Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 60.djvu/72

64 very great detail, provides processes ready to be turned into definite ideas. The great number of associations which the human being forms furnish the means by which this last event is consummated. The infant's vague feelings of total situations are by virtue of the detailed working of his brain all ready to split up into parts, and his general activity and curiosity provide the multitude of different connections which allow them to do so. The dog on the other hand has few or no ideas because his brain acts in coarse fashion and because there are few connections with each single process.

When once the mind begins to function by having definite ideas all the phenomena of reasoning soon appear. The transition from one idea to another is the feeling of their relationship, of similarity or difference or whatever it may be. As soon as we find any words or other symbols to express such a feeling, or to express our idea of an action or condition, we have explicit judgments. Observation of any child will show us that the mind cannot rest in a condition where it has a large body of ideas without comparing them and thinking about them. The ideas carry within them the forces that make abstractions, feelings of similarity, judgments and the other characteristics of reasoning.

In children two and three years of age we find all these elements of reasoning present and functioning. The product of children's reasoning is often irrational but the processes are all there. The following instances from a collection of children's sayings by Mr. H. W. Brown show children making inductions and deductions after the same general fashion as adults:

(2 yrs.) T. pulled the hairs on his father's wrist. Father. "Don't T., you hurt papa!" T. "It didn't hurt grandpa."

(2 yrs. 5 mos.) M. said, "Gracie can't walk, she wears little bits of ?hoes; if she had mine she could walk. When I get some new ones, I'm going to give her these, so she can walk."

(3 yrs.) W. likes to play with oil paints. Two days ago my father told W. he must not touch the paints any more, for he was too small. This morning W. said, "When my papa is a very old man, and when I am a big man and don't need any papa, then I can paint, can't I, mamma?"

(3 yrs.) G.'s aunt gave him ten cents. G. went out, but soon came back saying, "Mamma, we will be rich now." "Why so, G?" "Because I planted my ten cents, and we will have lots of ten cents growing."

(3 yrs.) B. climbed up into a large express wagon, and would not get' out. I helped him out, and it was not a minute before he was back in the wagon. I said, "B., how are you going to get out of there now?" He replied, "I can stay here till it gets little, and then I can get out my own self."

(3 yrs.) F. is not allowed to go to the table to eat unless she has her face and hands washed and her hair combed. The other day she went to a lady visiting at her house and said, "Please wash my face and hands and comb my hair; I am very hungry."

(3 yrs.) If C. is told not to touch a certain thing, that it will bite him,