Dickens began to write definitely about individuality in Martin Chuzzlewit in 1844. Martin described a company he met in America “who were so strangely devoid of individual traits of character that any one of them might have changed minds with the other and nobody would have found it out.”
In David Copperfield he makes Traddles, who was trained by Mr. Creakle, say: “I have no invention at all, not a particle. I suppose there never was a young man with less originality than I have.”
David himself said sagely: “I have encountered some fine ladies and gentlemen who might as well have been born caterpillars.”
David emphasizes the phase of individuality that teaches the power of each individual to do some special good, when he said to Martha when she spoke of the river as the end of her useless life:
“In the name of the great Judge, before whom you and all of us must stand at his dread time, dismiss that terrible idea! We can all do some good, if we will.”
In Bleak House Sir Leicester Dedlock is represented as of opinion that he should at least think for every one in connection with his estate.
The present representative of the Dedlocks is an excellent master. He supposes all his dependents to be utterly bereft of individual characters, intentions, or opinions, and is persuaded that he was born to supersede the necessity of their having any. If he were to make a discovery to the contrary, he would be simply stunned—would never recover himself, most likely, except to gasp and die.
The same absolute contempt for the individuality of the poor is ridiculed in The Chimes. Sir Joseph Bowley is a type of the English squire who used to act on the assumption that he had to care for the workmen on his estate, and the poor of his neighbourhood, as he did for his horses and other animals.
“I do my duty as the Poor Man’s Friend and Father; and I endeavour to educate his mind by inculcating on all occasions the one great moral lesson which that class requires—that is, entire Dependence on myself. They have no business whatever with—with themselves. If wicked and designing persons tell them otherwise, and they become impatient and discontented, and are guilty of insubordinate conduct and black-hearted ingratitude—which is undoubtedly the case—I am their Friend and Father still. It is so ordained. It is in the nature of things. They needn’t trouble themselves to think about anything. I will think for them; I know what is good for them; I am their perpetual parent. Such is the dispensation of an all-wise Providence.”
It is strange that men so commonly ascribe to Providence the dreadful conditions which have resulted from man’s ignorance and selfishness, and which Providence intended man to reform.