ons 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. H