Further, all her curves were made by movements from left to right going upward and from right to left down- ward, like the movements of the hands of a clock (see the arrow-heads in Fig. V. a). This is the method of our usual writing as contrasted with 'back-hand.' She also preferred lateral to vertical movements on the paper. Her most frequent and easy ' drawing ' consisted of a series of rapid right and left strokes almost parallel to one another, constituting very narrow and long loops.
But early in the twenty-seventh month a change came. I drew a rough human figure, naming the parts in succes- sion as they were made: she suddenly seemed to catch the idea of tracing each part, and she now for the first time began to make figures with vertical and horizontal proportion; i.e., she followed the order she saw me take: ' head ' (circle), * body ' (ellipse) below, ' legs ' (two straight lines) further below, * hands ' (two lines) at the sides of Traccjy Imitation. Sy the body. It was all done in the crudest fashion, as would be expected from the lack of muscular co-ordina- tion. But the fact was unmistakable that with the sim- plification of the figure by breaking it up into parts had come also the idea of tracery imitation^ and its imperfect execution. By the ' idea ' of tracery imitation, I mean the sense of connection between what was visually in her own consciousness and the movement of her own hand or pencil. The visual pictures or copies had been there in all her previous trials, and so had the hand move- ments, both the sight of them and the muscular sensations; but there had been no sense of a connection between them and agreement in the result when they were com- pared.
As yet, however, it was limited to two or three copies — objects which she saw me make. That it was now not simply imitation of my movements is evident from the fact that she did not imitate my movements: she looked intently upon the figure which I made, not at my move- ments, and then strove to imitate the figure with move- ments of her own very different from mine. But she had not generalized the idea away from particular figures, for she could not trace at all an altogether new figure in right lines. Further, she traced these particular figures just as well without written copies before her: here, tJierefore, is the rise of the tracery imitation of the chilcV s ozvn vicntal pictiLve — a fact of great theoretical interest.
Fig. VI. reproduces the first successful imitation of a visual copy, the copy which she imitated being also given.
Figs. VII. and VIII. show further development in free- dom and complication.
88 Infants Movements.
A curious phenomenon, which has been noticed also by Passy^ in the drawings of much older children, was evident in H.'s attempts to extend her drawings to other objects. This is the tendency to neglect the new object or copy and (all in the order in which they were made).
Fig, VI. — First Successful Tracery Imitation: Dec. 8, 1891 (Last Week OF 27TH Month).
substitute for it in whole or part some drawing which she had already learned to make. For example, having ana- lyzed man after me into head, body, legs, and arms, this Tracery Iviitation, 89 became her scheme for drawing all other creatures. When told to draw a bird after a copy set before her, she gave it all these features, conforming them in a measure to the general shape of a bird, but putting two strokes at the a. With copy. b. Without copy.
Fig. VII. — Man: Dec. 13, 1891 (Last Day of 27TH Month).
sides for arms. I shall say more about this fact in the next section in discussing the origin of handwriting; it is also suggestive in connection with the rise of the general notion.^ 1 See below, Chap. XI., § i.
90 Infants Movements.
The differences to be seen by comparing a. and b. in each of the Figs. VI. and VIII. show the degree in which a. With copy.
b. Without copy.
Fig. VIII. — Late Drawings: Man (28TH Month). The Words written IN Figs. VII. a. and VIII. b. are from ihe Child's own Utterances, taken down at the Time, as she drew the Several Parts. The apparent facial outline in a. of this figure is, I think, purely ACCIDENTAL.
Interpretation of Tracery Iniitatiou. 91 the child was still dependent upon the external visual copy for the control of her imitation tracings. She copied her memory picture, at least when she had no external copy; but she controlled the reproduction by the copy, when she had it.
§ 2. Interpretation of Tracery Imitation: the Origin of Handwriting.
It is easily seen that the fact to which I have given the name ' tracery imitation ' lies at the basis of handwriting. It is clear that handwriting is acquired by imitation of a copy. Each letter is acquired by the tracing out of a form put before the child. There are two very distinct steps, however, in the acquisition of handwriting, the first of which is tracery imitation of an external copy; and the second is the similar imitation of a memory picture or form. The relation of these two things to each other and, with that, the general theory of handwriting, requires farther analysis. I shall depict in some detail the pro- gress of this function, since it serves to illustrate the gen- eral theory of the development of muscular control worked out in a later chapter.
