etc., — are broken at the centre by deliberation, habitual desire, choice, etc., and closed again by a conscious volun- tary act. The subject hears a sound, identifies it, and presses a button — if lie cJioose and agree to do so. What goes on in this interval between the advent of the incoming nerve process and the discharge of the outgoing nerve proc- ess? Something, at any rate, which represents a brain process of great complexity. Now, anything that fixes this sensori-motor connection or simplifies the central process, in so far gives greater certainty to the results. For this reason, experiments on reflex reactions are valuable and decisive where similar experiments on voluntary reactions are uncertain and of doubtful value. Now the fact that the child consciousness is relatively simple, and so offers a field for more fruitful experiment, is illustrated in what is said in the following pages about suggestion in infant life; it is also seen in the mechanical reactions of an infant to strong stimuli, such as bright colors, etc.^ Of course, this is the point where originality must be exer- cised in the devising and executing of experiments. After the subject is a little better developed, new experimentation will be as difficult here as in the other sciences; but at present the simplest phenomena of child life and activity are open to the investigator.
With this inadequate review of the advantages of infant psychology, it is well also to point out the dangers of the abuse of such a branch of inquiry. Such dangers are real. The very simplicity which seems to characterize the life of the child is often extremely misleading, and misleading because the simplicity in question is not always typical, 1 See below, Chaps. III. to VI.
lo Infant and Race Psychology.
but may be to a degree individual. Mr. Spencer had a large range of facts in view when he said that organic development involved progress not only in complexity, but also in dcfiniteness; and the distinction between simplic- ity which indicates mere absence of complexity, and that which indicates dcfiniteness of function as well, applies with great force to mental growth. Two nervous reactions may appear equally simple; but one maybe an adaptive reaction learned with great pains and really very complex in its elements, while the other may be inadaptive and really simple. So a state of infant consciousness may seem to involve no complexity or integration, and yet turn out to represent, by very apparent reason of its sim- plicity and dcfiniteness, a mass of individual or race experi- ence. It is a corollary from this that children differ under the law of heredity very remarkably, even in the simplest manifestations of their conscious lives. It is never safe, except under the qualifications mentioned below, to say, 'This child did, consequently all children must.' The most we can usually say in observing single infants is, 'This child did, consequently another child may.' Yet the uncertainties of the case may be summed up and avoided if certain principles of mental development are kept in view.
I. In the first place, we can fix no absolute time in the history of the mind at which a certain mental function takes its rise. The observations, now quite extensively recorded, and sometimes quoted as showing that the first year, or the second year, etc., brings such and such devel- opments, tend, on the contrary, to show that such divisions do not hold in any strict sense. Like any organic growth, the nervous system may develop faster under more favourhifajit PsycJiology: Ojitogeiicsis, 1 1 able conditions, or more slowly under less favourable; and the growth of mental faculty is largely dependent upon such organic growth. Only in broad outline and by the widest generalization can such epochs be marked off at all.
2. The possibility of the occurrence of a mental phe- nomenon must be distinguished from its necessity. The occurrence of a single clearly observed event is decisive only against the theory according to which its occurrence under the given conditions may not occur; that is, the cause of the event is proved not to lie among agencies or conditions which are absent. For example: the very early adaptive movements of the infant in receiving its food cannot be due to volition; but the case is still open as to the question what is the sufficient reason of their presence, i.e., how much nervous development is present, how much experience is necessary, etc. It is well to emphasize the fact that one case may be decisive in over- throwing a theory, but the conditions are seldom simple enough to make one case decisive in establishing a theory.
3. It follows from the principle of growth itself that the order of development of the mental functions is constant, and normally free from variation; consequently, the most fruitful observations of children are those which show that such a function was present before ajiother could be ob- served. The complexity becomes finally so remarkable that there seems to be no before or after at all in mental things; but if the child's processes show stages in which any element is clearly absent, we have at once light upon the law of growth. For example: if a single case is conclu- sively established of a child's drawing an inference before it begins to use words or significant vocal sounds, the one 12 Infant and Race Psychology.
case is as good as a thousand to show that thought de- velops to a degree independently of spoken language.^ 4. While the most direct results are acquired by syste- matic experiments with a given point in view, still general observations kept regularly, and carefully recorded, are important for the interpretation which a great many such records may afford in the end. In the multitude of expe- riences here, as everywhere, there is strength. Such ob- servations should cover everything about the child, — his movements, cries, impulses, sleep, dreams, personal pref- erences, muscular efforts, attempts at expression, games, favourites, etc., — and should be recorded in a regular day- book at the time of occurrence. What is important and what is not, is, of course, something to be learned; and it is extremely desirable that any one contemplating such observations should acquaint himself beforehand with the principles of general psychology and physiology, espe- cially the former, and seek also the practical advice of a trained observer.^ § 2. Race Psychology: Phylogenesis.
