Emilius and Sophia Author:Jean-Jacques Rousseau Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK II. WE are come now to the fecond period of life, at which the ftate of infancy, pro-, perly fpeakirig, ends, and that of puerility begins : for the word... more »s textit{infans and textit{puer are by no means fynonimous. The firft is comprehended in the other, and fignifies a child textit{who cannotfpeak; 'hence we find, in Valerius Maximus, the ex- preffion textit{puerum infantem. I fhall continue, not- withftanding, tomake'ufeof the word children, agreeably to its modern acceptation. When a child begins to talk, it weeps lefs. This progreffionis natural; one language being only fubftituted for another. As foon as he can complain in exprefs terms, why fhould he do it by tears, unlefs indeed he fuffer too violently to be able to vent his complaint in words? If he continue, otherwife, in the praciifc of crying, it 'is the fault of thofe who are about him. When once Emilius comes to be able to fay, / textit{am net well, he muft be in very great pain indeed if he afterwards fheds a tear.' If a child be of a delicate conftitution, extremely fufceptible, and naturally apt to cry for nothing, I would foon dry up the fource of his tears, by rendering them fruitlefs. So long as he fhould continue crying I would not go near Vol. I. F him; him ; but run to him immediately on his becoming filent. By this means, his manner of calling .me to his affiftance would be by his filence, or, at moft, by giving only one cry. It is from the perceptible effeft of figns, that children judge of their meaning; they fee no other relation between them. Whatever mifchief a child may have done itfelf, it is very rare for it to cry, when alone, at leaft if it hath no hopes of being heard. If Emilius fhould get a fall, a bump on his forehead, make his nofe bleed, or cut his fingers ; inftead of ru...« less