196 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



subjective phenomena the same powers of perception as are 

 brought to bear upon the objective. The degrees in vi^hich 

 such attention may be yielded are, of course, as various in 

 the one case as in the other; but this does not affect my 

 psychological definition of self-consciousness. 



Again, I suppose it will be further admitted that in the 

 mind of animals and in the mind of infants there is a world 

 of images standing as signs of outward objects ; and that 

 the only reason why these images are not attended to unless 

 called up by the sensuous associations supplied by their corre- 

 sponding objects, is because the mind is not yet able to leave 

 the ground of such association, so as to move through the higher 

 and more tenuous medium of introspective thought* Neverthe- 

 less, this image-world assuredly displays an internal activity 

 which is not wholly dependent on sensuous associations 

 supplied from without. That is to say, one image suggests 

 another, this another, and so on — although, as I have just con- 

 ceded, this cannot be due to successive acts of inward attention, 

 or of the self-conscious contemplation of images known as such. 

 Nevertheless, that an internal — though unintentional — play of 

 ideation takes place in the minds of brutes, without the 

 necessity of immediate associations supplied from present 

 objects of sense, admits of being amply proved from the 

 phenomena of dreaming, hallucination, home-sickness, pining 

 for absent friends, &c., which, as I have fully shown in my 

 previous work, can only be explained by recognizing such a 

 play of inward ideation.f Now, I hold it of importance to 

 note that such an internal play of ideation is thus possible 

 even in the absence of self-consciousness, because many 

 writers have assumed, without any justification, that unless 

 ideas are intentionally contemplated as such, they must be 

 wholly dependent for their occurrence upon associations 

 supplied by present objects of sense. Of course I do not 

 doubt that an agent who is capable of intentionally making 

 one idea stand as the object of another, is likewise capable of 



* See above, Chapters II. and IV. 



t See Mental Evolution in Animals, chapter on " Imagination." 



