The question now arises: In what way are the originalities alike and how are they different? They are alike in this: that they interpret facts; in Shakespeare's case the facts of human life in relation to feeling, knowledge and destiny; in Darwin's case the facts of biology and the evolution of species. They are unlike in this: that Darwin's originality is purely a discovery of facts that were hidden, but existent; Shakespeare's originality is a deeper thing-it is the creation of something new, new in the sense that it had no previous existence and was the offspring of his own personality. The blood circulated in our veins before Harvey announced the fact to a rather incredulous public; gravity existed before Newton discovered its law; and although imaginative genius was needed in order to bring these facts to light, the thought-product of the poet and artist is on a higher plane, because in the true sense it is more creative.

Originality, therefore, may be defined as the thoughtcharacteristic of the individual who expresses himself and not another; from which it follows that the more distinctive the individuality the higher will be the type of originality. An original mind is one which has a more than ordinary share in the joys of evolution, and in the felicity of furthering those processes of change that bring advantages, real and ideal.

IX

The outstanding fact about human individuality is its utter inscrutability, even to the individual himself. Men who have known each other for years, in business, at the club, on the golf-course, frequently find that their knowledge was, after all, confined to surface things; for example, to political opinions, personal aversions and preferences, modes of looking at life, and methods of solving difficulties. Then there comes a day of great surprise when the John Smith who was supposed to be so cynical is discovered in the act of helping a man on to his feet-not directly, but through a second party. Smith's friends are amazed: they never knew he was "that sort of fellow."

And yet a husband and a wife have celebrated a silver wedding without being able to claim that they knew each other; their individualities throughout a quarter of a century were partly hidden, and—to use the plaintive title of a once popular song-they are "Strangers Yet." Of course, in a hundred and one ordinary matters they do understand each other-especially the wife; but in the deeper, higher, finer, more subtle spheres of conscious life-No. All married people wear masks; they seldom tell each other all they think, all they know, all they desire, all they intend; but this does not mean that love is declining or respect failing; for the inscrutability of the self is merely part and parcel of the love-emotion-full and perfect knowledge might, indeed, make it an impossibility. Those people who are said to have "every thought in common " are no doubt united in a very close bond of sympathy, but each has thoughts not shared by the other; in fact, no man knows his own thoughts until circumstances reveal them to him.1 We often surprise ourselves in good or evil manifestations : we did not know we had it in us. Really, there are two masks-first, the essential ego which screens itself from the analysis of our waking consciousness, and the mask that we put on when we meet other people. The mode in which the ego manifests itself is beyond scrutiny, hence analytical psychology is only an accommodating term; but the mask of social convention and of intellectual reserve is one that we make and wear deliberately.

We seldom show our true selves. If you doubt that state

1 Whitman expresses it thus:

"When I read the book, the biography famous,

And is this, then, (said I) what the author calls a man's life ?

And so, will someone when I am dead and gone write my life,

(As if any man really knew aught of my life;

Why, even I myself, I often think, know little or nothing of my real life;

Only a few hints—a few diffused faint clues and indirections,

I seek for my own use to trace out here)."

So also Ribot, who says: "La connaissance de nous-même n'est pas seulement difficile mais impossible."-La Vie Inconscient, p. 69.

ment, take a sheet of paper and dare to write, as if for publication, all you honestly believe about your friends and enemies; all you believe about God and Churches; about women, about sex, about politics, about the newspapers, and about anything vital. Dare you do that? Before replying think of what is required: not surface "views," but what you believe in the depths of your heart. . . . Convention has too heavy a hand on us. To reveal our true inwardness would be to destroy social life. We should surprise the world by our narrowness, our prejudices, our ignorance, our cynicism; or by our unsuspected breadth of sympathy, our insight, and our boldness of policy. All of us would be found using Bellarmine's doctrine of mental reservation to the full. The professed Liberal next door is, at bottom, a Marxian Socialist; the Tory across the way is a Tory no deeper than his skin; the High Church vicar has left his heart in St Peter's, Rome; the bimetallist may be a monometallist underneath. The reader resents these criticisms? He may. But he, too, has his mask-not so pronounced or hypocritical, it may be, and yet he cannot afford to throw stones.

