Ever since man has led a corporate life it seems probable that one outstanding evil has prevailed, in greater or less degrees according to the rate and amount of progress made by any community. And this evil is the lack and suppression of individuality. It seems impossible to account for it, except by simply saying that it is, and has always been a characteristic tendency of human nature; however, this is the most encouraging answer possible, because it assumes that this evil can eventually be eradicated. No one can surely deny that there is a lack of individuality at present; its chief manifestations, of course, are to be found in hatred, and in the spirit of competition and rivalry; it produces a clash between individual opinions and actions which is so apparent that it cannot be denied, and need not be enlarged upon. But, apart from these more obvious manifestations, this failing has been responsible for the production and continuance of _all_ that is evil in man. Human nature is the foundation of our life, of that foundation every individual is entitled to partake; and, furthermore, that foundation is good. Every individual possesses a portion of this foundation as his right; and what is the result, under these circumstances, of lack of individuality? Surely the result is that some parts of those individual sections, parts which are in some cases similar to and in other cases different from parts of other individual sections, are used as the foundation, while the remainder is left unused. For, for the most part, men either employ those parts of their portion of the foundation of goodness which are common to as many other individual sections as possible, or, like Alceste, the parts which are definitely opposed to most others. In any case where the foundation is undeveloped and unused there grows, like a poisonous growth, sin, which is made of and feeds upon the material of the good foundation, which has been put to the wrong use. Sin and evil are not separate, in the strict sense, from good. It seems inconceivable that good and evil should have had different origins, and should have existed as rival elements in human nature without the one having by this time triumphed over the other. In matters which affect every member of a body similarly, the combined influence of all those members should be brought to bear; but where every individual can "be himself" and interpret and use his portion of the foundation of goodness in the complete way for which he was made and intended, without affecting others, he should be allowed to influence them or be influenced by them, without interference on the part of any other individual. Since this has not been the case, we have had the continuance of sin, and until it is the case, there always will be sin.