The primitive self-consciousness is evidently naïve, that is, there is no consciousness of the self-consciousness. The low psychism is conscious of itself, knows what is to its own advantage, and is absorbingly selfish, but it is wholly unconscious of its self regard; so also with very young children we see an egoism which is perfectly unconscious and naïve, often humorously so to the observant adult who perceives the utter simplicity of its selfishness. The embarrassing self-consciousness of the boy and girl in their teens, a conscious self-consciousness, is not yet achieved. The immediate consciousness of self cannot by itself embarrass, it must be complicated with reflection and with cognizance of other _ego_'s; but later forms we do not need to discuss here. In the simplest form of self-consciousness what are the necessary elements? and what is the essential nature of self-consciousness as psychic fact? In the first place, then, what is the nature of self-consciousness as cognition? If cognition be awareness of object, what is self or subject cognition? Is subject merely a kind of object? Is self-consciousness a peculiar conscious mode, or is it merely of the same type as the general cognition of object? Of course we wish to consider such questions here simply in the light of psychic fact. It is often considered that self-cognitions are really in no way unique, that the subject sensed is merely the individual’s body or his mental powers. And it is undoubtedly true that subject is always some object, the subject cognition is apprehension of some object either corporeal or mental; yet self-cognition is never merely an object seen as object. The psychic act of self-cognition is a peculiar qualifying of the object cognition; the individual who merely knows body or mind has not self-sense, he must be aware of body and mind as his own. The essence of self-sense is not in the object as so perceived, but in the subjectifying reference. While the _ego_ then is always constituted as object, _ego_ sense as psychic fact is more than mere object cognition. The psychic self as object, as some mode or modes of consciousness, has naturally been emphasized. Thus the self may be defined as that which is subject to will. Yet the least reflection shows us that for self-sense this must imply _my_ will, and so assume what it would explain. A consciousness of will act as effective psychic fact is not _ego_ sense. A cognition of effort or _nisus_ is not the sense of self save so far as the effort is known or felt as _mine_. And so in any other objectivist definition of self as psychic object, the self in its real nature as psychic act vanishes. Thus the consciousness of pleasure-pain capacity, while closely related to self-sense, does not make it, for we have to add that the capacity must be known as one’s own. In every endeavour then to define or analyze the self as psychic fact we must either eliminate it or presuppose it, and this must be taken as very