Man and Nature 89 



learn consciously from the past, to strive 

 strenuously towards the future ; we have 

 acquired a knowledge of good and evil, we 

 can choose the one and reject the other, and 

 are thus burdened with a sense of responsi- 

 bility for our acts. We still obey the 

 strongest motive doubtless, but there is 

 something in ourselves which makes it a 

 motive and regulates its strength. We can 

 drift like other animals, and often do ; but 

 we can also obey our own volition. 



I would not deny the rudiments of self- 

 consciousness, and some of what it implies, 

 to certain domestic animals, notably the 

 dog ; but domestication itself is a result of 

 humanity, and undoubtedly the attributes we 

 are discussing are chiefly and almost solely 

 human, they can hardly be detected in wild 

 nature. No other animal can have a full 

 perception of its own individuality and 

 personality as separate from the rest of exist- 

 ence. Such ideas do not occur in the early 

 periods of even human infancy : they are a 

 later growth. Self-consciousness must have 



