Individuality and Genus 225CHAPTER 14
INDIVIDUALITY AND GENUS
The view that human beings are capable of self-enclosed,
free individuality seems to be contradicted by the fact that,
as human beings, we both appear as parts within a natural
whole (race, tribe, people, family, male or female gender)
and act within that whole (state, church, and so forth). We
bear the general characteristics of the community to which
we belong and we give to our actions a content that is de-
termined by the place that we occupy within a larger group.
Given all this, is individuality possible at all? If human
beings grow out of one totality and integrate themselves
within another, can we consider separate human beings as
wholes unto themselves?
The qualities and the functions of a part are determined
by the whole. An ethnic group is a whole, and all who be-
long to it bear the characteristics determined by the nature
of the group. How the individual is constituted and how the
individual behaves are determined by the character of the
group. Thus, the physiognomy and the activity of the indi-
vidual have a generic quality. If we ask why this or that