Note 128 — Chapter X

In the above sketch of the principles which are concerned in the development of self-consciousness, I have only been concerned with the matter on the side of its psychology, and even on this side only so far as my own purposes are in view. Those who wish for further information on the psychology of the subject may consult Wundt, loc. cit.; Sully, loc. cit., and Illusions, ch. x.; Taine, On Intelligence, pt. ii., bk. iii.; Chauncey Wright, Evolution of Self-consciousness; and Waitz, Lehrbuch der Psychologie, 58. On the side of its physiology and pathology Taine, Maudsley, and Ribot may be referred to (On Intelligence, Pathology of Mind, Diseases of Memory), as also a paper by Herzen, entitled, Les Modifications de la Conscience du moi (Bull. Soc. Hand. Sc. Nat., xx. 90). An Essay on the Philosophy of Self-consciousness, by P. F. Fitzgerald, is written from the side of metaphysics. On this side, also, we are met by the school of Hegel and the Neo-Kantians with a virtual denial of the origin and development of self-consciousness in time. Thus, for instance, Green expressly says:—“Should the question be asked, If this self-consciousness is not derived from nature, what then is its origin? the answer is, that it has no origin. It never began because it never was not. It is the condition of there being such a thing as beginning or end. Whatever begins or ends does so for it, or in relation to it” (Prolegomena to Ethics, p. 119). To this I can only answer that for my own part I feel as convinced as I am of the fact of my self-consciousness itself that it had a beginning in time, and was afterwards the subject of a gradual development. “Das Ich ist ein Entwicklungsprodukt, wie der ganze Mensch ein Entwicklungsprodukt ist” (Wundt).