Theories of Development 243 



thou, voluntarily; that's it!" You say, I do not 

 understand Mr. Schiller; but, as he was a great man, 

 it must be true. You therefore commit those words 

 to memory, with or without understanding them. 

 That is a borrowed thought. Now, on the other 

 hand, you may say that Mr. Schiller is either right or 

 wrong in this matter, because it conforms or does not 

 conform to your own experience. In either case it 

 is an original idea, because the result of your own 

 reflection on the elements of personal experience. 

 What Schiller probably meant, in this case, was, that 

 the highest wisdom is gained from contact with nature, 

 as in the observation and study of a plant. 



Ideas gained thus, from personal contact with the 

 thing itself, are of necessity our ideas, because devel- 

 oped in the natural way from the primitive elements 

 of sensation. Such ideas are a part of our own being; 

 and, as such, are important factors in our mental 

 life; while those merely borrowed and retained in 

 memory, as verbal symbols, may be of no value to 

 us, since they vanish from memory at the time when 

 they are most needed. The words right and wrong 

 may fail to come to us when in that agitated state of 

 mind resulting from injury by a fellow being, and 

 when ethical considerations are especially desirable. 



Origin of Language. Written languages are the 

 traces of motor activity. Articulate speech results 

 from co-ordinated contractions of such muscles as 

 those of the diaphragm, intercostals, throat, tongue, 

 cheeks, and lips. These muscular contractions, like 

 those of the limbs, are due to nervous impulses arising 

 in the brain, or reflected by it from other internal 

 organs. 



In the infant, vital processes are very active in all 

 the organs, and this activity involves active nutrition. 

 Hunger is felt as a natural consequence of growth 

 and waste of the body. Consciously or unconsciously, 



