THE FOUR LAWS OF AGE 241 



Then at five months begins the age of handling when 

 the baby feels of everything. It feels urgently of all 

 the objects which it can get hold of and perhaps most 

 of all of its own body. It is finding that it can touch its 

 various own parts and that when its hands and parts 

 of its own body come in contact it has the double 

 sensations, and learns to bring them together and 

 thereby is manufacturing in its consciousness the con- 

 ception of the ego> personal, individual existence, an- 

 other great metaphysical notion. Descartes has said, 

 "Cogito, ergo sum" " I think, therefore I am." The 

 baby, if he had written in Descartes's place, would 

 have said, " I feel, therefore I am." The first five 

 months constitute the first period of the baby's de- 

 velopment. Its powers are formed, and the founda- 

 tions of knowledge have been laid. The second 

 period is a period of amazing research, constant, un- 

 interrupted, untiring; renewed the instant the baby 

 wakes up, and kept up until sleep again overtakes it. 

 In the six months' baby we find already the notion of 

 cause and effect. You see he is dealing mostly in 

 metaphysical things, getting the fundamental con- 

 cepts. That there is such an idea as cause and effect 

 in the baby's mind is clearly shown by the progress of 

 its adaptive intelligence. It evidently has now distinct 

 purposes of its own. It shows clearly at this age also 

 another thing which plays a constant and important 

 r6le in our daily life. It has the consciousness of the 

 possibilities of human intercourse ; it wants human 

 companionship. And with that the baby's equipment 



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