196 CONSCIOUSNESS IN 



states analogous to those which, we ourselves experience, is 

 a matter only of warranted inference. A word or two in 

 explanation, and by way of comment, will make the truth 

 of this statement more obvious. 



All States of Consciousness whatsoever, whether they 

 occur under the guise of Sensations, Thoughts, orEmotions, 

 are phenomena which each of us knows only for himself, 

 and as existing in himself. I see around me fellow-beings 

 who behave in many respects like myself, and from the 

 fact of this similarity of behaviour, as well as from what 

 they can tell me (by articulate speech), I am able, legiti- 

 mately, to infer that these other beings are possessed of 

 Feelings very similar to my own. This inference (with 

 or without a full realization of its grounds) we each of us 

 make, and though it has been long recognized by a few,* 

 it should be more generally known that such an inference 

 is based partly (a) upon our observations of the gestures 

 or movements of our fellow-men, under circumstances 

 with which we are ourselves familiar ; and partly (b) on 

 our appreciation of the results of special classes of move- 

 ments, by which Emotional Cries, Articulate Speech, or 

 Written Characters are produced. These latter, vocal or 

 graphic, results of special movements, are only interpret- 

 able after prolonged efforts, during which we learn to 

 recognize the several Auditory and Visual Symbols, and 

 associate them with corresponding objects, acts, states, 

 ideas, and their relations. 



Though the conclusion that our fellow-beings are sentient 

 creatures like ourselves, capable of Feeling, Thinking, 

 Desiring and Willing, comes to most of us as a. kind of 

 intuition or self-evident truth, not requiring any proof, it 

 is well that readers should know on what grounds the 



* See Dr. W. Alison, art. "Instinct," "Cyclop, of Anat. and 

 Physiol.," vol. iii. p. 27, 1839. 



