Individuality, personality, and the sense of self are only three different aspects of one and the same thing. They are so many various views of the soul according as we regard it from an intrinsic, an altruistic, or an egoistic standpoint. For by individuality is not meant simply the isolation in a corporeal casing of a small portion of the universal soul of mankind. So far as mind goes, this would not be individuality at all, but the reverse. By individuality we mean that bundle of ideas, thoughts, and daydreams which constitute our separate identity, and by virtue of which we feel each one of us at home within himself. Now man in his mind-development is bound to become more and more distinct from his neighbor. We can hardly conceive a progress so uniform as not to necessitate this. It would be contrary to all we know of natural law, besides contradicting daily experience. For each successive generation bears unmistakable testimony to the fact. Children of the same parents are never exactly like either their parents or one another, and they often differ amazingly from both. In such instances they revert to type, as we say; but inasmuch as the race is steadily advancing in development, such reversion must resemble that of an estate which has been greatly improved since its previous possession. The appearance of the quality is really the sprouting of a seed whose original germ was in some sense coeval with the beginning of things. This mind-seed takes root in some cases and not in others, according to the soil it finds. And as certain traits develop and others do not, one man turns out very differently from his neighbor. Such inevitable distinction implies furthermore that the man shall be sensible of it. Consciousness is the necessary attribute of mental action. Not only is it the sole way we have of knowing mind; without it there would be no mind to know. Not to be conscious of one's self is, mentally speaking, not to be. This complex entity, this little cosmos of a world, the "I," has for its very law of existence self-consciousness, while personality is the effect it produces upon the consciousness of others.