Habits, then, not less than single volitional acts, of which they were and are composed, can be and are continually conquered and modified, in so far as they are opposed to the new volitional syntheses. This confirms what has already been said in criticizing the polipathetic view, which ignores the volition for the volitions, as the virtuous habit is ignored in favour of vicious habits. But the theory of apathicism is also to be found in this field, and it is needful to assert in opposition to it, the great importance proper to the volitional habits in giving concrete form to virtue. This second critical thesis is that which affirms the value of _individuality or peculiarity_ in the practical field. [Sidenote: _Negations of individuality for uniformity and their critique._] Every individual is furnished by mother nature with certain definite habits, according to the contingencies of reality among which he enters the world; and he acquires yet others in the course of life, owing to the actual conditions through which he passes and to the works that he accomplishes. Those habits which he has from birth are called aptitudes, dispositions, natural tendencies: the others acquired. The individual in his reality is, as has been said, nothing but these groups of habits and changes as they change. Now is it rational and possible (the two questions here form one) that the individual in his willing and acting should rid himself of such habits? Is it possible to consider them as things without value? Is it possible to establish an antithesis between individuality and rational action, as between good and evil?--The levellers who claim to impose the same task upon all and wish to make of the female a male, of the poet a reasoner, of the man of science a warrior, of the saint a man of business, and thus to give to every one a part of the task of others;--the dreamers of a future society, in which all this shall have been done, and the poet should attend to his poem, after having played the philosopher for a couple of hours, for another couple of hours the tailor, and for yet another two the waiter at an inn;--all the pedants of abstract regularity, whom we meet to our great annoyance in life;--behold the apathicists appear anew, for, as in the theory of the volitional act, they advocated an abstract action, conducted by the rational will alone in the void of the passions; so here, they advocate an abstract rational habit, in the theory of volitional habits, a model of human activity, to which all individuals would be obliged to conform. Perhaps some such sensible observation as this of Vauvenargues should suffice to confute them: _Il ne faut pas beaucoup de réflexion pour faire cuire un poulet; et, cependant, nous voyons des hommes qui sont toute leur vie mauvais rôtisseurs: tant il est nécessaire dans tous les métiers, d'y être appelé par un instinct particulier et comme indépendant de la raison._ But since it might be said that we wish to solve a grave