50 EVOLUTION AND MAN S PLACE IN NATURE 



of scientific methods. Here, as Professor Burdon 

 Sanderson has said, 1 homage must be rendered by 

 physiologists to investigations lying outside the 

 limits of their science. Homage to divine philo 

 sophy is in some sense homage to the dawn of 

 consciousness in the child. 



What is meant by this dawn of consciousness 

 can be understood only by what we ourselves know of 

 consciousness. We have no recollection of such dawn 

 in personal history. What we profess to recognise 

 occurring in infant life, is alleged to bear the descrip 

 tion given to it, only on the ground of the activity 

 belonging to ourselves at every moment of our ex 

 perience. We know what self-consciousness is, and 

 we remark external signs of its beginning in the life 

 of the infant. From this slight beginning in the 

 young life, we can find signs of the unfolding of con- 

 &quot; scious life, first in attention, with its attendant 

 varying expression on the countenance; next, in 

 movement, specially in the outstretching of the hand 

 towards visible objects, as their nearness is recog 

 nised; and, by and by, in speech, wilich opens the 

 channels for communication. The signs which were 

 at first only visible, are noAv confirmed by audible ex 

 pression, 2 for the facts of consciousness. The life is 

 not separated from material existence, but is clearly 

 dependent on physical apparatus and on material 

 media, for observations and communications. But 

 apparatus and media are here holding a secondary 

 place, as only auxiliary ; observations and communi- 



1 See p. 37. 



2 What is it to a mother when her child proves unable to articu 

 late ! To what a variety of contrivances does such a trial lead ! 



