that which gave 
him this name. It is not so productive on the first 
day, indeed, as on the second; in fact, I found the 
efforts at sucking in the first hour of life, with healthy, 
new-born children, often quite devoid of effect (1869); 
when an ivory pencil was put into the mouth, they 
were found also non-coordmated ; but again they may be 
quite regular, and, as has been mentioned, effectual, at 
the very moment of birth; they are based, therefore, 
on hereditary movements, which take place after two 
weeks with machine-like regularity, without imitation 260 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
or training, and without other movements, except swal- 
lowing. The intermissions in sucking that occur with 
shorter intervals in the first days of life than at a later 
period, depend in part upon fatigue, in part upon the 
quicker filling of the little stomach, where the milk 
itself is not of unsuitable quality. On the other hand, 
I once saw a babe of seven days (not fully satisfied, no 
doubt) after ceasing to suck, keep up the movements 
of the mouth as in sucking. 
It has long been known that children do not at once 
find the nipple without help, when they are placed at 
the breast, but only after several days (in one case not 
till the eighth day), thus later than is the case with ani- 
mals. Like the latter, the very young child, before the 
nipple is put into the mouth, makes lateral movements 
of the head, which sometimes look like a groping about; 
the opening wide of the eyes before being placed at 
the breast and the keeping of them open during the 
nursing (very surprising in the first week, in a light not 
glaring) has, however, no connection with the finding 
of the nipple, since even those born blind, it appears, 
are no later in finding it. The action of the eyes is 
rather, in the first week, simply the expression of pleas- 
urable feeling (pp. 32 and 143). 
It often happens that, when the child is placed at 
the breast, the nipple does not get into the mouth; but 
the child sucks hard at the skin near it as late as the 
third week—a proof of the lack of discernment at this 
period. Yet the connection of the breast, as a whole, 
with nursing is known, for as early as the twenty-second 
day I saw the babe open wide its mouth at a distance 
of an inch and a half from the nipple. That the sense INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
261 
of smell is less decisive in the matter than the sense of 
sight is proved beyond question by observations upon 
infants whose eyes are bandaged, and upon those born 
blind. In animals born blind (dogs), the sense of smell 
is, on the contrary, recognized as an indispensable guide. 
The stretching out of the arms and the straining open 
of the eyes by the older infant, at sight of the breast at 
a distance, is against the participation of the smell. In 
the first period, the nipple is probably found by means 
of the sense of touch in the lips. 
Besides, the sense of touch plays an important part 
in even the act of nursing, from the beginning. For it 
is not any object whatever put into the mouth that is 
sucked, but only certain objects, not too large, not too 
rough, not too hot or too cold, and not of a strongly 
bitter, or sour, or salt taste. In general, hungry chil- 
dren suck at their own fingers from the first days; if 
they are not hungry, they like to hold the fingers in the 
mouth, especially when teething, without sucking at 
them, and in the bath they suck at a sponge (in the 
eighth month), which they hold to the lips like a piece 
of bread. 
Biting is not less instinctive than sucking. In the 
tenth month my child no longer sucked at the finger 
put into his mouth, but bit it almost invariably. Yet 
I can not give the exact date at which biting begins 
and sucking at the finger first ceases. In the seven- 
teenth week the finger was already plainly bitten—i. e., 
compressed firmly between the toothless jaws; in the 
eleventh and twelfth months the child seized my hand, 
carried it to his mouth, and bit the skin till it hurt, as 
he did in general with the fingers of others which he 262 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
himself put into his mouth. Just so he tried at this 
period to bite to pieces a cube of solid glass. In the 
tenth month he had learned without instruction to 
crunch, with his four teeth, bread, which he then swal- 
lowed. After his teeth came, almost everything de- 
sirable was brought into contact with them as far as 
this was possible, and was then bitten, and he liked to 
smack his lips (eleventh month). 
Before the infant gets his first tooth, he already 
makes frequent movements of chewing, which are espe- 
cially multiplied after a hard bread-crust has been put 
into the mouth. The flow of blood that is increased 
before the teeth come through is, toward the end of 
the first three months, when driveling has begun, doubt- 
less associated with disagreeable sensations, which are 
referred to the gum. But the fact that the toothless 
babe makes perfect chewing-movements—he who has 
never had in his mouth an object capable of being 
chewed, except his own fingers, that have often got in 
there—goes to prove that the function of chewing comes 
into activity, without practice, as soon as the requisite 
nerves and muscles and the center are developed. Chew- 
ing is a purely hereditary function ; it is instinctive. 
Another movement, absolutely original, and proba- 
bly practiced for a while by all teething babes, is grind- 
ing the teeth. In the ninth month it affords the child 
great satisfaction to rub an upper and a lower incisor 
together, so as to be heard at the distance of a metre. 
The infant seems to be interested in the sudden ap- 
pearance of his teeth in quick succession. For he 
makes comical movements of the mouth—e. g., pro- 
trudes both lips far out, makes perfect chewing-move- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
263 
ments, and performs gymnastics with the tongue with- 
out the utterance of sound. But the grinding is prac- 
ticed chiefly with four teeth. 
Another movement that belongs here is absolutely 
original—licking. If this were not innate, how could 
the new-born human child within the first twenty-four 
hours of its life lick sugar ? I have myself observed it, 
and have also seen licking for milk on the second and 
third days, and that hardly less adroit than in the seventh 
month. At this period not only are desired objects, 
whether stationary or seized, stroked with the tongue, 
but the lips of the mother in kissing; and, vice versa, 
the tongue is stroked with the objects. 
All the movements of the infant here enumerated— 
sucking, biting, smacking, chewing, tooth-grinding, lick- 
ing—must be designated as typical instinctive move- 
ments, like the pecking of the chicken. All are usefid 
to him, for even the grinding with the first teeth is of 
use in making the child familiar with them. All are 
hereditary and involuntary. 
4. Holding the Head. 
All new-born children, and chickens just hatched, 
probably all new-born mammals, and all birds just 
hatched, are unable to hold the head up and to keep it 
balanced. It falls forward, to the left or the right, even 
backward, when it is held up straight by some one else. 
In this respect the helplessness of the human child is 
not greater than that of the chick hardly clear of the 
shell; but the latter learns in a few hours to control 
better the muscles required for holding the head than 
the child does in many weeks. 264 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
This muscular activity is especially adapted to help 
us in following the growth of the child’s will. For 
weakness of the muscles can not be the cause of the 
inability to balance the head, because other movements 
of the head are quickly executed. At the end of the 
first and at the beginning of the second week I saw the 
babe, on being placed at the breast, continually make 
vigorous lateral movements of the head, which are made 
in like fashion by very young Guinea-pigs, calves, foals, 
and other animals in sucking. But during the first ten 
weeks no trace could be discovered, in the case of my 
boy, of an attempt to hold the head in equilibrium. In 
the eleventh week the head no longer bobs about, abso- 
lutely unsteady, when the child is made to sit up straight, 
but rather is balanced occasionally, although very im- 
perfectly as yet. In the twelfth week the head often 
falls forward, also backward and sidewise, and is only 
for moments in equilibrium; yet a gain may be per- 
ceived from day to day in this respect, as the short dura- 
tion of the holding erect becomes daily somewhat longer 
on the average. In the thirteenth week the head falls 
but seldom to one side, even when it is entirely free; 
rather is it for the most part tolerably well balanced. 
In the fourteenth week (in the case of another child not 
till the twenty-first) it falls forward also, but seldom 
(when the child is held up straight), and in the sixteenth 
week the bobbing of the head has altogether ceased; 
the holding up of the head is now settled for life. 
In this important step is expressed an unquestionable, 
vigorous act of will. For the contractions of the mus- 
cles that balance the head are at first not willed; they 
are not reflexive, not imitative, but impulsive, and then, INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
265 
as the purpose of them soon becomes discernible, they 
are instinctive. The benefit of these contractions is not 
recognized by the infant, but the muscular feelings that 
go with them are distinguished from other muscular 
feelings by their agreeable consequences; since, for ex- 
ample, the child can see better when the head is erect, 
and food can be taken more conveniently; therefore, 
these muscular contractions are preferred. Among all 
possible positions of the head, then, that of equilibrium 
gradually appears oftenest in the upright position of 
children, because it is the most advantageous, and when 
children establish it we say they possess will. Adults 
let the head fall when they go to sleep sitting, just as 
infants do when awake. Their will is extinguished 
when they cease to be awake. There is thus, during 
the waking period, a certain outlay of will permanently 
necessary for balancing the head, and the new-born and 
the very young child, though awake, do not yet possess 
this small quantum of will. We may, therefore, without 
hesitation, refer the period of the first distinct manifesta- 
tion of activity of will in the infant in this field to that 
week in which the head, while he is awake, no longer 
bobs hither and thither—i. e., the sixteenth week in the 
case of my child, the only one accurately observed as 
yet; in general, the fourth to the fifth month. R. 
Demme observed—not so accurately, to be sure—one 
hundred and fifty children in reference to this, and 
found that “ very powerfully-developed infants carry 
the head properly balanced as early as toward the end 
of the third or within the first half of the fourth month 
of life; children moderately strong do this for the first 
time in the course of the second half of the fourth 266 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
month; and more delicate individuals that fall some- 
what below the normal standard in their nutrition do 
not attain to this before the fifth or the beginning of 
the sixth month of life.” The statement of Heyfelder, 
that even after six or eight weeks attempts were made 
to hold the head erect, I can not confirm. 
Observations are lacking, also, concerning the first 
attempts of the infant, who at the beginning lies 
straight or keeps the position it had before birth, to 
lie on the side. One child did not accomplish it until 
the fourth month, and only by great effort. When I 
laid my boy, in the ninth and tenth months, on a pillow 
face downward, the unusual position seemed to be ex- 
tremely uncomfortable to him. He behaved in a very 
awkward fashion, but turned over without any help, so 
that after a minute or so he lay on his back again, or 
supported himself on his hands. Something similar to 
this happened, however, even in the sixth week of life. 
The infant, when laid upon a pillow face downward, 
propped himself even at that time on his forearms, 
turning his head meantime to one side, without cry- 
ing, thus exchanging the uncomfortable attitude for 
one less uncomfortable. But in this there is as yet no 
choice. 
In the first three months no voluntary movement 
appears. New-born children can not so much as free 
the face by turning the head when any one covers 
the face with his hand or lays them on a pillow with 
the face downward. They cry and move the extremities 
aimlessly, so that it can not be told with certainty 
whether the new position is agreeable to them or not 
Some of them, indeed, retain for some time, without INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
267 
moving, every position that is given to them—a thing 
which I have observed also in new-born animals. 
5. Learning to Sit. 
The first successful efforts to sit alone are referred 
(by Floss') to the fourth month, or (by Sigismund) to the 
period from the seventeenth to the twenty-sixth week. 
Ileyfelder also states that vigorous children of five to 
six months sit with the whole of the upper part of the 
body erect. R. Demme found, on the other hand, that 
very powerfully developed children, “ without specially 
remarkable strain of their muscular powers, could sit all 
alone toward the end of the seventh or at the beginning 
of the eighth month for several minutes.” Those of 
moderate strength did not achieve the same thing till 
the ninth and tenth months; weakly ones in the 
eleventh and twelfth months. 
With my child, wrho was vigorous, we succeeded 
with surprising ease in the first attempt to have him 
take a sitting posture contrived for him so that his back 
would be well supported. This was in the fourteenth 
week. In the twenty-second week the child actually 
raised himself to a sitting posture when he wanted to 
grasp at my face; but it was not till the thirty-ninth 
week that he could sit alone for any length of time; 
then he liked sitting, but not without a support. Even 
in his baby-carriage he needed that (in the fortieth and 
forty - first week still) in order to keep sitting. But 
although he could sit only for moments, at most, with- 
out any support, yet he always kept trying, manifestly 
to his own gratification, to maintain his equilibrium. 
Finally, in the forty-second week the child sits up, 268 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
naked in the bath, without support, holding his back 
straight; so likewise in the carriage, where the clothes, 
coverings, and pillows essentially facilitate the balanc- 
ing. The more difficult sitting upright in the bath, 
with its smooth sides, demands in the following period 
his entire attention. So long as his attention is not 
claimed by fresh impressions, the child does not fall to 
one side. He gains day by day in certainty in main- 
taining his equilibrium, so that after some days he sits 
for a full minute undressed in the bath, or in the car- 
riage, without any support. From the eleventh month 
on, sitting becomes a habit for life. 
In the beginning there appears along with this a 
peculiarity that is also found in monkeys, as was brought 
into notice by Lauder Brunton (1881). When, viz., 
little children are allowed to sit alone on the floor, they 
turn the soles of the feet toward each other, a habit 
that perhaps comes from the position of the legs before 
birth; for every child, when it is left to itself, un- 
dressed and unswathed, in a warm bed, takes for a long 
time after birth an attitude resembling the intra-uterine 
attitude—legs drawn up and arms bent and drawn in. 
The sitting apparatus used by different nations in 
earlier times and at present—children’s chairs with and 
without provision for locomotion—have been described 
by II. Floss in his book “ The Little Child from the 
Cushion to the First Step” (“Das Kleine Kind vom 
Tragbett bis zum ersten Schritt,” 1881), and illustrated 
with cuts. These contrivances all serve rather the con- 
venience of those who have the care of the child than 
that of the child itself. In fact, they are injurious 
when used too early. It is an important rule in or- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
269 
thopedy and in pedagogy that no child be habituated 
to a sitting posture before he has of himself raised 
himself with the upper part of the body from the re- 
cumbent position, in attempts to seize objects, without 
aid—in other words, before he wills to sit. 
That the time at which this is done is, as appears 
from the above statements of different observers, very 
different with different children—the earliest time being 
generally in the fourth and the latest in the twelfth 
month—is explained in part by the premature attempts 
of the relatives to bring on the sitting by artificial 
means; in part by imitation, where brothers and sisters 
are growing up together—the latter, however, applies 
only to the later stages; in part, finally, through mus- 
cular weakness also, unequal nourishment, lack of care, 
or neglect. But, apart from all these influences, varia- 
tion in the statements about the first sitting is caused 
also by different conceptions on the part of the observ- 
ers. The attempt to sit is still very far removed from 
actual sitting ; and this difference has been often over- 
looked. 
The first successful attempts to stand, in which my 
child stood on his feet without support, but only for a 
moment, were made in the thirty-ninth week. In the 
following weeks he needed only slight aid, and he 
seemed to prefer to occupy himself with learning to 
stand rather than with learning to sit, although it must 
have been more of a strain upon him. 
In the eleventh month he can stand without any 
support, and even stamps with his foot, but for all that 
he is not at all sure on his feet. Only when chairs that 
6. Learning to Stand. 270 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
offer support, or watchful arms are close by, is the up- 
right posture maintained longer than a moment. In fact, 
until some time after the first year of life has been 
completed, the child does not stand for a longer time 
than that, except when he leans back in a corner. I 
have not ascertained that in the numerous attempts, re- 
peated daily, to have him stand, he actually fell down a 
single time in the first year; and yet he gave us exactly 
the impression of being afraid of falling, as soon as he 
was to stand without leaning or being held. Finally, 
however, at the beginning of the second year, the child 
could stand for some moments without a hand to hold 
him. Then he gained gradually more confidence in 
himself through his efforts to walk, which were under- 
taken at the same time. 
A little girl, who in the nineteenth week had raised 
herself for the first time alone to a sitting posture, 
could from the eleventh month on hold herself upright 
for some moments without any help, and could get up 
alone; her sister could do it from the tenth month (Frau 
von Str dm pell). 
It. Demme found that only very vigorous children 
were able, at about the thirty-fifth to the thirty-eighth 
weeks of life, with slight support (given by taking hold 
of their hands or arms) to stand for some minutes; and 
not before the fortieth to the forty-second week could 
they stand entirely unsupported for two or three minutes. 
