Now it is clear that the animals have this sense of make-believe in their games both with other animals and with man. The dog plays at biting the hand of his master, and actually takes the member between his teeth and mumbles it; but all the while he stops short of painful pres- sure, and goes through a series of characteristic attitudes which show that he distinguishes very clearly between this play biting and the real. If perchance the master shows signs of being hurt, the dog falls into attitudes of sorrow, and apolo- gizes fulsomely. So also when the animals play together, a vigorous squeal from a companion who is " under " generally brings him his release.
46 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
The principal interest of this make-believe consciousness is that it is considered by many to be an essential ingredient of ^Esthetic feeling. A work of art is said to have its effect through its tendency to arouse in us a make-believe ac- ceptance of the scene or motive presented, while it nevertheless remains contrasted with the re- alities of our lives. If this be true, the interest- ing question arises how far the animals also have the germs of ^Esthetic feeling in their make-be- lieve situations. Does the female pea-fowl con- sider the male bird, with all his display of colour and movement, a beautiful object? And does the animal companion say: How beautiful! when his friend in the sport makes a fine feint, and comes up serene with the knowing look, which the human on-looker can not fail to understand?
In some cases, at any rate, we should have to reply to this question affirmatively, if we con- sidered make-believe the essential thing in aesthet- ic enjoyment.
Theories of Animal Play. — The question of the meaning and value of play to the animals has had very enlightening discussion of late. There are two principal theories now advocated.
I. The older theory considered play simply the discharge of surplus nerve force in the ani- mal's organism. He was supposed to play when he felt fresh and vigorous. The horse is "skit- tish" and playful in the morning, not so much so at night. The dogs lie down and rest when they are tired, having used up their surplus energies. This is called the Surplus-Energy Theory of play.
The difficulty with this theory is that it is not adequate to explain any of the characteristics of THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 47 play which have been given above. Why should play be instinctive in its forms, showing certain complex and ingrained channels of expression, if it were merely the discharge of surplus force? We are more lively in the morning, but that does not explain our liking and indulging in certain sorts of complex games at all hours. Moreover, animals and children will continue to play when greatly fatigued. A dog, for example, which seems ab- solutely "used up," can not resist the renewed solicitations of his friends to continue the chase. Furthermore, why is it that plays are character- istic of species, different kinds of animals having plays quite peculiar to themselves? It is difficult to see how this could have come about unless there had been some deeper-going reason in ac- cordance with which each species has learned the particular forms of sport in which it indulges.
The advocates of this theory attempt to meet these objections by saying that the imitative in- stinct accounts for the particular directions in which the discharges of energy occur. A kitten's plays are like those of the cat tribe because the kitten is accustomed to imitate cats; when it falls to playing it is with cats, and so it sheds its superfluous energies in the customary imitative channels. In this way it grows to learn the games of its own species. There is a good deal in this point; most games are imitative in so far as they are learned at all. But it does not save the theory; for many animal plays are not learned by the individual at all, as we have seen above; on the contrary, they are instinctive. In these cases the animal does not wait to learn the games of his tribe by imitation, but starts-right-in on his own account. Besides this there are many 5 48 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
forms of animal play which are not imitative at all. In these the animals co-operate, but do not take the same parts. The young perform actions in the game which the mother does not.
All this goes to support another and most serious objection to this theory — in the mind of all those who believe in the doctrine of evolution. The Surplus-Energy Theory considers the play- impulse, which is one of the most widespread char- acters of animal life, as merely an accidental thing or by-product — a mere using-up of surplus energies. It is not in any way important to the animals. This makes it impossible to say that play has come to be the very complex thing that it really is by the laws of evolution; for survival by natural selection always supposes that the attri- bute or character which survives is important enough to keep the animal alive in the struggle for existence; otherwise it would not be con- tinued for successive generations, and gradually perfected on account of its utility.
On the whole, therefore, we find the Surplus- Energy Theory of play quite inadequate.
