Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/299

244 nor in any cases of a like kind, is any approach made to the thought of themselves by these animals. They have the feeling of themselves, but no conception of themselves. And if we choose to call this feeling of themselves by the name of self-consciousness, we may attribute to them self-consciousness; but if by self-consciousness we mean having a conception of themselves, we must deny that animals have any self-consciousness, for we cannot allow that they have any conception of themselves. I think that the term ought to be used in this latter acceptation only, and that although we may speak of animals having a feeling of themselves, we should never say that they have self-consciousness or a conception of themselves.

26. But perhaps you may imagine that there is no very great difference between the feeling of oneself and of one's own pains and pleasures, on the one hand, and self-consciousness, or the thought of oneself and of one's own pains and pleasures, on the other hand. The following remarks, then, may help to convince you that the difference, both in itself and in its consequences, is momentous and extreme. When an animal feels itself and its own sensations, it does not, and it cannot, feel another animal and another animal's sensations. For example, when a dog feels itself hungry or suffering from a sore foot, it does not feel the hunger of another dog or the pain in another dog's foot. It feels only its own hunger