Chapter 3

Although the formation of ideas is not at first, or even for a considerable time, dependent on speech (any more than it is in the case of the lower animals), it constitutes the condition to the learning of speech, and afterward speech reacts upon the development of ideation. A child may and usually does imitate the sounds of animals as names of the animals which make them long before it can speak one word, and, so far as Preyer's evidence goes, interjections are all originally imitative of sounds. Children with a still very small vocabulary use words metaphorically, as "tooth-heaven" to signify the upper gums, and it is a mistake to suppose that the first words in a child's vocabulary are invariably noun-substantives, as distinguished from adjectives or even verbs. As this statement is at variance with almost universal opinion, we think it is desirable to furnish the following corroboration. The present writer has notes of a child which possessed a vocabulary of only a dozen words or so. The only properly English words were "poor," "dirty," and "cook," and of these the two adjectives, no less than the noun-substantive, were always appropriately used. The remaining words were nursery words, and of these "ta-ta" was used as a verb meaning to go, to go out, to go away, etc., inclusive of all possible moods and tenses. Thus, for instance, on one occasion, when the child was wheeling about her doll in her own perambulator, the writer stole away the doll without her perceiving the theft. When she thought that the doll had had a sufficiently long ride, she walked round the perambulator to take it out. Not finding the doll where she had left it she was greatly perplexed, and then began to say many times "poor Na-na, poor Na-na," "Na-na ta-ta, Na-na ta-ta;" this clearly meant--poor Na-na has disappeared. And many other examples might be given of this child similarly using her small stock of adjectives and verbs correctly.

According to Preyer, from the first week to the fifth month the only vowel sounds used are _ü_ and _a_. On the forty-third day he heard the first consonant, which was _m_, and also the vowel _o_. Next day the child said _ta hu_, on the forty-sixth day _gö örö_, and on the fifty-first _arra_ All the vowel sounds were acquired in the fifth month. We have no space to go further into the successive dates at which the remaining consonants were acquired. In the eleventh month the child first _learnt_ to articulate a certain word (_ada_) by imitation, and afterward repeated the taught word spontaneously. The first year passed without any other indication of a connection between articulation and ideation than was supplied by the child using a string of different syllables (and not merely a repetition of the same one) on perceiving a rapid movement, as any one hurriedly leaving the room, etc.; but this child nevertheless understood certain words (such as "handchen geben") when only fifty-two weeks old. Inefficient attempts at imitative speaking precede the accurate attempts, and at fourteen months this inefficiency was still very apparent, being in marked contrast with the precision whereby it would imitate syllables which it could already say; the _will_ to imitate all syllables was present, though not the _ability_. At the beginning of the fourteenth month on being asked: "Wo ist dein Schrank?" the child would turn its head in the direction of the cupboard, draw the person who asked the question toward it (though the child could not then walk); and so with other objects the names of which it knew. During the next month the child would point to the object when the question was asked, and also cough, blow, or stamp on being told to do so. In the seventeenth month there was a considerable advance in the use of sign-language (such as bringing a hat to the nurse as a request to go out), but still no words were spoken save _ma-ma, pa-pa_, etc. In the twentieth month the child could first repeat words of two unlike syllables. When twenty-three months old the first evidence of judgment was given; the child having drunk milk which was too hot for it, said the word "heiss." In the sixty-third week this word had been learnt in imitative speaking, so it required eight and a half months for it to be properly used as a predicate. At the same age on being asked, "Where is your beard?" the child would place its hand on its chin and move its thumb and fingers as if drawing hair through them, or as it was in the habit of doing if it touched its father's beard; this is evidence of imagination, which, however, certainly occurs much earlier in life. At the close of the second year a great advance was made in using two words together as a sentence--e.g., "home, milk," to signify a desire to go home and have some milk. In the first month of the third year sentences of three or even four words were used, as "papa, pear, plate, please." Hitherto the same word would often be employed to express several or many associated meanings, and no words appeared to have been entirely invented. The powers of association and inference were well developed. For instance, the child received many presents on its birthday, and being pleased said "bursta" (=Geburtstage); afterward when similarly pleased it would say the same word. Again, when it injured its hand it was told to blow upon it, and on afterward knocking its head it blew into the air. At this age also the power of making propositions advanced considerably, as was shown, for instance, by the following sentence on seeing milk spilt upon the floor: "Mime atta teppa papa oï," which was equivalent to "Milch fort (auf den) Teppich, Papa (sagte) pfui!" But it is interesting that at this age words were learnt with an erroneous apprehension of their meaning; this was particularly the case with pronouns--"dein Bett," for example, being supposed to mean "das grosse Bett." All words which were spontaneously acquired seemed to be instances of onomatopoeia. Adverbs were first used in the twenty-seventh month, and now also words which had previously been used to express a variety of associated or generic meanings, were discarded for more specific ones. In the twenty-eighth month prepositions were first used, and questions were first asked. In the twenty-ninth month the chief advance was in naming self with a pronoun, as in "give me bread;" but the word "I" was not yet spoken. When asked: "Wer ist mir?" the child would say its own name. Although the child had long been able to say its numerals, it was only in this month that it attained to an understanding of their use in counting. In the thirty-second month the word "I" was acquired, but still the child seemed to prefer speaking of itself in the third person.

