The man could hardly be found whose judgment of the good and the beautiful might be considered to represent the voice of human nature. At first sight one would think that the man of the greatest insight and experience ought to be able to write the best. Yet isn’t the wit just as good a man? For a human race made up of nothing but sages would as little be the happiest as one of all fools or all wits. On the contrary, happiness comes of an intermixture of all sorts; and therefore no one member of the whole can set up his own system of thought and sentiment as the criterion of what is best. Seneca and Pliny are just as much in the right as Cicero. He, in fine, will write best who so writes as to be appreciated by the intelligent among that class whom his writings are calculated to instruct. Universal rules it is impossible to give in this matter.
I have often speculated in what particular exactly it is that the great genius differs from the common run of people. Here are a few observations on the point :—The ordinary intelligence is always in agreement with current opinion and current fashion; it takes the present state of things, just as it is, to be the only possible one, and remains passive in regard to everything. It never occurs to a person of this kind that all that obtains among us, from the shape of the furniture up to the most subtle hypothesis, has been decided upon by that great human council of which he too is a member. He will wear thin soles to his boots, though sharp stones pierce his feet ; he will allow fashion to shift his shoe-buckle down over
