By JAMES KERR. M. A.

We will now consider what genius is, and, more particularly, whether it is an inborn or an acquired power.

On this much debated question there are, so to speak, two schools of thought, diametrically opposed to one another, and each pushing its views to an extreme, as if there were no middle way in which the truth may be found.

On the one hand, genius is held to be a kind of inspiration, which accomplishes its object without training or effort. No culture is needed; no special education whatever. Shakspere warbled “his native wood-notes wild” spontaneously. The songs of Burns are the outpourings of untaught genius; and no culture or education could have improved them in the slightest degree. They are like the song of the lark, free and spontaneous. But all this, we know, is an ideal dream. Shakspere, besides reading the volume of human nature which lay open before him, and which he made all his own, read many books, and took much pains with his writings. And as for Burns, he received a training of no ordinary kind. To say nothing of the volume of human nature spread out before him, from his youth upward, and which, like Shakspere, he read with penetrating glance, he perused with critical care the literary compositions of others, by which his mind was disciplined and his taste refined.

How far the greatest writers are from being perfect in themselves, and how much they are indebted to other aids, let one say who is entitled to speak with authority on such a subject. The great German writer Goethe thus speaks: “How little are we by ourselves, and how little can we call our own! We must all accept and learn from those that went before us, and from those that live with us. Even the greatest genius would make but little way if he were to create and construct everything out of his own mind. The world influences us at each step. The artist who merely walks through a room and casts a glance at the pictures, goes away a wiser man, and has learnt something from others. My works spring not from my own wisdom alone, but from hundreds of things and persons that gave the matter for them. There were fools and sages, long-headed men and narrow-minded men, children, and young and old men and women, that told me how they felt and what they thought. I had but to hold out my hands and reap a harvest which others had sown for me.... Many a time I am told that such and such an artist owes all to himself. Sometimes I put up with it; but sometimes, too, I tell them that he has little reason to be proud of his master.”

But though the slightest reflection suffices to show that there can be no inborn genius which accomplishes its ends in full perfection without education or training of any kind, there will still remain among most of us a vague belief to the contrary. It is more congenial to the popular taste to imagine that genius is an immediate gift from heaven, owing all to its divine source, than that it requires in any degree to be aided and supplemented by less sublime means.

On the other hand, many contend that genius is wholly an acquired power, using such arguments as the following: It is constantly found that the habit of taking pains ever accompanies what we call genius. In actual fact the two are ever found united. Where the one is present the other is present also. Where the one is absent the other also is absent. May not the one be the cause of the other? Then look at the effect of education in improving our intellectual powers. Look at the effect of education and constant practice in making the mind alert, and capable of doing well whatever it does often! Nor must it be forgotten that it is not one part only of man’s education that is to be considered, but every part. Everything that happens to us, everything that affects us, from the first dawn of our existence, is part of our education. When the Queen and Prince Albert were taking counsel together about the education of their children, a sagacious friend whom they consulted, to their surprise insisted strongly on this point, that a child’s education begins “the first day of his life.” Impressions are made on the infant mind going farther back than we can trace them. All these impressions, all the influences that surround us, from our first entrance into life, are a part of our education.

All this may be true; but there is perhaps some danger of our attributing too much importance to education. There are natural differences of intellectual power among men altogether apart from the education they receive. Some minds are strong by nature and in their very organization, while others are uncommonly weak.

Some are naturally so stupid and weak in the head that nothing can be made of them, let their education be continued ever so long. One day, when calling at the Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh, I stood beside a man, who was depositing some money, whose intellect was of this low type. The teller asked him if he wished to lift the interest of the money lying to his credit for the past year. He just answered, “Let it lie.” Then the teller handed him a paper to sign. He said, “I canna do’t.” Feeling interested in the man, I advised him to go to a night school, at least to learn to sign his name. He replied, “I hae been at it four years, and I canna do’t.” Of course, of such a man nothing could be made. No amount of education could ever make him a genius, or even raise him above mediocrity in any branch of learning.

