762 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



more and more frequently repeated, and with the number of such 

 efforts becoming more and more sure and successful. 



The will presenting the double aspect of a choice between a 

 number of possible acts and of ends to be sought, and of a con- 

 scious effort to use the means by which the object is to be reached, 

 its growth is also double. It becomes more worthy of attention 

 as the consciousness, growing richer in ideas and feelings, obtains 

 a larger choice of ends and means, and as the active energy be- 

 comes capable of stronger and more consecutive effort. 



As the faculty of voluntary motion is developed, movements 

 which were at first fortuitous, unconscious, and ignorant of ob- 

 jects, executed without intentional direction or prevision, me- 

 chanically or upon chance impressions of the senses, are taken 

 notice of, become gradually more closely associated with the per- 

 ceptions, executed with increasing ease and accuracy, and more 

 and more the effect of an express will or conscious energy, which 

 knows what it is doing and does what it wants to. This energy, 

 although it takes on a new name, does not invent a single new 

 movement and creates nothing. The power of attention is an 

 essential factor, perhaps the principal one, and makes of an 

 energy in the beginning dispersed a concentrated and intentional 

 energy. We can not determine to what point attention is at any 

 age the condition of a rich mental and moral development. But 

 when the child, having taken notice of its incoherent and awk- 

 ward movements, begins the effort to co-ordinate them in view of 

 precise ends ; when, for example, it moves symmetrically both 

 arms to embrace or both hands to take ; when, inversely, it iso- 

 lates movements formerly associated, stepping on one foot to 

 push the ball with the other, striking with one hand the dish 

 which it is holding in the other it is already performing an act 

 of the will. 



There is a kind of struggle for existence among the thousand 

 vague movements of the eyes, arms, hands, feet, and head. Those 

 which are useless or injurious are eliminated. Those which 

 are advantageous, that procure a physical or moral satisfaction, 

 are repeated, predominate, and are accomplished in better style. 

 From involuntary they become voluntary, while many, again, es- 

 cape the will to become habitual. Preyer gives a minute descrip- 

 tion of the various motions of the child and their progress, which 

 we can retrace daily in its general features, in the attitudes and 

 motions of the head, for a long time directed very awkwardly, 

 even in taking the breast ; the motions of prehension, apparently 

 more natural and often easier to the child than the act of letting 

 go, when it has a hold ; the gradual way in which it learns to sit 

 down and remain seated, to creep, to get along on its knees, to 

 rise upon its feet, to stand, to let go of the support, and to walk. 