II. Another theory therefore becomes neces- sary if we are to meet these difficulties. Such a theory has recently been developed. It holds that the plays of the animals are of the greatest utility to them in this way: they exercise the young animals in the very activities — though in a playful way — in which they must seriously engage later on in life. A survey of the plays of animals with a view to comparing them in each case with the adult activities of the same species, confirms this theory in a remarkably large number of cases. It shows the young anticipating, in their play, the struggles, enjoyments, co-operations, defeats, THE MIND OF THE ANIMAL. 49 emergencies, etc., of their after lives, and by learning to cope with all these situations, so pre- paring themselves for the serious onset of adult responsibilities. On this theory each play be- comes a beautiful case of adaptation to nature. The kitten plays with the ball as the old cat handles the mouse; the little dogs wrestle to- gether, and so learn to fight with teeth and claws; the deer run from one another, and so test their speed and learn to escape their ene- mies. If we watch young animals at play we see that not a muscle or nerve escapes this prelim- inary training and exercise; and the instinctive tendencies which control the play direct the ac- tivities into just the performances which the animal's later life-habits are going on to require.
On this view play becomes of the utmost util- ity. It is not a by-product, but an essential part of the animal's equipment. Just as the infancy period has been lengthened in the higher animals in order to give the young time to learn all that they require to meet the harsh conditions of life, so during this infancy period they have in the play-instinct a means of the first importance for making good use of their time. It is beautiful to see the adults playing with their young, adapting their strength to the little ones, repeating the same exercises without ceasing, drilling them with infinite pains to greater hardihood, endurance, and skill.
On this theory it is also easy to see why it is that the plays are 'different for the different spe- cies. The actual life conditions are different, and the habits of the species are correspondingly dif- ferent. So it is only another argument for the truth of this theory that we find just those games 50 THE STORY OF THE MJND.
natural to the young which train them in the habits natural to the old.
This view is now being very generally adopted. Many fine illustrations might be cited. A simple case may be seen in so small a thing as the habit of leaping in play; the difference, for example, be- tween the mountain goat and the common fawn. The former, when playing on level ground makes a very ludicrous exhibition by jumping in little up-and-down leaps by which he makes no prog- ress. In contrast with this the fawn, whose adult life is normally in the plains, takes a long grace- ful spring. The difference becomes clear from the point of view of this theory, when we remem- ber that the goat is to live among the rocks, where the only useful jump is just the up-and- down sort which the little fellow is now prac- tising; while the deer, in his life upon the plains, will always need the running jump.
Finally, on this theory, play becomes a thing for evolution to cultivate for its utility in the progress of animal life, and for that reason we may suppose it has been perfected in the re- markable variety and beauty o£ form which it shows.
On the psychological side, we find a corre- sponding state of things. The mind in the young animal or child gets the main education of early life through its play situations. Games have an extraordinary pedagogical influence. The more so because they are the natural and instinctive way of getting an education in practical things. This again is of supreme utility to the individuals.
Both for body and mind we find that play illus- trates the principle of Organic Selection explained above. It makes the young animal flexible, plas- THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 51 tic, and adaptable; it supplements all his other in- stincts and imperfect functions; it gives him a new chance to live, and so determines the course of evolution in the direction which the playful animal represents. The quasi-social and gregari- ous habits of animals probably owe much of their strength to the play-impulse, both through the training of individual animals and through the fixing of these tendencies as instincts in various animal species in the way just mentioned.
In another place below I analyze a child's game and draw some inferences from it. Here it may suffice to say that in their games the young animals acquire the flexibility of mind and muscle upon which much of the social co-operation, as well as the individual effectiveness, of their later life depends. With children, it is not the only agency, of course, though its importance is not less. We have to carry the children further by other means; but the other means should never interfere with this natural schooling. They should aim the rather by supplementing it wisely to direct its operation and to extend its sphere.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MIND OF THE CHILD — CHILD PSYCHOLOGY.
ONE of the most interesting chapters of modern psychology is that which deals with the child. This is also one of the topics of general concern, since our common humanity reacts with greater geniality upon the little ones, in whom we instinctively see innocence and simplicity. The popular interest 52 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
in children has been, however — as uncharitable as it may seem to say it — of very little service to the scientific investigation of childhood. Even to-day, when a greater body of valuable results are being secured, the main danger to the proper study of the child's mind comes from the over-enthusiasm and uninstructed assurance of some of its friends. Especially is this the case in America, where " child study " has become a fad to be pursued by parents and teachers who know little about the principles of scientific method, and where influential educators have enlisted so-called " ob- servers " in taking indiscriminate notes on the doings of children with no definite problem in view, and with no criticism of their procedure. It is in place, therefore, to say clearly, at the outset, that this chapter does not mean to stimu- late parents or unpsychological readers to report observations; and further to say also that in the mind of the writer the publications made lately of large numbers of replies to " syllabi " are for the most part worthless, because they heap to- gether observations obtained by persons of every degree of competence and incompetence.
