188 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



appearance of one of these relations in thought is so often accompanied 

 by a great delight in the new discovery, so that for some days or weeks 

 a child will constantly be asking ' Why,' or practising the possessive 

 relation by calling many things ' Daddy's hat, Mummy's coat, baby's 

 pram,' etc. The earliest grasping of the causal relation no doubt has 

 reference to living agency, and sometimes ' why ' and ' 'cos ' do not refer 

 to causes at all, but to purposes. But the idea of causal relation in 

 reference to physical things may possibly occur as early as 2 ; 11, when B 

 asked why we saw our reflections in a train window. 



The relation of attribution is implied in the correct application of 

 adjectives to nouns ; this can be confidently inferred only when the 

 conjunction is so unusual that one can be sure that the words were not 

 previously connected in speech by anyone in the hearing of the child. Tliis 

 I observed before two years. 



The relation of likeness must be grasped considerably before 2 ; 3, when 

 it was apprehended between complex fundamentals : thus ' Y's car do 

 like Daddy's car.' ' Daddy do like B does.' 



I had evidence in various matters that new mental processes most 

 readily arise when practical and spontaneous interests are aroused rather 

 than in the course of formal tests. But the difficult part-whole relationship 

 was ripe in Y at 3; 8, not only when she used ' part of ' correctly, but when 

 it was tested by the question : ' What is a part of me ? ' and she replied 

 ' You could have only your eyes.' 



The relation of evidence is perhaps the last to appear — at least to be 

 clearly revealed in explicit language. But it was evident in Y's conversa- 

 tion at 3 ; 2 when taking care of a baby guest : 



Y : ' I'm a big girl.' Father : ' No, you are a little girl.' 



Y : 'I look after the little girl. Well, then, I'm a big girl.' 

 Further notes make it clear that evidence may be explicitly referred 



to as such at the age of 3+. 



Thus we have all the possible relations apprehended by about three 

 years of age. Now Piaget says that before the age of 7 or 8 ' the child 

 is perhaps incapable — whether in narrative, argument, or in any of his 

 relations with other people — of differentiating between the various types 

 of possible relations (cause, consequence or logical justification) and of 

 handling them to good effect.'^" Undoubtedly up to that age the child 

 continues to make many errors in his use of these relations, as Piaget 

 clearly shows. What the study of much younger children reveals is that a 

 grasp of relations begins to appear at a much earlier age. 



Other statements of Piaget appear positively fantastic when one 

 examines the records of infant development. Thus he speaks of the 

 ' universal tendency of the child to avoid relations ' — though at two a child 

 may be positively obsessed with the causal relation as its repeated ' Why's ' 

 show. 



Again Piaget states that the child under seven is ' still ego-centric and 

 feels no desire to communicate with others or to understand them.'^^ My 

 notes reveal that the desire to communicate appears at least about the age 



1" Judgment and Reasoning in the Child, p. 19. 

 11 Language and Thought of the Child, p. 126. 



