suppose. We recognise in them all our involuntary emotions, all our our first impressions. Imagination is ever youthful, and the child always lives in the man, though the whole man does not exist in the child.

CHAPTER IV.

OBSERVATIONS ON THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE SECOND YEAR.

SOME months elapse after children have begun to speak, before they make much progress in the real use of language. They are, indeed, continually learning new words: but, as long as these remain scattered and unconnected in their minds, the acquisition of them seems neither to depend upon, nor to influence, their moral developement. Yet this developement advances rapidly; and, could the progress which children make in intelligence be accurately estimated, the very first steps in this progress would perhaps appear the most wonderful. It requires a strong effort to enable the young faculties to spring over that wide interval which separates the entirely sensitive life of a young infant from the intellectual one of a man. At the age which we are now considering, this effort has not yet been made; but it is on the point of being attempted. Desires, affections, pains, pleasures, and active in the child: he already resembles

all are alive

us in many things; but he differs from us in one very important respect; for he is not yet able to express his thoughts or feelings in words. We can hardly conceive such an existence: language is so familiar to us, so completely a part of ourselves, that we cannot picture to our minds what we should be without it. Man is, according to the Hebrew expression, "a speaking soul;" but it is not so with children and brute animals in their minds the things themselves, and not the words which are the emblems of them, are represented. Every thing is there depicted as in a painting; or rather a scenic representation takes place, where what has passed in real life is in part acted over again. At this early age, when the progress made by the mind depends almost entirely on the various emotions and impressions which it receives, children seem endowed with a singular avidity for seeking and multiplying these impressions; and every thing which appears likely to renew them, affords them pleasure. If they wish to go out, we see them eagerly stretching themselves towards the door, and transported with delight at the mere sight of their hat or cloak: if they wish to ride in the carriage, they struggle in the nurse's arms till it is almost impossible to hold them. Every thing within and around them seems full of enjoyment. They are excited not only by present objects, but frequently by

the ideal representation of them. If their minds are occupied by any earnest desire, all their other sensations are for the time suspended, and we try in vain to attract their attention; they see nothing, hear nothing: their whole soul is absorbed by the image of the object on which their wishes are fixed. Even when not under the influence of any very strong present emotion, the scenes which they have previously witnessed will again excite and agitate their imagination. It is well known how much more difficult it is to get children to sleep at night, if they have been much amused during the day; their eyes sparkle with a vivid brightness; their cheeks are flushed; their faculties having no doubt been too much excited are still in such a state of activity, that neither silence nor darkness seem to weary them, or tempt them to repose.

These effects of the vivacity of sensations in very young children are easily understood; but, when we see how readily these little creatures pass from a mere sensitive existence into the moral world, we find fresh cause for admiration. Inexplicable effects are produced on them by causes not at all of a physical character, and whose action presumes an advance of intellect far beyond their powers: our impressions, our feelings, are transmitted to them by signs so slight and so uncertain, that it is wonderful how they can understand them. This does not in

deed surprise those who, thinking little on the subject, consider it only natural that children should be like ourselves; and it has been little noticed even by those who devote themselves to the investigation of causes.

Of course, if we refer it to instinct, we must be content to rest there, without gaining any more knowledge on this mysterious subject; yet it is only to instinct that it can be referred. The same faculty which we remarked at six weeks old, has in the course of the first year made great progress. At this age, an intelligent child will read the expression of our feelings on our countenance: we may see reflected on his little face every shade of our own humour: he knows not whence these changes in our disposition arise, but he partakes in them ; and though ignorant of the cause, sympathizes in the effect. Not that he is distressed at what gives us pain, or that he rejoices in what gives us pleasure he does not as yet imagine his own existence to be distinct from ours; he lives in us, and feels with us, by a kind of necessity. He is a living mirror, in which the state of our own moral feelings is reflected with astonishing accuracy.

Even at an earlier age, I have myself witnessed a scene, which was a striking illustration of what has just been remarked. An infant of nine months old was playing merrily on its mother's lap, when a lady entered the