On the other hand, the requisites here, as in every other sphere of exact observation, are clear enough. The student of the child's mind should have a thorough knowledge of the principles of general psychology, in order to know what is char- acteristic of the child when he sees it, and what is exceptional; and he should also have enough originality in his ideas and interpretations to catch the valuable in the child's doings, distin- guishing it from the commonplace, and to plan situations and even experiments which will give him some control upon those actions of the child THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 53 which seem to be worth it. The need of these qualities is seen in the history of the problems of the child's growth which have been taken up even by the most competent psychologists. The results show a gradual attainment of control over the problem in hand, each observer criticis- ing the method and results of his predecessor until certain rules of observation and experiment have been evolved which allow of the repetition and repeated observation of the events of the child's life.
As illustrating the sort of problems in which there has been this careful and critical work, I may instance these: the child's reflex movements, the beginnings and growth of sensation, such as colour, the rise of discrimination and prefer- ence, the origin of right- and left-handedness, the rise, mechanism, and meaning of imitation, the acquisition of speech and handwriting, the growth of the child's sense of personality and of his social consciousness, and the laws of phys- ical growth, as bearing upon mental develop- ment. In all these cases, however, there is again a greater and a less exactness. The topics with the reports of results which I am going on to give may be taken, however, as typical, and as showing the direction of complete knowledge rather than as having in any one case approached it.
Before we take up particular questions, how- ever, a word may be allowed upon the general bearings of the study of the child's mind. I do this the more willingly, since it is still true, in spite of the hopeful outlook for positive results, that it is mainly the willingness of psychology to recognise the problems and work at them that makes the topic important at present. To 54 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
investigate the child by scientific methods is really to bring into psychology a procedure which has revolutionized the natural sciences; and it is destined to revolutionize the moral sciences by making them also in a great meas- ure natural sciences. The new and important question about the mind which is thus recog- nised is this: How did it grow? What light upon its activity and nature can we get from a posi- tive knowledge of its early stages and processes of growth? This at once introduces other ques- tions: How is the growth of the child related to that of the animals? — how, through heredity and social influences, to the growth of the race and of the family and society in which he is brought up? All this can be comprehended only in the light of the doctrine of evolution, which has rejuvenated the sciences of life; and we are now beginning to see a rejuvenation of the sciences of mind from the same point of view. This is what is meant when we hear it said that psy- chology is becoming " genetic."
The advantages to be derived from the study of young children from this point of view may be briefly indicated.
i. In the first place, the facts of the infant con- sciousness are very simple; that is, they are the child's sensations or memories simply, not his own observations of them. In the adult mind the disturbing influence of self-observation is a matter of notorious moment. It is impossible for me to report exactly what I feel, for the observa- tion of it by my attention alters its character. My volition also is a complex thing, involving my personal pride and self-consciousness. But the child's emotion is as spontaneous as a spring.
THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 55 The effects of it in the mental life come out in action, pure and uninfluenced by calculation and duplicity and adult reserve. There is around every one of us adults a web of convention and prejudice of our own making. Not only do we reflect the social formalities of our environment, and thus lose the distinguishing spontaneities of childhood, but each of us builds up his own little world of seclusion and formality with himself. We are subject, as Bacon said, not only to "idols of the forum," but also to "idols of the den."
The child, on the contrary, has not learned his own importance, his pedigree, his beauty, his social place, his religion; he has not observed himself through all these and countless other lenses of time, place, and circumstance. He has not yet turned himself into an idol nor the world into a temple; and we can study him apart from the complex accretions which are the later de- posits of his self-consciousness.
2. The study of children is often the only means of testing the truth of our analyses. If we decide that a certain mental state is due to a union of simpler elements, then we may appeal to the proper period of child life to see the union taking place. The range of growth is so enor- mous from the infant to the adult, and the begin- nings of the child's mental life are so low in the scale, in the matter of mental endowment, that there is hardly a question of analysis now under debate in psychology which may not be tested by this method.
