Full illustrations of these traits of the first years of childhood are
not needed. We all know them. M. Perez and others have culled a
sufficient collection of examples.[164]
-----
Footnote 164:
See for example Perez, _The First Three Years of Childhood_, p. 66
ff.; and _L’Education dès le berceau_, chap. vi.
-----
Out of all this unrestrained pushing of appetite and desire whereby the
child comes into rude collision with others’ wants, wishes and purposes,
there issue the well-known passionateness, the angry outbursts, and the
fierce quarrellings of the child. These fits of angry passion or temper
are among the most curious manifestations of childhood, and deserve to
be studied with much greater care than they have yet received.
The outburst of rage as the imperious little will feels itself suddenly
pulled up has in spite of its comicality something impressive. Hitting
out right and left, throwing things down on the floor and breaking them,
howling, wild agitated movements of the arms and whole body, these are
the outward vents which the gust of childish fury is apt to take. Preyer
observed one of these violent explosions in the seventeenth month. The
outburst tends to concentrate itself in an attack on the offender, be
this even the beloved mamma herself. Darwin’s boy at the age of two
years three months became a great adept at throwing books, sticks, etc.,
at any one who offended him.[165] But almost anything will do as an
object of attack. A child of four on being crossed would bang his chair,
and then proceed to vent his displeasure on his unoffending toy lion,
banging him, jumping on him, and, as anti-climax, threatening him with
the loss of his dinner. Hitting is in some cases improved upon by
biting. The boy C. was for some time vigorously mordant in his angry
fits. Another little boy would, under similar circumstances, bite the
carpet.
-----
Footnote 165:
Darwin notes that all his boys did this kind of thing, whereas his
girls did not (_Mind_, ii., p. 288). My own observations agree with
this. A small boy has more of savage attack than a small girl.
-----
Here we have expressive movements which are plainly brutal, which
assimilate the aspect of an angry child to that of an infuriated animal.
The whole outward attitude is one of fierce reckless assault. The
insane, we are told, manifest a like wildness of attack in fits of
anger, smashing windows, etc., and striking anybody who happens to be at
hand.
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