In like manner there is
no genius who is not also a fool, and no fool who is not also a genius.
When I talked about originality and genius to some gentlemen whom I met
at a supper party given by Mr. Thims in my honour, and said that original
thought ought to be encouraged, I had to eat my words at once. Their
view evidently was that genius was like offences--needs must that it
come, but woe unto that man through whom it comes. A man's business,
they hold, is to think as his neighbours do, for Heaven help him if he
thinks good what they count bad. And really it is hard to see how the
Erewhonian theory differs from our own, for the word "idiot" only means a
person who forms his opinions for himself.
The venerable Professor of Worldly Wisdom, a man verging on eighty but
still hale, spoke to me very seriously on this subject in consequence of
the few words that I had imprudently let fall in defence of genius. He
was one of those who carried most weight in the university, and had the
reputation of having done more perhaps than any other living man to
suppress any kind of originality.
"It is not our business," he said, "to help students to think for
themselves. Surely this is the very last thing which one who wishes them
well should encourage them to do.
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