Page:Valid Objections to So-called Christian Science (1902).pdf/32

 children a day or more old the mind can hardly be said to have dawned. These beings cannot think; they simply feel and in a dim way receive sensations. Their motions do not even have the power of co-ordination. The instinct for food, which is even present in the very lowest forms of life, is the only marked development.

It is only as the experiences the infant has been subjected to accumulate, and the sensations it has received have been recorded in memory, that the apprehension even of its own identity, the realization of self, at length ensues. It may well be remembered that very young children but seldom, in the beginning, refer to themselves as "I," even though they see the example set to them by their parents. They usually speak of themselves in the third person, that is—objectively; as, for example, "Baby wants this," or "Tommy sees that."

The conscious subjective mind is a late development resulting from the feelings aroused by impulses from without. The mind can conceive no abstract ideas until many concrete actualities have made their impression upon it. For instance, the concept of space cannot be imagined without reference to some