Moral Consequences of Heredity. 343 



our argument that psychology, even experimental psychology, 

 must admit a certain element which comes before us as a fact ; 

 this we call the ego, the person, the character : no other word will 

 designate it properly, but of it we can only say that it is that 

 which in us is inmost, and which distinguishes and differentiates 

 us from what is not ourselves ; this it is by which our ideas, our 

 sentiments, our sensations, our volitions are given to us as ours, 

 and not as the phenomena of something outside ourselves. And 

 we put the question, whether the instinct of self-preservation, 

 which is so strong in animals, may not be this individual principle, 

 cleaving stubbornly to existence, and struggling to maintain its 

 hold on life ? 



If now we study the part played by personality, not now in 

 psychology, but in history, the problem occurs in the same terms, 

 and seems resolvable in the same way. The individual is subject 

 to the laws of nature, both physical and moral, and is governed 

 by them. But' beyond the almost boundless field of determinism 

 we have had a glimpse of the possibility, and even the necessity, 

 of an autonomy, a spontaneity. So, too, in history, where the 

 action of natural laws is great, where, indeed, it is nearly every- 

 thing, we must also assign its due part to personality, as re- 

 presented especially by great men. 'The expedition of Alex- 

 ander and the poetry of Homer are both due to individuals. 

 But had Alexander never lived it is probable that the course of 

 history would have been other than it has been ; and if Homer 

 had not lived perhaps the religion and the manners of the Greeks 

 would have taken another form. . . . Individual will, there- 

 fore, exerts a great influence . . .*. yet this influence is but a mo- 

 mentary cause. Homer changed the manners of the Greeks only 

 because the Greeks made his poetic creations their own ; and 

 Alexander could never have made his mark so deeply in history, 

 were it not that his will had the same ground as the general will.' * 



Both history and psychology, then, appear to lead us to the 

 conclusion that determinism does not suffice to explain every- 

 thing. But if we push our inquiries still further, we are met by 

 a fresh difficulty. With regard to this personality whose true 



Wundt, ibid. p. 408. 



