228 ROUGH WAYS MADE SMOOTH. 



been freed for nobler work, to which their powers have 

 specially fitted them. But we are apt to forget that for each 

 such case there must be many instances in which no fortunate 

 chance has intervened. The theory that genius ////make its 

 way, despite all obstacles, is like the popular notion that 

 1 murder will out/ and other such fancies. We note when 

 events happen which favour such notions, but we not only 

 do not note in the very nature of things it is impossible 

 that we should have the chance of noting cases unfavour- 

 able to a notion which, after all, is but a part of the general 

 and altogether erroneous idea that what we think ought to 

 be, will be. That among millions of men in a civilised 

 community, trained under multitudinous conditions, foi 

 diverse professions, trades, and so forth, exposed to many 

 vicissitudes of fortune, good and bad, there should be men 

 from time to time 



Who break their birth's invidious bar, 

 And grasp the skirts of happy chance, 

 And breast the blows of circumstance, 



And grapple with their evil star, 



is no truer proof of the general theory that genius will make 

 its mark, despite circumstance, than is the occasional occur- 

 rence of strange instances in which murder has been 

 detected despite seemingly perfect precautions. 



It must, however, be in a general sense admitted that 

 mental powers, like bodily powers, are inherited. If the 

 ancestry of men of genius could be traced, we should in 

 each case probably find enough, in the history of some line 

 at least along which descent could be traced, to account for 

 the possession of special powers, and enough in the history 

 of that and other lines of descent to account for the other 

 qualities or characteristics which, combined with those 

 special powers, gave to the man's whole nature the capacity 

 by which he was enabled to stand above the average level of 

 his fellow-men. We might, with knowledge at once wider 

 and deeper than we actually possess of the various families 



