extent to a sub-conscious and mechanical form, that is, to a process in which the volitional factor becomes evanescent.

The effect here spoken of may be described as the result of Habit, using this term to include all the effects of previous exercises of a like kind. We carry out a process of reasoning, just as we go through a series of words, more and more easily as the result of having carried it out before. Such a reduction. by practice of the factor of effort and consciousness in general is, as already pointed out, the subjective side of a physiological change, viz., the more perfect organisation of certain central arrangements, as a result of which a particular chain of neural processes is rendered certain and rapid. The highest processes of the mind are in this way attached to an organic base.

This effect is exhibited most strikingly in the deductive process of reasoning, since it is in these that words play an essential and prominent part. As already pointed out in dealing with the relation of language to thought, words are capable of being used as substitutes for ideas in many of the simpler processes of reasoning. Where the relations dealt with are plain we can apprehend these, and so reason without any distinct realisation of the several ideas underlying the words. Thus in such forms as the following: "Since A is greater than B, and B than C, therefore A is still greater than C," a mind practised in tracing relations and drawing out conclusions from known truths in which they may be seen to be implicated will run through the stages of the process in a semi-mechanical way.

When the same argument has to be gone through again and again this reduction of the process to an automatic form becomes still more marked. In going through a familiar mathematical, philosophical, or political argument often traversed before, we are, it is evident, increasingly aided by the processes of verbal association.

§ 24. Logical Control of Thought-Processes. In a psychological examination into the nature of the actual thought-processes, we do not need to consider the rules by which their logical control is effected, save in so far as they themselves give rise to new forms of the psychical process. Here, as in the case of the logical control of the concept, we shall see that the regulation consists in developing the functional activities of thought to a more explicit or conscious mode of elaboration and expression.

LOGICAL CONTROL OF THOUGHT-PROCESS.

475 Thus, in the rules by which the formal correctness of the judgment is secured-viz., the choice of perfectly clear and unambiguous terms, the bringing out of the quality and quantity of the judgment, together with a clear realisation of all that is involved in the proposition, excluded by it, or left doubtful by it-logic compels the thinker to bring into clear consciousness all that he is implicitly thinking in the particular case. Similarly with respect to the syllogistic rules drawn up in order to secure formal correctness in the reasoning process. They aid us by enabling us to arrange our thoughts in such a way that we can fully realise all the implied relations.

With respect to material correctness, that is, the correspondence between thought and real fact, logical control seeks to secure its result by insisting on a more exact and scientific form of observation, e.g., that secured by an experiment carried out amid known conditions, and by supplying certain rules of induction. Here, again, no new mental process is introduced, and the regulated type of procedure consists, as already hinted, merely in carrying out the first crude spontaneous thoughtoperation in a more prolonged, patient, and cautious manner; in other words, with more of what we call volitional control. The logical value of the result reached by such a regulated process of thought may differ enormously from that attained. by the first unregulated venturesome inference; but, from a psychological point of view, the process remains the same in its essential factors.

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

§ 25. Development of Idea of Self. In the above account of the thought-processes we have been concerned with ideas of outer things, with perceptual and conceptual knowledge of the external world. In addition to this common cognition of an external world or macrocosmus, there is the individual's cognition of his inner world or microcosmus, and we have now to examine into the psychological development of this idea or consciousness of self. Self-knowledge, it is to be observed, though in its higher forms more abstract and difficult to attain than knowledge of outer things, is, as we shall see, developed along with this, and is indeed to some extent involved in a fully

1

explicit logical thought about the world. It is only taken up at this late stage for the purpose of simplifying the exposition of the subject.

This is from the external objects, still more by its

(a) The Pictorial or Bodily Self. As pointed out above, the first crude idea of a self arises in the child's mind in connexion with the perception of his own organism. outset known as an object different from partly by its continuous presentation, and intimate connexion with the child's painful and pleasurable sensations.1 It is only gradually that the child attains to this first differentiation of the self from the not-self. Thus it has been observed by Preyer that his boy when more than a year old bit his own arm just as though it had been a foreign object. This first stage of self-representation, in which self is the ever-present body that feels, seems to correspond roughly at least to the early period of life in which the child speaks of himself by his proper name.3 In this crude idea of self, before the meaning of "I" becomes clear, we have to suppose that the child does not fully realise the opposition of self and notself, but rather tends to regard himself as a kind of thing after the analogy of other objects.

