GENIUS AND TALENT. 355 



not mean merely that Geikie's work is fuller and more all-sided 

 than Lyell's ; the growth of the science and the accumulation of 

 materials would alone suffice amjjly to account for that. But the 

 lucid, orderly, and masterly arrangement, the just sense of method 

 and proportion, the logical even development of the subject, the 

 judicial temper, the cosmic vision, the rare combination of pro- 

 found depth with perspicuous clearness, all alike place Geikie's 

 remarkable book on a far higher level than his famous predeces- 

 sor's. Yet I do not suj^pose Geikie's name will ever become as 

 popularly celebrated as Lyell's. The lesser man happened upon 

 the apter moment : he did fairly well the task he had it in hand 

 to do ; and the crisis itself more than sufficed to make him and his 

 work conspicuous forever. 



Genius, then, I humbly hold, differs from " mere talent " only 

 in one or other out of three particulars : either it is talent of a 

 higher order, backed up by industry ; or it is the same talent, 

 made notable by opportunity ; or it is talent, often of a low 

 grade, redeemed by exceptional originality, or combined with 

 some piquant and arresting touch of quaintness, oddity, or it 

 may even be grotesque deformity. 



This is a democratic age — an age of socialism, of co-operation, 

 of the revolt of the masses against the few and the privileged. 

 We have found out in our own time that all wealth is the creation 

 of the many : that Rome was not built in a day ; that the rail- 

 ways, roads, canals, rivers, mines, factories, warehouses, machines, 

 and towns of modern England, were slowly exploited by the con- 

 tinuous labor of thousands upon thousands of skilled workmen. 

 We have found out that generation after generation has helped 

 to build up our cathedrals and castles, our mills and looms, our 

 ships and steamers, our commerce and manufactures. We know 

 that the electric telegraph goes back at least to Gilbert's research- 

 es into magnetism in Queen Elizabeth's days ; that the steam- 

 engine goes back to the Marquis of Worcester in Charles the Sec- 

 ond's reign ; that ironclads and revolvers are not things of yester- 

 day ; that every art and every invention, though it may have its 

 own eponym in modern times, is the joint creation of innumerable 

 nameless and successive workers through a hundred generations. 

 The Great Man theory has broken down, and has been replaced 

 by a belief in Great Movements. I wish here to reclaim in the 

 same way on behalf of the wider democracy of talent as against 

 the exclusive oligarchy of genius. The language, the vocabulary, 

 the idiom, the eloquence, the thought of every age is molded by 

 a thousand unknown speakers and writers who each contributes 

 his own part to the grand total of the literature of the day. From 

 the lowest to the highest the gradation is regular, even, and con- 

 tinuous : there is no break ; there is no gulf ; there is no isolated 



