CHAPTER IV.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THOUGHT.

FEW outside the circle of students of psychology have troubled themselves much with the question : How does thought originate? When we now come into the world, we find ourselves possessed of a large amount of thought ready made, a large store of what are called "innate ideas." These are conceptions which we bring with us into the world, the condensed or summarised results of our experiences in lives previous to the present one. With this mental stock-in-hand we begin our transactions in this life, and the psychologist is never able to study by direct observation the beginnings of thought.

He can, however, learn something from the observation of an infant, for just as the new physical body runs over in pre-natal life the long physical evolution of the past, so does the new

mental body swiftly traverse the stages of its long development. It is true that" mental body" is not by any means identical with "thought," and hence that even in studying the new mental body itself, we are not really studying the "beginnings of thought" at all; to a still greater degree is this true, when we consider that few people can study even the mental body directly, but are confined to the observation of the effects of the workings of that body on its denser fellow, the physical brain and nervous system. "Thought" is as distinct from the mental body as from the physical; it belongs to consciousness, to the life side, whereas mental and physical bodies belong alike to the form, to the matter side, and are mere transitory vehicles or instruments. As already said, the student must ever keep before him "the distinction between him who knows and the mind which is his instrument for obtaining knowledge," and the definition of the word "mind," already given, as "the mental body and manas "-a compound.

We can, however, by studying the effects of thought on these bodies, when the bodies are new, infer by correspondence something of the beginnings of thought, when a Self, in any given universe, comes first into contact with the Not-Self. The observations may help us, according to the

axiom, "As above, so below." Everything here is but a reflection, and by studying the reflections, we may learn something of the objects that cause them.

If an infant be closely observed, it will be seen that sensations-response to stimuli by feelings of pleasure or pain, and primarily by those of pain— precede any sign of intelligence. That is, that vague sensations precede definite cognitions. Before birth, the infant was sustained by the lifeforces flowing through the mother's body. On its being launched on an independent existence, these are cut off. Life flows away from the body and is not now renewed; as the life-forces lessen, want is felt, and this want is pain. The supply of the want gives ease, pleasure, and the infant sinks back into unconsciousness. Presently sights and sounds arouse sensation, but still no intellectual sign is given. The first sign of intelligence is when the sight or voice of the mother or nurse is connected with the satisfaction of the ever-recurring want, with the giving of pleasure by food; the linking together in, or by, memory of a group of recurring sensations with one external object, which object is regarded as separate from, and as the cause of, those sensations. Thought is the cognition of a relation between many sensations

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and a one, a unity, linking them together. This is the first expression of intelligence, the first thought -technically a "perception." The essence of this is the establishing of such a relation as is above described between a unit of consciousness-a Jîva --and an object, and wherever such a relation is established there thought is present.

This simple and ever-verifiable fact may serve as a general example of the beginning of thought in a separated Self—that is, in a triple Self encased in an envelope of matter, however fine, a Self as distinguished from the Self; in such a separated Self sensations precede thoughts; the attention of the Self is aroused by an impression made on him and responded to, by a sensation. The massive feeling of want, due to the diminution of life-energy, does not by itself arouse thought; but that want is satisfied by the contact of the milk, causing a definite local impression, an impression followed by a feeling of pleasure. After this has been often repeated, the Self reaches outwards, vaguely, gropingly; outwards, because of the direction of the impression, which has come from outside. The life-energy thus flows into the mental body and vivifies it, so that it reflects-faintly at first-the object which, coming into contact with the body, has caused the sensation. This modification in the

mental body, being repeated time after time, stimulates the Self in his aspect of knowledge, and he vibrates correspondentially. He has felt want, contact, pleasure, and with the contact an image presents itself, the eye being affected as well as the lips, two sense-impressions blending. His own inherent nature links these three, the want, the contact-image, the pleasure, together, and this link is thought. Not till he thus answers is there any thought; it is the Self that perceives, not any other or lower.

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This perception specialises the desire, which ceases to be a vague craving for something, and becomes a definite craving for a special thing— milk. But the perception needs revision, for the Knower has associated three things together, and one of them has to be disjoined the want. is significant that at an early stage the sight of the milk-giver arouses the want, the Knower calling up the want when the image associated with it appears; the child who is not hungry will cry for the breast on seeing the mother; later this mistaken link is broken, and the milk-giver is associated with the pleasure as cause, and seen as the object of pleasure. Desire for the mother is thus established, and then becomes a further stimulus to thought.