trates the wilds of the far West, must have an Indian to guide him through prairie and forest, for the red-man's perceptions of the phenomena around him remain keen and almost intuitive.
Modern arts vastly outnumber ancient ones, yet do not include them all; antiquity possessed many, either lost by neglect or by being secret with individuals and perishing with them, or perhaps in the extirpation of small, highly-gifted communities by overwhelming barbarous hordes.
The vast preponderance of mediocrity over exalted talent has always limited the influence of intellectual greatness, and at times even perverted it to confirm the low standard of a community's intelligence instead of raising it. A key in metaphor is always something unlocking or unfolding the hidden—this refers to but half the business of a key—it is also used to bind, lock up, and secrete. History furnishes many examples of an unusual might of mind permitted, by the lack of appreciation for its best work, not only to leave it undone, but induced to acquire power by mystifying difficulties instead of resolving them, and so to retard progress by an exertion of the very capacity that might assist it.
The individuals of a community rise pretty much together, and the voice of circumstances is not so loudly "Be your best," as "Be fit." The limit to the practical value of greatness becomes plain if we imagine Kepler, while making a scientific journey, to be suddenly surrounded by hostile Sioux. We can believe that the world may not know some of its greatest sons, for greatness is known only when allied with the talents of publicity and the circumstances of appreciation.
Truths and suggestions beyond the comprehension of hearers have doubtless often been uttered in vain. Our guides in the path of knowledge must keep within easy distance if they are to be useful. Huyghens, the great Dutch philosopher, clearly propounded the wave-theory of light, but it remained unnoticed in his times, to be rediscovered a century afterward, when the minds of scientific men had been prepared to receive it.
Then, again, the very intensity of appreciation bestowed upon genius may be hurtful, in the diversion of men of some original power from the development of themselves into the army of mere repeaters, imitators, and quoters. Besides, when the leaders of thought and investigation have erred, as at times they inevitably must, the mistaken opinion from the weight of a great name becomes a clog and a barrier. Newton's emission-theory of light delayed the true explanation through many weary years; and zoology is still suffering from the belief in catastrophes entertained in the mighty brain of Cuvier. And, further, physiologically, the antagonism of growth and reproduction has left the chiefs of men either childless, as Kant, or continued in a puny race, as Cromwell. Talent is hereditary, but genius scarcely.
Progress is also thwarted by the sub-evolution of evil. In human
