From the PREFACE. Four years ago this book appeared to be a fortunate hit, offering as it did, though on the most simple scale, a study of infant psychology. The character of the work arose naturally from the line of study I had planned. I had, in fact, set myself to follow out in little children the gradual awakening of those faculties which constitute the psychic activity, so abundantly differentiated, so delicate and at the same time so powerful, of the adult human being. It was, no doubt, this intention-possibly a ...
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From the PREFACE. Four years ago this book appeared to be a fortunate hit, offering as it did, though on the most simple scale, a study of infant psychology. The character of the work arose naturally from the line of study I had planned. I had, in fact, set myself to follow out in little children the gradual awakening of those faculties which constitute the psychic activity, so abundantly differentiated, so delicate and at the same time so powerful, of the adult human being. It was, no doubt, this intention-possibly a somewhat premature one-of systematizing a class of observations, of which hitherto only rough sketches had been attempted, which gained me the encouragement of philosophers and educationalists both in France and abroad. Thus then, while endeavoring to improve upon the modest beginning which had at first won me their sympathy, I could do no better than keep to my original method. My canvases were already sketched in and accepted: I have merely endeavored to draw them a little better and to fill them in more, to render facts and interpretations of facts clearer and more precise. With regard to the facts, either simply described or dramatized in the form of psychological anecdotes, I have carefully sorted and re-arranged them, discarding a certain number which seemed to me of little importance, and adding a good many others, either taken out of my own journals of observations or borrowed from other people, but all of them verified by myself. I thought also that I should be readily forgiven for having interpolated a few pages of psychological observations taken out of my book on Education from the Cradle, which seemed here in their natural place, and which will be replaced in the other book by considerations of a more specially pedagogic nature. Both books will, I think, have gained by the exchange. As to the interpretations of facts, I have striven to be guided by the spirit of the experimental method. If I have sometimes been happy in my observations and judgments, it is to this method that the honor is due; the mistakes and omissions are my own share. At any rate, no one of the systems of philosophy, which, under different names, have more or less exactly adapted themselves to the experimental method, is responsible for my errors. Although I have my preferences and my tendencies, I belong to no school. I find myself most often, it is true, quoting from a Darwin or a Spencer, but I am none the less glad to do so from Mme. Necker, de Saussure, and Guizot, from Messrs. E. Egger and L. Ferri, when they can give me the fruits of real experience. I do not ask of facts and ideas for their label and trade-mark before admitting them to my humble psychological domain; it is enough for me that they are facts well observed and well described, enough that they are clear and judicious ideas. It is in such a spirit that I would have my readers deal with my essay on infant psychology; letting all thoughts of a particular system be secondary in their minds, as they have been in my own. I have often pondered-trying to turn them to account myself-. those most pithy words of Mr. F. Pollock's: "And as science makes it plainer every day that there is no such thing as a fixed equilibrium, either in the world without or in the mind within, so it becomes plain that the genuine and durable triumphs of philosophy are not in systems but in ideas." If some few good ideas are found scattered in my book, I beg my readers neither to see nor seek for anything else in it.
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