degrees of mentation with
accompanying nerve centers and sense-organs, but little or no signs of
consciousness, gradually ascending until we have dawning consciousness in
the reptile kingdom, etc., and fuller consciousness and a degree of
intelligent thought in the still higher forms, gradually increasing until
we reach the plane of the highest mammals, such as the horse, dog,
elephant, ape, etc., which animals have complex nervous systems, brains
and well developed consciousness. We need not further consider the forms
of mentation in the forms of life below the Conscious stage, for that
would carry us far from our subject.

Among the higher forms of animal life, after a "dawn period" or
semi-consciousness, we come to forms of life among the lower animals
possessing a well developed degree of mental action and Consciousness,
the latter being called by psychologists "Simple Consciousness," but
which term we consider too indefinite, and which we will term "Physical
Consciousness," which will give a fair idea of the thing itself. We use
the word "Physical" in the double sense of "External," and "Relating to
the material structure of a living being," both of which definitions are
found in the dictionaries. And that is just what Physical Consciousness
really is--an "awareness" in the mind, or a "consciousness" of the
"external" world as evidenced by the senses; and of the "body" of the
animal or person. The animal or person thinking on the plane of Physical
Consciousness (all the higher animals do, and many men seem unable to
rise much higher) identifies itself with the physical body, and is
conscious only of thoughts of that body and the outside world. It
"knows," but not being conscious of mental operations, or of the
existence of its mind, it does not "know that it knows." This form of
consciousness, while infinitely above the mentation of the nonconscious
plane of "sansation," is like a different world of thought from the
consciousness of the highly developed intellectual man of our age and
race.

It is difficult for a man to form an idea of the Physical Consciousness
of the lower animals and savages, particularly as he finds it difficult
to understand his own consciousness except by the act of being conscious.
But observation and reason have given us a fair degree of understanding
of what this Physical Consciousness of the animal is like--or at least in
what respect it differs from our own consciousness. Let us take a