In process of time, however, what we call the conscious self, that which thinks and suffers and wills, comes to be dimly discerned. It is probable that a real advance towards this true self-consciousness takes place towards the end of the third year, when the difficult forms of language, "I," "me," "mine," commonly come to be used with intelligence. This is borne out by the following story: A little girl of three lying in bed shut her eyes and said: "Mother, you can't see me now". The mother replied: "Oh, you little goose, I can see you but you can't see me". To which she rejoined: "Oh, yes, I know you can see _my body_, mother, but you can't see _me_". The "me" here was, I suppose, the expression of the inner self through the eyes. The same child at about the same age was concerned as to the reality of her own existence. One day playing with her dolls she asked her mother: "Mother, am _I_ real, or only a pretend like my dolls?" The first thought about self as something existing apart from all that is seen is apt to be very perplexing to the thoughtful child. As one lady puts it, writing to me of her childish experience: "The power of feeling and acting and moving about myself, under the guidance of some internal self, amazed me continually". As may be seen by this quotation, the first thought about self is greatly occupied with its action on the body. Among the many things that puzzled one much-questioning little lad already quoted was this: "How do my thoughts come down from my brain to my mouth: and how does my spirit make my legs walk?" A girl in her fifth year wanted to know how it is we can move our arm and keep it still when we want to, while the curtain can't move except somebody moves it. _The Unreachable Past._ Very curious are the directions of the first thought about the past self. The idea of what we call personal identity does not appear to be fully reached at first; the little boy already quoted who referred to his past self by saying, "when I was a little girl," must have had a very hazy idea of his sameness with that small petticoated person. It would seem, indeed, as if a child found it easy to dissociate his present self from his past, to deny all kinship with it. The difficulty to the child of conceiving of his remote past, is surpassed by that of trying to understand the state of things before he was born. The true mystery of birth for the child, the mystery which fascinates and holds his mind, is that of his beginning to be. This is illustrated in the question of a little boy: "Where was I a hundred years ago? Where was I before I was born?" It remains a mystery for all of us, only that after a time we are wont to put it aside.