152 The Scottish Naturalist. 



ness of aught else. As Dr. Bischoff, an advocate of this dis- 

 tinction between the animal and the man, says — " We cannot 

 deny to animals consciousness. We assert that man alone 

 possesses self-consciousness, /. e., the capacity of meditating on 

 himself and his connection with the rest of the creation." The 

 late Professor Ferrier signalized this characteristic of human 

 knowledge more than it had been before. The fact that what- 

 ever man knows he has a knowledge of himself along with that 

 knowledge, he made the foundation principle of his philosophy ; 

 and though he did not himself pronounce an opinion, he says 

 there is good reason for holding that this quality of mind does 

 not belong to animals — that they have no cognizance of them- 

 selves. Though Mr. Huxley himself now says, "very strong 

 arguments would be needed to prove that such complex pheno- 

 mena as those of consciousness first make their appearance on 

 man," (F. R. p. 573) what did he mean, when not long ago 

 he wrote that man is " the only consciously intelligent denizen 

 of this world?" (Placeae no.) Was he not looking in the 

 direction of self-consciousness, and did he not, instinctively it 

 may be, attribute to man alone that prerogative, when he used 

 the latter expression ? In another place, however, he says that 

 animals, by perceiving objects as external, practically recognise 

 the difference between the self and the not self. (C. Rev., May 

 1 87 1.) If what the animals do " practically" — which is very 

 much the philosopher doing it for them — they would but do it 

 speculatively, which would be doing it for themselves, the 

 point of self-consciousness would be gained for them ; but only 

 then. 



It is from the quarter of self-consciousness that my difficulties 

 arise in accepting the identity of the animal and human soul. 

 It is not proved that animals possess this power. And so far 

 as the theory of their mental nature given above in Dr. Carpen- 

 ter's words, is a true one — in fact, so far as automatism, organic 

 or intelligent, is the real account of their psychical action, it 

 seems to involve the absence of self-consciousness. But, to 

 expiscate this matter farther, what is it that must be held im- 

 plied in the want of self-consciousness — implied in fact as the 

 source of its absence ? It is the want of a self— nothing less. 

 Animals, if they want self-consciousness, want it because they 

 have no self to be conscious of. They want Personality. 

 Their soul is not a soul that is a self or a Person. The I, the 

 ego, the ich, le moi, that idea of selfhood to which expression 



