he weeps. The less comfortable he is, the more he demands change.
He has only one language because he has, so to say, only one kind
of discomfort. In the imperfect state of his sense organs he does
not distinguish their several impressions; all ills produce one
feeling of sorrow.

These tears, which you think so little worthy of your attention,
give rise to the first relation between man and his environment;
here is forged the first link in the long chain of social order.

When the child cries he is uneasy, he feels some need which he
cannot satisfy; you watch him, seek this need, find it, and satisfy
it. If you can neither find it nor satisfy it, the tears continue
and become tiresome. The child is petted to quiet him, he is rocked
or sung to sleep; if he is obstinate, the nurse becomes impatient
and threatens him; cruel nurses sometimes strike him. What strange
lessons for him at his first entrance into life!

I shall never forget seeing one of these troublesome crying children
thus beaten by his nurse. He was silent at once. I thought he was
frightened, and said to myself, "This will be a servile being from
whom nothing can be got but by harshness." I was wrong, the poor
wretch was choking with rage, he could not breathe, he was black
in the face. A moment later there were bitter cries, every sign
of the anger, rage, and despair of this age was in his tones.
I thought he would die. Had I doubted the innate sense of justice
and injustice in man's heart, this one instance would have convinced
me. I am sure that a drop of boiling liquid falling by chance on
that child's hand would have hurt him less than that blow, slight
in itself, but clearly given with the intention of hurting him.