4IO 



MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



manifestations, in different regions of psychological inquiry, 

 of the same psychological distinctions. And we have seen 

 that the distinction between a Recept and a Concept, which is 

 thus carried through all the fabric of mind, is really the only 

 distinction about which there can be any dispute. More- 

 over, we have seen that the distinction is on all hands allowed 

 to depend on the presence or absence of self-consciousness. 

 Lastly, we have seen that even in the province of self-con- 

 sciousness itself the same distinction admits of being traced : 

 there is a form of self-consciousness which may be termed 

 receptual, as well as that which may be termed conceptual. 

 The whole question before us thus resolves itself into an 

 inquiry touching the relation between these two forms of 

 self-consciousness : is it or is it not observable that the one 

 is developmentally continuous with the other? Can we or 

 can we not perceive that in the growing child the powers of 

 receptual self-conciousness, which it shares with a brute, pass 

 by slow and natural stages into those powers of conceptual 

 self-consciousness which are distinctive of a man ? 



: This question was fully considered in Chapter XI. I had 

 previously shown that so far as the earliest, or indicative 

 phase of language is concerned, no difference even of degree 

 can be alleged between the infant and the animal. I had also 

 shown that neither could any such difference be alleged with 

 regard to the earlier stages of the next two phases — namely, 

 the denotative and the receptually connotative. Moreover, 

 I had shown that no difference of kind could be alleged 

 between this lower receptual utterance which a child shares 

 with a brute, and that higher receptual utterance which it 

 proceeds to develop prior to the advent of self-consciousness. 

 Lastly, I had shown that this higher receptual utterance gives 

 to the child a psychological instrument whereby to work its 

 way from a merely receptual to an incipiently conceptual 

 consciousness of self. Such being the state of the facts as 

 established by my previous analysis, I put to my opponents 

 the following dilemma. Taking the case of a child about two 

 years old, who is able to frame such a rudimentary, com- 



