It is plain from the nature of psychology, as well as from its
history, that it has to contend with difficulties and perplexities of
a magnitude and character with which no other observational science
is perplexed. An immediate acquaintance with psychical conditions can
only be obtained by self-observation; so that this has always formed
the foundation of the scientific edifice. Nor can any generalization
of observation possibly be attained except by means of the concepts
derived from self-observation. This entails the great disadvantage that
there is wanting to psychology the objectivity of the observation, in
that the subject and object thereof are one person. This is yet further
increased by the impossibility of repeating any observation, so that in
psychology we lack almost entirely one of the most important aids of
natural sciences--namely, experiment.
Our knowledge of the physiology of the human body has been so much
enriched by pathological facts that we may truly say that some branches
of it would, as far as we can see, have remained forever closed
books if the effects of disease had not been observed. So it is with
psychology, in its turn. Since mental disease has been systematically
studied the science of the mind has undergone a veritable revolution.
Psychology and psychiatry are to-day inseparably connected. Neither
could survive, were the bond between them severed.
Psychology began by being largely speculative. It preserved this
character for quite a lengthy period. It has, in more modern times,
passed into paths essentially different, and stands to-day, side
by side with the other positive sciences, upon the solid ground of
critical observation. Partly, though only to a moderate extent, it has
entered upon experimental investigations.
Every observational science, after having effected a preliminary rough
analysis of the ordinary facts, has fastened its scrutiny upon extreme
cases and apparent departures from the uniformities of the matter in
hand. From a study of these varieties and from a comparison of them
with ordinary cases, it brings forth fresh knowledge. Psychologists
are beginning to do this; and especially of late years much attention
has been bestowed upon those extraordinary powers which we ordinarily
indicate by the word genius.
The results of these inquiries are thus far as diverse as possible,
and, just as in former scientific controversies, leading men assume
attitudes of almost flat contradiction. Let us see whether we can
not, with the investigations already at our command, attain a clearer
conception of the concept of genius.
As the etymology of the word, which is derived from _genius_ or
_ingenium_, directly indicates, the ancients believed, according to
their view of the world, that within persons of eminence--those men who
guided the destinies of nations or were able to accomplish phenomenal
deeds in the domains of art or science--a divine spirit dwelt. A
_genius_, for example, spoke to the people through the mediumship of
the Pythian priestess; a divine spirit opened to Socrates the fountains
of knowledge and science, and inspired Homer with divine song,
enabling him to perceive the world as a magnificent fulness of ideals
and beauties. It conducted Miltiades through the tumult of battle to
glorious victory and smoothed for Plato the path to eternal wisdom.
This idealistic method of viewing things has been transmitted from
century to century down to our own time. In the saints of the Middle
Ages we see the idea of the Holy Ghost corporealized. By the mouths
of priests and prophets “God” speaks to the people. Rulers are
invested with “divine right.” They rule by the “divine will.” The
powerful thinkers who guide the world by great discoveries are filled
with “divine grace.” In those who by their art embellish the world
there shone a “divine spark,” a fragment of the Holy Ghost. By their
mouths God spoke to men. Genius was eternal and incomprehensible. Its
knowledge and power were infinite.
Modern science has applied the dissecting knife to this fantastic
web of speculative philosophy, has analyzed the whole matter into
its elementary constituents, stripped the natural phenomena of their
habiliments of superstition and mysticism, and, while thus destroying
many a beloved ideal, acts in the consciousness that it is struggling
after real knowledge and truth.
Psychology, having by self-observation laid down a series of
conceptions, and having attained the knowledge that psychical
processes, like all other phenomena of Nature, are subject to definite
law, made an effort to determine the laws of the mental processes of
genius, and to frame a definition of genius, which should take into
account facts which are now scientifically established.
But these efforts are characterized by the same mighty error and the
same important defect that has ere this provoked many a battle between
scientific men. In vain had philosophers for several ages endeavoured
to say in what genius consisted, until in these latter times some
authors believe they have discovered the philosopher’s stone and have
pronounced genius to be a variety of insanity. Unfortunately, they were
not themselves clear about the definition of genius nor, perhaps, about
that of insanity.
An accurate science ought to provide names only for known phenomena.
It might view a complex of phenomena as one object, and apply to it a
collective name. Having done so, it can again perform specification
within the limits of the _genus_. But science shall always go wrong and
shall exercise itself about phantoms, if it accepts _a priori_ some
word or other as something laid down, so to speak, independently, and
then tries to call forth from the phenomena sufficient material whereby
to explain a notion somehow made inherent in this word.
To so plain a truth one might hesitate to refer. And yet how often
has science sinned against it! Innumerable tomes, for example, have
been written on the inquiry of whether the human will is _free_ or
determined. Quarrels, bitter to the point of persecution, have been
indulged in by high authorities upon this question. Finally, it has
been proved to be merely a contest about “words,” for each individual
combined with the word “will” some different notion regarding which
he himself never for an instant was clear. Nowhere is this error of
science better expressed than in the words of Goethe:
_Student._ But every word must have some sense exact.
_Mephistopheles._ Of course; but let not that your mind distract;
For oft to fill the meaning’s awkward blank,
A serviceable word we have to thank.
With words we gloriously may dispute,
With words a system constitute;
Words will suffice for faith unshaken,
For from the Word shall jot nor tittle e’er be taken.
Many authors make any person endowed with specially excellent mental
powers a genius. Thus Sulzer, in his dictionary,[2] says: “Genius
seems to be ascribed to any man who, in departments for which he
shows a natural turn, displays remarkable skill and a more copious
fertility of mind than other men.... Genius seems at bottom to be
nothing but great general power of mind; so that ‘a great mind’ and
‘a man of genius’ are synonymous terms.” Du Bos[3] defines genius
as “the natural skill by which a man is enabled to perform certain
things well and easily that other men, whatever pains they may take,
can only do ill.” Riedel,[4] Feder,[5] Baumgarten,[6] and others
express themselves to the same effect. Herder[7] says: “Everybody
knows that genius is nothing but the intensive or extensive quantity
of psychical power exerted.” A struggling sort of definition,
conceived in the same strain, is thus formulated by Flögel:[8] “Genius
is unquestionably an attribute of the faculty of cognition, for no
inclination for an art or a science will induce us to say of the
man that feels it that he has genius.” This marvellous utterance is
rendered somewhat more intelligible by the definition of the cognitive
faculty that immediately follows it: “The faculty of cognition is
a tree with many branches. Attention, memory, abstraction, wit,
discrimination, understanding, and reason, by whatever names they may
be called, belong to cognition. Experience shows that these different
branches or parts are not all equally developed, but that one may
in a given man preponderate over another. One man has more wit than
discrimination; another has good sense but a poor memory; a third has
a solid understanding but a deficiency of imagination. Thus, there
is a certain degree of repugnancy between a man’s different cognitive
powers; and it is their proportion which constitutes a man’s genius in
its widest sense. In this sense every man has his genius.” He continues
thus: “We are accustomed to deny genius to numberless men. We deny it
to learned men who have written libraries; and it would be equally
out of place to speak of an author as a genius who had only written a
few pages in which a moderate enthusiasm was displayed. We associate
the term genius with something great, something superior in its way.
Whatever capacity in a man seems great, pre-eminent, of singular force,
distinguishing him from average brains, is called genius, without
qualification. If this superiority belongs to all he does, we say the
man has universal genius; if it is confined to certain directions, we
call it special or peculiar genius.” Wieland[9] divides genius into
three kinds: the genius of pleasing, which operates within the domain
of the graces and consists in a special facility for carrying out the
ideas it prosecutes; philosophical genius, which consists in a capacity
for discovering those truths resulting from correct conceptions which
concern the felicity of mankind; and practical genius, which consists
in a ready activity in availing itself of known facts and in producing
the highest and most prompt resolutions. But there is no psychological
foundation for this arbitrary division of the phenomena. Here, again,
it is the mere greatness and pre-eminence of the achievements, without
reference to their psychical origin, which is made to constitute the
essence of genius. H. Joly[10] says that genius is “creative power,
using this term in the relative sense in which alone it is permissible
to apply it. It is the production of something which the combined
efforts of other men have hitherto been powerless to effect. It is that
which puts at the disposition of humanity either means of expression,
or means of talent and invention, or means of new action, which add
something to the common intelligence and common power.”
The conception of genius of all these authors is even in conflict
with that of ordinary language, for which genius and talent are
qualitatively different. If those authors are right, genius and talent
are merely different degrees of the same quality. However this may
be, according to the above definition, the word genius has, generally
speaking, not much value as a psychological term.
The inadequacy of such a view to meet the popular notion being
recognised, efforts have been made to find something specially
characteristic of genius. A great many philosophers have taken
originality to be such a characteristic. Weise[11] says: “All writers
upon genius agree that invention is its essential mark.” Many authors
seem quite to forget that the point is to establish a psychological
conception, proceeding rather as if they had to accord a title or order
for some special service. Thus Alexander Gerard[12] adopts the view
that everybody who makes an invention, whether valuable or useless,
and everybody who has an original idea of any description, must be
a genius. According to this, any fool who gives birth to original
absurdities must be reckoned as a genius. In conflict with those
passages is the subsequent remark of the same author, that “invention
is the capacity of producing new beauties in works of art and new
truths in matters of science.” Apart from the arbitrary character of
this definition of the word “invention,” it is in distinct conflict
with the above extract, which does not harmonize with such a definition.
