Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/611

Rh Laughing.—Smiling often occurs before the age of a month. Children of two months laugh, but without seeming to suspect that the laugh expresses anything.

Sense.—A little girl three months old would prattle when her mother sang; she had for some time expressed, by particular sounds, her wish to suck.

Various Movements.—A child six days old left, with his arms free, in his cradle, would mechanically carry his hand toward his face, and succeed in placing it almost under his head. We may remark that his father often slept in an analogous position. Children raise and lower their arms and legs with no apparent reason. Some new-born babes move their eyes from the second day. The son of Tiedemann, a philosopher of the eighteenth century, would, when inspiring, suck anything put in his mouth the next day after his birth.

(Second Period).—Between four and eight months the child passes over the interval which separates motion and locomotion. Toward the age of fifteen months he executes many movements—shaking his head from right to left to say no, and bowing it to say yes. The ear and eye have accommodated themselves to distances. The eye expresses many shades of thought, feeling, and will. Laughs, tears, and various movements of the hand serve equally to express emotion.

—The new-born child executes some movements that have a definite end. These movements are probably automatic; consciousness is, however, beginning to awaken. When two or three months old the child can put forth a good deal of strength. At four or five months he will make such a stir that it will take several persons to quiet him. Voluntary action is always determined by feeling more or less conscious.

—M. Perez thinks that many reflex actions of the child are accompanied by consciousness. The eyes of a little girl a week old would sometimes take a rotary movement, as if trying to see something. When some one spoke, or when certain objects made a great noise, something like surprise and attention, and an intentional direction to her gaze, was noticed. This little girl would suck, but without persistence, all objects, besides the nipple, that were carried to her lips. She cried and wrung herself when put in her cradle, but if her mother took her in her arms, and while singing put her face against the child's, she would cease to cry.

Attention.—A child of seventeen days would follow with its eyes a lighted candle that was passed before him. Another, at the age of a month, would give sustained attention to the act of sucking; its fixed eyes would shine with pleasure, and would from time to time half veil themselves under his eyelids. His sucking-bottle was filled with sweetened water. After a slight hesitation, he continued his sucking with the same expression of voluptuous attention as if the bottle had