CHAPTER XXXI: On Genius [1]
What is properly denoted by the name genius is the predominant capacity for the kind of knowledge described in the two previous chapters, from which all genuine works of the arts, of poetry, and even of philosophy, spring. Accordingly, as this has for its object the (Platonic) Ideas, these being apprehended, however, not in the abstract but only in perception, the true nature of genius must lie in the completeness and energy of the knowledge of perception. In accordance with this, we hear described most decidedly as works of genius those which start from, and appeal to, perception, hence those of the plastic and pictorial arts, and then those of poetry which brings about its perceptions through the imagination. Here too the difference between genius and mere talent becomes marked. Talent is a merit to be found in the greater versatility and acuteness of discursive rather than of intuitive knowledge. The person endowed with talent thinks more rapidly and accurately than do the rest; on the other hand, the genius perceives a world different from them all, though only by looking more deeply into the world that lies before them also, since it presents itself in his mind more objectively, consequently more purely and distinctly.
By its destiny, the intellect is merely the medium of motives; and so it apprehends originally in things nothing but their relations to the will, the direct, the indirect, the possible. In the case of the animals, where it remains almost entirely at the direct relations, the matter is on that account most apparent. That which has no reference to their will does not exist for them. For this reason we occasionally see with surprise that even clever animals do not at all notice something conspicuous in itself; for instance, they express no surprise at obvious alterations in our person or environment. In the case of the normal person, the indirect, in fact the possible, relations to the will are added, and the sum of these constitutes the whole of useful knowledge; but even here knowledge remains confined to relations. Therefore an entirely pure and objective picture of things is not reached in the normal mind, because its power of perception at once becomes tired and inactive, as soon as this is not spurred on and set in motion by the will. For it has not enough energy to apprehend the world purely objectively from its own elasticity and without a purpose. On the other hand, where this happens, where the brain's power of forming representations has such a surplus that a pure, distinct, objective picture of the external world exhibits itself without a purpose as something useless for the intentions of the will, which is even disturbing in the higher degrees, and can even become injurious to them -- then there already exists at least the natural disposition for that abnormality. This is denoted by the name of genius, which indicates that something foreign to the will, Le., to the I or ego proper, a genius added from outside so to speak, seems to become active here. To speak without metaphor, however, genius consists in the knowing faculty having received a considerably more powerful development than is required by the service of the will, for which alone it originally came into being. Therefore, strictly speaking, physiology could to a certain extent class such a surplus of brain-activity, and with this of the brain itself, among the monstra per excessum, which, as we know, are co-ordinated by it with the monstra per defectum and the monstra per situm mutatum. [2] Genius, therefore, consists in an abnormal excess of intellect which can find its use only by being employed on the universal of existence. In this way it then applies itself to the service of the whole human race, just as does the normal intellect to that of the individual. To make the matter really intelligible, we might say that, if the normal person consists of two-thirds will and one-third intellect, the genius, on the contrary, has two-thirds intellect and one-third will. This could again be illustrated by a chemical simile; the base and the acid of a neutral salt are distinguished by the fact that in each of the two the radical has a ratio to oxygen which is the inverse of that in the other. Thus the base or the alkali is what it is because in it the radical predominates with reference to the oxygen, and the acid is what it is because in it the oxygen predominates. Now in just the same way are the normal person and the genius related as regards will and intellect. From this arises a fundamental difference between them, visible already in their whole nature and activity, but which really comes to light in their achievements. We might still add as a distinction that, whereas that total contrast between the chemical materials establishes the strongest affinity and attraction to each other, in the case of the human race it is rather the opposite that I is usually seen.
The first manifestation occasioned by such a surplus of the power I of knowledge shows itself for the most part in the really original and fundamentally essential knowledge, i.e., knowledge of perception, and I brings about the repetition of this in a picture or image; hence arise the painter and the sculptor. Accordingly, with these the path from I the apprehension of genius to the artistic production is the shortest; therefore the form in which genius and its activity are exhibited in I them is the simplest, and its description the easiest. Yet it is just here that the source is seen from which all genuine productions in I every art, even poetry and philosophy, have their origin, though in these cases the process is not so simple.
