IDIOSYNCRASY. 399 



lines. After all, we common mortals, if we practiced all our lifetime, 

 could not turn out as good a sketch as Gianbattista's first water-color. 



In the same way, in a Greece where every god had his temple, 

 every temple its statue, every house its shrine, and every shrine its 

 little deities — in a Greece where marble was what brick is in London, 

 and where artistic stone-cutters were as common as carpenters here — 

 we can understand why a Phidias was a possible product, and why a 

 Phidias-admiring public was a foregone conclusion. So, too, we can 

 understand why among ourselves so many artists should come from 

 the only real native schools of decorative handicraft — the workshops 

 of Birmingham, Manchester, and London. We can see why musical 

 talent should arise most in Germany and Italy, or among the Jews, 

 or in our own case among the Welsh and in the cathedral towns. We 

 can see why a Watt is not born in the Tyrol ; why a Stephenson does 

 not come from Dolgelly ; why America produces more Edisons, and 

 Bells, and Morses, and Fultons than she produces Schillers, or Mozarts, 

 or Michael Angelos. The convergences which go to produce a great 

 mechanician are more frequent in countries where mechanics are much 

 practiced than they are in the Western Hebrides or in the British West 

 Indies. The Quakers do not turn out many great generals, and the 

 kings of Dahomey are not likely to beget distinguished philanthropists. 



Of course, there are some hard cases to understand — hard for the 

 most part, I believe, because we do not know enough about the vari- 

 ous convergent lines which have gone to produce the particular phe- 

 nomenon. Here and there, a great man seems to spring suddenly and 

 unexpectedly from the dead level of absolute mediocrity. But then, 

 we do not know how much mediocrity in different lines may have 

 gone to make up his complex individuality ; and we do not know how 

 much of what seems mediocrity may really have been fairly high tal- 

 ent. So many men are never discovered. Let me take a few slight 

 examples from our own time, which may help to illustrate the slight- 

 ness of the chances that make all the difference in our superficial judg- 

 ments ; and, if I take them from very recent cases, I think the readers 

 of " Mind " will not misunderstand my object ; for it is almost impos- 

 sible to recover the facts from remoter periods. 



Carlyle, in spite of his spleen, was no bad judge of intelligence ; 

 and Carlyle thought Erasmus Darwin, the younger, an abler man than 

 his brother Charles, the author of " The Origin of Species." Probably 

 nobody else would agree with Carlyle ; people seldom do ; but at any 

 rate it is clear that Erasmus Darwin must have been a man very high 

 above the average in intellect, doubtless inheriting the same general 

 tendencies which are inherent in the whole of that distinguished fam- 

 ily. Yet, if it had not been for his brother, probably the world at 

 large would never have heard of him. Again, supposing he had had 

 no brothei", but had married and had children, all of whom achieved 

 celebrity, we might have inquired in vain whence these children came 