Many authors express substantially the same opinion. Flögel,[13] for
example, says: “Down to Newton the colorific effects of prisms had
probably been looked upon as a pretty amusement for children, unworthy
the attention of philosophers; but that great mind founded upon these
phenomena that acute theory of colours which by itself would have
sufficed to win for him the title of genius had he been great (?) in
nothing else.” The author talks as if genius were a rank like that of
major or privy counsellor. Kant,[14] too, quotes with approval the
definition of genius as the “exemplary originality of a man’s talent.”
Hagen[15] says: “Originality, therefore, constitutes genius.... To me,
accordingly, genius is the synonym of mind, but with the implication
that the mental idiosyncrasy of the super-eminent individual is
intended.... Now, in so far as every man has a mental individuality,
he has a mind distinct from every other and is an original thinker. He
has a mind of his own.... By genius, in the narrow and ordinary sense,
we mean a mind of the first order endowed with a high originality of
conception, of discovery, and of creative impulse.”
This conception of genius may, perhaps, accord better with common
language than the previous one. At any rate, it furnishes the requisite
qualitative distinction between genius and talent. Our present study,
however, is not ordinary language. We are inquiring whether this
definition creates a precise psychological concept of scientific value.
Now, the concept of originality has nothing to do with psychical
characteristics; it refers exclusively to outward facts. Originality
may be produced by the most diverse psychical processes; and the
same dispositions of mind may in one case lead to originality and in
another not; since this is in no small measure an accident of the
outward situation. A child is original at the period when its mind is
awakening, when the more complex ideas of the world have not yet been
apprehended, but primitive images are in his artless fashion fused
together. That is why the speeches of children so often seem witty
and excite smiles on the faces of the grown people who hear them.
When we say a man is an “original” we often mean to imply that he is
weak-minded and deficient in perception, not clearly understanding
situations, and all his life long a foreigner to the world. So are
those conceited fools original who, because their behaviour and
propensities depart widely from commonsense, live in perpetual
astonishment at their own genius. For example, the author of a recent
book, intended to convince society that clothes should be discarded
and men and women should go naked, was a genius, according to Gerard’s
definition. A man publishes far and wide that he can cure all the ills
that flesh is heir to by simply making people walk about barefoot over
wet meadows. What a genius! And the prophet’s success, too, as regards
the main chance, shows that the multitude honor him as a genius.
As we have seen, it has not taken long to learn that originality
does not _per se_ constitute genius. Hence common consent has agreed
more accurately to define and limit the “originality of genius.” But
in doing this, merely the outward phenomenon is treated; and in the
most favorable circumstances some symptom only comes to be considered,
instead of the causes and source of the fact being reached. To
originality is added the further condition that “beauties” and “truths”
(as Gerard said) must be produced to entitle it to the name of genius.
So Weise[16] says: “Genius is the immediate attraction of an individual
in the harmonious concurrence of his mental and physical powers to the
production of an ideal and typical work of intellect.” Many authors
require that genius shall be “epoch-making,” that its achievements
shall be “agreeable” or “useful,” etc. Gerard demands that artistic
genius shall “please” and shall “gratify the taste”: “Objects and
circumstances unfit to please, either do not at all occur to the artist
or, being perceived at a glance to be unfit, are immediately rejected.”
Dr. Blair says in his Lectures on Rhetoric (written about 1760),
Lecture III:
“Genius always imports something inventive or creative, which does not
rest in mere sensibility to beauty where it is perceived, but which
can, moreover, produce new beauties, and exhibit them in such a manner
as strongly to impress the minds of others.”
Thus, instead of returning to psychical causes, in such attempts to
particularize the conditions, authors depart further and further from
those causes, and dwell more and more upon the invention of others. Is
there anything “beautiful” or “good” _per se_? Do these words express
anything but a conformity to the ideas that are in fashion, but which
at different periods vary monstrously? Is taste anything more than a
personal preference? If the term genius is to be made contingent upon
such wavering standards and the variable feelings of others, it must
follow that many an individual will at certain periods of history be
pronounced a genius to whom other generations will deny the epithet.
So genius will lose all meaning as a psychological term; for if it
is to be any character of the mind, the conception of it must be
constructed and defined from within, and not be dependent upon outward
circumstances.
Upon such outward circumstances originality is in part essentially
dependent. Many great and useful discoveries and inventions have
been due to accident solely. Many investigators have by a happy
concatenation of circumstances been led into a line of study which
has brought them to discoveries which have remained hidden from much
higher minds. When the microscope was first discovered it was only
necessary to apply it to any tissue of living matter to make great and
important discoveries. So, too, as a matter of fact, a large number
of discoveries are ascribed to persons who, under conditions other
than those under which they were made, might perhaps in no way have
particularly distinguished themselves. The possibility of originality
is in many branches of art narrowly limited; and the chance of being
original depends very much upon how far precursors have exhausted the
department. In practical music we speak of a “brilliant rendering”
(_geniale Auffassung_). Now, I ask whether a musician who executes
a sonata of Beethoven according to his conception of it, is less a
genius because others before him have had the same idea of it. Or is
a musician a genius because, in his desire to be original and to be
applauded as a genius, he does not reproduce the work of the composer,
but rather a parody upon it? Often enough this is actually done
nowadays.
Those inquirers who have sought to penetrate to the psychological laws
of genius, and have sought to explain its phenomena upon recognised
psychological principles, have been obliged at last to acknowledge
that they had to do with the most diverse psychical conditions, which
have been promiscuously labelled as genius. Even Gerard, in his
psychological analysis, found himself at last compelled to recognise
two essentially different varieties of genius--“genius for science” and
“genius for the arts.”[17] But he shows very plainly the error into
which he had fallen. Instead of recognising that these two classes
refer to utterly unlike psychical conditions, he again resorts to
external circumstances to explain their difference, saying: “Some
difference between genius for science and genius for the arts arises
necessarily from the very diversity of their ends.”[18] This is
obviously putting the cart before the horse. He ought rather to say,
“The diversity of their ends arises from different sources--genius for
science and genius for the arts.”
Helvetius[19] likewise comes to the conclusion that different kinds
of genius differ psychologically. “Few men have perceived that these
metaphors (fire, inspiration, etc.), applicable to certain kinds of
genius, such as that for poetry and for eloquence, are not at all so to
the genius for reflection, such as that of Locke and Newton.” But, in
spite of his quite correct view that the psychical conditions requisite
for a man of science and a poet are utterly different, he nevertheless
endeavours to frame a definition which shall include both these
dissimilar cases.[20] Instead, therefore, of accounting for phenomena
in scientific concepts, he avails himself of a loose usage of speech
as the guide of his inquiries, and so comes to the conclusion that
“invention” and the “making of an epoch” are the kernel of all genius.
Radestock,[21] to mention one more among many, expresses a similar
opinion: “And yet there are certain characteristics common to all
genius--to wit, originality and the height of creative power. Different
kinds of genius are only distinguished in a secondary manner by their
objects and the spheres within which they are exercised.” Here is the
same inversion of cause and effect as in Gerard.
Investigation having made it clear that common language throws together
under the one head of genius elements the most heterogeneous, science
reaches this parting of the ways--either to discard the concept
entirely as scientifically useless, or to limit it to one definitely
describable combination of psychological conditions.
Kant and Schopenhauer, recognising this fact, restricted genius to art.
Schopenhauer[22] showed that totally different psychical conditions
would make an artist on the one hand, and a man of learning on the
other; so that it was not admissible to call them both by the same
name. Here is one of his remarks: “The work of genius has always been
regarded as an inspiration, as the word itself implies, as the work
of a superhuman being different from the person and only periodically
taking possession of him. Experience shows, too, that the greatest
artistic geniuses have no capacity for mathematics. There never lived
a man distinguished in both particulars. Alfieri relates that he never
could advance beyond the fourth proposition of Euclid. Goethe has
been reproached enough with his lack of mathematical knowledge. Thus,
also, is explained the notorious want of artistic sensibility in all
distinguished mathematicians. A great French mathematician, on hearing
the Iphigénie of Racine, exclaimed, ‘What does that prove?’ Great
genius is seldom combined with predominance of reason; on the contrary,
men of genius are particularly subject to overpowering sentiments and
irrational passions.”
It must be confessed that the limitation of genius to artistic power
has met with general disapprobation among the later authors who have
written upon the subject. Jürgen Bona Meyer[23] assures us that there
is such a thing as scientific genius; and so do other authors who
have not reconciled themselves to this limitation of the common mode
of speech. Since Kant and Schopenhauer, people continue to attribute
genius to scientists, just as they did before.
Thus the question whether the popular word genius can be used as
a scientific term can only be decided by a psychological analysis
of those poets, composers, painters, virtuosos, actors, scholars,
statesmen, and generals who have generally been reckoned as geniuses.
That analysis performed, comparison will show whether they have any
common characteristic, such as justifies us in comprehending such
persons under one psychological concept.
Famous poets, observant of their own inward conditions, have often said
that their works were composed as in a dream, unknown to themselves;
that, instead of being deliberately constructed, their ideas have, as
it were, flown to them.
Goethe says: “There is a sense in which it is true that poets, and
indeed all true artists, must be born, not made. Namely, there must
be an inward productive power to bring the images that linger in the
organs, in the memory, in the imagination, freely, without purpose or
will, to life. The ideas must unfold themselves, grow, extend, and
accumulate in order to become no longer fugitive diagrams, but living
pictures.”
Voltaire, on seeing one of his tragedies performed, exclaimed: “Was it
really I who wrote that?” Lamartine said: “It is not I who think, but
my ideas which think for me.” Of Werther, Goethe said: “Having written
this little book somewhat unconsciously, like a sleepwalker, I could
not help wondering, in lately reading it over, whether I should find
anything in it to alter and improve.”