Children of moderate strength arrived at this only about 
the forty-fifth to the forty-eighth week; those more 
feeble not till the twelfth month or later. These obser- 
vations relate to one hundred and fifty Swiss children. 
Sigismund puts the date of the first attempts to stand INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
271 
at the eighteenth to the twenty-sixth week. “ At that 
time children like much to stand, if they are grasped 
under the arms.” But standing without support does 
not begin before the seventh month, and generally be- 
gins after the eighth. 
Imitation co-operates in this, for in families in 
which several children grow up together the younger 
ones usually learn to stand somewhat earlier than the 
first-born does. 
7. Learning to Walk. 
Learning to walk is mysterious in its beginnings, 
because the reason for the alternate bending and stretch- 
ing of the legs at the first placing of the infant up- 
right is not apparent to him. But the possibility of 
learning to walk rests solely on the invariably repeated 
lifting and putting down of the feet by the child when 
standing or held erect. The flexions and extensions 
occur, to be sure, when the child is lying down, in bed 
or in the bath ; but the regular bending and stretching 
which appear even months before the first successful 
attempt to walk, when the child, held upright on the 
floor, is pushed forward, is a different thing—it is in- 
stinctive. If infants could sustain life without coming 
in contact with human beings, they would of themselves 
doubtless adopt, but considerably later, the upright 
walk, because it is advantageous for command of the 
surrounding region through eye and ear. In the 
nursery, walking is almost always induced, and with 
unspeakable pains, earlier than can be good for children 
with regard to the growth of the bones. Children’s go- 
carts (Kinderlaufstuhle) and walking-frames (Gehkorbe) 
that favor such premature exercises are objectionable 272 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
contrivances, because they help to make children bow- 
legged. Creeping, the natural preparatory school for 
walking, is but too often not permitted to the child, 
although it contributes vastly to his mental develop- 
ment. For liberty to get to a desired object, to look 
at it and to feel of it, is much earlier gained by the 
creeping child than by one who must always have help 
in order to change his location. Mother and nurses, in 
many families, prevent children from creeping before 
they can stand, through mere prejudice and even super- 
stition, even when it is not the convenience of the el- 
ders, their disinclination to be observing watchfully the 
freely-moving child, that determines the unjustifiable 
prohibition. It can not be a matter of indifference for 
the normal mental development of the child not yet a 
year old, whether it is packed in a basket for hours, is 
swathed in swaddling-clothes, is tied to a chair, or is 
allowed to creep about in perfect freedom upon a large 
spread, out-of-doors in summer, and in a room mod- 
erately heated in winter. 
When it is that a child tries to creep for the first 
time can not be accurately stated, just because he is 
generally hindered in such attempts. The date is be- 
sides very different for children of the same family, 
according to the nutrition and the firmness of the 
bones, the muscular power, and the desire of move- 
ment, which depend upon the nutrition. Some infants 
do not creep at all. Moreover, the manner of creeping 
is by no means the same in all children, nor do even 
European children all drag on both knees. My child 
dragged as a rule on one knee only, and used the other 
for an advance movement, putting forward the proper INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
273 
foot, as Livingstone reports of the Manyuema children in 
Africa. But like all children he learned to kneel down 
only a long time after he could walk, whereas animals 
a day old kneel of themselves (p. 68). So, too, it was 
long after he could walk, that he learned to move for- 
ward on hands and knees. 
The date of the first successful attempts to walk also 
varies much, even with children of the same family, 
with approximately the same nourishment. One weakly 
child (according to Sigismund) could run alone cleverly 
when it was eight months old, another at sixteen 
months; many do not learn till after they are a year 
and a half or even two years old. Much depends on the 
surroundings. If a child grow's up among other little 
children, some of -whom are walking, some learning to 
walk, then he will, as a rule, be able to stand erect and 
to run, without any support from the mother, earlier 
than if he grows up alone. But in this case the fre- 
quent repetition of the instruction in walking may 
shorten considerably the natural period. Thus Demme 
saw (1882) out of fifty children two at the end of the 
ninth month of life walk alone for some minutes—un- 
steadily, to be sure; on the other hand, seven not till 
between the eighteenth and twenty-fourth month; the 
remaining forty-one in the third half-year. A vigorous 
female child with whom no experiments in standing 
and walking were undertaken, began to creep with the 
fifth month. “Up to the end of the tenth month she 
moved forward very briskly on all-fours, like a monkey, 
and up to this time, according to the express statement 
of the trustworthy parents, she had made no attempt 
to raise the body upright. With the fourteenth month 274 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
she began first to raise herself up by firm objects, and 
from the sixteenth to the eighteenth learned to walk 
properly without any assistance, keeping up meantime 
the frequent practice of going on all-fours. The girl 
was intelligent, and her development in other respects 
was regular.” 
In general, the first attempt of the child that can 
hold himself erect by means of firm objects, to stand 
free of support, to trot, to walk, comes into the time 
including the last quarter of the first year and the first 
three quarters of the second year, although proper 
walking-movements of an infant supported from above 
appear even in the second quarter of the first year. 
Champney’s child was held upright for the first time at 
the close of the nineteenth week, so that the feet just 
touched the ground, and was moved forward. The 
legs moved themselves fitly all the time, in alternation. 
Every step was taken perfectly, and that without delay 
or irregularity, even when the feet were held too high ; 
only, that when the boy was held too high, the alternat- 
ing movement was interrupted, as the foot remaining in 
the air made a new step. The touching of the ground 
on the part of one foot seemed to furnish the stimulus 
for the movement of the other. These perfectly cor- 
rect observations—out of the nineteenth week—support 
absolutely my view of the act of walking as an instinct- 
ive movement. 
It was after the close of the first quarter of the 
second year that my child, standing unsupported on his 
feet, suddenly trotted for the first time around the 
table, swaying, to be sure, or staggering like a drunken 
man that wants to run, but without falling. And from INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
275 
that day forth he could walk upright, at first only 
rapidly, hardly except on a trot, as if the only thought 
were to prevent the falling forward, and with arms ex- 
tended in front — then slower and more securely. 
Within the next ten weeks, however, the child went 
over a threshold hardly an inch high, between two 
rooms, only by holding on, and was often seen at this 
period to fling with a jerk the foot that was put down 
in advance, like a tabetic patient, or to lift it too high 
and set it down too hard. The muscular sense was not 
yet developed. 
In order to give a clear idea of the gradually pro- 
gressing development, I place together here a few more 
observations which I made upon my child concerning 
the first sitting, creeping, standing, walking, and run- 
ning : 
22d and 23d weeks.—Lying on his back the infant 
often lifts himself up to a sitting posture, and is pleased 
when he is placed upright on the knees of his nurse. 
28th week.—The child of his own accord places 
himself upright, but only on the lap of his mother, 
holding on to her. 
35 th week.—The child, while being carried, places 
himself on the arm and the hand of the nurse, and 
looks over her shoulder. 
JfLst week.—First attempts at walking. The child 
was held under the arms so that his feet touched the 
floor. Then he lifted his legs alternately and stretched 
them imperfectly, in alternation. What induced these 
movements in him is beyond finding out. Sitting and 
standing without support are impossible. 
Ifid week.—Whence it comes that the child, held 276 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
under the arms, his feet touching the floor, sets these 
to moving forward, and in the beginning sidewise 
also, now more regularly, is the harder to comprehend, 
for the reason that there is no pushing from behind, 
and usually nothing is before the child that he would 
desire. The inclination to walk is very great. From 
this time on the child sits without support. 
Jfd week.—Whereas the child at the beginning put 
his feet irregularly over, by, and before each other, he 
now lifts the foot high up and generally puts it down 
firmly on the floor without crossing the legs. These 
remarkable movements occasion him the greatest pleas- 
ure. If he is very restless, he is speedily quieted if he 
is placed with his feet on the floor and held so. Fie 
begins then at once, without the least urging, to move 
h imself forward. 
If th to If th weeks.—The exercises in walking, prac- 
ticed almost daily, were at this period entirely omitted, 
in order to ascertain whether that which had been hith- 
erto attained would be forgotten. 
At the end of the forty-seventh week, however, the 
child when held up places his feet remarkably correctly, 
and seldom over each other; but the needed estimate 
of the amount of muscular force to be employed is still 
lacking, for he often lifts the foot too high, and puts it 
down too hard. 
If th week.—The child often stands now a moment 
without support and stamps with his foot. He takes 
hold of a chair and pushes it forward somewhat, with 
only the slightest support. 
If th week.—If the child is left to himself on a soft 
blanket, surrounded with pillows, he can not raise him- INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
277 
self without help, and he can not stand more than an 
instant without help. 
50th week.—The child can not yet of himself place 
himself upon his feet, when he is sitting or lying, nor 
can he walk without help. 
53d week.—The child can creep, or rather drag 
himself along somewhat, but can not walk alone. 
55th week.—He can walk when held by one hand. 
When creeping on the carpet, he moves but little and 
slowly from his place, and this with asymmetrical 
movements and stretchings of arms and legs. 
57th week.—He hitches along hither and thither 
quite nimbly on hands and knees, but walking without 
being led (by one hand) is quite impossible. 
60th week.—The child can raise himself alone from 
the floor by a chair, first to his knees and then to his 
feet. But he can stand all alone only a few moments; 
always clings tightly when he is put down. 
63 d week.—The child is still unable to stand longer 
than a moment without being supported, or at least 
touched. This inability depends no longer on the dif- 
ficulty of maintaining the equilibrium, but on the lack 
of confidence in himself, for the only time when he is 
still unable to stand is when he knows he is not held. 
But when, without his knowledge, I have withdrawn 
from his back the support of my hand, having grad- 
ually reduced the pressure, then he stands for several 
seconds upright, and without support. Just so in 
the— 
63d week.—The child still walks only when he can 
hold on with both hands (on the sides, fifty-five centi- 
metres high, of a rectangular wooden structure of one 278 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
and a quarter metres length on the side, made by me 
on purpose for my child in 1878, and cushioned). 
65th week.—When the child is led by one of his 
arms, so loosely that the arm is as if put through a 
loose ring, he walks properly and steadily; he can 
therefore walk without being held; but if he is left 
entirely free from one’s touch, then he does not walk, 
but falls or stumbles into the arms of the person sitting 
or standing before him. Co-ordinating ability is not 
lacking, therefore, but self-confidence; whereas the in- 
ability to speak depends on lack of co-ordinating power. 
By altogether too frequent support, by too much telling 
how and showing how, by training, independent devel- 
opment is hindered and self-confidence is smothered in 
its origin. 
65th week.—The child can not yet walk alone, in- 
deed ; but when he clasps only one guiding finger with 
his thumb and finger, he strides swiftly and securely 
forward. He raises himself, if he is laid down, first to 
the knees, and while he holds fast to something he 
stands vp, but can not stand up without holding on. 
66th week.—Suddenly—on the four hundred and 
fifty-seventh day of his life—the child can run alone. 
The day before, he was entirely unable to take three 
steps alone—he had to be led if only by means of a 
stick, perhaps a lead-pencil. Now, he ran alone around 
a large table, unsteadily indeed, and staggering and not 
holding his head in a stable position, but without falling. 
On the following day the little traveler is manifestly 
pleased at his new accomplishment, runs staggering, at 
random, with arms now hanging down, now lifted as if 
he wanted to hold on, now mute, again crying out, INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
279 
“ Hey! hey-ey! ” (this he continued to do for months), 
and laughing. He likes to hold on by the furniture. 
On the day following, the child frequently stops during 
his hasty walking, and stamps, changing position from 
one foot to the other without any help. On the four 
hundred and sixty-first day he can walk backward also if 
he is led, and without leading can turn round quickly 
and cleverly. In walking he strikes about him at ran- 
dom with his arms. At the end of this week he can, 
during his walking, already direct his attention to 
other things, move his hands hither and thither for 
pleasure, hold objects and look at them during the slow 
walking, which has just been learned. 
67th week.—Although a fall appears inevitable fre- 
quently in his walking alone, yet it rarely occurs—in the 
first five days of walking scarcely more than three times. 
In falling forward, both arms are now stretched 
straight out, which must be instinctive, as a falling per- 
son has not yet been seen by the child. In falling 
backward there is no protective movement. Whether 
the arms were extended at the first fall I have not 
been able to settle. 
68th week.—The act of walking no longer requires 
so great attention as at the beginning. During his ad- 
vance his look is already turned sidewise; and he even 
chews, swallows, laughs, and calls out. Walking is al- 
ready becoming mechanical. 
70th week.—The child raises himself from the floor 
alone—i. e., he stands up himself. 
71st week.—Now first can a threshold—only an 
inch high, at the door between two rooms—be stepped 
over without help (not yet invariably, in the seven- 280 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
tieth week, the child holding by the wall and the door- 
post). If he is sitting, he can now stand up without 
help. 
77th week.—One day the child ran, without inter- 
vals of more than five seconds, nineteen times around a 
large table, calling out meantime, “ Mamma! ” and 
“ Bwa, bwa, bwaI ” Great liking for running. 
78th week.—If he is holding something in his hands, 
then he walks over the threshold an inch high without 
holding on by anything. 
85th week.—The thresholds are stepped over quick- 
ly without hesitation. In running he inclines forward, 
as if, at every step, falling were consciously prevented 
by carrying forward the center of gravity. 
89th week.—Running is still somewhat awkward—• 
with asymmetrical movements of the arms—so that it 
looks as if the child must fall. But a fall is very rare. 
In the twenty-fourth month the child turns of him- 
self, dancing in time to music; also beats the time with 
tolerable correctness, when he hears a hand-organ or a 
bag-pipe. 
In the twenty-eighth month he first learned to “ go 
on all-fours”—that is, on hands and feet (playing 
“bear”). Before this he had (in creeping) dragged 
himself along on hands and knees, never on hands 
and feet. In this period came the first exercises in 
jumping, which were continued to the point of ex- 
haustion. In this month, too, and in the previous 
one, begins pleasure in climbing (on tables, chairs, 
benches). 
In the thirtieth month, mounting a staircase of 
twenty-five steps without help—the right hand, on the INSTINCTIVE MOVEMENTS. 
281 
balustrade, rather directing than holding. After ten 
days the same, with both hands free in the air. 
In the thirty-fourth month, the first gymnastic exer- 
cises, which, like climbing and jumping, afford extraor- 
dinary pleasure. Also the throwing of any kind of 
objects (out of a window); the hurling of stones into 
the air or into a pond; the moving or setting in motion 
of objects within reach (on the table) are absolutely origi- 
nal, and must consequently be traced back to hereditary 
tendencies to produce changes in movable objects. 
On the whole, it appears from the observations con- 
cerning sitting, standing, creeping, running, walking, 
jumping, climbing, throwing, which are rapidly but 
unequally developed in all children in like fashion, 
that these movements are predominantly or exclusively 
instinctive. They are not imparted by education. If 
any one insists on saying that they are learned, he must 
admit that they are only in the smallest degree learned 
by imitation ; for a child that sees no one drag himself 
along, jump, climb, or throw, will without fail perform 
these movements, even when he is not trained. The 
progenitors of man must have found these especially 
useful, so that they grew to be fixed habits and became 
hereditary. At the same time, as it appears, those har- 
monious movements remained oftenest in use which, 
like those of the muscles of the eye that are used 
in seeing (p. 35), are of most service with the least 
strain. 282 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
CHAPTER XII. 
IMITATIVE MOVEMENTS. 
To determine as exactly as possible the date of the 
first imitative acts is of especial interest in regard to the 
genesis of mind, because even the most insignificant imi- 
tative movement furnishes a sure proof of activity of the 
cerebrum. For, in order to imitate, one must first per- 
ceive through the senses: secondly, have an idea of 
what has been perceived; thirdly, execute a movement 
corresponding to this idea. Now, this threefold central 
process can not exist without a cerebrum, or without 
certain parts of the cerebrum, probably the cortical sub- 
stance. Without the cerebral cortex, certain percep- 
tions are possible, to be sure; many movements are 
possible, but not the generation of the latter out of the 
former. However often imitation has the appearance 
of an involuntary movement, yet when it was executed 
the first time, it must have been executed with intention 
— i. e., voluntarily. When a child imitates, it has al- 
ready a will. But the oftener a voluntary movement is 
repeated, always in the same way, so much the more it 
approximates reflex movement. Hence many imitative 
acts, even in the child, occur involuntarily quite early. 
