SELF-COXSCIOUSNESS. 1 95 



world. With this aspect of the question, however, I am in no 

 way concerned. Just as the functions of an embryologist 

 are confined to tracing the mere history of developmental 

 changes of Hving structure, and just as he is thus as far as 

 ever from throwing any hght upon the deeper questions of the 

 how and the why of life ; so in seeking to indicate the steps 

 whereby self-consciousness has arisen from the lower stages 

 of mental structure, I am as far as any one can be from 

 throwing light upon the intrinsic nature of that the probable 

 genesis of which I am endeavouring to trace. It is no less 

 true to-day than it was in the time of Soloman, that "as thou 

 knowest not how the bones do grow in the womb of her that 

 is with child, thou knowest not what is the way of the 

 spirit." 



If we are agreed that it is only in man that self-conscious- 

 ness is to be found at all, it follows that only to man can we 

 look for any facts bearing upon the question of its development. 

 And inasmuch as it is only during the first years of infancy 

 that a normal human being is destitute of self-consciousness, 

 the statement just made implies that only in infant psycho- 

 logy need we seek for the facts of which we are in search. 

 Further, as I maintain that self-consciousness arises out of an 

 admixture of the protoplasm of judgment with the proto- 

 plasm of sign-making (according to the signification of these 

 terms as already explained), I have now to make good this 

 opinion upon the basis of facts drawn from the study of 

 infant psychology. 



Nevertheless, before I proceed to the heart of the subject, 

 I think it will be convenient to consider those faculties of 

 mind which, occurring both in the infant and in the animal, in 

 the former case precede the advent of self-consciousness, and, 

 according to my view, prepare the way for it. 



It will, I suppose, on all hands be admitted that sclf- 

 consciousncss consists in paying the same kind of attention 

 to internal or psychical processes as is habitually paid to 

 external or physical processes — a bringing to bear upon 



