SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE METHODS 



Compare also these explanations which the 

 subjective method gives of the crying of newly 

 born infants. Physiology explains this crying 

 as the result of the novel impression of the cool 

 atmosphere upon the surface of the infant's 

 body, and of the sudden inrush of air into the 

 lungs, which combine to excite the reflex action 

 of screaming. If there is anything distinctly 

 psychical about it — which is in the highest de- 

 gree improbable — it could be merely a sub- 

 conscious sense of discomfort. But according 

 to Hegel, the cry of the child just born indi- 

 cates " a revelation of his exalted nature." " His 

 ideas being excited into activity, (!) the child 

 feels himself straightway penetrated with the 

 certitude that he has a right to exact from the 

 external world the satisfaction of his needs, — 

 that the external world compared to the soul 

 amounts to nothing." According, however, to 

 Hegel's follower, Michelet, the cry of the new- 

 born child reveals " the horror felt by the soul 

 at being enslaved to nature ; " or according to 

 another German writer, it is an outburst of 

 wrath on the part of the newcomer at finding 

 himself powerless against environing circum- 

 stances ! Wherein is all this better than the 

 cosmological vagaries of Plato ? Or wherein is 

 it better than the speculations of those early 

 Christian theologians who adduced the crying 

 of the new-born babe in proof of its innate 



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