[440] Persona means the character of the actor in a play--one has derived it from personare, which means "sounding through," namely through the mask. Persona, and the Greek prosopon, have received the meaning of "mask," of the special character a member of the theatrical cast represents. From there it was applied to the centered self, which we today call a person, which establishes itself in his ethical decisions. Now in German^a, person--Person--is the POTENTIALITY OF SELF-REALIZATION,

in the different forms: religious, rational and romantic. In English, I have been told, the word "personality^b" is much more used for that. In German the word "personality," means a person which has become actually what it potentially is: a developed persona, is a personality, while persona is legal [?] a complete [?] thing--one must be treated as a person; therefore if somebody kills me, he will be killed himself--but that doesn’t mean that anything is developed; even the murder of a baby, where no person is developed, is a full murder. So German makes a difference between persona and personality. "He is a personality" means he IS something, he has developed his potentialities, he is reasonable, he is impregnated in his being with values and meanings. All this would be the word "personality."

Now may I ask YOU, those of you who feel they can answer it more from their more genuine feeling for the English language^c than I have it: what is the difference between "person" and "personality" YOU would make? STUDENT: [Susan Lord]: It seems to me that you use "personality" in two senses: 1) as opposed