" ... Our modern
faith sees in the social group the summit of human evolution, but
where is the proof? Froment thought the greatest height was reached
in an individual superiority. Millions of men have lived and died to
produce one perfect flower of thought, for such are the superb and
prodigal ways of nature. She spends whole peoples to make a Jesus, a
Buddha, an Aeschylus, a Vinci, a Newton, or a Beethoven; but without
these men, what would the people have been? Or humanity itself? We do
not hold with the egotist ideal of the Superman. A man who is great
is great for all his fellows; his individuality expresses and often
guides millions of others; it is the incarnation of their secret
forces, of their highest desires; it concentrates and realises
them. The sole fact that a man was Christ, has exalted and lifted
generations of humanity, filling them with the divine energy; and
though nineteen centuries have since passed, millions have not ceased
to aspire to the height of this example, though none has attained to
it.
Thus understood, the ideal individualist is more productive for human
society than the ideal communist, who would lead us to the mechanical
perfection of the bee-hive, and at the very least he is indispensable
as corrective and complement.
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