But if we take minds of a higher order, is it not possible that education acting upon them may be attended with happier results, and may ultimately produce that beautiful, that rich and rare type of mind which we call genius? Such was the opinion of Dr. Johnson. In his “Life of Cowley,” and with reference to the boyhood of the poet, Dr. Johnson says: “In the window of his mother’s apartment lay Spenser’s ‘Fairy Queen,’ in which he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remembered, and perhaps sometimes forgotten, produce that particular designation of mind, and propensity for some certain science or employment, which is commonly called genius. The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

Nor was this a mere passing thought with the great moralist; it was his confirmed belief. More than once we find the same idea repeated in his conversations. Thus, on one occasion, he is reported to have said: “No, sir, people are not born with a particular genius for particular employments or studies, for it would be like saying that a man could see a great way east, but could not west. It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called by the generality of mankind a particular genius.”

If Dr. Johnson’s view is correct, we ought surely to meet with far more men of genius in the world than we do! There is no want of such as possess “large general powers,” and yet men of genius are rare. They are like angel’s visits, few and far between.

Dr. Johnson’s argument has been repeated in every variety of form. One says genius is untiring patience. Another says it is a great capacity for taking trouble. Another says it is simply hard work. But again we may ask, If genius is what such writers represent it to be, why are not men of genius more frequently met with?

Nor can it be said their lot forbids or that opportunities are wanting. What with the multiplication of books, and the general extension of education among all classes, knowledge now unrolls her “ample page” to every eye, and yet our embryo Miltons remain mute and inglorious, and the fairest flowers of genius, with rare exceptions, are still born to blush unseen, and waste their sweetness on the desert air.

Such being the case, may we not reasonably suppose that something more is needed for the production of genius than “large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction?”

In one sense, indeed, Dr. Johnson’s views may be not far from the truth. If by the word genius we mean transcendent genius, such as is found in our Shaksperes and Miltons, his definition can not be considered as otherwise than defective. But we do not always confine the word to this strict meaning. In a looser sense there are various types of genius. One star differeth from another in glory. If only a few occupy the higher places, and reach, so to speak, the topmost round of the ladder, a vastly greater number—a multitude which no man can number—may occupy lower places, and cluster on the lower rounds, sighing in vain to reach the highest. If Dr. Johnson had only in view this lower type of genius, his definition may be considered as fairly correct. To attain this station little more may be needed than “large general powers,” supplemented by persevering effort.

But in order to reach the highest rank of transcendent genius something more is needed, and that something we may call aptness of nature. Bacon, after giving some examples of extraordinary skill acquired in bodily exercises, says: “All which examples do demonstrate how variously, and to how high points and degrees, the body of man may be, as it were, moulded and wrought. And if any man conceive that it is some secret propriety of nature that hath been in these persons which have attained to those points, and that it is not open for every man to do the like, though he had been put to it; for which cause such things come but very rarely to pass; it is true, no doubt, that some persons are apter than others; but so as the more aptness causeth perfection, but the less aptness doth not disable.”

Bacon here hits the exact point. And what he says applies not to the physical powers only, but to the intellectual powers also. A greater degree of “aptness” is necessary to “perfection,” to the highest excellence in any study or pursuit, though less “aptness” may lead to eminence of a high though less perfect kind.

We speak of Napoleon’s military tact or aptness which he had from nature, and which he so greatly improved by practice. He combined aptness of nature with persevering study, and it was the two combined which for so many years chained victory to his chariot wheels.

In like manner the great writer has a literary tact or aptness, the gift of nature, and which he greatly improves by study and practice. The two qualities of aptness and persevering study go hand in hand, and the one is as indispensable as the other in order to reach the highest excellence.

This leads us to what appears to be the best definition of genius that can be given. Genius of the highest type may be defined to be “a special aptitude developed by special culture.” Special aptitude is the germ of genius, and is the gift of nature. Special culture is the means by which this natural gift is fully developed and so vastly improved.

May we not suppose that the poet Burns had this definition in his eye when he said: “I have not a doubt but the knack, the aptitude to learn the muse’s trade, is a gift bestowed by him who forms the secret bias of the soul; but I as firmly believe that excellence in the profession is the fruit of industry, labor, attention, and pains!”