The long disquisition on the acquirement of speech is supplemented by a chapter conveying the observations of other writers upon the same subject. This is followed by an interesting chapter on the development of self-consciousness, and the work concludes with a summary of results. There are also lengthy appendices on the acquirements of correct vision after surgical operations by those who have been born blind, and on the mental condition of uneducated deaf mutes; but we have no space left to go into these subjects. Enough, we trust, has been said to show that Professor Preyer's laborious undertaking is the most important contribution which has yet appeared to the department of psychology with which it is concerned. GEORGE J. ROMANES.

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THE RACIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF MAN.

DR. ZERFFI, F. R. Hist. S., recently delivered the first of the inaugural lectures in connection with the opening of the Crystal Palace Company's School of Art, on "The Racial Characteristics of Man Scientifically Traced in General History." He complained that the study of man from a scientific point of view, especially in history as enacted by him, was mostly neglected, although it ought to be--nay, would and must more and more become--our most important subject, as forming the only real basis of all our higher culture. History was undoubtedly a deductive science, but it could be verified and put to the best uses by the purely inductive study of facts. Any change, whether progressive or retrospective, in the social, political, or religious condition of men, would be a fact. The acting forces were men, of whom there were on the globe more than a thousand millions, all endowed with three principal faculties--of receiving impressions, which produced sensations, and were reflected in their intellectual consciousness. But neither in comparing individuals with one another, nor race with race, were these faculties equally developed. They varied with a race's average facial angles and lines, its amount of brain, the color of its skin, and its general organization. The facial angle of the black races might be taken at 85°, and the number of cubic inches of brain might range between 75 and 80. In an ethnological chart hung behind the lecturer, the main body of the Nigritian races, which was made up of the Asiatic and African negroes, was credited with 83 cubic inches of brain as a general statement. It was remarked however, that the brain was very small relatively to the body, while the cerebellum formed a very large portion of the organ. The statical and dynamical forces of the intellect were said to be undeveloped, the animal propensities predominating. The long extinct American Toltecs, ranking as one section of a subdivision under this head, figured for 79 cubic inches of brain. In both directions the intellectual forces were marked as undeveloped, but the Toltecs were credited with great imitative powers. The other section, comprising the Hottentots and Australian black fellows, were allowed but 75 cubic inches of brain, or not more than 10 above the highest anthropoid apes, and in neither did the statical or dynamical intellect pass beyond a transitory stage of the lowest degree. The typical facial angle of the yellow or Turanian races--the bulk being Chinese, Mongols, Finns, Turks, with Malay, Gangetic, Lohitic, Tamulic, and American tribes--was given as 87½ degrees. In cubic inches, the brain ranged between 82 and 95. In the chart the figure given was 83½. Here, too, the statical or conservative energy of the intellect was made the great characteristic, the dynamical or progressive developing for the most part in technical products only. The tendency was to become herdsmen, farmers, and traders. As a division were classed the aborigines of India and of Egypt, with an average 80 cubic inches of brain, a very large cerebellum, and a cerebrum comparatively small. Their intellect was as characteristically statical as that of the other yellow races, the dynamic impulse manifesting itself only in symbolism, mysticism, and the like. At the head of all stood the white races, Aryans for the most part, but with the Semites--Chaldeans, Phoeniceans, Hebrews, Carthaginians, Arabs--as a subdivision. Ideally, their facial angle was 90°--the right angle--and their cubic inches of brain ranged from 92 to 120, rising in individual instances--the lecturer named Byron--as high as 150. The number in the chart for the Aryans--Sanskrit-speaking Indians, the Greeks and Romans, the Goths, Kelts, Slavs, and their progeny--was 92, and for the Semitic peoples 88. The Aryans were credited with a due balance between the dynamical and statical energy of their intellect, to which they owed nearly all the great inventions and discoveries, and with all the systematic development of science. They brought forth the philosophers, moralists, engineers, sculptors, musicians. The Semitic intellect was predominantly statical, being but little developed in the creative or dynamical direction, and then mostly in theological thought. They produced, however, musicians, traders, and conquerors.

