Originally published in 1939, this volume contains the text of an inaugural lecture delivered by M. M. Postan on his accession to the Professorship of Economic History at the University of Cambridge. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in economic history or the history of the study of humanities.

This paper tells the story of consciousness from each of the three 'person' perspectives of the English language, with the author arguing for the equally fundamental social and personal bases of human consciousness. The 'lived' second-person position of ecological psychology is the starting point for the organic, yet socially embedded, consciousness of the non-symbolic human infant. First- and third-person positions are 'reflective' sociohistorical perspectives enabled by the development of symbolic functioning. The paper presents Llinás's compelling evolutionary account but supplements this (...) third-person narrative to do justice to the profound transformation of conscious experience in the human species. Prefacing its account of consciousness from a first-person perspective, the paper argues for a developmental model that privileges both the organic and the sociohistorical bases of consciousness. Our introspections may not tease apart these influences, but they must be acknowledged as we consider what Gelernter refers to as the 'tides of our minds'. (shrink)