Individual

“ And in that day shall be discovered every inward working of every human soul: every appetite, passion, inclination, affection, with the various combinations of them, with every temper and disposition that constitute the whole complex character of each individual. ”

“ And so my present remark hereupon is that, in following our enterprise of defining Being, we shall not be looking for mere abstract principles, but we shall be seeking for the most concrete objects in the world, namely for Individual Beings, and for the system that links them in one Individual Whole, — for Individuals viewed as the limits towards which all ideas of universal meanings tend, and for the Absolute as himself simply the highest fulfilment of the very category of Individuality, the Individual of Individuals. ”

“ Exactly that in which the characteristic quality of the world and of life is found, the individual personalities, the single generations, the concrete events—these lose, in this view, their own particular worth. ”

“ The self whose quality is revealed in Biography and History, and judged in Ethics, has for its exclusive material our emotional interests and purposive attitudes towards the various constituents of our surroundings; of these, and of nothing else, our self is made. And the self, again, is one and individual, just in so far as these interests and purposes can be thought of as forming the expression, in the detail of succession, of a central coherent interest or purpose. ”

“ In fact, how should any one individual Being present himself, in this external experience of yours, or of all men taken together, in such wise as to show not only that he is of this or this aspect, but that no other is like him in the whole realm of Being. ”

“ Without Knowledge of the Human Nature. “Varied, according to character, are the demands made by heart and mind,” assures us a representative of modern philosophy, “corresponding to them is the image of the world to which the individual turns by inner necessity. ”

“ Manners are the most external manifestation by which men display their individual peculiarities of mind and heart; and unless used artificially to conceal the true Character, they form a transparent medium through which it is exhibited. ”

“ Now, by taking note in thought of this supposed uniqueness, you can, of course, in general, define, as a sort of problem to be solved by real Beings, the ideal and abstract nature of individuality itself. But then, you do not, in that case, tell what constitutes any one individual such as he is. ”

“ And now to explain this principle somewhat further, so that I may at least make it historically clear to you, although I cannot prove it in this place:—it is the greatest error, and the true ground of all the other errors which make this Age their sport, that each individual imagines that he can exist, live, think, and act for himself, and believes that he himself is the thinking principle of his thoughts; ”

“ that is the aim of the one and the other because good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing. The end of all action, individual or collective, is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. ”

“ The person, in other words, is the visible or tangible phenomenon of something inward—the phase or function by which an individual agent takes his place in the common world of human intercourse and interaction, and plays his peculiar and definite part in life. [4] But this totality of consciousness, so far from reducing man to a 'mere manufactured article,' gives to personality its unique distinction. By personality all things are dominated. ”

“ Facts should explain facts; and the view called ‘individualism’ (because the one reality that it believes in is the ‘individual,’ in the sense of this, that, and the other particular) should hence be the right explanation. What are the facts here to be explained? They are human communities, the family, society, and the state. Individualism has explained them long ago. ”

“ To know how to deal with such men—to know how to use them—is the problem which ambitious force is called upon to solve. Personality, individuality, force of character, or by whatever name we choose to designate original and vigourous manhood, is the best thing which nature has in her gift. ”

“ Only the individual, or that part of life which is in the firm grasp of the individual, is real. ”

“ The individual and social instincts,—the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being. ”

“ In what sense, despite this complexity and variability of the individual self-consciousness as it comes to us empirically, have we still a right to say that there is in the universe a real, and, within the range of our individual experience, a permanent being, to be called this individual Ego? ”

“ The deeply rooted conception which every individual even now has of himself as a social being, tends to make him feel it one of his natural wants that there should be harmony between his feelings and aims and those of his fellow creatures. ”

“ As a result of these influences, the character of an individual is formed, his conduct is determined. At any given time, in the presence of any given question as to what he will, or will not do, the answer will depend on the relative force, or sway, of the conflicting considerations. ”

“ It is just because all meanings, in the end, will prove to be internal meanings, that this which the internal meaning most loves, namely the presence of concrete fulfilment, of life, of pulsating and originative will, of freedom, and of individuality, will prove, for our view, to be of the very essence of the Absolute Meaning of the world. ”

“ Yes, I mean just what you have prided yourself on,—Culture, Education, Individuality, Cleverness,—'leading your own lives,' Refinement, Experience, Development, call it what you will,—it is the same, the inturning of the spirit to cherish self. ”

“ On the contrary, let us emphasize these, and the importance of these; and in picking out from history our heroes, and communing with their kindred spirits,—in imagining as strongly as possible what differences their individualities brought about in this world, while its surface was still plastic in their hands, and what whilom feasibilities they made impossible,—each one of us may best fortify and inspire what creative energy may lie in his own soul. ”

“ If I may venture a suggestion as to how it does confer peculiar strength to expressions, it is that it brings into especial prominence the idea of Personality; it directs all subjects of discourse by the notion of an individual, a living, personal unit. ”

“ I now feel certain that before we can reach the individualism which we crave—and have tried to claim too soon—we must first know such participation as hers in all conscious life—in all life, conscious or unconscious. ”

“ In short, the term “person,” in its metaphysical sense, can mean only the moral individual, i.e. the individual viewed as meaning or aiming towards an ideal, good or relatively bad, angelic or relatively diabolical, lawful or relatively anarchical ”