At this point it is that child psychology is more valuable than the study of the mind of ani- mals. The latter never become men, while chil- dren do. The animals represent in some few 56 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
respects a branch of the tree of growth in ad- vance of man, while being in many other respects very far behind him. In studying animals we are always haunted by the fear that the analogy from him to man may not hold; that some element essential to the development of the human mind may not be in the animal at all. Even in such a question as the localization of the functions of the brain described later on, where the analogy is one of comparative anatomy and only second- arily of psychology, the monkey presents analo- gies with man which dogs do not. But in the study of children we may be always sure that a normal child has in him the promise of a normal man.
3. Again, in the study of the child's mind we have the added advantage of a corresponding simplicity on the bodily side; we are able to take account of the physiological processes at a time when they are relatively simple — that is, before the nervous system has grown to maturity. For example, psychology used to hold that we have a "speech faculty, "an inborn mental endowment which is incapable of further analysis; but sup- port for the position is wanting when we turn to the brain of the infant. Not only do we fail to find the series of centres now known to be the " speech zone," but even those of them which we do find have not yet taken up this function, either alone or together. In other words, the primary object of each of the various centres involved is not speech, but some other and simpler function; and speech arises by development from a union of these separate functions.
4. In observing young children, a more direct application of experiment is possible. By "ex- THE MIND OP THE CHILD. 57 periment " here I mean both experiment on the senses and also experiment directly on conscious- ness by suggestion, social influence, etc. In ex- perimenting on adults, great difficulties arise through the fact that reactions — such as per- forming a voluntary movement when a signal is heard, etc. — are complicated by deliberation, habit, custom, choice, etc. The subject hears a sound, identifies it, and presses a button — if he choose and agree to do so. What goes on in this inter- val between the advent of the incoming nerve process and the discharge of the outgoing nerve process? Something, at any rate, which repre- sents a brain process of great complexity. Now, anything that fixes' or simplifies the brain process, in so far gives greater certainty to the results. For this reason experiments on reflex actions are valuable and decisive where similar experiments on voluntary actions are uncertain and of doubt- ful value. Now* the child's mind is relatively sim- ple, and so offers a field for more fruitful experi- ment; this is seen in the reactions of the infant to strong stimuli, such as bright colours, etc., as related further on.
With this inadequate review of the advantages of infant psychology, it is well also to point out the dangers of the abuse of it. Such dangers are real. The very simplicity which seems to char- acterize the life of the child is often extremely misleading, and this because the simplicity in question is sometimes ambiguous. Two actions of the child may appear equally simple; but one may be an adaptive action, learned with great pains and really very complex, while the other may be inadaptive and really simple. Children 58 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
differ under the law of heredity very remarkably, even in the simplest manifestations of their con- scious lives. It is never safe to say without quali- fication: "This child did, consequently all chil- dren must." The most we can usually say in observing single children is: " This child did, consequently another child may."
Speaking more positively, the following re- marks may be useful to those who have a mind to observe children: 1. In the first place, we can fix no absolute time in the history of the child at which a certain mental process 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 develop- ments, tend, on the contrary, to show that such divisions do not hold in any strict sense. Like any other organic growth, the nervous system may develop faster under more favourable con- ditions, or more slowly under less favourable; and the growth of the mind is largely dependent upon the growth of the brain. Only in broad outline and within very wide limits can such periods be marked off at all.
2. The possibility of the occurrence of a men- tal state at a particular time must be distinguished from its necessity. The occurrence of a single clearly observed fact is decisive only against the theory according to which its occurrence under the given conditions may not occur. For exam- ple, the very early adaptive movements of the infant in receiving its food can not be due to in- telligence and will; but the case is still open as to the question what is the reason of their pres- ence— i. e., how much nervous development is THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 59 present, how much experience is necessary, etc. It is well to emphasize the fact that one case may be decisive in overthrowing a theory, but the con- ditions are seldom simple enough to make one case decisive in establishing a theory.