If we adopt a distinction in terminology which the biol- ogists use, and call the development of a single life or mind its ontogenesis, and, on the other hand, call the life history of the race, or of consciousness in all the forms of animal life, the pJiylogenesis of mind, it will be seen that what I have said about infant psychology falls under the ^ Yet even this rule is subject to the modifications given below in this chap- 2 I hope, in another work, devoted to ' Interpretations ' of some of the prin- ciples which this book discusses, to give some practical directions to readers who desire to observe children usefully; see also Chap. XII., § 3, below.
Infant Psychology: Phylogenesis, 1 3 former head. Before we proceed to take up the special questions to which this book is devoted, it may be well to indicate the place of phylogenetic inquiry.
The phrase 'Race Psychology' is commonly used in a narrow sense, having reference to the characteristic men- tal peculiarities of various peoples, tribes, stages of civili- zation, cults, etc. That is, the word 'race' is applied to the human race. The points of comparison, on the other hand, between human and animal consciousness, fall under so-called Comparative Psychology. I take the liberty, however, of extending the meaning of the former phrase to include the history of consciousness, very much as the phrase 'race experience' is used to include the full wealth of inheritance derived, as it is held to be, from ancestral life of whatever kind. The problem of ' race psychology ' then becomes the problem of the phylogenetic develop- ment of consciousness, just as 'individual psychology' deals with its ontogenetic development, both being legiti- mate branches of genetic as opposed to functional psy- chology.
The question of race psychology, as thus understood, is an extremely important and, until very lately, a greatly neglected question. The presumption in favour of mental phylogenesis, arising from the modern evolution theory in biology, cannot be duly weighed without the most careful and detailed comparative work and the fairest interpreta- tion of the concomitance existing between nervous and mental growth everywhere. As far as theoretical human psychology has to do with questions of the nature of mind, as opposed to questions of function, it is, I hold, largely independent of questions of origin; but in as far as data of origin must be included in the answer to questions of 14 Infant and Race Psychology.
function, just so far do they come to throw Hght on the deeper problems of the nature of the mind as vvell.^ Assuming, then, that there is a phylogenetic problem, — that is, assuming that mind has had a natural history in the animal series, — we are at liberty to use what we know of the correspondence between nerve process and conscious process, in man and the higher animals, to arrive at hypotheses for its solution i^ to expect general analogies to hold between nervous development and mental develop- ment, one of which is the deduction of race history epochs from individual history epochs through the repetition of phylogenesis in ontogenesis, called in biology 'Recapitu- lation'; to view the plan of development of the two series of facts taken together as a common one in race history, as we are convinced it is in individual history by an over- whelming weight of evidence; to accept the criteria estab- lished by biological research on one side of this corre- spondence, — the organic, — while we expect biology to accept the criteria established on the other side by psy- chology; and, finally, to admit with equal freedom the possibility of an absolute beginning of either series at points, if such be found, at which the best conceived criteria on either side fail of application. For example: if biology has the right to make it a legitimate problem whether the organic exhibits a kind of function over and ^ For further remarks on ' Origin vs. Nature,' see the Preface.
2 Such a hypothesis is that of a 'uniform psycho-physical connection' which is commonly held to apply in two great spheres in which it has not as yet been proved, viz., the sphere of volition (see, however. Chapter XIV. below) on the one hand, and that of the lower nervous centres on the other. The two questions which uniformity supposes answered in the affirmative are accordingly: has volition a nervous process? and, do the lower nervous ganglia have consciousness?
Analogies of Development. 15 above that supplied by the chemical affinities which are the necessary presuppositions of life, then the psychologist has the equal right, after the same candid rehearsal of the facts in support of his criteria, to submit for examination the claim, let us say, that 'judgments of worth' represent a kind of deliverance which vital functions as such do not give rise to.
The chapters of this book will be found, in various places, to involve all these determinations respecting ge- netic psychology. One of them, however, — that which relates to the analogy between individual and race growth, — carries so many preliminary suggestions and yet has received so little enforcement in the literature of the topic, that it is well to present it at the outset with greater fulness.
§ 3. Analogies of Development.
Students of biology consider the argument for organic evolution especially strong in view of the analogy between race and individual development. The individual in em- bryo passes through stages which represent morphologi- cally, to a degree, the stages actually found in the ancestral animal series.^ A similar analogy, when inquired into on the side of consciousness, seems on the surface true, since we find more and more developed stages of conscious func- tion in a series corresponding in the main with the stages of nervous growth in the animals; and then we find this growth paralleled in its great features in the mental devel- opment of the human infant.
