i
the intellect, the understanding or discursive reason, and the memory, it need scarcely be said, are three distinct faculties; yet in their exercise and the character they acquire for their possessors, they are apt to be confused, and that not without damage to the public and private interests of those who make the mistake. intellect, though it is constantly spoken of as synonymous with understanding, is really an incomparably rarer quality, the difference being that which subsists between “genius” and “talent”; and to ignorant persons a ready and well-stored memory, which is consistent with the almost total defect of either of the nobler faculties, is often regarded as a combination of both.
the intellect is the faculty of the “seer.” it discerns truth as a living thing; and, according as it is in less or greater power, it discerns with a{15} more or less far-seeing glance the relationships of principles to each other, and of facts, circumstances, and the realities of nature to principles, without anything that can be properly called ratiocination. it cannot be cultivated, as the understanding and memory can be and need to be; and it cannot in the ordinary course of things be injured, except by one means—namely, dishonesty, that is, habitual denial by the will, for the sake of interested or vicious motives, of its own perceptions. genius and high moral—not necessarily physical—courage are therefore found to be constant companions. indeed, it is difficult to say how far an absolute moral courage in acknowledging intuitions may not be of the very nature of genius: and whether it might not be described as a sort of interior sanctity which dares to see and confess to itself that it sees, though its vision should place it in a minority of one. everybody feels that genius is, in a sort, infallible. that it is so, is indeed an “identical proposition.” so far as a man is not infallible in what he professes to see, he is not a man of genius—that is, he is not a seer. it is by no figure of speech that genius is called inspiration. dr. newman somewhere observes that st. augustine and some of the primitive teachers of the church wandered at will through all the mazes of theology with an intuitive orthodoxy of genius.{16}
although this faculty of direct vision is very rare in comparison with those of ordinary ratiocination and memory, it is not nearly so rare as is supposed by such as measure genius by its manifestations in philosophy, science, art, or statesmanship. for one seer who has the accomplishments and opportunities whereby his faculty can be turned to public account, there are scores and hundreds who possess and exercise for their private use their extraordinary perceptive powers. to whom has it not happened, at one time or other, to witness the instantaneous shattering of some splendid edifice of reasoning and memory by the brief socratic interrogation of some ignoramus who could see?
no mortal intellect or genius is other than very partial, and, even in that partial character, imperfect. absolute genius would be nothing more nor less than the sight of all things at once in their relationship and origin; but the most imperfect genius has an infinite value—not only because it is actual sight of truth, but also and still more because it is a peculiar mode of seeing, a reflection of truth coloured but not obscured by the individual character, which in each man of genius is entirely unique. this unique character is, in its expression, what is called “style”—the sure mark of genius, though the world at large is{17} unable to distinguish “style” from manner, or even from mannerism. incomparably the highest and fortunately the least uncommon form of genius is wisdom in the conduct of life; for this form involves in a far greater degree than any other the constant exercise of that courage which is inseparable from genius. the saint is simply a person who has so strong and clear a sight of the truth which concerns him individually, and such courage to confess his vision, that he is always ready to become a “confessor” under any extremity of persecution.
true statesmanship is another form of wisdom in the conduct of life; and this is perhaps the rarest of all forms in which genius manifests itself, because it requires a combination of inferior faculties and opportunities which is almost as rare as genius. poetry is the only near rival of true statesmanship in this respect. the immensely wider and more various range of vision which the great poet exercises when compared with other artists, together with the necessity for the combined working of many lesser faculties and laboriously acquired accomplishments, has always made of the poet the ideal “genius” in the world’s esteem. the separate insights into the significance of form, colour, and sound, upon which the arts of the sculptor, painter, and musician are founded, must be included in the vision of the poet of the first rank.{18}
what is called “common sense” is much more nearly allied to genius, or true intellect, than either talent, which is the outcome of the discursive reason, or learning, which is that of memory. compared with the sunlight by which the purer intellect sees, common sense is the light of a foggy day, which is good enough to see near objects and to avoid mischief by. science is generally considered to be the outcome solely of the observation of facts and the discursive reason; but in men like kepler, newton, and faraday there is no lack of “the vision and the faculty divine.” the discovery of gravitation by the fall of an apple was pure vision; and it is doubtful whether there was ever a smith’s prizeman who had not a touch of a higher faculty than that which gropes step by step from premisses to conclusions.
a ghastly semblance of genius is often retained by such persons as once had it, but have ruined it by denying it in action, and by endeavouring to prostitute it to selfish or vicious interests. their judicial blindness is the reverse of that which was inflicted upon tiresias for daring to gaze upon unveiled wisdom. he could no longer see the world; they can no longer see the heavens. but their original genius takes the perverted form of an intuitive craft in pursuing their ends which is no{19} less amazing, and which, in statesmen especially, is commonly mistaken by the people for the holy faculty which has been quenched.
to be a man of talent a man must be able to think; to be a man of genius he must be able not to think, and especially to abstain from the crazy wool-gathering which is ordinarily regarded as thought. “the harvest of a quiet eye,” and the learning of the ear which listens in a silence even of thought, are the wealth of the pure intellect. and the fainter and the more remote the whispers which are heard in such silence, the more precious and potential are they likely to be. it is no condemnation of the thought of hegel that he is reported to have replied to some question as to the meaning of a passage in his writings, that “he knew what it meant when he wrote it.” this thought, too subtle or too simple for expression and memory, might, if held down and compelled to manifest itself more explicitly, have moved mankind.