But the first ones are willed. When do they make 
their appearance ? 
If we make, for the infant to see, a movement that 
he has often practiced of his own accord, he can make 
a successful imitation much earlier than is commonly 
supposed. Such a movement, which I employed as IMITATIVE MOVEMENTS. 
283 
suitable for early imitation, is the pursing of the mouth, 
the protruding of the closed lips, which often occurs, 
(even in adults) along with a great strain of the atten- 
tion. 
This protruding of the lips occurred with my child 
on the tenth day of life (in the bath, when a burning 
candle was held before him at the distance of a metre); 
in the seventh week it was decidedly marked at sight 
of a new face quite near him ; in the tenth week, at the 
bending and stretching of his legs in the bath. It was 
as if the letter u were to be pronounced—and yet the 
child was wholly unable to imitate this movement so 
easily made by him (as late as the fourteenth week) 
when I made it for him under the most favorable cir- 
cumstances. At the end of the fifteenth week appeared 
for the first time the beginnings of an imitation, the 
infant making attempts to purse the lips when I did it 
close in front of him. That this was a case of imitative 
movement is shown by the imperfect character of it in 
comparison with the perfect pursing of the lips when 
he makes the movement of his own accord in some other 
strain of the attention. Strangely enough, the imitation 
was attempted on the one hundred and fifth day, but 
not in the following days. 
Further attempts at imitation occurred so seldom 
and were so imperfect, notwithstanding much pains on 
my part to induce them, in the following weeks, that I 
was in doubt whether they might not be the result of 
accidental coincidences. Not till the seventh month 
were the attempts to imitate movements of the head, and 
the pursing of the lips already spoken of, so striking 
that I could no longer refer them to accidental coinci- 284 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
dence. In particular the child often laughed when one 
laughed to him (p. 145). The attention is now more 
and more plainly strained when new movements are 
made for the infant to see—he follows these with evi- 
dent interest, but without coming to the point of an 
attempt at imitation in a single instance. This indo- 
lence was the more surprising, as even in the seven- 
teenth week the protruding of the tip of the tongue 
between the lips (customary with many adults at their 
work) was perfectly imitated once, when done by me 
before the child’s face, and the child in fact smiled di- 
rectly at this strange movement which seemed to please 
him. Imitative movements thus appear in the fourth 
month, which in the seventh, and even the ninth, do 
not succeed or are quite imperfectly achieved. Yet in the 
tenth month correct imitations of all sorts of movements 
wTere frequent, and it is certain that these were executed 
with distinct consciousness; for, when he is imitating 
movements of hand and arm frequently repeated before 
him—e. g., Reckoning [in the general sense of making 
a sign] and saying—“ Tatta”—the child looks fixedly at 
the person concerned, and then often suddenly makes 
the movement quite correctly. 
Beckoning ( Winken) is in general one of the move- 
ments of the infant acquired early by imitation. In 
my child it appeared for the first time at the beginning 
of the tenth month. When he wras going to be taken 
out, his mother used to make a sign to him, and now he 
likewise made a sign, almost invariably, in the doorway, 
with one arm, frequently with both arms, yet 'with an 
expression of face that indicated that he moved the arms 
or arm without understanding, upon the opening of the IMITATIVE MOVEMENTS. 
285 
door. The proof of this lies in the fact, that when I 
enter the room, the child, so long as the door is in 
motion, makes that movement which he at first only 
imitated, and does it regularly—no hint of leave-taking 
in it therefore. The beckoning movement is made also 
at other times—e. g., on the opening and shutting of a 
large cupboard; it has, therefore, completely lost its 
purely imitative character. The movement consists es- 
sentially of a rapid raising and dropping of the ex- 
tended arm; it is not, therefore, genuine beckoning. 
Not till after some weeks were motions of the hand 
added, and this more skillful imitation made it seem as 
if the machine-like movements that wrere made at the 
opening of the door were less and less involuntary, 
were more and more intentionally performed as genuine 
signs of leave-taking. But at this period (tenth month) 
such an action is not yet admissible; for when I make 
the same beckoning movement for the child without 
opening the door, he repeats it often in a purely imi- 
tative fashion without deliberation, though, to be sure, 
the eye has an expression of great strain of attention, 
on account of the difficulty of comprehending so quick 
a movement. 
Not every imitative movement can be so clearly 
perceived to be willed as can this one. When one 
enters a room in which there are a good many infants, 
all quiet, one can easily observe the contagious influence 
of crying. For, if only one child begins to cry, then 
very soon several are crying, then many, often all of 
them. So, too, when one single infant (in the ninth 
month) hears other children cry, he likewise, in very 
many cases, begins to cry. The older the child becomes, 286 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
the more seldom appears this kind of undesirable imi- 
tation ; but even in children four years old, quite aim- 
less imitative movements may often be perceived (as in 
mesmeric patients) if the children are observed without 
their knowledge. For example, they suddenly hold the 
arms crossed, as a stranger present is doing, and bow as 
he does at leaving. 
A little girl in the last quarter of her first year imi- 
tated, in the drollest fashion, what she herself experi- 
enced in her treatment by the nurse, giving her doll a 
bath, punishing it, kissing it, singing it to sleep; and 
before the end of the first year she imitated the barking 
of the dog and the bleating of the sheep (Frau Dr. 
Friedemann). 
Another female child imitated the following move- 
ments in a recognizable manner: in the eleventh month 
she threatened with the forefinger if any one did so to 
her, used a brush after she had seen brushes and combs, 
used a spoon properly, and drank from a cup, and made 
a kind of cradling movement with her doll, singing, 
“ Eia—eia.” In the thirteenth month the child made 
the motion of sewing, of writing (moistening the point 
of the pencil in her mouth) and of folding the arms. 
In the fifteenth month she fed the doll as she was fed 
herself, imitated shaving, on her own chin, and reading 
aloud, moving her finger along the lines and modulat- 
ing her voice. In the eighteenth month she imitated 
singing, and made the motion of turning a crank like a 
hurdy - gurdy player when she heard music; in the 
nineteenth she went on hands and feet, crying “Au, 
au! ” (ow, ow), in imitation of a dog; in the twentieth 
she imitated smoking, holding a cane firmly with her IMITATIVE MOVEMENTS. 
287 
fingers exactly as is done in smoking a pipe. Iler younger 
sister, in her fifteenth month, first imitated the movement 
of sewing and of writing; while the elder, in the nine- 
teenth month, after repeated attempts at imitation, sewed 
together two pieces of cloth, without instruction, draw- 
ing the needle through correctly (Frau von Striimpell). 
Toward the end of the first year of life the voluntary 
imitative movements, more numerous than before, are ex- 
ecuted much more skillfully and more quickly. But when 
they require complex co-ordination they easily fail. When 
(at the beginning of the twelfth month) any one struck 
several times with a salt-spoon on a tumbler so that it 
resounded, my child took the spoon, looked at it steadily, 
and then likewise tried to strike on the glass with it, 
but he could not make it ring. In such imitations, 
which are entirely new, and on that account make a 
deeper impression, as in the case of puffing (Pusteri) it 
would happen that they were repeated by the child in 
his dreams, without interruption of his sleep (twelfth 
month), a proof that the experiences of the day, however 
unimportant they appear to the adult, have stamped them- 
selves firmly upon the impressionable brain of the child. 
But it takes always some seconds before a new or partly 
new movement, however simple, is imitated, when it is 
made for the child to imitate—e. g., it was a habit of 
my child (in the fourteenth month) to move both arms 
symmetrically hither and thither, saying, “ ay—e, ay— 
e ” (altogether differently, much more persistently and 
rapidly, than when beckoning). If some one made 
this very swinging of the arms for the child to observe, 
with the same sound, there was always an interval of 
several seconds before the child could execute the move- 288 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
ment in like fashion. The simplest mental processes of 
all, therefore, need much more time than they do later. 
But imitations of this kind are almost always performed 
more quickly when they are not sought, when the 
child-brain is not obliged first to get its bearings, but 
acts spontaneously. If I clear my throat, or cough 
purposely, 'without looking at the child, he often gives 
a little cough likewise in a comical manner. If I ask, 
“Did the child cough?” or if I ask him, “Can you 
cough ? ” he coughs, but generally copying less accurately 
(in the fourteenth and fifteenth months). The bow too 
tightly strained shoots beyond the mark. 
Here, besides pure imitation, there is already under- 
standing of the name of the imitated movement with 
the peculiar noise. 
This important step in knowledge once taken, the 
movements imitated become more and more complicated, 
and are more and more connected w’ith objects of daily 
experience. In the fifteenth month the child learns to 
blow out a candle. He puffs from six to ten times in 
vain, and grasps at the flame meantime, laughs when it 
is extinguished, and exerts himself, after it has been 
lighted, in blowing or breathing, with cheeks puffed out 
and lips protruded to an unnecessary degree, because 
he does not imitate accurately. For it can hardly be 
that a child that has never seen how a candle can be 
blown out would hit upon the notion of blowing it out. 
Understanding and experience are not yet sufficient to 
make this discovery. 
I find, in general, that the movements made for 
imitation are the more easily imitated correctly the less 
complicated they are. When I opened and shut my IMITATIVE MOVEMENTS. 
289 
hand alternately, merely for the purpose of amusing the 
child, he suddenly began to open and shut his right hand 
likewise in quite similar fashion. The resemblance of 
his movement to mine was extremely surprising in com- 
parison with the awkw’ard blowing out of the candle in 
the previous instance. It is occasioned by the greater 
simplicity. Yet, simple as the bending of the finger 
seems, it requires, nevertheless, so many harmonious 
impulses, nerve-excitements, and contractions of mus- 
cular fibers, that the imitation of simple movements 
even can hardly be understood without taking into 
account the element of heredity, since unusual move- 
ments, never performed, it may be, by ancestors— 
say, standing on the head—are never, under any cir- 
cumstances, imitated correctly at the first attempt. The 
opening and shutting of the hand is just one of the 
movements by no means unusual, but often performed 
by ancestors. Still, it is to be noticed that at the be- 
ginning the imitation proceeded very slowly, although 
correctly. On the very next day it was much more 
rapid on the repetition of the attempt, and the child, 
surprised by the novelty of the experience, now observed 
attentively first my hand and then his own (fifteenth 
month). 
Of the numerous more complicated movements of 
the succeeding period, the following, also, may be men- 
tioned, in order to show the rapid progress in utilizing 
a new retinal image for the execution of an act corre- 
sponding to it: A large ring, which I slowly put on my 
head and took away again, was seized by the child, and 
put by him in the same way on his own head without 
fumbling (sixteenth month). But, when it is a case of 290 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
combination of a definite action of the muscles of the 
mouth with expiration of the breath, innumerable fruit- 
less efforts at imitation are made before one of them 
succeeds, because, in this case, a part only of the working 
of the complicated muscular action can be perceived, 
while the rest must be found out by trial. Thus, the 
child could not, in spite of many attempts, get any tone 
out of a small hunting-horn. He put it to his mouth, 
and tried to imitate the tone with his own voice. Sud- 
denly the right manner of blowing was hit upon acci- 
dentally, and from that time was never forgotten (eight- 
eenth month). 
After the child had seen how his mother combed 
her long dark hair before a glass, he took a hand-mirror 
and a comb and moved the comb around on his head, 
combing where there was no hair. So, too, he would 
now and then seize a brush and try to brush his head, 
and his dress, but took special pleasure in brushing also 
all kinds of furniture. More than once he actually took 
a shawl, held it by a corner to his shoulder, and drew it 
behind him like a train, frequently turning around while 
doing this. He also put a collar round his neck; he 
tried to dry himself with a towel, but without success; 
whereas the washing of the hands with soap, without 
direction, was imitated, though not with much skill, yet 
tolerably well; none but very complicated imitative 
actions these, and all of them, in the case of my boy, 
belong to the third quarter of the second year—an ex- 
ceptionally important period in mental genesis—the 
same is true of seizing, holding things before him, and 
(what was observed by Lindner in the sixth month) the 
imitation of reading aloud from a newspaper or pam- IMITATIVE MOVEMENTS. 
291 
phlet, the feeding of deer—holding ont a single spear of 
grass to them—scraping the feet upon entering the 
house (as if the shoes were to be cleaned). 
But how little real imitation and understanding of 
the act itself there was, even in this period of perfect 
external imitations, appears from the circumstance that 
a map is held, as a newspaper, “ to be read aloud,” before 
the face, and upside down. Now, too, the child likes 
to take a pencil, puts the point in his mouth, and then 
makes all sorts of marks on a sheet of paper, as if he 
could draw. 
Just as remarkable is the lively interest in every- 
thing that goes on in the neighborhood of the child. In 
packing and unpacking, setting the table, lighting the 
fire, lifting and moving furniture, he tries to help. 
His imitative impulse seems here almost like ambition 
(twenty-third month). 
Toward the end of the second year various ceremoni- 
ous movements, especially those of salutation, are also 
imitated. The child sees how an older boy takes off his 
hat in salutation ; immediately he takes off his own head- 
covering and puts it on again, like the other boy. 
All these movements last enumerated are distin- 
guished from the earlier ones by this, that they were 
executed or attempted by the boy unsolicited, without 
the least inducement or urging, entirely of his own mo- 
tion. 
They show, on the one hand, how powerful the 
imitative impulse has become (in the second year); on 
the other hand, how important this impulse must be 
for the further mental development. For, if the child 
at this age passes the greater part of his time in com- 292 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
pany inattentive to manners, or unrefined, then he will 
imitate all sorts of things injurious to him, and will 
easily acquire habits that hinder his further develop- 
ment. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance, even 
at this early period, to prevent the intercourse of chil- 
dren with strangers, and to avoid everything that might 
open wrong paths to the imitative impulse. 
The imitative movements of the muscles of speech, 
the child’s imitations of sounds, syllables, and words are 
treated of in detail in the third part of this work. The 
first answer of the infant to the language addressed to 
him by his relatives, which is said to be made, in indi- 
vidual cases, as early as the eighth and ninth weeks 
(according to Sully, 1882), is no attempt at imitation, 
but a directly reflexive movement, like screaming after 
a blow, etc. Singing has already been mentioned as one 
of the earliest imitated performances. It is true of 
these, as of all later imitations, that the first imitation 
of every new movement is voluntary on the part of the 
child, and, in case an involuntary imitation seems to 
occur, then either this has already been often repeated 
as such, or it is a movement often practiced without 
imitation. The accuracy of the imitation depends little, 
however, upon the co-operation of a deliberative cere- 
bral activity. On the contrary, children of inferior 
mental endowment among those born deaf sometimes 
possess (according to Gude) a purer and more distinct 
enunciation than those more gifted. EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
293 
CHAPTER XIII. 
EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
Expressions of countenance and gestures arise 
chiefly, as is well known, from imitation. Not only 
persons born blind, but also those wflio become blind at 
an advanced age, are distinguished from those who have 
sight by their lack of the play of feature. Their ex- 
pression of countenance shows only slight changes; their 
physiognomy appears fixed, uniform; the muscles of 
the face move but little when they are not eating or 
speaking. Little children also lack a characteristic play 
of feature, hence the difficulty of making portraits of 
them, or even of describing them. Different as is the 
contented face from the discontented, even on the first 
day, different as is the intelligent face from the stupid, 
the attentive from the inattentive, the difference can 
not be completely described. In the second half of the 
first year children act after the example of the members 
of the family. Speak gravely to a gay child of a year 
old, and it becomes grave; if it is sober, and you show 
a friendly face, the child in many cases brightens up in 
an instant. Yet it would be premature to conclude 
from this that all the means of expression by the coun- 
tenance are acquired solely through imitation. Some 
mimetic movements, of which we have already spoken, 
are of reflex origin. The same is true of gestures. 