The preliminary question as to how the child gets its visual apprehension of form may be answered, and has been, in two ways. Some hold that the actual form or arrangement of the retinal elements stimulated by the rays of light from the object seen is conveyed to con- sciousness by a series of * local signs ' — distinct quality of some kind which serves to distinguish each visual or anatomical point from every other. Others hold that the eye explores in its movement the outline of the object, and a constant succession of sensations of eye-movement 92 hifants Movemejits.
thus represents the particular form explored. It is safe to say that, whether one or both of these causes operate to give the child its form intuition, we can still say that there is a constant series of sensations from the eyes, which can be run over in one direction, or the reverse; this we may call the 'visual form series,' v, v\ v\ in the analysis of handwriting.
But the child, in setting out to draw, moves his hand, thus getting sensations from the hand itself according to its locality at this moment and at that If you consider the hand as moving slowly, it will be evident that there are touch sensations, joint sensations, muscle-tension sensa- tions, etc., giving together a certain massive sense of the locality of the hand as it goes from place to place. With no care as to the exact characters of these sensations, we may yet say that there is a series which is constant for the drawing of the outline of a plane figure; this series we may call the ' muscular form series,' denoted by?;/,;;/,;;/'.
But, further, the child has other means of finding out about movements than by the sensations from his own hand and arm. He sees other people's movements and his own. In this case of drawing, he is instructed in holding his pencil, sees his teacher move his pencil over the paper, sees his own arm and hand and pencil-point in each case. This, it is evident, gives a more or less exact additional series of eye sensations, according as the child is able by frequent following of the movements of others and himself to appropriate each such set of movements to a regular visual form. This third series of sensations in a particular case, we may call the 'optical movement series,' It is evident that the acquisition of writing involves all The Orighi of Handwritmg. 93 of these three scries; and it is easy to show that they are all present in our most rapid and careless writing. If one shut his eyes and write, he preserves the general form of the letters, but they are badly made compared with those which he makes when he sees his pen and follows its movement. This shows his dependence upon the 0 series. But he can still very greatly improve his penmanship if his paper be ruled, or more again if he write after a well- written copy; this shows the dependence, relatively slight, upon the v series. As to the revival of the v series also, as copies to w^hich to conform, cases of verbal blindness show that lesions of tlie optical brain centre may make it impossible for one to write at all.^ Further, if we try to write with the skin benumbed with cold, or on a surface which yields, the letters are made without form and thrown out of their due proportion. This in turn shows the continual presence of the in series.^ That a child gets his visual form (^') series first is proved from his recognition and even naming of figures, pictures, etc., before he draws them or sees them drawn. These series are at first few, but he gradually adds to them as the range of his exploration becomes wider and as familiar objects become in his experience more and more familiar. There is a constant tendency, therefore, from the random wandering of the eyes over many forms and over shape- less things, to concentration on interesting, familiar, and regular forms of things. So we may say there is a con- tinual growth and upbuilding of different v scries.
1 See cases cited by Brazier, Revue philosophique, October, 1892, p. 338.
2 See Goldscheider's demonstration of the importance of pressure sen- sations in handwriting, Physiologie ti. Pathologie der Handschrift, in Zeit- schrift fiir Psychiatric, XXIV., 1 892.
This is at the expense of the optical movement {p) series, as may be seen from the following considerations: At first the child follows all movements, which he sees, of himself and of others, with equal attention — his eye is a slave to movement anywhere and everywhere — his atten- tion is reflex and visual. He looks closely at his own movements. His visual figure series follows in conscious- ness the cue set by his optical movement series, term by term, thus: — \ < But when he learns, as I have said, to select his v series, he then reverses his association and so has to select out certain o series. He sees and attends to the movements that interest him, the things that concern him; he prefers the toys which his eye explores by preference. So, contin- ually, the 0 series get broken up and formed anew, accord- ing as the 0 elements are lined up anew under the lead of the V series, thus: — o; o\ o\ etc., \ \ etc.
< V, v\ v\ etc., \ \ \ \ < Oy o\ o\ etc Now there, in this association, is the rise of ' tracery im- itation ' in its crudest form; this reversal of association tween the o and the v elements. Its characteristics, as imitation, are merely the vaguest indications of direction and proportion. It utilizes no constant;;2 series; that is, no constant detailed series of hand and arm movements, but only the up and down, and right and left, movements acquired by the child in its early random exercises, to- The Origin of Handwriting. 95 gether with whatever more definite movements education may have produced. As I interpret it, H.'s ability sud- denly to * imitate ' my drawing of a man was largely the discovery that by a series of ordinary movements of her own which she saw {0 element), and which her random practice had made easy, she could bring about, in a meas- ure, what I did. Instead of her eye following the tracing left by the point of the pen (y series subordinated to 0 series), as formerly it did, she now found that her hand and pen, as she watched them, could follow the outline I had made, or her memory of it {p series subordinated to the V series).
