412 



MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



intelligence becomes distinct in kind from that of animals, 

 and therefore also fro7n its own previous self? If so, your 

 argument here ends in a contradiction. 



In confirmation of this my general argument, two sub- 

 sidiary considerations were then added. The first was that 

 although the advance to true self-consciousness from lower 

 grades of mental development is no doubt a very great and 

 important matter, still it is not so great and important in 

 comparison with what this development is afterwards destined 

 to become, as to make us feel that it constitutes any distinc- 

 tion std generis — or even, perhaps, the principal distinction — 

 between the man and the brute. For even when self-con- 

 sciousness does arise, and has become fairly well developed, 

 the powers of the human mind are still in an almost infantile 

 condition. In other words, the first genesis of true self-con- 

 sciousness marks a comparatively low level in the evolution 

 of the human mind — as we might expect that it should, if its 

 genesis depends upon, and therefore lies so near to, those 

 precedent conditions in merely animal psychology to which I 

 have assigned it. But, if so, does it not follow that, great as 

 the importance of self-consciousness afterwards proves to be 

 in the development of distinctively human ideation, in itself, 

 or in its first beginning, it does not betoken any very per- 

 ceptible advance upon those powers of pre-conceptual ideation 

 which it immediately follows ? There is thus shown to be even 

 less reason for regarding the first advent of conceptual self- 

 consciousness as marking a psychological difference of kind, 

 than there would be so to regard the advent of those higher 

 powers of conceptual ideation which subsequently— though 

 as gradually — supervene between early childhood and youth. 

 Yet no one has hitherto ventured to suggest that the intel- 

 ligence of a child and the intelligence of a youth display a 

 difference of kind. 



The second subsidiary consideration which I adduced was, 

 that even in the case of a fully developed self-conscious intel- 

 ligence, both receptual and pre-conceptual ideation continue 

 to play an important part. The vast majority of our verbal 



