IF we seek a definition for what is ordinarily called “the individual,” we get an answer that has a strangely paradoxical sound: “The individual is an institution.” And yet, no other answer has any meaning. For individuality is a product of the Spirit; and the Spirit forms and transforms, integrates and disintegrates, the groups and relations of tendencies, habits, and aptitudes which constitute the individuality, no less than it forms and transforms so-called historical or social institutions—ancient slavery, mediaeval serfdom, the Roman family, the Christian family, the Hindu caste. These may be considered as so many individuals living and dying as truly as Caesar or Napoleon lived and died.

It may be objected that these latter individualities are not conscious of themselves as the others—individuals commonly so-called—are conscious of themselves, and this fact would establish a great difference between the two planes of individuality. However, the argument is fallacious. The truth is that social institutions have no reality outside their consciousness of themselves, the consciousness of Roman, Christian, slave, or Brahmin that he is Roman, Christian, slave, or Brahmin, a consciousness which sets itself off from the consciousness these individuals have of themselves in their other aspects. If such self-consciousness seems at times inadequate, inadequate also at times was the self-consciousness of Caesar, or Napoleon, or any other individual. Nor can the difference be located in another trait—the impulse toward self-conservation and self-assertion, which is common to individuals and to all other institutions and in them all is nothing but life itself. A life bestowed upon them by the Spirit that they may live and die, completing their peculiar cycle and performing their peculiar function! A life of pain and travail, but also of trust and joy! A life which wills to continue living and which, in order so to continue, transforms itself, and transforming itself is gradually exhausted till it perishes! And there is no contradiction in all this, save in the philosophical sense in which all life, all change, is contradiction.

For this reason the individual feels at one with the All and senses as selfish—which is the same as insane or diseased—any effort he may make to stand by himself apart from the All or in opposition to the All, withdrawing into the segregation of his own individuality which he experiences as segregation but also as communion, as isolation but also as participation. Every individual feels that his work in life is a charge entrusted to him, and that the strength he does it with is a loan for which he must give an accounting. As moments come when he seems to lose contact with things, when his soul dries up, he lifts his eyes to an Eternal Father, he invokes the All, that it may flow back into him, give him courage and life again, help him, force him onward toward a goal. He prays for Grace. He counts on Grace—and not in vain.

So the poet counts on Grace, though he calls it inspiration; so the philosopher, who calls it understanding; so the statesman, who calls it farsightedness and tact; so the soldier, who calls it courage and morale. But it comes also to the most humble and lowly man in the world, who sometimes does not know how he is to live the day out, so black does the horizon appear—and lo, in a burst of sunlight or in a glimpse of meadow fresh with dew, Grace descends upon him; and his heart swells with a new joy and a new zest for living. Who but some fatuous boaster (and he only in his idle words) could ever pretend to stand all by himself and forego the helping hand of Grace?

We should, however, beware of theological statements of the concept of Grace. Erecting a barrier between the All and the individual, between God and man, the theologian is soon, caught in a dilemma: he is forced either to suppress God or to suppress man. Religions made of the sterner stuff face the issue squarely and do away with man, though our eclectics of all kinds, whether Catholic or Protestant, prefer to flounder about in the dualisms of a gratia praeveniens coming from God and a gratia co-operans coming from man. However, if we think of Grace, not as an intervention on the part of an external power, but as an ebb and flow, an alternating throb, of a single power, we avoid the pitfalls of the theologian, while recognising the importance of the notion he puts forward and tries to elaborate.

In a similar way, and also through the defective expositions of theology primarily, the importance and soundness of the idea of Providence have been recognised. The difference between Providence and Grace is this: that Grace relates to spiritual power in general, while Providence relates to the particular problem assigned to the individual in particular circumstances. Our imaginations are free to dream of our doing one thing or another thing, as we may choose; though what we actually do is decided not by ourselves, but by “Providence,” which permits us to do this or that, this and not that, as the case may be. Whether, thereupon, we do it reluctantly or with joy depends upon the measure in which Grace is vouchsafed us. Fatuous people, to be sure, talk (and again it ends in talk) of doing things born of abstract imagining and not called for and not warranted by the logical sequence of facts as they are. But serious people intently watch themselves and the reality of things about them to be ready to answer the signal of Providence. Just as we pray for Grace when our spirit fails, so we rely on Providence and hope in Providence for the efficient and opportune use of our resources.