PERIODS OF DEVELOPMENT 117 



der an electric stimulus. The baby- comes into the 

 world with an apparatus ready to act as if angry; 

 but such action can have no moral significance. 

 Preyer likens the early cries of a child "to the 

 peeping of a chick breaking its shell, or the bleat- 

 ing of a new-born lamb, and observes that they 

 have no more intellectual or emotional significance 

 than the first cries of these animals. They are 

 produced as well by a child without a cerebrum 

 as by a child with one. The basal ganglia and 

 the appropriate stimulus are all that are nec- 

 essary on the neural side for their production." 

 (Major: "First Steps in Mental Growth," 282, 3.) 

 However, the cries soon come to have the value 

 of expressing hunger, pain, cold, discomfort. The 

 first step in the development of the sense of sight 

 is the perception of light, which is soon after 

 birth. This is followed sometimes as early as the 

 fourth day by the ability to hear sounds. Light 

 reflected from bright-colored objects will be noted. 

 The co-ordination of the muscles which direct the 

 eyes, the fixation of the eyes upon objects, and 

 following the objects with the eyes, are the next 

 steps in sight development. This has been ob- 

 served, and therefore clear visual perception es- 

 tablished, when the child was from one to two 

 months old. Among objects which attracted the 

 child first and most was the human face; the 

 mother's face and voice may be known within two 

 months. When two senses work together they 

 hold the attention more closely than one working 