Schiller writes to Körner: “It is not well in works of creation that
reason should too closely challenge the ideas that come thronging to
the doors. Taken by itself, an idea may be highly unsuitable, even
venturesome, and yet in conjunction with others, themselves equally
absurd alone, it may furnish a suitable link in the chain of thought.
Reason can not see this unless it carefully considers the idea in its
connections. In a creative brain reason has withdrawn her watch at the
doors, and ideas crowd in pell-mell.”
Bettinelli says: “The happy moment for the poet may be called a
dream--dreamed in the presence of the intellect, which stands by and
gazes with open eyes at the performance.”
“Schiller,” says Vischer, in his treatise upon Esthetics,[24]
“annotating a passage in Schelling, energetically requires that the
poet should begin his work unconsciously, and says that he ought
to consider himself fortunate if, after a consecutive and distinct
consideration of what he is about, he does not find himself set back,
or if he finds his finished work as good as the obscure but powerful
impression from which he set out. Schiller himself, who fluttered
midway between thought and intuition, complains that theory and
criticism quench his ardour, and that when he sees himself at work
creating and constructing, his imagination is embarrassed, and does not
perform with the same freedom as it had done when nobody was looking
over its shoulder.”
Jean Paul Richter had, perhaps, the above passage of Goethe in his mind
when he wrote:[25] “Genius is, in more senses than one, a sleepwalker,
and in its bright dream can accomplish what one who woke could never
do. It mounts every height of reality in the dark; but bring it out
of its world of dreams, and it stumbles.” The last clause contains
an observation that Goethe also had made upon himself and which he
describes as follows: “It had happened to me so often that I would
repeat a song to myself and then be unable to recollect it; that
sometimes I would run to my desk and, without taking time to lay my
paper straight, would, without stirring from my place, write out the
poem from beginning to end, slopingly. For the same reason I always
preferred to write with a pencil, on account of its marking so readily.
On several occasions, indeed, the scratching and spluttering of my pen
awoke me from my somnambulistic poetizing and distracted me so that it
suffocated a little product in its birth. I had a particular reverence
for such pieces, like a hen for her brood of chickens pipping around
her.”
Klopstock says himself that he got many of the ideas of his Messiah in
dreams.
Voltaire wrote to Diderot:[26] “It must be confessed that in the arts
of genius instinct is everything. Corneille composed the scene between
Horatius and Curiatius just as a bird builds its nest, except that the
bird always builds well, while with us poor feeble little creatures
that is not the case.”
Upon what does this instinctive creating, this unconscious poetizing,
this spontaneous emerging of thought, that we meet with in so many
great poets, depend?
In our first chapter we recognised two different kinds of processes
of thought--voluntary thinking, in which the sequence of ideas is
determined by the will, and involuntary thinking, which takes place
in a purely associative way. This last we may term _fancy_. The two
processes have, in truth, no sharp delimitation. We may conceive the
process of thought to be an action of fancy with varying activity of
the will, from the weakest to the strongest grade. So Wundt[27] speaks
of an active and a passive fancy. “Our fancy,” says he, “is passive
when we allow the play of ideas to go as it will, beginning with any
complete idea. It is active when our will sifts out the ideas that
are produced, and thus purposively brings about a new whole.” In the
present work we shall use the word _fancy_ without qualification to
denote a passive involuntary train of ideas; while a purposive sequence
of ideas, or voluntary thought, shall be termed _intellectual function_
(_Verstandesthätigkeit_).
Involuntary thought is frequently described by the poets as
unconscious. That can not be accurate, for “unconscious thought” is a
contradictory phrase. Not even a dream can be said to be unconscious,
whether it be purely ideal, like most dreams, or produce action, as in
sleepwalking. In such a state self-consciousness alone is suspended,
not consciousness itself. It is true that § 51 of the German criminal
code pronounces actions performed unconsciously to be unpunishable;
but that is psychologically incorrect. A person is unconscious in a
deep swoon or occasionally in a stupor. But actions are never performed
without being connected with ideas; this it is that distinguishes
them from automatic and reflex motions. Now, ideas form a part of
consciousness. Ideas without consciousness are therefore inconceivable.
The paragraph of the criminal code ought to read: “Actions performed
while self-consciousness is suspended shall not be punished.” So
when a poet tells us he has composed verses while in a state of
unconsciousness or as in a dream, similar considerations show how we
are to understand his language.
Fancy stands half-way between dreaming and active intellectual
function. The latter depends directly on the will, while in the former
the will is in total abeyance. Purposive thought is like a ship with
a strong rudder which follows every turning and winding and can be
carried through the narrowest straits. A dream is a rudderless hulk
wandering hither and thither, the play of the winds and waves. Fancy is
a ship which, with its sails set, wends its way over the deep, moving
like a ghost with no visible impulse, yet directed toward its destined
port. The will takes part in fancy, but behaves more passively than
actively. It removes all hindrances which might confuse the thoughts
and prevent ideas from forming a harmonious whole.
All men exercise the above-described action of fancy. In ordinary
men it makes daydreams, which everybody recognises to be opposed
to purposive thought. All that fancy produces depends on former
impressions of sense. It is powerless to create anything new; its
products are mere combinations in memory of the residua of former
impressions. They may be unlikely enough, and in that sense it may be
true that its products are “original.” But this does not conflict with
the facts alleged.
As in a kaleidoscope a relatively small number of bits of broken glass
can enter into most manifold combinations and produce the most diverse
images, so the residua of former impressions of sense can, by means
of fancy, combine into the most variegated mixture of original ideas.
If a kaleidoscope contains only a small number of morsels of glass of
tolerably large size, the images will be relatively monotonous and
small in variety; but if it contains smaller and more numerous pieces
of glass, the images will be more manifold and more variegated. In an
analogous way, a rich fancy, as we call it, is able to dissect the
sense-impressions that are received into their smallest constituents,
and to fuse them together into infinitely numerous new shapes. If
this faculty is combined with a great facility of association and
imagination, it will result in that lively and creative action of fancy
which we find in the poet.
The daydreams of ordinary men are mostly uninteresting. But in
a man with a cultivated and refined fancy, daydreams will bring
those creative thoughts of genius, in which fancy reveals itself _a
posteriori_ to his knowledge. Hence it is that he seems to himself to
have created his ideas unawares. He seems, like an objective spectator,
to see the poem spring up within him.
This state of fancy, which depends upon an ordinary psychical process,
not qualitatively different from the mental process of common men, but
only differing quantitatively, is that which gave rise to mystical
explanations and to the belief in supernatural processes. Kant
remarks: “The reason why exemplary originality of talent receives
that mystical title is that the subject of it can not himself explain
its eruptions, or that he finds himself in possession of an art
which he could not have learned and which he can not comprehend. For
invisibility (the cause of an effect) is an attribute of the mind (a
genius with which the gifted person is endowed from his birth) whose
inspiration, as it were, he only follows.” So Vischer says: “We apply
to it the name of inspiration, an expression recalling a mystical
idea, the flow of which only begins here to grow into a river in its
further advance. The ancients, for whom the unknown upon the limits of
self-knowledge appeared so strange as to be the work of God, thought
it was really inspiration. The poet is inflated with the Muse, he is
ἔνθεος, θεόπνευστος, κατεχόμενος, ἐκστατικός, he is snatched away by
the goddess ὑπὸ θείης ἐξαλλαγῆς, out of himself, ἔξω ἑαυτοῦ, he is
breathed upon, ἐπίπνοια.”
It is this creative and somewhat independent power of fancy which lends
to the work of art its character of originality; and hence it is that
many inquirers have found in that the essence of genius.
Garve[28] expresses himself emphatically upon this point. “Nothing,”
he says, “is harder to ascertain than the peculiarity of a particular
mind, especially of a great mind, and most of all of a genius. All
perfections of the mind consist in certain perfections of thoughts;
or, rather, we only know as many differences and superiorities of
capacities and powers as we find of differences and grades of eminence
in the ideas. There is hardly any way to describe the character of a
capacity except by describing the origin and mode of formation of the
thoughts which are peculiar to that faculty. This can only be done in
so far as these thoughts follow other thoughts--i. e., are reflections
and after-thoughts. But when they seem to spring immediately out of
the power of the soul, when the higher or previous suggesting thoughts
are not to be found even by the man who had the idea in question,
our inquiry comes to an end, as inquiries always do when, in place
of tracing one effect from another, we are brought up to the actual
force. Now, thoughts of that kind are precisely such as are ascribed to
genius, a word signifying the source of those ideas which have not been
gradually elaborated, but have sprung up in a night from the soil of
the soul.”
Jürgen Bona Meyer says: “Talent, being self-conscious, knows the why
and wherefore of its conclusions and principles. But for genius all
that is in darkness. Nothing is more unconscious and involuntary than
the process of thought of genius.”
Although, as we shall soon see, this creative fancy is not sufficient
by itself to produce a poetic genius, and, as we shall at the same
time see, the degree of its development is not always proportional to
the greatness of the poet, yet it must be granted that the action of
fancy is an indispensable psychical ingredient of every poet. We are
confirmed in this opinion by the fact that those poets who only possess
it in small or inconsiderable amounts themselves lament the want of
it as a misfortune. When Lessing confesses there is no living spring
within him which wells up fresh, rich, and pure, but that everything
has to be pumped up with straining and groaning, he simply denies his
own possession of the proper organ of poesy. Schiller complained that
theory and criticism had damaged the free play of his fancy. When
Wieland had once reproached him with want of facility he wrote: “While
I am at work I feel only too keenly that he is right; yet I feel, too,
where the fault lies, and I hope that I shall be able to improve very
much in that respect. Ideas do not flow richly enough to me, however
luxuriant my works turn out; and until I write them down my ideas are
not clear.”
