[1] At birth, though most of the great nervous pathways are laid down, they are non-functional largely because the fibers that compose them are unclothed, non-myelinated. The various kinds of tracts have different times for becoming "myelinated" as was the discovery of the great analogist, Flechsig. At any rate, the organization of activity for definite purposes starts. The little investigator is apparently obsessed with the idea that everything it can reach, including its fingers and toes, are good to eat, for everything reached is at once brought to the mouth, the primitive curiosity thus being gustatory. In this research the baby finds that some few things are pleasant, many indifferent and quite a few disgusting and even painful, which may remain as a result not far different from that obtained by investigation in later years. The desire for pleasant things commences to guide its activities. Every new thing is at once an object for investigation, perhaps because its possibilities for pleasure are unknown. That curiosity may have some such origin is at least a plausible statement. At any rate, desire of a definite type steps in to organize the mere desire for activity; and impulse is controlled by purpose. The child learns to creep, and the delight in progression lies in the fact that far more things are accessible for investigation, for rearrangement, for tasting. It is no accident that we speak of our "tastes" that we say, "I want to taste of experience." That is exactly what the child creeping on the floor seeks,--to taste of experience and to anticipate, to realize, to learn. Out of the desire for activity grows a desire for experience born of the pleasure of excitement that we spoke of previously. This desire for experience becomes built up into strange forms under teaching and through the results of experience. It is very strong in some who become explorers, roues, vagabonds, scientists as a result, and it is very weak in others who stay at home and seek only the safe and limited experience. You see two children in one room,--and one sits in the middle of the floor, perhaps playing with a toy or looking around, and the other has investigated the stove and found it hotter than he supposed, has been under the table and bumped his head, has found an unusually sweet white lump which in later life he will call sugar. The good child is often without sufficient curiosity to be bad, whereas the bad child may be an overzealous seeker of experience. So our child reaching out for things develops ideas of cause, effect and power, commences to have an idea of himself as a cause and likes the feeling of power. As he learns to walk, the world widens, his sense of power grows, and his feeling of personality increases. Meanwhile another side of his nature has been developing and one fully as important.