way of being a good or wise or social individual, is based on this first presupposition" (p. 290).
Yet (p. 507) it is stated that the thought of self is dependent upon a two-fold imitation; in one of which the individual understands the social copy by imitation; and by the other of which "he confirms his interpretation by another imitative[1] act by which he ejectively reads his self-thought into the persons of others." And (pp. 494, 495) it is expressly stated that the thought which is available for purposes of social organization (via the broad guage track of imitation), is not thought as private or particular at all; but "the sort of thought which the individual thinks when he reaches his sense of social situations as functions of his thought of himself"—which would seem to mean that the only thought-material which becomes content for social organization is thought which already is a social interpretation! The verbal, or even the logical, contradiction is a comparatively slight matter; what is important for us is that this contradiction arises from the shifting about of two points of view. According to one, the individual is non-social till some identity of content can be set up between him and other non-social individuals. According to the other, we have an individual already socialized in a social group or situation of which his thoughts are interpretations. According to the former point, it is difficult to see how there can be any sense of sociality at all. Identity of content in intrinsically different persons is certainly a different matter from sense of personality as social. From the latter point of view, this difficulty vanishes, simply because society as constituted of individuals, and individuals as constituting society, are taken as already there; the thoughts of the individual, in so far as legitimate interpretations, are already social.
In the final summary, after stating again the circle, social sanctions and institutions being generalizations from individual thoughts, while these are received from society, he goes on to say (pp. 542, 543): "It cannot be absolutely true that the examination of society gives rules and sanctions adequate for private life; since only the generalized part of human life is embodied in institutions. The individual must have his private rules of conduct for the situations which are particular to his knowledge and action." The dependence equally fails on the other side, because "the strictly average individual who would correspond to the generalizations which society embodies is mythical." [2]
