Note 164 — Chapter V · REVIEW OF THE PRINCIPAL METAPHYSICAL HYPOTHESES WHICH WILL REPLACE DOGMA—Concluded. Idealism, Materialism, Monism.

At the very centre of one’s being, universality and personality increase side by side; that is to say, the greater the share of existence a being possesses, the greater the amount of existence that it is capable of sharing with other beings. Incommunicability or impenetrability represents the lowest degree of existence; natural existence, the existence of forces as yet blind and fatal, maintains by their mutual antagonism an equilibrium in a state of inertia and torpor ... The greater one’s self-appropriation by intelligence, the greater one’s power of taking possession of other beings by thought; the being that best knows itself best knows other beings ... the spirit, in so far as it is intelligent, should be open, penetrable, participable, and participant. Two minds, in so far as they are perfect, may interpenetrate each other by means of thought (A. Fouillée, Philosophie de Platon).

“We must distinguish,” M. Janet also says, “between personality and individuality. Individuality consists in all the external circumstances which distinguish one man from another—circumstances of time, place, organization, etc.... The root of personality lies in individuality, but it tends incessantly to withdraw from it. The individual is centred in himself; personality aspires to rise above itself. The ideal of individuality is egoism, the focussing of the whole in self; the ideal of personality is devotion, the identification of self with the whole. Personality, properly so called, is consciousness of the impersonal” (Moral, 573).