In a sense, therefore, every human being is complex. Inheritance and
environment have left distinctive characteristics, which, if the power of
co-ordination be weakened, take possession of the individual as
opportunity may determine. We usually apply the term personality to the
resulting blend of the various personalities in his nature. In the case
of sane men and women the personality is a very composite affair. What
we are thinking of frequently when we apply the epithet "complex" is a
certain contradictoriness of temperament, the result of opposing strains
of blood. It is the quality, not the quantities, of the personalities
that affects us. If not altogether happy, the expression may in these
cases pass as a rough indication of the opposing element in their nature.
But when used, as it often is, merely to indicate an eccentricity, the
epithet assumes a restricted significance. A may be far more complex
than B; but his power of co-ordination, what we call his will, is strong,
whereas that of B is weak, so we reserve the term complex for the weaker
individual. But why reserve the term complex for a few literary
decadents who have lost the power of co-ordination, and not apply it to a
mind like Shakespeare's, who was certainly as complex a personality as
ever lived?

Now I do not deny that it is wrong to apply the term complexity to men of
unstable, nervous equilibrium. What I do deny is the right to apply the
term to these men only, thus disseminating the fallacy--too popular
nowadays--that genius and insanity are inseparable.

As a matter of fact, if we turn to Spencer's exposition of the
evolutionary doctrine we shall find an illustration ready at hand to show
that complexity is of two kinds. Evolution, as he tells us, is a change
from homogeneity to heterogeneity, from a simple to a complex. Thus a
dog is more complex than a dog-fish, a man than a dog, a Shakespeare
greater than a Shaw. But complexity, though a law of Evolution, is not
_the_ law of Evolution. Mere complexity is not necessarily a sign of a
higher organism. It may be induced by injury, as, for instance, the
presence of a marked growth such as cancer. Here we have a more complex
state, but complexity of this kind is on the road to dissolution and
disintegration. Cancer, in fact, in the body is like disaffection in an
army. The unity is disturbed and differences are engendered. Thus,
given a measure of nervous instability, a compl