THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



In other words, such a mind is essentially synthetic. 

 It tends to be interested in noting resemblances be- 

 tween unlike phenomena. Reasoning from analogy, 

 it passes swiftly from the known to the unknown and 

 draws logical inferences that are so near the truth as 

 to seem like inspirations. 



But in reality such reasonings are only logical guesses. 

 The more comprehensive and the better balanced the 

 mind, the more likely are the guesses to prove true ; but 

 at best they can never rise above the plane of specula- 

 tion. The epoch-making thoughts of the world, the 

 time-defying images, are developed and worked out 

 along the same lines that the brain of the veriest plodder 

 follows in its daily humdrum tasks. 



If it were otherwise; if genius cut free from the 

 mental processes of mediocrity, we could not follow it; 

 its conceptions would be to us but simple madness, 

 absolute incoherence. But as it is, the greatest mind 

 sees but a little farther than its fellows into the darkness 

 beyond the bounds of knowledge. The revolutioniz- 

 ing idea is but a step away from hosts of ideas that have 

 failed to revolutionize. The aggregate mind must be 

 prepared to follow closely or even genius cannot lead. 

 Indeed, the greatest genius is only the best exponent of 

 his time. Homer is Homer because the Epic was the 

 natural voice of his age. 



Consider in this connection the most revolutionary 

 thought of our own time. It is the idea of evolution. 

 Who can say that word and not think of Darwin? 

 Yet Darwin himself would have been the last to claim 

 that he originated the idea of evolution. The idea was 



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