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ECCENTRICITY AND IDIOSYNCRASY.

[Footnote: An extract from a Treatise on Insanity shortly to be published by D. Appleton & Co.]

By WILLIAM A. HAMMOND, M.D., Surgeon-General U.S. Army (Retired List), Professor of Diseases of the Mind and Nervous System in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School, etc.

ECCENTRICITY.--Persons whose minds deviate in some one or more notable respects from the ordinary standard, but yet whose mental processes are not directly at variance with that standard, are said to be eccentric. Eccentricity is generally inherent in the individual, or is gradually developed in him from the operation of unrecognized causes as he advances in years. If an original condition, it may be shown from a very early period of life, his plays, even, being different from those of other children of his age. Doubtless it then depends upon some peculiarity of brain structure, which, within the limits of the normal range, produces individuality of mental action.

But eccentricity is not always an original condition, for, under certain circumstances, it may be acquired. A person, for instance, meets with some circumstance in his life which tends to weaken his confidence in human nature. He accordingly shuns mankind, by shutting himself up in his own house and refusing to have any intercourse with the inhabitants of the place in which he resides. In carrying out his purpose he proceeds to the most absurd extremes. He speaks to no one he meets, returns no salutations, and his relations with the tradesmen who supply his daily wants are conducted through gratings in the door of his dwelling. He dies, and the will which he leaves behind him is found to devote his entire property for the founding of a hospital for sick and ownerless dogs, "the most faithful creatures I have ever met, and the only ones in which I have any confidence."

Such a man is not insane. There is a rational motive for his conduct--one which many of us have experienced, and which has, perhaps, prompted us to act in a similar manner, if not to the same extent.

Another is engaged in vast mercantile transactions, requiring the most thorough exercise of the best faculties of the mind. He studies the markets of the world, and buys and sells with uniform shrewdness and success. In all the relations of life he conducts himself with the utmost propriety and consideration for the rights and feelings of others. The most complete study of his character and acts fails to show the existence of the slightest defect in his mental processes. He goes to church regularly every Sunday, but has never been regarded as a particularly religious man. Nevertheless, he has one peculiarity. He is a collector of Bibles, and has several thousand, of all sizes and styles, and in many languages. If he hears of a Bible, in any part of the world, different in any respect from those he owns, he at once endeavors to obtain it, no matter how difficult the undertaking, or how much it may cost. Except in the matter of Bibles he is disposed to be some what penurious--although his estate is large--and has been known to refuse to have a salad for his dinner on account of the high price of good olive-oil. He makes his will, and dies, and then it is found that his whole property is left in trust to be employed in the maintenance of his library of Bibles, in purchasing others which may become known to the trustees, and in printing one copy, for his library, of the book in any language in which it does not already exist. A letter which is addressed to his trustees informs them that, when he was a boy, a Bible which he had in the breast-pocket of his coat preserved his life by stopping a bullet which another boy had accidentally discharged from a pistol, and that he then had resolved to make the honoring of the Bible the duty of his whole life.

Neither of these persons can be regarded as insane. Both were the subjects of acquired eccentricity, which, in all likelihood, would have ensued in some other form, from some other circumstance acting upon brains naturally predisposed to be thus affected. The brain is the soil upon which impressions act differently, according to its character, just as, with the sower casting his seed-wheat upon different fields, some springs up into a luxuriant crop, some grows sparsely, and some, again, takes no root, but rots where it falls. Possibly, if these individuals had lived a little longer, they might have passed the border-line which separates mental soundness from mental unsoundness; but certainly, up to the period of their deaths, both would have been pronounced sane by all competent laymen and alienists with whom they might have been brought into contact; and the contest of their wills, by any heirs-at-law, would assuredly have been a fruitless undertaking.