Such as it is, however, tracery imitation is a long way from handwriting. And the essential difference is the introduction of sensations of movement {m series), whereby the operations of the hand are held in control. How, then, does the m series get its influence 1 Eye movements start in a chaotic random state, as we have seen, and only gradually take on the definite character of separate series, as the customary explorations, fixations, visual curiosities of experience serve to fix them. But arm movements are just the reverse. At first the arm is capable of very few movements, the elbow of one, and the fingers of none. Moreover, the joints are stiff, the movements to a degree inconvenient, and all ventures away from certain reactions provided for by native arrangements, are painful and unsuccessful. This means that the child starts with certain very definite arm movements (;;/ series). But this does not last. He gets limbered up. His;;/ series gets broken into units and recombined into new series. This is seen in the progress shown in H.'s series of draw- ings given above.
96 Infants Movements.
This prepares the way for a second victory of the v series. At first the hand must move in certain directions represented in consciousness by the scries m,;;/,;;/', etc.; the eye can move in any direction indifferently; so the eye follows the hand, and we have in consequence: — ) etc., \ \ \ etc.
But as the w's get broken up out of their native series, and the v'^ get tied together into series, there comes a con- flict for leadership followed by the reverse association: — Now certain muscular sensations {in elements) represent movements which, being also seen, have 0 elements attached to them. And we have already seen that tracery imitation requires a certain correspondence between relatively fixed V series and relatively free 0 series. The breaking up of the m series just described now makes it possible for more of these correspondences to occur, i.e., for more movements seen to describe figures seen. Now it is by the gradual increase of these correspondences, this practice and empha- sis into habit, that handwriting is built up with much effort.
There is, therefore, an extremely close association be- tween a visual figure series and the series of hand move- ments required to reproduce it. And this association between them is secured by the reproduction concomi- tantly through the seen hand movements {0 series) of a real figure which conforms to the original visual ideal The O rig in of Haudzvj^itinor, 97 by which tie whole is prompted. To complicate our illus- tration, this is what we finally get: — ^ V, V, V, V, et c, < 0, 0, 0, 0, etc., etc.
It is easy to see, therefore, that in handwriting the movements made are controlled by two different but con- curring agencies: first, the sensations in the arm and hand must be, point by point, those called for by the fast associations of movement with letter outlines. This ten- dency is actually so strong in the young child who has learned to make a few figures successfully, that it draws new objects like the old shapes, even v/hen they are really very different, and in spite of close attention to the plain copies put before them. And, second, the figure which the eye takes in as the pen point inscribes it, must also agree, point by point, with the outline figure which is held in consciousness and aimed at.
With the further development of handwriting, the per- formance tends to become independent of sight. In swift writing we use our eyes mainly to keep on the line and on the paper, not to see that the letters are made properly. As far as we do examine them, it is only to see that they fall within the limits of legibility; and we know so well about what our hand can do, that we rarely have occa- sion to revise a word once written. The muscular scries (;;/ series) becomes so delicately adjusted to the needs of the memory image of figure, of letter, and of word {y series), that a further optical test (p series) is not required.
98 Infants Movements, It is interesting to note, also, that this growing inde- pendence in the sensations of movement under practice and habit may go so far that the visual copy {y series) may be dispensed with altogether; this is shown to be true in pathological cases of alexia, or inability to read, which do not involve agraphia, or inability to write. In these cases we have the extreme motor type of verbal memory, emphasized by Strieker: persons who remember written words by the memory of the sensations involved in writing them.
A further fundamental question arises, however, when we come to examine the actual parallelism of the associ- ated series of elements involved. How does it come about that the child is able to secure the agreement, term by term, between the elements of the v and the in series respectively — the agreement by which this associa- tion is established t How does he get v with;;/, v with m\ v' with m\ in this regular way, and both in proper association with o, o\ o'\ etc. } This is the question of the possibility of any adaptation of movements to ends, whether voluntary or not. Its discussion is taken up later,^ and in that connection the general principles are given by which this case may be solved with others.
