various forms in which this personality has manifested and expressed itself, which we may call extrinsic or acquired personality.  Inherent personality is that which differentiates man from animal.  It constitutes the original involution which explains and even necessitates man’s entire evolution.  There may be, nay, must be, varying degrees of expression of the inherent personality, just as there may be and must be varying degrees of consciousness of personality.  These depend on the degree of evolution attained by the race and by the individuals of the race.

It is no part of our plan to justify this conception of the nature of personality, or to defend these brief summary statements as to its inherent nature.  It is enough if we have gained a clear idea of this conception on which the present chapter, and indeed this entire work, rests.  In discussing the question as to personality in the Orient, it is important for us ever to bear in mind the distinctions between the inherent endowment that constitutes personal beings, the explicit and external expression of that endowment, and the possession of the consciousness of that endowment.  For these are three things quite distinct, though intimately related.

The term “impersonality” demands special attention, being the most misused and abused term of all.  The first and natural signification of the word is the mere negation of personality; as a stone, for instance, is strictly “impersonal.”  This is the meaning given by the dictionaries.  But in this sense, of course, it is inapplicable to human beings.  What, then, is the meaning when applied to them?  When Mr. Lowell says, “If with us [of the West] the ‘I’ seems to be of the very essence of the soul, then the soul of the Far East may be said to be ‘impersonal,’” what does he mean?  He certainly does not mean that the Chinese and Japanese and Hindus have no emotional or volitional characteristics, that they are strictly “impersonal”; nor does he mean that the Oriental has less development of powers of thinking, willing, feeling, or of introspective meditation.  The whole argument shows that he means that their sense of the individuality or separateness of the Ego is so slight that it is practically ignored; and this not by their civilization alone, but by each individual himself.  The supreme consciousness of the individual is not of himself, but of his family or race; or if he is an intensely religious man, his consciousness is concerned with his essential identity with the Absolute and Ultimate Being, rather than with his own separate self.  In other words, the term “impersonal” is made to do duty for the non-existent negative of “individual.”  “Impersonal” is thus equivalent to “universal” and personal to “individual.”  To change the phraseology, the term “impersonal” is used to signify a state of mind in which the separateness or individuality of the individual ego is not fully recognized or appreciated even by the individual himself.  The prominent element of the individual’s consciousness is the unity or the universalism, rather than the multiplicity or individualism.