1 68 Instinct and Intelligence 



tive and emotional powers ; for if the infant is 

 brought within reach of his mother's breast he 

 seizes the nipple, directs it to his mouth, and 

 begins to suck; if thwarted in this action the 

 child gives vent to his emotional feelings by 

 crying. (See foot-note, p. 185.) When a lighted 

 candle is brought near an infant's face it acts 

 as a stimulus to his visual nervous centres, and 

 leads to reflex contractions of groups of 

 muscles as shown by his outstretched arms to- 

 wards the flame regardless of the consequences ; 

 a young infant fails to make any reasonable at- 

 tempt to remove anything which may be causing 

 him pain. 1 The reason for this is, that the ner- 

 vous structures entering into the formation of 

 an infant's spinal and basal system are more 

 fully developed (myelinated), at the time of his 

 birth than his cortical cerebral substances; so 

 that reflex and automatic instinctive movements 

 are then possible through the base and stem of 

 the brain, while at this early age the structures 

 forming the association areas of the child's 

 cerebrum are immature, and consequently his 

 intellectual powers are defective. 



1 The Dawn of Character, by E. R. Mumford, pp. 27, 29, 43. 

 See also p. 21. 



