Before the days of Descartes, to speak generally, the typical individual in human society--and let me say also, though at the expense of running into a rather violent metaphor, the typical individual in any class or group whatsoever--was the soldier, a creature of another's will, doing only another's work, and having reality only by virtue of characters so apart from individual peculiarities as actually to imply existence in another world. The individual, in other words--if [p.225] at once real and worthy--was then an unearthly being. For a being so constituted, or living as if he were so constituted, the creationalistic theology and the analogous monarchical politics were of course largely responsible, since in their different ways they took individual independence of action from the general run of mankind. They imposed on men at large a certain uniform of life and belief, and then, as it were, appeased them for this suppression with a doctrine of another life in a world yet to come. Plainly, then, the time was not one when personal individuality, except as it was referred to the other world yonder and apart, was recognized as of much positive worth. Under the regime of prescribed routine, of life with regard to the hereafter, and of mysterious powers of all sorts, more or less in good standing in the realm of the unworldly, personal individuality, though in itself not without some honour, was valued chiefly and primarily for the different conditions, the different relations to the things of this world, and the different views of these things, which men succeeded in overcoming, or rather in completely denying and eschewing. A worthy individuality was thus secured rather through self-denial than self-expression; through the vassal's devotion to his lord, the gallant's submission to his lady, the courtier's humility before his king, or the saint's self-abasement before church and heaven. Just think a moment of resting your claim to distinct personal worth on the mere fact of what you have eschewed or escaped being in some way different, perhaps more worldly, more dangerous, and more powerful, from what some others have eschewed or [p.226] escaped, and you will be able to appreciate the main ground of the ideally significant distinction between man and man in the days before Descartes.