ON BRAIN-FORCING. 219 



he may have any measure of each of these states in various propor- 

 tions. 



Goethe, whose life and character are so well known to us, seems to 

 have possessed all these faculties in marvelous combination. His in- 

 sight or brain quality was vast and penetrating ; his stores of nervous 

 energy were inexhaustible, burning with steadfast heat or flaming in 

 passion ; his faculties were infinite in variety, and they were under a 

 control rarely in the world's history known to have harmonized endow- 

 ments so manifold and so potent. To take in like manner a few more 

 names by way of illustration, we may consider Lord Byron as one in 

 whom quality and tension of nervous force were more remarkable than 

 quantity, though this in him was not inconsiderable, and in whom 

 variety was less manifest and control defective. Schiller, again, had 

 high quality, tension, and control, but was defective in endurance and 

 in variety. In Keats we recognize quality, tension, and variety, in high 

 degrees ; control in less measure, and quantity in defect. His brain, 

 inconstant in current, was worn out ere it was built up. Macaulay 

 was, if the word be permitted to me, a remarkable " all-round " man, 

 and presented an equable development of quality, quantity, tension, 

 variety, and control, though of course he is not to be compared to the 

 former examples in quality. Brougham had still less quality, but 

 quantity in overflow and at high tension. Sir James Simpson, again, 

 always seemed to me a good instance of a man lacking the higher 

 complexities of brain, but abounding in mental force at high tension. 

 In him also variety was striking, more striking than control. One of 

 the most vivid instances of nervous energy at high tension to be found 

 in modern history is perhaps Admiral Korniloff, as described by Mr. 

 Kinglake, in the fourth volume of the cabinet edition of his " History 

 of the Crimean War " (page 108). He says of Korniloff: 



" It can hardly be shown that this chief was gifted with original genius, still 

 less with piercing intellect ; nor was Korniloff to be called precisely an enthu- 

 siast. Our knowledge of Korniloff must rest upon a perception of what people 

 did when they felt the impulsion he gave. At a time when there seemed to be 

 room but for despair and confusion, he took that ascendant which enabled him 

 to bring the whole people in this place inhabitants, soldiers, sailors to his 

 own heroic resolve. In a garrison town of an empire which had carried the 

 mania of military organization to the most preposterous lengths, all those strait- 

 ened notions of rank and seniority, and, in short, the whole network of the 

 formalisms which might have been expected to hinder his command, flew away 

 like chaff at the winnowing. By the fire of his spirit there was roused so great 

 an energy on the part of thousands of men as has hardly been known in these 

 times ; and he so put his people in heart, that not only the depression created 

 by defeat, but the sense of being abandoned and left for sacrifice by the evading 

 army, was succeeded by a quick growth of warlike pride, by a wholesome ardor 

 for the fight, by an orderly, joyous activity." 



We may compare with this the description by the same fine hand 

 of General Todleben, in whom quality and quantity of brain, variety of 