Here, then, is a very important mental difference between poets of
high rank. While in Goethe the mainstay of his artistic power was
the free play of fancy, with Schiller the turning point was a power
of intellectual function which, in his own words, often choked the
luxuriance of his fancy.
From this fact we can draw the corollary that however indispensable
to a poet fancy may be, it is not a synonym of poetic greatness; for
Schiller is undeniably a greater poet than many another whose fancy is
under no such intellectual inhibition.
The psychological analysis of famous poets will show that the
intellectual function is no whit less important a factor of poetic
genius than fancy itself, although the latter is the one immediately
employed in the act of composition. We have seen that creative
fancy works with the material which former impressions of sense have
left behind as their remains or residua. The more comprehensive the
knowledge of the poet, therefore, and the more he is in condition to
assimilate and compact the impressions the world conveys to him, and
the sounder and truer his judgments of persons and situations, and the
more methodical his thought and the better his memory, by so much the
more will his fancy display luxuriance, and by so much more various
will be his creations.
Lessing[29] falls into error when he says: “It is permitted to genius
not to know a thousand things that every schoolboy knows; for it is not
the provision with which his memory is stored, but what he can bring
forth out of his own feeling, that constitutes his wealth.” On the
contrary, the really great poet is usually marked by solid erudition
and thorough comprehension of the world. Of course, there are fools
enough who fancy they need learn nothing, that their genius has only
to walk forth naked in its own stately form, and that erudition would
be but a detriment to its creativeness. But these are unfortunates, of
whom we shall treat in another chapter of this book. Goethe hit them
off in the following epigram:
Says Zigzag, in his latest book,
“Within no school have I a nook;
From living wight no thoughts I’ve took;
Still less to dead men do I look.”
He means, unless I’ve much mistook,
“I’m just a crank on my own hook.”[30]
Kant, too, says that genius must undergo the “constraint of the school”
(_Zwang des Studiums_). “To free imagination from this constraint and
to allow one’s peculiar talent to rove about in wild disorder, contrary
to the laws of Nature, might betoken, perhaps, a great original
madness.”
Goethe very clearly pictures the sources from which his own rich fancy
drew the materials of its creations. “The greatest genius would be
worthless without external aids. For what, after all, is genius but
the capacity to seize every opportunity, to make use of everything
that falls in our way, to impart form and life to whatever matter may
be put within its reach, to take here marble, there earth, and out of
them to build a lasting monument? Where, for example, should I be, or
what would be left of me, if that sort of appropriation should cast
a prejudice upon genius? What have I done? I have gathered and used
whatever I have seen, heard, or observed. I have laid claim to the
works of Nature and of man. To every one of my writings a thousand
persons and a thousand different things have contributed. Old and
young, gentle and simple, wise and foolish have brought their quotas.
Mostly without being aware of it, they have bestowed upon me their
thoughts, their faculties, and their experiences, sowing the grain that
I have reaped. My work is an assemblage of essences which have been
derived from the course of Nature. This bears the name of ‘Goethe.’...
Foolish men! They remind me of a certain philosopher of my part of the
country who fancied that if he were to imprison himself in his study
for thirty years, and there sift and beat out the ideas which he would
draw from his own poor brain, he would obtain a wonderful mine of
originality! What came of it, think ye? Clouds, and only clouds!... I
was long enough so silly as to grieve over these absurdities; but now
in my old age I may be permitted to make merry over them and laugh at
them.”[31]
Another psychical phenomenon, besides fancy and intellectual function,
surprises us in famous poets--to wit: a refinement of the feelings,
heart, and moods. We often find these qualities developed in great
poets to a point we can scarcely imagine. The mere contemplation of a
work of art may move them to tears. In Heine, music produced a peculiar
mood which excited him to versification. Alfieri described his mood
while writing poetry as a sort of soft fever. When Goethe read in
Schiller’s family for the first time the scene between Hermann and his
mother under the pear tree, in Hermann und Dorothea, he burst into
tears, saying, as he dried his eyes, “One melts over one’s own fire.”
Schiller wrote to Goethe: “At first my sensations have no definite
object; that is formed later. First comes a certain musical sensation,
and after that, follows the poetical idea.”
What is described here is, as fancy, not a new, independent, or
mystical condition, peculiar to certain individuals, but is merely
a refinement of a certain part of the psychical organism, and
consequently a mere alteration of intensity of a phenomenon observable
in all men.
Our whole mental action, the train of ideas, voluntary or involuntary,
is accompanied with a certain state of temper, best termed a _mood_
(_Stimmung_), to which I have referred in the first chapter. As we
are not ordinarily conscious of any feelings produced by our internal
organs, so, in spite of their continuous presence, we are not commonly
aware of our moods. We recognise them only as they vary. Different
authors are at variance in regard to the connection between our moods
and our ideas. Some will have the moods dependent upon the ideas,
while others make the content of the ideas follow the mood of the
moment. My own opinion is that neither rule can be maintained, but that
moods and ideas react upon one another, at one time a mood taking the
lead, at another an idea. When sad news is received, a gloomy mood is
plainly a consequence of the ideas; yet it is not to be denied that we
have many ups and downs of mood for which no differences of ideas can
account. Such moods are called _humours_.
It is well known that the multitude of qualitative differences of
sense-perceptions exceeds every finite number. Not only can we perceive
differences in the intensity of lights, but we can distinguish the most
manifold shades of colour. Sounds differ not merely in intensity and
in pitch, but also in the quality of tone. We not only hear upon what
instrument a given note is sounded, but a connoisseur can tell upon
what string of a violin it is drawn. Hence we recognise the voice of
one acquaintance among hundreds.
The quality of a sensation can not be described in words. No doubt, we
have names for the coarsest distinctions; but even these have a value
only when they are brought into connection with previous impressions.
A person blind from birth can in no way whatever get any idea of a
distinction of colour. Nor can a deaf-mute get the most distant notion
of the differences of qualities of sounds.
In strict analogy with sense-perception, the fundamentally different
qualities of moods are likewise too multitudinous to be enumerated.
Neither can they be described in words. We have names for certain
states, and these names may suggest previous experiences of our states
of mind. Compunction, pity, desire, worry, hope, fear, though they have
names, are sensations and moods that no descriptions can paint. If a
person had never felt pity in his life, you could in no way give him an
idea of that mood.
Persons whose psychical organism is highly refined in this respect
will have qualities of moods that there are no words to express. Just
as the musically gifted can distinguish timbres that ordinary people
can not, so those persons have mood-feelings for which the average
man is incapable, and for which common language has no designations.
Alfieri’s “soft fever” and Schiller’s “a certain musical mood of the
heart” are obviously attempts to convey some notion of such refined
mood-feelings.
Another trait remarkable in famous poets is an instinctive and
invincible impulse to express the ideas and feelings within them. In
consequence of this impulse the work of genius is not a voluntary
labour, but the involuntary product of a psychical need. It is not
a hankering after applause and success, nor a regard for his other
interests, which induces the man of genius to perform his task. It is
solely a passion to give shape and form to the idea that exists in his
fancy. The true poet does not versify because he would, but because he
must. Goethe has painted the poetic impulse in Tasso:
_Alfonso._ I beg of thee to break this habit up!
The poet’s loss will be the man’s success.
_Tasso._ I’ve struggled day and night against this need;
I’m worn out trying to shut up my breast.
’Tis useless! Sing I must; else life’s not life.
Prohibit the poor silkworm’s industry
On pain of death, yet still he’ll keep right on
Drawing the costly web from his entrails,
Nor cease until his golden cerecloth’s wove.--Act V, scene 2.
This impulse of the poet of genius is again merely an exaggerated case
of a purely physiological phenomenon found in all men. In every man
strong emotions and powerful motions of the heart exercise a great
influence upon his whole mental conduct. But the effects of emotions
are not limited to the mind. They are centrifugally communicated to
the other organs. They have spasmodic and paralytic effects upon the
blood vessels, which are shown by blanching and blushing, cold down
the back (shivers and gooseflesh), etc. The beating of the heart may
be increased to the highest point or may be completely suspended.
Glandular secretions, sweat, and tears are influenced by moods. The
emotions are alleviated by such processes. The mood becomes calmer,
the whole state of mind more agreeable. A decided relief is brought
to great mental pain by tears, and a person may even speak of having
“a good cry.” Anger is softened by “having it out,” be it even on a
lifeless thing. Hysterical subjects and children strike or kick the
object against which they may have struck. Cheerful emotions also seek
“vent.” A comical emotion sets the laughing muscles in motion, and this
is followed by a calmer mood.
The impulse to give expression to emotions and moods is not only shown
in such reflex ways, but also in an intense desire for communication
to other persons. The consequence of “telling all about it” is a
measurable unburdening or relaxation which produces satisfaction. Thus,
all men have a natural impulse to communicate their inward feelings and
sensations. The suppression of it involves a tension, a heightening
of the emotion, and a general uneasiness. A pain which circumstances
forbid us to disclose, especially where tears have to be suppressed, is
felt more intensely. Suppressed anger “gnaws the vitals” all the worse.
The suppression of laughter is very uncomfortable, and for some persons
quite impossible. Everybody knows how hard it is for women (shall we
add for men?) to keep a secret.
