Human Traits and their Social Significance | Page 9

for the acquisition by individuals and for the imposition on the part of society of a large number of habits of great social value. The human being, born into a world where there are many things to be learned both of natural law and human relations, is, as it were, fortunately born ignorant. He has instincts which are pliable enough to be modified into habits, and in consequence socially useful habits can be deliberately inculcated in the immature members of a society by their elders. The whole process of education is a utilization of man's prolonged period of infancy, for the deliberate acquisition of habits. This is all the more important since only by such habit formation during the long period of human infancy can the achievements of civilization be handed down from generation to generation. Art, science, industrial methods, social customs, these are not inherited by the individual as are the instincts of sex, pugnacity, etc. They are preserved only because they can be taught as habits to those beings who come into the world with a plastic equipment of instincts which lend themselves for a long time to modification.
CONSCIOUSNESS OF SELF AND REACTION TO IDEAS. A significant difference between the actions of human beings and those of animals is that human beings are conscious of themselves as agents. They may be said not only to be the only creatures who know what they are doing, but the only ones who realize their individuality in doing it. Dogs and cats are not, so far as we can draw inferences from extended observation of even their most complex actions, conscious of themselves. It is not very long, however, before the human animal begins to set itself off against the remainder of the universe, to discover that it is something different from the chairs, tables, and surrounding people and faces that at first constitute for it only a "blooming, buzzing confusion." A human being performs actions with a feeling of awareness; he is conscious of himself. This consciousness of self (see chapters VII and VIII) becomes more acute as the individual grows older. It has consequences of the gravest character in social, political, and economic life. It is a large factor at once in such different qualities of character as ambition, friendship, humility, and self-sacrifice, and is responsible in large measure for whatever truth there is in the familiarly spoken-of conflict between "the individual and society."
Human beings are, furthermore, susceptible to a unique stimulation to action, namely, ideas. Animals respond to things only, that is, to things in gross:
It may be questioned whether a dog sees a rainbow any more than he apprehends the political constitution of the country in which he lives. The same principle applies to the kennel in which he sleeps and the meat that he eats. When he is sleepy, he goes to the kennel; when he is hungry, he is excited by the smell and color of meat; beyond this, in what sense does he see an object? Certainly he does not see a house--i.e., a thing with all the properties and relations of a permanent residence, unless he is capable of making what is present a uniform sign of what is absent--unless he is capable of thought.[1]
[Footnote 1: Dewey: How We Think, p. 17.]
Human beings can respond to objects as signs of other things, and, what is perhaps more important, can abstract from those gross total objects certain qualities, features, elements, which are universally associated with certain consequences. They can respond to the meaning or bearing of an object; they can respond to ideas.
To respond to ideas means to respond to significant similarities in objects and also to significant differences. It means to note certain qualities that objects have in common, and to classify these common qualities and their consequences in the behavior of objects. To note similarities and differences in the behavior of objects is to enable individuals to act in the light of the future. The printing on this page would be to a dog or to a baby merely a blur. To the reader the black imprints are signs or symbols. To the animal a red lantern is a haze of light; to a locomotive engineer it is a sign to halt. To respond to ideas is thus to act in the light of a future. It makes possible acting in the light of the consequences that can be foreseen. Present objects or features of objects are responded to as signs of future or absent opportunities or dangers. Every time we read a letter, or act in response to something somebody has told us, we are responding not to physical stimuli as such, but to those stimuli as signs of other things.
HUMAN BEINGS ALONE POSSESS LANGUAGE. The value of the period of