CONSCIOUSNESS— SECOND STAGE

each spécial act of knowMge or perception carri« vrith it a kind of aura or diffnne^d conacknisnflSB extanding fax, far around it.^

The world as constructed by instinct must be vastly différent from the world as constructed by intellect ; and the root of the différence lies in the fact that while in the case of the former the f octis or nucleus of the perceived System is comparatively (]Qm and undeiined but is assodated with a very extensive fringe, in the case of the latter the presented object is much more cleareut and the fringe correspondingly restricted ; an animal feels its way in the world, we reason it out ; in other words, it " sees " as a whole that which we construct out of definitely related parts.

Then the process of differentiation begins; it begins very early in the Ufe of a human infant ; and the second stage of consciousness arises in which (with greater or less cleamess) knower, knowledge, and thing known are distinguished and partially opposed or held together by a per* ceived relation. This is the stage of self-con* sdousness, of the opposition of subject and object, of the growth pf the brain, of the development of thought ; in a word, the normal human condition at the présent time.

As the differentiation deepens and advances, there sets in the dominance of the consciousness of separateness — of the individual from the Whole,