A UNIVERSE OF MIND-STUFF 



a similar group of states of consciousness,- 

 and this group is an eject. When I think or 

 speak of the table, I bind up together the indi- 

 vidual object as it exists in my mind with an in- 

 definite number of ejects assumed to resemble 

 it ; and thus is formed the complex conception 

 which Clifford calls the social object, that is, 

 the conception of the table as an object in hu- 

 man consciousness in general. There now en- 

 sues an ingenious and interesting series of infer- 

 ences. Before our ancestors had become men, 

 or were endowed with anything like a human 

 consciousness, there is every reason for suppos- 

 ing them to have been gregarious in their habits. 

 They were gregarious primates of high sagacity. 

 But gregarious action, among animals endowed 

 with any sort of consciousness, is plainly im- 

 possible unless the individual animal recognizes 

 his fellow's consciousness as similar to or kin- 

 dred with his own. Above all, the first begin- 

 nings of speech necessarily involved a belief in 

 the eject. But now, says Clifford, "if not only 

 this conception of the particular social object, 

 but all those that have been built up out of it, 

 have been formed at the same time with, and 

 under the influence of language, it seems to 

 follow that the belief in the existence of other 

 men's minds like our own, but not part of us v 

 must be inseparably associated with every pro- 

 cess whereby discrete impressions are built to* 

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