80 The Higher Usefulness of Science 



a sort of accident or artifact, produced by their par- 

 ticular age and environment acting on a mere sub- 

 stratum of physical genesis and heredity. The other 

 looks upon them as special acts of an over-ruling 

 Providence, as strictly human beings perhaps but yet 

 sent at special times because of special needs calling 

 for special talents. 



From the facts we have been seeing and the reason- 

 ing we have been going through, it will be easy to per- 

 ceive our preparedness to rebut both these forms of 

 denial that geniuses are natural products. If one will 

 base his inquiries into and his speculating about the 

 production of Napoleon on the sum total of positive 

 knowledge of the man himself and the whole set of 

 environic conditions which acted upon him, rather than 

 upon one's general knowledge and doctrinal predilec- 

 tions about heredity, variation, environmental influ- 

 ence, and so forth, he will, I think, come into a full- 

 fledged sense of certitude on two points, or rather on 

 one point viewed from two directions; namely, that 

 Napoleon was in the strictest sense a natural being, 

 i. e., a natural product; and that the fact of his per- 

 sonal and public life is proof of nature's generative 

 ability for the military type of the human species. 



Contention for the naturalness of the completed 

 lives and labors of geniuses may on first impression 

 seem rather far-fetched, but may be helped toward nor- 

 mality by a remark which has considerable expository 

 importance. That remark concerns the question of 