When a woman has a piece of news, she “burns” to repeat it. Everybody
suffering from the pangs of love feels much relieved when he has
confessed his passion. Everybody experiences relief, when he bears a
grudge against anybody, on “speaking his mind” about him. Criminals
are not seldom led by an inward impulse to confess offences committed
long before. Thus, this impulse, which I shall term the impulse of
revelation, is a quite normal one, and belongs in some measure to every
man.
In poets of genius, who have such manifold feelings and moods, and
in whose rich fancy so many new thoughts and ideas are continually
springing up, this impulse is proportionately manifest. But since, as
we have seen, the feelings and moods of the poet cannot be described
in simple words, art is required to give utterance to them. Such a
poet no more writes for the sake of making poetry than a rational man
talks for the sake of talking; he creates his work of art solely to
the end that he may give utterance to the sentiments, feelings, and
thoughts with which his soul is burdened. If he finds his work has no
success nor recognition, he of course feels the same pain that any man
would feel who wants to express himself to somebody and is understood
by nobody. But he is incapable of altering anything in his work or
reshaping it for a new edition. He can only be what he is. He feels
himself incapable of creating anything but the embodiment of his ideas
and sentiments.
Such a poet was Goethe. Art was for him only the means of expression
of his sentiments. He expressed in poetic form only what really took
place within himself, what he really lived, felt, and experienced. He
himself said: “All my poems are occasional poems. They were called
forth by real circumstances and have their reason and place therein.
I never valued poems snatched out of the air. A special situation is
universal and poetic, simply because a poet treats of it. What I did
not undergo and what did not concern me I have never sung or expressed.
I never wrote love poems without being in love.” And again he said: “If
I desired for my poems a true basis and reflection, I had to get it in
my own bosom. And so began that habit--from which I have never departed
through life--of converting whatever rejoiced, or worried, or otherwise
concerned me into a poem and so have done with it, and thus at once to
correct my conceptions of outward things and to set my mind at rest.
The gift for doing so could be to nobody more needful than to me; for
my nature was always swaying from one extreme to another. Thus, all I
have published are but fragments of a long confession.”
In Goethe the most diverse moods replaced one another. As he says, he
passed from one extreme to another. To give them expression was the
motive of his artistic production. The matter of his creations was
furnished by his creative fancy, which in its turn took its material
from the world in which he lived and into which he had such an insight
as no other had. Thus, as often as his relations in life altered, he
would alter the plan of his Wilhelm Meister, as he describes it in
the following words: “Its beginnings came from a dim premonition that
though a man may often essay things whose successful performance was
denied to him by Nature, yet perhaps all false steps really carry
him toward a priceless good. This conjecture is in Wilhelm Meister
developed, illustrated, established, and at last expressly enunciated
in the clear words, ‘Thou appearest to me like Saul, the son of Kis,
who went out to fetch his father’s she-asses and found a kingdom.’”
The following is likewise highly instructive: “For this purpose I
collected the elements that I had been turning over in my mind for
a couple of years, and examined the cases which had troubled me the
most and occasioned me the most anxiety. However, nothing seemed to
shape itself. I was in want of an incident or plot in which things
could embody themselves. Finally, I got news of Jerusalem’s death;
and just after the general notice came a precise and circumstantial
account of the event. In an instant the remainder of the plan was
found. Everything closed up on all sides and became a compact mass.
It was like water in a vessel just on the point of freezing, which at
the least joggle becomes a solid lump of ice.” His joys and sorrows,
his desires, his pleasures and pains were exhibited by Goethe in the
heroes of his poems. In their veins flowed his blood, they breathed
with his lungs, and they lived by his life.
Dilthey[32] says: “The poetic process is in most of Goethe’s creations
the same. A state of heart is powerfully experienced in the whole outer
situation, with all the ideas, states, and shapes surrounding it, and
since now the inwardly moved poet meets an outward condition fit to be
made the vehicle of the experiences of his heart, there arises in this
coalescence the nucleus of a poem which at once contains in itself all
characteristic traits, the entire mood, the lines of the whole.”
In giving artistic expression to his own sentiments and his own fancy,
Goethe painted the sentiments and reactions of society. The reason
was that his soul was but the mirror of the world in which he lived.
The greatness of the poet consisted precisely in this accidental
correspondence; and when he painted his own woes and joys he was
painting unawares the woes and joys of humanity. Goethe himself touches
upon this in the following words: “There is all the difference in the
world between the poet’s seeking out the particular to fit the general,
and showing the general in the particular. The former method gives rise
to allegory, where the particular is only an example of the general;
but the latter method is the proper nature of poetry. It expresses a
particular without thinking of the general or referring to it. Whoever
catches the particular in all its life will have set his finger upon
the universal without at first knowing what he has captured.”
This method of poetic creation is not, however, found in all poets. Art
is not always an expression of sentiments and feelings. Poets as famous
as Goethe have worked under totally different psychical conditions,
and have created in an altogether different way.
Such a difference is found in those two men whom the German people
with just pride hold to be the greatest poets of the century. Between
scarcely any two poets have so many parallels been drawn as between
Goethe and Schiller. Critics of to-day often rate Goethe higher than
Schiller, and make him the greater of the two poets. But from the
psychological standpoint we are forced to the conviction that there
is between them a difference other than one of degree. Were Schiller
raised to an ever so much higher power (if an algebraical metaphor may
be permitted), he could never become a Goethe, but he might become a
Shakespeare.
While Goethe took “in his own bosom” the poetic basis of his works,
Schiller placed the germs of his poems in the outer world. While Goethe
conceived poetry as merely the means of utterance of his sentiments,
and hence spoke of his writings as “fragments of a long confession,”
Schiller declares the purpose of poesy to be “none other than the
completest expression of humanity.” While Goethe’s heroes were made
of his own flesh and blood, Schiller’s fancy produced, idealized and
generalized embodiments of characters he had observed and studied in
the outward world. Schiller attached an intrinsic value to the outward
habiliments of poetry, the sonorous and metaphorical language, the
melody of verse, the plot of the drama. Goethe regarded the outward
form as the mere “_Machwerk_”--the make-up--and of course did not
finish and polish his works with the same care as Schiller. Of his
Wallenstein, Schiller said: “Almost everything is cut away from me
by which I might get at this matter in my usual way. Everything has
to be effectuated by a felicitous form.” The construction of the
form sufficed to bring him inspiration, though he could take no real
interest in his personages. Speaking of the same drama in a letter,
he says: “The matter is so alien to me that I can hardly get up an
interest in it. It leaves me well-nigh cold and indifferent. Yet I am
enthusiastic over the work. Two personages excepted, for whom I have
some sympathy, I treat the whole _dramatis personæ_, especially the
leading character, with a mere artistic love, cold as charity; but I
assure you, they shall not turn out any worse on this account.” Goethe
could never have brought himself to write in that fashion. When he had
once given expression to his sentiments in a poetic rough-draught, he
would often neglect it for years before he finished it.
“Goethe,” says Hermann Grimm, “was in his inmost heart of quite the
opposite way of thinking from Schiller. He acknowledged Schiller’s
importance, reverenced his earnest life, esteemed his greatness as
a man. But as for what Schiller called poems, they were in Goethe’s
eyes not poetry at all. Schiller’s poetical creating was foreign to
Goethe. Schiller would begin by casting about for material. Then
he worked it till he had made it plastic. Next, he laid his plans.
These plans he placed before himself, and went to work, so many hours
_per diem_, to construct his work, as a mason would build a palace,
in strict conformity to the plan before him. That done, he took a
contract with himself to put in the painting, the ornaments, and the
furniture; and finally he cleaned the whole thing up, and opened it to
the public. This thorough workmanship was Schiller’s forte. He was a
professional poet, and he excelled all other professional poets. Goethe
appreciated this; but he could not practise it himself. He discussed
the technical questions which are of importance in criticising poetry,
and in producing it, too, with the utmost seriousness, but always as
an outsider. Making verses was for him an inconceivable proceeding.
Whoever applied to Goethe to know whether he ought to go into the
poetical profession came to a fine quarter. Young persons with a turn
for versification have an artless belief that there is somewhere an
Areopagus from which they may obtain a solemn and authoritative
concession to make verses; and that thereupon they may be assured that
their verses will meet with ‘success’--that is, be read and admired.
Goethe was only able to give an answer which threw them back upon a
metaphor--that a silkworm had only to eat leaves, and the silk would
surely not be in default. In short, he replied evasively, dissuasively,
and hesitatingly. But Schiller would answer in good faith. He
criticised the verses inclosed and required, if they would trust to
him, that they should persevere industriously. Naturally, he warned
them that the art of poetry must not be attempted unless the writer was
prepared to dedicate his life to it, with other such admonitions of
good sense.”[33]
Schiller, for his part, considered poems which sprang from the author’s
personal feelings, which included Goethe’s, as not, in the proper
sense of the term, poetry. Concerning the few things he had himself
done in that way Schiller said: “These verses are a mere natural
utterance--a _Naturlaut_, as Herder would say--a note of pain, artless
and comparatively formless. They are too true for the individual, to
be called poetry proper; for in them the individual appeases his need
and alleviates his burden, while in lyrics of another kind, carried
away by a flood, he yields to the need of creating. The present lines
give utterance to the sentiment from which they sprang and, after their
kind, they make no further pretension.”
_These contrasts between the two poets did not rest upon any
differences of principle, nor were they consequences of any divergence
of theoretical views, but were due directly to differences of psychical
mechanism._
Goethe in his prevailing moods was, as he describes himself, “tossed
from one extreme to another.”
Now merry, now heart-cut,
Now thankful to be;
Or dangling uncertain
In flittering pain;
Exulting to heaven,
To death beaten down, etc.[34]
These words picture Goethe’s life. His moods were capable of the finest
gradations. They arose spontaneously; he could give no account of them.