Others may be instinctive. . 
As every gesture is wont to appear in association 
with the expression of countenance appropriate to it, 
when it has a language value, it seems advisable to treat 294 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
together expressions and gestures which together form 
pantomime, and to separate the purely expressive mus- 
cular movements of the infant from its other move- 
ments, in our attempt to trace their origin. 
So long as the child can not yet speak words and 
sentences, it effects an understanding with other children 
and with adults by the same means that are employed 
by the higher animals for mutual understanding, by 
demonstrative movements and attitudes, by sounds ex- 
pressive of emotion or feeling, of complaining, exulta- 
tion, alluring, repelling, or desiring, and by dumb looks. 
These very means of expression are employed by the 
child when it entertains itself in play with inanimate 
objects. 
Of the expressive movements of the child I have 
especially considered, as to their origin, smiling and 
laughing, pouting and kissing, crying and wrinkling of 
the forehead, shaking the head and nodding, shrugging 
the shoulders, and begging with the hands, as well as 
pointing. 
1. The First Smiling and Laughing. 
The first smiling is the movement most often mis- 
understood. Every opening of the mouth whatever, 
capable of being interpreted as a smile, is wont to be 
gladly called a smile even in the youngest child. But 
it is no more the case with the child than with the 
adult that a mere contortion of the mouth fulfills the 
idea of a smile. There is required for this either a feel- 
ing of satisfaction or an idea of an agreeable sort. Both 
must be strong enough to occasion an excitement of the 
facial nerves. A smile can not be produced by a mere 
sensation, but only by the state of feeling that springs EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
295 
from it, or by the agreeable idea developed from it, 
however vague it may yet be. 
Now, as has been shown already, the number of 
sensations associated with a pleasurable feeling in the 
first days of life is very small, and an idea, in the proper 
sense of the word, the new-born child unquestionably 
can not have as yet, because he does not yet perceive. 
The child that is satisfied with nursing at its mother’s 
breast, or with the warmth of the bath, does not smile 
in the first days of life, but only shows an expression 
of satisfaction, because for the moment all unpleasant 
feelings are absent. But how easily such a condition 
of comfort manifests itself by a very slight lifting of 
the corner of the month, is well known. If we choose 
to call this a smile, then even sleeping babes smile very 
early. On the tenth day of his life I saw my child, 
while he was asleep, after having just nursed his fill, 
pnt his mouth exactly into the form of smiling. The 
dimples in the cheeks became distinct, and the expression 
of countenance was, in spite of the closed eyes, strik- 
ingly lovely. The phenomenon occurred several times. 
On the twelfth day appeared, along with the animated 
movements of the facial muscles, a play of features in 
the waking condition, also, that one might take for a 
smile. But this play of the muscles of the mouth lacked 
the consciousness that is required to complete the smile, 
as does the smile of the sleeping child. On the twenty- 
sixth day, first, when the child could better discriminate 
between his sensations and the feelings generated by 
them, did the smile become a mimetic expression. The 
babe had taken his milk in abundant quantity, and was 
lying with his eyes now open and now half-closed, and 296 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
with an indescribable expression of contentment on his 
countenance. Then he smiled, opening his eyes, and 
directed his look to the friendly face of his mother, and 
made some sounds not before heard, which were appro- 
priate to his happy mood. But the idea had not yet 
arisen of the connection of the mother’s face with the 
mother’s breast, the source of enjoyment (p. 46). Nor 
can we at this period assume an imitation, by the 
child, of the smile of the mother, because at first in- 
animate objects (tassels) are smiled at, and before the 
fourth month no imitative movements at all were at- 
tempted. 
Not only the first-mentioned very early movements 
of smiling, but also this perfect smile is connected with 
a condition of contentment, and there is no reason to 
regard it as less hereditary in character than is scream- 
ing with pain, which no one would refer to imitation. 
Later the child smiles when he is smiled at, but not 
always by any means. Strangers may smile at him 
in ever so friendly a manner, yet the wondering little 
face, usually merry, now sober, remains immobile. The 
first imitations of the smile in children are not so free 
from deliberation as the smiles of many adults, which 
through training and the conventional forms of greeting 
have degenerated into mere formality. 
The original smile of satisfaction at new, agreeable 
feelings, a smile which may continue even in sleep, and 
which appears only in a cheerful frame of mind, remains 
in force still later. By an unusual expression of in- 
tensity in the more brightly gleaming eye, as well as by 
lively movements of the arms and legs, most plainly by 
laughing and smiling, the infant manifests his satisfac- EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
297 
tion—e. g., in music (in the eighth week)—without any 
one’s giving him in any other way the least occasion 
for it. 
The date of the first smile varies very much, there- 
fore, according as we take for a smile a spontaneous ex- 
pression of pleasure, or the communication of an agree- 
able condition, or the satisfaction at a pleasing idea; here 
belongs the first imitated smile, and the statements that 
the first smile appears in w’ell-developed children about 
the fourth week, as the expression of pleasure (Hey- 
felder), in the sixth to the eighth week (Champneys), in 
the seventh and ninth week (Darwin), or that in the 
seventh to the tenth week (Sigismund) the babe smiles 
for the first time, are as indefinite as the statement that, 
at the end of the second week, his mouth takes on a 
lovely expression like a smile. It depends essentially 
on the nature of the occasion of the smile at what date 
the first smile shall be fixed. 
One child first smiles at its image in the glass in the 
twenty-seventh week; another, in the tenth (see below); 
the one observed by myself, in regard to this point, in 
the seventeenth week, and not at all till that time. It 
was rather a laugh than a smile that surprised me on 
the one hundred and sixteenth day, whereas even on the 
one hundred and thirteenth the image in the mirror 
was regarded with a fixed and attentive look, to be sure, 
but without any sign of satisfaction. In these cases it 
is simply the joy at the distinct, new perception—an 
idea, therefore, that occasions the smile; in other cases 
it is pleasure in impressions of agreeable tastes, of soft- 
ness or w’armth, or joy in pleasing sound, or simply the 
feeling of satiety (fourteenth week), and then it is usu- 298 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
ally accompanied by a peculiar sound, which is always 
much softer in the first months than the expressions of 
displeasure. But, when the quite young child does not 
feel well, or is hungry, it can not smile any more. The 
surest sign of convalescence is the reappearance of this 
significant movement of the mouth. 
From the smile to the laugh is but a step, and the 
laugh is often only a strengthened and audible smile. 
The first laugh upon a joyous sense-impression is, how- 
ever, essentially different from that which springs from 
the heightened self-consciousness at the perception of 
the ludicrous; and the limit of time given for that, of 
six to seventeen weeks, is surprisingly late. Pliny 
thinks no child laughs before the fortieth day. I ob- 
served an audible and visible laugh, accompanied by a 
brighter gleam of the eye, in my child, for the first 
time, on the twenty-third day (p. 32). He was pleased 
with a bright, rose-colored curtain that was hanging 
above him, and he made peculiar sounds of satisfaction, 
so that I was first led by these to pay attention to him. 
The corners of his mouth were drawn somewhat up- 
ward. At this period no laugh yet appeared when the 
child was in the bath, but there also the expression of 
the little face with the widely-opened eyes was that of 
great satisfaction. Laughing appears at first simply as 
an augmentation of this expression of pleasure. It is 
often repeated in the same way in the fifth and sixth 
weeks—in the eighth especially—at the sight of slowly- 
swinging, well-lighted, colored objects, and on hearing 
the piano. 
The child’s laugh appeared for the first time, in the 
period from the sixth to the ninth week, as a sign of joy EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
299 
at a familiar, pleasing impression, his eyes being fixed 
on bis mother’s face. But the laugh at the friendly 
nodding to him (p. 62), and singing (p. 84), of the 
members of the family, was then already much more 
marked, and was later accompanied by rapid raisings 
and droppings of the arms as sign of the utmost pleasure 
(sixth month). This last childish movement continued 
for years as an accompanying phenomenon of laughing 
for joy. But it is to be noticed that this laugh first 
began to be persistently loud in the eighth month (in 
play with the mother); every one could then at once 
recognize it as a laugh without looking in that direc- 
tion. In this the child made a peculiar impression of 
gayety upon every one who saw him. 
Loud laughing at new objects that please, and are 
long looked at, is still frequent in the ninth month; so 
also at new sounds in the fifteenth month (p. 89); then 
follows laughing at the efforts to stand with support. 
In the last three months of the first year, however, the 
character of the laugh appears to become different, as it 
becomes more conscious. The child laughs with more 
understanding than before. But he with a laugh grasps 
at his own image in the glass, and makes a loud jubi- 
lant noise, in the eleventh month, wThen he is allowed to 
walk, although he must be held firmly when doing so. 
At the end of the first year, to these independent utter- 
ances of pleasure had been added the purely imitative 
laughing when others laughed. Yet self-consciousness 
manifested itself also in this, through vigorous crow- 
ing with employment of abdominal pressure. Roguish 
laughing I first noticed toward the end of the second 
year. Scornful laughing and lachrymal secretion during 300 
THE MIND OF TIIE CHILD. 
continuous laughter I have never observed in children 
under four years of age. 
From the sum total of my observations in regard to 
the smiling and laughing of infants, it results unques- 
tionably that both are original expressive movements, 
which may be distinctly perceived in the first month, 
which by no means take place the first time through imi- 
tation, and which, without exception, from the beginning 
express feelings of pleasure; in fact, my child laughed 
in his sleep at the end of his first year of life, probably 
having a pleasant dream, and did not wake on account 
of it. 
The reasons are not yet known why feelings of pleas- 
ure are expressed just in this manner—i. e., by uncover- 
ing the teeth, and even before the teeth are present, by 
lengthening the opening of the mouth, along with lift- 
ing the corners of the mouth, by peculiar sounds and a 
brighter gleam of the eye (secretion of lachrymal fluid, 
without its going so far as the formation of tears), and 
lively accompanying movements of the arms (p. 145). 
The causes must be hereditary. But Darwin rightly 
urges that they do not operate so early as the causes of 
crying and weeping, because crying is more useful to 
the child than laughing. And if he saw two children 
distinctly smile for the first time in the seventh week, 
we ought to infer from that not so much a failure to 
notice earlier attempts as the existence of individual dif- 
erences. That he perceived the first decided laugh in 
the seventeenth week shows how unlike individual in- 
fants are in this respect. Probably much depends on the 
surroundings and on the behavior of the family. But 
in all children the expression of pleasure begins with a EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
301 
scarcely perceptible smile, which passes very gradually, 
in the course of the first three months, into conscious 
laughing, after the cerebral cortex has so far developed 
that ideas more distinct can arise. In the second month 
is perceived also the reflex laughing that follows tickling 
(p. 145) which I could besides (in the third year) distin- 
guish almost invariably from expressive laughing by the 
sound alone, without knowing what was going on, al- 
though I was in a neighboring room when I heard it. 
This “ thoughtless ” laugh sounds, on the contrary, ex- 
actly like the child’s laugh often heard continuously at 
this time, which occurred when he heard and saw adults 
laugh at jests unintelligible to him, and which was long 
continued without any meaning in it. Laughing in- 
cites still more to imitation and is more contagious than 
crying. The laughter of man seems even to have an 
enlivening effect on intelligent animals (dogs), which 
draw the corners of the mouth far back, and spring, 
with an animated gleam of the eye, into the air. I had 
a large Siberian dog that laughed in this manner. It is 
known that monkeys also laugh. These facts favor the 
hereditary character of the movement of laughing— 
all the more as tickling of the skin of the arm-pit ex- 
cites laughing in children and monkeys in the same 
way, when they are gay, as Darwin informs us. But 
if a crying child is tickled in the same manner, it does 
not laugh. 
A peculiar expression of children and of many 
adults is the protruding of the lips when the attention is 
strained. I have seen old men, in playing on the piano, 
and in writing, protrude the lips in a still more striking 
2. Pouting of the Lips. 302 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
manner—even putting out the tongue—than infants that 
are beginning to seize, and children that are examining 
a new toy. The external occasions of this remarkable 
alteration of the shape of the mouth may vary to what- 
ever extent, yet they all agree in this, that after the 
first week they introduce a vigorous strain of attention. 
Yet the protruding of the lips appears long before the 
development of the ability to examine objects. I once 
saw a new-born child in its first houi’ of life protrude its 
lips which were as yet untouched (p. 207); but this pro- 
trusion was without the movement of sucking; it ap- 
peared along with many other movements of the facial 
muscles, and I should be inclined to explain it as purely 
impulsive. Aly child showed it on the tenth day of his 
life, distinctly, in the bath, when there was a lighted 
candle before him ; and from that time on with extraor- 
dinary frequency until his fourth year. His lips were 
protruded almost like a snout, as in sucking (p. 98), 
then drawn back and again protruded (sixteenth 
month). The movements of the tongue exhibited by 
many children in learning to write, were not observed by 
me till much later than the protrusion of the lips; they 
appeared along with attempts to do with effort some new 
thing. Here it is worthy of notice that even in merely 
looking at an object without taking hold of it himself, 
the lips are pursed (fifth week, p. 5G, and seventh week 
p. 45, also the tenth month, p. 63); later more protruded, 
when a testing (forty-fourth week, p. 55) or inquiring 
observation (forty-seventh week, p. 50) is combined with 
touching, in which the aim is to follow a moved object 
in various directions, or to put an object in motion or 
turn it around, to empty a box and fill it, or to open and EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
303 
shut it, or to put a number of small objects of the same 
kind, e. g., buttons, into rows and rolls or into envelopes 
(first half of second year). 
In this the protrusion of the lips is quite different 
from the pouting of sullenness. The protruded lips of 
the cross child, resembling those, still further protruded, 
of the cross chimpanzee, which I observed in the zo- 
ological garden at Hamburg, as Darwin describes it and 
gives a picture of it, appear much later than this nar- 
rowing of the opening of the mouth that is combined 
with prolonged fixing of the gaze, and that lasts (with 
children not yet two years old) several minutes. It 
looks as if the vowel ib were to be pronounced, whereas 
the children, whose hands are busy, are absolutely si- 
lent. Whence this expression? I will try to give an 
explanation of it. That this excitement of the facialis 
is hereditary is a fixed fact; for in the case, very care- 
fully observed by me—a strongly marked case too—it 
can not have been acquired by imitation. My child 
neither associated intimately enough with other children 
nor saw pursing of the lips in the adults about him, and 
could not imitate it before the fifteenth week (see p. 
283). But if it is hereditary, then it must be referred 
to the progenitors of man. All animals direct their at- 
tention first to food. Their first test is applied to 
things that may be reached with lips, feelers, snout, 
tongue. All testing of food is attended with a predomi- 
nant activity of the mouth and its adjuncts. Especially 
in sucking, which first awakens the attention of the 
newly-born, is the mouth protruded. Later, when new 
objects, that excite the attention, come within reach, 
they are carried to the mouth, because the thing that 304 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
was alone interesting previously, food, came to the 
mouth. The inference, that what is interesting belongs 
to the mouth, is first shaken by the experience that 
many beautiful and interesting objects do not go into 
the mouth or are disagreeable within it. But the associ- 
ation of the first movement of the mouth arising from 
sucking, the protruding of the lips, with strain of the 
attention, is confirmed by too frequent repetition of the 
taking of food, the most interesting occurrence to the 
infant, to be lost as quickly as is the carrying of new 
toys to the mouth. It is therefore not only transmitted 
to the child, but often remains for years, even into old 
age, and manifests itself in an extremely striking fashion 
when the attention is on the strain, at anything unusu- 
ally interesting; particularly in case some personal ac- 
tivity, such as writing or drawing, causes the strain. 
A particular kind of protrusion of the lips, different 
from the foregoing, takes place in— 
3. Kissing. 
This belongs to the very late acquired expressive 
movements, which, in general, do not seem to be in- 
herited. As it is unknown to many nations, it is to be 
called conventional. 
