My honor and my
conscience are not to go out of my keeping; I am their sole guardian
and depositary; I would not even entrust them to my father. - Both
these terms are recent and express two conceptions unknown to the
ancients,[6] both being of profound import and of infinite reach.
Through them, like a bud separated from its stem and taking root
apart, the individual has separated himself from the primitive body,
clan, family, caste or city in which he has lived indistinguishable
and lost in the crowd; he has ceased to be an organ and appendage; he
has become a personality. - The first of these concepts is of
Christian origin the second of feudal origin; both, following each
other and conjoined, measure the enormous distance which separates an
antique soul from a modern soul.[7]
Alone, in the presence of God, the Christian has felt melting, like
wax, all the ties binding him to his group; this because he is in
front of the Great Judge, and because this infallible judge sees all
souls as they are, not confusedly and in masses, but clearly, each by
itself. At the bar of His tribunal no one is answerable for another;
each answers for himself alone; one is responsible only for one's own
acts.
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