“ Nothing exists except through the individual; it is necessary to know the individual himself. Let the parentage of creeds be established, or the classification of poems, or the growth of constitutions, or the transformations of idioms, and we have only cleared the ground. ”

“ I might analyse to you the growth of my individuality, describing the influence which the management of my own affairs has had on my character, the fact that I have done my own thinking all my life, and then—these three years in which I have been a real belle, and seen more than one man make an idiot of himself. ”

“ I reverence the individual who understands distinctly what it is he wishes; who unweariedly advances, who knows the means conducive to his object, and can seize and use them. ”

“ With large Eventuality, Individuality and Mirthfulness, will readily notice all the peculiarities of his associates, and be perpetually turning them into ridicule.
Large.—With large Love of Approbation, Ideality, Self-esteem, Individuality and Secretiveness, one will be able readily to adapt himself to the customs and forms of any society in which he may be thrown. With this combination and tolerably favourable opportunities for observation, his manners will be highly polished and agreeable. ”

“ Control by the subjective mind nearly always produces in the subject either a feeling of dual personality, in which two egos are realized, each distinct from the other—the old me and the new me—or else the subjective mind is identified with a totally distinct, extrinsic and usually superior individual ”

“ But these are typical of the exceptional few; the great majority have bona fide personality forms, forms which are individually characteristic, and which are recognizable and personally distinguishable. ”

“ The people whom I have in mind, and of whom such instances teach us something, are, in the first place, individuals of considerable wealth and strength of personal character. They certainly are resolute. They have a will of their own. They make choices. ”

“ The maintenance of the individuality is thus demonstrably a duty. The assertion of personal claims is essential; both as a means to self-happiness, which is a unit in the general happiness, and as a means to furthering the general happiness altruistically. ”

“ Under the regime of prescribed routine, of life with regard to the hereafter, and of mysterious powers of all sorts, more or less in good standing in the realm of the unworldly, personal individuality, though in itself not without some honour, was valued chiefly and primarily for the different conditions, the different relations to the things of this world, and the different views of these things, which men succeeded in overcoming, or rather in completely denying and eschewing. ”

“ Character exhibits itself in conduct, guided and inspired by principle, integrity, and practical wisdom. In its highest form, it is the individual will acting energetically under the influence of religion, morality, and reason. It chooses its way considerately, and pursues it steadfastly; esteeming duty above reputation, and the approval of conscience more than the world's praise. While respecting the personality of others, it preserves its own individuality and independence ”

“ In the case of every thing that belongs to the realm of sentiment—religion, politics, morality, the affections and antipathies, &c.—the most eminent men seldom surpass the standard of the most ordinary individuals. ”

“ I must advert here once again to my view of the opposition that exists between individuality and personality, notwithstanding the fact that the one demands the other. Individuality is, if I may so express it, the continent or thing which contains, personality the content or thing contained, or I might say that my personality is in a certain sense my comprehension, that which I comprehend or embrace within myself—which is in a certain way the whole Universe—and that my individuality is my extension; the one my infinite, the other my finite. ”

“ Individuality is founded in feeling; and the recesses of feeling, the darker, blinder strata of character, are the only places in the world in which we catch real fact in the making, and [pg 502] directly perceive how events happen, and how work is actually done.336 Compared with this world of living individualized feelings, the world of generalized objects which the intellect contemplates is without solidity or life. ”

“ This world would appear to such an insight as a Social Order. For the categories of the World of Appreciation, as we shall later more fully see, when we come to the study of our human Social consciousness, are the categories of the Self in Social form and expression. But as I discriminate the world, taking account now of ɑ and now of b, my discrimination, determined as it is by the interest of ray individual development, does not seize upon the facts in the order in which they are actually determined by the Will whose expression is the world. ”

“ Could any other question be asked admitting in its details of such varied answers,—answers various as the means, the character, and situation of different individuals? But there are great wants pertaining to every human being, into which all lesser ones run. ”

“ He was made what he is, I reply, by man himself; and this, in many instances, by a process which we may see every day taking place among ourselves in individuals and families, though happily, not in races. ”

“ Only by the reflex of other lives can he ripen his specialty, develop the idea of himself, the individuality that distinguishes him from every other. ”

“ Our whole argument in our transition to the Fourth Conception of Being illustrated how it is of the very nature of our human experience of our Internal Meaning to point beyond what is presented, for the sake of defining the very fulfilment which our presented meanings demand, and without which they have neither truth nor Being. ”

“ For instance, personal character is made up of a great number of conditions, which, without any consciousness on the part of the I, modify the direction of its volitions: these facts only make themselves known to us by their influence on the acts and the morals of the individual. ”

“ My own experience and development deepen every day my conviction that our moral progress may be measured by the degree in which we sympathize with individual suffering and individual joy. ”

“ We cannot seek or attain health, wealth, learning, justice [Pg 167] or kindness in general. Action is always specific, concrete, individualized, unique. ”

“ Man you shall find dependent for his moral personality upon his fellows, upon nature as a whole for his evolution, and upon his own ideas, poor and finite and fleeting although they are, for his very consciousness of his relation to the universe. ”