the child; sometimes he does not. Even
the indulgence of the grandmother has its times and seasons. The child
looks for signs of these varying moods and methods of treatment; for
his pains of disappointment arise directly on the basis of that former
sense of regular personal presence upon which his expectancy goes
forth.

This new element of the child's sense of persons becomes, at one
period of its development, quite the controlling element. His action
in the presence of the persons of the household becomes hesitating and
watchful. Especially does he watch the face, for any expressive
indications of what treatment is to be expected; for facial expression
is now the most regular as well as the most delicate indication.
Special observations on H.'s responses to changes in facial expression
up to the age of twenty months showed most subtle sensibility to
these differences; and normal children all do. Animals are also very
expert at this.

All through the child's second year, and longer, his sense of the
persons around him is in this stage. The incessant "why?" with which
he greets any action affecting him, or any information given him, is
witness to the simple puzzle of the apparent capriciousness of
persons. Of course he can not understand "why"; so the simple fact to
him is that mamma will or won't, he knows not beforehand which. He is
unable to anticipate the treatment in detail, and he has not of course
learned any principles of interpretation of the conduct of father or
mother lying back of the details.

But in all this period there is germinating in his consciousness--and this
very uncertainty is an important element of it--the seed of a far-reaching
thought. His sense of persons--moving, pleasure-or-pain-giving, uncertain
but self-directing persons--is now to become a sense of agency, of power,
which is yet not the power of the regular-moving door on its hinges or the
rhythmic swinging of the pendulum of the clock. The sense of _personal
agency_ is now forming, and it again is potent for still further
development of the social consciousness. It is just here, I think, that
imitation becomes so important in the child's life. This is imitation's
opportunity. The infant watches to see how others act, because his own
weal and woe depends upon this "how"; and inasmuch as he knows not what to
anticipate, his mind is open to every suggestion of movement. So he falls
to imitating. His attention dwells upon details, and