genius is a great disturber. it is always a new thing, and demands of old things that they should make a place for it, which cannot be done without more or less inconvenient rearrangements; and as it seems to threaten even worse trouble than it is finally found to give, it is generally hated and resisted on its first appearance. moreover, to the eye which is not congenial the fresh manifesta{20}tion of genius in almost any kind has something in it alarming and revolting; and it is welcomed with an “ugh, ugh! the horrid thing! it’s alive!” a man of genius who is also a man of sense will never complain of such a reception from his fellows. their opposition is even respectable from their point of view and with their faculties of beholding.
ii
genius, like sanctity, is commonly more or less foolish in the eyes of the world. its riches are “the riches of secret places”; and they so much exceed, in its esteem, those that are considered riches by the common sense of men, that its neglect of the ordinary goods of life often amounts to real imprudence—imprudence even from its own point of view, whereby it is bound to avoid hindrances to its free life and exercise. the follies, however, of a blake or a hartley coleridge are venial when compared with those of the thoughtful and prudent fool—the fool in respect of great things, as the other is in respect of small. who can measure the harm that may be done to the world by a thoughtful and earnest fool—one who starts from data which he is too dull to verify, and who multiplies his mistakes in proportion to{21} the perspicuity and extent of his deductions? the man of “talent” who is merely such, is not a very common phenomenon—for “talent” is in great part the product of culture; which “genius,” or the power of seeing, is not. most persons of talent still possess a share of that obscure kind of genius called common sense, which keeps them from taking up with false principles and following them into wild conclusions. we need, however, only recall some famous figures in the present and past generation in order to be assured that immense talent is consistent with an almost complete deficiency of real insight. when the discursive understanding is in great force, and has at its command abundant stores of external information, we behold a power that may work the ruin of empires amid applauding peoples, though it can never build them up. the natural and exact sciences are the proper fields for the exertions of such a faculty.
stupid persons fancy they derogate from the supremacy of the pure intellect or genius by observing that it is always associated with a vivid imagination, which they regard as a faculty for seeing things as they are not. shelley made a mistake in a totally different direction when he declared that the imagination is the power by which spiritual things are discerned; whereas the{22} truth is that intellect is the power by which such things are discerned, and imagination is that by which they are expressed. sensible things alone can be expressed fully and directly by sensible terms. symbols and parables, and metaphors—which are parables on a small scale—are the only means of adequately conveying, or rather hinting, supersensual knowledge. “he spake not without a parable.” hebrew, greek, indian, and egyptian religions all spoke in parables; and poets deal in images and parables simply because there is no other vehicle for what they have to say. “the things which are unseen may be known by the things which are seen,” but only by way of symbol and parable. imagination, though it is not, as shelley says it is, the power of spiritual insight, is its invariable concomitant; and even that dull kinsman of genius, common sense, would feel sadly hampered in its endeavours to convey its perceptions to the minds of others, were it wholly without the faculty of speaking in parables.
it has often been noted that men of genius have bad memories, and that persons having extraordinary memories, like cardinal mezzofanti, have little else. the truth is that there are two quite distinct kinds of memory: the memory for external facts and words, apart from their significance; and the memory for spiritual facts and principles. the{23} man of genius, who may have no special reason for cultivating the lower kind of memory, may even find it rather a hindrance than a help. his prayer is, “let not my heart forget the things mine eyes have seen.” so long as his heart retains the significance of the facts he has seen and the words he has heard, he is willing to let the words and the facts go, as a man casts away the shells after he has eaten the oysters. the “well-informed” person commonly differs from the man of genius in this: that he carries about with him all the shells of all the oysters he has ever eaten, and that his soul has grown thin under the burthen.
a commonplace about men of genius is that they usually have religious dispositions. it would be strange were it otherwise, seeing that genius is nothing but the power of discerning the things of the spirit. the first principle of the most recent form of “psychology” is, indeed, that there is no soul; but that man must have little genius who would not say “amen” to st. bernard’s epigram, “he must have little spirit who thinks that a spirit is nothing.”
after what has just been said, it seems paradoxical to be obliged to admit that the sins to which men of genius are usually most subject are those of sense. from pride, and its offspring{24} envy, hatred, and malice, which play so terrible a part in the affairs of most men, they are comparatively exempt. that they should often be more subject than others to be misled by the ease and pleasure of the senses may be because the senses of men of genius are more subtly permeated by the spirit, of which they are the ultimate life, than are those of the world at large, and are thereby rendered more acute and less sordidly wicked. this may be said, i hope, without in any way condoning error.
men of genius, who are therewithal men of cultivated talents and great stores of appropriate information, are the only safe legislators and governors of empires; not only because theirs alone is the sufficiency of sound and far-seeing wisdom, but because they are far less likely than other men to be misled by personal motives and weak fears. but such men, unhappily, are the last to come to the front in states of ultra-popular government; and in such states they have accordingly to suffer that last misery (as by one of the greatest philosophers it has been called), the misery of being governed by worse men than themselves.
