, to the end of the first year of life at the farthest;
and long before the close of this he has, by means of the _feelings_ of
pleasure and of discomfort, very definitely distinguishable by him even
in the first days of life, but for which he does not get the verbal
expressions till the second and third year, formed for himself at least
in one province, viz., that of food, _ideas_ more or less well defined.
Romanes also rightly remarks that the _concept_ of food arises in us
through the feeling of hunger quite independently of language. Probably
this concept is the very first that is formed by the quite young infant,
only he would not name it "food," if indeed he named it at all, but
would understand by it everything that puts an end to the feeling of
hunger. It is of great importance to hold firmly to this fact of the
origination of ideas, and that not of sensuous percepts only but of
concepts, without language, because it runs contrary to prevailing
assumptions.

He who has conscientiously observed the mental development of infants
must come to the conclusion that _the formation of ideas is not bound
up with the learning of words, but is a necessary prerequisite for
the understanding of the words to be learned first, and therefore for
learning to speak_. Long before the child understands even a single
word, before he uses a single syllable consistently with a definite
meaning, he already has a number of ideas which are expressed by
looks and gestures and cries. To these belong especially ideas gained
through touch and sight. Associations of objects touched and seen
with impressions of taste are probably the first generators of
concepts. The child, still speechless and toothless, takes a lively
interest in bottles; sees, e. g., a bottle that is filled with a
white opaque liquid (Goulard water), and he stretches out his arms
with desire toward it, screaming a long time, in the belief that it
is a milk-bottle (observed by me in the case of my child in the
thirty-first week). The bottle when empty or when filled with water
is not so long attractive to him, so that the idea of food (or of
something to drink, something to suck, something sweet) must arise
from the sight of a bottle with certain contents without the
understanding or even utterance of any words. The formation of
concepts without words is actually demonstrated by this; for the
speechless child not only perceived the points of identity of the
various bottles