36o BRAINS OF RATS AND MEN 



prevision, of idealization, and of volition which they 

 lack. There are reserves in human nature that can 

 be drawn upon in times of stress and doubt which en- 

 able me to shape my conduct with more efficiency, not 

 merely in view of its effect upon the present situation, 

 but also in view of its effect upon myself and my 

 future career. 



The genetic history of these processes has been 

 discussed by Mead (1925), with emphasis on the 

 social implications of this forward reference. The de- 

 velopment of self-consciousness is contingent upon 

 ability to take up the attitudes of others toward our- 

 selves and to respond to these attitudes. It is not 

 merely that we set the self over against the others but 

 also that we react to the others in view of our own 

 understanding of their relations to us. 



The individual in such an act is a self. If the cortex has 

 become an organ of social conduct, and has made possible the 

 appearance of social objects, it is because the individual has 

 become a self, that is, an individual who organizes his own re- 

 sponse by the tendencies on the part of others to respond to his 

 act. He can do this because the mechanism of the vertebrate 

 brain enables the individual to take these different attitudes in 

 the formation of the act. 



Thus the socializing of experience on the human plane 

 is radically different from that of lower animal planes 

 as seen, for instance, in insects. 



These are lawful processes; they are not arbitrary 

 acts of an extraneous omnipotence. And they are 



