been made clearer, yet this is nevertheless to be the final definition of genius:
A man may be called a genius when he lives in conscious connection with the whole universe. It is only then that the genius becomes the really divine spark in mankind.
The great idea of the soul of man as the microcosm, the most important discovery of the philosophy of the Renaissance—although traces of the idea are to be found in Plato and Aristotle—appears to be quite disregarded by modern thinkers since the death of Leibnitz. It has hitherto been held as only holding good for genius, as the prerogative of those masters of men.
But the incongruity is only apparent. All mankind have some of the quality of genius, and no man has it entirely. Genius is a condition to which one man draws close whilst another is further away, which is attained by some in early days, but with others only at the end of life.
The man to whom we have accorded the possession of genius, is only he who has begun to see, and to open the eyes of others. That they then can see with their own eyes proves that they were only standing before the door.
Even the ordinary man, even as such, can stand in an indirect relationship to everything: his idea of the "whole" is only a glimpse, he does not succeed in identifying himself with it. But he is not without the possibility of following this identification in another, and so attaining a composite image. Through some vision of the world he can bind himself to the universal, and by diligent cultivation he can make each detail a part of himself. Nothing is quite strange to him, and in all a band of sympathy exists between him and the things of the world. It is not so with plants or animals. They are limited, they do not know the whole but only one element ; they do not populate the whole earth, and where they are widely dispersed it is in the service of man, who has allotted to them everywhere the same task. They may have a relation to the sun or to the moon, but they certainly are wanting in respect of the "starry vault" and "the moral law." For the latter
