and evil suggests to our minds--are duties of the gravest kind
which weigh on the parent and the nurse, no less than on the physician.

But not only does the child live in the present far more than it is
possible for the adult, but there are, besides, other important mental
differences between the two. Not only is the mind of the child feebler
in all respects than that of the adult, but, in proportion to the
feebleness of his reasoning power, there is an exaggerated activity of
his perceptive faculties, a vividness of his imagination. The child
lives at first in the external world, as if it were a part of himself,
or he a part of it, and the gladheartedness which it rejoices us to see
is as much a result of the vividness with which he realises the things
around him, as of that absence of care to which it is often attributed.
This peculiarity shows itself in the dreams of childhood, which exceed
in the distinctness of their images those which come in later life. It
shows itself, too, in the frequency with which, even when awake, the
active organs perceive unreal sounds, or in the dark, at night, conjure
up ocular spectra; and then not merely colours, but distinct shapes,
which pass in long procession before the eyes. This power fades away
with advancing life; except under some conditions of disease, the
occasional appearance of luminous objects in the dark is the only relic
with most of us of the gift of seeing visions with which, at least in
some degree, we were endowed in our early years. The child who dreads to
be alone, and asserts that he hears sounds, or perceives objects, is not
expressing merely a vague apprehension of some unknown danger, but often
asserts a literal truth. The sounds have been heard; in the stillness of
its nursery the little one has listened to what seemed a voice calling
it; or, in the dark, phantasms have risen before its eyes, and the agony
of terror with which it calls for a light, or begs for its mother's
presence, betrays an impression far too real to be explained away, or to
be met by hard words or by unkind treatment.

Impressions such as these are not uncommon in childhood, even during
health. Disorder, direct or indirect, of the functions of the brain,
more commonly the latter, greatly exaggerates them, and I have known
them to outlast for many weeks all other signs of failing health after
convalescence from fevers. The unreal sights are far more common than
the sounds. The sounds ar