The bird which, having completed its nest, eyes it with apparent satisfaction, may well have the germs of that which, when rendered schematic in our thought, we call taste. Dr. Gould, indeed, states that certain humming-birds decorate their nests “with the utmost taste,” weaving into their structure beautiful pieces of lichen. And the gardener bower-bird collects in front of its bower flowers and fruits of bright and varied colours. What meaning these carry in the conscious situation we do not know; we can only suppose that they incidentally contribute to the heightening of the sexual impulse, and have been evolved as a means of stimulation to the biological end towards which sexual selection is unconsciously directed. For it is probable that all the situations with which pleasure and satisfaction are in high degree associated are, in primary origin, closely connected with behaviour directed, through natural or sexual selection, to some definite biological end, or, in brief, with behaviour of biological value. And it is, perhaps, not improbable that the states of consciousness most highly toned with strong emotion have their origin in those situations which arise amid the pairing, parental, and companiable relations of animal life. We have already said that the companion, as the nucleus of a situation, is a thing which reacts in altogether special ways, so that it becomes differentiated from other things as something the meaning of which, and the interest in which, are _sui generis_ and unique in type. It becomes the centre of emotional situations, which we ascribe to rivalry, emulation, jealousy, and so forth. And we have also drawn attention to the view that the genetic order, so far as there is an order, is not first the ego and then the alter, but first the mother and companions and then through them the self. We learn to know ourselves only through knowing others. We must now ask the question--a question which must be answered before we can touch on the possible ethics of animals--how far, and in what sense, the social animal regards others as of like nature to itself, and capable also of like feelings and emotions. Stated in this form we must, I think, answer the question in the negative. The expression, “of like nature to itself,” implies that the self has already taken more or less definite form, and that the animal infers that, since the alter behaves and reacts in like manner to the ego, it also is an ego. This is distinctly an act of reasoning. As Clifford phrased it, the companion becomes an _eject_. We can never by direct experience become acquainted with the feelings of others, but we can endow them ejectively with personality analogous to our own.