Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/534

 518 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Neither of these statements is to be taken to mean that the subject has lost consciousness of himself as opposed to the object in the state of identification; for he has not, as Green's phrase " or unity in difference " shows. He comes to recognize himself in the object. With these statements of the reflectively sympa- thetic consciousness before us, we can say that, consequently, the constituent element of consciousness of kind which involves reflective sympathy, involves a moment of appreciation for the above characterization of sympathy, certainly brings in apprecia- tion in the state of the partial identification of his own person with that of the other.

In answer to the question of how we come to know and affirm other individuals than ourselves, Professor Ormond answers that it is not alone inference from external signs, but we are told that the self " is essentially a socius," which includes the other within itself, and therefore, " in the act in which the soul asserts itself, it also posits its other ; that is another individual." 41 Now, the fact that the self and the other are posited already shows the appre- ciative nature of the matter. He goes on, furthermore, to point out that from this just mentioned "positing" of the other together with the self it would follow that the individual's envi- ronment ought altogether to appear to him to be other selves. This is very evident in child-life, where the distinction between persons and things is not made; e. g., when the child strikes the chair against which it stubbed its toe. The distinction begins to arise, however, through actual trial and error, through experience which will teach us that some individuals with which we come in contact are not persons, but things. This inability to dis- tinguish between persons and things disappears as consciousness of self appears. The judgments about persons will be felt to be different from those about things, with the result that judgments about persons have that uniqueness about them which we cannot exactly describe, and which has been mentioned before.

Might we not, by this time, analyze consciousness of kind as a psychosis in which the individual who is conscious of kind- possesses this consciousness, not by completely identifying him-

Op. cit., pp. 277 ff.