“Being nearly four years old, she was certainly a child: and children are human (if one allows the term "human" a wide sense): but she had not altogether ceased to be a baby: and babies are of course not human--they are animals, and have a very ancient and ramified culture, as cats have, and fishes, and even snakes: the same in kind as these, but much more complicated and vivid, since babies are, after all, one of the most developed species of the lower vertebrates. In short, babies have minds which work in terms and categories of their own which cannot be translated into the terms and categories of the human mind. It is true that they look human--but not so human, to be quite fair, as many monkeys. Subconsciously, too, every one recognizes they are animals--why else do people always laugh when a baby does some action resembling the human, as they would at a praying mantis? If the baby was only a less-developed man, there would be nothing funny in it, surely.”
Quote by Richard Hughes
Work
A High Wind in Jamaica
Browse quotes and source details for this work. more
Author
You May Also Like
Source: Elizabeth's Wolf
Source: Broken
Source: The Letter Writer
Source: Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood
“Babies are frightening -- raw tyrants whose only kingdom is their own body.”
Source: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
Source: Dept. of Speculation
Source: THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH
Source: The Fire Opal
Source: When the Duke Returns