PSYCHOGENESIS IN THE HUMAN INFANT. 627 



at imitation ; the imitative faculty does not begin to be developed till 

 the second half-year. We must look within the child for their cause. 

 An inner cause must be either acquired or inherited. The idea of an ac- 

 quired cause, presupposes varied experiences and observations, of which 

 the child has had none. The inherited causes, then, are the only ones 

 we can consider. It is not enough to say on this point that the child 

 moves as it does because its ancestors did so when they were young. 

 That would only set the problem a step further back. We should 

 rather say that the peculiar movements take place because the central 

 nervous motor organs, when they are fully developed, discharge irreg- 

 ularly the surplus store of motive energy which has been inherited. 

 They have been called instinctive, but instinct comprehends a kind of 

 inherited recollection, and has some definite end, while the motions are 

 aimless. They are impulsive the direct effect of the nervous energy 

 of the spinal marrow before it has become subject to the restraint 

 of the brain. As the brain is developed, and the intellect manifests 

 itself, the excessive movements are limited, and in persons who have 

 received the most perfect training they are hardly observed at all. 

 They cease when the man has learned to exert the full power of his 

 will over them. 



The first manifestation of the will in the child appears when it 

 begins to hold up its head. A chicken can not hold its head up during 

 the first hour after it is hatched ; but it can do that, and even pick up 

 a grain of corn, before it can walk or stand firmly. It then begins to 

 run, and learns to do in a day what it takes the human infant a year 

 to accomplish. My attempts to hold a child up straight were not suc- 

 cessful for fourteen weeks. Evident voluntary effort begat) at that 

 time, and after four months the child was able to keep its head well 

 balanced. The lack of power to hold the head up before was not due 

 to want of muscular strength, for the reflex actions, such as that of 

 turning the head, requiring as much power of muscle, were performed 

 firmly enough. Next, after the head, the upper part of the body was 

 balanced. The power to sit up was acquired in about the tenth month, 

 all at once, after the child had been kept up by artificial supports for 

 several weeks. So ability to stand was gained suddenly at the end 

 of the first year, after numerous unsuccessful efforts to stand by the 

 aid of chairs, tables, and the walls of the room. The next acquisition, 

 that of walking, likewise seems to come of itself. Its beginning is 

 obscure, for there appears no occasion in the act of standing for the 

 alternate bendings and stretchings of the legs which enter into it. 

 Similar movements may take place, it is true, when the child is lying 

 down, in its bath or in its cradle, but the regular alternation of them 

 in a standing position is quite different, and is probably, like the act 

 of sucking, derived by inheritance. 



It may often be months before the effort to walk is successful, but, 

 if the child is allowed to creep without being interfered with, it will 



