REASON AND CONSCIOUSNESS. 197 



identify it with reflex mental action. He says,* " It 

 will, I suppose, on all hands be admitted that self-con- 

 sciousness 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 subjective phenomena the same powers of per- 

 ception as are brought to bear upon the objective." 



But this is an utter mistake. If we could not be 

 self-conscious directly, or without holding up a previous 

 mental act and recognizing it, we could never be self- 

 conscious at all. For whatever consciousness we have 

 of an act performed, must itself be either direct or 

 reflex. If it be affirmed to be direct, why should we 

 deem it more difficult to have been directly conscious 

 of the first mental act than of the second? If it be 

 affirmed to be necessarily reflex, then how can we ever 

 obtain any knowledge of it .-* If reflex consciousness is 

 absolutely necessary in the first case, it must be so like- 

 wise in the second, and so again for the second act, and 

 so on ad infinitum. We must be able to know with 

 consciousness, directly, or we can never consciously 

 know at all ! 



He says,t next, *' Again, I suppose it will be 

 further admitted that in the minds of animals and in 

 the minds of infants there is a world of images stand- 

 ing as signs of outward objects ; and that the only 

 reason vv^hy these images are not attended to unless 

 called up by the sensuous associations supplied by their 

 corresponding objects, is because the mind is not yet 

 able to leave the g/ound of such association, so as to 

 * PP- 195, 196. t p. 196. 



