EARLIEST RECOLLECTIONS. 109 



The date of the first recollection varies between verj broad 

 limits. There are persons who can recall a fact or scene which took 

 place when they were one year old, or even less; others can not 

 recollect anything from before they were six, seven, or even eight 

 years old; but in general the first recollection corresponds with an 

 age of from two to four years. One professed to have recollections 

 from the age of six months, two from eight months, four from one 

 year, nine from a year and a half, twenty-three from two years, 

 twenty from two and a half years, nineteen from three years, four- 

 teen from three and a half years, twelve from four years, six from 

 five years, five from six years, two from seven years, and four from 

 eight years. 



In an inquiry made by C. Miles * on like subjects, we find two 

 questions relative to the earliest recollections of infancy. The 

 author concludes that the average date is about three years, but the 

 figures are not given in detail. The questions are suggested first 

 whether there may not be some essential difference in the nature 

 of recollections that correspond with different ages, and then whether 

 there is not some special cause that may explain why one person 

 recollects a fact of his first year and another one only of his fifth 

 year. We have not enough answers or any sufficiently detailed for 

 the complete treatment of these questions. We proceed now to give 

 our own conclusions. 



The prime difference between recollections going back to the 

 first year and those which relate to five or six years of age is that the 

 former are all of events which greatly affected the child, and were 

 frequently recalled to him in his infancy and youth; the latter are 

 likewise facts that struck the imagination of the child, but generally 

 less than the former; and there are cases in which the latter recollec- 

 tions were called up late in life; in two persons they were not 

 evoked till our questions brought them up. One person, for instance, 

 recalled the following scene : " A large room, with a fire on the 

 hearth, and the ceiling and walls in the dark; an aged lady sitting 

 before the fire, which shines brightly upon her. I am sitting in her 

 lap. On the floor is a toy, a sheep with gilded horns. I have on red 

 stockings, and have hold of the woman's nose. It is a large, flabby 

 nose; the woman's face is wrinkled, her hair is white, and she wears 

 spectacles." This was when the subject was eight or nine months 

 old. One evening, when this person was six years old and his 

 parents were sitting round the fire, he came up and of his own accord 

 enacted the scene described above, and told the story, when they 

 all laughed. Since then he has recalled the incident many times. 



* C. Miles. A Study of Individual Psychology. American Journal of Psychology, vi, 

 p. 565. 