His luxuriant fancy was formed from feelings and moods and pressed
forward to artistic embodiment.
Goethe is often a riddle to himself. He considered his fancy as an
objective spectator. Its variegated mixture became the source of his
poetic ideas. But his strong intellectual power set limits to the
rovings of his fancy, and did not allow it to be subjugated to his
fluctuating moods, but held the mental balance even.
Schiller’s fancy was not excited by spontaneous moods. It was not in
that way that he was urged to artistic expression. His moods depended
upon his ideas. They were produced by ideas and modified by ideas.
Schiller’s fancy no doubt lent poetic ideas to his searching intellect;
but it did not work on its own account as Goethe’s did. It was an
effect of the will. Schiller could never say that his works arose “as
in a dream,” or that he versified “like a sleepwalker.” He did not feel
that he produced “unconsciously.” What he did was the result of the
most deliberate purpose.
Goethe’s impulse to deliver himself, to set forth his sentiments in
artistic form, corresponds to Schiller’s need of producing, to the
exuberance “impelled by superfluity” toward artistic creation. The
turning-point for him lies in the intellect, and this draws from the
outward world and from fancy in order to erect a sublime art temple.
The characters produced by him did not, like Goethe’s, arise from his
own sentiment, but were thoroughly artificial products.
Both Goethe and Schiller felt the gulf between them. After their first
meeting, Schiller wrote to Körner: “His whole nature is laid down on
other lines from mine; he lives in another world, and our modes of
thought seem to be widely remote.”
Knowing that Goethe had in many ways excelled him, Schiller wrote: “It
is true that, in entering this path, I encroach upon Goethe’s domain
and must measure myself against him. It is furthermore certain that
here I will be outstripped by him. But a remainder is left for me,
which is mine, and which he can never attain; so that the preference
given to him will be no shame to me, and I hope that things will about
balance. In my most courageous moments I hope that the public will
class us as different, but will not subordinate one species to the
other, rather co-ordinating us both under a broader idealistic generic
concept.” Thus Schiller justly recognised the difference of their
“species” and had the right feeling that the one species ought not
to be subordinated to the other. Twenty years after Schiller’s death
Goethe said: “Schiller, who had the true poetical nature, but whose
mind inclined to reflection and compelled much by force of reflection,
that ought to spring up in a poet unconsciously and of its own accord,
drew many young men his way who could, after all, only learn his
language.”
The vast difference between these two men showed itself in many
traits of their character. Goethe, who in his poems responded only to
an inward impulse, a natural need, wrote above all for himself, and
asked nothing for the public. Schiller’s efforts were to impose upon
the world, to please the public. He himself says: “The public is now
all with me; it is the subject of my studies, it is my sovereign, my
friend. To the public alone I now belong. I shall submit to no other
tribunal than this. This I fear, and this I respect.” Goethe neither
feared nor honoured the public, and did not concern himself about what
critics said of him, while Schiller often confessed that the critics
had influenced him much. Goethe made no haste to get his works before
the public; while Schiller could not wait till his creation was mature
to commence publication. Thus, he published fragments of “Don Carlos”
in Thalia, long before the poem was completed. But he himself regretted
it later, for he would have liked to have altered something.
As I said above, Shakespeare might be called a Schiller raised to a
higher power. Unfortunately, we have no detailed information about his
life and opinions. But his works sufficiently show that never has poet
been able to paint characters so true to nature and life as he. The
world in its unadulterated genuineness and merest truth was reflected
in the soul of this immortal poet. No theatrical puppets are they to
whom his fancy gave being. They are men and women--living flesh and
blood. They really feel, lament and make merry. But the poet himself
does not speak to us through them. The man Shakespeare we do not know,
nor can we guess what manner of man he was, nor what he felt. In every
word of Goethe it is him we hear, and it is inconceivable that anybody
should love his works without seeing the poet in them, who speaks to
us by them. But with Shakespeare it is only for his characters that we
warm up. With them we can sympathize, but the poet remains a stranger
to us.
Schiller himself tells us that the matter of his poems often left
him cold. His feelings were not engaged. In the whole of Wallenstein
only two persons interested him (probably Max and Thekla). With many
poets we can see that their heroic characters, which mounted their
fancy, exercised a powerful influence upon their poetic hearts. So
Dickens tells us that he sympathized with his favourite heroes; that
he decidedly looked upon them as living persons; that during the
composition he concerned himself about their fate as he would about a
dear friend’s; that, in short, he partook of their sorrows and joys
in his inmost soul. Thus, while with Goethe moods and sentiments were
at the bottom of the production of the work of art, such psychical
conditions were called forth in Dickens in a secondary way by the
productions of his fancy. With Schiller, again, moods seem to have
played neither an active nor a passive part in the creation of his
poems. A poet who, from a psychological point of view, is to be
compared with Goethe--though in a much lower potency, for whom,
however, art was equally a means for expressing his feelings and
sentiments--is Byron, on which account Goethe rated him particularly
high, feeling in him a certain mental affinity to himself.
We see, then, how enormous a difference, from a psychological point
of view, there is between the greatest poets, especially between
those two whom the German people are accustomed to couple together as
inseparable. Nor do these differences consist in one’s being placed
above the other; but those psychical phenomena which for Goethe formed
the main condition of his poetic life are not present at all in
Schiller, but are replaced by different qualities. Yet there is one
element they have in common. I mean creative fancy, without which it is
impossible to conceive of a poet. This creative fancy therefore forms a
common factor of all poetical genius.
Let us now turn to a psychological study of the most famous composers.
We frequently meet with descriptions of the mode of production of their
works, as we do with those of poets of genius. They, too, have the
feeling of unconscious production, of the independent springing up of
their tone-poems. Mozart frequently said the ideas of his creations
came to him as in a dream. Gluck said thoughts flowed to him, and he
knew not whence they came. Haydn believed that a “divine will” had
through him created his greatest work--Die Schöpfung.
Here again, then, we find an independent fancy, such as we have
recognised in poets of genius. In quite an analogous way in painters of
genius fancy sometimes pours out its wealth in an inexhaustible spring.
The imagination bodies forth new shapes unceasingly, and every figure,
every tree, every stream is set forth in its smallest details; and
these ideas weld with others in harmonious ideal images.
The question which presents itself, then, is: Whence comes it that one
fancy expresses itself in poetic production, that in another musical
creations spring up, while in a third painting is the vent of the
creative imagination? The answer to this question leads us to consider
that congenital capacity which is generally called Talent.
What is, for example, musical talent? While at the first hearing of
a concerted piece unmusical persons hear nothing but the flow of the
melody and the general character of the sounds, those who are talented
comprehend the composition in all its divisions. In their apperception
the harmony resolves itself into its parts, and the general effect
of the sound is analyzed. While the sensuous impression called forth
by music quickly passes away in those without talent, with talent a
single hearing suffices to create a lasting memory. Musical talent is
able to make out subtleties which are quite hidden from those who want
it. In musicians of talent not even the direct excitation of musical
reminiscences is needed to suggest auditory images, but they may be
produced associatively from optical centres of apperception. Such
people can, for example, read over a score and acquire as clear an idea
of the composition as if they actually heard it. Though these qualities
be carried to their highest pitch, they still remain matters not of
genius but of talent. Mozart after hearing a mass once was able to
write the whole down; but this is only a proof of vast talent, and does
not depend upon that creative fancy which his compositions bespeak.
We have reason to presume that the causes of talent are to be
attributed to anatomical conditions. For example, the autopsy of the
brain of Gambetta (whose extraordinary oratorical power is well known)
showed an uncommonly great development of the third frontal or Broca’s
convolution--that is to say, of the part of the brain in which the
centre of language is situated. It is to be presumed that musical
talent depends upon a specially refined development of a certain
acoustic centre, although its exact localization at present escapes our
knowledge. Talent is certainly nothing but the material for artistic
creation. It is, so to say, the instrument of the artist, while the
creative power of genius corresponds to the artistic power of drawing
tones from that instrument.
In Mozart the turning point of his artistic production lay in his
inexhaustible fancy, which, according to his family, was in incessant
action. His wife said: “In truth, his head was working all the time,
his mind was ever moving, he composed almost unceasingly.” “In Prague
it once happened that Mozart, while he was playing billiards, was
humming a _motif_, and from time to time would look into a book he had
with him. Afterward he confessed that he had been at work upon the
first quintette of the Zauberflöte.”[35] His sister Sophia described
him as follows: “He was always in good humour, but even at best very
reflective, looking one very sharp in the eye meantime, answering
attentively whether he was cheerful or sad, yet always seeming to
be preoccupied with something else. Even while washing his hands in
the morning he would walk up and down the room; and he never stood
still, but would strike one heel against the other. And he was always
reflecting.”[36] “When he travelled with his wife through a beautiful
country he looked attentively and silently upon the world about him.
His physiognomy, commonly rather self-contained and gloomy than brisk
and free, would gradually become more cheerful, and then he would
begin to sing, or rather to hum, until at last he would exclaim, ‘If
I only had that theme on paper!’ And if she said that it could easily
be done, he would say, ‘Yes, of course, it is a stupid thing that we
must sit down and do our work in the room.’” This remark reminds us of
a passage in a letter of Goethe: “As you may readily imagine, I have a
hundred new things in my head; and now it does not depend on thinking;
it depends on the making. What a thing it would be if we could confine
objects so that they would stay put!”
