Again, as Mr. Chauncey Wright observes, “voluntary memory, or reminiscence, is especially aided by command of language. This is a tentative process, essentially similar to that of a search for a lost or missing external object. Trials are made in it to revive a missing mental image, or train of images, by means of words; and, on the other hand, to revive a missing name by means of mental images, or even by other words. It is not certain that this power is an exclusively human one, as is generally believed, except in respect to the high degree of proficiency attained by men in its use. It does not appear impossible that an intelligent dog may be aided by its attention, purposely directed to spontaneous necessaries, in recalling a missing fact, such as the locality of a buried bone.”[122] But whether or not animals possess any power of recollection as distinguished from memory, there can be no doubt that the use of words as signs necessarily leads to the cultivation of this faculty, and so to the clear perception of a continuance of internal or mental states in which consists the consciousness of an abiding self. Further, the acquisition of language greatly advances the conception of self, both as a suffering or feeling agent, and as an active cause; seeing that both the feelings and the actions of the self are placed clearly before the mind by means of denotative names, and even, as we have just seen, by pre-conceptual propositions. Doubtless, also, the recognition of self in each of these capacities is largely assisted by the emotions. The expressions of affection, sympathy, praise, blame, &c., on the part of others, and the feelings of emulation, pride, triumph, disappointment, &c., on the part of the self, must all tend forcibly to impress upon the growing child a sense of personality. “It is when the child’s attention is driven inwards in an act of reflection on his own actions, as springing from good or bad motives, that he wakes up to a fuller consciousness of himself.”[123]