466 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



genious writer has tried to show that the maladies of genius have 

 their main source in dyspepsia.* No Englishman, in thinking of this 

 question, can fail to recollect that the three of his countrywomen who 

 have given most distinct proof of creative power Charlotte Bronte, 

 Mrs. Browning, and George Eliot were hampered with a physical 

 frame pitiably unequal to support the cerebral superstructure.! 



Coming now to the moral defense, the thought at once suggests 

 itself that, according to the testimony of more than one writer, genius 

 consists in preternatural force of will more than in anything else. It 

 is, we are told, only the man with an infinite capacity to take pains 

 who is truly great. The prolonged, intense concentration of mind 

 which precedes the final achievement is a severe exertion and striking 

 manifestation of will. 



At the same time, a moment's thought will show us that this pa- 

 tient mental incubation is no proof of the higher qualities of will and 

 moral character. J The appropriateness of the old way of speaking of 

 creative inspiration as a possession is seen in the fact that the will has 

 little to do with bringing on the condition. " The author," said Lord 

 Beaconsfield, on one occasion, " is a being with a predisposition which 

 with him is irresistible, a bent which he can not in any way avoid, 

 whether it drags him to the abstruse researches of erudition, or induces 

 him to mount into the feverish and turbulent atmosphere of imagina- 

 tion." This sense of a quasi-exterior pressure and compulsion is 

 attested by more than one child of genius. In some cases, more par- 

 ticularly, perhaps, among " tone-poets," we find this mastery of the 

 individual mind by the creative impulse assuming the striking form of 

 a sudden abstraction of the thoughts from the surroundings of the 

 moment. And, throughout the whole of the creative process, the will, 

 though, as we have seen, exercised in a peculiarly severe effort, is not 

 exercised fully and in its highest form. There is no deliberate choice 

 of activity here. The man does not feel free to stop or to go on. On 

 the contrary, the will is in this case pressed into the service of the par- 

 ticular emotion that strives for utterance, the particular artistic impulse 

 that is irresistibly bent on self-realization. There is nothing here of 

 the higher moral effort of will, in choosing what w r e are not at the 



* R. R. Madden, "On the Infirmities of Genius." 



f Schopenhauer, in the passages of his work already referred to, discusses in a cu- 

 rious and characteristic way the physical basis of genius. Moreau quotes approvingly 

 the remark of Lccanus, that men of the finest genius were " of a feeble constitution and 

 often infirm." On the other hand, Mr. Galton, in his " Hereditary Genius," contends 

 that the heroes of history are at least up to the average of men in physical strength. It 

 is to be remarked, however, that the reference to university statistics is apt to mislead 

 here. Senior wranglers can hardly be taken as representative of creative power. 



\ It is evident that only speculative, as distinguished from practical genius, is here 

 referred to. The man of great constructive powers in affairs the statesman, general, 

 and so forth requires will in the higher and fuller sense. And it has been remarked 

 that these organizing intellects rarely exhibit pathological symptoms. 



