rtist, every philosopher, every
scientific investigator, so far as his art or thought went, has always
got out of himself,--has forgotten his personal interests and become Man
thinking for the whole race. And intimations of the same thing have been
at the heart of most religions. But now people are beginning to get
this detachment without any distinctively religious feeling or any
distinctive aesthetic or intellectual impulse, as if it were a plain
matter of fact. Plain matter of fact, that we are only incidentally
ourselves. That really each one of us is also the whole species, is
really indeed all life."

"A part of it."

"An integral part-as sight is part of a man... with no absolute
separation from all the rest--no more than a separation of the
imagination. The whole so far as his distinctive quality goes. I do not
know how this takes shape in your mind, Sir Richmond, but to me this
idea of actually being life itself upon the world, a special phase of it
dependent upon and connected with all other phases, and of being one
of a small but growing number of people who apprehend that, and want to
live in the spirit of that, is quite central. It is my fundamental idea.
We,--this small but growing minority--constitute that part of life which
knows and wills and tries to rule its destiny. This new realization, the
new psychology arising out of it is a fact of supreme importance in the
history of life. It is like the appearance of self-consciousness in some
creature that has not hitherto had self-consciousness. And so far as we
are concerned, we are the true kingship of the world. Necessarily. We
who know, are the true king....I wonder how this appeals to you. It
is stuff I have thought out very slowly and carefully and written and
approved. It is the very core of my life.... And yet when one comes
to say these things to someone else, face to face.... It is much more
difficult to say than to write."

Sir Richmond noted how the doctor's chair creaked as he rolled to and
fro with the uneasiness of these intimate utterances.

"I agree," said Sir Richmond presently. "One DOES think in this fashion.
Something in this fashion. What one calls one's work does belong to
something much bigger than ourselves.

"Something much bigger," he expanded.

"Which something we become," the doctor urged, "in so far as our work
takes hold of us."

Sir Richmond made no answer to this for a little while. "Of course we
trail a certain egot