186 ON THE INTELLECT OF INFANTS. 



show, images vinced she at present knovrs that the figures are not real 



persons, but represent herself and others. 

 Three months End of the fifteenth week, or age exactly three calendar 



nection of the "^^"t^s. Yesterday C , who has been assiduously 



hand with the watchcd for that purpose, did not move her hand totak* 

 wglit. jjp any thing ; and to day, at six in the evening, she com- 



pletely acted with the hand and eye in conjunction. It 

 seems as if this operation had been projected and previous- 

 The operation ly arranged in her mind. She raises her arm by the 

 a^^d seems"* to shoulder-jointto a level with the object she desires to take, 

 have been stu- and then by an horizontal sweep, brings her hand before 

 di^ or plan- her, opening and shutting the hand till she has clasped the 

 object, in which she does not readily succeed. Anxiety 

 and impatience accompany this manoeuvre, and, on th« 

 whole, she is a good dsal vexed with the desire to possess 

 in this new way and the difficulty of bringing her hand to 

 the object. I think she uses her right hand with rather 

 more success than the other* When she had, with both 

 hands at once, grasped the tea tongs, she could not com- 

 mand the voluntary power of letting go and therefore 

 cried from the confinement of her hands. 



3$months. Ar- Three months and a half old. That effort at articula- 



ticulation, Ian- , . , . , „ ^ ,,, . 



guapc, &c. **°" which nurses call telling a long story, was very ear- 

 nestly practised at this period, and some days afterM'ards 

 she became very troublesome, from a wish to seize what- 

 ever was in her view. That habit of tossing the arm up 

 and down, which infants acquire, and to which some au- 

 thors ascribe the use of the right hand in preference to 

 the left, was also exhibited at about four months old*. 

 And soon afterwards her knowledge of words and things 



She know» her was so far advanced, that she knew her hands and feet by 



* The argument is that infants are usually carried on the right 

 arm, because it is stronger; and in this position, the right arm of 

 the child being at liberty, is said to be exercised more readily and 

 early. It does not seem however, that there is much force in this 

 remark ; for the nurse is as likely to carry them on her left arm, in 

 order to have the free use of her own right arm ; and even on the 

 former supposition, it seems to me that the arm nearest the nurse, 

 Woul4 probably be more fully exercised by faking hold of her, or 

 her clothes, than the other, which for the most part can have no 

 object within its reach, B. 



same; 



