THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY2 The Lives and Opinions

THE STORY OF PHILOSOPHY
2. GEXIUS
The lowest
Genius is the highest form of this will-less knowledge.
forms of life are entirely made up of will, without knowledge; man in
general is mostly will and little knowledge; genius is mostly knowledge
and little will "Genius consists in this, that the knowing faculty has
received a considerably greater development than the service of the will
demands." 110 This involves some passage
of force out of reproductive into
intellectual activity. "The fundamental condition of is genius an
abnormal predominance of sensibility and irritability over reproductive
power." 111 Hence the enmity between genius and woman, who represents
of the intellect to the will to live and
reproduction and the subjugation
make live. "Women may have great talent, but no genius,
for they always
remain subjective"; 112 with them everything is personal, and is viewed
as a means to personal
ends. On the other hand,
genius is simply the completest objectivity,!, e., the objective tendency
of the mind. . . . Genius is the power of leaving one's own interests, wishes
and aims entirely out of sight, of entirely renouncing one's own personality
for a time, so as to remain pure knowing subject, clear vision of the world.
that in it
. . , Therefore the expression of genius in a face consists in this,
a decided predominance of knowledge over will is visible. In ordinary
countenances there is a predominant expression of will, and we see that
knowledge only comes into activity under the impulse of the will, and is
directed merely by motives of personal interest and advantage. 113
Freed from will, the intellect can see the object as it is; "genius holds
up to us the magic glass in which all that is essential and significant appears
to us collected and placed in the clearest light, and what is accidental
and is foreign
left out" 11*
Thought pierces through passion as
sunlight pours through a cloud, and reveals the heart of things; it goes
behind the individual and particular to the "Platonic Idea" or universal
essence of which it is a form just as the painter sees, in the person
whom he paints, not merely the individual character and feature, but
some universal quality and permanent reality for whose unveiling the
individual is only a symbol and a means. The secret of genius, then, lies
in the clear and impartial perception of the objective, the essential, and
the universal.
It is this removal of the personal equation which leaves the genius so
maladapted in the world of will-f ul, practical, personal activity. By seeing
so far he does not see what is near; he is imprudent and "queer"; and
while his vision is hitched to a star he falls into a well. Hence, partly, the
159.
240, 243. **I,S*i.