The paper examines George Herbert Mead's account of the individual's relation to the physical world. Mead (1863-1931) taught social psychology and philosophy at the University of Chicago from 1893-1931 and is best known for his theory of self. This theory maintains that the self is formed in a particular historical context and that it includes self control and personality. Mead's major hypothesis regarding interaction between the individual and the environment is that the individual (the self) is fashioned out of a dynamic process of interaction and confrontation with the environment and other individuals. Mead's account of the individual's cognitive relation to the nonhuman environment has been largely overlooked by researchers. Specific aspects of his theory which should be examined more closely include definition of the self and its environment, the individual's consciousness of itself as a separate entity located in space and time, the discovery of self as a center of activity, and the social and cooperative nature of the self in relation to the physical world. The conclusion is that researchers in social psychology and the sociology of knowledge will expand their understandings of the self if they reexamine Mead's theory of the interrelationship between the social environment and the mental life of the individual. (DB)