THE NEW PSYCHOLOGY. 37 



lated and more or less accidental observations have been recorded ; 



and apparently on the strength of these Mr. Spencer has made the fol- 

 lowing unqualified statement . " A chick, immediately it comes out of 

 the egg, not only balances itself and runs about, but picks up frag- 

 ments of food, thus showing us that it can adjust its muscular move- 

 ments in a way appropriate for grasping an object in a position that is 

 accurately perceived." The fact is, that, on emerging from the shell, 

 the chick can no more do any thing of all this than can the new-born 

 child run about and gather blackberries. But between the two there 

 is this great difference, that, whereas the chick can pick about perfectly 

 in lees than twenty-four hours, the child is not similarly master of its 

 movements in as many months. Our present point is, that it can be 

 shown by experiment that the performances of the chick a day old, 

 which involve the perceptions of distance and direction by the eye and 

 the ear, and of many other qualities of external things, are not in any 

 degree the results of its individual experiences. Let it now be remem- 

 bered that, in the absence of conclusive evidence to the contrary, it 

 has been considered a safe position to hold that the early knowledge 

 and intelligent action of the chicken " may be, after all, nothing more 

 than very rapid acquisitions, the result of that experimentation, prompt- 

 ed by the inborn or spontaneous activity." May we now, on the other 

 side, similarly presume, until the contrary is shown, that the more 

 tardy progress of the infant is not because its mental constitution has 

 to be built up from the foundation out of the primitive elements of 

 consciousness, which the chicken's has not, but rather because the 

 child comes into the world in a state of greater physical, and therefore 

 mental immaturity ? The progress of the infant, however, has been 

 so continually spoken of as if it were a visible process of unaided ac- 

 quisition, that it may give some surprise when it is asserted from the 

 other side that we have no sufficiently accurate acquaintance with the 

 alleged acquisitions of infancy to justify the doctrine that they are 

 different in kind from the unfolding of the inherited instincts of the 

 chicken. To give definiteness to the attitude taken up, we would say, 

 for example, that the facts concerning the early movements of the two 

 lambs and the calf observed by Prof. Bain, and which, looked at from 

 his point of view, were strong confirmation of the doctrine of indi- 

 vidual acquisition, may be just as readily interpreted as the unfolding 

 of inherited powers ; which, as far as we know, start into perfect 

 action at the moment of birth, in no single instance. From observa- 

 tions on several newly-dropped calves, the facts corresponding sub- 

 stantially with those recorded by Prof. Bain, the present writer could 

 draw no conclusive evidence in favor of either the one theory or the 

 other. One observation, however, may here be mentioned that seemed 

 rather to favor the doctrine of inheritance. A calf one hour old, 

 which had been staggering about on its legs for ten minutes, stepped 

 out at the open door of the byre. It no sooner found itself in the 



