FOLLOWING his plan of 'taking soundings' at each of the orders
of consciousness, in order to find what functions belong to it,
Collingwood's next task was to investigate second-order con-
sciousness, that is, consciousness of first-order consciousness. No
step from a lower order of consciousness to a higher would ever be
taken but for the spur of practical need; and the need for the step
from first-order to second-order consciousness is plain. Nobody
could procure for himself the coarsest food or the most rudimentary
shelter unless he could discriminate between at least some of the
many things that fill his here-and-now of feeling. In order so to
discriminate he must selectively attend now to this element in what
he feels, and now to that. Yet he could not selectively attend to
some element in what he feels unless he were first conscious of his
whole here-and-now of feeling. He might indeed fasten on an item
out of it at random without being aware of the whole from which
he took it, but that would not be a selection. Furthermore, he could
not select one as opposed to the other unless he were distinctly
aware of both, as he would not be if he were merely now conscious
of feeling one, and now conscious of feeling the other. The two acts
of consciousness must be combined; and they can only be com-
bined, while remaining distinct, in a higher-order act which has
both of them for its object. Selective attention therefore requires
not only consciousness of feeling, but consciousness of that con-
sciousness. It is 'the second stage of mental life' ( NL, 4.5, 7. 24).

The step from the first stage of mental life to the second is taken
in infancy by normal human beings, and may even be taken by
brutes ( NL, 7. 22, 7. 68). The following example would be typical.
Suppose that a baby, while dry and warm in a comfortable cot,

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