rst term of the
child's mental knowledge. And on these three _cerebral_ reactions the
foundation of the future mind is laid.

The moment there is a perfect polarized circuit between the first four
poles of dynamic consciousness, at that moment does the mind, the
terminal station, flash into cognition. The first cognition is merely
sensation: sensation and the remembrance of sensation being the first
element in all knowing and in all conception.

The circuit of touch, taste, and smell must be well established,
before the eyes begin actually to see. All mental knowledge is built
up of sensation and of memory. It is the continually recurring
sensation of the touch of the mother which forms the basis of the
first conception of the mother. After that, the gradually
discriminated taste of the mother, and scent of the mother. Till
gradually sight and hearing develop and largely usurp the first three
senses, as medium of correspondence and of knowledge.

And while, of course, the sensational _knowledge_ is being secreted in
the brain, in some much more mysterious way the living individuality
of the child is being developed in the four first nuclei, the four
great nerve-centers of the primary field of consciousness and being.

As time goes on, the child learns to see the mother. At first he sees
her face as a blur, and though he knows her, knows her by a direct
glow of communication, as if her face were a warm glowing life-lamp
which rejoiced him. But gradually, as the circuit of touch, taste, and
smell become powerfully established; gradually, as the individual
develops in the child, and so retreats towards isolation; gradually,
as the child stands more immune from the mother, the circuit of
correspondence extends, and the eyes now communicate across space, the
ears begin to discriminate sounds. Last of all develops discriminate
hearing.

Now gradually the picture of the mother is transferred to the child's
mind, and the sound of the first baby-words is imprinted. And as the
child learns to discriminate visually, objectively, between the mother
and the nurse, he learns to choose, and becomes individually free. And
still, the dynamic correspondence is not finished. It only changes its
circuit.

While the brain is registering sensations, the four dynamic centers
are coming into perfect relation. Or rather, as we see, the reverse is
the case. As the dynamic centers come into perfect relation, the mind
registers and remembe