Durant's observation cuts deeper than mere pessimism about originality—it's actually liberating. He's suggesting that the raw materials of human experience remain fairly constant, which means your particular genius lies not in discovering wholly unprecedented feelings or problems, but in combining them in fresh ways. A musician doesn't invent new notes; she rearranges them into a melody no one's quite heard before. This is why a therapist hears the same fears from a thousand patients yet finds each person's story genuinely unique—the arrangement of loss, hope, and circumstance belongs to them alone.