Regularity and routine are of the utmost importance in early childhood, and most of all in the first year of life. In regard to sleep, food, and evacuation, regular habits should be formed from the start. Moreover familiarity of surroundings is very important mentally. It teaches recognition, it avoids overstrain, and it produces a feeling of safety. I have sometimes thought that belief in the uniformity of nature, which is said to be a postulate of science, is entirely derived from the wish for safety. We can cope with the expected, but if the laws of nature were suddenly changed we should perish. The infant, because of its weakness, has need of reassurance, and it will be happier if everything that happens seems to happen according to invariable laws, so as to be predictable. In later childhood, the love of adventure develops, but in the first year of life everything unusual tends to be alarming. Do not let the child feel fear if you can possibly help it. If it is ill, and you are anxious, hide your anxiety very carefully, lest it should pass to the child by suggestion. Avoid everything that might produce excitement. And do not minister to the child’s self-importance by letting it see that you mind if it does not sleep or eat or evacuate as it should. This applies not only to the first year of life, but still more to the subsequent years. Never let the child think that a necessary normal action, such as eating which ought to be a pleasure, is something that you desire, and that you want it to do so to please you. If you do, the child soon perceives that it has acquired a new source of power, and expects to be coaxed into actions which it ought to perform spontaneously. Do not imagine that the child has not the intelligence for such behaviour. Its powers are small and its knowledge is limited, but it has just as much intelligence as a grown-up person where these limitations do not operate. It learns more in the first twelve months than it will ever learn again in the same space of time, and this would be impossible if it had not a very active intelligence. To sum up: Treat even the youngest baby with respect, as a person who will have to take his place in the world. Do not sacrifice his future to your present convenience, or to your pleasure in making much of him: the one is as harmful as the other. Here, as elsewhere, a combination of love and knowledge is necessary if the right way is to be followed. CHAPTER IV FEAR