164 HABIT AND INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



root therein.^ But the intellectual superiority of man is 



due, as I think, to quite a distinct cause, — namely, the 



Power of power of directing thought at will ; on which depends the 



thou^hT power of forming ahstractions, and thence the power of 



at will abstract reasoning, wliich is the distinctive power of the 



human intellect ; for animals are capable of the mental 



process which I have elsewhere called simple inference. 



There is, however, another distinctive character of the 



mind of man, which is not identical with the powers just 



mentioned, though probably closely connected with them : 



Conscious- 1 mean the faculty of self-consciousness. The higher 



^^^ °^ animals are conscious, but only man is conscious of seK : 



the higher animals think, but only man is conscious that 



Use of the he thinks, or can think about thinking. The symbol of 



personal ^|^^ consciousness of self is the use of the personal pro- 

 pronouns. 1 • T 



nouns ; and in their use is displayed, I think, a higher 



kind of intelligence than any animal ever attains to, and 

 an intelligence, moreover, which is demonstrably not a 

 result of mere habit. A child learns to call itself / and 

 me, no doubt, by imitatiag other persons who call them- 

 selves so ; and once begun, the use of those words, as of 

 any other words, becomes habitual. But the personal 

 pronouns, at least those of the first person, differ from all 

 other words in this, that the child applies all other words 

 to the same objects to which it has heard them applied by 

 others ; but it applies the words / and me to an object — 

 namely, itself — to which it has never heard them applied 

 by others ; so that it appears impossible for the meaning 

 of / and me to be learned by mere habitual association, 

 in the same way that the meaning of other words is 

 learned. The meaning of the words dog and cat, for 

 instance, is learned by their association with the objects 

 dog and cat ; and the names of persons are learned in the 

 same way. But the meaning of the words / and 771c 

 cannot be learned in this way, because the child never 

 hears them associated with its own self; always with 

 other persons' selves. It learns to use them, no doubt, 

 by imitation; but how does it know what to imitate? 



1 See p. 64. 



