Individuality 33 



Humanity prompted by generosity and by all the virtues ; 

 or by greed and all the vices; may confuse the issues of im- 

 pulses, so that responsibility for action is hopelessly ob- 

 scured, yet there will certainly continue that undercurrent 

 of essential indispensable life action, which the principle of 

 direct personal self-interest still governs, although obscured 

 by the other considerations. Selfish conduct may be masked 

 in circumstances so complex as to seem to make the doer 

 superior to the consequences of wrong doing, but it is really 

 still under the same law. It may be readily observed that 

 to those of dull perception it seems easy to evade responsi- 

 bility, while to others more intelligent, it is revealed that 

 evasion is less easy. The sense of responsibility thus seems 

 to be often a question of the degree of mental power to 

 unravel the web of future effects. As soon as the reasoning 

 capacity is equal to an understanding of any given chain 

 of events, responsibilty is again revealed. But it must be 

 admitted that there will always be in human action a power 

 to evoke circumstances greater than the power to understand 

 them, a power to do and cause, greater than the ability to 

 foresee effects. And in this limitation there often lies the 

 erroneous belief that at times things can be done which will 

 result, not as they ought, but as they are willed. It must 

 be admitted, that individuals can and do escape in this 

 manner, consequences, as far as they see them, and to that 

 degree and distance they may be exempt. At a later stage 

 the small value of this apparent success will be more evident. 

 The apparent evasion of the primitive rule in a confusion 

 of others is satisfactory only to the intelligence of limited 

 view. 



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