inctly, and it often
rather escapes analysis and characterisation than is attained by it.
"Individuum est ineffabile." It can only be grasped intuitively and by
experience. And people of a non-reflective mood are usually more
successful in understanding it than those who reflect and analyse. It
requires "fine feeling," which knows exactly how it stands towards the
person in question, which yet can seldom give any definite account of his
characteristics. Individuality usually meets us most obviously in
exceptional men, and we are apt to contrast these with ordinary men. But
on closer examination we see that this difference is only one of degree.
"Individuality" in a less marked manner belongs to them all, and where it
exists it is a distinctly original thing, which cannot be derived from its
antecedents. No psyche is simply derivable from other psyches. What a
child receives from its parents by "heredity" are factors which, taken
together, amount to more than the mere sum of them. The synthesis of these
is at once the creation of something new and peculiar, and what has been
handed down is merely the building material. This can be felt in an
intensified and striking degree in regard to "pronounced individuality,"
but careful study will disclose the fact that there are no men quite
alike. This kind of "creative synthesis," that is, the underivability of
the individual, was the element of truth in the mythologies of
"creationism" held by the Church fathers, or in the theory of the
"pre-existence of the soul" maintained by Plato and others.

And from this point of view we must safeguard what has already been said
in regard to the culture and gradual development of our psychical inner
nature. It is true that the "soul" does not spring up ready-made in the
developing body, lying dormant in it, and only requiring to waken up
gradually. It really becomes. But the becoming is a self-realisation. It
is not true that it is put together and built up bit by bit by experience,
so that a different being might develop if the experiences were different.
It is undoubtedly dependent upon experience, impressions, and
circumstances, and without these its development would be impossible. But
these impressions act as a stimulus, developing only what is previously
inherent. They do not themselves create anything. A characteristic
predetermination restricts the development to comparatively narrow limits.
And this is identical with the individual