Let us pass then to the Second Stage. There is a moment in the evolution of a child--somewhere perhaps about the age of three (1)--when the simple almost animal-like consciousness of the babe is troubled by a new element--SELF-consciousness. The change is so marked, so definite, that (in the depth of the infant's eyes) you can almost SEE it take place. So in the evolution of the human race there has been a period--also marked and definite, though extending intermittent over a vast interval of time--when on men in general there dawned the consciousness of THEMSELVES, of their own thoughts and actions. The old simple acceptance of sensations and experiences gave place to REFLECTION. The question arose: "How do these sensations and experiences affect ME? What can _I_ do to modify them, to encourage the pleasurable, to avoid or inhibit the painful, and so on?" From that moment a new motive was added to life. The mind revolved round a new centre. It began to spin like a little eddy round its own axis. It studied ITSELF first and became deeply concerned about its own pleasures and pains, losing touch the while with the larger life which once dominated it--the life of Nature, the life of the Tribe. The old unity of the spirit, the old solidarity, were broken up. (1) See Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness (Philadelphia, 1901), pp. 1 and 39; also W. McDougall's Social Psychology (1908), p. 146--where the same age is tentatively suggested. I have touched on this subject before, but it is so important that the reader must excuse repetition. There came an inevitable severance, an inevitable period of strife. The magic mirror of the soul, reflecting nature as heretofore in calm and simple grace, was suddenly cracked across. The new self-conscious man (not all at once but gradually) became alienated from his tribe. He lapsed into strife with his fellows. Ambition, vanity, greed, the love of domination, the desire for property and possessions, set in. The influences of fellowship and solidarity grew feebler. He became alienated from his great Mother. His instincts were less and less sure--and that in proportion as brain-activity and self-regarding calculation took their place. Love and mutual help were less compelling in proportion as the demands of self-interest grew louder and more insistent. Ultimately the crisis came. Cain murdered his brother and became an outcast. The Garden of Eden and the Golden Age closed their gates behind him. He entered upon a period of suffering--a period of labor and toil and sorrow such as he had never before known, and such as the animals certainly have never known. And in that distressful state, in that doleful valley of his long pilgrimage, he still remains to-day.