Let us here recall the result obtained in the first book, that all perception is intellectual, and not merely of the senses. If we now add to this the explanation given here, and at the same time fairly take into consideration that the philosophy of the eighteenth century denoted the perceiving faculty of knowledge by the name "lower powers of the soul," we shall not find it so utterly absurd, or so worthy of the bitter scorn with which Jean-Paul mentions it in his Vorschule der Aesthetik, that Adelung, having to speak the language of his time, placed genius in "a marked strength of the lower powers of the soul." However great the merits possessed by this admirable man's above-mentioned work, I must nevertheless remark that, wherever a theoretical discussion and instruction in general are the end in view, the method of presentation which indulges in displays of wit and strides along in mere similes cannot be appropriate.
But it is perception above all to which the real and true nature of things discloses and reveals itself, although still in a limited way. All concepts, all things that are thought, are indeed only abstractions, and consequently partial representations from perception, and have arisen merely through our thinking something away. All profound knowledge, even wisdom proper, is rooted in the perceptive apprehension of things. We have considered this fully in the supplements to the first book. A perceptive apprehension has always been the process of generation in which every genuine work of art, every immortal idea, received the spark of life. All original and primary thinking takes place figuratively. On the other hand, from concepts arise the works of mere talent, merely rational ideas, imitations, and generally everything calculated only for the present need and for contemporary events.
But if our perception were always tied to the real presence of things, its material would be entirely under the dominion of chance, which rarely produces things at the right time, seldom arranges them appropriately, and often presents them to us in very defective copies. For this reason imagination is needed, in order to complete, arrange, amplify, fix, retain, and repeat at pleasure all the significant pictures of life, according as the aims of a profoundly penetrating knowledge and of the significant work by which it is to be communicated may require. On this rests the high value of imagination as an indispensable instrument of genius. For only by virtue of imagination can genius present to itself each object or event in a vivid image, according to the requirements of the connexion of its painting, poetry, or thinking, and thus always draw fresh nourishment from the primary source of all knowledge, perception. The man gifted with imagination is able, so to speak, to call up spirits revealing to him at the right time truths that the bare reality of things exhibits only feebly, rarely, and often at the wrong time. Therefore the man without imagination is related to him as the mussel fastened to its rock, compelled to wait for what chance brings it, is to the freely moving or even winged animal. For such a man knows no other perception than the actual perception of the senses; until it comes, he nibbles at concepts and abstractions which are nevertheless only shells and husks, not the kernel of knowledge. He will never achieve anything great, unless it be in arithmetic and mathematics. The works of the plastic and pictorial arts and of poetry, likewise the achievements of mimicry, can also be regarded as the means by which those who have no imagination may make up for this defect as far as possible, and those gifted with imagination may facilitate the use of it.
Accordingly, although the peculiar and essential kind of knowledge of genius is that of perception, particular things do not by any means constitute its real object; this is rather the (Platonic) Ideas expressing themselves therein, as the apprehension of them was analysed in chapter 29. Always to see the universal in the particular is precisely the fundamental characteristic of genius, whereas the normal man recognizes in the particular only the particular as such; for only as such does it belong to reality, which alone has interest for him, has reference to his will. The degree in which everyone not so much conceives as actually perceives in the particular thing only the particular, or something more or less universal up to the most universal of the species, is the measure of his approach to genius. In accordance with this, the real object of genius is only the essential nature of things in general, the universal in them, the totality. The investigation of individual phenomena is the field of the talents, in the modern sciences, whose object in reality is always only the relations of things to one another.
What was shown at length in the previous chapter, namely that the apprehension of the Ideas is conditioned by the fact that the knower is the pure subject of knowledge, and that the will vanishes entirely from consciousness, is here present to our minds. The pleasure we enjoy in many of Goethe's songs which bring the landscape before our eyes, or in Jean-Paul's descriptions of nature, rests on our thus participating in the objectivity of those minds, that is to say, in the purity with which in them the world as representation had been separated from the world as will, and had been as it were entirely detached therefrom. The kind of knowledge of the genius is essentially purified of all willing and of references to the will; and it also follows from this that the works of genius do not result from intention or arbitrary choice, but that genius is here guided by a kind of instinctive necessity. What is called the awakening of genius, the hour of inspiration, the moment of rapture or exaltation, is nothing but the intellect's becoming free, when, relieved for a while from its service under the will, it does not sink into inactivity or apathy, but is active for a short time, entirely alone and of its own accord. The intellect is then of the greatest purity, and becomes the clear mirror of the world; for, wholly separated from its origin, that is, from the will, it is now the world as representation itself concentrated in one consciousness. At such moments is the soul of immortal works, so to speak, begotten. On the other hand, in the case of all intentional reflection the intellect is not free, for the will in fact guides it, and prescribes its theme.
