We may now take up the main question as to the condition of the child that is learning to speak, in regard to the development and practicability of the nerve-paths and of the centers required for speech. For the comparison of the disturbances of speech in adults with the deficiencies of speech in the child, on the one hand, and the chronological observation of the child, on the other hand, disclose to us what parts of the apparatus of speech come by degrees into operation. First to be considered are the _impressive_ and _expressive_ paths in general. All new-born human beings are deaf or hard of hearing, as has already been demonstrated. Since the hearing but slowly grows more acute during the first days, no utterances of sound at this period can be regarded as responses to any sound-impressions whatever. The first cry is purely reflexive, like the croaking of the decapitated frog when the skin of his back is stroked (Vol. I, p. 214). The cry is not heard by the newly-born himself and has not the least value as language. It is on a par with the squeaking of the pig just born, the bleating of the new-born lamb, and the peeping of the chick that is breaking its shell. Upon this first, short season of physiological deaf-mutism follows the period during which crying expresses bodily conditions, feelings such as pain, hunger, cold. Here, again, there exists as yet no connection of the expressive phenomena with acoustic impressions, but there is already the employment of the voice with stronger expiration in case of strong and disagreeable excitations of other sensory nerves than those of general sensation and of the skin. For the child now cries at a dazzling light also, and at a bitter taste, as if the unpleasant feeling were diminished by the strong motor discharge. In any case the child cries because this loud, augmented expiration lessens for him the previously existing unpleasant feelings, without exactly inducing thereby a comfortable condition. Not until later does a sudden sound-impression, which at first called forth only a start and then a quivering of the eyelids, cause also crying. But this loud sign of fright may be purely reflexive, just like the silent starting and throwing up of the arms at a sudden noise, and has at most the significance of an expression of discomfort, like screaming at a painful blow.