lOO HEREDITY AND CHRISTIAN PROBLEMS 



tions, are given to us as ours, and not as the phe- 

 nomena of something outside ourselves. And we 

 put the question, whether the instinct of self-pres- 

 ervation, which is so strong in animals, may not be 

 this individual principle, cleaving stubbornly to ex- 

 istence, and struggling to maintain its hold on life ? 

 " If now we study the part played by person- 

 ality, 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 everything, we 

 must also assign its due part to personality, as 

 represented especially by great men. ' The expe- 

 dition of Alexander 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, therefore, exerts a great 

 influence, . . . yet this influence is but a momen- 