3. It follows, however, from the principle of growth itself that the order of development of the main mental functions is constant, and nor- mally free from great variations; consequently, the most fruitful observations of children are those which show that such an act was present before another. 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 growth shows a stage in which any process is clearly absent, we have at once light upon the laws of growth. For instance: if a single case is conclusively established of a child's drawing an inference before it begins to use words or significant vocal sounds, the one case is as good as a thousand to showfthat thought may develop in some degree independently of spoken lan- guage.
4. While the most direct results are acquired by systematic experiments with a given point in view, still general observations carefully record- ed by competent persons, are important for the interpretation which a great many such records may afford in the end. In the multitude of ex- periences here, as everywhere, there is strength. Such observations should cover everything about the child — his movements, cries, impulses, sleep, dreams, personal preferences, muscular efforts, at- tempts at expression, games, favourites, etc. — and should be recorded in a regular daybook at the time of occurrence. What is important and 60 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
what is not, is, as I have said, something to be learned; and it is extremely desirable that any one contemplating such observations should ac- quaint himself beforehand with the principles of general psychology and physiology, and should seek also the practical advice of a trained ob- server.
As yet many of the observations which we have in this field were made by the average mother, who knows less about the human body than she does about the moon or the wild flow- ers, or by the average father, who sees his child for an hour a day, when the boy is dressed up, and who has never slept in the same room with him — let alone the same bed! — in his life; by people who have never heard the distinction be- tween reflex and voluntary action, or that between nervous adaptation and conscious choice. The difference between the average mother and the good psychologist is this: she has no theories, he has; he has no interests, she has. She may bring up a family of a dozen and not be able to make a single trustworthy observation; he may be able, from one sound of one yearling, to confirm theo- ries of the neurologist and educator, which are momentous for the future training and welfare of the child.
As for experimenting with children, only the psychologist should undertake it. The connec- tions between the body and the mind are so close in infancy, the mere animal can do so much to ape reason, and the child is so helpless under the leading of instinct, impulse, and external neces- sity, that the task is excessively difficult — to say nothing of the extreme delicacy and tenderness of the budding tendrils of the mind. But others THE MIND OF THE CHILD. 6 1 do experiment! Every time we send a child out of the home to the school, we subject him to ex- periment of the most serious and alarming kind. He goes into the hands of a teacher who is often not only not wise unto the child's salvation, but who is, perchance, a machine for administering a single experiment to an infinite variety of chil- dren. It is perfectly certain that a great many of our children are irretrievably damaged or hin- dered in their mental and moral development in the school; but we can not be at all sure that they would fare any better if they were taught at home! The children are experimented with so much and so unwisely, in any case, that possibly a little intentional experiment, guided by real in- sight and psychological information, would do them good.
Methods of experimenting with Children. — In endeavouring to bring such questions as the degree of memory, recognition, association, etc., present in an infant, to a practical test, consider- able embarrassment has always been experienced in understanding the child's vocal and other re- sponses. Of course, the only way a child's mind can be studied is through its expressions, facial, lingual, vocal, muscular; and the first question — i. e., What did the infant do? must be followed by a second — i. e., What did his doing that mean? The second question is, as I have said, the harder question, and the one which requires more knowledge and insight. It is evident, on the sur- face, that the further away we get in the child's life from simple inherited or reflex responses, the more complicated do the processes become, and the greater becomes the difficulty of an- alyzing them, and arriving at a true picture of 62 THE STORY OF THE MIND.
the real mental condition which lies back of them.
To illustrate this confusion, I may cite one of the few problems which psychologists have at- tempted to solve by experiments on children: the determination of the order of rise of the child's perceptions of the different colours. The first series of experiments consisted in showing the child various colours and requiring him to name them, the results being expressed in per- centages of correct answers to the whole number. Now this experiment involves no less than four different questions, and the results give abso- lutely no clew to their separation. It involves: i. The child's distinguishing different colours dis- played simultaneously before it, together with the complete development of the eyes for colour sen- sation. 2. The child's ability to recognise or iden- tify a colour after having seen it once. 3. An as- sociation between the child's colour seeing and word hearing and speaking memories, by which the proper name for the colours is brought up in his mind. 4. Equally ready facility in the pro- nunciation of the various names of the colours which he recognises; and there is the further em- barrassment, that any such process which involves association of ideas, is as varied as the lives of children. The single fact that speech is acquired long after objects and some colours are distin-