49 8 



NA TURK 



[Sept. 



21, I< 



stage biting is as instinctive as sucking, and was first 

 observed to occur in the 17th week with the toothless 

 gums. Later than biting, but still before the teeth are 

 cut, chewing becomes instinctive, and also licking. Be- 

 tween the 10th and the 16th week the head becomes 

 completely balanced, the efforts in this direction being 

 voluntary and determined by the greater comfort of hold- 

 ing the head in an upright position. Sitting up usually 

 begins about the 4th month, but may begin much later. 

 In this connection an interesting remark of Dr. Lauder 

 Brunton is alluded to (" Bible and Science," p. 239), 

 namely, that when a young child sits upon the floor the 

 soles of its feet are turned inwards facing one another, as 

 is the case with monkeys. When laid upon their faces 

 children at earliest can right themselves during the 5th 

 month. Preyer's child first attempted to stand in the 

 39th week, but it was not until the beginning of the 2nd 

 year that it could stand alone, or without assistance. The 

 walking movements which are performed by a child much 

 too young to walk, when it is held so that its feet touch 

 the ground, are classified by Preyer as instinctive. The 

 time at which walking proper begins varies much with 

 different children, the limits being from S to 16 months. 

 When a child which is beginning to walk falls, it throws 

 its arms forwards to break the fall ; this action must be 

 instinctive. In the 24th month Preyer's child began spon- 

 taneously to dance to music and to beat time correctly. 



A chapter is devoted to imitative movements. At the 

 end of the 15th week the child would imitate the move- 

 ment of protruding the lips, at 9 months would cry on 

 hearing other children do so, and at 12 months used to 

 perform in its sleep imitative movements which had 

 made a strong impression while awake — e.g. blowing ; 

 this shows that dreaming occurs at least as early as the 

 first year. After the first year imitative movements are 

 more readily learnt than before. 



Shaking the head as a sign of negation was found by 

 Preyer, as by other observers, to be instinctive, and he 

 adopts Darwin's explanation of the fact — viz. that the 

 satisfied suckling in refusing the breast must needs move 

 its head from side to side. In the 17th month the child 

 exhibited a definite act of intelligent adjustment, for de- 

 siring to reach a toy down from a press it drew a travelling- 

 bag from another part of the room to stand upon. We 

 mention this incident because it exhibits the same level 

 of mental development as that of Cuvier's orang, which 

 on desiring to reach an object off a high shelf drew a 

 chair below the shelf to stand upon. Anger was ex- 

 pressed in the 10th month, shame and pride in the 19th. 



Between the 10th and nth month the first perception 

 of causality was observed. Thus on the 319th day the 

 child was beating on a plate with a spoon and accidentally 

 found that the sound was damped by placing the other 

 hand upon the plate ; it then changed its hands and 

 repeated the experiment. Similarly at 1 1 months it 

 struck a spoon upon a newspaper, and changed hands to 

 see if this would modify the sound. In some children, 

 however, the perception of causality to this extent occurs 

 earlier. The present writer has seen a boy when exactly 

 8 months old deriving much pleasure from striking the 

 keys of a piano, and clearly showing that he understood 

 the action of striking the keys to be the antecedent 

 required for the production of the sound. 



The third part of the book is concerned, as already 

 stated, with the development of the Understanding. 

 Here it is noticed that memory and recognition of the 

 mother' s voice occurs as early as the second month ; at 

 4 months the child cried for his absent nurse ; and at 

 18 months he knew if one of ten toy animals were re- 

 moved. In Preyer's opinion — and we think there can be 

 no question of its accuracy — the intelligence of a child 

 before it can speak a word is in advance of that of the 

 most intelligent animal. He gives numerous examples to 

 prove that a high level of reason is attained by infants 

 shortly before they begin to speak, and therefore that the 

 doctrine which ascribes all thought to language is 

 erroneous. 



Highly elaborate observations were made on the deve- 

 lopment of speech, the date at which every new articulate 

 sound was made being recorded. The following appear 

 to us the results under this head which are most worth 

 quoting. 



Instinctive articulation without meaning may occur as 

 early as the 7th week, but usually not till the end of the 

 first half year. Tones are understood before words, and 

 vowel sounds before consonants, so that if the vowel 

 sounds alone are given of a word which the child under- 

 stands (13 months), it will understand as well as if the 

 word were fully spoken. Many children before they are 

 six months old will repeat words parrot-like by mere 

 imitation, without attaching to them any meaning. But 

 this " echo-speaking ' ' never takes place before the first 

 understanding of certain other words is shown — never, 

 e.g. earlier than the 4th month. Again, all children which 

 hear but do not yet speak, thus repeat many words with- 

 out understanding them, and conversely, understand 

 many words without being able to repeat them. Such 

 facts lead Prof. Preyer to suggest a somewhat elaborate 

 schema of the mechanism of speech, both on its physio- 

 logical and psychological aspects ; but this schema we 

 have not sufficient space to reproduce. 



Although the formation of ideas is not at first, or even 

 for a considerable time, dependent on speech (any more 

 than it is in the case of the lower animals), it constitutes 

 the condition to the learning of speech, and afterwards 

 speech reacts upon the development of ideation. A child 

 may and usually does imitate the sounds of animals as 

 names of the animals which make them long before it 

 can speak one word, and, so far as Preyer's evidence 

 goes, interjections are all originally imitative of sounds. 

 Children with a still very small vocabulary use words 

 metaphorically, as "tooth-heaven" to signify the upper 

 gums, and it is a mistake to suppose that the first words 

 in a child's vocabulary are invariably noun- substantives, 

 as distinguished from adjectives or even verbs. As this 

 statement is at variance with almost universal opinion, 

 we think it is desirable to furnish the following corrobora- 

 tion. The present writer has notes of a child which 

 possessed a vocabulary of only a dozen words or so. The 

 only properly English words were " poor," " dirty," and 

 " cook," and of these the two adjectives, no less than the 

 noun-substantive, were always appropriately used. The 

 remaining words were nursery words, and of these "ta-ta" 

 was used as a verb meaning to go, to go out, to go away, 

 &c, inclusive of all possible moods and tenses. Thus, 

 for instance, on one occasion, when the child was wheel- 



