22 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. VIII. No. 183. 



He is to assume the duties of tlie position in 

 April, 1899. 



On the recommendation of the General Board 

 of Studies of Cambridge University a Univer- 

 sity lectureship in chemical physiology was es- 

 tablished without a stipend for the present. 



DISCUSSION AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



ON THE EARLY SENSE OF SELF. 



To THE Editor of Science : Professor G. 

 Stanley Hall, in the last American Journal of 

 Psychology, asks (p. 354) some questions on the 

 early sense of self, which we may briefly answer 

 on the basis of evolutional psychology. 



1. "In the first contact of hand and mouth 

 •does the latter feel the former first and most, 

 or vice versa'}" We answer that the mouth 

 feels the hand first and most, because the mouth 

 is the earlier integrated tactual organ in the 

 history of life. The hand as locomotive organ 

 modified for grasping, only gradually becomes 

 tactile in the race and individual. The hand 

 is merely one object of the many which the 

 child brings to the mouth for interpretation, and 

 so it mouths the hand rather than handles the 

 mouth. The child comes by the peculiar plexus 

 of sensations involved to understand its hand as 

 a diiferent kind of object from its rattle, namely, 

 as a self-object, a part of the somatic self. 



2. " Does the eye first find the hand because 

 the eye moves, or because the head moves, and 

 does a motor or a sensory process lead ? " As 

 head-moving as method of vision direction is 

 earlier integrated than eye-moving, we should 

 expect the infant to employ head-moving first, 

 and most largely for some time ; and for the 

 same reason motor process would lead. We 

 should expect (as p. 351 instances) that the 

 child would first have its attention called to its 

 hands, not through sensations therefrom like 

 temperature or muscular, but by a general 

 movement of hands happening to occur in the 

 field of vision. More thorough studies of in- 

 fants with reference to head-moving and eye- 

 moving ought to be made, and especially to 

 learn at what age its attention may be directed 

 to its fingers by, e.g., merely pinching them. 



3. " What social and ethical factors are in- 

 volved in the child's scolding and punishing 



naughty hands?" The social factor, imitation, 

 is evident, and the ethical factor of the respon- 

 sibility of the hand for its own acts before it 

 is fully incorporated into the somatic self is 

 also evident. The child who says, when 

 reproached and punished for pushing over a 

 vase, ' I did not do it, hand did it,' is not neces- 

 sarily falsifying, but often telling the exact 

 truth about the instinctive independency of the 

 hand in its impulse to grasp and push. The 

 child has no memory of acting through his 

 hand, and practically did not, and hence 

 properly blames and punishes the hand. Far 

 more than the adult realizes, the hand with the 

 very young acts in grasping, touching, etc., in- 

 stinctively and independently, and only very 

 gradually comes in action to be a part of the 

 real self. The parent who exclaims to the 

 child : ' naughty hand ! ' and punishes the hand, 

 only helps to keep apart in the child's mind the 

 hand-self and the real self; whereas the child 

 should be helped to incorporate its organs into 

 its real self as fast as possible. Pedagogically 

 this is a matter of considerable importance. 



4. "Have we, so far, instinct, feeling, will, 

 reason, attention, or mere automatism ?" The 

 earliest sense of self in child life is, no doubt, 

 instinctive, in that it comes spontaneously at 

 the impulse of a vast heredity. A reference of 

 all things to the self, a constant interpretation 

 of environment as to its action on the self, is 

 implied in the whole struggle of existence, and 

 strengthens till it becomes thoroughly integ- 

 rated, that is, becomes instinct. It is plain that 

 the self-unconscious, self-forgetful animal would 

 not have the least chance of survival ; but a 

 continual alertness for self is the prime requi- 

 site, though the self at the first is undoubtedly 

 very indefinite. The child in its earliest, most 

 subjective experiences, wherein is the merest 

 glimmer of object, namely, in the primitive 

 flashes of pain and pleasure, awakes to itself, 

 and its general struggling repeats earliest life. 

 In these subjective experiences the child builds 

 an ego long before it constructs a definite 

 somatic self of hands, feet, etc., which, indeed, 

 are not felt as me, but mine. That is, the 

 somatic self is not the primary and real self, 

 but the child learns the several members as 

 standing in a peculiar relation to its own ex- 



