IN the last analysis personality appears to be a sense of power resting on a feeling of capability or wisdom and usefulness, and hence a right to be; or this may be reversed for some and it be said to be a sense of capability or usefulness which springs from inherent wisdom and power. At best it is inexplicable to the individual himself. He does not know from whence it comes, why he has it, why he of all people should have it and so many other billions not, why his thoughts should be large where those of others are so small, his cunning or subtlety great where those of so many others are obviously less. If he has in addition any charm of character, being thus endowed, he will be courteous, considerate, merciful; but it by no means follows that he must so have or be. That would not explain an Attila, an Alaric, a Can Grande or a Torquemada.
“Why should I be born with a great mind,” a Cæsar, a Shakespeare, a Hannibal or a Leonardo might well have asked of himself, “whereas so many have little ones? Why is my frail bark speeded by winds of destiny or chance over favorable seas to power, where so many are beached or foundered en route? Did I make myself? Did I foreknow all?” Where so profound an egoist, even with a minute brain, to claim so much?
The truth is all good things are gifts, a voice, strength of body, vigor of mind, vision, the power to lead, as in war, any art, beauty, charm. This is not to say that these things may not be technically improved, and are, but this is the business with which mediocrity is chiefly concerning itself. I know that the world, where it lacks the strength to think on the subject, thinks differently, but this is mere nonsense and without import.
The man of personality or destiny realizes the guidance, enmity or favor of not necessarily higher, we will say, but different powers. (I am not for saints, guardian angels, Buddhas, Christs, perfect gods all.) He realizes all too keenly the element of chance, luck, unpropitious as well as propitious hours. Sometimes, in spite of himself and to his wonder, he notes that his affairs prosper. “There is a tide—” At other times (and who has not realized this?), try as he will, he had better lay aside all effort and disappear. Fortune will have none of him. The furies hover over his path. Harpies beset him. Go where he will, there will be elements to annoy him, if no more than an ill wind to blow his cap away or to cast dust into his eyes. He, above all others, knows that time and chance happen to all men.
But it is so easy to cite the old-time virtues of honesty, stability, truthfulness, fair-dealing, etc., as proving character, its value, and the power of any one, however weak or defective, personally to achieve it. But always, in spite of the advocates of simple and normal and moral things as proving in themselves genius and worth, there is something more—magnetism, for instance, a thing not necessarily or solely a part of these other so-called virtues, and strength, assurance, courage, generous or the reverse. These are not things of ethical import necessarily, but they make for success just the same. Observe that youth admires color, flare, pugnacity, brute courage and daring; middle age, knowledge of sorts, aggressiveness, endurance, success; old age, wisdom, generosity, humility, etc. How many of the former are ethical? In the quiet halls of learning or reflection certain of the tabulated virtues may be extolled, but to whom does the world pay attention, to whom has it paid attention? Darius, Artaxerxes, Alexander, Cæsar, Hannibal, Attila, Alaric, Peter the Hermit, Napoleon, the Kaiser; possessing what of all these virtues? Cæsar kind, patient, honest, truthful? Napoleon the same? Antony the same? Attila the same? Not even the popes, the preachers, the founders of religion were so. Always craft, force, diplomacy; but little of the sacrificial media so extolled and commended to the rank and file in order to keep them at rest.
It is significant of the intellectual development of America, if not of other countries, that we hear less these days of character, that something or somewhat which we were all supposed to have, or at least develop for ourselves or make (!) à la Washington, Lincoln, Grant, etc., who in most American schoolbook essays and college addresses were and still are supposed to have made their skill, endurance, resourcefulness, etc.; and more of that other thing which we call personality and which for a long time apparently we were not supposed to have, that unexplainable, inescapable something with which we come and in which even here in America we are now beginning to believe. Yes, we are beginning to suspect that there are certain things which some of us cannot do, however much we may wish or try to. Also that ability in many realms and forms comes without volition on our part, fate and circumstance causing it to blaze for us whether we will or no. After many volumes of another kind of mush, this is at last becoming rather apparent. There is less talk now of being Napoleons all, adding inches to our stature by taking thought (lifting ourselves by our boot-straps, in other words), and more of plain effort according to our especially inherited abilities or capacities. It is a sad truth for most men, more especially for most Americans, when they discover it, but it is nevertheless an economic and helpful one. Men do better once they realize their genuine limitations and cease reaching for the moon. For so very long, here in America at least, we have been fed on something so very different: our inalienable ability to do anything and everything equally well.
