James Mark Baldwin (1861-1934) Mental Development in the Child and the Race (1897)
Mental Development in the Child and the Race
Chapter 8: The Origins of Motor Attitudes and Expressions
1. General View
...Suppose I observe the movements of a complicated machine, going on in a series, -- a machine which I do not understand. Its movements are not signs or expressions to me of anything. They really are signs, however, expressions of the plan of action of the machine, stages in the idea or state of consciousness of the designer, which the machine embodies. And as soon as I understand the machine, which means as soon as I have the same state of consciousness or idea that he had, then the movements in their series or system do become signs, real expressions to me. I must be, then, actually introduced into the same system as the idea and the machine, in order to find what the expressions mean.
Looking at the child's expressions again, we see that they are expressions to us only because we are in the same system -- the human, the life system -- with the child. I have gone through the same systematic evolution of signs that he is going through. So the question of the origin of expression again widens itself out magnificently. It stands for an answer thus: not only why do the child's expressions -- mind and body together -- develop on such a system, but also why do all of us who understand the signs -- man, child, beast -- find ourselves in the same system of signs intelligible and usable by us all. How can we account for a great organic mind system in the world, and with it how account for its organic embodiment in the system of signs which we call expression?
Chapter 8: The Origins of Motor Attitudes and Expressions
1. General View
...Suppose I observe the movements of a complicated machine, going on in a series, -- a machine which I do not understand. Its movements are not signs or expressions to me of anything. They really are signs, however, expressions of the plan of action of the machine, stages in the idea or state of consciousness of the designer, which the machine embodies. And as soon as I understand the machine, which means as soon as I have the same state of consciousness or idea that he had, then the movements in their series or system do become signs, real expressions to me. I must be, then, actually introduced into the same system as the idea and the machine, in order to find what the expressions mean.
Looking at the child's expressions again, we see that they are expressions to us only because we are in the same system -- the human, the life system -- with the child. I have gone through the same systematic evolution of signs that he is going through. So the question of the origin of expression again widens itself out magnificently. It stands for an answer thus: not only why do the child's expressions -- mind and body together -- develop on such a system, but also why do all of us who understand the signs -- man, child, beast -- find ourselves in the same system of signs intelligible and usable by us all. How can we account for a great organic mind system in the world, and with it how account for its organic embodiment in the system of signs which we call expression?