the majority of men, is an essential reality in the condition of the
Human Being; its potential existence in all being of necessity affirmed
from its existence in one.

Assuming, then, its reality,--or rather leaving it to be evidenced
from its known effects,--we proceed to inquire _in what_ consists
this originating power.

And, first, as to its most simple form. If it be true, (as we hope to
set forth more at large in a future discourse,) that no two minds were
ever found to be identical, there must then in every individual mind
be _something_ which is not in any other. And, if this unknown
something is also found to give its peculiar hue, so to speak,
to every impression from outward objects, it seems but a natural
inference, that, whatever it be, it _must_ possess a pervading
force over the entire mind,--at least, in relation to what is
external. But, though this may truly be affirmed of man generally,
from its evidence in any one person, we shall be far from the fact,
should we therefore affirm, that, otherwise than potentially, the
power of outwardly manifesting it is also universal. We know that it
is not,--and our daily experience proves that the power of reproducing
or giving out the individualized impressions is widely different in
different men. With some it is so feeble as apparently never to act;
and, so far as our subject is concerned, it may practically be said
not to exist; of which we have abundant examples in other mental
phenomena, where an imperfect activity often renders the existence of
some essential faculty a virtual nullity. When it acts in the higher
decrees, so as to make another see or feel _as_ the Individual
saw or felt,--this, in relation to Art, is what we mean, in its
strictest sense, by Originality. He, therefore, who possesses the