The power which man exerts over material conditions, by virtue of his intelligence and freedom, is also an important element which, in these studies, we should not depreciate or ignore. We must accept, with all its consequences, the dictum of universal consciousness that man is _free_. He is not absolutely subject to, and moulded by nature. He has the power to control the circumstances by which he is surrounded--to originate new social and physical conditions--to determine his own individual and responsible character--and he can wield a mighty influence over the character of his fellow-men. Individual men, as Lycurgus, Solon, Pericles, Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon have left the impress of their own mind and character upon the political institutions of nations, and, in indirect manner, upon the character of succeeding generations of men. Homer, Plato, Cicero, Bacon, Kant, Locke, Newton, Shakspeare, Milton have left a deep and permanent impression upon the forms of thought and speech, the language and literature, the science and philosophy of nations. And inasmuch as a nation is the aggregate of individual beings endowed with spontaneity and freedom, we must grant that exterior conditions are not omnipotent in the formation of national character. Still the free causality of man is exercised within a narrow field. "There is a strictly necessitative limitation drawing an impassable boundary-line around the area of volitional freedom." The human will "however subjectively free" is often "objectively unfree;" thus a large "uniformity of volitions" is the natural consequence.[7] The child born in the heart of China, whilst he may, in his personal freedom, develop such traits of character as constitute his individuality, must necessarily be conformed in his language, habits, modes of thought, and religious sentiments to the spirit of his country and age. We no more expect a development of Christian thought and character in the centre of Africa, unvisited by Christian teaching, than we expect to find the climate and vegetation of New England. And we no more expect that a New England child shall be a Mohammedan, a Parsee, or a Buddhist, than that he shall have an Oriental physiognomy, and speak an Oriental language. Indeed it is impossible for a man to exist in human society without partaking in the spirit and manners of his country and his age. Thus all the individuals of a nation represent, in a greater or less degree, the spirit of the nation. They who do this most perfectly are the _great_ men of that nation, because they are at once both the product and the impersonation of their country and their age. "We allow ourselves to think of Shakspeare, or of Raphael, or of Phidias as having accomplished their work by the power of their individual genius, but greatness like theirs is never more than the highest degree of perfection which prevails widely around it, and forms the environment in which it grows.