Читать книгу Child Psychology I: Development in the First Four Years - Vilhelm Rasmussen - Страница 7

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Before the child is born, its nervous system passes through a whole series of stages; and when the child is born its nervous system is far from complete development. But has it been able to function before birth, and has the child possibly, while still a fœtus, manifestations of conscious soul life?

It is clear that the nervous system of the fœtus cannot act with any vigour, because it cannot receive much in the way of impressions from its “environment,” in which is included the maternal organism. Neither light nor sound nor impressions of taste or smell can reach the fœtal sense-organs, and the temperature as a rule is uniform, so that in general neither cold nor heat can influence it. On the other hand, it may on occasion be stimulated by pressure, when the mother moves, or by a casual change of temperature; and an internal stimulus is conceivable, for example, when the fœtus is “hungry,” or when for one reason or another it receives an unusually large supply of blood charged with nutriment or oxygen. Thus it does not pass its life altogether without influences acting upon it. And indeed it does send out signs of life. In the fifth month the mother begins to notice “quickening,” that is, movements; and these increase in frequency and force till birth. But are they exclusively spontaneous movements and reflexes; or is it conceivable that there also exists conscious life, perceptions, and feelings of pleasure or discomfort?

So long as the fœtus is quite young, it is in a high degree improbable that any manifestation of conscious life occurs at all; for the brain is far from complete development. In the fifth month, on the other hand, the spinal nerves are already provided with medullary sheaths; and it is just in this month that movements begin to be noticed. But it is, of course, quite possible that before this time it may have performed imperceptible movements. All these earliest movements are, however, either entirely “spontaneous,” caused by an internal stimulus proceeding from changes in the blood supply, or else they are simple reflexes caused by an external stimulus in the form of slight pressure. As the fœtal brain becomes gradually more developed and a part of its nerve-threads acquires medullary sheaths, it is on the other hand conceivable that manifestations of conscious life begin to dawn, but in a grey fog, unclear, without the sharp distinctness found in the conscious life of the adult. Perceptions, feelings, and elements of will form a grey-on-grey, a weak initial note out of which a rich diversity may unfold itself.

If there is conscious life before birth, it is thus in any case very little developed; but this does not exclude the possibility that the fœtal movements may have a more than momentary significance. It may quite well be that they are the first practisings of movements important for life. Life, in fact, does not begin with birth. It begins as soon as the ovum has been fertilised; it is thus not reasonable to suppose that the child does not begin to practise its life-activities till after birth; it is far more probable that it sets to work fairly early in the fœtal condition and continues with increasing vigour till on towards birth. However, the fœtus does not achieve great progress in its practice of spontaneous movements and reflexes. The young of animals, on the other hand, often come into the world with a number of well-developed spontaneous movements, reflexes, and instincts which put them in a position to fend for themselves. Chickens can straight away run about and find their food, and ducklings are able to swim as soon as they have left the egg. The young of many animals are, however, relatively less developed—for example, the newly hatched pigeon; but when the parents have looked after them for a short time they are practically in the finished state, that is, able to perform instinctively the actions necessary for the maintenance of life. Even if the instincts can be perfected by education and practice, they are virtually complete when they make their appearance. By way of compensation, every type of animal has relatively few instincts. When these do not avail, the animal is fairly helpless. The newborn human being is thus only in appearance behind the young of animals; in reality, it is heaven-high above them. It has time before it, and some one to tend it, while powers are developed far more manifold and valuable than strongly marked instincts. Man is distinguished from all other animals precisely by the long time required before he is in a position to hold his own without help in the struggle for the good things of life. This is especially true of highly cultured peoples. The more difficult the life-work, the longer, as a rule, is the necessary preparation. Among primitive folk the young are received into the ranks of the adults on “confirmation.” In a civilised community the confirmed adolescent is still a greenhorn, an apprentice who is far from being regarded as adult; and, for the callings which make large demand on those who pursue them, training continues till far on in life. Higher culture is in part synonymous with a prolongation of childhood and youth. The doctor is not allowed to practise till after an apprenticeship lasting till towards the close of the twenties. The researcher is at bottom an apprentice throughout life, still young in his old age, and unable to subsist did not society support him during this youth.

The real, decisive advantage which man has over the animals is that he can continue to renew himself throughout his whole life. The animals are so one-sided or few-sided; they are specialised for particular types of activity, and excel in only a few directions. Their young are therefore capable of development only within narrow limits. The foal may become a sprinter, the young falcon a stunt-flyer, and so on. The human child may become anything whatever, stunt-flyer and sprinter included.

This all-sidedness of man is not, however, responsible for the helpless condition in which the child comes into the world; nor can the explanation be found in the fact that so long a time is required for the high development which the child has to attain. It is other causes which determine the relative degrees of development in the newborn. The newborn foal is, for example, much farther forward in the path of development than the newborn kitten; but one is not therefore to infer that an Arab horse is much less intelligent than an Angora cat. The pigeon’s young are extremely helpless when they leave the shell, while the young falcon is from the first covered with down and can eat the food which his parents lay in the nest; but is the pigeon far more intelligent than the falcon or than the hen whose new-hatched young can at once find food for themselves? The animals most nearly related to man also bring into the world young which are almost as helpless as the newborn human child. If one compares the different races of mankind, one comes again to the result that it cannot be the level of culture attained by the adult which determines the degree of development of the newborn; for in that case the newborn of primitive peoples would be in advance of those of the more highly civilised races, while in fact they are not. On the other hand, the time required by the individual to attain maturity for his life-work depends on the level of mental development.

