The Moral Vision
The Human Personality
~ 75 ~
THE HUMAN PERSONALITY
If from a vessel containing water a single drop is
found to be brackish, it means that all of the liquid
is undrinkable. We need sample only one drop to
know with certainty what the rest will be like. Much
the same is true of the human personality. It is like
an over brimming vessel which keeps on shedding
drops for other people to savour, to find sweet or
brackish as the case may be. Small instances of an
individual’s behaviour and quite short interludes in
his company are generally sufficient to tell us what
his overall personality is like—unless we are
dealing with the greatest of dissemblers! A
thoughtless remark, an unfair manoeuvre, a failure
to give much-needed sympathy or support, a
devious transaction—all these are the plain
indicators, like those brackish drops of water from
the larger vessel, which indicate the lack of integrity
or callousness of the person you are dealing with.
The human personality has the same homogeneity
as water. A single human weakness cannot
therefore be considered in isolation, as if it were an
exception. It has to be looked upon as being
