By JAMES KERR. M. A.
We will now consider what genius is, and, more particularly, whether it
is an inborn or an acquired power.
On this much debated question there are, so to speak, two schools of
thought, diametrically opposed to one another, and each pushing its
views to an extreme, as if there were no middle way in which the truth
may be found.
On the one hand, genius is held to be a kind of inspiration, which
accomplishes its object without training or effort. No culture is
needed; no special education whatever. Shakspere warbled “his native
wood-notes wild” spontaneously. The songs of Burns are the outpourings
of untaught genius; and no culture or education could have improved
them in the slightest degree. They are like the song of the lark, free
and spontaneous. But all this, we know, is an ideal dream. Shakspere,
besides reading the volume of human nature which lay open before him,
and which he made all his own, read many books, and took much pains
with his writings. And as for Burns, he received a training of no
ordinary kind. To say nothing of the volume of human nature spread out
before him, from his youth upward, and which, like Shakspere, he read
with penetrating glance, he perused with critical care the literary
compositions of others, by which his mind was disciplined and his taste
refined.
How far the greatest writers are from being perfect in themselves, and
how much they are indebted to other aids, let one say who is entitled
to speak with authority on such a subject. The great German writer
Goethe thus speaks: “How little are we by ourselves, and how little
can we call our own! We must all accept and learn from those that went
before us, and from those that live with us. Even the greatest genius
would make but little way if he were to create and construct everything
out of his own mind. The world influences us at each step. The artist
who merely walks through a room and casts a glance at the pictures,
goes away a wiser man, and has learnt something from others. My works
spring not from my own wisdom alone, but from hundreds of things and
persons that gave the matter for them. There were fools and sages,
long-headed men and narrow-minded men, children, and young and old men
and women, that told me how they felt and what they thought. I had
but to hold out my hands and reap a harvest which others had sown for
me.... Many a time I am told that such and such an artist owes all to
himself. Sometimes I put up with it; but sometimes, too, I tell them
that he has little reason to be proud of his master.”
But though the slightest reflection suffices to show that there can be
no inborn genius which accomplishes its ends in full perfection without
education or training of any kind, there will still remain among most
of us a vague belief to the contrary. It is more congenial to the
popular taste to imagine that genius is an immediate gift from heaven,
owing all to its divine source, than that it requires in any degree to
be aided and supplemented by less sublime means.
On the other hand, many contend that genius is wholly an acquired
power, using such arguments as the following: It is constantly found
that the habit of taking pains ever accompanies what we call genius.
In actual fact the two are ever found united. Where the one is present
the other is present also. Where the one is absent the other also is
absent. May not the one be the cause of the other? Then look at the
effect of education in improving our intellectual powers. Look at the
effect of education and constant practice in making the mind alert,
and capable of doing well whatever it does often! Nor must it be
forgotten that it is not one part only of man’s education that is to be
considered, but every part. Everything that happens to us, everything
that affects us, from the first dawn of our existence, is part of
our education. When the Queen and Prince Albert were taking counsel
together about the education of their children, a sagacious friend whom
they consulted, to their surprise insisted strongly on this point, that
a child’s education begins “the first day of his life.” Impressions are
made on the infant mind going farther back than we can trace them. All
these impressions, all the influences that surround us, from our first
entrance into life, are a part of our education.
All this may be true; but there is perhaps some danger of our
attributing too much importance to education. There are natural
differences of intellectual power among men altogether apart from the
education they receive. Some minds are strong by nature and in their
very organization, while others are uncommonly weak.
Some are naturally so stupid and weak in the head that nothing can be
made of them, let their education be continued ever so long. One day,
when calling at the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh, I stood beside a
man, who was depositing some money, whose intellect was of this low
type. The teller asked him if he wished to lift the interest of the
money lying to his credit for the past year. He just answered, “Let it
lie.” Then the teller handed him a paper to sign. He said, “I canna
do’t.” Feeling interested in the man, I advised him to go to a night
school, at least to learn to sign his name. He replied, “I hae been
at it four years, and I canna do’t.” Of course, of such a man nothing
could be made. No amount of education could ever make him a genius, or
even raise him above mediocrity in any branch of learning.