How little the child understands the significance of 
the kiss, although it is kissed by its mother probably 
more than a thousand times in its first year, is plainly 
apparent from many observations. 
A little girl in the fourteenth month kissed “ quite 
audibly the cheek or hand (stroking it at the same 
time) often from a pure fit of tenderness,” but many 
times in order to obtain something or to pacify some EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
305 
one. In the fifteenth month this child kissed her mother 
one day twelve times in succession, entirely of her own 
accord; her sister kissed her mother’s hand at the begin- 
ning of the fifteenth month without solicitation some 
eight times in succession ; her brothers and sisters used 
to kiss one another, at the age of three and a half and 
one and a quarter years, for amusement (Frau von 
Strumpell). Another female child returned a kiss from 
the tenth month on, without any movement of warding 
off (Lindner); all this was learned. 
I put together here, in brief form, some notes con- 
cerning my child: 
11th day.—When the babe was kissed by his mother 
on the mouth, he fairly seized one of her lips -with his, 
and sucked at it as if he had got the breast, putting out 
his tongue. 
32d week.—The child no longer sucks at the lips 
when he is kissed, but licks them as he licks objects in 
general that please him. 
33d week.—When he is kissed, the child no longer 
licks the lips, but allows himself to be kissed on the 
mouth without response or opposition. In the follow- 
ing months, also, there is no trace of an attempt to 
return the kiss, although signs of affection are not want- 
ing. For in the fifty-first week the child hands to his 
mother the biscuit he is himself about to eat. 
12th month.—The opening of the closed mouth that 
takes place in kissing is tolerably well imitated. 
13th month.—The child has absolutely no idea of 
what a kiss signifies. Kisses are not agreeable to him, 
for he always turns away his head when he is kissed, no 
matter by whom. 306 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
15th month.—The words, “ Give a kiss! ” produce a 
drawing near of the head, and often a protruding of the 
lips. This proves an understanding of the words only, 
not of the thing. 
19th month.—When strangers want to be kissed by 
the child, he holds off; accordingly, he is fastidious in 
his choice in regard to approach. 
20th month.—The child shows by touching the face, 
especially the cheek, with his face, that proximity has 
come to appear to him as essential in kissing. Herein 
lies already an imperfect return of the kiss. The child 
also bends his head when some one says, “ Kiss,” toward 
the face of the speaker, without opening tile mouth as 
hitherto, but does not always put out his lips. 
23d month.—The child now knows the significance 
of the kiss as a mark of favor, and is fastidious in his 
choice in giving a kiss as he is in giving his hand. In 
kissing, his lips are put forward closed, and then the 
mouth is somewhat too widely opened after the con- 
tact. 
3hth month.—The feeling of thankfulness is awak- 
ened. When one has done something to please the 
child, he sometimes kisses, and has a gracious, thankful 
air, but says nothing. 
At first, then, the lips of the mother, when she kisses 
her child, are treated like the finger held to the mouth, 
or like the breast, as objects to be sucked; then they 
are licked, as by a puppy; next, the kiss is endured; 
farther on it is refused ; soon afterward it is awkwardly, 
and only on request, returned; and, finally, it is spon- 
taneously given as a sign of thanks and of affection— 
and this by a boy who is not in the least tender and is EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
307 
not trained. Assuredly this tedious schooling in learn- 
ing to kiss furnishes the best evidence how little justi- 
fied we should be in designating the kiss as an hereditary 
privilege of humanity. 
It is a fact long since familiar that newly-born and 
quite young babes do not weep—i. e., there is no ex- 
ternal secretion of tears, however vigorously they cry. 
Later, children cry and weep at the same time, and can 
cry without weeping (e. g., in jest), but not till much 
later are they able to weep without crying out. 
The date of the first external lachrymal secretion 
varies surprisingly in different children. Darwin puts 
together some observations on this point, from which it 
appears that in two cases the eyes were wet with tears 
for the first time at the end of the third and the ninth 
week ; in another case tears flowed down the cheeks at 
the end of the sixth week. In two other children this 
was not the case as late as the twelfth and the sixteenth 
week; in a third child, however, it happened in the 
fifteenth week. One of his own children shed tears in 
crying in the twentieth week, but not yet in the eight- 
eenth, and in the tenth the eyes were moist in violent 
crying. At the end of the eleventh week with this 
same child an accidental, rude touch of the eye with a 
rough cloth produced a flow of tears in this eye, but 
not in the other, which was merely moist. Champ- 
ney’s child shed tears for the first time in the fourteenth 
week. 
I have seen tears flow from the eyes as early as the 
twenty-third day, in my boy, while he was screaming 
4. Crying, Weeping, and Wrinkling the Forehead. 308 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
lustily. Soon afterward, crying with shedding of tears, 
and whimpering, formed the most important sign of 
psychical events of different sorts. 
What Darwin reports, that usually babes do not shed 
tears before they are two or four months old, is not true 
of German children in general. Not weeping, but sob- 
bing, comes so late, and even later, for the first time; 
and some causes of weeping, as willfulness, grief, anger, 
can not operate at first, because in general they are still 
wanting; whereas pain is expressed by tears from the 
first, when once the secretion of tears has begun. Yet 
it is easy to prove that little children in the second and 
third years weep much more easily and shed more tears 
at impressions that cause displeasure than do children of 
six months or a year. I suspect that in this matter more 
depends on the excitation of the lachrymal nerves through 
emotional cerebral processes than upon compression of 
the gland in screaming, as Darwdn thinks. For in the 
first place there sometimes appears, as Genzmer observed, 
in children just born, upon touching the mucous mem- 
brane of the nose, “ an increased lachrymal secretion,” 
which proves that through excitement of the nerves, 
especially reflexive excitation (and that without com- 
pression), lachrymal secretion may occur before weep- 
ing ; secondly, tears may trickle over the cheeks in great 
drops without any compression of the lachrymal gland, 
without screaming; and in the second year also appears 
crying without weeping—that is, compression of the 
lachrymal gland without lachrymal secretion. My child 
cried in his sleep, evidently dreaming, without shedding 
tears, and without waking, as early as the tenth month; 
another child (Lindner) in the eighteenth week. EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
309 
Of crying—with tears (Schreiweineri)—in little 
children, on the other hand, two alterations of counte- 
nance are extremely characteristic, the observation and 
explanation of wdiich offer many difficulties—viz., the 
drawing down of the corners of the mouth, and the 
wrinkling of the forehead. 
The peculiar form of the mouth, arising from con- 
traction of the depressors of the corners of the mouth, 
directly before and after a fit of crying, has already 
been spoken of in the description of childish expressions 
of discomfort (p. 149). 
The wrinkling of the forehead is, indeed, likewise 
observed without exception in crying with the eyes held 
tightly together, but is in the beginning an impulsive 
movement frequently occurring without a fretful mood. 
I saw it on the first, second, sixth, seventh, tenth days 
(of. pp. 2, 23, 36), exactly as in many monkeys, fre- 
quently appear without any assignable outward oc- 
casion. On the contrary, in young infants, the corru- 
gation of the forehead is lacking just when we should 
expect to perceive it—judging from adults—e. g. (p. 24), 
at raising the glance (in the eighth and twelfth weeks). 
It is surprising, too, that in the first two weeks the hori- 
zontal corrugation of the brow appears much oftener 
than afterward. In the fourth month I saw for the 
first time in my child slight horizontal furrows in the 
brow when he was looking upward, but in the third 
quarter of the first year not invariably as yet; in the 
last three months invariably. Distinct vertical furrows, 
which lend a somber expression to the childish physiog- 
nomy, are always present in crying with tears, as has 
been mentioned, but often occur without that (plainly 310 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
in a boy of nine weeks; in my boy, in the seventh 
month). 
A girl, one of twins, only six days and some hours 
old, was seen by me to wrinkle the brow twice very 
decidedly—once with, once without a simultaneous 
movement of the skin of the head. The mother said, 
“ The child has serious thoughts.” And, in fact, it 
looked peculiarly precocious, to see the skin of the fore- 
head both times laid in deep, parallel folds, which ex- 
tended over the whole breadth of the forehead, and the 
face take on a very serious expression. In this case, as 
in all similar cases, it does not, however, appear safe to 
attribute to the wrinkling of the brow the significance 
of an expressive movement, because the psychical states 
are as yet wanting that are expressed by horizontal folds 
of the brow. 
The distinct wrinkling of the skin of the forehead in 
astonishment I have seen for the first time in the twen- 
tieth month. I have often seen, also, when new tricks 
were done before the child (in the fifteenth month), 
the characteristic transverse folds as an accompanying 
movement of laborious attempts at imitation. Yet we 
look in vain for physiological explanations of these facts. 
Darwin, who saw his children wrinkle the forehead, 
from the first week on, as an invariable antecedent to 
tearful crying, has expressed the conjecture that this 
expressive movement, inherited from of old (contrac- 
tion of the corrugators), originally serving to protect 
the eyes when impressions were to be warded off, was 
finally associated with unpleasant feelings in general. 
The vertical folds that accompany effort would harmo- 
nize with this, but the transverse folds that accompany EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
311 
astonishment are connected with the wider opening of 
the eyelids. 
That a purely reflexive corrugation of the brow— 
the vertical folds—occurs together with that early ex- 
pressive movement in the first days, is certain. In the 
fourth year I saw, moreover, an actual contraction of 
the corrugators of a child fast asleep take place, some- 
times without the least movement of the eyelid, when I 
let bright lamp-light fall upon the closed eyes, in a place 
otherwise dark. The sleep was not interrupted by it, 
nor even the snoring. This reflex may, like the screw- 
ing up of the eyes in the same circumstances, be inborn, 
like the corrugation of the brow after sound-impressions 
and contact in the first week. 
5. Shaking the Head and Nodding. 
Shaking the head as a sign of denial or refusal is 
in like manner practiced by many children early, with- 
out instruction and without opportunity for imitation. 
A forerunner of this expressive movement, which signi- 
fies dislike, disgust, much earlier than it does denial, is, 
as Darwin also declares, the sidewise movement of the 
head, the turning away when food is refused, whether 
the breast or the bottle. 
Much in the same way, the head is turned to the 
window (p. 3) even in the first days (pp. 41, 42), and 
toward objects moved (pp. 48, 49), but with a con- 
tented expression ; later, in the direction of a new sound 
(pp. 84, 85, 88). In general I found, from the first day 
on, sidewise movements of the head without any re- 
flex excitement (p. 260) frequently in my child (Von 
Ammon is wrong in the opinion that the infant does 312 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
not move the head at all in the first days). The head- 
movements are, in fact, quite lively when the babe is 
placed at the breast, or is in the bath, or is lying down. 
They are sidewise movements, not nodding, absolutely 
irregular and “ natural.” At the beginning, however, 
the turnings of the head are, strangely enough, not 
always in harmony with the movements of the eyes 
(p. 36), which makes them seem “ unnatural.” 
Further, I saw in the first week in my child regu- 
larly, when it was placed at the breast, a vigorous turn- 
ing sidewise in both directions, almost a shaking of the 
head (cf. pp. 153, 260). On the eighth day of his life, 
when he for the first time took the breast without any 
help whatever, these lateral movements of the head 
made it seem just as if the child were trying to find 
something. On the twenty-seventh day, however, 
they took place just the same, w’hen the bottle was 
put directly to his mouth; a strange association, 
caused possibly by this, that in the very first days the 
head is somewhat directed by helping hands, so that 
the nipple comes into the mouth. Later the head- 
movement, that has been always followed by the stream 
of milk, becomes for the infant a necessary preliminary 
condition of the taking of food, and is retained by him, 
although in connection with the bottle it is useless. 
Accordingly we have here not a case of an acquired 
movement of the head, one that has been learned, but 
an instinct that occasions the head-movements in suck- 
ing at the finger as well as in nursing at the breast. 
It has been already mentioned that many mammals 
likewise move the head vigorously hither and thither 
when they begin to suck, so that we may assume an EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
313 
hereditary factor in mankind; the more so, as the turn- 
ings of the head were to be observed, very vigorous 
even in the eighth week, and invariably when the babe 
was placed at the breast, several times a day, before the 
nipple was firmly grasped. In spite of the great haste 
and greediness in sucking, these unnecessary previous 
movements were never forgotten. They are, as to their 
causes, different from the reflexive turning of the head. 
When any one seats himself at the bedside of the 
child, the child’s head is regularly turned toward him 
(fifth week). This is followed by the reflexive turning 
around at new sound-impressions (eleventh week), and 
when any one leaves the room noisily (twenty-second 
week). 
All these lateral head-movements are not in the 
least forerunners of the denying or refusing shake of 
the head—are not in any way related to it ; although 
they very frequently agree with it perfectly in appear- 
ance, if all the external circumstances and the physiog- 
nomy are left out of the account. The manifold variety 
of the lateral turnings of the head in the infant, from 
the first day, is astonishing. And yet the peculiar turn- 
ing away of the head comes in as a well-marked express- 
ive movement as early as the fourth day. My child 
refused to nurse at the left breast, which was somewhat 
more inconvenient for him than the right. He refused, 
turning his head away decidedly from it, and on the 
sixth day he screamed besides. On the seventh we first 
succeeded in overcoming his opposition. Yet a single 
averting of the head remained as a sign of refusal. It 
appeared almost invariably after the infant had nursed 
his fill and had thrust the nipple out of his mouth—a 314 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
thing hardly to be accomplished by a reflex mechanism 
(very plainly done in the first as in the seventh month). 
The child was so dominated by the feeling of satiety 
that food was repulsive to him. 
This single averting of the head to the left or to 
the right, according to the position, manifestly means 
“No more!” is, therefore, of the nature of refusal. 
But after the child had learned to balance his head 
there came, for the first time, numerous and very rapid 
turnings of it, exactly like the shaking of the head 
in denial by adults (in the sixteenth week). Then 
appeared also a nodding, but more seldom. It no more 
signified affirmation than the lateral turnings in that 
early period signified denial. This is rather an instance 
of exercise of the muscles simply. The turning away 
of the head in refusal, when the child had drunk 
enough, persisted. In the sixth month arm-movements 
were added, which seemed like movements of warding 
off, without my being convinced, however, that they 
were so. Rather was it many months before the ap- 
pearance of unquestionable arm-movements of ward- 
ing off, such as take place in the case of adults when 
something is held before the face too long. The child 
that does not want the offered object raises his arm 
sidewise from one to three times in refusal, and turns 
his head away toward the opposite side. This deprecat- 
ing arm-movement (distinctly marked in the fifteenth 
month) may well be an acquired one, that is, imitated, 
as we may attribute to the child at this period a capacity 
of observation that would suffice for this. At any rate 
the raising of the bended arm is not in the beginning 
associated with the turning away of the head, and the EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
315 
nurse may in like manner have protected herself fre- 
quently when the child has put his hands into her face. 
To be sure, the execution of a defensive movement is 
quite early associated with an idea of defense. When 
the boy (in the eighteenth month) tries in anger to hit 
with his foot some one who has refused him a key that 
he wanted, we can not find for such a re-enforcement of 
the refusing head-movement any model that he has 
imitated; still less can we find one for his striking 
about him with arms and legs, throwing himself at the 
same time on the floor and screaming with rage (just 
like what I saw in the case of a chimpanzee from whom 
an apple that he wanted was withheld). There occur 
in children as early as the tenth month similar fits of 
rage (p. 323), in which the face becomes red in case their 
desire is not complied with (Frau von Striimpell). 
Neither is the half-closing of the eyelid, when the 
head is turned away in refusal, to be traced to imitation. 
It did not occur invariably. I saw it in the eighth 
month distinctly in my boy when disinclination was ex- 
pressed. Especially was antipathy (not fear) expressed 
by such turning away of the head at the approach of 
women dressed in black, no matter how friendly they 
were, up to the third quarter of the second year, and 
even the second quarter of the third year. 
