38o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



on account of the muscular action involved, a necessary accom- 

 paniment of joy, noticeably 'Arry on a bank holiday ; while in 

 some cases expletives are symptomatic of joy and not of anger. 

 All these outward signs have had their origin in that nerve ex- 

 citation inducing muscular action which is a heritage from ances- 

 tors who, impelled by hunger, by love, or by war, led more active 

 lives and thereby obtained a desire for motion as a second nature. 

 Children and young lambs are very familiar examples ; and so 

 strongly will the latter pursue their gambols and racings that a 

 broken heart is sometimes a cause of death in the middle of a sud- 

 den gallop. If children have to be still, it is torture to them 

 positive torture in some cases and grown-up people are unaware 

 how much, or they would not thoughtfully inflict it on young 

 children. Muscular ache, the fidgets, growing-pain in the limbs, 

 are all the result of enforced inactivity in children. It is similar 

 with athletes : their muscular excitement is so strong that move- 

 ment is pleasure, stillness means pain, and they are noted for rest- 

 lessness. 



Another " animal " relic which exists in children is an instinc- 

 tive desire for stealing, especially for stealing fruit, which, how- 

 ever hard and unripe, seems to give the child pleasure. Stealing 

 certainly points to the time when every animal had to depend on 

 its own exertions for what food it got, and when the readiest 

 method of obtaining such food was to appropriate without ques- 

 tion whatever it might come across. The capacity for hard and 

 unripe fruit indicates a necessity which would be incidental to 

 monkeylike life to times of scarcity, when anything in the 

 shape of fruit, no matter what it might be, was gladly welcomed 

 as food. 



With the above another childish trait may advantageously be 

 compared namely, the habit of taking things to bed, especially 

 such articles as the child may be attached to ; but there is also a 

 desire to take things for fear of other children obtaining them ; 

 and when a child takes off to bed such articles as a collection of 

 clothes brushes, or an array of old boots, it seems like taking for 

 taking's sake. Thus, one boy was found in bed with sundry 

 drawer handles, unscrewed for the occasion, several pieces of old 

 iron, two hair brushes, and a tobacco tin. Many causes have con- 

 tributed to form this habit. First, there is the earlier inheritance 

 of the maternal instinct ; the mother taking her young to sleep 

 with her, in order to feed and comfort it, would give the idea of 

 taking to bed anything exciting fondness dolls, toys, etc. Then 

 there is the food instinct the dragging-food-into-the-lair idea 

 with which may be associated a particular fondness of children for 

 something to eat when they are in bed ; and then there is the pro- 

 prietary idea, arising from the feeling that to keep possession of 