1 A recent popular statement of the facts in the case of the embryos of the frog and man is given by Kingsley in the article ' Evolution,' in Johnson''s Universal Cyclopcedia (new edition, 1894).
1 6 Infant and Race Psychology.
The race series seems to require, both on organic grounds and from evidence regarding consciousness, a de- velopment whose major terms are somewhat in this order,^ i.e., simple contractility with the organic analogue of pleas- ure and pain; nervous integration corresponding to special sense functions, including the congeries of muscular sen- sations, and some adaptive movements; nervous integra- tion to a degree to which corresponds mental presentation of objects with higher motor organization and reflex atten- tion; greater co-ordination, having on the conscious side memory, conscious imitation, impulse, instinct, instinctive emotion; finally, cerebral function with conscious thought, voluntary action, and ideal emotion. Without insisting on the details of this sketch — intended at this point for no more than a sketch — certain great epochs of functional differentiation may be clearly seen. First, the epoch of the rudimentary sense processes, the pleasure and pain process, and simple motor adaptation, called for conven- ience the ' affective epoch ': second, the epoch of pre- sentation, memory, imitation, defensive action, instinct, which passes by gradations into, third, the epoch of complex presentation, complex motor co-ordination, of conquest, of offensive action, and rudimentary volition.
These, the second and third together, I should charac- terize, on the side of consciousness, as the ' epoch of objective reference': and, finally, the epoch of thought, reflection, self-assertion, social organization, union of forces, co-operation; the 'epoch of subjective reference,' which, in human history, merges into the 'social and ethical epoch.'
In the animal world these terms form a series — evident ^ Some of these points have discussion in later chapters.
Analogies of Development. i 7 enough on the surface — its terms not sharply divided from one another, not in most instances exclusive before and after; but representing great places for emphasis, stages of safe acquirement, and outlooks for further growth. So we find the invertebrates, the lower verte- brates, the higher vertebrates up to, or somewhere near, man, and man — four stages.
The analogy of this series, again, with that of the infant's growth, is, in the main, very clear: the child begins in its prenatal and early post-natal experience with blank sensations and pleasure and pa4n with the motor adaptations to which they lead, passes into a stage of apprehension of objects with response to them by 'sug- gestion,' imitation, etc., gets to be more or less self-con- trolled, imaginative, and volitional, and ultimately becomes reflective, social, and ethical.
On the side of consciousness, however, we are able safely to divide our functional epochs a little more mi- nutely, and in those of the following chapters in which ontogenetic development is our main point of inquiry, this is done.
A single further distinction is in point here, however; a distinction also further justified in a subsequent connec- tion.^ It is evident that if the objective epoch precedes the subjective — if the child gets objects and reacts upon them without reflection, first, and only later deliberates upon their meaning to himself, and then aims at his own pleasure or profit in his behaviour toward them — it is evident that there will be a great difference between the way he looks at other persons at these two stages of his 1 Below, Chap. VI., §3, and Chap. XI., § 3; also the volume of 'Inter- pretations' which is to follow this work {in loc).
C 1 8 Infant and Race Psychology.
growth respectively. Before he understands himself, that is, during the objective epoch, he cannot understand others, except as they are also objects of a certain kind; but in learning to understand himself, he also comes to understand them, as like himself, that is, as themselves having objects to act toward and upon just as he does. Here are, there- fore, four very distinct phases of the child's experience of persons not himself, all subsequent to his purely affective or pleasure-pain epoch; first, persons are simply objects, parts of the material going on to be presented, mainly sensations which stand out strong, etc.; second, persons are very peculiar objects, very interesting, very active, very arbitrary, very portentous of pleasure or pain. If we con- sider these objects as fully presented, i.e., as in due rela- tionship to one another in space, projected out, and thought of as external, and call such objects again projects, then persons at this stage may be cdW^d persojial projects. They have certain peculiarities afterwards found by the child to be the attributes of personality; third, his own actions issuing from himself, largely by imitation, as we shall see, in response to the requirements of this 'projective' en- vironment, having his own organism as their centre and his own consciousness as their theatre, give him light on himself as subject; and, fourth, this light upon himself is reflected upon other persons to illuminate them as also subjects, and they to him then become ejects or social fellows.
I insist upon this series of distinctions here, even though it be necessary to refer the reader ahead in my text for further justification of them; since it is the fundamental disregard of them which has vitiated most of the earlier work in infant and social psychology. The familiar * psy- Analogies of Develop77ient, 19 chologist's fallacy,' a fallacy which is so easy a refuge for inadequate insight, and so ready a screen for faulty analy- sis, will be permanently exposed only by the adoption of terms which forbid appeal to it. If by ' project ' of per- sons we understand the infant's consciousness of others before he is conscious of himself, by * subject ' his con- sciousness of himself, and by 'eject,' as Clifford sug- gested, his consciousness of other persons as similar to himself, we have, I think, safer terms than before and, at the same time, full opportunity to define the content of each as the facts may require.
