'Wherefore it follows that men are not to unite themselves together in order to forego any portion of their individuality, but only to lessen the exclusiveness of their isolation; it is not the object of such a union to transform one being into another, but to open out approaches between the single natures; whatever each himself possesses, he is to compare with that which he receives by communication with others, and while introducing modifications in his own being by the comparison, not to allow its force and peculiarity to be suppressed in the process. Wherefore it appears to me that the principle of the true art of social intercourse consists in a ceaseless endeavour to grasp the innermost individuality of another, to avail oneself of it, and, penetrated with the deepest respect for it as the individuality of another, to act upon it—a kind of action in which that same respect will not allow us other means for this purpose than to manifest oneself, and to institute a comparison, as it were, between the two natures before the eyes of the other.' WILHELM VON HUMBOLDT.-Essay on the Sphere and Duties of Government. CHAPTER XVI. AUTHORITY AND INDIVIDUALISM. Ar the present day moral, and especially religious, teachers are calling the attention of the thinking world to the predominance of ideas leading to the assertion of the individual's right to think and act for himself independently of extrinsic restraints, and to thereby escape many dangers likely to result from undue subordination of authority to individualism. The Bishop of Long Island, Right Rev. Dr. A. N. Littlejohn, thought this a subject of so great importance, that when he was invited to preach a course of sermons in England in 1880, before the University of Cambridge, he selected Individualism as his general theme, and endeavoured to show the necessity for checking and limiting the individualistic movements of the times in politics, the family, and in religion. He says in his first sermon: Certainly it will not do; it is neither wise nor safe to trust the individual, as things now are, to settle absolutely for himself, and so to some extent for others, all questions of duty, all claims of law, all demands made upon him by the authority of Church and State, or even of the family and of general society. He is yet a long way off from the intelligent and balanced mastery of self which would justify such a trust. Outward guides, civil and ecclesiastical, must still, and for a long time to come, stay his often feeble steps, and light up the dim gropings of his moral reason.' With a like solicitude, and influenced by similar considerations, President Seelye, of Amherst College, in Massachusetts, preached a baccalaureate sermon in 1883 having for its topic Growth through Obedience,' in which he endeavoured to show (if the newspapers correctly report him) that 'growth in wisdom, growth in powerpower over nature, power over one's self, and power over others— and growth in character, only come through the submission of the self-will to authority.' He further says: 'For the last three hundred years there has been steadily growing in the civilised world a disposition to assert the individual will above the restraints of authority.' 'Our chief peril—and there are signs enough to show that it is grave-consists, I think, in the undue exaltation of our liberty.' The war upon property and the family-the two institutions upon which the very existence of society dependsis as evident in America as in Europe.' 'We make our law dependent on our liberty; in other words, we are determined to have such laws as we will, rather than to will such laws as we ought to have. But when liberty is put first, and only the law is permitted which we choose to permit, the liberty soon sinks to a license, and the license descends into anarchy, and the anarchy only issues in a despotism.' Having in preceding parts of this work taken from England and Germany, respectively, representative examples of doctrines criticised; for the present topic we will find our texts in the words of the two American authors just quoted. These two give by no means the only expressions of this kind of sentiment; but, uttered by representative men whose habits are reflective, and who make it their business to observe the signs of the times and to throw the weight of their influence in favour of what they consider right and against what is wrong, such expressions are entitled to respect, and ought to command attention on the part of all who have like purposes, in order that we may ascertain whether the dangers suggested are real or fanciful, whether the fears revealed are well or ill founded, and whether the remedies indicated are the proper ones to be of avail under existing circumstances. Accordingly I invite the reader who has at heart the best interests of humanity to consider with me this question of Authority and Individualism in the several aspects in which it affects human welfare. Eternal watchfulness is the price of liberty, and we ought ever to be alert to discover and thwart tendencies towards social disruption or disorder wherever they lie latent or may be made manifest. The sentiment criticised both by Bishop Littlejohn and President Seelye is typified in the doctrine of Protagoras' Homo Mensura': Πάντων χρημάτων μέτρον ἄνθρωπος, τῶν μὲν ὄντων ὡς ἐστὶ, Twν SE OUк ÖVTwv is ouк EσTIV. Man (i.e. the individual man) is the measure of all things; of things that are, that they are; of things that are not, that they are not. Certainly, upon first thought there does not seem to be anything very alarming in this dictum, |