654 THE BIOLOGICAL BASIS OF INDIVIDUALITY 



evolution of individuality ; it connects the individual with the social thought- 

 reservoir and from there leads back to the individual. These relations of the 

 individual to the thought-reservoir were used by man in an attempt to regain 

 the potential immortality which, in the sphere of the first circuit, had been 

 lost with advancing evolution, and thus to obtain compensation for the injuries 

 and destruction experienced in the social and natural struggle. But this effort 

 is in vain. The thought-reservoir reflects the world, the social environment, 

 life as a whole, and in making connections with it a part of the psychical 

 individuality is sacrificed. This last circuit represents the highest point, the 

 last phase in the evolution of individuality, the latter entering into that which 

 is common to all and thus in part giving up its separate existence. 



Yet, while the individual lives and struggles, the social thought-reservoir 

 exerts a real function in his activities. It has a steadying, stabilizing effect on 

 him and it may restrict the excesses in which his personality may express 

 itself. Thus he is limited, is made less free, but at the same time it renders 

 the individual, in his sensory-nervous-muscular circuit, less dependent on the 

 environment. It brings continuity into his reactions, which are then deter- 

 mined not solely by momentary impressions and responses, but by thoughts 

 and traditions acting as relative constants, as principles in an ever changing 

 world and life. In this manner a development is achieved in the psychical- 

 social sphere, not unlike that acquired in the first, the primary circuit, which 

 latter results in the building up of a very differentiated system, more and 

 more detached from and independent of the environment, a process charac- 

 terized by such conditions as homoiothermia, homoiohydria, homoiotonia, and, 

 in general, by what has been called by Cannon, homoiostasis. Corresponding 

 to this latter development, there has resulted from the evolution of the 

 thought-reservoir and from its interaction with the individual a kind of 

 psychical homoiostasis, in which the psychical individuality is weighted 

 down, anchored and fixed to something that holds it firm in the movements 

 and struggles of existence. 



There has thus taken place an evolution of two types of individuality. The 

 first is connected with the differentiation of the organ differentials and with 

 the evolution of the individuality differential and its manifestations, from a 

 very primitive character to the state of great refinement reached in mammals. 

 The second is connected with the evolution of the psychical-social factors, 

 leading to the gradual creation and refinement of the indivdual in the psychi- 

 cal-social sense. This second evolutionary process is related only indirectly 

 to the development of the individuality differentials ; it depends directly upon 

 the increasing complexity and refinement of certain organ differentials, espe- 

 cially of the nervous system. There is, therefore, no perfect parallelism between 

 these two evolutionary processes. While in the first process a gradual, step-by- 

 step development of the individuality differential occurs, in the second process 

 the most important, far-reaching change has taken place suddenly in the tran- 

 sition from anthropoid apes to man. 



Corresponding in certain respects to the types of circuits which connect 

 the individual and his environment four stages may be distinguished in the 



