Page:First steps in mental growth (1906).djvu/26

 search for beginnings—in the strict sense of that term—is futile.

We have just seen that one is likely to be disappointed if one searches for the first beginnings, the first appearances of particular kinds of child activity. We have next to observe that there are no sudden leaps in the various phases of the developmental process after they have once begun. Indeed, the one thing which, for the writer, stands out more prominently than any other, as a result of the observations recorded in these Studies, is the fact that the child acquires his various abilities by slow, almost imperceptible steps. He is possessed of a vast number of native instincts or impulses, and these make their appearance by infinitesimal steps or degrees. For example, the instincts to reach and grasp, to imitate, to walk, to talk—all come to perfection gradually. To be sure, the process is more rapid in some lines than in others; but in the most rapid there are no absolute breaks which warrant one in saying, "at this moment a child lacks a certain ability, the next he has it." Hence, when it is said that an ability or function seemed to burst forth of a sudden, it should be remembered that it was only seeming and not actual. Of course, in this general statement one excepts such organic reflex actions as clasping with the fingers, sucking, and a few others which are well developed—though rarely perfect—at birth.

Another impression which is constantly borne in upon