256 Animal Intelligence 
select from responses otherwise caused, or as a stimulus to 
habits already existing. First it will be said that clear, in- 
dubitable repetitions of words never practiced by the child, 
either as totals or in their syllables separately, do oceur,(— 
that children do respond by repeating a word in cases where 
full knowledge of all their previous habits would give no 
reason to expect them to make such a connection.) .) To this 
the only retort is that such observations should be based on 
a very delicate and very elaborate record of a child’s linguis- 
tic history, and that until they are so made, it is wise to 
withhold acceptance. 
The second objection is that the rapid acquisition of a 
vocabulary such as occurs in the second and third year is 
too great a task to be accomplished by the laws of exercise 
and effect alone. This objection is based on an overestima- 
tion of the variety of sounds which children of the ages in 
question make. For example, a child who says 250 words, 
including say 400 syllables, comprising say 300 syllables 
which, when properly pronounced, are distinguishable, may 
actually use less than 50 distinguishable syllables. Ba, may 
stand for the first syllable of father, water, barn, park and 
the like. Ki may stand for cry, climb, and even carry. 
For a child to say a word commonly means that he makes 
a sound which his intimate companions can recognize as his 
version of that word. A child who can produce something 
like each one of a thousand words upon hearing them, may 
do so from actual control over less than a hundred sylla- 
bles. If we suppose him to have acquired the habits, 
first, of saying something in such a case, second, of respond- 
ing to a certain hundred sounds when perceived or re- 
membered by making, in each case, a similar sound, and, 
third, of responding to any other sound when perceived or 
remembered, by making that sound of his own repertory 