Long before this period, however, a repeated turning 
of the head, or a shaking of the head in denial, had 
arisen out of the simple averting of the head; this came 
through training. It appeared mostly in the thirteenth 
month when any one said, “ No, no! ” but there was no 
nodding at the “ Yes, yes! ” and there was no success in 
imitating nodding in the fourteenth month, in spite of 316 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
much pains. Afterward the imitation often succeeded 
(in the sixty-fourth week), but the nodding of the head 
along with “No, no!” wTas also sometimes observed, 
and the shaking of the head with the “ Yes, yes! ” the 
meaning thus being confounded (a paramimy). In fact, 
it was months before the meaning of the affirmative 
inclination of the head was firmly impressed, after the 
negative one had been long practiced. When, on the 
four hundred and forty-fifth day of his life, the first 
movement had been correctly imitated for the second 
time—on the day before for the first time—the child 
made a peculiar movement of the hand in time with 
nodding of the head, a genuine supination, looking, the 
while, very attentively indeed at the head of the person 
before him—an unconscious accompanying movement, 
therefore. That the inclination of the head, learned 
with effort, meant “ Yes” was wholly unknown to him; 
and yet, in the sixteenth month, the negative head- 
shaking meant for the child not only “No,” but also “I 
do not know,” and, in the seventeenth month, “1 do 
not wish.” This gesture continued now, while the nod- 
ding of the head in affirmation seldom occurred, unless 
it was specially asked for. It w’as not till the fourth 
year that an affirmative nod of the head meant “ Thank 
you ! ” The difference is the more surprising as both 
movements have been frequently regarded as original. 
But children use the voice for denying and affirming 
much earlier than they do the inclination and turning 
of the head, and this whole exposition shows that these 
movements have not from the beginning an antagonis- 
tic relation to each other, but the sidewise turning away 
of the head, at first in refusal, later in denying, is in- EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
317 
born, reflexive-instinctive, while the inclining and nod- 
ding of the head in affirmation or assent, or in the 
expression of thanks, which appears much later, must 
be called an acquired gesture of unknown origin. 
6. Shrugging the Shoulders. 
Little children show, at a very late period, a quick 
raising of the shoulders, corresponding to the shrug- 
ging of the shoulders in the adult. In the fifteenth 
month I saw my child, without any assignable cause, 
shrug his shoulders for the first time, just as adults do, 
only, perhaps, somewhat more quickly, and he did this 
in similar fashion on several days. For a moment it 
seemed as if the child’s clothing wTere causing a disa- 
greeable irritation of the skin; but the knowing ex- 
pression of countenance did not at all harmonize with 
this. And the shrugging of the shoulders also occurred 
when I stood before the child and said, “Yes, yes'. ” 
As I had nodded then affirmatively, the child nodded 
also (four hundred and fifty-ninth day). 
This led me to the conjecture that the shrugging of 
the shoulders might already express inability, and I was 
soon confirmed in this, for, on the following day even, 
this gesture was the answer to my question, “ Where is 
your ear?” in reply to which the child, after some 
hesitation, touched his eye. In the sixteenth month 
this signification was beyond question ; for if I ask, 
“Where is your eye, ear, nose, forehead, chin?” and the 
child does not know some one of these, then, to my sur- 
prise, he shrugs his shoulders. At the same date there 
often follows upon this expressional movement another, 
of waiting. When waiting—e. g., for a biscuit dipped 318 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
in hot water to become cool—the child plants both arms 
at the same time symmetrically against his sides, in such 
a way that his hands come against his hips with fingers 
bent, the back of the hand touching the hips. The 
whole attitude is that of w’aiting—not in the least of 
demanding—and is probably imitated, which can not be 
said of shrugging the shoulders. This became, more- 
over, in the second quarter of the second year, decidedly 
a sign, in the same sense as a shaking of the head in de- 
nial, of refusing, and of not knowing and of not being 
able. It must be counted among the as yet inexplicable 
hereditary expressive movements. Darwin also declares 
himself in favor of the hereditary character of the move- 
ment, but he did not see it in any very young English 
child, and reports it only in the case of two sisters 
(grandchildren of a Frenchman) who shrugged their 
shoulders between the sixteenth and eighteenth months. 
7. Begging with the Hands and Pointing. 
Putting the hands together in the attitude of beg- 
ging belongs to the earliest gestures of German chil- 
dren that are acquired by training. This movement is, 
at the same time, one of the first of which the child un- 
derstands the significance as language, and of which he 
makes use. He soon finds that the begging position of 
the hands brings him the desired food quicker than cry- 
ing, and for this reason he makes the gesture of himself 
always when he wants anything, whether it be a biscuit, 
a toy, or a change of place. If continued crying, for a 
longer or shorter time, has proved wholly useless, then 
it is suddenly discontinued, and the child hastily puts 
his hands together in a begging attitude (fifteenth EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
319 
month), in case this childish trick happens to have been 
previously taught him. He also begs in this fashion 
without crying, and by making sounds of longing, with 
outstretched arms—e. g., when he desires the repetition 
of some new sort of fun. When some one had poised a 
spoon on the end of his nose, the (fourteen and a half 
months old) child laughed, seized the spoon, observed it 
carefully, put it from one hand into the other, and then 
handed it to the person with an indescribably beseech- 
ing tone of voice. Upon the repetition of the experi- 
ment he was again delighted. 
Long even after learning the significance of the spoken 
“Bitte” (“ I beg,” or “ Please ”), which my boy pro- 
nounced “ bibi ” up to the twenty-second month, the ac- 
companying raising and holding together of the hands 
did not cease; and what was especially surprising, 
when the child wished the continuance of a sight that 
pleased him, or of piano-playing, or when the railway 
train in which the child was traveling stopped, then he 
would strike his hands together repeatedly (twenty- 
third month), so that in a literal sense he manifested his 
applause and his desire for repetition or continuance 
by clapping the hands, just like a gratified public at the 
theatre. Nay, even in the tenth, as also in the seven- 
teenth, month, this movement took place in sleep, no 
doubt, during dreaming. 
It seems natural to assume that adults utter their 
applause by hand-clapping for the reason that the noise 
is greater; but the putting of the hands together in 
prayer in Christian churches, as well as the lifting of 
the arms in prayer by Mohammedans, agrees with the 
begging gestures of children. These express only indi- 320 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
rectly, by hand-clapping and also by noiseless putting 
together of the hands, their satisfaction so far as they 
thereby beg for repetition. 
How it comes about that very small children are 
artificially taught, along with the “ giving of the hand ” 
(even in the twentieth to the twenty-fourth week some- 
times [Lindner]), to raise and put together the hands 
(not the feet), when they are to beg for anything, is not 
hard to understand. This gesture is indeed acquired 
by each individual through imitation and training, but 
probably has its foundation in this, that in the act of 
seizing, the arms are extended, and the hands, when 
the desired object is grasped, place themselves about it. 
Begging is also ultimately a desiring. And if we follow 
the history of the development of the seizing move- 
ments from the beginning (p. 241), we are easily con- 
vinced that the arms, which must be extended for seiz- 
ing, are, when this has been many times successful, ex- 
tended in case of every strong desire (with and without 
sounds expressive of desire), because the thing desired 
is regarded as capable of being seized. What I have 
stated as to the interpretation of the retinal images 
(p. 62) confirms this view. 
At first the child expresses his desire only by cry- 
ing ; after he has begun to seize, also by stretching out 
the arms (in the case - of my child for the first time on 
the one hundred and twenty-first day) ; then, by extend- 
ing the arms and putting the hands together. These 
hereditary expressional movements, originating in the 
practice of seizing, are made use of by educators, in or- 
der to teach the praying, begging attitudes, with folding 
of the hands, which in the beginning are not in the least EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
321 
understood by the child ; he simply finds by experience 
that the joining of the hands along with the raising of 
the arms is sooner followed by the fulfillment of a wish 
than crying is, and for this reason he adopts the gest- 
ure. When, now, with the development of the faculty 
of sight, new objects that can not be seized are better 
distinguished from their surroundings, then the child 
manifests his lively interest in them—especially in 
moved and moving objects, e. g., horses—by this very 
gesture; he opens his mouth, breathes loudly by starts, 
fixates the object, and stretches out his hands (eighth 
month). Often at this period one can hardly tell 
whether the child means to seize or to point. When, 
before he can speak, at the question, “Where is the 
light? ” he turns his head to the light, he thereby shows 
his understanding of the question as to the direction 
(ninth month); but when (in the fourteenth month) he 
lifts the right arm besides and points to the light with 
outspread fingers, then he has executed the gesture of 
pointing, absolutely distinct from desiring. 
For the understanding of mental development it is 
an important fact that this pointing is already employed 
with perfect correctness before the first attempts at ex- 
pression in words. A little girl of eleven months, who 
could not yet speak at all, answered the questions, 
“ Where is papa ? ” “ Where is Nannie ? ” etc., correctly, 
without a single mistake, by movements of the eyes and 
by indicating direction with the finger (Frau von Strum- 
pell). 
Later, this pointing is used as the expression of a 
wish, as it is by the deaf and dumb—e. g., my boy in 
the ninetieth week, at sight of the milk-pitcher, pointed 322 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
at it with his hand, and directly after at the milk-bottle 
with the same hand—in fact, to my surprise, -with the 
forefinger, the child unmistakably having the purpose 
of getting the milk poured out. Whence comes all at 
once the use of the forefinger in place of the spreading 
of all the fingers for pointing ? Imitation alone hardly 
offers sufficient occasion for it; still less does the experi- 
mental touching. Rather, the whole complicated com- 
bination of “ fixating,” opening the mouth, raising the 
eyelids, lifting the arm, extending the fingers, must rest 
upon hereditary co-ordination, which, in case of hunger, 
has showed itself useful in obtaining food; so that point- 
ing is thus to be traced back to wishing to seize. As is 
regularly the case in the tenth month, so in the second 
year, often the desired object that is pointed at is car- 
ried to the mouth, and as much as possible chewed up, 
after it is obtained. 
From the success of the arm-movements expressing 
desire in case of hunger, soon arises the notion that 
these movements will also gratify other kinds of desire. 
Thus the child (in the twelfth month) sitting on a chair, 
when he desires to change his position, stretches out 
both arms longingly (cries if no attention is paid to 
him), and rejoices when taken up, as he does on getting 
an apple or a biscuit. In such cases, not unfrequently 
—e. g., in the fourteenth month—a “ paramimy ” is 
observed, since, instead of the begging position of the 
hands, one of the other little performances acquired by 
training and not yet understood by him, is executed— 
e. g., the hand is moved toward the head as an answer 
that has been learned to the question, “ Where is the lit- 
tle rogue ? ” (Trotzkopfchen^“ headstrong ”). Here, with EXPRESSIVE MOVEMENTS. 
323 
the experience of success upon stretching out the hands 
blends the experience of the agreeable (of friendliness, 
it may be—of granting his requests) upon the right per- 
formance of those little tricks. The likeness of the re- 
sults leads to confounding of the means. 
But the more the voice is differentiated, so much the 
more surely is a sound united with the gesture in the 
first three months of the second year. Thus, with the 
extending of the hands the begging sound “ liay-uh ” 
(in the case of my child) was joined, this being associated 
with the look and the forward inclination of the body, 
as the expression of the strongest desire. But it passes 
away and is lost, since with the growth of the under- 
standing the gestures become more firmly established, 
and are no longer confused with one another. Later 
still, the speaking of the words learned takes the place 
of the gestures, which they make less and less necessary. 
In the fifteenth month, by striking with a ring I made 
three glasses sound, the tones of which formed a chord. 
The child was pleased, laughed, and when I paused, 
he took the ring, handed it to me again, and directing 
toward the glasses his arms, eyes, and head, announced 
with his own peculiar hay-uh, his wish for a repetition. 
Here, as yet, no word-language existed, but the language 
of gesture could not be misunderstood. 
When no response is made to a persistently-expressed 
desire, then there may easily happen in lively children 
a regular fit of rage; they throw themselves on the 
floor, strike out when taken hold of, and scream furi- 
ously and most angrily (observed by me for the first 
time in the seventeenth month). But it may also hap- 
pen if, e. g., the child pulls some one by the hand and 324 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
wants to be accompanied, that, on being denied the re- 
quest, the child sheds tears of sorrow in place of being 
angry (twenty-third month). The spirit of invention 
may also be aroused, as in the following case: The child 
(of twenty-two months) wishes to sit at the table. No 
one listens to his entreaty or takes notice of his implor- 
ing gesticulations. Thereupon, he goes into the corner 
of the room, tries, with a great effort, to get a heavy 
chair, does not rest till it has been placed at the table, 
strikes with the flat of his hand on the seat of the chair, 
thus expressing plainly, without words, what he wants, 
and exults when he has been put up on the chair. 
Besides the expressive movements discussed in this 
chapter, there are, in early childhood, several more that 
deserve a thorough investigation. They are generally 
hard to describe, however, although they are often easily 
understood, even when the child does not, as yet, speak 
a word. For the child’s attitude, the direction of his 
look, the movements of his fingers, in varying combina- 
tions, make already a finely-developed mute language. 
Some examples may illustrate this. 
In the fourteenth month affection is expressed by a 
gentle laying of the hand upon the face and shoulders 
[of others]—this movement is presumably acquired by 
imitation ; anger and disobedience (willfulness) by very 
obstinate straightening of the body; this, in fact, in the 
tenth month even, when the child is laid down; shame 
—when he has soiled himself—by peculiar crying, with 
tears; pride (in a new baby-carriage in the nineteenth 
month), by a ridiculous bearing. The variety in the 
expression of countenance, when in the second and third 
years the separate passions gradually awake, is, however, DELIBERATE MOVEMENTS. 
325 
indescribable, and, on account of the transitoriness of 
the phenomena, is hardly to be reproduced pictorially. 
Jealousy, pride, pugnacity, covetousness, lend to the 
childish countenance a no less characteristic look than 
do generosity, obedience, ambition. These states could 
not be recognized by the expression of countenance un- 
less each of them had its own expression al movement, 
and, in fact, these movements appear in greater purity 
in the child, who does not dissemble, than they do in 
later life. 
It is beyond the limits of this work to trace the con- 
nection of these mental states with the play of feature 
and with the growth of the will. Very many more ob- 
servations must be instituted in regard to children be- 
fore the influence of imitation and of inheritance upon 
the voluntary inhibition of emotional outbreaks, and 
upon the voluntary inducing of a state of mind at once 
self-contented and not disturbing to others can be un- 
derstood. 
CHAPTER XIV. 
DELIBERATE (uBERLEGTE) MOVEMENTS. 
That it is a very long time before we can perceive 
in the child a movement that is independent, proceed- 
ing from his own deliberation, follows from the forego- 
ing chapters. Before motives, i. e., reasons, for move- 
ment can be added to the purely physical centro-motor 
impulses, to the peripheral reflex stimuli, to the inclina- 
tion to imitate, to instinct, to the feelings as causes of 
muscular movements, not only must the motor experi- 
ences mentioned have been had countless times, but the 326 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
senses and the understanding must be a good deal devel- 
oped. For he who moves no longer merely in direct 
dependence on his temporary feelings, moods, and men- 
tal and physical states in general—he who represents to 
himself before the movement how the movement willbe j 
in a word, he who acts must already have perceived very 
many movements of others and have felt very many 
movements of his own, in order to be able to originate in 
his mind a correct image of the purely voluntary, delib- 
erate, or intentional movement that is to be executed. 
I should not be able to name any movement of the 
first three months to which this necessary condition ap- 
plies well enough to exclude every doubt as to wdiether 
the movement might not be instinctive (and therefore 
inherited), or reflexive, or impulsive. 
The tactile movements with the hands—not the feet 
—that occur in the first months, and have the appear- 
ance of seeking, are just as little voluntary as are the 
later pidling and scratching at the skin of a face 
touched; they are, as belonging to seizing, instinctive. 
