The times., 1901-03-21

and it is usually from worldly point Of
view, disastrous. But the reason OF the
disa ster has seldom been understood.
1t is. of course. evident that there must
be ideas beyond the present scope of hu-
man thought but not. necessarily, be
yond the scope of the thought OF future
generations. Suppose somebody had sug-
gested the idea of spherical trigonometry
to our arboreal ancestors; how would the
suggestion have been made IN a form
that they could understand? What mean
ing have the terms of electrical science
to Fiji Islander? Therefore it is OBJ
yious that there are notions which We
cannot comprehend at present but which
may he apprehended by the greatest
minds. and that these thinkers and
artists may strive to translate them into
terms of the arts, and fail. It would
have strained the language of the Fijian
considerably to attempt To explain the
telephone to his friends, even if he un-
derstood it himself
The curious feature of this is, to the
average Hlillus lldl lllt attempts VI tAAN
genius to make his highest thoughts
comprehensive sound so much like
arrant nonsense. This may be due to one
of two things. The idea which he is try
| ing to convey may be too strange and
complex for the public to understand, or
for him to convey in the terms now in
common use He is reduced to using
terms which are inadequate. 1t may be,
on the other hand: that his genius,
though great. is not quite great enough
to express his thought even as well as it
! can be expressed in the terms of the
| present. The English language is feXi-
/ BILE enough for most things; yet the de
! scriptive poet. unused to discuss philos-
ophy, might easily find that his facility
of writing deserted him if he attempted
to express thoughts requiring philosophi-
cal diction No man can work easily with
tools to which he is not accustomed. and
the phrases and conventions and rules OF
any art or science are mental tools.
There is hardly one among the great
geniuses of the nineteenth century, al
| least, who has not at some time in his
life, usually during the latter half Of it
written or wrought something which he
believed to be good work, but about
which the critics disagreed. The extent
to which he has made himself ridiculous
or simply incomprehensible. depends
somewhat on the amount Of self-con
seriousness he has about him. and some
what or his common sense. Some OF
| Tennyson's later poems are in this clas:
of literature and a great many of Brown
ing's. Some men express their highest
thoughts only in conversation, and not ii
the terms of their trade at all, and some
cannot talk but can write. OF these twC
classes AIcott and Hawthorne, of tbs
! Concord group Of Iitterati, were the ex
tremes Alcott made fame for himself
/ by his conversations. but when he tried
TO write his thoughts became common
place. Hawthorne's conversation was
very much like the snakes in Ireland
1 one might express the paradoxical fac
that genius is sometimes apparently not
genius at all. by the statement that soul:
/ are always to some extent untranslatable
/ and that mans facility of expression
does not extend, as a rule, TO all his fac
ulties: that is. ne cannot translate thu
greatness Of his soul equally well in al
/ languages.