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.