I need not go into the further questions of the pathology and abnormalities of handwriting, as this book is not writ- ten for purposes of exposition. The kinds and varieties of agraphia — inability to write, from nervous lesion — are well classified, on the basis of impairment of one or more of the elements involved, by Goldscheider, in the paper already quoted. His explanation of mirror-writing is, ^ It is the fundamental fact of motor adjustment or 'Accommodation,' to which I give the name ' organic selection,' below, Chap. VII.
The Origin of Haudiuriting. 99 however, so clearly a proof of the adequacy of the points in which his theory and mine agree, that I may briefly explain it.
Mirror-writing is the form of inscription which arises from tracing words with the left hand by an exact redupli- cation of the movements of the right hand, in a symmetri- cal way from the central point in front of the body, out toward the left. It produces a form of reversed writing which cannot be read until it is seen in a mirror. Many left-handed children tend to write in this way. Some adults, on taking a pen to write with the left hand, find they can write only in this way. Even those, like myself, to whom the movements seem, when thought of in visual terms, quite confusing and impossible, yet find, when they try to write with both hands together, in the air, from a central point right and left, that the left-hand mirror- writing movements are very natural and easy. Now, why is it t If a man is of the so-called 'visual' type, i.e., if he depends mainly on his v series, recalling, in his writing, the look of the letters, etc., and by comparing it with the resulting writing, conforming his movement series to it, then any movements which violate the figure presented by visual memory are unintelligible. Such a man must re- produce, with his left hand, the visual images as produced by the right. That is, he must write from left to right with both hands, which involves symmetrical movements. This represents the power of the v series to bring the movements of both hands into conformity to it. If, on the contrary, his vi series has grown independent by prac- tice, and he remembers written words not by the way they look mainly, but by the way it feels to write them — lOO Infants Movejnents.
if he is of the so-called ' motor ' type in his handwriting — then his left-hand writing must reproduce the series of muscular senations, as his right-hand writing has estab- lished them. This represents the power of movements established by one hand to carry the other hand also with it in a symmetrical way. His left-hand position must duplicate at each moment his right-hand position, when he comes to try the experiment of writing in the air with both hands. This gives symmetrical movements, with the two hands, which means mirror-writing with the left hand.^ The following notice and criticism of Goldscheider's paper, revised slightly from my earlier review ^ of it, may serve to show the difference between my theory and his, and at the same time sum up the foregoing discussion.
Goldscheider gives first a theoretical account of the origin of what I have called ' tracery imitation ' under the equivalent phrase malende Reproduction, endeavouring to account for the association between visual pictures (letters, figures, etc.) and the hand movements necessary to reproduce them (as in drawing, writing, etc.). He finds three factors or * moments ' in the rise of tracery imitation: ^ ^, an optical picture of the hand movements required for making the required figure (pptische Vorstel- liing der Handbezveginig; my o series), derived from the child's earlier sight of his own and others' hand move- 1 This has been held by Fechner and others to be a strong proof that the discharge of energy into one side of the body tends to stimulate the corre- sponding members of the other side to similar movements {Mi(bewegungen). I have mentioned above (p. 65) that my experiments on the infant's use of its hands confirm this view.
2 Ajuerican yotirn. of Psychology, V., 1893, 420-422.
3 See p. 587 of the art. cited, where he gives a resume.
The Orighi of Handwriting. loi mcnts; B, a series of new motor discharges ctrengthencd by practice, felt as C, a series of sensations of actual movement, by which the discharges are regulated and controlled {jiiotoriscJics Bczvcguiigsbild; my;;/ series). Moment A is clearly seen in the fact often remarked, that in writing with the eyes closed we still follow the pen point in its inscription of an optical outline. Further, in moment A there are two factors: first, constant memo- ries {Bilder) from each position, and each amount and direc- tion of movement of the member (my m series); and second, optical presentations of the same positions and movements. Here we have, therefore, movements both felt and seen. Tracery imitation then consists in the fact that new movements are held, through the sensations they give, into conformity to the series established by being both felt and seen.
This, it is at once seen, leaves out of account altogether the visual figure series (my v series) estabHshed altogether independently of hand movements. Goldscheider's theory is, therefore, in so far inadequate, for it assumes tracery imitation, i.e., it supposes that the hand has already gone over the figure to be imitated, giving moment A (requisite movements both felt and seen). But the question remains behind this: How were such series selected from other movements felt as well as seen.^ How does the optical presentation of figure {optisches Bild des Gestaltes) get associated point by point with the twofold series {in series and o series) represented by Goldscheider's moment A? Goldscheider does not take account of the fact that visual recognition of figure (letters, pictures, etc.) is definitely established long before the child is able or has any ten- dency to try to trace them, as has been shown above. He I02 Infants Movements.
is wrong, accordingly, in identifying the original optical figure series with the optical hand movement series.
