elves to the necessity for a
consolidation of the primary and secondary operations of the mind,
without which the creative imagination cannot take form. To be precise,
we might distinguish, as does Baldwin, four epochs in the mental
development of the child: (1) affective (rudimentary sensory processes,
pleasures and pains, simple motor adaptations); (2) and (3) objective,
in which the author establishes two grades, (a) appearance of special
senses, of memory, instincts primarily defensive, and imitation; (b)
complex memory, complicated movements, offensive activities, rudimentary
will; (4) subjective or final (conscious thought, constitutive will,
ideal emotions). If we accept this scheme as approximately correct, the
_moment_ of imagination must be assigned to the third period (the second
stage of the objective epoch) which fulfills all the sufficient and
necessary conditions for its origination and for its rise above pure
reproduction.

Whatever the propitious age may be, the study of the child-imagination
is not without difficulties. In order to enter into the child-mind, we
must become like a child; as it is, we are limited to an interpretation
of it in terms of the adult, with much false interpretation possible,
agreeing too much or too little with the facts. Furthermore, the
children studied live and grow up in a civilized environment. The result
is that the development of their imagination is rarely unhampered and
complete; for as soon as their fancy passes the middle level, the
rationalizing education of parents and teachers is eager to master and
control it. In truth it gives its full measure and reveals itself in
the fulness of growth only among primitive peoples. With us it is
checked in its flight by an antagonistic power, which treats it as a
harbinger of insanity. Finally, children are not equally well-suited for
this study; we must make a distinction between the imaginative and
non-imaginative, and the latter should be eliminated.

When we have thus chosen suitable subjects, observation shows from the
start sufficiently distinct varieties, different orientations of the
imagination depending on intellectual causes, such as the predominance
of visual or acoustic or tactile-motor images making for mechanical
invention; or dependent on emotional causes, that is, of character,
according as the latter is timid, joyous, exuberant, retired, healthy,
sickly, etc.

If we now attempt to follow the development of