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first question with which we are to be engaged is this: When does consciousness come into operation? And we ask, first of all, Is man born conscious, or is he conscious during several (be their number greater or less) of the earlier months, we may say years, of his existence? We answer, No: for if he were, then he would remember, or at least some individuals of the species would remember, the day of their birth and the first year or years of their infancy. People in general recollect that of which they were conscious. But perhaps it may be objected that a man, or that many men, may forget, and often do forget, events of which they were conscious. True; but it is absolutely impossible, and at variance with universal experience, that everybody should forget that of which everybody was conscious. If the whole human race were conscious at the day of their birth, and during their earliest childhood, it is altogether inconceivable but that some of them at least should remember those days and their events. But no one possesses any such remembrance; and therefore the inference is