Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 6.djvu/425

 KATH. c. MOOEE, The Mental Development of a Child. 409 A word or two on the faults of the work may suffice. The want of any clear logical order is simply appalling. This is seen at the outset in the classification (?) of movements. After setting forth a classification of her own (which by- the- bye sadly needs explana- tion) in which neither Reflex movements nor those of emotional expression occur, she afterwards nullifies her mode of grouping by bringing in under special sections these two sub-classes. " In- hibitory movements," again (by which she seems to be naming processes such as sensation which inhibit movements), come in later on under Hearing ! Once more, imitative movements, though they are referred to more than once, do not appear in the classification. "Hearing" is the title both of a main section and of one of its sub-sections: similarly " Vision" is a sub-section under "Sight". It is a pity that Mrs. Moore did not give her MS. to some competent person who might at least have got rid of its utterly confused look. The observations themselves have both defects and excellences. A glance will show how far Mrs. Moore is from the idea of a really continuous and methodical record, on the model of Preyer's mono- graph. The setting forth of a series of dates is deceptive : again and again gaps of weeks and even of months are at once noticeable in what is presented as a record of the "development" of some mental characteristic. Nor do the observations show the admir- able scientific restraint and reticence which is surely nowhere more needed than in this field of investigation. On the contrary, Mrs. Moore too frequently gives vague statements of what occurred rather than precise statements of what was seen, and sometimes seems to mix observation proper and conjectural inference. This is the more surprising as the writer marks off a sub-section, " In- terpretation," under most of her sections, though here again it is easy to see that the divisions of the subject are not adhered to. As an example of the intrusion of an element of interpretation into the record of observation I may quote the statement that " at seventy- five hours his (her boy's) eyes turned from one object to another" (p. 45), to which she adds, with something of na'ivet^, "the eyes were not in focus ". Had the ' turnings,' one asks oneself, really anything to do with the ' objects ' ? This surely requires proof. One of the most remarkable of these omissions to distinguish observation proper from inferential interpretation occurs in the account of early attention. Will it be credited that an observer, who tells us that she has studied psychology, unhesitatingly maintains that because an infant, apparently in the first weeks, would gaze "at a patch of light or a moving object during a period varying from fifteen to thirty minutes " he evinces as much attention of a kind as an older child ? It never seems to have occurred to the observer that his prolonged ' gazing,' so far from being close strenuous attention, as she assumes, was probably a kind of self-hypnotising. Nobody, least of all, one would say, an infant, can go on looking intently at one and the same visible