X

But let us see, if we can, how individuality originates. In its generic sense an individual is a unit separated from the mass. A pebble is an individual separated from its parent rock; and the rock itself may also be an individual—a mountain separated from other mountains and named accordingly. Inorganic individuality, however, does not depend on size; for the diamond has significances that far outshine the mass of earth from which it is taken. In the animal world size and individuality are more closely allied.2 In man these facts may be symbolical but no more than that.

1 "Let us, however, again fix our attention on the essential feature of individuality. It is what distinguishes this from that. It is the balance of unlikeness which distinguishes this individual assemblage of processes and products from that other assemblage otherwise so closely alike."-Lloyd Morgan, Instinct and Experience, p. 174. 2 Julian Huxley, The Individual in the Animal Kingdom, p. 5.

Size, in the early ages of mankind, gave individuality to those who were fortunate enough to tower above their fellows in height and strength; but with the advance of mental power brain displaced brawn, and the man of pronounced individuality might be physically insignificant, for intelligence meant more than muscular strength to a world rapidly growing in civilisation. Individuality came to mean not only separation, but, more than ever before, separation with a difference. It was the something different that stamped one man as distinctive, and this is the rule to-day. Selfrealisation is one of the sources of individuality, and to realise the self means, first, that there must be an abolition of blind and mechanical conformity to the laws that govern the many. Such nonconformity as this is quite commensurate with a meticulous obedience to the social code. Mrs Bloomer's invention and use of the garment that still bears her name was a display of individuality—a protest against the behaviour of the many; but in other respects she acknowledged and observed the decorum of the circles in which she moved. The life of the individual is not one thing and the life of the social group another: they are aspects of one life. But in 999 cases out of 1000 it happens that the group exerts the stronger influence; and the individual becomes a conformist in inward thought and outward deed. The speech, the dress, the religion, the party politics, the pleasures of his fellows he takes up one by one until his identity is lost; he is typical of the community to which he belongs. Let some bold spirit enter the weaving sphere of industry, as did Arkwright, with revolutionary ideas, and he finds the most vigorous opposition. A new religion fares no better; and the "love your enemy " notion is thrown to the winds as Christians fight for supremacy, burning one another at the stake as a proof that the martyr is wrong and the persecutor is right. The original man pays the price of violating the recognised order, except in cases where the public has felt the need of change such as that effected by some progressive mind. The price has often been death, a sufficiently grave warning to all minds of individual quality, living in a ruthless age, and yet eager for self-expression.

XI

Fortunately a larger toleration exists to-day, but the spirit of opposition to change is still operative.1 A substitute for rubber that is as good as rubber would not only bring fortune to the inventor but a very considerable fame; for this is an original discovery that we expect and hope for; but let a man dare to propose leasehold marriage as did George Meredith and enemies multiply rapidly; the clergy denounce him in pulpit and on platform, and the novelist's friends shake their heads sorrowfully; their idol has had a weak moment. And yet Meredith simply detached his mind from all other minds and advocated a remedy for evils that are apparent to everybody: his weakness lay in not thinking what the majority of people think. But "the group as a psychical unit is never creative "2; that is always the function of the individual—just as the Messiah created a new law as against the traditions of the elders. The group is generally repressive. New, in his Life Wanderings in Eastern Africa, says of the Wanika that “if a man dares to improve the style of his hut, to make a larger doorway than is customary; if he should wear a finer or different style of dress from that of his fellows, he is instantly fined." We laugh. But, in London, instead of fining a woman who dares to be different we mob her in the street. Is not the savage custom mutatis mutandis more dignified than ours? It may be more discouraging to innovators in thought, but it certainly manifests more control. Nevertheless, everywhere around us, despite educative influences of the highest kind, we have to contend for the rights of the minority, then for the rights of the individual. Emerson truly said that society is a conspiracy against the independence of each of its members.

1 Sir John Seeley in his Ecce Homo (p. 252) refers to the manner in which the majority of people receive the original man: he is "alarming, perplexing, fatiguing. They unite to crush the innovator." See also Nietzsche, Dawn of Day, p. 17, and Brandes' Nietzsche, p. 15. 2D G. Brinton, The Basis of Social Relations, p. 30.

"There is nothing we have to fight for more strenuously than Individuality."-Havelock Ellis, Impressions and Comments, p. 195.