What is the Self that abides in each man? Is it not the consciousness of
existence, together with a consciousness of the power of choice? Our
individuality lies in the fact that we can decide, choose, and rule
among the various contestant impulses of our souls. Herein is the
possibility of victory and also the possibility of defeat.
Looking inward, we find that Self began when man began. We inherit our
dispositions from Adam, as well as from our parents and a long ancestral
line. When the first men and women were created, forces were set in
action which have resulted in this Me that to-day thinks and wills and
loves. Heredity includes savagery and culture, health and disease,
empire and serfdom, hope and despair. Each man can say: "In me rise
impulses that ran riot in the veins of Anak, that belonged to Libyan
slaves and to the Ptolemaic line. I am Aryan and Semite, Roman and
Teuton: alike I have known the galley and the palm-set court of kings.
Under a thousand shifting generations, there was rising the combination
that I to-day am. In me culminates, for my life's day, human history
until now.
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