Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 69.djvu/360

356 with everything else without losing himself in a mesh of particulars, there is not much danger of degeneracy. Even an occasional lapse may find adequate place and absolution in such a character.

But so soon as such lapses from the physical and social order become dominant notes in one's life, either as things which one constantly deplores, or as things which one vaunts and praises, then the individual is shocked and begins to lose his positive force in society.

The genius may be as healthy and normal as another man; yet many indeed there are who have produced true works of genius only to succumb afterwards before their ruling passions. As a mode of life that of the artist is hardly to be commended. It is an artifice, an excrescence. It leads to too much objectifying and too little practise. Few individuals can stand this.

On the other hand, the true artist in an ideal sense is at the same time the true man. For he should be strong both of body and of mind, with a wide experience and a deep insight, with an understanding so broad that nothing is foreign to him, yet in whom nothing dominates so as to protrude beyond its proper setting. Such a man is, indeed, inspired with intuitive insight, but he is rare, even impossible. Yet there have been those who possessed this attitude in all its completeness for a time, and while under its influence they have produced undying works. These are the men to whom we commonly attribute genius. The usual critical mistake in dealing with such personages is either to attempt to make their complete lives perfectly consistent with these higher moments, or else by pointing out their weaknesses to decry even their greatest works. Needless to say there is neither sense nor use in either method.

The strength of the genius is only the strength of the ordinary man slightly intensified; the weakness of the genius is just the weakness of the ordinary man, but more conspicuous by contrast. Psychologically it is not at all incomprehensible to conceive a man of alternate high and low moments, alternate strength and weakness. It would be well-nigh inconceivable that a man should be always the one or the other.

If consistency of character is less marked in the genius than in the ordinary man, it is this which constitutes his uniqueness among men and may even at times determine his genius. The genius is more than apt to be a poor citizen, yet we can tolerate him for his work and because his kind is exceptional and few in number. If we would understand his nature and his art we must study his life in detail, unbiased and with broad understanding, for we are dealing with one who runs the gamut of emotions in order that he may sublimate them all.