The stamp of commonness, the expression of vulgarity, impressed on the great majority of faces, really consists in this, that there becomes visible in them the strict subordination of their knowing to their willing, the firm chain linking the two together, and the impossibility that follows from this of apprehending things save in reference to the will and its aims. On the other hand, the expression of genius, which constitutes the evident family likeness of all highly gifted men, lies in our distinctly reading in it the intellect's liberation, manumission, from the service of the will, the predominance of knowing over willing. Because all suffering proceeds from willing, while knowing on the other hand is in and by itself painless and serene, this gives to their lofty brows and to their clear, perceptive glance, which are not subject to the service of the will and its needs, the appearance of great, as it were supernatural, unearthly serenity. At times this breaks through, and is quite consistent with the melancholy of the other features of the face, especially the mouth; in this connexion it can be aptly described by the motto of Giordano Bruno: In tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis. [3]
The will that is the root of the intellect is opposed to every activity of the intellect which is directed to anything other than its own aims. Therefore the intellect is capable of a purely objective and profound apprehension of the external world only when it has detached itself, for a while at any rate, from this its root. So long as it still remains bound to the will, it is quite incapable of any activity from its own resources; it sleeps in stupor, whenever the will (the interest) does not awaken it and set it in motion. If this happens, however, it is then very suitable for recognizing the relations of things according to the interest of the will. This is done by the prudent mind that must also be always awakened, in other words, by a mind that is vividly aroused by willing; but, on this very account, it is incapable of comprehending the purely objective nature of things. For willing and aims make it so one-sided, that it sees in things only what refers to these, and the rest partly disappears, partly enters consciousness in an adulterated form. For example, a traveller who is anxious and in a hurry, will see the Rhine and its banks only as a dash or stroke, and the bridge over it only as a line intersecting that stroke. In the head of the man filled with his own aims, the world appears just as a beautiful landscape does on the plan of a battlefield. These, of course, are extremes taken for the sake of clarity; but even every slight excitement of the will will have as its consequence a slight, yet always analogous, falsification of knowledge. The world can appear in its true colour and form, in its complete and correct significance, only when the intellect, freed from willing, moves freely over objects, and yet is energetically active without being spurred on by the will. This is certainly contrary to the nature and destiny of the intellect; thus it is to a certain extent unnatural, and for this reason exceedingly rare. But it is precisely in this that the true nature of genius lies; and in this alone does that state occur in a high degree and for some time, whereas in the rest it appears only approximately and exceptionally. I take it in the sense here discussed, when Jean-Paul (Vorschule der Aesthetik, §12) puts the essence of genius in reflectiveness. Thus the normal person is immersed in the whirl and tumult of life, to which he belongs through his will; his intellect is filled with the things and events of life, but he does not in the least become aware of these things and of life in their objective significance; just as the merchant on the Amsterdam exchange hears and understands perfectly what his neighbour says, but does not hear at all the continual humming of the whole exchange, which is like the roaring of the sea, and which astonishes the distant observer. On the other hand, the intellect of the genius is detached from the will and so from the person, and what concerns these does not conceal from him the world and things themselves; on the contrary, he becomes distinctly conscious of them, and apprehends them in objective perception in and by themselves; in this sense he is reflective.
