The unique character of a "person" is that he combines perfect separateness with the possibility and more or less of the actuality of perfect universality. A "person" is in a true sense a universal, an infinite being. He is thus through the constitution of his psychic nature a thinking, feeling, and willing being. Through his intellect and in proportion to his knowledge he becomes united with the whole objective universe; through his feelings he may become united in sympathy and love with all sentient creation, and even with God himself, the center and source of all being; through his active will he is increasingly creator of his environment. Man is thus in a true sense creating the conditions which make him to be what he is. Thus in no figurative sense, but literally and actually, man is in the process of creating himself. He is realizing the latent and hitherto unsuspected potentialities of his nature. He is creating a world in which to express himself; and this he does by expressing himself. In proportion as man advances, making explicit what is implicit in his inner nature, is he said to grow in personality. A man thus both possesses personality and grows in personality. He could not grow in it did he not already actually possess it. In such growth both elements of his being, the individual and the universal, develop simultaneously. A person of inferior personal development is at once less individual and less universal. This is a matter, however, not of endowment but of development. We thus distinguish between the original personal endowment, which we may call intrinsic or inherent personality, and the various forms in which this personality has manifested and expressed itself, which we may call extrinsic or acquired personality. Inherent personality is that which differentiates man from animal. It constitutes the original involution which explains and even necessitates man's entire evolution. There may be, nay, must be, varying degrees of expression of the inherent personality, just as there may be and must be varying degrees of consciousness of personality. These depend on the degree of evolution attained by the race and by the individuals of the race. It is no part of our plan to justify this conception of the nature of personality, or to defend these brief summary statements as to its inherent nature. It is enough if we have gained a clear idea of this conception on which the present chapter, and indeed this entire work, rests. In discussing the question as to personality in the Orient, it is important for us ever to bear in mind the distinctions between the inherent endowment that constitutes personal beings, the explicit and external expression of that endowment, and the possession of the consciousness of that endowment. For these are three things quite distinct, though intimately related.