Page:First steps in mental growth (1906).djvu/25

 attempts to fix the date of the appearance of a particular kind of mental activity, the difficulty is increased by the fact that in infancy mental processes are so intricately interwoven with organic, semi-conscious phenomena that the dawn of a particular kind of consciousness cannot be determined. We have seen a bed of plants whose stems above ground stood apart from the stems of the neighbouring plants, and we have thought it not impossible to trace to their remotest ends the roots of the individual plants. But when we dig beneath the surface, we may find that the stems above ground have sprung from a common root-stock, or that the roots have grown together and form a mass, an inextricable net-work of rootlets so that the search for the roots of a particular plant is in vain. The child's several abilities and functions arise out of a net-work of instinctive tendencies which may be likened to the intertwined and tangled rootlets from which spring the separate plant stems. In both cases,