atrocities that have happened in the world.  Thus the race has proved that it appreciates the value of these things, and at the same time it can form a correct view of special achievements or estimate signs of judgment and intelligence.  When this takes place amongst those who belong to the great multitude, it is by a kind of inspiration.  Sometimes a correct opinion will be formed by the multitude itself; but this is only when the chorus of praise has grown full and complete.  It is then like the sound of untrained voices; where there are enough of them, it is always harmonious.

Those who emerge from the multitude, those who are called men of genius, are merely the lucida intervalla of the whole human race.  They achieve that which others could not possibly achieve.  Their originality is so great that not only is their divergence from others obvious, but their individuality is expressed with such force, that all the men of genius who have ever existed show, every one of them, peculiarities of character and mind; so that the gift of his works is one which he alone of all men could ever have presented to the world.  This is what makes that simile of Ariosto’s so true and so justly celebrated:  Natura lo fece e poi ruppe lo stampo. After Nature stamps a man of genius, she breaks the die.

But there is always a limit to human capacity; and no one can be a great genius without having some decidedly weak side, it may even be, some intellectual narrowness.  In other words, there will foe some faculty in which he is now and then inferior to men of moderate endowments.  It will be a faculty which, if strong, might have been an obstacle to the exercise of the qualities in which he excels.  What this weak point is, it will always be hard to define with any accuracy even in a given case.  It may be better expressed indirectly; thus Plato’s weak point is exactly that in which Aristotle is strong, and vice versa; and so, too, Kant is deficient just where Goethe is great.

Now, mankind is fond of venerating something; but its veneration is generally directed to the wrong object, and it remains so directed until posterity comes to set it right.  But the educated public is no sooner set right in this, than the honor which is due to genius degenerates; just as the honor which the faithful pay to their saints easily passes into a frivolous worship of relics.  Thousands of Christians adore the relics of a saint whose life and doctrine are unknown to them; and the religion of thousands of Buddhists lies more in veneration of the Holy Tooth or some such object, or the vessel that contains it, or the Holy Bowl, or the fossil footstep, or the Holy Tree which Buddha planted, than in the thorough knowledge and faithful practice of his high teaching.  Petrarch’s house in Arqua; Tasso’s supposed prison in Ferrara; Shakespeare’s house in Stratford, with his chair; Goethe’s house in Weimar, with its furniture; Kant’s old hat; the autographs of great men; these things are gaped at with interest and awe by many who have never read their works.  They cannot do anything more than just gape.