They chose to have certain ends in view, and to provide the means for the accomplishment of those ends. There were no delusions, no emotional disturbance, no hallucinations or illusions, and the will was normally exercised to the extent necessary to secure the objects of their lives. At any time they had it in their power to alter their purposes, and in that fact we have an essential point of difference between eccentricity and insanity. We may regard their conduct as singular, because they made an unusual disposition of their property; but it was no more irrational than if the one had left his estate to the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," and the other had devoted his to sending missionaries to Central Africa.

Two distinct forms of eccentricity are recognizable. In the one, the individual sets himself up above the level of the rest of the world, and, marking out for himself a line of conduct, adheres to it with an astonishing degree of tenacity. For him the opinions of mankind in general are of no consequence. He is a law unto himself; what he says and does is said and done, not for the purpose of attracting attention or for obtaining notoriety, but because it is pleasing to himself. He does not mean to be singular or original, but he is, nevertheless, both. For every man is singular and original whose conduct, within the limits of reason and intelligence, differs from that of his fellow-men. He endeavors to carry out certain ideas which seem to him to have been overlooked by society to its great disadvantage. Society usually thinks different; but if the promulgator is endowed with sufficient force of character, it generally happens that, eventually, either wholly or in part, his views prevail. All great reformers are eccentrics of this kind. They are contending for their doctrines, not for themselves. And they are not apt to become insane, though sometimes they do.

The subjects of the other form occupy a lower level. They affect singularity for the purpose of attracting attention to themselves, and thus obtaining the notoriety which they crave with every breath they inhale. They dress differently from other people, wearing enormous shirt-collars, or peculiar hats, or oddly cut coats of unusual colors, or indulging in some other similar whimsicality of an unimportant character, in the expectation that they will thereby attract the attention or excite the comments of those they meet.

Or they build houses upon an idea perhaps correct enough in itself, as, for instance, the securing of proper ventilation; but in carrying it out they show such defective judgment that the complete integrity of the intellect may, perhaps, be a matter of question. Thus, one gentleman of my acquaintance, believing that fireplaces were the best ventilators, put four of these openings into every room in his house. This, however, was one of the smallest of his eccentricities. He wore a ventilated hat, his clothing was pierced with holes, as were even his shoes; and no one could be in his company five minutes without having his attention directed to these provisions for securing health.

In addition to these advanced notions on the subject of ventilation, he had others equally singular in regard to the arrangement of the furniture in his dwelling and the care that was to be taken of it. Thus, there was one room called the "apostles' room." It contained a table that represented Christ, and twelve chairs, which were placed around it, and typified the twelve apostles; one chair, that stood for Judas Iscariot, was covered with black crape. The floor of this room was very highly polished, and no one was allowed to enter it without slipping his shod feet into cloth slippers that were placed at the door ready for use. He had a library, tolerably large but of little value, and every book in it which contained Judas's name was bound in black, and black lines were drawn around the name wherever it occurred. Such eccentricity as this is not far removed from insanity, and is liable at any time, from some cause a little out of the common way, to pass over the line.

Thus, a lady had since her childhood shown a singularity of conduct as regarded her table furniture, which she would have of no other material than copper. She carried this fancy to such an extent that even the knives and forks were of copper. People laughed at her, and tried to reason her out of her whim, but in vain. She was in her element as soon as attention was directed to her fancy and arguments against it were addressed to her. She liked nothing better than to be afforded a full opportunity to discuss with any one the manifold advantages which copper possessed as a material to be used in the manufacture of every article of table ware. In no other respect was there any evidence of mental aberration. She was intelligent, by no means excitable, and in the enjoyment of excellent health. She had, moreover, a decided talent for music, and had written several passably good stories for a young ladies' magazine. An uncle had, however, died insane.

A circumstance, trifling in itself, but one, as it afterward resulted, of great importance to her, started in her a new train of thought, and excited emotions which she could not control. She read in a morning paper that a Mr. Koppermann had arrived at one of the hotels, and she announced her determination to call upon him, in order, as she said, to ascertain the origin of his name. Her friends endeavored to dissuade her, but without avail. She went to the hotel, and was told that he had just left for Chicago. Without returning to her home, she bought a railway ticket for Chicago, and actually started on the next train for that city. The telegraph, however, overtook her, and she was brought back from Rochester raving of her love for a man she had never seen, and whose name alone had been associated in her mind with her fancy for copper table furniture. She died of acute mania within a month. In this case erotic tendencies, which had never been observed in her before, seemed to have been excited by some very indirect and complicated mental process, and these in their turn developed into general derangement of the mind.