he Child.

We may now take up the main question as to the condition of the
child that is learning to speak, in regard to the development and
practicability of the nerve-paths and of the centers required for
speech. For the comparison of the disturbances of speech in adults
with the deficiencies of speech in the child, on the one hand, and
the chronological observation of the child, on the other hand,
disclose to us what parts of the apparatus of speech come by
degrees into operation. First to be considered are the _impressive_
and _expressive_ paths in general.

All new-born human beings are deaf or hard of hearing, as has already
been demonstrated. Since the hearing but slowly grows more acute during
the first days, no utterances of sound at this period can be regarded as
responses to any sound-impressions whatever. The first cry is purely
reflexive, like the croaking of the decapitated frog when the skin of
his back is stroked (Vol. I, p. 214). The cry is not heard by the
newly-born himself and has not the least value as language. It is on a
par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the bleating of the
new-born lamb, and the peeping of the chick that is breaking its shell.

Upon this first, short season of physiological deaf-mutism follows the
period during which crying expresses bodily conditions, feelings such as
pain, hunger, cold. Here, again, there exists as yet no connection of
the expressive phenomena with acoustic impressions, but there is already
the employment of the voice with stronger expiration in case of strong
and disagreeable excitations of other sensory nerves than those of
general sensation and of the skin. For the child now cries at a dazzling
light also, and at a bitter taste, as if the unpleasant feeling were
diminished by the strong motor discharge. In any case the child cries
because this loud, augmented expiration lessens for him the previously
existing unpleasant feelings, without exactly inducing thereby a
comfortable condition.

Not until later does a sudden sound-impression, which at first called
forth only a start and then a quivering of the eyelids, cause also
crying. But this loud sign of fright may be purely reflexive, just like
the silent starting and throwing up of the arms at a sudden noise, and
has at most the significance of an expression of discomfort, like
screaming at a painful blow.

It is otherwise with the first loud response to an acoustic impression
_recognized_ as