LINGUAL DEVELOPMENT IN BABYHOOD. 135 



same sound had long been used by her, but always to signify dog. In 

 this new meaning the sound has oscillated between va-va and oua-oua. 

 In all probability the sound here written oua-oua is for her twofold, 

 in accordance with the two different meanings she attaches to it. But 

 my ear does not detect this difference. The senses of infants, which 

 are less obtuse than ours, perceive delicate shades which we do not 

 distinguish. It is worthy of mention that she strictly applies this 

 term oua-oua to food and drink; the act of eating or drinking is ex- 

 pressed by am, or ham. Thus, when she hears the dinner-bell, she 

 says am, not oua-oua ; but at table, when seated before some article 

 of food, she says oua-oua, and much less frequently am. 



On the other hand, the word tern (give, take, look), of which I 

 have already made mention, has during the past two months fallen 

 into desuetude. She never pronounces that word now, nor can I find 

 that she has replaced it by any other. Doubtless the reason of this 

 is, that we did not care to learn it : it answered to none of our ideas, 

 inasmuch as it coupled three very distinct notions. 



On summing up the facts already stated we reach the following 

 conclusions ; it remains for others to modify them by observing other 

 infants : 



At first the infant cries, and employs its vocal organ in the same 

 way as its limbs, spontaneously and after the manner of reflex action. 

 Spontaneously, too, and because it finds pleasure in being active, the 

 infant later exercises its vocal organs in the same way it exercises its 

 limbs, gaining the perfect use of them by repeated essays and by a 

 process of selection. From inarticulate it thus passes to articulate 

 sounds. The variety of intonations which it acquires evinces in the 

 child great delicacy of impression and of expression ; hence the fac- 

 ulty of forming general ideas. All we do is to aid it in grasping 

 these ideas by suggesting our words. To these the infant attaches 

 ideas of its own, generalizing after its own fashion rather than ours. 

 Sometimes it invents not only the meaning of a word, but the word 

 itself. Several vocabularies may succeed to one another in its mind, 

 new words obliterating old ones ; several different significations may 

 successively be attached to one word ; several words invented by 

 itself are natural vocal gestures ; in short, it learns a ready-made 

 language as a true musician learns counterpoint, or as a true poet 

 learns prosody : the child is an original genius, which adapts itself to 

 a form built up bit by bit by a succession of original geniuses. If there 

 existed no language it would discover one, or find an equivalent. 



This series of observations was interrupted, owing to the misfor- 

 tunes of the year 1870. The following notes may serve to show the 

 mental state of an infant : in many respects this state is that of 

 primitive peoples in the poetical and mythological period 



A water-jet, which this infant saw daily for three months, always 

 gave her new pleasure. The same is to be said of the flow of a river 



