GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS. ^0(j 



as tbinc^s which admit of being denoted by verbal signs, 

 although as yet he has never thought about either the states 

 of mind or his names for them as sucJi, and, therefore, has not 

 yet attained to the faculty of denomination. But the interval 

 between denotation and denomination has now become so 

 narrow that the step from recognizing " Dodo " as not only 

 the object, but also the subject of mental changes, is rendered 

 at once easy and inevitable. The mere fact of attaching 

 verbal signs to mental states has the effect of focussing 

 attention upon those states ; and when attention is thus 

 focussed habitually, there is supplied the only further con- 

 dition which is required to enable a 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 introspective, or conceptual conscious- 

 ness of self consists. 



Several subordinate features in the evolution of this con- 

 ceptual from pre-conceptual self-consciousness were described ; 

 but it is needless again to mention them. Enough has been 

 here said to show ample grounds for the conclusions which 

 my chapter on "Self-consciousness" was mainly concerned 

 in establishing — namely, that language is quite as much the 

 antecedent as it is the consequent of self-consciousness ; that 

 pre-conceptual predication is indicative of a pre-conceptual 

 self-consciousness ; and that from these there naturally and 

 inevitably arise those higher powers of conceptual predication 

 and conceptual self-con.sciousness on which my opponents 

 (disregarding the phases that lead up to them) have sought to 

 rear their alleged distinction of kind between the brute and 

 the man. 



Thus, as a general result of the whole inquiry so far, 

 we may say that throughout the entire range of mental 

 phenomena we have found one and the same distinction to 

 obtain between the faculties of mind as perceptual, receptual, 

 and conceptual. Percept, Recept, and Concept ; Perceptual 

 Judgment, Receptual Judgment, and Conceptual Judgment ; 

 Indication, Denotation, and Denomination ; — these are all 



