A self is, by its very essence, a being with a past. One must look lengthwise backwards in the stream of time in order to see theself, or its shadow, now moving with the stream, now eddying in the currents from bank to bank of its channel, and now strenuously straining onwards in the pursuit of its chosen good.

For myself, I do not now know in any concrete human terms wherein my individuality consists. In my present human form of consciousness I simply cannot tell.

So, as one sees, I by no means deprive my world of stubborn reality, if I merely call it a world of ideas.

And just because God attains and wins and finds this uniqueness all our lives win in our union with him the individuality which is essential to their true meaning.

God is One, all our lives have various and unique places in the harmony of the divine life.

We seek true individuality and the true individuals. But we find them not. For lo, we mortals see what our poor eyes can see; and they, the true individuals, - they belong not to this world of our merely human sense and thought.

A crowd, whether it be a dangerous mob, or an amiably joyous gathering at a picnic is not a community. It has a mind, but no institutions, no organizations, no coherent unity, no history, no traditions.