Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 9.djvu/151

Rh of expressions are the distinctive characteristics of man as compared with animals: here is the origin of language and of general ideas. Among animals, man is, what some great and ingenious poet is among laborers and peasants: in a word, he is cognizant of a multitude of shades and tints, even to a whole class of shades, which are unnoticed by them. This is further seen both in the kind and in the degree of man's curiosity. It is easily seen that, commencing with the fifth or sixth month, infants, during the succeeding two years or more, give all their time to making experiments in natural philosophy. There is no animal, not even the cat or the dog, which makes such continual study of all bodies within its reach. Every day, the infant of whom I speak (age twelve months) touches, feels, turns over, lets fall, tastes, and experiments upon, whatever comes under its hand; whatever the object may be—a ball, doll, rattle, toy—once it is sufficiently known, the infant leaves it alone: it is no longer a novelty; there is nothing more to be learned from it; it no longer interests the child. This is simple curiosity; the child's physical wants, its desire of food, have nothing to do with the matter. It would seem as though already in its little brain each group of perceptions tends to complete itself, as in the brain of a child that possesses language.

She does not yet pronounce any word to which she attaches a meaning, but there are two or three words to which she attaches a meaning on hearing them uttered. She daily sees her grandfather, whose portrait, far less than life-size, but a very good likeness, has often been shown to her. During the past two months or so (from the age of ten mouths), when any one asked her the question, "Where is grandfather?" she turns to the portrait and laughs at it. Before her grandmother's portrait, which is not so good a likeness, she makes no such gestures, nor does she give any token of knowing what it is. For a month past (from the age of eleven months), whenever she is asked, "Where is mamma?" she turns toward her mother. So, too, with her father. I would not go so far as to affirm that these three actions transcend animal intelligence. A little dog, who sits by my side, in like manner understands what is meant when he hears the word sugar: he will come from a distance to get his morsel. In all this there is nothing but association: in the case of the dog, between a sound and a certain taste-sensation; in that of the infant, between a sound and the shape of an individual face; the object designated by the sound is not yet a general character.

I believe, however, that now (age, twelve months) a step farther has been taken; witness the following circumstance, which for me is decisive: This winter the child was daily taken to her grandmother's, and the latter very frequently showed her a copy, in colors, of a painting by Luini representing a nude Infant Jesus. On showing her this picture she was told that "this is baby." During the last eight days, whenever, in some other room, we ask her, "Where is baby?"