2o8 THE ORIGIN OF HUMAN REASON. 



He then proceeds to " show " their importance, ob- 

 serving — 



*' We have now before us unquestionable evidence 

 that in the growing child there is a power, not only of 

 forming, but of expressing a pre-conceptual judgment, 

 long before there is any evidence of the child presenting 

 the faintest rudiment of internal, conceptual, or true 

 self-consciousness." 



We have now before us, to our judgment, unques- 

 tionable evidence that in the growing child there is 

 consciousness and a power of conception, long before 

 there is any power of speech whatever ; as also that 

 clearly conceived judgments are explicitly made known 

 sometimes by the utterance of two sounds, and some- 

 times by a mere monosyllable, as is frequently the case 

 with adults also — even Fellows of the Royal Society. 

 Therefore, instead of saying with Mr. Romanes * that 

 expressions of children are 7iot examples of " true pre- 

 dication in the sense of being the expression of a true 

 or conceptual judgment," because the child using them 

 has not yet spoken of itself as " I," we say that, being 

 at once true predications — true conceptual judgments — 

 they prove that self-consciousness preceded them, in 

 spite of the very unnecessary habit of using the term 

 " I " not having come into use. He tells us f that the 

 child's expression, " Mama pleased to Dodo," would have 

 no meaning as spoken by a child, unless the child knew 

 " what is the state of mind he thus attributes to another." 

 So when the child Dodo further says, " Dodo pleased 

 to mama," he is conscious that he is pleased. Mr. 

 * p. 205. t P- 206. 



