Our knowledge of the psychology of the first phase of life is pro portionately meagre and uncertain, although much can be detived from the study of the above-described peculiarities (electrical reaction, re flexes, etc.) as regards objective points of difference between the functional activity of the child's nervous system and that of the adult. The individual himself in later years has no recollection of the mental processes which took place in his own brain during the very first years of life; therefore, in making any statement concerning the dawn of the child's moral existence, we must rely solely on conclusions drawn from analogy, which, necessarily, are of doubtful value.
The exact age at which conscious mental operations begin, is absolutely unknown to us. Even in intra-uterine life, very likely, vague psychic influences come into play, in connection perhaps with foetal movements. The more vulgar forms of sensation (preferably hunger, thirst, uneasiness) are already- developed, at least in a rudi mentary fashion, from the very earliest moments of life and consti tute the underlying causes of various instinctive reflex manifestations (unyield'ing movements, crying, sucking). That these vital manifes tations of the newborn (sucking, swallowing, ocular movements), which to us might appear to depend upon volitional activity, are nothing more than inherited reflexes, instinctive performances, is indeed hardly questionable, if we take into consideration the primitive state of the central nervous organs. Tactile impression, perceptions of smell and taste are the first (in the very first days following birth) to graft them selves upon the child's brain, to forni there certain connections and association, the first, finally, to ensure recognition (more particularly of food) and to even determine the early appearance of useful move ments of defense, as illustrated in Preyer's observation.
The aversion to light which is so manifest at birth, disappears only from the tenth to the twentieth day. The incoordinate, atypical movements of the eyeballs which turn towards light under purely re flex influences, become coordinate and regular after a few weeks. It is only after the fourth or fifth week however, that the child distinctly fixes the eyes upon objects placed before it, and scarcely before the third or fourth month, can it be trained to notice an object presented at the periphery of the visual field, and to further control the degree of perception by following it with the eyes.
The newborn is deaf; acoustic stimuli call forth a response only coincidently with the gradual appearance of other reactions (turning of the head, looking towards), but more and more does the child learn, with regard to hearing as with seeing and feeling, to store up distinct memories of this sense, and by the end of the third month. it has ac quired almost perfect control over the use of all its sensory aptitudes. In the course of tbe following months, during which the child's mental.
disposition (its likes and dislikes) becomes ever more sharply defined, and the faculty of observation and of associating impressions progres sively develops, consciousness of self-materialness gradually asserts itself; the outer world stands out more and inore prominently as something essentially distinct from the ego. At the end of the first year, speech begins to develop (with varying rapidity in different individuals), and from that time on, the child enriches its knowledge and deepens its judgment, under the influence however, of its sur roundings. The effect of new impressions in varying previously acquired notions, is dependent in great part upon the child's psychic inclinations; advance is further promoted by a pronounced distaste for unclear situations (a fact well illustrated by the tendency in chil dren, especially between the ages of five and ten, to ask innumerable questi ons).
If, however, tbe psychic conformation thus acquired is essentially as adequate as the psychic mechanism of the adult, the child's mind nevertheless differs from that of the latter, for a considerable length of time, by the greater mobility of the feelings, the greater influence of the latter upon both the sequence and course of ideas, finally, by the lack of uniformity and purpose displayed in regulating and group ing efforts, whether of simple demonstration or of resistance. Owing to ever increasing new perceptions. the sexual impulses, which appear mot infrequently as early as the tenth or eleventh year) as rather unclear perceptions at first become ever more clearly defined later. The child's moral existence suffers, at the time of puberty, a shock of greater or lesser intensity, a jar. with the gradual adjustment of which (determination of character . the childlike or youthful mind first acquires its proper physiognomy and then gradually transforms itself into that of the mature man.