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.
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