4 ANIMAL INDIVIDUALITY [OH. 



world and all its influences in other words, immunity 

 from accidents. By independence is not meant the 

 independence of the recluse or the ascetic, but that 

 other independence belonging to the great man of 

 action and the inventor. .These are not independent 

 in the most literal sense they do not "do without," 

 they are not proud of existing on the barest minimum ; 

 the ultimate logical end of that kind of independence 

 is atrophy, both mental and physical. Their other, 

 higher independence involves this much of dependence, 

 that they employ the things of the external world as 

 material with which to work. For the making of 

 bricks, you are dependent upon straw : but you 

 attain a higher independence by making bricks and 

 being dependent upon straw than by being in- 

 dependent of straw and lacking bricks. They gain 

 their independence by using the outer world for 

 their own ends, harnessing some of its forces to 

 strive with and overcome the rest. At the least 

 they can resist the adverse current, displaying 

 a purpose of their own which is not whirled away 

 by every wind of fate. "Accidents cannot happen 

 to me " so spake Zarathustra, and then added this 

 reason : " Because all that could now happen to me 

 would be my own." 



In this making of Nature his own, civilized man 

 has an individuality vastly fuller, more perfect, than 

 the savage. Both in resisting adverse forces and in 



