284 The Animal Mind 



Fiske (126). But quite as important is the fact that in pro- 

 longed infancy we have the opportunity for acquiring the 

 habit of that attention to our own movements which is the 

 prerequisite for the movement idea. There are, as we have 

 seen, various ways of learning by experience slow ways 

 that do not involve ideas, and the rapid way that does. The 

 great advantage of man over most of the lower animals is not 

 so much in the fact as in the method of his learning. One 

 of the most vital meanings of the long period of helplessness 

 and dependence constituting human infancy lies in the fact 

 that by relieving from the necessity of attending exclusively 

 to external objects, it renders possible attention to the sensa- 

 tions resulting from movement; and thus, by supplying an 

 essential condition for the revival of such sensations in idea, 

 it opens the way for the control of movement through the 

 movement idea. 







