It was only in the earliest state of culture, and under very simple conditions of life, that the individual was solely and entirely bound up with the social organism, simply a member of family, of tribe, and such like; entirely swayed by custom, authority, and tradition. All further evolution was a differentiation and led to the greater independence of the individual. There came a time, however, when, in contrast with his mere membership of the society, the individual felt himself to have arrived at a state of maturity; when he questioned the right of the traditional order, and ultimately found himself coming into opposition with the whole of society; his own thought thus became the chief basis of his life and the measure of all things. At first that may have appeared an impious break and a destructive negation; in reality, the positive results which have been thus effected could never have been produced out of a mere revolt. For, a deepening of life in all its branches went hand in hand with the individual's attainment of independence; now, for the first time, Religion developed a personal religious experience, and Art filled man's whole soul; now only did Science set a distinctive world of thought in opposition to the traditional presentation; and so the whole of life gained enormously in independence, mobility, and depth. How could this point have been reached if an immediate relation to reality had not emerged in the soul of man; if an inner world had not been formed from this reality, as the representative of which the individual might feel superior to the society and, from inner necessities, criticise the prevailing condition of things? The fact is that all deepening of culture, all awakening of life to self-consciousness, is a rising above the life of society, a summoning of the individual to creative activity. Never have real advances in Religion, Science, and Art, or great transformations of life, originated out of a combination of the activities of the majority. Only in isolated cases has an incomparable individuality, supreme in the entire range of creative activity, been reached, and spiritual tasks been treated as ends in themselves, without which there is nothing great. Only out of the necessity of spiritual self-preservation, only as an overcoming of intolerable contradictions within our own being, could creative activity find a sure direction and a lofty self-confidence in order to lead the whole of humanity along new paths. The individuals in whom this was accomplished were, to be sure, under many influences from historico-social life; but, to overlook the essential elevation above the entire domain of merely human interests into a realm of self-conscious truth, which was accomplished by these individuals, one must confuse the conditions with spiritual activity itself.