In his inexhaustible and restlessly working fancy Mozart was very much
like Goethe. His works commonly lay ready-made in his memory when
he began to set them down on paper. He wrote most unwillingly, and
generally waited till the last minute, so that he was commonly behind
time. It is well known that he wrote the overture to Don Juan the night
before the performance of the opera. While we consider creative fancy
to be a part of the action of his genius, his vast musical memory was a
matter of talent, which in Mozart was not less phenomenal. When he once
sent his sister a fugue with a prelude he excused himself for writing
the prelude after the fugue. “The truth is,” said he, “it was while I
was writing down the fugue that I composed the prelude.”[37] Thus his
fancy was able to work undisturbed while he exercised his intellectual
reproductive power. This fact may at first sight seem incredible and
contradictory to common psychical conditions. But it is not so. Here
again is a high refinement of a universal psychical phenomenon. Most
men, while engaged in a mechanical occupation, can give a free rein
to the play of fancy; and even when the mechanical work requires some
attention, many men are able at the same time to think about something
else. Whoever is accustomed to work in a laboratory knows very well
what it is to follow those mechanical operations with attention and at
the same time to be considering some important question. The strange
thing in Mozart’s case is that the writing down from memory of a
fugue--a work which would have required the concentrated attention of a
fairly talented man--was for him a mere mechanical act. We hardly know
which most to admire, his stupendous talent or his creative genius.
Mozart’s rich fancy, like that of Goethe, was directed by a high
intellectual faculty which checked its boilings over, held the ideas
to an ordered sequence, and eliminated disturbing elements. Mozart’s
capacity of concentrating his attention upon what was in his mind, and
of shutting out all disturbing perceptions of sense, was tremendous.
While he was at work social conversation about him was no annoyance,
and even with an orchestra playing in his ears he could calmly follow
out his own fancy. “His eldest sister, Frau Hofer, told Neukomm that
even at the opera,--as anybody who knew him could easily observe by the
restless movements of his hands, by his glance, and by his pursing his
lips to sing or whistle,--he would be completely taken up in following
out his inward train of music.”[38]
But wherever it was worth while to pay attention to the outer world,
and to take in outward impressions of sense, he had an equally high
capacity for that. His fancy received rich aliment from the action of
his intellect. He had studied the old masters perfectly. He himself
said: “Nobody takes so much pains in the study of composition as I.
You could not easily name a famous master in music whom I have not
industriously studied, often going through his works several times.”
Rochlitz reports that he knew the chief works of Händel as well as if
he had all his life been director of the London Academy for the Support
of Old Music.
With all the likeness between Mozart and Goethe there was this
remarkable difference between them, that Mozart was not influenced
by moods. They had no part whatever in the work of his artistic
production. Art was not for him the means of expression of his own
sentiments, as it was with Goethe; he could adapt the play of his
fancy to outward conditions, to motives of the outer world; so that,
in this respect, Mozart strongly reminds one of Schiller. He could set
his fancy any problem he liked, and it would promptly proceed to solve
it. Mozart could compose to order; and many of his works, especially
canons, were produced in that way. In consonance with this was Mozart’s
power of setting foreign texts of operas to music, which corresponded
precisely to the character and mood of the words, although he did not
warm up to them.
In Beethoven, on the contrary, art was solely a means of expression of
his own sentiments and feelings. The immortal creations which sprang
from his artistic fancy enable us to look deeply into the spiritual
life of the great artist. They paint his inner struggles, his anguish,
and his delight.
The ideal that was constantly before him, and which by great struggles
he sought to attain, was that of a strong, active, manly character,
unmoved by any blow of fate and never despondent in the struggle of
life, but keeping up its courage to its last breath. “Courage! However
weak my body, my soul shall rule.” To this boast he always adhered, no
matter how hard his lot. After a joyless youth he had to contend with
the direst need. But worst of all was the defect of his hearing, which
at last amounted to stone-deafness. One can imagine what it meant for
him to be the only one to whom it was not permitted to listen to his
own symphonies. But dreadful as it was, his courage was never broken;
his soul marched victoriously to the strife and held command over his
sufferings.
Such moods as struggle, gloom, hope, pleasure, suffering, burst into
expression in his art of music--the mother tongue of sentiments and
moods. Of every creation of Beethoven we may say, with Goethe, it was
“a fragment of one long confession.”
The fineness of Beethoven’s faculty of sense, the subtilty in the
_nuances_ of his moods, was a no less important factor of his nature
than his rich creative fancy. Words could not describe his sentiments;
only music, the language of the heart, could render them; and his moods
were the motives of the action of his genius.
How little such feelings and sentiments can be described in words is
shown by Richard Wagner in his Programmatische Erläuterungen.[38] In
speaking of the Heroic Symphony he says: “The first movement brings
to a focus all the sentiments of a rich manly nature in restless,
youthful, active emotion. Bliss and woe, delight and suffering, joy
and grief, musing and aspiration, yearning and revelling, daring,
insolence, and indomitable self-feeling jostle so closely upon one
another that while we sympathize with all these sentiments, we can
isolate no one, but are obliged to partake of all as this master of
all sentiments delivers them.” Of the second movement he says: “A
sentiment excited in solemn nuptials and combined with profound pain is
communicated to us in a tone language which takes possession of us; an
earnest, manly sorrow looks forward out of its plaint to soft pathos,
to recollections, to tears of love, to inward elevation, to inspired
summons.” But it is in vain that Wagner strives to reproduce in words
the mood produced by the work or the sentiments of his artistic heart.
He confesses it himself: “But who could paint in words the infinitely
manifold but inexpressible sentiments which pass from pain to the
highest exultation, and from exultation to the softest grief, until
they come to rest in a bottomless pondering? The tone poet alone could
do this in this wonderful composition.” The account closes with the
words: “But only in the master’s tone-speech could that unspeakable
meaning be uttered which my confined words have attempted to describe
with the greatest modesty.”
Thus between these two classics, Mozart and Beethoven, there was a
distinction analogous to that between Schiller and Goethe. Still,
creative fancy is the common and indispensable factor, without which
neither a poet nor a composer of genius can be conceived.
It plays the same important part in the minds of painters. Accordingly,
Humboldt[39] says: “As soon as the painter’s fancy has given birth to
the living image, the masterpiece is completed, though his hand were
that instant to be paralyzed. The actual execution is but the echo of
that decisive moment.” But the same psychological distinction pursues
us. For some painters art was merely the means of expression of their
sentiments and moods. Examples will be mentioned in another chapter.
Let us first turn our attention to representatives of the arts of
execution. I mean musical performers and actors.
We have already analyzed the nature of musical talent, so that we
can come at once to the question, What is the distinction between a
performer of talent and a performer of genius?
Jean Paul[40] speaks of men of “receptive or passive genius” “who are
richer in receptive than in creative fancy,” to whose productions
that radiance of genius is wanting “which only breaks forth from the
consensus of all the powers, and from great powers alone.”
By “receptive fancy,” which is an expression psychologically incorrect,
Jean Paul means that state of heart which is particularly inclined to
be put by a work of art into a responsive mood, a disposition that can
enter into the sentiments of the artist and can fully enjoy his work.
Jean Paul says: “There are men who, endowed with a higher sensibility
than powerful talent in itself confers, but with less power, receive
into a consecrated, open soul the great world-mind, be it in outward
life or in poems and thoughts, and remain constant to it as the tender
woman to the strong man, disdaining the vulgar, and who yet, if they
would express their love, stammer out broken, confused words and say
something different from what they wished to say.” These are people
endowed with extreme delicacy of feeling and sentiment, so that they
are more capable of being absorbed in a work of genius than others,
yet lacking the creative fancy which would enable them to give to
their sensations an independent artistic expression. Let such people
be provided with musical talent which specially fits them for the use
of an instrument, and they will have the opportunity, in playing the
compositions of others, to express their own artistic feelings and
sentiments. They will put their souls into the reproduction of the
work. In short, they will be performers of genius. Schütz[41] says of
Paganini: “The instant he took his instrument a divine spark seemed to
touch him, and celestial fire ran through his being. Every feeling of
weakness departed. He was transformed into a new being; he instantly
became another soul; and so long as he played, his strength was more
than quintupled.” So it is with those actors and singers who in the
performance of a part are completely absorbed in the situation. They
throw into it their artistically excited hearts, and fulfil their
feelings and sentiments.
Other performers of no less talent, or perhaps more, remain cold and
without sensation in the performance of the work of art. With them the
intellectual function alone determines their rendering of the piece.
The effects are calculated, the execution studied, the whole is made
up. However great the talent of such performers, bringing them to the
highest pitch of technical skill, genius will never be attributed to
them by the great public. Thus we see that in artists of execution the
psychical causes of performances of genius have to be sought in the
sphere of feeling and sensation. That faculty which we have recognised
as the chief requisite for the genius of the creative artist--namely,
creative fancy--is never present in the performer of genius.
Thus, in the attempt to reduce genius in different departments to the
same or similar faculties, we are thrown into perplexity. There are
doubtless common factors, but it must be admitted that the psychical
elements which constitute the essence of genius in poets such as
Schiller, and in performers such as Paganini, have nothing in common.
We now pass to the consideration of those famous men who are called men
of scientific genius or scholars of genius. An inquiry into the causes
of scientific genius will show that it has two factors--discovery and
invention. Copernicus, Galileo, Newton distinguished themselves by
many important discoveries. As we have seen above, the success of the
discoverer is partly dependent upon external circumstances; so that we
shall not remain content with the outward facts, but shall endeavour
to probe the matter to the bottom. In short, we shall try to find
psychical circumstances accounting for the discoveries of genius.
