O que Van Helsing entende por “Drácula tem cérebro de criança”?

Ele quer dizer que a memória do conde não sobreviveu completamente à sua morte; ele ainda está "se desenvolvendo", como uma criança seria (a minha é minha):

"Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death. Though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child.

^{Dracula Chapter 23}

Isso tem certas conseqüências para nossos heróis, o que lhes dá uma ligeira vantagem sobre ele:

• Ele não é - pelo menos não inicialmente - um grande pensador; ele tende a se concentrar nos objetivos de curto prazo (ênfase minha):

  Well for us, it is as yet a child-brain. For had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power.

  ^{Dracula Chapter 23}

  [D]oubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his child mind only saw so far.

  ^{Dracula Chapter 25}

  I have hope that our man brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small.

  ^{Dracula Chapter 25}

• Em vez de mudar seu comportamento em resposta à razão, ele continuará a repetir ações, desde que não receba feedback negativo (ou até que ele tenha em mente):

  The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically. [...] [U]ntil he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before!

  ^{Dracula Chapter 25}

• Da mesma forma, ele aprende através de experimentação de tentativa e erro, em vez de raciocinar em direção a resultados "ótimos":

  Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help. And then, when he found that this be all right, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him.

  ^{Dracula Chapter 23}

No entanto, Van Hellsing é rápido em apontar que Drácula está aprendendo, e tem estado desde o momento de sua morte, então essa vantagem é temporária na melhor das hipóteses:

But he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man's stature.

^{Dracula Chapter 23}