Even stamping with the foot (in the eleventh month), 
pushing along a chair, at the same period, stretching the 
body out straight and stiff, as means of preventing being 
laid dowm by force (in the tenth month), as well as the 
much later movements of throwing, can not be styled in- 
tentional muscular movements, founded on independent 
deliberation. Rather do some plays, which are not to 
be referred either to imitation or instinct, either to re- 
flex stimuli or emotions, point to the germination of 
choice and deliberation after the awakening of the func- 
tion of causality. Thus my child, in the eleventh month, 
used frequently to strike a spoon against a newspaper or DELIBERATE MOVEMENTS. 
327 
against another object held in his hand, and to exchange 
both objects suddenly, moving the spoon with the other 
hand, which gave exactly the impression of testing 
whether the noise proceeded from the one arm only, or 
would arise likewise in case this arm were motionless 
(p. 87). The restless experimenting of little children, 
especially in the first attempts at accommodation (p. 54) 
[of the eye]—even quite insignificant practices (like the 
crumpling of paper from the third to the sixth month), 
are not only useful but indispensable for the intellectual 
development. Moreover, it is essential to consider, in 
regard to the cultivation of the will, because thereby 
the understanding is gradually awakened, how ineffi- 
cient most of the early, unrepresented, non-coordinated 
movements were, and how useful, on the contrary, are 
the co-ordinated movements with definite aims. Only 
when both occur together, the representation of the 
movement and the expectation of its result, is deliberate 
movement possible, which, unfortunately, is too often 
prevented through training from showing itself early. 
Often even in the second year we can tell only with 
difficulty, or can not tell at all, whether the child acts 
independently or not—e. g., when (in the sixteenth 
month) he opens and shuts cupboards, picks up from 
the floor and brings objects that he threw down. When, 
on the contrary, at this period, he holds, entirely of his 
own motion, an ear-ring that had been taken off, to the 
ear from which it was taken, I am inclined to see in 
that already a sign of deliberation—understanding and 
choice—whereas in the mere making of noise—it may 
be by opening and slamming-to the cover of a box, or 
by the eager tearing of newspapers—there is rather the 328 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
co-operation of pleasure in noise and movement with 
gratification in the putting forth of power, than of de- 
liberation and choice. Yet it seemed to me worthy of 
note that my child one day (in the fourteenth month) 
took off and put on the cover of a can not less than sev- 
enty-nine times, without stopping a moment. His at- 
tention, meantime, strained to the utmost, indicated 
that the intellect was taking part. “How does this 
noise happen ? ” the child would surely have thought, if 
he had been able to speak; for he often enough asked 
later, “ What makes that ? ” when he heard a strange 
noise. But even the child not yet acquainted with 
speech might think thus, like an intelligent brute ani- 
mal, only the latter would not lift the cover so often of 
his own accord. 
It can not be doubted that the child wills and thinks 
long before the acquirement of speech; but independ- 
ent activity joins itself to the unintentional, involuntary 
muscular movements quite imperceptibly, after long, 
incomplete manifestation of the power of co-ordination. 
The feelings that are determinative for all mental devel- 
opment, feelings of pleasure and displeasure, the at- 
tempts to seize that which excites desire—food, above 
all—and to keep off that which causes discomfort, must 
be looked upon as starting-points of the continuously- 
advancing development. 
In this respect the history of the development of 
seizing, which has been portrayed, is a contribution at 
the same time to the knowledge of the development of 
volition. Especially the independent taking of food, 
that begins after the first attempts at seizing, offers in- 
teresting transitions from the imperfectly co-ordinated DELIBERATE MOVEMENTS. 
329 
to the perfectly harmonious movement of the muscular 
apparatus of arm, mouthy tongue, and oesophagus. I 
group some observations concerning this point, made 
upon my own child, which show that the will is present 
before the co-ordination is complete. 
5th month.—Meat offered with a fork is seized with 
the hand and carried slowly to the mouth ; many times 
incorrectly, but once properly. 
9th month.—Whatever can be brought to the mouth 
is put upon the tongue with astonishing celerity. In 
this operation fewer errors were made than before. 
11th month.—The child, every day, of his own ac- 
cord, takes a biscuit from the table with the hand, car- 
ries it correctly to his mouth—previously he often put 
it to his cheek or chin—bites off a bit, chews it tine, and 
swallows it; but he can not yet drink from a glass. 
12th month.—Very seldom is there a failure to hit 
the mouth at the first trial with the biscuit. At the be- 
ginning of this month, too, the child can drink from a 
glass, only he still breathes into the water while drinking. 
18th month.—The full spoon is carried to the mouth 
with tolerable skill. 
19th month.—If the spoon is laid on the left side of 
the plate, then, after a little consideration, he takes it 
with his left hand, and no difference is noticeable be- 
tween his use of the left and the right hand in eating. 
20th month.—The child carries the spoon with food 
in it to the mouth more and more cleverly, quickly, and 
surely. For all that, he can not yet, without help or 
guidance, alone take food with the spoon—can not get 
it into the spoon. He does not always bestow attention 
enough on it; often pauses and grasps at shining objects 330 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
of all sorts, when the things about him are such as he is 
not accustomed to. 
In the months following, the child, being purposely 
remanded to his own resources, perfects himself in this 
line of action. What has been reported is, however, 
enough to show that intention is present long before 
co-ordination is perfected. Will, knowledge of conse- 
quences, representation of the whole movement—these 
are clear before the movement can be correctly executed. 
The reverse is the case with the characteristic pleasure 
taken by all boys in throwing; they hurl all sorts of 
things out of the window without a thought of the 
consequences. 
This diiference, often overlooked, between 'willed 
and instinctive movements of children, may be demon- 
strated in many other forms of movement, especially 
if the manner of playing, or the occupation from day 
to day, from week to week, is watched. But I have al- 
ready presented so many particular instances, and the 
observations are so easy to make, if only time enough 
is given, and if several normal children are compared, 
that it seems unnecessary here to multiply examples. 
Only the movements of the tongue, which are the most 
important sign of the developed will, will be more fully 
treated as the foundation of learning to speak, in the 
description of that process (in the Third Part). 
It suffices here, in order to ascertain approximately 
the date of the beginning of the manifestation of will, 
and of deliberation, in one child at least, to put to- 
gether some of the movements treated in the previous 
chapters with reference to the questions: when the in- 
born movements are no longer purely impulsive; no DELIBERATE MOVEMENTS. 
331 
longer purely mechanically reflexive; no longer purely 
instinctive; and when movements undoubtedly willed 
appear without the admixture of the others. 
It holds good universally, that willing can not take 
place until after the forming of ideas. Up to that 
period the child is will-less, like an animal without a 
brain. After the beginning of the ideational or repre- 
sentative activity of the brain, a period is still necessary 
for the association of the idea or representation of a move- 
ment and the idea of an object (desired) as the aim of 
the movement. In this period of transition—from the 
incipient causative activity which changes the percep- 
tions arising from sensuous impressions into ideas, to 
the combination of two ideas—a sensory and a motor— 
fall the movements of the infant that are the hardest to 
understand, those that have still a mixed character. 
The followTing provisional synopsis is intended to 
help in determining the limits of this period in both di- 
rections : 
MOVEMENT. 
No trace ex- 
isting. 
First attempts. 
With delibera- 
tion and 
effect. 
Remarks. 
Head-shaking.... 
4th day. 
11th week. 
16th week. 
16th “ 
In refusal. 
Holding the head. 
10th week. 
Seizing 
114th day. 
117th day. 
17th “ 
Raising the upper 
12th week. 
16th( ?) week. 
22d “ 
Lying on back with- 
part of body. 
Pointing 
4th month. 
8th month. 
9th month. 
out help. 
Sitting 
13th week. 
14th week. 
42d week. 
Without being held 
Standing 
21st “ 
23d “ 
48th “ 
or supported. 
Wholly without 
Walking 
40th “ 
41st “ 
66th “ 
support. 
Alone, freely. 
Raising one’s self. 
13th “ 
28th “ 
70th “ 
Without being held 
Stepping over a 
65th “ 
68th “ 
70th “ 
or helped. 
Without support. 
threshold. 
Kissing 
11th month. 
24th(?) “ 
12th month. 
26 th “ 
23d month. 
27th “ 
Climbing 
Without being held 
Jumping 
24th(?) “ 
27th “ 
28th “ 
or helped. 332 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
After this, will-power begins to show itself in co- 
ordinated movements of the larger muscular groups in 
the sixteenth and seventeenth weeks; so, too, the first 
imitations (p. 283) were successful, and, for the first 
time, his own image in the mirror was regarded with 
attention (twentieth chapter) ; willed contractions of the 
muscles of the eye, however, take place somewhat ear- 
lier (p. 46). Unquestionably deliberate, voluntary turn- 
ing of the gaze to new objects I did not see, indeed, 
until the sixteenth week. 
Thus, in the case of my child, the only one as yet 
regularly observed in the first months with reference to 
his movements, wTe shall have to postpone the beginning 
of the active manifestation of the will—i. e., of the ac- 
tivity of the cerebral cortex in the co-ordination of the 
muscles chiefly used later—to the fourth month. But, 
according to many experiments on other children, this 
very date probably holds good pretty generally, whereas 
later, in sitting, standing, walking, climbing, jumping, 
talking, the greatest variations as to time appear. 
The first deliberate movements take place only after 
the close of the first three months. 
Were there still need of proof that infants can not 
earlier execute voluntarily any movement whatever, on 
account of the as yet insufficient development of the 
cerebrum, it would be furnished by such facts as have 
been observed in microcephalous human beings. For 
in them the cerebrum remains deficient, and the will is 
not developed. 
But that deliberate movements are made at the be- 
ginning of the second half-year, is proved by an instruct- 
ive experiment that G. Lindner made upon his little DELIBERATE MOVEMENTS. 
333 
daughter of twenty-six weeks. While the child at this 
age was taking milk as she lay in the cradle, the bottle 
took such a slant that she could not get anything to 
suck. She now tried to direct the bottle with her feet, 
and finally raised it by means of them so dexterously 
that she could drink conveniently. “ This action was 
manifestly no imitation; it can not have depended upon 
a mere accident; for, when, at the next feeding, the 
bottle is purposely so placed that the child can not get 
anything without the help of hands or feet, the same 
performance takes place as before. Then, on the fol- 
lowing day, when the child drinks in the same way, I 
prevent her from doing so by removing her feet from 
the bottle: but she at once makes use of them again as 
regulators for the flow of the milk, as dexterously and 
surely as if the feet were made on purpose for such use. 
If it follows from this that the child acts with deliber- 
ation long before it uses language in the proper sense, 
it also appears how imperfect and crude the child’s de- 
liberation is; for my child drank her milk in this awk- 
ward fashion for three whole months, until she at last 
made the discovery one day that, after all, the hands 
are much better adapted to service of this sort. I had 
given strict orders to those about her to let her make 
this advance of herself.” 
Other examples of deliberate movements made be- 
fore the ability to speak exists are given later, in the 
Third Part. To this category belong also the attempts 
at imitation, rare, indeed, but well marked, that are ob- 
served in the fifth month ; likewise, the first imitations 
of sounds and the attempts to repeat the speech of 
others, of which something will be said farther on. 334 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
CHAPTER XV. 
SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
In order to explain the formation and growth of the 
child’s will, there is needed, above all, a careful obser- 
vation of the muscular movements of the newly-born 
and of the infant. The inborn movements of every 
human being are of various kinds, but are of the same 
nature a short time after birth as they are a short time 
before birth—only freer than in the embryo, on account 
of greater room for motion, and modified by respira- 
tion. 
These inborn, absolutely will-less movements are im- 
pulsive, when they are conditioned, as in the embryo, 
exclusively upon the organic processes going on in the 
central organs of the nervous system, especially in the 
spinal cord, and take place without any peripheral ex- 
citement of any of the sensory nerves. To these be- 
long the remarkable, aimless, ill-adapted movements of 
the arms and legs of children just born, and their grim- 
aces. All the motor nerves of the whole organism seem 
to take part in these impulsive muscular contractions. 
The opening of the eyes and the lateral movements of 
them, the rolling of the eyeball, the closing of the lid, 
and many contractions of the facial muscles immediately 
after birth, prove the excitement of the oculo-motorius, 
of the trochlearis, of the motor-trigeminus branches, of 
the abducens, of the facialis; the movements of the 
tongue show excitement of the hypo-glossus; the arm- 
and-leg-movements show excitement of the spinal mo- SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
335 
tors without any assignable or admissible peripheral 
stimuli. 
The inborn movements are, on the contrary, reflex- 
ive when they occur only upon peripheral impressions, 
such as light, sound, contact. In these, also, most of the 
motor nerves seem to be concerned, and, indeed, in gen- 
eral, in the manner that the laws of reflexes which have 
been found in brainless animals would lead us to ex- 
pect. The reflexes of the newly-born are, however, 
slower in their operation at the beginning than after 
frequent repetition, and in individual cases show devi- 
ations from the condition found in full-grown men and 
animals. These deviations are probably to be referred 
partly to this, that the reflex-paths are developed to 
an unequal extent, so that a roundabout way some- 
times offers less resistance to the reflex excitement than 
does the direct way. Hence, perhaps, the contra-lateral 
reflexes. From all the organs of sense, in the first days, 
reflexes go forth—viz., from the optic nerve, auditory 
nerve, olfactory, gustatory, the sensory branches of the 
trigeminus, and the cutaneous nerves, upon the whole 
surface of the body. But the stimuli must, in general, 
be stronger than at a later period, or (at least, in the 
skin and retina) must affect a greater number of ex- 
tremities of nerve-fibers simultaneously, in case distinct 
reflexes are to take place. The reflex excitability of the 
skin of the face is relatively greater from birth on, 
than that of other parts. 
A third kind of inborn movements is the instinctive, 
which, indeed, likewise occur only after certain sensory 
peripheral excitations, but neither with the mechanical 
uniformity of the reflexes, nor with the constancy of 336 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
those, even when reflex excitability is present. Rather 
is there need of a special psychical condition, which may 
best be styled “ disposition ” (or “ tone ”). At any rate 
there is required an activity of those central organs of 
the nervous system, through which feelings have their 
existence. If the disposition, or the feeling is wanting, 
then the instinctive movement is not made, even under 
the strongest or most appropriate stimulus—as in the 
case of laughter, when the sole of the foot of a child in 
a sorrowful frame of mind is tickled by a stranger. A 
good example of the typical, instinctive, inborn move- 
ments of mankind is presented in sucking. With this 
is allied licking. In new-born animals, especially chick- 
ens just hatched, many more complicated instinctive 
movements appear, however, since perceptions produc- 
ing directly a motor effect are followed by highly ex- 
pedient co-ordinated movements; especially perceptions 
of sight. The eye of the bird, during the whole embry- 
onic period, is much larger in proportion to the brain 
than that of man, and can furnish accurately localized 
impressions immediately after the bird is hatched. 
These impressions are, by means of an hereditary mech 
anism, at once (in pecking) turned to account, and there- 
by deliberate movements are simulated. In fact, how- 
ever, no movement of a new-born animal or child is de- 
liberate ; none voluntary. 
Willed movements can not take place until the de- 
velopment of the senses is sufficiently advanced, not only 
to distinguish clearly the qualities belonging to the sepa- 
rate departments of sense, not only to feel every impres- 
sion, to localize the sensation, and to compare it with 
other sensations, to note its antecedents and consequents SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
337 
—in a word, to perceive, but sufficiently advanced also 
to recognize the cause of the perception, whereby the 
perception becomes a representation, a mental picture 
or idea. Without the power of representation there is 
no will; without the activity of the senses there is no 
representation; thus the will is actually, inseparably 
bound up with the senses. It disappears when they are 
extinguished; it is wanting to the person who is fast 
asleep. 
