THE GENIUS AND HIS ENVIRONMENT. 523 



our general scheme. But how great a variation ? and in what 

 directions ? — these are the questions. The great variations found 

 in the criminal by heredity, the insane, the idiotic, etc., we have 

 found excluded from society; so we may well ask why the genius 

 is not excluded also. If our determination of the limits within 

 which society decides who is to be excluded is correct, then the 

 genius must come within these limits. He can not escape them 

 and live socially. 



The directions in which the genius actually varies from the 

 average man are evident as a matter of fact. He is, first of all, 

 a man of great power of thought, of great constructive imagina- 

 tion, as the psychologists would say. So let us believe, first, that 

 a genius is a man who has, occasionally, greater thoughts than 

 other men have. Is this a reason for excluding him from so- 

 ciety ? Certainly not ; for by great thoughts we mean true 

 thoughts, thoughts which will work, thoughts which bring in 

 a new era of discovery of principles, or of their application. This 

 is just what all development depends upon, this attainment of 

 novelty, which is consistent with older knowledge and supple- 

 mentary to it. But suppose a man have thoughts which are not 

 true, which do not fit the topic of their application, which con- 

 tradict established knowledges, or which result in bizarre and 

 fanciful combinations of them ; to that man we deny the name 

 genius : he is a crank, an agitator, an anarchist, or what not. 

 The test, then, which we bring to bear upon the intellectual 

 variations which men show is that of truth, practical work- 

 ability — in short, to sum it up, '' fitness." Any thought, to live 

 and germinate, must be a fit thought. And the community's 

 sense of the fitness of the thought is their rule of judgment. 



Now, the way the community got this sense — that is the great 

 result we have reached above. Their sense of fitness is just what 

 I called above their judgment. As far, at least, as it relates to 

 matters of social import, it is of social origin. It reflects the out- 

 come of all social heredity, tradition, education. The sense of 

 social truth is their criterion of social thoughts, and unless the 

 social reformer's thought be in some way fit to go into the set- 

 ting thus made by earlier social development, he is not a genius 

 but a crank. 



I may best show the meaning of the claim that society makes 

 upon the genius by asking in how far in actual life he manages 

 to escape this account of himself to society. The facts are very 

 plain, and this is the class of facts which writers like Mr. Spencer 

 urge, as supplying an adequate rule for the application of the 

 principles of their social philosophy. The simple fact is, say they, 

 that without the consent of society the thoughts of your hero, 

 whether he be genius or fool, are practically valueless. The full- 



