58 PROGRESS OF SCIENCE IN THE CENTURY. 



deep reason for this. Perhaps the chief reason is 

 the limitation of human faculty which so readily 

 leads to a disregard of what we have called the Three 

 Unities. The limitation is partly the result of mis- 

 education, the persistent tendency to fill the mind 

 instead of evolving it, to set it in grooves instead of 

 allowing it free scope. It is also due to the pressure 

 of social conventions, which nip the buds of individu- 

 ality, frown down idiosyncrasies, and allow no elbow 

 ro'om {Ahdndei'ungsspielrawn) to novel variations, 

 which are, after all, the potentialities of progress. It 

 is also due to the pressure of the struggle for exist- 

 ence, Which forces the young enquirer to premature 

 specialism, that he may thereby make a name and a 

 position for himself. '' Er will sich nahren. Kinder 

 zeugen/^ and so on. If we may define a genius as 

 one who has by inheritance and appropriate culture 

 an unusual complement of powers all in strong devel- 

 opment, — poetic as well as scientific, or practical as 

 well as philosophical, or otherwise, — there are many 

 facts within our experience which suggest the sad 

 conclusion that for one genius who makes himself 

 felt, there are perhaps nine whose light is hidden 

 under a bushel. It is for this reason that many who 

 are under no delusion as to the equality of men or the 

 triumph of democracy would favour every measure 

 which opens the portals of learning — let us say, the 

 gates of our Universities — more widely to all sorts 

 and conditions of men.* 



There remains, however, another reason, that when 

 the scientific student, who has retained an open and 

 sympathetic mind, finds himself in his maturity more 

 than ever aware of the need for correlation in knowl- 



* This is now pecuniarily possible in Scotland, thanks to 

 Mr. Carnegie's magnificent gift. 



