as we have elswhere observed, there can be no sound mind (and the like may be affirmed of the whole man), which is deficient in any one essential, it does not therefore follow, that each of these essentials may not be almost indefinitely differenced in the degrees of their developement without impairing the human integrity.  And such is the fact in actual nature; nor does this in any wise affect the individual unity,—­as will be noticed hereafter.

We will now briefly examine the pretensions of what are called the Generic Forms.  And here we are met by another important characteristic of the human being, namely, his essential individuality.

It is true that the human family, so called, is divided into many distinct races, having each its peculiar conformation, color, and so forth, which together constitute essential differences; but it is to be remembered that these essentials are all physical; and so far they are properly generic, as implying a difference in kind.  But, though a striking difference is also observable in their moral being, it is by no means of the same nature with that which marks their physical condition, the difference in the moral being only of degree; for, however fierce, brutal, stupid, or cunning, or gentle, generous, or heroic, the same characteristics may each be paralleled among ourselves; nay, we could hardly name a vice, a passion, or a virtue, in Asia, Africa, or America, that has not its echo in civilized Europe.  And what is the inference?  That climate and circumstance, if such are the causes of the physical variety, have no controlling power, except in degree, over the Moral.  Does not this undeniable fact, then, bring us to the fair conclusion, that the moral being has no genera?  To affirm otherwise would be virtually to deny its responsible condition; since the law of its genus must be paramount to all other laws,—­to education, government, religion.  Nor can the result be evaded, except by the absurd supposition of generic responsibilities!  To us, therefore, it seems conclusive that a moral being, as a free agent, cannot be subject to a generic law; nor could he now be—­what every man feels himself to be, in spite of his theory—­the fearful architect of his own destiny.  In one sense, indeed, we may admit a human genus,—­such as every man must be in his individual entireness.

Man has been called a microcosm, or little world.  And such, however mean and contemptible to others, is man to himself; nay, such he must ever be, whether he wills it or not.  He may hate, he may despise, yet he cannot but cling to that without which he is not; he is the centre and the circle, be it of pleasure or of pain; nor can he be other.  Touch him with misery, and he becomes paramount to the whole world,—­to a thousand worlds; for the beauty and the glory of the universe are as nothing to him who is all darkness.  Then it is that he will feel, should he have before doubted, that he is not a mere part, a fraction, of his kind, but indeed a world; and though little in one sense, yet a world of awful magnitude in its capacity of suffering.  In one word, Man is a whole, an Individual.