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sees about him. The range of imitation then widens and is no longer limited to what is
seen, but includes a free reproduction of what is heard in narratives. At the same time the
interconnection between ideas and acts begins to follow a more fixed plan. This is the
regulative influence of the activity of understanding, which shows itself in the games of
later childhood in perscribed rules. This development is often accelerated through the
influence of those about the child and through artificial forms of play generally invented
by adults and not always suited to the child's imagination; [p. 295] still, the development
is to be recognized as natural and necessarily conditioned by the reciprocal
interconnection of associative and apperceptive processes, since it agrees with the general
development of the intellectual functions. The way in which the processes of imagination
are gradually curtailed and the functions of understanding more and more employed,
renders it probable that the curtailing is due not so much to a quantitative decrease of
imagination as to an obstruction of its action through abstract thinking. When this has
once set in, because of the predominating exercise of abstract thinking, the activity of
imagination may itself through lack of use be interfered with. This view seems to be
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OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY
169
supported by the fact that savages usually have all through their lives an imaginative
play-impulse related to that of the child.
10. From imaginative forms of thought as a starting point the functions of understanding
develop very gradually in the way already described (p. 264). Aggregate ideas that are
presented in sense-perception or formed by the combination, activity of imagination are
divided into their conceptual components, into objects and their attributes, into objects
and their activities, or into the relations of different objects to one another. The decisive
symptom for the rise of the functions of understanding is therefore the formation of
concepts. On the other hand, actions that can be explained from the point of view of the
observer by logical reflection, are by no means proofs of the existence of such reflection
on the part of the actor, for they are very often obviously derived from associations, just
as in the case of animals. In the same way there may be the first beginnings of speech
without abstract thinking in any proper sense, since words refer originally only to
concrete sensible impressions. Still, the more perfect use of language is not possible until
ideas are conceptually analyzed, related, and transferred, even [p. 296] though the
processes are in each case entirely concrete and sensible. The development of the
functions of understanding and that of speech accordingly go hand in hand, and the latter
is an indispensable aid in retaining concepts and fixing the operations of thought.
10a. Child-psychology often suffers from the same mistake that is made in animal
psychology: namely, that the observations aren't interpreted objectively, but are filled out
with subjective reflections. Thus, the earliest ideational combinations, which are in reality
purely associative, are regarded as acts of logical reflection, and the earliest mimetic
expressive movements, as, for example, those of a new-born child due to taste-stimuli,
are looked upon as reactions to feelings, while they are obviously at first nothing but
connate reflexes which may, indeed, be accompanied by obscure concomitant feelings,
but even these can not be demonstrated with certainty. The ordinary view as to the
development of volition and of speech, labors under a like misconception. Generally
there is a tendency to consider the child's language, because of its peculiarities, as a
creation of his own. Closer observation, however, shows that it is created by those about
him, though in doing this they use the sounds that the child himself produces, and
conform as far as possible to big stage of consciousness. Thus it comes that some of the
very detailed and praise-worthy accounts of the mental development of the child in
modern literature can serve only as sources for finding objective facts. Because they
stand on the basis of a reflective popular psychology, their psychological deductions
require correction along the lines marked out above.
§ 21. DEVELOPMENT OF MENTAL COMMUNITIES.
1. Just as the psychical development of the child is the resultant of his interaction with his
environment, so matured consciousness stands continually in relation to the mental
community in which it has a receptive and an active part. Among most animals such a
community is entirely wanting. [p. 297] In animal marriage, animal states, and flocks, we
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OUTLINES OF PSYCHOLOGY
170
have only incomplete forerunners of mental communities, and they are generally limited
to the accomplishment of certain single ends. The more lasting forms, animal marriage
and the falsely named animal states (p. 279), are really sexual cornmunities. the more
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