This on one side. On another; genius is
essentially imitative, or rather, as I just now said, gravitative; it
gravitates towards that point peculiarly important at the moment of
its existence; as air, more rarified in some places than in others,
causes the winds to rush towards _them_ as toward a centre: so that
if poetry, painting, or music slumbers, oratory may ravish the world,
or chemistry, or steam-power may seduce and rule, or the sciences sit
enthroned. Thus, nature ever compensates one art with another; her
balance alone is the always just one; for, like her course of the
seasons, she grows, ripens, and lies fallow, only that stronger,
larger and better food may be reared.
_Kalon._ By your speaking of chemistry, and the mechanical arts and
sciences, as periodically ruling the world along with poetry,
painting, and music,--am I to understand that you deem them powers
intellectually equal, and to require of their respective professors
as mighty, original, and _human_ a genius for their successful
practice?
_Kosmon._ Human genius! why not? Are they not equally human?--nay,
are they not--especially steam-power, chemistry and the electric
telegraph--more--eminently more--useful to man, more radically
civilizers, than music, poetry, painting, sculpture, or architecture?
_Kalon.
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