The question at issue then is: How does the purely visual figure series {y series) come to stimulate the two series which originate from the movement {in and o series). My observations show — to sum up the foregoing pages — that the process is as follows: As the child's experience widens, its optical perception of figure grows exact, so that certain retinal or eye movement series grow more and more fixed. At this period the arm and hand movement series, at first few and fixed, are broken up with the increasing mobility of the member. Consequently, (i) from the arm movement sensations those elements are emphasized which represent movements seen as well as felt, and (2) from the latter those are further emphasized which produce results identical with elements in certain definite figure series already established by the eye. This reproduction of vis- ual figure elements, by movements which are both seen and felt, establishes firmly the association between the movement sensations {in series) and the figure presenta- tions {y series), and the optical memories of the hand movements {p series) tend to fall away.
The validity of my analysis as opposed to that of Gold- scheider rests them upon the evidence that the child has a sense of figure established first by vision alone. Several points may be cited in support of this view: i. The child recognizes letters, pictures, etc., before it is able to trace them or speak their equivalents. 2. We can trace figures by movements of the head, foot, trunk, etc., — movements which we cannot see. If our sense of figure is indepen- dent of any particular thing that moves, it is easy to see how this is possible. If, on the contrary, the sense of The Oi^igiii of Handiuriting. 103 figure is derived entirely from movements both felt and seen, it is difficult to see how such accomplishments are to be accounted for. 3. In memories of actual writing, for example, my autograph, I, for one, picture clearly the way the letters look as they are left by the pen on the paper, and also the sensations of movement in the hand and arm: but hardly at all the way the hand or pen movements look at the successive stages of the signature.
4. In the case of writing, a blind man has no series cor- responding to the look of the actual movements to those who see: he writes by the association between his move- ment sensations and the touch figure series which corre- sponds to the visual figure series of the man who sees.^ 5. In another analogous case, the child's learning to speak, there are only two elements, the auditory series, in the case, we will say, of the gutturals, which infants some- times learn first, and the sound series which results from the child's own voice (omitting the movement sensations which are not in question); there is no hearing of the movements of speech in addition to the hearing of the sounds spoken, i.e., nothing at all corresponding to Gold- scheider's optical hand movement series, considered as dis- tinct from the resulting visual figure series. In hearing, accordingly, the auditory sound ' copy ' series corresponds to my visual figure ' copy ' series.
1 Cf. Broadbent's remarks on the writing of the blind, Brit. Med. yoiirn., CHAPTER VI.
Suggestion. § I. General Definition.
The rise of hypnotism in late years has opened the way to an entirely new method of mental study. The doctrine of reflexes was before largely physiological, and only path- ological cases could be cited in evidence of a mechanism in certain forms of consciousness as well as out of it; and even pathological cases of extreme sensitiveness to casual susfSiestion from the environment or from other men did not receive the interpretation which the phenomena of hypnotic suggestion are now making possible, i.e., that suggestion by idea, or through consciousness, must be recognized to be as fundamental a kind of motor stim- ulus as the direct excitation of a sense organ. Nervous reflexes may work directly through states of conscious- ness, or be stimulated by them; these states of con- sciousness may be integral portions of such reflexes; and, further, a large part of our mental life is made up of a mass of such ideo-motor * suggestions,' which are nor- mally in a state of subconscious inhibition.
Without discussing the nature of the hypnotic state in the first instance, nor venturing to pass judgment in this connection upon the question whether the suggestion theory is sufficient to explain all the facts, we may yet General Definition. 105 isolate the aspect spoken of above, and discuss its general bearings in the normal life, especially of children. Of course, the question at once occurs, is the normal life a life to any degree of ideo-motor or suggestive reactions, or is the hypnotic sleep in this aspect of it, quite an artificial thing? Further, if such suggestion is normal or typical in the mental life, what is the nature of the inhibition by which it is ordinarily kept under — in other words, what is its relation to what we call will? Leaving this second question altogether unanswered for the present,^ it has occurred to me to observe children, especially my own H. and E., during their first two years, to see if light could be thrown upon the first inquiry above. If it be true that ideo-motor suggestion is a normal thing, then early child life should present the most striking analogies to the hyp- notic state in this essential respect. This is a field that has hitherto, as far as I know, been largely unexplored by workers in the psychology of suggestion.