The parallelism with animal development is quite clear from this new point of approach. The only stage for which an evident analogy has not been pointed out by other writers is that called 'projective.' Now in the fact of herding, common life and arrangements for the protec- tion of the herd, animal societies of various kinds, animal division of labour, etc., — whatever be the origin of it, — we have what seems to be such an epoch in animal life. These creatures show a real recognition of one individual by another, and a real community of life and reaction, which is quite different from the individualism of a purely sensational and unsocial consciousness. And yet it is just as different from the reflective organization of human society, in which the self-consciousness and personal voli- tion of the individual play the most important role.^ I see no way of accounting for the gregarious instinct anywhere, except on the assumption of such an epoch of animal consciousness.
We thus reach what I think is a valuable distinction in 1 The ' social ' life of certain of the hymenoptera, notably bees and ants, illustrates an extreme * projective ' social development embodied in instinct.
20 Iiifaiit and Race Psychology.
the interpretation of animal action, and avoid what has been a repetition of the ' psychologist's fallacy ' habitual with naturalists. It is just as great a mistake to account for human society in terms of the gregarious instinct of wolves, while yet not accounting for this instinct, as it is to explain human reflective altruism by the organic sympathy of the lioness with her cub. In each of these cases we are anticipating a later stage of a single process of growth, because, being at this later stage ourselves, we are able to anticipate it; and by thus levelling the higher down to the lower, we are failing to recognize the essential process by which, and by which alone, all through the whole organic evolution, higher functional forms are reached by develop- ment from lower.
Even in the great darkness which obscures the relation of race to individual development, two modifications seem plainly necessary of the common biological theory of Re- capitulation, according to which there is a strict parallel between them.^ I. The continued application of the principles of organic Habit and Accommodation, with the perpetuation of their results either by natural selection alone or with the in- heritance of characters acquired by individual creatures, leads to certain organic 'short-cuts' — the omission in fu- 1 See also Chap. XVI., § 4, below. Perhaps the best and most readable statement of the present standing of the theory of * Recapitulation ' is the late Prof. A. M. Marshall's President's Address before the British. Association at Leeds in 1890, reprinted as Chap. XIII., 'The Recapitulation Theory,' in Ma.Tsh2i\Vs £io/ogtcat Lectures amt Actresses (iSg4.). The names associated with the theory are Ernst von Baer, Louis Agassiz, Fritz MUUer, Haeckel, and Balfour.
VatHations in Ontogeny.
21 ture descendants of certain elements or stages which were necessary in the progress of their ancestors.
Let us look first at Habit, and put the case, at the out- set, abstractly. A particular function involving elements a, b, c, etc., in a dog, for example, may, by the habitual exercise of this function, in later modes of life and differ- ent environment, come to involve only the elements a, c, etc. This is actually seen in well-known examples, such as the difference between dogs, together with rabbits and lower creatures generally, on one side, and monkeys and men on the other side, in regard to certain sense func- tions. If the cortical centre for sight be extirpated in a dog, he becomes temporarily blind, recovering his sight after some days by what is supposed to be the reinstate- ment of a lower centre in the function which belonged to it in ancestral forms; this lower centre is the b of the Uy b, c, series. But when monkeys or men lose their sight by reason of a lesion of the cortical centre for vision in the occipital lobe, they never recover it. In this case the lower centre has lost its ability to constitute itself a sight centre, — it is no longer necessary as a term in the series of organs involved in the function, — and a, c, etc., represents the series. This 'short-cut ' is inherited or selected and so represents a departure from phylogeny. As I have said elsewhere: " In organisms in which the reflex reactions predominate, in which the ' downward ' growth has led to the consolidation of the greater part of the system in ganglionic centres, we would expect that the higher func- tions, the centres for complex delicate movements, would be more dependent and unformed. Consequently, when they are interfered with, the ganglionic centres, being still in close anatomical connection with them, would regain 2 2 Infant and Race Psychology.
the function whicli they formerly performed. Thus sensori- motor ganglionic connections which have fallen into disuse through the growth of higher centres recover their lost activity under the stimulus of a serious and dangerous lesion. It is nothing more than a reversion of function by a reverse process of adaptation. On the other hand, in the case of man, the law of ' upward ' growth has reached its fullest application; the cortical centres have become independent of their ganglionic cojifrhrs, and, in the loss of the former an irreparable damage is sustained. In this latter case, it is a general in the army who has fallen, and no subordinate officer can fill his place; in the former case, it is a captain that is lost and his lieutenant is easily promoted." ^