But if we take minds of a higher order, is it not possible that
education acting upon them may be attended with happier results, and
may ultimately produce that beautiful, that rich and rare type of mind
which we call genius? Such was the opinion of Dr. Johnson. In his
“Life of Cowley,” and with reference to the boyhood of the poet, Dr.
Johnson says: “In the window of his mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s
‘Fairy Queen,’ in which he very early took delight to read, till, by
feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a
poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps
sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and
propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly
called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers
accidentally determined to some particular direction.”
Nor was this a mere passing thought with the great moralist; it was
his confirmed belief. More than once we find the same idea repeated in
his conversations. Thus, on one occasion, he is reported to have said:
“No, sir, people are not born with a particular genius for particular
employments or studies, for it would be like saying that a man could
see a great way east, but could not west. It is good sense applied with
diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great
application grew to be called by the generality of mankind a particular
genius.”
If Dr. Johnson’s view is correct, we ought surely to meet with far more
men of genius in the world than we do! There is no want of such as
possess “large general powers,” and yet men of genius are rare. They
are like angel’s visits, few and far between.
Dr. Johnson’s argument has been repeated in every variety of form. One
says genius is untiring patience. Another says it is a great capacity
for taking trouble. Another says it is simply hard work. But again we
may ask, If genius is what such writers represent it to be, why are not
men of genius more frequently met with?
Nor can it be said their lot forbids or that opportunities are
wanting. What with the multiplication of books, and the general
extension of education among all classes, knowledge now unrolls her
“ample page” to every eye, and yet our embryo Miltons remain mute and
inglorious, and the fairest flowers of genius, with rare exceptions,
are still born to blush unseen, and waste their sweetness on the desert
air.
Such being the case, may we not reasonably suppose that something more
is needed for the production of genius than “large general powers,
accidentally determined to some particular direction?”
In one sense, indeed, Dr. Johnson’s views may be not far from the
truth. If by the word genius we mean transcendent genius, such as
is found in our Shaksperes and Miltons, his definition can not be
considered as otherwise than defective. But we do not always confine
the word to this strict meaning. In a looser sense there are various
types of genius. One star differeth from another in glory. If only
a few occupy the higher places, and reach, so to speak, the topmost
round of the ladder, a vastly greater number—a multitude which no man
can number—may occupy lower places, and cluster on the lower rounds,
sighing in vain to reach the highest. If Dr. Johnson had only in view
this lower type of genius, his definition may be considered as fairly
correct. To attain this station little more may be needed than “large
general powers,” supplemented by persevering effort.
But in order to reach the highest rank of transcendent genius something
more is needed, and that something we may call _aptness of nature_.
Bacon, after giving some examples of extraordinary skill acquired
in bodily exercises, says: “All which examples do demonstrate how
variously, and to how high points and degrees, the body of man may be,
as it were, moulded and wrought. And if any man conceive that it is
some secret propriety of nature that hath been in these persons which
have attained to those points, and that it is not open for every man to
do the like, though he had been put to it; for which cause such things
come but very rarely to pass; it is true, no doubt, that some persons
are apter than others; but so as the more aptness causeth perfection,
but the less aptness doth not disable.”
Bacon here hits the exact point. And what he says applies not to the
physical powers only, but to the intellectual powers also. A greater
degree of “aptness” is necessary to “perfection,” to the highest
excellence in any study or pursuit, though less “aptness” may lead to
eminence of a high though less perfect kind.
We speak of Napoleon’s military tact or aptness which he had from
nature, and which he so greatly improved by practice. He combined
aptness of nature with persevering study, and it was the two combined
which for so many years chained victory to his chariot wheels.
In like manner the great writer has a literary tact or aptness, the
gift of nature, and which he greatly improves by study and practice.
The two qualities of aptness and persevering study go hand in hand, and
the one is as indispensable as the other in order to reach the highest
excellence.
This leads us to what appears to be the best definition of genius
that can be given. Genius of the highest type may be defined to be “a
special aptitude developed by special culture.” Special aptitude is the
germ of genius, and is the gift of nature. Special culture is the means
by which this natural gift is fully developed and so vastly improved.
May we not suppose that the poet Burns had this definition in his eye
when he said: “I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn
the muse’s trade, is a gift bestowed by him who forms the secret bias
of the soul; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession
is the fruit of industry, labor, attention, and pains!”