neither design to guide us nor desire to achieve. Take, for example, the case of a child

hearing a bell. This by itself will not mean very much unless there is something else

associated with it. If, however, whenever this bell rings, the child is fed, or taken from

his crib, then in time, by the aid of memory, he will begin to associate the two together.

He may, of course, go further and draw the erroneous conclusion that the ringing of the

bell and the appearance of the food are cause and effect. Such a mistake would be quite

understandable in the case of a child, who is not yet able to rise to the higher processes of

thought and argument. The basis, however, for such reasoning is being laid. The child

begins to expect that after the bell will come the bottle, so that without his knowing it,

these sensations are giving rise to some appreciation of the principle that "the mind

expects like consequents to follow like antecedents" (Carlyle). The mind of the child that

can distinguish between pleasure and pain, that can desire the one and fear the other, that

can distinguish these differences, and remember them, such a mind already has the

fundamentals of all reasoning.

Mere sensation, however, could never of itself convey to the mind the reality of the

external world. Sensations might come and go without any realization of the cause. We

must ask, therefore, how it is that the mind is able to acquire its knowledge of external

objects. The child who, from occupation with its own fingers, discovers by the sense of

touch, and the emotions of pleasure and pain, that there is a world external to itself,

proceeds to investigate that world. Some things feel soft, others hard; some are hot,

while others are cold. Moreover, by using his eyes in conjunction with his hands, he

discovers that objects have form and colour, and that they are near and far. In the

endeavour to reach some object which is present to sight and yet remote from touch, he

moves towards it, and so begins to crawl, and finally walk. This recognition of an

outside world we call "perception", and with the coming of this perception comes also

the consciousness of that which is within, namely personal identity. The consciousness

of prolonged identity, the knowledge that I am the same person as I was in all my former

history, is founded upon the consciousness that my body as an organism is the same as

that which I possessed in the past. My sense of personal identity depends on memory,

and memory is largely the recalling of sensations previously received.

We come next to the question of the will, and we can well imagine that some of our

readers will make a mental protest, and say that there can be no real connection between

"the body" and "the will". Let us look into the matter more closely.

While we recognize that the will is the power of the mind to choose, we must

remember that it is not a mere preference, or desire which we cannot gratify. It is a

power of immediate effective choice. Let us explain. We lay before the reader the

following statement and attempt to justify it.

We know that the sensations of pleasure and pain are entirely beyond the power of the

will, and none can love or hate at its bidding. The mind, however, if it possesses a body,