Talent sees life as it is, and so describes it, if
it ventures into the domain of literature. Genius sees life as it is
capable of being, and hence comes poetry and romance, depicting heroes
and heroines, monsters and fiends, types rather than representatives of
the human race. Talent perceives only the actualities of things, Genius
their possibilities. Talent is content with things as they are, while
Genius is ever striving to bring out latent capacities in whatever it
deals with. If true to its higher impulses, Genius is ever striving to
come nearer "the first good, first perfect, and first fair"; if false,
it degrades and deforms everything it touches.
Mankind differ from each other in degree, but not in kind. By his power
of thinking, a man has talent; by his power of imagining, genius.
Quick-wittedness is genius in its lowest form,--genius applied to
material life in its daily ongoings. The power for resource in
emergencies is genius in a higher form. Invention--the putting together
with an adequate purpose two things or ideas that never went together
before--is genius in another form.
Admitting that men differ from each other, not in kind, but in degree,
the question arises, Are all men capable of an equal degree of
development? This may best be answered by comparison. All men are alike
in the general conformation of their bodies; all have the same number of
physical organs, designed for the same purposes.
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