Here Locke is thinking of the distinction between two attitudes of mind, which, however difficult it may be to state satisfactorily, must in some sense be recognized. The mind, undoubtedly, in virtue of its powers of perceiving and thinking--or whatever they may be--becomes through a temporal process aware of a spatial world in its varied detail. In the first instance, its attention is absorbed in the world of which it thus becomes aware; subsequently, however, it is in some way able to direct its attention away from this world to the activities in virtue of which it has become aware of this world, and in some sense to make itself its own object. From being conscious it becomes self-conscious. This process by which the mind turns its attention back upon itself is said to be a process of 'reflection'. While we should say that it is by perception that we become aware of things in the physical world, we should say that it is by reflection that we become aware of our activities of perceiving, thinking, willing, &c. Whatever difficulties the thought of self-consciousness may involve, and however inseparable, and perhaps even temporally inseparable, the attitudes of consciousness and self-consciousness may turn out to be, the distinction between these attitudes must be recognized. The object of the former is the world, and the object of the latter is in some sense the mind itself; and the attitudes may be described as that of our ordinary, scientific, or unreflecting consciousness and that of reflection. The significance of Locke's account of this distinction lies for our purposes in its anticipation of Kant. He states the second attitude, as well as the first, in terms of sense. Just as in our apprehension of the world things external to, in the sense of existing independently of, the mind are said to act on our physical organs or 'senses', and thereby to produce 'perceptions' in the mind, so the mind is said to become conscious of its own operations by 'sense'. We should notice, however, that Locke hesitates to use the word 'sense' in the latter case, on the ground that it involves no operation of external things (presumably upon our physical organs), though he thinks that the difficulty is removed by calling the sense in question 'internal'.