Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 46.djvu/363

Rh It is probable that the first ideas of the bodily self are ill-defined. It is evident that the head and face are not known at first as a visible object. The upper extremities, by their movement across the field of vision, would come in for the special notice of the eye. We know that the baby is at an early date wont to watch its hands. On the other hand, the lower limbs seem to receive special attention from the exploring and examining hand.

There is some reason to think, however, that in spite of these advantages the limbs form a less integral and essential part of the bodily self than the trunk. A child in his second year was observed to bite his own finger till he cried with pain. Preyer tells us of a boy of nineteen months who, when asked to give his foot, seized it with both hands and tried to hand it over. The Worcester collection of children's thoughts has a story of a child of three years and a half who, on finding his feet stained by some new stockings, observed, "O mamma, these ain't my feet, these ain't the feet I had this morning!" On the other hand, the boy C spoke of his limbs as foreign objects coming in the way of himself—that is, his body.

Probably different influences combine to give this importance to the trunk in the child's conception of the bodily self. The trunk is the larger portion; it is stationary, always at hand, whereas the hands and feet come and go, and may disappear for some time. Much more important, I suspect, is the fact that the child soon begins to localize in a vague way in the trunk the most frequent and important of his feelings of comfort and discomfort, such as the pains of impeded respiration and digestion and the corresponding reliefs. We know that the "vital sense" forms the sensuous basis of self-consciousness in the adult, and it is only reasonable to suppose that in the first years of life, when it fills so large a place in consciousness, it has most to do with determining the idea of the sentient or feeling body. Afterwards the observation of maimed men and animals would confirm the idea that the trunk is the seat and essential portion of the living body. The language of others, too, by identifying "body" and "trunk," would strengthen the tendency.

About this interesting trunk-body and what is inside it, the child speculates vastly. References to bones, stomach, and so forth have to be understood somehow. It would be interesting to get at a child's unadulterated view of his anatomy.

At a later stage of the child's development, no doubt, when he comes to form the idea of a conscious thinking self, the head will become a principal portion of the bodily self. In the evolution of the self-idea in the race, too, we find that the soul was lodged in the trunk long before it was assigned a seat in the head. As is illustrated in C's case, children are quite capable of forming