280 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



belonged to the life of instinct and sensation merely. When he awoke 

 to a realization of himself and the outer world, he found himself living, 

 as a matter of simple habit, on roots and fruit, to which he had gone, 

 apparently, in imitation of the animals and birds. "During this Part 

 of my Life," he says, "my Eational Faculty laid [sic], as it were, 

 dormant within me. I never made the least Reflection upon my 

 Condition, nor turned my Thoughts to the Contemplation of anything 

 about me." Such, Autonous conceives to be "the thoughtless State of 

 all Persons for the greatest Part of the Childhood, while the Mind 

 is furnishing itself with Instruments to work with." 



With Autonous, however, this condition naturally lasts longer than 

 with ordinary children, who from the beginning are associated with 

 older people and have the advantage of the education directly and 

 indirectly given by such intercourse. But it happens that, while all 

 children are more or less inquisitive, Autonous is particularly so; and 

 endowed, moreover, with unusual power of response to the stimuli of 

 surroundings, he soon begins to gather in, from all sides, the rough 

 materials of thought. 



Happy accident first stirs him to 'serious Reflection/ One exceed- 

 ingly hot day he strays 'something further than ordinary' from his 

 cottage; and going to a small lake to quench his thirst, he is surprised 

 'with the appearance of a creature in the Lake' of a shape very different 

 from anything he 'ever had seen,' which, as he stoops to the water, 

 seems to leap upward to him, as if with a design to seize him. He 

 flies in terror to a neighboring wood; but after a time, his thirst re- 

 turning, he takes courage again, goes back to the lake and repeats the 

 experiment; but only with the same dreadful result. This, Autonous 

 explains, was the first time he had ever seen his reflection in smooth, 

 still water, having previously drunk from fountains, or from shallow 

 and rapid streams. He is so terribly frightened that for some weeks 

 he hardly dares to leave the cottage, while his sleep is broken by 'fearful 

 Starts and Dreams.' Little by little, the horror wears off, but other 

 effects do not. He has been aroused to a 'sense of myself,' and begins 

 to ask — a trifle prematurely, we fancy — 'What am I? How came I 

 Here?' These questions are rather too definitely put, but the incident 

 and its consequences certainly foreshadow in an interesting way some 

 of the speculations of recent anthropologists on the part played by 

 shadows and reflections in the growth of the idea of the other self, 

 or soul. Autonous's thoughts, however, take a somewhat different turn. 

 He later discovers a 'crystal Brook,' in which, to his astonishment, he 

 observes another sky, another dog, another world. By examination, he 

 finds that there is, none the less, a real bottom to this brook; and thus 

 he learns the secret of 'natural Reflection/ Remembering his former 

 fright, he also studies himself very carefully in the water, and concludes 