One wonders at times whether the light is really breaking. Can it be that we are getting ready to admit that we are not Cæsars each and all, held back by our own idleness and indifference? One begins to rub one’s eyes. I have often wondered why it is that the word “common,” in its sense of being plentiful and therefore indifferent, has not struck home to the many of us for what it is: an expression of contempt; and that “uncommon,” “extraordinary,” denote approbation. Why, if this is not true, should everything that is common be held so lightly of the mass, whereas that which is special or individual, inherited or no, is of such intense interest to it? For example, the individual skill or personal traits of the actor, painter, writer, sculptor, the exceptionally talented in any field?
The truth is that the average man, dull as he is, realizes quite well that a creature who has little or nothing that is different from millions of his kind is of small import here or anywhere. There is no especial demand for what he has to offer. If he wishes to stand out above his fellows he must bring something new, and this he cannot provide by mere wishing or thinking. There is something more than that—inherent capacity, a something which he cannot create for himself, try as he may. He also knows that Nature sends bubbling up from her inexhaustible springs an infinitude of creatures who are of small import, because they have no inherent power wherewith to develop very special characteristics, or better yet individual impulses—in other words, personality. They cannot, and are not asked to, create them after they arrive here. They must have them to begin with, or they are not important, cannot make their way easily. And again, it is obviously quite right that a creature with qualities except those of the species should have to confine its claim to an existence entirely within the limits of the species, and live a life conditioned by them. If Nature wishes one to rise above the conditions wherewith he finds himself surrounded at birth She usually provides him with the equipment for so doing during gestation, or before, and in addition accidental and most opportune circumstances invariably aid him. He is the heir of most propitious conditions. Vide Cæsar, Napoleon, Shakespeare, Luther, Lincoln, even Goethe. Yet, it is impossible, I presume, to convince the mass that this is true. It would be too discouraging.
Again, it is a common fallacy among the ignorant that no lower animal possesses more than the generic characteristics of its species—such-and-such powers, such-and-such limitations, such-and-such instincts,—although this of course is not true. There are weak and strong animals of the same species, more cunning and less, more ferocious and less, better-natured and less, just as there are among men. (If you do not believe this study cats and dogs, the historic wolf of Cevennes in France.) Indeed in many intellectual circles, so-called, it is still claimed for man that he is the only one to possess individual character. But this is not true, as the “Origin of Species” plainly shows. Sometimes I think that man, take him by and large, presents less differences than some of the individuals of species of the so-called lower animals. He is supposed to reason more, but does he? It seems to me that the average cat reasons quite as well as the average plumber or grocer, if not better. Give a good pagan tomcat a man’s body and sensory capacity, and how long do you suppose he would remain a plumber? The truth is that man, somewhat confused at present in his response to those chemic instincts which appear originally to have guided him, has been all but done for mentally by vain isms and theories. At times these same appear to be able, and quite completely, to do for him mentally, as does cancer and tuberculosis for him physically—vide Christianity, Mohammedanism, Shintoism, etc. On the other hand, the animal has no such handicap, let us say, as Catholicism, Shintoism, or what Mohammed or Buddha or Zoroaster said. It has just life and its own bare wits or chemical responses wherewith to do, no restraining and deadening rules. Hence it has very marked personality at times, and makes its way exceedingly well and without restraint or deadening aid of community or mass governmental advice. This is true of snakes, birds, fishes, monkeys and all other creatures lower, so-called, than man.
In most men, individual character, that thing which is supposedly so superior to lower animals, comes to very little. They run in schools, join secret orders or churches, vegetate, label themselves in a dull way democrats, republicans, socialists, and strive in all ways to make themselves as like others (those within their immediate ken) as possible. My father, for instance (peace to his spirit!), wished to prepare himself by self-abnegation, prayers and good works here on earth to fit himself for an entirely mythical heaven, to be a standardized angel—wings, harp, robes and all—such as he saw in the “saint pictures” in the various Catholic churches which he attended from time to time. These were the only representations of the future life with which he was familiar, hence he accepted them as true! Indeed as a rule the average or ordinary man (fortunately there is no exact average) cannot think or see beyond his quite immediate environment and binding rules, his neighborhood, his church, what somebody else says or thinks.