206 MENTAL EVOLUTION IN MAN. 



contents is the child's perception of the mental states of 

 others as expressed in their gestures, tones, and words. 

 These severally receive their appropriate names, and so gain 

 clearness and precision as ejective images of the correspond- 

 ing states experienced by the child itself. " Mama pleased 

 to Dodo " would have no meaning as spoken by a child, 

 unless the child knew from his own feelings what is the state 

 of mind which he thus ejectively attributes to another 

 Therefore we cannot be surprised to find that at the same 

 stage of mental evolution the child will say, "Dodo pleased to 

 mama." Yet it is evident that we here approach the very 

 borders of true self-consciousness. " Dodo " is no doubt still 

 speaking of himself in objective terminology ; but he has 

 advanced so far in the interpretation of his own states of 

 mind as to name them no less clearly than he names any 

 external objects of sense perception. Thus he is enabled to 

 fix these states before his mental vision as things which admit 

 of being denoted by verbal signs, albeit he is not yet able to 

 de7ioJninate. 



The step from this to recognizing " Dodo " as not only the 

 object, but also the subject of mental changes, is not a large 

 step. The mere act of attaching verbal signs to inward 

 mental states has the effect of focussing attention upon 

 those states ; and, when attention is thus focussed habitually, 

 there is supplied the only further condition required to enable 

 the mind, through its memory of previous states, to compare 

 its past with its present, and so to reach that apprehension 

 of continuity among its own states wherein the full intro- 

 spective consciousness of self consists. 



Again, as Mr. Chauncey Wright observes, "voluntary 

 memor}', or reminiscence, is especially aided by command of 

 language. This is a tentative process, essentially similar to 

 that of a search for a lost or missing external object. Trials 

 are made in it to revive a missing mental image, or train of 

 images, by means of words ; and, on the other hand, to revive 

 a missing name by means of mental images, or even by other 

 words. It is not certain that this power is an exclusively 



