Article August 29, 1914 Issue

The Real Man

WILLIAM D. MC CRACKAN, M.A.

In "Rudimental Divine Science" (p. 1) Mrs. Eddy pricks the bubble of pride which is apt to cling to the word "person," by calling attention to the fact that this word comes from the Latin verb personare, to sound through. Classical dictionaries tell us that the actors in the great open-air theaters of ancient times used to wear masks to inform the distant audiences of their characters. For instance, there were masks of comedy and of tragedy. The actor declaimed or sounded his part through his mask, and the mask was called persona, from which our modern word person is derived. This word, therefore, does not denote the original or real individual, but only an assumed part in a play,—a character, or a mask. Shakespeare had discerned this when he wrote,—

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Insufficiency of Human Sympathy