It is this reflectiveness that enables the painter to reproduce faithfully on canvas the nature he has before his eyes, and the poet accurately to call up again by means of abstract concepts the perceptive present by expressing it, and thus bringing it to distinct consciousness; likewise to express in words everything that others merely feel. The animal lives without any reflectiveness. It has consciousness, that is to say, it knows itself and its weal and woe, and in addition the objects that occasion these. Its knowledge, however, always remains subjective; it never becomes objective. Everything occurring therein seems to the animal to be a matter of course, and can therefore never become for it the matter to be dealt with (object of description) or the problem (object of meditation). Its consciousness is therefore entirely immanent. The consciousness of the common type of man is of course not of the same kind, but yet is of a kindred nature, since his apprehension of things and of the world is also chiefly subjective, and remains predominantly immanent. It apprehends the things in the world, but not the world; its own actions and sufferings, but not itself. Now as the distinctness of consciousness is enhanced in infinite gradations, reflectiveness appears more and more; in this way it gradually comes about that occasionally, though rarely and again with extremely different degrees of distinctness, the question passes through the mind like a flash: "What is all this?" or: "How is it really constituted?" If the first question attains to great distinctness and is continuously present, it will make the philosopher; and in just the same way the other question will make the artist or the poet. Therefore the high calling of these two has its root in the reflectiveness which springs primarily from the distinctness with which they are conscious of the world and of themselves, and thus come to reflect on these. But the whole process springs from the fact that, through its preponderance, the intellect frees itself for a time from the will to which it was originally subject.
These considerations concerning genius are connected as supplements to the exposition, contained in chapter 22, of the ever wider separation between the will and the intellect which is observable in the whole range of beings. This reaches its highest degree precisely in genius, where it attains to the complete detachment of the intellect from its root, the will, so that here the intellect becomes wholly free, whereby the world as representation first of all attains to complete objectification.
Now a few more remarks concerning the individuality of genius. According to Cicero (Tusc., I, 33), Aristotle already remarked omnes ingeniosos melancholicos esse; [4] this undoubtedly refers to the passage in Aristotle's Problemata, 30, 1. Goethe also says:
My poetic fire was very low
So long as I encountered good;
Whereas it was all aflame,
When I fled from imminent evil.
The delicate verse like a rainbow
Is drawn only on a dark ground,
Hence the poet's genius relishes
The element of melancholy.
This is explained by the fact that, as the will constantly reasserts its original mastery over the intellect, the latter withdraws more easily from such mastery in unfavourable personal circumstances, because it readily turns from adverse circumstances in order to divert itself to a certain extent. It then directs itself with all the greater energy to the foreign external world, and thus more easily becomes purely objective. Favourable personal circumstances have the opposite effect. On the whole, however, the melancholy accompanying genius rests on the fact that, the brighter the intellect enlightening the will-to-live, the more distinctly does it perceive the wretchedness of its condition. The gloomy disposition of highly gifted minds, so frequently observed, has its emblem in Mont Blanc, whose summit is often hidden in the clouds. But when on occasion, especially in the early morning, the veil of clouds is rent, and the mountain, red in the sunlight, looks down on Chamonix from its celestial height above the clouds, it is then a sight at which the heart of everyone is most deeply stirred. So also does the genius, who is often melancholy, display at times that characteristic serenity already described, which is possible in him alone, and springs from the most perfect objectivity of the mind. It floats like a radiant gleam of light on his lofty brow; in tristitia hilaris, in hilaritate tristis. [5]
All bunglers are what they are ultimately because their intellect, still too firmly tied to the will, becomes active only under the will's spur, and therefore remains entirely in its service. Accordingly they are capable of none other than personal aims. In keeping with this they produce bad paintings, dull and spiritless poems, shallow, absurd, and very often dishonest philosophemes, when, that is, it is of importance to them to recommend themselves to higher authorities through pious dishonesty. Thus all their thoughts and actions are personal; and so they succeed at most in appropriating as mannerisms what is external, accidental, and arbitrary in the genuine works of others. They seize the shell instead of the kernel, and yet imagine they have reached everything, indeed have surpassed those works. If the failure becomes obvious, many hope nevertheless to attain success in the end through their good will. But it is precisely this good will that makes it impossible, since this leads only to personal ends; with these, however, neither art, nor poetry, nor philosophy can ever be taken seriously. Therefore the expression that they stand in their own light is quite peculiarly applicable to such men. They have no idea that it is only the intellect, torn from the mastery of the will and from all its projects and thus freely active, that makes one capable of genuine