From this dependence of all will upon the senses, it 
by no means follows that a developed activity of the 
senses invariably brings with it the development of the 
will; on the contrary, something else is required for 
that. The representations, or ideas, formed in the first 
months of human life, by means of innumerable percep- 
tions, must, in order to have a motor effect in general, 
find on hand a large number of movements, upon which 
they now operate with determinative force. It is only 
upon the central sources of the motor nerves, which 
have for a long time and often been excited, impul- 
sively and reflexively or instinctively, that an idea can 
operate to co-ordinate or to modify. And this motor 
influence of ideas is greatest when the idea itself is 
that of a movement, particularly that of a movement 
leading to a desired object or a goal striven for. Only 
after the lapse of the first three months do such willed 
movements take place; but not in such a way as if a 
wdiolly new psychical agency suddenly appeared in the 
child as by inspiration ; rather does the development 
of the will go on very gradually. Only to the spectator 
the transition seems sudden, from the will-less child to 
the child that wills, if he observes seldom. The first 338 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
successful combination of a motor idea with the idea of 
an object or an aim, as in the case of the first successful 
attempt to seize—that is what seems sudden. But what 
is surprising here is the result, because that was wanting 
before in the numerous similar attempts. In fact, both 
the movements that are now willed, and the perceptions 
that also become willed later, were long ago and often 
made; at first without being willed, as a result of the 
heightened excitability of the central organs of the nerv- 
ous system, and of the increasing paths of association ; 
then each one for itself, which gave rise to ideas; and 
finally both together. The movement itself runs the 
same course in both cases. The willing of the move- 
ment is merely the willing of one of the impulses, as 
W. Gude well observes; one of the impulses that the 
child has already often allowed to operate in himself or 
that he had to let operate. But all this is true only of 
the first act of willing. 
After the child, in the second three months, has be- 
gun to execute willed movements in greater number, 
he soon finds that the earlier combinations of muscular 
contractions no longer suffice for his desires, which 
have, in the mean time, become exceedingly manifold. 
Hence becomes necessary, on the one hand, a separation 
of nervo-muscular excitations hitherto combined; on the 
other hand, an association of those hitherto separated. 
In this, for the first time, is manifested the direct par- 
ticipation of the intellect in the occurrence of voluntary 
movements. The ordinary childish performances, the 
first attempts at imitation in the fourth month, and the 
greater independence in the taking of food (e. g., tak- 
ing hold of the bottle) are proofs of this; but the essen- SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
339 
tial character of the will is not to be found either in 
separation alone, i. e., in the effort to make muscles con- 
tract separately that have hitherto always contracted to- 
gether, or in association alone, i. e., in the effort to make 
muscles contract together that have hitherto always con- 
tracted singly. The will is neither co-ordinating oidy 
nor isolating only, but both ; and, what is most fre- 
quently overlooked, in both departments it performs 
nothing absolutely new. As Gude has shown, it can 
not “call forth primary movements.” It finds com- 
pletely co-ordinated movements—inborn ones, in fact— 
like sucking, swallowing, already on hand, as well as 
typically isolated movements—e. g., the lifting of the 
eyelid with the look downward—which later it in part 
can not call forth at all, in part can call forth only after 
an enormous amount of practice. • 
In this important fact, that the will, as a reciprocal 
action of motor ideas, can alter, isolate, combine, repeat, 
strengthen and weaken, hasten and delay existing move- 
ments, lies, at the same time, the key to the understand- 
ing of the difficulty of learning. 
On the one hand, the abundant material of inborn 
impulsive, reflexive, and instinctive movements, which 
are mingled together in the first three months and are 
influenced by the increasing activity of the senses, 
favors the development of will, since it alone supplies 
the requisite representations of movement; on the 
other hand, however, this very material renders more 
difficult the manifestation of the directing power of the 
will. For the more that certain nerve-paths have been 
made easily passable by frequent repetition of move- 
ments, the greater will be the resistance to the combina- 340 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
tions of these with others, and to the employment of 
isolated tracts; the best proof of this is furnished in the 
accuracy, never afterward reappearing, of children’s 
imitations (in the fourth year) of the accent, pronuncia- 
tion, intonation of words given to them from foreign 
languages and from various dialects of their mother- 
tongue. The first imitations are the first distinct, rep- 
resented, and willed movements. 
In order to give accuracy to the proposed outline of 
the development of will in the child, wTe have yet to set 
forth briefly its bearing with regard to four problems. 
To every perfect activity of will are indispensable desire, 
muscular sensations, voluntary inhibition, and attention. 
Desire, in the ordinary meaning of the word, pre- 
supposes ideas. Therefore, when it is said of the newly- 
born that it desires something (or even that it is search- 
ing for and wishes something), this form of expression 
is false. The child’s relatives merely infer from its 
movements, attitude, position, situation, a condition of 
discomfort, displeasure, or discontent (in case of hunger, 
thirst, wet), and out of their own subjective state reason 
to the existence of a similar objective state in the child. 
In fact, however, the behavior of the newly-born, like 
that of the unborn, is intelligible without the assump- 
tion of any mental process whatever when we consider 
that, with the greater excitability of the central nervous 
organs in the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata, not 
only do reflexes—after refrigeration, wet, and the like 
—occur more easily and more frequently, but instinct- 
ive movements also, like sucking, and especially im- 
pulsive movements, are multiplied, e. g., crying; but 
now, in the case of hunger and other disagreeable states, SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
341 
that excitability is, in fact, increased. After the re- 
moval of the causes of the discomfort it is diminished, 
and then the mobility is likewise diminished. Thus the 
child behaves as if it desired, although it does not desire. 
But the repetition of the alternation of great mobility 
along with discomfort—less mobility along with comfort 
—during the first days, leaves behind in the central 
organs traces that make possible, or favor, the associa- 
tion of the remembrance of movement with the sensu- 
ous impression (milk, warm bath, etc.) that relieved the 
discomfort. Then the thing that relieves the discom- 
fort is perceived and represented, and now, for the first 
time, a movement of “ desire ” is made. 
The muscular sensations probably begin to be de- 
veloped before birth, with the movements of the child. 
They must be present in all later muscular actions, even 
the purely impulsive, and they exert their influence in 
the performance of all those which take place only when 
a psychical factor co-operates—hence in all instinctive 
movements and all represented movements, consequent- 
ly in voluntary ones also; for if it were not so, then it 
would remain incomprehensible how, in the successful, 
often extremely complicated, harmonious contractions 
of the most different muscles, just the required degree 
of contraction, and no more than this, is attained. But 
from this it does not in the least follow that they de- 
termine the will itself, especially as they do not regularly 
enter into the consciousness. They belong rather to 
the machinery of nervo-muscular excitement, and to the 
impulse to it, upon which alone the 'will can operate. 
They remain below the threshold of the will when they 
do not generate ideas. 342 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
The voluntary inhibition of a movement pre-sup- 
poses willed movements; it therefore appears in the 
child only after well-advanced development of the rep- 
resentational or ideational stage. It is based on an ex- 
citement in the state of non-willing, and is produced in 
the child through ideas as to the result of a movement. 
When the child’s will is completely at rest, the rise of 
no movement is arrested by it; a muscular contraction 
may occur at any moment. But when, in this state of 
rest, ideas are formed wdiich prevent the motor ideas 
awakened by sense-impressions or memory-images from 
operating on the motor centers of highest rank, then 
this state is called voluntary inhibition. It does not 
come to a manifestation of will—i. e., in this case; the 
child does not will, because in him an inhibitory process 
takes place that neutralizes the motor ideas. When he 
is asleep he does not will, because there are no motor 
ideas and no inhibitory ones. I understand by ideas 
here, as always, psychical facts that are bound up with 
organic processes in the ganglionic cells of the cere- 
brum, and are, in part, causes of movements, in so far 
as the nerve excitations, by means of connecting fibers 
and intermediate ganglionic cells, reach the motor cen- 
ters of lower rank. Through this, the voluntary inhibi- 
tion of many reflexes also is then made possible. The 
simplest represented movement, viz., the first imitation, 
requires this co-operation of the cerebrum no less than 
it requires attention. 
The attention of the child and of the adult is either 
compulsory—aroused by strong sense-impressions—or 
voluntary. In the first case—which happens in human 
beings only during the first three weeks—by means of SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
343 
a reflex movement after an unexpected stimulus of 
sound, of light, or other sensuous stimulus, a feeling is 
generated that is immediately, or after several repeti- 
tions, distinguished as a feeling of pleasure or of dis- 
comfort. The strong feeling leaves behind it a remem- 
brance, and leads, after the perfection of the perceptive 
and then of the representative activity, to ideas (A) of 
the object of that movement—i. e., of the reflex stimu- 
lus. If, meanwhile, the co-ordination and separation of 
the muscular movements is sufficiently developed so that 
movements can also be brought to pass through motor 
ideas (B), then the latter (B) combine with the former 
(A) upon the object in question, and the attention is 
voluntarily directed to it. But we must not infer from 
the early, isolated symptoms of the later voluntary at- 
tention—like pouting of the lips, directing the gaze, 
cessation of crying or of uneasiness—an already existing 
concentration of attention ; since this may be a case of 
the supplanting of one movement by another without 
will. The following of a moved light with the eye in 
the fourth week is possible, too, without the co-opera- 
tion of the cerebrum (p. 45), whereas, later, it is precise- 
ly the fixation, for the purpose of seeing distinctly, that 
is voluntary. Not till the seventh week (pp. 54, 142) 
and the ninth week (pp. 55, 84) did I become convinced 
that my child was actually attentive—since his eye fre- 
quently showed a peculiar intensity of expression in 
hearing and seeing—after the operation of strong stim- 
uli ; but that he, of his own motion, turned to an object 
and lingered on it attentively, I observed first in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth weeks, w’hen, of his own ac- 
cord, he gazed at his own image in the glass. At this 344 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
time, and much later still, an uninterrupted strain of 
his attention was impossible to the child. His atten- 
tion lasted only for moments. 
Every act of will requires attention, and every con- 
centration of attention is an act of will. Hence an act 
of attention without an accompanying muscular con- 
traction is unrecognizable. But those muscular move- 
ments that take place without any co-operation whatever 
of voluntary attention, are void of attention, either for 
the reason that will is still wanting—in the first weeks 
-—or for the reason that will is no longer required to 
keep in operation the oft-repeated, voluntary movement 
—or, finally, because the will is inactive, as, e. g., in 
sleep. 
In conclusion, in regard to education, which always 
has to control the motor ideas of the child, and, in case 
these are improper ones, to substitute better, we have 
especially to consider the weakness of the will even in 
the complete waking condition. The surprising credu- 
lity, docility, obedience, tractableness, the slight degree 
of independence of will in young children, that attests 
itself besides in many little traits of character, reminds 
one of the similar behavior of adults in the mesmeric 
sleep. For example, if I say to my two-and-a-half-year- 
old child, after he has already eaten something, but is just 
on the point of biting off a fresh piece from his biscuit— 
if I say categorically, without giving any reason at all, 
with a positiveness that will tolerate no contradiction, 
very loud, yet without frightening him, “ The child 
has had enough now I ” then it comes to pass that he at 
once puts away from his mouth the biscuit, without fin- 
ishing his bite, and ends his meal altogether. It is easy SUMMARY OF GENERAL RESULTS. 
345 
to bring children, even three or four years old to the 
opinion that a feeling of pain (after a hit) is gone, or 
that they are not tired or thirsty, provided only that 
our demands are not extravagant, and are not pressed 
too often, and that our assertion is a very decided 
one. 
In this weakness of the child’s will lies also the rea- 
son that little children can not be mesmerized. Their 
will-power does not suffice to keep their attention con- 
centrated persistently in one direction, which is a neces- 
sary condition of hypnotism. 
The weariness connected with the strain of atten- 
tion makes intelligible also the rapid alternation of the 
plays of the child. Through too frequent yielding in 
this respect, which appears unobjectionable only in the 
first period of play, the later development of voluntary 
inhibitions, upon which most depends in the formation 
of character, is rendered essentially more difficult, and 
caprice is fostered. Exercises in being obedient can 
not begin too early, and I have, during an almost daily 
observation of six years, discovered no harm from an 
early, consistent guiding of the germinating will, pro- 
vided only this guiding be done with the greatest mild- 
ness and justice, as if the infant had already an insight 
into the benefits of obedience. By assuming insight in 
the child, insight will be earlier awakened than by train- 
ing ; and by giving a true and reasonable ground for 
every command, as soon as the understanding begins, 
and by avoiding all groundless prohibitions,, obedience 
is made decidedly more easy. 
Thus, through cultivation of ideas of a higher or- 
der, the will may be directed even in the second year, 346 
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 
and thereby the character be formed; but only through 
inexorable consistency, which allows no exception to a 
prohibition, is it possible to maintain the form once im- 
pressed upon the character. 
[The third part of this work, treating of the Devel- 
opment of the Intellect, together with supplementary 
matter, is reserved for another volume of this series.— 
Editor.] 
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PL DORADO ; OR, THE GILDED MAN. And 
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ABRAHAM LINCOLN: The True Story of a Great 
•dl LIFE, By William H. Herndon and Jesse W. Weik. 
With numerous Illustrations. New and revised edition, with 
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pretext or another, but usually upon the plea that he was the central figure of a great 
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of the truth and magnifying or embellishing the rest, produced port, aits which those of 
Lincoln's contemporaries who knew him best are scarcely able to recognize. There is, 
on the other hand, no doubt about the faithfulness of Mr. Herndon’s delineation. The 
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“ It will always remain the authentic life of Abraham Lincoln.”—Chicago Herald. 
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“Will be accepted as the best biography yet written of the great President.”— 
Chicago Inter-Ocean. 
“Mr. White claims that, as a portraiture of the man Lincoln, Mr. Herndon’s work 
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“The three portraits of Lincoln are the best that exist; and not the least charac- 
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. . . Herndon’s narrative gives, as nothing else is likely to give, the material from 
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MISCELLANEOUS WORKS OF HERBERT SPENCER. 
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5OCTAL STATICS. By Herbert Spencer. New 
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The Development Hypothesis. 
Progress: its Law and Cause. 
Transcendental Physiology. 
The Nebular Hypothesis, 
Illogical Geology. 
Bain on the Emotions and the Will. 
The Social Organism. 
The Origin of Animal Worship. 
Morals and Moral Sentiments, 
The Comparative Psychology of Man. 
Mr. Martineau on Evolution. 
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The Genesis of Science 
The Classification of the Sciences. 
Reasons for dissenting from the Phi- 
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On Laws in General, and the Order 
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The Valuation of Evidence. 
What is Electricity ? 
Mill versus Hamilton—The Test of 
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Prof. Green’s Explanations. 
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Use and Beauty. 
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Gracefulness. 
Personal Beauty. 
The Origin and Function of Music. 
The Physiology of Laughter. 
Manners and Fashion. 
Railway Morals and Railway 
Policy. 
The Morals of Trade. 
Prison-Ethics. 
The Ethics of Kant. 
Absolute Political Ethics. 
Over-Legislation. 
Representative Government— 
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State-Tampering with Money and 
Banks 
Parliamentary Reform: the Dangers 
and the Safeguards. 
“The Collective Wisdom.” 
Political Fetichism. 
Specialized Administration. 
From Freedom to Bondage. 
The Americans.! 
Index. 
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t Also published separately. 12010. Cloth, 50 cents. 
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Representative Government. By Edwin 
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Evolution of the Afric-A merican. By 
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The Race Problem in the South. By 
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Education and Citizenship. By Rev. 
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The Independent in Politics. By John 
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Moral Questions in Politics. By Rev. 
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AN ATLAS OF ASTRONOMY. By Sir Robert 
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New Popular Edition of Lecky's England and Ireland. 
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND IN THE EIGHT- 
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'THE POLITICAL VALUE OF HISTORY. By 
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pHE HISTORICAL REFERENCE-BOOK, com- 
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revised and brought down to 1892. Crown 8vo. 569 pages. 
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THE CA USE OF AN ICE AGE. By Sir Robert 
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