Boris Sidis

“ The moment of high type that passes ontogenetically the stages of phylogenetic evolution does it in a general, and, so to say, sketchy form, each stage of ontogenesis in reality fundamentally differing from that of the parallel stage in phylogenesis. Just as the human embryo in the course of its growth and passing the stages that reflect phylogenesis is not necessarily once a worm, then a fish, then a bird, but only approaches these types in a most general form, so also is it in the case of the moment in the different stages of its growth ”

“ A low moment of a high type of organization is lower than a high moment in a lower type of organization. A moment occupying a low stage in a statically established hierarchy is really lower than a corresponding stage in either the phylogenetic or ontogenetic series. The highest moment-consciousness of a fish is homologous with a very low moment in man, but the latter lacks the intensity to which the former attains. ”

“ When the sensori-motor series going to constitute the secondary automatic act becomes well organized, the links in the series fall to a minimum of psychic intensity, but the moment consciousness occupying a corresponding position in the scale of evolution has a higher psychic intensity than the one characteristic of the secondary automatic stage. The psychosis of a dog, horse, mouse, rabbit is hardly of the same order of intensity characteristic, for instance, of the act with which one buttons his coat, opens his door, walks in the street, or simply maintains his equilibrium. ”