s of humanity does not necessarily imply the idea of transcending
the normal law of humanity. The mistake we have hitherto made has been in
fixing the Standard of Personality too low and in taking our past
experiences as measuring the ultimate possibilities of the race. Our
liberty consists in our ability to form our own conception of the Normal
Standard of Personality, only subject to the conditions arising out of the
inherent Law of the underlying Universal Mind; and so the whole thing
resolves itself into the question, What are those fundamental conditions?
The Law is that we cannot transcend the Normal; therefore comes the
question, What is the Normal?

I have endeavored to answer this question in the chapter on the Divine
Ideal, but since this is the crucial point of the whole subject we may
devote a little further attention to it. The Normal Standard of Personality
must necessarily be the reproduction in Individuality of what the Universal
Mind is in itself, because, by the nature of the Creative Process, this
standard results from Spirit's Self-contemplation at the stage where its
recognition is turned toward its own power of Initiative and Selection. At
this stage Spirit's Self-recognition has passed beyond that of
Self-expression through a mere Law of Averages into the recognition of what
I have ventured to call its Artistic Ability; and as we have seen that
Self-recognition at any stage can only be attained by the realization of a
_relation_ stimulating that particular sort of consciousness, it follows
that for the purpose of this further advance expression through individuals
of a corresponding type is a necessity. Then by the Law of Reciprocity such
beings must possess powers similar to those contemplated in itself by the
Originating Spirit, in other words they must be in their own sphere the
image and likeness of the Spirit as it sees itself.

Now we have seen that the Creating Spirit necessarily possesses the powers
of Initiative and Selection. These we may call its _active_ properties--the
summing up of what it _does_. But what any power does depends on what it
_is_, for the simple reason that it cannot give out what it does not
contain; therefore at the back of the initiative and selective power of the
Spirit we must find what the Spirit _is_, namely, what are its
_substantive_ properties. To begin with it must be Life. Then because it is
Life it must be Love, because as the undifferentiated Principle of