(ii) So much for the one side, while from the other comes almost precisely the opposite criticism. Catholics, it is said, are not nearly individualistic enough; on the contrary they are for ever sinking themselves and their personalities in the corporate life of the Church. Not only are their outward actions checked and their words guarded, but even their very consciences and thoughts are informed and made by the collective conscience and mind of others. It is the highest ambition of every good Catholic _sentire cum ecclesia_; not merely to act and speak but even to think in obedience to others. Now a man's true life, we are told, consists in an assertion of his own individuality. God has made no two men the same; the mould was made and broken in each several case. If, therefore, we are to be what He meant us to be, we must make the most of our own personalities; we must think our own thoughts, not other people's, direct our own lives, speak our own minds--so far, of course, as we can do so without interfering with our neighbour's equal liberty. Once more, therefore, we are bidden to live our life to the full; not in this case, however, because we all share in a common humanity, but because we do not! We Catholics are wrong, therefore, for both reasons and in both directions. We are wrong when we put self first and we are wrong when we do not. We are wrong when we launch out into the current of life, and wrong when we withdraw ourselves from its waters. We are wrong when we insist upon our personal responsibility, and wrong when we look to the Church to undertake it. II. (i) Here then, indeed, is a Paradox; but it is one which our Lord Himself expressly emphasizes. For, first, there is nothing on which He so repeatedly insists as the supreme and singular value of every soul's salvation. If this is not attained, all is lost. _What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his own soul?_ All else, then, must be sacrificed if this is in peril. No human possession, however great, can be weighed against this. No human tie, however sacred, can hold against its claim. Not only must _houses and lands_, but _father and mother and wives and children_ must take second place, so soon as eternal life is at stake. And yet, somehow or another, this salvation can only be attained by loss; self can only live if it be mortified, can only be saved by its own denial. Individuality, as has been said, can only be preserved by the loss of Individualism.