Page:Independence, Rectorial address delivered at St Andrews October 10 1923.pdf/30

INDEPENDENCE partly through a recent necessity for thinking and acting in large masses, partly through the instinct of mankind to draw together and cry out when calamity hits them, and very largely through the quickening of communications, the power of the Tribe over the individual has become more extended, particular, pontifical, and, using the word in both senses, impertinent, than it has been for many generations- Some men accept this omnipresence of crowds; some may resent it. It is to the latter that I am speaking.

The independence which was a "glorious privilege" in Robert Burns's day, is now more difficult to achieve than when one had merely to overcome a few material obstacles, and the rest followed almost automatically. Nowadays, to own oneself in any decent measure, one has to run counter to a gospel, and to fight against [18]