Unique

“ It will be more convenient, in the first place, to dismiss the word “unique.” For that seems (as we saw) to introduce the idea of existence in a series, together with a negative relation towards other elements. And, if such a relation is placed within the essence of the “this,” then the “this” has become part of a larger unity. ”

“ Objects are individuals in so far as they are unique expressions of essentially exclusive ideals, ends, Divine decrees. This consideration must govern every concrete application of our category. In biology, the individual viewed as the unique variation of its type has often been made, of late, as it was by Darwin, the centre of the definition of individuality as known to that science. ”

“ So far we have been observing individuals as separate individuals. Now we must look at them gathered together as a whole. And the first point we note is that though each individual has his own unique individuality, whether he be plant or man, all are kept together as a single whole. We have seen the individuals battling with one another, competing with one another, struggling against one another. ”

“ Now, such differences in kind can only be interpreted metaphysically as radical differences in the determining aims and interests of the experiencing subjects constituting the physical order, and we have already seen that it is precisely the character of these dominant unique interests which forms the individuality of the individual. ”

“ 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. ”

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

“ With such uniqueness of each human being as a given, an assumed fact, only each person can describe or choose the evolvement of the project which is himself-in-his situation. This awesome and lonely human capacity for choice and novel evolvement presents both hope and fear as regards the unfolding of human "moreness." Uniqueness is a universal capacity of the human species. ”

“ Unique. "This is very unique." "The most unique house in the city." There are no degrees of uniqueness: a thing is unique if there is not another like it. The word has nothing to do with oddity, strangeness, nor picturesqueness. ”

“ Now with regard to the ultimate unity and consequent harmony of all this variety, our Fourth Conception has given us indeed a general formula. The Many must, despite their variety, win harmony and perfection by their cooperation. But this principle, so far, gives us no limit either to the empirical variety of will, or of interest and of experience in the absolute, nor any limit to the relative independence which the uniqueness of the individual elements makes possible. ”

“ And to instruct about this manner derived from uniqueness, we learned in the chapter 'Behold, one sees.' A person is obligated to bless for the bad just as he blesses for the good, as it is said, 'And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart.' This alludes to the fact that a person must demonstrate and publicize true unity in all things, unify them, and direct them to true uniqueness. Therefore, he is obligated to bless for every measure, and this is an instruction about uniqueness. ”

“ However, in its general sense of experience, being underlies the ideas of individuality and perfection. And these, at least so far, must be positive.
2. And, in the second place, each of them is positively determined by what it excludes. The aspect of diversity belongs to the essence of the individual, and is affirmatively contained in it. The unity excludes what is diverse, so far only as that attempts to be anything by itself, and to maintain isolation. And the individual is the return of this apparent opposite with all its wealth into a richer whole. ”

“ You have admitted an apparently capricious element of individuality: a power on the part of the half-breeds of differing from one another to an extent quite impossible in the two original homogeneous societies. In one word, you have made possible the future existence of diversity in character. ”

“ Such objections as these must, I think, arise in the mind of every one who ponders, for the first time, upon the conception of a single physical basis of life underlying all the diversities of vital existence; but I propose to demonstrate to you that, notwithstanding these apparent difficulties, a threefold unity—namely, a unity of power or faculty, a unity of form, and a unity of substantial composition—does pervade the whole living world. ”

“ He noticed how each being contains in itself an infinite variety, an admirable arrangement for the purposes for which it was intended: that each being is good, perfect, and capable of life, according to its order and species, and in its individuality. ”

“ We have still to ask how in particular we can most truly conceive the systematic unity which is formed by the whole multiplicity of apparently more or less independent subjects of experience, what degree of permanence and individuality, so far as we can judge, belongs to ourselves as members of that system, and what light is thrown by our ethical, religious, and æsthetic aspirations and ideals on the concrete character of the whole system and on our own place in it. ”

“ But by how much the higher we ascend, and elevate ourselves to the sameness both in form and essence, of first natures, and proceed from parts to wholes, by so much the more shall we discover the union which has an eternal existence, and survey the essence, which has a precedaneous and more principal subsistence, and possesses about, and in itself, difference and multitude. ”

“ We have the variety and multiplicity on the one hand in the states or qualities of the thing, its unity on the other in the form of the law connecting these states, but how the variety belongs to or is possessed by the unity we know no better than before. Thus the old problem of substance returns upon us; the many qualities must somehow be the qualities of a single thing, but precisely how are we to conceive this union of the one and the many? ”

“ The unity, the identity, the individuality, and the immateriality that appear in the psychic life are thus accounted for as phenomenal and temporal facts exclusively, and with no need of reference to any more simple or substantial agent than the present Thought or 'section' of the stream. ”

“ It is their concentrated individuality which presents to us the most general and at the same time most complete idea of their intrinsic character, in so far, that is, as this individuality is brought together out of the variety of accidental traits, isolated actions, and events into the one focus of their simple and self-exclusive unity. ”

“ If you took two terms which had no more visibly in common than the fact that they exist or are thought, yet the comparison still has a result. You have stated the truth that existence or thought is an identity which somehow has within it these diversities, and that they somehow are connected in and qualify this unity. ”

