He is conscious of the present sensations, and that is all.
As he advances, however, in his experience of sensations, and as his mental powers gradually begin to be unfolded, what may be called _thoughts_ arise, consisting at first, probably, of recollections of past sensations entering into his consciousness in connection with the present ones.

These combinations, and the mental acts of various kinds which are excited by them, multiply as he advances towards maturity; but the images produced by present realities are infinitely more vivid and have a very much greater power over him than those which memory brings up from the past, or that his fancy can anticipate in the future.
This state of things, though there is, of course, a gradual advancement in the relative influence of what the mind can conceive, as compared with that which the senses make real, continues substantially the same through all the period of childhood and youth.

In other words, the organs of sense and of those mental faculties which are directly occupied with the sensations, are the earliest to be developed, as we might naturally suppose would be the case; and, by consequence, the sensible properties of objects and the direct and immediate effects of any action, are those which have a controlling influence over the volitions of the mind during all the earlier periods of its development.

The _reason_, on the other hand, which, as applied to the practical affairs of life, has for its function the bringing in of the more remote bearings and relations of a fact, or the indirect and less obvious results of an action, is very slowly developed.

It is precisely on this account that the period of immaturity in the human species is so long protracted in comparison with that of the inferior animals.