ON HEREDITY. 97 



developed to a slighter extent in a single individual. In the 

 Feuerbach family we find a distinguished jurist, a remarkable philo- 

 sopher, and a highly-talented artist ; and among the Mendelssohns 

 a philosopher as well as a musician. 



The sudden and yet widespread appearance of a particular talent 

 in correspondence with the general intellectual excitement of a 

 certain epoch points in the same direction. How many poets arose 

 in Germany during the period of sentiment which marked the 

 close of the last century, and how completely all poetic gifts seem 

 to have disappeared during the Thirty Years' War. How numerous 

 were the philosophers that appeared in the epoch which succeeded 

 Kant ; while all philosophic talent seemed to have deserted the 

 German nation during the sway of the antagonistic ' exact science,' 

 with its contempt for speculation. 



Wherever academies are founded, there the Schwanthalers, 

 Defreggers, and Lenbachs emerge from the masses which had 

 shown no sign of artistic endowment through long periods of time *. 

 At the present day there are many men of science who, had they 

 lived at the time of Burger, Uhland, or Schelling, would probably 

 have been poets or philosophers. And the man of science also can- 

 not dispense with that mental disposition directed in a certain course, 

 which we call talent, although the specific part of it may not be 

 so obvious : we may, indeed, go further, and maintain that the 

 Physicist and the Chemist are characterized by a combination of 

 mental dispositions which differ from those of the Botanist and the 

 Zoologist. Nevertheless, a man is not born a physicist or a 

 botanist, and in most cases chance alone determines whether his 

 endowments are developed in either direction. 



Lessing has asked whether Raphael would have been a less 

 distinguished artist had he been born without hands: w T e might 

 also enquire whether he might not have been as great a musician 

 as he was painter if, instead of living during the historical high- 

 water mark of painting, he had lived, under favourable personal 

 influences, at the time of highly-developed and widespread musical 

 genius. A great artist is always a great man, and if he finds the 

 outlet for his talent closed on one side, he forces his way through 

 on the other. 



From all these examples I wish to show that, in my opinion, 



[* The author refers to the Academy of Arts at Munich. S. S.] 

 H 



