i] IDEA OF INDIVIDUALITY 29 



limitations of her own physical basis, and the result 

 achieved is a compromise ; not what she planned, but 

 what her imperfect materials allowed her to carry 

 out the old difference between the poem flashed on 

 the poet's brain and the same poem on paper, striving 

 to gleam through the words that build it. 



Her track is straightforward at first : she tries 

 to realize to the full the possibilities of her material 

 basis, increasing the mere size, the mechanical com- 

 plexity, and the length of life of her individuals, but at 

 last there comes a point where she can go no further 

 forward the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. 

 So far, range of action has been dependent upon 

 actual mass of substance, diverseness of action upon 

 complexity of substance, and length of action upon 

 duration of substance. Now this direct way is barred : 

 but she finds out another path. She produces a unique 

 type of mechanism, of which the most fully developed 

 type is the human brain, and, associated with it, the 

 power of conscious reason and of memory. At once 

 the individuality is released from waiting servile upon 

 substance. Now to its own size it can add the size of 

 all its tools and machines by them now is measured 

 the Range of its action : the Diversity of its action it 

 has multiplied a hundredfold by substituting indefinite 

 potentialities for necessarily limited actualities ; and 

 the Duration of its action, by the device of language, 

 now far surpasses the allotted span of its substance. 



