The early pages of the record do not, one must confess, yield any very striking observations. This is, no doubt, due to the circumstance that the observer, not being a naturalist, was not specially interested in the dim mindless life of the first weeks. For the first few days Master C. appears to have been content to vegetate like other babies of a similar age. Although a bonny boy, he began life in the usual way—with a good cry; though we now know, on scientific authority, that this, being a purely reflex act, has not the deep significance which certain pessimistic philosophers have attributed to it. Science would probably explain in a similar way a number of odd facial movements which this baby went through on the second day of his earthly career, and which, the father characteristically remarks, were highly suggestive of a cynical contempt for his new surroundings. Yet, though content in this early stage to do little but perform the vegetal functions of life, the infant comes endowed with a nervous system and organs of sense, and these are very soon brought into active play. According to this record, the sense of touch is the first to manifest itself.[286] Even when only two hours old, at a period of life when there is certainly no sound for the ear and possibly no light for the eye, C. immediately clasped the parental finger which was brought into the hollow of its tiny hand. The functional activity of touch was observed still more plainly on the second day, when the child was seen to carry out awkwardly enough what looked like exploring movements of the hands over his mouth and face. This early development in the child of the tactual sense agrees, says the biographer, with what Aristotle long since taught respecting the fundamental character of this sense, an idea to which the modern doctrine of evolution has given a new significance. ----- Footnote 286: Taste, as involved in the necessary act of taking nourishment, is probably at first hardly differentiated from touch. ----- A distinct step is taken during the first four days towards acquiring knowledge of things through a progressive use of the eyes and hands. C.’s father noticed on the second day that a good deal of ocular movement was forthcoming. Much of this was quite irregular, each eye following its own path. Sometimes, however, the eyes moved harmoniously or symmetrically now to this side, now to that, and now and again seemed to converge and fix themselves on some near object in front of them. Sufficiently loud sounds increased these ocular movements.