When Newton’s friend Halley once asked him how he ever came to make
all those great discoveries, he said it was by incessantly dwelling
on the problems concerned. On another occasion he said that the chief
difference between him and other men was that he had more patience than
others.
Galileo investigated and worked restlessly to his latest years. When he
was blind in both eyes, he wrote, by the hand of another, that in his
darkness his mind was perpetually turning over the problems of nature,
and would not cease its activity, even when he desired rest; so that he
was deprived of his sleep.
These and other sayings of famous men of science about the actions
of their mind and the origin of the ideas of genius have an entirely
different tone from the analogous reports of poets and composers.
Great discoveries, unless they were mere effects of chance, have never
been made “unconsciously,” “as in a dream,” “like sleepwalking,” but,
on the contrary, require the completest wakefulness, self-conscious
thought, and untiring industry. These characters, which we find in
all great investigators and scholars, depend upon the extremest
refinement of that part of the psychical organ which is the vehicle
of the intellectual powers. In the first place, and above all, great
discoverers have great powers of observation. For this, as we know,
undivided attention concentrated upon an exterior process is requisite.
The faculties of perception and ideation are highly refined; the
organs of apperception and reproduction act with the greatest energy.
The ideas obtained in this way are connected into conceptual forms
by that intellectual action which Wundt[42] terms the “inductive
understanding.” Upon the extremest refinement of this faculty depends
the quick and correct recognition of the connections of things which is
met with in great investigators.
We find here, then, essentially different psychical conditions from
those of poets and artists of genius. We may go so far as to say that
they are antagonistic, the one to the other. A rich fancy and a variety
of moods, feelings, and sentiments, which form the main condition of a
productive artist, are not only of no use to a great investigator of
Nature, but they are positively disadvantageous to him. Every human
being possesses fancy, and an absolutely sharp line of demarcation
cannot be drawn between fancy and intellect. Every man, too, is subject
to oscillations of his moods. But to the great investigator it is
absolutely essential that his intellect should possess an iron rule
over all other psychical factors. Schiller says of the poet: “He will
do well not to let his reason keep too severe a guard at the doors
against the incrowding ideas.” But for the investigating scholar it is
not well that a rich fancy should modify the result of his objective
observations or should draw his attention away from the object of his
research.
Those authors who endeavour to find a general psychological basis
for genius, but strive to limit the term to a particular class of
famous men--as, for example, to productive artists--cannot avoid the
incorrect reasoning into which Meyer falls when he says[43]: “Nobody
can dispute that genius, even in science, is only the result of the
creative force of imagination.” In another place the same author says:
“Reflective thought is often prejudicial to the creative power of
genius. Thought must come from itself and conclude according to its
elective affinities.” According to this, all reflective thought must
be prejudicial to the genius of the scholar. But we have learned from
their own words that reflection is requisite to the success of scholars.
Whoever, like Meyer, recognises “creative imagination” and the
“unconscious origination of thoughts” as the essence of genius ought
not to apply that term to the learned. But when Schopenhauer, who gave
a similar meaning to genius, says of generals and statesmen, “It is
ridiculous to talk of genius in such folks,” Herr Meyer protests and
says: “I should rather call it ridiculous to deny that Frederick the
Great was a political and military genius, that Napoleon was a general
of genius, or that Bismarck was a statesman of genius.”
The usage of language alone, irrespective of other considerations, must
determine whether we shall apply the name of genius to generals or
statesmen; but this much is manifest, that the greatness of a military
commander depends upon essentially different psychical conditions
from the greatness of an artist. If we are to conceive of genius as
Meyer does, and are to follow him in declaring that the “how” and
the “wherefore” “remain obscure” for genius, that “nothing is less
conscious,” “nothing less voluntary,” than “a thought of genius,” and
that “reflecting thought is sometimes prejudicial to the creative force
of genius,” then it certainly must seem ridiculous to connect such an
appellation with Frederick the Great, Napoleon, or Bismarck. Imagine a
great statesman for whom the “how” and the “wherefore” remain always
obscure. Think of a Bismarck devoid of “reflective thought.”
The greatness of a general or a statesman is exclusively due to
sharpness of intellect. A power of swift apprehension, an instantaneous
recognition of facts and their connections, a logical and consecutive
reason--these are the qualities which are indispensable to a general of
genius. The great statesman and the great soldier must neither of them
be influenced by varying moods and feelings. All moods and feelings
must be entirely subordinated. An understanding conscious of its
purpose and an iron will must direct and lead the whole action of the
soul. The general of genius is always distinguished by discretion and
cold deliberation; he preserves an imposing calm. At critical moments
he shows a wonderful presence of mind. He never permits any upwellings
of feeling or preponderance of emotion. Hence the greatest statesman
of our age has received the admirable epithet of the Man of Iron. How
utterly is the psychical constitution of such a man unlike the rich and
sensitive heart of the artist of genius! For the substance of the great
statesman of genius iron is required; but it is wax that has to compose
the sensitive artist.
The psychical faculties are not sharply separable. They insensibly
shade into one another. Hence we find a gradual transitional series of
minds bridging over the interval between creative art and inductive
science. It is in this series that we are to place the inventor. For
him a combination of fancy with “inductive intellectual action,” as
Wundt calls it, is what is to be desired. The action of his productive
imagination is essentially different from that of the free, creative
fancy of the artist of genius. In the dreams of the artist the work of
art emerges freely, without that definite, prefigured, foreseen purpose
which is needed in the imagination of the inventor. Well-planned,
systematic thought is for him not less requisite than the productive
faculty. It is the combination of both states, or an intermediate
condition, which we find here.
There are many points of agreement between the psychical conditions
of the creative artist and those of the scientific investigator. But
where art begins science ends. Speculative philosophy used to call for
creative imagination, no doubt; but this department of thought, which
among the ancients was the queen of the sciences, is to-day scarcely
recognised as science at all. Plato was much more a poet than a
representative of science. On the other hand, those poets and novelists
who undertake the construction of characters in objective fashion, on a
basis of research and observation, approximate toward scientific minds.
Perhaps when Meyer says that genius in science is fulfilled only by
the creative force of imagination he means the speculative sciences
of theology and philosophy. But the further science advances toward
its goal of truth, the more it will emancipate itself from fancies;
or, to express the matter more accurately, the less science has to do
with fancy, the more truthful will it become and the higher will be
its value. In the truest of all the sciences, mathematics, fancy will
accomplish very little. Fancy can not solve equations nor enunciate
theorems. Fancy never discovered bacteria, nor has it been successful
as a method of medical diagnosis.
We conclude, then, that _genius in different departments is referable
to the most diverse psychical conditions_. Psychical faculties and
characters which in one case constitute the essence of genius, in
another case are inconsistent with the action of genius. In short,
definite psychical characters common to all genius are not to be found.
One would seek in vain any common psychological explanation of the
greatness of a Paganini and a Bismarck, of a Mozart and a Napoleon.
That which of old connected all genius in the eyes of men and, in
fact, gave rise to the conception, was the idea of the mystical, the
unaccountable, the supernatural. If any such standpoint as that is
to be assumed, of course there remains no difficulty in finding an
unequivocal meaning for the term. Prof. Jürgen Bona Meyer says: “The
ancient Greeks considered poets and artists to be consecrated to God
and inspired of God. When they produced their works the Godhead seized
upon them in sacred madness, and through them spoke to men. Who knows
but that is the very truth? Perhaps God really does lead the world by
these creative souls to the high goal to which it is destined. Perhaps
a philosophy of history might make this significance of the heroes of
spirit and of force manifest, and vindicate the faith which, in the
geniuses of earth, will recognise the immediate agents of God.” If
notions like these are what is meant by ideas of genius, Meyer is
quite right in saying that genius can be introduced into science only
by the creative force of the imagination. Modern science, however, can
not follow Mr. Meyer in these “fancies of genius,” for it is restricted
to objective observation and to actual knowledge.
The foregoing researches will bring the reader to the conviction that
_no psychological meaning can be attached to the word genius_. We can
make out what a poetic genius is, what a composer of genius is, what a
performer of genius is, what a military genius is, what a scientific
genius is, etc.; but to accept genius as a univocal term and attach
one psychological definition to it, to any good purpose, is not to be
done. Undoubtedly all men of genius have common traits; but they are
not traits characteristic of genius; they are such as are possessed by
other men, and more or less by all men. Indeed, in no case is there
anything in the mode of action of genius qualitatively different
from that of other men; there are only different degrees of the same
qualities. We can, for any psychical character, form an unbroken
series of instances from the grade met with in the average man up to
phenomenal genius, and every rung of the ladder will be occupied; so
that it is impossible to say where the line is to be drawn between
ordinary men and men of genius. In psychology every individual man is a
_species sui generis_. To attempt to separate men into disparate kinds,
as we do plants, would be a backward step in biology.
Chemists analyze different kinds of substances, and show that all
contain precisely the same elements; so that no two substances differ,
except in the proportions of their elementary constituents. It is
just as scientifically established that in all men precisely the
same psychical elements occur, and that these may exist in any one
proportion as well as in any other. Mood, fancy, intellectual function,
memory, ideation, apprehension, etc., are characters present in every
man, and into them psychological analysis dissects every man’s
faculties, whether he be a genius or whether he be an ordinary man.
The purpose of these researches and of the conclusions to which they
lead will become apparent in the following chapter. Psychiatrists
have of late been much interested in genius; but before I could
discuss the questions which have been mooted, it seemed incumbent upon
me to ascertain what is meant by genius. Was it a psychologically
definite condition, or was it a loose name for a promiscuous bundle of
phenomena? Having, in what precedes, expressed my opinion upon this, I
now proceed to the principal question.