It seems to follow that the common notion that the consciousness of self arises concurrently with that of not-self in the act of sense-perception is an error. There may be in the first experience of impeded movement a dim apprehension of the me and not-me, but it is very long before the relation becomes clearly apprehended in consciousness. The child does not, then, first know things as different from, or opposed to, himself: he first knows things as such, and can only think of himself as a kind of thing. The psychological order here, as elsewhere, differs from the logical: the knowing subject comes after the known object.*

1 See p. 264.

2 Die Seele des Kindes, p. 360.

It is sometimes said that the use of the proper name is a mere consequence of imitation. M. Binet has, however, shown by some interesting observations of children that this mode of speaking of himself asserts itself when others do not habitually address him by his name, and concludes from this that it corresponds with some deeper impulse of child-nature. (See his article "Perception d'Enfants," Revue Philosophique, Dec., 1890.)

It is a noteworthy fact in this connexion that in the gradual extinction of consciousness under the influence of anæsthetics object-consciousness survives that of self. (See James, op. cit., i. p. 273.) Another and more palpable error is to suppose that in having sensations before percepts the child has knowledge of these

SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.

477

(b) The Inner or Mental Self. This pictorial representation of the body remains an integral part of the idea of self throughout its development, forming, indeed, its fixed presentative base. The next stage in the development of the idea of the ego is the separation of an inner or mental self from the body. The child is led on to this by growing attention to his pleasurable and painful sensations, more particularly the organic sensations, with their preponderant accompaniment of feeling, which play so prominent a part in early life, and which are known to constitute the organic basis of the later self-consciousness. As he learns to abstract from outer things and attend to his sensations, his desires, and his actions, he begins to form a dim conception of an inner self. His power of doing things when he wishes would be among the most interesting of the manifestations of this self, and among the first to attract his attention.

This idea of an inner self would not, however, attain any great clearness until the development of the life of ideation, as distinguished from the observation of external things, had reached a certain point. It is only when this inner representative life is sufficiently strong and coherent to assert itself against the more powerful stimuli of sense, and when as a consequence of this the child begins to realise the difference between imagining (what is not present) and actually perceiving, that he is able to demarcate the self from the not-self.

This attainment of an idea of a self is greatly aided by language. The fact that the child is always addressed by one and the same name has a powerful effect in impressing on his mind the fact of his individuality. Still more effective is the use of the second person, you (or thou), in bringing home to him this idea of himself. By the use of such language, as in condoling with the child when hurt, in inquiring as to his feelings, in asking him whether he wishes to do something, and so

as subjective states before he acquires any knowledge of objects. (Cf. above, p. 207 f.) The external knowledge of self as body has been named by Mr. Chauncey Wright outward self-consciousness. Dr. Romanes points out that this crude form of selfconsciousness may be attained by the animal mind. (Mental Evolution in Man, p. 199.)

forth, his companions have a very powerful means of directing his attention to his inner states.1

As the history of the race and of the individual tells us, the first conception of an inner self is materialistic, showing that the objective attitude of thought is still predominant. The inner self of the savage and of the child is a quasi-material thing resident in a definite part of the body, and more particularly the breast. How materialistic is this first conception is shown in the fact that primitive man and the child alike think of this self as a sort of attenuated inner body, modelled on the pattern of the outer, which can now and again pass out of its more palpable envelope.2 In this way they explain such phenomena as echoes, shadows, reflexions in still water, and dreams of absent, including dead persons. This consciousness of an inner quasi-bodily self is probably reached by the child during the period in which he speaks of himself in the third person.3

This materialistic conception gives way to a more spiritualistic one, as the power of reflexion, i.e., isolating attention to psychical states, is developed. How difficult this is in early life is known to all who have to do with the young. In the case more particularly of lively and vigorous children absorbed in outer things, and full of active pursuits, the reflexion demands a severe effort. Want of outer interest, on the other hand, driving thought in on itself, as in the case of many a morbid, dreamy child, expedites the process of self-reflexion. It is to be added that this clearer consciousness of self as the permanent feeling, thinking, desiring subject is greatly aided by the action of the social environment already alluded to. The constant use of the same name (e.g., John, or its substitute, you) serves to

1 It has been pointed out that the habitual use of one name in addressing an animal, as a dog, would tend to develop an obscure consciousness of self. (See Volkmann, op. cit., ii. p. 171, anmerk. 2.)

2 Cf. above, pp. 2, 3.

The early animistic idea of an inner quasi-material soul that could separate itself from the body led to the conception of distinct and separate selves. (See Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i. chap. xi.) George Sand, in her delightful autobiography, tells us that the first hearing of her own echo led her to think of having a double existence. Similarly, Hartley Coleridge when a boy is said to have distinguished the shadow Hartley as well as the picture Hartley from the real Hartley.