November 13, 1885.] 



SCIUJVCM 



435 



INFANT PSYCHOLOGY. 



The modern, psychologist must be a very busy 

 man. We may suppose him to be a college pro- 

 fessor, introducing his students into the principles 

 of his science. Besides this, he is the director of a 

 psychophysical laboratory, where he subjects him- 

 self and others to tortuous and tedious experiments, 

 almost deserving the name of vivisection. More- 

 over, he must be intimate with the asylums for the 

 insane and the idiotic, in order to study the mind 

 in its morbid conditions ; he must be at home in 

 institutes for the blind and for deaf-mutes, in order 

 to appreciate the role played by each sense in the 

 sensual and intellectual life ; he must talk to the 

 inmates of prisons and poor-houses in order to un- 

 derstand the condition of those in whom the in- 

 stinct of morality and the power of the will are at 

 a low ebb ; he must be active in psychic research 

 and be ready to investigate the claims to unusual 

 mental faculties ; and now for what remains of his 

 time, he is called into the nursery. 



' Infant psychology ' (by which name we must 

 now know this field of study) has for its aim, the 

 tracing of the mental development, — the psychical 

 evolution, — of the infant from birth upward. The 

 literature of the science is as yet small ; every single 

 contribution, however, has been made by able 

 hands ; and the work of M. Perez ^ is a good type of 

 this new tendency in modem psychology. In his 

 former educational works as well as in his ingenious 

 study of his ' two cats ' (Mes deux chats), M. Perez 

 has proved himself possessed of an unusual psy- 

 chological acumen. We probably owe the appear- 

 ance of this book in an Enghsh dress to Mr. James 

 SuUy, who prefaces it with an appropriate introduc- 

 tion ; great credit is due to the translator (Ahce 

 M. Christie) for her careful and easy rendition. 



It would be impossible here to do more than in- 

 dicate the general Lines of interest pursued in the 

 book, and sample its method and wealth of facts. 



We may trace as many as five distinct interests 

 which such study furthers : — 



1. It interests the pyschologist, as an important 

 chapter in the study of mind, its psychogenesis. 



2. It interests the anthropologist, to whom the re- 

 markable analogy between the mental world of 

 the child and that of primitive savages, is rich in 

 suggestiveness. Impulsiveness and trascibfiity, to 

 give one of a host of examples, are seen almost in 

 the same aspect in savages and children. 3. It in- 

 terests the ahenist who finds, in the degeneration of 

 mental tissue as shown in liis insane patients, the 

 same mental peculiarities, but occurring in a reverse 

 order, as in the process of braiQ building in the 



1 The first three years of childhood. By Bernard Perez. 

 Translated by Alice M. Christie, with an introduction by 

 James Sully. London, Sonnenschein, 1885. 294 p. 



child. The earliest memories are the last to fade 

 away : the old man becomes childish. 4. It inter- 

 ests the student of comparative psychology, who 

 notes the strong resemblances between the reason- 

 ings of the child and those of the higher animals. 

 They faU into the same kind of errors and exhibit 

 the same kmd of peculiar tendencies; witness how 

 often a child is called a 'monkey,' or a 'pussy.' 

 5. Lastly it interests the educator. The human 

 child spends its first years in a condition of help- 

 lessness such as is seen ia no other animal. It 

 needs more watchfulness, more care, more educa- 

 tion. To give this education, in a rational way, re- 

 quires the study of the infant's mind, " for the car- 

 dinal principle of modern educational theory is, 

 that systematic training should watch the sponta- 

 neous movement of the child's mind and adapt its 

 processes to these" (Sully). — AU of these will find 

 that none of their points of view has been neglected 

 in this book. 



The scope of the work is wide : it covers really 

 everything that can be called psychic in the first 

 three years of life. Indeed the first chapter treats 

 of the ' Faculties of the infant before birth.' From 

 its first cry on entering this world (which Schopen- 

 hauer takes as a pessimistic omen), his first move- 

 ments, sensations, emotions, expression of will 

 power, all are recorded and from them his mental 

 status deduced. Systematic experiments are ar- 

 ranged and spontaneous movements and expres- 

 sions noticed as weU. The last chapters are de- 

 voted to the reasoning powers of children, their 

 language, their logic, their aesthetics, their ethics, 

 and, a very interesting point, their dramatic in- 

 stinct. 



Take the sense of taste for example. It is in the 

 sphere of this sense that the child's first pleasure is 

 felt, a few hours after birth, in the appeasing of 

 hunger. At an early period disgust through taste is 

 possible. A child 24 months old refused its bottle 

 with determination and a face of disgust, because 

 it was not sweetened with sugar. Illusions of taste 

 appear early. The taste of children changes easily, 

 which is a reason for not forcing them to eat 

 things against their inclination. Its most vivid 

 sentiments are for a long time connected with this 

 sense. "Their first affections are those of an epi- 

 cure ; their first feelings of gratitude are awakened 

 by the stomach ; they test their first tactile experi- 

 ences as much as possible by the sense of taste." 

 Everything goes to the mouth. " Pretty to look at, 

 and good to eat, are synonymous terms to babies." 

 We can see how largely their earhest mental hori- 

 zon is dominated by the feeling of hunger and the 

 sense of taste. 



The emotional life of the child begins early. 

 Fear is one of its first emotions. Darwin has 