productions, because it alone imparts true seriousness; and for them this is a good thing, otherwise they would jump into the water. In morality the good will is everything, but in art it is nothing; for, as the word (Kunst) already indicates, ability (Konnen) alone is of any consequence. Ultimately it is all a question of where the man's real seriousness is to be found. In the case of almost all, it is to be found exclusively in their own wellbeing and that of their families. They are therefore in a position to promote this and nothing else, since no resolution, no arbitrary and intentional effort, imparts, or makes up for, or more correctly furnishes, true, profound seriousness proper. For it always remains where nature has placed it; but without it everything can be only half performed. For the same reason, therefore, individuals of genius often give very little attention to their own welfare. Just as a leaden pendulum always brings a body back into the position required by the centre of gravity determined by such a pendulum, so man's true seriousness always draws the force and attention of his intellect back to where it lies; everything else is pursued by him without true seriousness. Therefore only extremely rare and abnormal men, whose true seriousness lies not in the personal and practical, but in the objective and theoretical, are in a position to apprehend the essential element of things and of the world, and hence the highest truths, and in some way to reproduce them. For such a seriousness of the individual, falling outside him in the objective, is something foreign to human nature, something unnatural, properly speaking supernatural. But only through it is a man great; and accordingly, what he produces or creates is then ascribed to a genius different from him, which takes possession of him. For such a man, his painting, poetry, or thinking is an end; for the other it is a means. These others look in it for their own interest and, as a rule, know quite well how to promote it, for they insinuate themselves into the favour of contemporaries, and are ready to serve their wants and whims. They therefore usually live in happy circumstances; whereas the genius often exists under very wretched conditions. For he sacrifices his personal welfare to the objective end; he simply cannot do otherwise, because there lies his seriousness. They act conversely; therefore they are small, but he is great. His work, accordingly, is for all times and ages, but its recognition usually begins only with posterity; they live and die with their time. In general, he alone is great who in his work, be it practical or theoretical, seeks not his own interest, but pursues only an objective end. However, he is such even when in the practical this aim or end is misunderstood, and even when, in consequence of this, it should be a crime. What makes him great in all circumstances is the fact that he does not seek himself and his own interest. On the other hand, all action or effort directed to personal ends or aims is small, since he who is moved to activity in this way knows and finds himself only in his own evanescent and trifling person. On the other hand, he who is great recognizes himself in all and thus in the whole; he does not live, like others, only in the microcosm, but still more in the macrocosm. For this reason, the whole concerns him, and he tries to grasp it, in order to present it, or explain it, or act on it in practice. For to him it is not strange; he feels that it concerns him. On account of this extension of his sphere, he is called great. Accordingly, that sublime predicate belongs by right only to the true hero in any sense and to the genius; it signifies that, contrary to human nature, they have not sought their own interest, and have lived not for themselves, but for all. Now just as the great majority must obviously be always small, and can never be great, the converse is not possible, namely that a person should be great in every way, that is to say, constantly and at every moment:
For man is made of common clay,
And custom he calls his nurse.
-- [Schiller]
Thus every great man must nevertheless often be only the individual, have in view only himself; and this means he must be small. On this rests the very true remark that no man is a hero to his valet, not on the fact that the valet does not know how to appreciate the hero; Goethe in the Elective Affinities (vol. II, chap. 5) serves this up as an idea that occurred to Ottilie.
Genius is its own reward; for the best that one is, one must necessarily be for oneself. "Whoever is born with a talent, to a talent, finds his fairest existence therein," says Goethe. When we look back at a great man of former times, we do not think, "How lucky he is to be still admired by us all!" but, "How lucky he must have been in the immediate enjoyment of a mind, with the remaining traces of which centuries regale themselves!" Not in fame, but in that by which it is attained, lies the value, and in the production of immortal children lies the pleasure. Therefore those who attempt to demonstrate the vanity of posthumous fame from the fact that he who acquires it has no experience of it, is to be compared to the wiseacre who very sagely tried to demonstrate the utter uselessness of a heap of oyster-shells to a man casting envious glances at one in his neighbour's yard.
In accordance with the description we have given of the true nature of genius, it is contrary to nature in so far as it consists in the intellect, whose real destiny is the service of the will, emancipating itself from that service in order to be active on its own account. Accordingly, genius is an intellect that has become unfaithful to its destiny; on this rest the disadvantages connected with it. We now prepare the way for a consideration of these by comparing genius with the less decided preponderance of the intellect.