 Royce stressed that the sharing of individuals’ feelings, thoughts, and wills that occurs in any community (including the Beloved Community) should not be taken to imply a mystical blurring or annihilation of personal identities. Individuals remain individuals, but in forming a community they attain to a kind of second-order life that extends beyond any of their individual lives. Where a number of individuals’ loyalty to a cause is coordinated in community over time, Royce spoke non-figuratively of a super-human personality at work: a genuine community is united by a guiding or “interpreting spirit.” The interpreting spirit may on occasion be embodied by a single person such as a leader or other exemplar, but this is not always the case.