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ON GENIUS:

IN WHICH IT IS ATTEMPTED TO BE PROVED, that THERE IS NO MENTAL DISTINCTION AMONG

MANKIND.

THE human mind is never more profitably, and seldom so interestingly engaged, as when measuring its own powers; and yet there are few subjects which less frequently occupy its speculations. "Know thyself," so important a duty to man, considered as a moral and responsible agent, is almost equally important to him as a rational and intelligent being. Nor can it for a moment be believed, that the high capabilities of our nature were conferred upon us to remain unknown in their extent, any more than to be wasted in unimproved sterility. Indeed the successful cultivation of the mind depends upon a knowledge of its powers; whilst to fix its boundaries with accuracy, is to encourage rational industry, and repress extravagant hope. Even animals are prompted by instinct to try their powers. It forms a considerable part of their natural education; and hence, probably, results the almost unerring certainty

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with which they accomplish whatever they undertake. And how, otherwise, can man tell with what difficulties he may engage, or what objects he may attempt, who has not previously ascertained, by this mental investigation,

"Quid ferre recusent,

Quid valeant humeri."

We may, perhaps, find some apology for the general neglect of this intellectual self-examination in the commonly imagined difficulty of the subject, and the dim light which philosophy has thrown over it. "The eye sees not itself but by reflection from some other thing ;" and there are few objects in nature calculated to throw back the light of the mind upon itself. Matter is the subject of its habitual contemplation. We are, however, encouraged by that great metaphysician, Locke, to set our minds before us, and to examine them with the same care, and by the same means, as we do the world of external nature around us.

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In this essay I do not purpose to institute a complete survey of the mind, but shall confine enquiries simply to the existence, or non-existence of that power, property, or accident of it which is called Genius.

In all ages, and in all countries, some individuals have been distinguished above the rest of mankind by superior powers of intellect, as some spots on the globe have been more fertile than others; and both have been supposed to be the boon of nature:

whilst the labours of the one, like the spontaneous productions of the other, are believed to excel whatever cultivation can produce in ordinary soils, or in ordinary minds.

Without ranging over the vast page of History, in search of examples to illustrate this truth, it will suffice for my present purpose, to select a few instances from the records of ancient Greece, as no country affords so rich a choice; and the examples themselves are familiar to us all.

There Homer produced the most perfect Poem that the world has ever seen, without any aid from example, or any assistance from precept; and left Aristotle little else to do in composing his Poetics, and Longinus his treatise on the Sublime, than to reduce the structure of it to rules and principles. Like the works of nature, time and art can add nothing to it but what is superfluous, nor retrench any thing but what is necessary. Critics after Critics have exhausted themselves in praises of its beauties; whilst fresh beauties have been discovered by succeeding Critics, to keep alive the theme of admiration. Even the " genus irritabile vatum," labourers in the same field of exertion, have regarded it without envy, because it seems placed beyond competition; whilst all the rest of mankind, as with one voice, have hailed it as the offspring of Genius.

What Homer thus accomplished in Poetry, Phidias and Praxitiles effected in Sculpture; which

may not unaptly be called another pen of the imagination.

When Phidias bids the marble block disclose

Some form divine, where heaven and grace repose;
How charms the eye the half-existing stone!
Which, to have life, needs genial warmth alone.-
Lo! from the lip there steals a silent breath,
Almost too vital to pertain to death;

An eye that cheats the sense, and seems to roll,
Intelligent, conversing with the soul:
Whether, with softest touch of gentle love,
A Venus* bids the tender passions move;
To whom consenting hearts submissive kneel,
And, scarce idolatrous, confess they feel;
Or angry Jove*, with thunder in his hand,
Prepares to shake a discontented land;
Alike the magic marble—

Extract from an Address written by the Author of this Essay,
in the Year 1818.

In these works were displayed a fidelity of form, a grace of position, an indescribable "felicitas curiosa" of expression, a supernatural dignity of thought, almost materialized; which conferred an honour upon the age and country in which they were produced; objects of praise and wonder to all succeeding generations; and models of taste, beauty, truth, and sublimity, which it has been the highest ambition of mankind to imitate.

In Eloquence, Demosthenes seems to have exhausted language of all its most beautiful arrange

* The Venus Thalassia, and Jupiter Olympius of Phidias, are here alluded to.

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