“ Perhaps the principles of unity and variety—two essentials of any art work—enter into the matter. The variety in the uniforms of the different sections satisfies the eye, and the unity of the marching pleases the mind. ”

“ This universal life from which thought derives its perceptions, from which understanding derives its [Pg 433] enlightenment, does not only exist as a general thing, but also in the form of infinitely varied individualities. And generalization, the relation of things, their number and extension, are no more, and no less, infinite than individualization and specialization. Every tree in the forest, every grain of a pile of sand, are individual, separate, distinct. ”

“ We make representations of a thing to ourselves, and say “it is blue;” this is a universal. The question now is whether such universals are something real in and for themselves, apart from the thinking subject, and independent of the individual existing thing, so that they exist in the individual things independently of the individuality of the thing and of each other; or whether the universal is only nominal, only in the subjective representation, a thing of thought. ”

“ I here assume, what is agreed on by most writers, that beauty of form—so far as it is independent of sensuous pleasure on the one hand, and pleasures of association and suggestion on the other, is resolvable into the presence of a certain order among manifold details, which order is commonly spoken of as unity in variety. With respect, first of all, to the way in which the element of variety and contrast presents itself in visible form, a word or two will suffice. ”

“ Branches of science, philosophy or art have been selected and treated as though possessed of great and independent importance. The process of individuality has been the cause; but true evolution, whether in man or matter, consists in viewing whatever is presented for consideration as being related to all the rest, and as a part of the whole. ”

“ Now if, with this fact in mind, I look back on the world which I attempted thus to describe, I find that the limitation which experience often seems to set to my postulates about the discrimination of facts, may well be founded in the deepest nature of things. The true world, the World of Values or of Appreciation, as rightly viewed by an absolute insight, would be a world of Selves, forming in the unity of their systems One Self. ”

“ For, numerous and diverse as are the objects in nature, they are so constituted and connected—so dependent on and related to one another—as to compose a whole which exhibits a marvellous unity in variety. ”

“ There are three powers:—Wit, which discovers partial likeness hidden in general diversity; subtlety, which discovers the diversity concealed in general apparent sameness;—and profundity, which discovers an essential unity under all the semblances of difference. ”

“ And just so far as I fall short of systematic individuality, whether from the poverty of my interests or their mutual incompatibility, the appearance of unity in my life is illusory, and I must be pronounced an unreal appearance. ”

“ That is to say, we shall be increasing the individuality of the objects known, by the operation of true thought and observation in the discovery of new characters or qualities in them; we shall be increasing by the same act the generality of the objects known, by the discovery of new relations, new genera under which to bring them. ”

“ We must not, however, expect, that this Uniformity of human Actions should be carry'd such a Length, as that all Men, in the same Circumstances, should always act precisely in the same Manner, without any Allowance for the Diversity of Characters, Prejudices, and Opinions. Such a Uniformity, in every Particular, is found in no Part of Nature. ”

“ For our purpose, we may define the study of individuality as a consideration of the individual as a unit with special characteristics. That it is a unit signifies that it is one of many and that it has likeness to the many. ”

“ This is the illusion that the category of Individuality is definable in terms of the segmentation of contents, and therefore implies such segmentation, be these contents empirical or ideal. I assert that two individuals need not be sundered as to the unity of consciousness which contains them; and that if they were so sundered, they would not thereby become individuals. The chasm that is to sunder an individual A from another B may be defined as you please. ”

“ One may regret the want of that freshness of conception which the mind naturally expects in the productions of a people with whose traditions it is unfamiliar, and whose comparative isolation inspires the hope of individuality. ”

“ If we consider the nature of any coherent purpose or “mental system,” we shall find that, as the coherent embodiment of a purpose, it possesses a degree of individuality of its own. In proportion to the comprehensiveness, and again to the inner harmony or systematic structure of the interest it embodies, it constitutes a genuine self-existing individual whole of the kind which psychologists recognise as a “self.” ”

“ We may, then, add to our experience on the assumption of a uniformity in nature; we may fill in our picture of what is and has been, as experience gives it us, in such a way as to make the whole consistent with this uniformity. ”

“ Somewhere there beyond, shining, is a new individualism, whose incarnations shall flow to no melting pot, but instead shall cling together, valued for their differentiation, and like a certain precious form of life, low in the scale, shall put out a thousand filaments, and presently move away together, a unit. ”

“ And every unity, every identity, every classification is rightly called fanciful unless it serves some other end than the mere satisfaction, emotion, or inspiration caught by momentarily believing in it. ”

“ Between these two extremes of a purely formal generality and this natural expression of unpolished peculiarities we have the true universal, which is throughout neither formal nor destitute of individuality, but finds its concrete realization in a twofold way from the defined content of character and the objective presence of opinions and aims. ”

“ In enquiring about any one individual we must ask how other individuals enter ‘objectively’ into the unity of its own experience. This unity of its own experience is that individual existing formally. ”

“ From the point of view of the world-condition this self-revelation of particular individuals appears as the passing of its universality into the distinct embodiments of living individuality, an aggregate over which universal forces still assert the mastery. ”