That the ability to abstract may show itself, though imperfectly, even in the first year, is, according to my observations, certain. Infants are struck by a quality of an object—e. g., the white appearance of milk. The "taking away" or "abstracting" then consists in the isolating of this quality out of innumerable other sight-impressions and the blending of the impressions into a concept. The naming of this, which begins months later, by a rudimental word, like mum, is an outward sign of this abstraction, which did not at all lead to the formation of the concept, but followed it, as will be shown in detail further on (in the two following chapters).
It would be interesting to collect observations concerning this reasoning power in the very earliest period, because at that time language does not interfere to help or to hinder. But it is just such observations that we especially lack. When a child in the twelfth month, on hearing a watch for the first time, cries out, "Tick-tick," looking meantime at the clock on the wall, he has not, in doing this, "formed," as G. Lindner supposes, "his first concept, although a vague and empty one as yet," but he had the concept before, and has now merely given a name to it for the first time.
The first observation made in regard to his child by Darwin, which seemed to him to prove "a sort of practical reflection," occurred on the one hundred and forty-fourth day. The child grasped his father's finger and drew it to his mouth, but his own hand prevented him from sucking the finger. The child then, strangely enough, instead of entirely withdrawing his hand, slipped it along the finger so that he could get the end of the finger into his mouth. This proceeding was several times repeated, and was evidently not accidental but intentional. At the age of five months, associations of ideas arose independently of all instruction. Thus, e. g., the child, being dressed in hat and cloak, was very angry if he was not at once taken out of doors.
How strong the reasoning power without words may be at a later period, the following additional observations show:
From the time when my child, like Sigismund's (both in the fifteenth month), had burned his finger in the flame of the candle, he could not be induced to put his finger near the flame again, but he would sometimes put it in fun toward the flame without touching it, and he even (eighteen months old) carried a stick of wood of his own accord to the stove-door and pushed it in through the open slide, with a proud look at his parents. There is surely something more than an imitation here.
Further, my child at first never used to let his mouth and chin be wiped without crying; from the fifteenth month on he kept perfectly quiet during the disagreeable operation. He must have noticed that this was finished sooner when he was quiet.
The same thing can be observed in every little child, provided he is not too much talked to, punished, yielded to, or spoiled. In the nineteenth month it happened with my child that he resisted the command to lie down in the evening. I let him cry, and raise himself on his bed, but did not take him up, did not speak to him, did not use any force, but remained motionless and watchful near by. At last he became tired, lay down, and fell asleep directly. Here he acquired an understanding of the uselessness of crying in order to avoid obedience to commands.
The knowledge of right (what is allowed and commanded) and of wrong (what is forbidden) had been long since acquired. In the seventeenth month, e. g., a sense of cleanliness was strongly developed, and later (in the thirty-third month) the child could not, without lively protest, behold his nurse acting contrary to the directions that had been given to himself—e. g., putting the knife into her mouth or dipping bread into the milk. Emotions of this kind are less a proof of the existence of a sense of duty than of the understanding that violations of well-known precepts have unpleasant consequences—i. e., that certain actions bring in their train pleasant feelings, while other acts bring unpleasant feelings. How long before the knowledge of words these emotions began to exist I have, unfortunately, not succeeded in determining.
But in many of the above cases—and they might without difficulty be multiplied by diligent observation—there is not the least indication of any influence of spoken words. Whether no attempt at speaking has preceded, or whether a small collection of words may have been made, the cases of child-intelligence adduced in this chapter, observed by myself, prove that without knowledge of verbal language, and independently of it, the logical activity of the child attains a high degree of development, and no reason exists for explaining the intelligent actions of children who do not yet speak at all—i. e., do not yet clothe their ideas in words, but do already combine them with one another—as being different specifically from the intelligent (not instinctive) actions of sagacious orangs and chimpanzees. The difference consists far more in this, that the latter can not form so many, so clear, and so abstract conceptions, or so many and complicated combinations of ideas, as can the gifted human child in the society of human beings—even before he has learned to speak. When he has learned to speak, then the gap widens to such an extent that what before was in some respects almost the equal of humanity seems now a repulsive caricature of it.
In order, then, to understand the real difference between brute and man, it is necessary to ascertain how a child and a brute animal may have ideas without words, and may combine them for an end: whether it is done, e. g., with memory-images, as in dreaming. And it is necessary also to investigate the essential character of the process of learning to speak.