Time, however, is not the only thing that counts; there is, in addition, practice, preparation for the work of life—that is, education. Among primitive peoples the child can relatively soon maintain life by his own exertions, because the modes of making a living are so simple. Australian negro women support themselves as “collectors,” that is, they take everything eatable wherever they find it; this is a craft which children can soon learn. The construction of a modern motor-ship requires not only long-continued practice but also careful preparation. With increasing culture there is an increase in the importance of education.

Man’s strength thus lies not in being relatively complete at birth, but he is born a pitiful creature precisely because he is incomplete and full of possibilities.

At birth most children utter a cry; it is their greeting to life. But they cry dry-eyed; it is not till after the passage of some months that tears appear in the infant’s eyes. In the case of my second child, S., I saw tears for the first time when she was four months old.

But why does the child cry after having been born? Hegel thought, a trifle too speculatively, it may be conjectured, that the cry of the newborn is a revelation of its higher nature. The child proclaims by its cry that it is convinced of its right to demand satisfaction of its needs from the world around it—in other words, that the world is not independent in its relation to man, and therefore just as little in its relation to the child. Presumably the child was born a Hegelian. Michelet assumed that the cry of the newborn is due to the terror of the soul on finding itself subject to nature. Even Kant took the infant’s cry too seriously, and believed its origin to be that the newborn child wishes to move but cannot, and therefore feels itself fettered and robbed of its freedom.

But why then does the newborn infant cry? This is simply impossible to explain satisfactorily. Some think that the infant cries by a merely reflex action, because it is cooled after leaving the maternal organism. After the child has been swathed, the crying as a rule ceases. It is, however, possible that owing to the interruption of the placental circulation, and to the birth itself, a strong craving for oxygen arises, which causes the crying. Or perhaps the cry is caused by pain due to the process of birth. Lastly, several causes may co-operate; but the cry of the newborn is not the expression of any higher life of the soul.

As a rule the newborn infant falls asleep as soon as it has received proper attentions; and during the first days it sleeps almost uninterruptedly. It gets all it wants sleeping. It is only when it needs feeding or cleansing that it is wakeful, and this is as much as is healthy for it.

As soon as the child is awake it begins to whimper or cry; but there is a difference in the cry according as the child has soiled itself or is hungry. Hunger is also revealed by movements of the lips and tongue, similar to the act of sucking, but these are naturally quite unconscious, purely physiological. Different children, moreover, do not cry in the same way. Most of them say a—a or æ—æ (the vowels in far and care), but it may happen that a child cries la—la. The cry of some is thin and whimpering, almost a pleasure to listen to, whilst others howl at the top of their voices on even a slight occasion. The cry of the very first day already reveals peculiarities of the child’s nature. My two children, both of them girls, cried altogether differently from their first day, the one very gently, the other in a highly irritating and exacting manner.

The newborn child, however, can neither understand what is the matter with it nor consciously disclose its wishes. It is not, in fact, possessed of a soul in the same sense as the adult; it has only the germs of a human soul life. The brain is far from fully developed. It has indeed at birth the same external form as the adult brain; but most of the nerve-threads of the cerebrum lack medullary sheaths, and are therefore unable to function. In a manner the newborn child is physiologically almost without a cerebrum, and therefore incapable of manifesting the higher forms of soul life. The only parts fully developed are those governing the activities most necessary to life; and consequently what we observe in the newborn child is almost exclusively spontaneous movements and reflexes, particularly those governed by the spinal cord; while movements depending on experience and governed by the brain do not appear till later.

With regard to the senses, investigations on the structure of the nervous system and observations of newborn children agree in indicating that the newborn child can immediately feel—that is, can perceive pressure, heat, cold, and so on; also that it can taste and very soon smell. On the other hand, the power of vision is undeveloped; the child can only distinguish between light and darkness, but cannot really see. The newborn child is also, practically speaking, totally deaf.

It is the senses most necessary to life which can be exercised at once, although very imperfectly. The child can and must taste the milk and defend itself from dangerous substances. And so it reacts in the same way as adults to bitter, sour, sweet, or salt substances, placed experimentally on its tongue; and it behaves normally towards malodorous substances. On the other hand, the great majority of investigators are agreed that even violent noise in the immediate neighbourhood of the newborn is quite unheard. But sight and hearing need not enter upon their functions immediately because of the care which the mother can give to the child. The newborn is a helpless little being without the power to observe or to exercise willed movements. It is certainly stimulated by its surroundings, but all that is aroused is perceptions and dim feelings of pleasure or displeasure. Most frequently, no doubt, the feelings are bound up with perceptions. The movements executed by the newborn child are partly spontaneous or reflex, independent of the psychic elements; partly they are instinctive movements, an inheritance without which life would be impossible. Only a few movements reveal what we may term a primitive impulse towards consciousness—a few simple, undifferentiated perceptions and vague feelings of pleasure and displeasure.