SELF- CO.VSC/0 C/SXESS. 2 1 I 



Now it is evident that in all these cases the tendency 

 which is shown by the human mind, in every stage of its 

 development, to regard external phenomena ejcctivcly, arises 

 from man's intuitive knowledge — or the knowledge which is 

 given in the logic of recepts — of his own existence as two- 

 fold, bodily and mental. This in his early days leads him to 

 regard the Ego as an eject, resembling the others of his kind 

 by whom he is surrounded. But as soon as the power of 

 pre-conceptual predication has been attained, the child is in 

 possession of a psychological instrument wherewith to observe 

 his own mental states ; and as soon as attention is thus 

 directed upon them, there arises that which is implied in 

 every act of such attention — namely, the consciousness of a 

 self as at once the subject and object of knowledge. 



I may remark that this analysis is not opposed, as at first 

 sight it may appear to be, to the conclusion with regard to 

 the same subject which is thus given by Wundt : — "It is 

 only after the child has distinguished by definite charac- 

 teristics its own being from that of other people, that it 

 makes the further advance of perceiving that these other 

 people are also beings in or for themselves." * In other 

 words, the attribution of personality to .self is prior to the 

 attribution of personality to others. Now this I do not 

 question, although I do not think there can be much before 

 or after in these two concepts. But the point which I have 

 been endeavouring to bring out is that, prior to either of 

 these concepts, there are two corresponding recepts — namely, 

 first the receptual apprehension of self as an agent, and, second, 

 the eject of this receptual apprehension, whereby "other 

 people" are recognized as agents. Out of these two recepts 

 there subsequently develop the corresponding concepts of 

 personality. The order of deveh ^jment, therefore, is : — 



(A) Receptual Subject. (a) Receptual Eject. 



(B) Conceptual Subject (b) Conceptual Eject. 



Upon the whole, then, it appears to me perfectly evident 



• l'or/aufij;<rn, &^c., i. 289. 



